Spice will launch Mi 410, a smartphone running on Android 2.2, in India this June.

Dilip Modi, managing director of Spice Mobility told ‘The Mobile Indian’, “We will launch Spice Mi 410 in the first week of June, and it will be priced at around Rs 15,000.”

He further said that Mi 410 has a 4.1 inch touchscreen display and that it is powered by Qualcomm’s 1 GHz Snapdragon processor.

Spice Mi 410 will be available exclusively at Spice Hotspots across the country, Modi added.

On the connectivity front, Spice Mi 410 supports 3.5G, HSPA, Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS and AGPS. Besides, it supports Google messaging service along with push mail. The handset has a 5 Megapixel camera.

Spice Mi 410 can also act like a Wifi hotspot to support up to five Wifi enabled devices.

Spice had intended to launch Mi 410 with Android 2.1 last year but, according to Modi, its plans were delayed because the company was working on adding new features to the handset and wanted to release it with Android 2.2.

Currently, Spice has two Android devices, Spice Mi-300 and Spice Mi-310.

Mi-300 is an Android 2.1 based phone with an 8 cm capacitive touchscreen. It has support for 3.5G and HSPA. The handset has a 5 mega pixel camera, Wifi, GPS and AGPS. Spice Mi-310, on the other hand, is based on Android 2.2, and has GPS, AGPS and Wifi hotspot functionality.

Smartphone owners these days have to shell out small sums of money to download health apps on their mobiles and get numerous pages of useful health literature. Even if the mobile phone is out of coverage area, the user still gets necessary first aid information.

Therefore, users get the feeling that they know how to deal with seizures, strokes, burns and other emergencies, and they tend to be complacent.

Needless to say, smartphones are penetrating our lives at a deep level, and since it is happening gradually, we hardly notice.

Apps are a new fad, and health care apps are even more so. Such applications cover a wide range and include calorie counters; exercise monitors; and those that help people overcome addictions. For example, people who don’t want to smoke, but can’t kick the butt, can always consult their mobiles for tips!

There is no doubt that mobile health apps work at the basic level, but some newer applications are likely to remove this deficiency in future by allowing users to connect with their doctors, for instance. Once the online health records are added to the mix, we have a whole new world of mobile health apps.

Mobile health apps will, for example, tell a diabetic mobile user looking for insulin where the closest pharmacy is. Virtual doctors can also tell users to watch their cholesterol when they are at a restaurant. These features are provided to users with the help of location based services.

There are already several apps in the market intended to help doctors, but mobile health apps will completely change the health care scene by making it easier for patients to connect with doctors.

For example, these apps will allow patients to send pictures to their doctors. Visits to the doctor’s clinic are expensive, and these apps could reduce such expenses.

With increased use of technology, the chances of mistakes also increase, and we don’t know right now who will be held responsible for errors.

There have been lawsuits against doctors in the past and now mobile health App developers also stand the risk of being sued. Since the apps would be used for serious diseases and medical emergencies also, the chances of risk for patients will be very high. There is currently something in place that will protect app developers: these are disclaimers or user agreements that come up before the app is installed, and that people don’t usually read. So, for the time being, users would do well to take good care of themselves, and not depend blindly on their mobile health app.

In yet another reason for the HTC Desire owners to rejoice, the handset maker has decided to give a Gingerbread update to its Desire HD and the recently launched Desire Z smartphone. However, these updates will only be available only sometime before the end of June this year.

Notably, both the smartphones, HTC Desire and Desire Z, still runs on the older Android 2.2 Froyo operating system.

When asked by ‘The Mobile Indian’ about the reasons for the delay, HTC said, “We optimise the experience for each handset separately. For example, HTC Desire HD and Desire Z have different screen sizes. Hence, the delay in rolling out updated for both the devices.”

It is also expected that HTC is looking for a multi device update roll out during the given time period.

But, HTC Wildfire owners will not be so fortunate as the company has no plans for the Gingerbread update for the smartphone for now.

Meanwhile, the updates for the Desire smartphones will start rolling out in the UK first. All other countries, including India, are expected to get the updates in June or in July.

Apple has released a software update of its iOS operating system to fix up a glitch that allowed the iPhone to save location data of the users automatically.

With the update, known as iOS version 4.3.3, now location data will be stored only if the user wishes so. All other users will get rid of their stored location data after installing the new patch.

The issue of location tracking came to light when a couple of developers noticed the iPhones, running on iOS 4, logging information about their location and raised concern about the usage of the data.

Apple has accepted that the data has been collected but said, “It’s for maintaining a database of WiFi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes.”

After the installation of the patch, the file size of the crowd sourced location data on iphones will be reduced. Whereas, users on whose phones the location tracking service was activated without their consent will stop immediately following the deletion of the cache file that had the location information data related to the users location.

When the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play entered the market, it generated a lot of discussion. Xperia play is a combination of an Android 2.4 Gingerbread based Xperia phone and Sony’s handheld gaming device ‘PlayStation’.
Naturally, it prompted the users to expect a Playstattion like performance from this device. Unfortunately, the Android games available for Sony Ericsson Xperia Play do not have any exclusivity attached to them.

Sony Ericsson has managed to fit in a four inch display, which works just fine when users are playing indoors. But the screen does not give the desired gaming experience outdoors. Due to the curved design, the phone sets itself nicely into the hands of the users. The smoothness of the sliding mechanism is also commendable; sometimes it opens unintentionally too!

Users would be very glad to discover that the SIM card and microSD cards can be accessed with no need to remove the battery at all.

The device has been created for entertainment and it reflects in the product. Take the speakers for example, which are way better than other phones. The RAM available for games is 400 MB out of total 512 MB, which is okay but isn’t sufficient for the hard core gamers who are always hankering for more.

It has 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon chip that gives more power to the users compared to Motorola Atrix and LG Optimus 2X that have use dual core systems on a chip.

The plastic used to build the outside of the device could have been better. Once you go inside the device, apart from the trademark PlayStation game controller, rest of the device is more like other Android phones.

Xperia Play runs on Android Gingerbread 2.3.2. Gaming on this phone gives a feel of PlayStation, and the graphics, though not intense, work well for the users. Use of the touchpad needs some learning, be ready for it. The problem is, most of the Sony gamers are used to Analog joysticks, so the touchpad might feel a bit difficult for them to use.

Battery life is not that great, but if you consider one days worth of (on and off) gaming as adequate then the battery works just fine for you. The software extras used by Sony Ericsson on the Xperia Play are going against the battery, and it is something Sony Ericsson can easily take care of. For gaming, the phone works well for users but in endurance tests, other phones with a better battery life may end up doing well.