Tag: Mobile

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Reviews

Send and Receive SMS from Your Phone Number on Browser

I blog using a laptop in my home. That means I often move from one room to another with my laptop. Unfortunately in such cases, I always forget to carry my phone with me. It gets a little bothersome when I get an SMS and I have to move back to where I left my phone to check who sent me a message.

Mighty Text is a service which allows users to use their own phone number, to send and receive SMS messages from your Chrome browser. Users can also call from their browsers.

MightyText Features

  • MightyText works only for phones running on Android. Download the Mighty Text App from Google Play.
  • Now check out the extension or add-on for your browser. I really liked the fact that it supports Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9 and Safari.
  • Now the phones numbers needs to be synced to the browser and we are set.
  • Whenever a SMS is sent to you number, you will receive a notification on your desktop.

I can also reply to the text messages from my browser. Not just that, I can also call a number from the browser window itself but to speak with the person, one has to get up and reach the phone. 🙂

The service at the moment is only available on Android. Try out MightyText if you have a Android phone and do drop in your comments.

Link: MightyText | Mighty Text on Google Play

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Tips

Get Jellybean Keyboard on Your Android ICS Phones

There are plenty of alternate keyboards available on the Playstore and you can install them without rooting, if you’re disappointed with the stock keyboard. I use Swiftkey 3 (and sometimes Swype) myself, which has a powerful prediction engine.

Google has updated the stock keyboard on Jellybean (Android 4.1) which is pretty much like Swiftkey.

Install Jellybean on Android 4.0.3 or higher

If you’re one of those 10 percent of people who have Ice cream sandwich (4.0.3 or higher) on their devices, you can get the Jellybean keyboard right now. Head on to this XDA thread, and download the beta 1.2 version of the app (of course, you need to send the .apk file to your phone and install there).

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The keyboard’s prediction engine is pretty solid, but I still prefer that of Swiftkey. Though, I like the interface of this keyboard, because it looks much simpler and holo theme is always nice to have. It’s also pretty smooth without any lag, if you’re experiencing any lag, then be sure to turn off ‘Popup on keypress’ in the settings – it will be significantly faster after that (that applies to many Android keyboards).

You can also customize the vibration duration, themes, keyboard layout and all under settings.

According to the developer, the app won’t be put on Playstore and will be under constant development, so keep checking the thread for newer versions of the app.

Link: Jellybean keyboard

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Analysis

Infographic: Who is Winning the Games Market between iOS and Android?

In recent past, there have been many discussions on various blogs about which platform is better; Android or iOS. In my opinion it does not matter which platform is better as both seem to be pretty close performance wise.

But revenues for Apple and Google will not come only from the sale of devices but from the apps purchased on it. One of the biggest money earners on both platforms are gaming apps.

So who is winning the Gaming market between iOS and Android? This infographic by App Annie, shows the differences between revenues and also the strengths of the two platforms.

It is interesting to note that iOS has 71% of the revenues compared to 29% by Android. This is probably due to Apple iPad being a market leader while Android has not really tasted success on the tablet front. Also tablets users seem to like playing games more than phone users on an average.

Do drop in your comments and views.

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News

Nokia Lumia 610 Features, Specifications, Price and Review.

Few days back Nokia launched a new phone in its Lumia series that is “Nokia Lumia 610” and announced another model “Nokia Lumia 800 The Dark Knight Rises Limited Edition” that will be launched soon. But is Lumia 610 worth buying or not? Let’s have a look at the phone, its features and tech specifications.

Specifications:

Dimensions:

  • Height:119.2mm
  • Width:62.2mm
  • Thickness:11.9mm
  • Weight:132g


Display: Lumia 610 is having a 3.7″ (diagonally) screen with 800pixels by 480pixels LCD Gorilla Glass Display.
Camera: 5MP with Auto focus, LED flash, 4X Zoom and a dedicated 2 stage capture key. Unfortunately this phone is not capable of capturing HD videos and you just have an option of shooting VGA videos with 30fps and 3X Zoom.
Processor and Memory: Lumia 610 features an 800 Mhz processor with 256MB of RAM. It has an inbuilt storage of 8GB.
Connectivity: 

    • 3G with HSDPA, WCDMA, EDGE and GPRS.
    • USB: Micro USB 2.0
    • Bluetooth: 2.1+EDR
    • WiFi: WLAN IEEE 802.11 b/g/n

Battery: 10.5 hours of talk time and 670 hours of standby time for 2G. For a 3G network its 9.5 hours of talk time and 720 hours of standby time.
GPS: Bing and Nokia Maps with A-GPS.
Browser: Internet Browser with CSS 3, HTML 5, XHTML and SVG.
Operating System: Windows Phone 7.5.
SIM Card: Single SIM, Micro SIM slot.

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 Price and Verdict:

The price of Nokia Lumia 610 in India is around Rs.13,000. The phone is overall good but there are so many competitors in the market for this price range. Applications for Windows phone are limited but most of them are good. The screen resolution is good but the video capturing quality could have been better. Well it’s a nice phone and if you love Nokia or Windows phone then you should definitely buy this else you can check out other options available in the market.

Don’t forget to share your views about the phone. 🙂

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News

Google’s Nexus 7 Tablet in India by September

During last month Google I/O 2012 event, the Nexus7 tablet was introduced. At the moment the tablets are available in US, Canada and Australia. The tablet will in all probability be made available in India this September.

According to IBN-Live, ASUS which manufacturers Nexus 7 for Google, has confirmed that the tablet will not be available in India before September.

A release before October would make sense as it would be before the festive season of Diwali, when shopping activity is at a yearly high.

Pricing – Nexus7 Tablet in India

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The tablet currently goes for $199 for 8 GB and $249 for the 16GB versions.

The price of Nexus 7 has not yet been confirmed by Asus in India but we should expect it to be on the lower side price wise.

If the tablet shows up around the Rs. 10,000 to 12,000 region, it will in all probability make big inroads into India, where enthusiasm about tablet devices is a bit low because of the cost.

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How will Google Play be promoted in India?

When Nexus 7 was launched and price revealed, it was clear that Google was not looking to make money from the sales for the device. They were more interested in having people buy movies, music and books from the Google Play.

It will be interesting to see if Google ties up with some of the media houses in India, to sell content for Indian users.

India is a big market for smartphones but that does not automatically translate to tablet sales like it has in US and Europe.

Ofcourse it could all end up being just a plan and Nexus 7 might not release in India at all like they did with Galaxy Nexus.

If Nexus 7 is released in India, would you be lining up to buy it? Do drop in your comments.

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Reviews

[Video Player] VLC Beta is Available on Android

I love using VLC media player. It is the best way to watch a movie on my laptop. My favorite reasons for using VLC player are the add-ons which enable me to find and download subtitles from the player itself or another add-on that gets me related information from Wikipedia about the movie I am viewing.

As I use a Android phone, I am quite kicked about seeing VLC Beta on Google Play.

VLC on Android: Features

  • Most music and video files on your phone should play easily on VLC player for Android.
  • Users can avail of a media library and supports browsing through folders.
  • The media player has the usual features like support for auto-rotation, aspect-ratio adjustments and volume adjustments on touch surface.

VLC Beta for Android is requires Android 2.1 or higher but the added requirement is that this beta version works only devices with CPU ARMv7. Versions for different devices will be released soon.

If you are a fan of VLC on Desktop and want it on your Android phone or tablet, give it a try and drop in your comments and views.

Link: VLC Beta for Android

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News

The Iconic Apple iPhone Turns 5 years Old

Steve Jobs walked onto the stage to introduce three new devices. The first one was a wide-screen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communicator. As he explained to the audience that they were not three separate devices but a single one called the iPhone. He claimed that “Apple was going to reinvent the phone”.

The iPhone was introduced in January 2007, but today’s date (29th June) was the day when users first got their hands on the device. Serpentine queues outside stores from opening day were just signs of things to come. The iPhone today has a brand name that is unparalleled in the mobile phone business. It’s success has also pushed Apple to become the world’s most valuable company.

The Touch Effect

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The phone had no physical buttons, it had no stylus. It was a complete touchscreen phone. If you look at smart-phones today, almost every single one of them is a touch screen phone.

The original iPhone was not just a great product, it pretty much set the standard for all mobile phone manufacturers. The touch responsive screen of mobile phones also gave rise to exponential growth in 3rd party apps for smartphones

Touchscreens becoming common place also did play a big part in the launch and success of iPad and tablet devices as a niche.

Even though I prefer using Android,  I cannot ignore the influence of iPhone on Android. If you look at the struggling phone manufacturers today which are Nokia and RIM. They both stuck with their key pad phone models for far too long.

Do drop in your comments.

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News

Google releases Chrome for iOS platform

Chrome browser has taken great strides as a browser on our desktops. It started a journey on mobiles phones with Android. There were rumours before that Chrome will show up for iOS users.

Today, at Google I/O Chrome has been released for the iOS platfrom.

Chrome for iOS Feautures: The good, bad and ugly

Chrome app on iOS allows users to sync their bookmarks, browser tabs open across devices. Chrome app also is available for iPhone and iPad devices. That was the good part.

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The bad part is it will be slower that Safari which is native to iOS platform. Chrome also cannot be made the default browser on your iOS, because Apple does not allow any other browser except Safari to be the default browser. This means if you click a link in your email, only Safari will open and not Chrome.

Now for the ugly reasons on why Chrome will be slower than Safari on iOS. Chrome was not allowed to use its own fast V8 JavaScript engine but had to use UIWebView. UIWebView is forced on all developers as a sand-boxed version of Apple’s Nitro JavaScript version. This automatically renders all 3rd party browsers a lot slower than the native Safari.

Considering how dominant Safari is because of iPhone success on mobile devices, this move by Apple looks a lot similar to Microsoft when it tried killing browsers on its own Windows platfrom to protect Internet Explorers back in the late 90s.

I still think, a lot of Apple users who love Chrome will still use it, especially on iPad, where browsing with all your bookmarks and tabs synced could be useful.

Check out Chrome for iOS and drop in your comments and views.

Link: Chrome for iOS

Categories
News

Is Firefox the best Android Browser? Yes!

On my laptop, I hardly use Firefox except to keep it upgraded or sometimes when curiosity strikes. I love using Chrome on my computer and hence I was rather happy to see Chrome Beta on Android. Unfortunately Chrome on Android is still a bit buggy for me.

This is when I started using Firefox on Android. The browser today is out of beta, interestingly beating out Chrome which is still in Beta (check update below).

Firefox for Android Features

  • Firefox is compatible not only with Android 4.0 (ICS) like Chrome. It is compatible from Android 2.2 onwards.
  • The browser also prompts users to choose the search engine they want to use for every search. These include Google, Amazon, Twitter and Wikipedia. Considering we are using this on mobile phones or tablets, toggling through these four is handy.
  • Firefox also has quite a few add-on, much like its PC version. It is one of the few mobile browsers which has a ad-blocker.

There are the other options like synchronizing bookmarks, passwords and history. The browser also seems to be pretty fast and emphasis is on minimal use of typing out stuff.

Do try out Firefox on your Android phone and drop in your comments and views.

Link: Firefox for Android

UPDATE: The Chrome App for Android was updated a day after this post and is out of beta. Thanks Gokul Sukumar for the tip.

Categories
Analysis

A Comparison between Samsung Galaxy S3 and Apple iPhone 4S

Samsung’s Galaxy S3 was unveiled at the beginning of the month. Yesterday, Samsung announced the official launch of Galaxy S3 in India. The phone has been highly anticipated. The initial price was revealed to be Rs. 43,180.

That price seemed a tad to high and lately most online retail websites are showing the prices as Rs. 38,900/-

Specs

Usually I do not expect a lot to be different between the two phones. In recent times apps and features seem to be the big difference in the smartphone category.

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  • Galaxy S3 does come with only 16 GB but supports expansion upto 128 GB. iPhone’s memory cannot be expanded.iPhone 4S has a storage space of 64 GB at the maximum.
  • The screen on the Galaxy S3 has 4.8 inch display. It has a resolution of 1280 X 780. iPhone has a 3.5 screen with resolution of 960 X 640.
  • The iPhone 4S has a A5 processor while Galaxy S3 has Exynos 4 Quad processor which is nearly twice as fast.

Android vs iOS

  • Galaxy S3 has Android 4.0 (ICS) running on it. ICS has been considered the best of Android to date. Samsung took a really long time pushing an upgrade to its previous models like Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Note.
  • Apple’s iPhone 4S runs on iOS 5.1. Usually most users can upgrade to a new OS version within a day after it is made available by Apple.
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This difference is mainly because Android is highly customized by Samsung for it’s phones and hence it takes them time to initiate a updated version.

Availability

Samsung unveiled Galaxy S3 on 4th May while its already available in India inside a month. Apple is usually a lot slower introducing their products in India.

Galaxy S3 will be available at most mobile phone retailers and also will be available on a majority of online retail shops.

iPhone 4S is usually not available officially on any online retail website in India.

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Price

The price of a phone in India can literally make or break it. This is where Samsung has a big advantage over Apple. Apple’s iPhone 4S is priced from Rs. 42,000 onwards. The price of Galaxy S3 as I mentioned earlier is Rs. 38,900.

Final words on the iPhone 4S vs Galaxy S3 debate

All said and done it looks like the Galaxy S3 is a much better phone. It also is a lot more powerful but it remains to be seen if that better processor ends up being a battery hog.

But it should be noted that Galaxy S3 is not really a competitor to iPhone 4S. It will eventually compete with iPhone 5. With Apple expected to launch iPhone 5 later in the year, it could be worthwhile to do a comparative analysis then. 🙂

Do drop in your comments.

Link: Samsung Galaxy S3 India | Apple iPhone 4S India