Monthly Archives: March 2011

Samsung Galaxy S coming to the cold country

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Shaun

This is all somewhat uncertain at the moment, but the Samsung Galaxy S Plus is expected to come to Russia (only Russia?) in April. Armed with a bigger battery, faster processor and a metal back it would appear to solve the minor niggles on the first version. I expect we all will see something very similar soon. via Phone Arena.

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This developer is hoping that Android users are a bunch of…

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Shaun

I wonder if this would have got through Apple’s approval process. Don’t click the link if you are easily offended.

And no there will not be a review of it on 247…

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QOTD: Smartphones and cars?

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Shaun

Is your smartphone connected to your car and do you use it for entertainment or more serious stuff when driving? My iPhone 4 is used for GPS and transmitting music to my car radio and that’s about it. Do you use yours more inventively?

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4G: Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Not yet anyway…

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Shaun

Ofcom’s recent announcement of the 4G spectrum auction in the UK will no doubt create a mad rush by the big operators to spend money they don’t have to secure their piece of the future mobile wireless pie.

The cost of ownership will likely outweigh the costs to provide the required infrastructure because so much has already been spent on building up the 3G network, and a large portion of this is reusable on each spectrum. It will, however, still require significant investment to make the 4G networks usable for a good proportion of mobile users and I wouldn’t expect to be seeing large scale availability of 4G before late 2013, and even then large scale is a very ambitious aim. LTE is also swanning around and acting like the temporary solution it ultimately is and one way or another we mobile users are in for a period where much greater data speeds are likely to reach our handsets whenever we want.

In a couple of weeks I will have a fixed Broadband connection running at more than 30MB which is great for streaming movies, downloading files and for my family to do what they want whenever they like, all at the same time, at home.

I think about my smartphone and what I could do with greatly enhanced speeds and I struggle to come up with advantages that would make the inevitable extra charges worthwhile. Of course video streaming will be much more usable, mobile TV could become a reality, a 4G handset could in theory replace broadband and there would be benefits. The problem is that there will be a gap between the introduction of 4G and the general public’s take up of the services that take advantage of the extra speeds. Maybe I am wrong and a slew of services that make us wonder how we ever lived without 4G will come forth, but I predict that 2015 will be the year that 4G becomes the bedrock of what we do on mobile phones.

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No new iPhone for a while- so relieved!

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Shaun

The news (rumour) that the next iPhone will be delayed is great news for me. The past 6 months have been the first in years when I haven’t felt the need to upgrade my phone / PDA in the vain search for a better experience.

I am happy with the iPhone 4 and can’t see how Apple can significantly improve it at this time and the delay could be a very, very positive thing. There are many possibilities here of which the following come to mind-

Apple is trying to create the original iPhone impact again with a new phone that pushes the limits of what we can imagine and needs time to do this, possibly into 2012.

Apple is being stretched with work on the iPad, updating Mac OS and everything else it is trying to do. It may seem unlikely to delay the new iPhone, which some consider to be the company’s flagship product, but maybe Apple is banking on the competition failing to come up with anything that can beat it in the next few months. Probably not a bad bet.

Does Steve Jobs need more time to recover his health? This delay could fit with what the Doctors are telling him, but this is speculation at best.

Is the whole delay rumour a smokescreen? Apple was burnt with the stolen iPhone 4 prototype last year and does not want that to happen again. Just maybe a new iPhone will appear at WWDC after all.

I am still hoping there is a delay which goes against the way the mobile industry is supposed to work, but I am content at this time. A highly unusual feeling for me and I want to enjoy it for a little longer.

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COTD: Communication diversity

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Shaun

Today’s comment of the day comes from Joel on the subject of different types of communication- “I live in a rural area where voice is used almost always; sure we get the occasional SMS and email; but voice is still king by a long shot. I work in a large city where voice is king with the customers; email is king for colleagues, but SMS is on the rise for quick communication. Each form of communication has its purpose and I think that we will never get to one type of communication. Instant messaging has had its day; that day is over. In a broad environment, you will always have differentiation; however, in a tight or small environment, one form of communication will take over.”

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SPB Shell 3D for Android

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Shaun

SPB acheived great success with Windows Mobile and created what was close to being the default launcher for the platform. Now the Shell has come to Android with a 3D twist and looks pretty good. It isn’t cheap, but if you want a one-stop solution to your Android navigation this could be the one.

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How not to respond to a negative review

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Shaun

You may have already seen this story, but it does highlight the fine line that needs to be trodden when dealing with negative reviews.

Jacqueline Howett, an author apparently, received a review that questioned the way some of the sentences in The Greek Seaman were written. Here’s an example- “Don and Katy watched hypnotically Gino place more coffees out at another table with supreme balance.” She has defended the above sentence and others as perfectly good English- well, sorry but that is a terribly constructed sentence if ever I saw one.

It gets worse though because she goes on to defend it with comments such as the following-

“You are a big rat and a snake with poisenous venom. Lots of luck to authors who come here and slip in that!”

“Who are you any way? Really who are you? What do we know about you? You never downloaded another copy you liar! You never ever returned to me an e-mail

Besides if you want to throw crap at authors you should first ask their permission if they want it stuck up on the internet via e-mail. That debate is high among authors.

Your the target not me! Now get this review off here!”

And one she likes to repeat a lot- “F*ck off!”

The irony is that she will probably see more sales because of the thread, but it really is not how to deal with criticism.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY and Arc now available

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Shaun

Clove now has stock of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and Xperia Arc. Priced at £478.80 and £418.80 these could do well, but I suspect the PLAY will get most of the attention.

“The wait is finally over; the long anticipated ‘Playstation Phone’ is here and with an official name – Xperia PLAY. The Xperia PLAY promises to deliver the functionality that serious smartphone owners need combined with immersive gameplay as the first Playstation certified Android handset to date. The Xperia PLAY runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with Sony Ericsson’s customised Timescape UI on top and a speedy 1GHz Qualcomm Scorpion processor with an integrated Adreno 205 GPU to provide the graphical power this device needs.

In standard portrait form, the Xperia PLAY resembles other Sony Ericsson Android devices with the four recognisable hard buttons and Timescape. Sony Ericsson’s interface is clean and easy to use, providing simplified access to all of your contacts, messages, emails and media. Turn the device horizontally and you can slide out the full control pad. The Xperia PLAY features a digital 4 button d-pad, the 4 Playstation symbol buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross and Square), 2 shoulder buttons and 2 perfectly positioned analogue thumbpads for pinpoint control.”

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Server down

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Shaun

Apologies for the downtime earlier. Not sure why everything fell over, but we are back up. Time to add your comments to today’s content!

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QOTD: Communication?

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Shaun

If you consider ‘all’ of the various types of communication available to you today, which do you use the most? Social networks, instant messaging, text messaging, MMS, voice, VOIP, email and the list goes on and on. I would say that email is still the most used for me.

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Interview with Patrick Hankinson (Wakeful)

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Shaun

Today we have an interview with Patrick Hankinson who is the CEO of the company behind Wakeful. If you do not know what Wakeful is and have a BlackBerry, it’s time you did.

1) How did the idea for Wakeful come about and what has the response been like so far?

The application came about from waking up to an annoying alarm clock every single morning, then turning on the tv and grabbing the laptop to see what the latest news was and what the weather is like (how should I dress for the day).  I was looking for an application that could sort of combine that morning routine right on an alarm clock.  Making it work directly on the BlackBerry seemed to be the obvious choice.  The uptake so far has been amazing with almost 1,000 beta testers within our first week.

2) How many people are involved in the project and can you offer an estimate on the number of hours involves in creating an app like this?

Currently, there are three of us.  Only one of the developers is working on the application full time.  The rest of us are researching the best way to bring this to market.  From the core idea to first commercialization will take about a full two months of our time.

3) Why did you decide to choose the BlackBerry platform first and do you have plans to support other platforms in the future?

BlackBerry seems like the natural choice for me because I carry one around all the time and always use it as my alarm clock.   Our team also has extensive experience developing and marketing BlackBerry applications.  Yes, our next steps are to bring the product to iPhone & Android.

My current role is CEO, but in our small start-up we change hats a lot.  One day I could be managing the company making sure things are on track and things are moving forward, not backwards.  Some days I’m deep into code.

5) What smartphone do you use, if any, and why?

Currently using the BlackBerry Bold 9780.  I love OS6.  The ability to type what I want and get there without having to scroll through applications, contacts and other icons is golden.  Definitely has increased my productivity.

6) Do you have plans for other apps in the future?

We have tons of ideas of apps.  It’s really about evaluating the ability to bring the idea to market and not to get buried in all the noise.

7) Anything you would like to add?

I hope more developers start looking at creating unique apps, instead of the copy-cat approach…

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A Brief Encounter…with an iPad 2

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Shaun

The iPad 2 was released here in Canada on Friday and of course is sold out. But I wanted to hold it before even considering it or being too tempted by the discussions here. So off I went to Future Shop because I had seen the Apple rep there on Thursday and he said that there would be two out on display. And so there were. For what it’s worth, here are my impressions based on about 15 minutes use. To help out, I had my iPad with me so I could see them side by side.

At first sight, the iPad 2 looks smaller. The bezel is slightly narrower but the thinness is what does it. It feels different when you pick it up. I’m used to the rounded bulge of the original, but here, the back is flat. It reminded me of the difference between holding my iPhone 3G versus the iPhone 4. It might take a few days to get used to it.

The amazing thing is that what they say is true, it does feel significantly lighter, even though it’s only about 100 grams or 0.2 pounds. I always felt that, for me, the laptop cutoff weight was about 5 pounds. That is, above 5 pounds, it felt heavy but below 5 pounds, it felt light. Maybe this is the cutoff for the iPad held in one hand.

Apps launch about 40% faster in my very rough estimate. And of course it feels snappier. Are things instant? No, but most simple things are pretty close.

The screen is much brighter and seems sharper. I know it’s the same resolution as the original, but comparing them side by side, the iPad 2 just seems sharper. One of the things I compared was a hybrid map in the Maps App. Lots of detail plus text. The iPad 2 was much easier to read.

So lighter, faster, brighter, and sharper. Is it enough for me to take the plunge? I’m not sure. It wasn’t a great big “WOW”, more along the lines of “very nicely done”. The thing is that I didn’t expect this much of a change from the original. If the iPad 3 is relatively this much change again, I might be better to wait. After all, there’s talk of a carbon fibre body for strength plus lightness. And a higher resolution, although I can’t see it going much past 2048×1536. And if I buy an iPad 2, I’d have a very hard time getting an iPad 3. As you can see, torn. But it is a very nice toy.

Bob

I spotted this at my second favourite site, appadvice.com. Sure we’ve all heard of the medical use of iPads, although the video is interesting. But what really caught my eye were the usage statistics. Here’s the paragraph from the article:

Chilmark Research estimates that 22% of United States doctors are using iPads as of the end of 2010. A survey by Aptilon indicates that 80% of the remainder plan to buy an iPad sometime in 2011. The demand has increased so rapidly that healthcare IT companies are scrambling to catch up.


That’s an incredible rate of adoption. To those who say that tablets will disappear, I don’t think so. The device might not look exactly like a tablet does today, but a portable electronic book/board/display will be around for quite some time.

Bob

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Is it just me that saw the iPad 2 and thought this?

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Shaun

At the risk of turning this into ‘iPad 2′ day, here is an interesting observation from Neil-

Is it just me that saw the iPad 2 and thought this?


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COTD: 1 second of video = 1 floppy disk

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Shaun

Comment of the day has to go to Steve Litchfield who tweeted- “When I was 26, all my apps fitted on a single 1.4MB floppy. Now one SECOND of N8 video fills the same space. 8-)”

Make sure you check out The Phones Show 135 as well which has just been released.

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