A Good Phone

People around the web and everywhere for that matter talk about their phones being 'good' or in most cases not being all that good. So what exactly is the GQ? (Goodness Quotient, if you havent guessed it yet) For starters, GQ as you would expect has a different meaning for almost all individuals. But if we concentrate on the smartphone sphere, the goodness of a phone is defined by the following factors:

1. The form factor - like it or not, the form factor is undoubtedly the most important criteria for people buying a new phone. No one likes an ugly device. This partially explains the success of the iPhone, the amazing form factor.

2. User Interface - abbreviated as UI, this is more or less what makes or breaks a phone. Symbian most say (except for fanboys of course) has the least attractive UI, and android (with sense UI from HTC) and the iOS are generally considered among the best. The others like Maemo and Meego, although not exactly new platforms, but havent been mainstream OSes so far. Nonetheless, UI isnt really their forte.

3. Whats 'inside' - the processor, the RAM, the memory capabilities, etc. This is where android wins hands down more or less. Why? Well, the high end phones have a processing speed of 1GHz and RAM of 512MB. With a GPU (graphics processing unit), thats a killer deal. Sure the iPhone 4 has almost the same specs, but its sort of rendered redundant thanks to its severly restricted multitasking abilities.

4. Apps - applications are what smartphones are made for. And unless there's a plethora of apps to choose from, using a smartphone doesnt make much sense. The android market and the apple app store and legendary in this regard, with Nokia's Ovi Store coming a very distant third.

There you go, the next time you buy a smartphone make sure its a 'good' one and scores high on your GQ levels.

Claimer: these are my opinions so dont expect them to be universally accepted truth.

The Idiocy of Indian Television Programmes

Image by parul2999 via Flickr

Indian Television. Not really a global phenomenon is it? After all in India, prime time programmes are primarily meant for aunties and grannies. The youth of this country has almost forever been starved of good, quality youth oriented programmes. Unless of course you consider 'programmes' like Roadies (MTV) to be proper programmes for the youth. As the clock strikes 7 (pm of course) thousands of women (my mum included) dedicate all their attention to the television sets, for 'saas-bahu' (mother-in-law vs wife) rivalry, family dramas (epitomised family dramas with joint families the size of elephant packs), evil aunties and well, more evil aunties. And what do we guys watch? Well, there's always THE NEWS, although listening to the same crap being repeated 24x7 does not really make for a pleasant experience. Then there's always the talent hunt shows where every female singer, prodded by her over zealous parents, wants to become a Lata Mangeshkar and where every male singer prodded again by over zealous parents and dreamy eyed girlfriend(s?) to become the next Mohammad Rafi. And then there are the business news channels, but from what I gather and from my personal experience as well, this is not everyone's cup of tea. So what else can we watch? Oh yeah, the 'tech' shows which is about as techy as a supermodel showing off her iPhone, where real techy things like open source, source code, etc. are forbidden words, and where the review of the latest mobile phone depends largely on how good its looks are compared to the other device they 'reviewed' the other day. Thats tech for you on tele. Okay so what the hell do we watch or can we watch? Nothing to be honest. No Indianised versions of western tv series (just copy a few shows if you cant come up with original ideas! Please!), no true Indian world class programmes, not even a proper comedy show!

Of course you might think that expecting a Top Gear or a Lost here in India would be a tall order but frankly, considering the amount of money spent on those zoom-in zoom-out types all 365 days, I think its very much possible. Why cant we have a Lost here? Why not a House? Why not? Honestly why not? Why does the youth of this country have to turn to the US/UK series to satisfy their hunger for top class watchable programmes? Like a lot of things I dont understand (fail to fathom), the reason of this lack of proper good, quality stuff on Indian stuff is beyond my comprehension.

Top apps for N97 (Mini)

Image by Michele Ficara Manganelli via Flickr

Lets face it, the Ovi Store isnt really a huge repository of apps and most of the apps are well, unusable (read intolerable).

However fortunately there are a few apps which are worth downloading and trying out. I will list them according to my preference (why? Well coz its MY blog and I get to write whatever I want thats why!):

1. Gravity - Well you knew this was going to be the first one didnt you? Frankly Gravity is kind of THE app at the Ovi Store. The twitter cum facebook cum Rss reader cum much more is well and truly the one app which is a must buy if you're on the N97/Mini. The interface is unlike any other and fortunately isnt a memory hog. Hence its perfectly possible to listen to soothing music whil you're tweeting away! To cut the long story short, this is a must download.

2. SPB Mobile Shell - This software transforms the look of your boring N97 into something quite classy and sleek. The look does resemble Android and is not reallty that difficult to use. Okay yeah, it does take some time to get used to but overall this is quite an awesome piece of software totally worthy of its steep price tag. Symbian was never renowned for its looks and this software makes it easier for you to tolerate the boring UI of Symbian by forming a completely different layer. Highly recommended.

3. Raging Thunder - Asphalt 4 for Symbian's touchscreen devices isnt really a good experience. However this game more than makes up for it. Raging Thunder is a car racing game and it uses the built in accelerometer of the devices. That way, this game is quite unique. Also, the price tag is what makes this even more attractive. Completely and whole heartedly recommended.

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.

May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss - my review

Arnab Roy (aka Greatbong) is a well known face in the blogsphere. His blog has won numerous awards and has been hailed 'blog of the year' twice. Now I'll be frank with you here, I was never really a fan of his blog. Never cared to subscribe.

But when the guy came up with a full fledged book, one just could not ignore him any further. Also for around 200 bucks, one couldnt really call it an expensive buy. Hence I got hold of it and gave it a read.

What did I make of it? Well honestly, the book is definitely worth a read. Definitely. Arnab has humour in his kitty and he uses that to his advantage. His writing style is casual and even though it may not be a literary work of the highest standard, it surely is something which one will treasure. While going through the first few chapters, I did feel that this was written primarily with the NRI readers in mind. But as I delved deeper I realised that it could be just as true for any Indian in any part of India. Flair is something Arnab has been gifted with and that confidence and flair shows in every page of every chapter of the book. Its not a novel as the author clearly explains. Its more of a 3rd person's view of the 80s and the 90s.

Although I found it quite readable, all the chapters werent of the same standard and my interest fluctuated wildly till I read half the pages (at which point I realised that I couldnt just throw the book away). But inspite of all that I would like to congratulate Arnab for a truly great debut. May we see much more of him in the future.