All posts by Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

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About Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

President, CEO & Editor of https://gavinsgadgets.com Reviews & News of Technology

Motorola making 10% of workforce redundant

(Reuters) – Google Inc’s Motorola Mobility unit will cut 1,200 jobs or 10 percent of its workforce as the smartphone maker tries to return to profitability, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing a company email.

The layoffs come on top of 4,000 jobs Google eliminated at Motorola Mobility in August as the Internet search giant seeks to make more smartphones and fewer simple handsets.

It really is terrible news for families and communities that will be impacted. Lets hope we see great handsets as a result and those that lose their jobs find alternative work.

I’ve removed the jailbreak from my iPhone not iPad – here’s why

Yesterday I had the pleasure of going a day without a power source to plug my iPhone 5. It didn’t make it through the day and even though jail breaking adds some great features having the best stability and battery life on my main driver is more important.

With the iPad Mini it’s always near a power source, its doesn’t matter if I have slight issues with it and it doesn’t need to be running the latest iOS version. Hence why that will stay jail broken.

My iPhone 5 is now back to running the official iOS. Shame as I really enjoyed the tweaks provided by jail breaking even though what I added wasn’t that much it still made a big difference.

The CEO of Swatch speaks out on the iWatch

The CEO of Swatch has aired his opinion on the rumour of Apple releasing a watch.

“Personally, I don’t believe it’s the next revolution,” the chief of the largest Swiss watchmaker said at a press conference on annual results in Grenchen, Switzerland. “Replacing an iPhone with an interactive terminal on your wrist is difficult. You can’t have an immense display

Is somebody worried about Apple potential launch into the watch market!

The iPhone resale value has diminished by

As somebody who likes changing phones frequently I have recently looked at the 2nd hand values of the iPhone 5.

Unlike older models in previous years, it seems the actual resale value of the iPhone 5 has dropped. In fact I noticed the Samsung S3 or Note 2 were only £35-£45 lower than the iPhone 5 16gb. Even more startling is the loss in value if you have the 32gb or 64gb iPhone 5. The 64gb only commands an extra £10-£40 if you are lucky. That a loss in value of 44% in 3 months. That would never happen in previous years.

One thing is for sure, there is no way I will ever buy a 64gb size Apple device again. I am looking at what I actually need on my phone and hopefully going forwards will manage with 16gb. At least with the Samsung Galaxy S3 or Note 2 if you buy the 16gb but need more memory you can buy a 64gb memory card for £50 and re use it in your next phone. That’s value and sensible.

Food for thought don’t you think!

Are you waiting for the Samsung Galaxy S4?

In a few days time the world will know for sure what Samsung has created for its successor to the superb S3.

I am not expecting anything ground breaking on the hardware but I do hope they use some aluminium. Maybe the software will have some USP’s.

So how many of you are going to rush out and pre order one of these ? Or are you going to wait to see it in the flesh alongside the HTC One, Sony Xperia Z and maybe even wait for the new iPhone or Note 3 before deciding your next move?

I’m waiting to see what comes out this year. The iPhone 5 is very competent. And I would want something a lot better to change from it

How Many Phones can You Buy vs Expectations

Go to any phone shop or supermarket or online website and try and add up how many phones are available to buy. 100s and 100s. So how the heck do you decide which one to buy. All have top notch features and specifications.

So you decide to buy the best, you get it home and start using it. And then in the news the next day, details of 3 new models are announced that will be even better than yours. How do you feel? Probably disappointed. You made a bad mistake getting the phone you did, if only you waited you could have had a better phone. In fact there is nothing wrong with the phone you got. It will be excellent for years to come, but sadly with too much choice comes too much expectations which then get destroyed.

If you could only buy 1 phone and it didn’t work properly or didn’t do what you wanted, whose fault would that be. It wouldn’t be yours it would be the world’s fault and you could except that, you wouldn’t be disappointed, and your expectations have been managed not to expect greatness. You would also be happier too.

Fridays thought of the day.

iPhone 5 battery woes – do you concur ?

My iPhone 5 is always within reach of power but today was the first time I used it without being able to charge it.

At 6.30am to 9.30am it got used for web browsing, twitter and RSS feeds. Plus playing Letterpress. 40% of the battery had gone so I put it on airplane mode for 8 hours. I turned it back on for 20 mins during that time to download RSS feeds and twitter posts. At 6pm to 8pm it was used as before but not as heavily. After 8pm the phone went flat.

Would you say this is normal? I love the iPhone 5 but was left a little disappointed.

Twitter for iOS and android gets huge update and cuts services

Twitter has been updated and includes enhancements to search and other improvements as quoted by twitter as below –

– As you search you’ll see more topic and user suggestions for your query, based on what’s happening in real time. You’ll also see these suggestions when adding a hashtag or username as you compose a new Tweet.

– Top Tweets from big moments in the past pop out when you search for a given term. For example, searching for “election” might highlight Tweets from several months ago.

– When you open a web page you can now see the related Tweet for more context. Just pull the tray icon up or down to see or hide the Tweet.

– It’s easier to see long conversations in the Tweet details view, which now shows all of the replies to any Tweet

– When you block a user in the app, their Tweets will instantly disappear from the Connect tab in the app

– Pull-to-refresh in Discover shows a new, smoother animation

– Support for traditional Chinese

– Logout support (iOS 6 only)

– Uploading videos vie Mobypicture, Vodpod and Posterous is no longer supported

The last change is another example of twitter taking control and cutting third party services.