Cragnet

The nexus 6 really needs to be a killer device. I've recently had a note 3, lg 3 and now z2. All hardware specs are great on paper but the android implementations are riddled with bugs and hardware that fails. Note 3 the gps borked by samsungs latest iupdate, g3 that overheats then you can't remove device administrators bug and now the z2 another device that overheats when using the camera and now the settings app fails to load to enable me to move apps to sd which did look like its a missing option.  To date I still have my nexus 4 as a spare, nexus 5 with my work sim which I still believe is underpowered and finally my xiaomi mi2sc.  I know tomorrow if i spend £700 on the high end fruit phone it will work, can run and store over 100s over apps and the hardware is good. Albeit the 5s with 1gb is not enough.  For android I can't find any decent comparison and am just disappointed because I love the vanilla os but somewhere along the line I find a reason not to keep it

2012 has now gone and we are officially in 2013 narrowly avoiding the end if the world on the 21st of December - End of the world – as it didn't happen | Science | guardian.co.uk I wrote this piece a month ago and thought I'd better post it. For technology in the Apple world we have seen the iPhone 5, IPad 4th generation and iPad mini and I expect to see Apple release the same products again with minor iterations in 2013. They will be billed with the usual hype that its the best thing ever, you need it and like sheep I will notably follow and but them. I tried the Galaxy note last year and it was a good experiment and whilst android had moved on with the number of applications available. I still found there were bugs with Bluetooth car kits, I needed to root the phone to use it to its full potential with Tasker and it was plagued with battery life issues. Whilst certain people sweat they can get a full day on a Note; I cannot and need two batteries. The iPhone

I have already in a previous post  talked extensively about my contempt for apple a lately pulling apps not long after approving them. Again this week we find quickpick and imame being added to this list  . I wasn't so worried about imame as its just an emulator for arcade machines and whilst it can open Roms it may be useful in the future. But quickpick a bit similar to launch centre again was pulled as it didn't meet the guidelines for the notification centre, then launch centre itself was not approved for same reason and was rewritten purely as a standalone application. TUAW explains more here .  I was luckily to get quickpick and have set up some shortcuts to enable me to get to settings quicker until apple stops this when the next version of IOS is released.  What is actually getting up my back is these applications are being approved, I buy them as they are useful, the media catches on then before we know it apple retracts them. I am allowed to continue using the applicat

I am away next week in London on training and I want to travel light instead of taking my mac book, work laptop and iPad. I figured the iPad will do all of the functions I need on trip. It's preloaded with media, my course material and can certainly cope with my Internet activities. However one thought came to mind what ignite crashes. The same with my iPhone what if it crashes. I am stumped as I need a PC or mac with iTunes to restore. Both devices are jailbroken and I use pkgbackup on both devices to backup and restore from Dropbox which works flawlessly. However if the devices die I cannot rejailbreak as I need a Pc or mac. I cannot restore as I need iTunes. I don't know what apps I have installed so I mentally need to keep a note. Anyone who follows me on twitter I have been an android and Symbian fan. Now I have found with psion, windows mobile, symbian on nokia and android I can take on device backups. This would either use built in functionality or a new application.

My first tablet computer was an Archos 5 Internet Tablet 5 towards the end of 2009  which ran android 1.5 and also played a variety of media due to the Archos's extensive codec library.  It was during the short time of me having this tablet that I could see the potential of having a hand held computer that was not windows based, could be instantly powered on, had a large screen and could take the place of laptop, desktop or even smart phone for my daily internet activities.  This story was short lived when the Archos 5 decided to die on me, reset itself and lose all of my files and settings.  This left a sour taste in my mouth if I  could rely on this device when at any minute it could potentially do this again. In January 2010 I saw the Ipad, laughed like other people at Apple's arrogance that they just invented the world again but still thought that it would be an android based table that I would end up with.   I purchased a cheap table from Hong Kong via Ebay for about £130

I have decided to put my nexus, n900 and android tablet on EBay to buy some new kit but to also remove the pain these devices are giving me at the moment. The Nexus with Froyo doesn't work for me because all of my apps aren't available in the App Store or just don't work. The N900 is still too rough around the edges 6 months on and I believe Nokia alately seem to be distancing themselves from it thus making it a niche product. The android table whilst cheap needs a higher specification to be of any use. @ gerrymoth on twitter asked well what phone next? To be honest the HTC Desire looks interesting but I am waiting to see what Apple delivers in the Iphone 4G. I am expecting my gadget sale to be able to fund an Ipad but I am still wary of Iphone OS. Maemo , Symbian and Android have meant I have been PC free for 2 years but the Iphone since the 2G doesn't seem to have moved on because it requires Itunes . So I am challenging anyone reading this to convert me

There are a lot of n900 reviews online talking about specifications of the hardware/software and how all of the applications work to the nth degree of detail. My post is from using the n900 as my main device for a period of 4 weeks (the length of time will become significant later). Before Christmas 2009, after much deliberation I decided to purchase an N900. The phone was bought through a reseller where the price was competitive with what they where being sold for on eBay. When the phone arrived I promptly unpacked it and charged it up but within 1 hour of use it rebooted. I over looked this and promptly set about configuring the exchange sync, my email accounts and looking at what applications were available. I used various sources from NokiaAddict.com to allow me to access all of the development and testing resources and twitter for recommendations which gave me access to more applications. Previously being an N810 user I was aware of the issues around using test applications and

I can recall the first time I used a HP UNIX computer at De Montfort University back in 1991. The screens were huge at 21" where for back then both these machines and screens would have cost thousands of pounds. The workstations themselves had a RISC processor and 32mb of ram and a hard drive. Previously I had used a PC with Windows 3, an Atari ST and Apple MAC. All except the atari could run multiple applications concurrently but unless you had enough memory on the PC, like the apple mac it would task switch. This meant the application in the foreground would run and other applications in the background would sit and wait until they were brought to the front to continue processing. Windows had a 386 enhanced mode which would allow mutlitasking and you could set the priority times for dos applications. The HP UNIX boxes at university could multitask properly with all of the applications. I could be compiling, on IRC, doing FTP downloads, emailing and possibly some text editing all

June is slowly becoming a month like christmas where everyone is waiting for announcements on the next generation of phones. This June already we have seen the release of the nokia N97, the Palm Pre and will shortly see the Apple Iphone 3GS. Initially when the N97 was announced last year I had thought this was the ultimate Nokia to have. However after having a 5800 and almost killing the device expecting too much. My appetite for the N97 has been waviering. Initially I heard rumours of a slow processor and then memory issues. This in addition to me using an E63 influenced me to look at the e series devices again. I have had an E90 for over two years and recently blew the dust off it to use instead of the 5800 and before I got the E63 then the E75. It is still set up to go as a backup handset as soon as the newer ones fail me. However looking at the recent next generation handsets the specs of a keyboard, hsdpa, built in gps and 3 megapixel autofocus camera are almost exactly the

Well after some deliberation and the recent issues with the 5800XM I have blown the dust off my Nokia E90 (over 18 months old), reflashed it and then spent three days reinstalling it after two bundled attempts. The previous atempts failed due to the memory card where I had similar issues to my 16gb card. I had previously used the 16gb in the 5800 but it would not work and became corrupt. A similar issue happened in the E90 the first time. I then tried a 8gb card and the same issue here happened. Looking at both card they were both class 2, so I tried a class 4, 8gb card on the third attempt and everything now works. When I had the class 2, 8gb card in a N95 it slowed the response of the phone right down. So the moral is, class 2 for devices like ebook readers, cameras or mp3 machines. Class 4 for pdas or mobiles. The 16gb has gone in my camera and the 8gb in my N810 for extra storage. The E90 is like holding a shoe to your ear when making calls. However it has lots of memory, quite fa

Well the nokia 5800xm has reached the point of another hard reset. Web has died where it will not even load mobile versions of websites. There are two other browsers available such as BOLT or OPERA MINI but these either crash or are too cumbersome with a touch screen I am pondering the 3g iphone now it has grown up and will finally be able to do copy and paste, mms and sat nav later this year. But I will probably want to jailbreak and then it will be on ebay for sale. The N97 is due soon and whilst I like the form factor it still has the bad s60 browser. I will need to see the reviews before I jump as I am getting tiered of buying stuff that just doesn't work. There is windows mobile but there is not much to say on that The G1 or G2 but again lack of software or memory kills this for me. I have tried two devices but find it impractical and the n810 I have again has a bad web experience. Netbooks are too large to carry around all of the time to just get out and use. So I am on a fe

I have now had my nokia 5800 for 3 weeks but it has been an up road struggle. I have always enjoyed touch screen phones where my first was a p800. Before this I had a catalogue of touch pdas such as the psion 5,7 , the palm v, the handspring visor, hp jornada 629, compaq ipaq , hp jornada phone/ pda so I have some experience when it comes to tapping a screen. I got an iphone last year shortly after they came out in the uk to see if I would like it. For me, this felt like a heavy weight boxing game as I hadn't had an apple device before, I have big expectations from mobile devices as I am a heavy user and there was a question if the iphone could cope with me. Lets just say it was short lived and after 2 months it was back on eBay . I loved the interface, the web browsing was perfect and it was great to type on. I hated the closed environment where you were locked into Itunes and the Apple way of doing things. With my other devices such as Windows Mobile or Symbian