Report claims iPhone 5 already accounts for 3% of web traffic
A recent report from ad network Chitika indicates iPhone 5 users are connecting to the web more than any other smartphone.
The Chitika study found that since it launched on September 24, the iPhone 5 has rapidly risen through the ranks, and now singlehandedly accounts for three per cent of web traffic from mobile phones.
When combined with previous iOS devices, Apple's ecosystem contributes to 46 per cent of all mobile web traffic. That's a significant lead over its nearest rivals, Samsung, which accounts for a total of just 17 per cent.
Samsung vs Apple continues
It's not just the iPhone 5 performing well though. Chitika claims that the Galaxy S3 from Samsung, launched back in May this year, currently accounts for two per cent of mobile web traffic. While there's a huge difference between Apple and Samsung, it has also become obvious that the Korean giant has become the leading Android handset maker, with all other mobile devices accounting for just 37 per cent of traffic combined. Chitika conducted the study by conducting a user agent analysis on "millions of mobile ad impressions, spanning a 7-day time frame from October 3rd through October 9th, 2012". While there is debate about how reliable information garnered through ad impressions is as a tool for measuring web traffic, it does reinforce the idea that the current smartphone marketplace is becoming a two horse race. Via: TechCrunch
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Google announces Android event on October 29
Google has sent out press invites to an unspecified Android event on October 29 in New York.
Following recent speculation, the event is likely to showcase the next Nexus smartphone, which is widely thought to be the often-leaked LG Nexus 4.
Reports have also suggested HTC has been working on a 'Nexus 5' phablet, while Google-branded Sony and Samsung devices have also been mooted.
Multiple devices launches would not be a huge surprise, following widespread reports that Google intends to break from tradition and work with multiple manufacturing partners for the next Nexus launch.
There has also been widespread talk of a 32GB version of the Google Nexus 7 tablet as well as a 10-inch Nexus 10.
Live-streamed for the masses
The event is also likely to bring news on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean updates, so it would be a major surprise if there were any mention of the forthcoming Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie OS just yet. The invitation itself features the Google search bar widget from Android filled with the cryptic message 'The playground is open.' Behind it, and the company logo is image of the New York City skyline. The press conference will take place at 10am ET (That's 3pm UK time) and will also be live-streamed for the masses at YouTube.com/Android.
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Lumia 920 is a six month exclusive with AT&T
It appears that a number of Lumia 920 training videos have leaked that were intended to get AT&T sales representatives familiar with the new Windows Phone 8 handset.
The most interesting detail from the training videos is confirmation that the AT&T exclusive smartphone is actually a six-month timed exclusive.
That means as early as May next year, Nokia's premiere Windows Phone 8 device could start showing up with competing carriers such as Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and U.S. Cellular.
The way smartphone lifecycles tend to go, that should be just in time for a price drop as the next generation of Windows Phone 8 handsets hit the market.
Ready to launch
The actual videos in question, leaked to WPCentral by an anonymous AT&T source, provide a nice overview of the Lumia 920 talking up its 4.5-inch 1280 x 768 PureMotion HD+ display, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 CPU, 8-megapixel PureView rear camera, NFC, LTE, and wireless charging among other features. Also highlighted is the Nokia City Lens app, which will come pre-installed on Nokia's handsets. The app helps users find nearby restaurants, shopping and other sights nearby using the built-in GPS. The camera can also be used, providing an augmented reality effect with locations showing up as markers relative to where you aim the camera. AT&T is clearly gearing up for the Lumia 920 launch to be a big one, and with rumors that the carrier will start pre-orders soon the wait can be hard to bear. A wait that is even longer for non-AT&T subscribers, though at least not indefinite.
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PlayStation Store makeover hiccups out to Europe, Australia, New Zealand
The long promised PlayStation Store overhaul is finally making its way into the wild. The redesign is hitting consoles Wednesday in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, though not without a hitch.
The most striking changes Sony made are to the store's look and structure. The update is more visually immersive, easier to navigate and cleanly scales from standard to high definition.
The store also adds a star-rating system and a "What's New" homepage to display fresh content.
Even though the store kept its tile-based "mosaic" style, images are much more prevalent. Plus, PlayStation visually emphasizes "heroes" or game protagonists on each page.
Finding games won't be a quest
The store is much easier to navigate so users can better find the types of content they want, while the store has less "dead ends" as Sony put more links between products so users won't have to back out of a lot of pages. PlayStation improved sorting and filtering protocols to define categories of content better and make for a cleaner browsing experience. Games have better product pages with more links and information on them that will help lead users to related content such as DLC and demos. The store also does a better job of highlighting add-ons as it's easier to find additional game content and tell what games the content is related to. Users have complained in the past when it comes to telling which games are for the PS Vita and the PSP. The store now distinguishes content between the two more clearly, so users won't buy the wrong game for the wrong mobile platform.Slow to start
With all the new updates also came a big slowdown. An increase in traffic slowed browsing to a syrupy swim. Users also report problems with adding funds to their accounts and the sluggish store currently has a problem recognizing PlayStation Plus members. As traffic to the site diminishes, the PlayStation Store should return to a quicker browsing pace. Hopefully, Sony will figure out how to smooth the kinks by the time the update comes to stateside Oct. 23.
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Sharp announces Aquos Pad, the first IGZO display tablet
Sharp wowed crowds at IFA 2012 with its IGZO displays, and the firm has now announced the Aquos Pad SHT 21 as the first tablet to use the technology.
Coming to Japan this December, the Aquos Pad SHT 21 features a 7-inch IGZO screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800, a 1.5GHz dual-core MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 processor and 1GB of RAM.
The tablet also has a 16GB hard drive, NFC, microSDXC port, 4G LTE support and Android 4.0: Ice Cream Sandwich.
The tablet runs a 3,460mAh battery, but because of the low-power IGZO display Sharp said it can last 2.5 times longer than comparable existing tablets.
Lost in translation
There may be some translation error in that claim (Sharp's press release was in Japanese), which could actually mean the Aquos Pad SHT 21 lasts 2.5 times longer than the previous Sharp tablet. Even if that is the case, Sharp's existing 7-inch tablet with a traditional LCD display boasts six hours of video playback, suggesting a possible 15 hours of active battery life with an IGZO display. That is some significant battery time, well ahead of the higher capacity batteries found in the Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire HD and even what is rumored for the iPad Mini.The IGZO difference
IGZO isn't just a quirky-sounding gimmick, getting its name from the screen's materials: indium, gallium, zinc and oxide. The technology allows for screens to offer a sharper picture than a traditional LCD and, more importantly, do so while requiring significantly less power than traditional displays. The trick is that while a display's touchscreen layer typically requires a constant stream of power, IGZO displays can stay dormant and will only activate and use extra power once the screen is pressed. IGZO displays also provide increased touch accuracy, allowing for writing tools to be used with pixel precision. The Aquos Pad SHT 21 will include a stylus for that very reason. There's no word yet on a release outside of Japan for the Aquos Pad SHT 21, but for the sake of everyone who's run into tablet battery trouble the mid-December Japanese launch gives hope that an international announcement will follow soon.
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Ads to invade Facebook mobile app News Feed
Users might notice new ads pop up on their smartphones' Facebook News Feed as the social network has opened up its latest strategy to make money through its mobile app.
In August, Facebook began testing a new "mobile app install ads" program that wasn't connected to users' social ties.
The test was apparently a success as Facebook announced Wednesday via its developer blog that it's opening the service up to all developers.
The test program allows an undisclosed amount of third-party developers purchase ad space on the mobile News Feed to help drive buyers to their apps.
Those advertisements then lead users to the developer's app store purchase page either through the Android or Apple app store.
It all 'ads' up
"For years, many apps and games on Facebook.com have used ads as an important part of their growth strategy," Facebook's Vijaye Raji wrote on Facebook's developer's blog. "Now we are bringing these opportunities to mobile apps," Raji continued. "With these new ads, mobile apps and games of all sizes across any category can reach the right audience, at scale." In the post, Raji touted the new program's ability to help developers reach more relevant audiences and drive up install rates. He pointed to game creator TinyCo, which saw a 50 percent higher click-through rate when it participated. Other advertisers reached 8-10 times the audience and Ad Parlor clients saw consistent 1-2 percent increases in click-through rate from the home feed, according to Facebook. This is a bit of a break from the Facebook ad norm. Traditionally, ads pop up on users' pages because they or a friend liked the brand. But with this program, dev advertisers will be able to target the audience they want to sell to, instead of who likes them. Facebook is banking on the hope that those two groups will have a large cross-section. Since the ad program is new, Facebook will still need to work out a few kinks to smooth out the user experience. The company will also improve the program's ad targeting abilities, as well as make sure developer ads aren't targeting users on the wrong platform.Facebook in free fall
The program comes as Facebook tries to monetize its mobile space. The social network as a whole has felt the pressure to become more profitable after its failed IPO in May. In September, the stock hit a new low at $17.55 (UK£11.14, AU$17.33) from its starting price of $38 (UK£23, AU$36). We'll see if the new mobile app install ad program wows investors next Tuesday, when Facebook calls to share its third-quarter earnings.
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Grumbles heard as IE10 Windows 7 preview scheduled for mid-November
Microsoft announced via the IEBlog Wednesday that a new preview of Internet Explorer will be available on Windows 7 in mid-November.
The final version of the new web browser will hit Windows 7 later, once Microsoft has collected feedback from developers and customers, the company's blog post revealed.
IE10 comes standard in Windows 8, and early builds of the latest Microsoft browser were available as early as April 2011.
TechRadar went hands-on with Internet Explorer 10 , though a lot has changed, the latest version we tested (as part of our Windows 8 review) did not disappoint.
A long and lonesome road
Internet Explorer 10 has been a long time coming, and some eager users are apparently getting fed up with the wait. Despite Wednesday's news that a new IE10 preview will arrive next month, several commenters expressed displeasure that the final version isn't arriving alongside Windows 8 in late October. Comments like, "A preview, really? 100k people and you can't develop anything in time," and "Why preview? We want to develop optimized sites now! WTF," seemed to echo the general sentiment of those posting. Nevertheless, some commenters simply thanked Microsoft for the update, while another, oddly, waxed nostalgic about Internet Explorer 6.IE10 has what developers want
In the blog post announcing the latest IE10 preview build, Internet Explorer Group Program Manager Rob Mauceri wrote that the new browser will deliver what web developers want. "IE10 on Windows 7 has the same standards based platform for developers to target as IE10 on Windows 8," he stated. "We built an entirely new browser with Windows 8, with more performance and developer capabilities," Mauceri continued. "IE10 brings improved real-world site performance and additional standards support to Windows 7 that Web developers have been asking for." Of course, web devs themselves will be the judges of that when the new Internet Explorer 10 preview drops in November. Hopefully, the final browser will be worth the wait.
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Troop of Toshiba Windows 8 PCs now available for pre-order
Microsoft's latest OS, Windows 8, is due to arrive a week from this Friday (Oct. 26), and with it will come a slew of new PCs from a whole host of sources.
Toshiba will be one of the companies releasing Windows 8 PCs, and the company has a range of new laptops and desktops planned to drop next week as well.
In added anticipation of Windows 8's release, Toshiba has opened up pre-orders Wednesday for all its upcoming Qosmio laptops, Satellite laptops and Ultrabooks, as well its All-in-Ones in the U.S.
Toshiba is offering two new Satellite S800 Series laptops, which come with either a 15.6- or 17.3-inch diagonal HD TruBrite screens.
Satellite S800
Built into both models will be speakers with SRS Premium Sound HD, and Toshiba's USB Sleep & Charge technology. The Satellite S800s will feature up to 1TB of storage and the ability to include the optional AMD Radeon HD 7570M and 8GB of RAM. There's also the S955 laptop, which will be less than an inch thin, and includes a 15.6-inch diagonal HD TruBrite display. The S800 starts at $699.99 for the 15.6-inch and $749.99 for the 17.3-inch, while the S955 base model gets rolling at $649.99.Qosmio X875
Designed for gamers and media creators, the new Qosmio X875 is a massive beast of a device. Rocking a third-generation Intel Core i7, this laptop will make sure the 17.3-inch HD+ TrueBrite display gets the most out of the onboard NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M graphics card.
Built-in Harman/Kardon Quad speakers will also make the 3D-ready screen, which includes Nvidia 3D Vision 2 Kit with Lightboost, a truly impressive way to watch media and game.
Toshiba touts the Qosmio X875 is the first laptop with a 1TB hybrid drive, and a Blu-ray Disc Rewritable player.
The Qosmio X875 laptop starts at $1,479.99.
Satellite P
Three new models are coming to the Satellite P800 Series, including the 14-inch P845 with an HD touchscreen display featuring edge-to-edge glass. That version, along with 15.6-and 17.3-inch models with HD TrueBrite screens, will make use of USB Sleep & Charge and Toshiba Sleep & Music technologies. All three include ultra-responsive third-generation Intel Core processors, and the options to include 8GB of DDR3 memory and 750GB of storage. Each of the Satellite P800 Series laptops will also include Nvidia GeForce GT 630M graphics, 2GB of video memory, and Intel Wireless Display, which allows users to share what's on the laptop screen with an HDTV.
The 14-inch Satellite P starts at $929.99, as does the 17.3-inch model, while the 15.6-inch version opens at $799.99.
Satellite L
Like the Satellite S Series, the Satellite L Series is introducing a new razor-thin laptop alongside two larger models. The standard Satellite L800s come in 15.6 and 17.3-inch variants, both with HD TrueBrite displays. Consumers have the choice of either a third-generation Intel Core i3 or Core i5 processors or AMD A-Series APU for all three models. Each of the S800 models is available with up to 640GB of storage, HDMI and USB 3.0 ports, as well as 802.11n Wi-Fi support. Toshiba's Satellite L950 is less than an inch thin, and will be available with a 15.6-inch diagonal display, and up to 750GB of storage and 6GB RAM. The L800 Series starting price tag starts at $579.99 and $629.99 for the 15.6- and 17.3-inch models, respectively. The base model of the L950 starts at $579.99.Satellite C800
Versatile and cost-effective, Toshiba's C800 Series again come in two flavors - a 15.6- and a 17.3-inch model. Either can come configured with a third-generation Intel Core i3 processor, AMD E-Series or A-Series APU. Consumers can also upgrade to 750GB of storage and 8GB RAM, and some models even include Bluetooth support and HDMI and USB 3.0 ports. The 15.6-inch retails for $379.99, while the 17.3-inch begins at $499.99.Satellite U Ultrabooks
Toshiba plans to introduce three new Satellite U Ultrabooks to the market, including the new U925t Convertible.
With a unique hinge that allows the U925t to get use as either a tablet or a laptop, the device switches easily between modes.
When in tablet mode, users can slide 12.5-inch IPS touch screen back to reveal an LED backlit raised tile keyboard.
The more traditional Satellite U Ultrabooks are available in a 14-inch (U945) and 14.4-inch (U845W) models.
The U945 is a mere 0.8-inches thin, and features an HD TruBrite display, SRS Premium Sound 3D technology, and an HD webcam.
Toshiba's U845W will be the first Ultrabook to feature an ultrawide-HD TruBrite display with a cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio.
This new display offers nearly 30 percent more viewing space on the home screen, which makes it ideal for snapping Windows 8 apps into place.
The U925t opens at $1,149.99, and the U945 and U845W begin at $699.99 and $1049.99 respectively.
All-in-Ones
Finally, Toshiba is bringing both a 21-inch (LX815) and 23-inch (LX835) All-in-One desktop out on Oct. 26. Loaded with Windows 8, the LX815 and LX835 desktops include full HD 1080p displays, Onkyo speakers with SRS Premium Sound 3D technology and third-gen Intel Core processors. Each of the desktops will be upgradable to 8GB RAM and 2TB of storage, and will come with two USB 3.0 ports plus four USB 2.0 ports.
Certain models will even come with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M graphics card, an HDMI input, and a TV tuner to connect the desktop to the DVR or set-top box.
The LX815 launches at $699.99, and the LX835 starts at $849.99.
Toshiba customization
All of the aforementioned computers come with some unique Toshiba programs to help users get the most out of their new devices and Windows 8. Toshiba Desktop Assist acts as the old Windows Start menu, and give easy access to programs, the control panel, as well as files and folders. Toshiba Central is the go-to spot for the user guide, support information, how-to videos and more. The company's Book Place acts as both an e-reader and digital book marketplace, complete with millions of titles. Toshiba News Place is an aggregator that provides easy and up-to date reports from around the world. All of the new desktops and laptops are available right now for pre-order, and is available for purchase on Oct. 26.
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Ambitious 50M sales target for Sony Xperia reportedly revealed
Sony has set itself some sky-high sales targets for next year, according to reports, furthering speculation that the company has something big up its sleeve.
CENS.com has posted figures, unconfirmed by Sony, stating that the Japanese giant intends to sell 50 million smartphones during the 2014 financial year.
That's the twelve month period commencing in March 2013.
For the likes of Apple and Samsung, that figure would be no big deal, but for Sony it would represent 50 per cent year-on-year growth compared with the 33 million sales it expects to achieve in fiscal year 2013.
This prospective upturn in demand would be enough to catapult Sony Mobile from the manufacturer with the seventh biggest share into third place, behind the Apple and Samsung juggernaut.
Great Odin's haven?
So what could be the catalyst that propels Sony Mobile from a middle-of-the-pack manufacturer directly onto the smartphone podium? Could it be the Sony Xperia Odin? During the last week it has emerged that that this rumoured - and ominously-codenamed - handset may be the successor to the Xperia S and Xperia T smartphones that impressed in 2012. Rumoured specs for the Odin include a 5-inch Full HD 1080p display, a Qualcomm S4 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, Android Jelly Bean and 4G LTE connectivity. While those features, combined with Sony's acclaimed design language, would certainly be enough to put Odin up there with other high-powered Android devices, could it inspire a mad dash for Xperia products?
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Foxconn calls iPhone 5 'most difficult' device it's ever assembled
An unnamed executive at Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn revealed that Apple's iPhone 5 is the most challenging assembly the company's workers have ever faced.
"The iPhone 5 is the most difficult device that Foxconn has ever assembled. To make it light and thin, the design is very complicated," the exec reportedly told the Wall Street Journal.
"It takes time to learn how to make this new device," he or she said, adding, "Practice makes perfect. Our productivity has been improving day by day."
The exec went on to admit that recent conflicts between workers had to do with certain quality issues, including iPhone 5 handsets carrying significant chassis scratches right out of the box.
"It's always hard to satisfy both aesthetic and practical needs," said the executive.
iPhone 5 shortages explained?
The iPhone 5 has suffered from production shortages, creating long waits for those who order the new device. One possible explanation for the iPhone 5 shortages could fall on the production troubles experienced by display manufacturer Sharp. Now it seems troubles at Foxconn is perhaps to blame as well, though that shouldn't come as a surprise.Foxconn strikes again
Foxconn has courted its share of controversy this year, so it's easy to forget that 99 percent of the time its employees are simply making iPhones and other devices. That's when they're not going on strike due reportedly to unreasonable quality control demands combined with lack of proper training of course. Though, to be fair, that strike supposedly never happened at all. But there's no denying that Foxconn employees are distracted by the occasional riot.
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O2 pledges £10m to fix network faults, restore customer confidence
Mobile network O2 has vowed to rebuild customer faith following two significant service outages in recent months.
An estimated 2 million users were left without cellular and data services on Friday last week due to another failure of O2's Central User Database, which the network says is provided by one of its suppliers.
Now the company says it will spend an £10m on moving to a "proven alternative solution" rather than "risk this happening to our customers for a third time."
In a blog post entitled 'Removing your trust in our leading network' COO Derek McManus said O2 will continue to spend £1.5m a day on improving the network and also "up-weighting and re-focussing our Service Experience Team" in the build up to next year's 4G LTE launch.
Dented the confidence
McManus added: "While we recognise that we have dented the confidence and trust of some of our customers, I hope this plan will demonstrate our commitment to rebuilding that trust. "We will not rest until we have cemented the stability of our network and can deliver the level of service customers have come to expect of us over the last ten years." O2's network woes couldn't have come at a worse time for the company, with the launch of Everything Everywhere's 4G LTE service coming before the end of the month. The Orange and T-Mobile 4G alliance already offers a decent sized incentive to jump ship without O2's recent problems, so it's little surprise that it is looking to reassure its customers. However, humble O2's admission of fault appears to be, wavering customers may note the absence of two words from McManus' blog post: The first is 'sorry' and the second is 'compensation.' UPDATE: It appears that the supplier O2 is pointing the finger at is Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson, according to the Guardian.
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Isis' mobile wallet trial launch set for Oct. 22
Isis is less than a week away from launching its mobile payment service in test cities Salt Lake City, Utah and Austin, Texas, according to a report Wednesday.
Jaymee Johnson, Isis' head of marketing, sent an email to The Verge confirming Oct. 22 as the day these two cities will see the service touch down.
"Isis will be launching in Austin and Salt Lake City on Oct. 22.," Johnson said.
Not only is next Monday an auspicious day for the company in terms of getting its payment service into customer hands, further announcements are expected then as well.
"By year end, as many as 20 Isis Ready handsets are expected to be in market," Johnson continued. "We look forward to sharing more details on Oct. 22."
Mobile payments growing stateside
Isis was originally slated to launch in the two locals by the end of the summer, but the season came and went without the service in sight. Backed by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, the NFC mobile wallet is set to contend with Google Wallet as it tries to convert the masses from cash and physical credit cards to digital transactions. During MobileCon 2012, TechRadar witnessed a roundtable discussion between several mobile commerce company executives, including Ryan Hughes, chief marketing officer at Isis. The feeling among the group was that the time is ripe for experimentation, not competition or so-called "wallet wars." For one exec, successful mobile payment adoption looks like one out of four Americans using a service in the next five to eight years. With Isis' impending test launch, that time frame might just make it.
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LCD screen, more batteries for iPad Mini allegedly leak
When it rains, it pours, especially leaked parts related to Apple's soon-to-be-announced iPad Mini tablet.
Photos purportedly showing the almost 8-inch LCD screen that will front the new tablet, plus more shots of its batteries, appeared Tuesday.
The pics come courtesy of ETrade Supply, a smartphone parts supplier, and show the original equipment manufacturer pieces in what appears to be a factory setting.
Nothing new is revealed, though the leaks lend even further credence to claims the product exists.
Powerful Mini
TechRadar reported Monday that the 7.85-inch slate looks like it will have a 4,490mAh battery, one that's three times more powerful than the iPhone 5's juicer. Text on the battery snapped in Wednesday's leak backs up the earlier leak, showing off a 16.7Whr battery chugging along at 3.72V.
A few "xxx" on the back suggest Apple hasn't settled on final capabilities for the battery just yet.
ETrade Supply marks the display as "about 162 millimeters in length and 124 millimeters in width," with a 4:3 aspect ratio.
The LCD screen in the leaked shots also sports a LG Display label.
TechRadar will be at next Tuesday's San Jose event live, bringing you all the latest as to what the Mini actually looks like.
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TouchWiz-enhanced Jelly Bean update for US Galaxy SIII coming soon
Would you like some Jelly Bean with your TouchWiz? If you have a Galaxy SIII handset bought in the U.S., Samsung will soon update your device on all supported carriers.
Through a press release, Samsung Mobile's USA division confirmed Wednesday its "commitment to bringing the latest innovation to market" with the announcement of an Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" update for its SIII smartphones sold in the country.
The update will come to all U.S. carriers currently offering the Samsung Galaxy S III, with "specific timing and update method" to be determined by partners AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular.
Update ahoy!
Samsung is playing coy about exactly when the Jelly Bean update will start rolling out, stating only that it will be "available in the coming months." When Jelly Bean finally starts dropping, it will be available both over the air as well as for download on Samsung's Kies content sync and software update solution. In addition to "a host of new and enhanced TouchWiz features," Android 4.1 brings a number of other welcome enhancements for U.S. Galaxy SIII owners. The changes include camera enhancements such as new live filters, the ability to pause and resume video recordings, low light photo mode and a "Pop Up Play" update to easily resize or pause the picture-in-picture playback window. First-time smartphone owners should also welcome Samsung's new "Easy Mode," offering a simplified user experience, along with the ability to disable incoming calls, notifications, alarms and LED indicators when needed. Samsung's Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update will also include all of Google's built-in functionality, including Google Now, richer notifications and automatic widget adjustment.
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iPad Mini might hit online and at stores Nov. 2
The device itself is really nothing more than an (highly) educated guess, but reports are pointing to a Nov. 2 public launch for Apple's iPad Mini.
According to a tweet from 9to5Mac, folks at the site have heard "whispers" that the first Friday of November will see the launch of the 7.85-inch slate.
The tweet noted that nothing is confirmed, though the date "makes sense."
The timing falls in line with previous Apple product launches, which come on a Friday one week after a device announcement.
Counting the days
Press invites for an Oct. 23 event went out Tuesday, meaning the days are closing in until Apple introduces its upcoming tab. TechRadar previously pegged November as the release month for the Mini, back in a time when reports still suggested the tablet would launch side-by-side with the iPhone 5. Apple announced the newest iPhone Wednesday, Sept. 12, and launched the 4-inch phone 10 days later on Friday, Sept. 21. The device sold out within an hour of orders opening online and if Apple holds true to a rumored price point of between $249 (UK£154, AU$240) and $350 (UK£216, AU$337), a similar fate could befall the imminent iPad Mini.
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Super-cheap Google Nexus tablet rumours reappear
With rumours of a Google Nexus 7 with double the storage for the same price doing the rounds, word is that there'll be an even cheaper Nexus tablet too.
Supposedly set for launch later in 2012, the $99 (£60 or AU$95) Google tablet is said to come with an ARM single-core processor and an HUVA TN panel.
To be fair, this rumour comes from Digitimes whose track record is patchy at best but it's not the first time talk of a $99 Nexus slate has surfaced.
Next Nexus
Back then, we all thought Nexus 7 maker Asus would be the manufacturer behind the second slate, but the company vehemently denied that it had any cheap Nexus based plans in place. Digitimes and its Taiwan-based supply chain sources say that a Chinese manufacturer specialising in cheap, white-labelled hardware will likely be behind the tablet. The timing of this mythical new tablet from Google could be somewhat similar to another fabled cheap-ish slate – the iPad Mini, which we're expecting to see unveiled at Apple's October 23 event.
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Now Europeans can pay to promote their Facebook statuses too
Facebook has confirmed that it is rolling its egomaniacal Promoted Posts for Status Updates feature out to testers in Europe.
The new feature has been in testing in the US and Australia for some time, and allows users to pay to ensure that all their friends see a particular status update, including Australia and the US.
It sets US testers back $7 a go – however, Facebook hasn't set an official price for Europe (although it should be around the £4 mark if a straight conversion is anything to go by).
Money talks
A spokesperson for the social network told us, "The price varies by country - and is something Facebook is still testing. "If you're part of the test group, you can see what the price is in your market by clicking on the Promote link on a post." As with the US launch, Facebook suggests promoting the fact that you're engaged or having a baby or something. We prefer the option of paying to force either the mundane ("Plain cheese sandwich for lunch today"), heartbreaking ("Doing karaoke… alone") or annoyingly cryptic ("Off to do something really exciting!!!") on your pals. Because that's just how we roll.
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Microsoft Surface will work with Xbox controllers
You're nobody in this business until you've done a Reddit AMA so the Microsoft Surface team took to the site to answer questions about the upcoming tablet.
Over-dependence on the word 'pumped' aside, it's an interesting insight into the thinking behind several features of the Surface.
One popular question was about why there's no NFC capability – it was a trade-off of having the magnesium casing which "made good antenna design".
However, the team confirmed that there is support for Xbox 360 USB controllers.
One member of the Surface team, said: "We used the 360 USB controllers to play with Surface all the time and they work great. We have not tried Kinect yet."
Get to it
There's no data connection because Microsoft reckons most people will use the Surface at home, and the decision to use USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0 is down to the number of devices that can support it. Talking about the design of the tablet, the Surface team explained that they were led by the Windows RT software. "We wanted to make sure that the hardware was a physical extension of our software. We started at looking at the software and thought about how to extend it into a physical product," the team wrote. "We tried to stay away from any classic design language stuff, we didn't want to have a bunch of styling in the way, we wanted to build a bridge between you and your digital things. "Using magnesium allowed us to make our product thin, light and strong. The color we chose lets the physical product fade into the background and pronounces the screen as the main act. ... a stage for your software." But, of course, the best question of the AMA was, "Would you rather fight 100 Surface-sized ducks or one horse-sized Surface?" Even that was an opportunity for a spot of Surface PR: "For sure one horse-sized Surface… Put too many of these things together and they are unstoppable."
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What will Windows 8 change in the workplace?
We're all aware that Windows 8 is a departure from the usual Microsoft product. We are now looking at a platform that appears to have two different operating environments. There is the traditional Windows 7 type of desktop we know and love. But there is now the what-was-formerly-called-Metro–but-isn't-now interface. For the purposes of the exercise we will call this the Start Screen.
The Start Screen is designed for the world of tablets - where we'll soon have the Windows Surface to play with.
What effect is Windows 8 going to have in the workplace?
In the short-term the answer is 'minimal', because of the cautious approach the corporates take with new products. But this time must be used to evaluate how the platform will fit in to the existing environments. Windows XP is still much-used and much-loved, Windows 7 was slow and is getting loved - so what happens now? Windows 8 presents several challenges to the way we currently work. Windows 8 is designed very-much for the touch screen; something the corporate world doesn't currently have in great numbers.So the chances are the Windows 8 user in the workplace will still be given a mouse.A welcome distraction?
If we look at current working practices, the tiled Start Screen is of little value other than clicking the desktop tile and seeing something more familiar. That is until we get all the workplace applications installed as tiles. The Start Screen contains multiple tiles aimed at the home user, but these would lead to distraction and loss of productivity in the office. System admins will have to look at the rollout to ensure Windows 8 is a work tool - not a play tool. We also have to consider the hardware. Windows 8 will work with current desktop hardware using a conventional keyboard and mouse.But is there a role for the tablet in the workplace? With BYOD becoming more popular, we have seen the iPad become an accepted platform in the workplace - and more users will graduate to this style of device. Microsoft are pinning their hopes on the Surface tablet, which upon initial review looks promising. The problem they will have is managing expectations. There will be several models, and it would appear at this stage that to get suitable workplace performance you are looking at the Pro model. This is at the high end of the price range, close to the Ultrabooks. The traditional desktop running Windows 8 will be with us for some time to come.Learning what to do next
Because Windows 8 is markedly different from Windows 7 in layout, the learning curve for the user will be steep initially. Certain features take some finding in the early days and the concept of swiping the screen from various directions to produce different results will take some getting used to. For the IT department, Microsoft has already launched some training materials and there will be a full certification path for the Windows 8 desktop. There are also major changes in the higher level MCSE certification – which will encompass the topics of desktop deployment and administration. Other vendors such as CompTIA will also include Windows 8 in their programs. The training providers have already launched offerings to cater for the anticipated demand from early adopters and tech-hungry admins. The take-up of Windows 8 in the workplace will be slow initially. There are also challenges around the positioning of the product, plus the argument about missing the boat when it comes to tablets - but that is one for the future... Author Bio: Richard Millet is a Senior Instructor at Firebrand Training and Co-Author of upcoming guide, "Windows 8 for the Older and Wiser".
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Review: Sony Xperia Miro
Introduction
It seems like only yesterday that we were putting the Sony Xperia Tipo through its paces, but here already, with just the smallest of spec boosts, is the Sony Xperia Miro. The entry-level smartphone market is becoming increasingly crowded as it is, so it's a surprise that Sony has seen fit to release two handsets that, on paper at any rate, are incredibly similar. That it has launched them so close together is even more baffling, and surely risks rendering one of them obsolete.
It's not just the Sony Xperia Tipo it's got to contend with, either. The boost in specs has brought with it a boost in price, as you can currently pick the Sony Xperia Miro up for £159/AU$240/US$239.99 SIM-free. This price range puts it in competition with the similarly styled Sony Xperia U and the HTC Wildfire S.
So, does the Sony Xperia Miro do enough to justify its price tag? Well, first impressions aren't great. The Sony Xperia Miro has a 3.5-inch 320 x 480 display, which is on the small side these days, particularly when cheaper handsets such as the Huawei Ascend G300 pack a 4-inch display.
But coming from the Sony Xperia Tipo, it actually feels like quite a jump in size - it's only 0.3 inches bigger, but the difference is surprisingly noticeable.
A few of its other specs have been boosted above those of the Xperia Tipo too, though they're still fairly modest. It retains an 800MHz single core processor with 512MB of RAM.
Its camera sees a boost in megapixels, up to 5 megapixels, versus the Xperia Tipo's 3.15MP snapper. It can shoot VGA video at 30fps and comes with 4GB of storage, only 2.2GB of which is useable. On the plus side it supports microSD cards of up to 32GB.
It comes running Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, which isn't the latest build but it isn't too far behind.
Despite having a name that aligns it with the Tipo, the Sony Xperia Miro eschews its sibling's rounded edges in favour of a rectangular look in line with the more premium Sony Xperia U, Sony Xperia P, Sony Xperia T and Sony Xperia S.
However, if the aim was to make it seem more premium, it wasn't entirely successful. At first glance the Sony Xperia Miro does look like a better - or at least more expensive - phone than the Sony Xperia Tipo.
The more angular, less chunky form factor on the Sony Xperia Miro gives it a touch of class, but as soon as you pick it up you find that looks can be deceiving.
It's lightweight at 110g (0.24lbs), but with dimensions of 113 x 59.4 x 9.9mm (4.4 x 2.3 x 0.4 inches) it's not a tiny handset, and this makes it feel odd when held.
Your brain tells you it shouldn't be that light, like it's an imposter, or what every phone manufacturer dreads hearing - that it's a toy.
That impression isn't helped by the cheap, plasticky feel of the handset. Yes, most phones have a plastic shell of some kind, but there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it, and the Sony Xperia Miro most definitely does it wrong. It feels like a toy. An expensive toy, but still a toy.
Below the screen you'll find three soft-touch buttons. These are the home button in the centre, the back button on the left and the menu button on the right.
Below that there's a blue light that appears when you wake up the phone or when you receive a text or call. You can't even tell it's there when it's off and when it's on it looks good, extending out across much of the width of the phone. It's also incredibly useful, and we applaud Sony for supporting this feature when so few other manufacturers do.
Below that the body curves inwards slightly and is adorned with the word 'Xperia'.
Above the screen there's a proximity sensor, another notification light, the front camera lens and a speaker. There's a 3.5mm headphone port on the top edge, along with a small power button.
Given that the power button is also used to wake and lock the handset we do wish it was a little bigger, but that's a minor issue.
A volume rocker lives on the right edge and the micro USB port is on the left edge. The main camera and another speaker can be found on the back.
There's a little notch at the bottom of the handset to peel the back cover off, and doing so just compounds the feeling of cheapness as the cover itself is revealed to be very thin plastic.
Underneath you'll find the battery, along with the SIM card and microSD card slots. Unfortunately not only do you need to remove the back cover to swap out a microSD card, but also the battery.
Granted, it's a minority of users that will need more than one card, but for those that do this is an unfortunate inconvenience. Given the tiny amount of storage on the Xperia Miro it would be nice if Sony had done more to ease expansion.
Overall the Sony Xperia Miro doesn't make the most amazing first impression, seeming like little more than a Sony Xperia Tipo with a slightly bigger screen.
Interface
The Sony Xperia Miro continues to disappoint when you turn it on, with a screen that while bigger than the Xperia Tipo's is no higher resolution.
This leads to a low pixel density (165ppi).
It's not terrible, but it is noticeable, because neither text nor images are as crisp and sharp as they could be.
The lock screen has the standard Xperia layout of a big clock at the top with the date below it and a two way slider at the bottom.
Swipe it right to unlock the phone or left to launch the camera. You can also drag the notification bar down to view any reminders, access the settings screen or act on missed calls and texts.
Once on the home screen you'll find a selection of widgets already up and running, and these are of varying usefulness.
On the one had you get the likes of a weather widget and a music controller, both of which are certainly appreciated, though you may find you want to replace them with alternatives once you've had a look around Google Play.
On the other hand, it also comes with a widget that just advertises various apps and games from Sony's own stores.
We can't see that one surviving more than a few minutes on most people's home screens.
In the dock at the bottom of each home screen you'll find an icon that takes you to the app drawer.
All of your apps live here and can be sorted alphabetically, by most used, recently installed or in a custom order.
Of course you can also place apps on home screens and in folders.
You'll also be able to access your text messages, dialler and Sony's music store from icons in the dock, though you can move things around if you prefer.
The final icon that's in the dock by default is a media folder, with the camera, music player, radio and photo album inside it.
Pinching any home screen brings up a screen with all your active widgets, and tapping any of them will bring you to the screen it's on.
We'd have thought it would make more sense to launch the related application.
Alternatively, if it's intended as a way of jumping between home screens then showing a thumbnail of each home screen would make more sense than just showing the widgets.
As it is, its usefulness seems pretty limited, but if there are any widgets that you regularly want quick access to then you may find it beneficial.
Long-pressing empty space on a home screen will bring up a menu that enables you to place widgets, applications, folders and shortcuts, as well as changing the wallpaper or theme.
The themes on offer seem to just be wallpapers, providing an abstract background in one of a number of colours.
They don't change application icons or fonts as you might expect them to, but in a nice touch they do change the colour of the main notification light to match them.
Tapping the menu key from a home screen gives you access to the same set of options, along with the settings screen.
Long pressing an icon enables you to drag it around, or if you drag it to the bottom of the screen you can delete it, while dragging to the top enables you to share it when applicable.
Being Android 4.0.4, the Sony Xperia Miro's operating system is about as intuitive as Android has ever been.
And Sony's overlay doesn't stray too far from the stock experience, doing little to help or hinder its intuitiveness.
That's a good thing, in our opinion.
There was a time when Android was still finding its feet and manufacturers' UI's were desirable because they often fixed any shortcomings of the system.
But stock Android has hit its stride now, and too much meddling is likely to hurt the experience.
Swiping between home screens is often a bit jerky, and you're limited to just five (unless you replace Sony's launcher with one from Google Play).
Five home screens isn't likely to go far for most users, since just two widgets can potentially take up a whole screen, and that's before you've filled them with apps and folders.
The jerkiness is disappointing too. We might expect it if we were running a processor-intensive game, but moving between home screens is one of the most basic operations that a smartphone needs to be able to do.
The touchscreen itself feels surprisingly resistive.
Not to the extent of say the Samsung Tocco Lite 2, where it actually impacted our ability to use it, but enough to leave it feeling slightly unpleasant and stiff.
It's all the more surprising because we didn't have this problem with the Sony Xperia Tipo despite it being a lower-end handset in the same range.
Contacts and calling
Tapping on either the contacts or phone icons on the Sony Xperia Miro will take you to the same set of screens.
The only difference is which one you start on.
The phone takes you to the dial pad, while contacts takes you to the address book, but there are icons at the bottom of either screen to switch between them.
You can also access groups from here, and there doesn't appear to be a separate icon for that.
The Sony Xperia Miro supports smart dialling, so once you start tapping out a number on the dial pad, suggestions will appear at the top of the screen.
Call logs also appear on this screen, and you can minimise the dial pad to get a better overview of them.
Pressing the menu button here enables you to hide the call log if you'd prefer, and you can also set up speed dial - assigning contacts to any number from 2 to 9, with 1 being used for voicemail.
Contacts
The contacts screen displays entries in alphabetical order, though you can sort the list by first or last name and filter contacts, for example to only show those with phone numbers or only show those who are currently online. Tapping the menu button enables you to backup, import or delete contacts, as well as sharing them over Bluetooth, SMS, email or Evernote. Tapping a contact brings up their details and enables you to call, text, email or IM them.
It's a shame you have to go into their information to call them rather than being able to do it straight from the main contacts screen, but smart dialling, speed dial and favourites provide plenty of other speedy calling options.
There's a search bar at the top of the contacts screen, making it quick to find a specific contact if your address book is heaving.
Next to that there's a button that enables you to add a new contact.
Doing so is straightforward and provides a lot of options, such as their address, multiple emails, instant messengers, notes, custom ringtones and the ability to send their calls straight to voicemail.
If you want to keep things simple and just add a name and phone number, that's no problem either.
You can also sync contacts with your Google account, keeping them backed up and easily accessible from other devices.
The only real omission is social network integration.
Instant messaging services such as Windows Live, Skype and Yahoo are integrated from the contacts screen, but Facebook is totally absent.
From the groups screen you can access favourites and groups, as well as creating new ones.
It's a fairly standard implementation, with thumbnail images for each favourite person and various contact options appearing once you tap on them.
The groups option enables you to essentially sort your address book into categories and send group emails and texts.
Calling
When a call comes through, a large image of the caller will pop up on the screen (assuming they're in your address book and have an image assigned) and you'll have the option to either accept the call with a swipe to the right, reject it with a swipe to the left or reject it with a message by swiping upwards.
Once on a call, the image of the caller remains, overlaid with their name and the call duration.
Below it there are options to mute the call, turn on speaker phone, access the dial pad, access your address book or end the call.
As with most other screens, you can also pull down the notifications bar from here.
Of course there's no need to even stay on the call screen.
Pressing the home button will return you to the home screen, enabling you to navigate the phone without interrupting the call.
Returning to the call screen - which you might want to do to hang up, for example - is done by either pressing the phone icon or pulling down the notifications bar and tapping on the active call.
Call clarity was decent throughout our use, with neither us nor those on the other end of the line having any issues being heard. We had no dropped calls either.
Messaging
Text messages on the Sony Xperia Miro can be accessed and sent from the messaging app, which is found in the dock (unless you move it).
Opening the app will bring you to the last screen you were on, but the top level screen is a list of all your current conversations.
This is listed by most recent, and each conversation has the name of the person you were messaging, along with the first few words of the most recent message you sent or received.
Above the list there's a 'New Message' button, for messaging people that you haven't messaged previously.
It also enables you to message multiple people or simply save you the effort of scrolling through the list of conversations to find the person you want to message.
You can send emails and IMs to contacts from here too, and these will also appear in the conversations list, though they'll all be given a separate entry.
So, for example, emails to a contact will be listed as a separate conversation from texts to the same contact.
Sadly there's no social network integration here, which is a real missed opportunity.
Long pressing a conversation enables you to delete it, while hitting the menu key from the conversations list enables you to delete multiple conversations at once or search for a specific message.
It also gives access to a settings screen with a number of options, such as turning delivery reports on or off and changing the notification tone.
Tapping on a conversation opens it, enabling you to scroll through previous messages and send new ones.
The keyboard is fairly accurate, and unlike its little brother the Xperia Tipo, the screen on the Sony Xperia Miro is just big enough that text entry isn't cramped or awkward.
The keyboard works well in both landscape and portrait mode, though landscape mode conceals all previous messages in exchange for giving you a bigger keyboard.
There's also a voice input option, but this was slow and not always very accurate.
Tapping on a contact's name at the top of this screen enables you to call them, while long pressing a message gives options for copying, deleting or forwarding it.
An icon to the right of the text entry box enables you to add photos, videos or sounds to the message, and pressing the menu key from this screen enables you to add or edit recipients, delete the conversation or add a subject to the current message.
Messages and missed calls will cause the notification light to come on, making it very hard to miss things for long. We've said before that this really is a great feature that rounds out the whole messaging experience.
Even better, the actual light on the Sony Xperia Miro manages to look pretty stylish, sending a beam out across the width of the phone.
Plus changing the theme will change its colour, so if the default blue isn't doing it for you then you can switch it to purple, gold, green and more.
While emails can be sent from the text message application, in general you'll want to use the dedicated email apps for that.
First up there's the standard Gmail app that comes with most Android handsets. That's fine, because not only will it be instantly familiar coming from other Android phones, but it's also very good.
Composing emails is a breeze, as is reading them. Its only failing is in not resizing emails to fit the screen, meaning you'll often have to zoom out or scroll around to read a message in its entirety.
The other email app seems to be one of Sony's own devising, and it will take a bit longer to set up because you'll need to manually add accounts to it, but once it's up and running it seems almost as good as Google's offering.
Both composing and reading email is generally stress-free. The only downside to it is that the layout is slightly different to the Gmail app, which makes switching between them a bit jarring.
So if you use both Gmail and other emails then you might be best off sticking with this app for all of them, because Gmail is supported on it.
Internet
The Sony Xperia Miro comes with the standard selection of internet connection options, specifically Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, HSDPA at 7.2Mbps and HSUPA at 5.76Mbps.
It also supports Wi-Fi direct and can be used as a portable Wi-Fi hotspot.
It comes with the stock Android browser, though it's certainly not at its smoothest here.
Stick to mobile sites and it's suitably zippy, but loading desktop sites generally takes around eight seconds over Wi-Fi and considerably longer over 3G.
Zooming and scrolling are both a bit jerky, with it seeming to take a second or two to catch up.
The screen is a reasonable size for browsing, but the low resolution doesn't do it any favours.
The keyboard is pretty accurate though, so typing in web addresses and posting on forums is handled well.
The browser also generally does a good job of auto-fitting pages to the screen, which helps make web browsing a more pleasant experience.
The address bar can be found at the top of the page, and to the right of that you can access your tabs - enabling you to switch between them and open and close them.
You can also access the bookmarks screen from here.
Long pressing an image enables you to save it, while long pressing a link gives options to open it in a new tab or copy the URL.
If you've used pretty much any other Android phone you'll be familiar with the options available on the browser.
Hitting the menu button enables you to access your bookmarks or save the current page to them.
You can also share the page, save it for offline reading and access the settings screen.
The Sony Xperia Miro's browser settings screen, as you might expect, is where the bulk of the options live.
There's a ton of things you can do from here, including but not limited to telling the browser to automatically fill in forms, clear history and cookies, change the default text size and turn images off to decrease loading times and data use.
The bookmarks page shows an image of each bookmark, and these can be synced to your Gmail account so that they're accessible from multiple devices.
You can also access your history and saved pages from here.
It's a solid browser, but there are plenty of alternatives available from Google Play if you don't get on with it, including the arguably superior Google Chrome.
Camera
Packing a 5MP sensor, the camera on the Sony Xperia Miro is about par for the course for a phone in this price bracket. It's a fairly standard offering in terms of options too, with a handful of scene modes such as landscape, night and document.
You can also change the white balance, metering and exposure value, turn the flash on or off, set up a self timer and set whether to tap to focus or autofocus.
It's not the most comprehensive set of options, but it should be enough for casual snappers. Changing the options is straightforward as well, and all the options are overlaid on top of the camera screen, so you can see changes as they happen.
More disappointing is how long it takes to actually take a photo. There's often a several second delay between pressing the button and the image actually being captured, which is annoying for a couple of reasons.
First off, if you're taking a lot of photos it will slow things down considerably and could get quite annoying.
Secondly, it limits the camera's usefulness for capturing a specific moment that might only last a few seconds - such as a bird in flight.
Once you do take a photo, you'll find that the quality is generally reasonable. It's nothing close to what you could achieve with an iPhone 5 or a Samsung Galaxy S3 of course, but those handsets both cost substantially more.
Compared to other handsets in its price range, such as the Sony Xperia U and the HTC Wildfire S, the Sony Xperia Miro holds its own on camera performance. It doesn't outperform them, but it doesn't get shown up either.
Ultimately it's a decent enough camera, but it won't be replacing your dedicated compact camera.
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Extreme close ups come out incredibly blurry, but pull back a little and the camera is capable of sharp, detail-rich images.
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Bright light inevitably washes out affected areas, but colours remain natural and it doesn't overly flood the image.
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Without a flash, dark rooms lack detail and display a substantial amount of noise.
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With flash, the same image is considerably brighter and displays more accurate colours. However, it still suffers from noise and lack of detail.
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Even with night mode activated, the Sony Xperia Miro's camera struggles to make much out in the dark.
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Document mode isn't always as crisp as we'd like, but small text is still perfectly readable.
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The camera on the Sony Xperia Miro struggles to pick out details on landscapes. Viewed on the phone they look great, but blowing them up yields disappointing results.
Video
Video is definitely not the Sony Xperia Miro's strong point. The best it can manage is VGA, and that's just not even YouTube quality these days. We didn't expect 1080p, but 720p would have at least made the video camera worthwhile. As it is, we'd be surprised if many people bother with it at all.Media
Whenever a phone comes with as little storage as the Sony Xperia Miro (just 2.2GB of useable space), we're tempted to assume that its media experience is going to be lacking, since there's not going to be room for much media on there.
In this case, that would be a mistake.
There's a media folder right on the dock, and that can be taken as a statement of intent. This is a phone that wants to do media well.
Walkman is perhaps the most impressive of the Sony Xperia Miro's various media apps.
This of course is the music player, and you couldn't ask for much more from a bundled app.
Tracks can be sorted by song, artist or album and played individually or shuffled.
Playlists can be created and accessed with ease, and playlists for newly added, most played and never played songs are included out of the box. You can also favourite songs.
There's an option to search for music and a SensMe option, which enables you to pick a style of music, for example 'mellow' or 'emotional', and it will attempt to play music from your library that fits that style.
You can also access Sony's subscription-based Music Unlimited service from here, though, oddly, the app doesn't appear to be included on the phone, and clicking on it for the first time just directs you to download it from Google Play.
Music that friends have shared on Facebook can also be viewed on the handset, though generally the Sony Xperia Miro just gives you a link to play the song on YouTube, for example.
It's surprising that Sony has integrated Facebook at all though, given that it omitted it from the contacts and messaging apps, where it would have been an obvious fit.
Once you play a track, the associated picture all but fills the screen.
Meanwhile, below it you get the standard, play, pause, next track and previous track controls.
There's also a bar showing how far through the song you are, and dragging that will jump forwards or backwards in it.
The more interesting options are slightly more hidden away.
Long-pressing a track image enables you to like it on Facebook, while tapping a button on the top-right enables you to search for the video on YouTube, search Google for the lyrics and find artist info on Wikipedia.
Hitting the menu key enables you to turn shuffle and repeat on or off and edit the track info.
More significantly, though, it enables you to access a sound enhancements screen, where you can mess with an equaliser to tailor the sound to your liking.
Or if that sounds too much like hard work you can select from one of a number of presets, such as 'easy listening' or 'bass boost'.
If you're listening to music through headphones you can also customise the surround sound experience, making it sound like a studio or a concert hall, for example.
On the other hand, if you're listening to the music through the Sony Xperia Miro's speakers, you can turn xLOUD on or off.
Sony's xLOUD system boosts the volume without distorting it and the result is pretty good, producing fairly loud and clear music.
There's also a widget for the player, enabling you to perform basic functions from both the home and lock screen.
Next up is the video player, and while it's not quite as full featured as the music player, it still does a fairly good job.
When you first open it you're presented with thumbnails of all your video files.
Tapping one will bring up the run time and file size, along with information on it provided by Gracenote (assuming it can find any) - this takes the form of a synopsis or description, a cast list and the year of production.
From there you can tap on the play icon to launch the video. Options here are limited to play, pause and stretching it to fit the screen.
As with the music player, there is also a progress bar that you can drag to jump ahead or back in the video.
Pressing the menu button enables you to turn xLOUD on or off if playing it through the speakers, turn surround sound on or off if played through headphones, or share the video via Bluetooth, Facebook, email and more.
You can even upload videos to YouTube from the player.
You can also use DLNA to stream the video to other supported devices on the same network.
Actually watching videos on the Sony Xperia Miro is a bit of a disappointment, since the screen is still on the small side and the low resolution becomes even more apparent.
It's also less comfortable to hold for extended periods than its little brother the Sony Xperia Tipo, thanks to the comparatively sharp corners.
Its light weight feel does help it out here though, meaning that at least it won't weigh you down.
The Sony Xperia Miro claims to support MP4, MP3, eAAC+, WAV, H.263 and H.264 files.
And for the most part it seemed to play them fine.
The only exception was that the video player didn't want to play one of our MP4 files.
But if you run into any trouble there are always alternate players available from Google Play, and some of these genuinely support just about anything you can throw at them.
Photos are accessed from the album, and this sorts them by date.
You can also view a map from here, and any photos with location data will be tagged on this.
By default it uses a 2D map, but you can also toggle a 3D view, giving you an image of the entire globe that can be rotated to find your photos.
Pressing the Sony Xperia Miro's menu key when viewing an image gives options to set it as your wallpaper or assign it to a contact, rotate it and crop it or view a slide show.
More impressively, there's also a built-in photo editor that's accessible from here.
It's not that in-depth, but it still packs in quite a few options.
You can auto-fix an image, which does a reasonable job of brightening and cleaning up images.
If you want to get more hands on, you can add highlights and effects, change the saturation and remove red eye.
Finally there's the FM radio, and this was a bit of a weak link simply because it failed to pick up a lot of the stations we'd have expected it to. We're not sure why that is, but it was certainly disappointing.
Once you actually do find a station that it can play, you have a few options.
You can choose to play through the speakers or headphones, favourite stations and ask Sony's TrackID service to look up songs for you.
This works in much the same way as Shazam, but it's conveniently built into the player, and once you find a track you can comment on it and share it.
Other than the radio, the only real disappointment with the Sony Xperia Miro's media abilities is the lack of built in storage. Sure you can expand it with a microSD card, but it would be nice if there was enough space to load it up with music out of the box.
That aside, it's a formidable music player. And aside from the limitations of the screen, it also makes for a solid video player and photo viewer and editor.
Battery life and connectivity
The Sony Xperia Miro has an impressively decent battery life. It only has a 1,500mAh battery, which wouldn't go far on some handsets, but thanks to a small screen and low specs - you know, the things that are otherwise seen as a negative - it gets the job done. In standby it seemed to generally drop less than 1% an hour, even with Wi-Fi on and emails and Facebook alerts being pushed to the phone. In other words, if you're not using it much it will keep on going for a long, long time.
But there's little point in having a smartphone if you're not going to make use of all its features, and thankfully the battery performs pretty well even with moderately heavy use.
We never had a problem getting through the day - and that was with us putting it through its paces to test it out. Photos, videos, web browsing, calls, texts and games can all be done in moderation on a single charge.
Sony claims that the Xperia Miro can manage up to 545 hours of standby time over 3G, up to six hours of talk time and up to 36 hours and 30 minutes of music.
The six hours of talk time over 3G seems about right in our experience.
We're slightly less convinced about the 545 hours of standby time, but it will certainly keep on chugging for days.
In our own battery test - running a 90 minute video with the screen at full brightness and everything set to push notifications - having started at full battery the Sony Xperia Miro had dropped to 76% by the end, which isn't bad at all.
Connectivity
The Sony Xperia Miro doesn't skimp on connections, either, with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA support, Bluetooth 2.1, HSDPA at 7.2Mbps and HSUPA at 5.76Mbps. It even supports Wi-Fi direct and can be used as a portable Wi-Fi hotspot.
These connections are all very easy to set up, with options in the settings screen for most of them. The exception to this is DLNA, but while that seems to be absent from the settings screen, it's built right into the video player.
You can plug the Sony Xperia Miro into a PC using the micro USB port, and from there it mounts itself as a drive.
Then it's just a matter of dragging and dropping to move content to and from the device, just like a normal USB drive. This is a fairly standard option on Android, but it makes moving files around incredibly simple.
Of course there are other options too. Apps can be downloaded straight from Google Play, and most of the major cloud storage services have their own apps, making it easy to access any content stored online.
Maps and apps
Maps
Like just about every Android phone, the Sony Xperia Miro comes with Google Maps. That might be both standard and expected, but it's also a very good thing. Google Maps is one of the best free mapping services out there, and not using it is a recipe for disaster, as Apple Maps revealed recently. Google Maps is feature packed, accurate and regularly updated. The GPS locks on fast and has support for offline viewing, Google Street view built in, traffic and terrain information.
And with accurate directions for drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users too, it's unlikely you'll ever need to use anything else for your general mapping needs.
It even includes a surprisingly good sat nav in the form of Google Navigation.
The service is still in Beta, but we've had no problems with it beyond occasionally being sent on a slightly suspect route, and it always got us where we were going.
If for any reason you don't get on with it, there are plenty of other sat nav and mapping options available from Google Play, of both the free and paid variety.
Apps
The Sony Xperia Miro comes with a fair few apps pre-loaded.
Many of these are things that would otherwise be available from Google Play, such as Amazon, TripAdvisor and Evernote.
They're generally quite useful things that you would likely want anyway, but if you don't then they're easy enough to delete.
Additionally, there's a small selection of Google apps, such as YouTube, Play Movies and Play Books.
However, Sony has also included a handful of its own apps, the highlight of which is undoubtedly TrackID, which works in much the same way as Shazam - identifying music and then providing links to download it or find it on YouTube.
It seems pretty accurate, too. There's also a power saver app that could come in handy, because it enables you to set up profiles that will turn off various services when the battery hits a certain level.
Less usefully, Sony has included its PlayNow store, which sells apps, music and games.
With Google Play as well stocked as it is we'd say it's superfluous to requirements, but it's there if you want it.
There's also a calendar app that can be synced with Facebook and Gmail, a basic calculator and an alarm clock.
The clock works fine for alarms but it would be nice if it had a stop watch or timer function built in too. Alas, it does not.
Many of the built-in apps can be used as widgets, which is appreciated.
And while it's a decent selection, there are hundreds of thousands more available on Google Play that should help fill any gaps in functionality.
Hands on gallery
Official gallery
Verdict
The Sony Xperia Miro is oddly positioned. At first glance it seems like a low- to mid-end phone that should slot into the gap between the Sony Xperia Tipo and the Sony Xperia U. Take a closer look, though, and it's not that simple. While it has a bigger screen, better camera and higher price tag than the Xperia Tipo, the screen is also more resistive and the phone chugs more when navigating home screens. On the other hand, while the Xperia U has a faster processor and better video, it doesn't have a microSD card slot, which the Sony Xperia Miro does. Things don't become any clearer when you consider the name and form factor. The name aligns it with the Sony Xperia Tipo but its body is styled similarly to Sony's higher end range of single letter handsets such as the Sony Xperia U and the Sony Xperia P. In short, it seems to be a phone with an identity crisis, which is a dangerous position to be in when entering an overcrowded market.We liked
The Sony Xperia Miro handles media and especially music really well. It has a comprehensive player, full of options for sorting and sharing your music. Plus there's the ability to tweak the way it sounds in various ways, and Sony's xLoud technology ensuring that it sounds good even through the handset's tiny speakers. Battery life is pretty good too. Unless you're on the phone non-stop you'll easily get a day's use out of it, and it will often stretch to two days. There's a bunch of connectivity options including DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot and even Wi-Fi direct. It also takes a decent stab at messaging and calls, with smart dialling and speed dial options plus a snazzy notification light for missed calls and texts.We disliked
The screen on the Sony Xperia Miro is a huge let down. It's low resolution, and even worse it feels resistive and sluggish to the touch. This is a real disappointment given that the lower-end Sony Xperia Tipo had no such problems. The handset also struggles a bit with even basic operations, often noticeably lagging during home screen transitions. The video camera is basically a write off, and the build quality is underwhelming, leaving it feeling cheap and entirely too much like a toy.Final verdict
The Sony Xperia Miro is an underwhelming and uninspired handset. It also doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. It's substantially more expensive than the Xperia Tipo, yet in some ways it's a worse performer. Equally, for only a little more you could pick up a Sony Xperia U, and if you can live with its tiny hard drive it's undoubtedly a better handset. Or don't get a Sony phone at all. The HTC Wildfire S is similarly priced and slightly better, while for a little more you could pick up a Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 and get substantially more bang for your buck. However you look at it, the Sony Xperia Miro becomes hard to justify. With a better screen or a lower price tag it might be able to carve itself a niche in the market, but as things stand we just can't recommend it. It's not a total disaster - it's got a lot of juice, media is handled well and it does a good job of the basic acts of calling and messaging people. But plenty of other phones tick those boxes too, without stumbling in quite as many other areas as the Sony Xperia Miro. The Sony Xperia Miro was always going to struggle to stand out. The budget phone market has become incredibly crowded, and even Sony itself has a couple of other handsets that aren't dramatically different. Thanks to a weak screen and generally underwhelming performance, the Sony Xperia Miro is pretty much dead in the water. It has an impressive battery life and good media options, but they're not enough to save it from mediocrity.
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Amazon CEO calls on governments to end tech patent warfare
Jeff Bezos hasn't got much patience with the neverending cycle of tech patent lawsuits, reckoning that governments need to step in and change laws.
The Amazon CEO, who faces a bit more hardware heat now that Amazon has launched the Android-running Kindle Fire HD tablet, lamented the situation in an interview with the Metro newspaper.
"Patents are supposed to encourage innovation and we're starting to be in a world where they might start to stifle innovation," he said.
Stifling
"Governments may need to look at the patent system and see if those laws need to be modified because I don't think some of these battles are healthy for society. "I love technology, I love invention, I like rapid change, and really it's the golden age of wireless devices and mobile devices." Bezos isn't the only one tiring of the patent hoopla - the UN held a summit earlier this month during which Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung and other tech giants got together to try and find a solution. Technology in 2012 has been pockmarked by patent filings and verdicts, the most notable of which is Apple v Samsung in which a US court found in favour of the Cupertino company. It's not over 'til it's over, though – Samsung is currently appealing the $1 billion ruling so the case is set to rumble on into 2013.
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Updated: 32GB Google Nexus 7 appears online in the US
An online retailer in the States has listed the 32GB Google Nexus 7 on its website, with a provisional release date of October 18.
Rumours surrounding a new Nexus 7 model, with bigger storage, have been doing the rounds recently, and more fuel has been added to the fire courtesy of the Staples Advantage website in America.
The site for business users lists the Google Nexus 7 32GB tablet alongside the 8GB and 16GB offerings which are already available, with the new slate sporting a price tag of $248.27 (around £150/AU$240).
Update: UK retailer Argos looks like it will be stocking the Google Nexus 7 in Britain, after a page in its Christmas gift guide was leaked online, revealing the tablet price to be £199.99 - that's a whole 99p more than the 16GB model.
Bigger, yet cheaper
This price makes the 32GB Nexus 7 slightly cheaper than it's 16GB brother, which may indicate that Google is considering ditching it in favour of the newer model. According to the listing on the website, the rest of the specifications are the same as the other Nexus 7 models, and while there's still no official word from Google or Asus (the manufacturer behind the tablet), the 32GB option is looking ever more likely. The October 18 shipping date however is less believable, as this would mean it would start shipping tomorrow – highly unlikely as there's not been any official news from Google. With the Amazon Kindle Fire HD available in a 32GB flavour, and the iPad Mini looking set to be announced next week, Google will be looking to up its game a the budget end of the tablet market to ensure it keeps its dominance.
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Nokia's Windows Phone 8 handsets could be most expensive
The Windows Phone 8-powered Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 handsets will apparently be priced out of the market by HTC and Samsung.
This is according to the (admittedly erratic) Digitimes, which cites 'industry sources' claiming HTC and Samsung will implement aggressive pricing strategies for their Windows Phone 8 devices as they look to undercut the Finnish firm - something that would at least give the platform a decent boost.
Currently Nokia is the manufacturer of choice when it comes to Windows Phone, thanks to its partnership with Microsoft, however that could be about to change as the software giant has selected the HTC Windows Phone 8X as its flagship device for the latest version of its mobile platform.
Good for Windows Phone
With prices set to be competitive in the Windows Phone 8 arena, this can only be a good thing for the new operating system, hopefully making it a more attractive option to consumers. Apparently the HTC 8X will fall into the $500-600 (£310-370/AU$485-580) SIM-free bracket, while the sources say the Samsung Ativ S is likely to push closer to $700 (£430/AU$680), and Nokia's Lumia handsets are said to range from $600-800 (£370-495/AU$580-775). A separate source suggests than the Huawei Ascend W1, the Chinese firm's first Windows Phone 8 device, could come in as low as $300-$350 (£185-215/AU$290-340), which may be perfect for people looking for a cheap Windows thrill.
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Virgin Media extends the free underground Wi-Fi party until 2013
The nice folk over at Virgin Media have decided that its London Underground Wi-Fi service will stay free for everyone until 2013.
The original plan was for the subterranean internet access to be free during the Olympic summer, with a paywall then shooting up for everyone but Virgin Media customers.
The company has already infiltrated 72 tube stations around the capital, with Waterloo, Victoria, King's Cross and Oxford Circus reportedly some of the busiest.
Subterranean tweets
It's now the norm for there to be over one million individual internet actions carried out in a single day – from tweeting to checking email – with September 27 being the first time that happened. So it looks like the internet is here to stay on the London Underground, with more stations set to get Wi-Fi on the platform in the next twelve months. Unfortunately, it doesn't look as though the annoying Virgin Media splash page is going anywhere either.
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Gary Marshall: What will we do if the cloud fails?
We've all done it: installed an upgrade and watched with horror as everything goes to pot. It happens to everybody from individuals, to phone companies and to websites.
It's easy to mock - You mean people were unable to get a decent net connection on their mobiles? That's like EVERY OTHER DAY EVER, AMIRITE?
While outages are inconvenient for some, they hardly a disaster. The bad news is that if something similar happens in the future, it could be.
During July's O2 outage, some commentators were quick to point out that a network outage was a first world problem. That is, if all you've got to worry about is getting a signal for your smartphone, then you can't really consider yourself hard done by. Others pointed out that needing data connections is a fairly recent development anyway; travel back just six years and even the smartest phone was as dumb as a bunch of rocks.
That's all true, but you might as well argue that doctors used to treat minor illnesses with amputation; the world has moved on, and hurrah for that.
The O2 outage was a warning, and it's as relevant to PCs as it is to phones. While Microsoft, Apple and Google argue over what to call it, who invented it and whose version of it is the bestest, they all agree that the future of the PC is not personal computers but personal clouds, or perhaps promiscuous computing.
Losing your connection
The actual device doesn't really matter: whether it's a Microsoft Surface tablet, an Acer Aspire S7 or an Apple iPad, all your stuff is floating around in the cloud, ready to be delivered to whichever device you happen to have whenever you need it. That's fine, unless or until your cloud connection is severed. It could be cut by a malfunctioning ISP upgrade, or by a careless workie digging holes in your street; by an accounts department error or by a curious and sharp-toothed pet. It might even be caused by an act of terrorism, the result of a solar storm or, more likely, a breathtakingly huge cock-up by someone promoted beyond their competence. No matter what the cause, the effect is the same: things you rely upon every day suddenly stop working. Imagine if instead of O2's network being down, something explodey had happened at a crucial bit of your ISP's internet infrastructure. You'd be stuffed, and the more technologically inclined you are, the more comprehensively stuffed youfd be: the more recent your hardware and software are, the more likely it is that at least some of your valuable stuff is stored on and/or delivered via the cloud, whether that's iCloud or IPTV. You might well mock your parents ancient XP box and enormous CRT screen, but at least they'll be able to access their stuff and watch some TV in the event of ISP armageddon. The more we put in the cloud, the more we depend on it. I'm already used to Googling things rather than remembering them, and in addition to knowledge and facts I'm starting to rely on the cloud to store my stuff too. My photos and home videos have been up there for ages, but these days I'm also storing my Xbox saved games, my music library and even my favourite recipes on faraway servers.Everything disappears
If you cut my connection, my IQ drops by 100 points, there's no entertainment in my house and the only thing I can cook is bacon. Even when the connection hasn't been cut, the cloud can still let you down like a British summer: when I had people round the other night, my cloud-based music service decided to stop working for no good reason. My guests' initial relief - they weren't going to be subjected to hours of Radiohead b-sides after all - quickly turned to terror when they discovered that the only CDs I have in the house these days are the ones that belong to my four-year-old daughter. There are only so many choruses of gna na na na na na Gigglebizh a grown human can stand. We're still in the early days of this. I, and maybe you, still have some people's telephone numbers in my own head, and I can find many of my friends' houses without having to rely on Google Maps or a sat-nav app. My magazines are mainly printed ones, as are most of my books, and I still buy the odd thing on DVD. That's hopelessly inefficient, however, and over time anything that can be delivered digitally (which is pretty much everything bar bacon, and when 3D printing really takes off maybe we'll be able to use it to burn our own bacon butties too) will be. Everything we think, watch, listen to or need to know will be in the cloud, delivered via always-on connections that must never, ever fail - because if they do, we'll be useless. As Thom Yorke put it in one of the songs I was unable to stream the other evening: "When the power goes out, we'll just hum".
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1 comment:
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