Sym(bye)an

The Symbian platform! Does anyone remember it's glory? This is still the most successful Mobile OS platform ( Update 1/31/2011 ) but it's drastically loosing it's market share to giants like iOS and Android. It might be a little astonishing, but Symbian OS was one of the first ones that came up with the concept of apps. And it did have a well established app library. It had an app for almost everything. I remember having a ton of apps and games on my Nokia N70, none of which i bought. Websites like getjar.com, etc made it very easy to download and install apps on your Nokia mobile phones using Nokia's PC Suite. Just like in the browser segment, how Netscape was made extinct, Symbian lost it's glory and has become stagnant.

Nokia did try coming up with touch based OSes and tried to attract developers to create apps but failed miserably. Reasons? Well, firstly Nokia was loosing it's market share in the smartphone segment which discouraged the developers, also other blooming platforms like the iOS distracted them from Symbian. Also, Nokia did not come up with very intuitive devices to attract consumers or developers. They were very functional and feature rich for sure, but weren't as user-friendly as its competitors.

Nokia and the Symbian Foundation have to act fast to keep up in this rat race or it's just a BYE to Symbian.

Topic Suggestion: Ronak Bavishi.

The Dark Apple

This post is going to cost me some repercussions in Apple 'fan'land. But I guess every Apple maniac is already aware of what I'm going to write.

It's a known fact that every product Apple releases makes it's previous generation look ancient.  We all think Apple does a great job with product refreshes. It certainly does, but there is more to it.  Take for example the iPhone. iPhone Classic was a rockstar when it was launched, sold millions instantly. The reason: Revolutionary device with great software and of course had a bitten apple logo behind it.

Now, consider the features of the 1st gen iPhone:-

• 2 MP camera, when most phones already had 3.2 MP or better
• 2G connectivity when Nokia was successfully selling 3G enabled mobile phones
• No stereo Bluetooth, well this feature is absent even in the current iPhone 4
• No cut/copy/paste and missing many more

The first gen iPhone was undoubtedly a very innovative and functional device, but at the same time was missing many goodies it's contemporaries had.

Apple then launched the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS bragging about the 3G connectivity, faster processor, better camera etc, which was true but the same could have been incorporated in the iPhone classic itself. The iPhone 4 can be called a worthy upgrade as it packs FaceTime ( front facing camera ),  a brilliant retina display, faster processor and a way better camera than it's previous iterations.

Apple Inc. does this with almost every of it's product. Even the iPad could have already had the retina display, a front facing camera, etc but would have considerably increased the cost though.

It's so unfortunate that the 13 inch MacBook Pro still has a Core 2 Duo when Core i3s, i5s are becoming a standard. Still it is one of the best selling laptops with the best reviews.

The moral of the story is that Apple does launch some amazing products but stagnates technology in them to an extent to keep stable revenues from product refreshes.

Topic suggestion: Vijay Penemetsa.

RockMelt. Forget rocks, cant even melt ice (For now)!

The latest in the browser race is 'RockMelt -Your Browser. Re-imagined' . This social network centric browser, wait, Facebook centric browser has Facebook at its core. You need a Facebook account to log in and use the social networking functionality. RockMelt is based on the Chromium project, the parent project of the Chrome browser, which makes the UI and features very similar to Chrome when used without the FB login.

After logging in with your Facebook credentials, the browser is populated with the latest news feed, your online friends and other Facebook content. It is undoubtedly useful if your browsing experience revolves around Facebook. The browser makes it easy to share anything you browse with minimal number of steps, sometimes compromising on formatting, thumbnails for example.

The main issue with RockMelt is that it is a bit laggy. It takes a while ( read as several minutes ) to contact Facebook and log you in. Also, updates on your Facebook account are not instant. This makes conventional 'Facebooking' (Facebook on Chrome/Firefox) more convenient.

Overall, it is a good concept of integrating Facebook into a browser, utilizing the WebKit, and making browsing Facebook centric. It does makes sense as the first site most of us open on the internet is www.facebook.com. Hopefully, the next versions are most stable and quicker.

Windows Phone Se7en

Well, I never thought the first post would be about a Microsoft product as I'm considered to be an Apple fanboy. Anyways, let me make it very clear that I'm not a fan of Apple Inc., I just appreciate what they do, the fact that everything they do is appreciable is a different matter ;)

Coming to the point, the reason I'm writing about Windows Phone 7 is that it's apparently very impressive. I believe that no body has the right to write a review about product like this without an actual hands-on. So I waited and waited till I got to see a Windows device live in action, and this was at an AT&T at Menlopark mall, New Jersey.

My friend Ronak Bavishi and me did not talk for almost an hour after playing with the Samsung Focus. Spellbound, awestruck, dumbstruck or whatever you wanna call it. Stunning device and amazing software!! The reason we felt like that was probably we did not expect something like that from Microsoft that sucked for a while now in the Mobile OS space.

Adapting the Zune UI onto a mobile phone is smart, but the way they did it is neat. The interface is so slick and intuitive that it does not require a user manual just like the iOS. This together with Samsung's hardware makes use and navigation a breeze. The tiles concept is a very different and innovative way to use a mobile device and people bored with an iPhone would definitely love it.

Now, The Name. Windows Phone 7 eh? Sucks big time!! See how catchy these names are : iOS, Android, WebOS? Microsoft does have a strong marketing campaign with AT&T advertising Samsung Focus, LG Quantum and HTC Surround, the posters are all over the place, that with 'Buy one get one free' makes it look like a prospective good purchase but the name of the OS could have been better.

Multitasking.. Well this is a highly debatable topic. Apple claims to have multitasking but Android is the only successful mobile OS that has true multitasking, which actually makes it difficult for a naive user. Microsoft did a good job by leaving it to the software by performing pseudo multitasking almost similar to the iOS.

Hmm, coming to the App marketplace. With industry leaders iOS AppStore and Android' Market, Microsoft has a loooong way to go to establish itself. They are doing a good job attracting the developers now, as many have already signed up (Not sure of Angry Birds though!).

In a jiffy...

The Good:-
Navigation - Concept of tiles

Fluid interface - almost no lag, credit shared by Microsoft and hardware manufacturer ( Samsung, HTC )

Brilliant display ( Samsung Focus )

Resources managed by software

Great mobile office suite

Obvious amazing Windows support

Xbox Live

The Bad:-

Limited number of apps/games on App Market

No cut/copy/paste

No support for flash

The Verdict:-

Windows Phone 7 : 7/10
Samsung Focus : 8/10

HTC Surround : 7/10

LG Quantum : 6.5/10

PS: My buddy Devesh Guha (The first follower of this blog!) took my advice and purchased the Samsung Focus.. Very much appreciated !! ;)