Posts by Adam Z. Lein
Adam has had interests in combining technology with art since his first use of a Koala pad on an Apple computer. He currently has a day job as a graphic designer, photographer, systems administrator and web developer at a small design firm in Westchester, NY. His love of technology extends to software development companies who have often implemented his ideas for usability and feature enhancements. Mobile computing has become a necessity for Adam since his first Uniden UniPro PC100 in 1998. He has been reviewing and writing about smartphones for Pocketnow.com since they first appeared on the market in 2002.
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by Adam Z. Lein | May 20, 2012 8:04 PMThose who know my work know that I've been a big fan of Windows Phones since I first got my hands on a Samsung Taylor developer prototype. There are a lot of reasons to love Windows Phone, but as you might expect with any technology there can also be some frustrations. In this article we'll talk about a few annoyances about Windows Phone that I personally have been frustrated with, however if you're also a Windows Phone user, we'd love to hear about a few of your frustrations in the comments at the bottom of the page. The first big thing about Windows Phone that frustrates me every day ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | May 18, 2012 8:14 AMChris McDermott, Ben Darvill and Russell Hepton created this concept design artwork and video for a product that works with the Windows Phone system as well as Metro-style tablets to easily link devices to a TV, Projector, etc. and then control the remote display with a phone or tablet. The design was nominated for a D&AD digital design award. Of course these images are just design concepts and explorations that aren't really part of any type of product currently in development however it's still an interesting project and it's certainly good to see skilled designers taking a ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | May 16, 2012 7:06 AMOn May 17th (this Friday), Microsoft will be closing down the Marketplace for Windows Mobile 6.x. This was a pretty short-lived endeavor that made app purchasing and downloading a bit easier on the old Windows Mobile compared to having to manually download installation files, copy them to your device, and install them from there. You could easily access the Windows Mobile Marketplace both from the on-device app as well as the web browser. If you're still using a good old Windows Mobile classic device or think you may want to go back and use one someday, you may want to archive the ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | May 14, 2012 7:30 PMEver since Windows Phone Mango brought a huge amount of features that many were missing from the original release, the general mantra of those unwilling to switch to Windows Phone full time has been "There Aren't Enough Apps". Of course, that's a relative term though and compared to the app library on the iPhone and Android Markets the Windows Phone Marketplace certainly doesn't have quite as high of an app count. But how many is enough? Have you installed and used every single app in the Windows Phone Marketplace? The count is growing faster than the iOS and Android app libraries ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | May 9, 2012 7:51 AMFor many years, most mobile phones came with some sort of hands-free voice dialing interface. Today there are many popular options on smartphones including Apple's very often advertised and fun to use Siri software. Android has numerous options including Google's Voice Actions, and Microsoft has a "TellMe" based speech interface as well. However, those are all just programs that process your voice and then carry out some action. They really just have a few tie-ins to a few other built-in apps and a networked server. You can do web searches or launch third party apps, but that's where the ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | May 8, 2012 8:52 AMWe've seen the Nokia City Lens app demo'd a while back at CES, but now you can actually try it out for yourself. Nokia City Lens Beta is now available on your Nokia Windows Phone if you know how to find it. The app's main feature is its augmented reality lens. After you start the app you'll see a list of subjects to explore such as food or shopping. Then once you select one, you can hold the phone up perpendicular to the ground (in landscape mode) like you would to take a picture. That will activate the augmented reality mode and as you turn it will point out different locations where they ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | May 8, 2012 8:27 AMA tatoo artist company in the UK called "I Ain't No Saint" has started working on some custom paint jobs for the Nokia Lumia 800 and 900. They currently have custom painted battery covers available for the Nokia Lumia 710, but it looks like they're testing some designs for the Lumia 800 and 900 as well. Above you'll see a test of a custom painted Nokia Lumia 900 and below you'll see a Lumia 800. Both are just preliminary designs made as a test for training purposes, but if you really want a custom painted Nokia Windows Phone, you can contact "I Ain't No Saint Paint" through their website. ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | May 2, 2012 5:35 PMWe just got a "Save the Date" email for a Windows Phone Developer Summit that will happen June 20-21 in San Francisco, CA. We can't help but wonder if this may be when Microsoft decides to announce Windows Phone 8 and of course detail all the new bits and API's that developers will need to know in order to make great apps for the next version of Windows Phone. The graphic in the email is obviously a mockup of a fake generic Windows Phone, but we definitely notice a heavier font treatment of the word "apps" in the screen image of the Windows Phone Marketplace there. That's about all we can ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | May 2, 2012 11:29 AMYou may remember seeing Joe Levi's video about using Bluestacks software to run Android apps on a normal Windows 7 PCs and that was very cool, but I thought it would be fun to see how the same software works on a Windows 8 tablet especially since we can expect a number of new Windows 8 tablets to be released later this year. Take a look at the video below to see how it works. Now remember that this is an unfinished beta software program running on an unfinished beta Windows 8 operating system running on an old HP Touchsmart TM2 tablet from before the original iPad was released. The ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | May 1, 2012 10:24 PMThis weeks new Xbox LIVE game has a very exciting new feature that hasn't yet seen much action on Windows Phone 7; real-time multiplayer! PAC-MAN Kart Rally is a racing game similar to any other racing game except you've got PAC-MAN characters along with some power-ups and booster features. The graphics aren't terrific, but I'm actually happy to see touch screen controls for this racing game instead of the usual tilt-controls that so many others tend to use. At first I thought the multiplayer feature would actually work online over Xbox LIVE with any other Xbox LIVE player on the internet. ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | April 30, 2012 7:03 AMIf you look at user reviews for any Windows Phone available today you will be hard pressed to find any with less than a 4 star average rating. The majority of users who buy these phones rate them very highly. Only once in a while you'll find some one that returns a Windows Phone and rates it poorly because it doesn't do something esoteric like Bluetooth file transfer (which may have been useful in 2005) or because they didn't take enough time to learn how to do something. Even though sales of Windows Phones do not come close to other smartphone platforms, we still see an increase in ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | April 28, 2012 2:06 PMWe heard a while back that the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, was lining up for a Nokia Lumia back when it was originally released, and now he lets everyone know what he thinks about it in an interview from aNewDomain. Here are a few good quotes: Just for looks and beauty, I definitely favor the Windows 7 Phone over Android. I'm kinda shocked how every screen is much more beautiful than the same apps on Android and iPhone. I'm just shocked, I haven't seen anything yet that isn't more beautiful than the other platforms. It's more intuitive and beautiful. As far as eyes and visual, the ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | April 26, 2012 9:08 AMThis week, some new upgrades to SkyDrive were revealed just before Google revealed their "Drive" cloud storage service. Many sites gave the Google Drive service a lot more coverage than the SkyDrive upgrade, but most users and commenters were able to realize that SkyDrive is much better than Google Drive, DropBox, and many other cloud services. Sure, there are a few things that it doesn't do as well, and those may be deal-breakers for a few people, but lets start by talking about what it does do well. First off is the pricing. If you had ever used SkyDrive before, you still get the option ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | April 25, 2012 8:46 AMFirst lets talk about what skeuomorphs are. It's a new buzz word used to describe design elements that have no purpose in their current form but are used to give a familiarity to something from the past. Skeuomorph design elements are extremely prevalent in Apple's software designs. In iPhoto for iOS you'll see your photo albums represented as books sitting on shelves with pictures on them. You'll see pictures of paint brushes and pencils to represent editing tools. The iBooks and Newstand apps show your books and subscriptions on wooden shelves. Buttons have bevels and shadows and fake ...
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by Adam Z. Lein | April 23, 2012 4:31 PMA designer and Windows Phone fan by the name of Jonas Dahnert has created some mockups of a Nokia styled device running what he envisions as a possible design for Windows Phone 8. You'll see the new Windows 8 logo as well as new icons for search and back which more closely echo the design style of Windows 8. The designer calls this a Nokia Lumia 920 and his renders are very nicely done. Of course it's all imaginary, but considering Windows 8 does allow for grouping of Live tiles as well as naming of the groups this type of design update to the original Windows Phone 7 start screen ...