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This week: more Facebook Home, iRadio, the Lumia 720, and more! This is the Mobile Nations
Monday Brief!
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Greetings mobile delegates, I’m Ashley Esqueda, and you’re tuned into the Mobile Nations
Monday Brief. Lots of stuff happening on each site last week, starting with Android Central.
Facebook Home went live last week for a handful of Android devices, and Phil and the AC crew
put up a nice little primer for you to see if the Facebook-centric launcher is for you.
A lot of people who might be interested in Facebook Home may be unfamiliar with the daily
ins and outs of cellular news, but Android Central has a bit of a frequently asked questions
post for anyone thinking about installing it on their phone. The so-called “Facebook
Phone,” or the HTC First, is now available here in the U.S. for $99 bucks on contract
and is an AT&T exclusive. As for other Android phones compatible with Facebook Home, Samsung’s
Galaxy S3, S4, and Note 2 are officially greenlit to use the launcher, as is HTC’s One, One
X, and One X+. More devices will officially become compatible over the coming months,
but we’re sure if you’re desperate to install it, some ambitious Android dev will
figure out a hack. Hit up Android Central dot com for the full 411.
On last week’s show, Danny at WPcentral unboxed the Nokia Lumia 520. This week, he
unboxed the Nokia Lumia 720, a decidedly awesome 4.3” Windows Phone 8 device with some very
good specs and a
pretty respectable price tag. To the tape! VIDEO: 520unbox.mp4
Tons of countries are getting, or already have the 720 available for purchase, and it’ll
continue releasing in even more places throughout the month of April. Stay tuned to wpcentral
dot com for the review, and all the release details for your country.
The BlackBerry Q10 is coming very soon to a market near you, and while that bit of news
is short, sweet, and to the point, it’s also important to note Crackberry has compiled
a full list of preorder carriers in different markets around the globe. While certain markets,
like our major carriers here in the US, haven’t announced an official release date or price
point, other markets like Rogers and Bell in Canada, and O2 and EE in the UK, have already
opened up preorders. It’s honestly the easiest to read and most comprehensive preorder page
I’ve seen for a phone, and we all know there are a lot of BlackBerry purists out there
dying to get their mitts on a BB10 device with a physical keyboard. Go forth to Crackberry
dot com, and place your preorder if you can!
Last week, iMore reported on some juicy rumors surrounding Apple’s fabled iRadio service
-- word on the street is Apple could be signing some serious firepower to the service as early
as this week, with Universal Music Group and Warner Music in the final stages of inking
deals to bring their catalogs to an Apple-run internet radio service. Sony is reportedly
farther out from a deal, but overall, the recent rise in quantity and quality of these
long-repeated rumors seems to suggest we may not be too far off from seeing iRadio launch.
Would it compliment iTunes Match? Could it be an a-la carte service, like Rdio or Spotify?
Or will it be something more like Pandora’s randomized playlists? Regardless of what the
service ends up being, it sounds like Apple’s hard at work to make it come to fruition.
I say as long as they have the new Queens of the Stone Age record available, I’ll
be there. Keep tabs on any official progress over at iMore dot com.
On the last show, I mentioned a massive pile of webOS loot would be up for grabs, and I’m
happy to announce the webOS Nation giveaways have commenced! Currently up for grabs: one
of FOUR AT&T Palm Pre 3s, the phone that was never officially released here in the U.S.A.
It’s a pretty easy contest, too: All you have to do is come up with a creative webOS-based
haiku, and post it in the comments of the contest post. Haikus are three line poems
with 5, 7, and 5 syllables, so there’s not too much to dream up, and if you always wanted
a Pre 3, but never picked one up, now’s your chance. Let’s see... if I were to write
a webOS haiku, it would probably go like this: so much potential / Leo roared and ruined
all / you blew it HP. Obviously, that’s the PG version of it, but I’ll leave that
for my podcast. Head over to webOS Nation dot com to enter, and don’t forget, you
can use your Mobile Nations Passport to sign in across all our sites, so it’s easy to
comment!
That’s it for your Mobile Nations Monday Brief. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel
at youtube.com/mobilenations, check out our dazzling and informative podcasts at mobilenations.com/shows,
and you can follow me on Twitter @ashleyesqueda. Nations, you have been briefed!