Sunday, 24 June 2012
How to make your Android more productive, more secure and faster than iPhone
IPhone users love to brag about their phones. They line up around the block and stand in line for hours when a new one is released. Yet, for many users, Android is clearly the superior platform. Yes, its Achilles' heel is a big one: security. Android's openness and large market share mean that it's a juicy target for attackers.
Yet, Android's openness also provides serious benefits. It allows for more customisation; its apps are usually cheaper and various handset manufacturers are able to offer significantly different form factors, such as the smartphone-tablet hybrid, the Samsung Galaxy Note.
With a little tweaking, you can speed up and optimise Android in ways that will make iPhone users' heads spin. Here are 10 ways to make Android faster, more productive and more secure than iPhone:
Windows Phone 8 hopes to attract developers with C and C++ support
Microsoft hopes that full support for C and C++ and the ability to write apps for all Windows devices at the same time will attract more developers to Windows Phone 8.
One of the biggest changes in Windows Phone 8 is that the OS will use the same kernel as Windows 8 software for desktop, tablet and laptop computers. "We are using the NT kernel across Windows Phone 8, Windows RT and Windows 8. It's the most tested kernel in existence today," said Peter Wissinger, director for Microsoft's Mobile Business Group in the Nordic countries.
An app for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 can share the same code and the same basic user interface, since both platforms use the Metro design language, according to Wissinger. Then the app has to be optimized for different screen sizes and resolutions, which the next version of Visual Studio will help developers with, Wissinger said.
Windows Phone 8 also has full C and C++ support, again making it easier to write apps for multiple platforms more quickly, said Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president at Microsoft.
Full C and C++ support also means Windows Phone 8 will support gaming middleware such as Havok Vision Engine, Autodesk Scaleform, Audiokinetic Wwise and Firelight FMOD, as well as native DirectX-based game development, according to Belfiore.
Other features Microsoft hopes will make developers happier with the platform include in-app payments and multitasking enhancements.
For example, Windows Phone 8 allows location-based apps like exercise trackers or navigation aids to run in the background, according to Belfiore. In Windows Phone 8, developers will also be able to create VoIP (voice over IP) apps that plug into the existing calling feature so Internet calls can be answered like traditional phone calls, using the same calling interface, Belfiore said.
All existing apps will work on Windows Phone 8-based devices, as well, according to Wissinger. There are now 100,000 apps and games available in Microsoft's app store Marketplace, with an average of 200 titles added daily.
But even if the applications run on the new devices, they won't be able to take advantage of performance improvements, according to Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.
"Without tweaking, the experience will be poor," said Saadi.
The big winners with this announcement are games developers, according to Microsoft development guru Johan Lindfors, who runs Swedish consultant Coderox.
"What I primarily think will happen is that most of the big game developers will have an easier time building games for Windows Phone," Lindfors said.
That, in turn, could help increase the number of games available for Windows Phone, making it more popular among gamers, Lindfors said.
Lindfors would also like to see more improvements made to the emulator in Visual Studio, including the ability to simulate bad network connections.
"Quality is key when it comes to applications and today's users have very high expectations," said Lindfors.
Later this summer, Microsoft will present more details for developers on the Windows Phone 8 Software Development Kit (SDK) and the new Visual Studio 11-based development tools, Belfiore wrote in his blog post.
We’ve finally put the Samsung Galaxy S III through testing and here's what we think about the new smartphone.
Design
The design of the Samsung Galaxy S III is similar to its predecessor but offers subtle differences. For starters the phone is much more rounded with smooth flowing lines and rounded corners and edges, somewhat like the Galaxy Nexus. It looks much sleeker than the Galaxy S II.
We're disappointed that Samsung has kept the physical home button which is saddled by two touch sensitive counterparts for Back and Menu. The Home button is a too thin and narrow and we'd much rather a full set of touch buttons but you can't have everything.
One design flaw is the lack of a Recent Apps button to access the multi-tasking feature of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Instead you have to hold the home button down, not something we found intuitive at all.
The buttons and ports are spread out around the handset with Power on the right, Volume on left, microUSB on the bottom and the 3.5mm headphone jack on the top. The buttons are easy enough to reach and have a nice action, although we would prefer the Volume rocker to be a little larger.
Samsung said the shape is 'inspired by nature' but we don’t really care - what matters more is the size, weight and feel. The Samsung Galaxy S III is very thin and light for such a large phone at just 8.6mm and 133g. It is comfortable to hold, partly because Samsung has reduced the bezel size keeping the dimensions down as much as possible.
The smartphone is almost exactly the same size as the HTC One X at 71 x 137 mm. It’s a really big phone and though it’s comfortable to hold it is sometimes difficult to use, having to stretch across the large screen with one hand simply due to its size. This is coming from a user with quite large hands so we fear that for a lot of users the device will be just too big for day-to-day usage. Visit: Samsung Galaxy S III vs HTC One X comparison review.
The Galaxy S III handset is available in pebble blue and marble white. The former has a nice brushed finish while the latter a glossy sheen. Both look nice but we prefer the blue option.
Build quality
We can't help but feel the Galaxy S III has too much of a plasticy feel, mainly brought about by its flimsy removable rear cover which effectively peels away from the back. This is a let-down and not something we want to see from such a 'premium' smartphone with such a high price tag.
Despite the overwhelming use of plastic, the Galaxy S III feels well made. The thin metal rim running around the edge gives the phone good strength, offering only a small amount of flex when put under strain. The one-piece glass front feels especially nice so ignoring the rear cover it's a good effort.
Hardware
As expected the Galaxy S III is powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 4 Quad processor, something we actually knew before the launch event. It is a 32nm chip based on the ARM Cortex A9 quad-core architecture and has a clock speed of 1.4GHz.
Strangely Samsung hasn't specified the amount of RAM but our benchmarking app tells us that it has 780MB which the specification sheet would probably tout as 1GB.
We're working on bring you the performance benchmark results but from a user perspective the Galaxy S III is almost flawless. Samsung has managed to achieve the kind of smooth performance only reached by Apple's iPhone. It's the kind of situation where we struggled to make the Galaxy S III, er, struggle.
For example, the phone can play video content in a pop-out window while you do other tasks. If you want proof of performance then there you have it. Other demanding tasks such as scrolling and zooming on a desktop version of website just happen with no lag; the processor puts up no fuss whatsoever.
The biggest lag we found was the short delay between pressing the power button to wake the handset up and the screen coming to life. But even then the delay was minor.
In terms of internal storage, the Galaxy S III matches the iPhone 4S and has 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacity options. Much to our delight it also has a microSD card slot for expansion of up to a further 64GB. This choice is a big win in our opinion.
As we mentioned earlier the Galaxy S III is a pretty big smartphone. This is mainly down to its 4.8-inch Super AMOLED screen which has an HD resolution of 720 x 1280.
The Galaxy S III screen is stunning and comparable in quality to the one found on the HTC One X. It has a high pixel density of 306ppi where individual pixels are not distinguishable offering astonishing levels of detail. Viewing angles are very good; we found reflections in the screen more of a problem.
The Super AMOLED technology means colours a bright and punchy while blacks are very, well, black. It's partly what makes the screen have such an impact on the eyes but users wanting a more natural look will probably find the screen a bit garish.
Wireless charging is a stand out feature which is not only super cool but very practical too.
Other connectivity in the Galaxy S III includes the standard Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and microUSB as well as near-field communications (NFC) technology and support for the digital living network alliance (DLNA) standard.
Subject to further testing, the Galaxy S III has turned out to be an excellent smartphone. It offers a good design and build quality, despite our small niggles. Samsung has put together an impressive set of hardware resulting in silky smooth performance and extensive software features.
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Thursday, 1 March 2012
All 4 Symbian Lover
Nokia Belle brought with it a massive change in the look of Symbian, and introduced much less constrained widgets to fill even more homescreens than before. The built-in widgets are not the limit of its flexibility though. There are many applications that can greatly add to the functionality of the Nokia Belle homescreen. In this guide, I take a look at how you can extend the widget set to make the most of your brand new Nokia Belle homescreens.
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Battery Monitor 2.2
Battery Monitor isn’t new, but did receive a significant update last year – being written in Qt has made sure that it’s compatible with Nokia Belle. The battery indicator of Nokia Belle doesn’t update as often as it should, and so Battery Monitor is a better way to accurately track your remaining battery life.
The widget constantly alternates between a set of remaining time estimates for various types of use, such as web browsing, call time, and stand-by time.
As described in our news story:
Functional improvements for Nokia Battery Monitor 2.0
- Estimates for any application. Several estimates can now be selected to be scrolled in the home screen widget. Estimates can in fact be shown for any application installed on the device, even for the Battery Monitor itself. You can customise the application used for each estimate via a long press.
- A rough estimate of the standby usage time (no active usage, only background apps and services) has been included. The difference between 3G and 2G talk time is also shown, in percentages, based on real measurements from the device.
- Time elapsed from the last charging is shown.
- Battery health analysis. The maximum capacity of batteries will degrade over their lifetime. As this happens gradually over hundreds of charging/discharging cycles, it is not easy for the end user to notice this degradation, but Battery Monitor will now analyse the battery capacity during charging cycles and notify the user when a replacement is recommended.
- Power saving features. There's a new page, currently providing a quick and easy access to the Power Saving Mode and power critical display settings (display brightness and display timeout). Power saving mode can be set to activate automatically on battery level specified by the user.
- Battery saving tips. There's a useful scrollable panel providing tips on how the end user can save power and improve battery life with their own actions. Many of these are common sense (turning down display brightness, reducing email check frequency, disabling WLAN scanning, etc - there's an All About Symbian tutorial on all this coming up shortly), but it's nice to have them all collected in one place.
- Application level energy monitoring. The Statistics page has been completely redesigned - you can now see the energy consumption history per application. Daily, weekly and all time top 8 lists of the most energy hungry applications are shown. Importantly, background energy consumption is also shown in the list. This includes all consumption when the device screen saver is active, for example cellular modem, Bluetooth and WLAN standby, always online email and social networking services.
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Monday, 20 February 2012
Touch With Tech-World
All
All About Symbian - Symbian, Nokia and S60 unwrapped. , Nokia and S60 unwrapped.
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