Category Archives: Opinions

If you buy any android phone other than nexus series phones which google makes. Your phone will be outdated within 15 days with a new model.

Being outdated with new releases is one thing but being outdated because the software is not up to date is another thing.

For example an os update that was released 5 months back is still not on the top devices like Samsung galaxy S2 (my phone), Galaxy Note, to this day.

Even now most of the devices being released are coming with previous generation os. Most of the devices are not on Android ICS (latest version of android).

Google could implement these rules to rectify the situation.

1. Google should make it mandatory that all new phone sold should be on latest os (exceptions can be made for budget phones below $90-$70)

2. Google should look into customizations being made by the companies and limit it to basic home screen and widget customization. Which in turn will help the companies to implement latest firmwares faster.

3. Give an option to the user to switch to pure android version during initial setup. This should have been done when android was just starting. But they can make this a strick rule from now on.

4. Mandatory support to all devices sold for at least one year, if possible two years with latest firmware.

Manufactures could implement this rule themselves, give user an option to pay $30-$50 extra  and get a pure android version and support for latest firmware for two years.

Manufactures get more money and users can really take advantage of their device.

If you read reports like this you wonder where Google’s loyalty lies. If they want to save android from fragmentation hell hole this is the only way out.

Until then stick to Nexus series, teach manufactures like Samsung, HTC, Motorola and others a lesson or switch to iOS or Windows Mobile.

Microsoft has put in all the necessary features in windows mobile 7. But its still not the no.1 mobile operating system out there. So how can they make it into one.

Windows mobile has all the talking points of other systems good hardware, apps, notification, over the air updates. Even a program similar to iTunes to sync with PC.

Microsoft recently announced the mango update for their Windows mobile 7 phone. They are adding some 500 new features to the OS. Unlike other OS, Windows mobile has all the basic features to make it a good mobile OS already built in. But with mango update they taking it one step further.

Here are the things Windows Mobile 7 will have with mango update that others don’t & will not for the foreseeable future.

Watch the blog post to understand the blog post better.

Widgets

Widgets that are easily to access and don’t need to be installed separately (unlike android). Once you install an app, when you pin the app to the start page. If it has widget it will show up automatically.

With the update they are giving more power to this widget system. Now each individual page can have a widget or item can have a widget. See the video below to understand it fully.

Contextual menus

They are implementing this into the api. What does this mean. Once you install twitter, facebook, yahoo mail, messengers etc. When ever you want to share something just look at the menu. And if the app has implemented this api you can use that app to share the link. This doesn’t stop with links only, it could be photos & videos etc. So you can share a link to twitter, facebook, you blog, messenger etc from any app.

For example you can take the picture from the default app and share it with twitter. You don’t have to go to that app specifically to do this. Shoot video and share it with any app you like vimeo or youtube etc.

Bing Search

You might say google has done a good implementation of search on android. But when you compare it with Bing on Mango update its not even close. They are adding Bing Vision which is similar to Google gooogles. But its built into the search app, its not a separate app like on android.

You point your camera at a book and you will be given the search results. When you want to buy you just click and you will be taken to amazon book store. Even google can’t do that level of integration. When you search for a movie. If you have IMDB app installed. You can directly jump to the app for the results. IMDB app will have the movie page opened with all the details. Its kind of Universal search that any application can take advantage of with api.

Another example is you could search for an mp3 and directly jump to Amazon mp3 store to purchase it. Right from bing, all other app have to do is implement this api and their stores could also be used by the customer.

These three features are not implemented yet by any of the other mobile OS makers like Apple, HP Or Google.

I didn’t write about IE9 because other carriers can update their browsers. But the above mentioned stuff is built into the OS. It will be hard for others to implement them without rewriting their OS.