The Handheld Blog

Running Android Apps On Tizen

Vaibhav Sharma — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:10:17 +0000

Tizen is a brand new platform with a focus on HTML5, and just like any platform in its infancy, it has the challenge of getting developers on board. While, Intel and Samsung have been doing a lot, like giving all attendees of the Tizen conference a Tizen developer device, there’s still a bit of work to do.

One quick way of getting around the problem, similar to what Blackberry did with the Playbook, is to open the doors to Android apps. Open Mobile is a company that has been demoing a solution of their own called the ‘Application Compatibility Layer (ACL)’ that they claim lets you run Android apps on a Tizen device with 100% compatibility and with the same responsiveness as you would expect on a native Android device.

I was able to get a video demo of the solution on an ExoPC Tablet running Tizen and here it is:

The solution is targeted towards OEMs and not end users. So its upto the manufacturers of Tizen devices to modify the kernel etc to bake support in for ACL.

I really think this is something Samsung and others who end up making Tizen devices should consider. Tizen devices will be targeted towards the high-end of the spectrum and having a full set of apps with the benefits of HTML5 should be something that users will feel safe embracing.

Note: The UI that you see on the Tablet is not the Tizen tablet UI.

A Detailed Look At Tizen on Samsung’s First Prototype Device

Vaibhav Sharma — Tue, 08 May 2012 05:12:31 +0000

Tizen just hit the 1.0 release last week (codenamed Larkspur), and at the Tizen Conference I’ve had the chance to play with the prototype device that Samsung has been handing out to developers to test their applications. Its basically a super large screen device, (4.65 inch ~~my guess is about 4.3-4.7″ inches~~, 1280 x 720p HD Super AMOLED) that’s running on an 1.2 Ghz dual core A9 chip, with 1 GB of RAM. There’s also an 8 MP camera. In some cases it contains a cellular radio, while some device are WIFI only. There’s no word on what clock speed are they running at, or the the size of battery that’s inside.

While it is a reference design, it still gives us an idea of what the Tizen UI will look like and the core functionality that will come with it. We’ve already known that Tizen has an excellent HTML5 browser that bests everything currently on the market. After playing with the phone, we now know that it is heavily inspired from what Samsung’s been doing with TouchWiz. There’s a pulldown notification area just like Android, there are WIFI, Bluetooth toggles etc just like on Touch Wiz, multiple homescreens and so on. More importantly, there’s support for tethering out of the box, there’s also support for Google, Facebook and Twitter accounts out of the box so that you can sync your contacts nicely. There even seem to be push notifications for activity on Facebook etc, although I haven’t seen it in action. Next, there’s support for services like Picassa, YouTube to aid in uploading content.

I spent some time with the device and captured my initial impressions as I went though the process of exploring the new OS. The following 7 minute video should give you a fair idea of what to expect on Tizen.

Again, this was a reference device and the load times, speed of operation etc does in no way represent what a real-world Tizen phone would be capable of.

If you are looking for pictures of the prototype device our friends at Tizen Talk have a few. What do you think of Tizen?

Windows Phone Developer Summit Announced For June 20-21, San Francisco

Vaibhav Sharma — Thu, 03 May 2012 04:34:57 +0000

Microsoft has just announced the Windows Phone Developer Summit, which will take place in San Francisco and is slated for June 20-21st. The timing of the summit is what has my interest, June is also when Microsoft is expected to unveil details about the next generation Windows Phone software, codenamed Apollo, and the upcoming developer summit should be all about enthusing developers and getting them to code for Windows Phone 8.

The location of the summit is right at the heart of Silicon Valley, and Microsoft will be going out of its way to bring iOS and Android developers on board with Windows Phone.

Windows Phone 8 cannot come soon enough.

[via: Unleash The Phones, CNET]

Nokia Sues HTC, RIM & Viewsonic In The US & Germany

Vaibhav Sharma — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:13:18 +0000

Nokia has been a pioneer in the field of mobile, and because of this it is expected that they would have a truckload of essential patents that other manufacturers simply cannot do without. So with this backdrop it is surprising that Nokia’s not opened its war-chest to go after other companies as aggressively as I would have imagined.

One possible reason is that most companies willingly license them, as Louise Pentland, Nokia’s chief legal officer suggests. “We have already licensed our standards essential patents to more than 40 companies”. But news is that they have just decided to go after HTC, RIM & Viewsonic in the United States and Germany.

Pentland states, ”Though we’d prefer to avoid litigation, Nokia had to file these actions to end the unauthorized use of our proprietary innovations and technologies, which have not been widely licensed.”

Nokia’s actions include complaints to the:

US International Trade Commission (ITC) against HTC
Suits against HTC and Viewsonic in the Federal District Court of Delaware, US
Against HTC and RIM in the Regional Court in Dusseldorf, Germany
Against all three companies in the Regional Courts in Mannheim and Munich, Germany.

In total, 45 Nokia patents are in suit in one or more of the actions. Some of the patents cover hardware capabilities such as dual function antennas, power management and multimode radios. On the software front, there are patents that include software features such as application stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device.

“Many of these inventions are fundamental to Nokia products,” Pentland concluded. “We’d rather that other companies respect our intellectual property and compete using their own innovations, but as these actions show, we will not tolerate the unauthorized use of our inventions.”

So there you go, Nokia is once again on the offensive. They took on Apple and won, time to turn-on the heat for HTC, RIM and Viewsonic. Squeezing a settlement out of these companies should serve as a good cushion for its bottom-line as the company transitions to Windows Phone.

[Via: Nokia Press]

Nokia 808 PureView Hits Stores This Month, India & Russia First Recepients

Vaibhav Sharma — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:46:40 +0000

We have official word courtesy of Nokia Conversations that the PureView 808 will indeed be hitting stores this month itself. So if you’ve been waiting for hand down the best camera on a mobile phone, you wait will soon be at an end. If you’re in India or Russia, there’s even more good news as the two countries will be first in line to receive the device, with availability in other countries to be announced later.

The 808 PureView lets you take absolutely incredible photos, with the ability to zoom in without loosing quality. You can choose to shoot in full resolution (38 Megapixels in 4:3 mode and 34 Megapixels in the 16:9 mode) and the 5 Megapixel automatic mode, where the photos are oversampled to render fine detail. The PureView 808 takes really excellent video as well.

To top it all, it features extensive controls for people who like to do more with their devices, e.g. the ND filter lets you take pictures such as the one above.

There’s no word on pricing yet, but I would expect the device to retail around or just shy of the 30,000 INR mark in India.

Nokia’s official Flickr stream has a bunch of camera samples if you are so inclined.

App Prices Hit A Ridiculous (Fantastic?) Low In Indian Nokia Store

Vaibhav Sharma — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:14:14 +0000

In an incredible turn of events, the prices of apps in the Indian Nokia Store have hit rock bottom. This has happened because Nokia has reduced the levels at which developers can price their applications. Earlier Level 1 was Rs. 25 (about 50 US cents), now it is just Rs. 5. So for example 1 Euro app, which is say the lowest level in Europe, will cost just Rs. 5 in India. In terms of pure conversion Rs. 5 equals just 0.072 Euros.

App prices in India were already lower compared to the pricing in other parts of the world, this is something I’ve covered before, but the new rates really ring in a bonanza for Indian users. Its like having a fire sale all year long.

As you can see fantastic applications like Joikuspot which retail for about 8 Pounds in the UK, can be had for as little as Rs. 35 in India. That’s not even half a pound. However, it is important to realise that pure currency conversions do not work, and that Nokia strives to keep prices in tune with what consumers are willing to pay for apps in India and Rs. 35 is a great price for Joikuspot.

Similarly, quality games like Asphalt 6 and Angry Birds can be had for just Rs. 5 and 10 respectively. While this may sound like ‘are you freaking kidding me? That so awesome!’ for the consumer, the developers may well feel like ‘are you freaking kidding me? That’s bullshit!’.

Our friends at Unleash The Phones suggest that developers might even want to withdraw their apps from India, because of these exceedingly low prices. While I am not sure how the Nokia Store submission works, the impression I get from the post is that developers can only specify a level at which they want to sell their apps and Nokia automatically sets the prices in different countries. E.g. Level 1 could mean 1 USD in the US, .80 Pounds on the UK, .90 Euro in Europe, Rs. 5 in India and so on. A problem will arise if they can only set a level as a price for their app across the world and this cannot be changed based on country. (I’ll try and get some clarity on this aspect soon.)

Nokia India been really working hard to delight its customers over the past few months, first the brilliantly priced unlimited downloads from the Nokia Music Store and now these super cheap apps. As long as there is no developer backlash, its a very welcome sign for consumers. Nokia believes that what it is loosing on margins, it’ll make up in volume – while making its customers super happy.

[via: Unleash The Phones]

WhatsApp Coming To The N9 With Wazapp

Vaibhav Sharma — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:51:55 +0000

Users of the Nokia N9 have longed for a Whats App client for their device since a long time, but it finally looks as if their prayers are close to being answered. While Whats App isn’t doing an official version of the app, the community has come up with a solution of its own called Wazapp.

Wazapp is a community port of the hugely popular IM application, and its developer Tarek Galal has realsed a first look video of it running on the N9. The video is proof that the project is progressing nicely, and shows messages being sent and received between the N9 running Wazapp, and a Samsung Android device running the official WhatsApp application.

When is it coming out you wonder? The developer has this to say:

If you cannot wait, a dedicated website for the project has been setup at wazapp.im and you can keep checking in, otherwise rest assured that I’ll let you know once its out. I hope that the makers of Whats App support this development, and not try and kill its functionality with an update to their official clients.

[via: My Nokia Blog]

Nokia Music Shows The World How To Kill Piracy: $26 A Year For Unlimited DRM Free Music

Vaibhav Sharma — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:42:33 +0000

Nokia Music went DRM free in India in December last year and I thought it was a pretty big deal. When the service first launched, the idea was to give you access to a huge catalogue of DRM’d music for one year with the purchase of a new Nokia device, and after that one year you could keep all the music had downloaded, but there was no way to renew the subscription. If you wanted more downloads, you’d have to get a new ‘comes with music’ device.

Since then the service has changed considerably, and has been brought to low cost devices like the Asha series. These devices sell for less than $200, and come with the ability to download DRM free music that you can send to your friends, or copy and play on another device. Today via the official @NokiaIndia Twitter account, the ability to renew your Nokia Music subscription was announced. Currently you can only renew for one month at a time, and the cost of the recharge is just Rs. 113 a month which translates to just over $2.

(Downloaded from the Nokia Music Store, transferred to the Mac and from there onto the iPad and so on. DRM free win).

So for Rs. 1356 (just over $26) you can download millions of DRM free, high quality 256 kbps music – all year long. That’s just amazing. You can purchase a renewal pin online, or at a Nokia store in your city.

The Nokia Music Unlimited service in India gives you access to 4 million tracks, which in addition to a very large collection of international music, offers an extensive selection of local music, including some really old tracks that you’ll have a hard time finding anywhere else. Nokia Music Store includes wide-ranging catalogues from major global labels like Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Nokia’s local partnership with Indian Music Industry (a consortium of more than 150 music companies), Hungama that represents major labels including Yash Raj, Tseries, and SIMCA (South Indian Music Companies Association), amongst others. Basically, it’ll have pretty much everything you are looking for. Plus, through things like the Nokia Music Theater, you’ll also find a selection of content from great local artists who haven’t become quite so popular, yet have excellent music.

All of that for a full year, for less than what you’d spend on a meal at a not so expensive restaurant. Rs. 113 is an unbelievable price, and if Nokia can stick to it, I am sure a lot of people will only be too happy to sign on. No service in the world offers access to such a large quantity of DRM free for such a small price. At least in India, Nokia Music has the potential of becoming a bigger draw than even Nokia Maps, and that’s saying a lot because Nokia Maps is an excellent itself.

There are still a few things I’d like them do to – the first is start supporting Macs. The tracks are DRM free MP3 files and there is no longer a technical reasons for the service to be Windows only. Next, I’d like to see Nokia offer higher quality downloads over the air in addition to the compressed versions that are currently available. If I have a 3G plan, or am on WIFI, I shouldn’t be forced to download the compressed track.

Finally, I cannot wait to see Nokia Music launch in India on the Lumia series as well.

PS: I am certain, Nokia will not be able to offer this price point in other countries. But for India, this is a great price.

Skydrive Finally Gets Short URLs For Images Shared To Twitter From Windows Phone

Vaibhav Sharma — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:26:11 +0000

The biggest Twitter integration failure on Windows Phone has been fixed. Until today if you shared a photo on Twitter using the inbuilt sharing mechanism, it resulted in a long Skydrive URL that most Twitter clients failed to handle. The result was that your shares would be broken links for most.

That has finally been fixed. The Skydrive team just announced a bunch of changes to Skydrive on Twitter, including support for ODF files, and 300 MB uploads via the browser.

But the biggest deal for Windows Phone users is the “sdrv.ms” short URL.

The First Tizen Developer Conference Takes Place In San Francisco: May 7-9

Vaibhav Sharma — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:09:18 +0000

The world hasn’t heard much about Tizen since September, when it was first announced. To refresh your memory, Tizen is the brand new HTML5 centered OS that is backed by Intel and Samsung, a partnership which was forged after Nokia and Intel’s ambitious MeeGo project was stopped in its tracks in February 2011.

When the announcement was first made, an initial release was supposed to come out in Q1 2012, with retail Tizen devices only later in the year. While that hasn’t happened yet, there are promising signs. A visit to HTML5test.com shows that Tizen 1 is well into internal testing and its HTML5 test results are off the charts. It scored a very impressive 408 points, with 15 bonus points. That’s better than Chrome for Mac that manages 400 points with 13 bonus points. A few weeks ago, Tizen was at about 363 points with 15 bonus points. So the development seems to be progressing nicely and the upcoming Tizen Developer Conference scheduled for May 7-9 in San Francisco should be a perfect venue to show it off.

The first annual Tizen Conference engages and educates developers on Tizen technology and HTML5 app development for Tizen devices. This conference is for Tizen developers, app developers, platform designers, operators, OEMs, hardware vendors, software vendors, open source enthusiasts, and anyone engaged in Tizen. The Tizen conference will be hosted at the downtown Hyatt in San Francisco, CA on May 7-9th, 2012.

The Linux Foundation isn’t giving away much about what will be shown off, if anything. The agenda has now been posted, and all we can tell is that the keynote sessions are scheduled for 9 am onwards on May 8th. No info yet on who will be present and if Samsung will finally show off their Tizen device. An important thing to note is that a lot of the sessions mentioned in the agenda will be hosted by Intel and Samsung employees, so the companies will definitely be there in full force.

There has been talk of Samsung merging its Bada OS with Tizen, but there has been a bit of back and forth on that as well. The upcoming Tizen Conference should serve as a good opportunity for all involved to clear the air about all these questions, and finally get to what its about – great software on shiny hardware.

Registrations are now open, and free.

Nokia Rolls Out The Fix For Lumia 900 Connectivity Bug Ahead Of Schedule

Vaibhav Sharma — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 03:57:25 +0000

Soon after the Lumia 900 went on sale, a bug was discovered in its software that sometimes prevented data connectivity. To make it upto affected users Nokia offered a $100 AT&T bill credit to everyone who had already purchased a Lumia 900 or who will purchase one before April 21st and promised a software update to fix the issue on or around April 16th.

The good news is that the fix is already available, almost three days ahead of schedule. It seems Stephen Elop is right, Nokia’s internal clock speed has indeed improved. If you own a Lumia 900 that suffers from this bug, you can either goto AT&T and have yours replaced for a new device, or update it via Zune on Windows or the Windows Phone Connector for Mac. The Lumia 900 software update page that Nokia has created has all the details, including how-to videos. The whole process shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes.

According to WP Central, after the update your device should be running the following:

OS Version: 7.10.8112.7
Firmware revision number 2175.1002.8112.12084
Hardware revision number: 112.1914.2.0
Radio software version: 2.1.75.10
Radio hardware version: 8055
Bootloader version 7.17.2.0
Chip SOC version: 0.85.2.1

According to Mobile Tech World, the following changes have been noticed on XDA Developers:

Improved touchscreen sensitivity
Improved WiFi auto-connection
Fixed Camera launch bug: The camera now starts every time when the shutter button is long press when the phone is off.
Overall performance improvements and stability (battery too it seems)
Fixed lost data connection bug

Nokia deserves credit for the way they have handled this issue. They acknowledge it quickly, promised a fix, delivered it ahead of time and offered $100 to their customers for the trouble. The best part is that you can get the $100 off till April 21st and now you know that the Lumia 900 is indeed bug free. Which means that until the 21st, Nokia’s very desirable flagship is free on contract, that’s a hell of a deal.

ChevronWP7 Unlocking Is History: No More Side Loading Apps On Windows Phone

Vaibhav Sharma — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:20:06 +0000

Windows Phone 7 just like iOS, restricts users to its official app store. So if you want to install an app on your shiny Windows Phone, the only option you have is to goto the Marketplace. If you wanted to side-load an app, just like Android, Symbian or Harmattan, you need a developer account and a AppHub registration which costs 99$ and comes with the ability to publish apps to the marketplace.

So ChevronWP7 in association with Microsoft started offering 9$ unlocks for Windows Phone so that hobbyist developers could install, run, and debug unsigned applications on their personal Windows Phone. The reason Microsoft agreed to such an arrangement in the first place was because it wanted to encourage hobbyist and homebrew developer communities. But things didn’t go quite that way, and most people only ‘unlocked’ their device to side-load apps for personal use.

In their goodbye post, the folks behind ChevronWP7 go on to say:

The goal of this experiment was two-fold: First, to determine if we could supercharge the Windows Phone beginner/hobbyist community by removing the initial cost barrier (i.e. App Hub membership.) And second, to convert potential developers into published developers.

While we kicked butt on the former, the latter didn’t work out so well. Our data indicates that most developers simply unlocked their devices for non-developmental reasons and never went all the way to publish an app in the marketplace. There was also some confusion about the actual purpose of the ChevronWP7 service – some folks thought we provided SIM-unlock capabilities, while others thought we were a hacker group providing full root access. On top of this, there were a larger than expected number of support emails.

As a result, both sides amicably agreed to discontinue the ChevronWP7 Labs experiment.

Fear not, we will continue to explore other ideas with Microsoft. All sides are still very interested in the hobbyist and homebrew developer communities.

Infact as a goodwill gesture Microsoft is offering existing ChevronWP7 customers a free upgrade to a one-year membership of Windows Phone App Hub which otherwise costs 99$.

While this comes as a disappointment for a lot of people who were looking to mod their Windows Phones, it wasn’t as if ChevronWP7 was actively selling unlock tokens. Infact after the initial 10,000 unlocks that sold out super quick, the service had been in abeyance. Hopefully with Windows Phone 8, Microsoft will open the platform a little more and the people’s burning desire to mod their devices will be quenched a little.

Hilarious ‘Blown Away By Lumia’ Video, No Wonder Samsung Was Hot Under The Collar

Vaibhav Sharma — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:41:10 +0000

Both Microsoft’s ‘Smoked By Windows Phone’ and Nokia India’s ‘Blown Away By Lumia’ campaigns have not been without their share of controversies, but one thing which you cannot take away from them is that they are fun. Not only do they get the point about Windows Phone’s deep social integration and other functionality across to those taking part, but they make for great online viewing as well.

No one is happy to loose, so watching people react to being blown away is always entertaining. I came across one such absolutely hilarious video (courtesy @labnol) which I had to share.

Most guys take their phones seriously, and when your flagship device looses, its not a good feeling. But the real burn for the poor guy was when his girlfriend couldn’t help but quip, ‘your phone is the worst piece of shit!’ Ouch. I can’t image how that made Samsung feel.

That’s why Samsung doesn’t seem to happy about Nokia India’s ‘Blown Away By Lumia’ campaign. They could possibly have digested ‘My Samsung Galaxy got blown away’ but the ‘your phone is a piece of shit’ endorsement in a Nokia video probably did it for them. Infact Samsung got so hot under the collar that they called the whole campaign ‘unethical‘. They seem to think that Nokia was targeting their devices, but a quick look at Nokia India’s YouTube channel shows that the campaign covered devices from across the spectrum. Infact, the only reason you see more Samsung devices is because in the changed world order Samsung is commanding a greater marketshare and thus by sheer logic more people on the street will be carrying a Samsung device than a BlackBerry, HTC or an iPhone.

For their part Nokia says Nielsen validated the campaign and that the Lumia 800 emerged as a clear winner by winning 94% of the total 104 challenges timed by Nielsen. Samsung been pretty aggressive in the past with its Omnia Taxis, and Nokia is only just starting to move away from its ‘we’ll let our products to the talking’ stance and get aggressive. I’d like to see them take it up a notch.

Fun times ahead.

Microsoft Office Suite Now Available For Symbian – Word, Powerpoint & Excel

Vaibhav Sharma — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:25:10 +0000

Earlier this year Microsoft’s OneNote, Lync 2010, Document Connection and PowerPoint Broadcast became available for Symbian devices. This was part of Nokia and Microsoft’s broader alliance in which Microsoft was to bring its productivity apps to Symbian. For non enterprise users, the aforementioned apps were not that important, but if you own a Nokia 701, Nokia 700, Nokia 603, Nokia E7, Nokia X7, Nokia C7, Nokia Oro, or Nokia C6-01, you’ll be glad to know that Word, Excel and Powerpoint are now available for your device.

The Microsoft Office Suite is available via the Nokia Software Update tool on your smartphone, or by connecting your phone to the Nokia Suite on your PC. The apps should also show up on the Nokia Store in a few weeks.

From Nokia Conversations:

Word mobile, you can save or send documents while preserving tables, SmartArt and charts, or the pinch/zoom functionality to easily view and edit documents. In PowerPoint mobile, you can edit presentation texts and speaker notes, or use the Outline view to quickly browse through slides. With Excel mobile, you can create charts, or insert formulae and view rich data and charts from anywhere.

If you have a Nokia N8, Nokia E6 or Nokia 500, you are out of luck for now, and Nokia is promising an update on availability soon. The Nokia 808 PureView will come pre-loaded with the app suite.

The advantage of having official Microsoft Office apps is multifold. First, they are free. Second, compatibility is ensured, and there is no chance that the formatting of a document will be ruined just because you edited it on the phone. Third, the level of functionality that you have expect from these apps should be higher than third party alternatives.

With this release Symbian becomes the first rival platform where Microsoft has itself gone ahead and built an Office client for. Symbian may be on its way out, but with apps like these its showing that there seems to be more than a spark left in it.

How I Got Pulled Into Apple’s Ecosystem & Why Soon It’ll Be Too Late To Get Out

Vaibhav Sharma — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 17:57:10 +0000

The real magic in Apple’s products isn’t that they are great looking or that they come with great features, the real steal is in the fact that each one makes you want to buy the next one, across product lines. Just like iPods sold Macs back in the day, today iPhones sell iPads and vice-versa. Talking to a friend yesterday I realised that I have (un)knowingly become completely entrenched in Apple’s world. At the time of writing this I own a MacBook Pro, an iPad 2, an iPhone 4S and an Apple TV. This did not happen overnight and I am concerned.

The Move To A Mac

I switched from a Windows laptop (an HP tablet PC) to a Macbook in 2009 and very soon I grew to absolutely love it. Infact working on a Windows machine started turning into a not so pleasant idea. With this my perception of Apple as a brand changed. It went from being a company that had its set of fans that at times mindlessly raved about it, to one I actually started paying more and more attention to. This was of course after the introduction of the iPhone, and looking at the first few iterations I had decided that there was no way I was switching to one.

So for the next year or so, I happily used a Mac along with a Symbian/Maemo/Android device. Then the iPad came along. My first reaction to it was the exact same one that I had to the iPhone – too restricted, no multitasking and so on. However, iOS 4 came along and with it came multitasking. I took a long hard look at the iPad and decided that I wanted one, and what clinched it for me was the fact the that even if I needed to do a task necessary for a ‘power user’, then I’d have my smartphone which wasn’t shackled one bit.

With that I took a keen liking to the iPad, and slowly but surely its limitations became a less of an annoyance. The quality of apps and the general utility of the device was worth the sacrifice. Then the iPad 2 came along, so did Airplay and while picking up the iPad 2, I also got an Apple TV. Wirelessly showing off photos and videos did sound very cool, and 99$ wasn’t a huge deal. With iOS 5 Airplay really improved, more and more apps started taking advantage of it and wireless mirroring meant that if you could see it on the iPad, you could see it on the TV.

An iPad Sells An iPhone

By the end of 2011, I had been using Apple devices for 3 years, iOS for the better part of 2. Some things still bothered me, but I had become used to the Apple way of things. Yet, till this time I had never used an iPhone as a primary device. This is where’s Apple’s mastery at making one product sell another comes in. It was because I had been using an iPad, I was ready to switch to an iPhone. For all the limitations of iTunes, one thing that works great is wireless sync. Being able to put music, photos, video etc onto the iPhone or even back it up wirelessly is fantastic. The iPhone or iPad could be anywhere in the house and you’d still be able to act as if it is plugged into the computer.

Another huge draw was the fact that a ton of quality ‘paid for’ apps were already waiting for me. Spending money on the same apps on Android/Windows Phone/Symbian and then on iOS for the iPad didn’t make much sense, yes I could have the best of both worlds, but was that so necessary?

The fact that you can buy an app on the iPad and in more cases than not it’ll automatically be downloaded on your iPhone too, for free, makes a lot of psychological difference. E.g. I recently bought the iPhoto for iOS app on the iPad – it is 5$, but when you see it on the iPhone too its almost like you got 50% off, or got it in a buy 1 get 1 scheme. This definitely encourages you to buy more apps, the knowledge that two device will be benefitting from a single purchase lets you pull the trigger much easier. This means that slowly you’ll come to a point where you’ll have a substantial amount of money invested in that platform.
All my Apple devices talk to each other seamlessly. Everything is wireless and it involved no setting up whatsoever. Now the iPhone 4S isn’t the only phone I use, for the sake of keeping current I use the Galaxy S2 too and carry a Lumia 800 along most of the time for the freshness of Windows Phone. But if whenever I need to copy music and pictures, I need to get the USB cable out. I cannot seamlessly show photos on the TV and DLNA is still hit and miss for the common man. All of this pushes me into the Apple ecosystem more and more.

What can change this status-quo?

There isn’t a compelling reason to switch to an Android tablet, and Android in general is too fragmented to create such an ecosystem. Plus there is no Android on the PC. The only people who can pull this off are Nokia and Microsoft.

But there are a few fundamental things they need to do first. The vision is there – an Xbox instead of the Apple TV, Xbox live/Skydrive instead of iCloud, Windows 8 phones and tablets in sync, and a lovely Windows 8 powered laptop. But will they be able to make everything so seamless? Instead of keeping the phone and tablet in sync with each other, Microsoft has decided to keep the tablet and the PC in sync. Something Apple has avoided, Lion looks nothing like iOS on the iPad, yes some features are inspired by it, but that’s it.

What this means is that apps in all probability the apps that you buy once from the Windows Store on the PC should automatically become available on the Windows 8 tablet as well. But this will only happen if they are Metro (ARM compatible) apps. The usual x86 apps won’t work on ARM tablets and that’s where the seamless chain is broken, ergo less incentive for the users to put money down in your ecosystem. (Yes there will probably be X86 tablets also, but I don’t see Nokia doing one).

Next, very few apps will work across both the tablet and phone, and because the developer will have had to do some work to optimse for each; I doubt he’d be willing to offer an iOS like 2 for 1 deal.

Next we need an AirPlay equivalent, doesn’t matter if its DLNA based or ABCD based, it should have an easy to remember name and be bulletproof. Wireless syncing across all devices is a must, and I would go so far as to add WIFI direct capabilities as well. Make it extra seamless.

The problem is that time is really running out. The next wave of retina display powered MacBooks will really begin to impact the Windows laptop market. Macs are no longer the more expensive option, the iPad is the best value for money tablet around and the iPhone isn’t showing signs of a slowing down. All of this puts a lot of pressure on Windows 8. Nokia World 2012 happens end of September, so this means we’ll have not only the Windows 8 release for tablets and PC’s, but also Windows Phone 8 in Q4. If they don’t have an answer to this Borg like ecosystem that just keeps sucking you in, starting the end of this year, it won’t matter what they do in 2014.

The outlook is bright, there are a few niggles here and there, but the bigger picture isn’t bleak. Time to deliver.

Almost forgot – Nokia, if your Nokia World 2012 flagships don’t have an a retina like display for both the phone and possible tablet, don’t bother.

Nokia Maps Go 3D – The Kind You Need 3D Glasses For

Vaibhav Sharma — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:08:00 +0000

Nokia Maps for the web went 3D a while ago, and the experience was fantastic. You could do a fly by over a ton of cities around the world, and the service was so good that CNN used it to show the route for the royal wedding. But the Maps team isn’t content on resting on their laurels and has activated a new stereoscopic 3D to make those maps really pop. This means that you’ll probably need to hunt for that long forgotten red-blue 3D glasses, which our friends at Unleash The Phones say is definitely worth the effort.

I haven’t been able to try the new mode out yet, my long forgotten pair of 3D glasses wasn’t up to the task. I am told that the glasses you use has a huge barring on your experience, so look for your best pair and let us know what you think. To activate the 3D mode, just click the glasses on the top right-hand corner on the webpage.

Meanwhile, a huge development for Nokia Maps mobile was the ability to use voice navigation on your iOS or Android device as well. Its is restricted to walk navigation for now, but your can get actual voice navigation for free on your iPhone or Android powered device for free, all via Nokia’s HTML5 magic. You are asked to download a 2MB set of voice files upfront and once your are on your way, its just like using Nokia Maps on a Nokia device.

[via: Unleash The Phones]

Rumour That Makes Sense: ‘Subset’ of Apollo Coming To All Windows Phones

Vaibhav Sharma — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:47:05 +0000

I don’t like to indulge in rumour mongering, but every once a while something comes along that actually makes sense. Long time Microsoft ‘leaker’ MS Nerd is apparently exiting ‘the game’ in a little over a month and has offered to answer all sorts of questions about Microsoft. A key takeaway has from the Q&A is that a subset of Apollo is indeed in the pipeline for older Windows Phones.

Whether Apollo (the next big update to Windows Phone) will be coming to older devices has been a burning question these few past months as the update will not only bring key hardware changes, but loads on the software side will improve too. While things like high resolution screens, multi core processors will obviously only be available when you buy a new device, some highly anticipated software improvements could make Windows Phone far more enjoyable for existing users.

When asked about Apollo for older devices:

Yes, all current Windows Phones will receive a subset of Apollo. The carriers are the primary obstacle in the US. I hear Microsoft is pushing hard for a Mango-like delivery schedule, as are Nokia & HTC. Some Apollo features will be exclusive to the 3rd-gen devices expected to be released this fall on the MSM8960 platform.

That makes 100% sense. While this doesn’t exactly mean ‘OMG yes, the full fledged Apollo is coming to my Lumia 800 or xxx device!’, Windows Phone users should be happy to know they will not completely bitting the dust when Apollo devices come out in Q4 this year. Microsoft is keeping Apollo close to the chest for now, so we don’t know what exactly is coming – but I sure hope some of these improvements have been incorporated and judging by the Pocket Now Apollo leak, they have been.

Some improvements that I am really looking forward to are app to app communication (e.g. you can directly jump to Nokia Drive from Nokia Maps when you want to navigate and not have to perform the search again), native code support for better performing apps which will hopefully kill the splash screen that every app launch entails. Then there is deep Skype integration, BitLocker support and a ton of things we don’t know about.

So even if the full Apollo update doesn’t come to older devices (e.g. stuff like BitLocker encryption requires different hardware) things like app to app communication, native code etc, alone should be enough.

The reason I am confident that old devices will not be left in the dark ages is simple – Nokia and Microsoft are spending way too much money on promoting the current crop of Lumia devices to let users of these devices become disgruntled 6 months later. The Lumia 900 has been publicly called AT&T’s hero phone by AT&T itself, and after a multi million dollar campaign a hero phone that sells with a 2 year contract simply cannot be ignored.

Are there any plans of making the WP more “open” in Apollo? Like enabling USB connection, using it with Linux, more personnalisation (setting default apps)? Do you have any information on this? What is Nokia’s role in designing the WP8?

Yes. For instance, WP becomes a “true Microsoft platform”, like the Xbox & WoA(8) & you’ll see Windows Phone Companion in lieu of Zune desktop client.

Nokia’s role is in defining chipset support (beyond Qualcomm), designing the camera-to-software interaction model, antenna & battery design, languages & regional services, etc.

We’ll know more about Apollo in the coming months, possibly E3 (June 5-7, 2012) if Ms Nerd’s best guess turns out to be accurate. But if you are planning on investing in the Lumia 900 or any other Windows Phone, it seems the thought of missing out on the Apollo action should not be such a huge worry.

On a side note, the Reddit thread is an interesting read if you are interested in what Microsoft will be upto in the next months/years – tablets, desktop and Windows Phone.

Nokia Takes The Lumia 900 To The Extreme: Free Running, Skateboarding & BMXing

Vaibhav Sharma — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:46:28 +0000

At the Mobile World Congres in Barcelona, Nokia invited three exceptional athletes in the Extreme Sports world – BMX rider James Ivett, skateboarder Jed Cullen and freerunner Pip Andersen to take the just announced Lumia 900 to the extreme. The result is three amazing videos of them skating, riding and running around Barcelona, all the whilst using the Lumia 900 as their goto device.

Some of the functionality featured in the videos includes group messaging, social networking sharing, bing translate, Nokia Mix radio and the biggest draw of them all, Nokia Maps!

First up is Jed Cullen of http://realskateboards.com/ skateboarding through the streets of Barcelona.

Next is Pip Andersen of http://www.piptrix.com/ and http://www.youtube.com/user/piptrix with a breathtaking display of free running.

Finally we have BMXer, James Ivett of http://vimeo.com/bstoked.

If these videos have inspired you to undertake some extreme action of your own, Nokia Connects should be able to hook you up with a trial Lumia device. Get in touch with them here.

Nokia World 2012 Shifts To Helsinki: September 25-26

Vaibhav Sharma — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:10:35 +0000

London had become the defacto destination for the annual Nokia World event after it took place at the same venue, both in 2010 and 2011. However, change is afoot at Nokia and Nokia Conversations has just revealed that Nokia World 2012 will take place in Helsinki this year, on September 25-26.

(Nokia House, Espoo)

This is the first time that the annual extravaganza will happen on Nokia’s home turf, Finland. It was at Nokia World ’11 that Stephen Elop revealed the Lumia series, calling them the ‘first real Windows Phones’ but it will be Nokia World 2012 where we’ll see the first real ‘Nokia Windows Phones’. The Nokia-Microsoft partnership was announced one year ago and by September 2012 Nokia would have had a good 18 months to work with Microsoft to bring a distinct Nokia flavour to their devices.

The second half of the year is also the rumored time frame for the next version of Windows Phone, Apollo. Apollo is the version that is rumoured to bring hi-res screens, multi core processors, NFC and all the other much awaited functionality to Redmond’s OS. I have no doubt that we’ll be seeing Nokia Apollo devices at Nokia World 2012 making it the most exciting and important Nokia World, yet.

The event website has just been launched and is understandably a little thin on details, but you can check it out anyway. The event will take place at the Helsinki Exhibition & Convention Centre,

If you are planning to make the trip, the Helsinki weather in September is still fairly pleasant with about 7 hours of daylight.

Video Capture: Nokia 808 PureView v iPhone 4S

Vaibhav Sharma — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:27:48 +0000

So far I’ve published unedited full resolution photos from the 808 PureView’s 41 Megapixel sensor, I have also published a ton of photos with the PureView mode engaged, but now its time we turn our attention to its video capture abilities, after all this is the first Nokia to capture videos in full 1080p HD resolution at 30 frames a second.

A few days before the 808 reveal, Nokia’s camera guru Damien Dinning tweeted “when we do 1080, we’ll do it like no other”. It is clear that they have, the advantages of using PureView are evident in video capture as well. You get 4x zoom while recording 1080p video, which goes upto 6x in 720p and a staggering 12x should you choose to shoot in 360p. We also get improved low light performance due to the larger sensor.

Further, most manufacturers like Samsung and even Apple crop frames when shooting in 1080p so that the processor can handle the load, however even in 1080p the 808 PureView gives users the same wide field of view as the 720p. But what I am most excited about is what Nokia calls ‘Nokia Rich Recording’. Audio plays a huge role in how pleasing the 1080p video is, and continuing in the tradition of the N8, it captures stereo sound.

What is improved is that the 808 can record upto 140-145 db, which is 4 times louder than conventional mics, most phones according to Nokia max out at 110 db. Nokia Rich Recording also lets the 808 record very low frequencies also without any distortion. This means that you will get great sound in your videos irrespective of the fact whether you are recording loud music at a concert or birds chirping in the park. I

As a quick test, I shot the exact same video with the iPhone 4S, widely regarded as the best 1080p capable cameraphone, and the 808 PureView. You’ll notice a wider angle with the 808, better sound and colour reproduction. I didn’t do a zoom comparison as the iPhone cannot zoom while shooting video.

(I suggest watching the video in full HD)

Stay tuned for more video samples from the 808 PureView. What do you think?

Note: The video above was taken with a prototype PureView 808 and Nokia was very clear that the camera firmware was in no way final and that improvements across the board, including in video capture will be made before the device ships.

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