The state of the mobile market 2011

It’s been a massive year for mobile tech! We’ve seen Web OS become Web Open Source, love what they did there; WP7 Mango got released, which is apparently a big deal; Ice Cream Sandwich has been released to the world and the iPhone 4S was a massive disappointment. RIM is apparently still around but I don’t believe the rumors.

For the four big players: IOS, Android, WP7 and Blackberry 2011 has been a pretty interesting year. Steve Jobs’ death has been one of the big events of the year, and it has certainly put a flavor on how the companies are going to be in 2012. I personally think that his death affected Apple much more than it has been speculated. Let’s face it the iPhone 4S was a massive anti-climax. Even the most devout Apple fan-boy did a slight double take when it was released and let out a soft exclamation of disappointment. But that’s just the iPhone 4S, much of the rest of this year has been full of wonderful updates, surprises, evolutions and improvements.

WP7 had its Mango update, I have never used WP7 for more than five minutes in a shop, but the interface is pretty slick and according to all my mates with WP7 devices Mango has shunted the OS into relevance for early 2012, which is nice. I don’t mean to sound dismissive, I love the fact Microsoft is trying to get back into the smartphone market. The more the merrier in my opinion; I love Android too much to switch anytime soon but think that the more choice that the consumer has the better it is for everyone. I used WM back in the day and it had some really awesome aspects to it, so it’s nice to Microsoft keeping its toe in the door.

Talking of doors, Rim and its Blackberry OS. I think the door is closing as we move into 2012. From personal experience it is clear to see that Rim is loosing market share. Putting graphs, data and pie charts to one-side and looking at my friend group it is pretty apparent. Granted this is one demographic of publicly educated predominantly British teenagers, but it shows a pretty clear trend. Four years ago BlackBerrys were “cool” BBM was everywhere and Blackberry was the place to be. The odd person had an iPhone but they were generally considered to be more of a PSP or iPod alternative for the rich kids, BlackBerrys were for the uber sociable average teen. The two of us with Android phones, two HTC Heroes back in the day, were thought pretty alternative and individual. However fast-forward to the present day and everyone I know who had a Blackberry has either got rid of it and migrated to the iPhone or Android, or has got a Blackberry purely for BBM but a cheap ‘throw-away’ phone for everyday use as their Blackberry just isn’t reliable or robust enough. This is where it has been for all of 2011, and despite releasing the odd new handset RIM has failed to make any drastic changes or improvements to Blackberry and I think it is probably on the way out. At risk of sounding sage and whimsical I think that this time next year Blackberry will either be floundering in it’s last throws or gone the same way as WebOS; HTC built Blackberry phone anyone?

And finally Android. This has been Android’s year, no doubt about it. We’ve seen dual-core, had a little taste of quad-core, been dazzled by 720p HD screens and generally had a great time. I currently use an SGS2 and, I always say this when I have a new phone, but if I wasn’t a geek I would have no desire to upgrade it for a few years. I think it is the best phone on the planet right now, it’s light and fast with a gorgeous screen, what else do you want on a phone? I’m obviously something of a fan-boy boy but this year Android has grown at a huge rate, phones and tablets have become more powerful than anyone could have foreseen at the start of 2011, and the updates Google has made has kept the OS at the top of its game. Google have worked wonders with the market, integrating Google Music and tidying up the front end on both portable devices and in browser. ICS, though far from perfect, is a great update to android, the UI looks slick and the whole OS looks much more streamlined and unified. The soft buttons could be a good thing in future iterations of the OS, but I think their need to be a few changes to make me really want a phone with no hardware buttons. But on the whole I think the update has struck all the right notes. Role on ICS for the SGS2!

To sum up: I think RIM is going down; Apple will have to do something brilliant in the new year (and stop suing people); Android is marching smartly on and I look forward to seeing how WP7 continues to evolve over 2012.

I’ve been a Nokia user for almost as long as I’ve used mobile phones – with only three exceptions. My first ever phone was a Motorola, and when I first got a Nokia, the 3210 I believe, it was like another world of phones. Sleek, elegant, built for the user.

Nokia hasn’t changed, its built quality and elegance remains a league of its own. Nokia always has style in its products, and offer much more than competitors – FM transmitter as one example. Nokia invented today’s idea of a smartphone with the N95 and the Internet tablet with the 770, it gave us satellite navigation and mobile browsing, and the best camera on a phone ever. It’s an understatement to call Nokia a pioneering company, but it’s the only word sufficient.

Windows Phone 7 is to software what Nokia is to hardware: succinct, to the point, elegant and user-based. It’s simplicity to a tee while packing more features than others, and that’s what we like to see. I can’t wait to see what this technology giant, the one we owe smartphones and tablets to, is going to pull out of the bag this year.

Have I become cynical in my old age? Maybe my fanboyism to Android has grown out of hand? Or maybe Apple have just given their worst unveiling since the Newton. I concede that Steve Jobs who, to be fair to the guy, was one of hell of a sales person, is now absent from centre stage but it is no excuse. The very worst aspects of the ‘Apple machine’ seemed to combine together to deliver what was quite frankly a massive let down for all involved.

The Iphone 4S, does this change everything again, again? No. Granted it is a nice little refresh to the iPhone 4 but it is just that, a refresh. Had Apple unveiled it as a budget alternative to the Iphone 5 then it would have been all hugs and kisses, and I would have commended them for taking another leaf out of Android’s book. However as a stand-alone device the 4S is a woeful attempt to upgrade the Iphone, even I (someone who would rather pickle my left ear than buy an IOS device) was disappointed. I wouldn’t have minded so much if they had announced it as an incremental upgrade and at least mentioned the Iphone 5, but no. Not a sausage. How long until the Iphone 5 is launched? It could be next year, or it could be before christmas seeing as they have blown their previous launch pattern to smithereens. Thanks for making us wait 15 months, getting us all hot and bothered about it, and then leaving us to stew for god knows how long more.

The 4S itself is a nice little phone (little being the operative word) but it doesn’t contain 15 months worth of upgrades. Even IOS5 seems to me more interesting than the new device and I am a hardware fanatic. Apple can vomit up technical specifications and graphical benchmark results all they want on stage, but when push comes to shove I would rather hold a new (bigger) device in my hand than poke my finger at a piddly 3.5” screen and slobber over graphics which make little or no difference to 99% of my smartphone usage. The only games I play on a regular basis are casual, light addictive games, often involving irritated avian characters and their porcine rivals. I don’t sit on the train playing a hardcore game which requires me to concentrate and gawk at graphics whilst draining my battery in 3 hours flat. And I make it my business to play the latest games as I review most of them but still spend less than a few hours on most ‘hardcore games’ and I enjoy them on a 4.3" screen, not a 3.5" tiddler. Oh, did I mention it’s dual core? Much like many phones I could mention which have been out for almost a year. The camera is now 8MP with 1080p video capture, something which we have all seen before, but wait it has two antennae. Wonderful.

Iphone 4S aside, Apple also announced IOS5, or to rephrase that showed us a bunch of stuff they have already shown us, an iPod Nano with BIGGER ICONS! And some Ipod Touch’s which are now in white, splendid. I won’t even bother slating IOS5, but I do wish to mention SIRI, if only in brief. Voice control has been around for years, and it is a nice concept but in practise it fails in 9 out of 10 situations. It is so easy to type something into google, or to open your SMS or Email that voice commands make the whole process more difficult. Unless you are in the car, or are sitting alone at home, then it makes you look ridiculous and never works due to background noise. Also, more often than not, when I send an email I generally don’t want to announce it to everybody in the vicinity, heck that’s why I email instead of calling someone. But I have faith in Apple zombies everywhere, if Apple say it is the future then I look forward to walking into an office and seeing blurry eyed executives yelling corporate secretes into their phones whilst the one dodgy bloke in the corner asks SIRI where the nearest lap-dancing bar is.

All in all it was a disappointing day for tech fans, and it leaves me wondering if Google and Samsung are going to do the same thing at their little get together next week? I think releasing the Samsung Galaxy S2 with a new 3MP front facing camera, and a choice of two new lock screens in the UI of ICS would just about bring them up to par with Apple. I think it is unlikely, and I am confident that Apple will have to release a new device before next summer or risk falling even further behind Android, ICS running on quadcore in 2012 anyone?

I now understand why they chose not to broadcast the event live, can you imagine how boring it would have been for us poor unsuspecting civilians?

Microsoft and Samsung have announced that they have signed a cross-licensing agreement, meaning each is able to use the other’s patented licences. Moreover, the agreement included Samsung’s commitment to continue producing Windows Phone devices, and Samsung will pay Microsoft royalties on all Android tablets and handsets it sells. Microsoft also has similar agreements with ViewSonic, HTC and Acer.

It’s an interesting development, primarily because the deal between Nokia and Microsoft was supposed to be ‘exclusive’, but Microsoft is now signing new agreements with other handset manufacturers for them to give access to their portfolio and create WP7 devices, which is strikingly similar to Nokia’s deal. It leads to wondering what problems this will cause for Nokia now that it will not be the only company to have access to Microsoft’s portfolio for software development and also that other companies will continue to make Windows Phone devices in conjunction with other operating systems – by dropping Maemo, MeeGo and soon Symbian, Nokia will be producing only WP7 and S40 devices, while Samsung has Tizen, Bada, Android and Windows Phone. It appears that Microsoft is well aware no one is buying its latest incarnation of phone offerings and is binding all the manufacturers it can to agree to try to shift it.

The major focus, though, rests on Android. With Samsung having access to Microsoft’s patent portfolio, it must now pay Microsoft on each Android tablet and handset it sells, just as HTC does. Microsoft have played a shrewd game here and it may not be long before it simply has to sit back and watch the money pour in, because with the world’s most noted handset manufacturers Nokia, Samsung and HTC producing its phones, and it receiving royalties from the majority of Android phones being sold, there’s little chance of it losing. And even if Windows Phone continues to be a bottom-feeder in the marketshare arena, Microsoft still rakes in the cash with Android royalties.

Steven Sinofsky (President, Windows and Windows Live division, Microsoft), says “We’re gonna reimagine Windows. From the chipset, to the experience, Windows 8 reimagines what Windows can be.”

It all starts with the word “Metro”. A design language by Microsoft that puts YOU at the centre and works the way you want it. It’s your life – digitized. Your people, your content; everything is about YOU. Metro makes things work just the way they should. If you’ve used a Windows Phone 7 device, you know what I’m talking about. Metro is about bringing the stuff you care about closer to you; it’s about getting the technology out of your way just so that you can enjoy your digital life.

What do you think of a computer? What first thought do you get when you hear about using a computer? It’s probably sitting on a chair in front of a monitor typing with a keyboard and using a mouse. It’s been like that for ages! Sure there are laptops, but they are pretty much the same. Sure there are Windows slates but they’re not that good at what they do. Sure there are iPads and Android tabs but they are essentially just oversized smartphones. They just can’t do what a desktop OS can do like full video editing, smooth full featured web experiences etc. You get the point.

When Windows 7 was designed, the shifts that were happening then were around high performance notebooks. People wanted thinner and lighter notebooks; notebooks that would resume from sleep immediately, with batteries that last longer and mobility features like that and Windows 7 did successfully fulfill all those needs and wants.

· About 450 million copies of Windows 7 have been sold!

· Windows 7 consumer usage greater than Windows XP.

· 1502 seamless non-security product changes delivered

· Internet Explorer 9 is the fastest growing Windows 7 browser

· 542 million people signing into Windows Live services.

These are very successful statistics.

Changing World of Computing

But, the shifts that are happening now have changed. Today there are trends around immersive internet computing, ultraportable devices that have touchscreens. Windows 8 is the reimagining of Windows for trends we’re seeing today. The web is driving a lot of this. The web is affecting the way we work, the way we play, the way we connect with other people and it’s only getting more immersive, more personal and more significant in our lives.

· Form factors and user interaction models create new scenarios and opportunities

· Mobility means devices you use while carrying, not just devices you carry then use

· App developers want rich connectivity and sharing capabilities, connection to customers

· Services are intrinsic in all software

Windows 8 – How does it look?

Windows 8 features a Windows Phone 7 like lockscreen which is very personal. It has a beautiful background of your picture. It shows you the time, date, your next appointment and your notifications.

Windows 8 features the “Start Screen” inspired by Windows Phone 7. The Start Screen is your personal mosaic of tiles; the apps on your system are represented by Tiles. Tiles are better than icons for a couple of reasons – they have a lot more space for the apps to show it’s personality and information. For example, you can see stuff like Weather status, stock status, status updates, notifications, news headlines etc. without having to open any app. The information is surfaced to you. That’s the start screen.

Windows 8 experience

· Fast and fluid user experience – Responsive, alive and beautiful with animations and Metro style

· Immersive and full-screen – Focuses attention on your apps

· Touch-first with full keyboard and mouse – Enables choice of interaction

· Web of apps working together – Apps are connected to each other and the cloud

· Experience for all PC devices and architectures – No compromise across new form factors, desktops and laptops

What about the apps? Windows 8 features a new app platform based on standard web technologies like HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. These languages form the backbone of the web. So, on day 1 when Windows 8 ships, hundreds of thousands of developers will already know how to build great apps for Windows 8. HTML5 is doing a freaking good job at building interactive and immersive web apps. Apps using this technology would be pretty rich and engaging for the end users. These apps are called “Metro Apps” (Of course) and these apps will be available through the Windows App Store, a one stop shop for your Windows 8 app demands. The revenue will be the 70/30 split for the developers/Microsoft apparently. Though, it’s not confirmed yet.

The great thing about Windows 8 is – these apps aren’t silos. These apps can talk to other apps. For example, you can tweet a photo stored in your friend’s Facebook album without saving anything to the desktop or someplace in the sky. You can imagine being able to search for anything on the web, twitter, music, games, apps through a single vie. That’s a pretty slick feature that nobody has done before and developers and consumers alike are going to appreciate a lot.

Features

Windows 8 is entirely gesture based; although you can use buttons too. To go to the start screen using a tablet, you swipe from the right. That’s the place for you to tinker around with the setting and to access more options. Windows 8 features real multitasking. You swipe from the left to switch between apps. Windows 8 also includes a great feature – Snap. The ability to dock two apps side by side which none other touch operating system supports.

IE10 is the best hardware accelerated browser out there. You can run hardware accelerated flash, ActiveX, do in private browsing and experience HTML5 content and other stuff that most other touch operating systems don’t support.

Another really important factor is speed. Windows 8’s UI is blazing fast. That’s because it is hardware accelerated. All the transitions, graphics, animations, effects and even the Metro style apps everything is hardware accelerated to the core which means the power of your GPU is used to make everything slick and smooth.

Microsoft has also redesigned the Windows Explorer with the Ribbon interface familiar to Office 2007 and Office 2010 users.

Windows 8 also features an improved task manager and a better multiple monitor support.

Windows 8 will also include Xbox LIVE functionality.

Windows 8 includes support for all the latest and greatest technologies like TPM, UEFI, Compass, Gyro, Accelerometer, Magnetometer, Near Field Communication, Ambient Light, LCD TSP, SSD, WLAN, GPS, Cameras, Touch, Ink, 3G/4G.

Also, buzz is that Windows 8 will include Phone capabilities. That would be a real nice addition I guess.

Windows 8 PCs with UEFI and SSDs will be able to boot in just about 8 seconds!

Windows 8 fast boot up -

Windows 8 will also have Microsoft SmartScreen technology and Microsoft Security Essentials built right into the OS. A Metro version of Microsoft Office is in the works according to some rumors.

At the BUILD Conference, about 5000 Developers were given a Samsung Windows 8 developer slate.

This isn’t all. Microsoft says there are hundreds other features that aren’t shown yet. I think we’ll know about them till Windows 8 reaches Beta.

Check out Windows 8 in action:

Will Windows 8 be able to take on the iPad? Decide for yourself!

I woke up this morning at the crack of dawn. Donned a geeky T-shirt, a pair of chinos and jumped in the car, with the light of expectation ablaze in my eye. With the HP TouchPad going (for want of a better word) viral in the US following it’s price drop UK retailers announced they would be following suit last night. Websites crashed, stock was rapidly gobbled up, and fire rained from the sky.

I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be able to pick one up this morning, but a guy can dream! After waiting impatiently outside PC World, getting rejected, and subsequently running to all other vaguely technological emporiums within the district I admit I have failed in my quest. Apparently the employees of certain branches cleaned out the stock as soon as the cut was announced (see Ebay) Hopefully I will be able to secure one from a friend in the US, and hopefully android will soon be making a home for itself on the now wildly popular tablet.

The future of the TouchPad is now hazy, and very interesting. If the way to make everyone drool over a product, over night, is to announce you are killing it, WP7 may well have a lifeline. Joking aside, this will have a huge impact on the tech world. The way I see it there are two or three likely outcomes from this huge adoption of the TP, and therefore of WebOS. The first is that someone (Google?) will buy WebOS and all the patents it contains. This will be a hugely valuable package for any of the ‘Big Three’ in the many lawsuits to come on the road to mobile domination.

There is also the chance that after purchasing it, the OS it will be licensed out, much like android and WP7 for companies such as Samsung and HTC to use in their devices. Purely based on the new user base from the TP’s viral success there are enough people with WebOS in their homes to warrant continuing the OS, as well as the fact everyone who has used it seems to love most of the UI. Cards anyone? This would also give companies like HTC and Samsung another leg to stand on, as they do not share the special relationship with Google or Microsoft that Motorola and Microsoft now enjoy.

I could also see so many people clamouring to put Android onto their new TouchPads that it becomes the new ‘budget’ android tablet. Think of the success of the Nook Color, and the community which has sprung up around it. And with the TP’s specs it will remain a high to mid powered tablet for at least a year, especially when Android is tweaked to take full advantage of dual core, and until it utilises quad-core processors. This will probably happen regardless of what happens to WebOS, but imagine dual booting WebOS 4.0 and Ice Cream Sarnie!

The final result of this, which I can plausibly foresee, will be that someone buys WebOS and maintains all the rights to produce hardware for it. HTC have produced hardware for Palm in the past, and the marriage of software and hardware was a feature that made WebOS as good as it undeniably was/is. If this happens I hope that whoever adopts it will treat it better than HP have.

Whatever happens I hope I will be able to pick a TouchPad up, I love my Nook Color and having another Hablet (Hacked android tablet ©AndroidAtNight) with the specs to keep up with the likes of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the XOOM would be sublime!

I was prompted to write this article after a friend of mine told me about his younger sister who posted a “hate comment” on a friends youtube video and consequently they no longer talk, even after a year.

We are constantly told that the internet is shortening our memories. Twitter renders us incapable of reading and digesting over 150 characters of information at a time. YouTube videos train our minds to absorb 5-10 minute videos and we loose concentration if we try to watch anything longer. This is an oft preached message by learning support experts and the like, and it may well have some substance.

However surely the message parents and experts should be getting across to kids using the internet, is that the internet makes it much harder for people to forget. If you change your Facebook status you can delete it, but it will still have been seen by any number of people. If you put a Youtube video it is easy enough for anyone to download it and then redistribute it, anything you do on the internet is pretty much sealed in stone. If someone wants to record something you have done or said it is simple enough with any number of ways to screen shot, download and redistribute data. I am concerned that the focus on how the internet can shorten our attention spans is being drilled into parents and young people, when there is often little said about how we conduct our selves online. Yes we are told not to post things we will later regret, and there have been examples of how a Facebook update can cause you to loose your job, but kids who are using the internet at a very young age, much younger than my or any one else reading this’ generation. As people begin using Facebook at a much younger age, and any other website be it social networking or not, I think there should be a greater emphasis on making sure that they realise that posting a spiteful message on Facebook may be forever recorded and even it does not seem serious at the time, people are prone to over react, and will not forget as easily if some record of that insult remains.

So next time your about to comment on a status just think about it, I hate how people over react to things on the internet like this, but my friend’s story reminded me that people do sometimes take it very hard. Even if you have a thicker skin the other person may not, and may take an immortal Facebook comment much harder than if you had said it to them, even jokingly.

Google recently released their latest venture, the ‘Google + Project.’ This is not Google’s first step into the social networking sphere, most of us will remember Google Buzz which launched last year and was a monumental flop. More recently Google Wave was hyped to change the way we managed information for ever, again a huge flop, not least because no one could quite figure out how to use it. With this decidedly poor social networking history in mind, will Google + have a chance against the Facebooks of this world?

I was lucky enough to grab an invite to the G+ Program, but before I talk about my experiences thus far I’d like to emphasise that you have to get an invitation to get on the program at the moment. As irritating as this is I think this is symptomatic of what Google has in mind for G+. When Buzz was released it was released to all Gmail users overnight. Everyone instantly had access to it, and instantly had everyone they had ever emailed added to their contacts list. This threw up two issues, firstly who wants everyone they have ever emailed to see their status updates etc. And by launching it in such a forceful manner, instilling it upon the consumer overnight, it was an easy target for those of us who didn’t want to use it. The invitation only aspect of G+ wi change, but for now it retains an aura of mystery for those people who cannot get on it, this instantly means that people want to try it out simply because it is inaccessible. A clever marketing ploy by Google which should maintain the hype around the new network, at least until it launches publicly.

Addressing the second problem with Buzz, that of a forced contact list, or buddy group, G+ is centred around ’circles’. You can have separate circles for your online friends, your family or whatever. And you can choose to only share information within certain groups, should you wish. This immediately puts it ahead of Facebook in situations where you want limited privacy, groups of businessmen or doctors and patients can share information in secure environment with the knowledge that only  select few can view it. I am loathe to immediately compare G+ to Facebook, but it is an inevitable comparison, if the relative lack of privacy on Facebook is something which worries you then G+ may be the social network for you.

I have read several articles concerning G+ and the feature many have failed to mention, and a feature I believe is one of the most attractive aspects of G+ is the cloud photo storage. You can set up your Android or IOS device to automatically upload any photo’s you take via the G+ app to a private online album. You can then share certain photos with certain circles on the network. The ability to have private pictures, and pictures that only specifically chosen friend groups can view is a step above what Facebook currently offers, and is a neat online storage solution. The overriding message Google is sending out with G+ is that the consumer should have the power to control all their privacy settings. You can share as little or as much as you like with as many or few people as you like. It’s your choice.

Google + integrates with the rest of your google services and the +1 button that many people will have seen around the internet allows you in a ‘Facebook like’ style, to share and highlight pages that you think your buddies would like to see. The other cool features of G+ is Huddle which comes with the mobile apps and allows for BBM style group or private messaging, and the Hangout feature which allows for group webchat.

All things considered I think that G+ has the potential to be a great alternative, or complement to Facebook. For those of you who are concerned about privacy then G+ could be for you. I don’t believe that it will be, as is crudely dubbed the ‘Facebook Killer,’ as the number of users on Facebook will keep it afloat for years, even decades to come, whatever Google can provide as way of competition. However I do believe that it is a great complement to it, and I will certainly carry on using both services, with G+ providing a great way to keep my photos secure in the cloud, and a nice way to communicate with my various friend groups away from the prying eyes of the millions of people on Facebook. G+ will be a success if enough people begin using it, if people us it it will be great, if people don’t use it it will go the way of Buzz and Wave. Users have the power to make and break social ventures, G+ has the potential to be great, but that on it’s own won’t be enough if people don’t minimise Facebook for a minute and try it.

A lot of smartphone talk these days seems to center around apps – the iPhone is the best phone because it has the largest app store, the N9 is dead in the water because it doesn’t have many apps yet, BlackBerry is a waste of time because it has a small app store, and so on. But how important are apps really? Or, more to the point, is such a plethora of apps really necessary?

The average number of apps the average user installs is between seven and nine. Of these, the basics typically include Facebook, Twitter and a weather app. Some people have others either for work or pleasure, but certainly no one is installing hundreds and hundreds.  All About Symbian article explains, most of the top ten apps installed on the iPhone are natively included in Symbian phones, so the need for that app on Nokia phones evaporates. Similarly, the Nokia N900 has no Skype app, because Skype is fully integrated into the phone so users can get contacts and make and receive calls and IMs without an app. Conversely, the iPhone is extremely limited in its features straight out of the box and so is much more reliant on developers to fill those gaps.

Taking a look through the app store, though, what we see is that of the hundreds of thousands of apps, many are just free crap that are of no use nor interest to most people. There is no shortage of fart or joke apps, many apps are duplicated, others are wallpapers and themes and others are just mobile browsing bookmarks like the Guardian app. In other words, there is a huge number of possible apps to install but it is very much the minority that is worth installing.

Going back to the N900, it doesn’t need mobile bookmarks because it has the option to save a bookmark to any of the multiple desktops. Themes can be downloaded from the native repositories and wallpapers can be downloaded from any website and installed easily thanks to the fact that no proprietary software like iTunes is required to install them.

In any case, apps are largely there to allow a phone to do what it can’t do natively. Therefore, the real question of a device’s status should not be the number of apps it allows, but the number of apps it needs. In other words, the more a device can do by itself, the less the user needs to scroll through endless lists of apps to find something they want to do. Windows Phone 7 negates the need to download any Office software because it already comes bundled in. The Nokia N8 doesn’t need any photo or camera software downloaded because it’s pre-installed and the N9 will be landing with native Twitter, Facebook and RSS clients, so they will not need to be downloaded either.

Moreover, aside from a handful of apps useful to specific people based on their work or lifestyle, it’s fair to say most users spend most of their phone time on social media of some kind, web browsing, the camera, and calls and texts. If a phone can do all those things immediately then that will be more convenient for the user.

When talking about phones and app stores there seems to be a heavy emphasis on quantity of apps rather than quality. I would rather have a selection of 500 useful, quality apps than 250,000 apps of which 249,000 are garbage. I don’t want to wade through fart apps and joke apps and repetitions just to find an app to locate where I have parked my car for instance.

Apple popularised the idea of an app store and created the concept of the app race, chiefly because it was winning it and it can hand out impressive numbers about developers. The truth is, though, that it is utterly meaningless. There will be very little indeed in the Apple App Store that isn’t in the Android Marketplace, or a suitable equivalent in Nokia’s Ovi Store. I would wager money betting that no one has viewed every app in the App Store, which just highlights that having such a large number available really just makes it harder to find what you want, especially if you don’t happen to know the name of the app to do a direct search.

So if apps were created to fill the gap, then the next step is a device emerging to fill those gaps natively. And while Apple hasn’t noticed this, it is precisely what is happening. With Microsoft having Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype and Facebook integrated in the phone there will be a reduced need for the apps. With all the IM protocols natively supported on the N900, there is no need for Fring or Nimbuzz because MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, Skype and Facebook chat can be set up without third-party software. The N9 is all about natural interactions with a phone, hence the lack of a home button, and part of this process is removing the necessity to install apps for certain tasks. So now instead of opening Facebook, closing Facebook, then opening Twitter and closing Twitter, you just have to swipe your finger to see notifications, Facebook, Twitter, RSS and weather all in one view. Instead of needing to install Joikuspot, the phone can be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot natively.

The bottom line is the more a device can do by itself, the less we need apps. The vast majority – in fact I’d say ‘all’ – users only install a relatively small amount of apps, and most people would prefer a device to do the things they need without an app. This would make phones smarter, more useful, and more attuned to the needs of the user.

On the February 11 conference Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced Nokia would start using Windows Phone 7 as its primary OS, with MeeGo reserved for “future disruptions” to change mobile technology. The Nokia N9 has just been announced as that first disruption.

Following from the N900’s lead, the N9 features integrated Skype in Contacts, Phone and Messages, as well as coming pre-bundled with Angry Birds Magic (utilising the present NFC), Nokia’s industry-leading Maps, and the phone can be a Wi-Fi hotspot without a third-party application, so you can use your laptop to browse the web using the phone’s 3G. Facebook and Twitter are integrated tightly, too, with new tweets, mentions and events going straight to the Events view so you never miss anything important. This new device also utilises Dolby technology, combining Dolby Headphone and Dolby Digital Plus to offer an unparalleled surround sound. The camera is also impressive: not just the 8MP wide-angle Carl Zeiss optics or the HD 16:9 widescreen video recording, but the fact it is the fastest camera on any phone to take a photo from the moment the camera is opened to the shot being taken. Also announced was Qt being the app-development platform, cross-compatible with Maemo 5, Symbian and soon S40, opening up new apps to each OS at the same time. At present, Nokia is the only phone maker to use pentaband chips and the N9 is no exception. Beyond the impressive specs, though, it’s not the usual ingredients that make this device so impressive or intriguing.

The Nokia N9 boasts a number of new approaches to how we interact with our phones. In September 2010 Peter Skillman, Nokia’s smartphone design chief, explained that the current mode of using a phone by opening an app then tapping the home button is like walking out of the front door of your house to enter another room. The N9 changes this and introduces a new swiping gesture to navigate around the phone. The new technology is the curved glass of the screen, where swipes can be registered by entering off the screen, rather than the usual left-to-right/right-to-left sweep. This is how the user can swipe within an app without returning to the home screen. Also boasting live multitasking like Maemo 5 and WebOS, the N9 takes things a step further: with a simple multi-touch gesture the multitasking pane is transformed from a four-panel view to a nine-panel view, meaning less vertical scrolling to find the pane you want.

The N9 has been built with the hardware and software both in mind to work seamlessly, so the unibody polycarbonate exterior with the 3.9” curved AMOLED Gorilla Glass screen offer an experience never before seen on a mobile phone. It is the first all-screen mobile phone with no front-facing buttons at all, and unlocking is done by simply double-tapping the screen. This unified hardware/software means that, as with Symbian and iOS, fragmentation will not be an issue and the software is tailored to run excellently on a smaller processor, hence this device being a single core processor rather than dual-core. Regarding the OS, Elop announced in February that MeeGo was not ready for public release, and indeed the N9 is running MeeGo-Harmattan – Harmattan being the codename for the release after Maemo 5’s Fremantle, so this can be seen as the natural successor to the N900. While it hasn’t been said why MeeGo isn’t yet ready, Nokia has made up for lost time by releasing MeeGo-Harmattan.

The new technology, plethora of features and stunning new design and interaction will put the N9 firmly in the high-end range of smartphones, and the Events view, boasting social media, RSS and other communications, will appeal to almost everyone. For those who have long admired Nokia’s hardware but longed for a fresh OS, this could be just what they were waiting for. It’s so good in fact that even Engadget, famously anti-Nokia, are raving about it and the latest podcast is pretty much a MeeGo edition.



I just read an interesting article on Gizmodo on reasons BlackBerry is screwed. You can’t help not agree with them, especially if you are a blackberry owner like myself.

In a way we all know this too… I mean, RIM seems like a boring company with nothing going for its product except blackberry messenger. which is also the only reason half of us have this unexciting device anyway.

If you compare the BB  OS to any of the top 3(IOS, Android & WM7), then you can see how far behind they seem. Even if you argue that the BBs are business phones, then answer me this who said business had to be boring?

Be sure to read the article and see if you agree or disagree with their case. Gizmodo



Yesterday saw Apple unveil iOS5, the next update for the iPhone and iPad, and as usual there was much anticipation surrounding the event. I remember last year, before the iOS4 update, thinking that Apple would either announce things that would have the OS catch up to the competition – widgets, navigation, multitasking etc – or it would continue in its own fashion, so I was disappointed but not surprised to see that very little really changed in the software, especially regarding widgets and the ‘we don’t trust the user to close things and we don’t want them to realise the battery is terrible’ multitasking. This year brought more than disappointment, though, for it saw Apple continue with its special brand of advertising – copy the competition and claim it as unique.

Firstly, let’s look at those numbers they proudly mentioned.

“To date we have sold over 200 million iOS devices.”

Okay, good starting point. Nothing wrong with that figure at all.

“That makes iOS the number one mobile operating system, with more than 44% of the market.”

Surely not. 200 million iOS devices? Nokia sell over double that each and every year. Odds are the marketshare mentioned is US-specific, because worldwide Nokia is number one as a handset market with 24%, while Apple has 18%, and of the 400+ million handsets sold from Nokia the majority are running Symbian, which has a world marketshare of 25%, compared to iOS’s 18%. So no, iOS isn’t the number one mobile operating system unless you look at a very specific demographic. The problem with this is that the USA makes up a very small percentage of worldwide mobile phone usage, which is precisely why Nokia has small impact there but is the world’s largest handset manufacturer. By focusing only on the USA for the keynote, Apple demonstrated a false opinion that the American market is larger or more important than the rest of the world, even though the cellular market, in terms of data speed and carrier relations/tower sharing, is much behind that of a lot of Europe.

“We’ve created a whole new category of device with the iPad.”

No, the iPad is an internet tablet, which Nokia invented with the 770 in 2005 – which, incidentally, also supported Flash. The iPad is a massive iPhone, rather than something specifically designed for the internet in the way the 770, N800 and N810 were, and the N900 continued.

With that cleared up let’s look at the, ahem, “new” features.

Notifications. These had to change, anyone who has used an iPhone will be more than happy to state how annoying and obtrusive the current notifications are when watching a video or playing a game, so a new method was expected. What wasn’t quite so expected though was the blatant Android rip-off that has been implemented in iOS5 – the pull-down status bar with a list of what you missed. Yes it’s nice and easy, but WP7 has a nice and easy version too, as do Maemo 5 and Symbian, both of which can also be bolstered with a widget. What makes it worse is Apple’s typical noise: “We have built something that solves some of the current problems.” – No Apple, you have stolen something that solves the issue, you haven’t really “built” anything.

Notifications are also visible from the lock screen (like Symbian and Android) and you can access them from the lock screen (like Android and Symbian with the Bubbles app). There is one distinguishing feature here, though: iOS doesn’t let you clear all the notifications, so you need to manually close them. In other words, Apple stole the usefulness of Android’s design and then removed one of the most important and convenient parts. Way to go Apple…

Twitter integration. This is good, sort of. You sign in through Settings and then the details are saved, even to apps that want to use it with permission. This allows you to tweet links, map locations, photos and the like from the OS. Sounds great, and it is, although it’s odd that Facebook isn’t given the same treatment. And while this is a nice inclusion, Twitter isn’t as integrated as WP7 will make it in the Mango update. Oh and Twitter contacts in your address book can be updated, like they can in Android and Symbian, but it doesn’t actually take advantage of you having Twitter friends like WP7 does.

Another bold statement follows:

“Safari is the best mobile web browser out there.”

I’ve used Safari on the iPhone. To put it bluntly, it’s pretty crud. I won’t talk about the lack of Flash, the actual usability lacks in my opinion. Put this up next to the N900’s MicroB and Safari gets a good kicking – MicroB plays Flash, it lets you copy text and images, it renders pages like your desktop computer, and it’s much easier to navigate. Safari on the iPhone feels like a baby browser, MicroB is the real deal. Going back to Flash for just a second, how can anything be deemed the “best” when it doesn’t let you access the whole web?

Now, the new update brings Safari Reader, which is located in the status bar and if you tap it it removes everything but the story text. Pretty neat, but let’s not ignore the fact that if you double-tap text in a browser already it focuses only on the text, so nothing exactly revolutionary. It’s then said that you can email not just the link but the contents of the page – now, this is good news but MicroB let users do this back in 2009. The only real difference is when you are reading a multi-page article, Reader will put it into one streamline view, which is a nice touch. The other thing added is a Read It Later function, so you can save a page to read later – much like, say, bookmarks on every other browser, or Read It Later on Firefox which can be used on Maemo 5 and Android and then picked up on the computer.

Then comes tabbed browsing. About time, Opera started doing this how long ago? Firefox was released on Maemo 5 in 2009 and that came with tabbed browsing too. Welcome to the past Apple, we missed you.

iOS5 also brings reminders. Yes, every other OS also has reminders. The only difference really seems to be you can set a location reminder, so when you leave a certain place you’ll be reminded to do something. A nice touch, not sure how often people will use that and it seems pretty minor, but Apple are masters of that. It also syncs across devices, much like pretty much every other OS, which let you sync your Google Calendar across devices and computers.

The camera has also got an update. This should be interesting, given how outrageously limited the camera currently is with no settings to speak of. What’s new? There’s a camera icon on the lockscreen, and you can use the volume key to take a photo, but only in the camera app itself. Compare this to WP7 where the dedicated camera button will wake the device so you can take a photo at a moment’s notice, or Nokia’s having long had dedicated camera buttons while the volume buttons zoom in and out, much more intuitive and akin to a real camera, whereas the iPhone has the user fumbling, trying to keep it steady with one hand while the other pokes the screen. In the update, if you tap and hold a certain part of the image it will automatically adjust the settings to maximise that section, and you can edit photos from the device – so the iPhone still lacks massively in the camera department, with anaemic settings options and no option to set different modes manually. There are just 6 letters and 1 number to consider here: Nokia N8. And every other device that lets you edit photos on the device itself.

Mail got an update, you can now search the contents of a message. Once again, the N900 was offering this in 2009, and you can flag messages, which other phones already let you do. And there’s a dictionary built in too, like Windows Phone 7 except Apple’s actually lets you hit ‘define’ to get a definition. Apparently people use words they don’t know the meaning of – is that an insight into the average iPhone user?

The new keyboard is pretty neat, just grab it and drag up and it splits in half, with each half on either side of the screen for easy thumb typing. This is a nice addition, but once again Android already had it. It’s really only useful on tablets though, as it’s not difficult to type with your thumbs on a phone already.

Next is “PC-free”, for people who don’t have computers. Before you get too excited, this is what the rest of us simply call “wireless”, and is anyone else troubled by the announcement that now you can use your phone without a computer? I don’t know about you guys, but I have yet to own a phone that needed to be connected to a computer to set up. There are also now over the air (OTA) software updates. This is new to Apple, but Maemo 5, Symbian and Android already offer it.

Game Center is then introduced, basically explaining how many games the iPhone has (100,000) and how many users (50 million) and how it’s more social now, as well as letting you play turn-based games.

Then there’s iMessage, which is Apple’s take on BlackBerry Messenger. Basically iPad and iPod users will get the same messaging service, and messages will be synced across all your devices. iMessage will know when someone is eligible for iMessaging.  This seems to be a carbon copy of Skype’s IM, if you have Skype open on your phone and computer both get notifications, just as if you’re logged onto MSN in multiple locations. So this again isn’t something new, it’s just Apple’s foray into IM. What is much more appealing is WP7’s new feature of noticing who you are talking to regardless of how – Facebook, Skype, SMS etc, and putting it all in one conversation thread. The “new” messaging service also offers delivery and read receipts, like my Nokia 3210 was doing almost a decade ago.

Part of the PC-free deal also means you can wirelessly sync your iTunes – just like WP7 syncs to Zune and Android wirelessly syncs too. Another ground-breaking initiative from Apple.

That’s the keynote talk about iOS5 in a nutshell, and what it really shows is Apple’s lack of creativity in the mobile market. In 2007 it changed the phone game with the design of the phone, but it has never been ahead software-wise. The first iPhone did less features than the Nokia N95, and it still lacks some of those basic but important features. It took 3 years just to allow folders and wallpapers. Video calling has been around for many years, so Apple gave it a new name and limited how it could be used and sold it as something new and revolutionary in FaceTime. While other phones were allowing widgets, Apple refused (and still hasn’t budged on this). While Symbian allows live multitasking and retains the crown as the battery king, Apple still doesn’t really allow multitasking (app pausing isn’t the same thing) and still has terrible battery life. Other systems allow eBooks to be read, so Apple gave it a new name and a fancier interface and once again called it something new.

If anything, iOS5 shows that Apple is running out of steam and ideas for software. Borrowing so heavily from Android and other systems is a stark message to consumers that it doesn’t really know how to differentiate itself, that the success in 2007 was because the package was pretty and that’s all the iPhone has ever really had going for it. At no point has an iPhone user managed to demonstrate what that phone can do that various others can do, including much older devices. When you break iOS down, as a software system it is little more than an app launcher. Peter Skillman, Nokia’s new smartphone design chief, was quoted in in September 2010 saying “If a user wants to walk from the kitchen to the dining room in her house, she simply walks through.  It does not work like that in mobile–you have to go through the front door to get to the kitchen.  iPhone has a home button which works like a go-back-to-front-door button.  This is not a model that human beings are used to.  People are spatial.” Microsoft have worked to utilise a new model (even outright stealing the ‘front door’ analogy in the Mango conference), but Apple has done nothing. The home screen remains as static and boring as it ever did, widgets remain elusive, and it’s still a case of closing one, opening another.

I don’t expect iPhone sales will dwindle from this, if anything the user experience will be better than it has been on the iPhone to date, but I hear quite regularly people saying the iPhone is boring, hasn’t changed enough, isn’t matching the competition, that Apple takes existing features and give them a new name. The latter hasn’t really been done much this year (excluding iMessaging and PC-free), which in itself just goes to show how little has really been implemented. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see consumers getting more frustrated with Apple – the company that changed how we use mobile phones in 2007 but, despite good sales and a pretty package, has seemingly let go of the pulse since then, just making existing things a bit prettier than they are elsewhere – and thus spending their money on other operating systems, notably the ones that actually are advancing mobile technology. Apple today made noise about OTA updates but hasn’t even introduced turn by turn navigation, the former being something that should have been implemented at least 18 months ago and the latter is something that is increasingly important and offered elsewhere.

I was never really convinced Apple belonged in the mobile market – the adverts are all great, but picking up a device and trying to do something (‘hey, where are the camera settings?’ or ‘no sorry I can’t Bluetooth this photo’) didn’t match the hype. With iOS5 continuing this trail of disappointment, I’m now firmly convinced Apple have entered a market they don’t know what to do with. And before the fanboys chime in with sales figures – that’s not the point, if it were, you’d all be using Android and Symbian, considering they’re the top worldwide operating systems, or using Windows PCs because that’s the most popular. While iOS5 was supposed to make a mockery of Windows Phone’s Mango update, it’s actually ended up with Apple borrowing a number of features. What the other companies need to learn from this is that marketing really pays off – if, for instance, Nokia made fun adverts about how much more Symbian does than other systems, it would probably get more sales. Rather, Apple is stamping out in commercials how the iPhone does this and that, so consumers think that the other companies don’t, else they’d mention them.

This article has deliberately not mentioned the iCloud unveiling because it is a separate entity to iOS, however what I will say is that while Jobs and co. made a great effort to talk up iCloud and how it syncs everywhere at once, they neglected to mention that this is precisely what a cloud service is – Google does it, Dropbox does it, SkyDrive does it. However, iCloud only syncs the last 1,000 photos, to save battery apparently, while SkyDrive uploads everything and DropBox will take what you throw at it within the space you have. Perhaps when the rose-tinted sheen has worn off, people will look back at iOS keynotes from 2008 and realise them for what they are: taking existing things, giving them a fancy name and shiny design and claiming them as revolutionary.

The Internet is awash with people gleefully stating how Windows Phone 7 will fail. “It’s hardly sold anything, Android sells more in a day than WP7 does in 6 months” or “WP7 doesn’t have many features, it can’t compete” and “WinMo sucked, WP7 is no better”. Let’s not forget though that WP7 is a brand new OS, it isn’t WinMo with a new skin. It’s a whole new operating system built from the ground up with a different mindset to its predecessor.

Yes, WP7 is lacking many important features, some of which I mentioned in my previous Symbian article. However, let’s not forget how feature-lacking iOS was when it was first released, and the same is true of Android. Sure, WP7 has been released years later so should have learnt from those mistakes, but it’s equally true that when Apple released the iPhone the Nokia N95 was doing much more. The difference was in presentation, and that’s the ground Microsoft is currently treading. WP7 offers a new way of doing things, a fresh UI and gestures to get around the device. The features will be added as time goes on.

Does Windows Phone 7 have a chance of success? I think so, for a few reasons. Android is getting most of the attention these days but not everyone is happy with it and many users have openly said they only got it because they didn’t want an iPhone. What does that leave the consumer with? Symbian is vastly improved to what it was two years ago but not many people are aware of the changes. So despite the hyperbole, the market wants and needs another operating system.

The first thing that will help WP7 succeed is Nokia. Those in North America can’t appreciate the enormity of this company and the huge impact it can have on WP7 sales; with a global presence so large it makes other manufacturers pale in comparison, networks and operators will be quick to take the handsets on – especially as it won’t be Symbian. AT&T is already working hard to promote WP7 as a great OS and Nokia will only help with this. Shifting tens of millions of handsets each quarter, Nokia’s presence cannot be underestimated. A quick look around forums and tech blogs and you’ll see people often agree that Nokia’s hardware is top-notch but they don’t want Symbian. Fair enough, and what that means is Nokia will gain new users with new software, and Microsoft will help Nokia get more presence in the US and Canada while Nokia will get WP7 into areas of the world that haven’t even seen an iPhone or Android device. Moreover, Nokia’s Canadian CEO is giving the company a kick-start it sorely needs; so much innovation goes on in Nokia’s labs that the public never gets to see, and the new management is getting things done faster than ever before. Plus, with Symbian and Maemo 5 being the two most feature packed OSs on the market and Nokia’s deal with Microsoft allowing them to make software changes and additions, we could well see WP7 offering more than anything else.

The second thing is the recent awareness of ecosystems. With Windows having almost 90% of the PC marketshare it’s no exaggeration to say that the vast majority of computer users are on Windows. When WinMo was Microsoft’s mobile phone platform smartphones weren’t what they are, especially regarding how many people used them or what they used them for. With the Internet, social media and content media now much more commonplace and integrated with phones, people are using them much differently. For new users looking to buy their first smartphone, it will be very tempting to use the same one that’s on the PC at home – brand familiarity or loyalty. One of the first things I did when I received my Windows Phone 7 device was install a couple of apps that let me manage Zune on the laptop, so I could plug the computer into the television using HDMI and control either my music, photos or videos from the couch using my phone as a remote control. The main draw for me, though, was Office and SkyDrive integration. As a writer my work is all on Office, and rather than use third-party Word applications I can now open, view, compose and save documents in the same format as I do on the computer. I still use Dropbox to access them in different locations, but the Mango update is bringing SkyDrive integration into Office on WP7. For business users, having Outlook and Office on the phone is indispensable, and while we’ve all managed with other phones there’s nothing like familiarity or the ease of transfer when using the same programs as you use elsewhere. This is a big weapon in Microsoft’s arsenal that no other OS has.

Next on the list is the fact that phones have become more than about making calls to keep in touch but fully fledged communication powerhouses, where we keep in touch using MSN and other IM clients, Facebook, emails and Skype. One of the things I have loved about my Nokia N900 since the day I opened it is the Skype integration (and MSN, Facebook chat integration), with contacts being added to the address book and all IM communication going to the messaging inbox. In fact part of the reason I still haven’t moved on from the N900 as a primary phone is because of this integration, but Microsoft are taking the mantle and moving on with it. Now owning Skype Microsoft will not just be adding Skype to WP7, but also the Xbox so it can be used on the gaming console, PC and phone. So long as they don’t try to integrate it into Live Messenger and make that experience even more painful that it already is, it’s golden. Not only will Skype be integrated as Facebook currently is (and Twitter is going to be) but if you have, say, John Smith in your phone book and on Facebook and Skype, you will seamlessly be able to communicate with him from one thread in the messaging app. So rather than have a text from John, a Facebook chat IM from John and a Skype IM each taking up one slot in the inbox, it’ll all go under one thread. This makes communication much more fluid and less to think about – no more opening a Facebook app to get to it or trying to remember whether he gave you that important address on Skype or a text message; with everything stored in one place, it’s all a breeze. This is another thing only Windows Phone is offering, and with communication in all forms being the prime function of a phone, it’s something of a Gatling gun in Microsoft’s arsenal.

The other thing that will really set WP7 apart is Nokia Maps. Although WP7 already uses Navteq, the same as Nokia, it’s Nokia’s mapping app that sets it apart from the rest. With an all-in-one app that lets you search for somewhere then walk or drive to it with free turn by turn navigation, check-in to a location across all your favourite social media sites at once, Expedia and Trip Advisor built-in as well as Lonely Plant and a Here and Now guide to show you what’s around you, it’s in a class of its own. Currently the iPhone has nothing comparable, still relying on Google Maps mobile app which can give directions but only as a red line on a map or in a list – neither of which are too safe while driving. Android offers turn by turn navigation but without all the extra functionality of Nokia Maps.

Most of all, though, WP7 is fresh. Despite being released four years ago the iPhone has hardly changed – the screen has been updated, folders and wallpapers were finally implemented, along with copy/paste and MMS. But not much else has happened, the software looks and feels pretty much exactly the same as it did four years ago, right down to those inexcusably bad notifications. It’s getting a bit long in the tooth now. And the simple fact remains that although the iPhone doesn’t permit real multitasking and doesn’t have widgets, the battery life is remarkably poor. Android is developing rapidly and going from strength to strength but it doesn’t escape that fact of life that it isn’t for everyone. Windows Phone 7 is a welcome addition to the market, it’s gained much developer interest, support from carriers, and now it has the world’s biggest handset manufacturer to get it in shops around the world.

Watch this space.

I’ve been having a lot of discussions lately with many people who think that Symbian is a terrible operating system and because Nokia are moving to Windows Phone 7 they must be correct – if it were any good, Nokia wouldn’t abandon it. The suggestion that bad things can succeed and good things can fall by the wayside falls on deaf ears. Certainly, Nokia’s recent decision has sparked much controversy and debate around the internet and everyday life too, but is Symbian really as bad as people make out?

What I have found to be true in every case someone speaks against Symbian is that they have not used it, and if they have ever used it it was years ago, at the earliest the S^1v5 on the Nokia 5800 or N97, and many even earlier, the Nokia N95 or Ericsson Satio. With scrolling by pulling down the sidebar, rather than kinetic scrolling, double taps to open a menu item, a single static home screen, an anemic amount of memory and RAM, I can most definitely understand that if that’s your only perception of Symbian then it deserves to be scrapped in today’s market. The problem is, Symbian isn’t like that anymore. With this article I will be looking at the finer points of the OS, looking at both the strengths and weaknesses before addressing the new Symbian^3 handsets as all-round devices, not just the operating system. After all, people buy devices on the basis of not just software but the hardware too.

One of the pros and cons of Symbian^3 is that its overall layout is much the same as it has been in the past. This is a good thing on the one hand because it allows for user-familiarity, but on the other hand it can be somewhat confusing to new users. Personally I think an update should put it somewhere in the middle; it would be nice to be able to uninstall an app by just holding it down like in WP7, but having a menu structure is also very useful and, dare I say, important. Having used an iPhone, the ‘settings’ menu is so anorexic it may as well not exist, made even worse by the fact that individual areas don’t have their own settings – in Symbian for example, if you are within the camera app you can bring up camera settings, mail settings from within mail and so on. Moreover, the settings available on Symbian are plentiful, whereas iOS, WP7 and, to a lesser but definite extent, Android. In other words, Symbian allows you to do far more tweaking to get things how you want ‘under the hood’.

Menu structure aside, the process of navigation is now much easier and more fluid: universal kinetic scrolling, single-tap to open anything, increased speed and responsiveness and pinch-to-zoom in the browser, photos etc.

Symbian also has the best mapping available on any device or operating system, without question. With Nokia Maps using Navteq data, the maps on the phones are the same as those found in car GPS systems. Moreover, you can set up your journey on the Ovi Maps website and wirelessly sync to the phone, or use offline navigation so you don’t use GPS – saving both data and battery, and no more worrying about losing signal on a cloudy day or when you go through a tunnel. Currently nothing else offers such services; iOS just has Google maps offering a picture navigation or a list, and Android doesn’t offer offline mapping. Furthermore, ‘Maps’ is a comprehensive app in itself, with Expedia and Trip Advisor built in, as well as the option to check in to social networks, find local events, restaurants, shops and so forth, and you can navigate with ‘drive to’ or ‘walk to’.

A real deal-breaker for me regarding other systems is the fact that Symbian does not track your location, unlike Apple, and doesn’t demand access to your private data or leak it to God knows where, unlike Android.

There are also many subtle intuitive factors at work in Symbian. For example, tap what you see on the home screen and it opens it. If you tap the battery icon you get a pop up menu where you can see battery percentage, activate power-saving mode, open ‘connectivity manager’ to connect/disconnect internet connection, Bluetooth, set APNs or destinations etc. This is a far better system than iOS or WP7, both of which require you to physically open ‘settings’ and change things there, which is a longer, more convoluted process. Missed calls and text messages will also have an icon in this area and in such circumstances tapping the battery will allow you to open conversations or missed calls. Then there are the home screens themselves, which are fully customizable unlike iOS or WP7, and unlike Android you can turn them off if you wish. So while Symbian comes with 3 home screens, you can turn one or two off as desired. They can also be customized freely, with widgets, icons and bookmarks, or you can install SPB Shell for a truly amazing customization experience. Compare this to WP7 where the only thing you can change the background on is the lock screen, the home screen only allows you to change colors. And on the subject of widgets, S^3, unlike previous versions, has social networking integrated complete with an updating widget that sits right on the home screen. One tap and you can view all your feeds individually or on one roll, view photos and comments and update your status.

Symbian not only packs features, but a few ways to use them. For instance, iOS will only be backed up by connecting to iTunes and WP7 will only back up when an update is available, through Zune – the user cannot manually create a backup (the user can backup photos etc to SkyDrive and apps are linked to the user account, but app data is not stored anywhere, so if you use a Wallet app to store sensitive data you’ll lose it all with a restore, and game saves will be lost. Plus, downloading things from multiple locations is a very cumbersome act). In Symbian, however, you can either connect the device to the PC and backup to Ovi Suite, or on the device itself you can perform a backup (or schedule regular ones) to the memory card or, best of all, perform a wireless backup to Nokia’s servers which will automatically download to your PC the next time you open Ovi Suite.

Thus, backups can be performed on the fly, allowing you to install a beta app on the train without worrying about backing it up at home first. Why perform a backup at all? some people ask. There are multiple reasons. Your phone can be stolen at any time. You can leave it on the table in a restaurant or simply drop it and break it. You could install beta software that requires you to perform a hard reset, or your phone may simply need restoring the software to improve performance. Or perhaps it needs to be sent back to the manufacturer for repair or replacing. All of these scenarios will make you want a backup to restore to the replacement phone, and Symbian offers the best options here. If someone is travelling with an iPhone, they can’t back up the phone, so suppose you went on holiday and left the PC at home? Not everyone has the luxury of a laptop so it’s not unreasonable to suggest many people do indeed leave the computer behind. If you own a WP7 device the situation is even worse, because you can’t back it up at all anyway. Mango may resolve this, but no mention has been made of it by Microsoft or developers. With Symbian, however, you can go on holiday and wirelessly sync a backup to the PC across the ocean without a second thought.

Moving onto the nitty-gritty, Symbian has the best multitasking available on any device. There are videos online of the N8 running 40 apps at the same time, and this is real, live multitasking. While it’s true to say Android allows live multitasking, Android also lacks a task killer so you need to install one manually then open menu, find it, and kill apps that way, rather than the intuitive and quick method in Symbian – hold the menu key to display running apps and tap the ‘x’. iOS and WP7, however, don’t offer live multitasking at all, the former pauses apps and allows you to open them again quickly, and the latter pauses apps but uses live agents to periodically poll for updates to certain things, like email and Twitter. The reason offered by these manufacturers is that multitasking kills the battery.

Now, it’s certainly true running five things at once will use up more power than running one thing, but first and foremost, most people won’t leave things open that they’re not using, nor will they tend to leave things open continually – except on Android, where closing apps is impossible without a task killer and difficult with one. Which leads to another problem with Android: if things are left running, Android will close them when it thinks they should be closed, which means the user won’t be running anywhere near 40 apps. Back to the battery then, the problem with that argument is Symbian offers the best battery life on the market. What’s that? Best multitasking and the best battery power? That means either Steven Jobs and Ballmer are lying about multitasking or they don’t have the ability to improve battery life through optimization, either way does not make for a compelling purchase. Indeed, the Motorola Atrix has the largest battery ever put in a phone, at 1900mA, and it still dies within 9-10 hours of medium usage, while the Nokia N8 can easily last a day or more.

Symbian also offers support for a plethora of file formats and codec support, allowing you to play media from the internet or elsewhere, be it movies or audio, without the need to convert the file format. Thanks to S^3 having mass storage mode, the device can be connected to the PC, the user can click and drag a movie or audio to the device and then play it immediately, without the need to open Zune or iTunes to do so or convert anything – this means you don’t need to convert a file to support Microsoft or Apple or have to decide which copy to keep, the original or the one you were forced to make. Symbian also supports 3D graphics, it’s hardware accelerated, the GPU is read by the whole OS including the UI and it is efficient to the point that less strain is placed on the CPU, thus increasing battery life and responsiveness. In other words, Symbian packs in more features than any other operating system, but is more optimized and efficient than the rest too. While Android is needing to put huge processors in its phones to compensate for the nagging lag, Nokia’s on S^3 run great on a 680MHz processor thanks to the GPU, noticed by the user with improved fluidity and amazing battery life.

Then there is the Ovi Store. People routinely complain it isn’t as packed as the App Store or Android Marketplace, and while this is true, it has more apps than anyone could ever need or use and is the second best performing app store on the market, second only to Apple’s App Store, with five million downloads a day. Let’s face it, the App Store does not have hundreds of thousands of quality apps, rather it has many, many ‘novelty’ or joke apps, fart apps, countless copycat apps and a bunch of mobile webpages downloadable as apps, and the Marketplace contains many incomplete, unfinished apps or out-and-out malware.

Next up are two things that Symbian offers that WP7 and iOS don’t: Bluetooth file transfers and a file manager. I have been told Bluetooth file transfers are blocked to prevent malicious files or even software that isn’t supported. This isn’t a valid argument to me. For starters, most people open turn Bluetooth on when they actually want to use it. Secondly, Bluetooth requires the recipient of a file to confirm the transfer, and often both users need to input a code to pair the devices. No one will accept a file that they are not expecting, and we’re not talking about covert terrorist files here – the Bluetooth range is still short enough that you’d need to be in relatively close proximity to find a phone and attempt to share anything. And even if someone did manage to accept a software file, the fact is it simply wouldn’t run if it were unsupported. And even if it did run and corrupt everything, it would be a simple case of resetting the device and using any of the backups you already performed to restore it to the previous state within an hour – and if you did a backup on the phone itself, the memory card data will be intact so you can even restore the backup while on the go. Simple.

Unless you use WP7, which won’t let you do a backup, or easily use a memory card – and if you do get a memory card inserted, you can’t ever take it out and retain the data, nor can you save specific things to the memory card. Which is, frankly, one of the most brain-dead and pointless decisions I’ve ever witnessed in a mobile device. Are Microsoft so unaware that people like to hot-swap the cards, or put it into the computer or printer or a card reader hooked up to a TV so they can copy, print or view photos or other media? Or when people get a new phone they often transfer the memory card? Thankfully Symbian has no such hang-ups and will freely let you swap memory cards all day long. And accept a Bluetooth file and restore a backup if you accepted a virus from a bearded man wearing a ‘down with technology’ t-shirt in the alley behind the porn shop.

What about a file manager? Sure, it’s not the biggest issue on a phone, but it’s important to many nonetheless. If I want to email a file, or just find out where something is saved, I can open file manager and navigate to it, and from there do what I please. In systems without a file manager I have no choice where something is put and am forced to live with the phone telling me what it will do with things. That’s something I’m not happy with. I like folders, I like organizing things in my own way. Have you ever seen the PC desktops of, say, three friends? Have you noticed that they’re usually different? Some have tons of loose files scattered, every ‘setup.exe’ file ever downloaded still there, while others have a few organized folders and others have nothing whatsoever. This is proof that one size doesn’t fit all and we like to organize things our own way.

For instance, in my N900 I have a ‘wallpapers’ folder on the memory card, I can leave the file manager running while I change the backgrounds and if I don’t like it, I can maximize the file manager and select something else. In non-file-manager-permitting systems I would need to go to photos, set as background, go back to home screen, go back to photos, set as background, go back to home screens, and so on. Or if I get new music from a friend sent straight to the device, I can use the file manager to put it in whatever folder I want if I want it in an existing artist folder, or an existing TV show folder. Quite frankly, the reason WP7 and iOS forbid file managers and Bluetooth transfers is nothing to do with anything other them wanting to lock you in with iTunes and Zune. Put simply: Microsoft and Apple want to babysit you as a technology user, while Symbian says ‘here’s everything you could want to do with a phone, go have fun. And if you break it, just restore a backup.’ I don’t know about you guys, but I much prefer the Symbian treat-you-like-an-adult approach.

So what of the hardware? It’s neither surprise nor secret that Nokia offers the best hardware on the market, bar none, and S^3 is getting the biggest reward from this. The N8 for example has the best camera on any phone to date, with a 12mpx camera and the largest sensor ever put in a phone, just look at the following video of ants filmed on an N8

object style=”height: 340px; width: 560px”>

The N8 also has HDMI, HD recording, notification lights, FM transmitter, USB OTG and so on, making it not only fully competing in today’s market, but also surpassing the competition in many ways.

To sum up: Symbian remains the most feature-packed OS on the market. In an age of smartphones, should the purpose not be making things ‘smarter’ rather than ‘dumber’? Things can be smart and simple, indeed Symbian is by no means complex, so why must manufacturers insist on cutting important features out or limiting important aspects? Why are consumers treated with such contempt as to assume they couldn’t possibly know how to close apps, or possibly want to run a few things at the same time for a specific purpose? When put side by side with other OSs, Symbian is by no means perfect, but it does more than any other, and it is more efficient and optimized than any other.

I own smartphones because I want to do various things, and those things can vary day to day so I need something that is able to suit my needs and whims, not something that tells me I actually don’t need to do that after all, I just think I do. Technology is there to assist us, not dictate to us. And for all those reasons, Symbian remains the Smartphone King – hell, the fact it can do what others do and more and offer unparalleled battery life is impressive enough.

Let me state from the outset that I use and like Google as a search engine. Every day I use it countless times and it always does what I require of it, whether it’s using the built-in calculator or converter or just finding a cheap hotel. But that’s where my love affair with Google begins and ends. With each passing day I get increasingly frustrated with Google’s attempts to enter yet another market, from smartphones to the self-driving car. Most of my derision stems from the fact that Google is a jack of all trades and master of none – well perhaps one: search. Rather than trying to just perfect one area, Google is dumping products in multiple areas to spread its name and increase its revenue, but let’s not forget that Google is, really and truly, little more than an advertising company, getting over 90% of its income from adverts. In fact, Google reminds me of the Trapper Keeper in South Park – technology trying to take over the world.

Let’s start with Android. I remember first trying this operating system out a few years ago, and it was so confusing to navigate that I didn’t even spend long using the demo phone in a store. I have used every version since and my opinion hasn’t changed much. Google didn’t build Android, it simply purchased it, and despite its huge success it hasn’t made many advancements. With the recent revelation that over 99% of Android phones leak personal data http://www.tgdaily.com/security-features/56011-do-android-smartphones-leak-data it’s without doubt fair to say that the operating system simply isn’t fit for purpose. When it comes to Android there’s a lot of half-truths, to put it mildly. Google claim it’s open source, when only a relatively small section of it is actually open – that it’s more open than iOS is not reason enough to claim it is ‘open’. There’s also the mention of it being a Linux OS, when it has nothing more than a Linux kernel, but listen to all the hype and you’d think it’s a full Linux distro like Nokia’s Maemo 5.

Despite advancements in smartphones, Android still needs an overhaul. The multitasking is just barely beyond a joke, especially when it comes to web browsing, where you do another task, go back to the web only to find it’s lost your page. With no native task killer you can’t simply close an app from the multitasking pane, and Android still thinks it’s acceptable to leave things running live until it itself deems it suitable to close something – so you either have things running you don’t want, or you leave something important open to view later and Android will close it. On your behalf, of course. There’s also the well documented fragmentation issue that I won’t go into here because most people are already well aware of it. Android is largely popular because it’s flooded the market with devices, so for many people looking for a new contract it’s really the only option. We are now seeing bigger processors, with the Samsung Galaxy S II being dual-core, which many people think is great – except for the little problem that Android isn’t optimized for dual-core. Android is a poorly coded system and rather than fix the code at the source, the band-aid approach is utilised by just putting in larger processors, which improves the usability of the phones somewhat but also makes them more expensive and kills the battery that much faster. How badly coded is Android? This video  a comparison between Nokia’s N8, running a single processor at 680MHz, and the dual core Motorola Atrix 4G.

As can be seen, the N8 is faster and smoother in many areas, even, surprisingly, just at rotating photos. If a single 680MHz processor outperforms a dual core 1GHz processor then there’s no denying Android has some serious coding problems. Part of this problem stems from the fact that Android doesn’t actually run from the hardware, but rather from a virtual machine, so extra processing power is required just to overcome this and make it run somewhat smoother. However, as the video shows, an efficient, optimized OS that runs directly from the hardware is a much better option, and the smaller processor allows for longer battery life and a cheaper price on the devices. Perhaps my biggest concern though is that whenever something is installed from the Marketplace you must agree to allow it access to all your data and information. Why is this necessary? Whether or not there’s a conspiracy to use all my information to frame me as a serial killer, the fact is I’m just not happy giving my data to a company. I don’t want targeted ads, thank you very much. I don’t want any ads actually, I want to just open an app and do the task I need to do. It is not necessary to sign over all privacy just so I can read the news headlines. Perhaps this wouldn’t be such a big issue if it were another company, but let’s face it, Google has a dire track-record with private data.

Then there’s Chrome. Again, this isn’t something Google built from scratch but acquired from Chromium (seeing a pattern here?). I used Chrome for some time when Firefox was giving me headaches with its sluggishness and large memory footprint, but I was forced to revert back because Chrome was crashing on me frequently. It’s hard to say much bad about browsers, they just surf the web, but the real question is why did Google need to release Chrome anyway? Chromium already existed, still does in fact, so this looks like just another attempt by Google to get its grubby, privacy-leaking fingers on another technology release to get its brand recognised and trusted.

Lastly, we have Chrome OS. I have no idea how it can be called an OS when it’s actually nothing but the browser. Google call this evolution, I call it regression. With Chrome OS there is nothing on the computer, everything is stored online. Everything. It works by storing everything on the cloud – except it isn’t so much a cloud as ‘store things in various locations on the web’. Great huh? Except that we can already store things in various locations on the web, and also have local copies on the hard drive should we need them – and I don’t know about you guys, but I want my work only on my computer and not in cyber-space for someone to hack into. The recent PlayStation security breach is a pretty perfect example of why we shouldn’t entrust everything to the web, especially with a company like Google with less than optimum infrastructure (remember when a bunch of Gmail users had their inboxes accidentally wiped recently?).

So with Chrome OS everything you own on a computer is stored in cyberspace and, Google being Google, you’ll have to agree to a disclaimer that states you give Google permission to access all your personal data. Think for a moment of how much personal data and information you actually store on your computer – private photos and videos, work documents, business plans, important contacts and reminders, schedules and so on. Do you really want Google – or anyone – having full access to that whenever they want?

A computer running Chrome OS is fully dependent on the internet, so God forbid you forget to download an important presentation to the small hard drive for offline editing or printing and find yourself in an area with no internet connection – and let’s get real, there are still a lot of places where you don’t have internet access. Then, like notebooks, there’s no CD or DVD drive, so no longer can you burn data discs or just stick a DVD into your laptop in the hotel because the room doesn’t have Wi-Fi so you can’t access anything. When out of internet range, what you have is an expensive paper weight – nothing more and nothing less.

Truthfully, I would welcome a day when Google ceases to exist. Nokia Maps 3D is so much better than Google Maps, Gmail is used by many people but a lot of people change email accounts anyway, Chrome users can go to Chromium (or any other browser out there), Android will lose out to more functional and more open and more privacy concerned operating systems like, if all goes to plan, MeeGo, and Chrome OS shouldn’t even get a look in.

Like most people, I use technology for the convenience it offers, in many different ways. But what I’m not prepared to do is sacrifice my privacy, especially when the alternatives are cheaper, better managed and respect my right to privacy. I cannot and will never trust a company whose CEO said that only people with something to hide worry about privacy.