Tech Manthra: Apple

Microsoft's Windows Phone Mango finally hits Indian shores in the form of the Samsung Omnia W. Microsoft would have us believe that the Mango build will rectify the deficiencies of Windows Phone 7.

Not Dual Core:

Windows Phone Mango devices does not support dual-core hardware. It just means Windows Phone devices don't need them! Windows Phone Mango include a minimum of 384 MB RAM, a minimum 4 GB flash drive, minimum resolution of 800x480 and Qualcomm CPUs. This means Microsoft's platform will not face the type of fragmentation Android goes through by being present in multiple price segments and also ensure that user experience will be consistent across all devices. Dual-core architecture has to be supported because the buzzwords are the ones that attract consumers.

Metro world:

The new operating system brings forth the Metro UI which has now been further enhanced in the Mango build.

The main screen is flooded with Tiles and a Scrolled selection of all apps. Tiles are basically large geometric icons, which also offer a bit of information. The Tiles offer a middle ground between Apple's icon heavy interface and Android's widget friendly homescreens.

Smart Multitasker:

One has to do a long press the back key and a webOS style card menu pops up enabling us to scroll through the various open apps.

Microsoft follows the Apple path and opts to suspend apps rather than keeping them open which is the implementation followed by Android. This ensures better battery life and app switching was very smooth.

Mango is Socialite:

From being the worst OS for social networking, Mango becomes the best by far. Even with iOS 5 and its built in Twitter integration, Windows Phone will reign supreme for some time to come (Unless Google pulls something mind-blowing in Ice Cream Sandwich).

It includes integration with Facebook, Twitter, E-mail and Windows Live, the highlight is the "People Hub". It's your one stop to all social information. It's just like the Friends Stream on HTC devices.

Everything is very neatly organized, but we would have preferred better Twitter integration.

Twitter is not perfect but Facebook comes very close. All the functionalities we are used to in a Facebook app can be had through Microsoft's integrated solution.

The People Hub also manages to organize our contacts very neatly. It automatically configures groups such as co-workers, family and so on; it even rearranges information in our news feed accordingly.

Google+ is conspicuous by its absence and that's just not going to change until Google comes up with an app on its own.

Email and Messenger:

We can have a conversation with someone on Facebook and seamlessly switch to Windows Messenger or SMS all on the same thread.

Bing:

Windows Phone Mango is all about Bing! It includes Bing Maps, Bing Search, Bing Vision or the Bing powered Local Scout feature, there's no doubt who's the star on Windows Phone Mango.

Bing Maps is not better than Google Maps. But it is a much improved product. In the US it might be a decent competitor to Google Maps but in India it still needs some catching up to do, but one can't blame Microsoft for pushing its own solution.

Bing Vision is basically Microsoft's answer to Google's Goggles. Need more information about a book, no problem just scan the barcode using Bing Vision. It's not as extensive or exhaustive as Goggles.

Local Scout focuses your queries on the neighborhood you're in, providing location-specific results that highlight important information about establishments and events in your immediate area.

The search key takes us to Bing Search and it is closely tied in within each and every app.

Internet Explorer 9:

With Mango, we get a new version of IE which features GPU acceleration, sandboxing of tabs, support for HTML5, CSS3, SV, XHTML, DOM and more along with a faster java script.

Microsoft Office:
Microsoft Office makes a strong comeback in Mango, which includes tight Office 365 and SkyDrive implementation.

New to Mango is the sublime integration of Office 365 with SkyDrive. Mango allows us to save Word, Excel and PowerPoint as well as gives us access to Sharepoint. Google Docs are good for personal use, but for enterprise Microsoft is good.

Marketplace:

Marketplace offers more than 30,000 apps which in itself is quite a substantial number, but iPhone have 450,000 and Android have 300,000 apps.

Web Marketplace behaves just like the Android Market place. It's always connected to our Windows Live account.

and...

Mango also brings features like Internet Sharing, Visual VoiceMail, and an updated Zune player and music controls for homescreen.

Posted by : Sree

Five months after it introduced a cloud music service with limited capabilities, Google is about to expand that service and open an MP3 store that would compete with Apple and Amazon.

Google is eager to open the store in the next several weeks. It would most likely be connected to Google’s existing cloud service, Music Beta, which lets people back up their songs on remote servers and stream them to mobile phones and other devices.

Google may be hoping to announce its store before Apple opens its latest cloud music program, iTunes Match. But it is not clear whether Google would be able to close the necessary deals with labels and music publishers in time to open a full-service store.

Music Beta was announced five weeks after Amazon opened a similar unlicensed service, Cloud Drive.

Apple got licenses for iTunes Match, which will instantly link a user’s songs to Apple’s master collection. With an unlicensed service, users must upload each song individually, a process that can take hours or even days.

Posted by : Sree

Tech Manthra

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Apps for Instant Information

Monday, October 17, 2011

Windows Phone 7.5 Mango

Friday, October 14, 2011

Google Planning an MP3 Store