Tag Archives: Smartphone

AppleCare on the NHS

Before Russell T Davies retconned their history so that they were created by Trigger from Only Fools and Horses, the original Cybermen on Doctor Who were humans who’d gone overboard augmenting their bodies with technology. In my vision of the future we’re still emotionless monstrosities, but with unnecessarily-glowing Apple logos embossed on our cold, metallic skin.

Sinister.

JobsCo haven’t quite gotten to the point of delving beneath human flesh, networking your nervous system and linking it to a proprietary port for which you have to buy a separate £39 cable just so you can play your iTunes purchases out of your coccyx. But if rumours that Apple are developing a “smart watch” are to be believed, then I can’t help but think it’s getting sinisterly close to the Apple Geniuses receiving surgical training and AppleCare coming on the NHS (which won’t make it any cheaper, by the way).

If true, which I doubt but I’ve been wrong before, then it would inevitably connect (exclusively) to an iPhone via Bluetooth, have a camera to allow Facetime and be controlled either by a touch-screen or Siri or both. The microphone on the iPhone has never been great, so unless you link a Bluetooth headset to a Bluetooth watch to a Bluetooth phone, you’d have to mutter into your wrist like you’re conspiring with your armhair to overthrow the Illuminati.

They wouldn’t be the first to try and bring out a “smart watch” (though I hope to God that’s not what we end up calling them), LG tried to persuade us that an entire phone strapped onto your carpus was a good idea back in 2009. They made lofty promises of “basic functionality” and “various clock faces” but sadly it never quite caught on. More recently, the Kickstarter-darling “Pebble” watch and Sony’s SmartWatch are at least being realistic by connecting to existing smartphone platforms rather than trying to overthrow the iPhone and Android giants with a concept device more niche than a Josef Fritzl fanclub.

iPod Nano in a wrist-strap, but still

The idea of watch-gadgetry has been around in fiction for a while: Dick Tracy, Secret Squirrel and Power Rangers all famously wore watches with (amongst other things) communicators. Whilst the idea is nifty, it’s always struck me as a prospect that wouldn’t work well in reality. For one thing, modern gadgets (particularly Apple devices) have a notorious scratch-rate and that’s just when it’s in a pocket, imagine what lacerations it’ll emerge with after a day in the open air. Even if you work a desk-job, proximity to coffee, hard-surfaces, blue-sky thinking or (worst of all) clichés would still afford it a scrape or two.

The screen would be so small that working out who’s calling you from the hopelessly-pixelated scaled photo would be like watching a bizarre witness-protection episode of Deal or No Deal. Their position as a highly sought-after device (which the Great Apple Publicity Machine would see to) would be incongruous with their nature as being visible and easily accessible, since it’d be easy for thieves to target people who were sporting one. Wrist-mounted tech seems about as practical to me as a marzipan sledgehammer.

Of course, practicality has never stood in Apple’s way when it comes to selling a product. In much the same way as trainers, mobile phones or regular watches (hereafter referred to as “caveman timepieces”, “Luddite chronometers” or “wrist sundials”), this gadget would be a fashion symbol first and a tool second.

But if people are willing to pay for it on the basis of branding alone, then why shouldn’t Apple take advantage? Though I may regret those words in five year’s time when I’m running down a corridor desperately spraying bullets behind me to escape a swarm of iCyborg and a mechanically resurrected Steve Jobs.

Excruciatingly typed on my new iPad Mini. Happy Christmas.

Windows Phone 7 – Review

(Spark* repost)

In our Nokia Lumia 800 review earlier in the term, we skipped going into too much detail on the Windows Phone 7 operating system it was playing host to, since that alone could fill a whole review. So that’s exactly what we’ve done.

Windows Phone 7 is a complete overhaul of the Windows Mobile software that Microsoft has been touting for the last decade or so. Having been thoroughly eclipsed in success by Apple’s iPhone, in a fraction of the time, Microsoft finally ended development of Windows Mobile in 2010 and released the inaugural version of Windows Phone 7 in October that same year. Since then, it’s undergone only minor tinkerings until the first major update: 7.5, codename ‘Mango’, was rolled out last September. This is the version you’ll find installed on all available WP7 handsets, if you can fight through the heaps of Android handsets and avoid tripping over the worshipping congregation surrounding the iPhone.

The Homescreen

On the Tiles

The home screen is the first iteration of Microsoft’s soon-to-be ubiquitous ‘Live Tiles’ interface, which is set to make it’s second appearance in Windows 8’s tablet mode. Rather than simply a static array of icons, the tiles that link into apps and menus are fully colour customisable and can be configured to display pertinent information at a glance. Things like RSS feeds, news headlines and Facebook notifications can be set up to show in tiles, which is really useful if you find yourself checking the same sites constantly for updates. Unlike iOS, the home screen shows only apps that you want to be visible, and a full list of installed apps can be quickly accessed with a swipe. However, the tile bar is oddly off-centre in order to accommodate a single icon, which feels like wasted space, and it doesn’t display the signal indicator in the top bar unless the area is pressed. Nevertheless, such a feature-rich home screen gives the Live Tiles interface a very lively look that was really fun to use and behold.

Social Mosaic

Windows Phone 7 has been created with social networking in mind, and is capable of an unprecedented level of integration with these websites, effectively turning your phone into a all-purpose social hub. While this will be jarring for people who like to keep a clear distinction between social networking and real-life, it is a lot of fun to play with. When you link it to a Facebook account, your contacts are incorporated into your phone book, and it will allow you to unify old contacts with Facebook profiles. The ‘People’ tile then comes alive with an ever-changing mosaic of your friend’s profile pictures which was quite entertaining to watch. Looking at individual contacts will give you a full range of contact methods (from texting to poking), as well as run down of their most recent updates. This will also create a ‘Me’ tile, pasted with your profile picture, that allows you to access all your myriad accounts under one banner. From here, you can check notifications and push new updates to many accounts at once; and, as it updates in real-time, you won’t have to wait for new notifications to download and can check for them from the home screen’s Live Tile. Whilst I really enjoyed these features, the packed menus and plethora of options became a little overwhelming to look through and I did get lost. There are still superb dedicated apps for Facebook and Twitter, but the social features of WP7 are so quick and enjoyable that you won’t feel the need to use them.

The 'People' tile also conveniently doubles as a hitlist, if required

Not ‘Appy

The relative infancy of the OS means that the range of available apps for WP7 is lacklustre. Whilst it has most of the biggest and popular apps, it lacks the same diverse developer base that the iOS and Android enjoy. Although you could argue that it trims the fat of the arguably bloated Android store and allows easier app discovery, this will nonetheless hurt sales. Whilst Microsoft have bundled in a great deal of useful native apps, it still lacks the quirkiness and creativity that its competitors have in spades. Sadly, this will create a viscious cycle: independent developers, that add this character, won’t code apps for a platform that still has a market share in single figures, whilst the barren app store will be a deal-breaker for a lot of potential users.

You cannot be Siri-ous.

Another nifty native feature on the OS is limited voice control. It’s not quite Siri, but it’ll dictate text messages, dial contacts and initiate searches (albeit using Bing) with reasonable accuracy and with no prior configuration needed.

Internet Explorer 9 Mobile

Web browsing is perfectly functional, once you get used to the disheartening feeling of seeing the Internet Explorer logo each time and being constrained to use it. In fairness, it does seem to lack most of the faults of its clunky computer-based cousin. There were no overly offensive mistakes in rendering web pages, though it certainly has a better time displaying mobile sites than normal ones. Whilst it’s perfectly fine for most purposes, I’d definitely like to see a few alternatives pop up in the app marketplace soon, just to drive up the competition.

Flash (Ahhh!)

The Mango update also imbued the browser with HTML5 support, but until that gains wider support on websites you’ll have to get used to not being able to view pages that lather on the Flash too heavily. To remedy this slightly, WP7 ostensibly comes with a YouTube “app”, which is actually just a direct link to its mobile site. Google have specifically designed their mobile site for YouTube to be flash-less so you can watch these with impunity, but otherwise you’re out of luck. However, this is not a WP7 issue but rather an issue with mobile web browsing on any device. Hopefully, either the uptake of HTML5 video players or the expedience of Adobe’s mobile flash support will put this issue to bed soon enough.

Zuneral

Microsoft bundles music functionality on the OS under a ‘Zune’ app, a fairly unremarkable music player that takes its name from Microsoft’s line of MP3 players. The ‘Zune Marketplace’ allows subscription-based music streaming, but with a recently released Spotify app available for WP7, boasting a wider music selection for a lower price, this is not likely to be a widely-used feature. Like most of the menu systems in WP7, the Zune player have so many menus and sub-menus that it’s very difficult to keep track of where you are or how to do key tasks. Managing media syncing from your computer requires installing Zune software on your computer, which was difficult to set up and will seldom be used. Unfortunately, Microsoft seems to be electing to roll out updates via the Zune software, so doing battle with it can’t be avoided.

Eminem is known for his endorsement of technology he has no idea how to use

Multitask Madness

Though Windows Phone 7 supports multi-tasking, the way you use it leaves a lot to be desired and it clearly hasn’t been properly thought through. With an app open, pressing the ‘Start’ button (the Windows logo on the front of the device) will take you back to your home screen, but the app is still open. Holding the ‘Back’ button shows you the apps currently running and allows you to zip between them, but you can’t close them from here. To do this, you need to go into the app itself and can reportedly close apps by double-pressing the ‘Back’ button rapidly (which we only found out by searching forums). However, most of time rather than closing the app we simply got thrown unceremoniously back through it’s multitude of menus. In the web browser, this simply meant going back two web pages, but the browser remained resolutely open; only when it ran out of web history did the app finally terminate. If you’re willing to do the legwork to find ‘how-to’ guides, you can master the multi-task madness, but that kind of speaks to how unintuitive it really is. Hopefully, this will be refined in later updates but it’s a pretty elementary feature that Microsoft really shouldn’t be getting wrong.

Best of both worlds

For updates, Windows Phone 7 strikes a neat middle-ground between it’s two rivals. Apple’s careful exclusivity of OS to hardware in the iPhone puts off those who want a wider choice in specs. Meanwhile, Google’s liberal distribution of Android to anything more powerful than an abacus gives a lot of choice, but means that software updates are not be compatible with large numbers of Android handsets. Microsoft impose “tough, but fair” minimum spec requirements on devices that they’ll license WP7 out to, which presumably any future updates to Mango will be tailored to. But with an OS that clearly needs further development, we would hope that this is the case.

Conclusion

Windows Phone 7 feels like an OS that has had a lot of time and energy put into it’s look, and doubtless this is what has fueled it’s promising start. The problem is that it largely feels like so much effort was put into the interface that it falls down in other areas, so we end up with labyrinthine menu systems that stand in stark contrast to the relative simplicity of iOS. Further, it’s lack of apps do it a great disservice and lend the OS a feeling of untapped potential. It’s a powerful OS that demands a powerful device, but it lacks any software or features that fully make use of it. With a hostile app environment to break in to, it may be too-little-too-late for Microsoft’s renewed foray into the smartphone market, but they might yet surprise us.

Nexus Hubbubery

Whenever there’s a consumer electronic’s show, I can’t afford to go. Nor am I famous enough to be specifically invited, nor do I work for any big publication willing to send me out there to cover it for freesies. But if I was, say, in Las Vegas right now for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), I’d have to be organised which, as you may’ve noticed, I’m not very good at yet, but I plan to start working on that………..sometime. I hate going through the tech websites at this time of year because all of them are so loaded with information and reports that you can nary keep up. I generally wait until it’s all over, then go through the collective stories and pick out ones that interest me – a dubious method for a current tech news blog – but this story cannot be ignored.

Google, who you would’ve thought had already dipped their toe in the smartphone waters, found it tepid and thrown it’s considerable weight into the clear blue; splashing up it’s Android OS, prevalent in the smartphone market simply for the amount of devices it’s on. It seems that they’ve gotten jealous of the amount of money HTC has made on handsets, providing their open-source OS must’ve been relatively cheap, and decided to build their own pool – “shocking” the tech world by unveiling their new phone – the Nexus One.

This smartphone will, unsuprisingly, run Google’s Android OS and, to be honest, doesn’t seem to have anything that I’d be persuaded by. Sure it’s perfect synergy – other companies made the handsets, Google made the OS and then the two were welded together like some hideous Frankenstein’s Monster smartphone – and if Google has control of both, you’d get the impression that the handset and OS would be optimised for one another. Indeed, the handset is reportedly much faster and runs far better than other Android phones, but past experience shows that this does not mean Google know what to do.

Remember, this is the first time Google have released ANYTHING entirely hardware based and making their debut with something as intricate, market-refined and closely scrutinised as a phone handset, and then having to “deal” with the heavy publicity after some scallywag “leaked” pictures of the handset late last year – by which I mean creating so much hubbubery – seems like a strange idea and, if I’m honest, the general result of that is that the handset will be crap.

Microsoft was sitting pretty for a long time as the only real contender in the smartphone OS market, whilst sitting pretty much on their arse the whole time. Apple released the iPhone with it’s own OS and inadvertedly inspired companies to release their own. Apart from this, regular phones have almost always come loaded with an OS designed and made by the handset manufacturer, and they usually take a few generations before they become comfortable on the hardware. Because Google release an OS first and their handset second will mean that they will spend a few generations with a good OS but a crap phone and the result will remain out of sync rather than allowing both aspects to be refined simultaneously.

That’s a view you could take but I think Google have played a blinder here. Rather than sink their own capital into a handset to test the waters (I’m back to that awkward swimming pool analogy) of their own software, they’ve lent it out to other manufacturers to get their “Google phone” publicised and tested out their OS, found that it’s become immensely popular and now feel that the OS has had enough time, enough tweaks, enough alterations to release hardware that will cater to the needs of the OS, as defined by the user this whole time. HTC, the most prolific conoceur of Android-laden handsets, has been little more than a vehicle for testing. Everyone whose bought an Android handset so far has been an unwitting beta tester for kind old Uncle Google lending out their OS, smiling warmly and saying “have that on me!”. Now cracks the noble heart and dawneth the second stage of Google’s master plan. I will not be suprised at all if, in the next few months, Google halts provision of Android to other manufacturers and begins allowing Android only on their own handsets, to create the sense of exclusivity that iPhone and Palm Pre have with their Operating Systems.

Of course, I maintain that Google doesn’t know enough about the hardware aspect to make a phone that will live up to the OS. I anticipate there will be many complaints about the phone being sluggish to load and other similar problems with the hardware once it’s in the hands of the user rather than being flashed around by some marketing executive in a Google-coloured suit. Although, I wouldn’t buy anything from a man who dressed like Colin Baker.

Their catchprase for this phone is also baffling, “Web meets Phone”? – the web met the phone in 2001, they’ve already married, had kids, grown apart, have increasingly frequent arguments and only stay together for the sake of their kids little 3G and his retarded older brother WAP.