• android,  lifestyle,  sustainability

    Fairphone 3 – The Earth Friendly Smartphone

    I recently learned of Fairphone, a smartphone company based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

    The Company

    Fairphone, as the company name implies, has at its core the idea that smartphones should be manufactured from a process that is environmentally friendly to the planet and to the people who use them. The materials used to manufacture Fairphone 3, the current flagship phone, relies heavily on recycled materials, fairtrade gold, and business decisions that promote a “more sustainable electronics industry”, according to the company’s website. In short, Fairphone puts people, the planet, and product longevity first.

    Fairphone 3 Specifications

    But, what about the phone specs? Fairphone 3 is a balanced, modern smartphone that is customer repairable in a way that iPhones just aren’t. Fairphone 3 runs Android 9 and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 processor. The 3 has a single stock configuration that has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage that is expandable by adding in your own microSD card, another thing that is not possible with an iPhone. Another differentiator between Fairphones and other major smartphone manufacturers? Fairphone 3 offers a replaceable 3,000mAH Li-ion battery.

    The display is a 5.65-inch Full HD+ 18:9 panel. All of the expected radios are built into Fairphone 3. For example, the device supports MIMO 4×2 LTE radios on many of the bands used by carriers around the world, offering 300Mbps and 150Mbps download and upload streams, based on location conditions. Rounding out wireless package are 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi radios, Bluetooth 5 + LE, and an NFC system for contactless payment systems.

    Fairphone 3 has a 12MP f/1.8 rear facing shooter that supports HRD and a 8MP f/2.0 forward facing camera. Both cameras have digital image stabilization. The rear facing camera can shoot 4K video at 30fps. In terms of the iPhone, Fairphone 3 is on par with the camera system that is on the 2017 iPhone 8.

    Fairphone 3 Repairability

    To improve the durability of Fairphone 3, the exterior case is made out of recycled plastic. This is a marked departure from high-end smartphones that use glass housings. If you drop Fairphone 3 on concrete, for example, you pick it up, dust it off, and put it back in your pocket. Dropping a naked iPhone on concrete can be a very expensive mistake if you do not have AppleCare+. A broken Fairphone 3 screen will set you back about €90 ($110) where as an out of warrantee iPhone 8 Plus screen repair will cost about €152 ($169).

    Fairephone promotes repairability by including a screwdriver in the box with the phone. The spare parts catalog offers many replacement parts for current and previous models. To demonstrate how serious Fairphone is about self-repair, one of the two accessories included in the box is a screwdriver.

    Considerations Before Buying

    There are a few considerations that potential customers should make before buying.

    The first is where you live. While the Fairphone 3 is widely available in Europe, it is not currently available in North America.

    Second, Fairphone 3 runs Fairphone OS. The current version o Fairphone OS is a derivative of 2018’s Android 9 Pie. Given that Android 10 was just released this past September (2019), one can overlook the fact that Fairphone 3 hasn’t received an upgrade to Fairphone OS that is based on Android 10 yet. Still, it is unknown how often Fairphone releases Android upgrades and security patches to customers at the time of this post. On their website, Fairphone promises software updates for five years after a phone is released.

    Third is the lack of third-party accessory ecosystem support. For example, I was not able to find any major smartphone accessories manufacture that sold a case for Fairphone. After searching several websites, I finally found Happer Studio, an independent  Lithuanian company, that makes slip covers for Fairphone 2 and as “Universal” size on eBay.

    Finally, Fairphone 3 only ships with a bumper case and a screwdriver. Fairphone, the company, believes so much in their dedication to sustainability that they won’t ship accessories that you probably already have such as power delivery capable USB-C cables, charging bricks, or ear buds. (If you want first-party accessories, Fairphone does sell them on their website.)

    Conclusion

    I like the guiding principles behind the creation of Fairphone 3. I think it goes to show that you don’t have to be one of the top five technology companies in the world to create a product that values sustainability and end-user repair. If you live in a region that Fairphone are available, at €450, you can get a good Android-style phone that allows you to easily replace parts that break over time.

  • alphabet,  android,  blackberry,  blackberry os,  google,  rim

    BlackBerry to Focus Entirely on Android Devices

    In a piece out today from TheNational, BlackBerry CEO, John Chen, admitted that the other fruit themed company will solely focus its efforts on Android devices.

    “Mr. Chen said that while BlackBerry would continue to release updates for [BlackBerry 10 OS], there were no plans to launch new devices running the operating system.”

    This would mean that the current BlackBerry 10 OS devices, the Classic, Passport, and the Leap will presumably be the last devices running the OS.

    Further complicating the handset problem BlackBerry faces, Mr. Chen also told the paper that the price of the first ever BlackBerry running a version of Android, the Priv, was too expensive at the $700 price point.

    “A lot of enterprise customers have said to us, ‘I want to buy your phone but $700 is a little too steep for me. I’m more interested in a $400 device’.”

    I really liked BlackBerry and had used a few of their devices, most notably, the BlackBerry Curve and Storm.  (Yes, I was one of the few people who liked the ‘unique’ touchscreen on the BlackBerry Storm and Storm 2.)  It is sad to watch a market leader essentially transition from a hardware/software company to a services company.  (IBM sans their PCs anyone?)  With only 600,000 devices having been sold last quarter, according to TheNational, it is hard to see a strategy that will make the handset unit of the company profitable over the long-haul.

    The BlackBerry April 2016 earnings report can be downloaded from the BlackBerry website (Direct PDF download link).

    [Via TheNational…]

  • android,  apple,  galaxy s6,  google,  iphone,  samsung

    Samsung Galaxy “Ultimate Test Drive” for iPhone Switchers

    Last week, Samsung launched the “Ultimate Test Drive” promotional website to entice customers to ditch their iPhones in favor of Samsung’s cheap imitation iPhone clones, namely the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge+ or the Galaxy Note5.

    Did I mention all of those devices run the less secure and less frequently updated Google Android OS?
    Like I would ever give up my iPhones for an Android device.  Least of all a Samsung Android device.
    The program works like this:
    1. You go to the promo site.
    2. Pick out the new Galaxy phone you want
    3. Take a 30-day test drive (after handing over your credit card information)
    4. Buy the phone or send it back.
    So, here’s the kicker.  The site went live late last week.  When I visited the site on Sunday morning, I was greeted by a message at the bottom of the page that reads:
    “Thank you for your interest. Due to the overwhelming demand, we are temporarily out of test drive phones. Please keep checking back for available phones.”
    Huh.  I thought that Samsung was having a hard time selling Galaxy phones after Apple launched the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ last September.  You’d think that Samsung would have piles and piles of Galaxy phones in warehouses all over the place after reports from earlier this month that price cuts are going into effect.
    The Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge+ go on sale in the US on September 21.
  • android,  apple,  beats,  el capitan,  ios 9,  ipad,  ipad mini,  iphone,  mac os x,  music,  radio,  windows,  wwdc

    Thoughts on the Apple WWDC 15 Keynote Presentation

    Yesterday, Apple kicked off their twenty-sixth WWDC conference with a keynote address from Tim Cook.

    If you haven’t already watched the keynote session, you can do so now directly from the WWDC page on Apple.com.

    What follows are my thoughts and comments as I watched the presentation early this morning about the exciting new updates coming to OS X, iOS and watchOS.

    Opening Remarks

    Usually, the formula for an Apple keynote presentation is to welcome everyone and then run through a number of slides talking about how well Apple is doing. This year, Cook announced that 2015 is the twenty-sixth developer’s conference.  In addition to the live stream of the keynote, he also announced that for the first time ever, Apple will be live streaming 30 developer sessions this year to try and accommodate the developers who were not able to buy a ticket to this year’s conference.

    In short, Cook said “everything’s great” and then turned the stage over to Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President, Software Engineering to talk about advances in OS X, iOS and the new watchOS.

    Mac OS X El Capitan Update

    – 55% of active Mac users have upgraded to OS X Yosemite
    – Mac OS X 10.11 will be called OS X El Capitan; notice the lack of “10.11” in the product name
    – Two major areas of focus for El Capitan: user experience and performance

    The user experience performance should be thought of as a refinement of last year’s bold new OS X design language in Yosemite.  The tent pole features that were shown off include the new Informed Search features of Spotlight, refinements of the built-in OS X apps and window and workspace management with Mission Control, the Spaces bar and the new Split View windows control.

    Of all of the new updates, I think I will get the most utility out of the new Split View controls.  The windows snapping feature of Windows 7 is one that I use all of the time at work and the one Windows feature that I wished my Mac has built in by default.  (The other was the smoky grey Vista Start bar, but that was addressed last year with the Yosemite dark mode menu.)

    Informed Search in Spotlight allows you to use nature language text to help find things on your Mac.  With Informed Search, you can now type in search terms like “Show me all of my photos from last June”.  That’s pretty powerful because it lets us type in what we are looking for an let the computer figure out what we meant rather than us tying to remember some details about how, when or where we may have stored the files on disk.

    There was also a brief demo of a new feature coming to Safari wherein that if a video, say an ad, starts auto-playing a video in a tab that you are not looking at, a speaker mute icon will appear in the URL/search navigation bar.  Just click it and the audio is instantly muted.  That will really become a handy feature as more and more websites start auto-playing video ads on their sites.

    There isn’t enough time to cover all of the OS X El Capitan features

    Apple has to pick and choose what features are going to be high-lighted on stage.  Some interesting features that appeared in the “…and so much more.” slide include:

    – New system font – Yes, Apple Watch’s San Francisco font is coming to Mac OS X
    – Last search – Sounds like a really nice time saver
    – Rename from context menu
    – Time to leave reminders
    – Redesigned Disk Utility – seems like an odd update; are enhancements to HFS+ coming?
    – File copy resume
    – Copy file path in Finder

    On the OS X performance side of the house, Apple is bringing their Metal graphics engine that debuted on iOS last year “back to the Mac” El Capitan.  Metal will give professional apps and game developers a higher performance graphics layer than the older OpenGL and OpenCL platforms.

    Reportedly, all of Apple’s first party apps are being enhanced to take advantage of Metal.  I’m looking forward to the performance boost to things like the quick view feature that let’s you look at a document without having to launch the app first.  Oh, and when you do have to launch apps, Apple is working on making the time you wait for apps to launch must quicker.

    The schedule for Mac OS X El Capitan is:

    – Developers get a free preview starting right now.
    – Public beta testers will get El Capitan next month (July)
    – El Capitan general release will ship “this fall”

     iOS 9 Update

    – 83% of active iPhone users are running iOS 8 today
    – iOS 9’s major focus is “elevating” the foundation:improved battery life, better performance, and security enhancements

    Just like with OS X El Capitan, intelligence and informed seraching is coming to iOS 9 and Siri.  Siri can now understand more natural language requests like “show me pictures from …” or create new reminders based on what you are looking at in an app such as Safari.  Siri can even look up phone numbers for incoming calls that aren’t in your contacts by searching your email and making a suggestion.

    As with all of these security features, iOS 9 keeps all of your data private.

    Craig Federighi discussed personal data privacy in iOS 9

    Some other cool features that Federighi showed off, include:

    – iOS’ swipe to the left of the first app launcher screen is coming back and has been enhanced to offer contextual suggestions

    – Search has been enhanced to include new categories of information

    – iOS 9 searching has a new Search API that can be used to search across installed apps and provide deep linking to specific content and take you back to search results

    – Apple is building in intelligence into iOS, but they are not data mining; all information stays on device

    – Look ups for information is all anonymous, not shared – you are always in control of your data

    ZDNet’s iOS 9 beta lock screen

    One of the nice features coming to iOS 9 that didn’t get highlighted in the presentation is that Apple is improving iOS security by increasing the number of digits in a PIN from 4 to 6.  By adding just two additional digits to the PIN, iPhones and iPads will become all the more difficult to “hack” using a brute force attach.  ZDNet had a nice little write up about this feature.

    Jennifer Bailey talks about how Apple is simplifying the wallet with Apple Pay

    To talk about the updates to Apple Pay in iOS 9, Apple brought out VP, Apple Pay, Jennifer Bailey!  I was really surprised to see Apple giving a woman “FaceTime” (sorry about the pun) on the WWDC stage.  It would appear that Apple really is trying to show that it is a diverse company and not just a company run by “old 50-something white dudes”.

    In addition to launching Apple Pay in the UK later this year, Bailey went on to talk about the upcoming changes to Apple Pay in iOS 9.  They include:

    – Discover Card is coming to Apple Pay this year
    – Square is releasing a new NFC Apple Pay reader that will be in stores this fall
    – Store loyalty and reward card support is coming to Apple Pay
    – Passbook is being renamed to “Wallet”

    It’s that last on that I feel is kind of cheap.  Apple clearly has the head start on all of the competing mobile payment systems.  That’s not to say they arrived first – just that they have an early success advantage.  Switching to Wallet from Passbook, to me, makes it sound like Apple is chaing after Google.

    Maps, an app that has been steadily improving year-over-year, is also getting updated to include support for public transit information, specifically:

    – Adding a new Transit map (buses, trains, subway stations) with departure times
    – Step by step walking directions
    – Siri is being integrated to the new Maps transit information

    I’m glad to see that Apple is adding public transit information to Maps.  Android users have had this information via Google Maps for a long time now.  Apple Maps has had a rough start, but it is clear that Apple is committed to enhancing their mapping service over time.

    With iOS 9, Apple is included an all new pre-installed application called “News”.  News will bring “beautiful content from the worlds best world’s greatest sources, personalized for you.”  To help introduce and demonstrate News, Apple brought out the VP Application Product Management, Susan Prescott.

     Let’s just stop for a minute and let it sink in that Apple now has had two high ranking women on the WWDC stage showing off some of their newest software with the world watching.  This is the new-new Apple.

    Susan Prescott shows off the all-new News app for iOS 9

    I’m really excited about the new News app for iPad and iPhone.  I read the Wall Street Journal on my iPad most days in the WSJ app.  I’ll probably still do that because I have a subscription, but the News app has a lot going for it.  I can see in the future, the News app taking the place of Newsstand in the future.

    With News, you tell the app a little about what websites you like to visist and the kinds of articles you like to read on them.  Form there, News will aggregate a feed of news articles, beautifully rendered and laid out for you to read.  The app updates each time you launch it so there will always be fresh content to read and presented in a visually stunning way.

    Up until now, I have this on again off again relationship with Facebook.  I’ve recently started using it again after having liked the WSJ and New York Times pages so that I get news added to my Facebook feed.  I’ve never really been happy about liking pages on Facebook because of all the creepy things they are probably doing to collect my data.  With News, all of that is gone!

    The high points on New include:

    – News updates each time you launch it.  The more you read the better News can be about learning
    about what you like to read
    – News will ship for both iPad and iPhone
    – News will have privacy built in from the start.  There will be no sharing of data with Apple or third-parties about what you are reading
    – This is, in my opinion, a direct shot at Facebook instant articles and I’m glad to have an Apple alternative
    – When News goes live, there will be 30 New York Times articles published a day for News.
    – If all of this reading is anonymous, and there is no data sharing with publishers, who’s footing the bill for the stories?

    iPad iOS 9 Enhancements

    With iOS 9, Apple shows the iPad more love than it’s seen in the last two releases.  It’s clear that Apple is looking to bolster how their industry-leading tablet is both viewed (it’s not just a really large iPhone) and used (now with more productivity and multitasking enhancements).

    iOS 9 brings the Shortcut Bar to the iPad keyboard

    iPad gets the new Shortcut Bar as part of the new iOS 9 keyboard of iPad.  Not only does the keyboard give you predictive text for what you might be typing, but now you have access to text tools right in the keyboard.  The new Shortcut Bar provides convenient access cut/copy/paste functions as well as the ability to add bold, italics and underlined text.  You can even add an attachment if the app support it.

    If you’re not convinced that Apple is trying to cater to people who want to use the iPad as their only computer, a new two finger gesture allows you to move the insertion point cursor around the screen when you place two fingers over the keyboard and move them around as if you were using the trackpad on a MacBook.  This should be a pretty handy feature for people who become frustrated with how you move the cursor around the screen. I know a lot of people who will be happy to have this feature.  I have to wonder if the new iPad Air 3 will feature a Force Touch screen unlocking even more functionality of the track pad-like feature of iOS 9.

    iOS 9 bring Multitasking to the iPad

    Adding iOS 9 to an iPad Air 2 you are able to begin using the new Split Screen feature.  Split Screen was first rumored last year to be a part of iOS 8.  With iOS 9, Split Screen is now a reality.

    The iPad Air 2 running iOS 9 will be able to use Split Screen

    In Split Screen mode, both halves of the screen are running separate applications simultaneously.  You can also grab the slider in the middle of the screen to resize the two windows according to what you are working on.  Regrettably, Screen Split is only available with the iPad Air 2 and will not work with the iPad Air.  Personally, I think that’s a mistake, but no one asked me.

    In addition to Split Screen, is Slide Over.  With Slide Over, you swipe in from the right edge of the screen to open a new column that takes up about one-third of the screen.

    The iPad Air 2 with a Slide Over pane open

    As with Split Screen, both apps are live at the same time.  This feature is really hand if you are working with data in the first two-thirds of the screen and you want to use the last third of the screen to go look something up.  When the Slide Over pane is visible, you will see a Notification Center style tab at the top of the screen. When you pull down on this tab, an app picker appears of the running apps that you can choose to snap in and replace the current app that is in the Slide Over pane.

    The iPad Air 2 Slide Over open app selector

    Slide Over is not a hardware exclusive feature tied to the iPad Air 2 and will also work on the iPad Air, iPad mini 2 and the iPad mini 3.

    Lastly, you can double-click the Home button (or Touch ID button on the new iPad Air 2) to bring up the new iPad Task Switcher.  Unlike the card view used today, running applications are presented on a sort of digital carrousel.

    The iPad Air 2 using the new Task Switcher

     While the new Task Switch looks new and refreshed, nothing that we saw in the demo showed any new features.

    All the Reset of iOS 9

    There’s so much good stuff coming in iOS 9 it’s hard to catalog it all in this single post.  Some of the more important goodies include:

    – A new iOS 9 Low Power mode will extend battery life for up to three hours (estimated)

    – iOS 9 will only require 1.4GB of free space needed to upgrade – iOS 8 required a whopping 4.6GB of free space to run the upgrade

    – HomeKit gadgets can now be securely connected your iPhone over the Internet via iCloud.  Very very cool.

    – Wireless CarPlay what a snoozer.  I’d just like to have CarPlay support in my 2015 Honda Accord  EX.  Oh well, maybe in three to four years when my current least is up Apple and Honda will have their collective acts together. (I’m so glad that Honda was a CarPlay launch partner.)

    – Swift 2 has gone Open Source – now anyone can use it.  A standards compiler and support for iOS, OS X and Linux will be available later this year.  Notice that Windows is missing from that list.

    The release schedule for iOS 9 is:

    – Developers get a free preview starting right now.
    – Public beta testers will get iOS 9 next month (July)
    – iOS 9 general release will ship “this fall”

    Lastly, iOS 9 will install and run on all of the current iOS hardware, which is: iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad mini, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and yes, even the iPod touch 5th generation.

    watchOS 2 Update

    It’s hard to comprehend that Apple Watch and watchOS 1.0 have only been shipping for about six weeks now and already Apple is pushing forward with enhancements to existing features and native application support with watchOS 2.  (I’ll have my Apple Watch review post up before watchOS 2 ships, I promise.)

    Here are some thoughts on what’s coming in watchOS 2 later this year.

    – Seeing “watchOS” on a slide makes me immediately think of Palm’s now defunct “webOS”.  Old habits die really hard I guess.

    – watchOS 2 will bring native apps to the platform.  These apps can run without an iPhone within range of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

    watchOS 2 will being new watch faces to the current list of watch face styles.  Photo Face and Photo Album Face are new watch faces that will allow you to pick a photo to use as your watch face or a Photos album to randomly display pictures from each time you activate the watch face.  Another cool animated watch face will be the new Time-Lapse face.  Apple will pre-build time lapsed “slideshows” of a select set of cities like London and New York that will animate when the watch face is on.

    Apple also promised that in watchOS 2, software developers will be able to add their own “widgets” or “complications” to watch faces.  Complications are the little blocks of information on the wathc face like the date, upcoming apponintments, battery level and fitness tracking rings.

    Lastly, while you are looking at the watch face, you can scroll the digital crown to see calendar events that happened earlier today or that will be coming up later in the day.

    watchOS 2 also adds:

    – Night Stand mode: when the Watch is charging and turned on it’s side withwith the digital crown and button facing up the screen will work like an alarm clock.

    – Email replies using Siri dictation

    – Make and receive FaceTime audio calls directly on the Watch

    – Siri voice command support for activating the Workout app – “Start a 30 minute run in the park.”

    – Siri voice command to display a specific glance on the Watch face

    With watchOS 2, we are really going to see the flood gates open with regard to what developers can access on the Watch – native apps, new complications, system level access to microphone and speakers and the on board sensors – and all new apps to dream up and make available for use.

    Lastly, as you might have already guessed, watchOS 2 will be a free upgrade coming “this fall.”

    On more thing… Apple Music

    I appreciate that Apple is once again using “One more thing…” in their presentations.  It’s a classic move that Steve Jobs would use to whip up the crowd into a frenzy before showing off one last software package, some new hardware or a new Apple service. 

    Yesterday, Tim Cook returned to that familiar place to talk about Apple’s upcoming Apple Music service and Beats 1 124/7 live radio station.  Naturally, Apple’s fans when nuts.

    Apple’s Jimmie Iovine introduces the new Apple Music streaming service

    Tim Cook kicks off the last segment of the WWDC keynote by introducing Apple Music and Jimmy Ivone to tell us about what Apple Music is all about.

    Apple Music is a new streaming service, 24hr live radio and fans connecting with to artists

    Apple describes Apple Music as:
    – A new revolutionary music service
    – 24/7 live radio service broadcast around the world
    – A new way of connecting fans with artists

    With Apple Music, you will have all of your music all in on place.  Your iTunes library meets the full iTunes Music library streamed to your iOS device, Mac, Windows PC and before the year’s out, Google Android devices.

    I have to say, when Iovine started talking about a “revolutionary new music service” I’m pretty sure I heard echos of Steve Jobs introducing the original iPhone back in 2007.  (You can watch Jobs introduce the iPhone below.)

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hUIxyE2Ns8]

    Apple also made a short video featuring Trent Reznor, Artist/Apple Creative, to tell us about the new music service.

    Next up, is Beats 1. a live global radio station with Zane Lowe and his team of real DJs working as hosts around the clock from New York, Los Angles and London.  To help introduce Beats 1, Apple played a short video featuring Zane Lowe talking about how Apple put together Beats 1.

    All of the music recommendations and playlists from Apple Music and Beats 1 are curated by humans to deliver the best possible listening experience for whatever music you want to listen to.

    And last, but not least, is @Connect, which allows artists to upload and share what they are doing directly to their fans.  To help understand how Connect brings fans and artists – big and small – together, Apple brought Drake out to talk about his experience with Connect.  Yet another win for diversity on the Apple stage.

    The schedule for Apple Music, which includes Beats 1 and Connect is:

    – Rolls out with iOS 8.4 on June 30, with new versions of iTunes for Mac and Windows PC.  Android support coming later this year.

    – The first three months of Apple Music are free.  After that, it’s just $9.99/month for an individual subscription.

    – For family of up to six people, a sharing subscription is just $14.99/month and each person has their own library, playlists, recommendations, et el.

    To close out the keynote presentation, Tim Cook invited The Weekend up on stance to perform a new single.  I’m sure it will be on the iTunes Music Store before long.

  • amazon,  android,  fire phone

    Amazon Stock Dips in 2014, In Part Due to Fire Phone

    “Shareholders punished Amazon for its free spending on projects such as the Fire smartphone and other gadgets and a widening network of warehouses close to urban centers. The company has admitted it botched the phone’s rollout, mainly blaming its price for slow sales.”

    I guess we can finally all agree that the Amazon Fire Phone, even with the heavy TV ad rotation, didn’t set the world on “Fire.”

    [Via WSJ Digits blog…]

  • android,  galaxy s5,  google,  samsung

    Samsung Unveils the Galaxy S5 Smartphone

    Today, at the Mobile World Congress trade show, Samsung took the wraps off of their new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5.

    Samsung’s full Galaxy S5 press release follows below.

    Barcelona, Spain, February 24, 2014 – Samsung Electronics today announced the fifth generation of the Galaxy S series, the Galaxy S5, designed for what matters most to consumers. The new Galaxy S5 offers consumers a refined experience with innovation of essential features for day-to-day use.

    “With the Galaxy S5, Samsung is going back to basics to focus on delivering the capabilities that matter most to our consumers,” said JK Shin, President and Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung. “Consumers are looking for mobile tools that inspire and support them as they improve their everyday lives. The Galaxy S5 represents an iconic design with essential and useful features to focus on delivering the ultimate smartphone on the market today through people inspired innovation.”

    The Galaxy S5 combines an advanced camera, the fast network connectivity, dedicated fitness tools and enhanced device protection features as consumers stay fit and connected in style.

    Capture the moments that matter
    Capturing and saving precious memories is one of the most important smartphone features today. The new Galaxy S5 offers superior camera functionality, featuring a 16 megapixel camera with an enhanced menu and user interface that allow consumers to effortlessly take, edit and share photos.

    The Galaxy S5 offers the world’s fastest autofocus speed up to 0.3 seconds and the advanced High Dynamic Range (HDR), reproduce natural light and color with striking intensity at any circumstances. Also new Selective Focus feature allows users to focus on a specific area of an object while simultaneously blurring out the background. With this capability, consumers no longer need a special lens kit to create a shallow depth of field (DOF) effect.

    Tap into the fastest connections
    The Galaxy S5 offers the most advanced LTE experience and Wi-Fi performance available today, ensuring blazing fast data speeds for unrivaled media consumption and productivity.

    The Galaxy S5 supports the fifth generation Wi-Fi 802.11ac and 2X2 MIMO, and supporting the large number of LTE frequency with LTE Category 4 standard. For consumers seeking an even faster connection, the Galaxy S5 now features Download Booster, an innovative Wi-Fi technology for boosting data speed by bonding Wi-Fi and LTE simultaneously. No matter where a consumer is, the Galaxy S5 will help ensure they have the fastest available connection.

    Be more fit and active
    With the enhanced S Health 3.0, the new Galaxy S5 offers more tools to help people stay fit and well. It provides a comprehensive personal fitness tracker to help users monitor and manage their behavior, along with additional tools including a pedometer, diet and exercise records, and a new, built-in heart rate monitor. Galaxy S5 users can further customize their experience with an enriched third party app ecosystem and the ability to pair with next generation Gear products for real-time fitness coaching.

    Express modern, glam look
    The Galaxy S5 blends iconic Samsung design with modern trends to appeal to a range of consumer tastes and interests. The Galaxy S5 features a perforated pattern on the back cover creating a modern glam look. Its new sleek, contoured shape comes in an array of vivid colors, including charcoal Black, shimmery White, electric Blue and copper Gold, to complement the style of the individual consumer.

    Essential device protection
    The Galaxy S5 is IP67 dust and water resistant. It also offers a Finger Scanner, providing a secure, biometric screen locking feature and a seamless and safe mobile payment experience to consumers. The Ultra Power Saving Mode turns the display to black and white, and shuts down all unnecessary features to minimize the battery consumption.

    The device will be available globally through Samsung’s retail channels, e-commerce and carriers on April.

  • android,  content server,  dcm everywhere,  enterprise connect,  ios,  livelink

    Livelink Upgrades Through the Years

    After having attended last week’s OpenText Enterprise World 2013, I though it would be fun to take a look back at the upgrade path of the various versions of Content Server.

    Content Server wasn’t always “Content Server.”  It has also been known as “Enterprise Server”, or for us old timers, “Livelink”.
    I started with Livelink 3.1.16.  The software was delivered on 3.5″ 1.4MB floppy disks in 16 and 32-bit flavors.
    For the next upgrade, Livelink 4.0.1, I made the jump to CD media.  Life was good back then – no more floppy disks!  Check out that OpenText logo.  This version of Livelink was pretty heavily customized and we skipped Livelink 5 and 6.
    For Livelink 7.0.1 I shifted technology platforms from Digital’s OpenVMS and Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) to Windows NT Server 4.0 and SQL Server 6.5.  For the upgrade to Livelink 7.2, I started pulling out the customizations.
    Next up as Livelink 8.0.1, 8.0.2, and 8.1.5.  This would be the last media set that would sport the old Odesta “sun” imagery as seen on the right side of the CD media.
    Next up was the Livelink 9-series.  Shown here is Livelink 9.0.0, 9.1.0 SP1, and 9.1.0 SP3.  Yes, there was something before Livelink 9.7.1!
    Here’s Livelink 9.2.0.  Did anyone actually convert to UTF-8 for this release?  I tried it and couldn’t get it to work with the command line tools.
    For Livelink 9.5, the name changed to Livelink ECM, or Enterprise Content Management.  The logo and corporate imaging also changed.  This would be the last physical disc I would receive from OpenText.
    After Livelink 9.5, it became trendy to call Livelink “Enterprise Server” for the Livelink 9.7.1 release.  Livelink 9.7.1 was the first all digital release for me, and I downloaded all of the software from the OpenText Knowledge Center.  And that UTF-8 conversion?  Much easier with the UTF-8 conversion module.
    With Livelink 9.7.1 installed and patched up, a year later the Records Management modules were installed.
    A year ago, I completed the upgrade from Livelink 9.7.1 with Livelink Explorer 4.8.6 to Content Server 10.0.0 Update 7 and Enterprise Connect 10.2.1.  There were lots of problems with Enterprise Connect, so earlier this year, I upgrade to Content Server 10.0.0 SP2 Update 9 and Enterprise Connect 10.3.0 Patch 1.
    For 2014 I’m working on the Content Server 10.5.0 and Enterprise Connect 10.5 upgrade and a rollout of ECM Everywhere 10.0.0 for iOS and Android clients.
  • android,  google,  microsoft,  office,  office mobile,  office365,  quickoffice

    Quickoffice Coming Bundled With KitKat, Trouble for Microsoft Office?

    Yesterday I was poking around the Google Android website for an updated version of their SDK, and stumbled across the KitKat features page.  Starting with Android 4.4 KitKat, Google will begin bundling their Quickoffice software into the update.

    Quickoffice is Google’s mobile productivity office suite for the Android operating system.  With the current version of Quickoffice, available from the Google Play Store, you can read and edit Microsoft Office documents from your smartphone or table.

    So the question I have is: With free office productivity suites available for both Google Android and Apple iOS, why is Microsoft waiting to get the real deal Office on to people’s devices?  Sure there is an Office Mobile application for the iPhone, but you must already have a subscription to Microsoft’s Office 365 service to use it.  And what about a version optimized for the iPad?

    If anything, the automatic deployment of Quickoffice to any Android device that receives the 4.4 KitKat upgrade is putting even more pressure on Microsoft to get Office on more devices.  In the past, Microsoft’s our-platform-or-no-one-elses strategy for Office is really hurting them.  As a business customer, I rely on Microsoft’s Office suite to get my job done, but on smartphones and tablets, I hardly miss them.

    And that, I feel, is Microsoft’s problem.  The inclusion of Quickoffice with KitKat alongside of the free Google Docs web application, Google isn’t just going after a mobile productivity suite for mobile, they are working to actively destroy Microsoft’s long establish revenue staple – Office.

    Only time will tell if mobile Office document editing will gain any real traction with prosumers or not.

  • android,  google,  samsung

    Samsung’s New Business Model: Copy Palm, Access, and HP

    Samsung, as previously reported by many websites, it working on it’s own operating system called “Tizen.”

    BGR recently posted an article in which they report on Samsung’s hopes Tizen will be the alternative OS.  I believe that Samsung intends Tizen to be the OS that breaks them free of the need for Google’s Android operating system for smartphones and tablets.

    But Samsung doesn’t just want to stop with smartphones and tablets, they see Tizen powering all sorts of devices.  In a recent interview with CNET, Samsung co-CEO J.K. Shin states:

    “There are many convergences not only among IT gadgets, including smartphones, tablets, PCs, and cameras, but also among different industries like cars, bio, or banks.  Cross-convergence is the one [area] Samsung can do best since we do have various parts and finished products.”

    I don’t know about you, but a few things make me worry for Samsung.  First off, that co-CEO thing.  Ask RIM how that worked out for them.  Secondly, Samsung does a horrendous job putting their software on top of Android, now they’re writing their own operating system.  And lastly, when I hear talk about putting smartphone operating systems in all sorts of consumer electronics like cameras, banks and ATM machines, cars…I start to think about all the grandiose plans I recall reading about PalmSource Palm OS 5, ACCESS’ Access Linux Platform (aka Palm OS 6), and even Palm/HP webOS.   All of those efforts failed to even come close to reaching the kind of market penetration that was talked about.

    Samsung, for it’s part, does control a number of product lines where they can just say we’re going to put the Tizen OS into this refrigerator and it will happen.  And Tizen will gain marketshare just from the sheer amount of gadget spam and appliances they put out.  But will people really want to run apps on their fridge, coffee maker, and toaster?  Maybe some day, but it looks doubtful for the next few years.

    At least Samsung isn’t planning on abandoning the use of Google Android in their smartphones and tablets any time soon.

    [Via BGR.com…]

  • android,  apple,  blackberry,  blackberry q10,  blackberry z10,  google,  iphone,  rim

    BlackBerry Still Struggling to Revitalize Itself

    This past week was not particularly a good one for mobile device maker BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion.

    This past Friday, BlackBerry, announced details about their first quarter earnings, and Wall Street was caught off guard, in their opinion, about how few new BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 devices were sold.  For the quarter wrapping up, BlackBerry sold about 2.7 million new BlackBerry 10 devices.  BlackBerry 10 is the company’s mobile operating system, similar to Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS.  Adding insult to injury, BlackBerry sold 4.1 million of their older, BlackBerry 7-powered devices for a combined total of 6.8 million units shipped.  Once the news was released, BlackBerry’s stock price started trending downward, some would say “crashing”, down 26-28%, ending up at $10.46.  Worse, according to BlackBerry, their subscriber base has shrunk by 4 million users ending up at 72 million users globally.

    To help mount their turn around, BlackBerry will continue to rollout their existing Z10 and Q10 around the world while bringing new BlackBerry 10 devices like the “budget” Q5 to “emerging” markets this summer and through-out the calendar year.

    Research In Motion was caught completely off guard, as was just about every other smartphone maker, in 2007 when Apple released the game changing iPhone.  Everyone, except maybe Google, has been chasing the fruit phone maker since.

    What surprises me, however, is that history seems to repeat itself.  I always hated it when my parents or teachers told me this, but I have come to accept and believe it.  You see, there was another smartphone maker that found itself in a similar position a few years ago: Palm.

    There are a number of similarities between BlackBerry and Palm.  Palm, like BlackBerry, was down on their luck after the iPhone was released. Palm was limping along on sales of their previous generation Palm OS and Windows Mobile smartphones just like BlackBerry is doing now.  BlackBerry, like Palm, is desperately trying to reinvent itself with the Z10 and BlackBerry 10 just like Palm attempted to do with the Pre and webOS.  We know, that after a long, drawn out battle, Palm after being acquired by HP, finally came to an end.  Will BlackBerry and the BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system suffer a similar fate?  Will they continue to be a niche corporate market player or will they finally fade off like Palm?

    We don’t know the answer to that question.  Make no mistake, what BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins is attempting to do to turn around his company is extremely difficult.  This past spring I had a chance to play with the new Z10 handheld and BlackBerry 10.  The phone had a quality design and feel to it.  The new software, was still very much foreign to me after having used older versions of the BlackBerry software.  While the gestures did leave me bewildered during the few minutes I had with the phone, people that I know who have purchased the Z10 have gotten used to it.

    Oh, and there is one other similarity that BlackBerry shares with Palm, a small, yet dedicated core user base. Will it be enough to carry BlackBerry through the stormy weather until BlackBerry can grown their subscriber base and software marketshare?  We will have to just wait and see.