Official YouTube app for WP is back!

As reported by WPCentral the official YouTube app is back in the store with new features!

According to the app description, the features include: 

Pin any video, playlist, channel, and search queries to Live Tiles

Manage your YouTube profile with your unique My YouTube page

Manage your playlists, uploads, and video lists

Find channels, videos, and playlists with the quick access search bar

Share videos to your social networks, e-mail, and text messages

Let your kids watch safe videos in Kid’s Corner and keep their own profile

The app is now available for older devices too, which is a great win for legacy users who have felt left out lately from Microsoft’s releases.

You can download the now official (and legal) YouTube app for Windows Phone here in the Store.

Source: WPCentral

Nokia Lumia 1020

Amazing Camera
     I don't know about you but the Nokia Lumia 1020's camera is amazing! If you didn't already hear about it, the phone houses a 41 mega-pixel camera. That packs an astronomically high 4 million pixels into an image. That is just crazy pro quality there. Image provided by WP Central.

Microsoft Imagine Cup 2013 Winners

     Very interesting thing about one of the most well known tech competitions. Students from all over the world test there creativity and problem solving. Very interesting stuff here I must say! The winners were announced at St. Petersburg, Russia.  Four fellows from the UK won the Innovation division for their work on soundSYNK, a mobile app that can connect a virtually unlimited number of devices like Windows Phone 8, iOS and Android.

The History of the Smartphone

     The smartphone has slowly evolved from clunky interfaces, fat, slow pen enabled phones to slick, fast, slim super phones powered by apps. Originally the smartphone was created to act as a PC and have the portability of a phone. Originally the smartphone was a niche product and picked up by very few until today where the smartphone today has become a status symbol. Many think that Apple was the main innovator of the modern smartphone and has the only viable product. Truthfully Nokia, Samsung, and RIM are the major innovators in this realm and two out of the three are in financial trouble. Come with me on a ride through history of where the first smartphone was born up to today where the market has truly been cultivated.

Conception

     

      The first batch of smartphones were not very small or light, but rather large and bulky. The IBM Simon pictured above was created in 1994. The earliest concept was introduced by a man named Theodore George "Ted" Paraskevos who birthed the early smartphone. Still we follow a very thin line of scattered concepts by various people until we get to the date 1992. The "Angler" by IBM was announced at the now discontinued COMDEX trade show. Two years later the Simon was released to the public in 1994. Of course the Simon phone would never compare to today's smartphones or even some feature phones, but at the time it was in a class of its own. It could send and receive faxes, e-mails, and pages thanks to a stylus guided touch screen. Of course it did not have a fancy 720p HD screen or a Clearback AMOLED screen like most flagship smartphones today, but at the time the monochrome back lit LCD was revolutionary enough. It had a fold out keyboard and was powered by the Datalight ROM-DOS a.k.a Microsoft mobile Disk operating system. It wasn't wildly successful compared to current smartphones with a modest 50,000 units sold at killer prices on contract: $899. It weighed 1 lb 2 ounces which would be clearly unacceptable today for modern standards. Other things like an address book, calendar, world time clock, alarm clock, some predictive touch keyboards, and a few games. Via an upgrade you could even run 3rd party apps! The bummer was only 1 3rd party app was ever developed called Dispatchlt which ran for $300. Of course the price would be so outdated today and now would be at the most $8.00. This may not have been wildly popular, but it was a revolution that has set the standard for the modern smartphone. Next came along Finnish phone giant Nokia with the Nokia 9000 as part of the communicator line. Compared to the Simon the 9000 was more powerful and lighter at 14 ounces. Thus began the evolvement and creation of the smartphone line. Still the majority of the populous did not want these phones because they could do even more tasks with their PDAs. Finally the first phone to be marketed as a smartphone was the Ericsson R3880.
 

     The True Early Years

     Now with a phone on a real smartphone OS the market expanded to include other competing OS like WebOS and Windows CE/Mobile. I can't truly cover every single smartphone, but I can cover the OS that have come over the years and their biggest phones. 

Blackberry

• Originally created in 1999 for the Blackberry pager. 
• Soon took off as a big player in the smartphone race when at once was the "smartphone to get." 
• Now is struggling in 3rd place with 9% market share.
• Biggest market is now Enterprise and government due to unique protected calling feature. 

     

Windows Mobile

• Originally made in 1990 to run on "pocket pcs' a.k.a Windows CE
• Windows Mobile 6 was released around the time of the Iphone 3GS 
• was later replaced by Windows Phone 7 with a new store and a totally new look
• At its highest point in 2007 it had a commanding 42% marketshare

Windows Phone 7+

• Announced in Spain at Mobile World Congress in 2010
• Was meant to replace Windows Mobile 6 but was not compatible with existing phones
• has a measly 3.5% marketshare according to IDC
• has Office apps unlike any other platform which are going to be updated with Office 15

 

iOS 

• announced in 2007 as Iphone OS
• was not released with any 3rd party apps
• homescreen is called Springboard
• 1 a year the OS is updated via OTA update
• 12.4% of all mobile users (smartphones and feature phones) have an Iphone.

Android

• Android OS is a linux based Open Source OS headed by Google
• First Android phone was sold in October 2008 
• Android Inc was originally founded in 2003 by Andy Rubin and was bought by Google in 2005
• Android is the largest mobile OS with 48% marketshare and over 400 million devices
• One biggest problem for Android phones is the update system with over 55% of users still on gingerbread. 

Web OS

• Also based on a linux kernel developed by Palm
• Originally launched in January 2009 on 3 phones by HP the Veer, Pre, and Pixi.
• April, 2010 HP bought webOS for 1.2 billion dollars
• Was originally launched with 18 apps in the store which grew to 10,000
• Current marketshare is 0.6% 

          

What is to happen?

       Well we have seen smartphones evolve from clunky phones referred to as bag phones with limited functions to insanely thin and light phones with high resolution cameras and speedy ARM based processors that can handle games desktops in the 90's couldn't. Nokia recently came out with the Lumia 920 and 820 which features wireless charging from Qi which debuted in the Samsung Droid Charge. The advent of the portrait keyboard is slowly dying as virtual keyboards get better and more advanced. For now the future is unknown, but inevitably things will be thinner, lighter, and more powerful. We just have to wait and see.

Liking the new WP website?

     You may not know, but today the Windows Phone team has redesigned the Windows Phone online site. Thankfully this was much overdue and the overhaul adds a cleaner crisper look. The place where you could get your apps and games has been revamped so that adult content apps show up less and the same for racist apps. They have also destroyed the demo section and have the features/how to section. The buy has been overhauled to a phone section which is very metro looking and has only phones on the top 3 carriers. So far the Lumia 920, 820, or Samsung Ativ S are not there yet. What do you think? Go to windowsphone.com to see more!

Free Windows Phone!!

If you sign up with T-Mobile you will get a free brand new Lumina 710 with a 2 year contract!! Check out the link below for more details

http://phones.microsoftstore.com/ecommerce/phones/?filterbycarrier=59&filterbybrand=1&refcode1=MST_0228_003_STORELUMIA

Windows Phone 7 UI review

Test Subject: HTC Trophy

OS Version: Windows Phone 7.5 Mango

Rating 4.7/5

Performance

     Windows Phone 7.5 is a big step up from 7.0 with over 400 bug fixes and a more beautiful, natural, and ergonomic design. Multitasking is much better in Mango and the overall performance is very zippy. Some of the big things is more apps able to run in the background, message threading, more stable UI, and a whole lot more apps. On the HTC Trophy apps loaded up fast and games ran very quickly. Windows Phone is very minimal and everything is bigger, faster, and better than other mobile operating systems. Internet Explorer 9 is not what you think it is big bulky and always in the way. This time around it is almost non existent and the address bar is at the bottom of the screen and is much improved in quality and speed. Also the entire look and feel is more refined. I prefer this OS to any other and hope to see some of WP7 (marketplace apps) on Windows 8.

Marketplace

     Windows Phone 7.5 brought in a lot of mainstream apps but not enough for many picky consumers. Adobe reader, ESPN, Shazam, Pandora client, Tune In radio, and Iheartradio shows you that they have great music choices for the regular music streamer. There is a ton of Xbox Live games for the true gamer at heart and the average daily Joe like angry birds, Hydro Thunder Go, fruit ninja, and Pac Man Rally. Even at 70,000 apps it is still found lacking in some departments but also has some very unique apps that I found like the free Tom and Jerry app with 100+ episodes and for $3.99 you can get the best outdoors app to date SAS Survival Guide with not only the best selling book in the app it also includes video gallery, comprehensive picture database of edible and non edible plants and animals, and pop quizzes to test how smart you are in the wild! Windows Phone apps are the best looking and quickest loading apps out in the smartphone arena.

Design

     The Windows Phone 7 team must have taken a long time planning the layout of a otherwise unknown Operating System. The important thing about the layout is the ease of use of the WP7 platform. The main thing to know about the design or layout is the unique metro layout. The idea behind the "metro" look is putting the user first. The word metro derives from a subway station where there is a whole bunch of metro or retro stores underneath the ground. The entire metro interface follows you wherever you go even especially in every app. The whole design has a similar character trait with Apple's IOS platform uniformity. In Android you do not get the same experience where ever you dare enter. With IOS it is the same look wherever you go even if it is not a very refined look. Also the only thing able to be customized is the background and all you see is a wall of apps which do not tell you anything except for the few with little red notifications on them. With Windows Phone 7 you get a beautiful Start menu which you can choose to pin certain items and things like the temperature on your weather tile or how many and who e-mailed you all show up without you actually going into the app. The whole fluid minimal design puts the user up front and personal with what you want not just random bloatware. It may have a ways to go but for me it does the job well and beautifully. 

Score 9.5/10

 

Best Iphone 4S Competitiors

I have been hearing many complaints from my base on my partially biased review on the Iphone 4S (biased toward Apple not Android) and have decided to do another review except showing the 3 main phone OS other than IOS which are Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7. I personally am a Windows Phone fanboy but today I am going to give an unbiased review of the top dogs of these respective phones.

#1 Android - Samsung Galaxy Note

     Android is the most popular phone/tablet operating system and the Galaxy Note is a wonderful combination of phone and tablet a.k.a phablet. One of the biggest detractors of the Iphone 4S is the small 4 inch screen. The Galaxy Note has a 5.3 inch screen which may be a bit big for your hands but ultimately comes with alot of perks including a S stylus, faster and more productive 1.4GHZ dual core processor, 8mp rear camera with LED flash and full 1080p video recording, Super AMOLED screen (Active matrix organic light emitting diode) which is far superior in quality and performance, and a suite of apps dedicated to the big screen and perfect for your stylus such as a solid note taking app and the Samsung touch whiz skin layer similar to the HTC sense UI. Also Android is growing quickly with approximately 500,000 more or less apps and games, and with the new Google Play store it features 14 million songs and 100 free songs with a new Google Music account, all the latest and greatest movies available for 24 and 48 hour rental for low prices, and google books has over 3 million books for all subjects and gets 5 stars for research papers especially on Azerbaijan! This is a solid choice even though the 2 year contract price starts at $249 depending on your carrier. If you need a ton of apps and a really large screen this is your best buy.

#2 Windows Phone 7 - HTC Titan II

     This was a very hard choice for me since all of the Windows Phones are the same. Microsoft has done a great job with their propiertary OS especially since it has surpassed Blackberry in 2010 in app count. Market share and carrier availability is low since almost all phones are on AT&T and all the other carriers except T-Mobile have only one. (T-Mobile has two). The big factors for the HTC Titan II is the biggest camera sensor to date a whopping 16mp camera with 1080p video recording, a large screen is also great at 4.8 inches, and all Windows Phones come with Office Mobile apps preinstalled (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and One Note), and it has 4GLTE functionality which the Iphone can only do 3G. The reason I chose this as number two is because Windows Phone has 70,000 apps to date and even though it got a late start among the 500,000 app count giants it still made 10,000 apps faster than anyone in the market even if they were not the first. Also it passed Blackberry in app count in May 2011 and is expected to pick up market share and app reliability when the launch of Windows 8 and WP8. The idea behind this is that you can synchronize your documents, apps, and files all on one account. With this idea developers will come and so will consumers. This is a great phone for $199 on a two year contract with AT&T only unless you buy one unlocked off of Amazon. Also Windows Phones are extremely cheap unlocked some going for $139 refurbished with excellent specs. 

#3 Blackberry - Torch

     This is the only touch screen powered phone by Blackberry and is the only phone on our list which is smaller than the Iphone at 3.7 inches. This is underspecced compared to our other competitors on the list bearing a 5mp rear camera with 720p hd recording, Blackberry 7 also BB10 upgrade able which features an Android emulator so you can run any Android app on your Torch, this is the first Blackberry that is all touch and is aimed at consumers and BYOD (bring your own device) establishments, and features the lowest price on our list at $179 on Verizon Wireless. The Torch is a big step in the right direction for the dying RIM even though they still have more market share than WP7 and has one of the most money making app stores around people do not will not buy it because it is a Blackberry. RIM has to learn how to stop scaring consumers and bring them into the "Bold Fold."

   Wrap-UP

All of these OS are very respective in all that they do and all have similar features that rival the boring IOS. Android features Google Voice Search which is much like Siri which you can ask questions and it will direct you to the right answer and can text by voice. Also live wallpaper brought in by Android 2.3 update is a beautiful touch to the boring row of apps in IOS. Windows Phone 7 has the most dynamic look of all the OS there is. Live tiles show you how many e-mails, messages, missed calls, and facebook notifications you have and are big and bold in color. Also Bing search acts alot like Siri and does the same as Google Voice but can also earn you Bing rewards with each search gathering prizes like $5 Amazon gift cards. Lastly Blackberry has a voice search client and a mostly boring but functional UI. I prefer WP7 since it has Office built in for free and all WP7 phones have 25GB free of cloud storage on Skydrive which syncs with your Windows or Mac pc. 

The Last Microsoft Keynote at CES

The upcoming CES event is sadly going to be the last CES conference that will feature a Microsoft keynote. Microsoft has reported that it will be more of a wrap up of the year rather than a full keynote. Even though the 32 inch Intel core i7 32" Exo desk made by Viewsonic is having debut there. Also their is a section for newbie companies to showcase their finest equipment. Maybe Fusion Garage will bring the Grid10 and Grid4 phone. Also the small possibility that the Windows store will be showcased their still stands along with a video bloggers dream. I suggest checking out phone dog, Engadget, Goodereader, Minipcpro, and Netbook news because I know they are sending out someone to check out the latest equipment. The death of CES will be disappointing to many who wanted to make the pilgrimage to this almost holy site in the world of tech. We can be sure Android will be wanting to puff out their chest with ICS (Ice Cream Sandwhich) the latest update to the now popular mobile phone OS. Microsoft will also try to save the Windows Phone project. Being in the small portion due to Apple and Android downing it greatly. Everyone I talk to always says they think about getting one but will not because they heard bad news even though the average rating on amazon.com is 4.5 stars. Anyway the death of an old giant Symbian has occurred with the last phone the Nokia N9. So in my last words to Microsoft keynotes is farewell!!