inqmobile
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Material aims to outdo Flipboard by adapting to your changing interests
With the likes of Flipboard, Google Currents, Pulse and other magazine-style newsreaders competing for your attention, the folks at Inq Mobile are aiming to delight audiences by delivering personalized content from unexpected sources. As creators of one of the first Facebook phones, they're now leveraging their social roots with an app known as Material, which attempts to learn your interests by examining your Facebook and Twitter activity. You can still manually add content, but Material strives to eliminate the configuration hassles you'll find elsewhere. Instead, its developers are reckoning that you'll appreciate a greater variety of news sources, and it can also adapt to your preferences over time by examining the type of stories you read. In all, Material serves up two editions of content daily, which includes blog entries, videos, music, photos and news articles. It's now available for free on iOS, and joined by an updated release of the Android app. If you've yet to check out Material, it could be worth installing just to see just what it thinks you like.
Facebook phone rumors resurface, Mark Zuckerberg fails to deny them
Let's try to untangle this Facebook mobile phone mess, shall we? Mark Zuckerberg has recently sat down with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch -- the source of the original rumor -- to try and dispel some of the confusion that has arisen as a result. The first thing the Zuckmeister says is that Facebook isn't looking to build its own OS or hardware and is absolutely opposed to competing with the likes of the iPhone and Android. What Zuckerberg wants is deeper social integration, positing the question, "What could we do if we also started hacking at a deeper level?" While there'll be no single answer or solution for all phones, Mark firmly believes that social elements have to be designed in from the start: On phones we can actually do something better. We can do a single sign-on if we do a good integration with a phone, rather than just doing something where you go to an app and it's automatically social or having to sign into each app individually. Those are the two options on the web. Why not for mobile? Just make it so that you log into your phone once, and then everything that you do on your phone is social. Notably, he fails to deny rumors of such deeply integrated devices being in the pipeline, and Bloomberg has trotted out a trio of insider sources who claim INQ Mobile has been engaged to produce two smartphones with just that purpose in mind -- you know the same INQ that already makes Facebook-heavy handsets, so this could very well be little more than a rebrand. One is said to feature a QWERTY keypad and a touchscreen while the other is an all touch affair, and both are reputedly headed for an early 2011 launch in Europe, followed by a late 2011 arrival in the USA. AT&T is the carrier that's closest to picking them up, we're told, though deals haven't been finalized on what could be sub-$100 phones after subsidies are distributed. So, whatever happens, we're staring down the barrel of a couple of glorified featurephones with deep social integration. Kin 2.0, anyone? Anyone?
Android rumor rodeo, starring Sprint's first 4G phone, a delayed Eclair, INQ Mobile's 2010 handset, and more
The gang at Android and Me seemed to have made quite a number of acquaintances on their sojourn through CTIA and MotoDev Summit. Specifically, there were three people along the way they reportedly talked to that led to the most tantalizing of rumors. First down the rabbit hole is a Sprint developer who claimed the first 4G (i.e. WiMAX) phone will be an Android device, which honestly wouldn't be all that shocking given the company's love for and recent history with the OS. Next up is a Samsung exec that intimated we shouldn't expect Android 2.0 "Eclair" until Q2 2010 -- interesting in its own right, but looks like those whispers of Sholes launching with anything beyond Donut isn't gonna come to fruition now. Our third definitive individual is an INQ head employee who let slip its handsets would be finding its way onto a US carrier's network in 2010 and would have a "pimped out" customized Android skin chock full of social networking the likes of Spotify, Skype, Facebook, etc. The rest of its report is much ado about nothing -- no LG android phone this year, no TomTom app this year, and no standalone Google Maps navigation software. Yeah, that's quite a number of Android rumors to digest, and unfortunately nothing definitive. Looking forward to the future? [Via i4u]
INQ picks Android for upcoming touchscreen handsets
We've enjoyed seeing what INQ is bringing to the featurephone space, most recently with the Facebook and Twitter-centric INQ Mini 3G and INQ Chat handsets (which still haven't been announced for the States), but things are getting a lot more interesting on word that INQ is going to be using Android for upcoming touchscreen smartphones. We're guessing INQ will be blending its Synergy-style blended social networking capabilities with traditional Android goodness, much in the way HTC and now Motorola are approaching Android. So far all INQ is saying is that Android hasn't done well against the iPhone so far, and that "you need to get the experience better," promising "cool things" in response to this self-defined challenge. You know what else is a "cool thing"? America.
@iPhoneHater INQ Mini 3G and Chat are now posing for photographs, lol #hands-on
While you'd expect the first hands-on shots of INQ's new sociable Mini 3G and Chat to emerge on Twitpic, it's TechRadar doing the honors. Both of these featurephones are fairly attractive in their own right, with each being suitably slim and chock full of status updating power. In fact, we'd say the Mini 3G's red and black QWERTY keypad is amongst the sexiest we've seen. Why not judge Like™ for yourself by giving those read links below a look? Read - INQ Mini 3G hands-on Read - INQ Chat hands-on
INQ Mini 3G and INQ Chat offer slimmer, sexier angle on "social mobile" segment
INQ's unique take on the featurephone just got a significant facelift in the form of the new INQ Mini 3G and the INQ Chat. Leaving behind the INQ1's last-gen looks, the new INQ Chat offers a QWERTY keyboard in an E71-esque chassis, 2.4-inch screen, GPS and a 3.2 megapixel auto focus camera, while the Mini 3G takes up the T9er's mantle with a slim candybar form factor, 2.2-inch screen and 2 megapixel camera. The big deal of course is still the (award winning) software side, which already includes features such as Skype, Facebook and Windows Live Messenger integration, along with a Synergy-style integrated address book. New additions include a Twitter app, push Gmail, and iTunes syncing, courtesy of DVD Jon's doubleTwist software, and INQ claims that it'll be much more proactive with software updates this time around. The phones are only dipping their toes into the media playback pool, with hardly any onboard storage, empty microSD slots, and the ever-annoying USB-to-3.5mm converter headphone jack situation, but all the parts are there. INQ's also going to pull together an "app store" of sorts by curating freely available Java applets compatible with the handsets. We had a look at the phones, and while the style might seem aggressive for some, the build of both phones is pretty quality for the target market, and they're certainly tighter in the design department than the INQ1. The keyboard on the INQ Chat is quite good, especially for featurephone land, and we like that INQ kept some T9-style predictive text in the software to make QWERTY use even more of a pleasure. No, these phones still don't replace smartphones, but they're designed to be a low-cost alternative to the smartphone for carriers, who are a little tired of heavy phone subsidies and intense data use from the iPhone types -- and sure wouldn't mind making a few bucks off your Facebook addiction. Unfortunately, there still aren't any plans for bringing these phones to the States. INQ is "in talks," but for now these handsets are Europe bound, and should hit stores by Q4.
INQ planning two new phones this year, including "Twitter phone"
INQ's whole lease in life is making mass-market feature phones with heavy doses of social network integration, and considering how much acclaim the INQ1 slider has received on account of its Skype and Facebook functionality (not to mention the fact that they've sold 700,000 of them), it only stands to reason that the Hutchison subsidiary would be looking to come out swinging with a new model or two. In fact, we already know that INQ's looking at doing Twitter integration, and now we know from an interview with the company's chief exec that there'll actually be two new models -- one of which will be a themed "Twitter phone" -- in time for the holiday season. Though Reuters suggests that that'd make it the first mass-market phone with a Twitter client, devices like the Sidekick LX 2009 already do it -- so INQ won't necessarily be the first in the game, but if can bring its wares to more than the Sidekick's... oh, one fricking carrier, they've got an angle.[Via Phone Scoop]
