Nokia puts up an official teaser page for the Lumia 928

The Lumia event Nokia has planned for May 14 is drawing near and the indications that the Nokia Lumia 928 will be the star of the show are growing stronger. We saw rogue billboard, print magazine ads and now a teaser page on Nokia’s own site.

The billboard touted the low-light shooting capabilities of the Lumia 928 and so did the print magazine. Both use different product shots and the print ad even went into some detail – PureView Optical Image Stabilization and Carl Zeiss lens are behind the Lumia 928’s abilities.

The teaser page on the Nokia website uses the same image of the front of the Lumia 928 but lacks the "even in low-light" tag-line of the print ad, instead telling us to stay tuned for updates.

Nokia execs including CEO Stephen Elop talked about a "hero device" launching exclusively to a US carrier, giving more credence to the rumors that the Lumia 928 will be exclusive to Verizon (the Verizon logo was on the billboard).

AT&T will begin selling 32GB Samsung Galaxy S4 on May 10

AT&T announced pricing and availability of the Samsung Galaxy S4 with 32GB of built-in memory. The smartphone will be available on May 10 for $249.99 with a two-year commitment to the carrier.





Given the relatively modest price increase over the $199.99 16GB version, the Samsung Galaxy S4 with 32GB looks like the more sensible choice from the duo. Numerous reports on the web have pointed that the 16GB version comes with slightly less than 9GB of available memory to the user, which is hardly plentiful.

Sony Xperia Z goes on sale in the Sony US store

The Sony Xperia Z is now officially available through the Sony online store in the US. You can get the HSPA+ model unlocked for $629.99 in all three colors: black, white and purple.

Meanwhile, the Sony Xperia ZL got a price cut. The phone is now available for $629.99 from the previous $759.99. The Xperia ZL is similar to the Z but lacks the water-proof design and the glass back.

Boosted by the One launch HTC revenues rise 23% in April

HTC hasn't had the best of times in the market over the past year and a half, losing huge chunks of its market share and seeing revenues contract rapidly. However, the April numbers show that the company may finally be starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Boosted by the launch of the One flagship, HTC revenues rose 23% in March and reached NT$19.6 billion ($657 million). However, such was the scale of the HTC recent troubles that even after such significant jump the company's earnings are 36.9% lower than they were in the same month of last year. Still the decline was 48.6% last month, so things are at least moving in the right direction.

Besides, HTC's CEO Peter Chou expects to see even better performance in May in June, as the supply shortages for the One loosen up. The total revenues for Q2 are estimated to reach $2.4 billion, meaning that sales should increase by a further 50% over the next couple of months.

Apple launches countdown to 50B app downloads

Apple on Thursday posted a countdown to 50 billion app download from the App Store, promising to give away a $10,000 App Store Gift Card to the person who downloads the landmark app.

First spotted by Macstories, the official countdown ticker is viewable within iTunes under the App Store section. 

From the countdown page:

Apps have revolutionized the way we play video games, consume news, do business, education, communicate, create art, and so much more.

The performance of the App Store has been overwhelming, steadily growing in size and revenues since its launch in 2008. As an example of the store's explosive growth, Apple launched a similar countdown to 1 billion app downloads in April 2009, which was followed by a promotion for the 10 billionth app download in January 2011. Most recently, Apple started a countdown ticker to 25 billion downloads in February 2012, meaning download rates roughly doubled over the past year. 

In addition to the $10,000 gift card for the 50 billionth app download, Apple will also award a $500 App Store Gift Card to the next 50 customers following the momentous download. 

The iTunes page also has an updated list of the top all-time paid and free apps, with respective number ones being Angry Birds and Facebook.

As with any sweepstakes and giveaway in the U.S., no purchase is necessary, and Apple has setup an alternate entry webpage for those who don't wish to buy an app or download a free title. At the time of this writing, the page was still under construction.

Apple launches countdown to 50B app downloads

Apple on Thursday posted a countdown to 50 billion app download from the App Store, promising to give away a $10,000 App Store Gift Card to the person who downloads the landmark app.

First spotted by Macstories, the official countdown ticker is viewable within iTunes under the App Store section. 

From the countdown page:

Apps have revolutionized the way we play video games, consume news, do business, education, communicate, create art, and so much more.

The performance of the App Store has been overwhelming, steadily growing in size and revenues since its launch in 2008. As an example of the store's explosive growth, Apple launched a similar countdown to 1 billion app downloads in April 2009, which was followed by a promotion for the 10 billionth app download in January 2011. Most recently, Apple started a countdown ticker to 25 billion downloads in February 2012, meaning download rates roughly doubled over the past year. 

In addition to the $10,000 gift card for the 50 billionth app download, Apple will also award a $500 App Store Gift Card to the next 50 customers following the momentous download. 

The iTunes page also has an updated list of the top all-time paid and free apps, with respective number ones being Angry Birds and Facebook.

As with any sweepstakes and giveaway in the U.S., no purchase is necessary, and Apple has setup an alternate entry webpage for those who don't wish to buy an app or download a free title. At the time of this writing, the page was still under construction.

Samsung on Galaxy S4 storage complaints: Go buy an SD card

Samsung has some advice for buyers of the 16-gigabyte model of its new Galaxy S4 stung by its low storage space: if that's not enough storage for you, that's why we put in a microSD card slot. 

The 16GB version of Samsung's newest flagship handset has only just over half of its listed memory available for owner use, according to CNet UK. The rest is taken up by the smartphone's operating system and built-in apps. 

"For the Galaxy S4 16GB model," Samsung said in a statement, "approximately 6.85GB occupies [the] system part of internal memory, which is 1GB bigger than that of the Galaxy S3, in order to provide [a] high resolution display and more powerful features to our consumers." 

For users unsatisfied with the 8.49GB or so of free space left to them on the 16GB model, Samsung has a solution:

"To offer the ultimate mobile experience to our users, Samsung provides [a] microSD slot on Galaxy S4 for the extension of memory."

Galaxy S4 owners are able to expand their devices' storage capacity via microSD up to an additional 64GB, bringing the potential total capacity of the device to 80GB — of which 73.15 would be available to the user. That additional space, though, couldn't be used to store apps, as Google removed that capability with Android 4.0. Users would, though, be able to store downloaded books, music, movies, and other files. 

The Galaxy S4 has only about 55 percent of its storage capacity available to the user, as noted byExtremeTech. An iPhone 5 running iOS 6.1, by comparison, will have about 77.5 percent of its capacity available for users.