Monthly Archives: April 2011

Apple’s Chinese workers treated ‘inhumanely, like machines’

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Shaun

Fascinating stuff from The Guardian today. I think the title says it all really. Shocking…

“Excessive overtime is routine, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip, seen by the Observer, indicated that the worker had performed 98 hours of overtime in a month.

Workers attempting to meet the huge demand for the first iPad were sometimes pressured to take only one day off in 13.

In some factories badly performing workers are required to be publicly humiliated in front of colleagues.”

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Mobile flops from RIM, Microsoft, and Nokia

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Shaun

Macworld has posted a detailed look at why RIM, Microsoft and Nokia are producing flops, with just a touch of glee included. Thanks to Bob.

“Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook is so bad that Verizon Wireless may not bother carrying it—a spokesperson said so the day after the PlayBook debuted to customers. AT&T won’t let BlackBerry users download the essential app (BlackBerry Bridge) that brings email and communications apps to the PlayBook. Carriers are arms dealers, selling weapons to anyone for a price, but even they are drawing the line at the PlayBook.

That’s a huge fall given that the PlayBook’s creator, RIM, is the successful patriarch of the mobile market—inventing the smartphone category, in fact. And RIM is not alone.”

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QOTD: The last crash?

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Shaun

When was the last time your smartphone crashed and what caused it? My iPhone 4 crashed last week and I had to leave it attached to my Mac for 20 minutes to bring it back to life. Made me think twice about jailbreaking…

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Radiolab: so good

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Shaun

I wrote about Podcasts yesterday and asked for your recommendations for shows worth downloading. One that popped up was Radiolab and listening to the ‘Desperately Seeking Symmetry’ episode was enough to make me know I will be listening to them all. Educational, entertaining, wonderfully produced and touching. It’s not often you get all of those in one Podcast. You do not want to miss Radiolab.

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ooTunes Radio version 4.0

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Shaun

The wonderful ooTunes has been updated to version 4.0 and the changes are significant. By far my favourite smartphone radio app-

1. Universal – iPad2, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch: all generations
2. Easier to use – finally the power of ooTunes at your fingers, simply, elegantly
3. Improved layout – fewer icons and screen jumps, less duplication, more features
4. Bigger database – over 30,000 streams from user-requests world-wide
5. Folders for Favorites – group streams as you like from Search or add one by one
6. Navigate – skip directly to, or step by song, within Live or Recorded streams
7. Share via Email, Twitter, Facebook what you are listening to
8. Fullscreen Nighttime Clock – dim or brighten by touch, new backup alarm sound
9. Schedule recordings – set duration as well as start time
10. Export/import favorites via email (iOS 4 or higher required for import)
11. More Artwork support for more stations
12. Scrobble to Last.FM what you listen to
13. Play YouTube video of what is Now Playing live directly from app
14. Hi-Res retina Icon – new and relocated icons for Share, Recordings,Favorites
15. Numerous bug fixes – check out Radio Roolette now for example

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Stick an SSD in your MacBook

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Shaun

This isn’t mobile related, but could present an option many of you would not have considered before. David Hewson has fitted an SSD into his MacBook Pro rather than upgrade to a newer model. The cost was £148 and by all accounts it worked out very well indeed.

“For the money this is the best upgrade around in my view, provided you can fit your main disk into the space you buy, of course. It’s not just speed either. The laptop’s cooler so the fans are less noisy and supposedly the battery life will be better too though I’ve yet to try it.”

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HTC posts better than expected financials

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Shaun

HTC has posted its quarter one financials and they are better than expected. It seems that flooding the market works quite well because HTC has lacked differentiation for some time now, and those puny external speakers drive me mad! It’s a good place to move forward from though…

HTC’s strong brand recognition and product innovation drive better-than-expected 1Q momentum. Strong underlying growth in all regions overcame traditional seasonality to deliver record high quarterly revenues of NT$104.16bn, net profits of NT$14.83bn, and EPS of NT$18.36.

HTC sold 9.7 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2011, 192% more than the year-ago quarter, and 6% more than 4Q 2010. New products launched in 1Q (Inspire 4G, Thunderbolt, EVO Shift 4G, Desire S, Incredible S) were met with strong customer demand and numerous accolades at the Mobile World Congress and CTIA. This, together with the announcement of innovative products like Wildfire S, ChaCha, Salsa, Flyer, EVO 3D, and Sensation show HTC’s sustained leadership in technology and innovation.

Gross margin for the first quarter was 29.3%. Due to growing operating leverage from scale expansion, operating margin for the first quarter increased to 15.8% from 14.9% in the year-ago quarter.

”Thanks to the hard work of our employees and support from consumers worldwide, we had a phenomenal quarter with record sales and profits. Our innovation and leadership in technology has taken us to new highs. Our brand has been increasingly recognized by customers. And we will continue to focus on delivering the best smartphone products with cutting edge technology, user friendly interface, and premium lifestyle design,” said Peter Chou, HTC’s CEO.

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Consumers Feel Stuck with Obsolete Smartphones

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Shaun

62% of American consumers feel stuck with obsolete smartphones according to a new survey by retrevo. This is hardly surprisingly when you look at the contrast between release schedules and contract terms.

“Manufacturers are flooding the market with new phones at a very fast rate. Retrevo counted more than 120 new smartphones from major vendors over the course of about a year. The problem is that most carriers require you to hold onto a phone for two years before you can upgrade which has created a condition where new phones appear much faster than consumers are allowed to buy them.”

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Microsoft Courier on the iPad: it could happen

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Shaun

Remember Microsoft Courier (video link here)? The idea was a leap up from what we can do now on tablets, but sadly it didn’t reach reality. Well, a duo of developers is looking to bring the dream to the iPad and has already raised their target amount of $10,000 to get development underway.

You can see more details of Taposé here or, even better, check out the demo video below-

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The iPad was predicted back in 1994

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Shaun

Take a look at the video below from Knight-Ridder. It was produced all the way back in 1994 and features an idea of the future of newspapers. It is remarkable how close to the iPad their premonition was, apart from the stylus of course. via TUAW.

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QOTD: The maximum price for a smartphone?

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Shaun

Picture this. A smartphone is released with every feature you want- 128GB of memory, 4G speeds, massive screen etc. etc. What is the maximum you would pay for your perfect device?

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Some days I want to hide from the online world

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Shaun

It has been one hell of a fortnight for digital privacy. First up Apple came under fire because the iPhone kept data on user movements for longer than it should. Then Sony had an even bigger setback with the PlayStation network hack which looks likely to rumble on and on. Sony has rightly come under scrutiny for its part in the hack, but not so many are complaining about the evil b*stards who did the hacking in the first place. It is like we push all of the blame onto the victims, which Sony is as well, and not so much on the perpetrators.

And now TomTom has admitted to selling customer data which was used by the Dutch police to build targeted speed traps. To be clear the data was sent anonymously, but that is irrelevant in this case. If I use my TomTom every day to drive to and from work, it is not exactly difficult to work out that it is me should anyone have need to track my movements. It is not good at all, but I guess that TomTom is currently looking into a gloomy horizon. Smartphones, or in particular the iPhone, offer TomTom a small lifeline, but even this is under threat if the rumours about Apple building its own navigation solution prove true. I can’t see where TomTom, and many of the others, are going to go next, but it does not excuse selling customer data for one minute.

It can make you paranoid about your online privacy; email spammers trying to get your bank account details, websites loaded with code to track your online movements and so many other areas where you can potentially fall foul of security breaches.

So what is the solution? Well, short of terminating your digital world completely all I have to offer is to use a different password for each online account, use a credit card that is purely for online purchases (if it gets hit you won’t miss it for a while) and to be careful every step of the way. It’s a shame we have to do all of this and an even greater shame that the big companies charged with our protection are also struggling to protect us adequately.

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Podcasting: finally…

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Shaun

It has taken me many years to finally discover the benefits of Podcasting. Instacast has been the catalyst for this and I now find myself listening to downloaded Podcasts going to and from work each day. In comparison to music, the trips seem to pass quicker than previously and a whole new world of the ‘chat show’ has been opened up to me.


 
Technology Podcasts are plentiful and tend to follow similar formats, but some are genuinely interesting and add personality to what would otherwise be quite a dour subject. I have purposely looked at Podcasts that look likely to continue for some time to come and thus The Talk Show, Phones Show Chat and engadget were my first downloads.
 
What I am looking for, however, are your recommendations for Podcasts worth subscribing to. They don’t have to be tech related, but just interesting and worthy of my ears for the journey to work. Also, are you a Podcast user or has the genre passed you by like it did for me for so long?

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COTD: Nagging!

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Shaun

Today’s comment of the day comes from Arnold on the subject of mobile app updates. I feel his pain. “I can’t sit there with that little number badge constantly sitting there. Nagging. Nagging. Nagging. Always nagging! When wil it ever SHUT UP? (Thanks for letting me vent.)”

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A right Royal day

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Shaun

Content will be lessened today due to my 7 year old daughter demanding that I watch the Royal Wedding with her. Despite all of the cynicism from some quarters, the event has already generated overnight stayers the number of which Apple could only dream of. I also can’t help but feel slightly proud that no other country in the world can pull off something like this the way we do…

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