Is the Samsung Galaxy S3 launching on March 30?
The Samsung Galaxy S3 could be in-line for a surprise launch this week, depending on the conclusions you draw from a cryptic paint-job adorning London's flagship Phones 4U store.
The Oxford Street branch of the high street retailer has refreshed its external appearance with an advertisement boasting the Samsung logo and the words "Coming 30/3/2012."
Of course, we'd all love to believe that that all this hoopla means the long-awaited S3 is finally here. What else could the store be making such a big fuss about?
Earlier than expected
The handset was initially slated for a launch at MWC in February, but Samsung pushed that back. The last we heard it was due for April or May, so a March 30 launch would be earlier than expected.On top of that, there are few already-announced products that would justify a redecoration of the store front.
New Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note devices are in the pipeline, but this suggests something bigger.
Another Phones 4U exclusive?
The Samsung Galaxy S3 is comfortably the most in-demand Android smartphone of the moment, following on from the success of the ground-breaking five star-rated Galaxy S2.Rumours suggest that the third iteration will boast a faster Samsung-made processor, a 12-megapixel camera, more RAM, internal storage and a stunning 7mm thin form-factor.
Phones 4U secured exclusivity for the Android 4.0 Samsung Galaxy Nexus so it's not out of the realms of possibility that it has scooped another big-hitter.
Will this Friday really see the launch of the Galaxy S3? If we were gambling folk, we wouldn't stake the family farm on it, but it could be a decent each way bet. We'll keep you posted.
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Instagram for Android pre-release sign-up page goes live
Android smartphone owners are a step closer to owning the phenomenally successful Instagram photo-sharing app.
The company, which pledged to launch an Android version of the filter-happy app sometime this year, has now launched a pre-release sign-up page.
Android fans can now register their interest to be the "first in line" for the app when it launches "very soon."
Mobile dominance
Instagram has been a huge success for iOS devices, building a user-base of over 27 million.The app became famous for its retro filters, which give photos a vintage, Polaroid-esque feel.
A launch on Android would be the next step for Kevin Systrom's booming business, which is aiming to become the de facto destination to upload your mobile photographs.
Just last week the company announced a partnership with rival app Hipstamatic to allow its users to upload photos directly to Instagram, where they can be more visible.
Instagram first confirmed it was working on an ad-supported Android app back in December, but did not commit to a release date.
Via: SlashGear
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Review: Disgo 9104
The Disgo 9104 comes with version 4.0 of Android, which is tailored for tablets and offers a much better experience than older versions.
The firm's current models, like the Disgo 8100 and Disgo 7000, are 7-inch models aimed at the budget-conscious buyer and run Android 2.3 or earlier. They perform well, and importantly, cost far less than top-end tablets like the iPad.
The Disgo 9104 is a completely different beast. It comes with version 4.0 of Android, which is tailored for tablets and offers a much better experience than older versions. While we're certain we'll see more low-priced Android 4.0 tablets in the next few months, this is the first sub-£200 one we've got our hands on.
We should mention that the Disgo 9104 we tested was an early model. It had a few quirks, and its performance may change slightly before its April release.
The tablet has some other upgrades too. The screen is now a 9.7-inch capacitive IPS panel that matches those of more expensive tablets, with a 1,024 x 768 display resolution. Colours are rich and viewing angles are good.
There's also been an overhaul of the materials used for the case. The screen stretches close to the edge, while the rear is made entirely from aluminium, just like the iPad. In fact, when we were carrying the Disgo 9104, an onlooker mistook the tablet for an Apple device.
The only buttons on the case are for power and volume. There's a MicroSD card slot to extend the 8GB of internal storage, along with Micro USB and a mini HDMI connectors. There's a 0.3MP front camera and a 2MP rear camera.
But the best thing about the Disgo 9104 is how it retains the low pricing that the brand is known for, as it costs just £179. Combine the cutting-edge software, fantastic design and low price, and surely this is an iPad killer?
Low powered
Well, almost. The processor isn't very powerful, and the Disgo 9104 struggles with some of the pretty backdrops, overlays and 3D effects in Android 4.0. It uses a 1.2GHz Cortex A8 processor, a single-core chip, which is also used in some other low-priced Android tablets. Clearly, it's not quite up to the demands of Ice Cream Sandwich.
It's far from unusable though. Disgo has sensibly included 1GB of memory, which is helpful for both general performance, and when you want to run multiple apps simultaneously.
Like most budget Android tablets, there's no official Google Play app store, so you have to rely on a handful of bespoke offerings from the SlideMe store. There's enough to get by, but if you're jealous of your friend's iPad with high quality, big-name apps, you won't be happy.
We expect a few compromises when testing low-priced tablets, and it seems that in the case of the Disgo 9104, raw performance is that compromise. But many other budget tablets perform worse, are built from the cheapest possible materials and use an older version of Android.
There's an enormous difference between those tablets and pricier models, but that's less true of the Disgo 9104. This is a fantastically well-built little tablet, the supplied software works well and it performs reasonably. That's all we can ask from a device that costs less than half the price of the latest iPad.
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Tutorial: 7 still life photo ideas you don't want to miss
Each week we've been suggesting some new photo ideas to inspire you to get out and about with your camera. We've ticked off landscape photography, and last week we covered portrait photography.
But what about some inspiring photography tips for all you control freaks out there!
With the weather and people, you're camera is subject to their whims, but in still life photography you can take complete control over your images, from your lighting on down to fine-tuning your subject's arrangement.
However, shooting still lifes isn't as easy as it may seem, despite having total control. Our friends at Digital Camera World have rounded up their best photography tips and tutorials for shooting still life scenes.
1. Whatever subject you shoot, to do it successfully you need to know your camera and its capabilities inside and out. Read this excellent primer of 44 essential digital camera tips and tricks and you'll be well placed to frame any subject.
2. The key to all still life photography is depth of field. In theory, only the object you focus on will be sharp, but in practice there's a zone of sharpness that extends behind the point you've focused on and in front of it. To learn how to start thinking and composing images in terms of zones of sharpness, read this excellent guide to help you master depth of field in 8 steps.
3. On the other hand, sometimes you may want everything in your frame to be in focus. This isn't always achievable in-camera, however. Find out how to fake perfect focus in Photoshop using this simple focus stacking technique.
4. After focusing, lighting will be your biggest concern when shooting still life scenes. Despite what the pros pay for their studio lighting, illuminating your still life can be cheaper than a pint of beer. This still life photography guide to lighting crafting photos will help you get better exposures, whether you're shooting jewellery or your empty pint glasses!
5. Spring flowers, of course, are one of the most popular subjects to photograph this time of year. From the best ISO settings to the best viewpoints, these 25 flower photography tips will help you get better pictures pictures of flowers this spring than all your friends who didn't read them.
6. Or maybe you want to see how it's done first before you go to all the trouble of setting up your home studio. We respect that. Check out this excellent gallery of still life photography in pictures to help get you inspired.
7. Now that you've read these still life tutorials we expect you're now an expert, right? OK, even if you're not, why not put some of these ideas in practice and enter our still life photography contest and be in with a chance of winning a Lowepro rucksack.
Finally, if, like most of us, you take your photography seriously enough to spend the time to fine tune your pictures on your computer, you were probably intrigued by last week's news of the launch of Adobe's Photoshop CS6 beta.
Our friends at Practical Photoshop have put together a special digital guide to understanding the new features in Photoshop CS6. This iPad-only Adobe Photoshop CS6 Preview goes in-depth on the new features, technical specifications and hardware details of Adobe's latest release. You can download it free through Apple Newsstand.
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Opinion: You can know too much about your friends
Sometimes I worry that I know too much about the people on my various friends lists. Especially some of the actual friends.
Late night, beer-powered confessions of love and lust. Post stag-night photos of things only a proctologist would ever request to see. Entire music playlists devoted to the musical Hairspray.
The list goes on and on, and seems to get longer every day - most recently with both Spotify and Netflix UK assuming that we want to broadcast everything we do, and not going out of their way to highlight their opt-out options.
The reason is obvious enough. On a service like Facebook, every shared bit of information is free advertising. You see your friend listening to something amazing. You click the button to listen to it too. The site chalks up another customer, or at least another active user for the day.
I don't blame them for wanting that. I just wish they'd stop pretending that it's done for our benefit and make it easier to opt out. Spotify, for example, lets you press a button to go into 'Private Listening' mode, but offers no way of making that the default. Netflix makes it easier, but hides its non-Facebook sign-up method if it sees you have an account.
To share or not to share?
The idea of broadcasting everything I watch, listen to, read or ponder "Ooh, what's that?" about fills me with dread. It's not simply that it's nobody else's business, but that nothing distinguishes between things you actively recommend and things that just caught your attention.As far as Facebook is concerned, there's no difference between being a devoted fan of Californication and saying "Wait, what the heck is Californication?"
But what if there was? There's no reason these updates can't become far, far more specific over the next couple of years, and really drill down into your viewing habits.
We've already had this year's Aching Solitude Awareness Day (nee Valentine's Day), but imagine spending an evening in front of the TV next year, drowning your sorrows while your friends sit in restaurants with their loved ones, occasionally checking their phones to smirk at a steady stream of "Recently Watched: Starship Troopers (shower scene), Lifeforce (skipped to naughty bit in the lab), Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (entire show), Dexter Series 2 (pardon my timecode)" and so on. Water coolers have yet to be invented that can handle this level of awkwardness.
What's that, you say? That's only something for weirdos to worry about? Ask the poor soul who watches something like Hard Candy after the kids have spent a few hours with the Rugrats.
All this is a strange reversal of the usual privacy fears. Historically, everyone's been paranoid about faceless corporations that genuinely do not give the faintest damn if you want to spend your day off mainlining episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Deception is the key
Now, comfort and discomfort alike are based around the far more pragmatic question of what you want your friends and family to see you getting up to, and the only reason to fear the mighty database is that it still gets to display a treacherous "Recently watched" type list when you log in or, even worse, "People like you also enjoyed..."Only one thing promises to make any of this bearable: the ability to lie and cheat like a squirming bastard. Browsers have Privacy Mode, old games had Boss Keys. Services like Spotify and Netflix need to follow suit.
I'm thinking that any service will have to let us set at least two different passwords - one to give us what we actually (for want of a less awful word) consume, and another that focuses on what we'd actually like other people to associate with us. There, your recent list would consist of films matching your chosen tags like 'cultured' and 'witty', lightly sprinkled with a few of your actual favourites for believability.
Likewise, Amazon's Kindle should have an LCD cover capable of displaying your current book's art, and hot-swapping it for something more likely to impress whoever caught your eye on the other side of the cafe, while your iPod headphones leak a cooler track than the one you're actually listening to.
If this seems morally bankrupt, it's only because everyone isn't already doing it. We'll just have to agree to maintain the masquerade by never asking each other questions about anything ever again. Seems like a small price to pay for us to feel cool and 'with it', if you ask me.
Until that glorious day? If you're worried about accidentally embarrassing yourself, you have two workarounds. First, never use anything that risks posting your secret data.
Too much? Beat the system by clicking on everything in sight until your friends and friends alike click the magic 'Ignore' button on your profile to spare themselves a future deluge.
You could turn your back on guilty pleasures instead of course, forever enjoying your entertainment with a monastic fervour against anything silly, raunchy or politically incorrect... but who wants to do that? None of your friends, that's who. No matter how much they claim to be watching Citizen Kane.
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In Depth: Inside Apple: Cupertino's secrets revealed
Inside Apple: Secrets and lies
Remember the famous cable drop scene in Mission: Impossible where Tom Cruise abseils into a locked room full of lasers? That's how Apple design chief Jonathan Ive gets to work.We're exaggerating, but only just. In Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, he describes Ive's design studio as "shielded by tinted windows and a heavy clad, locked door. Just inside is a glass-booth reception desk where two assistants guard access. Even the most high-level Apple employees are not allowed in without special permission."
In a wonderful bit of pot-kettle-black criticism, other Apple employees describe Ive's design team as "secretive". When you're accused of secrecy by people who work for the most secretive company in the world, you must be pretty good at keeping secrets.
Secrecy is in Apple's DNA. Everyone from the Board of Directors to employees of far-flung subcontractors knows the importance of keeping schtum and the penalties of loose lips: as one anonymous Apple Store employee puts it: "You have to be late, like, 15 times before they'll fire you. But if you talk to the press or speculate to a customer about the next iPad? That's the end of you."
The culture of secrecy has made Apple the most talked-about company on the planet, kept rivals in the dark and made keynotes a magical occasion. However, in recent months there have been worrying signs that Apple's secrecy can actually harm it as well as help. Should CEO Tim Cook make Apple more transparent?
Want to know a secret?
There are several reasons why Apple likes to keep the rest of the world out of the Infinite Loop. The first and most obvious one is that it keeps rivals in the dark.
For example, according to an anonymous RIM employee (for obvious reasons, most of the people you'll read about in this feature prefer to stay anonymous), the launch of the original iPhone sent BlackBerry executives into a state of sheer panic.
There was no way the iPhone could work "without an insanely power-hungry processor", they believed. "It must have terrible battery life." As far as RIM's in-house experts were concerned, the iPhone was impossible. It wasn't, of course, but Apple's secrecy meant that RIM didn't know the world had changed until Steve Jobs said so.
The second reason is that secrecy is a superb marketing tool. Apple is almost unique in its attitude to public relations: where other firms beg media outlets and bloggers for the slightest bit of coverage, Apple generally maintains a stony silence. The media effectively becomes Apple's PR machine, breathlessly reporting rumours and speculating about what Apple could have hidden up its sleeve.
God help anyone at Apple who helps fuel that speculation, though. Apple's internal policies on social networking, blogging and trade secrets, a copy of which was acquired by 9to5mac.com, effectively ban all employees from pretty much anything.
Employees: can't discuss Apple on their own websites; can't comment on Apple-related sites or blogs; can't discuss rumours, potential new products or improvements to existing ones with customers or anybody else; aren't allowed to speculate on rumours; and must ensure that "content associated with you is consistent with Apple's policies." Even "speculating on rumours with internal Apple colleagues is strictly prohibited."
"As an Apple employee you have an obligation to protect the confidential, proprietary and trade secret information of the company," the document says. "For example, do not discuss any Apple confidential information including your store's financial or business performance, and the timing, pricing or design of Apple's products. Also, do not post pictures of the inside of the Apple Store - including the back of house - as those are not generally made public. Finally…" - and this one's obviously been ignored by whoever passed the document to 9to5mac - "…do not post or disclose the contents of any Apple policy."
Secrets and lies
When it comes to secrecy Apple takes every possible precaution. Speaking to The New York Times, former iPhone engineer Mark Hamblin described how "they make everyone super, super paranoid about security." Secrecy "is baked into the corporate culture," the NYT reports.
"Employees working on top-secret projects must pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges again and again and finally entering a numeric code to reach their offices, according to one former employee who worked in such areas."
"Work spaces are typically monitored by security cameras, this employee said. Some Apple workers in the most critical product-testing rooms must cover up devices with black cloaks when they are working on them, and turn on a red warning light when devices are unmasked so that everyone knows to be extra-careful, he said."
Apple also spends a great deal of effort trying to trap would-be leakers. Apple's Senior Vice President for Marketing, Phil Schiller, "has held internal meetings about new products and provided incorrect information about prices or features", the NYT says. If that information leaks, Apple has a pretty good idea where the leak came from.
Contracting a ruse
Similar tricks are used to prevent contractors from leaking anything juicy. "On occasion, Apple will give contract manufacturers different products, just to try them out," Reuters says. "That way, the source of any leaks becomes immediately obvious."
Apple also splits manufacturing between multiple partners to prevent any single organisation knowing the bigger picture, and according to BusinessWeek, "Apple places electronic monitors in some boxes of parts that allow observers in Cupertino to track them through Chinese factories… at least once, the company shipped products in tomato boxes to avoid detection." Apple employees "monitored every hand-off point - loading dock, airport, truck depot and distribution centre - to make sure each unit was accounted for."
The penalties for leaking product information can be severe. All subcontractors sign a confidentiality agreement, and if they break it they can lose the entire contract; obviously if Apple can't prove a particular firm did it but has a strong suspicion, the contract might not be renewed.
When you consider the enormous quantities of components Apple orders, that's a big threat. And it may explain some of the pressure that lead to one tragic case in 2009 when Sun Danyong, a 25-year-old male, committed suicide after reporting the loss of an iPhone 4 prototype in his possession.
Just because you work for Apple doesn't mean anybody will tell you anything either (and believe it or not that even applies to us here at MacFormat magazine too, although we wish it was different).
Speaking to Popular Mechanics, one Apple Store insider explained that "we are completely in the dark until a keynote speech. We have no idea what is coming and are not allowed to openly speculate… I actually avoid the technology section of the newspaper so I have no points of view to accidentally comment with or drop into conversation."
Inside Apple: Firewall of silence
It seems big-name app developers don't get much love either. In the run-up to the launch of the first iPad, firms including Flixster, Evernote and mobile app developer Digital Chocolate asked for dev kits and were turned down flat and offered simulator software instead; the developers Apple did say yes to had to sign a 10-page confidentiality agreement and jump through all kinds of hoops.The "sixth person to get an iPad", a developer of a very successful iPad app, told Business Insider that in order to get a genuine, pre-release iPad to test code on, "we had to have a room with no windows. They changed the locks on the door. Three developers and I were the only people allowed to go in the room. Apple needed the names and social security numbers of the people who had access."
Apple drilled holes in the desk and chained the iPads up with bicycle cables, and each iPad was in a custom frame "so we couldn't even tell what the iPads looked like."
Apple's representatives even took photos of the wood grain of the desk: if any pictures leaked out, they could trace it back to which desk they came from. "I wasn't allowed to tell our CEO," the developer says. "I wasn't allowed to tell anybody anything about what we were doing. I couldn't even tell my wife."
Apple's wall of secrecy meant that blogs and media outlets became Apple's PR machine - but it's a machine that Apple doesn't control, and if you don't control something there's always the risk that it might turn around and bite you.
That's exactly what happened in October when Apple announced the iPhone 4S - or rather, when Apple didn't announce the iPhone 5. Don't just take our word for it: here's Apple's Chief Financial Officer, Peter Oppenheimer.
"Apple's secrecy creates a certain amount of vacuum, which, as we all know, the internet abhors, and then fills with rumours," he said during Apple's October financial earnings call, noting that "pervasive" rumours had had a negative impact on iPhone sales.
The rumours didn't just affect sales: they affected Apple's share price too, with the value of Apple shares immediately falling by 5%. That's been happening quite a lot lately: with the exception of the iPad 2, the announcement of every major iOS device from the iPhone 3GS onwards has lead to a significant drop in Apple's share price.
Digital Trends' Geoff Duncan argues that Apple could be responsible for such drops in two ways: by whipping up the hype to the point where speculators buy Apple shares early and dump them at the very peak of the hype cycle as the keynote starts, and by attracting amateur investors with "unreasonable expectations" who "may start acquiring Apple stock in an effort to make a quick buck.
Once the announcement hits, and Apple's stock price begins to decline, these same investors may panic and sell their stock in an effort to minimise their losses. That puts more Apple stock for sale, driving down the price even further."
The danger for Apple is that it could become the victim of its own success. Apple rumour-mongering has become an industry, especially online, where click-hungry sites publish the most ridiculous rumours in the hope of getting a bit more traffic. When the rumours become the story, as happened with the iPhone 4S, the actual product can't be anything other than a disappointment.
That could be disastrous not just for Apple's shareholders, but for Apple itself: imagine if Apple product announcements were greeted not with cheers, but with jeers.
Secrecy for the sake of it
Critics of Apple argue that sometimes Apple takes its obsession with secrecy too far. For much of 2009 the App Store approvals process seemed to have been designed by Kafka, with apps being rejected for opaque reasons and developers given no option to appeal. That was eventually addressed and clear guidelines published, but only after widespread bad publicity.Many Apple watchers also believe that the firm should have been more open about Steve Jobs' failing health, and that by refusing to comment Apple turned the matter into a media circus. And according to CNN, retail industry executives "say Apple's demands for absolute secrecy in its store development process are peculiar and unjustified."
You can understand Apple wanting to keep the lid on details of the next iPhone, but its shops? Apparently so: CNN says that when it approached architect Peter Bohlin, who'd spoken to The New York Times about his work designing some of the most iconic Apple Stores, he said that "Apple has requested that we refrain from granting any additional interviews."
Furthermore, CNN claims that "nearly two dozen people involved in the development of upcoming and recently opened US Apple Stores [say] Apple sometimes employs uncommon legal tactics, refuses to name itself in public documents and hearings, and has sworn city government officials to secrecy."
Stealthy stores
In Santa Monica today, where Apple is widely believed to be opening a second Apple Store, Apple's secretive behaviour "has perplexed and infuriated city officials who are unclear why Apple would feel the need to hide a new store when it already has one a couple of blocks away." CNN asked Apple to comment. Apple, of course - and yes, you're ahead of us here - declined.
Secrecy has been part of Apple's retail efforts since before the first store was opened: Apple hired an enormous warehouse to test its Store ideas in absolute secrecy, and they even hid the identity of the man in charge: when Steve Jobs hired Target executive Ron Johnson to head the Apple Store project, Johnson was given a false name and a phoney job title to throw rivals off the scent. John Bruce didn't get his name back until the first Apple Store was unveiled.
Apple is secretive because of Steve Jobs. Jobs was a naturally secretive man, but he also understood the power of "big-bang" product announcements to generate enormous free publicity and to prevent pre-release bad publicity.
In Steve Kemper's book Code Name Ginger, which recounts the story of the Segway scooter, Kemper describes a meeting between Segway inventor Dean Kamen, CEO Tim Adams, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs. Jobs made it abundantly clear that he was no fan of the Segway's design or of Jeff Bezos' idea to launch the Segway softly in one country, pointing out that "slow was no longer possible… if the machine was unavailable in the United States, the company would blow its chance for $100 million of free publicity in its biggest market."
Jobs also pointed out that with a slow launch, all it would take to create a PR disaster would be one unhappy customer. "I understand the appeal of a slow burn," he said, "but personally I'm a big-bang guy."
Will Tim Cook follow in Steve Jobs' secretive footsteps? We're betting on yes. Secrecy has served Apple well for the best part of 15 years, helping lift it from a bit player to the most important and influential technology company on Earth.
While Apple has become more open in recent years - publishing App Store approval guidelines, being up-front about environmental issues and so on - and Cook is more communicative than Jobs, the wall of secrecy surrounding Apple's products will remain as strong as ever.
If anything, it needs to become stronger: the stakes are too high for any more iPhone prototypes to be left behind in bars. For Apple, secrecy isn't an affectation: it's the company's killer app.
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