Even with that far-reaching tinge of disappointment over a lack of an iPhone 5, iPhone 4S orders are still expected to be pretty high. However, Apple is only currently selling locked models of its new flagship for Sprint, AT&T and Verizon. But according to a line on the Apple website, an unlocked version of the phone will be available in November.

If you travel often for work or pleasure, the unlocked model is certainly the way to go. It will only work on AT&T’s network here in the States, but once you venture abroad you’ll be able to tap into carriers that support GSM/UMTS networks.

The only catch will be pricing. While you can get the locked 4S from your select carriers for between $200 and $400, unlocked versions will be going for full retail price. The 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models will be priced at $649, $749 and $849 respectively. But hey — at least you’ll be contract free.

Download top 10 free maemo based Nokia N900 games

1) Bounce Evolution: The game is rendered using OpenGL ES 2.0 hardware acceleration, allowing the game’s next-generation graphics to run smoothly on the sharp 800 x 480 display. Bounce Evolution is a game that demonstrates the impressive graphics capabilities of the Nokia N900. Use the intuitive motion control to guide your character Bounce through beautiful scenery.

2) MasterGear: A must have for SEGA game lovers. This is a 8bit console emulator for SEGA and will run the software available for 8bit SEGA video game consoles.

3) Tennix 2009 World Tour: Tennix is a tennis game in 2D where player can use the controls via the D-Pad or a touchscreen. If your have a hardware keyboard (either on your tablet or an external one), you can even play against friends (player 2 plays using O, L and K).

4) Variations on Rockdodger: This is a fairly hard game, nice and quick game for when you want to kill some minutes. The game is an action game where player drive a space ship and try to avoid crashing into rocks.

5) Bullshit Bingo: Best game for people stuck in boring meetings and office. The players write down management-nonsense word like “Out-of-the-box-thinking”, “Synergy”, “Content streamlining” etc. in a 5 by 5 square bingo card. If a word or phrase is used during the meeting you check the box. When you get a five box line (horizontally, vertically or diagonally ) you shout “BULLSHIT!” and win.

6) MooBox: Turn the box upside down to hear the sound of a cow. Basic implementation of MooBox.

7) SolarWolf: Originally based on the SolarFox game on the Atari 2600, Solarwolf is an action/arcade game featuring amazing graphics and cool music. The point of the game is to scramble through 48 levels of patterns, collecting all the boxes. The part that makes it tricky is avoiding the relentless hailstorm of fire coming at you from all directions.

8 ) SuperTux: similar like the original SuperMario games, SuperTux is a classic 2D jump ‘n run sidescroller game.

9) Hex-a-Hop: A great puzzle game in which a girl has to break all the green tiles in an hexagonal map without getting trapped. The objective is simply to destroy all the green hexagonal tiles on each of the 100 levels. As you progress through the game, more types of tiles are introduced which make things more difficult and interesting.

10) Nako: This single player game comes with graphics from freephotobank.org. This is a memory game where you can sharpen your memory skills by turning around hidden files.

Apparently all those frustrated by Apple’s failure to announce an iPhone 5 this week are punishing Apple by crashing its website with a flood of iPhone 4S preorders. Even with the specter of the iPhone 5 scoring a release date  anywhere from four to twelve months from now, buyers went wild last night at the start of the iPhone 4S pre-order cycle, lighting up Apple.com to the point that the online store was overwhelmed with traffic. Users reported the same difficulty when they attempted to score the new iPhone through the official websites for iPhone 4S carriers AT&T, Verizon, and newcomer Sprint as well. In other words the iPhone 4S broke four of the world’s larger eCommerce sites just a few days after the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs broke Twitter as the news broke the world’s heart. Even as Apple users paid tribute to Jobs across the internet and at Apple retail stores worldwide, iPhone 4S presales began at a more frenzied pace than the public’s initially dour reaction to the “seen that before” iPhone 4S on the day of its introduction earlier this week, with AT&T now reporting that it saw two hundred thousand preorders the first night (that’s not counting Verizon and Sprint, who have their own preorders), making the iPhone 4S already more popular on the carrier than the iPhone 4 was when it went into initial preorder mode last year. That’s even as others continue to stick with their initial stance that they’ll be waiting for the iPhone 5, whenever it arrives, and whatever it ends up being…

The initial criticism of the iPhone 4S was simply that it “isn’t the iPhone 5″ which eventually boiled down to the more specific issue that the 4S looks precisely like the existing iPhone 4. It’s not thinner, its screen isn’t bigger, and there’s no new inspiration behind the same body style which has been employed for four separate launches now once the original iPhone 4, Verizon iPhone 4, late arriving white iPhone 4, and now the iPhone 4S are all tallied. But as the week has gone on, those initial complaints about what isn’t different about the iPhone 4S appear to have at least partially given way to a more pragmatic look at what it does bring to the table. The 4S is significantly faster, so much so that some of the coolest new features of the iOS 5 operating system can’t even run on the older iPhone 4. Battery life is significantly better, the storage ceiling is has been doubled, and so on. And yet one can’t help but note that the public’s opinion of the iPhone 4S changed significantly after the jolting death of Steve Jobs…

It’s been said in the past thirty-six hours, by too many people to credit just one of them for it, that the S in iPhone 4S stands for “Steve.” In hindsight it’s clear that Tim Cook and company took the stage on Tuesday knowing that Jobs was on his deathbed. The lack of any mention of Jobs one way or the other must have been at his insistence; he’d likely even be disappointed that Apple has an eight hundred pixel wide picture of him on the apple.com homepage. His focus was always on the products and their greatness. He took the stage each year so he could sell you on their greatness; he was aware of his own celebrity status but only willing to embrace it to the precise point at which it would help promote his products and no farther. And yet his untimely death (not that a month from now or a month earlier would have been any less untimely) may have unexpectedly softened the public’s view of the iPhone 4S. It’s a worthy upgrade and easily the most recommendable smartphone on the market for mainstream consumers. It’s just the kind of product which doesn’t initially suck you in like an impressively redesigned iPhone 5 would have. In contrast the 4S, which looks a little too much like the girl you’ve been itching to break up with, requires a second look in order to take in all of its inner beauty. And maybe it’s taken a jolt like Steve’s passing in order for the world to take that second look at the iPhone 4S. The iPhone 5 will come eventually, with some undetermined release date at some point next year, and it can be dealt with at that time. For now, the iPhone 4S is both the final iPhone to come to market during Steve Jobs’ lifetime, and also by far the most superior one. It may not have that iPhone 5 supermodel air of mystery and intrigued, but the 4S runs circles around its iPhone 4 identical twin. And after all, it does feature a body styling which Steve signed off on.

Cases for iPhone 4G

- Constructed of high quality plastic with excellent workmanship
- Stereoscopic, eye-catching design gives your phone a personal touch
- Protect your phone from scratch, dirt and shock
- Mesh perfectly well with your phone without detracting from its stylishness
- Form-fitting case has the entire custom cutout for easy access to camera, ports, audio jack, button, and so on
- Custom design, molded perfect-fit for your iPhone 4

Cases already available for Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 suggest that it will feature a 4-inch screen, as well as a longer and thinner design than the iPhone 4, reports MacRumors.

The cases seem to validate plenty of rumors from the past few months, which generally pointed to the iPhone 5 sporting a larger 4-inch screen. And hopefully, this squashes a report from last week that hinted the iPhone 5′s screen may be closer to the existing iPhone’s 3.5-inch display.

Early last month, MacRumors commissioned several renderings of the iPhone 5 based on leaked design specifications. The site notes that the cases out on the market now, which are typically based on Apple-provided specifications, don’t quite line up with its past renderings. (Though it should be noted that nothing prevents companies from creating and selling case designs that don’t match up with Apple’s specs.)

MacRumors measured the cases and found that they’re meant for an iPhone 5 that’s longer and wider than it originally anticipated, at 4.7-inches by 2.6-inches. The cases also exhibit the long-rumored tapered design for the iPhone 5, which is thicker towards the top of the phone and gets slightly thinner at the bottom.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind a slightly longer and wider iPhone, especially if it means the screen will be upgraded to 4 inches and thinner. I’ve seen many comments in our past iPhone 5 posts that worry about a 4-inch screen being too big, but I’ve handled many 4-inch smartphones (just look at Samsung’s devices) that don’t feel cumbersome.

In this case, the app is picking up points of interest based on a search, then overlaying that information onscreen.
(Credit: US Patent and Trademark Office)

A patent application unearthed today and detailed by Patently Apple, suggests Apple could be planning to bring augmented reality-based mapping and map search features to its camera app.

The patent application (PDF), entitled “augmented reality maps,” details using the iPhone’s camera and onboard sensors to pull up information about what’s nearby. This is combined with a way to search, similar to what users can currently find in the maps app.

In one of the figures included in the patent (embedded above), the example user is pointing the device towards an intersection in downtown San Francisco, while running a search for “parks.” Onscreen, the nearby Golden Gate Park, and Buena Vista Park show up as landmarks with distance markers, showing where they are, and how far away they are from the user’s current location. In another figure (not pictured), there’s a map with those locations, set against which way the user is facing.

In the patent, Apple describes that the need for such an application is especially important for providing people with a non-directions based approach for finding their way around, especially if they’re not familiar with the city they’re in.

“For example, an instruction that directs a user to go north on Main Street assumes that the user can discern which direction is north,” the patent says. “Further, in some instances, street signs might be missing or indecipherable, making it difficult for the user to find the directed route.”

Of note is that the example application very clearly looks like the current first-party camera application that Apple ships with its iOS devices, complete with a toggle to switch between the video and still camera modes, as well as a shortcut to the camera roll–all things that suggest the feature would end up there instead of in the maps app.

That Apple would be filing for this is of special interest given the company’s relationship with Google, which currently supplies Apple with the data to power its maps application. Included as part of that deal is access to Street View, which offers a similar vantage point of roads and landmarks, complete with an overlay of road names, though it does not offer it as part of a real-time view of what’s coming through the camera.

A first-party, augmented reality destination-finding application from Apple would join a host of similar ones from third-parties, including Layar’s “reality browser” and the “monocle” mode found in Yelp’s app. Apple currently offers augmented reality features of its own as part of the Photobooth application in Lion, which makes use of head tracking to augment depictions of hearts or birds on top of the live video feed of a user’s head, as captured by a FaceTime camera.

Leaked photos of the new Motorola Droid HD smartphone appeared alongside the much-delayed Droid Bionic on technology blog Engadget today.

The leak comes the same week Google announced its plans to acquire Motorola Mobility — news that has shaken up the mobile industry and made many pundits wonder what this means for the Android OS. Google says Motorola Mobility will be run as a separate business from Google and that it will continue manufacturing Android phones.

Judging from the photos, the Droid HD smartphone appears to be running the Gingerbread version of Android, and it features a 4.5-inch display (with Moto’s qHD 540-by-960 pixel resolution or perhaps a 1280-by-720 resolution), an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera that takes 1080p video, and a front-facing camera. Because it looks like a very powerful device, we would also assume the phone has a 4G chipset inside.

The 4G-enabled Droid Bionic smartphone was originally supposed to launch on Verizon in the second quarter but Motorola delayed the device. The phone is rumored for a September launch, and a spec page from Motorola says the device features a Texas Instruments 1-GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera, and a 4.3-inch display with qHD 540 x 960 resolution.

While both devices look close to finished, Google’s bid to takeover of Motorola this week could alter when the phones are ultimately released and what their software builds look like. Google could potentially give Motorola early access to the next version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, or work with Motorola on better integration of Google services.

More leaked photos can viewed below:

Holding out for the iPhone 5? There’s some strong temptation coming out of South Korea at the end of the month: the Samsung Galaxy S II.

An announcement for the super-slim, super-powerful, and super-popular Android smartphone is expected on August 29. Samsung sent out invitations for a “major product announcement” in New York that day and on Friday, Samsung Mobile U.S. tweeted: “Samsung Update: Hey Guys! Big announcement on the 29th ”

The Samsung Galaxy S II is Samsung’s fastest-selling smartphone to date, based on its April debut in South Korea and parts of Europe, selling one every three seconds between April and July.

It’s unclear exactly how the carriers will tweak the phone for their respective networks, but in his review, PCMag mobile analyst Sascha Segan couldn’t stop raving over the “shockingly slim” unlocked version sold by AT&T for $660.

The Samsung Galaxy II sports a dual-core 1.2-GHz processor (expected to be Samsung’s own Exynos processor or a Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset), a brilliant 800-by-480 Super AMOLED Plus touch screen, 8-megapixel rear-facing and 2-megapixel front-facing cameras, 4G support, and at the time, shipped with Android 2.3.3. See the slideshow below for more views.
Based on Internet chatter, the Galaxy S II will be renamed by carriers to the Galaxy Within on Sprint, the Galaxy Stratosphere on Verizon, and the Galaxy Attain on AT&T.

Perhaps the strongest sign of the Samsung Galaxy S II’s threat to Apple iPhones is that Apple is aggressively seeking to ban the Android phone around the world for “slavishly copying” the iPhone. Last week, the International Trade Commission agreed to hear Apple’s argument for banning the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Voice-recognition software is nothing new. But put it on a smartphone, and it comes to life. All of the frustrations of trying to control your PC by voice–fiddling for a microphone, repeating yourself again and again, resisting the urge to relent and turn to your trusty keyboard–are eliminated when you use the same technology on your mobile phone.

And it’s becoming more popular all the time, thanks in large measure to the improved speech recognition capabilities of today’s mobile phone platforms, such as Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. But that’s not the only factor behind the uptick in mobile voice recognition, says Tuong Nguyen, principal research analyst with Gartner. He cites the demand for improved user interfaces, especially from users who don’t want to rely solely on a touchscreen to interact with their phone.

In addition, the increasing prevalence of laws restricting the use of cell phones while driving has fueled demand for these voice-based apps, Nguyen says. Bluetooth headsets allow drivers to talk hands-free, but many people want access to e-mail and text messages while driving, too, he notes.

Luckily, plenty of apps provide such access–and more. Here’s a roundup of some of today’s best voice-recognition apps for your phone.

Samsung and Nvidia have finally come together to announce the latest smartphone in the Galaxy range.

The Samsung Galaxy R is the first smartphone from Samsung to feature Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual-core processor, which will be running at 1GHz. Also present is Nvidia’s GeForce GPU, which combined with the Tegra 2 should ensure faster web browsing, better multi-tasking and smoother game play.

The phone is already available in Sweden, known as the Galaxy Z but Samsung today officially announced it would be coming to the rest of Europe and Asia very soon.

The Galaxy R features a 4.2in WVGA(800×480) Super Clear LCD. It also features a 5 megapixel camera on the rear and a 2 megapixel up front. While the phone may be “only” able to capture 720p video, it can playback 1080p.
The Samsung Galaxy R Android phone with Tegra
The handset will run Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), and features Wi-Fi, GPS, FM Radio, 8GB internal memory and support for microSD cards up to 32GB.

We are waiting to hear from networks regarding exact release date and pricing, but the Galaxy R will hopefully be considerably cheaper than the flagship Galaxy S II.