Your smartphone has got a gorgeous screen. Why not make some use of it? (Image)

My laptop has a 11.6 inch screen and my smart phone has a 4.3" screen (I am sure your phones have a larger screen). While I don't have any complaints with my laptop's screen, my phone's screen is a gorgeous SUPER AMOLED ( Retina display will also do :P ). 

So why not make some good use of the gorgeous display? Ok, I used it as a an auxiliary screen for watching YouTube but it's a good way to watch videos, simultaneously doing something meaningful on the laptop.

While I would have loved this:

I guess, this will also do :D

Micromax: the Indian Samsung?

Micromax is all over the news(and ads); its flagship phone Canavas Turbo became available for preorder on 26th October.

Canvas Turbo has top notch specs and dashing looks, neck to neck with flagship phones of all popular brands out there in Indian mobile handset market, not to mention that Micromax has roped in Hugh Jackman as it's brand ambassador. And more important is the fact that Canvas Turbo can't be written off as a fluke because Micromax has done it before with Canavas, Canavas HD and Canavas Doodle (As per IDC report, Micromax was only second to Samsung going by total number of smart phone units sold in Quarter2, 2013).

Micromax Canvas Turbo

Samsung Galaxy S4

At a broad level, Micromax story is eerily similar to Samsung story. Samsung started as an underdog(HTC was the top android phone maker at the beginning of android story) with low end phones and then hit the jackpot with Galaxy series phone. Once at the front of the line, Samsung maintained its lead, refreshing the Galaxy line and adding more variants to it and the rest as we all know is history. Samsung has had a great run from Galaxy S to Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note to Galaxy Note3 (it announced a record profit of $9.96 billion in July-September, 2013) and hopefully will continue. Micromax started as an underdog with cheap re-branded Chinese phones in the low-end segment, steadily moved up the value chain and hit the jackpot with it's Canvas line of android smart phones. Since making it big, Micromax has continuously refreshed Canavas line to bring it closer to flagship handsets of well known brands at that time and has adopted well thought ad campaigns to shed its image of a company assembling and selling Chinese phones.

If Samsung is guilty of making iPhone knock offs(at least in initial stages), Micromax is guilty of making Samsung knock offs. Samsung tried(successfully) to match the features of each new iteration of iPhone(and by some accounts, it still does the same) at lower price point, Micromax is playing catch up with each new iteration of Samsung's flagship phone at lower prices. 

If Lenovo can make it big in China in spite of all big brands being present there because it understood the local markets well, so can Micromax, because it understands Indian markets . Only time will tell whether it's strategy is  a successful strategy  or not but as an Indian I welcome the rise of Indian Samsung!

Handing your Android phone to a kid? You might expose him to porn!

Google is seen as the flag bearer of open platforms and this characteristic automatically extends to the Play store, the official app store for android based smart phones.
While Apple is known for strict review of apps before they appear on iTunes store, Google in the spirit of openness is very liberal with allowing apps on the Play store(with very few restrictions). Google's openness is generally good for all, developers can make more apps with more functionality and android users get more apps to use.

However, the openness can become a liability too as I observed today evening when browsing for top new free apps on Google Play store. Here is a screenshot od top free apps:

Now imagine a kid using your phone(they seem to be surprisingly good at it nowadays!) and coming across this while browsing for top apps!
And that's only one part of the danger. These are the permissions requested by the "Indian Bluefilm" app:

 

That's a fairly large assortment of permissions requested by the app without the app having any apparent need for those permissions. Imagine text messages being sent by the app to all your contacts that you have!(possible with the combination of "Your Messages" and "Your Social Information" permissions).

So, if you have a kid around you using your android often, consider making it safe for child.

Ready for the context aware, all knowing digital assistant i.e your smart phone?

There is no doubt that our smart phones already know a lot about us. A typical smart phone like Samsung Galaxy S3 or Apple iPhone 5 has several sensors including  accelerometer(for measuring acceleration), gyroscope(orientation), proximity sensor(detecting presence of nearby objects), GPS(position), compass( direction), barometer(height), light-meter(ambient light) and mic(ambient noise).
Besides that, it is with us 24X7, recording our schedule(alarms, calendar, email...), information about our friends and family(Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+...), has access to our communications(WhatsApp, Hangouts, Messenger...) and knows our preferences for information, music, videos, food, shopping etc.(Google Search, YouTube, Google Music...).

Thus, our-smart phone  knows our surroundings and it knows about us and has enough processing power(brain) to make sense of this knowledge. Think about how the smart phone works and it's very close to how we humans act in our daily life, continuously trying to make sense of our surroundings and achieving a balance between the surroundings and our own preferences and priorities!

Computing systems such as smart phones are "context aware" systems. In computer science research,context is “any information that can be used to characterize the situation of an entity. An entity is a person, place, or object that is considered relevant to the interaction between a user and an application, including the user and applications themselves”. And a context aware system is one which uses “context to provide relevant information and/or services to the user, where relevancy depends on the user’s task”.(Day, Anind K., "Understanding and Using Context" (2001). Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Paper 34.)

Consider the two latest smart phones: iPhone 5S and Motorola X with X8 mobile computing system. iPhone 5S sports a M7 co-processor and Motorola X8 sports a contextual computing core specifically designed for performing computations related to context awareness.

As per Apple: “M7(co processor) knows when you’re walking, running, or even driving. For example, Maps switches from driving to walking turn-by-turn navigation if, say, you park and continue on foot. Since M7 can tell when you’re in a moving vehicle, iPhone 5s won’t ask you to join Wi-Fi networks you pass by. And if your phone hasn’t moved for a while, like when you’re asleep, M7 reduces network pinging to spare your battery.”

And as per Google: “The Motorola X8’s contextual computing processor jumps into action when you need to take that photo fast. It uses the accelerometer in the phone to detect motion, and checks the ambient light and proximity sensors to see if the phone’s out of your pocket. And, only then does it fire up the gyroscope to recognize that simple twist of your wrist that means you’re ready to shoot. Never miss the perfect shot again. The Motorola X8’s contextual computing processor knows when Droid is in your pocket, bag or even face down, and the display only lights up the pixels it needs when you’re ready to look.”

Are you ready for the context aware, all knowing digital assistant i.e your smart phone?

- Abhishek Kumar

Microsoft buys Nokia handset business. What were they thinking ?

On September 3, Microsoft bought the Nokia handset business along with a 10 year non-exclusive license to Nokia's patent portfolio.

So why did Microsoft decided to get into mobile design and manufacturing? :

• Nokia is the only major handset maker shipping Windows phones, Microsoft was caught in a tight spot
• Nokia is more than just a Windows phone handset maker, Microsoft has worked closely with Nokia in the past, creating some synergies between the two.
• Microsoft's own attempts at mobile devices have failed, at present(Surface RT) and in past ( Zune, Kin), though they have mostly been criticized for their lacking software, not hardware!
• Whatever critics advise, Microsoft  can't just abandon mobile however bad its failures in mobile seem to be. It needs to be get a foothold in mobile and it will do everything for that.

And why did Nokia agree to sell its handset business? :

• While Nokia is still 2nd largest handset maker behind Samsung, it doesn't figure in top 5 in the lucrative smartphone handset makers.
• It has come too far with Windows platform to go back to any other platform(read Android)
• The problem with Nokia Lumia seems to be in software( shortcomings of Windows Phone 8), not the design, hardware or quality . And Nokia cannot possibly fix that.
• Nokia have had its own problems with Microsoft.

The problem is, sadly, this deal doesn't fix anything that was wrong with Windows 8 phones:

• A business known for its excellent design capabilities for mobile devices goes to a business known for its failure in making/marketing mobile devices. Sad!
• The problem with Nokia Lumia phones is the shortcomings of Windows Phone 8. This deal doesn't change anything about that.
• Nokia Asha(low cost featue phones) and others will probably get the boot. If Lumia fails too, even after all the valiant efforts by Microsoft, Nokia as a handset brand would die. Heart wrenching!

Only time and time alone will tell whether Microsoft is able to revive Nokia and it's own mobile strategy or whether Nokia will meet the same fate as HP's acquisition of Palm.

- Abhishek Kumar

Samsung Galaxy S, S2, S3, S4 and beyond

Samsung Galaxy S, S2, S3 and S4 are the flagship models from Samsung for its android range of smartphones.  As Samsung occupies and has maintained top position among android phone makers, analyzing the trend in the hardware advancement of the Galaxy S range gives a good overview of the general advancement in mobile hardware(for android).

* CPU performance comapred from http://cpuboss.com/ (scale of 10)
*GPU performance compared on basis of data from several sources(scale of 10)
*other data taken from http://gsmarena.com

Some observations from above visualizations:

• The wait between successive models has decreased from 14 to 11 months
• While raw CPU performance, GPU performance, Screen size  have increased continuously, the increase in amount of RAM, Mega pixels of camera and Pixel density is staggered
• The increase in CPU performance,GPU performance and the Screen size has been relatively slowing down year to year.

As the rate at which performance and screen can be improved slows down and hardware starts becoming pretty standard across models, it will become more and more important to differentiate the phone models on the basis of  features other than pure performance(which Samsung has done till now).
Differentiating on basis of software features in the regime of android is difficult(all models run android!) so may be, the good old days of colorful phones of numerous form factors is not far away1 (design would be a basis of differentiation) :)

- Abhishek Kumar

We need iOS and we need Android

This morning I was trying to install Freedom app on my android phone(it lets you do in-app purchase such as game coins for free). It's basically a black market app developed by Russian hackers(and spoofing in-app purchase bypassing Google's payment gateway is definitely against it's T&C) so it's not available on Google app store; the app must be downloaded onto the phone and then installed after allowing "installation of apps from unknown sources". 

And there lies the difference. Even though it's a black market app; it's incredibly easy to install! Just a download and one-click install. Thanks to Google for making it incredibly easy to customize android. iPhone folks probably can't even imagine "easy customization" because they haven't experienced it(it's a simple truth, no offence)! Just look at the plethora of options for android customization: ROMs(1, 2, 3), Themes(1, 2, 3), App Markets and what not. The idea of customization has percolated to even hardware; entirely different OS like Firefox OS and Ubuntu Touch can be easily installed on popular android phone hardware thereby replacing android!

And there also lies the problem. The Freedom app made some changes to the system which made Google accounts(YouTube, Gmail, Play store...) inaccessible (it basically changed DNS file /etc/hosts). Now, as easy as it was to install an unofficial app; it was much more difficult to restore access to Google account, requiring editing of /etc/hosts, a system file(android allows that degree of freedom is also something though). I actually had to do a factory reset!

So while I was all praise for android's openness while installing the Freedom app, I was all curse when things went wrong. I do  have some experience with Linux systems which enabled me to edit the hosts file with some effort, but a person not very inclined towards internal working of computers would find it very very difficult.

That's where iPhone comes in. Things just work in iLand as dictated by Apple. There is much less freedom to interfere with how things work but then there is much less messing around and much less heartburn. While many would root for the freedom of android, many others want things to just work, leaving no scope for breakdown, even knowingly(read iPhone). 

So there will always be a need for both iPhone and android like platforms. The best part is, competition is driving both platforms to learn from each other, giving us, the consumers, the best of both the worlds! :)

- Abhishek Kumar

Ubuntu Touch: a fully functional desktop Linux made for phone!

Ubuntu Touch, a complete Ubuntu based Operating System(no, it's not an android app or even an android ROM, it's a completely different OS, just like Windows and Ubuntu are two different OS for desktops/laptops) tailored for phones was released sometime in February this year.

Since it's available for my Galaxy S2, I decided to give it a spin. The page for Touch on S2 lists down what works and what not, so I knew Calls and SMS won't work(I know it's a deal breaker but hey, it's a work in progress!). Installation is super easy, just two zip files to flash, and at least I did not face any issues. Since it's a different OS all together, the interface, the navigation, the look & feel... everything is different(I found it to be smooth and intuitive). There are many good reviews out there.

However what's important is that is that Ubuntu Touch is a fully functional Linux OS running on the phone. When I say fully functional, it is fully functional in spirit, ANY software package available for normal version of Ubuntu can be installed.

Hardware info for S2 over ssh

That also means I can do all crazy things with my phone. Above is a screenshot of ssh session showing hardware info of S2! (it's easy, do an apt-get install openssh-server on the phone and use any ssh client to connect to the phone. apt-get is your friend! Next could be a wordpress website with Apache and mySql servers running on the phone!(with phone prices nosediving, I believe it would be cheaper to use them a s server than a complete desktop system in many use cases!)

The commercial success of Touch would depend on how Canonical handles the markets (i hope they succeed!) but Ubuntu Touch definitely opens new vistas and also a way to extract worth-the penny performance from ever increasing cores of phones. What's next? A complete data center with cheap phones running in Hyperscale mode with Ubutu Server edition ! 

- Abhishek Kumar

Why a smart phone - dumb phone combo might be a good idea

I love my Samsung Galaxy S2 smart phone(though it has only a 1.2 GHz dual core processor and only 1Gb RAM, sigh!). The old guard can still handle almost everything thrown at it. But I decided that I badly needed a dumb phone too! (I went for Nokia 100, it doesn't support GPRS)


Besides the obvious advantages of a smart phone( I am posting this blog from a train while listening to Fukre songs and also checking fb in between), S2 has a gorgeous 4.3" AMOLED+ screen, a fantastic camera(I sold my digital camera before buying S2 :) , it's light weight and I feel it has the perfect figure for a smartphone,  I can't imagine myself carrying a phablet/tablet/tabphone in my pocket. In the din of all it does, it's easy to forget that it's first a phone and then everything else!


And that's exactly the problem! It does too many things for being just a phone!

So i got a Nokia 100, transferred my primary sim to it and got a 3g sim for S2. After trying out the smart-dumb combo, here's why I think it's a good idea:

• 24X7 connectivity through fb/whatsapp/email is good but it also becomes a nuisance some times. Now I can just put away the S2 in some corner when I want to get away from the constant notifications :)
• I can write a blog from train, listen to songs, check fb and take scenic pictures even with only 10% battery remaining because I know that I will still be able to make calls from my Nokia which has 5 days of battery left.
• When carrying a 28k phone is too risky(when going to sleep during journeys, in the final leg of a party, during heavy rains etc), I can simply leave it at home or drop it in my backpack.

So, what's your opinion?

- Abhishek Kumar

MIUI ROM - Functional yet beautiful

Bored with your aging phone which was once the smartest guy in the market? MIUI ROM has a very fresh look, a lot of security features and many nifty tools built right into the ROM itself. It saves you from the pain of installing at least 20 apps(antivirus,torch,notes,widgets etc etc) and comes with a comprehensive cloud backup service(by Xiaomi Corp) which can backup anything (literally!) on your phone. For at least some days you will be happily surprised by the small but really useful improvements over the stock Android.

MIUI is a heavily customized ROM for android devices ( A customized ROM is simply the original Android OS by Google, modified by including several tweaks and features both for looks and functionality). http://en.miui.com/ is the official website of the ROM made by Chinese corporation Xiaomi. This is a video showing off the customization in the ROM.

Here are some screenshots from the ROM on my phone:

Home Screen	Lock Screen	App Drawer
Music Player	Call Screen	Notifications
Toggles	File Browser	Settings are pretty to!

Now this is not an installation guide (just a sort of motivator guide) . There are so many of them, just "Google". Obviously a custom ROM is not for the weak hearted but hey! what do you have to lose when your phone is out of warranty!(except the phone itself :D) Some broad pointers from my side:

• MIUI ROMs can be ICS or JB based. So far as I know, MIUI requires that you have stock version of corresponding Android on your phone(the android which originally came with your phone). Obviously JB based MIUI ROM will be smoother( its only a modified Android!) but check for stability issues.
• Your phone must be rooted (that stands good for installing any ROM)
• XDA forums is your best bet when searching for custom ROMs. However beware! several developers release their own modified MIUI ROM. Read some details about the ROM and most important, read few pages of comments. You will come to know whether people who already installed the ROM are facing any problems.

Just search for something like "MIUI ROM for Galaxy S2" in search box

So give your old guy some fresh air :)

- Abhishek Kumar

Great applications for Nokia 5230 & 5800

I recently bought Nokia 5230 and since then I have been trying to get applications (mostly free since I don't have a credit card :(  ) for my phone. Before I give my list of recommended applications, please note that many applications require a data connection (or mobile internet) so, you would be better of with an unlimited data plan. Anyways, you require a fast and cheap internet connection to bask in the glory of a 3.2" touchscreen ( See full review of Nokia 5230 ). Please contact your carrier for data plans.

Nokia 5800 and 5230 sport Symbian OS, version 9.4, Series 60 release 5. So if you find other phones having the same OS, you can be sure that these applications will be compatible with them.

Here goes the list of applications:

Who can forget the venerable Opera mini? Opera mini is for phones with Java but having Symbian as your OS has its own rewards like the Opera Mobile . Opera Mobile has everything (almost) that you can think of  in a mainstream browser like tabbed browsing, download manager, password manager, auto-completion and so on. Though I should mention that the default browser provided with the OS is real good and Nokia has done a good job with the browser.

Once browsing is taken care of, all one needs is a an IM client and believe me Nimbuzz rocks. It's the Pidgin for Symbian. Once you install Nimbuzz, you have to create an account in Nimbuzz and then you can sign into any of your accounts ( GTalk,Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, ICQ,facebook are included). The interface is very much like a regular desktop IM client. As far as Gtalk goes, you can make voice calls. VoIP is also supported through Skype, NimbuzzOut and so on.

Quickoffice is damn good at delivering what it promises. However you have to pay for it. The demo application works for 30 days. It also supports office 2007 formats and really well.

Quickoffice also sells Adobe Reader for Symbian. While Quickoffice is unopposed, you can also use pdf+ for viewing pdf files, but it's also a paid application.

Y-Browser is a file manager for Symbian s60 OS. Not to say that the inbuilt file browser is lacking in anyway but its always better to have choice.The site also has some other nifty applications, take time to try them out.( No, I couldn't try them out because I am busy writing this blog for you!)

We have all been through moments when we copied a file to phone and disconnected it from PC, only to discover that the file is actually an archive which has to be unzipped first. WinRAR for mobile will save you from the ordeal of going back to your PC ( apparently, WinRAR also comes for Java phones, so you can get it on Java enabled phones too!! )




 

I had mentioned that the default dictionary with Symbian series 60 v5 leaves out too many words. MDictionary is a worthy replacement, I have never come across a word not in the dictionary. You will have to install both the basic program and the database(you can install any number of databases). Unidirectional database provides English-to-English dictionary. The bidirectional databases provide well, bilingual dictionary, of great use if you are on a tour.

Everyone has heard about Google Maps. It's a free service+application from Google where you can find routes, get turn-by-turn voice direction and view traffic ( of course only if Google has mapped your area). Though now Ovi maps is also a free application, Google has a much better coverage. So next time you go to a metro, make full use of the GPS in your phone and don't get fooled by taxi drivers.

This one is just for fun. Don't hope for photoshop on a phone yet (remeber your Symbain phone is a phone after all !). You will get three brush sizes, limited colors and few shapes but it's lot of fun. After all an artist needs nothing more than a brush to paint his imagination. You can save your paintings as jpg image. Just this evening my friend drew a wonderful portrait (not exactly :)  using Mobile Paint .

SymTorrent , no rewards for guessing, is a torrent client. And yes, it's for Symbian!! So, if you have an unlimited data connection, why not give your service provider sleepless nights? SymTorrent can make simultaneous downloads and lets you view the progress of each download.

Nokia 5230 review : a cheap all-touch smartphone

I have been using Nokia 5230 for a good 20 days now ( I got it the very first day it was released in Indian markets though in overseas market, it has been available since August 2009 :(  ).Nokia 5230 was released at a time when Samsung Corby was hot in the market and Samsung Star and LG Cookie, though older touchscreen phones were selling in good numbers.

Its a smart-phone (running Symbian series 60 v5 OS), its all touch, has a 3.2 inch screen, it has got an accelrometer, proximity-sensors, 3G and A-GPS and its dirt cheap, retailing for about INR 8500 in Indian market.

So, has nokia found its killer touchscreen-phone-for-the-masses in 5230? Lets pull apart the nokia 5230 to see what it has to offer.

For its muscles, nokia 5230 has got an ARM 11 434 MHz processor and 128 MB RAM with 256 MB ROM. For those who are not able to appreciate this, only 10 years ago it was difficult to find such specs in a desktop computer. And its also well fed with a 1320 mAh battery. With normal usage (some music, some video, a bit shooting), expect the battery to last for 1+1/2 days and with minimal usage, 2+1/2 days, not bad for a smartphone.

Now, the phone has Symbian series 60 operating system (v5). Its the same tried and tested OS which nokia has always been using for its smartphones, only refined and revamped for touch screen. The OS isn't bad, its very responsive and sleek, I won't say it to be fabulous either. The OS could have been more finger friendly because sometimes you feel the itch for stylus (very rarely though and the phone does have a bundled stylus) Android would have been much better. Though the OS is old, there is a severe lack of applications simply because most applications depend on a physical keyboard which this phone lacks. Ditto with java applications. Actually I couldn't even find a working dictionary for the phone! ( the dictionary supplied with the phone is grossly inadequate). The java implementation , well sucks!!

The OS is very snappy with rare sluggishness. Nokia has done a good job here because I have seen some cheap "smartphones" where you press a key and wait for ages for the phone to respond.

The 3.2 inch screen is big , bright and colourful though its difficult to use out in the sun. The touchscreen is resistive, so you will have to apply a bit pressure. Capacitive touchscreen would have been better but we have a saying in our circle " itne paise mein itna hi milega :) ". Once you get a hang of the touchscreen, you will find it easy to use. The auto-rotate ( phone has in-built acclerometer ) and kinetic-scrolling (the harder you swipe the screen, the faster things will scroll)  features are fun to use. The proximity-sensor locks the phone when you take it near to your ears during a call to prevent accidental touches ( another rip-off from iPhone).

Music quality is mediocre, a good set of earphones shall help. Watching videos on the crisp and colorful screen is a treat. Nokia 5230 has a 2MP camera without flash so you cant hope much from the camera except in very good light condition. Video recording is good when there is plenty of light.

People living in metros will find the A-GPS (Assisted GPS) feature useful. Once the 3G becomes mainstream in India , the 3G feature of phone can be put to good use. Meanwhile, curious can get 3G services from MTNL or BSNL. Phone lacks wi-fi though. You can use wireless headsets over bluetooth. Of course you can connect the phone to PC using bluetooth or micro-USB cable (type B). However neither cable nor PC-Suite is supplied with the pack, only a poor quality earphone. But the 3.5 mm audio jack more than makes up for it because you can use any off-the-shelf earphone available in the market.

The phone comes with preinstalled browser, dictionary, caluclator, converter and gadgets for youtube, facebook, hi5 etc. Browser looks good, not as good as Opera but the dictionary leaves out so many words. While setting up my email account, it automagically filled up the server details for gmail. I have not tested for other mail services. There is also the nokia ovi app for managing and downloading music and applications from the Ovi store. Nokia maps is also provided for use with GPS though Google maps should be better.

Overall, Nokia 5230 is a good phone offering several features which other touchscreen phones in same price range lack. For most people camera could be a let-down but then the phone is not about the camera, its for those who want a smart phone but on a very tight budget. Anyways, even its competitors(Corby, Star, Cookie) lack a good camera. Besides, Nokia 5230 offers 3.2" touch-screen,3G, AGPS and 3.5mm audio jack , previously unheard of at this price.