LG G Watch – just over a week later – update – plus some new apps

Android, Reviews, Tech News, Wearables, ,

So I have had the LG G Watch just over a week so far. In fact it is nearly 10 days. My thoughts and experiences on this device have changed since using it.

After just a few days, I really thought this smart watch would be returned as I was thinking it is simply an overpriced piece of plastic that does nothing useful.

Fortunately, I have been really busy with my day job, so I have not been able to give the G Watch any specific time, and that is actually why I am loving it now.

It has simply just slotted into my life, providing useful information in a timely manner and nothing too excessive. Each day, I find another handy thing to do with it without too much fuss.

It does help that I like the look of the white/gold finish as well. It has also saved me time as I have not had to pull my smartphone out of my pocket that much, meaning that at the end of a working day, I still have 90% battery left on my G3.

It is sad however, the it needs a charge daily, although that does not take too long and the charging cradle is magnetic making it a breeze to drop on and off.

As time moves on it will be interesting to see what improvements are made to the Android Wear firmware and apps.

Now just a quick note of a couple of new apps that I have installed –

Android Wear Calculator – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rocketstartups.wearcalculator
A calculator on your watch and on the square LG G Watch is simple and easy to use.

Wear Camera Remote – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dheera.wearcamera
This is an awesome app. It is a remote camera shutter for your phone, but you also got a preview on the watch.

And another called IFTTT. I’m not going to say anything about this app. Just install it and get blown away at what can be done. Eg. Use your watch to turn the lights on. Silence your phone. Or turn volume to full. And another 100 options.

The annoying part of the Android Wear apps is Google’s own list is missing over 100 apps. So it is a search and search again at the moment.

And in other Microsoft news – Microsoft about to announce huge staff layoffs

Tech News, Windows

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is planning its biggest round of job cuts in five years, as the software maker looks to slim down and integrate Nokia Oyj’s handset unit, people with knowledge of the company’s plans said.

Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said in an interview last week that he has preparing to make sweeping changes at Microsoft. The reductions will probably be in engineering, marketing and areas of overlap with Nokia, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public.

The restructuring — which may be unveiled as soon as this week — may end up being the biggest in Microsoft history, topping the 5,800 jobs cut in 2009, two of the people said. Some details are still being worked out, two of the people said.

Nadella, who took over from Steve Ballmer in February, said in the interview that Microsoft would have to become more focused and efficient. The CEO issued his first company mission statement last week, calling for greater emphasis on mobile devices, cloud-computing and productivity software as consumers and businesses buy fewer personal computers to check e-mail, browse the Web and access data and software.

Not unexpected, but a real shame for the individual people who might be impacted.

Source: Microsoft Corp. via Bloomberg.com.

Upodate via Reuters –

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp is planning to cut 1,000 jobs in Finland from its mobile phone unit, a Finnish daily said on Wednesday, quoting anonymous sources.

Microsoft announces Lumia Cyan software update roll out – full info

Tech News, Windows

Microsoft Devices today announces that the Lumia Cyan software update will start rolling out to Nokia Lumia phones running Windows Phone 8 today. Lumia Cyan brings the latest Windows Phone 8.1 features and unique Lumia experiences to your existing Windows Phone 8 smartphone.

THE LATEST WINDOWS PHONE 8.1 FEATURES COMING TO YOUR LUMIA INCLUDE:
· Cortana. The world’s first virtual personal assistant built around you. Available first in the U.S.
· Third column of Live Tiles on the Start Screen. Make your Start screen as unique as you are with three columns of customized tiles and a start background picture to shine through your system tiles.
· Action Center. One swipe takes you to your settings and notifications.
· WordFlow Keyboard. Glide your finger over this super-fast and intuitive smartphone keyboard to save time and effort.
· Business support. Work made easy on the only smartphone that has Office for Windows Phone built in so that you can access, edit, and share documents with anyone. New enterprise features make work safe and easier to access.

UNIQUE LUMIA EXPERIENCES TAKE YOUR SMARTPHONE TO THE NEXT LEVEL:
· Enhanced Nokia Camera and renewed Camera Roll. Access your images, image editing and sharing even quicker directly from the camera. Reframe and zoom in high resolution directly in Camera Roll.
· Updated Storyteller app and Living Images. Share your Storyteller stories on your favorite social network with an automatically created video of your best memories with background music. Living Images bring your still photos to live on your Lumia Icon and Lumia 1520.
· Install apps to MicroSD memory card. You can now free up space on your Lumia by moving apps to the memory card.
· Rich Recording with Surround Sound. With Lumia 1520 and Lumia Icon, you can capture and relive immersive video in Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 sound that is more true-to-life than ever before.
· Nokia Device Hub. Manage all your accessories in an easy and fun way.

THE NEXT EVOLUTION OF IMAGE AND VIDEO EDITING APPS:
Apps like Adobe Photoshop Express and Creative Studio make image post-editing even easier and richer, while Microsoft’s latest app Video Tuner delivers a leading experience for editing videos on a smartphone.
Available exclusively for Windows Phone 8.1, Video Tuner is a new and differentiated app that allows users to quickly edit and share high quality videos straight from their Lumia. With a range of tools to crop, rotate, flip, mirror and change videos’ speed; adjust volume and music; apply fun filters, effects, and more – pumping out amazing videos to share on social networks, OneDrive or with friends and family has never been easier.

TIMINGS
The Lumia Cyan update will be rolling out to Lumia devices running on Windows Phone 8 as of today and is expected to become available for the full range in the coming weeks.

HOW TO UPDATE
Your Lumia smartphone automatically checks for updates every week, and will notify you when it finds one. Available updates can also be manually checked by going to Settings -> Phone update. The update can be downloaded and installed straight from that screen.

Sony offers a bootloader unlocking service – it’s simplest yet

Android, Tech News

Sony has now made it easier to unlock your Sony smartphone.

Quote from Sony –

“If you’re an open source developer working with custom ROMs and kernels, or if you’re part of the custom ROMs community, Sony have some great news for you. As yet another step in our strive for openness, our Unlock boot loader service is now re-launched with improved usability. It will now be easier to go through the steps it takes to unlock a device.

Three main steps-

With the re-launched Unlock boot loader solution, you now have to go through three main steps to unlock the boot loader:

-Select your device and enter an email address.
-Submit your IMEI number.
-Get your unlock code and perform the actual unlocking of the device.

We’ve also improved they way you check whether a device is supported, we’ve revised the instructions, and we’ve made sure you’ll only get the information relevant for your particular device all the way through the unlock process, without having to browse through a lot of information applicable for other devices. In addition, we’ve also added an FAQ section, for your convenience.

Why not go to unlockbootloader.sonymobile.com and take a look yourself?”

This is good news for those that like to tweak their android smartphones and the developer community.

Why the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is winning

Android, Reviews, Tech News,

With the LG G3 in the house fighting for top spot, I have been wondering why the K Zoom is winning.

For a start it has issues. Less since the software update. But it is fat and needs to go on a diet. It has a bulge sticking out for the zoom lens.

And yet I have no desire to sell or return the phone to Samsung, not that I can anymore either.

So why is it front of house? Simply, it is running android which has an excellent selection of apps. Samsung include a superb array of editing apps too and a huge selection of camera shooting modes to ensure you always will photograph the view in front, from action shots, panoramic, HDR, creative shots, waterfalls, light traces, fireworks and more. It takes the pain out of any guesswork.

But what else, well it has a full suite of connectivity options from WiFi, Bluetooth, DLNA and more. It is also a phone. The photos it takes are not class leading, but they are on the whole really excellent and shots I would not have been able to shoot on any other smartphone.

So the K Zoom is a winner.

LG G3 in harmony with the LG G Watch

Android, Reviews, Tech News, Wearables, ,

Just a quick update on my experiences of the 2 devices from yesterday.

It was a good day. Both devices got used a lot and I started to find more uses for the LG G Watch. My notifications were less, so battery at 8pm was around 51%. Still really a daily charge for this wearable.

The LG G3 really is outstanding. With the screen off, music playing and all the other apps running in the background, it hardly uses the battery. So much so, that my work BlackBerry Curve (due to high security this is a mandatory use device) was the one that needed the car charger!!

So referring back to my other post today, do I keep the LG G3/G Watch combo or the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom?

Answers on a postcard please 🙂

Apple’s “It just Works” – A Load of Nonsense

Apple, Tech News,

I used to love my Apple products, from my first iPhone, the iPhone 4, iPad, Mac, iPod Touch and Classic, all seemingly working in harmony. And then there was the bounty of apps and great games. In app purchases did not exist.

Move forward to 2013 and 2014 and Apple devices are more complex in features, which in turn means there is more things to go wrong. My iPhone 5 for example would losse reception, never to reappear unless the phone was rebooted. My iPad Air battery life recently fell by 50%. And this is the tip of the iceberg.

Roll forward to the current time, and I was wondering why my parents iPhones and iPads weren’t allowing FaceTime or iMessages. My dad had everything configured correctly and my mum had somehow had all the settings for iMessage and Facetime switched off. She had no idea how that had happened. Anyway, with both parents on the same network, and everything all on, my mum could still not send my dad an iMessage. It kept going to send the text as an SMS. I advised them in many different ways, but in the end “it just didn’t work”.

The cure was for my dad to send an iMessage to my mum. And then for her to reply to that message. Somehow that corrected everything.

Regardless of the issues, Apple still have the best eco system and still manufacture some of the most desirable hardware. Lets hope iOS 8 improves matters and that the new iPhone has a long battery life.

LG G3 – quick thoughts

Android, Reviews, Tech News

I’ve been really busy so not had as much time yet to spend with the G3 as I would have wanted.

My thoughts so far. 32gb storage available on my phone is bliss. I have endless space.

The camera. So far it’s been ace. Lots of indoor shots with people and really smashing results. Outdoor shots are equally good. Even low light. I still want more time with the camera though to give my final verdict.

The feel and software. The LG feels different to everything I’ve used in a long while. Consequently, I need to experience it’s character for longer to come to any conclusions. But I’m liking the experience more than the Samsung Touchwiz.

My main dilemma is still would I chose the G3 over the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom. Answer. No comment.