The Case of the Chromed Android

View image | gettyimages.com

The talk of the Android world recently was all about Google working towards a unified OS by combining Chrome OS and Android. Sounds really like a good thing. And then, Google mentioned they will still be developing Chrome OS for awhile more. Confusing.

But what really made me cringe was all these reminded me of the fate of Google's many apps, particularly Google Reader. Nothing is permanent, that I know but will certainly leave a bad taste. I hope the integration will be done well, especially for the sake of Chrome OS users.

Samsung's Latest S6 Ads Standing on Edge

View image | gettyimages.com

I get it if fans of certain products get angry offended whenever a rival comes out with ads that criticise specific features while showing off their superiority. Samsung is one that's synonymous with its ads against Apple.

I am amazed, though, that Samsung's recent couple of ads showcasing the company's S6 wireless charging and curved screen technologies received quite the backlash. If the rumours are true that the S6 phones are not selling that well, I guess it's high time Samsung REALLY change tactics and focus.

L?????

What will the next version of Android be called? At the moment, it's generally referred to as Android L. Traditionally named after desserts, there are various speculations with the front runner being Lemon Meringue Pie. It could also be Lollipop, according to Android Community and with good reason. It could also be Lime (Key) Pie. Hmmm...

via Android Community.

It's the End for Ultima's Forever

Ultima Forever will cease to exist come 29 August 2014. It's one of those free-to-play with in-app purchases so those who've invested in the game will not be pleased. Maybe it's about time developers realise IAP might not be the ONLY way to earn money.

via Touch Arcade.

Modern tech masquerades as vintage typewriter keyboard

Mobile keyboard for tablets and PCs that looks, feels and sounds like a vintage typewriter! This reminds me of getting all the keys stuck when I was playing with my mom's typewriter and the amusement of typing into the platen... Nostalgic indeed!

via Android Community.

Transport Tycoon Creator's Opinion About Premium Game Model

Totally agree with Chris Sawyer, the brilliant creator of Transport Tycoon (though maybe not so brilliant with the recent mobile version of Rollercoaster Tycoon - where you pay for the game followed by more in-app purchases in-game - according to many reviews) regarding the premium game model:

We wanted Transport Tycoon to be a fantastic value purchase where the player can enjoy the depth and breadth of the game without having to pay a single penny extra.

I'm all for the premium pay once model and get super irritated with those games that make extreme use of in-app purchases. He further added value to the game:

We've even added more features and improvements over the last few months and players can update their game to add these features for free.

Great move. Please continue, o' wise one!

via Touch Arcade.

Flipboard Buys Zite

Google Reader was the king of RSS readers (hence, a great source of news) when my bud introduced it to me many years back. Ever since Google canceled the service, Feedly did a great job acting as the alternative. Best of all, it is free with the option to go premium. For me, Feedly is the equivalent. Then, I read about Zite, which improves over time to bring you the news that you like. Great artificial intelligence. IMHO, I'd call that evolutionary.

Now I'm worried because Flipboard announced of its purchase of this evolutionary product. Flipboard will stop Zite's service after it's done integrating Zite's intelligent recommendation engine into its own. Flipboard looks and feels nice on the iPad. However, the iPhone and Android smartphone app left much to be desired, so I hope Flipboard won't screw up Zite's brilliance this way. And I hope Flipboard will offer existing Zite users an easy way to migrate over.

May you reincarnate into a better form, Zite. Hugz.

via Android Community.

Flappy Bird Review (but why is it such a hit?!)

I was not going to download and try out Flappy Bird, I was certain, until Cult Of Mac posted that developer Dong Nguyen is going to take down the game from the iOS AppStore and Android Google Play. So, being a kiasu human, I had to check it out since it's free...

It's a simple, pixelated game where you tap and tap and tap and... to keep your bird afloat. Sorry that sentence may have sounded cheesy but that is really what you have to do.  Of course, if it was that simple, it wouldn't be such a hit. You have to keep your bird afloat by tapping (ah, cheesy cheesy) at the right time to navigate between gaps produced by two green pipes (not unlike the popular Super Mario Bros platformer of yesterday).

To me, the game is so damn bloody hard and a lot of my birds had hit the pipes and, hopefully, not died but just momentarily unconscious. It's good to know that after each lost, a new bird with a different colour takes its turn.

As to why the game is so popular, I am totally at a lost here. My only guess is that people like challenges: I can keep my bird up and go through all those openings without hitting a snag much longer than YOU!

I personally am not very interested in this genre, even those endless runners (but I didn't know what got into me when I purchased that Marvel one though that is a potential post to ramble about), plus this being so difficult and challenging my motor skills... Rating: 1/5

However, I'm not sure if there are any other games out there that are this successful with the download size of just 2.5MB! Rating 5/5 for file size!

And I've found this rather mindless video of the game on YouTube for you to get a feel of things:

I'll just leave you at that while I just go for one last game...

Dual-Boot Smartphone with Android and Firefox OS

Now that smartphones are going the way of PCs in terms of pricing and clones, I was wondering when smartphones would start to get multiple OSes. Aptly named Geeksphone announced their dual-booting smartphone called Revolution which boots Android and Firefox OS. The phone is expected to be released in some parts of the world this Valentine's Day so that geeky couples would have more to do.

Specs wise:

... the Geeksphone Revolution will be powered by a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 processor. The handset will have a 4.7-inch IPS display along with 1GB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage and a microSD memory card slot (with support for cards up to 32GB in size). Other specs include a 2000 mAh battery, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera and 8 megapixel rear-facing camera.

The phone will have the usual connectivity and will cost about US$270. I'm interested to see if giants like Samsung have anything like this up their sleeves.

via Android Community.

Lenovo buys Motorola Mobility from Google, Google signs patents deal with Samsung

Shocking news for me at least that Google just sold Motorola Mobility that it just bought not too long ago to Lenovo but will be retaining some of its patents rights. And a few days ago Google signed a patents deal with Samsung.

Google is also rumoured to replace the Nexus series some time in 2015. Gasp! Things are just as complicated and fragmented as the Android system or maybe Google has a plan to fix things? Let's wait and see...

via BGR.

Tiny Thief Review

As mentioned previously, among the things I was busy with recently was with games and Tiny Thief was one of them. Being offered free as one of the 12 Days of Gifts from Apple last month did not help PLUS a recommendation from my bud meant immediate action...

The game was released last year and I was not surprised that it was such a hit. It's basically sort of a platform puzzle solving game split into many levels. You, the Tiny Thief, start off as a small timer on the way to becoming a Robin Hood type of thief. There are no battles and very little action involved safe for one or two that I can remember. 

You basically pick up things and put some of them to where they should belong, push buttons, pull levers, etc. Sounds boring? Not at all! The puzzles are mostly straight forward and shouldn't be difficult to complete but fun to do nonetheless. I completed the game twice already, once on the phone and just last night on the iPad. XD

The difficult part is to achieve 3 stars for each level. Just completing the main objective, you will only accomplish 1 star. You'll need to find your pet squirrel for another star and this squirrel can be anywhere and worse, sometimes only appear after you've done something. For the third star you'll need to collect hidden (but are sometimes blatantly right under your nose in the open) objects.

There are in-app purchases but there is no need to buy any to complete the game... yet. More levels coming so I'm not sure what plans Rovio have for it... I have confidence Rovio's execution would be wise.

Graphics are drawn in a cartoon style and the game is full of humour. 4/5

Gameplay is executed very well for the touchscreen without any frustration although some hardcore gamers might find it too easy for them. 4/5

One complain that I must voice, or rather type, out is the game doesn't sync between iOS devices (at least not here in Malaysia) so Rovio should do something. I heard there's some sort of a special Rovio account thing in some parts of the world... 0/5

Not much of a soundtrack and whatever music playing in the background is too soft to be heard (or to be distracting). Sound effects is nothing to shout about either. But the lack of these do not appear to affect my pleasant experience with the game. 2/5

As a conclusion, the game is just perfect for this genre. 4/5

Cut the Rope 2 Game Trailer

iOS users rejoice! Om Nom is coming your way 19 December 2013 while Android users do not despair, Cut the Rope 2 is available on Google's platform early 2014. After the teaser, below is the game trailer:

Plenty of new characters and glad to see Om Nom more mobile than before!

Spotify Now "Free" on Android and iOS

I was thrilled when Spotify arrived in Malaysia many months back but abandoned the app after my free trial expired. I was tempted to subscribe but in the end, I went back to streaming radio app TuneIn Radio (been a user many years back)... and eventually purchased TuneIn Radio Pro.

I was pleasantly surprised when I received an e-mail from Spotify today that it has gone "free" for major mobile OSes Android and iOS. And it's "free" as I had expected it to be - ad-sponsored like its desktop version and offline option is only for premium (paid) users. Still, I'm happy to use it interchangeably with TuneIn Radio whenever I'm on wifi. My Spotify's been playing the whole afternoon till now and there's no sign of any advertisements yet. Still too fresh for local companies to advertise, probably.

It's the Nexus of Transforming Trios

Android 4.4 Kit Kat launched today and Google's own new flagship the Nexus 5 will be the first to be officially installed with it. Great move by Google to make its latest mobile OS support older phones with only 512MB of RAM. I wonder if my 3-year old 1GHz single-core HTC Desire will be getting a Kit Kat MOD. Just like recently launched phones (iPhone 5s included), the 5" Nexus 5 is more evolutionary than revolutionary compared to what the original iPhone had done during Nokia's smartphone era.

What caught my attention was the optical image stabilisation that LG managed to build into the 8mm-ish phone. That's good and should set the bar for upcoming phones. I'm puzzled why Google didn't allow for expandable micro SD, though, with the phone having either 16 or 32GB internal storage. Apps are getting larger, you know.

I am also surprised by Asus' Transformer Book Trio Android tablet-cum-Windows 8 laptop-cum-desktop. It was announced months ago but the ignorant me only just found out today while browsing through tech news. Impressive Intel Haswell processor when it's in laptop or desktop mode. When detached from the keyboard, the tablet is powered by an Atom processor. Ok, this one I'm not too keen. Too used to ARM these days. Below the highlights of Asus' 2013 products with the Transformer Book Trio showing up as the climax. Not something I would buy because I don't expect it to come cheap but still something I would crave for outside of MacBook Pro with Retina and iPad Air.

The Mysterious Case of the Curvaceous Phones

Question: Do you like your phone curve this way or that way?

I suppose this should belong in a tweet but I just got to post it here because I'm totally amused by these guys. Well, at least we know the technology is already here.

Video Guide to Draw Om Nom

How can I not post an instructional video showing how to draw the legendary cutey that is the star of the Cut The Rope series?!

Even though it's a step-by-step guide, it's so damn tough!!!

Smart Watches - What I hope from Apple

There were Pebble and others. Then, Sony came before Samsung and the latest from both are compared here (I'm mighty impressed with Sony making their watches compatible with any Android 4.0 phones, a learning from a company that used to make Memory Sticks). Now even Qualcomm's announced one. But the rumour that started all these was of the Apple version and there's still no sign of it.

Whatever it is, I can't help hoping it will take the queue from the previous iPod Nano - detachable little thing that can work as a music device (and hopefully more) with plenty of straps to choose from - WITHOUT its shortcomings, of course. It was unfortunate that was discontinued and replaced with the current larger version. Or perhaps that's Apple's plan all along so that they can announce a smart watch (I think there will be an official word for "smartwatch" eventually) that is like that? Wishful thinking again, I know, but hope is a driver.

Catch Notes Service Ends 30 August 2013

Catch Notes which was formerly known by a different name (something like 3banana, if I remember correctly) was my notes taking app of choice when I started off using an Android phone and still is my notes app on the iPhone so I was pretty sad having read from Engadget that the service is being terminated on August 30th this year.

Synaptics, the developer for Catch Notes didn’t give a reason other than that the company is heading towards a different direction. Looks like I’ll need to export my stuff to Evernote or maybe I’ll just use Google Drive. Sigh, nothing’s forever these days. I was just recovering from the demise of Google Reader recently.

Are you willing to pay a premium for quality mobile games?

Recently there had been articles about mobile games being too cheap to really earn a profit and some even mentioned that the in-app purchase format (I hate that!) is the way to go. Touch Arcade just wrote that XCOM: Enemy Unknown proved that there is still hope for highly priced games.

Honestly, I stand in-between. I'm too cheap to buy a US$19.99 game but I would rather pay up to US$1.99 (ok, ok if it's really good I'd pay US$4.99) for a decent game rather than download free games with tons of in-app purchases. My most expensive purchases had topped out at US$9.99 but those are for productivity apps. 

So where do you stand?

Minion Rush

Despicable Me 2 is on air and Minion Rush is its accompanying mobile game. I wouldn't have downloaded it were it not for the super cutesy cuddly and irritating Gru's Minions. Despite its attraction, it's just another runner game and I suck in this genre.

Minions aside, I do not think there's anything really special about it except for some of the mini games where the Minion (Dave, in this case) gets attacked from behind and he had to dodge the stuff attacking from behind or sit on a magic unicorn to get bananas. Oh did I mention you have to collect bananas in this game?

And then, there's this thing you can pick up and become a giant Minion for a short time where you can squash your competition (other running Minions) and obstacles that would normally end the game if you hit them.

The above is a compilation of a few expressions of Dave the Minion on the menu screen rather than a screenshot of him running around. That you can get if you Google the game. Touch Dave on the menu screen in a few places and he would react or don't do anything and he would fall asleep.

Originality - it's just another infinite running game! 2/5

Fun factor - 3/5

Lasting appeal - as long as you like Minions 3/5

Graphics 2/5 oh this game is a battery sucker on my iPhone.