iphone

Digitimes:Android, Windows Phone smartphone vendors to expand market share on disappointing iPhone 4S

October 6, 2011 | By Surur

Cost-conscious consumers will get to chose between a Windows Phone with a WVGA screen, 5 megapixel rear and also a front-facing camera and HD video recording, and a 3 year old iPhone with none of those features.

Digitimes reports that industry sources expect Android and Windows Phone 7 vendors to benefit from the release of the disappointing iPhone 4s, which has no cosmetic improvements compared to the iPhone 4.

They note “the newly released iPhone 4S lags behind some mainstream smartphones as far as specifications are concerned” as the device “comes without a larger display and with a download speed of only 14.4Mbps for HSPA, and does not support LTE and NFC technologies”.

Samsung, HTC and Nokia however have mainstream models with LTE, NFC and 3D standards and with larger displays, which will enable those models to differentiate themselves from iPhones, the sources added.

Lastly they observe “although Apple also launched an entry-level 8GB iPhone 4 and cut the price of its iPhone 3GS, the effectiveness of such tactics will be limited as iPhone fans will still prefer to buy new models and the low-priced iPhones will not be able to compete with Android phones in the entry-level segment.”

The last element is in fact quite crucial. While many expect the cheaper and free on contract iPhone 3GS to hugely expand and even double the iPhone market, many forget how old the technology in the iPhone 3GS, which has a 320×480 resolution display and 3.2 megapixel camera, is compared to low-cost mainstream handsets which often at minimum have 5 megapixel cameras and WVGA screens. Consumers will face the stark choice of a 3 year old iPhone or a cheap 2011/2012 phone running an alternate OS or a very old iPhone design dating to 2007, and I suspect the choice will be very clear for most.

Via Digitimes.com

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The iPhone 4s is trying to catch up to Nokia camera phone quality

October 5, 2011 | By Pradeep

Yesterday, during the iPhone 4S launch event Apple showed its new 8 MP camera with its typical marketing words such as “All new Optics”, “Custom lens with five precision elements”, “backside illumination sensor”, “The you-can’t-believe-it’s-on-a-phone camera”. If you are carried away by those words from Apple, you can read the camera technology in already on sale device Nokia n9. Its obvious that the following technology will also be carried on to upcoming Nokia Windows Phones.

Industry-first imaging sensor which is FULLY optimised for BOTH 16:9 AND 4:3 images

Industry-leading Carl Zeiss optics

Super wide-angle optics – the widest in the industry. Up to as much as 60% more viewing area than other broadly comparable devices

f/2.2 aperture – largest ever in a mobile device and Focal length of 3.77mm / 28mm.

Extremely responsive, especially switching from stills to video and vice-versa and shot to shot

Touch AF for both video and stills

Full time continuous AF in BOTH video and stills plus face detection

HD video with stereo audio (still one of very few devices that provide high quality audio recording in video)

Seamless workflows optimised for speed or editing & sharing

Zoom in to images directly in the post capture view, edit and share all without leaving the camera – the most seamless mobile imaging experience

Non-destructive editing of images – go back to the original image at any time. Undo or redo edits even months later

New high power dual LED flash – 20% more powerful than our previous most powerful LED flash despite its compact size

Geo tagging with place names rather than just co-ordinates

AMBR – Automatic Motion Blur Reduction

Not forgetting the touch to share of images between handsets using NFC technology

You can find more on Nokia N9 camera here. For what its worth, the Nokia N8 which was released a year ago still boasts one of the best camera in the smartphone world which was followed by Nokia N9. Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S also features backside illumination sensor along with wide range of imaging capabilities that iPhone 4S can’t do.

I’m excited about the upcoming Nokia Windows Phone and its imaging capabilities. Are you ?

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Lets Talk About Apple’s New iPhone 4S And iOS 5

October 4, 2011 | By Pradeep

Is this the iPhone 4 from 2010 or the iPhone 4S from 2011? Does it matter?

The whole event in one word; Disappointment.

Today Apple today revealed its next version of the smartphone OS and the hardware device. At the event Apple started with some poor stats comparisons and then taught us how good they are at selling products, Well done Apple. Leaving the small updates to its iPod line up, it was all about iOS 5 with iCloud and iPhone 4S. Take a look at the new iPhone 4S above, sounds familiar right? Its same as iPhone 4, but new specs inside. Now it has faster graphics and CPU with 8mp camera. You can add all marketing words before those specs to make it look magical ! ! As a result of the bump in specs, you lose about 100 hours of battery standby life.

On the software side, iOS 5 is exactly what they demoed at WWDC, all those features derived from Windows Phones, Android and Blackberry. There is no compelling reason for iOS 5 update other than iCloud. iCloud is the Windows Live service for iPhones with some Apple gimmicks. One thing that stood out of the whole event was, Siri. Siri is the intelligent voice assistant for iPhone that comes from the technology that Apple acquired last year. Siri allows you to ask questions such as “What’s the weather in paris”, “Will it rain today", etc, like questions for which it will answer by fetching answer from the Internet. Apple uses Yelp for local listings and Wolfram Alpha was other definition like questions. Now it will allow iOS users to respond to SMS completely by voice as we do in our Windows Phone Mango. The service is still in beta stages, but an impressive attempt by Apple.

Of course what Apple does not say is that Siri is just a version of Voice Actions introduced by Google two year ago.

iPhone 4S will start from $199 on contract from Oct-14th. Overall, its an nice update for iPhone platform after almost more than a year. But its clearly not a game changing device or OS that anyone would expect from a market leader.

In fact today marks the point where Apple stops leading, and is merely trying to catch up.

There are lots of better spec’d mobile devices for even cheaper prices with more integrated software experience. I’m personally happy about Apple’s announcements that will give Windows Phones more room to breath in the tough smartphone market segment. Its time for Microsoft and its OEM partners to accelerate Windows Phone market to more consumers by means of good marketing.

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Lync app being released for WP7, other platforms “in the coming weeks”

September 23, 2011 | By Surur

Kirk Gregersen, senior director for Lync in Microsoft’s Office division, said Lync for Windows Phone 7 is still coming this calendar year.

Lync has been a sleeper hit for Microsoft, seeing rapid enterprise adoption by providing a number of collaborative services, including messaging, videoconferencing, presence, and microblogging.

The next big update is a patch that will allow desktop users to make Internet calls directly from within Lync to any landline or mobile device in collaboration with VoIP specialist Jah Jah. The service will eventually integrate with Skype also.

The Lync client will also be rolling out for Android and iPhone, and will work for both Mango and NoDo handsets

"We want to be where our users are," said Gregersen.

Analysts confirm Windows Phone 7 as the 3rd ecosystem, but remain guarded

August 27, 2011 | By Surur

Sorry RIM and Symbian, but both of your ecosystems have already been counted out.

Despite lack of rip-roaring sales figures, the steady progress of the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem in gathering developers, OEMs and distribution has prompted analysts to name it as the 3rd mobile ecosystem, after the iPhone and Android.

“Windows Phone has a good chance to become the third ecosystem but the question is how far it will be from the two leaders,” said Michael Vakulenko, research partner with London mobile consultancy VisionMobile, quoted in Bloomberg.

“People will take Windows Phone 7 as the third one to go for but I don’t think it’s going to stop many people from building iPhone or Android apps,” said Hume of Future Platforms.

Vakulenko echoed similar thoughts, saying “Any developer who decides to invest in Windows Phone 7 needs to consider alternatives and that’s always Android and iPhone.”

“App publishers we’re working with seem to be much more enthusiastic about Windows Phone 7 than Symbian,” said Offscreen Technologies CEO Harri Myllynen. “Still, Apple and Android are number one and this will be a long-tail platform. I’m not aware of any developer investing in a big way yet.”

Stephen Elop has emphasised with the purchase of Motorola by Google, OEMs should be paying even more attention to Windows Phone 7.

"The very first reaction I had was very clearly the importance of the third ecosystem and the importance of the partnership that we announced on February 11, it is more clear than ever before," Elop said.

"By adopting Windows Phone as our primary smartphone platform we believe we can deliver a global ecosystem that goes beyond what exists today in terms of hardware, software, services and apps," Elop said.

"Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unrivalled global reach and scale. It’s now a three-horse race."

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Zune desktop agent uses less memory than iTunes Helper, Samsung Kies or RIM Launcher

August 27, 2011 | By Surur

The iTunes client is famously a resource hog on Windows, which makes it an unsurprising reason why some people choose not to go down the iOS ecosystem route.

SaudiWP7 have taken a hit for the team by actually loading a synchronization client for all 4 major smartphone OSs on their desktop – iPhone, Samsung Kies for Android, Blackberry and Zune for Windows Phone 7.

As can be seen from the screen shot, the the Kies launcher is the heaviest at nearly 20 MB, followed by iTunes Launcher at 3 MB. RIM’s client uses a minimal 1.4 MB, and the Zune launcher a tiny 1 MB.

While the memory usage of the sync client is likely inconsequential to most people, it does show that the care and attention the Microsoft dev team lavished on the phone has extended to the desktop client also.

Via saudiWP7.com

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Windows Phone 7 wins developer speed race at TechEd NZ

August 25, 2011 | By Surur

Two teams of developers were challenged to create from scratch a cross-platform chat app for Windows Phone 7 and the iPhone, and rather predictably, due to the better tools available on Windows Phone 7 platform, the Windows Phone 7 team finished well before the iPhone team did.

Windows Phone 7 has won similar races before in a more neutral environment that TechEd, and many companies have reported that developing for Windows Phone costs lot less because it needs less staff for less time.

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Developers confident in Windows Phone survival, number of WP7 developers to increase 150% in 6 months

August 15, 2011 | By Surur

getjar

GetJar has published the result of their latest App Meter developer survey, and it holds good news for Windows Phone 7.

They have surveyed 300 developers and found developers were ready to move on from iOS devices to other platforms. While 80% of developers were working on iPhone apps, in 6 months 30% expected to move on to other platforms, primarily Android tablets, which rose from 20.5% now to 47% in the future.

Some developers were however also planning to move to Windows Phone 7, with 9% of developers currently working on WP7 apps and 24% planning to do so in the next 6 months.

Despite headlines proclaiming doom and gloom for Windows phone 7, 70% of developers believed the OS would still be around in 5 years. This contrasts with only 50% for RIM and 20% for Symbian. Only 15% of developers were expecting to work on the Blackberry OS in 6 months.

Usability Study finds Windows Phone on par with iPhone, ahead of Android and Blackberry

August 8, 2011 | By Surur

Professor Dennis Gallatta at the Harvard Human Factors in Design lab has performed a usability study comparing iPhone, Windows Phone 7, Android and Blackberry, seeing how well novice users were able to complete 3 tasks – make a call, send a text and add a contact.

While Windows Phone 7 did pretty well, I think the study revealed a major weakness in the stylish Metro design – some icons are not as intuitive as the designers of the UI may have imagined, leading to poor discoverability.

Of course how novice users fare is not necessarily a good test of usability – is is how easily one completes tasks once one is over the familiarity bump that is also important, and hopefully that will also be tested in the future.

While Windows Phone 7 did well in this test, I can help but feel it could have done even better with some further design tweaks.

What do our readers think? Let us know below.

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Penny Arcade addresses iPhone peer pressure

July 12, 2011 | By Surur

pennyarcade

I think it is pretty clear having an iPhone these days is pretty far from counter culture. In fact it is so mainstream and sheep-like that having a rather different device, like a Windows Phone 7 handset can result in quite a bit of social pressure to conform.

Apparently Mike Krahilik (@cwgabriel), one of the Penny Arcade artists, has got a new Windows Phone 7 handset and has been tweeting from it.

Hopefully he can resist the pressure to conform a bit longer.

Via WPCentral.com

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Windows Phone 7 vs iPhone and Android buyers guide

June 26, 2011 | By Surur

Zollotech have published this video looking at the 3 major mobile platforms, and discussing what buyers should be looking at when deciding which platform to purchase.

His arguments are relatively reasonable and interestingly his negativity towards Android appear in the end to come down to the aesthetics of the OS, something which is pretty easy to understand when looking at the UI of the Droid X, which appeared ugly and cluttered, despite the large screen.

We know which platform our readers are choosing, but are there any more arguments for Windows Phone 7 buyers should be considering? Let us know below.

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iOS5 faster than Mango at HTML5 rendering? Wrong!

June 21, 2011 | By Surur

Winrumors have claimed that the latest version of iOS5 has overtaken Windows Phone 7 Mango in the HTML5 speed rendering stakes, going from 1-2 fps to 32 fps, faster than the 25 fps demonstrated for Mango at MIX11.

What Tom has not taken into account was that Mango has continued to improve itself, and in testing done by The Next Web Windows Phone 7 repeatedly hit 41 FPS, and this is of course with a Snapdragon processor generations older than that in the iPhone 4.

While it seems the iPhone did a lot to catch up with Windows Phone 7 in iOS5, like with many other features Apple stole from Windows Phone 7 Apple still has a long way to go to do it better.

Xbox Live vs iPhone game pricing compared

June 19, 2011 | By Surur

Title	Windows Phone	iPhone
Fruit Ninja	$2.99	$0.99
iBlast Moki	$2.99	$2.99
Max & the Magic Marker	$4.99	$0.99
geoDefense	$2.99	$1.99
Doodle Jump	$2.99	$0.99
Harbor Master	$2.99	$1.99
Super Monkey Ball	$2.99	$2.99
I Love Katamari	$4.99	$4.99
Deer Hunter 3D	$4.99	$0.99
PES 2011	$4.99	$2.99
Tiki Towers	$2.99	$0.99
I Dig It	$2.99	$0.99
Puzzle Quest 2	$6.99	$4.99
Parachute Panic	$2.99	$1.99
Pocket god	$2.99	$0.99
3D Brick Breaker Revolution	$2.99	$0.99
Oregon Trail	$4.99	$0.99
Bubble Town 2	$2.99	$1.99
de Blob	$2.99	$0.99
Sims 3	$6.99	$6.99
Frogger	$2.99	$0.99
Flight Control	$2.99	$0.99
Need for Speed Undercover	$4.99	$0.99
Monopoly	$4.99	$0.99
Tetris	$4.99	$0.99
UNO	$4.99	$0.99
Earthworm Jim	$4.99	$4.99

Windows Phone Metro has done the work of comparing the current Xbox Live titles on Windows Phone 7 with the corresponding ones on the iPhone, and it is clear that in the vast majority of cases the apps are much more expensive.

Of course Windows Phone 7 Xbox Live games do have Achievements, but not all of us place much value in these virtual trophies, and Windows Phone Metro asks if these high prices are too much for what is often very casual games.

On the other hand we do understand that for developers to earn even close to the revenue they could earn on the iPhone they do need to charge more, but consistently higher prices may also drive buyers to other platforms like Android, where almost everything is free and ad supported.

Are our readers happy to pay these high prices? Let us know below.

Thanks Steve for the tip.

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