HTC One X and One S to get Jelly Bean this month

After announcing the Jelly Bean-running One X+, HTC confirmed that the One X and the One S will be getting their due Jelly Bean serving in the following weeks. The updates will start rolling out before October ends.

 

In addition to the smoothness and fluidity that Project Butter brings, One X and One S owners will also get HTC's upgraded Sense 4+. There will also be a new Self Portrait mode which detects human face and helps you take better pictures of yourself.
There's also an update to HTC Watch 2.0, which will be able to display all video content into a single hub. Naturally, Jelly Bean will also bring Google Now to the One X and One S, which is always a good thing.
HTC hasn't fully disclosed when or where the rollout will begin, but the company has confirmed it's going to start in October.

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Samsung to announce Galaxy S III Mini on October 11th?

Will Samsung announce a Galaxy S III Mini on October 11th?

The company has issued invites to a press event in Frankfurt for next Thursday, with a byline that reads: “Something big can be small and something small can be big.” Rumours of a smaller, less powerful Galaxy S III have persisted since the device’s announcement in May. Samsung usually takes its flagship design and tweaks it a little for the middle- and entry-level markets; for example, the Galaxy Y and Galaxy R were offshoots of the Galaxy S II.

The Galaxy S III Mini, which it so expected to be called, will feature a dual-core processor, a 4-inch WVGA (800×480) display, a 5MP camera, and will come with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box. Other than those proposed specs, we don’t know what the device will look like, though we’d expect, based on the larger Galaxy Note 2, to have traces of Samsung’s popular Android flagship. Pity the device isn’t more powerful considering the market for smaller devices, but we’ll have to wait until the 11th for more details.

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Latest CyanogenMOD 10 nightlies add over-the-air update support

 

The quest for mainstream acceptance is a difficult one for CyanogenMOD and its open-source peers. Users have to sift through countless forums and lists of instructions to learn how to root and hack their Android phones, often with distratrous results. While the initiation process is getting easier, it’s still not as easy as we’d like.

CyanogenMOD has been great about installing features for existing users that make their lives easier. They had a Do Not Disturb mode long before Apple or Samsung, and integrated quick settings into the notification bar long before HTC. Now, they’re bringing back a feature from CM6, over-the-air updates, with a hardier back-end server to provide the speed and reliability users expect from their ROM downloads.

The menu is available from the Settings/About/CM Updater screen, and while the app won’t push updates to your device, it can be set to check once daily or several times a day, and is granular enough to search only for stable versions, or download nightlies, too.

The feature is available in the latest CM10 nightlies based on Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean, and you can check compatibility with your device over at get.cm


https://plus.google.com/+CyanogenMod/posts/YV5v2GzrVSe

Get ready for the era of 1080p smartphones: Sharp begins production of 5-inch 443ppi panels

 

Think your current smartphone screen is sharp enough? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Sharp has announced that production of its 443ppi five-inch 1920×1080 resolution LCD display has begun in earnest, likely after years of demos and prototypes. The full 1080p resolution is way beyond what the human eye can distinguish, so talks of Retina displays and all that will seem passe next to these screens. While then initial batches of 1080p screens will likely be limited to phablets — nothing is being produced smaller than five-inches at this time — we’d imagine that in a year or two Sharp and even Samsung will be able to get them down phone sizes (although 5-inches is fast becoming a standard smartphone screen size).

While it will be lovely to watch full HD video in its native resolution, I’m skeptical of the real-world application of 1080p screens on devices this small. We’ve seen the new iPad’s Retina Display, which at 264ppi is considered extremely sharp. The current crop of 720p smartphones, including HTC’s upcoming 4.3-inch 8X, tops out at 342ppi, and looks unbelievably crisp. If Sharp can keep power consumption to a minimum, and make the screen thin enough to prevent device bulk, I’m all for it, but the big concern for the first crop of 1080p screens is battery life. More pixels does not necessarily mean higher power consumption, but it’s still a worry.

Production begins this month, and will likely hit consumers in mid-to-late 2013, though anything is possible.

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Netflix adds little-known PS3 remote control feature to iOS and Android apps in latest update

 

Netflix released updates to its excellent iOS and Android apps recently, bringing a new UI and some much-needed performance improvements. And while the navigational improvements are lovely, there’s an experimental app feature that few are talking about — likely because, due to its beta status, the company is keeping relatively quiet about it.

If your PlayStation 3 is connected to the same WiFi network as your iOS or Android device, Netflix is able to synchronize your experience across devices. The smartphone app is therefore useful as a remote control to begin playback, pause, fast-forward or rewind content.

The idea is an extension of the multiple screens philosophy that Netflix has adopted so much better than its competitors: existing content is saved in place, and can be started again from any compatible device, whether big-screen or portable. This new feature is a way to consolidate that experience, since our smartphones are often closer to us than our television remotes.

To enable it, ensure the aforementioned criteria are met, and double-tap a movie or TV show to begin instant playback. As long as your PS3 is on the same WiFi network, it will ask you which device you want to start playing it on.

For an example, we’ve embedded a video after the break detailing how the integration works.

If you’ve yet to try Netflix, there’s a free one-month trial, and it costs $7.99/month thereafter.

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Apple iPhone 5 Unboxing

Presenting the first iPhone 5 unboxing in India exclusively only on FoneArena.  While the iPhone 5 is still not officially launched in India , we managed to get one over from Europe just to find out if the iPhone 5 is worth all the hype. The iPhone 5 sports an all new hardware design and the all new Apple A6 chip with 1 GB of RAM under the hood. Here is a slightly long unboxing video of the latest and greatest iPhone in India.

Apple requires an active SIM card for the device to be activated or else you will be stuck in the lock screen. The iPhone 5 uses a smaller nanoSIM card slot which is honestly a pain to deal with.  But good news is we managed to cut down a microSIM into a nanoSIM and got 3G working on the Vodafone network .

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ASUS Transformer Prime TF201 now receiving Jelly Bean update

ASUS promised an update to Android OS 4.1 Jelly Bean to the Transformer Prime TF201 and it seems that many Canadians have received a notification on their tablet to upgrade over the past day. If you have the Prime, check your device to see if it’s there waiting for you: check Settings > System Firmware Update > Check Update.

(Thanks Andy & to everyone who sent this in!)

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