Samsung and LG Getting Concerned about Google and Android
When Google announced their plans to purchase Motorola Mobility the other manufacturers gladly stepped up and said, oh this is a great partnership, we are happy and it shouldn’t affect us at all. However, that is not what we are hearing today.
Samsung and LG are reportedly being asked by the South Korean government to partner along with other companies, leave Android, and push towards using a new mobile operating system built by the companies. The South Korean Government states “In the long term, we cannot go on like this solely relying on Google”.
Surely, this has a lot to do with the fear of Google owning Motorola Mobility, and the fact that they could easily push their own hardware and software to the forefront. With that said we can’t see either company abandoning Android any time soon. Android is the main reason their hardware has done really good in the past recent years.
Can we blame South Korea for trying to put this together to get away from Google in the future? No we can’t, that was the first thing that popped into everyone’s mind when the news about Google acquiring Motorola was announced. Either way there should not be any changes soon, but it looks like the other companies might be trying to make themselves a pathway that goes the opposite way of Google.
(via android and me)
AT&T to Release Android Powered LG Smartphone for GoPhone in April
Prepaid services are starting to come along and finally get some decent phones. For the longest time if you wanted to use a smartphone on prepaid, you had to pay crazy prices for data and most carriers had zero smartphones to choose from. AT&T is about to change that by offering the LG Thrive (LG Optimus One) on their GoPhone service. Along with the Thrive launchign for $179.99, AT&T is introducing some changes to their GoPhone data rates offering 500MB for $25. Full details and specs after the jump.
In addition to providing access to applications and contacts, AT&T is introducing a new prepaid data package with the LG Thrive, offering 500 MB of data for $25. Each of the following options are available to customers who choose the Smartphone $0.10/min Plan or Smartphone $2/day Unlimited Talk and Text Plan. Prepaid customers who choose a smartphone like the LG Thrive must choose a data package in order to use data services.
• NEW: $25 FOR 500MB
• $5 for 10MB (previously $4.99 for 1MB)
• $15 for 100MB (previously $19.99)
The above data packages include unlimited Wi-Fi usage at thousands of AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots from your smartphone.
AT&T is also adding value to data pay-per-use pricing for non-smartphone customers with five times the data for the same price. The new pricing is $0.01 per 5kb (previously $0.01 per kb)
