Posts by twilkins

Google cripples Chromecast third party replay

Typical Google circa 2013

All of your streams are belong to us.

Apple files patent for iPhone with wraparound display

So they made a phone with a back and a front that were glass and it was too easy to break.

Now they suggest a phone made of glass... <sniggers>

Nokia's imaging chief makes surprise exit

Poor fella probably just realised what they did to his lovely hardware by wrapping it in something hardly anyone will use.

Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 handset review

HOW much?

Think, I'll be pocketing my Nexus 4 later this month and kissing expensive network lock-in goodbye!

O2 touts OTT tariffs for Nexus 4 exclusive

Other handsets are available.

Boggles the mind what they were thinking with this. A huge amount of negative publicity from such a silly mistake. My Nexus 4 will be a way to switch to a nice cheap £10 a month SIM-free deal.

Networks as a commodity - the way it should be!

WinPho 8 fans now able to order HTC handsets

Re: 400 quid?

Good idea - actually, screw it I won't bother with a new phone, I'll blow all my money on Chaz and Dave LPs

Gates: Microsoft will merge Phone and Windows platforms

Re: @ twilkins

Errrr, no. You need an operating system to run the hardware, nobody is suggesting your basic hardware interface (drivers, desktop, etc) will be web based, but as people increasingly use applications that are web based, the OS becomes a commodity. There are free OSes available - Linux, etc that will will comfortably allow you to connect to a network, use a local printer, run things off an SSD/HDD, etc.

By forcing silly interface changes on users, the already high cost of implementing a windows upgrade goes stratospheric. Re-training, app upgrades, the windows license itself, all easily avoided.

As a long time Windows user (since 3.0), I find myself being drawn to Linux. Primarily because many of the business apps I use (my accountant is now entirely web based, I use Google Docs for general office type stuff) are not tied to Windows. I certainly won't be upgrading to Windows 8 - as an Android user there is little for me to gain from using a new interface that has nothing in common with either my 20 years of experience or my other devices.

My prediction - Windows 8 is going to flop, big time. It's been conceived to help Microsoft's market strategy (merge platforms) rather than it's users and it comes at a time when people are focussed on the bottom line.

I'm more inclined to believe the Saleforce.com CEO quoted on the reg a few days ago - this is the last version of Windows - certainly the last version any one will care about.

More and more business is done in a web browser, and the OS is becoming irrelevant for 90% of users.

Spy Hunter

Re: But no mention of the...

A moment enjoyed is not a moment wasted.

Amazon crimps free Kindle 3G surfing

Re: The problem has been tethering

Yep, as soon as few dicks decided to tether their Kindle AND download Gigs of movies, etc. the writing was on the wall for the rest of us.

50Mb seems a bit stingy, but it's about as much as you could bear with the slow nagivation, problems scrolling and tiny keyboard. It's useful as an emergency webmail lifeline.

Nokia dinged with shareholder lawsuit over poor Lumia sales

Re: N-97

Yes, my experience was very similar, after around 8 years of buying (almost) exclusively Nokias, the N97 was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The fault that really irked me was the way the lens cover scratched the lens when it was opened and closed due to a design tolerance issue.

BUT, even with all the problems I would have still have been a Nokia die-hard, except the attitude of Nokia was arrogance and denial. I persevered with that phone for 6 months before I realised I'd been taken for a fool and moved onto my first Android handset.

The same arrogance that allowed the N97 to be released and keep shipping is still visible today in the decision to go for a single, unproven platform rather than take a multi-platform approach.

I give them 18 months and they'll be consumed by the beast.

Nokia axes 4,000, shifts smartphone manufacturing East

"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"

And now nobody ever got fired for offshoring jobs to Asia.

Well, I say nobody, except the factory workers in Euope and America and then eventually even the executives of Nokia as nobody can afford their product.

Woz praises Android, blasts iPhone limitations

Woz has always been in favour of the separate software / separate hardware approach vs the integrated "we do it all" approach that Apple has taken since the Mac.

He is however right on the money that Android is actually as good as (and sometimes better) than Android. Apple without Jobs is going to have a tough time over the next decade.

Apple Beijing store egged in botched iPhone 4S launch

Free publicity... the best kind ;-)

Samsung rakes in record profits as HTC sales dive

HTC really need someone to sort their handset styling out. More than once I've been put off buying an HTC because of the slightly generic styling. Motorola (and obviously Apple) have twigged that by making a handset look stylish out of high quality materials, you help to make it stand out.

Google tablet to tackle Kindle Fire not iPad

If they can sell it for £150 in the UK, have it loaded with ICS and bless it with a half decent battery life, it will fly off the shelves!

Android Market tops 400,000 apps, climbing fast

I think the big difference is when I bought Symian software (pre Ovi-store) I was paying £4-8 to find out it was rubbish and full of bugs. Now I can do that for 99p (and get a refund in the first 15 mins if it really blows).

So, a bit like websites you mean?

How Apple won the West (and lost the world)

So the world's poor are rushing out to buy a Blackberry - a device that needs not just a data plan, but a special data plan in order to function correctly?

Is there a SIM free Blackberry available for less than the £89 that the Orange San Francisco costs?

Jonathan Ive is knighted in New Year Honours list

He was already a CBE (awarded in 2005).

I'm no Apple fanboy - not owning a single Apple product - but I have to respect the contribution Ive has made to popular culture and the world of industrial design.

The vast majority of people who receive a knighthood get one for reasons other than charity work.

Also, Samsung would be a poorer company were it not for the work of Ive.

Online Christmas orders from retailers go titsup

Sainsburys online ordering system has been slightly broken for a while. Things would mysteriously drop off my basket (unnoticed until the delivery arrives), and delivery slots would evaporate. When the driver turned up half an hour early as I was trying to deal with a screaming baby, I had to call time on them.

Now I do my shopping in person, at my nearest local Supermarket. A Co-op.

Lumia sales fail to set world alight

"Ignoring all the feature phones and all the smartphones *significantly* under £400 we arrive at the following top ten."

Still no Lumia... in the highly contrived, top 10 smartphones *not "significantly* under £400 (I've eliminated anything not over £300, for your viewing pleasure):

1. Samsung Galaxy S2 (Black)

2. Samsung Galaxy S2 (White)

3. Samsung Galaxy Nexus

4. Blackberry Bold

5. HTC Sensation

6. Apple iPhone 4S 16Gb

7. Apple iPhone 4 16Gb

8. Sony Ericsson Experia Arc S

9. HTC Sensation XE

10. Samsung Galaxy Note

Interesting to note that many of those handsets are priced higher than the Lumia, so people are not choosing based on price alone. There are also many Android phones (and some iPhones) that fall under the £300 mark.

@Arctic Fox, in the white hot world of amazon mobile phone sales, things change so rapidly if you blink you might miss them. Now, at 08:43 on 23rd Dec the top sellers are:

1. Samsung Galaxy S2 (Black)

2. HTC Wildfire S (Black)

3. Big button easy phone

4. Big button easy phone (new design)

5. Samsung B2100

6. Nokia 1616 Black

7. Samsung Galaxy Ace

8. Samsung Galaxy S2 (White)

9. Samsung Galaxy Nexus

10. Blackberry Curve

Still, I'll bet Nokia are pleased with those highly profitable 1616 sales (selling for £22 each). I know I'm glad I offloaded my Nokia shares after first using an N97!

Pizza Express gets iPod makeover

What a stupid idea

> Does anyone really go to Pizza Express for an intimate dinner?

If they did, they won't any more, because of all the stupid iPods blaring away.

Laid-off public sector techies better get flexible to survive

Public sector, more like private sector...

Considering that many, if not most, of these sites are built and maintained by private sector organisations, I think the developers and backroom staff are already familiar with the lack of tea-trolley. They might, however be less familiar with the lack of a job and the dire state of the job market outside of certain niches in London. Recovery... I don't think so.

Brits blame Apple, Nokia, RIM et al for smartphone woes

Sometimes, people are right though

My N97 damaged its own lens cover and would reboot when I was using it as a music player (while in "flight mode" travelling on the tube). It would be nice to be able to blame Vodafone for this, but I don't think I can.

Nexus One in trigger-happy 999-dialling bother

Failville U.S.A.

Google is shipping a lot of fail these days, first "Buzz" and now this? Do they do any testing outside of Mountain View?

Nokia reckons its Symbian^4 UI will leapfrog the rest

Wibble

So, the same guys who let their N97 out the door with a crippled GPS, self-harming lens cover and bug ridden firmware are telling us they are going to leapfrog the rest.

Yeah, right.

The Nokia 5800 may have "sold more than all Android devices combined." but that won't be the case for long, as it is due - in no small part - to Nokia's sales channels and network agreements. With UK networks rejecting first the N97 and then the N97 Mini due to high failure rates, Nokia's life may well be harder in future.

Nokia have been too complacent for too long, time will tell if they can recover their smartphone mojo, but my experience of an N900 is that things don't look good at this point.

Microsoft sees its chance in Googlephone

LG going great guns for Android

Motorola and Verizon may be miffed, but other Open Handset Alliance members are only too happy to commit to an Android future:

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/service/print.asp?tpl=print&sname=National&img=/img/pic/ico_nat_pic.gif&id=201001070113

"Half of all new smart phones released this year by LG Electronics Inc. will be based on Google Inc.`s Android operating system, the Korean company`s top executive said Thursday, according to Yonhap News."

Google open-source boss comes clean on Android

Market already does check for updates

@Nerd King, are you aware that the phoneside Android Market application already does this?

Nokia jacks up Apple patent complaint

Functionality is not the only fruit

@Lance 3,

"The only thing that Apple has that Nokia doesn't is multi touch."

I think that should read:

"The only thing Apple has that Nokia doesn't is a phone people want to buy"

Steve, because he may be infringing patents, but the market, it says YES!

Motorola fesses up to Droid

End of the year...?

It's available on 6th Nov for Verizon customers in the US.

Nokia N97

Comma IS shifted

@Andrew Orlowski, actually you do use shift to get a comma on UK N97s (you're right about function for dash and exclamation marks though).

Some inaccuracies...

@craigmcgill, expansys have had them SIM free units in stock since last Thursday. I ordered on Thursday and took delivery of an N97 (black) on Friday.

I see the rating has been changed from 80% to 75% so as not to upset the Jesus phone crowd! :-\

Phone is fine, more of an evolution than a revolution for anyone used to S60. It DOESN'T keep prompting for access points (uses the new destinations feature to automatically prioritize between the WiFi, 3G access points you set up), and Nokia Messaging is available (use the in phone software update option to automatically download and install). Nokia Messaging integrates quite nicely with the messaging widget on the home screen and also the existing standard messaging app.