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Is it possible to be a “power user” and not care if your platform is “open source” or about customization. Does “power user” mean you have time to dick around with your phone? Figured it be the opposite, someone who needs their mobile to get their work done, not how much time you have to worry about installing ROMs and launchers.

1 day ago on Android amazes me 1 recommend

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Honestly, the below-average camera is what turned me off to the Nexus 4. Everything else is great or good enough for my use, but I have a toddler that I want to take good pictures of at unpredictable moments so the camera is a deal breaker for me.

2 days ago on Does everyone who owns a Nexus not care about cameras on a smartphones?

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The first Apple product I owned was purchased for me in the summer of 2000 (iMac DV+), and quite frankly I thought it was “uncool” at first because it didn’t run Windows. But it was so reliable and the hardware so sturdy and beautiful that I grew to love it. Most other computers looked ugly or felt cheap by comparison.
A few years later I would go on to choose to buy a PowerBook G4 and Sony Vaio PCG-TR3A in high school. I loved both but the Vaio was much more popular among my peers because “Macs sucked”. Then went on to buy a MacBook in university. As it was an engineering school (maybe it would have been different at a liberal arts school), it didn’t get me many kudos and I got lots of the “Macs suck/Macs are toys” sentiment from my classmates. The following year though, everyone seemed to have gotten a MacBook/MacBook Pro. (Along the way I also acquired a Power Mac G4 Cube that’s still running to this day. First had it with the transparent Apple Studio Display CRT monitor then upgraded to the clear Apple Studio Display LCD monitor.)
So yeah, I totally bought Apple products throughout my life so people would think I’m cool. /s

This may not be the case for everyone that buys Apple products but these are my reasons:

First I like Mac OS X. I’ve always felt more comfortable with it than Windows. In the early and mid-2000’s the lack of malware was a major reason for my preference in OS X, and my Mac never crashed. So I never experienced downtime because of my Mac and it was simply reliable.

The hardware is gorgeous and feels great. I hate plastic that feels like it’s flexing when you pick up your laptop. I hate when you can feel seams where different parts of your computer are, or where the manufacturer decided to use one material and then another. As far as phones are concerned, there are still many plastic phones that don’t feel as solid as the iPhone 3G/3GS. Heck there were newer phones with better materials that didn’t feel as good/sturdy as those plastic iPhones (I should know, I own several HTC phones throughout the years)

Lastly, I admired Steve Jobs. He put so much passion into the company, it’s pretty inspiring. I think he had a sense of what was needed in a product and what was superfluous. He also had culture and brought a sense of the importance of “culture” to the technology industry. For many in tech it’s only about numbers and spec sheets, but Steve saw beyond that.

2 days ago on Do you buy Apple products because they are new and cool?

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It’s already too late but I think there were good reasons to do this 2 years ago. There would be some synergy among the business crowd with these two brands coming together. Blackberry was (is to some extent as I still see tons of Blackberrys at the Too Big to Fail company I work for) huge in the business world for its security and email/messaging infrastructure in the background, and the keyboards were really comfortable for most users. Microsoft, well you can’t not have Windows in a corporate environment, you can’t do without Exchange support (all smartphones have it these days, but leveraging brand synergy is important) and you can’t do without Office.
Put all these things into one phone and it would be a hit with at least the business crowd. (I can’t help but thinking how awesome it’d be to work on Office documents on that keyboard) They could have at the very least stopped the bleeding of Blackberry’s marketshare among this segment (just casual observation at work people are roughly 33% Blackberry, 40-50% iPhone and the rest Android).
However I don’t think outright buying Blackberry was the best solution. They could have taken the same route they did with Nokia, licensing Windows Phone to RIM and working together to appeal to corporations (where Nokia could better focus on the consumer space). At the very least they should have made an official Office app available for BBOS.

2 days ago on Why Microsoft needs to buy Blackberry (and it needs to do it quick).

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Ultimately it’s up to Google and not Microsoft as to whether or not Google makes its services available for Windows Phone. I’m pretty sure Microsoft wants Google’s services on Windows Phone, I think they want and need as many companies making apps and providing services for Windows Phone and Windows modern UI as possible. But Microsoft is too much of a direct competitor with Google, so Google’s in no rush to help a competing platform gain traction. So, as much as I’d like to blame Microsoft for this failing, the blame is clearly on Google here.

2 days ago on Windows Phone and Google Services 3 replies

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Oh shoot, hadn’t noticed it was going to T-Mobile. In some perverse way I wish we had gotten the 928 instead.

5 days ago on Nokia's aluminum Lumia 925 is the best Windows Phone yet, but that's not enough (hands-on)

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I hate to say it but I’m underwhelmed by this design. I much prefer the design language used by the Lumia 920/928. I actually hope T-Mo gets a 928 variant rather than one of these.

5 days ago on Nokia's aluminum Lumia 925 is the best Windows Phone yet, but that's not enough (hands-on) 1 reply

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Let’s see, today:
a folder, of the manilla variety.
a small notebook, cardboard color
a mechanical pencil (transparent plastic)
a pen (same transparent plastic, black ink)
an umbrella (brown)
keys, not mine but I forgot who they belong to

[People seem to be stating phones, not sure if they carry them in their bag or just adding what’s in their pockets, so:]
HTC Radar, running Windows Phone 7.8
my keys, that have a LaCie IamaKey flash drive among them
my wallet
my company ID card

not today, but on occasion:
a book
a 2007 MacBook, white, still in good condition
a 12" PowerBook G4, when I really want to get writing done
an iPod nano 5th gen, in case my phone’s battery is low
an HTC Sensation, in case I feel Android-y

6 days ago on So, what's in your bag? (Yes, I stole this idea)

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Personally I thought it wasn’t. qHD was crap on my 4.3" HTC Sensation that came out the previous year, and from then on I was well aware of the importance of pixel density.

6 days ago on Lumia 625

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Apple Maps /s

6 days ago on Which phone OS has the best international maps? 1 reply

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480×800 on that size display just seems awful.

6 days ago on Lumia 625 3 replies

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My toddler works around it too, he holds my phone awkwardly when watching a video so he doesn’t accidentally go to the start screen or Bing. Doesn’t do it with my wife’s iPhone though.

6 days ago on windows phone Capacitive buttons

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In some ways I agree with the Samsung is a threat argument, especially with things like S-Voice, S-Translate, and ChatOn that take you out of Google’s ecosystem. In another sense it wouldn’t be worth it for Samsung to abandon Android. For one there are a huge number of apps and developers that Samsung would have to court in order to bring them on to their own ecosystem. Then there’s the simple fact they can just continue piggy-backing off of Google’s innovation and get credit for it in the press and among consumers.

6 days ago on Is Samsung really a threat to Google ? (Updated)

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This very problem got me hooked on Windows Phone, actually. But I don’t remember trying iSyncr, so I’ll give it another go.

9 days ago on iTunes Sync

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DoubleTwist is kind of awful for exporting metadata.

9 days ago on iTunes Sync

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I agree, Google probably has better results than Bing but I actually haven’t used Google much in the past 2 years. (Microsoft has bought my loyalty with Bing Rewards.) I’m not doing any intense research these days, if I were still in school maybe I’d be really interested in how relevant the results were, so how “good” a search engine is, for me, is just a difference of placement of a couple of sites. Maybe the site I need is the third one down on Bing but first or second on Google.

There are some things I honestly like better about Bing though. I think the design of the Bing home page is more interesting than Google’s. I also prefer the social integration on Bing (results from Facebook, Twitter and Quora, that are occasionally useful and pretty unobtrusive).

9 days ago on Stop pretending that Bing is even remotely as good as Google Search 1 reply 1 recommend

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I am a beautiful HSPA+ user who don’t need no LTE

Mmhmm

9 days ago on Nexus 4 NO LAG

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It sucks for many reasons but if you know any Koreans it’s the only game in town.

9 days ago on Just text me, baby! Alternate title: Your messaging apps & you.

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The last Vaio I owned was a PCG-TR3A, and it died shortly after the warranty period. However it was probably my most favorite laptop ever.

10 days ago on Sony VAIO Fit Series

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Not too surprised if this was on a lower end machine. The E (and previous C series) came in two configurations one that was “current” and a lower price option with last years components (but wasn’t the same as last year’s model).

10 days ago on Sony VAIO Fit Series

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It was exclusive to Sprint, actually.

10 days ago on New Sony Windows 8 convertible revealed, shows off slim design in leaked video 1 reply

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Dude, Google IS freedom. Seriously though, I think Android is fine just the way it is. I can make DuckDuckGo my search widget if I wanted or sideload apps. The carriers and manufacturers get to add bloatware that makes the platform more attractive to them, and I get to be able to take it all off.

12 days ago on I'm starting to think that Android will eventually be more Google and less freedom in the future.

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Thankfully there are no blind Google/Android fanboys, just informed users that have objectively chosen the best platform. Unlike those iSheep and Windows Phone losers. [sarcasm, in case it’s necessary to state this]

12 days ago on Microshafting.com - Microsoft gets a taste of it's own medicine!