Weekly wrapup: NewTeeVee Live discount, Android's failings, HTC Hero review, iPhone monopoly broken, Palm Pre UK release date

Here’s a summary of the last weeks’ digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.

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NewTeeVee Live: Understand TV Everywhere with speakers from Comcast, Adobe, Nielsen, MTV and more (last100 readers get a 10% discount!)

last100 is proud to be a media sponsor of this year’s NewTeeVee Live conference. Better still, readers qualify for a 10% discount on tickets to the event.

Mobile

Three things that I hate about Android #fail

Having lived with the Vodafone HTC Magic for a few months now, there are a few things that really bug me about the standard version of Android. Yes, this is going to be a bit of rant.

First impressions of the HTC Hero (widgets, web browser, and social networking)

The Hero is the first Android-powered device to be heavily customized in terms of User Interface, with HTC’s Sense UI, something that we’re going to increasingly see handset makers do.

More social networking impressions of the HTC Hero [review]

While HTC’s first two Android phones were standard ‘out-of-the-box’ affairs on the software side, the latest effort – the HTC Hero – features a near-complete UI overhaul called the HTC Sense that not only gives Android some much needed polish (Google isn’t exactly known for eye candy in its User Interfaces) but also puts social networking at its heart.

Palm Pre UK release date confirmed, prices on par with older iPhone 3G

We knew the carrier: Telfonica-owned O2. We knew the time frame: before Christmas. Now we have the actual date and pricing for the UK release of Palm’s Pre smartphone, the company’s comeback device.

iPhone UK exclusivity to end, the future’s Orange but is it any brighter?

Exclusive handset offerings are certainly good for carriers and are probably good for handset makers too as they help drive up the price during negotiations – presuming there is a demand for said device in the first place. But it’s hard to see how they are ever in the interest of consumers who end up paying more through higher tariffs via the subsidy merry-go-round.

Vodafone UK lands iPhone too but Apple unlikely to sanction a price war

Following the news that mobile carrier Orange are to begin selling the iPhone here in the UK, Vodafone have announced that they too are jumping on the Cupertino bandwagon, albeit not till early 2010.

That’s a wrap. Thanks for reading,

– Steve (follow me on Twitter: @sohear)

last100 is edited by Steve O'Hear. Aside from founding last100, Steve is co-founder and CEO of Beepl and a freelance journalist who has written for numerous publications, including TechCrunch, The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb and Macworld, and also wrote and directed the Silicon Valley documentary, In Search of the Valley. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

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