After a private alpha, Nokia has loosed a beta of its refreshed Ovi Suite client — now at version 3.0 — on visitors of its Beta Labs site. Seems like most of the improvements revolve around simplifying common activities, but the biggest change would have to be the addition of tight Ovi Music integration, including playback controls, store access, and Ovi Music Unlimited support — in other words, this product is now officially the Zune / iTunes of the Nokia world, and in this case we’d say that’s a very good thing. Installation is said to be faster and simpler than before, too, so come on, hesitant N8 owner — what the heck are you waiting for? Follow the break for the official video intro of the new build.
Regional carriers — which historically haven’t had the highest-tech networks around — have been surprisingly quick to support LTE (heck, MetroPCS remains the only US carrier with a live network), and now it’s little Cellular South jumping on the bandwagon. Samsung sent out a press release a few days ago touting a new partnership to help Cellular South in its grand endeavor, supplying both infrastructure equipment and two LTE-compatible phones for a launch in 2011 with expanded availability in 2012 in the carrier’s 700MHz spectrum. Interestingly, the companies have also committed to launch voice over LTE next year, meaning Cellular South will no longer need to rely on its legacy 3G network for phone calls — that’s something that Big Red won’t be doing initially when its network goes live next month, though it’s not clear what standard Cellular South will be using for the deployment. Follow the break for the full press release.
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Looks like Japan’s not the only one that’ll have Froyo on a five-inch tabletphone this year — Dell’s official Facebook account confirms that Android 2.2 will be rolling out to the Dell Streak starting this very month. That date’s just for the UK, mind you, as Dell plans to stagger the release from country to country for that winsome Stage UI. That said, if you’re a particularly astute diner you may be able to get your sweet spoonful sooner than some, as just last evening Dell reportedly directed a number of Streak owners to the website pictured above. While that “Continue with Update” button reportedly didn’t work and the website has since been pulled, it seems that Dell’s considering the idea of letting users directly download Android 2.2 themselves. See what the update might include in our gallery below.
Myriam’s in Germany right now, Sean’s in Canada, and Chris is in the United States. Where are you? Listening to this podcast, we hope! Follow the break for all the action.
Verizon’s promised a 38-city LTE launch by the end of the year, and it looks like things are ramping up — we were just sent this ad for the LG VL600 and Pantech UML290 4G USB modems. We’ve seen the VL600 at the FCC and in the wild before — it’s dual mode CMDA / LTE modem that’ll work pretty much anywhere Verizon has coverage, while the UML290 has a note about global capability “coming soon,” so we’d assume there’s a GSM radio tucked in there as well. Both sticks look like they’re pretty huge, which isn’t uncommon for first-gen hardware like this, but we’re hoping that rumored third Novatel stick is LTE-only and a bit slimmer. We’ll see, we’ll see.
Netflix has always been something of a fickle beast, lavishingtreats upon just one platform at a time, but now that iOS, Windows Phone 7 and every game console under the sun are streaming its video, the firm’s finally turned its gaze on Android. Come early 2011, Netflix will appear on “select Android devices,” according to the company’s official blog, which also promises a “standard, platform-wide solution” for Android in the unspecified future. What took so long, and why will Netflix be limited to particular handsets when it first rolls out? “The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android,” says the blog, stating piracy concerns. Apparently content holders aren’t too keen on making movies available unless devices have DRM baked right in, so the solution is equip new phones with padlocks one at a time. Expect next year’s high-end Android devices to have “Netflix” as a nice big bullet point.
Continuing with our cookery theme this morning, we now have a full tray of scrumptious-looking gingerbread Android men, courtesy of Google Mobile’s Twitter account. The whole world and his poodle already know that Gingerbread, Android’s next iterative update that’s presently expected to be given the numerical identifier of 2.3, is coming some time soon, but now Google’s taken to fanning the flames of anticipation with some home cooking. What could it mean? Well, if you’re an optimist, it means Android’s about to receive its update imminently, but if you’re a pessimist, you’ll look at that Christmas-themed red and green attire and foretell of another month of waiting and thumb-twiddling. Either way, though, this seems to confirm Gingerbread will land at some point before we welcome in 2011. Which can only be a good thing.
