WP7: Not likely a competitor… Yet.

Posted on 18th March 2010

There has been plenty of speculation about the new Windows Phone 7. I’ve reserved judgement for as long as possible to see what would actually happen with the device upon its release. But I’ve been asked to give my first impressions of the phone so I bring you this.

WP7 is entering a firestorm. Which could be a competitive advantage or a really really stupid move (note the emphasis on stupid). My biggest qualm with the WP7 is that it doesn’t have feature exclusive to its platform which will give consumers a reason to buy it. The biggest following this phone will get will be from existing Microsoft ‘junkies’ who love all things Microsoft and swear by them.

There are a number of features which have become pretty much a standard among the other major smartphone platforms which are missing in the WP7 platform. WP7 will not support expandable memory, or multitasking, along with copy and pasting.

The WP7 major selling points are it’s user interface and its ability to plug into Xbox Live. Two features which don’t really chime a need to get this phone (even for a hardcore Xbox gamer.)

Microsofts version of the app store, Marketplace, has a number of apps on the way but nowhere near the 150,000 apps boasted by the iTunes app store or the 30,000 apps available for the Android phone.

But like I said “time will tell.” Microsoft is an enduring tenacious company and people said the same things about them when they decided to enter the gaming market. But look at them now; they own the gaming market. I have absolute faith that the WP7 will not be a complete blow-out like the Palm. So, for now, let’s just sit comfortably in our seats and pay close attention to the feeds from our iPhones and Android phones.

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iPatent

Posted on 18th March 2010

There has been a wealth of patents being filed lately by Apple. Many journalist are speculating that these patents give insight into the technology that we can expect to see in upcoming iPhones; I think they might have a different purpose.

As we continue to watch the mobile platform war rage on it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Google and it’s constituents are worthy competitors. Apple recently filed a lawsuit agains HTC for infringement on nearly 20 different patent owned by Apple. But what Apple might have thought would be a easy victory by pure intimidation is about to turn into a full-fledged legal battle.

There has been a number of existing patents which surround the iPhone platform in the past to never see the light of day. So in my eyes I think this excessive patenting by Apple is to try and lock down all the good ideas before opposing companies can get to them.

I have to admit, however, that some of the rumoured features would be super cool. Notably the ones mentioned is my post regarding the RFID chips being built into the phones.

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iPhone 3G: “All your bases and moneyz belongz to me l0l0l”

Posted on 17th March 2010

Anybody and everybody who lives in our current era of complex commerce has grown used to the elaborate task of managing their money among many different accounts and payment methods. With more iPhone rumours circling the internet regarding a certain patent recently submitted by Apple. People can take a breath, or more of a sigh (of relief), that companies like Apple are working towards making things easier for all of us.

Geek.com‘s description of the patent that hass been filed describes the use of RFID chips in Apples next generation of iPhone devices. What’s so exciting about this is the ability to carry one device which manages every mobile aspect of your life from payment to accessing protected places or things.

Gizmodo published an article talking about what appears to be a rather unwieldily accelerometer based combination lock. But what’s more important is how the article goes on to describe potential uses of security apps relying on the internal RFID.

More on the topic of money and iPhones is the news of an upcoming PayPal app which allows bumping money from iPhone to iPhone. Lifehacker published an article describing the app which (apart from its money bumping ability) enables advanced money/account management functions making those awkward college dinners with friends and stacks of IOU’s far easier to manage.

Things are looking interesting for iPhone fans in the near future. The next rumoured launch for an iPhone might be this summer. We should all remain securely planted in our seats until we see these rumours actualized in the release of the next iPhone.

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Smartphone wars: Rumours rumours rumours

Posted on 11th March 2010

As the Smartphone wars rage on it is becoming increasingly difficult for Smartphone device owners to feel secure in their decision regarding which team they’ve chosen; be it team iPhone, or team Android, or some other less significant faction.

With rumours resurfacing about the iPhone becoming a multi-tasking platform I’m left wondering if that means an upcoming hardware upgrade for users who wish to take advantage of this [rumoured] upcoming functionality. Obviously the added stress to the hardware that is a product of multitasking will mean a number of less awesome side-effects. For instance, slower overall phone performance, less memory for existing apps to work with, which might mean updates and with the rumours of updates coming at a cost in the future this could mean big spending for iPhone owners in the near future, and most notably — reduced battery performance.

I trust Apple will do their best to contravene these side-effects but I suspect there to be a new iPhone coming out this summer if this update is more than just rumours.

On the development side the ability to multitask opens a lot of doors for developers. Every time I hear this rumour I nearly jump out of my seat with excitement but after seeing no truth to these rumours up to now… well lets just say the excitement is wearing off.

Regardless of my preaching about my excitement for the iPhone I know for fact that Android is a very good platform. I would love to have access to an Android phone to learn how to develop for it but I suppose I’ll stick with developing for my team for now. Both companies take very good care of their customers and I trust this battle will continue to rage for a long time now.

Note: I suspect if Apple brings multitasking to the iPhone that it will appear on the iPad also. In fact, if you pay close attention to the commercial it looks like the mail app is running over-top of another application. In another scene it appears as if two apps are running side by side.

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Update: Two things that matter

Posted on 7th March 2010

Just wanted to point out that along the right side of this page is my Twitter feed, where you can expect frequent updates from me, and my interesting reads feed, which is also updated very frequently with articles I am reading and have dubbed important enough to be featured as one of the only things that matter.

I promise to make up in those two things what I fail to give in blog posts. Be gentle on me — I am after all a college student in his final year who has three families and travels a substantial distance weekly.

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The only things that matter

Posted on 7th March 2010

I’ve been a blogger now for about five years. My blogs were never really anything of significant quality or importance but it has always been fun to have the ability to share my thoughts with the world. I’ve always struggled to focus exactly what it is I wanted to accomplish with my blog. For a long time I was in a blogging group called ‘The WAFN project‘ after having a poorly-maintained personal blog for some months before-hand. In fact, I’ve always had a personal blog of some form, but I’ve managed to have a number of side blogs including one which had to do with my introduction to the world of Open-Source named OSoSoon (Sorry, no links completely Death Star’d1 these ones.) The most recent iteration of my personal blog before this one was called ‘A Binary Musical’ (Again Death Star’d). After being met with repeated boredom in all blogs I settled to just name my blog after my domain space: ‘tjbro.com.’ But throughout the many blogging adventures I’ve had I’ve focused on topics like recent news, gaming, open source, technology, and personal topics. But never have I been able to distill the purpose of my blog to a simple mission statement which would allow me to use the WordPress tagline option on this site.

Being a person with unique outlook and opinions on things who also tends to have silly adventures on regular basis I figure I should give you my version of recent events along with random entries giving insight into the ridiculousness that I tend to live out from day-to-day.

Taking these things into consideration I’m please to welcome you all to “tjbro.com: the only things that matter.”

Wish me luck!

1 Death Star’d: Ending the existence of something by the process of firing a planetary super-laser at it and completely demolishing it.

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Standard 1337: Standardized Smartphone SDK

Posted on 4th March 2010

It’s a hard knock life being a mobile app developer. Even worse if your a mobile app developing company that’s trying to make money offering apps that work across the many Smartphone platforms that are now available.

I might be dreaming but I can see a significant business opportunity in developing a standard for the next wave of Smartphones to comply to which offer a standardized SDK so mobile platform developers can develop their apps once and only once and people constrained to using an iPhone or an Android phone don’t have to worry about the app being unavailable to them.It would be beneficial for everybody.

In the ideal world the companies manufacturing the Smartphones would make donations to a group to develop the standards and SDK’s rather than having to spend a much larger sum internally to develop the standards and SDK’s themselves.

But that would be too logical for the competitive firestorm happening now between the major Smartphone manufacturers as they might see it as a loss of competitive edge. Sorry for getting the rest of you mobile developers all hard and stuff but it looks like we’re all stuck in the real world together for now.

Will Mac soon be Steam-powered?

Posted on 3rd March 2010

Interesting rumble on the Internets of Valve releasing a version of Steam which is supported by Macs. There are a number of advertisements being released by Valve which seem to insinuate that the well known game giant is in cahoots with Apple. It’s a well known fact that Mac hardware is a beautiful thing made to work together seamlessly and also allows for astronomical upgrades. This could spell good things if the PC gaming giant Valve decides to move to the Mac platform. But what would we call computer games then? We certainly can’t continue calling them ‘PC games.’

Valve Leaks Teaser Images for Announcement of Steam (and Games) for Mac [Updatedx4] – Mac Rumors.

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It’s that time of year… Finally!

Posted on 3rd March 2010

Roll up the rim

For many of us Canadians we know the first sign of spring comes with a well-known annual gimmick used by Tim Horton‘s to attract even greater hordes of caffeine desperate Canadians through their doors and drive-thru’s know as ‘Roll up the Rim’. But for Canadians like myself who don’t look forward to their daily dose of caffeine before work or school; the Roll up the Rim contest brings the seasons first signs of the beauty that many of us look forward to in Canada’s summer months. Signs like skies clear enough to go on night drives and see the beauty that exists beyond the protective blue shield we’ve come to call our atmosphere, or the extended hours of sunlight that gifts us  a renewed energy and spirit, and the camping/backpacking season that upon which many Canadians recede into the immense forests owned by our land and reconnect with the spirit of Canada.

For myself and my friends and family this summer brings many exciting new adventures waiting to be had. My girlfriend will experience her first real camping experiences of her life, my brother, father, and I will reunite as the backpacking crew we remember being in our earlier years, my Mom, step-Dad, brother, and our girlfriends will take to the air on our trip to Italy in May. Furthermore, we’ve been gifted with a reminder to spend every millisecond of our days making it count by our supposedly shortened days which are an after-effect of the earth-quake in Chilie.

Needless to say, I’ll have many adventures in the summer months to come and I hope you can all say the same for yourselves or if you can’t at least make it so you can.

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Derailed…

Posted on 3rd March 2010

For about the past year now I’ve been wondering if all my living/breathing readers have been eclipsed by the spam bots which were frequenting the comments sections of the old tjbro.com website. And then I realized that my commitment to that blog was completely demolished by those spam bots. Oh, by the way: welcome to the new tjbro.com!

It’s been a long time coming now but I finally gave in and rebuilt the website. After being completely derailed by spam bots I eventually lost hope in managing the immense amount of comments being posted to my various posts.

But worry not I am immediately taking the necessary steps to try and prevent spam as best I can early in this websites life.

Regardless, I’m happy to announce my return to blogging and hope my web presence will resemble that of what it once was in the height of the old tjbro.com.