Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

negi · Post by **negi** » 19 Sep 2013 16:34

SaiK wrote:should i be worried for any reason to upgrade iphonewa4 with ios 7?

4 is powered by the A4 processor and there are published reviews of 4 with iOS7 you can read them and decide for yourself ; first confirm if there is a rollback option else don't bother . A lot of dhin-chak effects on iOS7 are not available on iP 4.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 19 Sep 2013 17:43

^^^there is no WP division any more. Its all Windows so unless Mickey dumps Windows.....

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 19 Sep 2013 21:31

Apple Chiefs Discuss Strategy, Market Share—and the New iPhones

When asked about the rise of low-cost manufacturers, he’s equally even-tempered. “It happens in every market I’ve seen,” he says. “It happens in all consumer electronics, from cameras to PCs to tablets to phones to—in the old world—VCRs and DVDs. I can’t think of a single consumer electronics market it doesn’t happen in.”

Aka Commoditization. Anybody who thinks HW in CE doesn't get commoditized either doesn't know how the CE industry works or is smoking some real potent herps. Staying as a HW onlee device vendor is not a good thing regardless of all pious promises of moral support from the platform vendors and this is why previously HW onlee vendors like GB, Sammy are moving into services - it is essential for growth and perhaps survival.

manish · Post by **manish** » 19 Sep 2013 21:43

For Bose Babu, from Bloomberg:
Smartphone Cameras at 41 Megapixels Pressure Canon, Nikon

The global camera business, centered in Japan, is headed for a shakeout.

With industry revenue falling to the lowest level in a decade amid surging smartphone sales, Nikon Corp. (7731), the world’s No. 2 camera maker, has cut prices to lure consumers. Market leader Canon Inc. (7751) may follow suit to keep pace, according to UBS AG, putting pressure on smaller producers and possibly leading them to retreat from the business.

“There are too many players,” said Ryosuke Katsura, an analyst at UBS in Tokyo. “It’s going to be tough for smaller camera makers even to remain in the business as competition between Canon and Nikon will likely intensify,” said Katsura, who recommends selling shares of both industry leaders.

Sales of compact models have slumped as smartphones displace the point-and-shoots that were the biggest part of the market. Now higher margin single-lens reflex models -- a market 80 percent controlled by Canon and Nikon -- are slowing as well.

Camera shipments are likely to fall 30 percent this year to 69 million units, according to Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities Co., even as manufacturers try to slow the decline by adding smartphone-like features such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Now for a list of the bloodbath that has already taken place - sad to see the fate of some of these market legends!

Olympus plans to stop SLR development and this year closed a Beijing camera plant and suspended its cheapest compact camera line.

Fujifilm Holdings Corp. (4901), a Tokyo-based photographic film maker, is shifting away from consumer cameras to medical systems and display components.

Panasonic Corp. (6752), which produces the Lumix brand, will shrink its compact camera business, Chief Executive Officer Kazujiro Tsuga said in an interview.

Konica Minolta Holdings Inc. sold its SLR business to Sony in 2006 to focus on office equipment.

Pentax Corp. was acquired in 2007 by Hoya Corp (7741), which sold the camera operation to Ricoh Co. (7752) four years later.

Eastman Kodak Co., the photography pioneer that introduced the $1 Brownie Camera more than a century ago, is now bankrupt.

And a dire warning at the end for Nikon and Canon:

As Nikon and and Canon consider diversification, earnings are going to remain under pressure as smartphones cannibalize compacts and margins on SLRs shrink, said Amir Anvarzadeh, a manager of Japanese equity sales at BGC Partners Inc. (BGCP) in Singapore.

“This is not,” he said, “going to reverse anytime soon.”

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 19 Sep 2013 21:45

^^^Mujhe dikha ke kya hoga?...its like preaching to the choir. Show it to our Mort tau ji, perhaps he will be able to finally see reality.

Just remember....you heard it here first.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 19 Sep 2013 23:11

so pooch time.. what is the next big thing happeining in wireless/connected telecom bijnej?

is it the LTE?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 20 Sep 2013 04:14

Raja Bose wrote:
Mort Walker wrote:Android was always for the poor, open source was always about bringing a mobile OS to the masses.
You really think the open source part of Android has anything to do with it being so widely adopted by device manufacturers and in the end consumers?

Indirectly, yes. Amazon is doing exactly that with the Kindle Fire. Sammy is doing that with its Galaxy of embedded ******** Android OS in fridges and cameras. I'm sure the chinnis are doing something like that as well for their market.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 20 Sep 2013 04:15

Raja Bose wrote:Does BeeBee have anything like Chacha Mail, Chacha Maps, Chacha Now? Security and enterprise friendliness is no longer the preserve of BeeBee or Mickey. iOS has it, Android has it and that was largely consumer driven. Usually in BeeBee's heydays the direction was reverse....business adoption drove consumer adoption. But that changed with iPhunwa...now consumer adoption drives business adoption.

Agreed there are huge missing pieces in the value prop which BeeBee let it unaddressed for this long however there is still not much relative differentiation within the android players. Perhaps BeeBee can now adopt/license GB's Here for Navigation and form alliances with players and vendors. Too late already perhaps.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Sep 2013 08:20

I am thinking whether I should buy some BBRY options.
---
Mortullah, perhaps I should correctly rephrase my question as whether the open source nature of Android is a significant factor in its popularity? Right now its not becoz the growth is driven largely by manufacturers who would have access to the source regardless of whether Android was open source or not.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Sep 2013 10:41

Thats even more unlikely to happen than Chacha abandoning Android. One of the reasons for that is the OS has already been converged - the same stuff now runs on phones, tablets, desktops, cars and a few other things now.

--

Joy Covey the founding CFO of Amazon was killed yesterday on Skyline Blvd. here. She hit a van while riding her bicycle.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Sep 2013 21:51

got my bonus today. going to sleep on it today whether to order 720 or 820 tomorrow. odds are 720 because wife already has 820 and I can always engineer some crisis which makes her ask to swap phones if I really need to.
the 820 is a tad heavy and I dont intend to use any scratch guard or extra cover on my 720 so falls will likely be less hurtful...plus the simian glass the 720 sports and unibody construction with no back cover to flip out.

yellow ofcourse.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 Sep 2013 22:32

Raja Bose wrote:Joy Covey the founding CFO of Amazon was killed yesterday on Skyline Blvd. here. She hit a van while riding her bicycle.

I read about this yesterday. Really sad. I've ridden along that road dozens of times, starting off from both Woodside via Sand Hill or Alpine Road, and from Saratoga ends, and have ridden it all the way into SF through Daly City. It's a long rolling road and there are visibility issues in places, combined with a history of bad drivers 'from the other side of the hills'. She was going downhill. It's not easy to brake in time when someone cuts in front of you, which is what happened to her.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Sep 2013 22:50

Every time I go on Skyline Blvd and see bicyclists I always wonder isn't it bl**dy dangerous to ride there?! The route is scenic which also leads to further driver distraction - that doesn't excuse the driver's fault here. And to be honest sometimes the bicyclists act like total pakis....for example on the winding segment of Page Mill Road going towards Skyline Blvd, bicyclists will zoom recklessly downhill down the blind curves and I have had a few near misses there when they have swerved into oncoming traffic. One would think that somehow I am more responsible for their life and limb than they are.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 20 Sep 2013 23:00

I installed iOS 7 on my iPad3. It is better than iOS 6 in response and smooth interactions. It is not better than Android 4.3 on the Nexus 7 2013 and Nexus 10. By not better I mean it has lag issues and is generally slower in response in comparison. I have not had a chance to try it on an iPhone, but that will happen next week when I get to use it on a 5s.

IMHO, iOS 7 is comparable to Android 4.0 ICS after a couple of revs. It is an improvement for iOS users. What is funny is that some of the wallpapers look like Android wallpapers.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Sep 2013 23:02

^^I noticed that too. iOS7 is still buggy and laggy....clearly a step downwards in quality from the days of the Mahdi. It would be ironic if Mickey's WP ends up having the most buttery smooth UI out there - The Mahdi would spin like a dervish in his grave

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 20 Sep 2013 23:05

Raja Bose wrote:Every time I go on Skyline Blvd and see bicyclists I always wonder isn't it bl**dy dangerous to ride there?! The route is scenic which also leads to further driver distraction - that doesn't excuse the driver's fault here. And to be honest sometimes the bicyclists act like total pakis....for example on the winding segment of Page Mill Road going towards Skyline Blvd, bicyclists will zoom recklessly downhill down the blind curves and I have had a few near misses there when they have swerved into oncoming traffic. One would think that somehow I am more responsible for their life and limb than they are.

I've driven on it only once. At night. It's pitch black and you need high beams in several places to see where the road is going. And "interesting" driving experience. Bicyclists on mountain roads always scare me. Another favorite haunt of theirs is Highway 1 going to Muir Woods/Point Reyes - also steep and curvy - where it is pretty much impossible for a speeding bicyclist to stop while going downhill. Sad to hear about Covey.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 20 Sep 2013 23:10

you guys are comparing dates to figs when you do ios to android, if you are talking performance. lot of hardware plays a big role for performance.

regarding bugs, is entirely another quality factor.. bugs can hit both dates and figs.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 20 Sep 2013 23:12

Mort Walker wrote:What is funny is that some of the wallpapers look like Android wallpapers.

Did they add "revolutionary" live wallpapers?

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 20 Sep 2013 23:13

Users sue LinkedIn over email 'hacking'
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... 8762.story

I was wondering about this. Linkedin seemed to have all email addresses for my friends and was asking me to send them invitations. I was wondering how the F they got it?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 20 Sep 2013 23:16

Microsoft sees phones as the future of Windows RT

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 20 Sep 2013 23:19

Microsoft cannot see squat.
At least until Fester is gone.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 Sep 2013 23:24

Raja Bose wrote:Every time I go on Skyline Blvd and see bicyclists I always wonder isn't it bl**dy dangerous to ride there?! The route is scenic which also leads to further driver distraction - that doesn't excuse the driver's fault here. And to be honest sometimes the bicyclists act like total pakis....for example on the winding segment of Page Mill Road going towards Skyline Blvd, bicyclists will zoom recklessly downhill down the blind curves and I have had a few near misses there when they have swerved into oncoming traffic. One would think that somehow I am more responsible for their life and limb than they are.

Skyline isn't terribly scenic as far as the standards of that region is concerned - there are lots of backroads that are way better. But yes, it's not the best road for riding. It's a rolling road, with lots of blind curves, and the pavement quality is not so great. Combine that with the fact that the bike lane is often filled with falling debris from the tree cover, plus the fact that the constant mist and dew makes it more slick.

I *never* ride down Page Mill. I much prefer suffering on the climb uphill. Even King's Mountain is a rather questionable descent because of its twistiness; Page Hill is much worse. CA-84 is the best one to ride down. Plenty of pakis behind the wheel and handlebar there, though. Lots of them are likely EyeTee fatcats.

What do you do up there, though ? Go hike at Russian Ridge or somewhere ?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 20 Sep 2013 23:33

i have to agree.. in this modern age, even a bike can turn into gizmo.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 Sep 2013 23:36

The latest Garmin 510/810 bike computers have a live tracking feature that pairs with your smartphone, enabling live tracking of the bike on the garmin website so SHQs/GHQs and coaches can figure out where you are. The bad news is that it eats the phone battery in the process. I don't have the gadget though, just the older Garmin 500.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 20 Sep 2013 23:41

garmin does a lot of research using bikers.. there is a big clout out there.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Sep 2013 00:10

Yes I go to Russian ridge.
---

KJoishy wrote:Microsoft cannot see squat.
At least until Fester is gone.

Mickey doesn't run becoz of Fester, it runs becoz of its SVPs. And Billu still rules behind the scenes. Such companies have better longevity than personality driven ones like FruitCo.

---

Award winning National Geographic photographer ditches DSLR in favour of Lumia 1020

Sushupti · Post by **Sushupti** » 21 Sep 2013 00:25

Apple Reveals Master Details of Wireless Charging System

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-a ... ystem.html

negi · Post by **negi** » 21 Sep 2013 03:43

iOS 7 sucks donkey balls anyone who says otherwise is a pakka fanboi and cannot claim to be objective.

1. The old iOS6 keyboard had 3d effects on buttons, they used to be grey and had a gradient. The upper case used to light up in blue. Chootiyanandans have flattened the whole thing and made it B&W, font looks like Arial Narrow .
2. SMS dialogues are in bright paki green.
3. All the app icons have lost 3d rendering and have been enlarged they look even more fckd up on slender iPhone screens.
4. iOS7 consumes more battery than iOS6 and for what extra feature ? Some lame duck effects on wallpaper copied from Android , airdrop (which btw is only available on 5 and above).

Basically whoever was in charge of iOS7 did a copy paste from Android and even WP (SMS part).

I would roll back to iOS6 after a few days (if that is possible in first place).

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 21 Sep 2013 05:31

negi wrote: Basically whoever was in charge of iOS7 did a copy paste from Android and even WP (SMS part).

It was Sir Johnny. This "inspiration" from Android and WP was discussed here back when the first glimpses of iOS7 were released.

BTW, why the attraction for 3D rendered icons. I always thought they looked tacky. Android icons (which are flatter and can be of any shape, not just the mahdi mandated square with round corners) look better IMHO. WP's live tiles also look cool and are refreshingly different as well from the iOS-Android look. Only problem is they take up too much space.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Sep 2013 06:03

BB is cutting 40% of its total workforce of 12,000. no company can survive a 40% layoff and still remain operational.

just downloaded the ios7 on ipad. Ugh...who cooked up this shitty thing ? its 5 steps back from ios6. the jerkiness and lag is visibly apparent and that for a flat UI that should need less rendering cycles.

apple truly have lost it if this is supposed to be their next-gen UI.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Sep 2013 09:13

^^Blame it on Sir Jony. Just achieving that parallax effect caused so much GPU troubles that its disabled in iPhunwa4 apparently. Sir Jony thinks if he can dream it up, someone can engineer it.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 21 Sep 2013 09:15

glad i am still with ios5

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 21 Sep 2013 09:19

BeeBee's 2nd qtr results were scheduled to be reported on Sept27. It is unusual to provide such (damaging) briefing a week in advance that too barely 30 mins before the close on a Friday causing the stock tank 20%.

IMO insider trading is written all over it. Mgmt/major investors dumped the stock on unsuspecting/speculative public who did not see this coming. A recent/very well timed 5in phablet news might have influenced/distracted some folks.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 21 Sep 2013 10:14

BB is estimated to report a loss of close to a billion $ -- about 950 million $ or so.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Sep 2013 10:22

I am mystified why BB does not report its QNX business

QNX owns a big chunk in automotive OS for a long time now...rest is either Windows with some others like WindRiver, Micro itron etc in the 'other' category.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Sep 2013 10:24

Er what is the parallax effect? All i see is everything is dumbed down and slower..like the cpu was made to run 20pct slow.

Qnx is also used in networking cos though most are migrating to linux due to things like virtualization support now. Still a huge installed base will continue to exist for ten years.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 21 Sep 2013 10:29

All that lag is due to the heavy compositing happening behind the scenes and inefficient code due to Sir Jony changing stuff all the time to meet his 'purity' requirements.

This is the parallax effect

The fanboys gush...

From rockets to phones

On iOS, the parallax effect is, of course, entirely simulated by the operating system’s software, with a little help from a technology that was originally conceived for rocket guidance.

but...

iOS 7's motion effects are triggering vertigo and nausea symptoms

Rocket science indeed.....

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 21 Sep 2013 12:07

The main work OEMs need to do at their end to rollout an upgraded OS for their released make of phone is with
Code BLOBS . these are used for all the fancy hardware features like an unique tfta camera, a unique audio processor , a unique display , unique tfta stylus functionality etc (these many a time have propreitary code dependencies too which cant be opensourced).
OEM maintains this code over OS iterations - the most common way they do it is through aforementioned Blobs - and which are by definition closed source.

Its not actually a big deal for companies like Sammy to release 4.3 upgrade to an old midrange device like galaxy ace. The problem is It just doesn't want to.
In the poorly differentiated (hardware wise) world of Sammy they even use OS version to differentiate and market their phone offerings- Sammy probably thinks that if both a mid end phone like Ace and high end phone like Note 3 get the 4.3 upgrade at the same time , the brand value of Note 3 decreases relative to Ace and this should not be allowed - so it intentionally sits on Ace upgrade and only rolls out its 4.3 when Google it self has some new version 5.0 up and running on its nexus devices.

So why do all those 4.3 capable devices are still running 2.3 ?
Ans) the TFTA OEM doesn't care and wants the old customers to throw their current phones into the bin and purchase new TFTA ones. After all this can be the only conclusion as even ancient phone models with relatively little hardware capacity are running 4.x Android versions (with unnecessary features stripped down - glitches if any are invariably because of the non availability of those BLOBs )demoed by enthusiasts in XDA.

So where does Android vanilla get a chance to really shine longterm with little skin, immediate compatibility to latest android release s etc ?
Ans: Ignoring nexus devices, its invariably with the sdre and syre upstarts who are not depending on any proprietary code blobs to run their models - and have generic hardware on their models easily related to Nexus devices. Case in point even the venerable Nexus S of 2010 hardware is getting Android 4.3.

So the problem to the greatest bulk of end users is hardly with Google's android release schedule (or whether some preferential treatment of a few months lead is given to tweak their useless skins and BLOBS for certain OEMs). This becomes a problem when once hasbeen TFTA OEMs are commonly angling for new fishes to bite their newly released "old" models - and they are so less differentiated(due to lack of unique hardware features) that they have to drum beat the even the OS version to sell their phonewas.

Its because Android is open source (and is freely available to be tweaked and applied by every noname OEM for its offerings - unlike IOS and windoze) that we are seeing at least the current competition in the markets. If the android source was off limits or had some paid licencing or lockdown terms akin to creeps like Aaapil or Windoze , customers would have been sucked dry through their cartel pricing of OS licenses - and worse these OSs will be actually at the same turd level while outwardly masquerading as some manna from heaven.

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 21 Sep 2013 14:38

iOS 7 even on an iPad 4, with a quad-core CPU is slow as molasses. Hate it.
Warned SHQ not to upgrade on her iPhunwa 5.

negi · Post by **negi** » 21 Sep 2013 15:59

Nachiket I remember that discussion I made the point then too however I had not used it in person for I am too lazy to download a Beta and then rollback .

No apologies for unparliamentary language but prallalax effect Lau#a ghant@ ; the translucent wallpaper and lock screen mean that even if you are able to get a decent wallpaper background the translucent effect creates a nasty hotch potch so you have to come up with a wallpaper which looks good standalone as well as with the control screen on top or say when the call screen is on top. What am I gonna do with that parallax effect when icons have been enlarged so I get only 3 mm space between adjacent icons ?

I like the 3d rendering of the icons for it gives one a visual feel that one is actually pressing a button obviously physically there is no difference when it comes to touching a 2d or 3d image; it's more like how Levi's used to distinguish itself from other jeans makers i.e. coming up with copper buttons on pockets and not some aluminium or other alloy function wise there might not be much choose between the two buttons but hey if you are going to charge me about 20/30 % more than other products in the market which are as good and capable in terms of functionality and now your product looks very much like the others then how does one justify that cost difference ?

Visual experience is of utmost importance in the smart phone world for physical buttons have been eliminated . Taking a leaf out of Android's book is not bad for instance latter's task manager was awesome which has now made it's way into iOS difference is you slide it bottom to up in iOS7 whereas it's Left to right on Android , I hope that Google sues Apple for this .

But the colour scheme of icons and their texture sucks big time the whole Mac experience be it fonts and icons was built around such attention to detail which is sorely missing in iOS7.