HTC One X and Evo 4G LTE delayed by US Customs over Apple patent ruling

Back in December you might recall that the International Trade Commission ruled that HTC was infringing upon one of Apple’s patents (#5,946,647 if you must know) and a ban was to be placed on the importation of a number of HTC devices.

The good news for HTC was that the ban wasn’t immediate and they had until April 19th to rectify the situation or face the ban on a number of their devices. Further good news is that the patent in question was for the UI behavior that pulls up a menu in response to a user selecting a recognizable numeric sequence or string of text like a phone number or email address and so it could be corrected via a software update.

Well April 19th came and went without any grave consequences, but HTC confirmed in a press release this afternoon that both the AT&T One X and Sprint EVO 4G LTE are now being held by US Customs as a result of the ITC exclusion order.

The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order. We believe we are in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with Customs to secure approval. The HTC One X and HTC Evo 4G LTE have been received enthusiastically by customers and we appreciate their patience as we work to get these products into their hands as soon as possible.

No word yet on whether this will delay the May 18th launch of the Evo 4G LTE on Sprint and while the AT&T One X has made it out to some users in its first week of availability the stock has already dried up online and with no new stock coming in stores will likely follow soon.

Nick Gray, our resident HTC addict, has both an AT&T One X and T-Mobile One S at the moment and verified that both still launch the dialer when selecting a phone number which would seem to be in conflict with the ITC’s ruling.

It’s unfortunate to see this great hardware from HTC held up by a seemingly trivial software detail and it seems impossible that with this ITC exclusion order hanging over their heads that HTC wouldn’t have dealt with the issue by now.

We’ll update you as we find out more.

Update: The launch of the Sprint Evo 4G LTE has been postponed with Sprint now simply indicating that it will be “coming soon.”

Samsung protesters tell Apple iSheep to “WAKE UP”

We know Samsung has an unhealthy obsession with Apple, but this is getting a little weird. This week in Australia, Samsung hired a marketing agency called Tongue to conduct some kind of guerrilla marketing campaign where they sent a bus of protesters to an Apple store and taunted people with the message “WAKE UP.” Check out the video below and let us know what you think.

They also created a website called Wake Up Australia that includes a countdown to the Galaxy S III launch. See if you can crack the code and figure out the next Galaxy launch date.

Comparison Between Google Play Store And Apple App Store Part 1

These days the hardware in the devices is pretty powerful and with them you can take advantage of many things. It is also true that no smartphone is complete without any single app installed in it because app defines how you use your smartphones daily.

The two most popular devices in the market are the IPhone and the various android phones. So the population is divided between apple and android users. Both the users rely on their respective app store to download the apps they need.

We have previously compared the devices from apple and android against each other and also we compared the advantages of having an android device rather than an IPhone. But in this post we will be comparing the app stores to see which one is better.

If you look at various statistical reports then you will notice that more than 50% of users own an android smartphone rather than apple device. But despite this staggering number more developers flock to the apple app store. The reason is simple because the developers know that apple users are willing to pay for their app.

The apple users have their credit cards on file and so they will pay more willingly for an app. The same app is available on android market as well but it is available for free or with an ad unlike the ones found in the apple app stores.

If you are an aspiring app developer and before you put your app on the either market you need to buy their membership. Either you develop apps individually or in a group or company for apple app store you need to pay $99 but for Google Play Store membership you just need to pay $25.

So as a result there is more number of free apps in the android market because the membership fee is less as compared to the apple app store where the majority of the apps are paid.

Apple offers their developer Xcode which is also used to code for their other devices such as MAC, IPad or IPhone and additionally the iOS webkit is restricted to using Objective C, C++ or JavaScript.

On the other hand Google has made its SDK free for any developer and it is compatible whether you are using Windows, Linux or MAC. The android SDK uses Java for coding which is much easier to work with and also C/C++ used for the apps to make them more interesting.

According to the latest research which is given by AppBrain which is one of the best website for finding out android apps claimed that are currently 430,000 apps in the Play store and from them 311,000 apps are available for free. That makes almost 72% of apps in the Play store for free.

On the other hand for Apple store there are 615,000 apps available from which 287,000 apps are free which roughly translates to only 46% of free apps. The minimum price of an app in the apple app store is $2.

So there you have a comparison between the two app stores stay tuned for more comparison between the two stores.

Comparison Between Google Play Store And Apple App Store Part 2

In our previous post we were comparing the two biggest app market in the world The Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Both of them have dominated the smartphone market because in this era no smartphone is complete without an app.

So read on to find out about the two stores.

If you have lots of apps, music and other files on your device then syncing and sharing them between other devices becomes a tedious job. Apple’s iCloud service does a fine job of keeping all your purchased entertainment needs synced across all your Apple devices just by logging in with your Apple credentials.

The same feature is also provided by Google’s Cloud service but Google have made sure to take it one step further by allowing you to download an app directly to your device via the desktop store. Just select the app and download and it will be installed directly on your phone. Now you don’t have to use your phone to select the apps you want.

The recent update of the Google play store presents on of the best app store interface ever. All the apps are neatly categorized and also you can swipe from left to right to best the different categories such as best paid, best free, highest grossing, best game apps, best widgets and much more. There are almost 27 categories you can browse through to see what is available.

Apple app store has been available for quite some time now and apple uses the same category as the play store to categorize their different apps. The difference between these two lies in the way they present what they have. Google have opted for vibrant and colorful pictures of the apps whereas apple has gone for the duller look.

Well if you have been following our last post about the comparison then you would know that there can’t be a true winner between the two app stores. The reason is simple. Apple has been around for quite some time which has allowed them to improve and earn a big user base.

If you are a developer and you want a more mature market where you can get good apps then apple app store is the market for you. More developers flock to apple ecosystem because of the security they provide.

But slowly the android market is attracting different developers from the apple ecosystem because of the sheer number of free apps that are available and moreover it’s cheap to gain the membership of the market. Given more time the play store will surely evolve more and beat the apple store in coming times.

The ultimate decision of which app store is better or which device is better is left to you. But there can’t be a true winner. So do let us know what you think of the comparisons and which store is better according to you.