Seriously, September is going to be a ridiculously incredible month in the mobile world. Windows Phone 8, Nokia, Galaxy Note II, Motorola, Amazon Kindle Fire II and the HTC Windows Phone something.
Don’t technology companies realize yet that if they announce something just before Apple does, everyone forgets about it in the launch hype?
This week has been my week of attempting to get comfy with Windows 8’s changes as I’ve upgraded my work PC to the final release, but there’s two things that are driving me insane.
Perhaps I’m just a dinosaur. Used to old ways of going about the day on my PC. Used to certain things I expect from a desktop. But I really feel like these design decisions are wrong. They feel like they weren’t even thought through.
Get ready to see this a lot
I don’t understand how Microsoft can justify making the full-screen Metro applications for basic tasks default on the desktop Windows OS.
Every time I try and open an image, no matter how tiny it is, I’m thrown into full screen unwillingly. A video? Full screen. A PDF? Full screen.
It actually started making me quite angry. Another thing about those Metro apps? They’re SLOW. I don’t mean I’m waiting minutes, but seriously, 5 - 10...
From their closing statements today, it came out that:
“Samsung people met with Google and Google demanded "that Samsung change the designs of the Galaxy S phones and the tablets they were working on because Google recognized Samsung was copying” Apple’s designs.“
They go on to say that:
"The Galaxy S was released in June of 2010, he says. "Samsung got what it wanted.” The company’s sales “took off after the first iPhone-derived product was added to the mix.”
Is it not bleedingly obvious that Samsung intentionally copied Apple’s designs? I hope the jury isn’t completely confused by this case and can actually reach a verdict.
I don’t think Microsoft gets it. Expensive software isn’t what it’s all about any more. They should know this, since they themselves are now building their own hardware. It’s all about bundling. Including the software in the price of things. And when a new OS comes out? Let your users upgrade for less than $50. Then they’re actually motivated to upgrade.
Sure, there’s a $39.99 “online-only” upgrade program for a “limited time” but doesn’t that just scream that Microsoft knows they’re overpricing their own product? They know their competitors are pricing them out of the market? There has to be a better way to do this, surely. Don’t they want the everyday user to want to upgrade?
I wonder how much it will cost to upgrade the WinRT Surface to Windows 9.
Image source
I’ve seen people all over the web saying that they don’t think the new iPhone is anything ‘ground-breaking or 'revolutionary’ compared to previous models that Apple have released. So far, I’ve attempted to hold in my rage, but I’m tired of all the bullshit today.
If everything we know about the next iPhone is true so far, we’ve got these changes (that we know). Some of them are big, some of them are small:
Someone on Twitter that I follow (who happens to work for a carrier) uploaded this picture today of a “4FF NanoSIM” before taking it down very quickly. Why would carriers have the NanoSIM already? Probably because the next iPhone is supposed to launch in September.
I guess carriers are actually ready for the next iPhone this time around, then?
Well, isn’t this interesting? Windows Phone 8 seems to include a new feature called “KidZone.”
Ever given your phone to your kids and had it come back with a few new (expensive) applications, a few odd messages sent to your friends and all your settings changed? Microsoft has fixed that.
From what I’m hearing, Windows Phone 8 features a toggle that flips the entire phone into a kid-friendly mode. Yes, with it’s own wallpaper, theme colors and apps. You choose which applications you want to give the kids access to in said mode and when it’s enabled, they can’t access anything else. To get out of “KidsZone” mode, you need to enter a predefined password.
A literally sand-boxed phone, so your kids can play with it and not wreck it. Sounds perfect to me, and it has a few other scenarios it would be useful in too, such as when you give your phone to drunken friends to play with. I’ve been...
If you haven’t heard Purity Ring yet, fix that now.
I had a thought on the commute into work this morning. If Windows 8 is geared towards touch screens, and the biggest user backlash is from desktop users – you know, the ones without touchscreens – why not integrate another way to interact with Metro**?
What technology does Microsoft have that can interact in another way? Kinect.
That’s when I realized Microsoft is missing out on a huge opportunity here. Metro may be cumbersome to navigate with a mouse (resulting in a lot of scrolling), but why not give users a better way to interact, without having to invest a large amount of money in a touch screen? Let users grab and drag across applications. Let them open and navigate through Metro apps with their hands. It’ll feel a bit like Minority Report, but it sure beats dragging through them with a mouse.
Techcrunch talked a few months back about Windows 8’s secret weapon: Kinect in...
The most beautiful Chrome extension I’ve seen in a long time. It replaces your New Tab screen with a simple clock and the weather.