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For those who have bought an Amazon Kindle and were hoping to use the Kindle for iPhone application to additionally read their eBooks, we can announce that Amazon have finally released the iPhone / iPod Touch application for the International market (60 countries, including the UK), and it’s now available to download from the Apple iTunes Store.
I met up with James Body of Truphone last night, and had a nice long chat about where Truphone and other companies are going in the next few months. However, the exciting solution is the Truphone Local Anywhere solution, that I’ve talked about before, should launch early next year. Because Truphone are supplying the SIM which talks to their infrastructure backend, it allows them to provide some nice features you won’t see on other solutions…
When they launch, they will have support for UK and US, but not just will you be able to roam to the US at nice low rates, but on that single SIM, Truphone are able to provision you both a UK phone number and a US phone number (in fact, they will over time be able to provide multiple different country phone numbers on that single SIM). This is the cool bit; irrespective of where you are located, the SIM will work the same way…
Basically, the person you call doesn’t need to know you are roaming, doesn’t need to know which country you are in, and can also reach you on what is (to them) a local number. Because your outbound call is being routed through Truphone, the call cost to you is lower than normal roaming rates too.
The benefits of this are items such as:
This is powerful. For those regular international travellers or even international businessmen, this is a well designed solution. As we mentioned earlier this year when we first covered Truphone Local Anywhere, data will also be available as part of this solution.
James was sporting (amongst many other handsets) an iPod Touch and a 3UK MiFi (which are being bundled together by 3UK; see here), and was having no problems with utilising the iPod Touch for VOIP calls over 3UK’s network. In fact, a solution like Truphone on an iPod Touch, or Skype on an INQ Mini 3G may well suit many families to allow easy and cheap communications between everyone without needing lengthy phone contracts (calls to other Truphone users, like Skype, are free of call costs).
As Truphone have pointed out here, using an iPod Touch over WiFi with the 3UK MiFi allows apps such as Truphone and BBC iPlayer to work as the iPod Touch sees a WiFi connection and is not aware that the traffic will then pass onto a 3G network. The same trick can be used with the iPhone as well, of course.
Thanks to James to taking time to talk through this and many other matters last night, and here at UK Gadgeteer we look forward to some of the other Truphone developments during 2010.
Update: When first published, this story had a number of technical inaccuracies which have now been addressed; apologies and thanks to Truphone for the corrections. For more information on Truphone Local Anywhere, head to the Truphone website, or look at this PDF presentation giving the details of the new service.
Absolute Radio (105.8FM, also available online and via DAB) have released an interesting feature which works on the iPod Nano. It’s called iTunes tagging, and it works like this; you tune your latest generatino iPod Nano into Absolute Radio and listen to their songs. Should one of the songs catch your attention, you can tag it, and then when you dock your iPod, you’ll be able to see who the song was by, what is was called, and you will even be able to buy and download the song from iTunes.
This is a nice level of integration between the non-connected iPod Nano and the well-connected iTunes PC, and could prove a nice feature for many people.
Absolute Radio have more information on this service, including a video on their website here.
When we reviewed the 3UK Mobile Wi-Fi unit (MiFi) here, we said it allowed devices such as the iPod Touch to gain extra facilities by being connected to the Internet whilst mobile. Well, it looks like 3UK agreed, as they have just announced a bundle deal whereby you can get a 3UK MiFi on a 24 month contract for £23 per month, but for that, as well as the 5GB of data each month, you’ll also get an iPod Touch.
Now, the MiFi would normally be £17 per month (18 month contract), so ignoring the extra tie in period, it’s an extra £6 per month for 24 months, which is, to be fair, £144, so although the exact spec of the iPod Touch hasn’t been announced yet, it’s not an unreasonable sum for the device (it’s certainly not massively overcharging for the device).
Details should appear on the 3Store at some point next week, but maybe this might be worth it as a Christmas present for someone special…?
Update: This deal is now available in the 3Store, and features an iPod Touch 8GB along with the 3 MiFi and 5GB of data per month (24 month contract). It even throws in 80 free text messages per month, although I’m unsure how these can be used from the iPod Touch…
This is the new Roberts ColourStream radio, which is yet to be formally announced or released by Roberts, but at least one website already has the item with specifications, so we can reproduce them here.
As well as being a DAB and FM radio, it features an iPod Dock (possibly only supporting the iPhone in offline mode), but also sporting a 3.5″ colour touch screen for many of the controls. In other respects, it seems to offer a similar feature set to that of the Roberts STREAM 83i (USB media playback, Internet radio). It can make use of the BBC Listen Again function, has an AUX in socket, as well as Line OUT and Headphone sockets.
Until more details are released, it’s not clear if this unit will also play last.fm radio (as the Roberts STREAM 83i does), so we’ll update you when we get more information.
However, with a price of £400, I think many will prefer the styling of either the Revo IKON (see here) or the PURE Sensia (see here), and personally, we would head to the Revo IKON.
Also, we note that both this device and the Roberts STREAM 83i we covered last week (here) may not have DAB+ support (thanks to Paul Webster at his DABDig website for drawing our attention to this point), which may limit it’s usefulness in the future, should the UK ever decide to adopt this standard (other European countries are already rolling out DAB+, so lack of support may impact your ability to use either radio whilst travelling).
Specs courtesy of DNA Car Audio (via Paul’s DABDig website).
To compete against SkypeOUT, Nimbuzz have now launched their equivalent service, NimbuzzOut, which offers the ability to make international calls at a discounted rate. In a similar style, you need to TopUp your account with credit, and are then able to make cheaper calls to landlines and mobile phones. For example, a call to a French landline would cost €0.0135 per minute, and the same cost to a US landline too. In comparison, SkypeOUT will charge€ 0.020 per minute for the same countries.
It should be said that Nimbuzz offers US$ or EUR€ pricing, not GB£, so you will always have some element of currency conversion in there.
NimbuzzOut is currently available on the Symbian and iPhone / iPod Touch clients, and will be rolled out to the other platforms in time.
More information is avaialble from Nimbuzz from their website here.
For a while now, UK Gadgeteer has provided a dedicated website look and feel for iPhone and iPod Touch users. Well, we’ve now changed our support tools, and now offer mobile optimised sites for the majority of phones available. We’ve only been able to test this on a limited number of devices, so please report back what you find…
As well as getting the latest few articles, we provide access to our tag cloud, and the search function, which should offer you the ability to access other articles, should the need arise. The largest change iPhone / iPod Touch users will spot is the reduction in the number of articles shown, which we have made to allow consistency across all mobile devices.
Also, along with this change, we’ve also re-enabled posting brief summaries to our twitter account whenever we publish an article, which we hope people continue to find useful.
For a company that went quiet for a few months earlier this year, Revo seem to have bounced back and have added another new unit to their range of DAB radios. The Revo HERITAGE is styled a little like units from the 50s and 60s, yet packs all their high spec features that they seem to be concentrating on right now. This units joins the lineup of the Revo IKON (featured here), Revo DOMINO (featured here), and elder units such as the Revo iBlik RadioStation range, and the Pico range of portable devices.
The Revo HERITAGE features DAB, DAB+, FM radio stations, as well as Wi-Fi Internet Radio, as well as offering network streaming and support for all current iPod models. In keeping with the price tag, this device is made from aluminium and real walnut veneer, and the screen is an OLED “secret-until-lit” display and like the Revo DOMINO, features a joystick based menu system. The radio also features a digital alarm clock with sleep and snooze functions, and also features optical out and iPod video out connectors (amongst others). Also provided is a full feature remote control.
As with the Revo IKON and the Revo DOMINO D3 (and D2) models, this radio also features support for Last.fm, allowing you to select an artist or genre and get streamed music. Also like those other units, the device comes with a free 30 day Last.fm trial subscription, and would need access to a £3 per month subscription after that (which we still believe can be shared across multiple devices). You can also improve the track selection by providing feedback to Last.fm in terms of “loving” or “banning” tracks that are played.
Finally, if you are still after other music support, the device has a 3.5mm input jack for other mp3 players, and can also play a wide range of music formats from USB devices via a USB port too.
The only limitation on this device seems to be iPhone support, where Revo state “While Heritage doesn’t offer full iPhone compatibility, by placing the iPhone in ‘In-Flight Mode’, Heritage will provide playback and charging.” (We should add this limitation does not apply to either the Revo DOMINO or Revo IKON, which have full iPhone compatibility).
If you are looking to buy one of these devices, you’ll need to head to John Lewis who have retail exclusivity on these devices when it goes on sale in November for £230 (alternatively you can buy direct from Revo Technologies themselves).
Although more expensive than the Revo DOMINO range, some have questioned the styling of that range, and this unit may well be more suited to people’s taste.
Some pieces of additional Kindle news for today…
Firstly, Amazon have dropped the price by $20 (to $259), and should be providing a $20 refund to all early purchasers. This makes the Kindle a little better value, although it’s believed the real reason behind the price drop is the announcement by US Bookstore Barnes & Noble who launched their Nook eBook reader (below) this week. Now, this device looks interesting, partly because it has a colour touchscreen at the bottom for controlling the device, and partly because it uses the Android OS, which may mean future support for additional applications.
Also, B&N seem to be a little more open about their device; they confirm it can read ePUB and PDF files directly, implying (to some degree) that they do not want to limit their purchasers to only buy books from their eStore (of course, with applications like Calibre, Kindle users can equally get this type of content onto their device). However, there are no plans for making this available in the UK (yet).
Secondly, Amazon have announced their Kindle for PC application, which along with their iPhone / iPod Touch application, expands where and how you can read your Amazon Kindle eBooks, and now allows you to read your Amazon Books on the PC. It will also synchronize your last page read and annotations that you add to the eBooks (and this sync is bi-directional). It’s not available yet, but should be shortly, and even offers a couple of extra facilities for Windows 7 users (XP, Vista and Windows 7 are the only OSes supported).
Finally, if you have an Amazon Kindle but feel some of the prices for accessories in the Amazon marketplace are a little high, you might want to head over to Mobile Fun, who now have a Kindle Accessories section covering most of the things you could ever need for your new device, including UK charges, cases, screen protectors and more.
Hot on the heels of the Revo IKON, launched in August, comes the Revo DOMINO Range, which combines a number of the new features of the Revo IKON into more affordable units.
The range features 3 devices:
Athough the Revo DOMINO range does not have the touchscreen of the Revo IKON, it still has some impressive technology built in, such as:
Inline with the Revo IKON, it provides access to Last.fm radio streaming, with the ability to choose an artist or genre and let Last.fm build the playlist for you, or “an existing Last.fm profile can be used”. Also like the Revo IKON, the Revo DOMINO D3 (and D2 we presume) will come with a 30-day trial access to Last.fm, after which a £3 per month subscription is required (although this is for a single Last.fm user account, which we suspect could be used on multiple devices).
The Revo DOMINO range will go on sale on 1st November from John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, and other usual Revo stockists, plus it will be available direct from the Revo website. The prices are Revo DOMINO D1: £130, Revo DOMINO D2: £150 and Revo DOMINO D3: £170, putting them at similar prices to the Revo iBlik devices (including the Revo iBlik RadioStation), and like the Revo IKON.
We are very impressed with the integration of the various technologies in this device, especially the inclusion of Last.fm; we wonder whether next year will also bring other services, such as Spotify to hardware units from the likes of Revo…
Since the release of the new OS, v3.1, a number of applications have had some “issues”. Well, some of them are now fixed, so we thought we’d lay out some of the updates that application vendors have informed us of…
Skype have released v1.2, which has the following new features:
Devicescape have confirmed, that after their earlier problems, their Easy Wi-Fi client is now fully functional again, and have stated:
Navigon have updated their Navigation application too (although not specificially for the new OS). As well as recently adding text-to-speech and iPod controls, they have now launched lifetime traffic (it needs a one time fee to activate).
TruPhone have addressed their problems with the latest OS, and they have confirmed that v3.0.3 of their iPhone client now works fully with the new OS.
After the release of the touchscreen based Revo IKON last month, PURE Digital have announced their first touchscreen based DAB radio. The PURE Sensia will sell for £249, and is a DAB radio, Internet (Wi-Fi) radio, as well as supporting that 5.7″ 640×480 touchscreen display, which will feature additional applications too.
In terms of the music options, as well as the DAB radio (DAB and FM with RDS are both available), it features support for Internet radio and podcasts, access to your local media (via Wi-Fi), and “unique broadcast material”; and if you don’t want to have the unit by your bedside, you can add an optional ChargePAK battery for listening around the house, and make use of the colour coded RF remote control too. In terms of colour options, you can go for Black, White, Red or Yellow. If none of those music options appeal, you can connect an iPod / mp3 player directly via a 3.5mm socket, or you ca add the optional i-10 iPod dock.
However, it’s those “online apps” which interest us; so lets look at those. So far, PURE have stated it will include Facebook support, Twitter support, and weather and news feeds. It appears it will be possible to either have the application appear full screen, or just in the top right hand area, so you can still see the radio station list, the time, and access the other menus.
So given the close price to the Revo IKON, which should you choose? Well, the IKON seems to have a greater range of music options built in (with last.fm streaming support and a iPod / iPhone dock included as standard), whereas the PURE Sensia is closer to a Chumby-like device, offering access to other applications whilst the music is playing. Of course, were PURE to add Spotify or last.fm support into their device, it might tip the balance in the their favour…
Both companies are known for producing devices capable of firmware updates, and both companies have produced firmware updates for various devices; it’s not yet clear whether adding more applications to the Sensia needs a full firmware update, but it will be worthwhile keeping an eye on how well PURE support this device in terms of new features.
You should find the PURE Sensia available at the end of October at £249.
I’ve had access to one of these devices since yesterday, and I am quietly impressed by the device, and it’s capabilities; it’s not perfect (more later), but it certainly is a very useful device…
Although it costs a little more than a standard 3 Mobile Broadband USB Modem, the extra facilities it offers may make it worthwhile for many. Basically, it shares it’s 3G connection over Wi-Fi to upto 5 devices at the same time. Now, the 3G network speed is not enough for all 5 devices to be streaming audio or video, but would cope with all 5 checking mail and web surfing. In fact, I’ve been sat here with 2 laptops connected to it, with one streaming Spotify music for over 2 hours now without any glitches or problems.
One problem with the device is that it is 3G / HSPA only; it will not fallback onto the Orange 2G data network (like a 3UK Handset would), so if you are out of coverage of 3UK’s own 3G network, it will not work at all. 3UK claim to be at 70% population with 3G, which is still one of the highest (if not the highest) for pure 3G connectivity, but the lack of fallback may leave you stranded in the short term. Last night, 3UK showed their plans for a “monster” 3G network for 2010, which fills in a lot of gaps in their current coverage, so as this better network comes online, this problem will fade to some degree.
One key use of this device is for Wi-Fi only devices, such as the iPod Touch, the Nokia Internet Tablets, PSPs etc. and certainly all these devices gain extra features with connectivity, and it’s very easy to just turn the device on and be able to access the internet anywhere (with signal). The battery is claimed to last 5 hours, and althougwe haven’t yet got to 5 hours of usage, it’s certainly a plausible figure. If needed, you can turn off the wireless to limit it to local wired USB connection only, or you can turn off 3G to just give you a local wireless network hub for file sharing. The network name (SSID) is quite obviously a 3UK device, so you may want to change it (all mangement needs to be performed via a wired cable connection). You can also change the encryption key, although given this is listed under the battery, it may be easier to leave this alone for convenience.
Other positive points? 3UK are trying to ensure nothing (legal) is blocked by their Internet connection, and certainly everything we accessed worked fine without any issues. As 3UK have good support for Skype, they are happy for you to run the client on your laptop. Also interesting to note is that iPhones and iPod Touch can also use a MiFi to allow full access to Skype for calls; whether or not you are allowed to make calls on the Skype client is based on whether the connection is 3G (from the phone) or WiFi (from the phone); the fact that the WiFi access point then uses 3G is not factored in to the switch within the application, so these functions work fine too.
The only other downside we can find is that when you turn it on, you then seem to need to turn on 3G every time; it’s a shame it needs 2 buttons presses, and not just one, but this is a minor point.
The 3 MiFi will be available on Friday in Stores (and available to order online on Thursday)with two pricing options; the “Broadband 5GB 1 month” service will cost £69.99 upfront and then £15 per month for 5GB of data (with a rolling 1 month contract), or you can select the PAYG “Ready To Go” option at £99.99, which will include 3GB of data to be used over a 3 month period, and then it will move onto standard Mobile Broadband PAYG pricing. 3UK have indicated that there may be more tariffs in the future, and they will also review the 5GB limit over time too.
If you are worried about “Bill Shock” with this device (you will get warning SMSes, but as these are only available if you have the connection software installed and connect to the device via the wired USB cable, most people will never see these), 3UK have a “hard block” of £25 per month; once you hit this limit (comprised of the original tariff and then the overspend), 3UK will block the SIM for the rest of the month. This is a nice feature to limit exposure, and you can ring up 3UK to increase or decrease this limit if you wish. Of course, the My3 portal is accessible from any connected device (even on wireless) which gives you a live data usage figure should you wish to check how much you have used.
All in all, a useful device, and one you should consider if you want to have the capability of easily sharing your Mobile Broadband and have sufficient 3G coverage in the areas you want to use it.
Something that’s never quite so prominently featured is the security vulnerabilities within the iPhone / iPod Touch OS (to be fair, this applies to many phones, and Apple at least release OS updates that can currently be applied to all devices ensuring no one is left behind with an insecure OS; Nokia, I’m looking at you here!).
So, whilst yesterday Apple made a big song and dance about the new features in their iPhone (v3.1) and iPod Touch (v3.1.1) OS updates, they made a lot less mention of the security fixes that are in there too. Now this information is public, I can reveal some of the vulnerabilities that have been fixed:
That last point is interesting; Nokia use the same underlying WebKit engine for their products, yet we don’t see speedy firmware releases from Nokia addressing these issues, and especially not for phone more than a year or two old, which may well still be vulnerable, but are “out of support”. It’s good to see Apple addressing vulnerabilities, and with their capability of notifying owners of new versions, at least their devices should be safe against these attacks once the new OS is commonly used (and of course, within a week or so, all owners will have been offered the new update via iTunes).
Oh, and for a large (200MB+) download, it’s surprising to see Apple don’t support resumable downloads, so if the update stops or fails for any reason, you have to download it all again.
Although not a big shock to the world, given the rumours, and early released third party cases which gave the game away, Apple have confirmed the 5th Generation of the iPod Nano features some new hardware…
Firstly, it now features a larger 2.2″ screen, and to take advantage of that, it now features a microphone, speaker and a video camera (640×480 resolution), allowing you to record photos and video directly on the device. You need to sync it with your PC to upload them to places such as YouTube, but that’s mainly due to the lack of direct connectivity on the device itself. Also, Apple have added an FM radio into the picture.
Along with this, Apple announced a new version of iTunes (v9) with a host of new features (improved syncing, better app management for the iPhone and iPod Touch, iTunes LP, Genius Mixes, and Ringtones), new iPhone and iPod Touch software (v3.1), and has refreshed the iPod Touch line too (with higher capacity devices, but no new camera). In other news, the iPod Classic receives a larger hard disk (which was interesting, as some rumours indicated it would be dropped), and the iPod Shuffle was refreshed too. However, with theiPod Nano the only device to gain a camera, this is likely to be one of the more popular iPod models for the foreseeable future.
The 8GB version of the iPod Nano is currently on sale at £115 (slightly up on the old iPod Nano 4G), and the 16GB for £135. If you want to buy one, head over to the Apple Store to see the full tech specs for yourself.
This is the new Revo IKON, launched this morning by Revo Technologies. We’ve featured various devices by Revo before, but this is a very interesting device. Previously we were big fans of the Revo iBlik RadioStation, which brought together their FM, DAB and DAB+ technologies with an iPod dock, but this unit takes things a stage further…
In terms of music, the Revo IKON can play FM radio (with RDS information), DAB, DAB+ as well as Internet Radio, and will, where available from the broadcaster, display colour station logos, station descriptions, track and artist information, and even news headlines.
Yet it also supports a few other methods; it can stream music from any wirelessly connected PC or Mac (and will show colour album artwork and track information where available), and it’s also an iPod / iPhone sound dock. If that wasn’t enough, in the US (these services are all US-only, so none are generally available in the UK), it will also connect to the Sirius, Pandora and Rhapsody premium online service too.
However, a really interesting feature is that the device also supports Last.fm, something we’re a big fan of here at UK Gadgeteer; the Revo IKON will also provide access to online music service Last.fm. Simply choose an artist or genre and let Last.fm build the perfect playlist from its library of 5 million tracks – unique to the user, and fresh every time. Alternatively, an existing Last.fm profile can be used. On top of that, Revo are including a 30 day trial to last.fm, which would then need a standard subscription of £3/month €3/month $3/month (this service is only available in the UK, US and Germany) to continue to use this facility.
Owen Parry, Last.fm Product Manager said “We’re delighted that Revo has taken the decision to include Last.fm functionality as a standard feature on their new IKON ‘touch-radio’. The combination of high quality audio, large colour display, and a free 30 day trial subscription, makes it easy to explore and enjoy music through Last.fm, right out of the box.”
The unit features an NXT flat panel speaker, and delivers 30W of audio. It will be on sale from October 2009, and cost £279.95.
Historically, the Skypephones and INQ1 were launched more by 3UK than by the manufacturer, but this has now changed; INQ has today released details of their two new phones, which will be in stores in time for Christmas.
Firstly, and after the success of the Nokia E71, we suspect the more popular device, is the INQ Chat. This is a QWERTY based device designed to concentrate on Social Networking. As well as the Facebook, Skype, and Windows Live Messaging support of the INQ1, these phones Twitter support, something we predicted a while ago. This Twitter support includes providing the latest updates on the homescreen.
The INQ Chat also has a 3.2 megapixel camera, whereas the INQ Mini will feature a 2 megapixel camera, and both support upto 8GB (we’re guessing via a microSD card). Both devices can operate as HSPA Modems for your PC, although whether this is inline with the 3UK T&Cs is another matter.
However, one interesting additional point is that via the third party DoubleTwist software, INQ plan to make it possible for both phones to be able to sync music with iTunes. Although not aimed as iPhone killers, the ability to use a single source and program to manage your iPod and your mobile phone may sway some users into buying these devices.
We expect both will be available on 3UK around October time; although the Nokia N97 was the Top Seller with 3UK for a few weeks, the Nokia E71 is back in the top slot again, showing how popular the QWERTY format has been for 3UK, and remember that INQ and 3UK will be aiming these phones between £69.99 and £109.99 on PAYG; they have a good spec and are likely to be big sellers for 3UK when available.
Update: We’ve now had it confirmed that the INQ Chat does have GPS, but the INQ Mini does not; our main complaint against these devices (and their predecessors) is that Google Maps’ My Location feature (and by implication, Google Latitude) is unlikely to work on them, as there is no GPS, and Google Maps does not support Cell Based location on BREW based handsets, leaving no method to locate the phone. This doesn’t apply to the INQ Chat, which will feature GPS and includes Google Maps.
Finally, it will be interesting to see whether or not we’ll see an update to the INQ1 Slider to offer Twitter support for the existing users; although it would be very nice to see, we suspect it may not happen (or at least not until well after the initial sales period for these new phones).
Some content courtesy of The Guardian [Via TRMP]
Nimbuzz, a popular mobile client on Symbian, have announced they have released two new products. Firstly, they have released a Mac version of their desktop client, which allows access to many IM networks (Facebook, AIM, MySpace, Google Talk (Orkut), Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger (MSN), ICQ) as well as voice calling to Nimbuzz, Windows Live Messenger (MSN), Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk users.
Their iPhone / iPod Touch client gains the ability to share photos, music and videos, and also supports Push Notifications for alerts of incoming calls or chats. It also adds support for location sharing.
More details on both can be found on the Numbuzz website.
This is the new 2010 Jaguar XJ, revealed today by Jaguar UK. Although we don’t often feature whole cars, we’ve certainly featured some elements of the tech included before, so we thought we’d look to see how well it brings the tech together…
The styling reminds us of both the Jaguar C-XF Concept car, and the current Jaguar XF, with maybe a hint of the Citroen C6 in those vertical LED rear lights…
Like the Jaguar XF, the new Jaguar XJ features the JaguarDrive, a fly-by-wire rotary gear selector, but also features “JaguarSense reading lamp and glovebox switches” (basically the switches are touch sensitive); if you want to customise the interior beyond the normal choices of colour (14 choices), trim and wood veneer (11 choices), you can also replace the word “Jaguar” in the top-middle of the dashboard with another word of your choosing…
Laser thin phospur blue lines of light highlight the centre-console switches, and around the JaguarDrive gear selector, the handbrake, door handles, door mounted switches and even the door storage panniers, and to save you needing to even take the car key out of your pocket, it can be specified with Keyless Entry and Keyless Start.
The Steering wheel features lots of control buttons using thumb-operated switches and five-way pads, which will include controls for an iPod. Oh, and if that’s not enough, you can specify an optional heated steering wheel!
The instruments in front of the driver is actually all virtual, with the ability to replace the tachometer with another warnings or information required by the driver and the display features a “spotlight” feature to highlight the most important information. The large touchscreen for the SatNav also gives access to many of the cars functions (as have previous Jaguar touchscreens), and for some countries (including the UK, but not the US) the touchscreen is a dual-view screen, allowing the passenger to watch a film or TV whilst the driver cannot (he instead gets SatNav or controls, but never the film / TV, which is illegal here), with an additional set of wireless headphones for the passenger to allow them to hear the different source too.
That’s not all in terms of multimedia, you can specify a rear entertainment package, a Premium Sound system (600W) or even a 7.1 Bowes & Wilkins 1200W system. Finally, there’s also a DAB radio option, which we would recommend everyone takes, with the UK Government suggesting that DAB should be standard in most cars in the next few years to allow a potential shutdown of FM signals in the future…
Of course, these options don’t come cheap…
all of that, on top of the car instelf, which goes from £52,500 upto £88,000 (we should point out that many of those features above are actually standard on the higher spec cars (eg the 3.0litre £62,900 XJ Portfolio includes Dual View, B&W 1200W Sound System, a rear camera and even a panoramic roof with electric sun blinds).
For more information, head over to Jaguar UK’s website here.
Truphone have announced their low cost international calling solution is now available on 12 new handsets, which includes the Symbian S60 5th Edition models (both the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia N97), as well as a range of additional S60 3rd Edition handsets.
Not just that, but Truphone have now got their application into the Ovi Store for many of the supported phones too.
Some of the new phones aren’t yet able to work over Wi-Fi (but will work over 3G). Adding these new phones to their existing iPhone, iPod Touch and Android support shows Truphone to be a valid option to consider irrespective of your choice of platform.