India to have it's first proper Digital Music Store in Flyte

India has been a silent bystander in the digital era. 

Apple, which neglected India for a very long time, finally launched the iPhone at ridiculous prices, clearly sending out a message that Indian customers didn't matter to them and that the launch was a mere act of paying lip service to the cries of potential users across the country. Such was the sloppiness of the iPhone launch, that the much hyped iTunes Music Store, considered to be an important part of the Apple experience was completely blacked out for Indian users. Why users in this country continue to patronise a company so brutally careless and callous about the user experience (there being no official Apple Stores in this country, being another example of the indifference of Apple towards Indian customers) is beyond me.

Apple however is not the only offender when it comes to neglecting users. Amazon, one of the largest online retailers, is definitely not the holy cow. However since none of Amazon's services are officially available in India and there being no local Amazon India store (Junglee.com is a laughable attempt at creating an online marketplace, my own experience with Junglee.com has been an absolute nightmare), one can forgive them for not caring about Indian customers.

What this means is that Indians, are currently having no all inclusive online music store in the country. Not one, zero, zilch, naught!

Of course, one might argue about the presence of one hungama.com, about which I have my own reservations (humgama.com sells 128kbps MP3 files for Re. 1/song. Which year is this? 2001?). In short, after desperately trying to buy digital music, my experience has been horrendous. No wonder then,  that Indians, even the ones who can afford to pay for music and more importantly who want to pay for music, are forced to resort to blatant piracy.

Flipkart which has obviously done quite a lot (well, if there is a online market revolution in India happening at present, Flipkart can take the entire credit for it) in terms of making online purchases extremely smooth, is all set to launch Flyte, it's own digital music store. One can only hope that Flipkart addresses the issues Indian users have complained about regarding the current batch of (laughable) music stores such as hungama.com.

Nokia: Looking Ahead

In what appears to be one of the most dramatic moves in its history, Nokia, the mobile phone Finnish giant, has made a deal with Microsoft regarding extensive use of Windows Phone 7 on its mobile devices. While this may come as no surprise to many, for fans of the company though this development is quite a shock.

Nokia has been a bleeding company for quite sometime now, recording diminishing marketshare especially in the high end of the smartphone spectrum. A few days back Stephen Elop in a memo to his company employees openly admitted as having no device till date which could match the iPhone experience. That very frankly set the tone for things to come. It became quite apparent that the once largest mobile company was really in decline and needed some strong partnership to help bolster sales and reputation.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR SYMBIAN AND DEVELOPERS:

For one, Nokia has announced that it will concentrate on Windows Mobile as its primary mobile OS. Now that clearly spells out the doom for Symbian, the ageing OS which has been the cornerstone for Nokia's success in the pre-touchscreen age. Nokia had till recently advocated the use of Qt among its developers to bridge the platform divide that affects it. However this recent shift in strategy will surely come as a shock to the hundreds of independent developers working on that platform. And the repercussions have already started showing. Thousands of  Nokia employees staged a walkout yesterday at Helsinki. Expect more episodes like this to hog the headlines in the next few weeks.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR MICROSOFT:

First and foremost this means gaining legitimacy as a viable and robust mobile platform. Windows Mobile 7 hasn't really seen much of developer adoption and hasn't really attracted much consumer attention either. Now that the largest manufacturer of mobile phones on the planet has chosen their platform as their primary one will please everyone in the Microsoft campus. Microsoft wont feel alienated anymore when it comes to mobiles.

Secondly, Microsoft will now have access to a huge market base across the world. Nokia is massively popular in Asia and quite formidable still in Europe even though it has a non existent presence in the US. This means a lot of market share for Windows Mobile, currently one of the least used platforms.

No one can deny the fact that Nokia has forever produced brilliantly engineered hardware. Its the software part that has often bothered the company. Now with Nokia lending its support to Microsoft, it will have a better chance of attracting consumers, especially since none of the Windows Mobile Phones have exceptionally outstanding technical specs.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR NOKIA:

This without a doubt is a huge loss of face for Nokia. It has now practically admitted that its incapable of competing with the current market leaders Apple and Android and that billions of dollars it spent on creating a platform which would become a viable third alternative was a huge mistake. To be frank, it has basically admitted that its developers are incapable of producing world class softwares. Now if that isn't the biggest embarrassment for a company, I don't know what is!

Apart from this massive setback though, there are a few positives for the company. First, it now has almost stopped itself from going into oblivion. Nokia has assured itself a future in the mobile arena. It may not be as bright as its past but it surely exists.

Nokia will now have access to the US market thanks to Microsoft's presence and the relative 'popularity' of Windows Mobiles in the US compared to Symbian. Nokia could also benefit from Microsoft's other brand names like Xbox etc.

Now you might wonder why I havent talked about Windows Mobile platform as being an advantage in the first place. Well thats mainly because once you browse through the Windows Phone 7 (WP7) interface, you might actually end up regretting the loss of Symbian. Multitasking on WP7 is nearly not as elegant as in Symbian or the iPhone or Android. The menu system is immensely user-unfriendly to say the least. And the home screen in short, is disastrous (I would anyday prefer the widgetised interface of Symbian). However not everything in WP7 is a failure. The browser is beautiful. Much better than the web browser on Symbian and much more organised. The applications look and feel much better on WP7 than on Symbian (well most apps on Symbian do get the job done, but interface wise are very very basic). There are a few other advantages as well, but not really something which would make someone fall in love with WP7.

In conclusion, this has been a huge week for Nokia. It now has to rebuild its brand from scratch. All over again. Although this may seem like an uphill (read next to impossible) task, there may just be light at the end of the tunnel.

Amazon Kindle: My Review

Cover via Amazon

After tinkering with my new Amazon Kindle 3 for a few days, I felt an urge to write a review. You know, there are millions of reviews all over the web regarding the Kindle, why not join the herd? And to add to that feeble excuse, I needed to blog again after a long-ish interval. So yeah here I am bragging about my new Kindle and trying to present an unbiased (yeah, as if thats possible) review of this truly amazing device from the jungles of Amazon basin. Oh wait, its Amazon.com! (Applause please at this insanely juvenile attempt of eliciting a laugh out of the reader)

Okay let me get serious now (frankly if you're still reading this, I'd better present to you a decent unbiased review of the product, you deserve it).

So it will the standard Pros and Cons format. Makes things simpler to read that way.

PROS:

1. Its the Kindle! Okay apart from that, this really is a device which has been built well. Every single inch of the device (there arent too many inches of it though, incase you're indeed counting) shows signs of a well thought out, well constructed device. Its ultra thin, ultra lightweight and more importantly, portable. The read aloud feature is quite handy too.

2. E-ink is great. Yeah it really is, reading books on this device is an absolute pleasure. It really is. The contrast (which has been substantially increased since the last Kindle) does make a significant contribution to the reading experience.

3. Buying books was never easier. If you sign up for Amazon's one click buying, you will be able to do just that from the Kindle or from the Amazon.com Kindle Store. Its as simple as a one click "Buy", and bam, the next thing you know, the book/magazine/other stuff is neatly waiting in the home screem of your device.

4. 3 GB of memory is massive. Lets face it, no one's gonna read 3 GB of stuff at one go. Considering the fact that this is a reading device, 3 GB is more than sufficient for e-books.

5. The Amazon Kindle Store. With its ever increasing collection of books, newspapers, magazines and singles, the Kindle Store is quite literally the ultimate place to go on a shopping spree.

6. Its more than an e-book reader. Kindle 3 has a web browser and a music player to boast of. So thats a welcome addition. It also has an integrated PDF reader, so that will come in handy for reading personal documents.

7. Extraordinary battery life. Although I'm yet to put Amazon's claim of 30 days of charge-less backup to test, its pretty evident from my heavy use that the Kindle might live up to that expectation.

CONS:

1. The 3 GB limit isnt really enough, especially since one's expected to have MP3s as well as PDFs on the device. The fact that you cant expand this memory is a bit of a letdown.

2. The browser is very, very basic. Its pretty much unusable to be honest. Although the "Article Mode" which sort of lets Kindle do its own processing, is quite handy.

3. The page turning buttons are very smartly constructed but badly placed. You will very easily end up turning the page while picking up the device.

4. The audio output is very basic. Dont expect Kindle to replace your iPod.

5. Page turning is a bit slow. Although its fast by e-ink standards, oh well, it still is far from satisfactory.

6. Not many accessories available right now. (Thats mainly because its a new device. Expect loads of additions in the coming months though)

Nokia Needs To Do More, Much More

Finally the N8 is out in the wild. After months of delay, numerous false announcements, Nokia's latest flagship device is available to customers (to be frank there is some doubt if this is actually a release date. Especially since the preordered phones are the ones being despatched).

A lot is riding on the N8. In short, Nokia future will be defined by this device. If it turns out to be an epic failure like the N97, then lets say, its all over for the Finnish giant. If however this turns out to be a success, it will give Nokia another opportunity to prove to the world that they are capable of producing quality phons even now.

Although individual bloggers had already come up with pretty good positive reviews of the N8 (thanks to Nokia's "trial a phone" for free sweetness), Techradar's (a much more reliable source for reviews than individual blogs, and more recently even CNET's) detailed review of the phone has bared it all. From what I understood from the review here are the conclusions regarding the N8 -

Pros: good camera, good build quality, good battery life.

Cons: oh well, the same old ones to be honest. Okay you start checking if I miss anything. Symbian^3 is primitive, not nearly as good as android or ios interfaces, severe shortage of apps, sloppy internet experience, okayish touchscreen and physically "heavy". Apparently its much heavier than the likes of iPhone 4.

And from the look of things, the reviews arent going to get any better for Nokia. As someone said on a personal blog, had this phone been released a couple of years back, it would have blown everything else, but in 2010, there are simply way too many better phones out there for the N8 to even remotely create an impact.

5 Reasons Why You Should Buy A Mac

Image by [kilodelta] via Flickr

1. They look good - Yes, Macs are the ultimate toys for someone into computers. They dont look geeky but they do look classy. The minimalistic design has won it fans all over the world and is a winning fecture of all Macs.

2. They have no driver issues - Since Macs are custom made by Apple to run OSX, it doesnt have any driver issues at all. All the hardware components are Apple certified for top notch performance.

3. Synchronisation - if you own and iPhone or any other Apple device, owning a Mac is going to improve the whole "Apple" experience by a thousand times! It is this synchronisation with its other devices which has convinced many users of the need for a Mac.

4. Support System - Let's face it, Apple's support system is superb. If you ever face any sort of problem with your Mac, support and help is only a phone call or an email away.

5. A class of its own - Apple users are a hallowed species. Only around 2-3% people of the entire planet own Macs and hence the moment you buy one, you are immediately elevated to this supreme class of ultra rich users. This is in contrast to the "everyone is equal" philosophy of Linux and open source softwares.

Nothing New From Apple

Image via CrunchBase

Apple has nothing drastically new on offer this time around, surprisingly. In its press conference at San Francisco, Steve Jobs mentioned about the new reinvented Apple TV, the elusive product which has so far never really 'clicked'. They have a new lineup of contracts with television channels with high definition content.

The other major announcement was about the new iPod Touch range which has the same features as the new iPhone 4 (including the retina display, touch screen, face time capabilities etc) without having the 'phony' features of the phone. As the Jobs jokingly put it, the new iPod Touch is the iPhone 4 without the contract. He also announced the lauch of Ping, a new music social networking site.e

Other than that, there werent any other announcements. I wonder if Apple really has something on offer to surprise us any more. After all, havent we already seen the enough of the iPods and the odd set top boxes?

Is it time to take a step backwards?

Image via Wikipedia

Perhaps in this rat race of features and more features and powerful processors, the importance of good battery life for a mobile phone has been lost. Battery life used to be a serious buying criteria back in the 90s and the first half of this decade. But today, its no longer a leading criteria, perhaps lost in the jungle of featues and apps and processors and GPUs.

However the neglect and perhaps the lack of innovation in this regard is quite astonishing. Nokia's once flagship device, the N95 had a fierce reputation of having the worst battery life among mobile phones of the age. The same reputation is being carried forward by the new generation touchscreen devices of the company. The N97 Mini has a hilariously short battery life for a smartphone. Its not just Nokia which is facing problems. Even the hallowed iPhone 4 has battery issues, as in the battery life isnt as impressive as the 3GS. The same problem can be found with the Samsung Galaxy S. Reason? Well for starters, its the super heavy duty processor and battery life-unfriendly OSes. Now tell me somerhing, whats a smartphone which cannot be used for extended hours? Whats the use of a device which requires you to carry chargers or cables as daughter packages wherever you go?

Now would you go back to a simple good old blackberry, or a N70? These truly had awesome battery lives. I guess most would say no. Hence whats required is a better battery management system where every single app will be able to utilise the battery power only as per the minimum requirement. I am hoping that the manufacturers already have this in mind and are working towards a solution. This also goes with the 'green' theme everyone's suddenly obsessed about, hence makes good marketing sense. Else we consumers would be forced to used dated devices with poor functionality.

Nokia - The Way Out

In the past I have criticised Nokia for being utterly nonsensical when it came to coming up with great phones especially of late. But I have nowhere pointed out what it should do to recover its image as a premier mobile manufacturer and a technology leader. Hence today's gonna be an exception.

To be quite honest, Nokia probably knows the way out. But here's what I think should be done:

1. Get a new group of designers on board - Lets face it Nokia phones are now synonymous with the word 'ugly'. Their devices are nothing short of ghastly compared to the finesse and design of the iPhone(s). Getting a new group of designers on board will be the first thing the company needs to do. Nokia needs to realise something basic here: people need functionality as well as a sexy design in their smartphones. Unless Nokia offers them that, its doomed. The smartphone market is no longer the same as it used to be half a decade back. Nokia needs to keep up with the times, desperately.

2. Focus on one OS - Symbian S60 v3, Symbian^1, Symbian^3, Maemo and now Meego. The last thing Nokia one can say about Nokia is its platform uniformity. Almost each of its high end device keeps coming up with a new OS. Thats not just impractical for the consumers but a terrible thing for the developers. What should the developers work on? Meego, maemo, symbian? Thank god I'm not an official developer, else I would have gone crazy by now! Anyway, what needs to be done is to go for ONE particular OS for all its smartphones. Also, Nokia's Android allergy is something beyond my comprehension. Judging from the astronomic growth predictions of android, the world is now divided into two groups: the android and the non-android. Nokia prefers the latter somehow, completely ignoring the fact that android is infact the only OS which has been built for touchscreen devices from the word go.

3. Giving customers value for money products - Lets face it, Nokia phones, especially the recent ones are insanely ugly, insanely slow, insanely dysfunctional and last but not the least insanely under-powered. If Nokia respects and loves its customers it needs to come up with products which have a good balace of feature and price. Android devices and the iPhone(s) are this popular only because the manufacturers are giving consumers a great product which is worth every single penny they are spending. Can't say that for Nokia unfortunately. The N97 Mini is one of the most dysfunctional phones of the planet (I'm currently using one, unfortunately) and still Nokia dares to release this crap and wiat it gets better, price it at around $400-$500. An HTC Legend around the same price is a much better product than that. And well, Nokia phones are reputed for their crap processing capabilities which Nokia fanboys explain as the lack of need of good processors for something as lightweight as Symbian. The statement although partially true, has no practical significance. Symbian OS do need less system resource but for its multitasking capabilities to work (eg. Playing a game and listening to music and downloading content simultaneously) one does need a pretty hardcore powerful processor and RAM. But the great men at Nokia refuse to come to terms with this concept. They are which intent on praising the simplistic UI of Symbian (the ugliest on the planet by the way, if you didnt know) and the fact that its open source (wait, isnt android open source as well? Bloody hell yes! Why the hell then these Nokia folks staunchly supporting Symbian, still?). Nokia needs to do away with this stupidity and be more practical. And for heaven's sake show some respect to your valued customers. What sin did people commit when they bought the 'craptastic' (the word now made famous by Symbianguru) N97? The least Nokia could have done was to ask unhappy customers to return their phones. But NO, Nokia once again proved that it was living in a utopic world where everyone would still be a Nokia fan even if it kept churning out idiotic dysfunctional devices. 'I'm just a dreamer', the famous Ozzy Osbourne track doesnt work in the corporate arena. Nokia would do itself justice by realising that.

4. Create a proper app store - What? Nokia already has an app store, its called the Ovi Store!

Ah yes, of course, the Ovi Store! How many usable apps does it have by the way? Erm...five? Nah that would be lying. How about 3? Yeah thats more like it. How many good usable top quality (not the stupid ones) apps does the Apple App Store and the Android Market have? I can at least mention 150 without stopping and still go on. Need I say more? The Ovi store is the biggest joke from Nokia ever! With absolutely stupid apps being listed in the Recommended section and the lack of proper good apps for even basic tasks such as reading pdf files (thanks largely to Nokia's obsession with ultra low quality harware), the Ovi store is as dead as a dinosaur skeleton. What needs to be done is introducing a new regulatory process for apps and for heaven's sake developing utterly essential ones first, eg. a pdf reader for starters, once where the user wont have to wait for a minute to move from one page to another. Not really too much to ask for. If Apple and Android developers can do it, so can the Nokia developers.

Anyway, those were my suggestions. Sure one can agree or disagree with a few points mentioned here but without a doubt Nokia needs to do something and take drastic measures if it wants to sty at the pinnacle of the smartphone market.

The N97 Mini - Exposed (Part 1)

Starting today, I will give a detailed account of what I think of the N97 Mini, a phone which is being incredibly vigorously promoted as the next big thing by Nokia. Is the N97 Mini a good phone? Is it worth buying? I will try and put forth arguments both for and against the functionality of this device and let you decide.



1. What makes the N97 Mini special - Its probably now well known that even though Nokia manged to sell loads of N97s (the original N97), it really didnt fare well among users. Be it the less than sufficient processing capabilities, the 128MB RAM on a high end device, or the camera lens cover which actually ended up scratching the lens instead of protecting it. There was widespread outrage among users, many of whom had expressed it publicly on the web. It goes without saying that the N97 was terrible PR for Nokia, till then considered an innovative company at the helm of introducing ultra modern technologies to smart phones. The Symbian^1 which was then touted as the next big thing didnt help matter either. It reminded most people of their old S60 v2 and v3 phones and the UI was boring to say the least. Nokia had to do something to spice things up and restore 'order', releasing innumerable patches and updates for the N97 didnt work, and so it did the next best thing, reduced the memory and the size of the phone, packed in a weaker battery (1200mAh compared to N97's 1500mAh) and termed it the new N97 Mini. However it did something positive as well, it improved the build quality of the phone and made it look classier. Or so I thought.




2. Okay, but why does it suck then - Hey wait, I didnt tell you it sucks, not yet. Anyway, lets look at the context of the mobile phone arena and then compare N97 Mini's specs. The iPhone 3GS had been released and another iPhone was on its way which was supposed to have a huge amount of RAM and improved processing speeds. Google had released Nexus One armed with 1Ghz processor and an equally powerful RAM. And there was Nokia who was content with giving customers what they thought was the best deal possible, a 434Mhz processor and 128MB RAM in an attempt to compete. Spare me a second while I enjoy a hearty laugh. It had the same dated unusable insanely unprofessional looking (everything is being compared to iOS and Android here) and unevolving Symbian^1. And the price? Quoted price on most Nokia ads in India was/is Rs. 21000 (more than $400). I was one of the few who got mesmeried by the Nokia story (mainly because I had been a satisfied Nokia user till then). I decided to buy the Nokia argument of it being a better device. A decision which would come back and haunt me every single day henceforth.



When I first got my N97 Mini, I was really happy! The white phone looked beautiful and so did the keypad. I loved typing using the QWERTY and the phone soon became my treasured possession. I then started to put the device to the test and see if I could really be 'at one' with it. Shocks after shocks after shocks followed. It was soon clear to me that something was wrong, very wrong.



The phone wasnt lasting long enough, even on normal regular use which included listening to songs, browsing, using wifi to stream music and of course making calls it was hard to make the phone last more than 8 hours. In a bid to improve battery life and performance I changed from a snazzy looking theme to a toned down almost mellow inbuilt theme for my phone. Widgets, something of a huge USP for Nokia, had to be turned off, at least the online ones or else they would consume power and diminish battery life further. I had to reduce calls, reduce internet access and wifi usage to a minimum especially when I ventured outdoors without a charging cable in my bag. Yeah I know what you might be thinking, how was I supposed to use the phone without those features, well it seems Nokia cares little for its 'valued' customers and the sole reason for this uber crap battery life was nothing other than the underpowered 1200mAh battery. And that was just the start. Symbian^1 sucks just as much today as it did when the N97 Mini came out. The UI is outstandingly boring. You would need pure talent to create a boring UI like that. Well, at least they could have copied Apple or Android! That would have resulted in a better looking OS! Anyway. Next came the hardware which was so insanely dated that I could imagine my father getting this phone on his first mararige anniversary! Nokia has a strange fascination with dated hardware, it perhaps stems from a monopolistic attitude it has developed over the years being the no 1 smartphone manufacturer. Its like the company is telling its customers "haha you moron, this is what you deserve, cry as much as you want to, I wont give you a better device." Of course Nokia didnt say this, but frankly as a customer who had bought a new N97 Mini this is what I felt. The application manager constantly keeps crashing and notifying me to close running apps when no apps are running. Multitasking is a pain thanks to the incapable processor and RAM.




And then came the ovi store. What the **** is that? Well its an app store. You mean like an Apple App Store? Yeah, kind of. Are you sh*tting me? Ovi and Apple? That is like the biggest baddest saddest and poorest joke ever! The ovi store is so starved of apps that in a bid to create proper ones, Nokia introduced an App wizard for non programmers! Yeah you heard me right. Well that did help increase the number of apps but what that made the ovi store was an absolute piece of junk. Whenever I see apps mentioned on sites on the web, I'm pretty certain that its either for the iPhone or for Android. I mean there is no proper pdf file reader for symbian platforms! Adobe reader is almost unusable and so are many others. Its a pain to read pdf documents on the N97 unless you have hundreds of hours to spare waiting for pages to load.




I will be posting more such reality checks soon. I have been CHEATED, DUPED AND MISGUIDED by the company I once was a fan of. I know I have been rude at places in this post, but hey, I have spent my money (and a huuge amount of it) on the phone and I have not been delivered what I was promised. I have the right to complain and let others know what they are signing up for when they buy a N97 Mini. Stay away from fanboys, do your research well, especially before you buy a Nokia.

Take care folks, and thank you so much for reading. I'll be back with more soon.

N97 Mini Battery Life Woes

I am currently being forced to write this post as I have recently been affected by the unimaginably poor battery life of Nokia N97 Mini. Yesterday some of my friends came over and I had to put the N97 Mini for the first time to the test. The Mini has a 1200mAh battery (substantially reduced from the original N97 which had a 1500mAh one). And yes, expectedly the battery life or the extreme lack of it, is giving me serious problems. I will in detail list my points below.

1. Widgets: Nokia has somehow been fascinated by widgets and is proudly hailing it as a USP in current devices. However what is missed especially in case of the N97 Mini is that these widgets, the ones which require internet connectivity eg. facebook, email widgets etc. draw a huge amount of power from the battery.

2. WiFi - Cool technology eh? Yeah I guess and Nokia thinks so as well, only if it had been serious enough to give it a proper thought before implementing it in devices. (Read on for more details on this)

3. Screen Display Brightness - Oh well, the one time I tested the device using full brightness, it didnt even last me 6 hours! So, forget about using your device outside an air conditioned chamber (read indoors).

Okay, so here's what I tested. I enabled the facebook and email widgets and waited for it to see how long it lasted. To my utter shock and surprise, on normal use which included occasional phone calls and using offline games (oh well I do have Quake 2 installed on my N97 Mini, coz thats the only decent game available for the device. If you're getting an N97 Mini make sure you're NOT a gamer, it has NO GPU, so forget about gaming, just for the info, all recent devices including lower end Android ones and of course the iPhone have dedicated GPUs), the battery hardly lasted me 5-6 hours. Hence, if you're using the N97 Mini, dont use online widgets, or else make sure you carry the charging cables (USB or charger) with you all the time and stay close to a PC or a socket, always.

Next came the acid test. WiFi. I was using Mobbler, a highly popular LastFM client and Tune Wiki. It took me simply 2-3 hours to reduce a fully charged N97 Mini to a completely battery life famished device. Which is like saying, dont use this device to use if you're a heavy WiFi user.

And for the sake of decency I am not comparing this with recent Android and the iPhone, but you get the point.

So, not only is this device underpowered (memory and processing capability wise), its also under-powered (quite literally) as well.

I was completely unaware of this aspect of the N97 Mini till I put it to the test yesterday and today in the morning. Bottomline, I am hating it. I am looking at options to sell this device and get an Android powered one. The severe lack of processing capabilities, softwares, proper usable OS and now a less than usable battery is too much for me to bear. This is my last Nokia. I really dont care if the company comes up with a better device in the future. I am currently ruing my decision, and feeling really crap coz of having spent a substantial amount of moolah on this. May Nokia be a better company and may it produce better devices in the future, but I honestly dont give a damn.

Is Nokia really losing?

I recently got myself a brand new N97 Mini. I have forever been a Nokia fan, and wanted to try out this new device which has certain improvements over the disastrous N97. When I got hold of the N97 Mini, I was pretty happy with it, the touch sensitivity is decent inspite of it having a resistive touch screen. The build quality is really good and so is the form factor. The main advantage of this device is the presence of a QWERTY keyboard. This comes in really really handy when one is typing long posts like this one or say, an email.



I find it a pain to type on a virtual keyboard. That may also be because the N97 Mini doesnt have a true landscape keyboard and one has to use the default phone layout.



Anyway, once the amazement factor faded away, I slowly discovered the true picture of the device. The thing is, this phone uses exactly the same processor and RAM as the new X6, N97 original. This has 128MB of RAM, runs Symbian^1 and has 8GB of internal memory. Symbian unlike the iOS is built for multitasking. In fact having used Nokia for many years now, I cant think of using a phone which doesnt offer multitasking, I have sort of taken it for granted on my phones. Unfortunately however, as you might have figured out, the RAM and the processor (ARM 11 434 MHz processor) are totally insufficient for this device. This is not to say that it hampers day to day use of the device, but it definitely doesnt give you the "edge" which something like a Nexus one or an iPhone gives you. Although the blame of producing an insufficiently powered device can only be blamed on the Finnish manufacturer, Symbian^1 doesnt help things either. Although decent, Symbian^1 is not specifically suitable for touchscreen devices, although ironically it has been built for it. Vertical browsing of apps is quite difficult simply because a) it takes quite some time to "load" the menu and b) its perfectly possible that you end up opening the wrong apps while browsing through the list. I felt disappointed, even though I knew that I was using one of the "high-end" devices of Nokia.

And finally came the death knell. The iPhone 4. Armed with a magnanimous 512MB of RAM and a blazing fast 1Ghz processor, this soon became the device of the year thus far. The iOS was revamped to support multitasking, subfolders and some extra jingles. It now has a gyroscope, obviously a superb touch screen and now a retina display. Its hard to miss the irony here. When Apple is trying to outdo everyone else by revamping their phone, Nokia seems quite content to come up with refurbished (sorry but thats the most appropriate term) devices for example N97 mini, N95 (phew cant even remember how many versions of it we had!), 5800 etc. These are dated devices in today's scenario. Unfortunately Nokia simply ignores the current situation where all other manufacturers are simply coming up with better devices. And from the looks of it, the N8 wont be much of a game changer either. Its simply lacks the punch to compete with most of the flagship devices of other companies and I'm not even considering Apple.

Finally, the biggest failure of Nokia in my opinion is the failure to create a proper software market. Its obsession with Symbian, now MeeGo makes it really difficult for developers to come up with proper apps. Hence the Ovi Store even after a year of its launch is simply a complete and utter disaster. Compare that to the Android market or the Apple App Store.

Is Nokia losing? Hell yes, and fast. The departure of many noted blogs from the web including the famed SymbianGuru is proof enough of that. Unless they get their act straight, which in my opinion is going to be very very difficult, Nokia will soon become a phenomenon of the past which once had a majority market share in smartphone devices.

But lets end on a positive note, and hope this legendary company does get its act together (I alongwith millions of others are pinning my hopes on this man, Anssi Vanjoki, the new head of mobile solutions, Nokia. His recent statement can be found here on his blog: http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/07/02/the-fightback-starts-now/ )

Duck Tales

I have been pretty brutal and ruthless in my iphone bashing posts. Maybe a bit too brutal I'm afraid. Recently I found a youtube video showing the functionality of the iphone gyroscope. Its something which has been sort of overshadowed by the iphone form factor and video calling features. Anyway from the looks of it, the gyroscope is pretty awesome. Non-iphone (or lets non-iphone4 users since even the iphone 3GS doesnt have the gyroscope) users, that includes myself, have so far only experienced the accelerometer which lets face it is pretty old school now. The gyroscope sort of revs things up. You can now change the orientation of the phone to any angle. That can come in very handy in case of gaming (yeah I know who plays games on a smartphone other than iphone users :P). I doubt if any other device is going to beat Apple to gyroscopic supremacy (lol) but it sure makes the other manufacturers think of innovations in future models.

Speaking of which, I'm pretty sad for Nokia. The once smartphone giant is now fast becoming a defunct phone manufacturer, completely out of sync with today's needs. Its inability to innovate has irritated many fanboys and sure enough, it has been reflected in the sharp drop in smartphone sales of Nokia. The Finnish manufacturer had proudly announced the ultra smart, uber sleek N8 in the recent past, even specs wise its faster than the iphone 3GS, but from the looks of it, its practically out of date now even before its launch thanks to the iphone 4. I wish Nokia hadnt announced their plans so early, its surely gonna be a big letdown now the N8, irrespective of what the symbian^3 interface looks and behaves like. I will be frank here, I wish any company other than Apple had come up with the gyroscope. Not because I passionately hate Apple or because of the prejudices surrounding the company but simply because I would love an open source mobile OS to lead from the front. Closed source, although it respects the right of the programmer, is severely detrimental to the development of the mobile arena. Apple contributes very little technology wise from its devices and OSes. And this needs to change, Apple wont be part of it, so the other have to.

Finally blogging again

Its been a hellova long time since I posted anything on my blog. Bad me!

Thing is, like it or not, microblogging is far more interesting or lets say easier than 'macroblogging' (thats what wordpress blogs are called now I guess). Twitter, stupid as it might seem, is indeed a powerful medium of communication (yeah as if you're hearing that for the first time! :P) Anyway, to cut the long story short, I was too preoccupied with other stuff including twitter, hence the lack of blog posts.

In the meantime though, the world has changed. Really? Hell yeah! The iphone 4 is out now, and its changed everything, apparently. Steve Jobs was in a jovial mood that day as he launched his new pet 'i' device. It now has video calling and Jobs made it sound so awesome that it almost seemed as if he'd invented the technology. (Anyway I can video call on my N97 mini just for the info. And if you have one of these symbian devices, use a software called Fring to connect to and make video calls via wifi or 3G. If you're on the iphone 4 however make sure you ask all fellow wifi users to switch off their devices so that you can 'video call'. Not sure if they'd be elated to make that sacrifice for you, but hey you can always say that Steve Jobs said so, maybe then they'll listen to you)

Enough of Jobs bashing. Was watching a really nice movie the other day about the Israel Palestine conflict, Salt of this sea. Its a really shocking movie and I'd highly recommend watching it. I think the Israel Palestine issue has been kept alive for long time and enough lives have been lost/taken. Its high time that an amicable solution acceptable to all parties was reached.

Other than that I've been busy attending boring lectures in college (okay some interesting ones as well), visiting (or touring rather, still not qualified enough to handle/help others) rural health centres and learning a lot about the healthcare system of this country. Tell you what, its a pity that when loads and loads of schemes are being devised by the government, age old superstitions and prejudices still rule the roost, at least in the rural areas. Sad that.

(And now I cant find the zemanta toolbox in the wordpress page. Great, so that means adding tags from my collection of whims and fancies. Great.)

Anyway, thanks for reading. Stay safe, keep smiling (wait that was like sooo gay!) and have fun. Till next time, adios.

Apple...to bite or not to

Image via WikipediaThis is a post which comes from the bottom of my heart. I havent planned it, and I'm kind of typing it out as the thoughts start coming in. But this is something which I feel should be discussed and people should take a stance either for or against it.

What I'm talking about is Apple. Not the delicious fruit which keeps the doctor away, but the equally 'delicious' multinational corporation leading the pack in creating some of the most stunning (and yes, I mean that word) products the world has ever seen. The iPod, Mac, iPhone and now the talk of the town the iPad, all created by this magic company headed by the charismatic Steve Jobs. These folks have handed us some of the coolest of products imaginable, almost as if fulfilling our childhood fantasies of playing around with some of the coolest gadgets. That is possible primarily because of the fact that they dont have to depend on other corporations/companies for their stuff. They are in control of every stage of the process of creating that stunning device, starting with the hardware, the design to the software and its nitty-gritties. These guys have the power over it all, and they do an awesome job, totally utilising this 'control' to their advantage. They also have this super tight lipped culture where nothing about anything really, gets leaked to the outside world, which of course, adds to the hype. As a result what we as consumers get are totally out of the box products never even imagined by other companies, and so revolutionary that it changes the landscape of technology overnight! As a direct consequence of that, Apple today is one of the biggest mobile companies in the world, with revenue rivalling that of giants like Nokia. And I'm quite sure that in no time, the Mac will compete with Windows for the more popular OS tag (the more stylish OS award has already been won by the Mac). Awesome corporation Apple, isnt it? Of course it is.

The thing is, however, inspite of all this glamour and glitz and hype about everything Apple, there is something the company is creating. Its making the technological world more 'closed'. There's a certain way Apple OSes/softwares are designed and the consumers are meant to use it as Apple deems fit. In other words, Apple controls the way we experience its products. I'll just give you an example. Say there's a minor glitch/absence of a particular feature in an Apple software, now what do you do then? At the most, you send a feedback to Apple and expect them to take care of it (erm...leaving the problem totally at their disposal which most of the time ends up in the company releasing a new improved version of the product leaving you with no other option but to spend your moolah all over again in getting that improved product), since no one else can because Apple doesnt wish to release the source code (in lay man's terms that means instructions about how a program performs/functions). But what if there's a really good software developer willing to do that rectification/debugging of that software and add some more features to it for free! If you could, would you hand it over to that guy? I dont know about your answer but I would. But Apple wouldnt want us to hand it over to that guy simply because it means that the company loses control over the product.

This is exactly how closed source and open source softwares (and corporations as well) function. The situation described above is not something which might bother you now, but trust me, this will become a bigger issue every time pro-closed source corporations (eg. Microsoft, Apple, etc.) keep coming up with these awesome products. These products are seriously cool devices in the guise of something else...something different, something meant to steer the technological world in a particular direction favourable for the particular company.

Dont get me wrong, I'm not anti-Apple. I honestly believe the world would be a duller place to live in without the blessings of Apple and its products (and I am a fan of the iPhone and Mac). But I certainly dont like the way Apple resists from releasing a single letter of the source code of its OSes. I wont talk about Microsoft Windows, because already there is a significant number of people who are 'tired of' that OS and want to/have already shifted to Mac and Linux. And that number certainly isnt decreasing. However Apple already has an awesome user-friendly OS which is both secure, stable and easy to use (the former two cannot be applied to Windows). In other words, Mac is a better all round OS than Windows (and is destined for greater success, perhaps of titanic proportions if they let developers across the world help them in their endeavour). Who knows, had Apple gone open-source, the Mac would have been the OS on 97% of computers across the planet today and not the other way round.

iPad...would I actually buy one?

Image via CrunchBaseThe frenzy over the release of the iPad has now settled down a bit, giving rise to more logical analysis of the product. Steve Jobs has coaxed us into believing that the iPad is an almost perfect product which bridges the netbook-smartphone gap. Now I've been asking myself a question, would I actually spend my money to get an iPad?

Erm...first up, its looks awesome! Its sleek, its stylish and from the looks of it, its very user-friendly. Browsing the web seems to be quite easy, and the touch screen is well...awesome to say the least (since Apple is using the same precision touch screen as the iTouch and the iPhone). The iTunes integration, the iBook Store, iWorks all seem to be really cool stuff. And it comes with that 'Apple' tag!

On the other hand, the cons cannot be overlooked. It suffers from the same problem as the iPhone, the absence of multitasking. Now if you're into third party apps (most of us are), then the absence of multitasking can be a bit of a problem.
The screen is not exactly widescreen, neither is it 4:3. So, I really dont know how widescreen videos would look on the iPad.
The absence of Flash support is something which will bother all of us, surely. I mean, can you imagine browsing the web without Flash?
It features no HDMI port. This should not be a dealbreaker but frankly speaking, quite a few netbooks these days feature an HDMI port and that could come in pretty handy sometimes.
This is my biggest problem, the maximum flash memory the iPad supports is 64GB. Tell me something, if you plan to watch movies from your hard drive should 64GB suffice? After all, a few MP3s can occupy a few GBs.
The real deal, some say, is the AT&T data plan which comes with the iPad. But since that plan is only applicable in the US, I wouldnt give much importance to it.

In conclusion, its a mixed bag really. Stunning looks, great interface, mediocre functionality and connectivity.

Will I get one? I think I'll wait for a second version of the iPad.

iPad...finally

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeAfter months, no wait, years of rumours about the elusive tablet, Apple today came out with the new iPad. (The name sucks. Doesnt it sound like a feminine hygiene device? iTampon trended on Twitter today for some unknown reason, in case you didnt know.)

It has a super awesome touch screen, uses the same precision techniques as the iphone or itouch. Has a brilliant interface which is totally customisable, has perfect integration with itunes among starters. It has a sleek, sexy, stylish 9.7 inch IPS screen, 0.5 inches thin, weighing at just 1.5 pounds, with 10 hours of battery life, has bluetooth (thank god!), WiFi, 1Ghz Apple A4 Chip, 16-64GB of flash storage, iWorks, iBook Store (which looks pretty awesome!) unprecedented reading and gaming experience...the list goes on!

And the price? Well its amazing how they have managed to price it at just $499 for the 16GB! The 3G version though costs $629. 32GB is priced at $599 and $729 for the WiFi and WiFi+3G versions respectively and the 64GB is priced at $699 and $829 for the WiFi and WiFi+3G versions respectively.

They will start shipping in 90 days time. For the time being AT&T has made a pretty pathbreaking deal with Apple but international deals will be ready by June.

That was the Apple iPad.

Erm, just before I end I think I should mention some of my concerns here. For starters, it still doesnt feature multitasking. Now that might not be a dealbreaker but its a dampener for sure. Next, I really dont think 64GB is enough of a storage really. I mean even a few mp3 files and videos these days take up quite a large amount of space. So, I'm really not sure if the iPad is really a replacement for a netbook. But if you can overlook these shortcomings, I think the sleek, stylish, uber cool iPad is one hell of a device you must own!