You know, I have been happily wedded to Android for a while now. I’m typing this on my old Nexus 7, and it’s still a great device. It’s not as hardy under the hood as my Note 3, on which I do most of the art for this site. But even this Nexus 7 is a powerhouse next to my first smartphone from as few years ago, the HTC Surround. I charged it up for a lark recently and realized that as much as I enjoy Android, there’s a lot still…
Horrible. Crippling. Jealousy. I had to hit the internet to figure out how long I’ve been deep in the “hate” part of a love/hate relationship with my phone. September! It’s been since September. Pretty much the moment the first round of Windows Phone 8 devices were announced and I knew my phone wasn’t long for this world. Then my students started showing up with new phones. Galaxy S3. iPhone 5. A Lumia 920. An HTC 8X. Generous damn parents those kids have. *** I was a late adopter for cellphones…
There’s something to be said for doing things by hand. Don’t underestimate the intimacy of the tactile connection to make you feel connected to your work. And it’s worthwhile sometimes to slow yourself down and digest your ideas as you translate them to the page. Paddle your own canoe, folks. Trevor
Windows Phone’s greatest detractor isn’t its lack of ecosystem. It’s that nobody knows why it’s worth using. Remember when Microsoft started advertising Windows Phone? The message was “You won’t obsessively love it, but don’t worry, you won’t hardly be using it anyway.” Compare that to the recent Internet Explorer videos, which directly take aim at the misconceptions surrounding the product and showcase its utility. There’s some savvy at work here, some style and personality. It’s inducing smiles in a way that none of the Windows Phone ads do, and it’s colourful and…
Well now, this is exciting news. Microsoft has been less than forthcoming with details about the Windows Phone 7.8 release. 7.8, the surface-level bump for Windows Phone 7 users, was touted as many as being an appeasement feature, little more than a gesture to WP7 adopters whose phones cannot be updated to the new Windows Phone 8 OS. My position has always been this: Windows Phone 7.x works. It works well. It’s good. And you’re getting what you paid for. Don’t order a pizza and expect it to become duck confit at…
Well, folks, the Starfleet Corps of Tiny Engineers are fed and watered and are raring to go, but I should probably give you something to read with your second cup of coffee (or third, or fifth, if you’re anything like me) before the three of us vanish into the workshop for a couple of hours. Here are some fantastic, optimistic reads from around the web this week. It’s Time We Put the Bald Space Marine Away. It’s Time to Make Games for More People. – Patricia Hernandez, Kotaku I…
September 5th has come and gone. We’ve seen the announcement of Nokia’s Lumia 820 and 920, how PureView technology doesn’t quite mean what we thought it would mean, and yet there’s a hollow feeling that seems to be pretty common amongst tech writers. With pretty freaking rad devices being announced, why was there so little love for the new Lumias? The problem may have been our expectations. We’ve been trained by Apple’s fantastic keynotes to have a certain level of excitement going into an event, and to watch for the…
Hot on the heels of my excitement over the video of a Microsoft evangelist telling a Portugese tech site that all Windows Phone devices will get the next big update, Apollo, The Verge has reported that an anonymous source close to the company has quashed that hope, saying that no existing Windows Phones will get the next big update. Funnily enough, even though I use and love Windows Phone, I wasn’t too heartbroken with the news. After all, it’s been up in the air as to whether or not current devices…
Since the latest episodes of both Bent and Throw it Against the Wall have seen me mention Windows Phone 7, I think it’s about time I talk about why I like it. I know there’s a lot of scepticism surrounding it. And why not? Most people I know who were considering jumping the Microsoft ship did so in the dark days of Vista, so that’s their last experience with Windows. Anyone who saw their parents working on a Treo back in the nascent days of the Blackberry know the sloppy,…
