New iPhone, New Issues

Every iPhone release comes with its own issues. From Antennagate on the iPhone 4! Where the metallic strip arounnd the device doubled as an antenna resulted in poor network reception depending on how the phone is held. Then the 4S had its brief battery performance flaws related to the OS itself, quickly sorted out with a software update. No phone is ever released problem-less but the iPhone tends to get the biggest attention. Why, they say it's the best smartphone so it's expected. The latest one has had mainly 2 complaints by its owners, being delivered with scuffs on the supposedly unscratchable aluminum back panel and a purple glare from photos taken facing a bright light source. Apple says the scuffs are beyond their control but that makes the metallic finish look bad because they promoted it as scratch resistant and smudge proof. Not a good look Apple. The misfiring camera on some phones is probably a quick fix for Apple, cue iOS 6.1 which will certainly look to also fix the fail which is the in-house maps by Apple. Next big device will bring its own shortcomings and we'll be there.

CONSOLE DESIGN REFRESHES: Gamesmanship or a lack of ideas

I spent a good amount of time looking up the correct spelling of 'console' just to make sure I started off right.

Home video gaming hardware has a come a long way in the last 20 or so years. SEGA & Nintendo held a monopoly till Sony joined the fray with the PlayStation. The gaming space seemingly couldn't take all three at once so one had to make room for Sony. Despite bringing us the Mega Drive, Saturn & Dreamcast, SEGA found itself marketless and went to game development entirely.

SEGA Dreamcast

Then came Microsoft with the Xbox. An odd move by a traditional pc maker, trying to move from desks to living rooms. They withered the lukewarm reception to their first generation hardware and bettered it with the Xbox 360. This was all at at parallel time to the release of Sony's own Playstation 3, released a year later. This has put these two in direct competition ever since and has made picking an overall winner hard.

Nintendo, meanwhile, has steered clear of this somewhat. Focusing on innovations that have made both Sony and Microsoft react with versions of their own i.e. the Wii movement concept spawned Microsoft's Kinect and the Playstation Move. The later not being well received by consumers.

Sony PlaysStation 3 ('12)

2005 & 2006 saw the birth of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 respectively....Fast forward more than 6 years later, neither Sony nor Microsoft is talking a complete overhaul in the hardware they brought us. Microsoft freshened up the 360 by slimming it down in 2010 and just the other day Sony followed suit, slightly reshaping the PS3. One would then start to wonder, when will we see a whole new console from either?

Xbox 360 ('05) & Xbox 360 Slim ('10)

Are these two companies trying to stick to the winning formula?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. So far both consoles have sold in hundreds of millions, their manufacturers could be trying to milk out the most from them without having to bother changing how  the hardware looks or feels.

Or maybe they are waiting to see who blinks first. It could be that they are both waiting for that one killer innovation to push them further ahead of the competition. Motion control is yet to be perfected, hard to tell where the next big thing could come from. If I knew, I'd be a billionaire. Microsoft will not venture into the mobile gaming world with PS Vita like xboxes, too risky a market.

I strongly doubt we'll see a PS4 in 2013, more likely a new Xbox but that is debatable. And where is Nintendo in all of this? Quietly prepping the Wii U, possibly with the aim of stealing a march on sales.

Nintendo Wii U

I have owned the same Xbox 360 for a good 4 years, looks good, firmware updates keep me I'm touch. Safe to say I'm only changing to the Xbox 720 if it will be called that.

Sammy, you have no one to blame but yourselves.......

Being seen to be 'anti-apple'/'anti-i-device' , this piece may come as a shock.

Apple vs. Samsung verdict knocked the Korean smartphone maker out of the water. A whopping $1bn, ouch. With a about $8bn a made from 'copied' devices, should Sammy be worried about the payout? In my opinion, they better. And this problem is all of their own making

Of course, Apple isnt the originator of all ideas but on just observation the iPhone 4 and Galaxy S II look like long lost twins. The galaxy designers were a touch too lazy.

Touch Wiz, without the widgets, is an iOS home screen clone. Google has side stepped taking sides in the ruling, saying the core android experience is not part of the infringment made by Samsung.

Samsung say this will deny users of choice and result in more expensive devices, I say they're paying for being short sighted and not being creative.

UPDATED: The Ativ range of Samsung looks pretty slick and now there are reports that Sammy will be looking to cut its dependence on Android and partner more with Microsoft.....Guess that's what happens when your OS provider cant defend you when push comes to shove.

Advice for Samsung, you've made your name, now push the design boundaries.

Follow the Cupertino Leader

Cupertino, CA. must be the scene of laughter as the industry, Apple coughs and the industry jumps. Whether its a 12th or 21th September release/announcement date, market competitors, be it Nokia or HTC are all scrambling to make the public aware of any up coming smartphones from their stables before Apple takes all the media attention.

Nokia blink first with a windows phone 8 event on the 5th of September rumored to be announcing at least one new device. HTC,well, talk of week 3 in September is a bit far compared to Nokia.

The marketing machine run by Apple will steam roll anybody regardless. Samsung took the early initiative, put out the Galaxy S III way ahead to make sure they sell units before the iPhone 5 aka the new iPhone hits sales figures.

September will surely a month of much fun fare.....here's hoping Nokia and HTC get the head starts they so desperately need in these tough days of smartphone making.

The Consequence of Too Much Success.....

The top, they say is a lonely place till of course someone dethrones you. Taiwanese phone maker HTC popped out of nowhere, took the US and world smartphone markets by storm. Their  year on year profits surprised many and the devices themselves were not half bad, the Evo, the Desire, Sensation, Wildfire, made for different prices ranges all got a piece of the lime light.

All the strides made by HTC put Samsung in the shade who were busy still trying to break out of Korea. As with every bubble, the HTC bubble burst and did terribly. Samsung took HTC's weak points and capitalized. Average to poor build quality of HTC smartphones has been one thing that plagued their well selling phones. Most had/have bad battery life and the hardware designers inspired but had/have too many weak points. Camera buttons, headphone jacks, display LCDs and charging inserts all had one or more assorted issues. HTC forgot to do another thing. Develop a device support base outside the carriers selling their phones.

Cue samsung, brought out better phones and better support for them and took the HTC crown on smartphones. Now HTC is struggling to sell phones. The HTC One series has failed to capture the hearts and minds of consumers. The One X is no slouch but put against the Samsug Galaxy S III but it isn't selling as well as the S III despite even having an earlier release date.

What should HTC do? Go back to the drawing board? Most certainly. Their over reliance on Android has left them in the cold, Google seems to throw the bones to them and not the meat. Device build needs to be up'd a notch. They don't have to make the heaviest phones to win. The Samsung range look and feel nice, plastics are not old.

My HTC love affair has stretched from the G1, touch diamond, and 7 Mozart. Loved all of them but all had their issues. My next smartphone shall be something else, maybe change is need to appreciate what you've always enjoyed.

Nokia or Samsung?

R.I.M., sinking ship in search of a lifeboat...To the rescue, Samsung/Sony/Anytakers??

Interesting times over at Research In Motion... The past few quarters have brought about change at the helm. Lazaridis and Balsillie, co-founders/co-CEOs seen as the authors of RIMs downfall, replaced by Thorsten Heins. Heins' task, steady the ship which looks now more destined to sink so choices are imminent on what to save, put in a lifeboat or cast straight into the sea with sharks circling.

The much talked about Blackberry 10 OS, set to save the company, won't see daylight till Q1 2013. This further reduced investor confidence, giving way to poor quarterly results and it's rumored has tasked it's bankers to find suitors for the company's assets. The usual suspects are mentioned with buying power, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, my guess is as good as yours.

RIM is having trouble churning out devices that have people sleeping on the streets or sending preorders through the roof. People in the markets that matter have simply switched their attention elsewhere. Their stranglehold on enterprise is soon to come under threat from Apple, who want to make the iPhone a true business smartphone; Google, continuously improving Android, and of course Microsoft, who have a lot of catch up to do but are seemly focused. RIM must decide which pieces are worth holding on to. Licensing their prized patents is a gamble worth taking and I think they should shed the hardware side of the business. Tough, but true. If they can get it right, BB10 could last the test of time.

Question now is, who would be interested in getting BB10 and putting it on their smartphones. Apple and Motorola, never. The former, cozy with iOS while the later was bought off by Google and is simply off limits. HTC is gun for hire running almost every major mobile OS out there, so maybe. Nokia just might be interested after they see if their marriage to Microsoft bears any profits to put them in the black with Windows Phone 8. Then there's Samsung, another gun for hire of sorts and the difficult Sony.

Samsung has been flirting with the idea of ditching android apparently and promote its Tizen/Bada combination. Much is to be seen of Tizen, many promising OSs have come and gone so it wouldn't be the first nor the last. Bada is no real android killer and google has its hooks deep into Samsung, their Galaxy range is major success because of android. Would ditch a sure winner? Samsung doesn't care much about Windows phone, they aren't as focused as on android so for them to take on a RIM license of BB10, highly unlikely.

Sony, fixated on android despite their devices not being the best out there. They have shunned windows phone all together putting their eggs in the android desert basket but maybe buying RIM all together could be sweeter.

Decision time for Thorsten...job cuts, top execs leaving are all tips of the iceberg. Come Q2 2013, there better be awesome BB10 handsets floating around and more playbooks or that could be the last year of RIM being one piece.

All my opinion, not the gospel truth.

Disclaimer: I'm not a BB basher, I think BB OSs are cool and neat, devices don't make my palms shake when I see em. And the playbook, sweet little thing with arguably the best multitasking I've handled.

So I'm simply an industry observer giving his take on what's what.

Rotten Apple vs. Short Circuiting Robot…Part 2...Battle of the innards

From where we left off, I think I made a solid case for why the iPad 2 is not good a tablet as the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 and most Apple fanboys would beg to differ. Now I offer you part 2, dissection of the core of these devices, the operation systems.

 UI vs UE

The iOS user interface and user experience are much too plain in my view. The app icons, app animations and home screens on Apple’s beloved bore me. Maybe if the added live wallpapers and icons that weren’t all shaped the same maybe I’d enjoy looking at an iPad when it comes on. That said, Android Honeycomb on the Galaxy isn’t without isn’t flaws. The slow transitions between home screens are at the core of the OS. Even its successor is just as terrible. Apart from the laggy and buggy-ness of it all, resizable widgets that can provide you with info about what you get if you open the app reduce time spent by even running it. I love the many keyboard styles you get from Android and loath the ‘always in CAPs’ iOS keyboard, confuses me. When I’m in lower case I want my keyboard to say that.

The only thing Google needs to refine is the look of the OS. Haven’t had the chance to handle a Jellybean device, my concerned could already have been answered.
Apps and App Store
iOS has more developers on board, so they get more apps for the iPad by default and apps are rightly optimized for the screen size.  Android, not far behind. Only problem is the platform fragmentation has resulted in ugly smartphone apps landing on tablets taking up the entire screen with huge gaps in the real estate taken. FAIL by Android here and they claim fragmentation in the OS does not exist which in itself is a problem. I’ll dedicate a post just to fragmentation and what it means.
On the respective App stores, Google Play (as it is now known) trumps Apple’s App Store in more than one way for the Zambia-centric tablet user. Firstly, there are no iTunes accounts that can be opened to originate from Zambia. You have to claim to be from Botswana or some other spot on this planet. Secondly, payment modes. Only credit cards allowed. Need a paid app, find a friend with a credit card to buy it or jail break it to side load paid apps.
Enter Google Play. My Google account is enough. I can link it to my Xapit card or link it to a pay-pal account. More freedom for me.
OS Updates
The winner here is iOS, can’t escape it even if I tried. Apple is the master at pushing out OS updates. That is helped by not needing as much carrier approval as other OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and having little to no fragmentation on iOS. On the Android end, they must be the worst. Android 4.0 is nearly a year old and its successor 4.1 is now floating around and the Galaxy tab in my possession still sits on 3.0. I cannot not understand why Google does this time and time again. At the core of it, fragmentation, caused by Google allowing each and every OEM to do what they please with the OS. Arrgggghhh!!!!!
In conclusion, software wise, the galaxy edges it 2 to 1. For some, what I have noted counts for zilch. To quote Neo in ‘The Matrix Reloaded’, “The question is choice”.

Rotten Apple vs. Short Circuiting Robot

I always based my iPad impression on my experiences with iOS which was a bit off. After being stuck with an iPad from work a week or so, feeling it inside and out, I can safely say I know what I'd pick when all comes down to it. First off, this should not be taken as a device review, I'm giving my assessment of the things casual users look at. HARDWARE You can call me African but I have a problem with the iPad form factor, its metallic feeling hard back and shape. I find hard to hold in one hand,let alone two. Feels like it'll slip out of my hands when I hold it in book like position. That's why many people prefer to have a these fancy grippy covers. The Galaxy tab on the hand is light, one hand is all you need. Purchase a cover only to reduce wear. The kindle and Google Nexus 7 are excellent readers cz of their braille like rears. Display-wise, the iPad shades it though the Galaxy is a close second with colors having a more organic touch. The iPad has excellent sunlight legibility but who uses there tabs in the sun. On connectivity,I can't tell which is better though WiFi tethering coming to the galaxy out of the box is a plus. Storage,Galaxy takes the cake. Mass storage mode helps a lot. Sound output,even. Part 1, complete......coming up Part 2.

Eventually >>

Definition Finally; ultimately; at some later time Eventually...we all get our chance to shine!! Eventually...we all grow up and leave the childish games. Eventually...things fall into place if you planned it out well. Eventually...even with smiles on our faces,we fall out if we're not working towards the same goal. Eventually...the cream rises to the top despite being steered vigorously. Eventually...we all get remembered but who were to people and how connected not by what we possessed. Eventually...we wise up Eventually...the curtain closes but do we get a standing ovation or bow to empty rows of seats? Eventually...we run out of ideas to blog and fall asleep. Peace.One

FracturE

Definition.. fracture: (n.) 1. The act of breaking or snapping asunder; rupture; breach. During the course of our lifetime we all will end up having a friendship fractured by either us or our friends actions or attitudes. Like a bone that's been broken never being the same again,that's kinda how fractured friendships are..we may smile and talk but under the surface, things are not as strong as they were... I'm guilty of breaking the bond in pursuit of selfish gain or up holding my morals. In the case of the former,I'd shy away and make little the effort to rescue the situation...well even in the later case I guess. Lacking a poker face doesn't help conceal the fact that I can't stand certain people. I thank them for the part they've played in my life so far but I can't help left the rift widen the divide. and the fractures I have caused,im working on my flaws,hard to alter my character but i can work on some of my bad habits... Peace.One

Here we go........

A blog....is it necessary to have one????? Do I have enough to say to make it meaningful or worthwhile to read? Only time will answer that question, so HERE WE GO!!!!