Sure, the App Store may have two billion titles (perhaps a slight exaggeration), and the iPhone remains the tech poseur’s handset of choice, but quietly and determinedly, the competition to provide a smartphone with true next-gen gaming potential is hotting up. Google’s Android platform is now attracting some serious attention from both indie developers and major games publishers, and fascinating alternatives like Samsung’s Bada and the Linux-based MeeGo are pulling in plenty of formative interest.
So which of these new devices should you consider if you’re after an iPhone alternative? I put the question to several game makers as well as mobile industry veteran Julian Jones, who now advises iPhone developers on transferring their titles to emerging smartphone platforms. Here’s what we all came up with…
Samsung Wave 8500S This quirky, leftfield handset, sporting Samsung’s own Bada OS, has proved popular with all the developers I spoke to, thanks to its rich, vibrant ‘super AMOLED’ screen, responsive touch controls and powerful 1GHz processor. Although not as heavily populated as the Google and Apple offerings, the Samsung Apps store has plenty to offer gamers, including a decent version of EA’s Need for Speed: Shift, Gameloft’s Real Football and some interesting exclusives. The ethereal woodland puzzler, Glo, from UK developer Mere Mortals, looks lovely (there’s a video here). “Having spoken to Samsung they are promising more titles and a growing list of publishers supporting the platform,” says Julian Jones. “Playing Need for Speed is a joy – it’s full screen, fast and full of action. The graphics are on par with, if not slightly better than, the iPhone.”
Nexus One Built by HTC but branded as Google this has been billed as the flagship Android smartphone. It’s another one with a big 480×800 display, as well as good touch screen (now that multi touch is supported), accelerometer and a powerful Qualcomm QSD 8250 1Ghz processor. Despite packing plenty of oomph, it’s extremely svelte at just over 11mm thick. And of course, it provides access to the 30,000 or so apps on the Google Android store, including the engrossing RPG Zenonia, I-Play’s frantic Diner Dash style title, Turbo Subs and the addictive ‘tower defense’-style strategy romp, Robo Defense.
Motorola Milestone With its harsh, angular design and slide out QWERTY keyboard, Milestone (or Droid as it’s preferably named in the US) is something of a design iconoclast amid a range of super slim, curvaceous contenders. But it’s another strong Android handset with a large screen, ARM Cortex A8 550-Mhz processor and 5-megapixel camera. “Like the Samsung’s Wave, the Motorola Droid features a stunning screen, fast CPU and GPU, along with a GPS, Compass and Accelerometer,” says Jones. “All these have to be present if your going to enjoy the cooler mashed up, 3D and augmented reality apps that make these platforms hum.” You might want to hold off on this one though. Not only has it been arguably outpaced by the Nexus One, but Google has just officially unveiled its successor, the Droid X, which features a 4.3-inch display and 8-megapixel camera. No word on a UK release date though.
SonyEricsson Xperia X10 I took one of these to E3 and it’s a very solid, feature-packed smartphone, with a lovely 480×853 screen, 1Ghz processor and impressive 8-megapixel camera. I downloaded the Twidroid app and found it dead easy to take snaps on the show floor and get them up online, while the Timescape and Mediascape apps, which manage your social networking and audio-visual activities, are an interesting addition. As for games, it’s another strong performer, especially with that enormous four-inch screen. For those who find it a little too cumbersome, though, there’s the smaller, cuter Xperia X10 mini, complete with a teeny slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
Windows Phone 7 Okay, so Microsoft has just ditched its Kin series of phones, but the forthcoming handsets built around the corporation’s new Windows Phone 7 technology should be more interesting. “At a recent Microsoft developer day I got play with the new WinMo 7 and it pleasantly surprised me,” says Jones. “It looks to be a complete reboot in terms of philosophy. Microsoft are driving the user experience hard – this is not ‘Windows on a phone’ in any sense…” Most importantly, the OS features a games hub, which allows users to access their Xbox Live account, checking up on achievements, game invites, downloads, etc. The handsets will also support Microsoft’s XNA development kit, which means many Xbox Live Indie games (and a few commercial Xbox Live Arcade titles) will be easily transferable to the platform. It’s the most interesting interplay between phone and console since Sony’s Aino handset, which offered (very complicated) access to your PS3 content. Could this finally be Microsoft’s victorious entry into the previously troublesome smartphone arena? We’ll find out when the first compatible handsets are released this autumn…
Andrew Garfield has swung into Google’s most-searched list and Twitter’s trending charts, thanks to the three internet Viagra words now tagged onto his name: “new Spider-Man“. As Peter Parker, Spider-Man’s nerdy alter ego, well knows, “with great power comes great responsibility” – namely, the weight of expectation from the fanboy world. Can he cut it as the pun-loving webslinger/nerdy cub photographer?
If you’ve never heard of Garfield, you’ve missed out on one of the finest young actors Britain has produced. His CV so far hasn’t strayed too near the geek clique – apart from a guest spot in Doctor Who (as Frank in 2007′s Evolution Of The Daleks/Daleks in Manhattan two-parter) – but he’s more than acquitted himself. He’s had starring roles in two of the grittiest dramas on British TV in recent years, Boy A and Red Riding, as well as supporting parts in Terry Gilliam’s delirious fantasy The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, and Robert Redford’s war-on-terror polemic Lions For Lambs. Does his casting suggest that director Marc Webb is taking his Spider-Man reboot down a more angsty, indie route? It’s hard to imagine the mighty Marvel doing anything quite as low-key with Spidey as Webb’s (web! Is that why he got hired?) romcom 500 Days Of Summer with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, but it does suggest that we might be spared the sight of Spidey doing any more disco moves.
Garfield won a Best Actor Bafta for Boy A (2007), an intense one-off film drama for Channel 4 about the rehabilitation of a criminal, based on the novel by Jonathan Trigell. Playing a young man released from prison with a new name for a murder he committed as a child, Garfield brings a depth and fragility to the heartbreaking role of someone struggling to keep a massive secret from the people around him.
As Nancy Banks-Smith put it: “It is innocently simple, rather like Jack himself, and often filmed in lonely long shot. It tick tocks between the boy he was and the man he is, and we wait for the hour to strike.”
In Red Riding, the C4 trilogy based on the David Peace novels, he more than held his own as junior reporter Eddie Dunford (Sam Wollaston thought him “excellent”) in a cast that seemed to include pretty much every decent male Brit actor working today – David Morrissey, Paddy Considine, Warren Clarke, Eddie Marsan, Sean Bean. As Dunford, he was cocky, brash but also filled with a drive towards the truth – all characteristics you’d want from Spidey.
Speaking to Chrissy Iley after his Bafta win, Garfield said: “I’m insatiably curious. That’s another curse. I want to fit too much into one day. I want to live in New York and Rwanda and Australia all in a day. I want to be the best at it. I want my life to be validated by being the best.” Will Spider Man be the role that puts him in this position? In the most engaging Spider-Man storylines, Peter Parker’s often in conflict with himself and the burden of his Spider senses – sometimes it’s a gift, more often it feels like a curse. If Garfield can crack the accent (his father is American, so he should be able to) we could be in for a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man to reckon with.
I’m sure most people would have see this by now but I thought it was worth a mention as it’s really well done.
It’s an interactive YouTube video based on the quiz show “Who wants to be a millionaire” made up of several different videos from different users. You make your way through the videos by answering the questions and if you get stuck you can call one of the familiar faces from YouTube to ask for help.
In my previous post about the Rebel Scholar iPhone Case I said that I would probably be getting the Poison Petals case and that’s what I did.
I’ve had the case and been using it for several weeks now and it’s been a mixed reaction. When the case arrived it looked and felt great, I got my iPhone and slid it into the case. As the iPhone went in one of the rubber runners on the inside came away from the case folding over behind the iPhone and jamming it inside the case. When trying to pull the iPhone back out the case cracked and broke so that was the end of that case.
I decided that I did like the case and would like to try another one so I went on the website and ordered a second case. This case arrived quickly, everything went smoothly and I’m still using it today.
The next issue came from FedEx. Both cases were delivered by FedEx but for some reason they decided to charge me for customs on just one of the cases. This was pretty shitty but there’s nothing that can be done it seems to be pot luck as to why some things get through and some don’t. It just means that for the whole thing, 2 cases plus customs charges, I could have had one of the high end $100 cases.
To finish off the case feels great, it fits perfectly and after several weeks of constant use it still looks brilliant with no noticeable ware or fading on the pattern. If you’re considering getting a case for your iPhone I’d still recommend the Rebel Scholar but just to be aware of what I went through that it may end up costing more that you thought.
Since I’m planning on getting the new iPhone 3GS, whenever O2 Ireland sort out their stock issues, I’ve been looking around at the different cases available.
The first thing I learned is the best place to find out about iPhone case is from a guy called Carlos who runs the itsmemorphious YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/itsmemorphious). I’ve been looking through his videos trying to see what case would best suit my needs. What’s great about Carlos’s videos is that he actually uses the cases, he tests them out and really knows what’s what when he does his reviews but it’s his latest video on the Rebel Scholar that has really caught my attention.
The case he got to review just looks so good and it also fits well and would seem to give great protection to the handset. Now of course I went straight to the Rebel Scholar website (http://www.rebelscholar.com) only to find that the case Carlos reviewed was one of the high end $100 cases and to make things worse there were others there that looked better! I especially liked the Silver and Blue
OK so the high end cases are well outside my budget for a case but when you look down the product line, the mid range cases are $34.99 and the lower range cases are $19.99. The lower range cases are plain colours but I’m sure are still made using the same quality material as the high end one and so would be a good buy at that price. I think I’ll go that bit extra and go for one of the mid range cases, looking like it’ll be the Poison Petals case.
For anyone interested in getting a case for their iPhone or iPod Touch you should definitely check out Carlos on his channel http://www.youtube.com/itsmemorphious and consider the Rebel Scholar as a possibility.
The article is about a 13-year-old boy named Scott Campbell who is asked to swap his iPod for an original 30-year-old Walkman.
The quote from the article that sums it up best is
It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape
Now some of us might laugh at that but think about it, how was he suppose to know the tape could be turned over? CDs put a stop to the whole A side B side, which actually takes away from the music singles but that’s another discussion.
What I thought was strange about the artilce was how slow Scott was to figure out the Walkman. If he had been given a new mobile phone, MP3 player or computer he’d have most of the functions worked out within a half hour but give him something out of the ordinary and unfamiliar and he’s lost.
To start with I’m not what’s being called a Mac “Fanboy”. Any device I’ve decided to purchase, the decision has been based on the actual device and not on who manufactures it or the hype surrounding it and that’s why I’ve avoided the previous 2 iPhones. The new iPhone 3Gs sees some improvements to the hardware to bring it in to line withother popular smart phones on the market but combining it with the new iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade puts it right up there as one of the better phones on the market and now deserves my attention.
The 3Gs was announced by Philip Schiller during the keynote address at this year’s Apple WWDC on June 8th. It becomes available in the US, UK and 6 other countries on Friday June 19th and in Ireland plus 5 more countries a week later on Friday June 26th.
The big things in the hardware end are an increase in speed (that’s what the S stands for) and the addition of a better camera which is now 3mp and is capable of video capture. The 3.0 software upgrade adds things like copy and paste, SMS forwarding and MMS all things that any basic smart phone can do already.
With the changes made, it brings me to my point, the 3Gs is really the first proper iPhone. It’s the one that should have been launched 2 years ago and there’s no reason it couldn’t have been as there’s nothing added to it now that wasn’t available then. I do think this iPhone will be the one to bring in customers (including me) that were not sure before. I’ll be watching the launch in the US and UK on Friday very closely to see how things go before I make my final decision whether or not to get one next week but currently I think I’m going to be making the change.
This has come up in previous posts and I feel it’s a good indication what’s to come from HTC. It is now their flagship business device and looks to be pretty damn good. If you remember there were leaked photos from HTC earlier this year, one of those photos was the Rhodium.
Although people are saying that the Touch Pro 2 is the Rhodium I think now that the leaked photo was just a general prototype that will be used for other models later in the year. As I said when the photos were leaked, we should be expecting a Touch HD Pro later in the year, which will hopefully be a full featured media device based on the same Rhodium design.
HTC have announced that they are holding an event in London next week, 24th June. This event is suppose to see the launch of the Hero, HTC’s new Google Android based phone, but will also (hopefully) see the announcement of what’s to come later in the year.
Here are a few videos of the Touch Pro 2 put together by Brandon Miniman from PocketNow.com
OK so the Pre finally became available in the US on the 6th June and certainly the majority of things said about it are good. Although it has been highly praised I’m afraid it lost me during the first few days after release. If people are actually following this they’ll know that the Pre came to my attention back in January when I started looking about getting a new phone. Since then the Pre was looking good but just a few things have put me off it now and I have to go on what I’ve heard and read on the web as my demo model must have got lost in the post *cough*.
The build quality isn’t what I’d expect from what is suppose to be a high end phone. There seems to be a very plastic look and feel about it and really wouldn’t stand out against and iPhone or one of the new HTC phones. Also the edges of the slide out keyboard are sharp which doesn’t give a nice feeling in your hand.
The keyboard was the main reason I was attracted to the Pre to start with but even that seems to have flaws. The keys are awkward and your thumb bumps against the top half of the phone when trying to use the top row of keys.
The last thing is the applications or rather the lack of. These days it’s the applications that sell devices which Apple have proved very well and currently there are no applications that would make me consider getting the Pre.
Saying all that from what I can gather the Pre will not appear in Ireland until later in the year sometime between September and October depending on what reports you read, so this does give them time to sort out some of the issues and even fill out the app catalog. Telefonica have signed up as one of the operators in Europe so that means the Pre will be available on O2 in Ireland and the UK, who knows I might get my hands on one then to see what it’s really like.
I’ve put together a playlist of videos from PhoneDog.com showing what the Pre is like and what it can do
This article was written by Keith Stuart, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 2nd July 2010 12.45 UTC
