Apple To Add iPhone 4S To More Regional Carriers On 4/20

Apple is looking to add to the regional carriers with at least 6 new partners: nTelos Wireless in Virginia, Alaska Communications, Matanuska Telephone Association and GCI in Alaska, Appalachian Wireless in Kentucky, and Cellcom in Wisconsin. Each carrier will have CDMA-compatible iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 handsets, and it looks like the slated launch date is April 20th. The only exception is GCI in Alaska which will have the GSM version, and will be offering the iPhone 3Gs as well.

Google Updates Gmail for Android

Google today released an updated version of the Gmail application for Android devices. The new version brings the features of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to Android 3.2 Honeycomb devices, including features such as swiping between conversations, custom notifications for select labels, quick access to recent labels, and support for syncing 30 days' worth of messages for offline reading. For devices running Android 2.2 and 2.3, the new version includes new label APIs and performance improvements. The update is a free download from the Google Play Store.

MetroPCS Alteres Throttling Practices

MetroPCS altered its LTE 4G plans. It added a new, $70 plan at the top end that offers unlimited 4G access, but MetroPCS will throttle data on its lower-tier LTE plans. The new plans are as follows: $40 per month buys unlimited talk, text, and 250MB of data at 4G speeds; $50 buys unlimited talk, text, and 2.5GB of data at 4G speeds; $60 buys unlimited talk, text, and 5GB of data (but unlimited access to Rhapsody streaming); and $70 per month buys unlimited talk, text, and unlimited LTE data (and unlimited access to MetroStudio Video On Demand). "Customers will remain on the 4G LTE network but receive a reduced speed similar to what they might experience on MetroPCS' 3G networks," said MetroPCS spokesman Drew Crowell to FierceWireless. "Even though 4G LTE speeds may be reduced, because of the 'always on' nature of our 4G LTE network, the experience for the majority of what a customer does on a daily basis, like Facebook, web surfing, etc., should continue to be solid." Customers' data speeds will return to normal at the start of their next billing cycle.

CyanogenMod Selects A New Mascot

Logo’s can be tricky. We’ve experimented with a few redesigns of our own in the past (a final decision was made and is, in fact, coming very soon). Well, a few weeks back, the CyanogenMod team felt it was time to give their famous “skateboarding Andy” mascot a redesign, asking users all over the world to help them come up with something fresh. After a long deliberation, TeamDouche finally picked this design by Caio Alves dubbed “rAndy” (final name subject to change).

Sprint Confirms That LTE Phones Can Enjoy Unlimited Data On Everything Plans

The formal unveiling of LG's Viper this morning may not have piqued your interest, but Sprint loyalists hellbent on maintaining access to an unlimited plan may want to take a second look. Initially pointed out by techhog the carrier's impending LTE data network will indeed be included on its existing Everything plans. In other words, the Viper -- as well as any other LTE smartphone, will be able to surf the LTE superhighway without limits. To date, the "unlimited" nature of Sprint's data remains a huge differentiator in a world full of hamstrung options, tiers and throttles, and it'll certainly be used to get the attention of heavy users in the months ago. We also reconfirmed that Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and San Antonio are on track to receive LTE in "midyear 2012," with "other markets following in the third and fourth quarters.

Angry Birds Animated Series Coming To Smartphones

52 episodes lasting between two and three minutes each are planned to be released weekly on a multitude of platforms. Starting this fall, users will be able to watch them on their smartphones with a dedicated mobile application, but the series is expected to land on smart TVs as well. Oh, and if you are wondering what happened with that feature length Angry Birds movie, don't worry as it will be released eventually. However, that is not expected to happen until 2014, and who knows whether anyone will still be launching birds at pigs by then.

Motorola's MotoACTV App Updated With Support For Android 2.1

Motorola today announced an update for the MotoACTV application that accompanies its MotoACTV smart watch. The new version of the MotoACTV app now supports all Android devices running Android 2.1 and up. The application also adds some features. With it, Android uses can plan workouts from their phone, launch workouts from the MotoACTV, and see the workout data back on the phone. It also tracks the progress of personal fitness goals, and can be used to set up Wi-Fi networks for the MotoACTV watch. The updated application is free and will be pushed out starting today.

How To Install CyanogenMod 9 On Your HP Touchpad, Step By Step

We know a lot of you aren't interested in Android, let alone considering installing it on your precious TouchPad. That's fine, this guide isn't for you. There are plenty of TouchPad owners who are and they have plenty of legitimate reasons to do so. Be it to get apps like Netflix on their tablet, to see what all the fuss is about widgets, or merely for the novelty factor of installing a second operating system on a TouchPad, there are reasons to do it.

This guide will go over how to install the CyanogenMod 9 Android build on the HP TouchPad. CyanogenMod is a third-party open source distribution of the Android Open Source Project, with CyanogenMod 9 (CM9) based off of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). It offers all of the core features of Android, though it does not come with the Google services integration that has come to be associated with the majority of commercial smartphone and tablet distributions of Android.

The CM9 install is done alongside webOS. Once all is said and done you'll have the option when booting to launch into webOS or Android. It might seem daunting, but in reality it's not that complicated. Still interested? Alright, here's what you need...

PLEASE READ THIS ALL THE WAY THROUGH BEFORE ATTEMPTING. WE WANT YOU TO HAVE A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO BEFORE YOU GET HALFWAY THROUGH AND PANIC. OKAY? OKAY.

• PREPARATION

First and foremost, before doing any sort of hacking to your device, you should be mentally and physically prepared for any and everything to go wrong. Yes, this install process is relatively safe so long as you follow the instructions, but things can and have gone wrong. So make sure your TouchPad is successfully backing up to HP's servers and make a backup on your computer of all your files, photos, and everything else that you can't redownload. Do it now, before you do anything else. Seriously.

Backed up? Good. Now it's time to get your computer set up. Just as with our Homebrew App Installation Guide, you'll need to make sure Java is set up on your computer (chances are it already is).

Mac: Open Applications, Utilities, and then Java Preferences. Under the General tab, make sure Java SE 6 is checked on and at the top of the list. If it is not, you can drag-and-drop it to the top. It is okay to have multiple instances of Java checked, so long as Java SE 6 is one of them. If Java SE 6 is not present, open Software Update from the Apple menu (top left corner) and let it install all pending updates.

PC: Open the Control Panel and open Java, this will open the Java Control Panel. In the first box under the General tab click on the About button. If it says Java 6 Standard Edition, click Close to exit the pop-up and Cancel to close the Java Control Panel. If it does not, or if Java is not present in your Control Panel, go to Java.com and download and run the 'Windows Online' Java installer.

Everybody: To enable the needed communications channels with your TouchPad, you'll need to install the Novacom drivers on your computer. If you've installed the webOS SDK or WebOS Quick Install, you've already installed Novacom. If you haven't or you're not sure, simply download the Novacom installer, open it, click the big "Install Novacom" button, and let the installer download and install the drivers.

Last piece of prep work is to download all the necessary files to install CM9 onto your TouchPad. The latest versions of these files can be found at the official CyanogenMod Wiki, though if you're experiencing download failures most can be found elsewhere. Here's what you'll need (we recommend you go ahead and create a new folder for all of these downloads, just to keep things organized):

Note: Do not use Safari to download these files - they need to stay as ZIPs for the installation process and Safari has this bad habit of automatically unzipping packages when downloading.

• ACME Installer (CyanogenMod | Mirror)
   
• ClockworkMod Recovery (CyanogenMod | Mirror)
   
• moboot (download)
   
• CyanogenMod 9 for TouchPad (RootzWiki | Mirror)

Though not officially available for non-Google-approved devices, the official Google Apps for ICS (Gmail, Latitude, Maps, Play Store, et al) are available online. Because they aren't part of the open source Android or Cyanogen Mod builds, we're not going to go over how to install them here, but suffice to say the process is very much the same, and the files are relatively easy to find if you so desire. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.

• LOADING FILES

Now that you have everything needed for the project downloaded or installed we can get started! The first thing you will need to do is take the ACME Installer file and unzip it (if zipped) and copy it to where Novacom is installed. Windows users can expect to find Novacom under C:\Program Files\Palm, Inc or C:\Program Files\HP webOS. Mac users can get to where they need to go by opening Finer's Go menu, selecting Go To Folder… and entering /opt/nova/bin. Once you're in the appropriate folder you should see files/folders named nocavom and novacomd (and possibly others). Copy the unzipped ACMEInstaller2 file into this folder.

Turn on your TouchPad and connect it to your computer with a USB cable. Once you connect it to your computer, the TouchPad will alert you asking if you want to charge or enter Mass Storage Mode. Select Mass Storage Mode to mount your TouchPad as a USB drive,allowing access to files on the device from your computer. It should appear as a device name HP TouchPad.

Open the TouchPad device in your computer's file browser, create a folder (PC: Right click > New > Folder; Mac: Right Click or control+click > New Folder), and name it "cminstall". Copy the ClockworkMod Recovery, MOBoot, CM9, and whatever other zip files (*cough*Google Apps*cough*) you're installing into that folder. Eject the TouchPad from your computer and unplug it.

• INSTALLATION

With us so far? Good. Take a deep breath, because we're going to get technical here. Things will look scary, but so long as you do exactly as we say, you'll do just fine.

Boot your TouchPad into recovery mode by shutting it down (hold down the power button and select Shut Down) and restarting while holding down the power and volume up buttons until the USB symbol appears on the TouchPad's screen. Plug the USB cable back into the TouchPad and your computer. If your computer needs to install the proper drivers, it'll say so (it shouldn't take much longer than a minute or two to install the drivers).

Now it's time to jump into Command Prompt or Terminal on your computer to get the ball rolling.

Mac: Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal). Once the Terminal window is open, type (without quotes) "cd /opt/nova/bin" and hit enter.

A new line will appear with "bin" inserted between your computer name and username. Type (sans quotes) "./novacom boot mem:// < ACMEInstaller2" and hit enter.

PC: Open Command Prompt by going to the Start Menu and typing "cmd" into the search box. Once the Command Prompt window is open, type (without quotes) "cd c:\Program Files\Palm, Inc" (substitute Palm, Inc for HP webOS if necessary) and hit enter.

A new line will appear with c:\Program Files\Palm, Inc and a blinking cursor. Type (sans quotes) "novacom.exe boot mem:// < ACMEInstaller2" and hit enter.

Everybody: If all has gone according to plan, your TouchPad will quickly restart and a bunch of lines of code you likely don't understand will start streaming across your TouchPad's screen. This is the installation happening, just let it go. This will go on for several minutes, so now would be the time to go have yourself a stiff drink, because the hard part is over.

• BOOTING

Once the installation is complete, your TouchPad will restart again, but this time it will now stop first at a new station called moboot. This screen lets you select which OS you want to boot into. Your options will include boot webOS, boot CyanogenMod, boot ClockwordMod, boot webOS recovery, reboot, and shutdown. Use the volume rocker (up is up and down is down) to cycle through the options and press the home button to boot into your selected OS. Typically all you'll need to pick from is boot webOS or boot CyanogenMod.

If at any time you want to switch between Android and webOS you'll have to shut down and reboot the device. Rebooting Android is accomplished by holding down the power button, selecting Reboot, and tapping OK. webOS can be rebooted by holding down the power button, selecting Shut Down, and then turning the device back on (hold down the power button) after it has turned off. The boot process will stop at moboot each time your reboot the tablet, though the initial selection defaults to CyanogenMod with a five second timeout period, so you'll want to pay attention if you're intending to boot into webOS.

• SUCCESS!

Congratulations! You now have two wonderful operating systems on one awesome tablet. We have more coming down the pipeline on how to deal with having Android on your TouchPad and what to do with it, so keep your browser tuned right here to webOS Nation!

Courtesy of webOS Nation

Press Shots Claim To Show HTC EVO One

Ahead of tomorrow's joint Sprint-HTC event in New York City, the first images of the star of the show may have leaked out online. The shot above has been unearthed by PocketNow, which claims it shows the Sprint HTC EVO One, alongside the already-known AT&T One X and T-Mobile One S. All in all, it looks like many of us may have expected a HTC One series phone with slightly chunkier, EVO-ish looks.

Instagram For Android Now Live

Without any pre-warning Instagram for Android has turned up in the Google Play Store and is available for download, though -- we'd remiss if we didn't mention it does have a few things missing.

Features
:


• 100% free custom designed filters and borders
• Lux works its magic by making your photos more vibrant and brings out details in your photos you couldn't see before
• Instant sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Foursquare (Flickr coming very soon)
• Interact with friends through giving & receiving likes and comments
• Works with Android versions 2.2 and above that support OpenGL ES 2
• Full front & back camera support

.Instagram Google Play Store Link