Hasta La Gadget!

When I got my first smartphone, the iPhone 3GS, one of the first few games I downloaded was Tap Tap Revenge. After all playing games like Guitar Hero on the PS3 was already so fun, imagine replicating that play style on a mobile device that you can bring with you on the go! Pretty compelling, isn’t it? Unfortunately it looks like all good things must come to an end as the company being Tap Tap Revenge, Tapulous, has announced that they will be officially shutting the franchise down for good and will be pulled from the app store starting from today, and that the game’s servers will be closed at the beginning of February.

According to the company, the reason behind the closure is due to the ever-changing mobile and music markets, which the company believes no longer makes sense for them to maintain the game. The good news is that those who still have the game will be able to keep playing them, but take note that if you were to reset your phone and lose any songs you might have bought/downloaded, you will not be able to restore them. This shutdown will also apply to the Android version of the game, although we guess there will probably be places where you might be able to download the APKs if you were to search hard enough. So, anyone sad to see such a classic iOS game disappear?

Tapulous Bids Adieu To Tap Tap Revenge Franchise original content from Ubergizmo.

We have been hearing rumors about a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Lite for a while now, and while we cannot be certain when the handset will be launched, we expect that MWC 2014 which is next month will be a good candidate. That being said, thanks to a newly leaked photo obtained by the folks at SamMobile, we now know how the handset might look like, at least when compared to the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, its bigger brother. For those hearing about the Galaxy Note 3 Lite for the first time, the device is expected to be a slightly smaller and slightly less powerful version of the Galaxy Note 3.

As you can see in the image above, the handset will come with a slightly smaller display at 5.55” versus the Note 3’s 5.7” display. Interestingly enough despite the handset supposedly being a cheaper version of the Note 3, recent rumors have suggested that the handset will come with a hexa-core chipset, the first of its kind, that will continue to rely on ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture, meaning that there will be two 1.7GHz cores and four 1.3GHz cores which will alternate depending on how much processing power is needed, ultimately saving battery life in the process.

The Galaxy Note 3 Lite is also rumored to feature S Pen support, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP rear-facing camera, a 3,100mAh battery, and a microSD card slot for additional storage. No word on which version of Android Samsung will choose to go with the Galaxy Note 3 Lite, but hopefully we will see Android 4.4 KitKat or newer.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Lite Pictured Next To Galaxy Note 3 original content from Ubergizmo.

According to our earlier report, T-Mobile appeared to have stopped selling BlackBerry devices. We had heard rumors that the carrier was planning to remove BlackBerry smartphones from their stores due to apparent low demand for them, and the lack of BlackBerry products on their website seemed to corroborate those rumors. Well the good news is that T-Mobile has not dropped support for BlackBerry devices entirely. Based on what a T-Mobile representative told the folks at CrackBerry, it seems that those looking to get a BlackBerry will have to ask for it specifically and that it will be shipped to them directly as opposed to being able to pick one up from their stores.

“T-Mobile continues to support the BlackBerry platform. Current T-Mobile customers can buy BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 devices online at https://my.t-mobile.com through Care and B2B sales channels. New customers can order the smartphones via direct ship at T-Mobile retail channels or through telesales. The T-Mobile retail channel has moved to fulfillment via direct ship for BlackBerry devices, rather than in-store inventory.” This also means that new customers who do not know about alternative platforms, such as BlackBerry, will basically not know that they have to ask for it specifically, which definitely does not seem to help BlackBerry at all. At least they still have AT&T, right?

T-Mobile Will Continue Selling BlackBerry Devices, But Only As Direct Shipping original content from Ubergizmo.

Have you ever considered picking up a Tizen-powered smartphone instead of the usual Android, iOS or Windows Phone “argument”? If you have answered in the affirmative, you might be pleased to hear that Samsung has had some interest in Tizen, but they aren’t finding it to be the easiest of tasks to make Tizen a success. After all, liking a product and looking forward to a general release is really different from actually taking the bold step to purchase it, especially when the market is already pretty crowded. Having said that, Tizen-powered smartphones might not actually make their way to the US market.

Ryan Bidan, Samsung Mobile’s director of product marketing for the US, did acknowledged recently in an interview that to introduce a new software platform such as Tizen in the US would prove to be a challenge. Right now, Samsung finds it difficult to see the US as a great test market for Tizen, and hence will not set themselves up for failure. What do you think of this viewpoint – does Tizen have what it takes to be a success in the US? Smartphones aren’t the only devices that can run Tizen, as tablets, TVs and in-car infotainment systems do, too.

Tizen Handsets Are Unlikely To Make Their Way To The US original content from Ubergizmo.

I know of one particular saying that holds true in just about any and every situation – “Never say never.” After all, who knows what will happen in the future? Nobody has a crystal ball that can allow us to indulge the happenings a few years down the road, so it is always best not to burn your bridges unless there is no other way around a particular situation. Sony knows this too, and while they have been rolling out nothing but Android-powered smartphones, here we are with word that Sony is also talking to Microsoft concerning the possibility of introducing a Windows Phone smartphone sometime down the road.

Pierre Perron, the Sony Mobile head for Europe, shared, “We don’t want to be a single OS manufacturer.” That is what Sony has been where their smartphone range is concerned all this while, camping happily with Google’s Android, but who knows? There might be a Windows Phone smartphone down the road sooner than we think. After all, it is not as though Sony has not been working with Microsoft before, especially with their VAIO range of Windows-powered machines in the past. What do you think of Sony shifting some of their smartphone attention to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform?

Sony Could Develop Windows Phone Handsets In The Future original content from Ubergizmo.