Author: Jamie Hoyle

How Video Conferencing enables mobility

1995 was an interesting year. The music charts featured the “Outhere Brothers” with “Boom Boom Boom” and there was those unforgettable lyrics… “Boom boom boom now let me hear you say wayoh, wayhoh!” Back then I was too busy partying and wasn’t really concerned with working in IT. …

Never Fall Behind with Smartphones

At the train station today I noticed a stack of people just staring at their phones. I was one of them, and if I’m honest I’ve become a phone zombie too. However, despite how mainstream mobile phones have become in society, many people don’t use them to their …

Live with Coolsmartphone: Apple Event

It’s that time of year again. We’re expecting a couple of new iPhones, an iWatch, and at least one swipe at Android by Tim Cook. Join us for our usual blend of comedy and news, with pre-coverage beginning at 5:45PM. Yeah, we know it’s available on the Apple site, …

EE Introduces ‘Priority’ Customer Answer Service… at a cost

Let’s say you’ve got an issue with your network. Perhaps you’ve been over-charged for a bill, or your phone APN settings have wiped themselves. You wouldn’t want to pay them more money to fix a problem they potentially created… right? Well, that’s exactly what EE have begun offering with …

Ovivo shuts down

Ovivo Mobile, the MVNO that offered free minutes, calls, and data for absolutely nothing per month, appears to have closed its doors in the past couple of hours. In a statement posted on its website, the company said: Dear OVIVO Customers, We are very sad to announce that …

Apple to launch iPhone 5c 8GB tomorrow

We’ve received an anonymous email from a Coolsmartphone reader evidencing the arrival of an 8GB variant of the iPhone 5c. The new device will be available in all the currently available colours, and represents Apple’s push into the midrange phone market. The device is to be unveiled by …

Threes! Arrives on Android

The smash hit puzzle game that has enraptured iOS users this year has finally found its way into the hands of Android users. Yes, I’m talking about Threes!, the game that appears to have made basic maths cool again. The premise is simple: merge 2 and 1 tiles …

iOS 7.1 Released

After what seems like forever in testing, iOS 7 was today pushed to iPhones, iPods and iPads around the world. I’ve posted a full changelog as a GitHub Gist here, but here are some of the key changes. iOS 7.1 integrates CarPlay, the AirPlay equivalent for motorists that …

EE to create over 1,000 new jobs

EE have announced today that they are to create over 1,000 new customer service jobs throughout Britain within the next 24 months. It means that, starting with 250 jobs in Northern Ireland later this quarter, EE will be bringing more “customer service jobs” (presumably call centre roles) back …

Moto G Google Play Edition revealed

A Google Play Edition of the Motorola G has just been added to Google’s Play Devices web store. The popular device, that has recently been selling for as little as £99 here in the UK, appears to have made the leap to Google Play Edition status without any …

Yahoo! buys Aviate, promises continued development

Yahoo! have announced today that they have acquired Aviate, the context-aware smart launcher for Android. The deal was announced by Marissa Mayer during the Yahoo! keynote at CES, and posts were made shortly after on both the Yahoo! and Aviate blogs. Aviate launched their product into closed beta to …

Lenovo launches four new phones

Lenovo today announced that it’ll be bringing three new Android-powered devices into its 2014 lineup, catering to all corners of the market – if you’re in a country where the devices are sold, that is. We reported last year on Lenovo’s announcement of the Vibe Z, a high-end Snapdragon …

iPhone 5C announced

As widely expected, Apple today announced the iPhone 5C in an event at its headquarters in Cupertino, California. The new device looks exactly like the leaks we saw earlier this year, with Tim Cook going as far to reference the leaks during his presentation. The new iPhone features …

Apple iPhone Event – Live with Coolsmartphone

Join myself and the rest of the Coolsmartphone team from just before 6PM as we take you through today’s Apple Event. After months of speculation, it’s now less than an hour until we find out what Apple have lined up for the next year of mobile devices. We’ll …

Google teases next version of Android – 4.4 KitKat

Yes, you read that headline correctly. Google has just announced that its next version of Android, 4.4, will be called KitKat®. Of course, the Android team are famed for naming  releases after different desserts – we’ve had in  Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, and …

Oppo introduces 10% student discount on the Find 5

It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Oppo here at Coolsmartphone. Whilst we wait for more news on the Oppo N1, Oppo’s European retailer, Oppo Style, have announced that they are going to be offering a 10% discount to students purchasing the Oppo Find 5. All you …

Oppo N1 trailer released

News of the Oppo N1 has been floating around in various forms for a while now, with a social marketing plan that puts most others to shame (which we discussed on the Podcast a couple of weeks back). Part of this social media push was a countdown sitting on …

“Phablet” appears in the Oxford dictionary

The Oxford University Press, famous for both the Oxford English Dictionary and the slightly less well-known Oxford Dictionaries Online, has been busy lately adding lingo. According to a partial list of new words published by Quartz earlier today (warning: Miley Cyrus ahead), a few technology terms have made the jump …

HTC One X & One X+ 4.2.2 update hits UK

We brought you news of the HTC One X and  HTC One X+ update coming to Taiwan earlier this month, and according to Twitter this update is now coming to the UK. XDA TV Producer (and HTC fan) Shen Ye posted two images on Twitter earlier this evening, …

HTC One X+ 4.2.2 update rolling out

HTC have just begun rolling out a major update for the Tegra 3-powered HTC One X+. The update brings the device up to Android 4.2.2 and, as a extra bonus, Sense 5. Engadget reported earlier today that a leaked RUU was made available for the update, but it …

BlackBerry Z10 reduced to £293

BlackBerry’s all-touch Z10 smartphone was released earlier this year to much fanfare here in the UK, and attempted to compete price-wise with the likes of the iPhone 5. It sold 1m worldwide in its first three months on sale, although a lack of sales figures since and some …

Chromecast announced

The Google Chromecast was just unveiled at today’s Google event. Running a modified version of Chrome OS, It allows users to stream from the cloud directly to a TV with support for 1080p and 5.1 surround sound. Notably, the Chromecast allows users to control the stream from any …

Android 4.3 announced

As widely expected, Google have today released the new version of Android, Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. This is more of an iterative update to Android 4.2, with a few new features added. First off, a new Google Play Games app has been launched. This will act in a …

Live with Coolsmartphone: Google’s Breakfast with Sundar Pichai

Join the Coolsmartphone writers at 5PM British Summer Time for today’s Breakfast with Sundar Pichai event by Google. We’ll be bringing you all the news, opinions and reactions from this event. We expect to see some more information on Android and Chrome, particularly Android 4.3, a new Nexus 7 …

Viber hacked by Syrian Electronic Army

The support site for the popular chat application Viber appears to have been hacked today by the Syrian Electronic Army, with their support page defaced and an extract from their user database extracted. In a statement made on the defaced page, the SEA wrote: Dear All Viber Users, …

Security researcher claims responsibility for Apple breach

The Apple Developer Center has been down over the past four days, and it has only recently began to come back online, with the main pages and forums back in operation (although the main members area is still down). Apple’s statement reads as follows: We’ll be back soon. …

Larger iPad & iPhone rumoured

There’s no shortage of rumours when it comes to Apple, and we’ve spied another two on the horizon. The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Apple are currently testing a 13″ iPad and looking at screen components for a larger iPhone. Apple testing things is hardly uncommon, of …

Nokia tease something big, arriving tomorrow

The Nokia Twitter account has today teased a new addition to the Nokia family. Something BIG landing tomorrow. Tune in tomorrow at 9 am UK time http://t.co/Ow3Zy36Hn3 #Nokia http://t.co/JhTYSNfhxa It’s been a busy few days for Nokia, with the new 41-megapixel camera toting Nokia Lumia 1020 announced in New York City just last week. Nokia could …

[Opinion] The art of the money grab

I’ve been a T-Mobile customer for a couple of years now, and overall I’ve been pretty happy with their service. Crucially, the plan has unlimited data with a ‘fair usage policy’ – which turned out to be 500MB. Naturally, being a blogger, I go over that limit within …

Sense 5 not coming to the HTC One S

Are you a One S owner? If so, we’ve got some bad news for you – Sense 5 is not coming to the HTC One S. Our friends over at MoDaCo have got a quote from a HTC spokesperson on the subject, who said: We can confirm that the HTC …

HTC One arrives in red (Update)

HTC have announced today that the HTC One, HTC’s current flagship device here in the UK, will be arriving in a new colour option. Dubbed ‘Glamour Red’ by the company, the red colour option will be available exclusively from Phones 4U from mid July. We haven’t been issued …

BB10.2 SDK beta released, supports Jelly Bean apps

The folks over at BlackBerry have just announced the SDK beta release of BB10.2, an update for the mobile OS bundled with the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10. There are enhancements to various parts of BB10 in this update – with this being a developer release, there are several …

iOS 7 announced – here’s the feature lowdown

Just in case you missed it, Apple have announced a new version of their popular iOS operating system – iOS 7. This new version of iOS is seen as an evolutionary step for the mobile platform, with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying that iOS 7 is the “biggest …

WWDC Keynote 2013 – Live with Coolsmartphone

Join the Coolsmartphone team from 6PM BST as we cover Apple’s 2013 WWDC keynote. We expect to see new versions of iOS and Mac OSX, as well as a few new hardware goodies – a lack of leaks this year has, however, left us pretty much in the …

Xtreamer JoyZ released

We got a lovely email from the Korean-based Xtreamer Mobile the other day (no, we’ve never heard of them either). It began with the words: Dear Friends, Xtreamer, the Korean leader company in the field of media players and media streaming, is doing it again with its new …

Google I/O 2013 – LIVE

Use this, not the previous two articles! Google I/O is once again being hosted in the Moscone Centre in San Francisco. The annual developers shindig hosted by Google is due to kick off at 5pm BST and we here at Coolsmartphone are proud to bring you a liveblog …

Gemini JoyTab Duo 7 3G – Review

So, in the time after my original First Impressions post on the Gemini Devices JoyTab Duo 7 3G, a few things have happened. North Korea decided to try and bluff the world into a nuclear war, Margaret Thatcher died, I began revising for exams and the document that …

Flipboard 2.0 arrives on Android

The new version of Flipboard for Android has hit the Google Play Store. It packs some new features including personally-curated magazines, improved search, notifications and a bookmarklet. It’s the Android version of the same Flipboard 2.0.1 update which hit the App Store in the middle of last April. …

Get Social with Coolsmartphone

Here at Coolsmartphone, we’re always looking for better ways to communicate with our lovely readers. As part of this, we’ve re-launched our Facebook page with a new URL and more content – look out for competitions, questions and more over the next few months. You can find us …