06/09/2012

OEM's have barely opened the Jelly Bean packet!

   Android; the world's most popular smartphone operating system and quite probably the world's most frustrating when it comes to updates. They seem to take absolutely forever to arrive and when they do manufacturers have issues ironing out the bugs. 

   At the moment the news isn't so good; yes there are over 1.3million daily Android activations, but not all of them ship with an up to date OS. Instead it seems like it's only Nexus devices that're rocking Jelly Bean at the moment with slightly more than 1/100 devices are running Jelly Bean.

   It's worth remembering that most devices are still on Gingerbread and most of these probably will stay there until their owners upgrade. It's a frustrating situation all round but hopefully we'll see a lot more users rocking Jelly bean when Samsung gets round to updating the Galaxy S2 and S3!

In other news:

• Facebook has officially completed the Instagram buy-out today, completing the $1 billion deal.

• Nokia's Windows Phone 8 devices will reportedly be constructed in house buy Nokia and the company will be dropping the price of the Lumia 800 and 900 by $150 in a bid to shift them and make way for the newer models.

• If you're holding out for a new TV from Apple you may very well be waiting a while because their talks with TV companies have reportedly been stalling of late.

• Samsung has updated us on the amount of Galaxy S3's shipped and so far in 100 days of the phones availability they've sold 20million of the phones!

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What we want from WWDC.

   The picture below was snapped the other day at WWDC, Apple's event where they announce almost everything, except the iPad and iPhones, which launch in March and September/October respectively. This means that the launch of iOS6 is imminent and what better chance to pause, get some more opinions and see where we want this to go and see whether Apple is giving us what we want in regards to all of their devices.

   For this post I've enlisted the help of our resident iOS expert, Shri Shah. He really knows his stuff when it comes to all things Apple and this is what he wants to see come from WWDC.

iOS6.

• Live widgets and wallpapers! It'd be great to see it if icons could reflect what's going on inside the app. A great example would be the weather app; if it's raining change the icon to a rain cloud, if it's sunny you get a sun and a live temperature. Live wallpapers would be a nice addition and although they're available on other operating systems already, it'd be interesting to see Apple's take on the effects on the battery life.

• Apple Maps: This is something which has been widely rumoured in the lead up to today's event and it's about time Apple went head to head with Google and Nokia and created a feasible navigation solution.

• Facebook integration: We've already got Twitter so why not Facebook?! This is something that'd be especially useful in the camera app, so that we don't need to go into the Facebook app and then locate the images again.

• Siri: Siri needs to be on the iPad! And it's already an extremely advanced application so it'd be great to see it officially come out of Beta.

• Safari: The navigation bar on the browser needs to be changed to work like Chrome's; it would make a lot more sense to be able to search and type in the URL in the same space as a time saving measure.

• Notifications: Just more basic options in the notification centre, at the moment it's a bit convoluted. 

• Mobile payments: Google has launched Google Wallet, Barclays has their Paytags and Apple could do... Bluetooth payments instead of NFC. This would allow backwards compatibility with all previous iPhones and would give the service a real impetus given the huge number of iPhones already in the wild.

• Mail filters: It'd be hugely beneficial to allow numbers to be blocked and email addresses to be filtered straight from the device. 

   The huge drive from the changes to iOS, in my mind, would be the creation of a whole new level of customisability within the OS. But, to an extent where everything is still usable and simple but with the added freedom.

Macs:

• The Macbook Pro: Perhaps it's time for the Macbook Pro to become the Macbook. This is something which has been widely rumoured and would greatly simplify the naming structure.

• The Macbook Air: A 15" Macbook Air would be great to see; a well proportioned laptop but with the thinness and portability of the Air Range.

• For all Macs: Retina displays throughout all ranges!!! That'd be perfect especially if it is twinned with a bump to all of the latest processors and SSD's.

Apple TV's.

   In the last few days there's been quite a lot of activity around the Apple TV's, with a refresh being widely tipped. There has also been reports that the UK Apple TV's have been getting software updates over the last few weeks and so there may well be an App Store heading to the device. But any update and refresh would be an improvement over the device at the moment.

   If any or most of these changes actually hit we're in for an exciting week! Keep it locked to TheTechFella for all the latest news from San Francisco this week.

Thanks again Shri!

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08/06/2012

Samsung, Apple and Australia.

   Firstly, Samsung have complained to the Australian Government about how Apple has been using a certain number of their patents in their on going legal battles. The Australian patent commissioner has therefore been charge with informing the court about what Samsung alleges is IP that was granted “ultra vires”, or beyond the powers of the commissioner, which would make it void.

   The patents in question are;

• 2006330724 – Unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image (Granted April 1, 2010)
• 2007283771 – Portable electronic device for photo management (Granted May 20, 2010)
• 2008201540 – List scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display (Granted February 11, 2010)
• 2009200366 – List scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch screen display (Granted July 23, 2009)

   It should be noted though that this is 4 patents from potentially hundreds which will be disputed in the coming months, so this is quite negligible in reality.

    The second piece of news is that Apple is set to be fined by Australia, the fines run to AU$2.25m ($2.2m) fine at the moment but the judge has asked for confidential iPad sales information and details of Apple's finances before he agrees to set that amount. The issue is going back to Apple misleading new iPad buyers over the tablet's 4G compatibility. Both Apple and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission have agreed on the fine and given Apple's bank balance a couple of million here is nothing really, just another lawsuit.

In other news:

• Nokia shares have shot up in Finland because of rumours of a takeover by Samsung. It's hard to see why Sammy would be even remotely interested in Nokia but that was the rumour and it certainly gave Nokia shares a little bump in the right direction.
• Apple have had rumbling that their TV SDK will be available at WWDC! That's a sign of what's coming, apps on your tv, that certainly is one department the Apple tv needs to catch up.
• Apple is also rumoured to be getting rid of the 17" Macbook Pro and indeed the rumours are that the 'Pro' bit will be dropped from their name in their next iteration.
• Nokia apparently only moved 2.2million Lumia's over Christmas, the IDC had reported. But that's Lumia 800's and they haven't got around to the numbers for Lumia 900's which seemed to do considerably better on launch, especially in the US, so we'll wait and see until we hear news from them before we make any damning judgements.

   Just an aside if you live in Europe the 'Euros' football tournament kicks off today. Good luck to Ukraine and Poland for a great tournament!

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