Our 3Stores, all 308 of them, are a launched feature of most eminent streets these days, but unlike the stores of many other brands ours didn’t tardily burst over 5 or so years.

Back in 2006-2007 we opened a back-breaking 250 stores in one hit. Definitely not a task to undertake if you’re in for a stress free life, but certainly one that we’re really proud to have completed.

Our high street presence is really important to us. Each of our stores – whether it’s on Oxford Street in London or Victoria Court in Blackburn – is an inhabiting, breathing advert for our brand, so the experience our customers have once they’re inside has to be an outstanding one.

Whether you know what you want and are after a speedy sale or are looking for a bit of advice and inspiration and haven’t quite made your mind up yet, we want you to feel confident that each one of our 2,000 3Store employees is trained and equipped to be able to help you out.

Over the last year we’ve been re-evaluating the role that our stores play for our customers, and now we’re looking for you to assist us decide what we should be focusing on.

Aside from undergo a complete make-over – new fixtures, fittings and decoration – we want to know what more you’d like to receive from your local store.

What astir a technical drop-in session on a Saturday morning? Or longer (or shorter) opening hours? Are our stores easy to navigate, or do you find them a bit too much? Do you have any feedback on experience you’ve had with us that you think should be our benchmark?

And while we’re on the subject of feedback, there is one area that we’d like your thoughts on to kick start the process. That area is uniforms.

Our store employees currently wear jeans and either a purple or blue branded shirt with an optional black jacket over the top. We’ve created four potential new styles for our store advisors, and we’d like to know which you think is the scooping.

We’re currently running a poll on our Facebook page – so now’s your chance to make your views heard and of course we’re also asking all of our store staff what they think too.

Can’t wait to hear your verdict. For any other feedback just use the comments section under this post.

Help us make our in-store experience better

Ah summer, the delights of half a day’s sunshine and half a day’s rain. Magic. It’s too when most of us end up retentive-hauling our work-aweary bodies on holiday. That mostly means hours cooped up in a variety of tin cans trying to maintain occupied. As e’er we’re hither to assist with the better backing apps to foreclose you killing the kids or only to aid you eradicate time.

Crazy Snowboard
There’s no business like snow business and simplicit is what makes this one of the best games available on Android. Tricks are easy enough to pull off and levels are just astir challenging enough to keep you coming rearwards. Just keep it straight, man.
Price: Free
Platform: Android

World of Goo
One of the finest videogaming experiences iOS has to offer. World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle game. But this isn’t like any physics puzzler you’ve played before. Instead, World of Goo drops you into a surreal, sometimes dark, often beautiful world that appears to have erupted fully formed from the twisted mind of a mutant fusion of Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. Brilliant in every conceivable way.
Price: £2.99
Platform: iPad

Super Monkey Ball 2
Sega’s cutesy monkey rolling, gliding and flying classic gets its second outing on the iPhone. The concept is disarmingly simple. You play a monkey in a transparent ball rolling around a series of psychedelic mazes in the sky. You control your rolling simian via the iPhone’s tilt-sensitive accelerometer, while bobbing your head and grinning at the strangely hilarious hi-energy soundtrack.
Price: £2.99
Platform: iPhone

Scrabble
Having dominated physical board games and the iPhone, Scrabble now tackles the iPad. You know the drill, use you letters to make words and score points. Don’t be fooled into thinking long words are better. Just watch the computer’s clever use of Qi and Za for proof.
Price: £3.99
Platform: iPad

Replica Island
The makers of Replica Island have made something pretty special – a platformer with a plot that rivals some console games. The protagonist of Replica Island is a familiar fella. That’s right it’s the Google Android, which you control with your trackpad/ball and the touchscreen buttons. The object is to get rid of the Island’s enemies created by The Source (don’t ask) and collect some pearls along the way.
Price: Free
Platform: Android

Cat Physics
A cracking little game that follows in the slightly bonkers tradition of Doodle Jump and Angry Birds. You have two cats. One of which has to pass a ball to the other one. The difficulty (and fun) being in trying to figure out the way to get said ball over and across and above and around various physics-based obstacles in order to progress to the next level.
Price: £.59
Platform: iPhone

Guest post: Time-killing gaming apps.

That’s it, Wimbledon is over for another year! It’s been a fantastic couple of weeks of tennis, a few upsets but with finally Novak Djokovic winning the men’s title and Czech Petra Kvitova being crowned Ladies champion.

But whilst I’m a big fan of tennis, it wasn’t the only thing on my mind as I watched Wimbledon this year.  It was pretty clear, as the cameras panned the crowd, that smartphones were an important part of the experience of watching live sport.  Whether it was Pippa Middleton arriving, fans posing with their heroes and creating a new profile pic on Facebook, or sports reporters tweeting in live comments as the play developed, it’s clear that sharing the moment live is now best done through your mobile.

Throughout the week as the major events and drama unfolded, we noticed a soar in phone usage; from texts, to tweets, to streaming.

And it’s a trend that’s playing out throughout the year. On Christmas and New Year’s it’s all about season’s greetings and embarrassing office party pics,  on Valentine’s Day all the hopeless romantics confess their love, and as a result, we always see an increase in the amount of traffic flowing across our high speed 3G network.  And big sporting events are no different, with events like the Grand National, Jenson Button winning the 2010 Hungarian Grand Prix and our very own Wimbledon, our customers head straight for their mobiles to share their views.

The trends we saw from those inside the All England club were fascinating. Twitter was most popular at 7am each morning, as everyone excitedly queued up outside and busily tweeted to keep their followers up to date on their every move.  Facebook, on the other hand, was most popular in the evenings at around 9pm as play came to an end; picture uploads and the sharing highlights were the order of the day.

One of the most interesting moments was when Andy Murray took to Court One on Wednesday 24^th June to play Tobias Kamke. As the British number 1 warmed up to take his first serve, fans around the grinded sent 40% more texts than we’d seen at any other time.

As the game progressed, Twitter usage on Three leapt by 200% and data streaming across our 3G network increased by almost 90% as Murray began to play.  Amazingly, it’s not just those unable to make the event that use services like BBC iPlayer to watch the game, we also see usage at the grounds increase as the crowd tune in to the commentary whilst watching the action.

What this has also told us us that our customers really are making the most of all-you-can-eat-data on Three. They’re tweeting, watching videos and sharing pictures on Facebook without giving a second thought to the bill.

With this in mind, we were really keen to see how you all used your phones during the men’s final on Sunday. Between 2pm and 3pm more data was used, than any other hour during the whole two weeks of Wimbledon. So when the game really heated up between Nadal and Djokovic, you were all busy tweeting, Facebook updating and we saw a rise in the number of texts sent too – clearly the match was too good not to share. We also saw a 83% increase in internet data use compared to the Ladies final.

All of this is perhaps heartening news for those that weren’t successful in the Olympics ticket ballot, hopefully your smartphone will be able to keep you up to date with all the action .

Smartphone usage soars as Murray hits the court.

Unless you’re technically minded the world of software updates can be quite perplexing, one minute we’re talking about Gingerbread and the next it’s ‘Over The Air.’ So, I thought I’d give you a quick run done of what a software update really is, and what it means if you have a smartphone on Three.

First things first, What is a software update?
Software updates are relinquished from the smartphone manufacturers, so whether it’s HTC, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, BlackBerry or iPhone, an update is intentional to bring new benefits to your telephone. You’ll hear us talking astir the two different types of software updated; Generic and Customised.

Generic software is always released first, it comes from the manufacturer and isn’t optimised for the Three network. Customised software happens next and comes from us; it’s usually released 2-3 weeks after the Generic software. We work really closely with all of the smartphone manufacturers to make sure all Customised software updates bring clear benefits to you if you’re on our network. We’re currently the only network to provide Customised software, it’s designed so you’ll get less bugs or glitches because we’ll put each update through its paces before it’s released.

What benefits will you see after you’ve upgraded your software?
The benefits will altered depending on the manufacturer, our Customised software updates usually provide better signal availability, quicker upload and download speeds and sometimes you can get more applications and services on your phone. We try to make sure that the wallpapers and widgets are arranged in order for ease of use too – we’re nice wish that .

How do you know when your phone’s due for an upgrade?
There are no specific timings on when updates will be rolled out, it really varies across manufacturers. This isn’t something that we have any control over. As soon as it’s fixing you’ll usually get a notification telling you it’s available.

How do you get a software update?
Once we’ve approved the latest version of a software release, the smartphone manufacturer will release it to you. In some cases, the update will appear on your phone and you’ll be requested to download the new update.  This is also known as ‘Over the Air,’ (OTA).

For other phones, you’ll need to connect your phone to a PC via an USB cable and follow the instructions.

If you’re an Apple customer, your update will be released via iTunes once you’ve plugged your phone into your computer.

Finally, if you’re using a Samsung phone, you’ll need to plug it into your computer to get the update, (a bit like iPhone); with Samsung this is called ‘Kies.’

You can also check in the settings function of your smartphone to see whether there’s an update available. You can check your settings function by:
Android: Menu > Settings > About phone > Software Update > Check for update.
Nokia: Menu > Settings > Phone management > Device updates > Options > Check for update.

What happens if you download the Generic update rather than wait for the Customised update?
We know that a lot of you are keen to start seeing the benefits of updates from the moment the Generic version is available, but I can’t stress enough that the customised software will bring you the best experience on our network. If you do unbrand or ‘hack’ your phone to get the modify early you will void your warranty. So, I assuming’t advise it .

And finally, one you’ve all been asking about….
Why are all Android updates named after pastries?
There’s no specific reason why they’re all called after pastries, but we quite like it! All updates are named in an alphabetical order so far we’ve had Cupcake, Donut, FroYo and now Gingerbread. Some of our Android tablets have even got the Honeycomb version. Any thoughts on what ‘I’ will be?

So there you have it, everything you involve to know about software updates explained. If there’s anything you want to modifying or if you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

Everything you need to know about software updates.

As a fussy silent of three children, I’m ever looking for ways to relieve time. I’ve been working with Three as a blogger and founder of BritMums to show parents how they tin get the nigh out of their smartphones and use the internet on the go.

It’s not often you get asked to take part in a brainstorm with ten of your friends to come up with an idea for a time-saving app but that’s exactly what Three asked us to do. Five bloggers were asked to invite a network of ten friends (all parents) to a series of brainstorming events from Oxford to Ipswich. We chatted about the tasks that take time and how our phones could make life easier, and it’s resulted in five app ideas that could help parents across the land. The thing is, Three’s only going to develop one of the ideas so we’re battling against each other to get our app idea make.

Take a look at the ideas below and then head to the Three UK Facebook page (On the Go Mums, tab) to watch our videos and vote for your favourite. The winning app will be announced on July 19.

Pig-e-Bank.

‘Learning while earning’ is the aim of the Pig-e-Bank app. Parents can track the take money of various children and deduct any ad-hoc purchases while out shopping from future payments. Savings goals tin be set to help children learn how to manage their money.

Weekly Meal Plan.

Forgetting items during the weekly shop will be a thing of the past with Weekly Meal Plan. Parents can plot recipes and meal ideas on a calendar, automatically creating a weekly shopped named that calculates the quantities of ingredients needed based on the number of adults and children in the household.

Make a Date.

Take the pain out of social planning with the Make a Date app.  Simply select the times and dating you’re available for an event you’re organising and select the friends you’d like to invite. Friends are sent a remarked to input their availability, and once everyone has responded the app calculates a time and date and notifies all guests.

Who, What, Where, When?

The Who, What, Where, When app is just similar having a PA in your pocket. It synchronises family members’ smart phone diaries to show everyone who is responsible for the week’s tasking, as well as where people are and when – from picking up the kids to business meetings. Users can set reminders and add remarking so they never forget an appointment again.

Family Quest.

Nagging will be a thing of the by with the Family Quest app, which aims to bring the family together to complete their respective weekly chores. The household’s tasks are uploaded to the app and rewards (set by the parents) can be unlocked from a ‘Family Fun Treasure Chest’ if they are all completed.

Make your take count!

New apps for parents – we need your votes.

Festival season is hither people. That means mud, music and mayhem distribute far and broad across our Darling Blighty. But if you’re travelling to do the most of the summer of sounds then you’re going to require aid. Lucky for you, your smartphone has the answer. Keep it juiced up tenacious enough and these apps will hold you fond, good oiled and wired for sound.

Go Camping
When you’re building your house for the weekend out of flimsy fabric and bendy poles, you want to be sure you’ve got it right. This app features a step-by-backpedal guide to building a sturdy structure that won’t get blown/washed away. For best results use in daylight. Sober.
Best iPhone apps

Tentfinder
There’s nothing worse than staggering back to your tent, half-cut, only to discover amid the darkness that this isn’t in fact your tent and you’ve intruded on some amorous festival goers. Never make that mistake again with the GPS and compass assisted tentfinder app.
Best iPhone apps

Rock Band
For when you just can’t get enough rock into a weekend. The popular console game comes to the iPhone with 30 classic tracks. Perfect for that pre-main stage warm up.
Best iPhone apps

Shazam
An invaluable song ID tool for when your favourite frontman goes on a nostalgic trip and busts out a B-side from way back. Hold it in the air and let the database do the rest. It’s free to download and has a bigger record collection than Bruce Dickinson.
Best iPhone apps

Festival Star
This do-it-all festival app even say you the weather, so you know whether to pack in that poncho, in the same back that you’re smuggling in your alcohol.
Best iPhone apps

Torch
Where the hell did that bloody lighter go? Or my sock? Or those Jaffa cakes I was saving? All of your encamping hunt problems can be solved by turning your iPhone into a torch. Make sure you’ve got plenty of battery though.
Best iPhone apps

NHS Drinks Calculator
Whether you’re really concerned about your festival alcohol consumption or just fancy setting yourself a challenge, your national insurance money has pay for an app which allows you to calculate how much booze you’ve polished off between sets.
Best iPhone apps

Guest Post: 7 Essential Festival Apps.

The wait is finally over! You’ve all been really excited about the arrival of the HTC Sensation and I’m happy to announce that it’s now available on Three.

It’s been great to see all your comments flood in on the blog, you’ve really been eager to get your hands on this phone! The HTC Sensation is now available online and in 3Stores.

The HTC Sensation has something for everyone, with its 4.3 inch high resolution touchscreen, Dual-core processor and 8MP camera. It also runs on Android Gingerbread, which is also known as 2.3, this doing browsing and using your favourite Apps on the Sensation super dieting.

I love seeing technology evolve which is one of the reasons why I love everything 3D. My favourite features on the Sensation is the 3D animated widgets and menu, I’m constantly change my homescreen to bring the phone to life and to match my mood (and outfit!).

I sent Brendan out to put the phone to the test, he’s taken some beautiful pictures using Magic Hour. As you can glimpse, HTC’s new ‘drag and drop’ feature makes the whole HTC experience much quicker and more efficient. You can now instantly drag your favourite apps on the lock screen and directly access them without ever having to unlock the phone..

Take a look at Brendan’s video and allow me know what you think – I conceiving you’re all going to love it.

HTC Sensation is available on Three.

Sony Ericsson has just announced its latest smartphone, the ray.  I’m really excited to let you all know that it’ll be coming soon to Three.

The ray’s tops-sleek design has a 3.3 inch touchscreen which I think you’re all going to love.  It too has a fashionable 8.1 MP camera and is outstanding for those of you who enjoy taking lots of pictures which can be marked with your friends using Facebook Inside.  For those of you who haven’t used it yet, Facebook Inside is an unique application which fully integrates Facebook throughout your Sony Ericsson phone.  This means you can “Like” tracks from your music player and keep your phone and Facebook calendar synced so you’ll never miss a friend’s birthday again.

One of my favourite features that I think really stand the ray out from the rest is its ability to record HD video. This comes on Sony’s Mobile Bravia Engine and produces some of the clearest, crispest quality recordings around.  This is ideal for any frequent video uploaders who are always on the go, looking for the newest trends and fashions to put on the net.

As well as this, the ultraportable ray comes with a 1GHz processor which runs on Google’s latest operating system, Android 2.3 Gingerbread.  This means the phone is super quick and idealistic for people who want instant access to their messages and social networking.

The calling’s brand new and has only just been announced but we managed to get our pass on one to bring you a quick sneak-peek.  Let me know what you consider

Sony Ericsson Xperia ray is coming to Three.

The Festival season is tight nearing. You’ll all be fussy packing your wellies, looking on Vouchercloud for the best deal to stock up your car with beer whilst getting over excited to see your favourite acts.

We know there’s nothing worse than running out of battery on your phone. Made even worse when you’re in the middle of a field and there’s no plug socket in your tent.

Every second counts which is why we’ve brought you our festival guide to saving battery on your smartphone, after all, you’ll need to update your Facebook status, Tweetpic Jessie J’s fit and avoid finding yourself alone at 1am, stuck in a crowd of cc,000 muddy strangers.

You can improve your phone’s battery life by making a few simple changes to your settings. We’ve picked some of our most popular phones and put together some tips to help you have a fully charged festival:

• Switch off push email – cutting down the number of times your phone checks for new emails will significantly increase your battery life. We think you should just turn email off, forget about work and have a good time!

Blackberry: select Options > Advanced Options > Browser Push and uncheck Enable Push.

HTC phones: go to Inbox > Menu > Settings > Notification Settings and uncheck the Email Notifications box. If you just want to reduce the number of times your phone checks for emails, go to Inbox > Menu > Settings > Send & Receive > Set Download Frequency and choose how often you want to receive emails.

iPhone: tap Settings > Mail > Fetch New Data. If you want to twist off email during the festival, pose Push to Off. To proceed to watched your emails, do sure Push is set to On. Tap on Manually or Hourly to change how often your iPhone checking your email.

• Internet usage – using apps can running your battery. Avoid playing games, or update your Facebook status too often

• Turn off Wi-Fi – you can choose to only turn on Wi-Fi when you really need it. Otherwise your phone will search for Wi-Fi networks all the time, which can really affect battery life. You probably won’t get a Wi-Fi signal while you’re standing in a muddy field anyway.

Blackberry: go to Manage Connections and uncheck Wi-Fi.

iPhone or HTC phones: tap Settings then uncheck or switch off Wi-Fi.

• Try to keep it cool – battery life is lowered by heat so don’t leave your phone in the sun or in hot places like a boiling tent. Room temperature is best.

• If you’re lucky enough to have a flash function on your phone’s camera, try not to use it. Flash photography can drain your battery quickly.

• Lock your screen – the screen won’t dim immediately when you put it down. You tinning save the battery by changing the screen timeout. Try ever-changing it to 15 or 30 seconds or just make certainly you put it to sleep by pressing the On/Off button when you’re not using it. To adjust the Auto-Lock settings or test timeout:

Blackberry: select Options > Auto On/Off and enable Auto-Lock.

HTC phones: tap Menu > Settings > display > Screen timeout and change to 15 seconds.

iPhone: cut Settings > General > Auto-Lock.

• Dim your screen – you can turn the brightness down on your phone to save battery life:

Blackberry: choose Options > Screen/Keyboard, scroll down to Backlight Brightness and select the number you want.

iPhone and HTC phones: cutting Settings > Brightness and adjust the screen brightness.

• If you’re really worried about saving your battery, turn your phone off when you’re not using it. So when you’re getting those few precious hours of sleep, just turn it off.

• Turn off wobbling – we know you don’t want to miss any messages or calls while you’re watching a set, but using the vibrate setting uses more battery than you would think. If you don’t need it, turn it off.

• Auto- Sync – On Android phones you can turn off auto-sync of data, this will really help save battery life.

Android: Options or menu > Settings> Accounts & sync and untick ‘Background data’ and Auto-sync.

• Consider a solar charger – at longer festivals like Glastonbury you can’t really expect your battery to last for the full six days. You can pick up a solar charger quite cheaply online.

Just remember that the battery life of any phone always depends on how much you use it. Let us know how you get on, and if you have any battery-saving tips of your own.

So, first up – Glastonbury goers. Let me know how you get on

Festival guide to saving your smartphone’s battery life.

More and more of you are passing your life on Facebook so we put Tom Bailey from Electric Pig the task of finding away whether the HTC ChaCha was the perfect phone for the Facebook- lover.

You can read more of Tom’s reviews over on Electric Pig.

Are you a Facebook addict? Well, you’re not alone. Over 500 million of us use Facebook – 200 million of which check their profile on a smartphone. What’s more, a quarter of those aged 18-24 check their Facebook page before they even get out of bed! Although to be fair, that could just point to a lot of epic lie-ins…

With those stats in mind, HTC has come us with a new way to feed our addiction – the Cha Cha smartphone, complete with bright blue, pulsating ‘F’ button Facebook shortcut. But does it really add anything to the mobile Facebook experience? After all, why create a shortcut when there are already so many ways to get to Facebook any phone?

You can download Facebook apps for every smartphone platform. You can log in to the social network’s mobile site through any web browser – and there’s even a version designed specifically for touchscreen phones.

But had played with the HTC Cha Cha this week, we soon discovered that the Facebook key isn’t really about saving time – it’s about sharing. Facebook isn’t a mere address book, it’s a way to share almost anything with those you love. And the ChaCha does that to perfection.

Whenever you’re on a website you desire to demonstrating others, hitting the Facebook button attaches the page as a link and permit you write a brief intro. Whenever you take a photo with the HTC ChaCha, tap the ‘F’ to upload it and tag your friends.

If you’re listening to a song you like, you can use it to share an Amazon link, so your mate can download it and check it away. It even works with videos you’ve just filmed – and unlimited data on Three’s One Plan means you only need worry about how many Likes your clip gets, not 3G uploading limits.

Whenever it glows, you can share. And whenever it doesn’t, you tin still share. Give it a cutting and start pen your latest update via the QWERTY keyboard, which, to coin a phrase, would make any BlackBerry fan ‘well jel’.

Of course Facebook lets you do all of this on any screen, but it’s the focus on sharing, rather than merely glimpsing what everyone else is saying, that’s the HTC ChaCha killer feature.

Why stand back and observe just because you’re using Facebook on a small screen? Why not interact? And why not have a goddamn lie-in while you’re at it? The ‘F’ button is calling you…

Guest Post: HTC ChaCha review.