humour

Hilarious! Windows Phone gets its own Dance Move–The Live Tile

May 20, 2012 | By Surur

We have seen all kinds of Windows Phone promotions, but after seeing this video, I now realize what Windows Phone really needs to take it up to double digits market share was its very own dance move.

Above is Bboy Krust Dog 360’s very own interpretation of the Windows Phone Live Tile, which is sure to be a major craze this rave season.

Read more about Bboy Krust Dog, who has more than 50,000 MySpace friends, on his page here.

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Apple fixes embarrassing Siri flaw, now denies the existence of other phones

May 14, 2012 | By Liwen Guo

Apple apparently thought Siri made a “mistake” when it recommended the Nokia Lumia 900 as the best smartphone ever. While quite hilarious, the iPhone 4S’s virtual assistant has quickly been patched to give out hard-coded answers like “the one you’re holding“, “you’re kidding, right?” and and the reality-denying “wait… there are other phones?” instead of relying on user satisfaction ratings.

To be fair, the previous response was determined by a grand total of four reviews, as you can still see on Wolfram Alpha, where Siri gets its data from. Still, over 300 reviews on Amazon don’t paint a very different picture…

Hopefully at some point not just consumer ratings but market share itself will deliver Apple a wake-up call.

Source: CNET, image credit: The Verge

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Siri knows which is the best phone ever, and its not the iPhone

May 11, 2012 | By Surur

This is rather hilarious, but it seems Windows Phone’s off the chart customer satisfaction scores have finally started to penetrate even Apple’s greatest fan, with Siri answering rather truthfully that the best cellphone ever is of course the Cyan Nokia Lumia 900 (what else?)

Of course this answer was not programmed in by Steve Jobs, but is the result of the excellent analytical engine Wolfram Alpha, and appears pretty genuine, as can be seen here.

So if you want to have the ultimate wind up on your iPhone 4S totting friends, simply ask their phone Which is the best cellphone ever

Thanks Enda and Luis for the tip and screen shot.

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General TheDestroyer lets it rip on the Samsung Galaxy S3

May 4, 2012 | By Surur

GeneraltheDestroyer, our foul-mouthed Windows Phone fan, has not been shy about letting the world know about his opinion of the latest Samsung Galaxy S3 (pictures in this TNW image)

Predictably he is not impressed. Hear his definitely not child safe or safe for work rant after the break.

Continue reading →

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HTC Titan II–the screen is so big the Office Hub works in landscape mode

April 28, 2012 | By Surur

The headline is of course just a bit of a joke, but it seems AT&T’s graphics designers felt Microsoft missed a trick by not making the Office Hub work in landscape mode.

They stitched together the above graphic in one of AT&T’s in-store magazines, and the picture interestingly exposes an issue with simply turning a panorama on its side in landscape mode – the buttons are different for each pane of the panorama, meaning you end up with multiple task bar buttons at the bottom of each segment.

Hopefully Windows Phone 8 will expand landscape support in Windows Phone, but I suspect it will not quite look like AT&T’s mock-up above.

Thanks Kevin for the tip.

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Greatest Windows Phone fan found (video)

April 28, 2012 | By Surur

Droiddog may have found the greatest Windows Phone fan, and he is certainly does not think much of Android.

Watch the 4 min video (which contains pretty strong language) with your headphones on, and let us know if General the Destroyer is the biggest Nokia Lumia 900 fan ever.

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Game Review: Bug Village

March 26, 2012 | By andrewbares

Watch my fun satirical video review of Bug Village! And don’t download the game, it’s useless!

Overall Score: 1/5

If you have nothing better to do and enjoy doing mindless tasks every few hours, then you’ll love this game! Yeah… don’t download it in my opinion.

Gameplay: 1/5

All you do in this game is come back every few hours and click a button. Sort of reminds me of the TV show Lost, where they had to click the button in order to keep the island alive! Except all you get as a reward here is more points. Plus, the game lacks any push notifications or a live tile, which would be EXTREMELY helpful for telling you “Hey, the ants just finished this pile, give them a new task!” Nope, instead of that they hope you forget about the game and then end up using real cash to buy things. Plus, when you get to level 15 or later, everything’s so crowded you can’t click on things properly anymore. And, at around level 20, the screen goes black and ladybugs stop appearing and you can’t even play!

Presentation: 2/5

Lacking push notifications, slow frame rate when you get to later levels, and MAJOR visual bugs when you get to level 20ish, where you can’t even play the game due to a black screen, as reported by a ton of the users in the reviews. The developers of course don’t care, and they haven’t done anything about the software bugs despite all the complaints.

Lasting Value: 1/5

This is about as entertaining as making a mark on a piece of paper every 1 hour (as I demoed in the video review). There is nothing challenging or rewarding to the game. If you like Farmville, you may enjoy this, but I enjoy games where things actually happen and I actually have to play something, not tap a button every 3 hours! qrcode

Title: Bug Village
Price: FREE (but uses real money in game)
Publisher: Glu

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Microsoft’s own app doesn’t follow Metro guidelines… looks like an iPhone app

March 3, 2012 | By andrewbares

Apple’s iPhone interface has invaded Windows Phone, courtesy of Microsoft themselves.

Microsoft Research recently released a new app called Dotastic, with an interface ripped straight from the iPhone’s default app styles. The iconic bottom bar with the glossy bevel is present, and is clearly identical to the iPhone.

Why can’t Microsoft’s own employees follow Metro guidelines? This is pretty amusing, considering how heavily Microsoft is pushing Metro onto everything. Of course things happen and departments inside Microsoft aren’t always in-sync, but this is pretty embarrassing!

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Samsung makes “Smoked By Galaxy Note” videos, but where’s the smoking?

February 26, 2012 | By Liwen Guo

The #smokedbywindowsphone campaign by Windows Phone evangelist Ben Rudolp is a smashing success, as it convincingly showcases the unique strengths of the Windows Phone platform – its speed of operation for everyday tasks such as sharing photos, looking up nearby places, and so on. Actually, the idea behind “Smoked By Windows Phone” is not all that different from the “Really” ads that accompanied the initial debut of Windows Phone 7, both of which focus on simplicity and speed, but it’s easy to see how the former is way better executed.

However, Samsung hasn’t quite gotten the memo.

Its latest promotional videos for the Galaxy Note aren’t called “Smoked By Galaxy Note”, mind you, but the concept is similar enough that it’s obvious where they drew their inspiration from: one person has a Galaxy Note, the other one an iPhone, and the two are instructed to complete certain tasks. Sounds familar?

Only that the “Street Challenge” videos completely fail, and even though this is obviously a Microsoft-focused site, I’m not alone in that observation: dislikes for the first video are standing at over 60%. So, why is that?

While Samsung’s ads do showcase the strengths of the Galaxy Note – you have to admit that the pen is a nice feature – they aren’t doing so in a very good fashion. After sitting through an awkward 4 minutes and 37 seconds, here is a breakdown of the tasks that are supposed to show how the Galaxy Note is superior:

Create a creative birthday card: Potentially useful but extremely gimicky, nowhere near an everyday task.
Draw direction on maps: This seems neat at first, but searching for a route between two points gets you pretty much the same.
PowerPoint editing: It’s not like you need a pen or Android to do that. Both iOS and, obviously, Windows Phone have excellent (and, I’d say, better) office apps by Apple and Microsoft, respectively.
Make photo as embarassing as possible: What… ?!

Needless to say, this is not nearly as well done as “Smoked By Windows Phone”, and if Samsung’s dedicated marketing team couldn’t come up with better use cases for the pen, how could an average user?

Anyway, unless you really have nothing else to do, there’s not much reason to watch those videos – I for one wouldn’t have. If not for you, dear reader.

Source: YouTube (1), (2), via Neowin

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Another contender for the most embarrassing Windows Phone fan video

January 31, 2012 | By Surur

There have been a few Windows Phone fan videos which have gone viral (who can forget the rapping white girls) and this one seems to be intentionally going for the cringe factor.

Of course everything these Microsoft student partners say is true, so I see no problem in helping to spread their word

Via YouTube.com

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Analyst suggests Nokia eviscerate the Nokia Lumia 800 to save $38

November 24, 2011 | By Surur

What Jeff Kvaal, who covers RIM, thinks the Nokia Lumia 800 should look like.

Serving as a good example of why companies should never listen to analysts, Barclays Capital analyst Jeff Kvaal has suggested Nokia remove all the higher-end elements of their new Windows Phone 7 handsets to cut its price and presumably increase its sales volume.

He suggests Nokia could trim the Lumia 800 “bill of material” from $238 to $200 by replacing the Clear Black screen with a normal, 3 inch TFT screen, reducing the processor speed from 1.4 Ghz to 1 Ghz, cutting the RAM from 512 to 256 MB, and removing optional sensors like a compass and gyroscope.

He also suggests the Lumia 800 does not need a quadband antenna, nor 14.4 Mb/sec download speeds, or even a main camera.

In fact the phone probably does not even need WIFI G or a big battery, given that it now has a smaller screen, slower processor and less RAM and sensors.

Who says analysts do not have a sense of humour?

Via Forbes.com, who took them seriously (the scary part).

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Now even Google Partners confuse Windows Phone and Android

November 17, 2011 | By Surur

lol

We have seen retailers trying to sell Android phones as running Windows Phone 7, and we have seen Windows Phone 7.5 handsets being sold as running Windows Mobile 2003, but I would have expected a Google Apps partner to know better.

OnlinePartner is trying to convince visitors to their website that they develop the best Google Mobile apps for phones running the Android operating system, running on Windows Phone 7 of course.

Of course with Matias Duarte stealing the Metro UI one can almost understand the confusion. Maybe in the next version of Android Google is planning to take the 3 buttons also.

Thanks Tommy for the tip.

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Windows Phone finally part of the 99%

November 4, 2011 | By Surur

protestor

It seems Windows Phone 7 has finally found its niche, and that is with the protestors of the occupy movement.

This Samsung Focus was noticed in Seattle in the hands of a protestor, and of course the handset is right at home there. Nothing says non-conformist like a Windows Phone 7 handset. The phone is easy to use, has great battery life for the camp out, great cameras (especially the Focus) and camera buttons to capture that police brutality as it happens, and of course no-click uploading to Facebook and SkyDrive, meaning even if your phone gets confiscated the pictures are already in the cloud.

In fact one wonders why a protestor would use anything else?

Via Derek Snyder

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