If you follow @jamesthomson on twitter who is the developer of the great app Pcalc you will see how much of a mess Apple’s new increased pricing model has become.
Not only that, redownloading and restoring in app purchases is not working for many users as well.
Lets hope this gets sorted quickly.
What you are looking at is a curved edge phone from LG. In fact both sides are curved. Samsung at the end of 2014 released the Note Edge and if rumours are to be believed there will be a Samsung Galaxy S6 with 2 curved edges.
In terms of usability I found the curved edge of my Note Edge fantastic, it just had poor battery life. But if curved edges are to be the new must have feature can you really see yourself buying a phone for this feature ? And would you pay a premium for this design element?
Garmin have just launched the Fenix 3 Sapphire sport watch at CES and boldly stated they do not fear the upcoming Apple Watch.
The watch is a multi sport fitness watch with trackers, gps, displays notifications, water resistant to 100 metres, includes sensors for altimeter , barometer, and a compass. It also has functions for alarms, stopwatch and similar actions. Battery life varies from 16 hours if using the gps to 50 hours.
Personally I like this type of watch. Limited functionality but stylish. But will it sell. That is a different story.
Source Cult of Mac
Via Appleinsider.com
“According to the latest research from UBS, it believes Apple sold a massive 69 million iPhones in the just-concluded December quarter — a sum that would obliterate the company’s previous all-time record.
Using its proprietary UBS Evidence Lab iPhone Monitor, the investment firm told investors on Wednesday that it now expects Apple to have sold a total of 69.3 million iPhones in the December quarter. That’s beyond Wall Street consensus of 65.5 million units for the three-month span.
To put the estimates in perspective, Apple’s previous all-time record came a year ago, when the company sold a massive 51 million iPhones in the holiday 2013 quarter. An increase of 18.3 million units would amount to nearly 36 percent growth in iPhone sales from the year-ago quarter.”
There is no doubt in my mind that Apple has destroyed all previous sales records. The Telegraph reported yesterday that according to its research android users migrated in their droves to iOS. A position mirrored across Europe. And being honest the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus is a VERY competent handset.
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USB Audio Player PRO (Google Play link) is one awesome app if you are into using your android phone as a high quality audio music transport system.
The developers provide the following description of this app as follows –
The above may sound rather technical but all it does is provide astonishingly good playback in to a connected USB DAC. Let me explain further. I use my Note 4 in this setup. I’ve copied my music from iTunes on to a large micro sd card. The music has to be stored on the device and there is no compatibility with Google Play music. If you wanted to use music stored on your network this is possible via Samba shares, windows or a NAS.
Connected to my Note 4 is a HiFiMeDIY Sabre Android USB Dac which then connects to a Cayin C5 Portable HiFi headphone amplifier. But the key part of this chain is the USB DAC. So prior to using USB Audio Player PRO app for android, I was simply using either Google Play music, deezer or the Samsung Music app to feed the USB DAC. As I discovered it wasn’t a totally smooth affair. So I installed the trial version of this app which is time limited but still offers plenty of time to evaluate and test the app will work with your phone.
The app contains it’s own custom driver that only works when the app is running, hence why you cannot use other apps to playback the music. The player controls are rather basic as shown in the first screen shot above.
There are a number of settings as shown below.
Selecting music is fairly straightforward but note that there are no fancy options or the ability to create new playlists.
With the setup I am currently using I had to increase the buffer size from 100 to 200 milliseconds. And that was it
So what’s the end result? It’s night and day better. Beyond anything I ever thought possible and a total revelation. I wish I had used this app before. Using this app you will listen to a track and hear stuff you never heard before. The punch, accuracy, detail and every aspect of the music is transformed. It is so good I can plug any of my headphones directly into the HiFiMeDIY Sabre Android USB Dac without using the headphone amplifier, although with the headphone amp it becomes even better.
And one last point. I’m not using FLAC music files, just good old mp3 at a recording bit rate of 320 bits.
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Some key highlights from the last 24 hours.
– Harman just announced new AKG headphones designed by Quincy Jones , the AKG N90Q. Apparently they offer a personalised sound that calibrates sound with your ears.
– Apple Watch to go on sale this March.
– Saygus announced a geek phone. The Saygus V2 is a 5 inch android 4.4.4 phone. 1080p, 2.5ghz snapdragon processor, 3gb ram, 320gb storage, 21mp rear camera, 13mp front camera, biometric fingerprint scanner, Qi Wireless charging, Harman Kardon front speakers and root access.
– WhatsApp announces it has 700 million users now
– Sennheiser have updated their Momentum headphones and made them Bluetooth wireless and foldable along with noise cancelling.
– Yahoo Mail iOS app now tracks packages and has a customisable today view
– ibattz ASAP charger is a portable power pack that can fully recharge an iPhone 6 in 15 minutes
– All Sony 2015 Bravia TVs will run android TV.
– Samsung believes it is launched a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge it could sell 10 million units
– Sony announces a new walkman. The Sony Walkman NW-ZX2 is state of the art and costs over £1,000.
– Nest can now talk to your lights , locks and train your dog to open the fridge, and bring you a lovely ice cold beer
– Alcatel OneTouch watch is launched to take on Apple and Android wear.
– Acer launches cheap phones, this time 64 bit phones. Liquid Jade S. And Liquid Z410.
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It just shows you how popular and powerful the Apple brand is, that is if you needed reminding of that fact.
CES 2015 Las Vegas has had more accessories for the Apple brand than any other being announced. Cases, power battery cases from Otterbox and Mophie, MFI accessories, and now the biggest leap into the Apple approved HomeKit accessories.
From your iPhone, with the respective HomeKit compatible hardware, you can now ask Siri to dim the lights, open the door, turn off or on devices and so much more. Siri in my opinion is less about searching and more about being a personal assistant. It is one of my favourite aspects of owning an iPhone. Some of the HomeKit devices announced so far include
– Schlage’s Sense smart lock (above) is the company’s first HomeKit-compatible keyless lock.
– Insteon’s Hub works alongside a compaion Insteon App to allow Apple device owners to control Insteon switches, outlets, thermostats, and light bulbs via HomeKit
– Incipio’s Direct line of “connected home” accessories includes a smart outlet, light bulb adapter, and power strip.
– Elgato Eve Energy, Eve Door and Window, and Eve Water. Eve Energy is a smart electrical plug unit that connects directly to a power outlet to measure energy consumption over time, while Eve Door and Window detects when a house door or window is ajar. Eve Water is an inline water sensor that measures temperature and consumption.
The above is only a taster of what is available. It is starting to look really impressive.
The Verge managed to photograph a yet unannounced LG smart watch that really looks the business. What do you think?
It turns out this is an Android Wear watch with a special skin on top. LG and Audi worked together to develop this watch to match the design of the Prologue car, but also included extra hardware to communicate with the car.
NFC is included to help establish a secure connection between the car and the watch, which then allows you to unlock the doors. Since NFC can work without the battery, the driver should still be able to unlock or lock the doors even when the watch battery is dead.
Then there are biometric sensors that could feed information such as the driver’s body temperature and heart rate to the car’s onboard computer. This could be used to automatically control the air conditioning or heat in the car.
Sources Photos – http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/6/7504199/a-new-lg-smartwatch-was-just-teased-at-audis-ces-press-conference, http://www.talkandroid.com
Many people believe it is not possible to use the Samsung Gear S without first needing to use a compatible Samsung handset to enable the initial setup process. Well it is possible and rather simple too. In fact, the Gear S can work with any phone including an iPhone or any Android.
See this great video on how to set up the Gear S.
“A man who tweeted that he had knocked over a cyclist but could not stop because he was “late for work” has been sacked from his job at a stockbrokers.
Cardiff University graduate Rayhan Qadar later told the BBC the message was a “dumb mistake” and he “did not hit anyone”.
But his employer Hargreaves Lansdown said the tweet was “unacceptable” and confirmed his dismissal.
Avon and Somerset Police earlier appealed for any victim to call them.”
It still surprises me that people don’t think before they send a tweet or post a message or photo on Facebook. Even emails can suffer the same fate.
And being hit by a car is no laughing matter as I can state for fact based on my own experience. In my case, a car hit me whilst I was on a roundabout and did attempt to drive off. Fortunately and rather luckily, two cars behind the car that hit me was a police car that sped off and stopped the driver. I suffered no broken bones, just somewhat bruised. However, I did write off the car that hit me.
Source – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-30700872
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