28Feb

Angry Birds Coming To Windows Phone 7 On April 6th (Update: Er, Not Quite)

FILED IN gadgets 4 Comments

If your Windows Phone 7 handset was one of the unfortunate few that got bricked by Microsoft’s little-update-that-couldn’t, you’re going to want to get that fixed quick. At the very latest, you’re going to want to have things all patched up by April 6th. Why? Because it’s Angry Birds Time! Update: Maybe not. More after the jump.

Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka confirmed last week at Mobile World Congress that the Birds were comin’ to Windows Phone 7, but he couldn’t get too specific about the launch date. Microsoft went ahead and filled in the gaps, with this post on the Windows Team Blog promising that Angry Birds and 5 other big-name titles (Doodle Jump, Plants Vs Zombies, geoDefense, Sonic The Hedgehog Ep: 1, and Hydro Thunder Go) will be hitting on April 6th.

For those new to Angry Birds, just remember: Take a break every 15-30 minutes to stretch your legs, rehydrate, and rest your eyes. If you start to feel cold when you’re not playing Angry Birds, it’s important to get help.

Update: Interesting — looks like these games won’t be launching on April 6th. Microsoft contacted us to clarify, saying that “no titles will be launching on April 6″ specifically, but that one of these games will be launched each week beginning in Spring.



View full post on MobileCrunch

, , , , , , ,

24Feb

Samsung Temporarily Cancels Android 2.2 (Froyo) Update For Sprint Epic 4G

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

Samsung just can’t catch a break this week when it comes to updates. First the Windows Phone 7 update mysteriously bricks a bunch of Samsung handsets, and Microsoft pretty much lays the blame on Samsung’s lap. Now they’re having issues with getting the Sprint Epic 4G updated to Froyo.

The word comes from Sprint’s support forum, where a company rep claims that an “increased number of calls into Care” has lead to the update being canned “until a resolution for these issues is in place”. The issues they’re speaking of all seem to focus around spotty data connectivity and SD Card accessibility issues. Either one would be a bummer — but they’re still a lot better than handset brickage.

Having issues? Try giving your handset a hard reset (after backing up your stuff, of course.) While that’s never a welcome solution, it seems to fix the issue.

[Via Android Central]



View full post on MobileCrunch

, , , , , , ,

24Feb

NEC Medias: Docomo To Offer The World’s Thinnest Smartphone In 3 Weeks (Update: Video)

FILED IN gadgets 11 Comments

On Monday, we’ve just shown you some leaked pictures, but we can now confirm the “world’s thinnest smartphone”, NEC Casio Mobile’s MEDIAS N-04C, is real. And provider NTT Docomo, Japan’s biggest mobile carrier, doesn’t want to lose time in bringing it to market: it will hit stores over here as early as March 15.

As reported, the Medias measures just 7.7mm, which makes it the slimmest 3G smartphone out there (the Galaxy S II is 8.49mm thick).

At 105g, it’s pretty light, too (the iPhone 4 weighs 137g), especially when you consider what the device packs:

  • 4-inch LCD touchscreen with 480 x 854 resolution
  • Gorilla Glass
  • Android 2.2 (2.3 update in summer this year)
  • 5.1MP CMOS camera
  • i-mode compatibilty
  • 1Seg digital TV tuner
  • e-wallet function
  • 3G/GSM roaming
  • microSDHC card slot
  • GPS
  • Bluetooth Version 2.1+ EDR
  • Wi-Fi
  • HSUPA
  • infrared communication


Docomo plans to offer the Media in black and white. No word yet from NEC Casio Mobile if this beauty will be available outside Japan, too, at some point.

Update:
Here is a good video shot at Docomo’s press conference today:



View full post on MobileCrunch

, , , , , , , ,

22Feb

Look out: That Windows Phone 7 Update Is Bricking Handsets

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

Uh oh! Remember that itty-bitty update that Microsoft sent out yesterday to make sure next month’s big update would go smoothly?

Looks like the itty-bitty update itself might not be going so smoothly.

It started early this morning, with a handful of folks turning to Twitter to report that the update process had failed them. In most cases, the update would reach either step 7/10 or 10/10… and then stop. The handset would then be in a bit of an odd, unusable state, but a quick battery pull (or in extreme cases, a hard reset) would have things in working order again.

Then it got worse. Other users started seeing it fail on Step 6/10, which seems to be a pretty crucial one. Unlike the first reports, a battery pull/hard reset isn’t fixing the issue here. In fact, even trying to hard reset the handset returns:

RESTORATION ERROR

An error prevented the restoration of your phone to its previous version. Your phone cant be used in its present condition and there are no restore points for it on this computer. The phone might restart and return to normal if you disconnect it. For further assistance, contact your mobile operator.

In other words: Uh oh, your phone is bricked. Better call your carrier!

So far, nearly every report we’ve seen involving failed updates involves the Samsung Omnia 7 (known here in the states as the Focus). We’re not seeing any reports of issues for other handsets, though it’s not clear how many of these other handsets have been flagged to receive the update.

Microsoft seems to be aware of the issue, having indicated that a second, less-handset-destroying update should ship in a few days:

While we continue to investigate the issue, we would ask that you not attempt the update until your device alerts you of another update opportunity, in approximately 3 days’ time.

At the very least, take this all as a word of caution: if you’re rockin’ a Windows Phone 7 handset, you might want to wait 3 or 4 days before you poke that update button. In this case, the update doesn’t really bring any user-visible changes anyway, so it’s not as if you’re missin’ out on playin’ with any shiny new features.



View full post on MobileCrunch

, , , , ,

21Feb

Microsoft Rolls Out A Pre-Update Update For Windows Phone 7

FILED IN gadgets No Comments

Whoa, whoa, whoa — I just realized how long it’s been since we’ve done our once-regular segment, Good News/Bad News. With that said, you can probably assume what’s coming next: It’s Good News/Bad News time!

The Good News: Windows Phone 7 handsets are getting their first software update today!

The Bad News: It’s not the update you’re waiting for.

According to Microsoft, this update is more of a primer than anything else. They’re patching up a few bugs in the update process itself, as well as putting some polish on some smaller bits that will make the big update that much less complicated to pull off.

Once you’ve received the alert saying your phone is ready for update, you’ll have to plug it into either the Zune software (PC) or Windows Phone 7 Connector (Mac) and let it do its thing.

Once that’s done, it’ll just be a few more weeks before the long-awaited copy-and-paste update starts hittin’ handsets near and far. Unless there’s another update before that, which will probably require at least two more pre-update updates.



View full post on MobileCrunch

, , , , ,

TOP