Category Archives: India Inc & You

This section gives you valuable insights into how you can develop your personality when you are working with India Inc – comprising of all software companies in India.

Nokia Asha 308 review

by geeksrik

IMG 8947

 

I recently purchased a Nokia Asha just to experience the supposedly improved s40 operating system by Nokia. The new version of the operating system is supposed to be more smoother and richer compared to the previously boring user interface. So does it really meet the stated improvement as far as the user is concerned? Read on to find out.

Even after Microsoft aligned with Nokia to manufacture Windows 7, 7.5 and 8 phones, and Nokia open sourced symbian, their series 40 and 60 operating systems are still doing well in low cost markets. The team at Nokia has revamped these operating systems to a great extent to make better use of available larger memory and processing speeds.

IMG 8948IMG 8950

The first thing you notice about the new Nokia Asha series is how the icons are more beautiful against a stark black background which makes the colours not only rich to the eye but also the fonts more clear to read at any point in time.

A notfication bar is almost an absolute must for those who do not wish to dwell into a million settings menus to get what they need. Given that the higher end smartphones have set that bar, Nokia has managed to implement a slick looking pull down blue notification bar for its Asha range of touch phones. Not only is the blue color soothing to the eye, it provides just the necessary information that is needed for us to glance quickly at the status on the phone. The slide down and push up is well implemented and its smooth and nice to use.

IMG 8951

 

Another thing that I liked in this new operating system version is the concept of overlay user interfaces. For example if you wish to have chosen a profile to use for meetings, or outdoors, or slient modes, earlier one had to go into settings -> profiles, and choose one of them. A long press # key also put the phone into silent mode. However, in the Asha series, Nokia has managed to overlay the most important and always used 4 settings or profiles as a simple touchable option over and above the standard icons. This not only provides an easy way of setting the profiles but also goes along with the overall notion of a simplified user interface in the phone.

IMG 8952IMG 8954

The settings menu is slick and scrollable and you can reach multiple levels quite easily with a few touches. The way Nokia has chosen the colors for the apps only emphasizes how good they are getting applications to look extremely unique to themselves and at the same time, pleasing to the eye without creating any form of strain. Take the calculator for instance, its neat white background with black keys, and light gray background with black fonts for the keyed in numbers helps the user focus more on using the calculator than getting distracted with wrong colors that hurts the eyes. I always have hated the work of people who used ridiculous colors on their apps or websites as they tend to expose their lack of concentration on how the readers or users of these can feel about their work. In this department its full marks to Nokia which has managed to refresh its really aged and super old s40 OS !

IMG 8955IMG 8958

Next on would be the focus on really how usable any input mechanism on such a small phone would be. Compared to the ruling smartphones out there in the market today even in the budget range, the Nokia Asha is still much smaller on the screen which makes it a challenge for Nokia to make the input mechanisms more accurate. Whether its the calculator or the onscreen keyboard for messaging or chat, or whether its scrolling through menus by touching through, I can confidently say after what i have experienced – that the Asha series of Nokia phones finally nails what was missing in the S40 OS since a long time. A super easy keyboard, which is very accurate and highly usable even in spite of tight space between characters makes this phone all the more a joy to use in terms of its elegance!

IMG 8960IMG 8962

Continuing with this new tradition, Nokia has left no stone unturned to ensure that all its apps merge with the overall scheme of things to make a highly saleable operating system. The Radio app, the clock, alarm and timer apps use the right type of fonts at the right places to emphasize on what the user should concentrate on. The only other way it should have been is that Nokia must have concentrated on these improvments long back which would have perhaps showed the world what they are strong at. Even now is not a bad time though, and its only more joy to see a new and rich operating system.

IMG 8961IMG 8967

Finally much as in the other higher end phones, Nokia Asha comes with three slidable pages or sets of panels where one can put a much wanted app, or shortcuts to frequently used apps.

Coming to other matters, the Nokia Asha 308 has the following specs:

(source : flipkart)

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At a cost of Rs.5000+,

This phone has: Bluetooth, navigation, EDGE, GPRS, USB, expandable memory, conferencing support, and dual sim

This phone DOES NOT have: 3G, personal hotspot, WiFi, rear camera.

To summarize on other aspects that we know where Nokia has its strong points:

  • This phone has good call quality
  • This phone has good battery life
  • Detachable batter slot and memory slot, supporting upto 32GB
  • Over the air upgrades
  • Good touch response
  • Socially connected apps are available
  • All formats of audio/video mostly supported
  • All mail mechanisms are supported

Some sore points of the phone would be:

  • Unlock button is on the right bottom which hurts the thumb
  • Overall the phone is quite slippery
  • Phone is tad bit heavy
  • Sometimes the user interface could be a bit laggy
  • Opening and closing apps can take time depending on the app
  • atleast Wi-Fi must have been included in order to help faster downloads and at the home or at the office use.

So should you buy this phone?

If you need dual sim, dont need 3G or WiFi and can manage with Edge and only need to see mails or chat, then this phone is for you.

If you need strong navigation support, mail attachments, downloading games, music over Wifi or 3G, good video call support and many more apps, then this phone is NOT for you.

 

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Hakrappa KJP-gey vote haakro, hakroppo ….

by geeksrik

align=baseline

(source wikipedia)

On one fine evening in 2008, a certain reasonably old man with white hair and moustache was crying on the TV screen, when a little girl who phoned in told him that Karnataka has finally elected a leader who will work towards its development and who will rid the state of its corrupt practices. He assertively declared that he will wage a war against corruption and uphold the victory that the state had provided to his party.

Five years down the line, the same gentleman was still crying on the TV screen, accusing his bosses and detractors of robbing his role and respect for all the hard work he did while wearing a khaki trouser and learning to stand in the hot sun to build up the party he so fondly cared for. After he took over the party to power way back, his growing deeds of giving away large amount of money to temples of his choice, giving away prime lands in Bangalore city to his sons, and his supposed illegal involvement of being a beneficiary in the mining scan and iron ore scam earned him nothing but a boot out of the party.

After so many misdeeds and his political incompetence within the BJP on how to handle his peer pressure from Sadananda Gowda, Eshwarappa, Ananth Kumar and others, the man knew two things. One that his only way to escape this mess is to get out of the party before people decimated him. And two, that BJP had no chance in the upcoming ULB and assembly elections. The second turned out to be the trump card hiding close to his chest which he used to bail himself out to form the KJP.

The ULB election results are a direct pointer to what awaits the state in 2013 assembly elections and it has already given the BJP both a smack on the head and a slap on the face pretty deftly. The huge swing in votes towards the Congress means only one thing: People dont know who else to vote for – whether for KJP which is yet to test its waters with the same candidate who screwed the state, or for the JDS which is yet to be clear on how it intends to be a good state level player with credibility and track record.

Due to the obvious reasons, Congress wins by default, but the real acid test now is the expected bickering in the congress between Kharge, Siddu, DKS, and a few other stalwarts who will form a team similar to that in BJP and might either be advisories or ruin the show. While at a national level congress is stressing on youth participation and young blood and all that, we are yet to see a visionary congress leader after SM Krishna during whose time Bangalore’s transformation was unbelieveable.

Given we have a gazillion flyovers, and toll roads now, given we also have the metro, given we have billion people from all the states settled down here, given the increased crime rate, given the absolute lack of governance, given the beating Kannada as a language has got, given an already overgrown city without similar growth in infrastructure, given crazy land prices all over, and in general given the mammoth metamorphisis of Bangalore into a lazy-concrete-traffic-jammed-mall-cultured-rude-screwed garden city, what exactly would be the congress manifesto to bring back some sanity to Bangalore?

What is there to vote for? What hope as a city do we have left that things would be any better anymore? – The answer is NOTHING. The last time I could vote for congress, jds and bjp. This time i can also vote for another one – the KJP. I am surely wanting to hear yeddy cry again in joy on TV for some reason that never matters. Its the iconism that matters doesnt it ? :-)

 

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Metro lines to open during third quarter 2013 to mid 2014

by geeksrik

The Bangalore Metro (BMRCL) has today stated that the metro services towards West and South Bangalore must see the light of the day by about the third quarter of the next year. While this is an unexpected delay, it will no doubt be a boon when this really opens up to this extent.

routemap

(image courtesy: BMRCL)

 

The most crucial parts of underground metro lines surrounding majestic (city central) area would however not be ready until almost mid of 2014 which is when one can say the two lines are completed and fully usable. On the south stretch, KR Market to Puttenahalli (near Metro Store on Kanakapura road) and on the west stretch Swastik to Hesaraghatta (which is more of a straightforward line) would be a substantial distance of coverage for some real time commutes for the people residing there when it opens up for public.

Particularly its bad luck for the people around Vijayanagar as they have to wait atleast another two years before their route sees the light of the day! For now its a long wait of atleast one more year until the said plan takes shape and we see some routes operational. Better late than never!

Also the government has approved a direct line between MG Road and BIAL (airport) which is expected to take people to the airport in 44 minutes from MG road. The only downside of such a decision is the amount of road work, dust and pollution it is expected to create for the next two years along the already screwed up Bellary Road.

newroutes

New routes of Namma Metro (image courtesy: TOI)

 

The government has also considered a route between Banashankari Temple and Electronics city along the outer ring road and Hosur Road, and another line between IIMB and Nagawara junction to facilitate people from the south to reach the north easily. These are just on paper as of now and hopefully must be part of atleast a 2020 vision for Bangalore. This is acceptable considering that the busy London Underground Tube Rail took almost a 100 years to reach where it is today! Good luck to you BMRCL and hope you cheer up many more people next year by finishing things on time!

 

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Is Flipkart really serious about customer feedback?

by geeksrik

After much coaxing, waiting, reading, reviewing, and hearing great things about flipkart, I ordered a Steve Jobs book which I got promptly. Delivery was quick with many sync up calls and all the fanfare. Continuing to be impressed I decided to order a HP multifunction wireless printer as shown below:

ScreenHunter 01 Jan

To my luck, the price fell from 5200 bucks to 4949 as shown above. Promptly enough I received the delivery of this printer in two days. I setup the printer and took a test print out via WiFi connection using my iMac. The next step was to setup the scanner functionality by installing additional drivers from HP on my mac. While I was doing this, the printer switched off.

Continue reading →

Swift Dzire sub 4 metre compact sedan launching for Christmas, deliveries will start in the new year

by geeksrik

History of news flow

Autocar India, the country’s premier automotive magazine reported late April, 2011 that the new Maruti Swift Dzire would get shorter and cheaper.

It also made an audacious attempt in getting an actual picture of the compact sedan and succeeded very well. The image which it claims was taken by one of its readers (not me!) is the one you see below.

newdzire

(source: www.autocarindia.com)

 

Since this article many websites such as motoroids.com, bharatautos.com and indianautosblog.com have been citing the original article from autocar india, and bharatautos even went one step further in morphing the new swift with the old dzire to produce its own rendering of what the car would be like.

I even saw another launch photo of the dezire with a boot like the old premier padmini 118 NE, sort of ridiculous looking, the source of which I dont have (with due respects to the owner)

photo-dz

 

Well now its time to reveal some rather accurate information about the new swift dzire.

Interiors and Design

The swift dzire due to its sub 4-metre length is expected to cost lesser. For the sake of simplicity we will talk only about the high end variant the ZDi. Currently with the recent increase of prices from maruti, the on road price in Bangalore is about 8.7 lakhs. The interiors of the new compact dZire is going to be exactly similar to the existing new swift.

ScreenHunter 01 Nov

(source www.marutiswift.com)

The fabric quality is obviously better, and you can notice the marginal increase in space at the backseat. The gearshift remains same from the original swift and swift dZire. There are chrome bits near the a/c vents, and the dashboard itself and so also on the doors and window linings. As in the case of the swift, there is no 60:40 seat folding option here, but then when you have a boot already, you can just fold the seat completely and it will become better and bigger. Since the dZire will be a passenger car, Maruti might decide to make the interior seating Beige in colour which is yet to be seen. Even the beige interior looks pretty good in the swift as was in the case of the earlier dZire and finally its upto owners to have seats of their choice. Karlsson and Autoform are two good companies to opt for with respect to seating as their jobs are perfect and the styling is top notch.

ScreenHunter 02 Nov

Note that the new dZire will also sport the same stereo system as in the new swift. Its a waterfall model stereo system. I have tested this system out and it is not as good as it is in the FIGO. But that is because Ford has intelligently packaged the stereo and speakers. The speakers on the front doors have a hollow region to create an impeccable undistorted bass. In the swift though that will be sorely missed. The new dZire will not have bluetooth functionality, though it will have stereo controls on the steering and Mp3, USB ports. Which brings me to the steering itself.

The steering is an excellent creation and its electrically assisted, making it butter smooth. The churn is simply awesome when you want to use that 4.6m turning radius to turn the car into cramped places. The steering is a joy to use and is precise and accurate and smoother compared to the old swift. Do not forget to wrap it with some genuine leather and it will be the best beyond that for a car of this price range. The horn is not worth it on the stock setup and its worthwhile to install the windtone horn (skoda or polo type horn) as an after market accessory.

After having had some success with Sx4′s practical design, the new dZire will carry over the same legacy with bottle holders on all doors, and a nice retractable cup holder right next to the co-passenger A/c Vent

ScreenHunter 03 Nov

(source: Swift brochure)

 

Exteriors, and rear assembly

The only question that everyone has about the dZire is – why should a car that has been designed that everyone should hate it named as – the dZire!? It sold in thousands, but yet everyone hated it. It had a waiting period of 4-5 months, yet everyone hated it, but yet Maruti made huge sales. So will the new dZire be again the same story with respect to styling of the rear? The big-ass boot if I may call it so? The good news is NO. Observe the first picture provided by autocar and in the rear you will observe that the new car has an sX4 style tailllamp. So now the differences between the old and new dZire models will be evident if you look below.

comapre

So if I were to hammer the boot of the existing dZire a bit from the top to flatten it, and remove its taillamps to give it the sX4 style taillamps, the dZire would then be looking much more nicer and similar to the first photograph above. You get an idea dont you? The car becomes much more buyable by nature. Given that statement, the new dZire is likely to top charts in bookings by customers when it launches.

So when then will it really launch is the next question. From sources it is likely to be launched by Christmas, and also demoed at the Auto Show coming up in January next year. The training for Maruti salesmen for the new dZire is already over and the car might be expected to hit the stockyards for display and test drives by as soon as December second week.

Performance and some other differences compared to older versions

Everyone knows the power of swift family of vehicles. No one can talk a word against the world famous FIAT multijet engines which are part of many diesel cars including the current swift and the older dZire models. I have personally driven all the vehicles which have this engine and those that have other diesel engines just to find out the difference in tuning. The new Swift and dZire have some changes in tuning. In the older cars, the torque of 190Nm started appearing around 1700 rpm onwards, but in the new cars the torque now appears only at 2000rpm. In layman’s terms this means that one has to reach 2000 rpm quickly and be at that level to experience the fun side of this car. Having said that, I have driven the new swift at 10kmph speed in second gear, 20kmph at third gear, and about 30-35kmph in fourth and fifth and one of the strongest points of this engine is that it does not switch off at these speeds which gives excellent driveability. For those who have driven the old swift they will know how silent the engine was on the inside. If I were to amplify that silence and make it 10 times better by padding the right bits in and around the car interior, thats called the new swift ! The silence is overwhelmingly impressive inside the car.

The top end drive remains as good as the older versions and there is no change here barring the extra welcome silence which is appreciated. For cruising between 90 and 110 this car will be very peaceful on the inside. The new dZire also had an added armrest for the driver which was not present in the older one.

Costing and conclusions

The dZire due to its sub-4m length is bound to attract only 10-12% duty instead of the usual 22%. For an on road price of 8.7 roughly this translates to about 87,000. But due to input costs being higher, one can expect less than half that as a discount to the end buyer which means the new dZire ZDi is bound to cost about 8.3 lacs for a sub 4m sedan. For another lakh more there are bigger better sedans with fuller boot so its hard to say whether this car will find a market at that price. Given the 90bhp version of the same FIAT engine plonked into its bigger cousin the SX4, and overpriced beyond 10 lakhs for no good reason, there is a fair chance people would be better off with the 75bhp compact sedan at 8.3 lakhs rather than a bigger underpowered cousin at 10.3 lakhs.

With Airbags, ABS, a butter smooth steering and a highly damped interior, the swift dZire compact sedan will have a charm of its own. The rear styling being correct is enough reason for potential buyers to now start taking this compact sedan more seriously. With a mileage of about 15 in the city and about 18-20 kmpl on the highway this is not going to be exactly a chartbuster but reasonable enough for daily runs and nice highway trips if you are that kind.

So dealers are now discreetly accepting bookings for this new version and the older one will be phased out by mid to end december 2011. Only time will tell whether this compact sedan finally quenches the buyers dZire for the HEART CAR!

 

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Nokia launches Symbian Belle 603 phone in Europe

by geeksrik

This phone has a 1Ghz processor which is bound to be very fast. Take a look at the introductory video for yourself:

 

 

 

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7 reasons TO NOT buy or TO buy the iPhone 4S in India

by geeksrik

So the big iPhone launch event is now over and the dust is settling down. I must say that Engadget has done a fine job of updating on the event progress while it was on. It takes a lot of effort for a tech website to be spot on with respect to the updates. Given its experience in handling past Apple launch event this was a cakewalk for Engadget this time as well. Finally Engadget also summarized the whole event in a short bulleted fashion for people who don’t have the time to read the full scoop.

iphone4s-20111005

(image courtesy : Engadget.com)

Given this introduction let us then discuss the top 7 reasons why you should NOT buy the iPhone 4S. These reasons come out of my experience with using the iPhone 3GS for a year or more. So lets head straight on then …

  2. Closed filesystem – While for a person who does not bother to look beyond his iPhone, he can live entirely only with the phone without having the need to transfer anything out of the iPhone. Unfortunately not everyone is like that so one would like to have the ability to transfer important documents, photos, and other files out of the iPhone. This need may arise since we would use the phone with the associated data service to download a lot of useful things from the net. Imagine not having the feasibility to transfer it out of the phone. You might ask me if this is totally impossible – well not exactly – you can do so if you transfer it to another iDevice only.
  3. Absence of ports – I do agree and everyone here would also tend to agree that Apple makes a wonderful set of products. But omitting things like a USB port or a mini HDMI port only means that Apple would want its ecosystem to be protected to such an extent that one has to buy an iMac or iPad to transfer data out or an Apple TV product to transfer video content to a TV. I have a boxee box, which does all that and more by connecting up to a simple WiFi network and it needless to say has a HDMI port, USB slots, SD card slots and wireless NAS accessibility via uPNP protocol. All at < 200$ (Rs.10000). In today’s world, I cannot fathom paying 650$ without any of these just for the sake of lifestyle.
  4. Camera – When Apple launched 3GS version of the iPhone they provided a meagre 3.2 megapixel camera without flash, even when other manufacturers were already on the 5MP bandwagon with dual led flashes. While daylight photos were not so bad, night shots were pathetic. I am not even still considering the time it takes to edit that photo outside of iPhone as the transfer process itself requires iTunes software on an iMac or a PC. Arguably while apple has done away with the need for a PC anymore, can you think of atleast one time where you would love editing your photos on the phone itself. Its a small screen and you will run out of patience pretty soon. You might be wondering that it still has a 1080P full HD recording ability and hence more superior than a few other phones. Well I do tend to agree, but it all boils down to the same question as earlier – how would you transfer the content out for proper processing before sharing. For novices the phone would do it all automatically by processing and uploading to a video sharing service such as youtube, but for professionals who would like to edit the video more in depth, would find it intimidating when the device does not allow certain things. Coming to apple’s claim that the camera takes pictures in 1.1 second with a 0.5 second timing after the first picture, there are many other phones which also take pictures in about two seconds or so and offer face recognition since a couple of years now and this is nothing ground breaking. If i can wait for 1 second, i can also wait for 3 seconds!
  5. Pricing and rollout countries – Pricing has always been a premium for the iPhone. It continues to be so for the iPhone 4S which will retail for $649 or a little over Rs.32.500 in India on a fully unlocked basis. If you notice carefully India is NOT one of the countries which will get the iPhone 4S on October 28th. This directly shows the step motherly attitude that Apple has towards India. It has not skimped in the same way for the iMac though so far from releasing it on time. There are a lot of factors for this attitude from Apple. In a country where 3G speeds are not as consistent as they should be and in a place where a few thousands of geeks consider that India is geeky just because they use all the tech that is available, it does not mean that there will be millions of sales of the iPhone. The real winners out of phone sales in India would be those who provide dual sim phones with music player and radio, with perhaps a memory card slot thrown in at a rock bottom price of less than 50$ (~ about Rs.2000). Given this situation, a company like Apple which is vying for market share has no business in India with its ultra high end smartphone. And they are in no mood to subsidize it either.
  6. Carrier based subsidies – Unlike in the USA, carrier based phone subsidies and exclusivity for phone launches along with subsidies is not prevalent in India. With mobile number portability in place already, there is hardly any hope for this kind of model to work in India. Without subsidies we are then only looking for a very small percentage of market penetration Apple can achieve with its smartphone.
  7. Other feature sets -
    2. Flash disk size is hardly a differentiating factor these days for phones. I would at the maximum cycle around 1000 songs in my entire phone owning history and if I have 10000 songs while its good, we are talking only of a very select subsection of smartphone owners who are bound to be such music addicts. So if I am not a music and movie addicts there is no way that I can put the iPhone’s 16GB space to have anything else practically given the limitations on what can be stored and what not.
    3. GSM/CDMA universality is again anything groundbreaking. The early advent of dual sim, triple sim, and quad sim phones with multiple combinations of GSM/CDMA are more than already enough to provide the flexibility and for Indian’s going abroad there is a rare necessity to use two SIM cards on the same phone even alternatively instead of in parallel.
    4. iOS5 with iCloud - While the iCloud (which I had written about here) is a brilliant effort by apple for descoping physical limitations of the device storage, the concept itself is nothing groundbreaking. Almost every other provider is now on the cloud. The difference might lie in the way the other providers (versus apple) that let you access the cloud. On windows, accessing apple cloud is the slowest so far compared to say even Hotmail. Amazon cloud is yet to be tested by me and how Google might fare is only a fair guess having used google for a lot of time now. The real problem with iCloud is the missing information or lack of knowledge of how to find the files stored in the cloud. While other providers just list what you have in the cloud, Apple has incorporated the cloud concept into every application. So if I want to open some content, the only way is to get into the application having the ability to open that content, and then find the stored cloud content which I have created. This approach is useless and in no way enables me to get what I need quickly. I do appreciate apple’s clutter free approach in keeping cloud content specific to the applications that can harness it, thereby classifying it properly, but what is the use if I cannot see what I have stored in entireity on the cloud (ala Kindle Fire) ? The notification bar in iOS 5 has no quick launch buttons for bluetooth, WiFi, etc even in iOS5 !!
  8. Font and screen sizes – due to the limited screen size, even tasks such as facebooking, or emailing on an iPhone is not possible for a long duration. After prolonged use of the iPhone 3GS i have already increased the font size in order to prevent permanent damage to my eyes. Kids playing games on a small screen are only inviting a disaster as far as their visual abilities are concerned. On the outset it does not look like a big issue to many, but as a user of iPhone over a year, I cannot underline the importance of doing certain things on a bigger screen device. Atleast 7 inches of screen size, and most preferably a 10″ screen. This is the most ideal for heavy multitasking even if its just gaming or browsing or reading. This is perhaps where the kindle screen is a better alternative with e-ink technology compared to a retina display which is dazzling rather than practical to the already strained eye.

So if the Apple iPhone launch was all about brickbats, are there no boquets then? Your guess is as good as mine. Apple is a company which stresses on innovation. And when the give a feature they will implement it in a way incomparable to other mobile manufacturers. The TOP 7 reasons why you MUST go for an iPhone would be:

  2. Siri voice recognition – Here is an app which recognizes what you need and contextually remembers and answers all your related questions. Going all the way upto taking the stress out of you to do mundane tasks such as sending messages, shuffling music, etc. But the big question here is whether it will understand Indian English accent? That is yet to be proven and only time will tell.
  3. iTunes match - it is not clear how well this service will function yet. This seems to be a nice feature, but not compelling enough for an iphone buyer in India even if he is a music addict.
  4. the A5 chip – Apple’s processors are always a judicious choice and if you have seen the way an iPad 2 behavious with respect to screen renderings for graphical applications or games, then its not hard to imagine how blazing fast the iPhone 4S would be in the same aspects.
  5. Airplay mirroring - agree that this is a seamless feature, but it also requires equipment on the other end to support this kind of handover of content like a TV taking over from iPhone or gaming on the TV from an iPhone. We are still talking about a good six months before someone makes this possible. For those devices that already have airplay enabled, they will profit from this feature immediately
  6. Battery life - For those who own current generation apple devices they will already know the state of their battery prowess. Start with 100% at morning coffee, and you are < 10% before an evening coffee, leave alone dinner. Apple seems to have understood this and have high claims on battery life. This simply means the new iPhone would very well extend into day two of battery being in good shape kicking out those silly Mophie and other juice products into the bin sooner than later.
  7. Lifestyle device category - I cannot stress on this aspect any further than I always have. Apple makes lifestyle products. One that suits all age groups. So if I can do something on my iPhone, my kid can find something else worth doing for his age, and my aged parents can marvel and photo album swipes for their age and understanding. This is where Apple really shines and one device can keep all ages happy.
  8. App store - Apple we know pioneered the concept of app store and today they have anywhere more than 1,50,000 apps. This pretty much means you have an app that will help you brush your teeth and an app that will potty train your kids and an app which will monitor vital health signs of a sick aged person at your house if necessary. Extending the app store to iMac, iPad and the iPhone apple has ensured that they are on top of the money minting pie for a long time to come. Anybody else who makes mobile devices now has to have a store even it means aping apple and even if it means they have only two apps – facebook and twitter. For me honestly about ten apps should suffice. But it is really the needs and wants of 5% of the worldwide mobile phone market who own this phone that really matters. And the apple app store is pretty much geared to cater to this growing need in style.

So here were my 7 top reasons you should and should not go for the iPhone, now the call is yours. Tell me if you will or wont go for the iPhone 4S by answering the poll below!

Speculating on the prices of Apple products

by geeksrik

Lets take a try at speculating what the new prices of old and new products from Apple would be so long as they dont open up their online store!

  • Apple Macbook air – starting from 60,000 upto 90,000 Rs.
  • Apple Mac mini – starting at 45,000 upto 70,000 Rs.
  • Apple thunderbold display – starting at 60,000 Rs. upwards
  • LION operating system – Around 5,000 Rs
  • Apple Macbook – might still be kept (50%) or removed totally (50%) as long as stocks last
  • Thunderbolt cables – around 5,000 Rs.

So what is your take? Let me know in the comments section of this post!

 

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Blackberry Playbook to launch in Bengaluru on June 22, for 32,000 for basic WIFI version

by geeksrik

At a time when Apple iPad2 has already upped the stakes, and close to its heels is Samsung 10.1 Galaxy Tab with Android Honeycomb 3.1 (the latest and greatest android flavour), Blackberry has announced in the Times of India regarding its Playbook launch. It has promised freebies like HDMI cable (a Rs.300 value) and a leather cover for the tablet (about a thousand bucks worth). So is this enough to lure you to buy one?

bbplaybook

 

Lets in short see whats going in favour of the playbook and what’s not to help you decide.

ScreenHunter 03 Jun

 

The Pros:

  • It runs QNX real time operating system which is proven, handles multitasking effectively and is known to be similar to linux in terms of capabilities
  • The user interface has been thoroughly worked upon and there will be no doubt that this tablet will present a sweet user interface which will be easy to work with
  • Being Blackberry it will no doubt come with many options, including advanced configuration options for the technically inclined, making it a great tablet to work with
  • Its ability to run multiple applications including time and memory consuming tasks such as media playback simultaneously with other things is a good effort.
  • At 425 gms this is going to be surely one easy tablet to carry around.
  • Multitouch gestures make it equivalent to Apple, but this is now an expectation more than a feature release due to the standard set by Apple!
  • 1GHz dual core processor and 1GB RAM is good to run many applications but the video and graphics rendering performance still waits to be proven
  • Adobe Flash support is a plus one over apple which does not have it
  • 3MP front facing and 5MP rear facing cameras must be enough for most jobs
  • Both these cameras are 1080p compliant which is good

The Cons:

  • India is a price sensitive market. When the 10″ iPad2 is available at 29,500 for the WiFi version and the 7″ Galaxy tab is available at a little lower, would a pricing of 32,500 be justified for a 7″ RIM playbook? – No, in my opinion
  • They say on their website “Application rich eco system”, which is a farce. No one can beat apple on the amount of applications on their app store. Not even google for some more time. With icloud launch apple just pulled another fast one on google. RIM is left in the lurch with this kind of claim and it will be ages before they get some good apps on their store. I mean, how can the availability of Need for Speed help my productivity? Get the idea?
  • This tablet is a 7″. The recommended size for good fonts and readability is 10″. Which is why even Samsung now has a 10″ and which is why even Apple has a 10″. A 7″ tablet is at best good to hold and carry across. On the usability, I have my own doubts. For media viewing anything less than 10″ is like a car DVD player. eye strain comes free with it.
  • Blackberry’s promised support for using Android apps, has not taken off properly yet. Without this, RIM has no teeth left to face competition. This tablet would have sold well if it were priced between 20,000 and 25,000 rupees. Unfortunately at a whopping 32,500 bucks RIM is making the same mistake Samsung did with their 7″ Galaxy. Now that apple has plugged the pricing hole, it has set the benchmark on how people should price their products. RIM is on the way to disaster if the pricing is what it is on the playbook.

Summarizing the article, RIM is launching Blackberry playbook at a time when the market has already smelt the meat which Apple has launched at an USA-equivalent pricing with the iPad2. Samsung which has make a killing with its 7″ tablet will soon get its Android Honeycomb 3.1 10.1″ Galaxy tab which is even thinner than iPad. A failing RIM has a big task ahead with the Playbook and all its similar looking QWERTY phones which it has been famous for, until now that is. Only the true and faithful would still stick to RIM and its products. At a pricing of over thirty Gandhi notes, your guess of how many tablets RIM will be able to sell is only as good as mine.

 

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