Wired Geeks

Archive for the ‘iPhone’ Category

In the World of mobile OS, Google Android is a challenger still and plays a vital role, as the amount of devices used for the purpose of running the system are about to come out in the coming months along with the combination with its open approach.The main reason for the success of Apple’s App Store for iPhone/iPod is measured by counting the number of applications that has been developed for the platform, it is around 70,000 applications till now.But Google didn’t disclose the number of applications which are exactly available on Android Market, so it is difficult to compare the two on this particular level.But, I am very thankful to AndroLib,as it provides us a useful website from which we can browse Android applications from our PC.There are more than 10,000 applications and games available on this platform today and above all, majority of the applications are available at free of cost and to be exact atleast 64.2% of applications are for free. The company has to admit first that there are more than 10,000 applications tracked by them, but Google says that there is no way to get an idea of the exact number of applications in Android market.But,the Android market has grown upto 4.4 times in just four months.This is a great achivement for Google.

In the begining of this month a Facebook application for Android was launched, this is a much anticipated Facebook application specially designed for Android. Even though it is a official release ,as said by the company, but a news came out that this application was not released by Facebook, but Google has built this application themselves,as they thought that having a Facebook application was more important to them. In this Facebook application there is no messaging facility, just the news stream is displayed and it has a ability to post status updates and we can take/upload photos to Facebook. The cool stuffs which are available in Facebook 3.0 application for iPhone users are not yet available in Android. But,the application runs fast in Android when compared to iPhone. In iPhone many people goes to Facebook through browser as the application was too slow to use.But the application in Android is more quick as it can do three or four functions quickly without a single problem. Another wonderful feature is that,notifications of new events can be viewed upto date, as Android application has the ability to run in the background,even though you are not actively using the application you can see this stuff in the background.Below there is a video demo about this application.

Open Table was launched on iPhone in November of last year. A very first comment came from a Gentleman named “Chris” saying that “Unless Open Table comes on Android,it’s a useless application”. A very good news came for “Chris” this week that, online restaurant reservation service launched their application onto the Android market with both their web service and the  available on other platforms.We can check for and reserve tables using this Open Table Android application and we need not dial any of the numbers or contact the persons in the restaurants for reservation purpose.Just enter the date,time, and size of the party on the open table, it will provide us a list of restaurants that are applicable for you, just pick one of them and confirm and your name will get on to the list by open table.The applications in Android always takes a step further than the iPhone variant,This makes use of Android ability to tie multiple applications together.Both WHERE and GoodFood are now partners of the Android market,which allows the customers to jump immediately into Open Table and make their reservations.Moreover,this application is easy and works well ,the best and above all, it is for free.Check it out in the Android market.

There was a complain last week by Google Voice users telling that,the calls made using Google Voice service was abruptly terminated after 15 minutes.We all know that Google Voice service of Google has not come out of beta still.But I don’t think that, it is wrong to expect perfection in the service when it comes to voice calls.These problems make it difficult for the people to trust the service.More than one user, had complained about the same issue,that each and every call they make drops abruptly at 15 minutes and a few seconds.Google has said that,cause for the call drop after 15 minutes has been identified and will be call drop after 15 minutes, and they also told that,if the same problem continues,users are welcomed to give their feedback. Recently,a user of Google voice said that,he uses Google Voice for all calls he make through mobile, but he has not noticed the issue as he will hang over a call rarely for few minutes.He is a recent iPhone user,he has not noticed such a problem yet and he has ever managed to go beyond fifteen minutes on iphone and has not experienced a call drop atleast once.The only way is that,Apple should accept Google Voice application for the iPhone,this may be the right way to fix the call drop problem.

Recently,MINI has launched a free mobile application called as MINI Roadside Assistance,which may be helpful for customers and it will Assist when they are in need.This application is specially designed for iPhone  and Blackberry.MINI Roadside Assistance works by using  the GPS of our device and the vehicle’s identification number (VIN), of our vechicle which is a unique number.This helps us to get roadside assistance when we are travelling,any type of incidents like a breakdown, blow a tire or get involved in accident,eveything can be monitored through this application.Nothing more to be done by the user,just he have to launch the application first and then he have to hit the call button.It acts as a automatic accident detection system.This application not only provides roadside connection and information about vechicle location,but it also tells us some information about fuel,tires mechanical troubles,or lock-out situations and MINI’s battery status.The MINI Roadside Assistance application comes free for MINI owners,it is technically free for everyone but ,but for non owners of MINI ,it functionality is zero If u don’t have MINI,there is a similar application like MINI called as AAA Roadside which is available for iPhone .For more details about MINI Roadside Assistance,check out the website.

Google Listen,latestly a new project that Google has added to Google Labs  and it’s sure to crowd pleaser for Android users..Google Listen,is an Android  application,which lets us to search through a web audio content, as quickly as possible.This application not only allows to search  the audio content ,but it also allows us to download or stream the audio content directly to our phone.This application acts similar to a podcaster by allowing  us to subscribe to audio feeds and new content is downloaded over the air. It is very simple to use this application, just go to the search bar, then you type and enter the thing whatever you are looking for,let it be a more general term or a specific podcast.The most relevant podcast and audio clips which are scattered across the web is pulled up by google ,then you can begin the streaming immediately. If you want to make multiple choices,you can build a queue, the playing of our  subscriptions will be automatically begined by Google Listen,when it has reached the end of the playlist.At this point ,the application is indexing “ thousands” of content sources only in English, But Google intends to expand to other languages.At this time ,Google Listen is available only on Android.This is due to the reason that, application is still under development. A fact that,this application has been omitted from iPhone has created a big issue,because Google has  got  its application approved  for App Store recently.Apple has also rejected a native application of  Google Latitude and it has also banned all the Voice apps of Google in the past few months.For competing with iTunes podcasting functionality, Apple would have smacked the app down well.Whatever the thing is, Google rocks  by supporting the devices it plans.

Recently, I heared  a news from a Chinese forum, that iPhone 3GS is perfectly capable of playing  720p and 1080p video, when it is encoded with H.264; But,the playback resolution had currently been limited to 640×480 by Apple,I don’t know why Apple artificially limits the resolution that can be played.May be, battery will get depleted so quickly when we play a 1080p video.But, A forum goer came out of Apple’s restriction himself, by playing a 1080p video at 30Mbps.A Mac book, would really scream in horror, if anyone tries to play a 30mpbs video on it,even when Plex is used.So,I do say that it is possible technically to play a “Full HD” on any iPhone GS. It is probably a overkill of watching such kind of videos on our iPhone.May be, one day, Apple would release an adapter that allows us to output a 1080p video from our phone  onto an HDTV. So, for the duration of that playback keep your iPhones plugged now itself,eventhough it’s  not exactly going to be elegant.