12
Nov
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Google Brings Play Music To France, Germany, Italy, Spain And The UK Right On Time

Posted by in Android OS, Applications, Google, News

Just as planned, Google just unleashed Play Music upon select European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK.

music

We've known that Google would bring Music to Europe since last month, when the Mountain View giant also announced a new alliance with Warner Music Group, meaning that Play Music was finally partnered with "all of the major record labels globally."

Readers may remember that this rollout also heralds the introduction of music matching for Google Play Music users. Music Matching, for those unaware, is a service by which Google peeks at the music users upload to their account (up to 20,000 songs free), and checks the files against its own servers, automatically adding matched tracks to the user's library without the need for lengthy uploads.

05
Nov
little rascal

Apple Hides Rewritten Court-Ordered Samsung Apology Behind Sneaky UK Homepage Code

Posted by in Legal, News

Remember when you were in grade school, and your parent or teacher told you to apologize to the other kid? And you'd reply, "I'm sorry that Johnny has a big stupid face and he made me want to punch it"? Apple's been doing the same thing, except in this case the kids are billion-dollar international companies. With big stupid faces.

sneaky sneaky

By now you've probably seen Apple's original apology to Samsung, ordered by the UK court to punish the company's assertion that Samsung wholly copied the iPad design. And you've seen the rewritten apology that the court forced Apple to post, after finding the original (which included statements that US and German courts found otherwise) somewhat lacking.

03
Nov
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Apple Posts Revised Court-Ordered Apology, Skips The Passive Aggressive, Judge-Undermining Remarks

Posted by in Legal, News

Let this be a lesson to you all: if a judge orders you to issue a statement saying X, it might not be a good idea to say "Well, that guy said X, but everyone else in the world thinks he's an idiot, so it doesn't really matter." That's roughly what Apple did when it posted this court-ordered concession on its website. When the UK judge came back and said, "Um, no, try that again," the Cupertino company was forced to issue a new version, sans snark. Here it is in full:

Samsung / Apple UK judgment

On 9 July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronic(UK) Limited’s Galaxy Tablet Computers, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do notinfringe Apple’s Community registered design No.

29
Oct
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Now You Can Purchase Movies From Google Play In Canada, The UK, France, Spain, And Australia

Posted by in Applications, Google, News

We know a lot of our international readers have been eager to get their hands on the Play Store's content ecosystem. It turns out Google is just as eager for that as you are. In addition to movie rentals, users in Canada, the UK, France, Spain, and Australia will be able to purchase movies outright and watch them forever.

Said Google on the matter:

We’ve recently added a ton of great new entertainment to Google Play, such as movies and TV shows from Twentieth Century Fox. Earlier this year we expanded our service beyond movie rentals and now you can purchase movies and build a library of your favorites in Google Play.

24
Oct
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Jelly Bean Updates Roll Out To Unbranded UK, Switzerland, Luxemburg Galaxy S IIIs And Branded Ones In 8 Other Countries

Posted by in Galaxy S III, Jelly Bean 4.1, News, Samsung

The pace at which Samsung is pushing out Galaxy S III Jelly Bean updates is picking up steam in Europe with the much anticipated arrival of Android 4.1.1 for unbranded UK handsets. The Brits aren't the only ones getting it today - in fact, the list is quite sizeable. Here, check it out:

  • UK unbranded
  • Switzerland unbranded
  • Luxemburg unbranded (update: supposedly, Belgian S IIIs use the same version too)
  • Denmark (Three)
  • Bulgaria (Mobiltel)
  • Romania (Cosmote)
  • Ireland (Meteor, Vodafone)
  • Czech Republic (O2)
  • Sweden (Tre)
  • Croatia (Vipnet)

Not bad at all - looks like the next platform distribution update won't be as depressing.

22
Oct
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EE Releases Pricing Details For Its Upcoming 4G LTE Network In The UK, Starts At £36 for 500MB Of Data

Posted by in Everything Everywhere (EE), News

In early September, Everything Everywhere announced the UK's first 4G LTE network. Simply called EE, the company plans to bring blazing-fast LTE to 16 UK cities before the end of 2012, but - until now - there was nary a word on pricing.

The company will be using a tiered approach in its 4G offering, with each bundle including unlimited voice and text:

1

As you can see, device prices vary according to which data bundle is chosen (take notes, US carriers), with high-end devices like the Galaxy Note II going for a mere £30 with an 8GB plan.

With the 1GB or larger plans, customers will get to select an extra media service at no additional charge: free music streaming from Deezer, two games a month from Gameloft, or streaming TV service with "up to" 20 channels.

22
Oct
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Jelly Bean Update For The Samsung Galaxy S III Goes Live On Vodafone And O2 After Brief Delays

Posted by in Galaxy S III, Jelly Bean 4.1, News, Samsung

European O2 and Vodafone Galaxy S III owners, it's finally your turn to check out Jelly Bean first hand. Following last week's updates on Hutchison Whampoa networks (Three/3/H3G), now O2 and Vodafone joined the party and started pushing out Android 4.1.1 to Galaxy S IIIs in at least the following locations:

  • O2: United Kingdom, Ireland
  • Vodafone: United Kingdom, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany

The Vodafone launch started today right on schedule, as per this post from a few days ago.

The O2 rollout was scheduled to begin on the 19th of October, but was delayed until today, the 22nd, as confirmed by several updates to this blog post on O2's forums:

image sgs3

Watch out for the update notification in the next few days or load up Kies for instant gratification.

18
Oct
gavel

Apple Still Required To Run 'Samsung Didn't Copy Us' Ads In The UK After Appeals Ruling

Posted by in Legal, News, Samsung

It may be pretty hard for Apple to get away from the ruling that it has to state publicly on its website and in advertisements that Samsung didn't copy the iPad. An appeals court has ruled that the previous sentence should still be in place. The judges stated that, if Apple wasn't the one to clear up the confusion, the damage caused by the lawsuits all over Europe would be irreparable to Samsung.

Said the judges:

The acknowledgment must come from the horse's mouth. Nothing short of that will be sure to do the job completely.

The one thing the appeals court did change is that the web-based disclaimer doesn't need to take up a large amount of real estate on Apple's homepage, and instead a simple link to "Samsung/Apple judgment" will suffice.

18
Oct
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Samsung Continues Pushing Out Jelly Bean To Galaxy S IIIs In Europe - Italy, United Kingdom, Switzerland, And Ireland Join The List

Posted by in Galaxy S III, Jelly Bean 4.1, News, Samsung

The Jelly Bean update for the Galaxy S III is steadily spreading to more countries in Europe, in addition to Poland, Sweden, France, Spain, Romania, and Austria. Today, it started rolling out in Italy (H3G), United Kingdom (H3G), Switzerland (Swisscom), and Ireland (Three), as well as on another Austrian carrier called 3 Austria. As far as I can tell, H3G, Three, and 3 are all owned by the same giant company - Hutchison Whampoa (some names are even interchangeable), so four out of five pushes today seem to be a coordinated effort.

Curiously, the majority of the updates (those pushed by Hutchinson-owned carriers) are no longer I9300XXDLIH dated September 28, but rather I9300XXDLJ1 which is a fresher build dated October 8.

12
Oct
samsung-announces-the-galaxy-s-iii-mini-same-nature-inspired-design-in-a-4-display

Phones4U Begins Samsung Galaxy S III Mini Pre-Orders In The UK, Starting From £25 A Month And Shipping On November 2nd

Posted by in Galaxy S III Mini, News, O2, Orange, Vodafone

Now that Samsung has officially announced the Galaxy S III Mini, Phones4U has started to take pre-orders in the UK, with prices for the mid-range phone starting at £25 a month.

All of the tariffs on offer from Vodafone, Orange, and O2 offer the phone for free, although none of the plans include a data allowance over 1GB per month.

Screen Shot 2012-10-12 at 11.00.31

The cheapest option is available from Vodafone, giving you 300 minutes, unlimited texts, and a paltry 250MB of data per month for £25. For an extra few quid, you can bump up to Orange's Panther 36 plan, which offers 600 minutes, 3000 text messages and a 1GB data allowance for £28.50.

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