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by Taylor Martin | June 5, 2013 4:20 PMRead OnInterface design on mobile platforms has undergone some massive improvements and countless changes since the beginning of smartphones. Mobile operating systems in the BlackBerry era were heavily engineered and barely had the warm touch of a designer well-versed in user experience, if at all. It had a hint of an "Oh, that looks good … let's use that!" feel. Icons weren't a uniform size, nor did they have any sort of theme. The BlackBerry Settings app was nothing but a stark, bare text list of settings that stretched several pages deep. To say it was convoluted is putting it lightly. In ...
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by Stephen Schenck | June 5, 2013 3:43 PMRead OnThe history of the iPhone has always been closely linked to Apple's relationships with carriers. What started off (in the US, at least) as an AT&T exclusive has since seen deals struck with more and more carriers until finally this year, the iPhone has a home with all the big guys. Clearly, Apple has a comfortable working relationship with all these companies. But is it maybe just a little too chummy, and could be favoring the carriers at the expense of Apple's own customers? That's the accusation we're looking at today, with claims that Apple is going above and beyond to help carriers ...
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by Jaime Rivera | June 4, 2013 7:00 PMRead OnWatch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about Toshiba's new line-up of tablets and why these don't really move the dot for the company in their mobile endeavors. Then we talk about Intel as the company has landed two new mobile processors and has even won Samsung as a customer with the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1. We look at the smartphone market share statistics and notice the supremacy of Android, the growth of iOS and Windows Phone and the decline of BlackBerry. HTC is next as we talk about their dramatic increase in revenue for May and also the price increase of the HTC One. We end today's show ...
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by Anton D. Nagy | June 4, 2013 2:39 AM
Read OnThe latest smartphone OS marketshare numbers are in from Kantar and they refer to the three-month period that ended in April 2013. Google's Android is still leading the chart of OS percentage share of smartphone sales, with its 51.7%, up from 50.3% in the same period ending in April last year. However, it's growth is much slower than the one at which iOS is trending, up from 39.1% last year to 41.4% this April. Last year the gap between the two was 11.2% and this April it is down to 10.3%; not a spectacular decrease, but a steady trend, at least in the US. There is also good news for ...
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by Jaime Rivera | June 3, 2013 5:45 PMRead OnYou know, every time that people criticize Apple for just launching one smartphone every year, I find the biggest argument to be funny. According to many, one size doesn't fit all, and in a way, even though that argument is correct, that doesn't mean that Apple is the only one following that mentality. See, Apple launches just one phone and that device will be their flagship for the rest of the year. In a similar way, Samsung, HTC, Sony and others launch one flagship to compete as well. Different companies make all of these phones, with different a design and software approaches, but they ...
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by Stephen Schenck | June 3, 2013 5:26 PMRead OnAs far as Apple's mobile lineup is concerned, the announcement of iOS 7 is likely to be the big news at next week's WWDC. Rumors have attempted to describe just what we can expect to change, and by far the Jonathan-Ive-led effort to rehash the platform's look sounds like it will have the greatest impact. We've talked about how that could lead to new looks for certain apps, and how it might play up colors to differentiate between them, while at the same time helping to unify the iOS design language. One change in particular we mentioned was the possibility for some new icons for system ...
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by Stephen Schenck | June 3, 2013 4:50 PMRead OnIt happens to the best of us: we tend to our phones with kid gloves, wrap them up in protective cases, and handle them with the utmost of care, only to one day slip up and instantly reduce our treasured smartphone to a shattered mess. Some people buy insurance to help with the cost of repairs or replacement. Others take a more DIY approach and order a new screen to pop-in themselves. If you're an Apple user, any sort of issue with your phone can mean a trip down to the company's nearest retail location, where the Geniuses will be more than happy to help get you back on your feet. In the ...
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by Stephen Schenck | June 3, 2013 12:38 PMRead OnIs Apple going to debut a new streaming music service at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference? Could the so-called iRadio really be about to launch? The timing sure seems right, with Google just going public with its own All Access system, but rumors from just a couple weeks back made it seem like Apple just couldn't work out the licensing arrangements it needed with the major publishers, and iRadio might not be ready to go live. With the clock until WWDC 2013 ticking down, there's some late-in-the-game news that suggests Apple might just be scurrying to get iRadio off the ground in ...
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by Taylor Martin | June 3, 2013 11:48 AMRead OnWhen Verizon launched the HTC ThunderBolt, I was first in line at my local corporate store. Okay, I may have been the only person in line. And I was the only customer the representatives didn't want to help. I wasn't there to upgrade a line, just to purchase new hardware at retail value. After some convincing, I walked out less roughly $670 and one of the first consumers in the nation to put Verizon's brand new LTE network to the test. My mind was immediately blown at how fast the speeds were. I had been used to only 3G speeds on Verizon, where speed tests would max out around 3Mbps down ...
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by Taylor Martin | May 31, 2013 7:19 PMRead OnIf I were prone to beating dead horses, I'm sure I could hammer out a handful of wordy editorials about how iOS is boring, dated, and in dire need of a face-lift. But I don't like beating anything, especially not something as futile and helpless as a horse that's already dead. Let's look at the situation from another perspective for a minute, shall we? It's no secret. The interface has grown very long in the tooth and reeks of UI design of years past. In regards to iOS, there's little to get excited over anymore. That's evidenced by the fact that despite nearing one million applications in ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 30, 2013 12:59 PMRead OnEarlier this month, Google introduced Google Play All Access during its I/O 2013 keynote. The service gives users the opportunity to access both custom streaming radio stations and on-demand track playback for about $10 a month - $8 if you get you subscription going before the end of June. That was cool if you were an Android user or just wanted to access the music over the web, but what about native support for other platforms? We've seen third-party work-arounds (really just dressing-up the web-based All Access) but so far nothing from Google itself. Well, after dropping the Nexus ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 30, 2013 10:57 AMRead OnDespite what some rumors might have you believe, tossing around claims of all number of new iPhone or iPad models, we haven't really been expecting any product announcements from Apple in the immediate future. Sure, there's a chance we'll learn of something once we get into the summer, but as for the next few weeks – including WWDC 2013 – we wouldn't have bet on anything. That's why we're a little surprised to hear of a new entry in Apple's lineup this morning. No, we're not dealing with anything so important as a new iPhone, but instead a new version of the iPod touch. Up until now, ...
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by Taylor Martin | May 30, 2013 7:01 AMRead OnEveryone has their own idea of what "perfect" means. What I, personally, see as the perfect device may be a hunk of useless junk to the next guy. And every existing smartphone – and any other device or product, for that matter – comes with its own set of flaws, large or small. So the term "perfect" in a broad, general sense is virtually impossible. It's very unlikely for a company to deliver one product that not one person has a single complaint about. It's also unlikely that everyone can and will agree on that same product being great. One person might not like the way it looks, ...
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by Taylor Martin | May 29, 2013 6:58 PMRead OnWe have certainly attained high standards over the years. We've transgressed beyond astronomical standards and now expect above and beyond from every product, a surplus of features we'll never need, overkill. We all are very spoiled. Take the HTC First, for example. Most laughed at the thought of a phone that came pre-loaded with Facebook Home. No, it didn't have the best specifications possible. No, it was not a flagship. Never mind the fact it was almost exactly what every purist had been begging for all along – a stock Android phone with little to no bloat. Yet just weeks into its ...
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by Stephen Schenck | May 29, 2013 1:08 PMRead OnIt's been clear lately that something new was coming for Gmail. Screenshots shown at Google I/O seemed to reveal a new look for the Android app, and rumors suggested that an announcement of an update could be just about to arrive. Sure enough, Google's come through with news of a big Gmail refresh, only it's not exactly what we were expecting. Indeed, today's news is a bit more broad than just a new look for the Android app. Google is introducing a new way to do inboxes, splitting your messages up into inboxes that group them by type: one for social networking, one for promotional ...
Posts tagged with: iOS