March is winding to a close and our attention turns to April and beyond, wondering what exactly Apple might have up their sleeves for us in the coming months. Meanwhile, competitors like Nokia and HTC are ramping up their Windows Phone initiative with two highly anticipated devices arriving on the same day (!?!) as the kingpins of the cell phone market duke it out over a proposed "micro-SIM" standard that promises to shrink our handsets even further. If you missed today's news, sit back and soak in what's happening on this Monday, March 26, 2012.
AT&T Serves Up Double Dose of New Windows Phone Handsets April 8
Nokia's long, winding road back into the U.S. smartphone market will be culminating with the arrival of the company's much-anticipated Lumia 900 on April 8, confirmed this morning in a press release from carrier AT&T. While not the first Nokia Lumia handset to wash ashore here -- that would be T-Mobile's Lumia 710 -- it's the first 4G LTE Windows Phone device launching on Ma Bell, and it's incredibly cheap at only $99.99 with two-year agreement. That's crazy inexpensive for a brand-new smartphone, which lives up to Nokia and Microsoft's promise to get more aggressive about the platform. And it will have a little competition right out of the gate: The Verge is reporting that the sequel to HTC's Titan will also be arriving at AT&T on the same day, but for a less wallet-friendly $199.99. Seems like HTC is getting the short end of the stick here, but both handsets seem like worthy competitors for the iPhone, so we'll be keeping an eye on them.
Apple Releases Safari 5.1.5 Update for 32-Bit Users
Snow Leopard and Lion users: You've got a little something waiting for you in Software Update today. Apple has released a minor update to Safari, bringing the web browser to version 5.1.5 which "contains a fix for an issue that could affect website usability when running Safari in 32-bit mode." Hmm… that doesn't sound very exciting, especially when we ditched 32-bit mode some time ago, but we imagine both of you folks still using it will be tripping over yourselves to download it.
What Does This Proposed Nano-SIM Look Like? Pretty Much What You'd Expect
Apple and Nokia started duking it out last week over the fate of the nano-SIM, which promises to shrink the traditional SIM card we all know and love even smaller than the micro-SIM currently used in the iPhone 4/4S and the iPad. The Verge got their hands on the proposed nano-SIM and it looks pretty much like a regular SIM card with all of the plastic or cardboard cut away from it (seriously, hit the link to check it out). Nokia and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion seem to be in their own camp while Apple is planning their own variation, which is scheduled to be reviewed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) later this week. It seems like the Nokia/RIM camp is looking to shake things up with "a more thorough reboot of the now 20-year-old Subscriber Identity Module," while Apple's design is (shockingly) the more conservative of the two. Should be interesting to see which camp gets their way…
Angry Birds Space Lands 10 Million Downloads in Only 3 Days
Jeez, a lot of you really, really like Angry Birds, don't you? Rovio's latest chapter in the irritated fowl gaming series launches the birds into orbit, and the company took to their Twitter feed Monday morning to brag about how many folks have downloaded it already. "10 million Angry Birds Space downloads in less than three days!" the chirp-chirp of the tweet revealed. "Thanks to our fans, stay tuned for more!" Hard to imagine where the birds could be launched next, but knowing Rovio, we won't have long to find out.
Meet Fu Chunli, Apple's 25 Billionth App Winner
M.I.C. Gadget is reporting that Apple's 25th billion app download winner Fu Chunli was flown to Beijing to collect her $10,000 iTunes Gift Card in person at the Apple Store there (she's pictured above holding said gift card). Much to the chagrin of Apple fanboys worldwide, it turns out she's not even all that much of a Cupertino fan to begin with! "Fu Chunli was not a big fan of Apple, and had only purchased her iPhone for about one month, still learning how to use the App Store," the report reveals. "She didn't know anything about the competition until she was contacted by Apple. When she received a call from staff at Apple (China), she thought it was a hoax. She was still confused when a friend told her that she received a prize from Apple, but did not believe her luck until she saw an email from Apple Inc." Doesn't she know not to trust email? Well, at any rate, all's well that ends well, and the website has photos covering Fu's visit from her hometown of Qingdao; she has been dubbed by the local media as "The Apple Girl."
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(Image courtesy of M.I.C. Gadget)
