London school children to get free loaner iPhones in experimental, educational trial
Explore Posterous
Search posterous
Search all posts and users. Type a name, type a favorite song title, whatever! See what comes up.
More posterous blogs
Here are posterous posts filed under smartphones...
VMware plans to deliver dual-OS smartphones in 2012 gadgetell
www.gadgetell.com">
The iPhone far outpaces Android and webOS in the smartphone race because it has more time on the market and a much larger and respected resource for apps. But what if someone could buy a phone capable of running Android or webOS and still run those coveted iPhone apps?
via www.gadgetell.com">gadgetell.com
The iPhone far outpaces Android and webOS in the smartphone race because it has more time on the market and a much larger and respected resource for apps. But what if someone could buy a phone capable of running Android or webOS and still run those coveted iPhone apps?
VMware, already known for its work in virtualizing desktop operating systems, wants to make that a reality by delivering “mobile computing devices” capable of running dual operating systems. According to Computerworld, VMware has plans to take the concept beyond the dual-boot solution available, instead relying on the ability to easily and rapidly switch between two systems loaded on one device. VMWare’s vision for its “Mobile Virtualization Platform” is to be able to check Facebook for personal use, load a call log or customer list for business use, and switch between screens featuring apps from two OS’s without having to power down and then boot up again. It’s a concept similar to HTC Sense’s “scenes” feature that separates work/home life features, but VMware’s plans call for far more integration, security, and “unlimited application flexibility.”
details at link ... now this would be sweet!
A Romance Flowchart: When Is It Inappropriate to Use Your iPhone?
via gizmodo.com
How many times have you been in the middle of a conversation when bam! all of a sudden you're talking to the top of someone's head as they bow to their smartphone (which btw is why it's called the "blackberry prayer"). If this chart can't solve your problems, believe it or not, there are support groups even for this.
Where's Rob? The Latest From Improv Everywhere
For our latest mission, Agent Lathan pretended to get lost during a Knicks game. Throughout the second half he kept appearing further and further away from his assigned seat with a confused look on his face. Of course Knicks fans went crazy trying to help him find his way back. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our report below.
Here's what it looked like.
Editorial: The Engadget style guide reaches a MILESTONE
So last week the New York Times Magazine published a piece called "Against Camel Case" which argues that intercapped product names like iPhone and TiVo are "medieval," because they harken back to a time in which people mostly read aloud, slowly sounding out each word as they tried to understand them. Proper word spacing, says the Times, "eventually made possible phenomena like irony, pornography and freedom of conscience."
That's sort of a crazy coincidence -- while we're not so sure word spacing and porn have anything to do with each other, we did just re-do our style guide when we launched our jazzy new redesign, and we actually thought long and hard about how to handle intercapped, all-capped, and otherwise non-standard product names. This is something we deal with a hundred times a day, and we simply weren't going to let Motorola tell us to write MILESTONE over and over again, completely contradicting our own sense of style and taste -- as the Times says, "Writers of the world, fight back!" Well, we can't say no to that, so we thought we'd share our four newly-minted rules for writing out non-standard product names:- Product and company names that are regular English words shall be treated like proper English nouns, complete with proper capitalization. Example: DROID becomes Droid and nook becomes Nook.
- Product and company names that are not regular English words shall be capitalized first as proper nouns, and then as the company treats them. Example: RAZR stays RAZR, but chumby would become Chumby.
- Intercapped product and company names should generally be treated as the company treats them, unless it's egregious and / or looks weird. Example: iPhone stays iPhone, BlackBerry stays BlackBerry and TiVo stays TiVo, but ASUSTeK becomes Asustek. This rule is subject to many exceptions based on usage and history, and also functions as the "this is stupid" loophole.
- Acronyms should obviously be in all-caps.
We think these rules are flexible to handle most situations, although there are some edge cases and blatant Rule 3 violations out there. Still, it's a start -- unlike the Times, we're pretty sure "iPhone" and "MasterCard" are here to stay, but we feel like our rules are a small step towards making our site clearer and more readable. Either that, or we're just crazy in the head.
Compare My Sprint Plan to Your AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile Plan
No, I'm not going to do a comparison of phones but I would like to do a mobile phone plan pricing comparison. Here's mine for Sprint to date. It's $69.99 per month but I get a company discount (if you work for a company, you should too) so my final bill usually is around $61.00 per month. This plan includes 450 land line minutes. Who calls land lines these days though? The rest includes UNLIMITED mobile-to-mobile, free nights and weekends, UNLIMITED texts, and UNLIMITED data. So what are you paying per month for your smartphone? So I spend about $732 per year for my cell phone plan. Are you spending over $1000? $1200? $1500? Are you getting the same deals in regards to unlimited texts, data, etc?
Android/iPhone Gets New Gmail and Google Mobile Web Apps
Google has come up with a new design for Gmail, Google Latitude, Google Calendar, or Gmail Tasks for Android and iPhone users. The new look consists of darker header and buttons to distinguish themselves from the other elements. Also all the buttons are now bit larger, to make button tapping easier for the users.
The new design does not bring any exceptional changes but the darker menu bar on the top with spacious buttons is a welcome change for users with fat fingers. Do let us know what you think of the new UI.
Try out the following services from google:
gmail.com for Gmail,
google.com/calendar for Google Calendar,
google.com/latitude for Google Latitude and
gmail.com/tasks for Gmail Tasks.
via techie-buzz.com
The Droid Battery Cover Problem
David Weinberger writes: “The battery cover of my Motorola Droid has started falling off. Yes, I’m sliding it up all the way until it catches. But it’s come off twice so far just in the course of wearing it in the official Verizon belt holder. Fortunately both times I was in my house. so I could find the cover. Next time it’ll be a small disaster. So, I’ve now taped it on, which is not exactly the mark of a quality piece of equipment.”
Yup. I have the problem too, and like you I was lucky when the battery cover fell off. I was on an a Virgin America flight from Boston to San Francisco. Taking pictures of the Rockies 35K feet when the cover fell off. It fell between the armrest and the window. I took off my seatbelt and reached down as far as I could and luckily felt the cover on the floor and picked it up. I haven’t taped it in place yet. It’s going to be a problem for sure. Wonder what Motorola et al plan to do about it?
Update: There’s a thread on this topic on the Motorola support forum.
via droidie.com
Motorola wants you to know the Droid's battery is really removable.
(Via Gruber)
Reduce Desktop Clutter With Google Mobile Coupons
No more stacks of coupons and paper clippings around shopping season. Take advantage of paperless savings-on-the-go with Google's Local Business Center's mobile coupons.
via unplggd.com
Living with Android
6 months ago I decided to depart from my usual 'feature phone' upgrade path with Vodafone, and upgrade to a smartphone - in this case an HTC Magic running Google's Android OS. Having got to know my phone over the last half year, I though I'd write a quick review - not only of the phone itself, but about the impact of having a smartphone over a 'bog standard' feature phone.
I'd been considering upgrading to a smartphone for a couple of years, but as a deskbound IT developer/consultant/jack-of-all trades with no commute to speak of, it was hard to justify the cost when I was always near a PC. In addition the only real options had been to stick with Vodafone and go for a Windows Mobile based phone or move to O2 and buy an iPhone. The former did not fill me with joy, as my brief experiences with Windows Mobile had not been pleasant, and the few people I knew with a WM phone hated them! The latter was tempting, and while I lusted after an iPhone from a purely technical point of view - I really didn't want to be tied into the Apple ecosystem... in addition I have nothing but loathing for iTunes which has caused me all sorts of miseries when used with my wife's Nano.
In May this year Vodafone introduced the HTC Magic into their range, and after a brief read of the reviews I became convinced that this was the phone to push me over the smartphone edge. It looked good, it ran the new (and importantly open) Android OS from Google, it had capacitive touch screen (like the iPhone) and had close integration with Google Apps (which I use for private email).
From the moment the phone arrived I was hooked... Android was an good looking, slick, easy and fast OS and the integration of the Google apps were nothing short of brilliant. In addition I surfed the Android Marketplace and soon had 'Newsrob' syncing with Google Reader, 'Locale' changing my settings depending on my location, 'Twidroid' allowing me to watch my tweetstream and 'FBReader' loaded up with my favourite ebooks. During the last 6 months I have added a few more key apps (and played with many more), and been upgraded to the improved Android 1.6 (Donut)... and I still absolutely love this phone! It's not perfect - the web browser can be slow, the camera is poor and there is still the occasional lag when going back to the home screen after using a resource hungry app, but overall it is a wonderful piece of kit and a joy to use.
So would I feel the same about any smartphone? I'm not sure about Windows Mobile (or Blackberry) but I can safely say that I'd have loved having an iPhone too. But given the choice now, I'd rather have my Magic anyday... the iPhone has a marvellous UI and a wealth of good apps. But I prefer the smaller profile of my Magic, the freedom to install the software I want (without Apple having to approve it for me), the background services and the joy of not having to install iTunes on my PC!
As for going back to a smartphone... never! I love having the world in my pocket. I'll never get lost again, I can see where my Android toting friends are (thanks to Latitude), I track my running via GPS, I can fire off a quick email or message (I hated texting on my old Nokia) and best of all, I always have a good ebook on me so I'll never get bored!
