Mobile

As speculated last month, Geoff Marshall, a BBC interactive operations engineer, has confirmed that the BBC iPlayer will get its very own iPad app - and better still, it’s arriving this Thursday, February 10th.

Following our coverage earlier this week regarding the intentions of Carphone Warehouse Ireland to stock the Google Nexus S smartphone "soon", we can now confirm that they have at least one of the handsets in their possession. This means that the device may become available sooner than expected here in Ireland.

Star Trek style medical scanners took a step closer to becoming reality this week following the United States’ Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a smartphone App that will allow medical professionals to scan and access medical images for use in patient diagnoses.

Nokia and Microsoft are to make a joint announcement next Friday, a move which suggests that Nokia may be about to abandon Symbian for Windows 7 mobile. It has been rumored for some time that Nokia has been looking to drop its Symbian OS, only last week Nokia’s Chief Executive Stephen Elop further fuled rumors the company was moving away from Symbian when he said Nokia’s future lay in “capitalising and/or joining competitive ecosystems.”

O2 Ireland is warning its 1.7 million users to be aware of a fake “phishing” emails purporting to be from the company. The fake emails tell O2 customers to click a link where they are asked to provide their O2.ie login details. These emails do not originate from O2 nor are they associated with the company.

Mobile phone behemoth Nokia may be about to abandon its Symbian operating system for Google’s Android or Microsoft’s Windows 7 mobile, if comments by the company’s Chief Executive Stephen Elop are to be believed.

Smartphone users are becoming more concerned about their privacy when using geolocation apps, according to a survey released by Microsoft this week to coincide with Data Privacy Day. The survey found that users have a host of concerns for their privacy when using location based phone apps Some 84% of respondents said that they fear such applications could be used to help unknown people steal personal information or identities.

BBC iPlayer, the popular catch-up service from the BBC, is reportedly releasing a dedicated iOS app next month. The app will work on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

The Guardian have today released an updated version of their iPhone app that now employs a subscription-based model instead of a one-off fee.

According to comScore, Google’s Android is the fastest growing smartphone platform in Germany. The data from comScore MobiLens reports on the three month average period in Germany ending November 2010.

Apple and News Corporation have delayed the launch of The Daily, an iPad-only publication, that was reported to be unveiled later this month on January 19th. Now, it is believed that this launch date will be delayed, but only by “weeks, not months".

Ireland’s communication’s regulator, ComReg, has scrapped plans to launch digital mobile TV Ireland, it announced today. The regulator said in a policy document, ”[it has become apparent to] ComReg that use of the identified spectrum to provide a Mobile TV service in Ireland was not the subject of particularly strong interest to potential operators, and interest in the proposed procedure to grant the authorisation diminished.”

Rubert Murdoch and Steve Jobs are expected to appear together on stage later this month to launch Murdoch’s new iPad-only publication known as The Daily. According to Forbes journalist Jeff Bercovici this launch date could be January 19th, 2011.

According to Digg founder Kevin Rose the iPad 2 will launch within weeks, and possible as soon as February 1st.

Currently Apple does not allow in-app charitable donations on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Apple started blocking apps that process charitable donations through online payment service PayPal in October of last year - Nick Hurd, UK Civil Society Minister wants to change this.

We confirmed yesterday that Android Honeycomb was indeed Android 3.0. Now, just hours later Google themselves have officially confirmed this at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and have released further details and a sneak peak video of their latest version of the Android OS.

There have been varying opinions of late as to whether Android Honeycomb would in fact become Android version 2.4 or 3.0. Now Asus, the Taiwanese computer manufacturer, has put all our minds at ease and confirmed Honeycomb will officially be Android 3.0.

Asus have announced a number of tablet offerings ahead of tomorrow’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Jonney Shih, Chairman of Asus, appeared on stage to make the announcement of four new Asus tablet devices.

Ireland.com, an online tourist guide of what to do in Ireland, have released a dedicated iPad app, following the release of their iPhone app last year.

Vizio, the TV manufacturer giant, have announced plans to launch their own Android powered smartphone and tablet devices. The devices are expected to be known as the VIA Phone and the VIA Tablet.