Related
Anyone interested
http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/beta/overview.jsp?pvid=nssp1beta
Thanks, I needed a laugh.
I am particularly curios as to how they identify SMS as SPAM (with no subject or formatting to rely on)...
I'd say a few words on the antivirus part too but I don't want to give them any ideas ;-)
Oh almost forgot - it would be a super neat trick to hack in to smartphone via the internet (given utter lack of server components in the OS)!
i never heard about anybody who irl had a virus on their pda
much less of anybody who had a firewall
and yet plenty of people are willing to have both firewalls and virusscanners on their pda's
hope they overclock to make their pdas allmost as fast as if they dident
I read some news article (didn't save the link) about a very "good" spyware app for blackberry.
Not only could it monitor all mail and SMS on the device as well as phone calls but it could also turn on the microphone on without a call to turn the device in to a "bug" (as in surveillance device not the stuff MS software is full of).
One thing I couldn't figure out is how did this super dangerous program (which needed to be installed by user despite being referred to as a "Trojan") transfered all that data back to the source without the user noticing and without interfering with device operation.
How much upstream bandwidth does BB have?
Can it do data and voice at the same time (can it do voice at all?).
Any way I am sure that one of these days we will see a real virus for WM platform (a proof of concept file infection has been developed - that does not work with signed files of course).
But until than - if you have nothing better to do with your phone might as well keep the battery draining with a good antivirus / firewall.
Impressions from HTC Cruise - Windows Mobile
Hello All,
I have been relatively new here, but I thought I could contribute in the forums by posting my (unbiased) views about HTC Cruise here, hoping other people may find them useful. I am a software developer, so although I do not have an experience with hi-tech PDAs and smartphones, (never owned such a device before), I am fine with the technicalities of such devices.
My everyday phone was a simple sony ericson K510i . What had always annoyed me was that in most "simple" phones, it was quite hard to control the phone via my PC, do backups, backup contacts, SMSes, etc. My sony was good, I had found "MYPhoneExplorer" which pretty much did all those things for my phone. The screen was little bit outdated in terms of resolution, but I did not mind much.
And then came iPhone (which I never owned). I was impressed by its design, usability and user friendliness. I also liked the idea of having WiFi on it. I was close to buying that phone and using one of the available tools to unlock it, (noway I would pay for a contract - I am UK based). My brother who is into mobiles and gadgets more than I am, commented on the fact that iPhone is an "old" generation phone in terms of phone technologies and overpriced. I soon realised it was quite overpriced and started looking at alternatives. I was happy to see HTC would release a really cool phone, which I could get as my Christmas gift (yes, dream on, I had my eyes on it since November and managed to get it this February)...
So, what are my impressions so far?
I dare to say, quite mixed...
On the one hand this device is really wicked and cool! It has all the things I had always liked and needed in a single device. Packing a GPS, a radio, 3G, WiFi in a nice package is just amazing. I can now listen to music, watch videos, find my way around using GPS and have a nice PDA. These are really cool things! No need to have my pockets filled with separate devices...
On the other hand, this phone costed me little bit less than 400 pounds. One can argue you can get a laptop for that price, but then again, a laptop is not a phone. The video issues has not been much of an issue for me, I encode my videos at QVGA and all is well. However, I do get *very* upset when I realise that there is hidden potential in the hardware platform which has not been utilised. What I found bad straight from the moment i used it, is that when i press the "phone-call" hard button, there really is a lag when drawing the blue rectangle above the dialpad, (I am talking about the area which shows the names of your contacts as you type the numbers below.) I mean, come on, so much CPU power, and I can see the blue area being drawn? The other things is that if a couple of applications are running, then the phone does not seem to be operating so smoothly. Again, in order to be fair, it is still very usable. However, as things stand now in the market, in terms of specifications this phone is easily on the upper part, so in my opinion it should be fast, not just "very usable".
My other bit of criticism is probably related to Windows rather than HTC cruise. I find this OS quite interesting on the device, there is a huge applications' base and the things that are missing can be coded by talented people. However, I find the platform a little bit of a pain to use in a pure phone context. Why do i have to check an option everytime I want to get back a delivery report for my SMS? Why do I have to hack the registry to make this permanent? I set a wallpaper in my phone, then I set its transparency, then I realise it is hidden by the today plugin, which I can of course disable. If I disable it I loose certain features which are accessible straight away. I can of course get a new plugin that matchs my needs. Why is it so hard to have tabs with incoming/outgoing/missed calls? This is a feature that phones that cost 10 times less have. Of course Windows 6.1 has this, but then I would have to "install" a new ROM. Simple question: Why do I have to do these things? Why dont' they get it right from the beginning? Don't get me wrong, I am a technology enthusiast and I am sure I will manage to set up the phone the way I want. A number of users out there will do the same thing. However, is this platform one that non-enthusiasts would find user-friendly?
Look at all those skins and modding. Really cool. And the moment you press a button on your really cool new Today plugin, an ungly Windows application will pop up.
I hope that my criticism will be received well here! I like the phone, Windows is cool on it, but I think Microsoft has quite some way to go in order to make their platform really simple to use and user-friendly (think iPhone for example, my parents could use that, but I am quite sure if I show them my phone, they will not know how to make a a phonecall with it!)
In many ways some requirements are contradictory: Being user-friendly means you may have to hide settings, having your platform run on a variety of hardware means you cut corners here and there. Hopefully Microsoft will get it right with version 7 and 8, screenshots look quite good.
As for HTC... They lost a little bit of their credibility with a couple of issues for me. First the sound issue with the french rom which was initially denied and then fixed by people in this forum, then of course the drivers issue. I intend to make good use of this cool phone and customise it to my needs, it just takes time.
For your information, I find these applications useful:
Coreplayer (obviously!)
TouchPal keyboard works good for me
WKTask (and get rid off that default task switcher)
MyMobiler installs on your PC and a little "daemon-service" on your phone, (which you can disable). Then it allows you to control your phone from your desktop.
PocketCM did not particularly appeal to me, so I removed it
FunContact was cool, and loved it. Unfortunately, two things were not so good:
a) Splash screen and loading time
b) sometimes it made my phone freeze
Thanks for reading this (long) post,
Michael
Good post...Here are my impressions as well.
I used to carry a Palm Tx and a Motorala SLVR. I have been looking for the most ideal device to "do it all", PDA, phone (quad band gsm, tri band umts), wifi, and gps. There was nothing realy that appealing on the market until I read about the HTC Touch Cruise.
I read about people's complaints about the "driver" issues and hardware acceleration, and decided to take the risk and bought the phone from a gsm seller online. The phone was unbranded and did not have any stupid carrier proprietary software.
For the most part, I am very happy with the Touch Cruise. I have dumped the palm pda and the slvr, and have not looked back.
I just spent the last 2 weeks traveling to UK (London), Germany (Frankfurt), and Italy (Padova). As a mobile phone, the Touch Cruise functioned flawlessly and had 3G connections where they were available. Couldn't have asked for better features out of a "world" phone.
The TomTom GPS also ran quite well (Western Europe maps). Had to drive alot in Frankfurt and never got lost. Even traffic reports were right on the money.
As for a PDA, it blows the Palm syncing and calendar features out of the water. I used to be a Palm pilot only person, but Palm has become a dinasaur in their attutude to features and interface. The pocket pc has in my opinion surpassed them.
As a portable media device, it does kind of ok . Core Media Player is a must install, microsoft's media players still suck and are not usable and dont support all codecs. This device is not really ideal for video in my opinion. You have to re-encode videos to QVGA for ppc level quality, then video will play fine. You cant simply take a wmv file and dump it on the device to view, it wont work. As for music/mp3's, it works great. I got on a 10 hour flight from UK to US, and used it play music and games, and still had 40% battery charge left over and used an hour of GPS on the way home, with 20% left over.
In all fairness, the HTC could run a little faster, but I blame Microsoft and HTC for hogging up the cpu and not using hardware acceleration.
Since media (video) is not high on my list of required features, I am quite happy with the HTC Touch Cruise.
darkazally, I tend to agree with you really...
I guess if one did not have such a device before or had a really old one, then HTC Cruise is really super. On the other hand I can see certain people's frustration with Cruise. It is mostly people who owned 3 or 4 PDAs before and were probably expecting to be blown away by its specs; I kind of sypathise with them....
I read in an article written by someone at Microsoft, that companies tend to overload Windows with their own propriatory software and then the whole experience goes downwards. He mentioned that for the next versions of windows mobile, they intend to post stricter requirements just because of this situation.
As I also read in these forums, people who got their devices from O2 (just to mention a single company), seem to have more issues with HTC's performance...
I enjoy using the phone everyday and I am in the process of customising it to my needs, though it takes some time!
Uhhh mymobiler is amazing thanks for posting that! That is frickin sweet!
Great review, I tend to agree.
As far as PIM Management, I came from using two devices, a slim panasonic phone and a Xircom Rex 6000 PDA in the early part of this decade (circa 2001), like you I converged them into a Sony Ericsson phone (T610>T616) which had limited capabilities and lacked a lot of features my Rex had. In 2006, I got my first Windows Mobile smartphone, a Qtek 8310 (HTC Tornado), and now I have the HTC Touch Cruise.
Ever since getting into Windows Mobile, I thought that HTC/Microsoft had delivered great functionality, but poor usability and way too much lag for such high powered devices. Take for instance the settings panel. There are probably over 8 programs (4+networking icons, 3+ button config icons, ect) in there that only have one check box, when I'm sure HTC/Microsoft could very easily put them into one or two easy to use program with a Help feature.
But at the end of the day, I don't care if no one can use my device as long as I understand it. Additional consolation is provided in the fact that this phone looks so damned sexy
My Own impression
First of all, I'm new here & let me introduce my self...
I'm Richard & i'm from Indonesia.
I've waited for +3 months, before I decided to buy HTC Touch Cruise.
My other candidate are Atom Life & Nokia N82.
Soon (2 days) after my pal (who own a PDA shop) introduce me to Touch Cruise, I bought it
First impression is luxury.
Second impression........Windows Mobile sucks......
I have done hard reset for 4 times now....due to mis configure the registry....
I've done quite intensive test on my Touch Cruise, including Video,Audio,GPS,3G & Internet,Battery life & Applications.
This is my score (0-10):
1. Stability : 3 -> Typical Windows product
2. Looks : 9
3. Dimension : 8
4. Features : 8
5. Usability : 8
6. User Friendliness : 6
7. Battery Life : 7
Average score : 7
The Driver issue doesn't bothered me yet, so I'm very pleased with my new Touch Cruise
NOTE:
FYI,try not to uninstall anything from your TC.
Microsoft Windows product tends to leave "garbage" into the Registry & it will slow down your TC.
Choose wisely before installing & if you have to uninstall,search & delete any leftover inside the registry.
d4rkkn16ht said:
1. Stability : 3 -> Typical Windows product
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's wrong with stability? I'd have to agree that it is probably not the best device overall, but I didn't have a single stability issue with it. Maybe, you've got a defective one?
You know, there are certain lag things that I don't think are due to video drivers. I mentioned this in another thread "Why the lag" but I used to have a Cingular 8525 and supposedly that device had video drivers. It still lagged with a phone skin when you hit the phone button. Rotating the screen was still slow. I hate little things that lag like that. it should be smooth navigation / interface.
The device doesn't have a cohesive feel to it when we have to customize the **** out of it to get it to work the way we want to. You're right when we make a today screen look good then all the underlying apps are ugly windows apps. Your transparency issue, that can only be done from within the Windows picture viewer not the HTC photo viewer. You need to install your own video player. The HTC video browser app only shows videos with certain extensions. It's like you have to have a specific app for every little thing and then it feels like there isn't a streamlined feel to the device.
I gotta give credit to HTC for trying to improve the interface with their apps, the Windows interface is archaic. It's just the combo of the 2 doesn't allow for a polished interface.
hambola said:
The device doesn't have a cohesive feel to it when we have to customize the **** out of it to get it to work the way we want to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the other hand, thanks to HTC for a platform that allows us to do so and even greater kudos to all the xda-developer wizards who make it possible (and relatively easy for the most part).
Not enough can be said for xda. Although I'm a new poster I've been reading these forums for about a year now. Helped me out greatly with the 8525 and is proving to be helpful with the Cruise.
>You're right when we make a today screen look good then all the underlying apps are ugly windows apps.
I am happy we agree on this, I just wish it had a little bit of the Apple touch on it, that's all....
>Your transparency issue, that can only be done from within the Windows picture viewer not the HTC photo viewer.
All I wanted is a kind of minimal interface, so I can set my own wallpaper and not have it hidden by the huge HTC today plug-in. I have installed spb shell for a couple of weeks now and it looks great. I also discovered the HTC Home Customiser which looks cool, so, that's nice too.
>You need to install your own video player...
I think HTC should actually write a very generous paycheck for the people that developed CorePlayer. Without that one, Cruise would be a *little* bit of a disaster.
Overall I guess Windows is a versatile OS with lots and lots of space of customisation and at the end you do get it right, it just takes a lot of patience and resets to get there...
rev3nant said:
What's wrong with stability? I'd have to agree that it is probably not the best device overall, but I didn't have a single stability issue with it. Maybe, you've got a defective one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After some intensive test, I found some irritating bug that caused stability issues.
Quick Menu sometimes disappeared after running several applications.
System Hang at random cause.
Some system settings cannot be changed even if you've already change it.
Redundancy in Registry Entry that can cause stability issues if you change the entry. (not considered a bug if you don't change it)
and some other (not quite sure yet...)
Have you tried a different ROM?
I can’t say I’ve been lazy in the last few days. Thanks to the excellent feedback the XDA-Develeloper folks provided, I realized I need to check out XDA-Develeloper coder A_C’s latest, pretty nice and, if you’re a big fan of iPhone-alike interfaces, pretty much recommended, free (!) utilities.
Non-iPhone platforms (including both the operating system – see HTC’s latest Diamond* have been trying to copy the way iPhone works and is used. For example, Symbian also has a similar tool HERE.
*: As far as the, well, built-in storage- and GUI responsiveness-wise, to put it mildly, not really convincing HTC Touch Diamond (which is all the rage today in the Windows Mobile world) is concerned, before I publish a full story on it, read the comments, including mine, HERE. They’re really worth checking out to see what the tech geeks think of the Diamond’s inherent problems – as opposed to what many sites state in their HTC Diamond announcement reports. You’ll see why the “4GB of built-in memory is more than enough for everything you can think of and you certainly don’t need storage cards to extend it” approach of HTC is pretty much flawed. The Diamond should either come with 16GB flash memory at least (as is the case with later iPhone models and the Nokia N96) and/or with an additional microSD slot – even if under the battery.
Slide2Play
Let’s start with S2P (Slide2Play), a stylus-free MP3/WMA player application. It simply lets you browse and play your music files. It supports album art but, as of the current version, not much else - for example, not even playlists are supported. The interface is, as with the other apps of the same author, very easy to use with fingers. Of course, because of the lower sensitivity of traditional touchscreens versus the capacitive, glass screen of the iPhone, don’t except anything as easily controllable as on the iPhone, particularly not on devices with screens known for their being overly insensitive; most importantly, the HP iPAQ 210.
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"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
I’ve made some very CPU usage tests with acbTaskMan. BTW, speaking of the latter, a new, 1.4.2 version was released of it in late April, making it possible to chart the power usage on some devices it was previously impossible to do so. Version 1.4 turned out not to support any of the cooked ROM's I've reported on HERE. The new version does - to a certain degree - on the x51v. (Interestingly, the same isn't true with the HTC Universal, which doesn't seem to work under 6.1 any more - not even with 1.4.2.).
As far as background (!) execution is concerned, the figures are pretty OK on a Marvel Xscale-based PXA310 (iPAQ 210): WMA: 12% (as opposed to ~13% with CP 1.2.4), MP3: 16% (as opposed to ~9% with CP 1.2.4). The latter is 32% on a 195 MHz TI OMAP-based HTC Wizard. These figures are in no way different from that of the built-in WMP, the codecs of which SP2 is using. As far as CorePlayer (and other, much better optimized players like iPlay or Resco Audio Recorder) is concerned, it delivers considerably better performance and battery life when playing back MP3’s, though.
As of the current (v0.40) S2P version is concerned, the CPU usage is very large when the GUI is visible. On the iPAQ 210, when it’s in the foreground, it’s around ~45% in all dialog screens. On the Wizard, it’s ~48% (as opposed to the 32% default). That is, try not keeping it in foreground. Note that the same problem exists with the other A_C apps; this can be particularly a problem with the image viewer.
When you use S2P integrated into S2U2 (more on it later):
on the iPAQ 210, I measured about +20% CPU usage with non-(auto)dimmed screen (pretty bad), even with the S2P controls inactive; no excess CPU usage otherwise (with the screen dimmed).
It supports AVRCP, but only for users of the Microsoft BT stack (works OK with my test Pulsar 590). Widcomm users (for example, those of HP iPAQ’s) are left out in cold.
All in all, a decent player if you absolutely need finger-based usage / nice, accelerated scrolling and/or prefer free stuff and don’t mind the player’s being pretty simple (no playlists, streaming, equalizer etc.) Just remember to hide the user interface (by, say, clicking the battery icon in the top right) whenever possible – or just make it dim the screen after the default 17 seconds (just like with S2U2 introduced below).
Slide2Unlock2
S2U2 (Slide2Unlock2) is a simple lock/unlock application which has the iPhone style slide unlocking. It can be used as a screensaver while you don't use your device. Also, it has a CallerID function so that you can see who’s calling, some other phone integration functionality (for example, displaying the number of SMS messages) and a S2P (see above) control plugin.
The following screenshot shows it’s not only able to display the current album art, but also the output of several weather plug-ins / programs:
As with S2P, it’s not compatible with the HTC Universal (running Ranju’s WM6.1 v7.6), not even after the recommended DirectDraw vs. Raw Framebuffer registry hack and independent of the screen mode it’s started in. It, however, is compatible with the other VGA devices (tested on the Dell Axim x51v with WM6.1 from makuu A06 privß06p and the iPAQ 210 with its original firmware). Of course, it has no problems with QVGA ones either.
Note that, after the first resets (S2U2 puts itself in \Windows\Startup), it’ll display an error message. Upon subsequent resets, this problem will go away and S2U2 correctly initialized.
I really recommend this title if you want to have an iPhone-like screensaver with a lot of configuration options, caller ID display and even a plug-in for the S2P player introduced above.
Slide2View
S2V (Slide2View) (current version is 0.35) is a picture viewer with
1) switching between images by “swiping” the screen from left to right (or vice versa)
2) in zoomed mode, cool, accelerated screen scrolling
These are not offered by any other, current, mainstream picture viewer (I’ve, in this respect, tested XnView 1.40, Spb Imageer 1.6, Resco Photo Viewer 2007 v6.33, PQV 4.0.31 and Pocket Artist 3.3 – that is, the most important viewers), including Microsoft’s own Pictures and videos application coming with the operating system, built into ROM. Currently, the only mainstream image viewer with accelerated, iPhone-alike zoomed scrolling is HP’s Photosmart Mobile – at least as of version 2.11.012 coming with the HP iPAQ 210. As far as switching between images is concerned, PocketCM ImageViewer should be mentioned.
(VGA – iPAQ 214 – screenshot showing some (original-sized, 12 Mpixel) shots I’ve taken at MWC in Barcelona)
Taking into account it’s a free app, it’s pretty nice and recommended, again, particularly for iPhone fans. Despite it being free, it's very fast at both displaying thumbnails and reading the entire image for subsequent zooming.
Some of the problems or stumbling blocks you should be aware of:
- as with the other two apps, the additional “busy waiting” CPU usage can be pretty high (~28% on an iPAQ 210), even when just displaying the file list. While this really an issue with the two other apps (which run with the screen dimmed for most of the time – or minimized when run in the background), with a picture viewer, which always displays something in the foreground, the situation is entirely different. If you’re afraid of this, get another image viewer.
- when you try to open a storage card with tons (hundreds) of subdirectories in the root, it doesn’t display anything
- or, even worse, just a black screen. In this case, make sure you open the card with the "ARROW" button next to the folder and not by tapping the folder name. There’s an excellent post showing this HERE. As you can see, there’re two ways of opening a directory.
It also allows for setting the Today screen wallpaper (separate for landscape and portrait orientation) and assigning an image to a contact:
Zoom-in
The app also supports (pretty fast, unlike with, say, the otherwise excellent and free XnView) zooming functionality. It, unlike with PocketCM ImageViewer (more on it later), uses D-pad based zooming-in, only keeping the touchscreen for switching between consecutive images and, when zoomed in, accelerated, iPhone-like scrolling.
With the default settings, it can’t zoom in into large – tested with 12 Mpixel ones – images, not even on large-RAM models (for example, the 128M RAM iPAQ 210), unlike the five most recommended, other titles. The others are all capable of zooming into to at least 50% and, Conduits Pocket Artist 3.3 to 100% if you use an external cache. (Then, it’ll use about 36Mbyte RAM and an additional 6M cache to load a 12Mpixel image.). Then, it just prints a blank - or corrupted - screen - instead of showing an "out of memory" error. The developer stated setting the Registry value MaxZoomLevel to a higher value (from the default) may help. I haven’t tested the effect of this.
Finally, let’s compare it to the already-mentioned PocketCM ImageViewer (current, tested version: 0.4), which also offers “change picture upon swiping” functionality.
1. I’ve found the latter (PocketCM) less compatible (it didn’t even try to list my 12 Mpixel images). I don’t know where the threshold is (2 Mpixels? 4? 8? I haven’t tested this. VGA-resolution JPG’s are found, correctly displayed and zoomed-in).
2. The zoom-in functionality of S2V is far better thought-out (as it’s D-pad based, there’re no accidental zooming in if you don’t press the touchscreen upon swiping firmly enough) with any zoom level (as opposed to the two of PocketCM) with fast zoom-in loading
3. I’ve found PocketCM ImageViewer’s image changing animation much more spectacular (which may be important for an iPhone fan wanting great visuals) than that of S2V
4. PocketCM has the definite advantage in that it has no CPU usage at all, as opposed to the considerable CPU usage (and the consequential power consumption on most CPU architectures) of S2V (even when it’s just idling, displaying an image).
NOTE: This article has been cross-posted to several boards. In order to make all comments, questions and answers reach as many readers as possible, please consider posting your comment both here and on my home Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine blog page at the URL http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=2639&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 . It’s pretty easy: just use the clipboard to quickly copy your post. No registration is necessary to be able to post – just fill in a(ny) (nick)name, paste the body of the text and fill in the anti-spam code field. If you don't have the time, I can replicate your post on my blog so there is one repository for all discussion. Also, feel free to check out the comments from other boards there – also in the Comments section.
Great reviews of the software, however I would disagree with the CPU usage figures. On my Prophet (196MHz TI OMAP 850), the CPU usage rarely goes above 25% (normally sits between 15-20%) playing WMA or MP3 files in S2P. I also think you haven't mentioned one of the biggest features of S2P, the "CoverFlow" functionality. For me, this makes S2P the nicest and most used piece of software on my phone. Whilst other players may play more music, it's a pain to go through the files/albums and S2P is much faster and more intuitive.
Anyway, thanks for the in depth analysis.
I am very glad to see A_C getting some well-deserved attention for this great collection of apps. However, I feel that this "in-depth" review was anything but as you overlooked several major features of the apps, most notably the AlbumView functionality, and seemed to spend more time discussing other apps than those in the S2 family. Maybe it was just me, but the overall tone seemed quite negative while it should be anything but.
Another item that was not mentioned, but should have been, is the fact that A_C has been VERY responsive to feature requests and has been able to regularly make significant improvements in not just one, but all three, applications while responding to forum posts about feature requests, usage questions, etc. I've received much better support from A_C than I have from many developers that charge big $$$ for their software. Meanwhile, A_C provides his apps for free, though many of us have happily donated to help support his work. Thanks again A_C!!!
l3v5y said:
Great reviews of the software, however I would disagree with the CPU usage figures. On my Prophet (196MHz TI OMAP 850), the CPU usage rarely goes above 25% (normally sits between 15-20%) playing WMA or MP3 files in S2P. I also think you haven't mentioned one of the biggest features of S2P, the "CoverFlow" functionality. For me, this makes S2P the nicest and most used piece of software on my phone. Whilst other players may play more music, it's a pain to go through the files/albums and S2P is much faster and more intuitive.
Anyway, thanks for the in depth analysis.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strange you only have 15...25% CPU usage - on my Wizard (the same 195 MHz TI OMAP), it's ~48% (as opposed to the 32% default).
del4 said:
seemed to spend more time discussing other apps than those in the S2 family.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup - I generally write comparative reviews. No apps exist without alternatives - this is why I always write comparative reviews so that the reader knows which app suits his/her needs the best. This is why I've spend so much time on, say, the PocketCM ImageViewer (and, to a lesser degree, XnView - these are two free image viewers) comparison.
Maybe it was just me, but the overall tone seemed quite negative while it should be anything but.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I certainly listed the cons of each app, I still recommended all of them - even the thread title contains "excellent"
BTW, please guys DO consider cross-posting your comments, answers to my blog. It isn't that complicated and only takes about additional 20-30 seconds. It's of great help to, say, the HowardForums, BrightHand, MoDaCo etc. forum members. As will be their posts, which you will also see when I replicate them (there are already two posts at HowardForums in my thread).
I kinda got the feeling the reviews were looking for the negative in these apps. The thing to remember is that all three are currently/constantly in development, and A_C is always adding/improving on things, so I don't think it is quite fair to make the down-sides quite as glaring as they seem to come across here.
I don't think the author meant for it to come across like it did, I think it was meant to be complimentary, it just didn't sound it at times.
I also see what del4 was talking about with the feeling that other apps were concentrated on more than they should have.
This is a nice attempt, but I really feel the first two posts of each apps threads gives more detailed descriptions than these reviews do.
P.S. It did make for an interesting read though, thanks for posting!
I've got to be honest - I never understand the point of all of this.. well fluff, it just seems to gooble CPU cycles and memory for little benefit - (well no benefit I can really think of).
Not a knock - just a statement of ... bemusement (is that the word I'm looking for)?
Joezhang said:
I've got to be honest - I never understand the point of all of this.. well fluff, it just seems to gooble CPU cycles and memory for little benefit - (well no benefit I can really think of).
Not a knock - just a statement of ... bemusement (is that the word I'm looking for)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I saw your post in ifonz as well, and something like that, I see it as well, and agree with you, too much for me, but I know people like the freedom of being able to do something like that, and don't blame them. These apps though I really don't consifer 'fluff' (although they do look cool)!! I consider these viable alternatives to existing apps. I always disliked the stock lock on my device, and never used it, resulting in many calls I didn't mean to make LOL!!! This lock screen is a lot easier to use for me, and I KNOW when it is locked or not. The caller ID is great as well, because it maked the answer buttons large enough for even my meaty finger to press easily!! The media player is a gem, I never liked the layout of Windows media player for music, and love being able to play music WHILE the phone is locked with control!!!!
Did that make sense, or did I type myself in circles here LOL??
Hey, if it works for you great - I'm not knocking choice - just saying that I don't particular see much benefit for me.
I did look at slide2unlock but all the threads I saw made it seem very complex to install ("then you hack this bit of the reg", "now you need to install"). Just too much hard work for someone like me!
del4 said:
I feel that this "in-depth" review was anything but as you overlooked several major features of the apps, most notably the AlbumView functionality
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I admit it isn't an in-depth review - at least not in the sense (non-comparative) several-page-long reviews, full with screenshots (albeit I've also provided some, taken by me, showing as many features and icons as possible) are written by other Windows Mobile pundits.
What I tried was putting these apps in the generic application Universe and show in what areas they're better and where they're worse than the comparable titles.
Joezhang said:
Hey, if it works for you great - I'm not knocking choice - just saying that I don't particular see much benefit for me.
I did look at slide2unlock but all the threads I saw made it seem very complex to install ("then you hack this bit of the reg", "now you need to install"). Just too much hard work for someone like me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the (several - 5 or 6) PPC's I've installed it on - so that I can provide as much compatibility info as possible -, absolutely no reg tweaking was necessary. It, not taking into account the "no components found" message after the first reset, worked out-of-the-box.
syrguy1969 said:
I kinda got the feeling the reviews were looking for the negative in these apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sincere / fair comparative reviews should always look on the negative sides of apps too. I always list the negative in the apps I review - along with the positive aspects. Look at, for example, my Touch Browser review
It's mostly listingthe negatives of an app that helps a user the most to decide whether a particular software title is worth installling or the alternatives should be preferred.
Again, note that my reviews are in no way similar to what you can see on most Windows Mobile sites, who don't write / publish comparative reviews. I think my reviews are much more useful to end users than non-comparative ones that don't bother mentioning the negatives of an app.
Strange you only have 15...25% CPU usage - on my Wizard (the same 195 MHz TI OMAP), it's ~48% (as opposed to the 32% default).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's using my own cooked ROM with some memory optimisations (large cache settings etc.) but I can't think how it could have such a large effect...
Possibly a relatively small number of albums?
l3v5y said:
That's using my own cooked ROM with some memory optimisations (large cache settings etc.) but I can't think how it could have such a large effect...
Possibly a relatively small number of albums?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tested with very few songs too. That is, I don't think this causes the difference in CPU usage. Prolly the different hardware?
I've tested with very few songs too. That is, I don't think this causes the difference in CPU usage. Prolly the different hardware?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wizards and Prophets are pretty similar inside, you can flash a Prophet with a Wizard ROM and vice-versa with very minor changes.
Maybe it's just the magic of my Prophet!
Menneisyys said:
On the (several - 5 or 6) PPC's I've installed it on - so that I can provide as much compatibility info as possible -, absolutely no reg tweaking was necessary. It, not taking into account the "no components found" message after the first reset, worked out-of-the-box.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
<installs>, <plays>, <plays some more>, <likes...>
ok, I was wrong and I like this bit of "fluff" very much....
Joezhang said:
<installs>, <plays>, <plays some more>, <likes...>
ok, I was wrong and I like this bit of "fluff" very much....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad it works with you
Some know if I can run these programs on my ipaq rx4540 ?
thanks
Yes, it was quite a long ago that I've published my last Misc news. The reason for this is my having been really busy:
1. I've acquired a Tablet PC, a HP TC1100, and have read through all the Tablet PC forums. I've had some severe problems with the XP SP3 upgrade - see THIS if interested -, which was cured by a BIOS upgrade and/or forcing it to download the SP3 from Windows Update, as opposed to downloading it manually and doing the "Checked" Registry hack explained HERE. I've also tried setting up Vista Ultimate checked/debug with SP1 on it, but, unlike what others have reported, I was just unable to make the Wi-Fi card (in my device, the 2100) work. (And, of course, it's pretty slow compared to XP, even with the 1.5 GB of RAM and 5400 rpm 160 GB Samsung HDD. Dunno if it'd be faster with a 7200 rpm one - I don't want to have additional heat, noise and power consumption from switching to 5400 to 7200 for sure.)
BTW, speaking of the Wi-Fi card, I've also made some thorough tests to find out whether it's indeed as good as some TC1100, comparing its sensitivity and range to that of the new HP iPAQ 210 Pocket PC (running the default 1.00.06 stock ROM) and the Nokia N95 (with firmware version v21). I must state the reports on the TC1100's having great range are overly exaggerated. The iPAQ 210 has definitely better range. The TC1100 has about the same range as the Nokia N95.
The TC1100, otherwise is absolutely gorgeous. It does have some minor problems (for example, it's very slow at scrolling PDF files and, in portrait, the screen I have in my device isn't very well polarized; fortunately, the latter is less of an issue if you increase the backlight and don't use it at its lowest level), but, for a year 2003 model, it's just great, especially at the (current, second-hand) price, you will hardly find a better tablet. The alternatives would have been either much more (at least two times) expensive or considerably heavier - or both. The weight of the device (3.1 lbs, 1.350 kg without the detachable keyboard) is pretty much acceptable with a feather-weight (350g without the shoulder strap; 520 with it) bag like the 12" Tucano designed for the Mac Powerbook (and is, therefore, slightly oversized for the TC1100, but there simply wasn't a smaller bag in the shop) I've bought. Just a comparison: the 15" notebook bag I've received as the MS MVP gift in 2006 weighs 1300 grams - and, of course, is laughably oversized for a 10.5" tablet. A tablet, with the bag, weighing 1870 grams, is already very easy to carry everywhere. Just a comparison: my old 15" IBM Thinkpad a31p weighs, with the above-mentioned 15" MVP bag, almost 5 kg and is very hard to lug around. My favorite pastime, in addition to using it as a computer in the bed, is taking it out for excursions and walks. Two shots of my using it outdoors; in the second case, for video phoning, tethered it to the N95 via (feel free to zoom into the image - with the second shot, I've left it at 12 Mpixel, "only" decreasing the quality to reduce the storage need) Mobiola WebCamera:
The battery life of the TC1100 is also very cool. With the lowest backlight level, when just reading a book or a static, unanimated Web page (that is, no CPU-hungry tasks like Flash animations on Web pages are running), the power consumption is around 7 Watts. (Just for comparison, the one-generation older, Pentium 4M-based a31p consumes about 24 Watts the least. The more than three times more power usage is both caused by the older architecture of the CPU and the huge, power-hungry IPS screens. Unfortunately, IPS screens, while they have orders of magnitude better quality than plain TN + film TFT's, have always been pretty power-hungry.)
BTW, now that I also have a tablet, except tablet-related news & tips & reviews too in the future.
2. And yes, another (Microsoft) mobile platform I officially start to publish on: I've received a Microsoft Zune (second generation 8GB model), thanks to the Microsoft Company Store, which does ship them to abroad. Were I situated in the States, I would have access to its major selling point: the flat rate Zune Pass (costing US$14.99 a month), "take it (almost) all" store. Too bad while the hardware is already accessible outside the US and Canada, you still can't sign up into Zune Pass (you need to enter a valid US / Canadian address). I might ask some folks there to help to sign up? ;-)
Hardware-wise, I like the (second-generation) Zune pretty much, particularly now that there already is some kind of third party XNA app / game development for the device (see THIS and THIS for more info). I will definitely post on the latest news, hacks and, of course, development (games etc.) news on it too - but, for the time being, no Zune Pass / Zune Marketplace-related info as I'm in Europe and, as has already been stated, can't sign up for Zune Pass.
The stock earbud headphones coming with the device are really-really excellent (for an earbud, that is; of course, they can't beat supra-aural headphones or tightly fit canalphones [in-ear monitors]); they are of definitely better quality than the stock headphones (which aren't bad either) of the Nokia N95. My biggest grief is "just" the complete lack of A2DP (this is pretty much a showstopper on the long run) and the lack of a miniUSB or comparable socket for universal and easy synchronization / recharge access (no need to carry around the proprietary sync cable). I really hope Microsoft fixes these issues in the third generation Zunes due out next year.
3. Having read the written version of my recent W3C presentation, I've been invited by no one else than Dominique Hazael-Massieux, the Activity Lead and the co-Chair of the Test Suites Working Group, to contribute to the W3C Mobile Web Initiative. (BTW, he also has frontpaged my presentation and called it impressive, which is a BIG honor for me!) This means I needed (and will need) to get up to speed with the projects in there and will post even more Web browsing related, even more in-depth and developer-friendly articles on all the mobile platforms I support (Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, BlackBerry, MS Zune and, hopefully in the not distant future, the iPhone).
4. Of course, I've been working on my generic Bible on Digital TV, radio and all the like. The task turned out to be of epic proportions because I'll also elaborate on a lot of related subject, even on maths and digital signal processing. That is, I plan to give you an overall picture on what books there are on DSP, telecommunications techniques, which you should use for actually understanding how these technologies work etc. Be patient.
5. A quick blog-related note: you may have noticed that, on my blog, migrating has removed the HTML chart and/or paragraph markup from several dozens (hundreds?) of my articles from b2evo to Drupal. I'll try to address the problem as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you do run into an unreadable (old) article, please use THIS LINK instead (notice old_blogs instead of blogs - that is, you can access the articles in the old engine if you just add old_ in front of blogs in all the (old) URL's). There, everything works as in the past. Please do NOT post comments in there, only under the new interface (that is, under http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/).
Rebates
mobile2day.de goes English - at last! So far, it being German-only caused a lot of headache to non-German speakers. What is more, they offer a generic 25% and a select 50% rebate until 6/22/2008; see THIS for more info. Just to name one of the developers sold at 50% rebate (yes, ALL their stuff is offered for half the price!) certainly worth purchasing from: SHAPE services, SBSH, Herocraft, Iambic and In-fusio. Quite a bargain if you ask me. (News source: email from Damien of PocketPlayers Reloaded).
BTW, still speaking of SHAPE services, the BlackBerry version of their RDM+ (see THIS for a complete review) has, finally, received file transfer support - time to update if you haven't already done so.
New software and reviews
(note that I haven't listed the titles I've devoted a separate review to; for example, Pocket Commodore 64 3.0, mDesktop / Jeyo 2.1, Orions: Deckmasters etc.)
1. Spb have updated Spb Backup to version 2.0, introducing a lot of goodies; for example, ROM upgrade support. The upgrade only costs $9.95 for previous users.
2. Resco have also released a backup application; it also supports ROM upgrade support and a lot of other goodies. I'll try to update my well-known Backup Bible with both this, Spb's new app and all the related, newly released, similar tools like PIM Backup
3. Still speaking of Resco, they have released Resco Explorer 2008; now, with a lot of goodies like iPhone-like touch support, speed enhancements, a brand new FTP module. (The latter is indeed good news as the old FTP module was pretty slow in cases; see my benchmarks HERE.)
4. PPCT have published an extensive review of the since-updated TouchBrowser (that of Nate Adcock HERE; also see my initial, now-outdated review HERE)
5. There's an excellent PDF reader roundup at MobilitySite - certainly worth a read, including the comments
6. MyTodayScreen has published a decent article on mobile browsing
7. There's a new version of the free(!) Desktop SMS Manager V2.02 + Smartphone 1.11 HERE
8. Now, there's a free version of Inlux Messenger (see my review HERE), Inlux Messenger Lite, HERE (thanks for XDA-Devs forum member RPG0 for the tip!)
9. As far as connection utilities are concerned (tethering Windows Mobile phones to, say, notebooks or other, not necessarily x86-based mobile devices over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and/or USB), WMWifiRouter has been updated to 1.20beta and ICS Control to v.21. As far as the third application in this category, WalkingHotspot, is concerned, I still haven't received any answer from the developers, despite my numerous mails (I used to exchange several mails with them before this). Hope they do answer soon on whether the new Windows Mobile betas have already been released. As I've already created a new Best Software Awards 2008 category for these kinds of (very important) apps and have already nominated WMWifiRouter and ICS Control, I urgently need feedback from the WalkingHotspot folks to see whether the current version is worth nominating or not. Also, as soon as I get the current version of WalkingHotspot, I publish a generic comparison of the three titles.
10. CorePlayer 1.2.5 has been released and 1.3 will be soon released. The latter promises, for example, 'Channels' (for not only YouTube video playback support, but also on a lot of other video repositories) and progressive downloading. I REALLY hope it also gets the promised HE-AACv2 support at last (it still doesn't have it; in my e-mail discussions with their CEO, I've been told about a month ago most of the coding have already been done). They also stated they'd release a BlackBerry and an Android version before long - along with, of course, the iPhone one.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem in 1.2.5, YouTube playback-wise (see my YouTube Bible for more info on this), haven't been fixed: hit lists still only contain 13 records and you just can't see the rest.
11. Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine has run a nice survey on the best games for Windows Mobile. See all the posts HERE (fortunately, they have a separate category and, therefore, I don't need to link to all the individual articles separately - this is also a big advantage of the common category system used in the new blog engine). The May blog subject was Spring Cleaning as is accessible HERE; the April one was Features I would add and the March one Hack or Tweak I Can't Live Without.
12. The VITO Technology folks haven't been lazy either: they've released several touch-friendly apps; some of which have been also announced in the PPCMag blogs; see for example THIS. I've also tested their EyePhoto but decided not to publish a comparative review of it because it, in my opinion, still needs some speed and memory optimizations. As soon as they're done, I post a review comparing it to other "sliding" image viewers like s2v and PocketCM reviewed and compared HERE. And, I will surely review their launcher, along with all the comparable titles and TouchFlo (3D)-alikes (including the free ones available from XDA-Developers coders and hackers) in a forthcoming Bible.
13. Speaking of iPhone-like launchers, you may also want to check out TekSoft's SkyBox, which is also stated to be pretty cool - see Nate Adcock's review HERE. I'll review it too.
14. (According to many,) probably the best and most tweakable (commercial) lanuncher Spb Mobile Shell has also been updated (to 2.1). There's a nice comparison between the traditional, well-known Pocket Plus and Mobile Shell (both from Spb) HERE, should you want to know which way to go.
15. Tim Hillebrand's reviews Text Message Clients and SMS Enhancements and How to turn your Windows Mobile touch screen into an iPhone are also worth reading.
16. I post this info here too because you may have missed my review: if you liked the multiplayer games on the Commodore 64, did you know the just-released Pocket Commodore 64 3.0 offers IP-based multiplayer capabilities? It's certainly worth checking out - for example, Wizard of Wor works just great in Wi-Fi p2p mode. Also, if you use it in multiplayer, you will only need one license (on the server); the client can be unlicensed. In this regard, it's pretty much similar to Starcraft's (by Blizzard) spawned multiplayer mode. My only grief is the fire button not working in Archon (not even in single player mode).
BTW, speaking of Archon, I've recently acquired the original Commodore 64 version of Archon II (Adept) for my computing history collection (I have hundreds of other old, original games). As the abandonware sites (and Wiki) have very bad shots of the box, I've made some for you:
(front of the "box")
(back of the "box")
Some other shots:
the inner contents of the (foldable) box
the platform-independent manual: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
the C64-specific manual: 1, 2
the CGW leaflet: 1, 2.
Also, still on the subject of retro games and emulation, I highly recommend the desktop Windows title Hurrican (German-only homepage of the developer HERE), a free(!!) remake of the Turrican on home platforms around 1990. And, of course, the also-free Xenon 2000: Project PCF, on which I've already elaborated HERE.
17. While still far from being released, there is a lot of heated discussion on the (unlike with the unofficial and long ago discontinued Minimo) official Firefox mobile port. The related, most important (pretty technical) Wiki page is HERE; there's Symbian-freak's mostly Symbian-specific but for other operating system users, also cool remarks HERE. There's also a concept video HERE. As of now, no downloadable, publicly available implementation is available.
Hardware
iPhone 3G
Yes, the subject everybody has been speaking of, iPhone 3G. I recommend the following threads:
MSMobiles - here, I elaborate on why I consider the lack of a front-page camera a VERY bad mistake. At All About Symbian, particularly if you (also) have a Symbian (most importantly, an N95 [8GB]) phone, I also recommend
THIS, THIS and THIS.
If you own a BlackBerry (or known them), you'll want to read THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS. The "review" the first article links to also spends some time explaining why the author thinks A2DP (stereo Bluetooth audio) should better be left out: "Sure, you can't (yet, see below) listen to hideously compressed BT audio via A2DP on an iPhone (though any audiophile worth their lossless codec probably thanks Jobs for that Apple has a long history of not releasing as-yet-unperfected technologies unto their devices. If the tech is good, they're the first to dump the old and embrace it (floppies for CDs on the iMac, CDs for WiFI on the Air). If the tech isn't so good yet, they just wait until it is. They have standards." This is (sorry for the language) complete BS: A2DP is of great quality as of today. Except for, of course, the legendarily bad Microsoft BT stack before Windows Mobile 6. All, and I really mean ALL other Smartphone platforms and implementations (Symbian S60, BlackBerry, Widcomm and Windows Mobile 6+ Microsoft for Windows Mobile for sure) have excellent sound quality and few people will tell the difference between a pair of good-quality A2DP headphones (like, for example, the Plantronics Pulsar 590) and a wired one. Even I, who used to be a big Hi-Fi fan and audiophile some 20-25 years ago, find the (better) A2DP headphones adequate for my needs.
Otherwise, I consider the lack of A2DP the biggest letdown with the new model - and, of course, if it'll be impossible to tether it to an external, say, notebook, which is the case with, at least, AT&T.
BTW, there are a lot of new iPhone-related blogs and even papermags out there. The All About Symbian folks have started All About iPhone; the Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine will publish an iPhone edition etc.
Windows Mobile
As far as Windows Mobile is concerned, you have surely heard of the HTC Diamond and the MDA Vario IV (aka HTC Raphael). There are numerous threads and reviews on / of both models.
Diamond:
Review: mobile-review.com's: generally, they're pretty happy with the device. For example, the video playback performance, with VGA-resolution videos, seems to be pretty good. Of course, they also mention the TouchFLO 3D's sluggishness (hope this will be fixed later - albeit, frankly, knowing HTC's fix record, I don't have high hopes.).
PocketNow
ZDNet (it also has links to other reviews at the bottom of the article)
Note that the brand new TouchFLO 3D is reported to be a bit sluggish and you may want to get rid of (switch off) it entirely. See for example the forum comments HERE for more info on this issue. (Note that THIS XDA-Devs thread contains some hacks to - somewhat - speed it up.) I, in addition, certainly dislike its storage being only 4 GByte and the device's not having a memory card slot, even if under the battery as was in the HTC s310. This really makes it pretty much useless for real multimedia usage - 4 GB of storage is plain insufficient. No wonder the basic(!) model of the iPhone 3G comes with 8GB and the Nokia N96 will sport no less than 16 GB of built-in memory AND a microSD card slot.
Raphael:
Disucssion: MoDaCo
There are also some reviews of the HTC X7510 for example HERE. You'll also want to read my generic comments, particularly on the, in my opinion, lousy thumbboard, at MoDaCo.
Symbian
Symbian-wise, unfortunately, there isn't much to report on - that is, there still isn't a Nokia N95 killer anywhere. (Currently, I consider the Nokia N95 by far the best non-dumbphone.) There are two new E-series devices: the E71 (see THIS and THIS) and the E66. The N78 has hit the shelves, at least in Finland. There's an N78 review HERE (the first part only as of now).
BlackBerry: final version of OS 4.5 is finally out!
BlackBerry-wise, you may already have heard of the Bold. You can also find pictures of the other, flip model, the KickStart, for example HERE and HERE. Finally, the, it seems, Verizon Wireless exclusive and, unlike ALL the other BB models (including the Bold / KickStart), touchscreen-based Thunder is worth mentioning. Note that AT&T will offer Javelin and Niagra (see THIS for more info), a 3G-less and a CDMA version of the BB 9000 (Bold).
Also note that Vodafone Germany has released the final (!) 4.5 ROM for the 8100/8300/8800 (no 8700, sorry). Note that these ROM upgrades can safely be installed on even locked devices of other carriers. I had absolutely no problems with installing it on my T-Mobile-locked BB 8800 running 4.5.0.9 beta ROM; I didn't even need to remove Vendor.xml. Restoring my 4.5.0.9-based backup resulted in some problems like being unable to access the Net; therefore, I've wiped the entire device and reinstalled / set up again everything. The situation seems to be similar to the 4.2 -> 4.5.0.9 upgrade, where I've found out (after having severe problems with not being able to send mails and deleting them from the online mailbox) you should NOT restore a 4.2 backup to at least 4.5.0.9. That is, set up it from scratch.
Finally, with this ROM version, I no longer had problems installing the current version of Opera Mini 4.1 over-the-air - that is, by going directly to mini.opera.com from the built-in Web browser. (With the previous, 4.5.0.9 version, I did have problems - it just wouldn't install - always displayed a “COD error” error message upon downloading.) Fortunately, it supports the file system too - that is, you can back up and restore on the BlackBerry too.
Incidentally, still speaking of Opera, my fellow blogger at the Opera Mini Fan blog, Serola, has just published an article Opera 9.5 and Opera Link. I have only superficially read it; I'll try to read it more thoroughly. (I've long having been huge problems of synchronizing my Opera Mini favorites with my desktop Opera 9.5 betas: synchronization only seemed to work between Opera Mini clients.)
Finally, another Opera-related item of news: Opera 9.5 has finally been released for the desktop Windows; it even has a USB version not requiring any kind of setup. So far, few browsers (for example, XeroBank's xB_Browser) have done the same.
Other news
Some people have reported Vito AudioNotes v1.3 autorecording with data connections active, at least on the HTC TyTn II / Kaiser. Resco's Audio Recorder doesn't exhibit this problem. I'll try to look into the problem some time; in the meantime, keep this in mind if you use (in autorecord mode) Vito AudioNotes on a WinMo phone that you also access the Internet from. (See my Audio Recording Bible for more info on these apps.)
The HP iPAQ 210 has received a patch for the power problems. Some people reported on it having helped; others weren't so successful. See THIS for more info and comments.
My attention was brought to Nokia's using pretty strong JPEG compression with their high-end, N-series phones like the N95 (all models are affected, with the latest firmware versions) and the N82. I hope Nokia comes up with an additional quality level setting - or a third-party camera app is released, with an alternative JPEG encoder. (Which was, BTW, the case with Windows Mobile and CECam - see THIS if interested for more info on the very similar problems plaguing some past WinMo models and external camera cards.)
(Making this sticky until the next Misc news article - this article [as usual] contains a LOT of useful info.)
I've been at XDA for 2 years, initially trying to get my T-Mobile MDA to perform better, and for this past year my T-Mobile WING. I've never owned an iPhone -- nor have I ever sat down to ask friends of mine who have iPhones these questions. But now I am curious:
Apple makes killer products with thoughtful attention to product design, customer usability design, graphical interface, and occasionally some software/hardware breakthroughs (like multi-touch for the iphone). Then they market to consumers like nobody else, in every sales channel. This is all the "in-front of the curtain" stuff everyone knows.
But I know from being a Mac user since 1986 with my original MacSE, all way up to the current Mac Pro desktop and MacBook Pro laptop, that "behind the curtain" they ALL lock-up at times, requiring restarts, etc. And servicing. I just got my Mac Pro desktop back from repair where a hard drive failed. ... But I am out of touch completely with the world of iPhones.
Some of you have iPhones. I'm curious on a given day, how many apps can you run simultaneously, and how often does an iPhone freeze up requiring a reset? For comparative purposes, on my "XDA-modified" Wing (HTC Herald) -- which has an old & slow processor, and very litle RAM, I can now, after many software improvements, run Google Maps, Contact Manager, Notes, Total Commander, OperaMini browser, "Photos & Videos" photo cropper, and sometimes my MP3 player all open at same time, and not crash. My MP3 player *will* cause all that to lock up, and I know this, so I don't normally do this, but under normal usage, all of the above WITHOUT the MP3 player is doable), and I task-switch between these open apps.
How much can the iPhone handle simultaneously?
Do they freeze up time to time?
If so, how often for an average user?
What's the remedy? A "restart"?
This is not a "shootout" question. It really is just curiosity because I hear all the time the many great things about the iPhone (but that it lacks video, and MMS messaging), but I have no clue at all if they generally never lock up, or if they do. thanks, in advance for any comments.
quicksite said:
How much can the iPhone handle simultaneously?
Do they freeze up time to time?
If so, how often for an average user?
What's the remedy? A "restart"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a) for an "average" user - 1 app at a time (the exception being itunes + whatever app you want to use.)
for someone who is willing to mod there iphone (jailbreak + backgrounder app) i'll reckon 3 - 4 apps.
b) hardly, again for an average user this would be even less, probably once a couple of months.
if you are into cutting edge stuff then more freq., maybe once a week.
c)1) hold the home button , this should force the the app to close.
2) if the above step does not work, turn of the phone by holding the power button
3)if that does not work, reboot by holding the power and home button simultaneously.
Thats being generous Yes the iPhone DOES lock up and freeze, fairly often. At least as much as a factory standard WinMo device, if not more. Of course WinMos, being much more open can be modified and as such they have the potential to be less reliable if the modding isnt careful.
rovex said:
Thats being generous Yes the iPhone DOES lock up and freeze, fairly often. At least as much as a factory standard WinMo device, if not more. Of course WinMos, being much more open can be modified and as such they have the potential to be less reliable if the modding isnt careful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i beg to differ, winmo requires a softrest atleast every week, on the other hand i have not had to reboot my iphone since last dec.
Well my experience is somewhat different, the iPhone i had to test (im a technology reviewer) required a reset at least every few days. Ive only just given it backafter 6 months or use so it wasnt to do with early software. My everyday phone is a Touch HD, and it does have issues, but normally only with opera, nothing else causes any problems that need a reset.
rovex said:
Thats being generous Yes the iPhone DOES lock up and freeze, fairly often. At least as much as a factory standard WinMo device, if not more. Of course WinMos, being much more open can be modified and as such they have the potential to be less reliable if the modding isnt careful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just no
It hardly ever screws up, but does sometimes.
But to say more than stock WM is hilarious.
The great thing is that because it only runs one thing at a time, it never runs out of memory unlike sock wm. Backgrounder on jailbroken iphones lets you run stuff in the background. I always had mail (with 2 accounts) sms, safari and ipod in the background with no probs
Well, since i experience otherwise.. JUST YES. I love how others automatically write off your experience because they don't experience it.
Multitasking has little to do with anything, some of the stock and buyable apps for the iPhone are problematic and cause it to lock up. Im hardly the first or last person the find this.
rovex said:
Well, since i experience otherwise.. JUST YES. I love how others automatically write off your experience because they don't experience it.
Multitasking has little to do with anything, some of the stock and buyable apps for the iPhone are problematic and cause it to lock up. Im hardly the first or last person the find this.
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Well i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that.
just out of curiosity, what firmware were you running ??? and what were the stock applications that caused you to lock up.
and did you actually lock up or did the application crash???
rorydaredkign said:
Just no
It hardly ever screws up, but does sometimes.
But to say more than stock WM is hilarious.
The great thing is that because it only runs one thing at a time, it never runs out of memory unlike sock wm. Backgrounder on jailbroken iphones lets you run stuff in the background. I always had mail (with 2 accounts) sms, safari and ipod in the background with no probs
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wow you ran a mp3 player, sms and the web and it didn't freeze?? AMAZING.. /sarcasm
Apples attitude is 'my way or the highway' and as someone mentioned, windows can be tweaked opening to reliability problems.
My WinMO device hasn't required a softreset for about a month. My friends iPhone froze as soon as i ran a app, forgot what it was called.
If Microsoft made a phone that was the perfect config to their software, it'll run like a reliable phone but that's Apples territory. There is a reason why it's called "Jail"Break.
Same with the OSX and Windows.. you can't compare cause Microsoft makes it work with thousands of hardware and is bound to run into a problem somewhere. OSX is very limited so they hardly run into problems.
I've used Windows Mobile phones (standard and professional) since 2005. (Starting with the Audiovox SMT 5600) In addition, I have had a work BlackBerry since 2007, and an iPhone (now iPhone 3G) since 2008.
To answer your questions, I have rarely (maybe once every few months) had the iPhone freeze up requiring a reboot. To be honest, I rarely had a hard freeze on any of my Windows Mobile phones BUT I did restart them once a week because they just ran better that way. (Memory leaks, probably)
You can't compare the iPhone directly because by design, only a few applications run simultaneously: Mail, Phone, Safari, iPod. (And possibly Maps)
However, the iPhone seems very good at switching from application to application, with no noticeable memory leaks.
I've found that it really depends on what you expect the phone to do. I rarely talk on the phone or text; for me, it's all about email and Internet usage. The Safari browser is currently second-to-none, and the iPhone is exceptionally good at connecting to Wi-Fi whenever available seamlessly. And, since the email application uses Safari to render, it is also very good.
Thank you for all your replies. It wouldn't be the tech world if there wasn't vast -- sometimes diametrically opposed -- disagreement.
The great thing is that because it only runs one thing at a time, it never runs out of memory unlike sock wm. Backgrounder on jailbroken iphones lets you run stuff in the background. I always had mail (with 2 accounts) sms, safari and ipod in the background with no probs
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Once again, my inquiry is not for "shootout" reasons. It has to do more with the reliability of the overall user experience on the iPhone. I know from only briefly using it for 15 minutes or so, how responsive it is, and how easy the interface is to use. But it only struck me recently, given this new explosion in Apps for Touchscreen devices, that the more things people are going to want their iphones to do, DO they ever freeze up.
I was looking for an answer like "only 1 out of 100 people, and maybe then, maybe every 3-4 months, so in general it just doesn't freeze up in numbers high enough to be statistically noteworthy".
But even given the disagreement of experiences just amongst 3-4 people in this thread (a very tiny sample), it freezes more than I would have expected. That's not to lower the grade of reliability in using an iPhone to accomplish a series of tasks; it's more just to note: YES, IT DOES FREEZE UP, on occasion, but rarely.
I already know my old T-Mobile MDA, and now my new T-Mobile WING, froze up a lot, for my taste; and that was before I started modding here at XDA. But I attribute most of those freezeups to the simple hardware inadequacy issue of slow processor and not a lot of RAM. So, if I wanted to launch a bunch of things to stay in memory, to swap back and forth between apps, the WM device would lock up, requiring a soft-reset to reboot the device.
WHich is why XDA-developers has pulled off miracles by, in effect, doubling or probably more like tripling, the usefulness of my WM phone.
But regarding this:
The great thing is that because it only runs one thing at a time, it never runs out of memory unlike sock wm. Backgrounder on jailbroken iphones lets you run stuff in the background. I always had mail (with 2 accounts) sms, safari and ipod in the background with no probs
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I'm trying to interpret this correctly. Running only one thing at a time is only a great benefit if all apps open relatively instantaneously, like, in a half second. So I could hop between selecting text within a browser, then paste it in to a notes document, edit it a bit, then look up an address on Google Maps, find it, grab the link, then add it to my text doc, then snap a few pics, attach them to an email along with my edited text, and send -- perhaps with my mp3 player playing inot my earphones the whole time.
I am talking about realtime use-case scenarios, not simply the sequential moving from app to app on an iphone. So, what I am interested in NOW is doing a bit of a shootout between an iphone and a WM phone in accomplishing a real-life array of tasks -- because that's the real test of the performance of a phone. Not what it does in demo mode, but in reallife getting stuff accomplished mode.
Is anyone here interested in helping to construct a few scenarios? I mean a wide variety of stuff, from emergencies and need and ambulance and also to perform CPR on someone and finding out where they are, to going to a demonstration in Washington DC, coordinating your meeting spot, using Google Maps to track where various people are, shooting photos, updating a blog in real time, etc --- and many kinds of multi-tasking of life demands ?
I am seeing 5 if not 6 platforms now poised to battle each other in the downloadable widget/apps dept -- Apple, Google Android, Blackberry, WindowsMobile, Palm, maybe Symbian, who knows maybe Nokia --- and I am interested in how this all starts to play out when people load suff onto their phone expecting to do x, y, z at the same time, or closely in sequence -- and how each platform is poised to handle these consumer behaviors.
thanks for the headstart in learning that the iPhone, though perhaps more reliable than WM in not freezing up so often, still does have this issue to contend with from time to time.
In a sense, WindowsMobile users almost expect there will be hang ups time to time... frsutrating and irritating, but not like a major surprise. Whereas I would imagine iPhone users have very high expectations, like close to perfection, and will not take kindly to any increasing freezeups.
Just my 2 cents on this in general.
quicksite said:
I'm trying to interpret this correctly. Running only one thing at a time is only a great benefit if all apps open relatively instantaneously, like, in a half second. So I could hop between selecting text within a browser, then paste it in to a notes document, edit it a bit, then look up an address on Google Maps, find it, grab the link, then add it to my text doc, then snap a few pics, attach them to an email along with my edited text, and send -- perhaps with my mp3 player playing inot my earphones the whole time.
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you do know that the iphone cannot do almost half of the things listed here
fallenczar said:
you do know that the iphone cannot do almost half of the things listed here
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Well that's kinda why I listed them, kind of like at the start of a race, ready-set-go! And when it comes time for iphone to shoot video, race ends... or sending an MMS message.
As far as I know those are the two main things, right? But in all fairness, you just know Apple is going to have those two things added into and working in their next big product release.
So I am really aiming this for that next release... My overall premise is that the consumer marketplace has almost no clue about what all these competing devices & platforms do and can't do. But that's not because they're stupid. Rather it's because they are hyper-marketed at, very effectively, with really sharp ads that focus on different whiz-bangs -- coming at them from 3 different industry sectors all at once:
the Carriers tout their packages and calling features mixed in with snippets of cool phone, then the phone makers tout their newest whizbang devices features & differentiatable special gizmos, and the platforms come at them with their own angles, again inserting whiz bang phone devices into the ads. Then I guess you could add a 4th source -- bloviating saleasmen at Best Buy (in USA) showing people their latest most expensive phones, regardless of the bigger picture questions of platform and carriers required to use it.
This is my reason for wanting to develop several real-world use-case scenarios, just to test how well each achieves the end-objective.
quicksite said:
Well that's kinda why I listed them, kind of like at the start of a race, ready-set-go! And when it comes time for iphone to shoot video, race ends... or sending an MMS message.
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well not quite
there are a couple of video rec. and mms apps, and they work as reliably as apps on other platforms.
However, i don't think it would be fair to compare 2 platforms that are so dissimilar, one being media centric, the other being business centric.
You are right about not really being able to compare them, they are two different devices with 2 completely different intended audiences.
I have used WM since 2001 constantly and I have used my iPhone for about 2 months.
Why WM devices are more like a little mini computer in my pocket where as my iPhone is more like a pocket media device that does lots of things that WM does, but not all.
I would say that my iPhone has only crashed 1 time in 2 months and that was from some jailbreak action, never from normal use. There are a couple of things that should be clarified about the iPhone and its limitations though:
1. No copy and paste. Duh. Everyone knows that. I knew it going into the whole 2 year contact. I can't honestly say that other than entering in my signature for emails has that really been an issue.
2. MMS. Today was the first time I wanted to send an MMS and I just emailed it to their phone number instead. No biggy. Worked well.
3. No true multi tasking. I disagree with this one. While there are some things I would prefer to be able to run at the same time most programs save state when they are closed so they are exactly back where they where when you closed it. Games, utilites etc.
Heck, the free timer I downloaded is programed so well that the start time used is the actual time that you hit the button so it comes back up and keep the count running.
Are there things I miss from my WM device, sure. Are there things that the iPhone does better than WM does? Sure. Are there things WM does better than the iPhone, sure.
How much does each one crash? I'd say a touch more on WM, but that is because I have a great ROM that a dedicated chef cooked up here at XDA. Comparing stock to stock though, is no comparison. The iPhone wins hands down in that regard.