Hate Windows Vista as much as you like, but the fact remains that Microsoft’s failed intermittent operating system between the incredibly famous Windows XP and Windows 7 set the grounds for the major leap that the Redmond company took from the former to the latter, both in terms of feature set and graphical uplift, and not to exclude user experience. Windows 7 itself was a huge success, and from the looks of it, Windows 8 is following in its footsteps, despite the controversy surrounding the removal of Start Orb (and menu) from the operating system.
JoinedNovember 9, 2012
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Microsoft’s Surface RT is a thing of beauty, and that comes from personal experience. The tablet is solidly built, with amazing externals and powerful hardware inside. The display on the Surface RT tablet, too, is stellar, and puts to shame many in the competing arena. That said, the only proper limitation that comes packaged with the tablet, is its inherent ability to run only ARM applications. In other words, you can forget all your legacy x86 apps and remain stuck with only those that Microsoft has approved, and is selling through, the Windows Store. This restriction is not limited only to the Surface RT tablet, either; all Windows RT tablets suffer the same dilemma, and for those users that are looking for an alternative solution, the choice lies in opting for either the much-pricier Surface Pro, or any other Windows 8 Pro-based tablet.
Wallpapers and themes are a great expression of your tastes, preferences and overall personality, be it on whatever platform that you apply them to. From desktop computers to feature phones to Androids and iPhones, background images have said more than perhaps any other thing that might be counted as a personalization feature on your device. I personally feel they add a certain touch to my phone that nothing else can provide, and for that reason, I am really choosy about what image ordains the screen of my Sony Xperia S.
Samsung’s Galaxy lineup of high-end Android smartphones is technically scheduled to receive the addition of a new member to the family, and the hype around that continues to build as we move ahead in the year. While no one yet knows for sure the release date or the actual specifications of the device, so much as been ‘leaked’ that it’s a fairly good guess now that the device will feature an Exynos 5 Octa CPU, coupled with Adreno 320 GPU and a 13-megapixel camera.
When Apple introduced Siri, they started quite a war amongst and for other smartphone competitors to match the Cupertino giant’s virtual personal assistant. Android, being the biggest iOS counterpart, received the most share of such solutions, including the likes of S Voice from Samsung, and Google’s own Google Now – a real time, intelligent and location-aware service embedded within the Google Search app for Android. Over time, Google now has matured quite a lot, delivering the right information at the right time, letting you plan your commutes, flights, travel plans, day schedule and whatnot when you need it. Now, with the latest update to Google Now, Google has made the app all the more useful, introducing widget support for devices running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and above, as well as new information sources.
Gestures are one of the most innovative ways (yet) to interact with any device that supports human interface input. Almost all modern devices, be it smartphones, tablets (that includes the iPad, too), or modern ultrabooks, support some form of gesture input. And for good measure, too, because using that, you can easily get things done that would otherwise require some form of button input, tapping on the screen, or navigating through the system otherwise. Being a long time user of the iPad, I can testify that the multi-touch gestures are, indeed, a blessing.
Smartphones have made our lives a lot, well, smarter, to put it in one word. They serve multiple purposes in our daily lives, such as portable media players, capable replacements for point-and-shoot cameras, personal information managers, handheld gaming devices, internet browsers, social connectors, news and eBook readers, email managers, document suites, and of course, communicators. We have become too accustomed to all these luxuries, that it would be hard to imagine going back ever to a dumb phone, and we have become so reliant on these conveniences, that our lives definitely feel incomplete without taking full advantage of the capabilities that a smartphone has to offer.
On a personal level, I hate shopping, but let’s just face it; you can’t always avoid it, or run away from it. At the beginning of the month, you may have to stock up on groceries, kitchen supplies, cat food, or pretty much anything else, and it doesn’t get any better than to have someone to help you out with that. Now, the problem that I face the most (and I am sure a lot of our readers can relate to it), is to keep forgetting what I had to purchase. Sometimes, it’s very obvious little items, while at others, it may be something as small as a pack of candies. Bottom line is, if you forgot it, you’ll regret it later, one way or the other.
As of this writing, the iPad has been, and will probably remain, the undisputed champion of the tablet arena. Initially perceived as and mocked at being a blown up version of the already-successful iPhone, Appe’s tablet introduced the world to a product that existed for quite a while, but was never able to gain popularity with the mainstream user. Of course, the fact that Apple already had a pretty good software ecosystem going on in the form of the iTunes App Store didn’t hurt, but the iPad has a certain degree of comfort that you only wish for with other similar products.
The not-so-long-ago redesign of the Gmail app for iPhone and iPad made it much, much better than perhaps any other email client out there, and owing to the elegant, exquisite and functional layout, the app became my favorite email app for almost all my electronic communication needs. Considering that I use Gmail both for my work and my writing ambitions, I would rate the current version of the iOS Gmail variant even superior to its Android counterpart, which is surprising, consider that the latter is Google’s own brainchild. Nevertheless, these things happen, and there ain’t much that you can do about them.
