The HTC Touch is a great phone. Problem is, Windows Mobile can be incredibly frustrating for the average consumer. The Microsoft approach is great for anyone who is a pro user. It provides you with every possible option and lets you choose your experience. It’s the complete opposite of Apple and the iPhone. Mac has always been described to me as “the computer for people who don’t understand or care about computers.” Maybe having Android on the HTC Touch is a good idea. I’d have to try it out myself.
Ina Fried is a senior staff writer for CNET’s News.com and she recently squashed all the rumors that the Zune phone was coming to CES 2009. Apparently, Ballmer won’t be unveiling the device and will instead be focusing his talk on Windows 7 from a consumer perspective.
“Microsoft will have a bunch of stuff to show at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but a rumored Zune Phone won’t be one of them, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans. Instead, much of CEO Steve Ballmer’s focus will be on talking about Windows 7 from a consumer perspective. Microsoft is pushing to have Windows 7 done in time for the holiday 2009 shopping season, so that means this CES is Ballmer’s best stage to tout its benefits.”
Pastebud is the latest attempt to bring cut and paste to the iPhone. The app is a bookmarklet/webapp combo with a fairly interesting setup process. What you do is head to Pastebud’s site, drag the bookmarklets to your browser toolbar, and sync your device. Once you’ve installed the bookmarks (and probably re-arranged them higher in your list), you can head to any web page containing text you want to copy to a web form or email. Hit the “COPY” bookmark, and all the page text gets sent to Pastebud and put into a JavaScript-powered applet, where you select the particular text to copy by tapping and dragging to select. Seems like a pretty intense system doesn’t it? The app works but can we please just get an OS update that does all this natively? The app costs $5 and it has a somewhat annoying feature that involves attaching a “copied from Pastebud” note at the end of every paste. No thanks.
Lenovo, the notebook maker, is developing an Android-powered handset that is supposed to be incredibly bossy. The above pic is the first available live image of the Android Lenovo device and it’s codenamed OPhone. Not very original huh? The device will launch on China Mobile and support its 3G service called TD SCDMA. Don’t expect this phone to launch anytime in the US. It’s going to be only available in China and maybe Asia.
Global Equities Research’s Trip Chowdhry is spreading the rumor that Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer will be unveiling the Zune phone at CES in LA on January 7th 2009. Chowdhry claims that the company’s new centerpiece will combine the best features of the Zune media player with the hardware design of Danger’s mobile Sidekick. Think of the iPhone with a slide out QWERTY.
My major issue with a Zune phone is development. Are we to expect a new OS that everyone will now have to develop separate apps for? Will it just be Windows Mobile apps ported to the Zune phone? Hey Ballmer, hows about getting some more info out to the masses? Thanks.
I was recently on a road trip to New York with some friends and the guy driving was a total adrenaline junkie. I spent the entire time freaking out and on several occasions I screamed because I thought we were about to die. The only thing I could do to console myself was to take a list of all of the driver’s bad driving habits in case they found us dead, there would evidence of who to blame. Some of his driving antics included:
1. Passing in the right lane.
2. Average speed = 135 km/h
3. Average speed during the intense blizzard we hit = 135 km/h
4. Quote: “Pass me my BlackBerry!” (While driving and smoking)
5. Passenger assumed anyone crazy enough to pass us must be on meth.
With the above key, we could have avoided at least number 4. The key, once inserted into the ignition, because a mobile device jammer. It’s great for teenagers who drive and talk on the phone and risk everyone’s life in the process. The University of Utah has licensed the technology to a private company in hopes to have it marketed within six months.
There is a rumor going around that the next generation of iPhones will include an advanced motion-sensing device, in the form of a gyroscope. The rumor comes from Taiwanese manufacturing sources which would make sense because so much of the iPhone manufacturing is outsourced there.
The technology is called an MEMS gyroscope and will be included in a variety of smartphones by Apple, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, LG and Sony Ericsson. The technology can be found in the Wii’s MotionPlus accessory which allows for sensing rotational motion as well as improving the overall motion sensing system.
What does this mean for the iPhone? More intense Wii-like gaming and perhaps a new UI.
The Nokia Morph concept phone has been circulating on the internet for quite some time now. The technology, a phone that is transparent and flexible, was seen as something of a very distant future. Well the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed a chip that is almost completely transparent.
The chip uses a technology called Transparent Resistive Random Access Memory, or TRRAM, which allows it to be almost completely transparent and therefore satisfying 1 of 2 technical conditions for the Nokia Morph. The company will be focusing its efforts on building said flexible materials meaning the Nokia Morph could arrive to market much faster than anticipated.
The “Midnight” is an all black iPhone made by diamond jewelers De Vere’s of London. The new iPhone has a deep black bezel surrounding the front screen to match the rear case. The phone is absolutely insanely expensive too. The device, exclusive to De Vere’s, costs £799 (USD$1199). You can also purchase the bezel and retrofit an existing iPhone for £299 (USD$449).
During Nokia’s Capital Markets Day, the above slide came up depicting this touchscreen-only device with a pretty fancy UI. The slide got people in a frenzy and everyone was shouting “fake.” Although it’s a mockup, it was designed by Nokia and it serves as insight into where the company is going with handset design and UI. Recently, I’ve been playing with the Nokia E71 and found the option menus to be the most confusing thing since pre-Rosetta Stone hieroglyphics. For example, here is how you delete an email account that you created but no longer use:
Go to MESSAGING, find the EMAIL you want to delete , press options, press SETTINGS, press on E-MAIL, find the EMAIL you want to delete, press option, and than press the DELETE option.
Have you ever seen more redundant button pressing?
