Faaborg's Tech Views

A short encounter with the Microsoft Surface RT

2012-12-23T09:57:00.003+01:00

I had a chance over the last two days to spend some real life time with the Microsoft Surface RT. I got a good feel for the product and pairing that with what I know about Windows 8 I feel confident enough to write up some impressions.

The Surface is a PC, which is impressive considering what is inside. It’s definitely not any normal PC, but a Windows PC nonetheless. On top of that I must say it is the best notebook I have ever used. It’s light, it has a touch screen, it makes no noise and it runs for about 10 hours, what more can you ask for. Oh, and it runs the latest version of Windows.

Playing around with the Surface I find myself seeing Windows 8 in a new light. I have been using Windows 8 primary with a mouse and no touch screen. I had an idea of what Windows 8 would feel like on a touch screen, since I have had short encounters with other Windows 8 touch units. The Surface makes it all come together, and on it Windows 8 just makes perfect sense.

The Surface I had access to came with the TouchCover. The TouchCover is the perfect accessory for the Surface. I found myself using it just as much for typing as flipped to the back, using the Surface in stable mode. Coming from the iPad with the Ultra-thin Logitech keyboard, that is a new feeling. I almost never unhook the iPad from the keyboard, but leave it connected and docked. Using the Surface, the fact that the TouchCover is connected in the way it is, turning from PC mode to tablet mode is so easy that I find myself doing it constantly with no effort.

Talking about the TouchCover, it is surprisingly good to type on. I had feared that it would be too close to typing on a screen and that I would just hate it. It’s not. It’s no way as good as a real keyboard, but so much better than typing on the screen. I have not tried the TypeCover, but I’m sure I would like that a lot better. I’m not sure that I would welcome the added weight and thickness. The Surface is no lightweight. It feels heavier than the iPad, because the unit is long and not square as the iPad. This does change when adding the TouchCover because the Ultra-thin keyboard is heavy compared to the TouchCover.

I have used Windows 8 on Atom and Core2 Duo platforms and the ‘Metro’ apps an equally slow on Windows RT as well. It seems somehow that apps built for Windows 8 UI are just slow. Slow to start, slow to refresh, slow to draw information from the net, slow to reload when left for some other app, and so on. The processor running the show seems to make no difference. Tegra3, Atom, Core none of them does the job very well. The only processor type I have not tried for a longer time period I the Core iX series, but it seems excessive that basic apps like the Windows 8 apps should need that much power to run well.

All in all I came away very impressed by the Surface. I truly love the form factor, the screen, the TouchCover and Windows RT is impressive. I would, if I had more time with the Surface, find the current lack of apps annoying, but I know that it’s just a question of time. There is lots of new apps in the Windows Store every day, and more and more big apps are getting Windows 8 versions. The Surface has a lot to offer, and it does many of the things that the iPad does not, but for me it does offer up one major problem.

I would feel just weird dragging along both a work notebook and a Surface. They are just too similar that it would seems pointless. Carrying an iPad along with a work PC seems okay, since they solve very different tasks. If I ever got myself a Surface I would want to use as my only PC. It’s powerful enough to do the tasks, it’s flexible enough to play the role, and it has Office to back it all up. I truly want the Microsoft Surface RT.

P.S. This post in typed out on the TouchCover and the experience is really okay.

Smartphone future - mobile OS or mobile manufacturer

2012-11-04T18:05:00.000+01:00

Looking at what has been going on over the last 6 to 8 months, a picture seems to be forming about the smartphone markets future. Just a year ago everybody where talking about the three part mobile OS race, it now seem that everybody should be talking about the three part phone manufacture race. A year ago there was Apple on the one side and Samsung, Motorola, HTC, LG and ZTE on the other side. This is changing and changing rapidly. Motorola, HTC, LG and ZTE are not gone, but on the other side they do not sell anything like the units of Apple and Samsung.

Motorola never really got into the smartphone race. They had every chance. First they got a deal with Google to launch Google’s tablet series, and later when Google ended up buying them. Google decision not to build on the Motorola potential, will be the death of them.

HTC had a wonderful run back in the beginning of 2011. But they got greedy and customers jumped ship. They came back in a big way with the One series, but Samsung had had time to scoop up HTC customers and HTC could not get them back. HTC is now in free fall, and trying to regain some momentum by returning to the late 2011 dayes by pumping out new phones. I do not see how that is going to help anything.

LG was on the way out of phones all together, but landed a deal with Google to make it’s latest Nexus phone. LG never had it in them to build a good smartphone, and the first reactions to the Nexus 4 seems to be telling the same story.

ZTE, and Huawei, are still wildcards. They are big in their local markets, but they are having a hard time making it in Europe and the US, mainly due to Samsung’s success. I expect that they will continue to make large dents in the Android market, but only on their home turf.

So where does that leave the Smartphone market? Apple is not moving aside. As long as consumers keep loving the brand and the iOS user experience, Apple will have a long and very profitable run. Samsung seems to be the Android market by now, and the only company that can match Apple in units sold. The huge success of the Galaxy S III and the Note II just seems to have no end.

Is Microsoft a contender? They want and need to make the Windows 8/Windows Phone 8 ecosystem popular. I’m sure that Windows 8 will do okay, but Windows Phone 8 is in trouble even before it’s really launched. Microsoft has HTC, Nokia and Samsung backing WP8. Nokia has the most units out there, with 3 models. HTC has two and Samsung has made one model.

Nokia’s future depends on WP8 taking off, and it’s my personal belief that they are not going to make it. They do have the best WP8 phone out there, in my opinion. Nokia’s problem is that in the most important market, the US, they just do not have the brand to pull through. HTC, by now, is almost as dependent on the success of WP8 as Nokia. They have a brand, also in the US, and very good phones It makes sense for Microsoft to back them as much, or even more, as Nokia. Samsung is in Windows Phone just to be there. They do not need the business in the same way Nokia and HTC does. It also shows on the phone. It’s in no way as innovative as the others.

Microsoft has to make WP8 break into the dual digits market share through the sales of Nokia and HTC. It’s going to be a long and expensive drive. Nokia will not have the money for this, unless Microsoft gives them more or end up buying them. I don’t see that happening. HTC might have the money to do it, but I don’t belive they have the guts to stay in there. They will need to start making money long before WP8 will start bringing it in.

This leaves Microsoft itself. The Nokia/HTC situation I just described above leads me to think that there just might something to the rumors about Microsoft doing a Surface Phone. It makes a lot of sense. Buying Nokia is too much of a hassle and as hard as it might sound I think what Microsoft is planning to do is wait. They will put out it’s own phone and then buy up the bits of Nokia that adds value, ones Nokia files for bankruptcy.

I believe that in another 12 months we will not be talking about a three mobile OS race, but about the Apple, Samsung and Microsoft smartphone race.

Nokia - It's hard to keep smiling

2012-10-07T14:42:00.000+02:00

I have always been a huge Nokia fan. The first phone I owned was a Nokia 1011. Nokia simply knew how to build a great phone. They still do. Nokia’s problem has always been in software. That was why I saluted Nokia’s choice to partner up with Microsoft and bringing Windows Phone in as Nokia’s primary smartphone OS. They spend 8 months developing apps, helping Microsoft with maps, and designing a series of groundbreaking phones with the Lumia models.

Sadly Nokia’s Lumia series never gained any real momentum. Why this is I do not have the insights to fully speculate about. My guess is that the Nokia and Microsoft partnership ran into trouble shortly after the Lumia series launch and that whatever the disagreement was about it never got settle. Nokia seemed very alone in pushing Windows Phone. It became clear why Microsoft had held back, when they announced Windows Phone 8. I stayed on Nokia’s side even then and wrote in a comment on Google+ that the platform change would not hurt Nokia’s Windows Phone 7 sales that much. I still do think that it did not hurt them that much. The real damage was that sales were so low that it was hard to tell the difference.

I would love to still be on Nokia’s side. The new Lumia models look to be the best of the new Windows Phone 8 devices out there. But Nokia is in trouble, and in more ways than one. First they lost the full backing of Microsoft. Now they have to sell their headquarters to bring in cash, and on top of that Nokia’s smartphone marketing director is leaving. That is not all – this week it became known that Nokia is being dumped by Denmark’s largest telecom TDC. The reason is said to be Nokia’s lack of marketing funds to push Windows Phone. I know that Denmark is not a very large market, but that just underlines the trouble Nokia is in. A small market like Denmark should not require a very large sum to support.

Many would say that the signs have been there for a very long time, but even I am now beginning to believe that this might not end well. Nokia is in trouble, and I believe from what I’m seeing that they are in the kind of trouble that you do not survive. There is nothing that I would like more than to see Nokia pull through this, but without the full backing and marketing machine of Microsoft, I just do not see that happening.

Who is to blame for this? I’m not sure. I believe that both Nokia and Microsoft have a part in this. It’s just very hard to blame Microsoft for wanting to secure the success of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Nokia did not deliver on Windows Phone 7. They did not sell the number of phones Microsoft needed and because of that Microsoft partner up with HTC, who also badly needed a strong partner. So even if the Nokia Microsoft marriage seems like a deal made in heaven, it just wasn’t meant to be. Nokia it’s been great knowing you.

Post referenced above (all in Danish)
Microsoft og Nokia samarbejdet - Det helt rigtige valg
Nokia og Microsoft-samarbejdet fejrer 1 års dag – et kig på hvad der er sket
Er Nokia døende, eller er der stadig håb?

Galaxy Note ICS upgrade - TouchWiz or CyanogenMod

2012-03-21T11:54:00.000+01:00

Galaxy Note running CyanogenMod

We finally saw what Samsung are going to offer up for their high-end SmartPhones when it comes to Android 4.0 (ICS), last week when they send out the update for Galaxy S II. Even though I’m disappointed I can’t say that I blame them for the way they have gone about incorporating TouchWiz on to ICS. It gives the millions of Galaxy S II users an ICS upgrade without changing the experience they had before. Only a small group of hardcore Android users are going to care, and they are rooting the Galaxy S II and loading CyanogenMod CM9 on it anyway.

As a Galaxy Note user I look at the Galaxy S II ICS update and hope that Samsung are going to stick with what they have say so many times already. The Galaxy Note is not a phone and not a tablet. Personally I don’t like the ‘phablet’ name, but if Samsung is serious about the Galaxy Note being something new, I hope that is reflected in the ICS update coming in just a few weeks. ICS have both a mobile and a tablet mode build in, one could hope that Samsung would take this upgrade just that one step further. If Samsung ends up letting me down on the ICS update, and my money is on that they will, I’m going to be looking hard at what the CyanogenMod team is going to do for the Galaxy Note. I have been using the CM7 version on a HTC Desire and a Release Candidate CM9 on a LG Optimus 2X. Both bring out the absolute best in the two phones, and gives them both new life. I know that CyanogenMod are working on as CM9 port for the Galaxy Note, but it’s still in Alpha, and that got me thinking about what I would really like from ICS on the Galaxy Note.

Back when Android 4 was released I wrote about it, and I had this comment,

“… I had expected that a phone running Android 4, would have behaved a lot more like Honeycomb when used in landscape mode.”

I truly believe that the Galaxy Note have the potential to be the crossover device that bridge the gap between phones and tablets. With ICS the software now support the hardware in a way that makes it even more possible. I would love to be able to use the Galaxy Note as a real tablet when I had that need, and I it would be nice if apps optimized for tablets recognized the Galaxy Note as such.

CyanogenMod team, if you by any chance happen to read this, here is what I hope to get in CM9 for Galaxy Note. Full support for the S-pen in all apps. A custom setting that enables ICS tablet mode, then the Galaxy Note is in landscape mode. Support for external keyboards with selectable language layout. Full support of MHL output for connection of an external monitor. If this happens, either from Samsung or the CyanogenMod team, the Galaxy Note will be the perfect computing companion. A phone then used in one hand, a tablet when used with two hands, and a PC when docked a home or in the office.

Quad-core phones - Time for a paradigm shift

2012-03-04T23:39:00.000+01:00

Make a quad-core phone make sense with modular computing

Mobile World Congress 2012 brought us a very large amount of new products. Most of the high-end models were based on a quad-core processor, and all mid-range models used dual-core. The tech press is mostly impressed with the lineup from LG, HTC, Huawei and ZTE and I’m personally looking forward to spending more time with the HTC One X. So all should be well and good, right?

No, there is a large problem. The mobile tech world is more and more about specs. This has been coming for some time. When the dual-cores CPU for mobile was introduced nobody asked how it should be used. Everybody just loved the fact that their mobile now could have a dual-cores processor. Now we have quad-core processors, and still nobody is trying to explain to the customers what it supposed to do for them.

The evolution of the mobile market the last 1 - 2 years is starting to look a lot like the PC market did 4 years ago. The high-en models are so powerful that only games can manage to utilize all that power. No normal app has the need for quad-core processing power, and the manufactures have a hard time explaining to the customer why they should buy high-end model. The reaction from the customers back then was to buy Netbooks in large amounts.

If this is not too happen in mobile, company's like Samsung, HTC and LG needs to very quickly come up with something that make sense to the customer. Games are all well and good, but it’s not enough. There needs to be some type of app or user scenario that validates the quad-cores phones in the market place. It’s not something they have the time to figure out over the next 1 - 2 years. No, these very powerful phones are coming to a store near you in 2 - 4 months.

Last year I did a post on what I expected the processing power of a quad-core processor would be used for in a phone. I only did the post in Danish so I’ll list the highlights here.

Games
User interface enhancements
Video, photo and sound editing
Improved voice control
Modular computing

Some of these things need apps from third party developers and some relies on Google and improvements in Android. The last thing, modular computing, will only happened if somebody educates the customers and shows them how it’s done.

I’m not sure who that someone should be, but manufactures are going to lose the ability to sell high-end phones in maybe 1 - 2 years if the other things on my list do not succeed to move the market. I believe that the manufactures of Android phones are in a unique position to do something very different right now. Apple owns the tablet market, and Microsoft is about to eat up what is left of it. Microsoft and Apple is the only contenders in the desktop OS world and no new OS is about to change that. Android is growing in the mobile space and needs to do something new to keep growing.

Google should stop trying to make Android a tablet OS, if they really ever started, and focus on mobile. Introduce either a dual-boot system in Android, or use Chrome as a springboard to improve the modular computing experience. Google also need to work with accessory manufactures to build docks and keyboard/mouse solutions that make the transformation of your phone to a computer easy and not too expensive. This way Google with Android and the manufactures building the phones can look to expand where there is no competition. Make modular computing popular and quad-core phone will seem like a logic choice to the customers, and keep them asking for more.

Android and external keyboards - No luck if you are not from the US

2012-01-04T13:09:00.000+01:00

Google added the ability to connect a USB or Bluetooth keyboard to an Android device some versions back. They decided to include one and only one keyboard layout, the US QWERTY layout. It was up to the OEM’s to add more if they found it necessary. Not many did. This means that if you live outside the US and maybe Great Brittan, you are out of luck if you want to connect a local keyboard to your Android phone or tablet. Sure it will work, but none of the local characters will be there.

Asus did a lot of work to correct this on their Transformer and Transformer Prime. Samsung have local keyboard docks for their latest Galaxy Tab range, so they must have done some of the same work. Samsung did not decide to include that work on any of their phones, so if you own one of them, you again are out of luck. HTC have not included any local keyboard layouts in either their phones or the Flyer.

I do see, to some extent, the logic in leaving it to the OEM’s to include different keyboard layouts, that way they can make them fit only their own accessories and make more money. That does not explain why Google did not include sort of standard layout for the country's that's already supported by the standard touch keyboard. I’m not knowledgeable enough to know if this is hard to do, but I don’t see why it should be. This way Google would make sure that everybody that wanted an external keyboard would get at least a decent experience.

Android devices are very versatile devices, and can be put to use in a lot of different scenarios. This is what Android is all about. Leaving out the productivity scenario by not giving everybody who buys an Android device the possibility to connect their local keyboard seem just plain dumb. As the phone screen grows bigger and tablets finally get some traction, the need for an external keyboard will grow. Today if you want to use your latest Android Smartphone as your primary computing unit, and live outside the US, there is no option that I know of. There are some apps in the Market that does some of the work, and there is descriptions online on how to make your own keyboard map on a rooted phone or tablet, but it’s all way to much work for anybody normal. I just want to get myself a nice compact Bluetooth keyboard with my local characters, connect it and get to work.

I might be overlooking something and if anybody out there knows a solution to this problem, please do not hesitate to leave info in the comments. I’m interested in both free and commercial solutions.

The battle of the eco-system - The death of Android

2011-12-18T23:52:00.000+01:00

Google’s Android seems unstoppable right now. It’s the biggest mobile OS in the US and it just surpassed Symbian in India, a country where Nokia have reigned supreme for many years. It’s hard to imagine that this flight toward total market domination could crash and burn any time soon, but there are indications that Google could lose momentum in its fight to stay on top.

The first indication is the obvious one. Where Apple is keeping its, rather large, share of the mobile market with only three phones, Google has Android on hundreds of phone. So even if Android is the most used mobile OS in the world, it’s only due to the very large support from mobile phone manufacturers right now. Google will have to make sure that they stay happy with their choice of Android, and many of them do manufactur phones with others mobile OS’s.

The next two indications both come from what we have seen and heard about Andorid 4 (ICS). First installment is Android 4 as a mobile OS. Despite the fact that everybody that have tested it says it’s the best version of Android by far, they also state that it’s still not at easy to use as iOS. The learning curve is a lot steeper on Android and will discouraged a lot of users from picking Android as their next Smartphone OS. The other learned fact is that Google with Android 4 decided to focus on the mobile experience and leave the tablet part of the OS mostly like it was on Android 3.2 (Honeycomb). The reason this is bad for Google is because Android 3.2 never gained traction against the iPad, mainly because it’s maybe even harder to learn then Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), and that is not a good place to be. So where Apple is adding important new features in their latest release iOS 5.0. Google is still trying to fix the user experience with their release, Android 4.

Next up is the eco-system Google has to offer. Google has a mobile OS, a tablet OS and a desktop OS, just like Apple and Microsoft has. On top of the important three OS’s Google has an impressive amount of services. So what is wrong?

The OS’s
Microsoft has the biggest desktop OS, Apple has the biggest tablet OS, and Google has the biggest mobile OS. The problem is that Apple’s desktop OS is doing quite well, Microsoft is building its tablet OS on Windows, and nether of Google’s other OS’s is doing any business.

The services
Google has the biggest search engine, Apple has the biggest music and app store and Microsoft has the biggest gaming platform. The problem is that Apple either has, as good a service or hooks into Google’s service better than Google does and Microsoft owns the platform for cooperate use.

The future in the mobile space is going to be all about the eco-system. Not just in app, music, movie and book purchase, but also access to the content you created or bought. Here Google only have Android as a mobile OS to deliver this experience to the costumer. Apple has iOS that are a success on both the mobile and tablet platform, and they have MacOS the desktop OS of the second largest manufacturer of Personal Computers. Microsoft owns the desktop both for the consumer and the business user. They are soon launching Windows 8 that manage to tie together Windows, Xbox Live, Windows Phone and the Windows server platform.

If the future is all about the eco-system, Google is going to have a hard time explaining to their OEM’s why they should stay with Android. Logically none of them can get into the Apple eco-system, but most of them knows the Microsoft eco-system and could easily change. Some of them might even think that it’s better to try something new, and go with WebOS or something else.

The bottom line here is that Google, if they want to stay on top of the mobile OS game, also have to focus on the tablet and desktop experience. They need to get developers to make great apps for tablet Android, kind of like that Google is doing on ChromeOS. I know ChromeOS is dead in the water, but that might just be because it’s a little ahead of its time. They need to make sure that they deliver top-of-class integration into their own services, way better than Apple and Microsoft, and they have to make sure that they or third party developers deliver near perfect integration into the Microsoft server platform. They have to fix the first time user experience and update the UI to better guide the user, and they need to make sure that an Android user can easily get to music, movies and books without having to turn to Amazon and the Kindle Fire. Then Google will be able to stay on as the biggest in the mobile OS arena.

The Cloud vs. Mobile OS - App or HTML5

2011-11-28T10:58:00.001+01:00

HTML5 vs. local app

The future is in the Cloud. That’s what everybody has been saying for a long time. Some of this is here already. Google Apps and Microsoft Live are two of the biggest cloud based services and the ones closed tied to a mobile OS. The reason I focus in on the mobile OS is that this just might be where we will see most interesting collaboration between the client and the Cloud.

It was my belief that we would see a fairly quick move from the standard app and program to a HTML5 based app type. They would be easy to keep updated, customers would not have to update all the time, and the pricing model could be anything from full payment upfront to a pay per minute. There are services that are based in the Cloud, but on phones all of them seems to have versions running as an app. This is mainly due to two things, small screens and lack of full HTML5 support by the mobile browser. So they build a mini client for the Cloud based service. Most often you’ll find that the app will have only a small portion of the functions the browser based version have. This again is also primarily due to two things, screen resolution and processing power.

Faster processors and large screens with desktop like screen resolution is finding its way into our future Smartphones. The questions is will this new found power and space be used to bring better browsers with HTML5 support or to build better apps that will deliver full functionality of the Cloud service on to the phone? There is no doubt that both will happen, but will the new and better browsers on the coming Smartphones be used to run the cloud based HTML5 apps or will the native app grow and slowly turn into, not just a dumb client for the service, but a full featured version of the Cloud service?

I believe in the latter, and the reason for this is that a native app far better can harness the power and screen size of the target device. The native app will be able to check screen size, processing power, screen resolution and if any external devices are connected, and adapt to use all this. This something a HTML5 app do not have access to, it depends on the browser to present the user interface right. The native app can change depending on if the phone is used in landscape or portrait. It can detect if an external monitor is connected and again change the UI to fit the bigger screen. Apps like this will make the future Smartphones come alive as a productivity device in ways we have not seen yet and therefor set new standards for the way we work and play on Smartphones.

I’m certainly not declaring the Cloud dead for mobile users, but for the mobile user the Cloud in large parts will be used as a storage and sync place, and the creating and presentation of the information will happen in a intelligent app running locally on the smartphone.

Asus PadFone - Take two

2011-11-14T21:09:00.001+01:00

Asus PadFone

Since Asus went public with their lasted tablet concept, the PadFone, I have been thinking a lot about it. It was very hard to figure out that Asus wanted it to be, a phone or a tablet, since it had to run either Android 2.x or 3.x. The launch of Android 4 gives new life to the idea, since it is supposed to build the bridge between phone and tablet. We had a chance to get a good look at the mobile part of Android 4 when Samsung and Google launched the Galaxy Nexus, a little under a month ago. It will still be some weeks before we get the chance to see Android 4 running on a tablet, but I believe that it is possible to make a fairly good guess at how it will look.

What has been shown of the hardware so far, tells us that the design and weight of the PadFone is a good deal off the current standard. The iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and even Asus own Transformer Prime is sleeker and a lot more exciting to look at. This is something Asus has to be aware of and need to change before the launch sometime next year. The PadFone concept is even more apropirate today, than it was back when it was launched. Smartphones have evolved into super Smartphones with screen sizes that just get bigger. This is mostly for the better, but it does make is harder and harder to make simple phone calls. You could use a headset, but it is impractical and most people don’t want to. This is where the modular design of the PadFone fits perfectly.

I would suggest that Asus took the PadFone even further. Asus has to make sure that the PadFone docks in the Transformer Prime keyboard dock. This way The PadFone is not just at phone and a tablet, it would be a phone, tablet and a notebook. Android 4 makes this transformation possible. I expect that a device running Android 4 will be able to detect if an external screen is connected, no matter if it is a dock or through a cable. This detect will make it possible to change font size and icons to fit the screen being used. All newer super Smartphones will at a minimum have a HD displays, and all these pixels have to be used differently on a 5”, 10” or a 22” screen.

If this scaling of the user interface becomes possible with Android 4 I’m sure that new and exciting apps that take advantage of this will emerge. They will be able to transform them self’s from mobile apps, to tablet apps, to full blown programs that utilize connected keyboard and mouse. If Android 4 makes this possible and the Asus PadFone gets access to the Transformer Prime dock, then Asus will have the first device, In a, what I would expect to be, long row of devices, to offer this unique modular platform. This could be a 3 in one device that would offer the full benefit of all 3 product types without any compromise.

Goodbye Desire Z - And the death of the QWERTY Smartphone

2011-10-31T17:52:00.000+01:00

Lenovo LePhone was one example, we will see more of this in the future

I have finally put my trusted HTC Desire Z back in its box for good. It’s been there before, while I was testing other phones, but it always came back out when I was done. I've had the Desire Z for almost a year now, that is a long time for me, and I have loved using it. Typing on a touch screen have never been for me, I got more words wrong than right. The spell checker on most phones are good, but even that would not put my typing on the right track. Because of that I have always been drawn to QWERTY phones, and the HTC Desire Z has been my favorite of them all. So why am I retiring it now?

Over the last couple of moths I have been testing phones with 4” screen and above. That has changed my view on touch typing and not least the weight of a phone. I have never minded carrying a heavy phone before. The Desire Z checks in at 180g, but I knew that it was the priced you paid for the QWERTY keyboard. It was a productivity choice and I fairly quickly got used to the weight of it. The first 4” phone I tested was the LG Optimus 2X, and even if I never came to enjoy using the LG user interface, it was the turning point for me. The extra 0.3” made all the difference. It sounds strange that, this small amount of extra space can change the experience that much, but trust me it does. The size of the touch keys get just big enough that I actually god most words right. Now the spell checker more and more turned in to a problem for me, but that is whole other store. The Optimus 2X weighs 139g and is still a fairly heavy phone, but it’s a lot better and a lot thinner than the Desire Z. After the Optimus 2X, I tested the Motorola Atrix, and just recently the Samsung Galaxy Note. The Galaxy Note weights 168g so it’s still a heavy phone but with a screen at 5.3" it’s well worth it.

The QWERTY Smartphone has always been a niche product. Not many made it; HTC, Samsung and Motorola all have one or two models. Nokia had more, but focused on the same form factor as RIM (Blackberry). Both Nokia and RIM have lost a lot of ground the last year and HTC have no replacement for the Desire Z planed. Motorola still have QWERTY Smartphones, both in the Blackberry form factor and the slide out versions. Samsung also have some left in their lineup, but the numbers of models are fading. Everybody is focusing on touch screen Smartphones, and the size of those screens seems to grow every year. Google and Samsung just lunched the Google Nexus Prime, a 4.6” Android phone. HTC has the Sensation XL at 4.3” and the Titan at 4.6”. Samsung have them all beat with the Galaxy Note at 5.3”. So with the size of the touch screen growing and more and more consumers getting used to typing on the screen instead of on a hardware keyboard, the QWERTY Smartphone is dying.

At the same time, on the tablet market, we are seeing a movement in the opposite direction. One of the more prominent Android tablets the Transformer is build to dock with a keyboard. The next Android tablet from Asus the Transformer Prime, have the same dock. Even the iPad seems to be getting a hardware keyboard now. I’m not talking about the iPad 3, but about all the wireless keyboard docks being offered and sold for the iPad. The tablet offers ease of use and transportability, but at the price of no keyboard. To be productive on a tablet you need a keyboard. The iPad have been around for more than 2 years, but it’s only in the last 6 - 8 months the keyboard dock sales really have gone up. The honeymoon period of the tablet is over and now they have to prove them self's as real business tools. I predict the same thing is going to happend with large screen Smartphones.

The 4” Smartphones have been around for less than 12 months and the larger ones are just coming out now. As Smartphones with screens at and above 4.6” starts to enter the business arena, they will slowly move in on the tablet domain, since most people do not want to carry around 3 devices (phone, tablet, notebook) all the time. Large screen Smartphones can replace tablets for most tasks. They offer the same screen resolution, and with Android 4, will be running the same OS. At the same time the tablet with its keyboard dock will move in on the notebook domain. They will be running iOS, Android or most likely Windows 8. This move up the hierarchy will create a need for keyboard docks for the large screen Smartphone. Wireless keyboard for Smartphones is no news. They have been around for some time, but have spent 2 - 3 years in hibernation with the rise of the QWERTY Smartphones. Now the QWERTY Smartphone is fading away and I foresee a bright future for the foldable wireless keyboard. Add a MHL to HDMI link cable (or netbook dock) to the mix and the large screen Smartphone suddenly can morph from a phone, to a tablet, to a netbook type device for use on travel and vacation.

The QWERTY Smartphone might be dying, but I believe we have not seen the last of the hardware keyboard for Smartphones yet.

Android 4 - And the end of the tablet app

2011-10-23T21:12:00.000+02:00

Andy Rubin at AsiaD

When Andy Rubin at the Asian All Things D conference told Walt Mossberg that “I don’t think that there should be apps specifically for tablets”, I seriously wondered if he really had a grip on the tablet business. It started looking strange already earlier that day, when Google and Samsung showed of the ~~Nexus Prime~~ Galaxy Nexus and Android 4. I know that the presentation was planned together with Samsung and what they were showing was a phone, but at the same time Google was showing off Android 4, the Android version that was to pull Gingerbread and Honeycomb together, and there was no mention of any tablet functions or apps. I wonder about this a little more in my post, Google Android 4 - A bit of a cold shower.

Thinking a bit more about it over the weekend I started to think that Andy maybe did get it after all, and that his vision of how a mobile OS should be, could be the very right thing. If I’m right about where Google is taking Android, it will also explain why they seemed to avoid answering questions about tablets. Here is how I see it.

The OS has to make sure that it will run one any type of device, it being a phone with a QVGA screen or a tablet with full HD resolution. It has to make sure that the UI works on every screen size from 2.5” all the way up to 10.1” or more. The OS has to be written in a way so the developer can just build an app and it will run on all the above mentioned platforms. In other words, Android makes sure that all apps work on both phones and tablets, and that freedom is not found on any other platform out there.

So does that mean that we will never see a tablet app ever again on Android? Nope, but you will not find the app under the HD section in Android Market. There is only one version of any app, but the app can choose to work differently depending on screen size and resolution. I’m not a developer, so I cannot be sure, but I’ll bet that there in the Android 4 SDK is a way to find out the resolution and screen size of the unit running you app. That way Google puts the design choice in the hands of the developer and do not try to force any hands. This also makes sure that hardware designs can be very flexible, and the company building a device can be free to setup screen size and resolution any way they want it. All this freedom will seem a little daunting to start with, but when developers find out that they need only manage one source code for all Android devices I’m sure that we will start to see apps that work very differently on phones and tablets.

If I’m right you will never have to worry about an app being tablet compatible, or if you will have to buy your favorite app again in a tablet version if you buy yourself an Android tablet. I hope I’m right and I hope that we will see Google show the way for other developers by updating all there apps so they react according to screen size and resolution. Andy you said it you self, there is no need for tablet specific apps, and I agree, but there is a need for apps to change depending on screen size and screen resolution. Google please start updating.

Back in June I looked at Android as a tablet OS and concluded that it was not ready. The post is in Danish, but here is a Google Translation, Status on Android as a Tablet OS.

Google Android 4 - A bit of a cold shower

2011-10-21T17:26:00.001+02:00

Expectations were high when I sat down to watch Google’s presentation of Android 4, Ice Cream Sandwich. The rumor mill has been going wild with thoughts on what Google had decided to include in this latest update. I for one was hoping for most of the ideas to come true. And it was a very impressing presentation Google did, with Samsung and the Samsung build ~~Nexus Prime~~ Galaxy Nexus. There has obviously been put a big effort in to enhancing the overall usability of Android, for the mobile user. All of the new features made perfect sense when one thinks about it. None the less I felt more than a little cheated. Google had used all it effort to build the perfect Smartphone OS, but left tablet users out to dry. I will agree that Honeycomb (Android 3.x) is an okay platform for a tablet OS, and with the added features and the streamlining of the UI in Android 4, Google has a pretty decent tablet OS. I just expected so much more, both on the phone and for the tablet.

~~Nexus Prime~~ Galaxy Nexus will set the standard for all coming Smartphones, with its 4.6" screen and 1280x720 resolution. On top of that it packs a dual-core 1.5 GHz CPU. The screen resolution is on par with an average 15" notebook and even if the ARM processor is not as powerful as your average netbook, it's damn close. Asus just pulled the covers of its successor to the EeePad Transformer, the Transformer Prime. It's build on the Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core chipset. It’s a chipset with processing power equal to Intel's Atom series. The Transformer Prime is going to be thinner than the iPad 2 and come with a keyboard docking option like the original Transformer. I think that clearly shows where the tables are going and type of scenarios they will be used in. It's my believe that the mobile phone is slowly working its way into the tablet space and that tablets will turn into ultra-flexible notebooks. I had expected Google to be more aware of this and to support this, a lot more in Android 4.

Android as we know it today, Gingerbread (2.x) for mobile and Honeycomb (3.x) for tablets, is primary a consuming OS. With that I mean that it does best is to show you something. Show you movies, pictures, websites, social networks, news, book and play some music. If you want to create anything, that being anything from small tasks like writing an email or bigger things like editing a movie, Android often falls short. There are simple apps that help you do something’s, but the limitations in the touch interface, and the lack of professional apps, does make it real hard to be creative on Android.

So what is it I’m looking for? Google seems to think that there is no need for tablet centric apps for their own services, and they keep putting out HTML5 frontends for us to use. With that in mind the least Google could have done was to give the user access to a full browser. When future Smartphones will have screen resolutions like a notebook and tablets more and more will be used docked to some kind of keyboard and have the processing power of a notebook, including a full Internet browser based on Chrome, in Android 4, seems like an obvious choice. Secondly I had expected that a phone running Android 4, would have behaved a lot more like Honeycomb when used in landscape mode. I had hoped for a more tablet centric versions of Gmail, Calendar and Contacts, on phones used in landscape. The resolution is there for it. Lastly I was waiting for a way better use of the MHL port, and an adjustable UI based the use of that port. I’m sure we do not have to wait long before we see the first phone based on a quad-core CPU, and with that we will be carrying around PC processing power in our pockets. Connect a phone like that to an external monitor and a wireless keyboard, and you have a full blown notebook. Android should be able to support this scenario. The need to make the UI bigger as the screen resolution goes up is obvious, but it’s just too bad that this nice high resolution cannot be utilized when connected to a bigger screen.

So does that mean that Android 4 is a total disappointment? No that not the way I see it, but I could be afraid of that Google, with their focus on the mobile part of the market, will end up cutting them self out of from the very lucrative business market, and there by leaving the door wide open for Microsoft and Windows 8. It would be too bad, since Google fairly easy could set Android up as real opponent to Windows 8 on the coming business minded tablets, and a little competition is never a bad thing. Windows 8 is not due until sometime next year, and Google, of course have time to release a new version of Android to address all this.

For the time being we can look forward to our new Android Smartphone being even smarter, and hope that Google sees the opportunity of growing far beyond the mobile market, by merging Android a lot more with ChromeOS.

Samsung Galaxy Note - What makes this Galaxy different

2011-10-19T18:26:00.000+02:00

Samsung Galaxy Note

As some of you might have noticed, I have gotten my hands on a Samsung Galaxy Note, and have been using it for some days now. This post will not be a real review, the reason being that the unit I’m testing is a sample and the software is not a final version. I will instead take a look at what makes the Galaxy Note different from the rest out there and talk about different usages scenarios. That said, I must say that for a sample the build quality is impressing, and the same goes for the software. There is things that need to be fixed, but all things considered its surprisingly close to, what I would suspect is, the final experience.

Okay let’s get to it. I’m sure that there is one or two questions that is on everybody mind, they were on mine anyway. The first one is, is the Galaxy Note a phone or a tablet. The Samsung Galaxy Note is very much a phone. Its build to be used as a phone and Samsung have used a lot of time, I would imagine, to setup the user interface so its looks and feels like what you know from the Galaxy S II, but more on that later. The second question, is it possible to use a unit with a 5,3” screen as a phone. Again, yes the Galaxy Note is a phone and is easily used as one. The design and the thinness of the unit secures that it fits in any pocket I have come across. The large footprint of the screen will make it more noticeable in a pants pocket, but it fits and it’s not uncomfortable to have in the pocket. Secondly its low weight adds to the comfort of carrying it in any pocket. It is a tat big holding to your ear and I’m sure that it looks a little funny, but it holds well in one hand and you can easily use it for this function. So to add it up. The Galaxy Note is a phone, a big phone I agree, but the way its set up, in design and software it definitely not a tablet. But it is definitely not, not a tablet. You can easily use it as a mini tablet, since reading and browsing is easy and comfortable on the large bright screen.

The screen is another thing that is surprising good on the Galaxy Note. The first time I turned it on it felt like it jumped out at me, with all its brightens and amazing colors. It’s actually sad that you get used to it in a day or two, the 5.3” Super AMOLED screen should be admired every day like it was the first time you ever saw it. The brightens of the screen is not all there is to the Galaxy Notes. On top of it, it has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. That is a lot more than the Galaxy Tab 7 or the HTC Flyer, and they are both 7” tablets. Considering the very high screen resolution you would think that normal Android 2.x apps would look really bad. But as I said Samsung have been hard at work to compensate for this on the Galaxy Note user interface. As they did with the Galaxy Tab 7, icons, fonts, and everything else in the UI is scaled so they look as they would on a normal resolution phone. This is excellent news as every app, even the ones you get of the Market, look right on the large screen and not like weirdly scaled versions of them self. I looked at this phenomenon in a earlier post, Status på Android som Tablet OS (in Danish). It’s my guess that this problem will be eliminated in Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), but we will have to see. There is one downside to the scaling Samsung have build in to the OS on Galaxy Note, and that shows when you connect the Galaxy Note to a monitor via the MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link) link.

HTC Flyer, Samsung Galaxy Tab and Samsung Galaxy Note running Facebook

Fra 19. okt. 2011

HTC Flyer, Samsung Galaxy Tab and Samsung Galaxy Note running Tweetdeck

Fra 19. okt. 2011

To me the MHL output via the microUSB port is one of the Galaxy Notes most important features. This makes it three for one in possible usages scenarios. The possibility to output HDMI to an external monitor can turn the Galaxy Note into not only a phone or a mini tablet, but also a netbook. Add a wireless keyboard and you have an Android driven 1280x800 netbook up and running. This is where the scaled UI on the Galaxy Note is not really welcome. I tried using it on a 22” monitor and everything looks really big. I had hoped that there was a function to minimize the fonts and icons when using it on a monitor, but no luck. Anyway using Android as the primary OS on a netbook is not perfect, and this is where the Cirtix client comes in handy. I dialed in to my company Citrix server and suddenly things looked a lot different. The Citrix client utilizes the full resolution of the Galaxy Note to give you a ‘normal’ size desktop. This is going to be an important if you aim to carry just one device to meet all your computing needs.

While I worked on this post Google and Samsung revealed Ice Cream Sandwich, and it would be my guess that the Galaxy Note might just end up launching with ICS or getting the upgrade very shortly after it’s launch. ICS could correct some of the things that I have pointed out here and it will surely make Galaxy Note an even better phone. Either way I’m in love with all the Galaxy Note brings to my daily phone use. Having a great screen to read mails, news and generally browse the net on is a blessing. There is no doubt that at 5.3” we are very close to how big a phone can get before it gets ridiculous, but the Galaxy Note pulls it off. The speed of the unit and the UI is almost perfect and the camera produces good quality pictures and video. So if you are looking for a phone that can make carrying around a tablet unnecessary, and that ones in a while can dub as a netbook, the Galaxy Note is very definitely for you.

I would like to thanks Samsung for letting me play around with the Galaxy Note for a couple of days. Its now, sadly, safely returned to Samsung, but if you should have any questions for me, drop them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them for you.

Sample picture taken with Samsung Galaxy Note

Fra 13. okt. 2011

ChromeOS - On the road

2011-09-27T17:30:00.000+02:00

I went on my first, out of country, trip with my ChromeOS netbook, over the weekend, and had a taste of how well ChomeOS does without Internet access. At home and on the road in my home country I'm always online, using WiFi or 3G, but outside Denmark using 3G is simply way to expensive, and I have to stick to WiFi whenever its available. First time without access was on the plane, but since I had not turned on offline mode for any of the Google apps, the netbook was simply unusable. I could have turned on offline mode in Google Docs and Google Calendar. Angry Birds should also work in offline mode. On the flight I could have watched a movie, but my tests earlier showed me that almost no video codec is supported, so any movie I would have liked to watch would have to be converted, even if I’m not 100% sure to what format. After connecting to a WiFi at my destination I activated offline mode on Google Docs and Calendar. I had some problems with Angry Birds, but I know that it works from earlier tests. In Google Docs you get the ability to view any document you have created earlier, but you cannot create a new document for later upload. It’s the same in Google Calendar. You can view all appointments, but not create new ones.

Being able to look up appointments and read though uploaded or earlier created documents is of course valuable, but the major reason for bringing a netbook on a trip is usually to create content of some kind. Google’s move to open up offline mode is a really good start, but for ChromeOS to take off they need to expand offline mode for their main apps. I’m not asking for the same usability as in online mode, I know that ChromeOS is a Cloud based system, but the ability to add content is essential. Writing a document, creating a spreadsheet, adding an appointment or replying to an email is actions you at a minimum would expect to be able to do even if you are not connected. Other things I would not mind seeing on ChromeOS in offline mode would include, reading up on Google+ and replying to posts, browsing pictures from Picasa and maybe even editing a little, watching cached videos from YouTube and planning my trip on Maps after downloading a map of my destination from home. There is lots more I would like to do, but these things are all things Google have the power to make come through, and I’m sure that there will be lots of other companies that will make their site available in offline mode for the Chrombooks out there also. On the media side Google have to include more video codec. I’m sure there will be improvements on this in the future, since playing videos is a very common thing to do on a netbook.

So have my offline experience turned me off ChromeOS? No I still use ChromeOS every day as my primary netbook OS. All the gains it gives me when connected outweigh the downsides of the current offline features. It does sober me up a bit on what is still needed for ChromeOS to be a true competitor to the super smartphones or the tablets out there. You do need a minimum of features even when your Cloud based OS is offline, and you need to be able to play movies, listen to music and view pictures in a easy to use interface and without having to do the converting game ahead of time.

Read my impressions of ChromeOS on a netbook here, http://chromebooknews.com/2011/06/19/chrome-os-on-aspire-one-a110-user-report/

How Google/Motorola could make the Atrix perfect

2011-09-09T17:18:00.000+02:00

How the Atrix could look if running ChromeOS

Now Google owns Motorola Mobile Division, thoughts on that new and interesting products will emerge from the joint forces, can begin. One of the products I would really like to see is a updated version of the Motorola Atrix. The phone gone netbook idea really appeals to me and a couple of minor fixes to the existing platform could make it a real game changere.

The Atrix today uses the Firefox browser as the main feature of the Webtop system that starts every time the Atrix is docked. From what I understand from the reviews I have seen and read, it is also the Achilles' heel of the system. The promise of the full browser experience is not there and the system is slow. Google now have the change to chance that and at the same time make the perfect bridge between its to major OS’es. If they change the Webtop OS to ChromeOS, it will secure the full browser experience and make sure that the Atrix platform is 100% integrated into Google infrastructure. We have all ready seen ChromeOS running on Android hardware, ChromeOS on the Asus transformer, so the hardware and software is compatible. Actually I always wondered why Motorola decided on Firefox and not Chrome for the Atrix. If Google/Motorola at the same time upgraded the hardware so it included the latest quard core processor, the processing power should be there to make the entire experience like using one of the Chromebooks all ready in the marked.

A ChromeOS Atrix will address a lot of needs in the marked. Firstly it could easily be the benchmark Ice Cream Sandwich Android phone. Secondly it will be able to eat in to the netbook marked in a very price competitive way. The netbook dock is prices at around $200, a lot for at dock, but not if you get a Chromebook out of the investment. This setup could be very interesting for for the average consumer, but its one of the software developers for ChromeOS that will make this a killer product. Citrix launching its viewer for ChromeOS will open up a ChromeOS based Atrix to the businesses traveler and could very easily be all the hardware a company would have to give them. Since they will be working via a Citrix connection data is secure, even if the unit is lost.

So by changing 1 - 2 components in the existing Motorola Atrix, Google/Motorola could win over not just the consumer marked, but the business marked at the same time.

Windows 8 in a tablet world - The love of the IT department

2011-07-03T13:31:00.000+02:00

Windows 8 running Excel and a Twitter app

Since Windows 8 was shown at D9 about a month ago I have been wondering where it could take Microsoft and the Windows platform after its release. The way Microsoft have gone about designing Windows 8 there is no dought that they have mobility in mind. That is not surprising since they don't really have a stake in the still growing tablet marked. Tablets are hot right now and tablets are creeping in on one of Microsoft's main markets, the business market.

There are four major operating systems driving today's tablets. iOS is by far the biggest followed by a distant second, Android. The two others are QNX - RIM PlayBook, and WebOS - HP TouchPad. Mabye with the exception of QNX the available tablet OS’s do not have the security build in to let them become an integrated part of almost any larger corporate network. This is a constant annoyance for both the employee and the IT department. The employee sees the advantages of the tablet in a corporate setting and often brings their own iPad’s to work. That puts pressure on the IT department to open up the corporate network to allow the iPad to be used beyond the standard mail and calender sync. This in turn forces the IT department to either open up the network to an insecure and non manageable tablet OS or disappoint a large part of the work force. Neither is very good for any company in the long run
.

Windows 8 is build on the Windows 7 platform and have an added layer that is inspired by the Metro interface from Windows Phone. If you were to put Windows 8 on hardware, like say the Asus Transformer with a quad core ARM processor, you would have a perfectly fine tablet, that could easily be used as a notebook on your corporate network. Due to the Metro interface on top it will give you the ease of use that you expect from a tablet, but with the deep integration that is known from Windows.

But are Apple, Google, RIM or HP really going to let Microsoft get in the tablet game that easy? Well Apple does not seem to want to address the needs of the corporate market. They seem to be content with making a great product, mainly for the retail market. Google is all about the cloud, and while this might be the future, there is still a lot of companies that do not want to move their data to cloud just yet. RIM have a good hold on the corporate market, but their phones are starting to look outdated and compared to the latest iPhone or Android phone it just looks like RIM is at the end of their rope. The PlayBook is build on a different OS than the phones and it does not have the securities and deep integration that the BlackBerry OS have. WebOS might be a fine OS, but with the lack of products and apps out there I do not see how is can ever become a real thread to Windows.

So that brings us back to Windows 8. The more I look at it, and the more I look at what type of hardware will be available when Windows 8 hits the markets, the more I see the logic in what Windows 8 is going to be. With Windows 8 Microsoft is not going for the retail market, but they are betting that with the promise of a Windows 7 compatible platform, with a Windows Phone like user interface, the IT departments around the world will embrace Windows 8, and start supplying the corporate work force with Windows 8 based hardware.

With Windows Phone getting the full support from Nokia, and other of the top hardware builders in the market today, and companies like Asus and Acer already promising to build tablets, and everybody else building notebooks, with Windows 8, Microsoft is about to have an ecosystem that is going to be very strong an look very appealing to the corporate players. They will have the mail, calendar and collaboration platform of choice. They will have the apps to make the Metro interface, both on Windows Phone an Windows 8, look interesting enough to bring the average user in. They will, like they have done in the past, make sure that they offer just enough to grab the focus of the IT departments, while still putting enough focus on fun and games to keep the retail market happy. I believe that with Windows 8, Microsoft might just have done it again.

Chrome OS - How does it hold up (Update)

2011-06-19T20:27:00.000+02:00

I wrote up a post on Google ChromeOS that made it on to chromebooknews.com and got mentioned on umpcportal.com.

Here is the video I made about Chrome OS.

Update
Read what happened when I took ChromeOS on the road, http://faaborgs.blogspot.com/2011/09/chromeos-one-road.html