Picture the scene, our hero, lets call him Jack, has just had a big argument with his boss on the phone. He’s just threatened to expose him and his missmanaging of the crisis to the president, he ends the call with a stunning ultimatum, snatches the phone away from his ear and, with a crescendo of music in the background, stabs ineffectually at a non responsive touch screen to end the call…….
What he, and all TV goodies, and baddies, need is a dramatic way to end a call. There is something satisfying and final about flicking shut a flip phone that says “I’m done and don’t mess with me”. You just don’t get the same effect with a slide or a touch screen. Let face it flip phones are cool, ever since Captain Kirk first flicked open his communicator and told Scotty to beam him up, that’s all a true geek has wanted their phone to do. If it can get on the Internet, pick up emails and stuff, so much the better, but really, it just needs to flip.
Here’s a 2010 prediction for you, the first company to produce a decent Smartphone in a flip format will have a runaway success on their hands.
I’m not sure when this happened but Google’s streetview seems to have been expanded to cover a lot more places in the UK. All the locations I tried on my iPhone now come up with some really good quality pictures, and the data doesn’t seem to be much more than about six months old. Try your own post code and see what comes up, and if you want a rather odd picture of a street lamp try searching for “Victoria Esplanade, Mersea” and pan round to the seaview.
Odd pictures aside, this is now a pretty useable service.
I had to visit a clients London office yesterday which is a bit of a drag as it involves a hour and a half train journey each way, but it does give me the opportunity to use mobile tech for real. Over the years I have shrunk what I carry on these sort of trips from a briefcase bulging with stuff to a much more manageable lightweight shoulder bag. Whereas I used to carry a thumping great laptop and charger, a ratsnest of cables and connectors and a wallet full of CD’s, now I can get away with a netbook (with a eight hour battery life, so no charger), a couple of retractable cables and a 32gb USB stick. In fact most times I can get away with the USB stick and my Smartphone. Yesterday was a “lightweight day” so it was just the phone and stick, yet I was still able to read and reply to emails, remote access a server or two, read a printer manual in PDF form, reinstall Office and listen to several Podcasts.
Okay, nothing spectacular, but sometimes I think we take for granted what we can do with so little kit , my shoulders and back are certainly grateful.
Android users now have the opportunity to try out Opera Mini thanks to a new beta release. The Android browser is exceptionally good, but as a fast alternative it probably has a place.
Opera Software today launched the newest beta version of the world’s most popular browser for mobile phones, Opera Mini 5, on the Android platform. Opera Mini 5 beta for Android brings a fast and cost-efficient Web experience to any handset built on the Android platform.
Opera Mini, with more than 50 million users worldwide, enables Web browsing on almost any handset by compressing data by up to 90 percent before sending content to the phone, resulting in significantly improved page loading and speed. With a simple, easy-to-use interface, Opera Mini offers a desktop-like Web browsing experience on a mobile phone, with favorite features such as Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, password manager and bookmarks. With Opera Mini optimized for Android, more people will be able to get a PC-like browsing experience on their mobile handsets.
“Android users should not have to compromise when it comes to surfing the Web on their phones. Opera Mini will give Android users a fast and cost-efficient access to their favorite Web sites and services,” said Dag Olav Norem, Vice President of Products, Opera Software.
Download
Download Opera Mini directly to your Android phone. To download, simply visit m.opera.com/next with the Android browser or search for Opera Mini 5 in the Android Market. For more information, visit http://www.opera.com/mini/next/.
comScore has reported on US mobile sector market share for January 2010 and the results are quite surprising. Of course year on year stats rarely give a true picture, but these show that RIM and Google are growing the fastest, especially Google, and that Microsoft and Palm are really struggling. Apple is steady with a 0.3% increase which is a surprise.
“42.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones in an average month during the November to January period, up 18 percent from the August through October period. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 43.0 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, rising 1.7 percentage points versus three months earlier. Apple ranked second with 25.1 percent share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Microsoft at 15.7 percent, Google at 7.1 percent (up 4.3 percentage points), and Palm at 5.7 percent. Google’s Android platform continues to see rapid gains in market share…”
Have you moved networks because a phone was only available from that particular supplier? If so, was it worth moving or do you regret doing so now?
There are some mobile games which rival dedicated console titles for their addictiveness, but sadly these are in the minority. Too many mobile offerings still give the user a couple of day’s fun and even then it can be a struggle to immerse yourself in the game properly. Here is a rundown of the most addictive mobile games (in my experience) available, and feel free to chip in with your recommendations-
1/ Angry Birds (iPhone, Symbian)
Angry Birds is immensely popular at the moment and at the time of writing is number one in the App Store. It is already one of the most talked about iPhone games and I can understand why- it is super addictive in a way that few other games can manage. The ‘just one more go’ phenomenon is more than apparent here and I found myself playing for 3 hours straight yesterday until the battery gave out. My son and my wife are the same with their iPod Touches and the only downside is that I completed all of the available levels in 2 days. Need more levels!
Addictive rating: 8
2/ Space Miner: Space Ore Bust (iPhone)
On the subject of games that make you want to play one more time, Space Miner is possibly the best available at this time. Instead of completing levels to move on, you have to mine space ore to get funds to equip your ship to go and mine more ore. In some levels there are tasks to complete such as picking up lost space tourists or beating seriously tough enemies, but the bulk of the game is made up of exploring new territories and putting the final pieces together to complete your quest. It took me a long time to complete it on easy and now I can go back to the next level so there is longevity built in, but hardened gamers will want even more longevity to be satisfied.
Addictive rating: 9
3/ WordPop! (iPhone, Windows Mobile, Palm OS)
No games list of mine would be complete without WordPop! and even though I have played it for a few years now, it is still going strong on my iPhone. It is the first game I install on any new device and probably always will be. With the iPad version in the works, there is even more to look forward to and I expect to be playing it for a few more years yet. The online high scores, best words and comprehensive word list only add to the fun. This is the only game I have played that has never got boring for me and for the life of me I can’t see that it ever will.
Addictive rating: 10
4/ HomeRun (Symbian, iPhone)
Can a simple card game really be addictive? This one can. I was playing it way back as the default game on Psion PDAs and now that it is available on Symbian and iPhone I can play it again. It takes some time to get into, but once you do it is really hard to put down. The premise is simple, but there is some skill involved and to this day I have never mastered it. It has no sound in the iPhone version, but I don’t care. The same goodness from the Psion version is still there today and I am grateful for that. Solitaire is of course addictive, but there is something special about clearing card after card in this game when you hit a good run.
Addictive rating: 8
5/ Flick Cricket (iPhone)
This game shouldn’t really be in the list because it isn’t great for a lot of reasons, so why do I keep coming back for more? I have no idea, but I do keep coming back and 5 minutes of every day are spent trying to get a perfect score. For the first couple of days you will indeed wonder what is so special about the game, but as you learn to master the flicking you will start to enjoy it more and more. Facebook integration is nice as well even though it does little more than add your friends names to the team line ups. The paid for version offers more options and better longevity so go for that one if you can.
Addictive rating: 7
Microsoft has shown off some XNA games that are likely to make their way to Windows Phone 7. The images and video from engadget say it all really- stunning!
“Alright, we’re going to be straight with you: you’re not going to like this. See, Microsoft just showed us a pair of 3D games running on its ASUS Windows Phone prototype and built with its brand new XNA Game Studio 4.0, but wouldn’t let us nab a single photo or video of the process. What we can tell you is that they exist, they work, and at least Microsoft tossed us some screenshots to wave in your face. The two titles are The Harvest (pictured), a good looking touch-controlled dungeon crawler with destructible environments, being developed by Luma Arcade; and Battle Punks, a less impressive one-on-one sword fighting Facebook game by Gravity Bear that’s being ported over. We didn’t get to see any full motion 3D camera moves, since Battle Punks is just composed of two characters duking it out, and The Harvest has a fixed camera and some pre-rendered elements, but there were indeed some real polygons being crunched before our eyes at a full resolution (no upscaling), alpha-rev…”
Street Fighter IV has received its long awaited debut on the iPhone and looks ‘quite’ good. By all accounts the controls could be better, but it is a faithful port of the original.
Street Fighter 4 delivers the first true fighting game on iPhone. This uncompromising fighter features all the visceral thrills, fantastic graphics and brilliant gameplay that are hallmarks of the series.
Long time Street Fighter fans can jump into the action and have an instant familiarity with the controls. For more casual players Street Fighter 4 features numerous settings and tutorials that put you on the path to world warrior.
Oh, and did we mention MULTIPLAYER. Street Fighter 4 supports head-to-head arcade play over Bluetooth.
Discovering the Pros and Cons of Touch. Is this the Future? is an excellent new article at AAS. I personally feel that touch will stay a while, but until something radical happens it is not guaranteed to be around forever.
“The first thing that I appreciated from these new phones was the increased screen size. Even the 2.9″ 5530 screen was a treat to me after the QVGA 2.0”-2.4” Eseries screens. This naturally lends itself to web browsing in landscape mode, which accounts for the bulk of reading these devices will no-doubt be used for.
The next part of my touch experience was the horror of fingerprints. Perhaps I have a mild form of OCD, but seeing any phone screen daubed in finger prints always gives me a knot in my stomach. You may say this is a subjective matter, but there is an objective problem here. I found in my experience, and I don’t think I’m alone, that those oily deposits can often cause a distortion on the screen, and require you to wipe the screen with your hand. My experience of this was much worse on the 5530 than on the N97. The 5530’s screen came uncovered, and was relatively glossy. Hence, fingerprints stood out like the proverbial sore thumb! However, the N97 came with the original screen protector still attached; and knowing that I’d soon be soon returning it, I decided leave the screen protector on. The protector was matte and textured, which effectively mitigated the effect of fingerprints. It still needed wiping from time to time, but it was well within my tolerance; the only problem was that it degraded the quality of the screen. Even so, perhaps matte screens are the answer for keeping fingerprints at bay?”
Jerry Seinfeld has had a dig at BlackBerry people on the Letterman show and even though he is not usually funny, he probably sums us BlackBerry users up perfectly.
Michael Morgam from ABI has put together an analysis of the world’s top 10 handset makers. On the whole it looks back rather than forward and does consider ’sell in’ numbers which is the amount of phones shipped out, not sold to end customers.
“The numbers are in, and it’s time to make sense of the data. ABI’s Michael Morgan checks out the world’s 10 largest branded cell phone makers in the fourth quarter of 2009, providing sales data as well as insight into their strategy and competitive position in the market.
Apparently it is eBook week and I have only just noticed. The event is designed to get you reading an eBook this week and some special offers have been made to coincide. More details are here.
“E-book information and free e-books define Read an E-Book Week. From March 7-13th major e-book retailers and authors offer free, or deeply discounted e-books for the event. These e-books will be available in the E-Book Store. Many of our participants have free, or discounted e-books throughout the year, so please return often to see what is available.”
How often do you sneakily play a game, visit a social networking site or do something else that you would not normally be allowed to do at work? Of course I would never do such a thing (cough).
Screen protectors are an accessory that used to be a required item on PDAs and smartphones that were stylus driven, but it would be a mistake to think that there is not a place for them on modern smartphones such as the iPhone or the non-touch BlackBerry’s.
There uses are many-fold and when you consider the price of a modern smartphone, a few extra pounds is not a lot to spend for the added protection. The one I am reviewing today is specifically designed for the BlackBerry Bold 9700 which may seem like a curious device to use a screen protector on. However, the screen is one of the major parts of any smartphone and in some cases the most susceptible to scratches. Even a phone like the 9700 which has a tough screen benefits from a screen protector because I have seen a couple of work with noticeable scratches on already. When you pay £400 for a smartphone, £5.95 extra to protect the vulnerable part is a no brainer.
The Expert Shield model comes with everything you need to start protecting your screen and is one of the easier ones I have applied in recent times. It uses the two sided method; you peel off one side, attach the protector to the screen and then peel off the second side. I had a moment after I applied it where I honestly thought that it was not there, but it was and with no air bubbles in sight. It is advisable to use a straight object such as a credit card to ease the process, but all on all it worked well for me.
Besides adding protection, a screen protector can stop glare which is particularly useful when driving using GPS. The model I tested here, however, is so clear that you really will not notice that it has been applied. For under £6 this is a very cheap way to protect your smartphone and one which ensures that the resale value will be higher when you come to upgrade- it is highly likely that you will add much more than the asking price on any future sale of your phone.
To sum up, the Expert Shield protector is simple, easy to apply and well priced. I have no hesitation in recommending it and even though I dread writing screen protector reviews, I have been more than pleased with the product.
Available from Expert Shield who also make protectors for the iPhone, HTC HD2, Nokia 5530 and many other devices
