Category : Entertainment, Featured, Work, Life, etc.
Category : Featured, Phones, Reviews, Web/Tech, Work, Life, etc.
I recently had time to look at the HTC Trophy, Verizion’s first Windows Phone 7 device. Let’s dive in:
Hardware
If you’re looking for the fastest phone, then this probably isn’t for you, but it does come with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, it sports a 3.8-inch capacitive touch screen, 802.11n Wifi, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, GPS, FM Radio. It also comes with 8 GB of fixed flash storage with 512MB ROM, and 576MB of RAM. It also has a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, and is able to take video in 720p. The bad thing is no front facing camera.
The phone is small, and it was easy to hold and use, and felt natural in the hand. The battery was good, as I could get a good 24 hours of usage out of it, and with minimal usage I could get a couple days usage.
I really liked this phone, and all in all for the people who are afraid of smartphones, this is one of the best for a beginner.
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Category : Featured, iPhone, Software, Web/Tech, Work, Life, etc.
Back in January, I wrote about five things I’d like to see in iOS 5, I thought I would update that, as the beta is out, and it’s been officially announced.
The first thing on my list was wireless syncing, this is now going to be a part of the iOS system. It works in the way that everytime you plug your phone into the wall to charge, it’ll sync with iTunes automatically. It’ll also backup to iCloud if you want it to use that instead of iTunes as a backup system.
Number two on my list was lockscreen improvements. There wasn’t really a good improvement to the lockscreen, as I would have liked to see my calendar and weather, but this also is a part of number four on my list better notifications.
The third thing was SMS enhancements. This didn’t get done, as I also would’ve like them to incorporate some Bite SMS features, like quick reply, but they did come out with a new messaging system called imessage, which is an iOS to iOS device messenger, that bypasses the carriers SMS fees. It’s built into the SMS app on the iphone, and when you add the person it automatically changes to imessage if that person has it activated.
On to number four, better notifications, this got reworked, and now notifications show up on the lockscreen, and you slide the icon to open the app, and there is now a notification center that slides down from the top and all your notification are in one place, it also doesn’t do the popup window by default, it shows the notification across the top of the window.
The last thing was the built in apps and the ability to delete them. Nope, still can’t do that.
So, as I’m looking back at this, my score was 3.5/5, so that’s pretty good for a guess at what Apple will do.
Category : Featured, Phones, Reviews, Web/Tech, Work, Life, etc.
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I’ve been using Google Voice for a long time now, I started using the service when it was still called Grand Central. Since the Google takeover, the service has become more and more useful. Here is my case for everyone to make the switch to Google Voice.
The newest feature that they’ve added is number porting. This of course means that you can port any current number you own to Google Voice for a small $20 fee. I myself wouldn’t want to port a cell number because you will be responsible for all ETF’s and other fees, but this makes more sense for people who want to get rid of their landline service and keep their number.
The part of the service that I use the most is the SMS, it allows you to send unlimited SMS messages for free through the service. This can be done on the iPhone and Android apps, as well as from the web interface. You can also send a message to up to 5 people as well.
The other feature that sells it for me is the phone forwarding options. This allows you to add all your current phone numbers to the service, and then when someone calls your Google Voice number it will ring to all those phones. Phones can be mobile, home or work, as well as Google Talk, and you can customize the times the phones will ring, so if you aren’t going to be home between 8-5 on weekdays, you can choose to not have it ring your home number at those times. If you are going to be in a meeting or have some work to get done, you can turn on the Do Not Disturb feature and all calls will go straight to voicemail. You can also record calls if you need to, of course you need to be aware of local laws regarding call recording.
If you don’t want to make the full switch, you can sign up for the service and just use it for voicemail on your mobile phone, because when you get a voicemail, it’s transcribed for you, so you don’t always have to listen to them. The transcription is not perfect, but 90% of the time I get the gist of it without having to listen to them.
The other thing that I love about the service is the call blocking, ever since I’ve been with the service, I hardly get anymore unwanted calls, and if I do, I block them and then the next time they call, they get the standard phone company “We’re sorry this number is no longer in service” message, and you’ll never get a call from them again.
It’s best also to keep your contacts in Google contacts and I would also recommend that you keep them in groups such as Family, Friends, Work, etc. That way, you can record separate voicemail greetings for each of those groups. Since it is a voip service, you can also buy credits to make very cheap international calls.
The service is great for what it does, and they seem to be rolling out new features on a regular basis, so go to the Google Voice website and get your number now and start using it.
As always if you have any questions you can email me or leave a comment below.
Category : Featured, iPhone, Mac, Web/Tech, Work, Life, etc.
1. Wireless Sync
I would love to be able to sync without plugging in, especially if I want to just add a few items. This is available to jail-breakers, but not everyone wants to take that leap, so it’d be nice if apple could just turn the switch on and let us sync without wires.
2. Lock Screen Improvements
The lock screen is rather useless now, all you get is a clock, but I would love it if Apple bought the company that makes intelliscreen, which is a very useful lock screen for jailbreakers.
3. SMS Enhancements
At one time I had my idevice jail-broken, and loved biteSMS because I could reply to a SMS from the notification screen, or quickly compose a SMS from anywhere, this doesn’t seem like it would take too much to implement, and would be a wonderful addition.
4. Better Notifications
This one is a no-brainer, the current notification system is clunky and needs work, if you get multiple notifications you have to go through them one at a time, and they pop up on top of each other, this is another one that Apple needs to buy the company that makes the Notifier app for jail-broken devices, and it would make the notification system a lot more usable.
5. Default Apps
The built in Apple apps are nice, but not for everyone, I would like Apple to let the users choose their default apps, I don’t use the Calendar app, but if I make an appointment through mail, it goes into the calendar app, and for the love of God, let us delete the weather and other apps we don’t use or need.
This is just a small list, but it’s some of my biggest ones I would like to see implemented. Let me know in the comments what you would like to see changed in iOS5.
Category : Featured, Phones, Reviews, Web/Tech, Work, Life, etc.
One of the newest additions to the Android lineup is the Droid Pro. It’s a candy bar style android phone with the keyboard on the front, so there is no flipping or sliding necessary.
The phone is a nice size, it’s 2.5″ wide, 5″ tall and about 1/2″ thin, so it’s very comparable to most smart phones. It feels ok in the hand, but just a little tall, there are 3 physical buttons on the side of the phone, a volume rocker, the power and a button on the right side that is preset to go to the calendar application, but you can change it to whatever you want, the headphone jack is on the top center, which I didn’t like because when I put it in the newest Griffin car dock, I couldn’t use an aux cable with it. The screen is is a 3.1-inch TFT LCD touchscreen, and it was very usable in all conditions.
Category : Featured, Phones, Reviews, Work, Life, etc.
I have to say to day to date the Droid X is one of the best Android phones out there, and first off the specs:
It’s got a 4.3-inch 854×480 screen, 1GHz OMAP processor, 512MB RAM, 24GB storage, 8-mega-pixel stills, 720p HD video, DLNA w/HDMI Micro out, three mics for noise cancellation and wireless N with 3G hot spot capability. It’s powerful, and it’s got a good design, but there’s more to the story.
Category : Featured, Phones, Reviews, Web/Tech, Work, Life, etc.
I had time to look at the Kin One and Two over the past couple weeks, and I have to say, Microsoft really knows how to screw up a phone. It’s not quite a smartphone, but it’s also a little more than a regular phone, as it ties into the major social networks, has no app store, and they still charge you for a smartphone plan.
That being said, I got used to not being able to do anything but look at and update my status on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Windows Live, but that’s about all you can do, besides email.
Google Voice Leaves Beta, Now Open to Everyone [News]: “
Until today, Google Voice was a neat service you needed an invite to get into. Now Googles thrown open the doors, letting anyone who wants One Number to Rule Them All—or just web-based voicemail on your current number.
Google’s long-term plans for Voice has been an interesting exercise in educated guesses. Google acquired the clever GrandCentral service, then did nothing for what seemed like a long time. Then Google Voice emerged, under limited beta, and started shutting down GrandCentral. After that, the Voice team acquired VoIP service Gizmo5, and shut down new sign-ups there, too. Just this morning, we updated our guide to updated our guide to making free Google Voice calls—with no idea what would come an hour later.
Head over to Google Voice and activate your free account with a Google log-in. You’ll get to choose between keeping your existing number and upgrading it with Google Voicemail, or taking on a new main Google Voice number, one that can ring your cell, home and office lines, desktop VoIP setup, and allow for web-based texting without any charges and pretty cheap international calls. Number portability, and no-setup web calls, are potentially on the way.
Here’s our best advice on eaing the transition to Google Voice. We also recently rounded up all our prime Google Voice coverage, and that’s worth a look for newcomers.
Tell us what you think of Voice, now that you’ve finally got a free crack at it, in the comments. What’s the coolest feature you hadn’t heard about? What still needs implementing?
(Via Lifehacker.)
