Smartphones | Technology Bloggers

There’s an app for that

22nd January 2013 5 Replies Christopher Roberts

On June the 26th 2007, smartphones didn’t exist. Mobile phones, and computers were two very different things. A day later (27/06/2007) Apple launched the iPhone.

You could argue that there were ‘smartphones’ pre-iPhone, but many in the technology industry view the iPhone as the tipping point and birth-date of the modern smartphone – no inverted commas.

With the launch of the iPhone, came the launch of apps. A few years later along came tablets – and what would a tablet be without apps?

In this post I want to explore some of those apps. Not the apps like Angry Birds, Rayman Jungle Run, Skype and Fruit Ninja though, they are what you expect from applications – games and communication. In this post I am going to explore some of the more innovative uses for apps.

Mirror

Ever desperately needed a mirror just when there are none in sight? Mirror by mmapps mobile, is a free app for Android which turns your phone into a usable mirror! The app even lets you zoom in and out and freeze the mirror, something that no mirror I have ever used does.

The app is available in many different languages, and similar apps are available for iDevices, however mmapps mobile don’t make an ‘i’ version.

Square Wallet

Square Wallet is an application which lets you fully embrace mobile payment. With Square Wallet, you can link your credit card to your phone, and then, in a surprisingly large number of retailers, pay for goods, using your phone! The app also lets you track transactions, so you can keep track of what you are buying.

Square Wallet is available for iDevices with iOS 5.0 or later, and Androids via Google Play.

Inflora Flower App

Ten years ago, who would have thought that you could be out and about, and on a device which fits in your hand, and order a bouquet of flowers? Probably not many people!

The flower delivery company Interflora has an app where you can do just that. Naturally its called Interflora, and can be download for free for iDevices – any iPod, iPhone or iPad with iOS 3.0 or later. Interflora is also available to download for Android devices. The app gives you access to a wide range of flowers, information (such as delivery details and a description) and prices; you can even order your gift using the app!

Zite Personalised Magazine

If you like to keep up to date with the latest news, and you like the news your way, then Zite is the perfect app for you.

Zite trawls through your Facebook and Twitter feeds to work out what you like to read. The application then created you your very own personalised magazine to read, and the more you use it, the cleverer it gets, and the more tailored your content become – to a point where it should only be displaying content you really want to read.

Zite is available for free for all iDevices with iOS 6.0 or later, although the developers state that is is specifically designed for the iPhone, as opposed to tablets. Zite is also available on Android.

Flow Powered

Amazon have recently released an augmented reality app called Flow Power, which can identify millions of real life products (using your phones camera), and can then tell you more information about them.

The app ‘knows’ thousands of books, games and CDs, and is able to tell you about almost anything, if you scan the barcode.

Be it a novel, or a box of chocolates, the app can tell you how much it costs and what other people think of it – pretty clever huh?

Flow Powered is available for Android via Google Play and iOS 4.2 and more recent iDevices through iTunes.

It seems like there is an app for almost everything these days, be it an app to help you apply make-up, order flowers or tell you the price of a video game. There’s an app for that!

Smartphones really are smart.

An analysis of the iPhone 5

19th December 2012 10 Replies Christopher Roberts

Is is nearly 3 months since the 6th incarnation of Apple’s iconic iPhone, the iPhone 5, was released. Often I think it is more interesting to discuss a technology a few months after its release, rather than just straight away, as faults have been exposed, and there are opinions about long-term use.

In this article I am going to explore what the critics think of the iPhone 5, the good, the bad and the faulty!

So what makes the iPhone unique from any other phone? Samsung would argue very little, because as soon as Apple’s latest smartphone was released, Samsung announced that it was filing a lawsuit against Apple, because it had infringed many of its patents.

Size and Weight

The iPhone 5 is bigger than its predecessor (the iPhone 4S). It is taller, the same width, and slightly thinner. When smartphones first hit the market, there seemed to be a race to make them smaller. Now however, the trend seems to be towards developing a bigger screen. Tablets are getting smaller and smartphones are getting bigger – will the two ever merge? I think they might, so watch this space!

Despite being bigger, the latest model is 28g lighter than the previous model, weighing an amazing 112g. Considering the technology inside the device, that is an impressive weight!

Camera

The pace of development of inbuilt cameras in mobile phones is staggering. The iPhone 5 has an 8 megapixel camera, which is very competitive considering that just a few years ago, 8MP was pretty good for a digital camera – which isn’t also a phone.

Reception

One of the main criticisms of the iPhone 5 is that it has stopped being a phone. Logically the primary purpose of a smartphone should be to call and text people, browsing the internet, using apps, taking pictures and other features are optional extras, and shouldn’t be the main function of the device. That said, there have been many reports about people finding that the iPhone 5 has really bad signal problems. I know of two people who are on the same network, one with a Samsung Galaxy S III and one with an iPhone 5. The person who owns the Galaxy can almost always get signal, whilst the person who owns the iPhone can’t. When the phones are in the exact same place, the Samsung device can get signal, but the Apple device can’t.

Speed

Because of all the new features of the phone, it needs to have a good processor, and it does. There was hope that it might have a quad-core processor, which it didn’t, however it does have a pretty good A6 processor, which is very speedy, and is what makes the iPhone 5 feels quick and slick. Match that performance with the 4-inch Retina display, and you have a very fast and flashy phone!

Siri

Siri has seen a few updates, but nothing major. The initial introduction of Siri in the iPhone 3GS was revolutionary, and there is still relatively little viable competition out there for Siri, however one expects an iPhone to come with Siri these days.

Maps

The iPhone 5 was the first phone released by Apple with iOS 6 – which had Apple Maps installed. Apple Maps is Apple’s own version of Google Maps, which has replaced Google Maps on the operating system.

Some of the navigation features have been praised, as having better clarity and being more useful than the Google alternative; especially due to the inbuilt Siri compatibility.

That said, there are major issues with Apple Maps, in that it can be really inaccurate. Australian police have actually advised people against using the software, after they had to rescue motorists stranded in the wilderness of a national park who were trying to find a city, which Apple Maps thought was in the middle of the the wilderness, not where it should have been!

Many places are not where they are meant to be, some just a few miles out, others quite a lot further! One example is Berlin. You know, that city in Germany. The capital city of Germany. Well according to Apple Maps, Berlin is on the continent of Antarctica, which isn’t only the wrong continent, but also the wrong hemisphere! Have a search for Apple Maps fails, and you get some pretty funny results!

Apple Maps really does think that Berlin is in the Antarctic!

Awards

The iPhone 5 isn’t short of awards. The phone is top of Time Magazine’s top 10 gadgets list 2012, which is a big achievement!

Sales of the phone are something else for Apple to celebrate. In the first three days of the phone being on sale, there were 5 million sales! That is 1 million more than the iPhone 4S got in its first three days.

Your Thoughts

Do you own an iPhone 5? If so, what do you think of it? Do you like the phone and iOS 6, it it revolutionary, or was it a waste of money?

BlackBerry Curve 8900 Case Review

23rd November 2012 2 Replies Christopher Roberts

Today I am going to review a product I have been sent by Mobile Fun. I have reviewed products for Mobile Fun before, (remember my Pocket Boom Review?) and as in the past, this review is going to be completely impartial.

The product Mobile Fun sent me to review was a BlackBerry case – kind of handy really, since I own a BlackBerry! The case is for the BlackBerry Curve 8900, which amazingly is the BlackBerry I own – anyone would think we discussed this 😉

Packaging

The unopened case

The first impressions you get of a product are usually formulated by how you view the packaging, so I thought I would spend a moment to talk about how the case arrived. The case was posted to me First Class in a standard padded envelope. It arrived in perfect condition, so no complaints from me there.

The package in which the case was held was more substantial than I had expected. I have had mobile phone cases come in the post which were simply inside a polythene bag, but this case came in a box! Pros of this are that it probably added an extra layer of protection – not that it really needed it though – and that it looks bright colourful and gives you a little information about the product. From an environmentalists perspective however, one could argue that it is an unnecessary use of packaging, which is probably going to end up in landfill. I shall be recycling what I can.

When I opened the box, the case had a BlackBerry sized piece of foam inside it, probably just to ensure it kept its structure during transit.

Look And Feel

Other than to protect your phone, the main function of a mobile phone case is (arguable) to look good. I really like the design of this particular case, I think it has a slightly more stylish design than the standard BlackBerry case, with neat stitching down the sides, and the middle of the case.

The case displays the BlackBerry logo, like the standard BlackBerry case does, but unlike the standard BlackBerry case, it is mounted on a metal adornment. The adornment is a stylish touch, but could potentially scratch a surface (say a glass table) if you put it down, adornment side down. The case also had the word ‘BlackBerry’ written at the bottom on the reverse side.

Functionality

The case is made of real leather, so is very sturdy and flexible. One of the problems I found with the standard case was that it was made of vinyl, not real leather, so after continued use it started to look worn and split. I have been using this case for a few weeks now and it still looks pretty much the same as when it arrived. I would definitely recommend a leather case like this one over a vinyl one as it is more hard wearing.

The case feels very sturdy, and (although I haven’t tested it) I am sure it would protect my phone were I to drop it from a reasonable height. The structure feels rigid enough to keep the phone safe, but I am not going to try, just in case!

My BlackBerry in its new case

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 has a feature that it will turn the screen off and go into power save when inserted into the case. This feature works with the standard case, and with this particular case, thanks to the inbuilt ‘proximity-sensing technology’. From what I understand there is a magnetic chip in the case which when the phone senses it, it turns on power save – proximity-sensing technology does sound a little cooler though!

Overall I really like the case, I think it is a stylish, more hard wearing alternative to BlackBerry’s standard case for the Curve 8900. To find out more about this case, please check it out on Mobile Fun’s website.

As I said at the beginning of the article, this post is a review done for Mobile Fun, who have asked us to let you know that they sell phone cases – like the one in this review 🙂

Technology Bloggers

Championing responsible innovation in partnership with the Bassetti Foundation