What is Connectify?
Connectify is roughly a 900 Kilobyte windows 7 application or software that enables you to turn your Wi-Fi enabled personal computer into a wireless hotspot to share your Internet connection, and create wireless networks on the go, which you can then connect with your Mobile phones, laptops or other Wi-Fi appliances. Connectify is actually a wireless router replacement! It doesn’t need any extra hardware. The download itself is quite small, Less than 1 MB.

Minimum Requirements to run Conectify
The minimum requirement to run Connectify must include the following.
1. A Computer running any version of Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. Yes, your system must be windows 7.
2. The Computer should have wireless LAN or Wi-Fi.
3. No other Hardware or software is required apart from the Connectify application which can be downloaded from the Connectify website; http://www.connectify.me/download/index.html for free.

How does it actually work?

This Connectify stuff sounds like real fun, doesn’t it? Perhaps it looks too good to be true! Yes, but it is actually true. Genuine.

When I first informed one of my colleagues last year about Connectify, as it first came out, (It was still in the beta version then], he retorted, “That possibly can’t be true. You must need an extra hardware to create a wireless router orhotspot!” Well after I purchased my windows 7 HP laptop, Dv6 series and downloaded and installed a stable version (V 1.1) of Connectify in my system, it worked seamlessly. So how is it possible to create internet hotspots without the use of a router?

Exploit of Hidden Mechanism/Code in Windows 7
Well, rumours have it that Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system contains a highly interesting software layer — invented and developed at the company’s in-house research division — that has a sort of “virtual Wi-Fi” hidden in it in some layers of code. Although, it wasn’t finished completely before Windows 7 went into the market, the virtual Wi-Fi is still there. It is interesting to note that some Blogs have it that some Microsoft employees are even unaware of this feature in windows 7.

Essentially, Connectify allows a user to group multiple Wi-Fi connections together to boost coverage and speeds. Connectify exploits this virtual Wi-Fi to create a software based router or Hotspots for Wi-Fi sharing. Now you can only imagine what this exploit can do to turn your laptop into a fully functional router!

The Connectify website stated it succinctly “Connectify hotspot just like any other Wi-Fi access point are kept safe and secure by rock solid WPA2 Encryption. So don’t break the bank paying for multiple Wi-Fi connections on the road, Connectify is free and can actually save you money.”

Hands-on Experience by the Author
My first experience with Connectify was one of doubt, then awe. I downloaded the less-than-1-Megabyte application from the Connectify website with my Starcomms plan connection and it took me something less than 2 minutes. I then installed it. It took me less than a couple of seconds for installing. The app actually seats at the right hand corner of the windows 7 taskbar. After installation, my first attempt at configuring the hotspot failed. But after restarting my system, it appears Connectify configured itself atomically and I created a hotspot. The interface of the Conectify is quite simple. You just click on the icon at the systems tray at the right end of the task bar, and the Connectify menu shoots right up like a mushroom. You then have an option of naming the Wi-Fi connection. You can also put in a password which you have to type in the device you wish to connect to the hotspot. You can connect as many Wi-Fi enabled devices as possible. But by doing that just note that you will essentially reduce the internet speed if the devices are too many. The Application maker claims that the hotspot is secure with WPA2-Personal (AES) encryption system (See above). I couldn’t verify this, but suffice to say that, without the password, no device can connect with your hotspot. I was able to confirm this.

Connection of Wi-Fi Enabled Devices/Phone
Now with all these settled, I decided to connect my ipod touch and iphone 3G to my laptop via Connectify. I should say that my ipod touch and Iphone 3G detected the Wi-Fi hotspots as it does to normal wireless routers. After the connections were established on the devices with the hotspot, I was able to browse the internet, update my applications and generally transfer files via Wi-Fi from the mobile device to my computer and back via the Connectify Wi-Fi. I was even able to control my PC remotely via Wi-Fi with the aid of an application in the ipod touch/iphone. Of course, this function can come in handy during a seminar or paper presentation with PowerPoint slides where you would need to be some distance from your PC.

Another application that also worked seamlessly with Connectify Wi-Fi hotspot was the i-remote lite application that I downloaded from the Apple itunes apps store for free. This app transformed the ipod touch or iphone into a mouse pad, bringing the multi-touch feature into good use as a wireless mouse pad or track pad. I could thus control any function of my windows 7 from any where I was in my room or office!

This is not all. You can also create a hotspot even if you are not connected to the internet! All you need to do is to select “No Connection” in the Connectify application from the pull down menu under “type of Internet Connection”. You can thus create this wireless hotspot and use your laptop computer to interact with other Wi-Fi enabled devices like Mobile phones, Sound systems etc in so many ways. Thus, transfer of files, playing music or even remote control of your PC can be carried out via the wireless hotspot generated, with or without an internet connection.

The wireless hotspot covered the whole radius of my parlour or Office, although I did not take it out to do a detailed study of its radius of coverage. Safe to say it should work for several meters radius.

I also connected the Connectify Hotspots wirelessly with a Nokia 5800 mobile phone. The results and browsing speed was commendable. But mind you, the network speed depends on the initial network connections of your laptop. Of note is that the Connectify Router capabilities also worked in cyber-cafés, whether your laptop connection is via a cable cord or wireless LAN. The Connectify can still share this connection of your laptop to potentially any Wi-Fi enabled device.

Conclusion
The Connectify application is a good Wi-Fi router replacement. It is especially useful for private use. It stands to have an immediate impact on Wi-Fi users, but could potentially impact various broadband access technologies over time. With Connectify, you have a software solution to share the data connection of your PC whether dial-up Connection or mobile broadband connection with a friend or your Wi-Fi enabled devices. And this differs distinctly from tethering options because tethering generally only allows one other device to milk that parent connection. By creating a Wi-Fi hotspot, multiple devices can join in the connection which is very slick, and has engendered me to trying out Connectify. It’s likely that we’ll see other interesting extensions of the virtual Wi-Fi software layer in Windows 7 as well, including applications with broadband technologies other than Wi-Fi, as mentioned above.

For any skeptics out there, you should try Connectify to confirm it or to see its varied usefulness. Just imagine not needing to dish out hard earned money to buy a wireless router! Some routers, like the Starcomms Router, costs as much as N45, 000.00. So please appreciate what you’ll gain by just taking advantage of this. Now, what are you waiting for? Please, upgrade your system to Windows 7 and join the Connectify users’ train. Perhaps you can say Hi to me and share your experience of Connectify with us here or in the Connectify group page on facebook. I think that there are lots of features that we are still trying to understand in the windows 7 Operating system (Example is the God Mode). The virtual Wi-Fi and Connectify is one of the functions I extol in Windows 7 and I believe the best is yet to come.

Opera’s state of the mobile web report for the month of February 2010 is out. Nigeria is in the top 10 list again at number 7, one step behind South Africa.

Here is Opera’s snapshot of Nigeria for the month:

* Page-view growth since February 2009: 1,082.5%
* Unique-user growth since February 2009: 638.6%
* Page views per user: 393
* Data transferred per user (MB): 5
* Data transferred per page view (KB): 14
* The Grid, a mobile social-networking site, is new to the list in Nigeria.

Top 10 sites in Nigeria (unique users)

1. facebook.com
2. yahoo.com (3)
3. google.com (2)
4. bbc.co.uk
5. wikipedia.org
6. cnnmobile.com
7. sharemobile.ro
8. onthegrid.com (new)
9. goal.com (8)
10. mjoy.com

Top handsets for February 2010

1. Nokia 3110c
2. Nokia 5130 XpressMusic
3. Nokia 2700c
4. Nokia 2600c
5. Nokia N70
6. Nokia N72
7. Nokia 6300
8. Nokia 2330c
9. Sony Ericsson K750i
10. Nokia 2630

Don’t forget that the above statistics reflect only mobile web usage via Opera Mini only.

You can read and download February 2010′s State of the Mobile Web report from the Opera website.

India’s largest telco Bharti Airtel yesterday said it has tied up $8.3 billion from a clutch of foreign banks and State Bank of India (SBI) to fund the acquisition of Zain telecom’s African assets, for which both the companies are in exclusive talks till March 25.

“Bharti Airtel is pleased to announce that the entire financing requirement of $8.3 billion for the proposed acquisition of Zain’s African unit (Zain Africa BV) has been successfully tied up,” the company said in a statement. “Financing was oversubscribed, with major international banks committing to underwrite the total amount,” the statement added.

If Airtel is acquiring Zain Africa’s assets, then we can expect that Zain Nigeria will be undergoing another name change sooon. Sounds familiar; right?

Read the full news item

We have often said here at MobilityNigeria that there is little functionality that the newer crop of smartphones offer that the older generation (up to about 3 years ago) don’t. In this interesting article, MobilityNigeria contributor, Brym, presents why the Sony Ericsson P1i, a Symbian smartphone released back in July 2007, is still very much his beloved.

After 27 months of usage the Sony Ericsson P1 is still my device of choice. This is obviously one device I have used the longest, beating the i-mate Jam by two months. So, why I am finding it difficult giving up the P1?

Four reasons:

1. Dimensions: For me, it still has the best dimensions and weight for a touch screen smartphone with qwerty keypad . At 124gm, it is about the lightest and most compact touch device out there.

2. Excellent multimedia/enterprise co-efficient: good camera, music and video playback on an equally effective business phone with strong PDA functions.

3. Mods: Ah, since I hacked it, I can’t do without the mods (Torch and Notes mods from SE G900, Walkman 3.0 from SE W960, clock, sound mods and more).

4. Gdesk: I am still crazy about this customizable UI application which enables me to use different UI designs for different days of the week. See screenshots:

So, how much longer do I intend to use the P1? Dunno, maybe until it totally packs up or when a truly revolutionary device is released.

I have been musing over the ongoing craze for touchscreen devices. While it seems that everyone and his dog now uses a touchscreen phone, in reality, touchscreen devices still make up a smaller percentage of the mobile market. But beyond that, it is generally believed that touchscreens provide better user interfaces on mobile devices. But do they?

I have been using a very capable touchscreen device for some time now, the Samsung S8003 Jet. Before then, the only other recent pure touchscreen devices that I have played with include the iPhone 3GS, Samsung Tocco Lite, and Nokia 5800.

Besides the pure touchscreen phones, a few hybrids have made my list – Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and T-mobile G1. But these are not pure touchscreen devices and so do not fall under the category of devices I am examining.

I have asked myself why the Samsung B7320 beat “more capable” devices to clinch for itself the spot of my Samrtphone of the Year 2009.

In one word: usability.

What? you scream, Impossible! Preposterous!!

But before you cry for my head, read on. By definition, usability refers to the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which users can achieve tasks in a particular environment of a product. In this case, the product is a mobile phone.

In my opinion, two features ensure that non-touchscreen devices provide better usability than pure touch devices:

One-handed Use
I am unable to remember the number of scenarios in which I had only one hand available, but carrying a phone with only a touchscreen slab meant that I had to drop whatever else I was doing to use the phone.

In contrast to this is the sheer ease of use that candy bar or slider phones with regular or QWERTY keypads offer. Pull the device out with one hand and type away.

In my experience, regular phones like the Sony Ericsson T650i and candybar QWERTYs like the B7320, E71, BlackBerrys provide greater usability than pure touch devices.

It is one of the things I remember the B7320 for.

Switching Screens
We love those huge displays, and coupled with a beautiful user interface, pure touchscreen devices just blow our minds away. Yet, those displays very often get in our way.

You are holding your shiny new touch device and showing something to your friend. But a slight tilt of the angle at which you hold it results in the display auto-rotating, messing up your presentation. Probably a minor irritation, but then it is often the minor irritations that make the difference between high and low usability.

You are watching a video full-screen and in landscape on that glamourous AMOLED touch display, and you lean back a bit on the couch, resulting in an adjusted angle. The display simply auto-rotates again, and you have to sit up straight to get back into landscape mode.

That never happens on your non-touch device. The display stays how you want it. That never happens with the E71 or BlackBerry Curve, for example

Conclusion
At the end of the day, much of this boils down to personal preference. Both sides of the divide have pros and cons.

For example, standard keypad phones are the best of the lot if your primary objective of having a phone is usage that mostly revolves around voice calls.

Replacing the standard keypad with a QWERTY improves usability for those who need to input lots of text. One-handed use is mostly possible and the display does not have a mind of its own. The B7320, being a case in point, gives you a fairly large display that does not switch orientation when you would prefer it to stay put, and one-handed usage. Usability.

Yet, though I am sold on QWERTY devices, I have consistently maintained that standard keypad devices provide the best usability on the planet. Those are the type of phones that the illiterate farmer in Owerri or the village in India is able to use without much problems. While the press may make noise about how they think that touchscreen devices provide the best usability, the truth is very far from that.

The most usable mobile phones are those simple, basic standard keypad devices that almost anyone is able to use without getting an education.

Touchscreen devices lend themselves to media consumption – the large screen being vital to that. Even then, the issues of one-handed use and display orientations still remain. Still, it depends on what the individual wants.

The above issues serve to remind us that touchscreens are not the mobile el dorado that many would like us to think they are. I predict that we will continue to ooooh and aaaah over our touchscreen devices for years and then when the euphoria wears out, we will largely return to more usable models – some sort of hybrids, perhaps.

One thing is for sure, pure touchscreen devices are not the future of mobile. They are certainly not the past. Or the present.

What do you think? If you use a pure touchscreen device, how do you handle the twin issues I raised above?

It is good to appreciate Microsoft and the windows phone 7 seeming anomalous marketing. It’s no one’s secret that windows mobile phones have been doing badly in sales as of recent. With the advent of the iphone and android in the mobile phone world, the fortunes of the windows mobile have been dwindling even further.

To understand Microsoft’s policy of appraising itself competitively against these behemoth “foes” you need to appreciate the diametrically opposing world of the Google Android Smartphone and the Apple iphone. One is closed and the other is open source. One has defined offering and quality assured products throughout the retail units of their mobile devices while the other have a powerful OS but ubiquitous mobile products.

Apple feels that users should have the same user interface on their device. This OS can be thus used across similar devices as part of a large ecosystem of Apple products. On the other hand, Android provides a solid open-source approach to their powerful Smartphone line-up, and many manufacturers are allowed to alter them and use them at their will.

You see in some instance, Samsung, HTC and even Acer, adding their own UI on top of the Android OS. So, when you buy an android product, you cannot predict to 100% accuracy what you get in terms of functionality or user interface. A Samsung Android phone may be different in operability from a Samsung or Motorola’s Android device. Even an android application that runs well in a HTC phone for instance may fail to launch on a Motorola Android phone. Perhaps Microsoft wants to avoid this!

Now, Microsoft wants to regulate and strictly enforce a minimum standard for their windows phone 7. They want to use the model depicted above for the Apple iphone into their Windows Phone 7 series. They want to have a closed ecosystem complete with even an apps store known as the windows phone 7 market place, where you can buy monitored apps, analogous to the Apple apps store format.

They want a situation in which if you buy a windows phone from Samsung in Lagos, Nigeria and buy another windows phone from HTC in the UK, You will have the same user experience and you can predict the UI, functionality and similar apps would run in both phones impeccably.

Merit
One of the problems facing the windows mobile is the same that may lurk out at the Android platform later on. This is an inherent problem in open source OS, which is a lack of standardization. And possibly, universality. With this new approach by Microsoft, they intend to bring about uniformity in their products and perhaps they will ensure a quality assurance too.

When you buy a windows mobile phone you are sure of the minimum RAM (256 MB), in built Memory (of at least 8GB), No removeable memory card, One of the three hard ware requirements and possibly upgradeable OS via later firmwares. There is also a quality regulated application store, where apps from third party manufacturers are scrutinized and approved ala Apple apps store format. Microsoft even promises a more open approach to its apps store.

This system also serves their enterprise partners well. There is nothing better than consistency in their Business enterprise users. Their core business enterprise users will have a choice of different manufacturers and third party applications with the assurance that they will get a single OS, the same UI, and apps interoperability, no matter the source of the Windows Phone 7 series.

Shortcomings
This attempt by Microsoft to revamp its OS is not without criticism albeit forthrightly. For one, it is not all about updating and repositioning, but taking into account the preferences of their users and customers.

This new policy has its controversies because Microsoft in their zeal to bring about their new OS, have dived headlong into it, and have ignored some of the mistakes of their arch rival, Apple. For the sake of simplicity this will be enumerated below:

1. No multi-tasking at launch. Microsoft does not want to include multi tasking ab initio in the WMP 7 so as to emulate this function of the iphone and for simplicity. Whether it is to improve battery life or just for a simple interface, no official reasons were given in the MIX event. Not long ago, the Apple iphone was criticized for lack of multi-tasking and from the intensity of this it was clear that users love this feature. Why Microsoft should ignore such as an astounding feature seems difficult to appreciate.

2. No removeable memory card. This is self explanatory.

3. No copy and paste; even the iphone corrected this shortcoming in their OS 3.0. update.

4. No flash in browser; The lack of flash baffles me. In fact they were able to put silverlight (Microsoft version of Flash) in the OS and UI but exclude it in the most important area that mattered which was the mobile internet browser.

5. Tightly regulated Apps store; this may serve as a strength as well as weakness. The Apple apps store has been criticized for its lack of openness. Let us see if that would not be the case with WMP 7 marketplace.

6. The closed environment or ecosystem; There are many people who love the Apple closed system. Others prefer openness and carrier/ manufacturers configurability of an existing OS. That is why the likes of IG (with due respect) will prefer to jailbreak their iphone to get an increased user-configurability. But whatever model you choose, the most important thing a user may prefer may be quality assurance and similar User interface and ease of use in all the Operating systems of one product.

You do not have to start learning again and mastering the User interface of an android phone or a windows mobile phone each time you change a Manufacturer. I, myself prefer a closed but quality assured user interface. Like the PC Windows 7 for instance. It is closed for instance, yet accepts so many third party software/applications.

Whether you buy windows 7 from Dell or Acer or HP, you know what you’ve bought. It has a single OS and UI in all and similar software will run similarly in all three manufacturers. Perhaps that is what Microsoft is after. But then, they should not starve the OS of features!

Conclusion
New devices running WMP 7 would not be out until the “Holidays”. Perhaps it is too early to tell if Microsoft has a winner in its hands. But suffice to say that their policy has merits and demerits. Microsoft has created an easy to use platform, and also removed the lackluster UI of windows mobile. They want to attempt to create a successful mobile model in line with their PC OS model.

The WMP OS is simple enough and allows developers to make good thirdparty applications. The iPhone was criticized before but they have gradually improved their features and are still improving and selling in droves. Perhaps Microsoft will tow the same line if it has a compelling and fluid UI like the iphone.

The taste of the pudding is in the eating, and perhaps we should just wait and see how all this turn out. What will surely help Microsoft will be further improvement of features with subsequent firmware or OS update. If their policy is well thought out, and if they offer accompanying compatible customer support, we just might have a winner in our hands.

Say hello to the HTC EVO 4G, a monster device with monster specifications.

According to Sprint (yes; its a CDMA device, so GSM people may pine all they like), the device delivers 4G speeds, that is ten times faster than 3G speeds. In addition, the HTC Evo will work as a hotspot for up to eight devices.

Sounds impressive.

Specifications:
Size: 122 x 66 x 13 mm
Display: 4.3-inch, 480 x 800 pixels, TFT Capacitive
Processor: 1GHz Snapdragon
Network: CDMA / 1xEV-DO rev.A; 4G WiMAX; 802.16e: 2500MMz
Integrated 4G radio with hotspot capability to share with up to eight devices
OS: Android 2.1 with New HTC Sense user interface
Camera: 8 megapixel Dual LED Autofocus camera with Digital zoom
Video Capture: 1280×720 (720p HD)
Navigation: A-GPS
3.5mm audio jack

The in-thing now seems to be monster-sized smartphones. A few years back, everyone was trying to miniaturise phones, but the touchscreen craze seems to have reversed that trend. Now, it seems, the bigger and meaner-looking, the better.

Thanks to the heads-up from Johnny.

Related News:
From Gizmodo
From PhoneArena

There are many things you may have heard about the iPhone. Some of these are good, but more often than not the comments are those of critics. When the author first heard about the iPhone it was from the hands of the latter. It appeared that the iPhone was a good for nothing device.

Eldar Mutazin from Mobile-review.com gave a disparaging appraisal of the iPhone and its features, several other sites also had no kind word. It was in this light that the author watched a review of the iPhone on CNN and watched the long queues a year after at the Apple stores as individuals lined up to be the first to lay their hands on the iPhone 3G. It was even christened the “Jesus phone” then because of all the emotions or commentaries that it generated, whether those comments were favourable or otherwise.

Now the question is, what is the iPhone? Has it lived up to its hype? Is there anything that it has to offer? Is it just overrated? Overblown? You may say that this article is belated and that the iphone is actually an old topic and that I shouldn’t stir up old wounds. But then the iPhone still needs to be discussed and laid bare in its intricate perspective.

Only then would you see that the iPhone is perhaps the only phone that generates such emotions from both sides of the divide. And the article becomes all the more expedient following the premise and inference from another article published recently here on MobilityNigeria, iPhone myths propagated by US bloggers. I think our readers have the right to see the two sides of the coin and make their own inexorable conclusions.

The iphone
An unbiased mind will be the best bet to properly put the iphone in its perspective from my discourse. Just let go of any idiosyncrasy and any previous conception of what you felt you knew and let’s rediscover the iPhone all over again.

But the iPhone does not support multitask? It has no copy and paste (oops, it now has). There’s no Flash support and you are stuck with the itunes store to buy applications! You have to use itunes to sync music, videos, apps… Oh, wait, it is still very expensive.

Yes; we have heard so much about the shortcomings of the iPhone. Despite all these it is still a top seller. It still has a following. The question is, Why is this so?

Nice Design
There have been gorgeous phones before the iPhone, but among touchscreen phones, the iPhone has set the standard. It has a pretty one-off design, with an elegantly designed body, and a 3.5 inch touchscreen and metallic back finish. The battery is not replaceable. Some may think this is a minus. That may not really be the case. What it shows is quality.

Apple feels that the phone has been manufactured adequately and that the battery should not fail you. There are few manufacturers today that can survive with an irreplaceable battery on their feature phones!

The iphone 3GS has an oleophobic layer on the touchscreen which is anti-dust. Have you seen other elegant touchscreen phones before the iPhone? Maybe. Now with the advent of the iPhone, so many other manufacturers are making iPhone look-alikes and the so-called iPhone killers. And mind you, no iPhone killer really exists to this day.

Iphone OS platform
Yes, it’s true that the iPhone did not invent the mobile operating system but should I say that perhaps it re-invented it. Before the iPhone, if you purchased a 100,000 Naira feature phone and a new one comes up then that was the end of your feature phone. You may need to discard it or give it out as a gift to get the latest version. To keep up with the trend, you have to cough up more money to buy the next latest. Over more than one cycle you become filled with remorse or anger at your device manufacturer. Don’t get me wrong, there was limited firmware update alright, but that still robs you of having some of the features of the newer feature product. All these changed with Apple iphone. APPLE updated the iphone Operating System (OS) of all its older products which was of course was forward compatible with the newer versions.

To be more exact, you can own the first generation iphone and be able to upgrade to the 3rd generation OS i.e. from the 1st generation iPhone 1.0 to the iphone OS 3.0 or iPhone 3GS. The hardware remains the same but you have the feel of the fluid interface and all the improvements of the latest OS.

Now you can buy a phone and you will be rest assured that in three years time, the phone will not be outdated or obsolete. This was not so in most other manufacturers until the advent of the iphone. Samsung was a culprit, it was even applicable with windows mobile phones.

Now, we now see updates to Windows Mobile 6.1 version to 6.5 and some limited firmware updates in some Samsung phones e.g. the Samsung Omnia i8910 and some Nokia phones. Mind you, in the majority of these phones, the full OS is not updateable as is done by Apple, only the firmware or some features of the phone.

These is evident that Apple, apart from the quality assuredness of its products also gives good customer support. It makes them to be able to create tremendous customer satisfaction and following.

Apple Apps Store
Before the iphone, an application store to take care of all the third party software application needs of a smartphone was not popular. With most of the smartphone manufacturers, it wasn’t even existent. Now came along the iPhone, and Apple’s app store.

As at today, there are more than 150,000 applications in the Apple app store. The apps there are varied, ranging from productivity, kids’ stuff, games, to professional. And there are lots and lots more. There are virtually apps in all categories you can think of. A lot this is even free. Even the commercial applications have their free or lite version which you are free to use and then buy the paid and full version if you are satisfied with them.

With the success of the Apple app store, Android, Blackberry, Samsung and even Nokia (Ovi store) created their own apps store. As at today, the android store is next to the Apple apps store in terms of popularity amongst third party developers with about 20,000 applications.

Multi-touch Screen and Fluid interface
What strikes you when you pick up the iphone is its smooth and fluid interface. Simplistic, yet complex and well thought through. The productivity of use alone makes you feel contented, in awe and wonder if this equipment was not out-of-the-world!

Apple did not invent the touchscreen. And perhaps neither did Apple re-invent it. As a matter of fact, Apple probably innovated from careful engineering, R&D and acquisition, Apple created the multi-touch technology which it has patented. Back in 2005, Apple had acquired Fingerworks, a company involved in touch screen technology.

In fact, Apple pioneered the GUI (Graphical user interface) with Mackintosh in the 80s. I believe that with the convergence of these technologies, and careful research, Apple pioneered the multi-touch touchscreen technology which gives one the awesome impressions of manipulating data with the fingers.

You see the coverflow artwork in the music folder, and flip pictures with precision with the flip of your finger, you pinch to zoom photos and web pages, you manipulate games and apps with the inbuilt multi-touch and accelerometer, and the effects feel truly magical.

Many smartphone manufacturers have tried to copy this. And of course the Apple iPhone leads the pace. Apple had to sue HTC for the infringing on the multi-touch patent for their copy-cat product, the Nexus-one.

The iPhone; A pacesetter to make other phones better
Even among the iPhone’s greatest critics, they cannot honestly deny the trend that the iphone has started. Everywhere you look, you see the proliferation of touchscreen phones. And a new adjective to the Techworld vocabulary is the word; “iPhone killer”.

Throughout 2007, 2008 and 2009 we keep hearing that term “iPhone killer”. Over and over again we see new phones on launch, like the palm Pre (Doing awfully bad in sales), Blackberry Bold, the Droid, Nexus One, Samsung i8910, and the Nokia N97 with one thing in common, which was the question of if they would be the “iPhone killer”. No one would disagree with the fact that the iPhone has been a pace and trendsetter. And like the proverbial Bigfoot, we only hear of iPhone-killers, we have never ever sighted one with our eyes!

The iPhone, A True revolutionary product
To understand why the iPhone could be regarded as truly revolutionary one need to appreciate what the iPhone has done to the mobile phone world. With examples enumerated above, I believe that it isn’t too difficult to appreciate.

To look at the iPhone as a phone with some good features and with some yet missing features is to totally miss the point. If you actually do that, the good features will definitely outweigh the missing ones.

The iPhone is a brand new platform, (compared with the likes of Nokia and Blackberry, it is still in its infancy), it is an exceptionally powerful mobile computer too and is the best selling touchscreen Smartphone today.

I believe it has totally revamped the mobile market and it is the harbinger of yet better phones to come.

About two weeks ago, brym! sent Yom a mail with a complaint about comments posted via Opera Mini 5 for Windows Mobile. Here is the body of the mail:

Have you received my comments on your latest post? I also commented on the opera mini native post but didn’t see it. Both comments were posted using the new opera mini 5 native application for WinMo devices.

Of course, we hadn’t seen any of the comments that brym! submitted.

This morning, kay123 also submitted the following comment with regards Opera Mini 5:

Why can’t i post a comment from opera mini 5? Comments typed on OM5 results in time wasting, I have been observing this for some time.

It looks like there is a bug with the new releases of Opera Mini. Has anyone experienced this? If you have a Symbian, Windows Mobile or Android phone, could you install Opera Mini 5 and post a comment on this thread?

Meanwhile, here’s how to submit good bug reports to Opera.

My Dad just got a spanking new Nokia 6760 Slide and since I am the family tech guru, he has asked me to help him setup a few things on the device. As such, I have the 6760 till tomorrow, or at the most till Tuesday morning.

Don’t expect this to be a comprehensive review, as 24 hours is not adequate for that. One thing though, if there is anything that you’d like me to try out on the device, or something you’ll like to know about it, fire off your questions in the comments section. Remember: I’ve got this phone only for about 24 hours.

The 6760 Slide is a slide-out QWERTY-keyboard smartphone powered by Symbian S60 3rd Edition. It has a 320 x 240 pixels, 2.4 inch display. It is HSDPA enabled and sports a 3.2 mega-pixel camera but without a flash.

Its casing is good quality plastic, and the silver edge gives it a touch of class. The keys on the QWERTY keyboard are large, give a re-assuring click when pushed and are easy to use. The 6760 keyboard is now rated by me next to that on the E90.

Besides the keyboard and navigation keys, there are three dedicated hardware keys for the web browser, menu, and messaging. Neat.

Pre-installed is the standard fare S60 Web browser. Its capabilities are well known, and there are no surprises there.

Also pre-installed is QuickOffice for office documents viewing and editing. However, launching the application and attempting to create a document returns a message that there is no licence for the feature, and a prompt to purchase one. If all you want to do is view/read documents and have no intention of editing documents, don’t bother purchasing a licence: you are good.

I had Dad’s IMAP mail setup in no time and connecting to the server to download mails. I will setup my Gmail account and see how it behaves in the next 24 hours (I have done some archiving to see if that solves the Gmail on S60 issues that I have faced for some time now).

In all, the Nokia 6760 Slide feels good in the hands, looks good too, and seems to do what the manual says it should.

Ask away any questions that you may have!

Okay, this is getting wierder by the day. Now, we are convinced that the Microsoft guys working on Windowsphone 7 Series slept and woke up waaaay back in 1980 or thereabouts.

How else do you explain all the features that are being excluded from Wp7S? First, it was multi-tasking, then copy and paste, and now removable memory. No microSD? No MiniSD? No cards at all.

Yes; we want to scream. But what’s that going to achieve?

Source. Incidentally, we notice that Afewgoodmen mentioned this in a recent comment he made on another article we published recently on Windowsphone 7 Series.

Custom ROMS abound on a variety of mobile platforms. They usually spring from attempts by users to address one or more core and unresolved failings in a device’s firmware.

Take the modding scene for the Samsung i8910 HD, for example: Samsung promised a device that offered 720p video recording at 24fps, but that came out delivering much less on both audio and video formats. Samsung later released a fix for the audio, but that only messed up the video some more, leaving users with a bitter taste in the mouth. In addition, a powerful multimedia device such as the i8910 should not come with the 18mb free space on drive :C, as it does (latest firmware).

Thanks to the modding scene, Samsung’s failings with that device have now been addressed.

• Faster operation, more free space on disk C: (around 80MB! The official latest Samsung firmware has only about 18MB free)
• Full 24fps 720p video recording with higher quality audio capture; using the same settings as Vivaz
• Pre-autofocus in video recorder; re-enabling what Samsung couldn’t make work in the prototype firmwares
• Full kinetic scrolling across whole interface
• Better theme transitions

Source

This scenario of a lone individual or a group of individuals so improving on a device that the results produce a much better device can be replicated across other mobile platforms. For example, a great deal of such work goes on at XDA Developers.

The subject of the necesitty of custom ROMs naturally raise a few issues, which we present below.

Manufacturers
Why is it so hard for manufacturers to deliver devices with optimised firmware and that deliver what was promised? For example, is it so hard for Samsung to produce the same results as obtains with the HX-V3-17 custom ROM? Or Nokia with its litany of crippled devices?

Why sell crippled devices in the first place? Are there no testing procedures or is it that commercial interests override these? What of consumer protection? Any channels for legal redress?

Where a manufacturer has pushed out a crippled device, they should push out firmwares to resolve any issues as fast as possible as a matter of integrity and best business practice. A situation in which firmware issues remain unresolved a year after a device’s release is simply unacceptable.

Lastly, we love the way that Android handles firmare updates – even the most technology-ignorant users can get their devices updated with the latest firmware. Its all done over-the-air and in the background, though the option to do it manually is available as well.

Asking users to go through complex procedures of updating firmware by installing PC suite and connecting phones by data cable, backing up user data et al is simply ice-age and so not user-friendly. We would love to see the day that all manufacturers implement background OTA updates.

Consumers
If you have had the bitter pill of buying a device that does not deliver on its promises forced down your throat and you really want to get the best of your device via custom ROMs, do note the following:

1. custom ROMs invalidates your warranty (but what good is the warranty offered by a manufacturer if they can’t even deliver on their promise?)
2. the risk of bricking your phone (rendering it unusable) is always there. If it happens, you are on your own
3. lastly, the search for improvements to a device can be time-consuming and addictive. Depending on how busy you are with real life, it may turn out to be a tremendous consumer of your precious time flashing and trying out one ROM after the other