Look what Apple sent me today. A new version of iOS.
I got this on my iPhone 5 in Pakistan. Did you get an update too ?
The news is spreading fast that HP is discontinuing the Web-OS device operations. While this news needs more detailed analysis and we have a long way to go but we are left with lesser number of players when it comes to operating system for the hand-held devices. Google, Apple, RIM and Microsoft are the four major operating system developers. While RIM and Google are no naive souls, I can’t rule out the possibility of a Microsoft vs Apple battle again a few years down the road if these two can eliminate Google and RIM from the race. With Microsoft’s strategic alliance with Nokia and Apple’s discontinued success story gives rise to the support for this possible traditional rivalry coming to the Smartphone and Tablet’s world soon.
Continue reading “Is it Microsoft vs Apple all over again? HP Pulls the plug on Web-OS.”
This video demonstrate the use of flash and rich content rendering on RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry Playbook and compares it to the iPad’s Safari browser. If you are looking forward to buy a new tablet, Playbook is definitely one of the alternate option for you. The video also gives a clear idea of the size of the two tablets. If you are looking for a smaller alternative of iPad, Playbook or the Samsung Galaxy tab are the options to look at.
Here is the video:
iPhone users, if you are a fan of GPRS/EDGE data use and you have an unlimited plan, the chances are that while you are downloading your favorite songs or apps over EDGE, you’re missing some important calls. The calls get redirected to the voice mail or simply get a not-available message.
This article on Apple’s support website clearly mentions this shortcoming:
If not on 3G, while iPhone is actively transferring data over the cellular data network—downloading a webpage, for example—you may not be able to receive calls. Incoming calls may go to voicemail.
I was shocked when I came to know this because I’ve been a GPRS freak with unlimited data since it became availaable in my country. On smartphones like BlackBerry and Android, it is obvious that your phone is almost always sending and/or receiving data. This means, the phone should simply refuse to receive any calls? The way above issue has been mentinoed as a “Note”, I don’t think Apple is thinking of finding a solution to this problem.
Happy using Apple’s iPhone 😉
Apple on Friday released the video of their press conference. Steve Jobs has presented his case and made some good point and then demonstrated how other popular phones also loose signal when held tight in the user’s hand.
RIM and Nokia have objected the way their phones have been mentioned in this session. The press conference video shows three different phones that loose signal when held tight in the user’s hand, one of them was BlackBerry Bold 9700. Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, founders and co-CEO of RIM have objected by saying that Apple is dragging RIM into their self made debacle.
Jobs also mentioned in the session that you can find pictures all over the internet of Nokia phones saying “Dont touch here”. Nokia has responded to that by saying that Nokia has spent thousands of man hours researching the way people hold their phones and they have been pioneer in making internal antenna featuring phones.
In addition to leg pulling and dragging, there were some concrete announcements in the press conference as well. Apple has announced free bumper cases to solve the antenna problem so that nobody gets to touch the metal border on iPhone 4. Moreover, Apple has also waived the return fees for unsatisfied iPhone 4 customers. These two measures are good enough, why on earth they had to be drag other phones into the scene? They’ve sold all of their phones already, haven’t they?
You can watch the Apple’s press conference video by hitting this link.
This has been a long awaited post and a few of my readers have been requesting for it repeatedly. I’ve finally decided to write on this topic. Some of my readers will call it a redundant post as so many has been said about these two phones and then some of them will call it biased due to Nokia being my all time favorite but I will still not be reluctant writing the post as it is totally based on facts and figures and I have not been unjust.
iPhone 4 by Apple and Nokia N8 have been put into a side by side table below. Thanks to GSM Arena, I did not have to type in all this data. What I’ve done is, I’ve colored this table green wherever I found a superior feature in one of the two phones. Quite interestingly iPhone is a winner in launching the phone first, it is smaller in volume, it’s got a gyro sensor, higher resolution screen, greater internal memory, better CPU clock and a larger battery capacity.
That makes around 8 features better than Nokia’s N8. Am I praising Apple’s marvel too much? Well, let’s look at Nokia’s features where Nokia is a winner against iPhone. The list is endlessly long and Nokia has around 19 features that are significantly better than that of iPhone including a 12 megapixel stunning still camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, Micro SD Slot which will let you plug in upto 32 GB of a memory card, USB on the go that will allow you to plug in your USB flash drives and hard disks as an additional storage space to your phone, 720p HDMI TV out, Flash support in browser, faster class 33 edge and much more. See the table below yourself, I’m not biased 😉
Hence the winner is … Nokia N8 without any doubt.
While my favorite of all the features will be the Nokia logo on the device that looks much better to me as compared to that of a metallic apple 🙂 . Where Nokia has lost it is; the delayed release that is causing additional curiosity and unrest among the fans who cannot take it anymore. Just release it Nokia!
|
Apple iPhone 4 |
Nokia N8 |
||
|
General |
2G Network |
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
|
3G Network |
HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 |
HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 2100 /1900 |
|
|
Announced |
2010, June |
2010, April |
|
|
Status |
Available. Released 2010, June |
Coming soon. Exp. release 2010, October |
|
|
Size |
Dimensions |
115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm |
113.5 x 59.1 x 12.9 mm, 86 cc |
|
Weight |
137 g |
135 g |
|
|
Display |
Type |
TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors |
AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M |
|
Size |
640 x 960 pixels, 3.5 inches |
360 x 640 pixels, 3.5 inches |
|
|
– Scratch-resistant surface |
– Scratch-resistant surface |
||
|
– Multi-touch input method |
– Multi-touch input method |
||
|
– Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate |
– Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate |
||
|
– Three-axis gyro sensor |
|||
|
– Proximity sensor for auto turn-off |
– Proximity sensor for auto turn-off |
||
|
Sound |
Alert types |
Vibration, MP3 ringtones |
Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones |
|
Speakerphone |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
– 3.5 mm headset jack |
– 3.5 mm audio jack |
||
|
Memory |
Phonebook |
Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall |
Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall |
|
Call records |
100 received, dialed and missed calls |
Detailed, max 30 days |
|
|
Internal |
16/32 GB storage, 512 MB RAM |
16 GB storage, 256MB RAM, 512 MB ROM |
|
|
Card slot |
No |
microSD, up to 32GB |
|
|
Data |
GPRS |
Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps |
Class 33 |
|
EDGE |
Class 10, 236.8 kbps |
Class 33 |
|
|
3G |
HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps |
HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2.0 Mbps |
|
|
WLAN |
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n |
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, UPnP technology |
|
|
Bluetooth |
Yes, v2.1 with A2DP |
Yes, v3.0 with A2DP |
|
|
Infrared port |
No |
No |
|
|
USB |
Yes, v2.0 |
Yes, microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go |
|
|
Camera |
Primary |
5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash |
12 MP, 4000×3000 pixels, Carl Zeiss |
|
Features |
Touch focus, geo-tagging |
1/1.83” sensor size, ND filter, geo-tagging, face and smile |
|
|
Video |
Yes, 720p@30fps, LED video light, geo-tagging |
Yes, 720p@25fps |
|
|
Secondary |
Yes, videocalling over Wi-Fi only |
VGA videocall camera |
|
|
Features |
OS |
iOS 4 |
Symbian ^3 OS |
|
CPU |
1 GHz Apple A4 processor |
ARM 11 680 MHz processor, 3D Graphics HW accelerator |
|
|
Messaging |
SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email |
SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM |
|
|
Browser |
HTML (Safari) |
WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds |
|
|
Radio |
No |
Stereo FM radio with RDS; FM transmitter |
|
|
Games |
Downloadable, incl. motion-based |
Yes + downloadable |
|
|
Colors |
Black, White |
Dark Grey, Silver White, Green, Blue, Orange |
|
|
GPS |
Yes, with A-GPS support |
Yes, with A-GPS support; Ovi Maps 3.0 |
|
|
Java |
No |
Yes, MIDP 2.1 |
|
|
– MicroSIM card support only |
– Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF) |
||
|
– Scratch-resistant glass back panel |
– Dolby Digital Plus via HDMI |
||
|
– Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic. |
– Anodized aluminum casing |
||
|
– Digital compass |
– Digital compass |
||
|
– Google Maps |
– Video/photo editor |
||
|
– iBooks application |
– DivX/XviD/MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV |
||
|
– Audio/video player and editor |
– MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player |
||
|
– Voice command/dial |
– Voice command/dial |
||
|
– TV-out |
– TV-out (720p video) via HDMI and composite |
||
|
– Flash Lite v4.0 |
|||
|
Battery |
Standard battery, Li-Po 1420mAh |
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1200 mAh |
|
|
Stand-by |
Up to 300 h (2G) / Up to 300 h (3G) |
Up to 390 h (2G) / Up to 400 h (3G) |
|
|
Talk time |
Up to 14 h (2G) / Up to 7 h (3G) |
Up to 12 h 30 min (2G) / Up to 5 h 30 min (3G) |
|
|
Music play |
Up to 40 h |
Up to 50 h
|
*** Update
While iPhone 4 is not available unlocked without a voice/data contract in US, we can compare UK prices of iPhone 4 and Nokia N8.Right now, the approximate price of unlocked 16GB iPhone 4 in UK is GBP 499 that is around USD 760. Same 16 GB iPhone 4 is available for Eur 629 in France for example.
On the other hand, Nokia N8 is expected to be available for around Eur 450 on launch. Even if it sells for Eur 500, its pretty economical, isn’t it? 🙂
There have been news and posts all around that Apple has advised iPhone 4 owners not to hold it in a specific way to avoid any signal dropping issues. I’ve not tried the new iPhone (nor am looking forward to) but Nokia has posted a comprehensive post on “How to hold your Nokia” and they make the point absolutely clear that you won’t lose any signal, no matter how you hold the phone. Sarcasm at it’s best!
Following is the number of ways in which you can hold a Nokia phone :p
Continue reading “ROFL @Apple – How do you hold your Nokia?”
This is big for me at least. This fellow has found a way to install a boot loader and install Android OS on iPhone. We all know that Apple’s iPhone has strong hardware capabilities but due to software restrictions, iPhone users have been deprived from a lot of features and functionality that they could use just by simple software ad-ons. With this hack, which obviously is not supported or accepted by Apple, a whole wide range of possibilities are in your hand. Check out the demo video.
It seems that the mobile industry is moving toward a universal charger, and micro-usb connector will take this seat. The standardaization is supposed to start from Europe and will eventually be adopted, possibly, by the rest of the world. Micro-USB is more sleek in size and has the same capabilities as more commonly seen mini-USB.
Micro-USB (left) vs Mini-USB (right)
RIM, the manufacturers of BlackBerry devices, has already committed to micro-usb type connectors that work both as a data transfer as well as charging slot. Also, there several latest models of Nokia that charge on a Micro-USB charger. Several other phones also use them, off and on in different models as their charging and connectivity means but this time it is different.
European commission now, has the backing of inustry leaders and they’ve signed an M0U to support micro USB as a common charging slow on the upcoming devices. CTIA, OMTP, and GSM Association already back micro-USB chargers. This means that you will see more and more micro-USB based devices in the near future.
The companies that back European commission for Micro-USB and signed above mentioned MoU are Nokia, RIM, Apple, LG, Motorla, NEC, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Texas Instruments. You can see all industry leaders in the list.
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