Mobile Scoop: November 2012

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Official: OS 10.0.9.1103 for BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha Now Available

Developers now have access to download OS 10.0.9.1103 for their BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha devices. The includes bug fixes, but also an important update for Web developers as the BlackBerry WebWorks HTML5 tools have been updated to offer more functionality and to draw closer to parity with Native tools.

http://n4bb.com/official-10-0-9-1103-blackberry-10-dev-alpha-available/

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

oby@mail4web.ch

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Pocket for Mac updates with improved sharing, new keyboard shortcuts, and more

Pocket for Mac updates with improved sharing, new keyboard shortcuts, and more
IMORE - THE #1 IPHONE, IPAD, AND IPOD TOUCH BLOG | NOVEMBER 27, 2012
http://pulse.me/s/fMi4D

Pocket is one of the popular read-later services for iPhone, iPad, and Mac its Mac version has been updated with improved ... Read more

--
Sent via Pulse

Oliver Yatco

Monday, November 26, 2012

Facebook pushing staff to switch to Android over iOS

Facebook has commenced an in-house promotion dubbed ëdroidfood,í encouraging staff to switch to Android, reports TechCrunch. The term is a play on the ëdogfooding,í which is used by software company uses its own product to test it and demonstrate its qualities. With the Android OS well on top in the battle for the smartphone market share, Facebook is trying to encourage more employees to adopt Android devices in order to help improve the quality of its Facebook app for the majority of users....

http://electronista.feedsportal.com/c/34342/f/626172/s/25f68707/l/0L0Selectronista0N0Carticles0C120C110C260Cfacebook0Bin0Bhouse0Bposters0Bpromoting0Bandroid0Bdevices0Bover0Biphone0C/story01.htm

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Oliver Yatco

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Sony coats Xperia P in 24-carat gold, keeps up tradition of so-so phones in luxury shells

Outside of custom projects, the cardinal rule for draping phones in exotic materials is that they must never, ever be truly high end devices: at best, they should involve mid-tier hardware that could be eclipsed by a garden-variety smartphone at a fraction of the price. Sony's maintaining that all too time-honored tradition by producing a gold-coated, 24-carat version of... the Xperia P. Yes, rather than spruce up a flagship like the James Bond-approved Xperia T, Sony has instead given the luxury treatment to a smartphone with a strictly middling 4-inch display and dual-core 1GHz processor. In fairness, the company sees this as an experiment rather than a Vertu-like business model, with the intent strictly to emphasize the unibody design. A maximum 15 have been built as a result -- and rather than count on impulse purchases from oligarchs, Sony hints that it's offering at least some of its gold Xperia P stock to followers on Facebook. As long as there's no pretenses of living the high life with what's really a very ordinary phone underneath, we're satisfied.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Sony

Comments

Source: Sony

Original Page: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/24/sony-coats-xperia-p-in-24-carat-gold/

Oliver Yatco

T-Mobile Nexus 4 sells out hours after Google refers to it

T-Mobile has sold out of the LG-made Nexus 4 smartphone from Google just a few hours after the announcement of a special sale on the device. Google today began advertising a special offer whereby T-Mobile customers could get the Nexus 4 for $199 with the activation of a two-year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate. A look at the product page for the T-Mobile Nexus 4 currently shows it as out of stock, though it is possible that the device may be in stock at T-Mobile's physical locations....

Original Page: http://electronista.feedsportal.com/c/34342/f/626172/s/25e5c320/l/0L0Selectronista0N0Carticles0C120C110C230Cgoogle0Badvertised0Bt0Bmobile0Bnexus0B40Bsale0Bbefore0Bell0Bout0C/story01.htm

Oliver Yatco

Former Apple engineer: Everything Apple does involving the Internet is a mess

Apple (AAPL) excels when it comes to product design, interface design, marketing and in a number of other areas but when Web services come into play, things go south fast. "Almost anything Apple does which involves the internet is a mess," wrote former Apple engineer Patrick B. Gibson on his personal blog, pointing to a number of examples to support his claim. Among them are the fact that Apple can't update its online store without taking it down, the fact that Notes requires an email address to sync, the fact that iTunes and the company's App Stores are powered by "a mostly dead framework written almost 20 years ago," and the unmitigated disasters that are MobileMe and Ping. Gibson also jokes that "iMessage for Mac lives in an alternate dimension in which time has no ordered sequence."

Gibson does note that Safari is a bright spot — perhaps the only bright spot — on Apple's Internet resume.

Why is this such a big deal? The former Apple coder shares a colleague's belief that "Google (GOOG) is getting better at design faster than Apple is getting better at web services."

"Google, specifically Android, has been steadily improving its entire platform," Gibson wrote. "To me, it still doesn't have the same quality of polish and feel that Apple software does. However, it's getting harder to argue that point, especially since their web services all tend to Just Work. Features like Google Now and near-instant voice commands are starting to give Android a serious leg up on iOS. Design is coming along as well. Android is still ugly, but it's much less ugly than it was a few years ago. Google seems to be actively addressing this, and if Apple isn't worried, they should be."

He goes on to suggest that Apple should acquire Twitter, not just in an effort to take an immediate leadership position in the social networking space, but also for Twitter's talent. Gibson says Twitter uses some of the most advanced Web technologies currently available, and that the engineering team there invented much of it.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheBoyGeniusReport/~3/kSi3GkSr5Jk/

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Oliver Yatco

Monday, November 5, 2012

Microsoft explains WP 8 Lock, Home screen design decisions

Microsoft has explained its thinking behind the Windows Phone 8 Lock screen and the home screen. Two company blog posts explain the processes behind the two screens, why the changes from what were established in Windows Phone 7.5 were made, as well as some other behind-the-scenes commentary....

Original Page: http://electronista.feedsportal.com/c/34342/f/626172/s/253a124c/l/0L0Selectronista0N0Carticles0C120C110C0A40Cbehind0Bthe0Bscenes0Bexplain0Bchoices0Bin0Bwindows0Bphone0Bui0C/story01.htm

Oliver Yatco

Saturday, November 3, 2012

40 Mac apps with great, eye-catching designs

Many Mac apps are beautiful to look at — while other operating systems have beautiful apps, design is a bigger factor for the platform's developers. And, a lot of the time, these apps are wonderful to use too – their fantastic design being part of a carefully-considered UI that engages users and makes the apps truly useful.

With so many apps being developed for the Mac, by amateurs and professionals alike, it is hard to stand out and innovate. Gathered in this collection are forty examples of apps that have tried to push the boundaries with their designs.