Mobile phones & tablets thread

I thought that more people would back up their smartphones. I back mine up on a semi regular basis but this is mostly in preparation for rebuilds due to TomTom app updates. Apart from TomTom related rebuilds I've only been forced to reload a back up once which was about a month ago. I changed a password for something on my pc and the related app on my phone didn't like it one bit and caused an error. :s Having said that the only piece of information that I missed was a text message telling me the details of an ex work colleagues leaving do and was easily solved by ringing them up and asking them for the details again. :) Maybe I should download Dave text message backup app. :)

Amid all the hype about the cloud, have we all missed this great new advance?

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Mail

Your inbox is about to receive some great new features. Format text using bold, italic, or underlined fonts.

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Apple - iOS 5 - See new features included in iOS 5.

Wow. My Desire is going straight on eBay. Hell, in the bin. I simply must have an iPhone just for this! Bold text in emails... whatever will they think of next? All hail King Jobs!

:p

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Originally Posted by Dave B

The partnership with Microsoft could yet save their bacon but there are no devices available yet, meanwhile nobody will develop for Symbian or buy the hardware because everybody knows it's being abandoned.

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Yep. I guess I can understand why Nokia want to wait till Mango till Q4 2001 as is now rumoured but they're going to by losing money rather badly in the meantime.

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Originally Posted by Dave B

Amid all the hype about the cloud, have we all missed this great new advance?


Apple - iOS 5 - See new features included in iOS 5.

Wow. My Desire is going straight on eBay. Hell, in the bin. I simply must have an iPhone just for this! Bold text in emails... whatever will they think of next? All hail King Jobs!

:p

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Can you list my WP7 along with it? I simply much have an iPhone also, with all the technological advances we're seeing I doubt my phone would be worth enough to justify paying the listing fee!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by barryfullalove

However as it's Apple no doubt it will turn out to be extremely limited and they won't let anyone with MS software use it...and you'll only be able to use it on the 5th Tuesday of the month.....when you're wearing a hat at a jaunty angle.

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Not quite, but I won't be getting iCloud. iOS5 won't be coming to my crusty old 3G so that means no cloud for me, back to thinking about whether Spotify is actually worth it.

Can't wait until Autumn now. Dave and Daniel should expect to be sent thousands of spam emails from iPhones where people have set the signiture to sent from my iPhone in bold font. :p ;)

Call me silly, but I don't really feel the cloud is as useful as it's being cracked up to be in terms of use on a mobile device. Whether it's an iCloud, a Cloudroid cloud or a Windows Phone Cloud. Things like contacts, OK I can see the point in that. But music? Files? How annoying is it going to be to try and listen to music over 3g? I can understand for instance, Jan Yeo finding it useful to use it between work at home where there is a certain level of guaranteed bandwidth, however most good IT departments will block that sort of service for good reasons :)

The main problem with all data hungry smartphones is getting a signal! It's fine if you're in a city centre or you've got a wifi signal. But IME much of the time you're struggling for any data signal at all, so the idea of viewing photos etc online isn't going to be a good experience.

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Originally Posted by Mark

The main problem with all data hungry smartphones is getting a signal! It's fine if you're in a city centre or you've got a wifi signal. But IME much of the time you're struggling for any data signal at all, so the idea of viewing photos etc online isn't going to be a good experience.

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Exactly. Even in city centres the coverage can be patchy. Then again I am with Three :D

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Exactly. Even in city centres the coverage can be patchy. Then again I am with Three :D

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I can sympathise: I'm with O2 and switching to them was a huge mistake. Their data service is truly dreadful.

But T-Mobile and Vodafone are also poor in my experience. So I think we can conclude they all suck!

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Originally Posted by Dave B

I can sympathise: I'm with O2 and switching to them was a huge mistake. Their data service is truly dreadful.

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Oh and another thing which i meant to post before..... I remember your facebook post from last month complaining that you had NO signal with O2 at all for a time..... When that happens your data can't be accessed at all :mark:

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Originally Posted by Dave B

Amid all the hype about the cloud, have we all missed this great new advance?


Apple - iOS 5 - See new features included in iOS 5.

Wow. My Desire is going straight on eBay. Hell, in the bin. I simply must have an iPhone just for this! Bold text in emails... whatever will they think of next? All hail King Jobs!

:p

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:up: :D

Just out of interest, how many people here have experience of developing software?

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Originally Posted by Andrewmcm

Just out of interest, how many people here have experience of developing software?

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Not directly. But I did work alongside a team of developers, supporting and testing their application.

Andrew, do you not agree that more or less all of the features announced in iOS 5 have been done before?

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Have a look at this and tell me that the Bing visual search isn't cool :) Jump to about 3:30 and I think the biggest iOS or Android fan will admit that it's a pretty cool feature.

[youtube]OP30F3ZxTmw[/youtube]

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This is one of those things that will be as good as it is developed and fine tuned. If you can take a photo of a car and identify make, type, year, etc it might be great. But if it's only as good as the example they show it will IMO be only technology for the sake of saving a few key strokes.

You have a book. You photograph the book to find out where to get the book. It would seem to me you could either ask the owner of the book, or avoid photographing it in the book store. And even without the search you could snap a photo and easily look it up when you want.

As for the whole Cloud thing I don't see the upside much myself. It's a time and bandwidth burner mostly against for the sake of technology. Why stream music when you can just have it available without streaming it?

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Originally Posted by airshifter

This is one of those things that will be as good as it is developed and fine tuned. If you can take a photo of a car and identify make, type, year, etc it might be great. But if it's only as good as the example they show it will IMO be only technology for the sake of saving a few key strokes.

You have a book. You photograph the book to find out where to get the book. It would seem to me you could either ask the owner of the book, or avoid photographing it in the book store. And even without the search you could snap a photo and easily look it up when you want.

As for the whole Cloud thing I don't see the upside much myself. It's a time and bandwidth burner mostly against for the sake of technology. Why stream music when you can just have it available without streaming it?

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Couldn't agree more about the Cloud, at least in terms of mobile useage. For use from home/work I can see the point kinda.

The point they are making about the visual search is that you can not only find where to buy stuff and how much it is, but actually purchase it if that company's app allows you to do so :) This is pretty nifty. I'd love to walk into a shop, see some DVD's I like which are ridiculously priced and while I'm there I could order them from the cheapest site that Bing lists :)

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Originally Posted by airshifter

As for the whole Cloud thing I don't see the upside much myself. It's a time and bandwidth burner mostly against for the sake of technology. Why stream music when you can just have it available without streaming it?

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You mean it would be expensive to stream music and images to mobile phones?
Well, it looks like you have found the reason for the iCloud! I am convinced that mobile service providers don't find it useless at all! :D

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Andrew, do you not agree that more or less all of the features announced in iOS 5 have been done before?

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So what if they have? Apple should implement them as they weren't the first?

On the subject of backups, on the feature list it says
iCloud can be used to backup your phone.

And I do like the OTA updates but you can bet the upgrade from 4 to 5 will still need to be done via USB!

IMO the biggest omission from the iPhone which even early Nokias had is a filestore accessible to all applications.

I find I do the majority of things on the iPhone sitting on the sofa :p . I've thought about getting an iPad but they are rather too big. An XL iPhone would be good :p

I haven't read about all of the features of iOS5 hence I can't really comment on what has and has not been done before.

I do recall Apple getting a lot of stick for no copy-and-paste in one of their previous iOS releases. Then I seem to recall that Windows Phone couldn't do copy-and-paste in its first release either. Perhaps Microsoft shouldn't have included copy-and-paste as it had been done before too.

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Originally Posted by Mark

So what if they have? Apple should implement them as they weren't the first?

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Of course, I'm merely saying this is hardly game changing stuff :)

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Of course, I'm merely saying this is hardly game changing stuff :)

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Apple don't really do game changing, they do slick. As I've said before the main attraction is that it's Easy Learning Centre stuff. A bloke at work got an HTC Desire and I set it up for his e-mails and work wireless; it wasn't difficult but it definitely took me more time than when I first got my iPhone. I know they like to announce them in a 'song & dance' way, but is that really any different to the other technology firms? Look at the fuss that gets created around E3, even though half the time is jazzed up versions of what we've seen before.

I agree with others about Cloud on the move, for most of us it's just not viable/worthwhile, especially with the way that connecting to 3G and listening to music eat the battery on phones. Also in my neck of the woods the areas that you can get 3G are kinda limited. But the Cloud idea in general, implemented properly, could be a great resource. I quite often use e-mails as an alternative to carrying a memory stick (just e-mail something to yourself), but bringing in a bigger capacity for media etc. is a neat little toy. I know that I was annoyed when Amazon released their Cloud and limited it to the US market.

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Originally Posted by barryfullalove

Apple don't really do game changing, they do slick. As I've said before the main attraction is that it's Easy Learning Centre stuff. A bloke at work got an HTC Desire and I set it up for his e-mails and work wireless; it wasn't difficult but it definitely took me more time than when I first got my iPhone. I know they like to announce them in a 'song & dance' way, but is that really any different to the other technology firms? Look at the fuss that gets created around E3, even though half the time is jazzed up versions of what we've seen before.

I agree with others about Cloud on the move, for most of us it's just not viable/worthwhile, especially with the way that connecting to 3G and listening to music eat the battery on phones. Also in my neck of the woods the areas that you can get 3G are kinda limited. But the Cloud idea in general, implemented properly, could be a great resource. I quite often use e-mails as an alternative to carrying a memory stick (just e-mail something to yourself), but bringing in a bigger capacity for media etc. is a neat little toy. I know that I was annoyed when Amazon released their Cloud and limited it to the US market.

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It's EARLY Learning Centre :D Caroline uses the skydrive functionality that comes with having a hotmail account. Personally it's not much use for me.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

It's EARLY Learning Centre :D Caroline uses the skydrive functionality that comes with having a hotmail account. Personally it's not much use for me.

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That's the one, knew it didn't look right but couldn't be arsed to Google it and check :D

iTunes match seems like an interesting feature. For $25 a year it will scan all the music files you have in your library including ripped or even illegally downloaded MP3's, if it then finds a match with a song which is already on iTunes, it effectively marks that as purchased and so you can download it on whatever devices you have. All sounds great until you read that it's USA only!

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Originally Posted by Mark

iTunes match seems like an interesting feature. For $25 a year it will scan all the music files you have in your library including ripped or even illegally downloaded MP3's, if it then finds a match with a song which is already on iTunes, it effectively marks that as purchased and so you can download it on whatever devices you have. All sounds great until you read that it's USA only!

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What a ripoff! So for $25 it downloads music you've already got and syncs it across all your devices? Which you could do yourself quite easily

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Originally Posted by henners88

A chap I work with said this morning that he has 4 ipods and his ipad going off his itunes so his wife and kids can just use the same computer without it getting over complicated and expensive. The problem being with the new update it suggested something he downloaded some while ago by the name of 'Bouncing Boobies' was an option to download on the other devices linked on his itunes. His wife was not too impressed and his 9 year old son and daughter (twins obviously) asking what it was too was rather uncomfortable over the breakfast table. Ooops.

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Wives! :rolleyes:

This ist my first ever post using my new galaxy tab. . :)
it will take time to get used to it.

Cool. Let us know how you get on with it!

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Originally Posted by Mark

Cool. Let us know how you get on with it!

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Better then expected. For now i'm learning to use the various interesting apps and mostly.using it for browsing the web when away from home. Looks and feels great!
Got myself the book cover case,great item though very expensive.

Samsung and HTC are just copying what apple is doing. Ipad , i pod and i phone are the best in the market. I phone display glass is as hard as the helicopter's front glass, it's metal part is as harder as 30 times the plastic. It has the maximum resolution and the best retina display.Playing games is like a live experience.
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Here's a question: How does Windows 7 Starter compare with Windows 7 Home Premium? I ask because there is a netbook at Costco for around $350 with Windows 7 Starter. It is possible to find a better deal elsewhere, but I am waiting till Jan next year to buy a netbook for my next holiday.

Wrong thread.

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Originally Posted by Valve Bounce

Here's a question: How does Windows 7 Starter compare with Windows 7 Home Premium? I ask because there is a netbook at Costco for around $350 with Windows 7 Starter. It is possible to find a better deal elsewhere, but I am waiting till Jan next year to buy a netbook for my next holiday.

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Google

Dey Daniel, thanx! Just what I needed. Will study in more detail after Taggert. :)

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"Devastating" seems to about capture the Research in Motion conference call and the stock market's reaction. While the whole stock planet may have been texting each other over the likelihood of RIM turning in a stuck-pig ugly quarter, the numbers were actually worse than that. Despite repeated markdowns, sales of the Blackberry actually fell for the first time in 6 years. RIM dropped estimates for the current quarter from $1.05 to $0.75 and lowered their outlook for the year from $7.50 to a range of $5.25 - $6.00 (take the under).

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And just today RIMM stock was down an astounding 21%, to close at $27.75. I believe that it was in the mid $40's when we first began talking about this a few weeks ago. Instead of getting angry at journalists (like during the BBC interview back in April), I think that the RIM CEO(s) need to finally accept that they have a very serious problem on their hands. And what's with having co-CEO's anyway? Who does that?! Clearly that "two heads are better than one" approach is not working (anymore).

From: Nokia unveils N9 smartphone | Technology | guardian.co.uk

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Nokia has launched a new smartphone, the N9, which uses its own Meego software, while chief executive Stephen Elop said he has "increased confidence" that the struggling Finnish mobile phone maker will launch its first Windows Phone device this year and ship in volume in 2012.

"Our primary smartphone strategy is to focus on the Windows phone," Elop, who moved to Nokia from Microsoft last year, said at a telecom conference in Singapore. However he provided few details on how he planned to arrest a slide in Nokia's market share.

The N9 is the first – and last – smartphone from Nokia to run Meego.

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Any point?

Who in their right mind is going to buy a device which will have such miniscule support? Meego will be a dead duck, utterly nowhere compared to Android/iOS/RIM/W7. It'll go down in history with Laserdiscs, Philips digital cassettes and the N-Gage.

I despair for Nokia, I really do.

Me thinks it's published for few reasons, first they they spent years on Maemo/Meego and releasing this was a small nod to the developers before they'll all get axed. It's also a technical shocase, a preview what kind of technology the windooze phones could get. Besides, it's probably at least another year before they begin to sell windows phones, something to get publicity is needed.
Elop has made his best to stomp this thing to the ground so it doesn't sell well, it's that good. :)