As Apple iPhone 4S sales continue to reach new heights, more and more countries prepare for their first chances to get a crack at the phone, as well. Today, pre-orders for the iPhone 4S have opened-up for Apple fans living in an additional 22 nations.
Residents of Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland are now able to place their pre-orders. While that's largely a list of European nations, the presence of Mexico and Singapore show the growing global reach of the iPhone 4S.
If you get your pre-order in straight away, it looks like you still may be stuck waiting for about 1-2 weeks to pass before your phone is ready to ship. If you're impatient, you may have more luck holding off for retail sales to begin; for the countries on the above list, that means October 28.
If you've rooted your Android-powered phone andinstalled a nightly build of the CyanogenMod custom ROM, you probably have run into problems with the Netflix app at some point in time.
The problem had to do with Netflix' paranoia around securing their digitally delivered content, and only allowing playback on certain "approved" devices. Whenever Netflix pushed an update to their app it would usually stop working properly on phones running CyanogenMod ROMs.
CyanogenMod developers, being the skilled people they are, would come up with an update within a few days and Netflix would work again (albeit unsupported by the app maker) until the next update came along.
Not long ago Netflix lifted the "only on certain devices" restriction and the app should work on any Android 2.x or 3.x device. What's even more interesting is that Netflix is actually recognizing devices running CyanogenMod ROM!
The latest update includes the following entries in their changelog:
- Support for Android 3.x devices.
- Available in the USA, Canada and Latin America.
- Supports alternate audio and subtitles. - Fix incompatibility with CyanogenMod 7 ROM devices.
While it's true that Android 4.0 Ice CreamSandwich has been announced, other than the Software Development Kit it hasn't been releasedyet.
That means you can't buy a phone running ICS and you can't flash a stock or custom ICS ROM onto your current phone.
But, all is not lost if you want your current phone tolook like it could be running ICS! XDA-Developersonnysekhon grabbed the goodies from the ICS SDK and stitched them all together into a nice theme.
If you're running a ROM that supports the Theme Engine (like most CyanogenMod ROMs and their derivatives do), all you need to do is download and install a single .apk, fire up Theme Chooser, and pick "ICS" from the list. You may get a note that "the theme is missing assets for your device's screen size", but you can apply anyway and things will likelywork just fine (if not, just select the "System" theme and you're right back to where you were before).
Find the download links at the source, and enjoy your "almost" Ice Cream Sandwich phone!
Although Samsung's been a little back-and-forth over statements that the Galaxy Nexus will be first arriving on Verizon as a carrier exclusive, it does seem safe at this point to expect Verizon to be among the first carriers getting the handset, but the rest of the US carriers are still in an uncertain position. A new pic suggests Sprint may be making arrangements to prepare for Galaxy Nexus sales of its own.
The image in question depicts a shipping document referencing an order being received from Sprint by Sprint Preferred Retailer United Cellular. While it may not be for the phone itself, the slip depicts Sprint providing promotional posters for the Galaxy's code name, the Nexus Prime. Now, there's some wiggle room for how you might interpret this find, and it could very well end up being some big misunderstanding, but any way you look at it, it suggests Sprint anticipates being involved in future Galaxy Nexus sales. Just when those might kick-off, though, is anyone's guess. With November almost here, though, Samsung needs to finish making its mind up soon about how it wants the Galaxy Nexus to arrive.
Like most SDK ports, it's not perfect: Wi-Fi doesn't work, video decoding doesn't work, audio has hiccups, and it's a bit unstable. In short, you're not going to use this as your daily driver.
Even still, ICS is running fairly well (albeit buggy) on the somewhat dated hardware of the Nexus One.
