Slash Lane / AppleInsider:
Apple developing always-on iPhone status indicators — Apple has conceptualized a means of displaying icon-like status indicators on the iPhone's displays even when the handset is locked and the backlight turned off, a new company filing shows. — The Cupertino-based electronics maker notes …
Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
BlackBerry's Storm Presses Into the Touch-Phone Fray — To its fiercest devotees, one of the best things about the BlackBerry is its carefully designed physical keyboard, which the skilled BlackBerry addict can play like a violin. These folks scorn Apple's popular iPhone …
Internet browsing on your mobile phone today has definitely come along way from. Now you can enjoy visiting your favorite websites on your mobile phone as if you were seated right in front of your desktop PC. However, with a variety of different phones, mobile operating systems and mobile internet browsers out now, which phone has the best internet browsing experience? Gizmodo apparently had the same question when they conducted the great mobile phone internet browser face-off.
The following tables show some key figures regarding the different phones used in this showdown. Page rendering is rated as Fail to Excellent, while the color takes into account both page rendering accuracy and speed. Those in green are generally good scores, while those in red are failing marks.
This first table shows how the phones fared against each other using a 3G connection.
This second table, on the other hand, uses WiFi.
Based on their findings, despite lacking Flash support, the iPhone is still the best mobile phone/portable internet device in the market with a decent rating of A-. Coming in at number two is the Android-based G1 which merited a B+ while the Nokia E71 and BlackBerry Bold each got a B-. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer got the lowest mark with an F-. Interestingly, some phones such as the E71 managed to load some pages (Hubble on Wikipedia) better on a 3G connection as compared to WiFi.
Anyhow, this may be a limited comparison, but I guess it’s safe to assume that if mobile internet browsing is your cup of tea, you can’t go wrong with the iPhone, HTC G1, Nokia E71 or BlackBerry Bold. For more details on this great showdown, check out Gizmodo for their complete methodology and results.
This is a post from Cell Phones Etc. entitled:
Mobile Internet Browser Showdown courtesy of Gizmodo | Add your Comments
¡Café portátil! Los precios de la Netbook pone límite al precios de los smartphone. Con los incrementos de precio en Venezuela, mas de un consumidor se pregunta si vale la pena pagar casi 2.700 bolìvares un BlackBerry Bold o 2.500 bolìvares por un iPhone 3G, ¿No serà mejor comprarse una NetBook?
El término Netbook fue re-introducido por el fabriccante de procesadores Intel en Febrero de 2008 para referirse a un subportátil, es decir una categoría de ordenador de bajo coste y reducidas dimensiones, utilizadas principalmente para navegar por Internet y realizar funciones básicas, como, por ejemplo, proceso de texto y de hojas de cálculo.
Acer Aspire One. Su precio ronda los dos mil bolìvares. Me la obsequiaron en Computodo. Aparte la suya por el +58 246 871 54 23 oel + 58 414 468 74 23.
Originalmente, el término había sido introducido por la empresa Psion para utilizarlo en una gama de computadoras portátiles similares a una handheld, lanzada en 1999. Psion obtuvo el registro de la marca en los Estados Unidos en noviembre del año 2000.
Cuando algunos sitios wen usan Nettop, para identificar a las computadoras que tienen características similares de tamaño, prestaciones y precio, pero no son portátiles, sino de escritorio.
HP 2133 MiniNotes otra netbook. La tienen en MCTIME en dos versiones.
El Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC), o PC Ultra Móvil en español, previamente conocido por su nombre código Project Origami (Proyecto Origami), es un Tablet PC de factor de forma pequeño.
Este acaso fue un ejercicio de desarrollo conjunto entre Microsoft, Intel, y Samsung, entre otros. Ofrece el sistema operativo Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 o Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, o Linux y tiene un microprocesador Intel Pentium de voltaje ultra bajo, corriendo en el rango de 1 GHz. La portabilidad de la PC Ultra Móvil puede ser atractivo a los viajeros internacionales de negocios y a los “viajeros con mochila” (backpackers) globales.
HP 2133 MiniNotes ahora abierta.
Volviendo a las Netbook, estas son subportátil, del inglés subnotebook, es una computadora portátil más pequeña y liviana, con la mayoría de las características normales de las laptops que bien conocemos.
La denominación suele aplicarse a equipos que corren versiones completas de sistemas operativos de escritorio como Windows o Linux, en vez de sistemas específicos como Windows CE o Palm OS.
La propuesta NetBook de Toshiba la NB105. Esta disponible en México.
Intel ha re-introducido el término netbook para referirse a este tipo de computadoras, dado que se utilizan casi exclusivamente para navegar por Internet; sin embargo, “Netbook” fue registrado como marca por la empresa Psion en los Estados Unidos para comercializar computadoras portátiles.
Diferenciando
Algunos lectores podrìan confundir esta definición con las sigla UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC o PC Ultra Móvil) ya esxplicadas anteriormente, la diferencia estiba en que estás abarcan a las computadoras de menor tamaño como handhelds o también llamados PDA (Personal Digital Assistants). Estos ya los conoce usted ami@s lectores, son los llamados computadoras de la palma de la mano y fueron diseñados originalmente como organizadores personales, y ellos hacen esto realmente bien y que no necesariamente ejecutan software de escritorio. Ej.: Palm Treo, BlackBerry, iPhone.
Las subportátiles son más pequeñas que las portátiles tradicionales pero más grandes que las handhelds. Generalmente poseen pantallas de menor tamaño, de entre 7 y 13,3 pulgadas, y un peso que varía desde menos de uno hasta dos kilogramos. El ahorro en peso y tamaño generalmente se obtiene omitiendo algunos puertos o unidades ópticas, además de utilizar chipsets de menor potencia.
Este tipo de computadora nunca ha gozado de un gran éxito hasta la introducción en el año 2007 de la ASUS Eee PC. Se afirma también que han tomado la idea de la iniciativa de Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop Per Child (una laptop por niño).
Se estima que para 2011 más de 50 millones de subportátiles estarán en circulación.
Ofimayor ofrece la posibilidad de comprar en líne la Síragon ML 1010.
NetBook Protagónicas
Mi amigo Adolfo Manaure me comento sobre la propuesta de Lenovo D10. Tengo en estos momentos en las manos, de hecho estoy escribiendo de una Acer AspireOne, mi amigo Luis Alfredo Toro Febres Cordero se compro una DELL Inspiron Mini, Toshiba tiene su NB105, HP tiene la 2133 Mininote.
¿Funciona el concepto?
Como usuario puedo decir que si. Pero pongamonos en los zápatos de la industria. “La Sìragon ML 1010 es el fenómeno del momento en el mercado venezolano y estamos buscando responde a la confianza del público venezolano” dijo por celular a con-cafe.com el Sr. Jhonathan Hernández del Departamento de Publicidad y Medios de Siragon en Valencia.
¿Exagera el Sr. Hernández? No creo. Uno de nuestros reporteros en Maracay, Jesús Màrquez atestigua que en American Computer en una hora vendieron 100 unidades de ML 1010.
Con tan buenos precios en estas NetBook en Venezuela,: ¿Qué será mejor ? Pagar casi 2.700 bolívares por un BlackBerry Bold, unos 2.500 bolìvares por un iPhone 3G, ó comrparse una NetBook?
NTT DoCoMo is developing an Android-based smartphone with an aim to launch it next year, a spokesperson with the Japanese operator confirmed to AFP via Business Standard. The phone could help the carrier compete with its smaller rival Softbank, which has been growing customers at a faster rate since launching the iPhone in July.
An earlier report from Japanese financial newspaper the Nikkei picked up by Reuters, said that the phone would be co-developed by DoCoMo's Korean partner KT Freetel. DoCoMo owns a 10 percent stake in the Korean carrier, and in the past the two have procured handsets together to get better prices. But the company's spokesperson said that they hadn't yet decided on any partners, nor was it confirmed if the handsets would sell in Korea.
The handset will be the first Android phone to be launched in Japan, where mobile devices are already among the most sophisticated in the world. DoCoMo lost out on the iPhone after months of talks with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), which reportedly broke down after the Japanese carrier balked over the high revenue sharing terms that Apple was demanding to let it sell the handset exclusively.
But an Android-based phone may actually prove to be a better bet for DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM). Though Apple has helped lure subscribers to Softbank, it hasn't sold spectacularly in Japan, where users apparently still want features particular to the local market?including mobile payments and digital broadcast TV. It's been reported that Japanese consumers who have bought the iPhone also tote around a second phone that give them access to these features--which could be potentially included in an Android-based phone. DoCoMo and Google (NSDQ: GOOG), meanwhile, already have an "alliance" in place, when early this year DoCoMo agreed to integrate its search and email into its content service i-Mode.
The Nikkei also reported that DoCoMo would price the Android-based phone at about 20 percent lower than existing smartphones, since it would save costs on software development as Android is free.
Related
Check out the best business jobs in digital media. Go here for paidContent.org Job Board.
For weeks now there have been rumors of Wal-Mart eventually carrying Apple?s iPhone 3G. Now it has been confirmed that starting December 28th, select Wal-Mart locations as well as a few Sam?s Club stores will be carrying the AT&T exclusive handset.
The iPhone 3G will be on select Wal-Mart store shelves in 2,500 locations. Sam?s Club will only be getting the iPhone 3G in 69 stores in the US. There is still no word on suspected pricing due to the fact that many would wait till after Christmas to pick up the phone at a cheaper price. AT&T is going to be supporting Wal-Mart as far as activations go. Sam?s Club kiosks that are managed by Radio Shack however will not be getting the iPhone 3G. Here is the execution timeline for the launch of the iPhone 3G.
* 12/2 ? 12/5: AT&T / Wal-Mart MEM Classroom Training for Store Leads
* 12/3 ? 12/19: AT&T In-Store Training
* 12/26 ? 12/27: AT&T In-Store Refresher Training
* 12/28: Nationwide Launch
* 12/28 ? 12/30: Wal-Mart and AT&T War Room Support
[Via iPhoneBuzz]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Portables, Apple, Macbook Pro, MacBook, MacBook Air
Talk about being slightly touched. Arik Hesseldahl's BusinessWeek article, published today, says "...as of Nov. 19, Hewlett-Packard has beaten Apple to the punch, announcing the first multi-touch-enabled notebook PC, the tx2. I can't help but wonder whether Apple just lost an important race."
Not only did Apple not lose an important race, the tx2 isn't the first multi-touch notebook. Engadget points out that the Dell Latitude XT, which offered multi-touch technology, came on the scene back in July of '08. But even that wasn't first, because the MacBook Air was introduced on January 15th of 2008 with a multi-touch trackpad.
"Well," you say, "there's a difference between a touchable trackpad and a touchable display." You're right: one's meant to be touched and one isn't. The reason the trackpad on the MacBook Pro and he MacBook has gotten larger, smoother and glassier is because Apple is (and will continue to) inviting you to do more with it than tap and click. Multi-touch gestures on a notebook ought to be delivered via the surface that's made to be touched, not the surface made to be viewed. On the iPhone those surfaces are one & the same because there's no other option.
But really, the notion that Apple "lost an important race" by not being first is the biggest error here. Apple wasn't the first to release jukebox software, a portable music player or a mobile phone. Yet, iTunes, the iPod and the iPhone are the most successful examples of each. Apple's greatest strength is patience.
The designers and developers at Apple know you want a fully touch-enabled laptop. So do the folks at HP. The difference is that Apple's staff are patient and careful enough to execute it in exactly the right way, not just the most obvious way.
[Via MacDailyNews]
TUAWBusinessWeek: HP "out-touches" Apple originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
¡Café apureño! “En Sono Video Riky nos sentimos orgullosos de ser parte importante en estos momentos, de la historia de las telecomunicaciones de Venezuela, al ser el primer agente integral en ofrecer a los apureños los tres primeros iPhone 3G“ dijo a con-cafe.com el Sr. José Carballo, Gerente General de Sono Vídeo Ricky, quien junto a Llanocel, son los dos únicos agentes integrales en ofrecer este dispositivo de Apple en San Fernando de Apure.
Desde el sábado tres sanfernandinos pagaron sus iPhone 3G y ayer martes se lo entregaron. Fotos tomadas con un BlackBerry 8130.
El primer agente autorizado en la capital de Apure y en Calabozo fue LlanoCel, de Gerardo y Antonieta de Milano pero hoy Sono Video Riky le gana en la carrera del Apple iPhone 3G Movistar.
Filed under: iPhone
Walmart will be taking a pass for most of the holiday shopping season with one particular item: the iPhone. It will begin selling the handset December 28, according to Jamie Townsend, of research firm JRPG.
Boy Genius Report also notes that the phone will be sold in some Sam's Club stores as well. The blog broke the news about Walmart's talks with Apple, but originally said the smartphone would hit shelves last Saturday.
Walmart seems to be capitalizing on post-holiday shopping fervor, with BGR's Zach Epstein speculating, "Won't people be happy when they find out Apple's handsets popped up at discount prices three short days after Christmas?" It depends on how meager Christmas is, I suppose.
The handsets will apparently be activated in-store. No pricing details were released.
TUAWWalmart will sell iPhones starting Dec. 28 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
AFP - Japan’s top carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. aims to launch next year a cellphone developed with Internet search giant Google, an official said Wednesday, a move that could counter Apple’s iconic iPhone.
Original post by AFP
Admob just published their October metrics report. First, I should say - congratulations to Admob. They are at nearly SIX BILLION (5.8 billion to be exact) ad requests per month. That's a huge number compared to where they were a year ago. And, they don't represent the entire market.
There's a lot more mobile web browsing going on than they see. And what is crazy - or not so crazy - is that the majority of it is still on your basic feature phone. An astonishing four percent IS on iPhones. You have to go down to #10 on the list to get to another mid-sized device with a larger than average screen. The RAZR ranks #2. This creates an interesting development dilemma for content providers, but more on that later.
Page three of the report is dedicated to the impact of the iPhone on the market. It's definitely worth a read. I won't steal their thunder by listing all the highlights here. Topline - they had nearly 150 million requests from iPhones in the US alone. The requests about doubled between end of September and end of October. (Can't wait to see Apple/AT&T's Q4 earnings ... how many of these devices are you guys selling?)
How about 17 percent of ad requests coming out of Mexico coming from the iPhone? Can't remember which carrier Apple launched with there. T-Mobile won't tell me how much they are pricing iPhone data plans at in the US. (Kidding)
Admob and this industry are just getting started. Apple announced 200 million downloads a couple of weeks back. They haven't said what percentage are paid and what percentage are free. Let's assume the majority are free (I'll use myself and go with a sample size of n=1). There is a tremendous audience there that will likely be served ads in the future to support the free download model. Admob has some cool ad formats they've developed for the iPhone that we're just starting to see. Their report sites 400 iPhone apps and sites currently being served. I expect to see the traffic from iPhones continue to increase as more applications use their product.
The Safari browser on the iPhone is great, etc., but I only use it as a last resort if there isn't a widget or app that will get me what I need.
This is getting to be pretty exciting. Stay tuned.
Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, First Look
As a gadget hound and productivity freak, I've tried just about everything over the past 10+ years, both hardware and software. My gadgets have included a Palm IIIe, two Handspring Visors, a Newton 2100, a Newton eMate and a Palm Tungsten E2. They were all nice (some more than others), but each shared deficits of one type or another. Graffiti and easily-lost styluses were two biggies.Continue reading First Look: FrontPocket for iPhone and iPod touch
TUAWFirst Look: FrontPocket for iPhone and iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Before 2007, using the internet on your phone would make you want to kill yourself, if you were dumb enough to believe the crap splattered across that tiny screen even was the "internet." But the combination of increased bandwidth and better mobile software means that more phones really are promising to deliver the real internet, in living color. We tested eight different browsers, and while some put smiles on our faces, others proved that rendering HTML correctly is a far cry from actually giving you an awesome web experience. And what about 3G vs. Wi-Fi? Everything the carriers have told you is a lie. This is the true state of mobile web.
Before we give you the rundown of each of the most prevalent mobile browsers, here's how they all stacked up in a timed test of how fast (and how well) they could render websites, chosen for their diversity and particular challenges:
CHART KEY: Number value is time for complete page load in seconds; page rendering is rated from "Fail" to "Excellent" for each; and the color (red, yellow, green) indicates overall performance taking into account both speed and rendering accuracy: Green = good overall, Red = fail overall.
This second chart runs through the same procedure with all of the phones that had Wi-Fi options:
It's a pretty daunting pile of numbers, so let's break it down into standard prose, rating each browser as we go:
Android
A fast, smart mobile browser based on WebKit. It tackles most sites with (almost) unrivaled grace and speed. Panning and zooming could be smoother and more responsive, but with a ton of options for getting around a page—various touch methods and the trackball—few sites will be challenging to zip around. The only thing we really miss is multitouch for zoom. Buttons just aren't a very elegant or precise solution, and while the whole-page magnifying glass technique is nice, we'd love something a bit more refined. Overall though, we're happy campers on Android's browser. Grade: B+
BlackBerry Bold
Leaps and bounds ahead of the browser BlackBerry users have put up with for years, it renders most pages correctly, even if scripts give it a conniption fit (hence its long load times for Wikipedia and the WSJ). It uses the standard "click to zoom" metaphor, which works well enough, though getting around a page with the trackball can be kind of a work out for you thumb. The Column View, which squeezes a whole page into a single column, is fairly convenient and makes it easier to get around wider pages, even if it doesn't work equally as well on every site (nice on Wikipedia, ugly on Giz). Hopefully they fix the script performance in the Storm, which is using an updated version of the Bold's browser. We humbly suggest they ditch their home-baked browser for one based on WebKit, which would help out there. Grade: B-/C+
iPhone
What can we say? It's still got the best mobile browser around. It crushes basically everything but Android's browser—which is also based on WebKit—in speed and outclasses its still classy brother-from-another-mother (and everyone else) with the ease and elegance of its multitouch zooming. Some pages still give it fits, and it's missing Flash support, but it really does deliver an unrivaled mobile web experience. We love it, but make no mistake we're eagerly waiting for something better. (Mobile Firefox? Is it you?) Grade: A-
Nokia E71 Symbian S60
Hey look, another web browser with WebKit guts! It doesn't perform quite as well as Android's or iPhone's iteration where speed or render accuracy are concerned (can any Symbian nuts explain why?), but it does a serviceable job. The big thing it has going for it is Flash Lite 3 support, though performance there is kinda assy and memory intensive. Navigation is tougher with the E71's d-pad than with a trackball, but the whole page magnifying approach makes it easy enough to get around (too bad you have to dig through a menu or two to get to it). Not bad, but short of excellent. Grade: B-
Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile
Jesus Christ. This is a joke, right Microsoft? Hahaha. No really, this is the worst smartphone browser on the planet. It couldn't render its way out of an ASCII-art paper bag. It totally screwed up every single test page, except for Wikipedia, which it only mostly screwed up. Good luck navigating a page if you're granted the miraculous occurrence of it being rendered in a state that's usable. Grade: F-
Opera Mobile on Windows Mobile
Microsoft's own intentions notwithstanding, you can use the internet on a Windows Mobile phone. You just need Opera Mobile. It's kind of hobbled by Windows Mobile's assy performance, but it usually gets the job done. Not as quickly or always as accurately as its WebKit rivals, but it's definitely usable. Interestingly, it benefits more from the extra bandwidth offered by Wi-Fi than the WebKit browsers do. Menu-based zoom is annoying and imprecise. Touch-based panning worked okay, though a little laggy. We mostly navigated with the Samsung Epix's optical cursor, which worked pretty well, somewhere in between a d-pad and a trackball. Grade: C
Sprint Instinct
Holy CRAP. This is not the painfully lousy browser the Instinct shipped with not by a long shot. The original was slow and fairly feeble, even if it was the head of its (dumbphone) class. The new 1.1 browser really is a life-changing upgrade. It suffers in the chart because it's much slower than most other browsers, and zooming is still clumsy, but once the page loads, it's much smoother to pan and actually move around. I got a bit annoyed that it lied about pageload time, hanging at the last 2 percent of the status bar for half the load, but it usually gets things right. This is the best non-smartphone browser you can get. Grade: C+
LG Dare
Like the Instinct, the Dare proves you can actually get a usable browsing experience on a feature phone. It's a little nimbler at loading pages than its Korean blood rival, but the reason it ultimately posts lower marks than the Instinct is that it buckles way more easily under a moderate to heavy pageload, turning it into an unresponsive picture of the website you were trying to look at. Still, it renders most pages fairly accurately, and we like the sliding zoom scroll bar, at least in theory, since it seems like an intuitive way to deal with the zoom issue. Unfortunately, it works more like a glorified pair of buttons. (Note: I don't think the speed was actually a piddly 300 Kbps—I think it just had a problem dealing with DSL Reports' mobile speedtest, even though it's text-based for the dumbest of phones.) Grade: C
Methodology
We tested every browser only using the full—not mobile—versions of selected sites, over 3G and, whenever possible, Wi-Fi. All scripts were turned on, and the cache was cleared before each round of testing. We took the average of a series of five sequential speedtests to give us an idea of the bandwidth we're dealing with, and timed how long it took to completely load a site according to each browser's progress bar. We assessed whether or not it rendered the page correctly, on a scale ranging from "excellent" to "good" (a couple things out of place) to "utter fail" (I've seen prettier train wrecks).
A few additional issues to note: Internet Explorer would not work on Wi-Fi. Opera yes, our Skyfire install, yes, Internet Exploder, no. (Samsung suggested it might be because of Opera.) We didn't pursue the matter because of how IE did in the 3G tests: A page that looks like a pile of blended dog poo is going to look like that no matter how much faster it loads. Sprint's updated Instinct and Verizon's Dare, which we included as best-of-class examples of feature phones, don't have Wi-Fi capabilities. We left out Opera Mini and Skyfire, since they both leave most of the hard work to servers which essentially spit out a kind of image file—besides, we don't think this kind of internet-by-proxy browser will be around for much longer.
The Big Gulp
Remember our mantra it's code that counts? It's true for mobile internet too. An awesome browser can make up for a mediocre network, but a terrible browser delivers a crappy experience no matter how great the network is. It's all about the browser. As it stands, WebKit is clearly the best thing going, but even then, software implementation matters, or Nokia would deliver as good a performance as Android and iPhone. Proving the point, it's striking how little Wi-Fi actually boosted speed beyond 3G—hell, WebKit browsers on 3G slid past some of the others that were running on Wi-Fi.
Another thing to note is that the zoom metaphor is a tricky thing to nail. Buttons are too brutish, the magnifying glass is imprecise. Multitouch seems to be the best way to handle zooming in and out in a way that's intuitive and precise. Hopefully we'll see other developers start to use multitouch interfaces in touchscreen phones (*cough*ANDROID!*cough*).
As much as this blow-by-blow battlemodo shows you all the problems we encountered, the big picture is that really, mobile web is pretty dandy right now, and getting dandier. It could be more reliable, faster, maybe a little more versatile, but for the most part, yes, you can access the internet on your phone. Compared to just two years ago, that's really saying something. We can't wait to see what it'll look like in two years. Maybe Internet Exploder will actually work. Nah, that's a little too sci-fi.
Before 2007, using the internet on your phone would make you want to kill yourself, if you were dumb enough to believe the crap splattered across that tiny screen even was the "internet." But the combination of increased bandwidth and better mobile software means that more phones really are promising to deliver the real internet, in living color. We tested eight different browsers, and while some put smiles on our faces, others proved that rendering HTML correctly is a far cry from actually giving you an awesome web experience. And what about 3G vs. Wi-Fi? Everything the carriers have told you is a lie. This is the true state of mobile web.
Before we give you the rundown of each of the most prevalent mobile browsers, here's how they all stacked up in a timed test of how fast (and how well) they could render websites, chosen for their diversity and particular challenges:
CHART KEY: Number value is time for complete page load in seconds; page rendering is rated from "Fail" to "Excellent" for each; and the color (red, yellow, green) indicates overall performance taking into account both speed and rendering accuracy: Green = good overall, Red = fail overall.
This second chart runs through the same procedure with all of the phones that had Wi-Fi options:
It's a pretty daunting pile of numbers, so let's break it down into standard prose, rating each browser as we go:
Android
A fast, smart mobile browser based on WebKit. It tackles most sites with (almost) unrivaled grace and speed. Panning and zooming could be smoother and more responsive, but with a ton of options for getting around a page—various touch methods and the trackball—few sites will be challenging to zip around. The only thing we really miss is multitouch for zoom. Buttons just aren't a very elegant or precise solution, and while the whole-page magnifying glass technique is nice, we'd love something a bit more refined. Overall though, we're happy campers on Android's browser. Grade: B+
BlackBerry Bold
Leaps and bounds ahead of the browser BlackBerry users have put up with for years, it renders most pages correctly, even if scripts give it a conniption fit (hence its long load times for Wikipedia and the WSJ). It uses the standard "click to zoom" metaphor, which works well enough, though getting around a page with the trackball can be kind of a work out for you thumb. The Column View, which squeezes a whole page into a single column, is fairly convenient and makes it easier to get around wider pages, even if it doesn't work equally as well on every site (nice on Wikipedia, ugly on Giz). Hopefully they fix the script performance in the Storm, which is using an updated version of the Bold's browser. We humbly suggest they ditch their home-baked browser for one based on WebKit, which would help out there. Grade: B-/C+
iPhone
What can we say? It's still got the best mobile browser around. It crushes basically everything but Android's browser—which is also based on WebKit—in speed and outclasses its still classy brother-from-another-mother (and everyone else) with the ease and elegance of its multitouch zooming. Some pages still give it fits, and it's missing Flash support, but it really does deliver an unrivaled mobile web experience. We love it, but make no mistake we're eagerly waiting for something better. (Mobile Firefox? Is it you?) Grade: A-
Nokia E71 Symbian S60
Hey look, another web browser with WebKit guts! It doesn't perform quite as well as Android's or iPhone's iteration where speed or render accuracy are concerned (can any Symbian nuts explain why?), but it does a serviceable job. The big thing it has going for it is Flash Lite 3 support, though performance there is kinda assy and memory intensive. Navigation is tougher with the E71's d-pad than with a trackball, but the whole page magnifying approach makes it easy enough to get around (too bad you have to dig through a menu or two to get to it). Not bad, but short of excellent. Grade: B-
Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile
Jesus Christ. This is a joke, right Microsoft? Hahaha. No really, this is the worst smartphone browser on the planet. It couldn't render its way out of an ASCII-art paper bag. It totally screwed up every single test page, except for Wikipedia, which it only mostly screwed up. Good luck navigating a page if you're granted the miraculous occurrence of it being rendered in a state that's usable. Grade: F-
Opera Mobile on Windows Mobile
Microsoft's own intentions notwithstanding, you can use the internet on a Windows Mobile phone. You just need Opera Mobile. It's kind of hobbled by Windows Mobile's assy performance, but it usually gets the job done. Not as quickly or always as accurately as its WebKit rivals, but it's definitely usable. Interestingly, it benefits more from the extra bandwidth offered by Wi-Fi than the WebKit browsers do. Menu-based zoom is annoying and imprecise. Touch-based panning worked okay, though a little laggy. We mostly navigated with the Samsung Epix's optical cursor, which worked pretty well, somewhere in between a d-pad and a trackball. Grade: C
Sprint Instinct
Holy CRAP. This is not the painfully lousy browser the Instinct shipped with not by a long shot. The original was slow and fairly feeble, even if it was the head of its (dumbphone) class. The new 1.1 browser really is a life-changing upgrade. It suffers in the chart because it's much slower than most other browsers, and zooming is still clumsy, but once the page loads, it's much smoother to pan and actually move around. I got a bit annoyed that it lied about pageload time, hanging at the last 2 percent of the status bar for half the load, but it usually gets things right. This is the best non-smartphone browser you can get. Grade: C+
LG Dare
Like the Instinct, the Dare proves you can actually get a usable browsing experience on a feature phone. It's a little nimbler at loading pages than its Korean blood rival, but the reason it ultimately posts lower marks than the Instinct is that it buckles way more easily under a moderate to heavy pageload, turning it into an unresponsive picture of the website you were trying to look at. Still, it renders most pages fairly accurately, and we like the sliding zoom scroll bar, at least in theory, since it seems like an intuitive way to deal with the zoom issue. Unfortunately, it works more like a glorified pair of buttons. (Note: I don't think the speed was actually a piddly 300 Kbps—I think it just had a problem dealing with DSL Reports' mobile speedtest, even though it's text-based for the dumbest of phones.) Grade: C
Methodology
We tested every browser only using the full—not mobile—versions of selected sites, over 3G and, whenever possible, Wi-Fi. All scripts were turned on, and the cache was cleared before each round of testing. We took the average of a series of five sequential speedtests to give us an idea of the bandwidth we're dealing with, and timed how long it took to completely load a site according to each browser's progress bar. We assessed whether or not it rendered the page correctly, on a scale ranging from "excellent" to "good" (a couple things out of place) to "utter fail" (I've seen prettier train wrecks).
A few additional issues to note: Internet Explorer would not work on Wi-Fi. Opera yes, our Skyfire install, yes, Internet Exploder, no. (Samsung suggested it might be because of Opera.) We didn't pursue the matter because of how IE did in the 3G tests: A page that looks like a pile of blended dog poo is going to look like that no matter how much faster it loads. Sprint's updated Instinct and Verizon's Dare, which we included as best-of-class examples of feature phones, don't have Wi-Fi capabilities. We left out Opera Mini and Skyfire, since they both leave most of the hard work to servers which essentially spit out a kind of image file—besides, we don't think this kind of internet-by-proxy browser will be around for much longer.
The Big Gulp
Remember our mantra it's code that counts? It's true for mobile internet too. An awesome browser can make up for a mediocre network, but a terrible browser delivers a crappy experience no matter how great the network is. It's all about the browser. As it stands, WebKit is clearly the best thing going, but even then, software implementation matters, or Nokia would deliver as good a performance as Android and iPhone. Proving the point, it's striking how little Wi-Fi actually boosted speed beyond 3G—hell, WebKit browsers on 3G slid past some of the others that were running on Wi-Fi.
Another thing to note is that the zoom metaphor is a tricky thing to nail. Buttons are too brutish, the magnifying glass is imprecise. Multitouch seems to be the best way to handle zooming in and out in a way that's intuitive and precise. Hopefully we'll see other developers start to use multitouch interfaces in touchscreen phones (*cough*ANDROID!*cough*).
As much as this blow-by-blow battlemodo shows you all the problems we encountered, the big picture is that really, mobile web is pretty dandy right now, and getting dandier. It could be more reliable, faster, maybe a little more versatile, but for the most part, yes, you can access the internet on your phone. Compared to just two years ago, that's really saying something. We can't wait to see what it'll look like in two years. Maybe Internet Exploder will actually work. Nah, that's a little too sci-fi.
¡Café monaguense! Trece iPhone en un día se vendieron ayer en Maturin, estado Monagas. así lo informa nuestro reportero Domenico Falzano.
Saludos, desde el dia de hoy a las 9.00 am, aproximadamente se dio la luz verde para la venta de la manzana de la discordia, el iPhone 3G debuto en Maturin y con muy buenas expectativas, el agente integral MONAGAS PHONE CLUB, sera el encargado de la venta de este equipo en todo el estado Monagas. Fotos tomadas con un Nokia N82.
Material POP del iPhone Movistar.
Ya desde muy temprano los clientes estaban esperando para comprar su iphone 3G en sus dos presentaciones 8gb y 16 gb en sus dos colores, mientras estuve alli pude ver a varias personas adquirir este equipo, muchos usuarios del Iphone en su version anterior venian a renovar, se llevaban hasta de dos equipos!!! que tal??
La MACBOOOK usada para facilitar la programación del iPhone por iTunes.
El amigo Luis Tomaselli, dueño de MONAGAS PHONE CLUB, esta muy contento por haber sido el seleccionado para la venta de este equipo, me pudo comentar que envio a dos de sus empleados para el curso de capacitacion que dicto la gente de Apple, para la venta de este equipo, tambien me dijo que no ha tenido problema alguno para la activacion de los equipos, “estamos activando con una MacBook, para que sea mas facil la activacion” me comento a con-cafe.
Otra vista del material POP del iPhone 3G.
Pude conocer de muy buena fuente, que en la region Guayana solamente seran 3 los Agentes que venderan el iPhone 3G, uno en Puerto Ordaz, uno en Ciudad Bolivar, y en el estado Monagas Phone Club en Maturin.
Dotación del iPhone 3G.
Cabe recordar que MONAGAS PHONE CLUB, esta ubicada en la calle Monagas, frente a la Plaza del Estudiante en la ciudad de Maturin, estado Monagas.
Asi que los que quieran comprar esa manzana ya saben donde ir…
Saludos…
Domenico Falzano
Gracias Domenico. Buen trabajo!
La caja de color negro es donde viene el iPhone de 8GB y la blanca el iPhone de 16 GB.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Odds and ends, Freeware, iPhone
TUAWAdventure released for the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Taking a page out of the Nintendo Wii?s playbook, the iFun app turns your iPhone/iPod Touch into a wireless controller used for game play. It?s specifically designed to work with iFun games and there are a reported four games available ? baseball, basketball, bowling and golf - however, only golf was accessible when I visited thee site.
The game itself is hosted on the internet and the app for the iPhone only enables it to become a wireless controller. Registration is required before you can play, but there is no need to worry about paying fees since both the iFun app and registration are free of charge.
I?ve tried it out myself and there’s a considerable delay when performing an action and seeing it replicated on the screen. This is understandable considering that all the data is fed through the internet. It should also be noted that the iPhone?s sleek form factor isn?t the most easy to handle especially if you’re swinging the device around like a golf club. Extra care should be exercised so as not to accidentally hit someone with a flying iPhone.
Nevertheless, this latest gaming app does show a lot of potential. If the developer could find a way to resolve the lag and come out with more games to support such an interface, I have no doubt that this will be a future best seller.
[source]
This is a post from Cell Phones Et
