The Lanterne Rouge

Apple's Memory Storage Rip-off

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 06:20:00 +0000

What is the true cost of memory? According to Apple, it's very expensive. The iPhone, iPad and iPad mini come in 3 memory storage capacities: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. The devices are otherwise identical. The table below shows the pricing of the iPad for each capacity:

Apple's on-cost for increased memory is consistant across all the device ranges:
16GB --> 32GB: $100.00 equivalent to $6.25/GB
32GB --> 64GB: $100.00 equivalent to $3.13/GB

However, if we look at the cost of SanDisk Memory Cards, the on-cost is much less (from Amazon.com):
16GB --> 32GB: $10.00 equivalent to $0.63/GB
32GB --> 64GB: $30.00 equivalent to $0.94/GB

This is an incredible rip-off! Based on the above, Apple is charging 1,000% more for the step up from 16GB to 32GB than SanDisk do on Amazon.com. And I'm not even using the sales prices quoted on the site. I know this is not the most accurate way to calculate what memory actually costs, but I don't have access to Apple's BOM. I also have enough understanding of marketing to understand that products are sold at what the market will accept, and that product range steps are artificially created to create demand. However, I personally think that $100.00 for 16GB or even 32GB is way more than it needs to be.

Thanks for reading.

The Digital Land Grab

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 06:16:00 +0000

Apple have often been criticised for their closed ecosystem; the so-called "walled garden" that discourages cross-platform inter-operability. However, developing an ecosystem where the hardware and software is strictly controlled and designed to work together, and where different devices seamlessly connect and interact, has paid off for Apple, and Microsoft and Google are quietly developing ecosystems of their own. The table below shows the devices each company has developed in an effort to take over your digital life.

I could have included other companies, like Samsung and Sony, but they mostly run licensed operating systems on their devices. There is a certain degree of cross platform inter-operability between these devices. For example, there is an iOS app that gives remote functionality for the Google TV, and it is still possible to run iTunes on a Windows machine, and thus stream video to an Apple TV via AirPlay. Apple tends to develop proprietary standards, making it impossible, for example, to stream video from an Android device to Apple TV. Apple does this for 3 reasons:

Security - Apple is very careful about allowing other devices to connect to its ecosystem, thus preventing viruses from spreading.
The Halo Effect - Building on its huge iPhone user-base Apple can promote their complimentary devices which further enhance the user experience.
Licence fees - Apple can collect licence fees from hardware manufacturers looking to incorporate features like AirPlay into the devices.

Google takes an almost opposite view, and promotes the use of open standards which allows other hardware manufacturers to easily build devices that interact with each other within the Google ecosystem.
The reason for this is because Apple and Google have very different business models. Apple make premium hardware devices, and make their profit from the huge margins they charge. On the other hand, Google make most of their profits from advertising, and anything that gets people online is to their advantage. However, this seems to be changing. With the success of the Nexus 7 tablet, and more recently the Nexus 4 mobile phone, Google are reportedly looking into sourcing their own Chromebooks to complement those already made by Acer and Samsung.

Microsoft is traditionally a software company, and except for the Xbox, their previous attempts at hardware have ended in failure. Both the Zune (mp3 player) and Kin (phone) were short-lived. With the Surface, Microsoft are making an aggressive attack on the tablet market. Time will tell if they are successful or not, but Microsoft are worried. They are seeing their traditional business being eroded from one side by Google, and from the other side by Apple. Google are offering free web-based alternatives to the MS Office Suite, and the Chromebook could eventually challenge their dominance in the PC market. At the same time, Apple's iPad is being seen as an alternative in the post-PC era, and there are many productivity apps in the App Store that also eventually offer an alternative to Office. The Apple Mac is also showing some growth in an otherwise shrinking market. Microsoft therefore feel they have to develop their own ecosystem, and try and find new profit channels like apps from the Windows Store, and subscription services like Office 365.
This 3-way battle is essentially a land grab, because all 3 companies will try and lock users into their respective ecosystems. Apple is leading at the moment, Google has the most flexibility, and Microsoft has the most to lose.

I am a huge fan of Google, and have been a longtime Windows user, but ever since I switched to an iPhone I have been drawn further and further into Apple's "walled garden"; I now have an iPad 3 and a latest generation Apple TV. I have been hugely disappointed in Windows 8, so I'm now considering switching to one of the new iMacs as my main home machine. I still use Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, etc, and I will continue to use my 18 month old Windows 7 laptop until I can afford to replace it, but more and more I look to Apple for my digital fix. Which ecosystem do you use?

Thanks for reading.

iTunes 11 Hands On Review

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 09:51:00 +0000

After delaying for a month, Apple finally released iTunes 11 on Thursday, 29 November, in both Mac and Windows versions. While many were hoping for a complete re-write, iTunes 11 is only a re-skinning of iTunes 10. Most of the old menus are carried over, although they are mostly hidden from view. The reason for this is Apple have dramatically simplified the UI, and iTunes brings a minimalistic, edge-to-edge design that is more in line with the iOS Music player, and is in-line with their policy of closing the gap between iOS and OS X. The iTunes Store has undergone a similar re-design, and now looks very similar to the App Store on the iPhone and iPad.

Over the years Apple have added more and more functionality to iTunes, and what started off as a simple music player has grown into a do-it-all media player and Store that is often criticised for being bloated and clunky. This latest version simplifies the UI, removing many features power users will miss, but does little to address the bloat of the underlying software.

Menus
In its default configuration the Menu Bar, Sidebar and Status Bar are all hidden from view, but are easily restored. From the little icon in the top left corner select "Show Menu Bar", then select "View" on the Menu Bar and select "Show Sidebar" and "Show Status Bar".

Up Next

I was a big user of the Auto DJ feature, and that too is gone, replaced by the new "Up Next". I mostly listen to playlists ordered by "least recently played", and with "live updating" turned on. Used in conjunction with Auto DJ this gave me a never ending flow of music depending on the playlist, which I could interrupt by inserting individual songs or albums as I chose. Depending on the settings chosen, the main window would then show me a brief history of what played recently, and what songs were scheduled next. The Up Next feature is accessed from an icon in the header, which opens a drop-down window which shows the 20 forthcoming songs. There is a little clock icon which, when clicked, will show your history. For some reason, the history view doesn't include the album art like it does in the forthcoming view. The Up Next window does allow you to re-order or delete songs, but this is not really a new feature, as it was available in Auto DJ.

Views

The "View" options for the main window vary depending on which Library you are looking at. The most obvious change is that cover-flow has been retired. The list view is a very drab grey-on-grey without it. The grid view shows a grid view of the album art, and when you click on an album it expands to show a list of the songs on the left, and the album art on the right. In a very nice, typically Apple touch, the background colour is adjusted according to the colour of the artwork, giving the impression you are looking at the CD cover folded flat. From this view you can easily add complete albums or individual songs into the Up Next queue. Unfortunately, this view can't be used as the "Now Playing" view in the main window.

The grid view in the other Libraries has also lost the ability to re-size the artwork. In Movies, this is particularly annoying, as the artwork is quite big, so you have to do quite a lot of scrolling if you have a large collection.

Overall, the new views are a great way to search for the media you might want to play, but not quite as good as iTunes 10 was for displaying it. I did discover that double clicking the artwork in the header brought up a new window showing the album art, that also doubles as a mid-sized player. Mouse over the artwork brings up play and volumes controls. Nice!

Mini Player

One of the big improvements in iTunes 11 is the MiniPlayer, which now also features search, as well as the icon to bring up the Up Next window. In this view the Up Next window doesn't disappear when you click somewhere else on the screen.

Search
Another big improvement is the new Search Library feature. As soon as you start typing a drop down window starts adding matching titles, broken down into Songs, Albums, Movies, Podcasts, etc. Directly from this window you can add items to Up Next, or access the menu, from which you can change your rating, add to a playlist, etc. This new Search is exceptionally powerful!

iCloud
Apple continue to improve iCloud integration in all its products, and with iTunes 11 you can now stream any content you have purchased from the Store without having to download it first. iTunes will now also sync your place in movies and TV shows, so if you start playing them on your Mac and pause playback, you can then switch to your iPad and pick up the video from right where you left off.

Syncing
Syncing is much the same as before, but the Summary screen gives a lot more information than before. My only complaint that iTunes still seems to lose contact with my iDevices, despite them being on the same Wi-Fi network. This was a bug that I hoped would be fixed in iTunes 11.

Conclusion
I do miss the cover-flow view, and I'm still not sure whether Up Next is as useful as Auto DJ, but overall there is a lot to like about iTunes 11. The new MiniPlayer and Search are both very powerful, and little touches like the Album View are great new features. iTunes may not be for everyone, and many people will be critical of the changes, but overall I like it.

Thanks for reading.

Where is the New iTunes?

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:42:00 +0000

Update: iTunes 11 is now available for download at this link. I'll post my first impressions soon!
Updated: 2012-11-29

In addition to the iPhone 5, Apple announced at their 12 September event that iTunes would be upgraded in October. Their was even a link on their iTunes homepage for "the new iTunes". October came and went, and the banner was changed to "Coming in November".

I'm a pretty reluctant user of iTunes, but as an iDevice owner, iTunes is a necessary evil. On my Windows 7 machine it is particularly clunky, and I usually have to close it down and re-open it before I can connect any of my devices to sync. It's not all bad, and there are some features that are well thought out, but overall it's not a great user experience. However, the new iTunes will be "dramatically simpler," according to Apple SVP Eddy Cue. In addition to the new features and improved UI, Apple is also promising "improved performance throughout". This gives me hope.

It'll feature a grid user interface. Users can change the order of upcoming tracks within a queue. Search has been upgraded with inline results: one click for information, double-click to play. There's also iCloud integration, and users will be able to watch movies from iCloud.

It sounds like a big change, and I'm hopeful that the delay means that Apple will have all the bugs ironed out before its released, but I'm also getting impatient.

It's the 28th of November today. A Wednesday. The last Wednesday of the month. Apparently iTunes updates have been on Wednesdays more often than any other day of the week. So maybe today is the day, but time is running out, and I'd hate to see that banner change to "Coming in December"!

Thanks for reading.

The Microsoft Surface - A Failure in Design?

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:35:00 +0000

The Surface tablet is being pushed hard by Microsoft as part of its $1,5bn Windows 8 marketing campaign. Pop-up stores have been set up in shopping malls across the US, hoping to convince holiday shoppers to purchase the Microsoft branded tablet over the Android and Apple competitor devices. Microsoft made a big deal about the design of the hardware, and features like the Kickstand, but I believe the combination of the ill-conceived hardware and the dumbed down version of Windows 8, known as Windows RT, will ultmately fail in the market.

Microsoft are very proud of the Touch Cover, which uses magnets to attach to the tablet, similar to Apple's Smart Cover, but offers a touch keyboard built in. This turns the Surface into a laptop alternative, except for one key point: it's not lap friendly. The Surface only works well in this configuration when placed on a hard surface, like a desk. It definitely does not work in "lean-back" mode, like when you're on the couch watching TV, which is when I use my iPad the most. Detach the Touch Cover, and the Surface turns into a bulky tablet that feels awkward in portrait mode, due to its 16:9 aspect ratio. And that Kickstand also only works in landscape mode.

The 16:9 display may be better for movies, but I prefer reading in portrit mode on my iPad, and alternate between portrit and landscape depending on specific app designs. Perhaps Microsoft are targeting the Surface to appeal to enterprise first, and I can see how it would be great for taking notes in a meeting, but for $600 (with Touch Cover) there are plenty of more versatile laptops I'd recommend before the Surface. One of the Surface's selling points is that Windows RT comes with a version of Microsoft Office. That might be useful to access files when you're away from your desk, or for inputting data when you're on the road, but anyone that uses Excel for document creation and/or data manipulation will tell you that a 10.6" screen is hopelessly small. So who will the Surface actually appeal to? I'm not sure, and I can't think of a use case where I'd reach for the Surface before the iPad.

Thanks for reading.

The Problem with Microsoft's Window 8 Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 07:49:00 +0000

Microsoft have budgeted $1,5 billion for marketing Windows 8, and despite a lot of interest, I haven't read to many positive reviews. Windows 8 comes in many forms, and is part of Microsoft's strategy to revitalize the Redmond Giant's fortunes. Microsoft are traditionally a software company, and Windows has been the most popular operating system in the world for the last 25 years (if not longer). Their Office suite is also used by almost every major company in the world, and is the cornerstone of all enterprise personal computing. So why would they make such a radical change as they have with Windows 8? Simple. Apple. Their competition over at Cupertino introduced the iPhone in 2007 and have grown to be not only the most powerful company in technology, but also the most valuable public company in the world. And so the new strategy was born: copy everything Apple has done.

It started with Windows Phone 7, which got a lot of good reviews for its tile based UI, but didn't catch the imagination of Joe Public. And so Microsoft dumped Phone 7, and re-wrote the OS to create Windows Phone 8, carrying over the UI, but ending the update life of any phones they had managed to sell. Simultaneously they were developing a UI for their new Windows 8 operating system, and this is where they deviated from Apple's strategy, and where I believe they have made a huge mistake!

Apple introduced iOS (originally iPhone OS) in 2007, for the iPhone. In 2010 they adapted it for the first iPad. Apple's operating system for laptops and desktops is known as OS X, and is completely separate. However, following the success of the iPhone and iPad, they have gradually incorporated aspects of iOS into OS X, to take advantage of the "halo" effect of these successful devices. This has worked for them, and Mac usage has steadily increased in a shrinking market.

However, Microsoft did not adapt Windows Phone 8 for use on their tablets, and instead developed a version of Windows 8 (Windows RT) to run on the ARM processors typically used in mobile devices. Their will also be more powerful tablets running x86 processors, and these will use the same version of Windows 8 that will be used on desktops and laptops.

The thinking at Redmond is that there will be a trickle down effect. They practically own the desktop/laptop market, especially in enterprise, so you'll eventually be forced into using a Windows 8 machine. Once that happens, people will automatically purchase tablets and phones running the now familiar UI.

Now this might sound OK, but the problem is that tablets differ hugely from desktops and laptops. Tablets use a touch interface that is just not viable on a desktop and to a lesser extent a laptop. Most of the complaints about Windows 8 on PCs revolves around the new Start screen and the use of the live tiles, the very aspect that get so many complements on phones like the Lumia 920 running WP8. On a PC, the tiles seem misplaced, and are an irritating layer over the traditional desktop screen. On a non-touch screen machine, the UI has become illogical, and requires all sorts of not so obvious mouse actions to navigate.

Microsoft could have easily avoided this with a slightly more cautious approach. The tiles could have perhaps been built into the desktop screen for machines without a touch interface, with the option to turn them off altogether. Instead, they have forced this upon us, and the result: 42% of prospective buyers going Apple, according to a recent survey.

Thanks for reading.

Did You Miss Me?

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:05:00 +0000

It's the middle of the Thanksgiving long weekend in the US, and the blogosphere is unusually quiet. Are all the bloggers so stuffed full of turkey, or so busy chasing Black Friday specials, that they don't have the time or inclination to write, or has the whole of Silicon Valley shut down for a well deserved break? This made me think about my own blog, and I was ashamed to see it's been over a year since my last post! Unforgivable!

I would like to commit to writing a little more regularly, and will discuss some of the new technology in my "digital life", as well as comment on some of the tech news that makes the headlines. Hopefully, this, my first blog of 2012, will be the first of many, and I will be able to entertain some of the faithful that have subscribed.

Thanks for reading.

Is iOS 5 A Disappointment?

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:42:00 +0000

iOS 5 was a huge update for iPhone and iPad users, with more than 200 new features, including some that had been major requests for some time, and also dozens of smaller, "nice-to-haves" that make the iPhone and iPad such compelling devices. I was among the millions that downloaded the new iOS on the day it was released, 12 October 2011. In fact, so many people were trying to download it simultaneously that they nearly brought down the internet! As good as it is, iOS 5 isn't perfect. Having lived with it for a couple of weeks now, I thought I would just list a couple of little niggles I have. Note, this is not a review of the iPhone 4S, but rather iOS 5 used as an update to iPhone 4.

Notification Center
This is one of the most sought after features, and the one I was looking forward to the most, having used Android previously. Apple have done a great job, and have improved on Android's offering, but is it too much to ask to include a "clear all" button? It's great that you have the option to clear the notifications from each app individually, but if you haven't checked it all day it can be quite tiresome. One button to get rid of all those stale notifications is a must-have!

iMessage
For this one Apple looked across the border to RIM to copy their hugely successful Blackberry Messaging service. The intention was great, and the integration with the SMS Messages feature is typical of Apple's seamless approach to software design. The problem is, most of my friends don't have iPhones. I am working on that, but in the last 2 weeks I have not used iMessage once. If Samsung can make messaging cross-platform with their soon to be released ChatON service, why couldn't Apple? For now I continue to use Whatsapp.

Newsstand
My only complaint about Newsstand is that there is no way to hide or delete the Newsstand "folder" if you don't use it. It's faux wood shelves are an unnecessary blot on my pristine iPhone screen! Sure, there is a way to add it into another folder, but this is a work around, and it shouldn't be necessary.

Reminders
I like the Reminders app, but one of its best features is practically unusable! The ability to add a location to a reminder is great, in theory. Unfortunately, Apple only allows you to add addresses from your Contacts, and I cannot get iOS to recognise my work or home addresses, and I don't have the addresses of shopping centers in my Contacts! Why couldn't Apple just allow the option to set the location by dropping a pin on the map?

Photos
iOS brings with it some great improvements for the Camera app, including the ability to go to the Camera app straight from the lock-screen, and to use the volume "up" button as a shutter release. However, the new Photo Stream feature hasn't been fully thought through. In theory it's great! All your photos will be instantly synced to all your iOS devises so if, for example, you shoot a picture with your iPhone, you can use the bigger screen on the iPad to touch it up, and then share it to Twitter from there. Awesome! But what if you're out shopping, and you shoot a photo of the latest Iron Man toy so you can check with your wife whether it's an appropriate Christmas present for your kid, and the kid picks up your iPad to play Angry Birds? Bam! Surprise ruined! The photo streaming idea is great, but it should require some user input for each photo before syncing, and perhaps even a list of devices you want to share it with.

Wi-Fi Sync
This is one of the other features I was really looking forward to. For me it just doesn't work consistently and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. It has worked, but most days I see a message to say "incomplete sync", or for whatever reason the iPhone isn't being recognised by iTunes, despite them both being able to access the internet on the same Wi-Fi connection.

Missing features
There are still a number of basic features that Apple seem to continuously overlook. Two of the biggest for me have to do with the newly renamed Music app. I have an old iPod Nano, and it had a feature that allowed me to set a playlist as an alarm. Thus I could wake up to the music of my choice each day. There are apps that try to imitate this, but most require you to open the app and leave it running all night, which is far from ideal. In a similar vein, why is there no sleep mode. If I using my iPhone to play music through a dock, I should be able to set it to turn off after 20 minutes. These aren't sophisticated features, and it amazes me that they aren't included in iOS. Even iTunes doesn't have a sleep function, which is ridiculous!

Wow, when I list my problems like this, there are more than I thought. This may make it sound like I'm unhappy with iOS 5, but I'm not! It's a huge step up from iOS 4.3, and I wouldn't switch back for anything. I'm just a bit disappointed, because it could have been so much better!

Thanks for reading.

A Great iPhone Dock

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:27:00 +0000

I have long had a mini hi-fi in my bedroom, and for the last 10 years my Onkyo that I bought in Japan has served me well. Initially, I bought it to play mini-discs, which were hugely popular in Japan before mp3s became the the force de jour. However, the Onkyo was versatile, and the “Aux In” allowed me to connect my iPod with relative ease. Unfortunately, the power supply recently packed up, and I decided it was time for an upgrade.

My requirements were simple:

iPod/iPhone capable
Good sound, but high volume not an issue
Solid build
Subtle styling
Reasonable price

Enter the Yamaha PDX-31. This little desktop audio system ticked all the boxes, and then some. The case, available in black, dark red or light grey has clean, simple lines, but houses a pair of 3.25-inch speakers that sound awesome, despite only a 15W x 2 digital amplifier.

The dock handles iPods and iPhones with a 30-pin Dock Connector, but there is also an auxiliary input for those other media players. The minimalistic design means the only buttons are volume up and down - the unit has auto power on and off, which is ideal for me. I can set the alarm on my iPod to play a specific playlist, and wake up to my favourite music, without having to leave the unit switched on all night. It works like a charm! There is no need for a "mode" switch - the unit will play from whichever source is connected, and will play from both simultaneously if both are connected. Included in the box is a very basic remote, which unfortunately feels a bit cheap, but gets the job done.

Priced at $169.99 from Amazon, but available for as little as $123 if you Google it, I was able to find one in South Africa at R1,770, after tax and duties, which wasn't too bad. Thanks to the great staff at Audio Excellence on Umhlanga Ridge for your patience and assistance!

Thanks for reading!

R.I.P. Steve Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:30:00 +0000

Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011

There Will Be No iPhone 5... Ever!

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 06:22:00 +0000

OK, so maybe there will be an iPhone 5, but not if Apple follow logic in their naming convention. The first iPhone was launched in June 2007, and was simply known as the iPhone:

2007 June: iPhone - iPhone OS1
2008 July: iPhone 3G - iPhone OS2
2009 June: iPhone 3GS - iPhone OS3
2010 June: iPhone 4 - iOS4
2011 October: iPhone 4S - iOS5
2012 October: iPhone 6 - iOS6

The list above also shows a neat pattern in the OS numbering, which the iPhone 4S puts out of sync, as it will be running iOS5. As you will remember, there was never an iPhone 2 either, so there is precedent to leave out a number. It therefore makes sense that next year Apple will launch an iPhone 6, running iOS6.

Of course, there is another possibility, and that is if Apple includes LTE next year. Then they may call the new phone the iPhone 4G!

Thanks for reading!

iPhone 4S: All You Need To Know!

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:38:00 +0000

At last, after 18 months of speculation the iPhone 5 is finally here! Except it's not an iPhone 5 in a sleek tear-drop aluminium case - it's a carry-over design with the A5 dual-processor called the 4S. But what's in a name?

To recap, iOS5 will be available from 12 October. Here are some of the main features:

Notifications: Very Androidish - a replacement system for iOS’ otherwise antiquated alerts system.
iMessage: A free to use, iOS-to-iOS SMS replacement.
Reminders: user creatable time/location based reminders.
Twitter integration.
Newsstand: Apple’s in-house distribution system for iPad magazines.
New and improved camera (One click access from the lock screen, red eye removal, cropping, rotating, etc).
Game Center (Recommendation engine, Achievements system).
Improved Safari browser (Faster, lighter, tabbed browsing on iPad, and the “Reader” content scraper).
Mail app improvements.
PC-Free (Activation without iTunes).

But we knew all that. What about the new phone. The iPhone 4S?

Externally the same as iPhone 4 - screen size, glass back, etc.
A5 Dual-core Processor, dual-core graphics (up to 7x faster)
Improved battery life: 8 hours of 3G talk time; 6 hours of browsing; 9 hours on WiFi; 10 hours of video; 40 hours of music.
Improved call quality through intelligently switching between the two antennas between transmit and receive. Downloads theoretically 2x faster than iPhone 4.
One phone for everyone: GSM + CDMA.
Improved camera: 8MP sensor; f/2,4 lens; high speed auto-focus; face detection; auto white balance; 1080p HD video.
Airplay mirroring - great for gaming.
Voice-controlled personal assistant. You can ask things like “Will it rain in Cupertino?”, or “Can you find me a Greek Restaurant in Palo Alto?”, or “What’s the time in Paris?” and it’ll answer accordingly. This is the culmination of their purchase of Siri back in 2010 - and surprisingly enough, they’re keeping the “Siri” name.
Available from launch in black or white.
US pricing: 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, or 64GB (new) for $399.

Key for the US market is the addition of Sprint to AT&T and Verizon as official carriers - this should see a nice bump in sales! Add to that the rumored deal with China Mobile, and this could be the best selling iPhone ever!

For the millions of iPhone 4 users out there, myself included, this launch is great news; your phone hasn't been made completely redundant today. I guess time will tell, but after delaying the launch from the typical June timing, I was expecting more. I believed Apple needed the extra time to finalise some awesome new features! I assume that the revised exterior design, 4" screen, LTE, NFC, etc will be kept for the iPhone 5. Let the speculation begin!

Thanks for reading!

The Nokia N9, MeeGo, and Who the Hell Would Buy One of These?

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:48:00 +0000

I have long been an admirer of Nokia’s hardware. Over the years I’ve owned a number of Nokia phones, from the awesome 6210 back in 2000 (wow, only 11 years ago!), through to the more recent classic, the 6300, and Nokia’s first touch screen, the 5800 XpressMusic. Build quality has always been beyond reproach, and Nokia’s position as market leader was well deserved.

Unfortunately for Nokia, the only constant in the tech industry is change, and they were too slow to react when the iPhone was launched with its revolutionary touch screen back in June 2007. They originally dipped a toe in the water with the above mentioned 5800 XM, and followed up with a series of flagship models like the N97, all running versions of Symbian S60 5th Edition. The latest version of the OS, Symbian^3, was first used as recently as Q4 2010, when the N8 was launched.

On 11 February, 2011, Nokia announced that it would migrate away from Symbian to Windows Phone 7, and the first devices from this collaboration are expected in Q4 2011.

Simultaneous to their work with Symbian, Nokia was also developing the Maemo OS, which eventually made an appearance on the N900 in late 2009. In February 2010 Nokia entered into partnership with Intel to merge Maemo and Intel’s Moblin project. And so MeeGo was born. Nokia eventually launched a device running the MeeGo OS, the N9, and have hailed it as their newest flagship. However, the press releases don’t say that Nokia has already turned its back on MeeGo, and more recently the Linux Foundation announced that MeeGo will be totally replaced by Tizen, a new collaboration between Intel and Samsung.

The Nokia N9 will be the only MeeGo device, ever!

Nokia certainly know how to make decent hardware; the N9 is a gorgeous looking device. The front face is almost all screen – no untidy buttons to detract from that beautiful, minimalist design. The screen is 3.9” of Gorilla glass, and it has a 1GHz processor and an 8MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, and it comes in a range of different colors. It certainly ticks all the right boxes. The UI is simple and elegant, involving a Home Screen and 3 main views: app launcher (Apps view), history (Open Apps view), and notifications. Navigation is a simple process of swiping between these screens.

But I don’t care! This OS may be the best thing since sliced bread, but why would anyone buy a smartphone when the OS has already been abandoned?

Nokia have made a big deal about the fact that the N9 supports the Qt framework, enabling apps built for Symbian smartphones to be ported easily to the N9. However, if you’ve already grown accustomed to the seemingly endless supply of new apps available in Apple’s App Store or the Android Market, the miserly selection of available apps will be a huge disappointment. What is the point of having all that great hardware, a great UI, and no apps to run on it? And don’t expect any developers to be burning the midnight oil dreaming up the next big thing. With only one device available in the market, and no plan for additional models, what would be the point?

Sadly, this appears to be an effort from Nokia to recover some of their development costs, and to keep their brand in the public eye. They have little regard for the damage that launching another dead-end device will do to their already flagging reputation. I am looking forward to seeing what Nokia can do with Windows Phone 7. The marriage between the very well thought of OS and Nokia’s great hardware could bear some interesting fruit, but Nokia could be losing a lot of potential customers with a poorly supported phone like the N9.

Thanks for reading!

Amazon's Kindle Fire Will Rock the Tablet Market!

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:14:00 +0000

The Kindle Fire was the star of the show, but Amazon launched 2 other new Kindles today: the $79 Kindle and the Kindle Touch in Wi-Fi only ($99) and 3G ($149) versions. As great as they are the Kindle Fire was what everyone was interested in.

First off, price. At $199 this is game changing. Amazon Prime is free for the first 30 days, but after that will cost the normal $79/year. The Fire has a 7" display and will have access to all of Amazon’s services including AmazonMP3, Amazon Prime, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Instant Video and the Amazon AppStore. The tablet is powered by a dual-core processor and weighs 413 grams. This compares to the the iPad at over 600 grams, albeit with a 9,7" screen. Customers can pre-order the Kindle Fire today and it will ship November 15 2011, just in time for the holidays!

The Fire runs on the Android 2.3, but you won't see much sign of it. Amazon have built their own UI on top of Android, and it looks pretty good. One of the great features Amazon have built in is Whispersync, which not only automatically syncs your library, last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across your devices, but on Kindle Fire, Whispersync extends to video.

Amazon also introduced their own browser for the Fire, called Amazon Silk. From their own description: "Amazon Silk is a revolutionary, cloud-accelerated browser that uses a "split browser" architecture to leverage the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services cloud. Supports Adobe® Flash® Player." It will be interesting to see how it shapes up against the established browsers.

With access to the Amazon AppStore, getting access to and running your favorite apps shouldn't be a problem, but I must point out that there is no camera. An email app is included, or you can download one from the AppStore.

For those that like to know the numbers, the screen is a 7" multi-touch with IPS (in-plane switching) technology and anti-reflective treatment, 1024 x 600 pixel resolution at 169 ppi, 16 million colors. There is 8GB internal memory, which is apparently enough for 80 apps, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books. However, there is also unlimited free cloud storage for anything you purchase from Amazon. The battery offers up to 8 hours of continuous reading or 7.5 hours of video playback, with wireless off. These numbers will vary depending on how much web browsing you're doing.

If the device looks familiar, that's because the hardware is essentially the same as the Blackberry Playbook, without the cameras and microphone.

Amazon have taken a leaf out of the Apple playbook (no pun intended). They have focused their effort on offering a service. This is where every Android tablet has come short. If you visit the web site, or watch any of the video from the launch, you will be left in no doubt what this device is meant for. It is for downloading (or streaming) media content from Amazon, and it offers you the convenience of access to all the apps you're familiar with. There is very little detail of the technical specs - they offer a device that is designed to do a job, and it will do it well.

The Kindle Fire, at $199, compared to the cheapest iPad at $499, is an incredible bargain. Tablets have just been opened up to the mainstream - this is no longer an elitist device. To quote Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos: "These are premium products at nonpremium prices". If you thought the iPad was selling well, watch this one fly of the shelves! The only downside: it's US only for now.

Thanks for reading!

Amazon's Tablet - Is This The Next Big Thing?

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:04:00 +0000

It is widely believed that Amazon will launch its 7" Android 2.1 based tablet at this event on Wednesday. While many see this as a competitor to the Apple iPad, it is actually aimed at the Barnes & Noble Nook Color, and most people expect it to be priced accordingly; around $250-$300. The difference in pricing might be to do with whether Amazon Prime is included or not, but this was not confirmed. Sources are also suggesting that it will carry the Kindle branding, and be known as the Kindle Fire.

So why is this so important? The iPad owns the 10” space, as other manufacturers have discovered to their detriment. However, as the market grows there will be opportunity for other form factors to find their own niche. In my personal opinion, the size and weight of the iPad make it a little awkward to use outside my home environment. Samsung’s original Galaxy Tab was 7”, but only enjoyed minor success in the market. However, this was more because of the poor experience with Android Gingerbread, which was meant for bigger screens, and the lack of available apps, than because of the screen size.

Part of the success of both the iPhone and the iPad can be attributed to the ease of access to apps and media through iTunes. Amazon is better suited than anyone else to offer a similar experience – they are the world’s biggest online retailer, and already have a large digital store in addition to physical goods.

If Amazon can offer a tablet that is more portable than the iPad, can be held comfortably in one hand (great for reading), has apps available through the Amazon Appstore, and comes in under $300, then they have a great chance at success.

However, Amazon need to concentrate on the advantages of their tablet, and not market it as an alternative to the iPad. Instead, I believe they will market it as a top of the range Kindle, with the added advantage of a color screen (better for magazines) and the ability to run apps.

I am looking forward to tomorrow’s announcement to see exactly what Amazon will present, but I am already lusting over another new gadget!

Thanks for reading!

Which Mobile OS?

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:40:00 +0000

When you look at the dozens of phones available to you, what do you look for; the physical device, with it's mirror-like screen and brushed aluminium finish, or do you consider what makes each phone perform the myriad tasks you intend performing? If you haven't thought in these terms, you should. You're about to lay down a sizable chunk of your hard earned cash, or tie yourself into an expensive 24 month contract, and you should really know what you're buying.

To me, it's all about the software. These days, the main manufacturers are all capable of making exceptional devices that vary little from each other in terms of hardware. However, the software is constantly evolving and improving, and if you pick the right phone, you'll continue to get updates and upgrades that will improve your experience, and even after 2 years, you won't feel like you're stuck with old technology.

As can be seen from the graph of worldwide 2011 Q2 smartphone sales to end users by operating system, according to Gartner, Android has clearly captured the lion's share of the market, up 13,3% since 2010, with its multiple manufacturer support from Samsung, HTC, Motorolla, LG and Sony Ericsson. However, Google's purchase of Motorolla could spell trouble for Android if the other manufacturers feel like they're not getting equal treatment and start looking to other OS's for their premium models. Android has another problem, and that is despite regular update to the core OS, these often aren't rolled out to every device, and it's left to the manufacturers, and then the carriers to decide which phones should get upgraded. Google are trying to address this problem, and it may improve with their newer phones.

Symbian may be in 2nd place, but don't be fooled. Symbian is in freefall, losing more than 10% in the last year, and down from complete market domination just 4 years ago, when they held 63,5%.

Apple's iOS takes 3rd place, and considering they essentially only have a single, premium handset (plus a discounted previous generation model) available, that's pretty good. iOS is actually still gaining market share, and I expect continued growth as the next generation is made available to more carriers in the key US market. The launch of iOS5 and the next generation iPhone will also see renewed demand for the iconic device. Where Apple really scores is that they release software updates directly to the customer, so everyone gets to run the latest version all the time, and Apple continue to make their software backwards compatible for several generations.

RIM hold on to 4th place with their Blackberry range, but they're down nearly 4% since a high of nearly 20% in 2009, and despite popularity with text hungry teens, management problems continue to plague the company that was once considered the trendsetter. Their OS is dated; the newly released Blackberry 7 is too little, too late. Blackberry QNX might save them, but launch timing has been pushed out numerous times, so don't hold your breath.

The dark horse is Microsoft's Windows Phone 7. While it hasn't captured much share yet, Nokia will launch a range of phones before the end of 2011, which may turn things around for the software giant. They've also recently launched a preview of Windows 8, which will use a common format, borrowed from Phone 7, across all devices, from desktops to tablets and mobile phones. This is huge - who wouldn't want a phone that looks and acts just like all their other devices, and sync up seamlessly via the cloud? The jury is still out on whether the UI is suitable for non-touch screens, but regardless, the tie-up with Nokia will be sufficient to see some substantial growth over the next 2 years.

So where does this leave us? There is room for 3, maybe 4 OS's in the market. Why not more? Key to the success of any modern OS is the availability of apps to run on these devices, and developers will not support an infinite number of systems. Android and Apple currently rule the roost, so it'll be between Phone 7 and Blackberry OS to take 3rd. My money would be on Phone 7, because Microsoft have too much money to let it fail. That will leave Blackberry to battle on in 4th place, with a shrinking market share.

So when you're confronted with all those shiny new phones that promise so much, think about where those brands will be in a years time, because you don't want to be stuck with a device that is no longer supported.

Thanks for reading.

Mobile Messenger Services Are A Mess

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 08:20:00 +0000

The IM sector is red hot again these days, as people turn to these services to replace the ridiculously overpriced SMS services offered by the carriers. RIM have managed to do this very successfully with their BBM messaging service, despite the fact that BBM is limited to Blackberry devices. For many, this is the number one reason to purchase a Blackberry. In the teen market this is currently the phone of choice.

Seeing the success that RIM has had with this strategy, Google and Apple have rushed to bring similar products to market.

Google's strategy is a bit confusing. Google Chat (or is it Google Talk?) has been developed into a great IM package that works across desktop and mobile, and includes video, SMS, group chat and more. Then along comes the Google+ mobile app and now we have Huddle, a very simple group chat app, built into the G+ app. Now I'm not technical, but why didn't Google just incorporate their existing IM package? Huddle has now been updated to include photo sharing, and simultaneously changed its name to Messenger. The problem with this service is that it's mobile only. For me, turning away from my desktop, with it's large ergonomic keyboard, to reply to a message on my phone, with it's tiny keyboard, is very frustrating. It makes no sense at all!

In early October (hopefully) Apple will release iOS5 into the wild, and one of the new features is iMesenger. I believe it will work across mobile and desktop, but will unfortunately be limited to Apple devices, which makes it pretty useless. I understand that the strategy is to turn each iPhone user into a salesperson: "Get an iPhone like mine and we can chat for free!" It hasn't worked with Facetime, and it won't work here. Really Apple, am I only allowed to be friends with people that also use Apple products? C'mon!

I'm not a Facebook fan, but at least they got this right. Well almost. Facebook Messenger works in the browser and in their mobile app, and now Facebook have launched a separate Messenger app for smartphones, which is a great idea, as you don't have to open the main app first. Are you listening Google? The problem: you can only chat with people you have friended on Facebook. I don't want all my work colleagues following my social activities on Facebook, but it would be useful if I could text them!

A number of startups have also attempted to gain some traction in this sector. Beluga was gaining in popularity, but Facebook bought them out, and created their Messenger service. Whatsapp has a big following, and it's not OS specific, but there is no desktop version available, so it's mobile only.

So what's the answer? Currently, I use Google Talk/Chat, Google+ Messenger, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, and when iOS5 comes out I'll also use iMessenger. With my Blackberry carrying friends I feel a bit left out, and have to hope they use Whatsapp. Of course, in an emergency, good old SMS is still available, but I would love to be able to move away from SMS entirely. Until one of these companies can build all this functionality into one app, I'm forced to keep using a combination, depending on whom I'm chatting with. What a mess!

And who owns the rights to the Messenger name anyway?

Thanks for reading.

iOS or Android?

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 13:21:00 +0000

This is one of the most hotly debated topics in the tech world over the course of the last year. Should one prescribe to Steve Jobs's 'walled garden', or go with Google's 'open' approach? Sadly, I don't have the finances to afford both - I have one contract phone and I'll be stuck with whatever I choose for the next 2 years.
Many people mock my indecision, but the latest generation of smartphones are far more than phones; for many that has become a secondary function. A smartphone in 2011 is also a pocket computer and web browser, a media player, a still and video camera, a calendar, an address book, a calculator, and an alarm clock. Furthermore, thanks to the hundreds of thousands of apps available, it can also be a GPS navigation device, an ebook reader, a photo editor, an rss reader, or a portable game machine. It can be the biggest time suck, or a lifesaver in a difficult situation. For Apple, the iPhone has turned them into one of the most valuable companies in the world; no wonder Eric Schmidt has repeatedly stated that Google's focus for 2011 is on mobile.
So what are the choices:
Symbian - still the most widely used mobile OS, thanks to its use in many Nokia feature phones, Symbian has been floundering, and their future in smartphones is uncertain.
WebOS - developed by Palm and bought out by HP, this is a fantastic OS but has limited prospects until HP's future plans are clarified.
Blackberry OS - another proprietary OS, RIM have captured a huge portion of the market, but even with the introduction of their touchscreen models, BB's remain mostly business phones.
Android - Google's open source OS has seen enormous growth in 2010 thanks to widespread adoption by the likes of HTC, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG.
iOS - Apples iconic OS was at the heart of the touchscreen revolution and is exclusive to their products, including the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
Considering the options, it looks like a simple choice between iOS or Android, but it's anything but simple. The two companies, Apple and Google, have completely different strategies, and depending on your requirements and/or expectations, these strategies will undoubtedly influence your choice. At first look, the choice for me seemed obvious. I'm a big fan of Google's products, and have long respected their efforts at openness. I've followed their development of Android with eager anticipation, and looked forward to experiencing entering my Google user name and seeing all my contacts, email and calendar events syncing before my eyes! Based on this perception I convinced my girlfriend to opt for a Sony Ericsson X10 Mini running Android when her contract came up for renewal.
The problems started almost immediately. The phone was shipping with Android 1.6, when the talk in the tech world was all about the imminent release of 2.3. A couple of weeks later an upgrade was rolled out: version 2.1! And what's more, Sony Ericsson announced that this would be the last update for the X10 series. So, within less than 2 months of purchase, we learned that we would not receive any of the future Android goodness. The reason for this is clear; with the best intentions in the world, Google continue to push out update after update, but unless you have one of the Nexus range of Google phones, you're reliant on the phone manufacturer to take the latest version of Android and update their proprietary layer of software before they ship it. Then, in many cases, you have to wait for your carrier to add their bloatware as well! By the time you receive the update Google have pushed out 2 later versions! In contrast, Apple sends out their updates via iTunes, directly to the user, and depending on which version of the iPhone you have, you'll get all the new features that'll work with your hardware. Simple, direct and easy to understand.

My next headache came when I was asked to add some music and podcasts. I have not used an iPhone before, but I'm familiar with the process on iPods; plug into my PC running iTunes, choose which playlists to sync, and that's it. I had downloaded DoubleTwist in preparation, so I was all set to go. To be fair, DoubleTwist works quite well with music files. All my iTunes playlists appeared, and synced up quite easily. Podcasts were a different story. DoubleTwist have their own 'subscriptions', but the podcasts I wanted to sync already appeared on iTunes. Creating a 'Podcast' playlist worked, but the files then appeared as music files on the device, so if you stopped playback midway through, on restart the music player started at the beginning again! There are a number of workarounds, but this shouldn't be necessary. Why haven't Google developed an iTunes equivalent yet? The majority of people don't want to mess around with a bunch of different programs to get their media onto their phones; they want something logical and simple. Apple offers this, Google doesn't.

One of the advantages of Android over Google is the Android homescreen. While Apple only offer a collection of icons, or folders of icons, with minimal 'live' interaction by way of the 'badges' showing missed calls, unread messages, etc, Android has live widgets showing weather updates, stock market updates, etc. Androids also have a stunning feature called live wallpaper, introduced from 2.1. These features add some great bling to the Android experience, but almost no-one can keep them activated - they kill battery life!

And herein lies the rub. Apple controls the complete iPhone experience; they develop the hardware and the software together, and they have strict control over any apps that are loaded by the user. In contrast, Google have developed a great OS, but other than some guidelines, the phone manufacturers are left to develop the hardware in isolation. App developers are free to create almost anything they like, and the customer has no recall if the app doesn't perform as expected. Google have been concentrating on the OS, and while there are plenty of rumours about wireless syncing, and a cloud based gTunes (my name), there is nothing official right now. The future for Android certainly looks bright, and there's a lot of work going into Android 3.0 for tablets right now. But that's all in the future - I need to decide which phone I'm going to get right now. I can get an iPhone 4 and I know that iOS 4.3, when released, will be available immediately for my phone, and that it'll run seamlessly with all the apps I have. For a similar price I can get an HTC Desire running Android 2.2. If I'm lucky, I might get an upgrade to 2.3 at sometime, but there are no guarantees beyond that. If Google introduce gTunes, but it's only available on Android 3.0, I will probably not get access for 2 years, when my contract comes up for renewal again.

In many ways I believe that Android would be a better fit for me, but as it stands right now I don't think that they're quite there yet. In the past I have been critical of iTunes, and as a pure music player/manager I still believe there are better options, but as an overall product management system it is without peer. Google needs to roll out gTunes, or whatever they're going to call it, as a matter of urgency. They need to take back control of their OS; if the manufacturers and carriers want to add a layer onto Android it has to be separate, and not effect the updates that Google should be rolling out themselves. Every Android phone should be running the latest version of the OS that it's hardware can support. Google needs to set maybe 3 device specs: screen size & resolution and processor performance (perhaps), plus a couple more for tablets, so that anyone developing for the platform knows what needs to be supported. This may not be the 'open' utopia that Larry & Sergey envisage, but it's what the consumers want, and sometimes you need to listen.
The bottom line - unless something drastic happens before the end of February it looks like I'll be crossing over to the iPhone camp for the next 24 months.

Thanks for reading.

The best bike computer that you can't buy...!

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 14:44:00 +0000

Cycling computers have evolved over the last 10 years. Remember when you had to have a wire running from the sensor on your fork up the the handlebar mounted unit that displayed speed and distance, and that was it. The big breakthrough came with wireless units - I remember my Cateye Cordless 7 being the envy of the day! Then Polar came along and suddenly you could have heart rate, and even altitude on your computer. In my opinion, and in the opinion of no less a blogging authority than the Fat Cyclist, the best bike computer currently available is the Garmin Edge 500, which adds GPS. However, at about R2,400 (or $250 in the States), this is an expensive bit of kit.
Now, if you ask any cyclist to turn out his pockets at the end of a ride, in amongst an assortment of keys, mini-tools and sticky energy bar wrappers, you'll always find a cell phone. And most top-end phones include GPS, so why should we have to pay twice for it? There are numerous apps available for Android, iOS and Symbian phones designed for runners and cyclists, and most of them have a free version. Most rides I go on I track with my phone - I love being able to sit at my computer and see my exact route, speed at each km point, altitude etc.
The problem is, most modern smartphones are a bit big to strap to your handlebars, and their screens are notoriously difficult to read in direct sunlight.

And then I saw the Sony LiveView micro display, and the answer was revealed to me! This is a tiny, Bluetooth connected device that gives a status linked to your phone, letting you control your music or see your Facebook updates. It's so small it can even be worn as a watch! Unfortunately, with only a 1.3" display the LiveView would be a bit small, and with an LED display would almost definitely have the same problems in sunlight as a fully fledged smartphone. The ideal bike computer would have an LCD display similar in size to the Garmin Edge 500 above, but the unit would link via bluetooth to your smartphone which would be doing all the heavy lifting! Even with it's expensive OLED display the LiveView is retailing for only $100, so I figure with a cheaper but slightly larger LCD screen, my device needn't cost any more than that! Any takers?

Thanks for reading.

Android vs Symbian

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:09:00 +0000

I've been using an Android phone for a few weeks now, and while mostly good, my experience hasn't been without its problems and frustrations. Coming from a Nokia and Symbian experience, it's impossible not to make comparisons.

The phone I'm using now is definitely not one of the best examples of Android available, but I expect many of my thoughts are generic. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini is very much an entry level smartphone, but its most limiting factor is that it is still running Android 1.6 (Donut). Hopefully that will change before the end of October, when the upgrade to 2.1 (Eclair) is due. Anyway, to put it into context, my previous phone was a Nokia XpressMusic 5800, Nokia's first effort at a touchscreen phone. However, I have also spent some time with an N97 Mini, so I'm fairly familiar with the S60 V5 software, and its capabilities and limitations.

As a Google self-proclaimed fanboy I really want to like Android. However, it's lack of polish came as a big surprise. The OS, certainly in 1.6 form, feels unfinished. Considering the speed at which update are being churned out, maybe this version should be considered unfinished! But worries me is that maybe this is the Android Team's approach, and all versions will be like that.

So what am I talking about? Mainly, it has to do with the features available natively on the phone. For example, Nokia have long offered the option for an ascending alarm ringtone. There's nothing worse than waking to an alarm at full volume! Such a basic feature, you'd think it would be standard on every phone. For sure, if I was developing a new OS, it's just one of the things I would have on my list of essential features. But not Android. Sure, I was able to download a free app (AlarmDroid) that includes that feature, but that's exactly what worries me about the success of Android in the market. Most of the people I know don't want to be bothered with trying to find an alarm app to download; they expect it to come standard, and if it doesn't they'll tell their mates about the lack of features! The Android Team shouldn't be leaving it to the app developers to supply the features for their phones; they should be building those features into the OS.

Of course, the alarm feature isn't the only example. I've had to download an app to monitor data usage (NetCounter), another to add an alarm and pop-up notification for calendar events (Android Agenda Widget), and a third to pull my calendar events into a widget on one of the homepages (Calendar Snooze). These features are standard on Nokia's phones.

Of course, there's a huge amount being written by how important apps are in the post iPhone world. Apple and Google are even adding App Stores to their desktop OS's. And there are some fantastic apps available; many for free. Apart from the obvious Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare ones, I've been very impressed with the likes of Endomondo and CardioTrainer (both for sports tracking via GPS), doubleTwist (music and podcast syncing and playing), and Google's own Google Goggles (search via photos taken on your phone). My point is that many of these, or variations of these, are also available in Nokia's Ovi Market.

In my opinion, Nokia isn't quite as dead as many tech journalists would have you believe. Apps alone will not make a great OS!

However, I will pursue with my Android phone for a while longer, and I hope that upcoming upgrades (Gingerbread, Honeycomb) will add the polish that Android needs.

Thanks for reading!

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 06:51:00 +0000

I've long been a Nokia fan, but over the last few years they seem to have lost the plot. Ever since the original iPhone was launched back in 2007, Nokia have steadily lost market share in the smartphone market. Nokia's loss has been Android's gain; in less than 2 years the Google developed mobile operating system has gained substantial footing in this competitive market.

As a self-proclaimed Google fanboy, the attractions for any Android phone are numerous. Above all, the auto sync with gmail, calendars and contacts. After years of wrestling with Mail for Exchange and apps like Emoze, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the real deal!

My chance came this week in the form of a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini. I have this phone on a short term loan from my girlfriend, but I already dread the day I have to go back to my old Nokia 5800. Anyway, back to the phone: this is the smallest Android phone available, and comes in at a very competitive price. It offers the convenience of a touchscreen smartphone, without too much complexity or any of the bulk, weighing in at a featherweight 88g. An ideal handbag phone. The interchangeable coloured backcovers should also appeal to the style conscious. But that's not to say it lacks oomph, I've been very impressed with how smoothly the phone has handled everything I've thrown at it. The 2.55" capacitive screen doesn't offer the highest resolution either; at 240 x 320 pixels don't expect the "retina" display.

The biggest problem with the X10 Mini is shared with its big brother, the X10. Both phones are still running Android 1.6 (Donut), and the update to 2.1 (Eclair) has been pushed back to the end of October. Judging by the reaction on the various forums, everyone is desperate to get their hands on the upgrade. However, its still not clear if or when the Mini will get 2.2 (Froyo). We can only hope...

My other problem has been the battery capacity. At first I couldn't go a whole day without recharging. However, after a weeks use, and several charge/discharge cycles, performance has improved slightly. On the advice of several forums members, I installed the JuiceDefender app. The free version doesn't offer many features, but by reducing the length of time the phone accesses data in the background, the battery life is extended substantially.

Another useful free app is Timeriffic. This allows you to set various 'profiles' for different times of the day. For example, an essential one is to switch off the notification at night. Getting woken up every time I receive an email is not an option!

The X10 Mini has a number of homescreens that can be set up with widgets, one for each page. Flicking through these will give you instant access to your calendar, weather reports, Google Search, etc. Set these up as you like. A vertical flick across the screen reveal the icons for any apps you have loaded. Again, a horizontal flick takes you from page to page, with 9 icons per page. This system works very well, and makes good use of the limited screen space.

The one feature I haven't mentioned is Timescape. This Sony Ecicsson app combines your Twitter and Facebook stream with your text (SMS) messages, MMS and missed calls, into tiles that flow chronologically on the screen. The effect is awesome, but due to concerns about excessive data usage I disabled it almost immediately!

So, as my introduction to Android, what do I think? Did it live up to my expectations? Definitely! Android highlights how dated Symbian has become. I love that almost everything can be modified or adjusted, if not natively, then by using one of the thousands of available apps. As of right now, us South Africans do not have access to the paid apps in the Android Market (although that will apparently change shortly), so it was a nice surprise that almost every app I wanted has been available for free. The Market itself could use some work, especially on discovery, but compared to the Ovi Store it's been fantastic! Looking ahead, I'm thinking about what phones will be available when my current contract comes up for renewal in the new year. One thing I know for sure: it'll be an Android!

Thanks for reading!

Nokia N97 Mini

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:09:00 +0000

My friends at Nokia SA delivered a package to my office last week. It came as a bit of a surprise, as it's been a while since they've made contact. However, imagine my delight to find an N97 Mini - mine to evaluate for a couple of weeks.

For those not familiar with the Mini, it is the little brother of the 'N' Series flagship model, the N97. As the name would imply, the Mini is smaller is all directions, and is also lighter by 22g. The main differentiating features are the lack of the 'D' Pad, and the 3.2" screen, compared to the 3.5" of its big brother. The mini doesn't have a camera lens protector, but shares the same 5MP camera and dual LED flash. Internally, the key difference is a reduction in the internal memory, from 32GB to 8GB; still plenty for your music files and photos. If you do need more memory the Mini also supports up to 16GB expansion via microSD.

The N97 Mini runs the same Symbian OS as my Nokia 5800XM; S60V5, and so the menu structure was immediately familiar. However, the N97 and the Mini have a far nicer homescreen than the 5800; it has six customisable widgets that can show a selection of contacts, calendar, apps, or online feeds like weather or Facebook. The 640 x 360 pixel TFT display looks great indoors, but suffers in direct sunlight; something that South Africans need to consider when buying a touchscreen phone!

I have never been a fan of slide out qwerty keyboards, but the N97 Mini changed my mind. With S60V5, many apps and websites, and even Nokia's own messaging app, have not been optimised for touch. For example, if you want to send an SMS, you'll first be taken to the text screen that Nokia uses on it's normal numeric keyboard phones. Then you have to tap the screen, and you get taken to the touch screen. You enter your text, tap OK, and you go back to the text screen. Very convoluted! With the qwerty keyboard, you can type in directly from the first screen. This makes the work flow so much simpler!

The slide-out keyboard is a beautiful piece of engineering. As the keyboard slides out, the screen tilts to a convenient angle for viewing the display. This configuration also lends itself to putting the phone on a table and typing 2-handed, like a very tiny laptop. Unfortunately, while this works quite well on the N97, the off-centre design of the camera lens housing means that the phone doesn't sit flat on a table, and typing causes the phone to rock annoyingly!

The loan phone I was testing came loaded with the latest version 3.0 of Ovi Maps. This free to download app rocks! It offers voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation, and works without a data connection, so you don't face a horrendous bill at the end of the month. You do need to upload the map for your country, as well as the voice for the guide, but this can be done on a PC and synced to your phone. Used with the provided windshield mounting, this offers a very real alternative to the dedicated GPS systems, as long as you're happy with the slightly smaller screen.

If you're choosing between the N97 and the N97 Mini, both are great phones, even if the OS is a bit limited. The Mini is cheaper, lighter and more compact, but loses out on some memory and battery life. On the other hand, if you're upgrading from a classic styled phone, and you're looking for a phone that'll look good on the board room table, this is a great option. If you don't need the qwerty keyboard, have a look at the recently released X6, or wait for the new N8 which runs the all new Symbian ^3 OS.

Thanks for reading!

Google Needs It’s Own iTunes

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 09:55:00 +0000

Anyone that’s read my blog before knows that I’m a Google fanboy, and despite owning an iPod Nano, I’m not a huge fan of the ‘walled garden’ approach of Apple. I cannot deny that Apple’s hardware design is market leading, but I hate being a slave to Steve Jobs’s vision of our digital life.

A big part of the iPod/iPhone success can be directly related to the success of iTunes. I personally stopped using iTunes when I discovered MediaMonkey, because I only sync music and podcasts, and MediaMonkey is a superior product for this purpose (in my opinion). However, for the full media experience, users of the latest generation of iPods, and especially iPhones, users want to sync video and apps as well, and MediaMonkey doesn’t have this capability. In South Africa, we still don’t have (legal) access to the iStore (for music), so this is also not a requirement for me.

iTunes has it’s faults, but once you have all your media set up, the process of syncing your Apple device is as easy as plugging it in and hitting ‘sync’. It just works. And people that have used it have come to expect this simple ‘one click’ functionality.

Google doesn’t offer any comparable software that can do this with your Android based phone, and until they do, they won’t enjoy the same device loyalty that Apple has. The majority of people that use iTunes aren’t going to settle for anything less.

What Google doesn’t seem to realise, is that most people are still more comfortable searching for content on their home PCs. The ease of using a big screen and physical keyboard far outweighs the convenience of doing the same thing on a portable device. I want to be able to sit at my PC, access the internet via my uncapped broadband connection, download an album, a couple of new apps, select a photo album from my hard drive that I want to show my mates, rip a DVD, and sync the whole lot to my portable media device/phone, preferably wirelessly, with one click. Is that too much to expect?

The technology to do all of this exists, and to mash it all together into one application would be simple for a company with the resources of Google. The Google owned Picasa application is one of the best photo (and video) managers available - a similar app for music would be brilliant. It could even be added into Picasa. Picasa syncs to the online Web Albums app, and it would be simple to create a similar online music app. They could even use the Lala model, whereby you don’t have to physically upload each song, but if it’s on your HD, it’s added to your online library from a central server. I could imagine listening to music loaded on my Android based phone, and if I can’t find the song I want, switching to the web app and streaming it to my phone. Don’t own it? Use the search function and either buy it and download it, or stream it for a couple of cents.

Such an online photo/video/music web app would fit in perfectly with the soon to be released Chrome OS. Google’s vision for Chrome OS is that it would run on fairly basic machines, with minimal, solid state hard drives. No space for a 40 Gb music library! The OS will be a browser. However, they haven’t offered a solution for playing back media yet. Viewing photos and video could be covered by Picasa Web Albums, but to date they are relying on 3rd party apps like Spotify for music. They would be much better served if they offered their own app.

What’s in it for Google? Well, once a customer had the software set up and all his media connected, he wouldn’t want to switch to another platform and start all over again. when his contract expires, he’s going to upgrade to another Android based phone, or Chrome OS based laptop or tablet. He would be locked in. That’s the real beauty of iTunes.

Thanks for reading.

My Take on Google Buzz

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:20:00 +0000

Many, many blogs have already commented on Google Buzz since it was unleashed upon the world on the 9th of February. I wanted to wait a while before chipping in with my 2c, so that I could get a feel for what Google might be trying to do with their latest release.

So, by now, most of the people that might read this blog have already tried Buzz for themselves, so I won't go into all the features. Instead, I want to look at what Buzz means to Google, and where Google is perhaps positioning Buzz. This is just my take on it, and is by no means official.

Google may have started out as an internet search company, but "as a business, Google generates the majority of its revenue by offering advertisers measurable, cost-effective and highly relevant advertising, so that the ads are useful to the people who see them as well as to the advertisers who run them."

This business is dependent on people using the internet. The more page views, the more money Google makes. As simple as that. However, Google have not sat back and let nature take it's course. They are constantly developing new apps to make the internet experience ever more compelling, and they are looking at ways to make the internet an indispensable part of everyday life.

When people complained the internet was too slow for some of the apps Google was developing, they introduced their own browser to speed things up. Foreign languages a problem? Google have invested heavily in translation tools.

So where does Buzz fit in? Well Facebook has grown into the king of social networking, with in excess of 400 million users. Facebook offers the complete intenet experience for many users; messaging, which is soon to grow into a full email service (if the rumours are to be believed), instant messaging, photo albums, real-time micro-blogging, and thousands of apps for games etc. Oh, and they also have the best system to stay in touch with your real-life friends available today. The problem for Google is that many of these people using Facebook aren't venturing out of it's "walled garden", and are thus avoiding the Google advertising that has infiltrated the rest of the internet. Google needs to be a player in the social networking game.

Of course, they do have Orkut, but that has not taken off in their home market, and the U.S. is where the real advertising dollars are. Google already have apps that compete very admirably against the individual aspects of Facebook, and then some, but currently they are very disjointed. And they had nothing in the real-time micro blogging arena at all.

With this background, Buzz starts to make sense. They took their most popular app, Gmail, and baked Buzz right in there. You couldn't miss it. They immediately had more than 140 million users! Privacy issues aside, straight out of the box, Buzz integrates very well with the other Google apps like Reader and Picasa, but not so well with the likes of Twitter and Friendfeed. There have also been a lot of complaints about the amount of 'noise'. Don't worry, these issues will get sorted out. Google is taking Buzz very seriously!

What excites me is the potential of Buzz. Google will get the real time problem with Twitter sorted out, and will add links to other sides too. Imagine Buzz a few months down the line, when it has become the go-to site for all your social networking needs. You'll link with your friends, both real and virtual, from sites all over the web, in one place. Facebook may resist, and are probably big enough to do it, but I foresee smaller sites agreeing to Google's terms in the hope that it'll drive more people their way.

So what else does Google need to do? Well, a lot of people have complained about the integration with Gmail. I say integrate more! I think that Google should have one main page with Profile, Reader, Contacts and Calendar, all together with Gmail/Buzz. In fact, I don't know why Google hasn't done this - maybe it is a speed issue. I would hate Gmail to slow down to Windows Live speeds! However, I think Profile needs to become an integral part of the Google experience. People maintain their profiles in other apps, why not Google. The Google Profile should be central to your on-line personality.

A lot of people have drawn comparisons between Buzz, Facebook and Twitter. For me, Twitter isn't even in the same league, and I wouldn't be surprised if their numbers dropped off significantly. If you consider what Google offers; email (Gmail), instant messaging (Gtalk) and micro-blogging (Buzz), it sounds very similar to Facebook. Add photo albums (Picasa), and you've got all the main elements. Then if you add Reader, Calendar, Tasks and Docs, you've got (in my mind) a Facebook killer! It may not all be under one roof like Facebook, but gradually we are seeing better integration between these products. The fight for our eyeballs is far from over, and I think that the consumer will benefit from the competition. For me, I love Gmail, I think Buzz compliments it well, and as long as they keep Farmville and the like out, I'll keep Buzzing!

The Awesome Nokia X6

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce Attridge) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:18:00 +0000

If you live in North America and want a smartphone, you probably only think iPhone, or one of various Android devices, like the Motorola Droid or the HTC Nexus One. However, if you live in Europe, or as I do, in South Africa, Nokia dominates the market.

Nokia entered the touchscreen market with the 5800 XpressMusic, and has followed up with a number of similar, yet slightly differently featured 'entertainment' phones, like the 5130, which also saw the introduction the the successful "Comes With Music" package in South Africa. This offers consumers unlimited downloads to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue, which currently has over 6-million digital tracks, and this offering is valid for a one year period.

Now Nokia has launched the X6 (note all future XpressMusic phones will now be prefaced by an 'X') in South Africa as it's new flagship model. At only 13.8mm thick it is less than half the size of the 5800, but now includes a 3.2" capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels. In a departure for Nokia, the X6 comes with 32GB of internal memory, as apposed to the microSD cards used on most of it's phones. It's also got a 5 megapixel camera equipped with a Carl Zeiss lens. With a standby time of over 400 hrs, a talk time of over 8 hrs, and 35 hrs of music playback, this phone sure has the power needed for all your entertainment needs.
Quoting from the Nokia Press Release:
"The Nokia X6 is the ultimate device for social butterflies, bringing friends and virtual communities, like Facebook, to the homescreen thus making it easy to socialise with friends and follow all the favourite blogs and celeb gossip. The device has a 16:9 widescreen which is optimised for photo and imaging display, web browsing, video recording and gaming."
I haven't been able to get my hands on one of these beauties yet, but I'll be sure to post my comments as soon as I do.

Thanks for reading.