Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 11 Sep 2013 10:37

Am I the only one left with a Symbian phone around here?

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 11 Sep 2013 10:43

BhairavP wrote:Am I the only one left with a Symbian phone around here?

I believe Rohit saar's 808 is still going strong.

hanumadu · Post by **hanumadu** » 11 Sep 2013 11:05

Singha wrote:
nachiket wrote: Why? Android does fine with the myriad screen sizes. WP doesn't seem to have a problem either.
I was about to ask the same question. android runs everywhere from 3.2" to 6.3" phone screens.
I would agree on a tablet sized screen 7+" it might need some rework but 4" -> 4.5" is a minor bump surely ?

I think it is the aspect ratio which is more important than screen size. Regardless the screen size or pixel count, as long as they keep the same or nearly the same aspect ratio, apps can be portable across the various screen sizes. But if they make it vastly different from other models (as the iphone 5 did from iphone 4s) then there will be an ugly black empty space around the app.

prahaar · Post by **prahaar** » 11 Sep 2013 13:53

BhairavP wrote:Am I the only one left with a Symbian phone around here?

I still love my N8

.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 11 Sep 2013 14:14

nachiket wrote:
BhairavP wrote:Am I the only one left with a Symbian phone around here?
I believe Rohit saar's 808 is still going strong.

Nope - I had the N8 which I busted. In spite of advise from BhairavP, I did not go for 808.

I got me-self a Nokia LUMIA 800 which runs on Windows 7 - upgraded to 7.8.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 11 Sep 2013 14:22

i love my nokia 101

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 11 Sep 2013 15:02

I love my Nokia 5310. It is 4.5 years old and still going strong.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Sep 2013 15:28

apparently the 5C costs $200 more in china. Xiaomi:1 apple:0
its price in india on similar terms would 40,000

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/11 ... expensive/

BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese web users dismissed the "low-cost" iPhone 5C as too expensive Wednesday, raising questions over Apple's ability to build up sales in the world's biggest mobile market.

The iPhone 5C is part of the US firm's bid to counter cheaper handsets from rivals, particularly in China, where it has only a five percent share of the smartphone market.

But the new phone will retail in China for 4,488 yuan ($733) for the 16GB version, according to Apple's China online store, making it only marginally cheaper than the previous model, the iPhone 5.

It is also well above the $549 that an unlocked iPhone 5C will sell for in the United States.

The top-line iPhone 5S starts at 5,288 yuan ($864) in China, whereas the unlocked US equivalent is $649.

"I thought the cheap 5C version would be priced at one thousand or two (yuan)... I can't sell my kidney for this much," said one poster on Sina Weibo, China's hugely popular Twitter equivalent, referring to a teenager who sold a kidney to buy an iPhone and iPad last year.

"So this is the so-called cheap version? The 5C starts at 4,488 yuan in China. Haha, they treat the Chinese as peasants," said another.

With a network contract in the US, the iPhone 5C can cost as little as $99.

But unlike in North America or Europe, Chinese networks do not offer contract customers deep discounts on handsets, instead requiring a substantial upfront payment which is then refunded over the course of the agreement.

The new iPhone was launched globally at Apple's Silicon Valley headquarters in California on Tuesday.

Apple also held a media event in Beijing on Wednesday after speculation that a deal with China Mobile, the country's biggest carrier, was to be revealed.

However, there were no major announcements at the event, where a translated film of Apple's unveiling in Cupertino was shown.

China Mobile has more than 700 million subscribers, according to Barclays Equity Research. Apple's iPhones are currently available in China on long-term contracts with smaller wireless companies.

Many domestically made smartphones are priced as low as $100 in China, which remains one of Apple's largest markets due to the popularity of its various products.

But Apple's total sales in China in the most recent quarter slipped 14 percent from a year ago to $4.6 billion.
While iPhones are popular among China's better off, analysts believe current prices would need to drop substantially for Apple to seriously penetrate the middle-income market.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/11 ... z2eZv5ekkM

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Sep 2013 15:30

one gets the distinct feeling apple's ability to round up and shear the iSheep every year is seeing a strong decline.

products must be priced right per individual markets and income levels. both NOK and Samsung have done this...they have uber phones at high end but affordable kit as well.

being a louis vuitton of phones can only work with carrier subsidy

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 11 Sep 2013 20:02

Mort Walker wrote:^^^I miss the mahdi. His presentations were always the best and I would never miss watching them live.
Nowadays, I prefer to watch JK Shin and the Sammy players.

That;s what I have been telling RB all these years. It's not just the product that he sold, he sold the cult. And he did it well, better than anyone else. Do people want to buy the snake oil the Mahdi sells? YES!! Do people want to buy even better snake oil that Bawarchi sells? Yawn. FruitCo lost it's "it" factor, and it is not in the product. Mahdi was a rock star. MiSFiT suffered in a similar way, Billu Badshah left and Uncle Fester just doesn't have it.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Sep 2013 20:14

^^^Mickey never depended on Billu's ability to sell...if it did it would have declined under Fester instead of growing YoY, no? FruitCo is very unique as a company becoz it is very tightly tied in with the cult of one man unlike regular ITvity companies like Chacha, Mickey, ChipZ etc.

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 11 Sep 2013 22:21

Xiaomi execs should rapidly move in for the kill

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 11 Sep 2013 23:15

Singha wrote:one gets the distinct feeling apple's ability to round up and shear the iSheep every year is seeing a strong decline.

products must be priced right per individual markets and income levels. both NOK and Samsung have done this...they have uber phones at high end but affordable kit as well.

being a louis vuitton of phones can only work with carrier subsidy

They have amazing software, a strong design and hardware team. Their big problem is the attitude of their management obsessed with image and unable to move to big screens or anything the market wants. If they make a galaxy note like apple iscribble or whatever, they will rake cash in..
Plus all the leaks from china mean all their small innovations are already known before launch and there is no excitement about their product anymore.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Sep 2013 00:11

^^^Its not their management (as in Bawarchi), its Sir Jony.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 12 Sep 2013 01:25

In which case mgmt should rein in sir ive...if not, what's the point of having them around. Looks like all the flack Jobs took for stealing Jonys credit was unjustified. He was the real innovator or at least got the right ideas picked up.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Sep 2013 02:44

^^Sir Jony is the golden boy - nobody touches him unless they want to go back to making bricks like Newton. One of my chaiwallahs is hauled up daily to get abused in maa-behen terms by His Highness.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 12 Sep 2013 02:58

Wow...so arrogant to boot? So much for his goody boy image

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Sep 2013 02:58

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech ... 490292.cms

So now instead of developing technology, our EyeEyeTea munnas are reduced to pleading others to rename their technology?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Sep 2013 03:00

Karan M wrote:Wow...so arrogant to boot? So much for his goody boy image

Sir Jony - goody boy image?

He is as coarse and arrogant as it gets....and a true blue collar hands-on munna rather than a chi-chi aphrodisiac cologne wearing YumBeeAye.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 12 Sep 2013 03:05

In the ifan world they revered him till ios7

Pretty funny
http://jonyiveredesignsthings.tumblr.com/

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Sep 2013 03:20

Getting consumer feedback on the new iPhone5S

I especially like the click-it-or-lick-it feature...

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Sep 2013 06:57

apple needs
(a) 6" inote tablet with wacom stylus
(b) 4.7" , 400ppi flagship phone in 16GB/32GB/64GB inbuilt memory and the best camera module

else its just ostrich mentality and isheep rationalizing bad decisions.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Sep 2013 07:34

Engadget Review for a Apple product with a fingerprint sensor

The only tedious part of the whole process was actually getting it set up in the first place. Since the contours of your finger are three-dimensional, the phone asked us to place our fingers on the button several times and in several angles -- sometimes we could lay our finger flat on it, while other times we were prompted to roll the finger to the left or right. Even then, it only took about a minute to get everything set.
versus

Engadget Review for a non-Apple product with a fingerprint sensor

The most tedious part of the whole process was getting it set up in the first place. Even though the contours of your finger are three-dimensional, the phone asked us to place our fingers on the button multiple times and in multiple angles -- sometimes we were forced to lay our finger perfectly flat on it, while other times we kept getting prompted to roll the finger to the left or right. Even then after all this effort, it took a whole minute to get everything set.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 12 Sep 2013 07:49

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 12 Sep 2013 07:53

Raja Bose wrote:Bawarchi

I was trying to see the origins of the term "Bawarchi", I remember using it first when Mahdi was alive and his successor was being discussed. So I did a search and saw that while RB called him "Bawarchi Tim" in Apr 2011, I called him Bawarchi independently in Sept 2011. No other Bawarchi references in between.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 12 Sep 2013 07:57

Raja Bose wrote:One of my chaiwallahs is hauled up daily to get abused in maa-behen terms by His Highness.

Ivy League gaalis your buddy?

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 12 Sep 2013 07:59

Raja Bose wrote:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech ... 490292.cms

So now instead of developing technology, our EyeEyeTea munnas are reduced to pleading others to rename their technology?

See, I told you... we haven't lost the shackles of slavery yet. My friends and relatives in India think they are all that with all this "shining" stuff. Some desis a year ago at a party were gloating about some $25 Akash (?) tablet someone "invented". I had to remind them that all they did was use cheap labor to reproduce someone else's work. We don't do much totally innovative work in India.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 12 Sep 2013 08:18

I remember seeing this picture some time ago.

Looks like poor Kumar decided to sneak out for a quick smoke break and who does he see bearing down on him as he gets out of the door?

PS: RB, is that you?

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 12 Sep 2013 08:43

I'm looking at the Xperia Z1 - looks quite good, with Snapdragon 800 + a microSD slot. Birthday coming up in January, trying to swing SHQ to buy it for me then

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Sep 2013 08:57

KJoishy wrote:
Raja Bose wrote:One of my chaiwallahs is hauled up daily to get abused in maa-behen terms by His Highness.

Ivy League gaalis your buddy?

Yes, poor guy is responsible for making your iOS experience buttery smooth. Unfortunately some of that butter also gets used to ease the pain of daily GUBO in the morning which he receives from Shri Ive.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 12 Sep 2013 09:38

kJo, why would an indic always step out for smoke? it could be lunch as well or just to buy an apple a day..

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 12 Sep 2013 10:07

Working with a guy like Ive if its a bad experience, would probably take away from all the glamor of being in ios etc.. guess it must be the money..

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Sep 2013 10:15

Glamour? What Glamour? Only in the Bay Area, do geeks think working in some cool engineering job is glamorous. There is no glamour in parking your mush in some cubicle staring at 2 x 24 inch displays for 8-12 hours a day.

Apple has no work-life balance and you are expected to work hard.....really really hard. So either its the money or you are an Apple fanboi or both (in my chaiwallah's case, its both). Otherwise you wont last in that harsh environment.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 12 Sep 2013 10:44

I knew an Aapil person who ran updated iOS on the phone she carried around. Wouldn't let me touch it, lest I find out what deep dark secrets existed in the newer iOS version. Would be inaccessible for a significant part of the day out of cellphone contact, perhaps inside a Faraday cage. Was on call weekends and seldom hung out with others because she had to repeatedly bail at the last minute. Had a kampany provided safe at home to keep all printed material in. Her health was in the pits, and she remained in denial about it, saying she'd kick back 'after the next release', rinse, repeat.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 12 Sep 2013 11:43

Singha wrote:apparently the 5C costs $200 more in china. Xiaomi:1 apple:0
its price in india on similar terms would 40,000
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/11 ... expensive/

BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese web users dismissed the "low-cost" iPhone 5C as too expensive Wednesday, raising questions over Apple's ability to build up sales in the world's biggest mobile market.

The iPhone 5C is part of the US firm's bid to counter cheaper handsets from rivals, particularly in China, where it has only a five percent share of the smartphone market.

But the new phone will retail in China for 4,488 yuan ($733) for the 16GB version, according to Apple's China online store, making it only marginally cheaper than the previous model, the iPhone 5.

This is rank idiocy, unless they have some secret deal with ChinaMobile that nobody knows about. And isn't the iPhone made in China? How can it cost more in the country it is made in compared to the country it is imported into?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Sep 2013 11:50

>> Glamour? What Glamour? Only in the Bay Area, do geeks think working in some cool engineering job is glamorous.

this about it from outside the box
- big salary, accord for a start, nice apartment with running hotwater, all the latest stuff
- enough free cash flow to buy up all latest gadgets - every year
- enough money to on nice vacations and weekend outings
- drinks are cheap and plentiful
- well developed touristy and hobby infra
- good savings if one is DINK/SINK ie no kids to bring up
- cash to provide parents and go home with nice gifts
- getting to work on the earliest trendy stuff

think about it from POV of a guy stuck on a bike in the ORR negotiating the next pothole or sweating it out in chennai .... he will have to put in the same damaging hours to survive here anyway but take away the day to day hassles and add that thick layer of malai I outlined above. a kid cant even think of a 1020 toy here, there is available OTC for what $99 ? he could buy a sack of walnuts and almonds with no damage...here almonds and fresh fruit is so expensive I even have to carefully ration it to my kids
or think even further back to a upper middle class kid studying in college.

most of you are in massa/bay area why? surely not to plant the green/saffron flag or enjoy the fresh air there!
most of you despite the gripes hang out in the bay area forever why? why not live and work from say st.louis or talahasse?

vina · Post by **vina** » 12 Sep 2013 13:31

Steve Ballmer's wet dreams about how the world would look like a few weeks after he took over in 2000!
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/microsof ... EJp4Q.html

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 12 Sep 2013 15:34

nachiket wrote: This is rank idiocy, unless they have some secret deal with ChinaMobile that nobody knows about. And isn't the iPhone made in China? How can it cost more in the country it is made in compared to the country it is imported into?

well..it could be brand value and positioning and also if it is sold cheaper than elsewhere because it is made there, they run the risk of enterprising people buying and selling overseas from china.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Sep 2013 17:32

Singha saar, you are comparing locations. I am comparing industries. Appils to Blackberry comparison onlee

Anyhow even in context of industries, just because A < B doesn't make B glamorous.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 12 Sep 2013 17:59

Marten wrote:^+1. Gimme Santa Barbara over Marathahalli any day!

There is no comparison at all.. for that we need a super-imposed map of facility, infrastructure, roads and service structure over indic map. you would find the first fault in density distribution.

BTW, it is important for this thread, cause that drives how microwave tower needs to be established for cellular networks.