Gmail for iOS gets notification support and persistent logins, brings joy to Apple mobile masses

By Michael Gorman posted Jun 25th 2012 2:21PM

It took quite awhile for the official Gmail app to arrive for our Apple-toting friends, but when it debuted, it lacked many features enjoyed by Android users. Well, today the iOS Gmail app got a refresh that brings it a bit closer to the green bot version. Chiefly, notification support to allow folks to set up banner alerts and lock screen notifications, so they no longer have to check their inbox for new messages. Not only that, the app now has persistent login capability, meaning no more re-entry of your Gmail credentials every time you're preoccupied slaying space pigs for a few hours. Interested parties can hit the source link to get the new goodies.

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Virgin Media revamps mobile tariffs with Premiere plan, tells Three UK and T-Mobile to keep up

Virgin Media challenges mobile operators to keep up

Incredible value with unlimited data from just £21
Insurance and backup service included
Combating bill shock with alerts and 'My Account' app

Virgin Media today unveiled an incredible range of mobile tariffs that will set a new standard in unbeatable value which will challenge the rest of the industry to keep up. The star of the show is the hero 'Premiere' tariff which combines all-you-can-eat data, unlimited texts, unlimited calls to UK landlines and 2,500 anytime minutes.

To make the most of the largest 3G network in the UK* as well as the hottest smartphones of the summer, Virgin Media has created some of the most competitive tariffs on the market designed to be simple, affordable and flexible, with amped up benefits for loyal Virgin Media** customers

'Premiere' starts at an incredible £21 per month for Virgin Media** customers as the company looks to help people to stay connected on the go and whilst making the most of the benefits and savings to be had from taking a mobile with their existing Virgin Media services.

The new tariffs include options for every mobile phone user with prices starting from as little as £18 per month for the new 'Starter' tariff, or £13 per month for Virgin Media customers. Not only do Virgin Media customers enjoy reduced costs, saving £5 per month on each tariff, but they also benefit from unlimited calls and texts to other Virgin Mobiles.

Jamie Heywood, director of mobile at Virgin Media said: "When we launched over ten years ago as the worlds first mobile company of its type, we revolutionised the market, and this is another such landmark. As people look for the best value, we're rewarding loyalty with some amazing tariffs with unlimited offerings that our customers can enjoy without worrying about hidden extras, as well as helping to combat bill shock."

In a pioneering move, all the new tariffs will include insurance*** for no extra cost for the length of the contract for new and existing Virgin Media customers. It follows a recent study by Virgin Media that found a staggering proportion of Brits (72 per cent) don't have insurance for their mobiles, despite 70 per cent also admitting to breaking or losing up to seven phones in the last decade – often within the typical 24 month contract period****.

Smartphones can cost as much as £500 and often contain invaluable data such as contacts, texts, emails and photos, so losing one can be a costly and incredibly frustrating experience. The new insurance service (worth £7.99 per month) provides 24 hour guaranteed handset replacement in the UK if it goes missing or is stolen***** and includes Mobile Rescue which will automatically back-up all contacts as well as lock and locate the handset remotely.

Heywood added: "An overwhelming number of consumers don't believe that mobile insurance is necessary and won't consider taking insurance through their mobile provider because it's too expensive. For too long mobile providers have failed to offer insurance that represents value for money. We were astounded to find so many people were prepared to gamble when it came to protecting their handsets, which is why we are now the only provider to offer inclusive insurance as standard for our loyal customers at no extra cost."

The new range of pay monthly tariffs are subject to 24 month****** contracts and in order to help ensure they have the perfect tariff for their needs, Virgin Media will automatically text customers when they are nearing the limits of their allowances (where applicable) to help ensure manageable costs. Virgin Media's smartphones also come preloaded with the 'My Account' app so customers can keep track of how much they've used of their monthly allowance, and if needed, customers have the flexibility to move up or down the tariffs at any point in their contract without penalty.

For customers already with their own data-hungry smartphones Virgin Media is also launching a new range of flexible 'SIM Only' tariffs. The 'SIM Only' tariffs work on a rolling monthly basis with 'Premiere' starting at £20 for cable and national customers who will benefit from unlimited data, text, calls to other Virgin Mobiles and UK landlines.

Virgin Media customers will also be able to take advantage of free WiFi access at up to 120 London Underground stations.

For more information on Virgin Media's products and services, head to www.virginmedia.com

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Mobile Miscellany: week of June 18th, 2012

Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you're like us and really want to know what's going on, then you've come to the right place. This past week, we learned of the first market outside of China for ZTE's new Grand X smartphone, and received news that both the Sony Xperia U and Xperia P will arrive in Australia. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of June 18th, 2012.

ZTE Grand X escapes China, arrives first in Istanbul

This week brought the introduction of the Grand X and Grand X LTE Android 4.0 smartphones from ZTE, which were first announced for availability within China at this year's Mobile Asia Expo. First previewed at Mobile World Congress as the Mimosa X, the phone's first market outside of China has been revealed, and it'll come to none other than Turkey during the second half of 2012. This version packs a Tegra 2 SoC from NVIDIA, along with a 4.3-inch qHD screen, a 5-megapixel camera and a VGA front-facing shooter. [ZTE PR]

AT&T brings 4G LTE to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee

Slowly but surely, AT&T continues to make progress with its LTE network deployment, and the latest city to receive this true 4G connectivity is none other than Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, which is located southwest of Nashville. [AT&T PR]

Sony Xperia U and Xperia P come to Australia

Good news for Aussies this week, as both the Sony Xperia U and Xperia P smartphones have been announced for availability in Australia. The Xperia P -- which contains a dual-core 1GHz CPU, a 4-inch qHD screen and Android 2.3 -- is set for arrival at Telstra, and will be available free with all plans of $49 or more per month. Meanwhile, the Xperia U -- which features a dual-core 1GHz CPU, a 3.5-inch FWVGA display and Android 2.3 -- is available now from Crazy Johns, and can be had for free with all plans of $15 or more per month. [Unwired View]

Skype 1.2 debuts for Windows Phone

Updated for Windows Phone this week, version 1.2 of Skype brings integration with the phone's contact list, the ability to edit phone numbers before dialing and a number of bug fixes. [Skype Garage]

Nokia Maps receives update to version 2.1

This is a minor tweak, to be sure, but version 2.1 of Nokia Maps is now available, which is said to resolve issues regarding the uploads of favorite places photos. [WMPoweruser]

Progress continues to bring Android app compatibility to Nokia N9

MeeGo Harmattan OS is no doubt an elegant and intuitive platform, but with a rather limited app selection, Nokia's had a bit of a rough go when making a case for the N9 smartphone. That may change, however, as the crew at OpenMobile are continuing in their efforts to bring ACL (App Compatibility Layer) to Nokia's former flagship smartphone. To see the latest in developments from OpenMobile, be sure to check the related video. [My Nokia Blog]

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Mobile BRAVIA® Engine explained [video]

Do you have an Xperia™ smartphone that comes with Mobile BRAVIA® Engine? Are you curious to find out more about what this Sony technology actually does? Mobile BRAVIA® Engine is a high quality image engine that utilises technologies that have been successfully proven in Sony BRAVIA® TVs for a number of years. The Mobile BRAVIA® Engine combines contrast enhancement technologies used in Sony BRAVIA TVs with colour management, and adds sharpness filters and noise reduction to display vivid beautiful images and videos on your Xperia™ smartphone. The Mobile BRAVIA® Engine is included in most Xperia™ smartphones, and its effects apply to image and video viewing. Go on reading after the jump where we describe the technology in more detail!

To go a bit into detail, the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine is a set of Sony-specific image processing algorithms which are applied to the rendering process when drawing an image or video on the screen of your smartphone. It’s on by default, in those Xperia™ smartphones where it’s applicable, but it can be turned off in the settings menu of your phone. The benefit of using Mobile BRAVIA® Engine is that the viewing experience is improved in a way that is optimised to fit the human eye, with more details, enhanced colours and less noise.

When the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine is running, a software layer is applied to the decoding step for images and video, where the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine processing is done in real-time. This means that it does not alter the image or video file, but only the way it is represented on the screen. The Mobile BRAVIA® Engine works intelligently and applies the effects depending on input, which means that the effects are applied in a way that is individually calculated for each picture. In addition, all of the algorithms in Mobile BRAVIA® Engine are calibrated for each Xperia™ product to improve image quality on the specific display. Below, we will describe the different effects along with images illustrating these effects.

Contrast enhancement brings out the details
With the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine, the contrast in images and video is enhanced by making the darkest parts slightly darker, which results in a perceived higher contrast that brings out details in the picture. This contrast enhancement is adapted to each individual image to avoid further reduction of brightness on images that are already dark, and to strengthen the contrast enhancement on vivid and bright images. As seen in the illustration below, this will give your images and videos more dynamics and better perceived details.

Illustration showing the contrast enhancement effect of the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine.

Colour Management gives deep and vivid colours
Colour saturation is also increased for specified colour ranges when you are running the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine, which will make the colours deeper and more vivid. In general, the human eye prefers deeper colours on photo and video. This is especially true for natural scenes. As you can see in the illustration below, the enhancement level and the enhanced colour ranges are calibrated to suit human eyes when running Mobile BRAVIA® Engine. This makes sure that colours on photo and video are represented in a way that is pleasant for the eye.

Illustration showing the colour management effect of the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine.

Noise reduction for clear video viewing
Another use case where Mobile BRAVIA® Engine comes in useful is when you are streaming low-quality video from online sources, as the compression algorithms usually used by common web services such as YouTube, often cause distortions and many artefacts in the image. For videos stored locally on your smartphone, there might also be a risk of noise depending on the video quality of your clip. The noise artefacts that most commonly occur when using such compression algorithms are block noise, and mosquito noise.

Now by using Mobile BRAVIA® Engine, all of these disturbances are greatly reduced as it reduces temporal and spatial noise caused by these artefacts in low-resolution video. Spatial noise reduction means that image noise reduction is applied to each individual frame, and temporal noise reduction means that noise between frames is reduced. The Mobile BRAVIA® Engine combines these two methods to get an improved user experience when watching videos.

Illustration showing the effect of the noise reduction done by the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine.

Sharpness filter increases detail level
As a final step in the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine, a sharpness filter is applied to increase the overall detail level in the image. This is done by enhancing the edges, as seen below, and the enhancement is calibrated to increase contrast between different image areas, but still avoid an increase of the amount of noise present in the image.

Illustration showing the effect of the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine sharpness filter.

As you can see, the effects of the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine enhance the image viewing experience drastically. And the best thing is that you basically only have to pick up a fairly modern Sony Xperia™ smartphone to enjoy it, as this Sony imaging technology is included in most Xperia™ smartphones.

Do you find the Mobile BRAVIA® Engine useful for viewing your images? Check out the links below for more information, and drop us a comment if you have any questions!

More information

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