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.
-
by Adam Z. Lein | December 10, 2012 3:46 PMEverybody has a cloud-based service for music these days, but they're certainly not all equal and they all have many different features. Xbox Music Pass, is Microsoft's rebrand of their old Zune Music Pass cloud music service that's been around since about 2007. The new service is mostly the same, except a few old features have been removed, but a few new features have been added. Xbox Music Pass includes a lot of features, many of which should compete nicely with other popular cloud music services. Let's take a look at how it compares. Unlimited Streaming/Downloads vs. Spotify ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | December 6, 2012 8:30 AMWe were very impressed with the wireless charging dock when we first used the original Palm Pre in 2009, and now that a real wireless charging standard has started showing up in numerous smartphones these days, it's time to look ahead towards the future a little bit. Sure, being able to simply set your phone down on a charging plate at the end of the day to let it recharge its battery over night is a pretty excellent feature. It's especially convenient if you're still using your phone in bed with the lights out since you can build motor memory for the "charging spot" location and set ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | December 5, 2012 8:15 AMNokia recently released a new app for their Windows Phones that does something surprisingly innovative. Load up Photobeamer on your phone and select a photo in one of your albums stored on your phone. It doesn't work with cloud-based photo albums, but that's okay. After you select a photo, it will switch to QR code scanning mode using the phone's camera. On the screen that you want to display your photos, all you have to do is load www.photobeamer.com. That web site will generate a QR code image on the screen. Point the QR code scanner at the QR code on the screen you want to display your ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | December 3, 2012 9:00 PMMicrosoft released a new app for Android users last week called Oultook.com, which is essentially a separate email app designed specifically for Microsoft's Outlook.com free email service. Of course it also works with MSN.com, Hotmail.com, and Live.com emails as all of those are now part of the Outlook.com service. For the most part, this app is just a rebranding of the Hotmail app that was previously available for Android. The icons and logos have changed and it has added support for Outlook.com email addresses, but you won't find any special features from the web browser version of ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 28, 2012 12:37 PMWindows Phone 8 (codenamed Apollo) was just let loose this month, but we're already hearing rumors of an update for a possible release early next year codenamed Apollo Plus. Personally I think it should be called Apollo II, but anyway, we talked a lot about what's new and what's been broken in our full Windows Phone 8 review, so let's take a minute to think about what we're hoping to see fixed or added in this rumored Apollo Plus upgrade. I'll start, but don't forget to add your own wish list in the comments at the bottom. 1. Fix Buggy 3rd Party App APIs With Windows Phone 8, Microsoft ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 27, 2012 8:33 AMMany people are confused and frustrated with the Windows 8 user interface in that there's a muddy duality to the operating system. Some parts are obviously Metro style and require a new specific user interface that's not immediately obvious, while other parts are reminiscent of the Windows 7 desktop interface. Maybe it will make more sense if you look at it from a different perspective. On one hand, the new UI is designed for much more efficient interaction since it uses the "four corners" principal which adheres to "Fitt's Law"; The time to acquire a target is a function of the ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 20, 2012 11:25 AMThere's been more news this week about the annoyances of Xbox Video movies and TV shows not being able to play on Windows Phone 8 devices. We complained about this originally in our Windows Phone 8 review back in October when Windows Phone 8 was first announced. The new Windows Phone 8 sync/transfer utilities are really pathetic compared to many of the other tools Microsoft had released in the past. Well, guess what? With Windows Phone 8, some of those sync tools from the past are now functional again! We already looked at the best way to sync music to Windows Phone 8, which was to ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 19, 2012 11:42 AMNokia City Lens is one of Nokia's custom apps that they tend to brag about pretty frequently, and it certainly is something you don't see too much of, but how well does it work in real life? I took a walk through New York City while holding a camera to my face and a Lumia 920 out in front of that in order to find out. Yes, I got some strange looks from other people on the street, and holding a phone up like that even without holding a DSLR behind it is going to make you look like a tourist. Still, City Lens was often pretty good at pointing out the direction of certain points of interest. ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 15, 2012 11:40 AMIt's not too often that a smartphone comes along with as many innovative features packed into it as what we're expecting from the Nokia Lumia 920. The last time we saw such a significant departure from the normal progression of technological advancement was, in my opinion, the HTC Kaiser from 2007. That device didn't change the world for anyone other than the mobile power users of the time, but things are different now. Nokia's Lumia 920 packs in quite a few high-end innovations that could very well appeal to the average user. Before we dig into this very highly anticipated and long ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 13, 2012 11:53 AMHTC's and Nokia's flagship Windows Phones for the holiday season were just released last week. Samsung has one coming a bit later, but right now the Nokia Lumia 920 and Windows Phone 8X by HTC are the two top of the line Windows Phone 8 devices available... and they are very different in many ways. First off there is a significant size and weight difference. The Lumia 920 is heavier and thicker and wider and has a larger physical screen size. They both have dual core 1.5Ghz processors, but according to the benchmarks, the Lumia 920 is a little faster. The screens are very different ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 8, 2012 7:47 AMWhat Rovio calls the best Angry Birds game ever has just been released for Windows Phone 8, Android, iOS, and Windows PCs. Rovio isn't acknowledging the Windows Phone version on their website, but we were easily able to find it in the Windows Phone 8 store. Of course, this is a new theme which brings Star Wars style Angry Birds characters to locations like Tatooine, the Death Star, and Hoth (coming soon in an update). There are a few new things, too. You'll be able to use lightsabers, blasters and Jedi powers to fight the Imperial Pigs. You can also level up your birds to ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 7, 2012 12:23 PMOne of the things that was great about Windows Mobile back in 2003 was the Voice Command integration that allowed you to press a button on your Bluetooth car kit or headset and tell it to play specific music that was on your device. Somewhere along the line Microsoft lost those very-advanced speech interface capabilities from a decade ago. Thankfully, with Windows Phone 8, Microsoft made a full speech user interface platform that 3rd party developers can plug into and today we're going to take a look at a 3rd party app called "Hey DJ" which brings voice control of music playback back ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 6, 2012 6:39 PMOur first look at the new Windows Phone 8 operating system came courtesy of an early version of the Windows Phone 8X by HTC. If you're really interested in hearing more about the Windows Phone 8 operating system that runs on this device, be sure to check out our full Windows Phone 8 review. Meanwhile, in this review we'll take a closer look at what's unique about HTC's Windows Phone 8X hardware,as well as some of its software customizations that will add to Windows Phone 8. Read on for our full review of the Windows Phone 8X by HTC! Video Review · Specs · Hardware · Software · ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 5, 2012 8:55 AMIf you saw our full Windows Phone 8 review, you may have noticed the part about the new Windows Phone 8 sync utilities. Windows Phone no longer uses Zune for syncing media and the new sync programs are probably the most pathetic mobile device syncing utilities that Microsoft has ever made. They don't even sync content, they just transfer it. There's no conversion options for saving mobile storage space, there's not automatic playlist sync or automatic anything. You can't sort individual songs by anything useful like "date added" or genre or DRM protected status. You can't set ...
-
by Adam Z. Lein | November 1, 2012 12:28 PMWhile everybody loved Windows 7 on the desktop and it was the best-selling operating system of all time, it really wasn't so great for any of the new human-computer-interaction methods that are quickly becoming popular. Things like touch screens, 3D gesture interaction (Microsoft Kinect), and voice recognition just don't work well with the old style graphical user interface designs that Windows and Mac OS have long been made for. That's where Windows 8 comes in, but it still needs to work well with the sort of interaction methods that people are used to; there have been some changes ...