Hasta La Gadget!

Now this is intriguing. PocketGear has just acquired its former competitor Handango in the cross-platform app store space, and can now claim a library of software that places it right alongside Apple’s App Store in terms of the pure number of applications on offer. PocketGear has been busy providing the infrastructure for things like Samsung’s TouchWiz widget store and Palm’s Software Store for a while, whereas Handango used to be the largest independent app store out there, and their consolidated catalog will offer more than 140,000 applications on all the major non-Apple platforms: Android, BlackBerry, Palm, Symbian, and WinMo. The number of actually useful apps has not been disclosed, but we love the idea of an independent competitor nudging the proprietary stores along so let’s hope things go well for them. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading PocketGear acquires Handango, becomes world’s largest cross-platform app store

PocketGear acquires Handango, becomes world’s largest cross-platform app store originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew this was coming, and sure enough, Sling hasn’t kept us waiting for long. Our beloved readers have inundated our tip jar with the news that the 3G-enabled flavor of SlingPlayer Mobile is now live on the App Store, and from what we’re hearing works very well. The placeshifting app will set you back just under $30, but will allow you to finally take your cable, satellite or PVR content on the move with you. We say finally, 3G streaming has been available on other phones for a while now, but good to see AT&T and company see sense and enable the goodness for the iPhone. Get downloading and commenting — how does it compare to sliced bread?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

SlingPlayer Mobile v1.2 enables 3G streaming on the iPhone, now ready for download originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It ain’t the first company to do it, but Logitech‘s new iPhone app is certainly one of the easiest to get into. Oh, and did we mention that it’s completely free to download? Available now in the App Store, Touch Mouse transforms your handset into a wireless trackpad or keyboard, and thanks to its reliance on vanilla WiFi signals, you won’t need any proprietary equipment to get it up and running. It’s fully compatible with both Mac and PC platforms, and it’s obviously a pretty fantastic way to control your HTPC without dragging a full-fledged keyboard / mouse into the living room. Hit the source link for more details, and be sure to let us know how it goes in comments once you give it a roll.

[Thanks, Wulf]

Logitech app turns your iPhone into wireless trackpad or keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s no secret to us (or our readers) that Apple’s products tend to generate what some might consider insane amounts of interest for weeks, months, and even years before they’re launched or even announced. Whether you love the company or hate its guts, you can’t deny that Apple is particularly prone to being fodder for the rumor mill. It comes in all forms: leaked photos (be they real, fake, or merely imaginative fan creations), analyst speculation based on “what if” scenarios for investors, “insider” reports from Asian supply chains, and a fair amount of conjecture via the press, both mainstream and blog alike. Here at Engadget, we’ve always been pretty proud of our ability to decode fact from fiction, and we try not to add too much noise to the echo chamber in which the gadget world seems to sometimes live. That said, we do cover plenty of rumors — and the Apple Tablet (in its many rumored form factors) may just be the biggest and most twisted of them all.

Apple’s been kicking around the idea of a tablet since at least… oh, 1983. From real, physical prototypes to out-there ideas such as the Knowledge Navigator — the company (who did not, alas, invent the idea of a tablet PC) has, somewhat unsurprisingly, seen fit to investigate the possibility for almost as long as it’s been around. For one reason or another, though, they’ve never actually produced a device which saw the light of retail day (well, besides the Newton). Perhaps that’s part of the fascination that Apple fans have with the product — it’s been rumored so long, and seemed on the verge of actual arrival so many times that it’s become a Holy Grail of sorts for the tech community.

The rumor timeline

2004 – 2006: The early years

2007 – 2008: Backburner

2009: The heat is (back) on

2010: The year we make contact?

Wrap-up

Follow the saga

Evidence that any tablet actually existed or would come to retail, however, has always been slim at best. In the entire lifespan of Engadget, not one viable photo of a real-looking prototype has ever emerged, and not one source within Apple itself has ever really hinted that it was at work on such a product. Oh sure, there have been dozens — possibly hundreds — of people “familiar with the matter,” but almost no one who would or could go on record to talk about the tablet, and in the end, it’s always seemed like a non-starter. The Apple Tablet rumor started in earnest around 2002 — before Engadget was even around. By the time we arrived to the party, the idea that Apple might be working on a tablet or slate PC was pretty firmly entrenched into the psyche of the avid gadget geek, but again, perilously little evidence existed to support the idea, or shall we say… the hope?

And here we are, in January of 2010, on the verge of yet another expiration date for the rumored launch of an Apple Tablet (though let’s be honest — this thing is starting to feel pretty real). We thought now might be as good a time as any to take a look back — back through the rumor timeline of one of the gadget world’s longest-standing, and seemingly best-loved unicorns. Join us for the ride, won’t you?

Continue reading The Apple Tablet: a complete history, supposedly

The Apple Tablet: a complete history, supposedly originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RAZR. KRAVE. MOTOROI. SHOP4APPS? We think — nay, we hope — that we’ve at long last reached the nadir of Motorola’s naming convention and are finally on our way up from the depths of marketing hell now that the company has announced its new Android app store for China. We’re not totally clear on why these guys need this on top of the Android Market and China Mobile’s own Open Mobile System initiative, but for what it’s worth, Chinese buyers of the XT701, MT710, and XT800 will have yet another way to find, buy, and store purchases for their phones.

Perhaps the more interesting part of the announcement, though, is that Motorola is adding the capability to choose a non-default (read: non-Google) search provider on these phones. For all practical purposes, Baidu is China’s Google, anyhow, with a commanding market lead — so it probably makes a lot of sense for locals to be able to route searches through them, never mind the fact that it gives Moto an escape hatch for sidestepping the drama going on right now. An Android phone tightly integrated with Google search isn’t so useful if Google leaves the country, right? Look for both of these services to be available via over-the-air updates in time for the Chinese New Year — January 26.

Motorola bringing SHOP4APPS app store 2CHINA, adding workaround for Google spat originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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