Tag: forbes

Is this how Android dies?

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Gordon Kelly, via Forbes. Samsung’s seemingly baffling TouchWiz strategy suddenly makes sense. While even Samsung fans decry TouchWiz’s heavy handedness, it achieves its aim perfectly: hide Android from mainstream users. Meanwhile the company has studied Apple well, swamping would be (and arguably better) rivals with superior advertising spend. Meanwhile apply TouchWiz to Tizen, throw in Android app compatibility, patch obvious gaps with the TouchWiz app infrastructure it has been building and come the launch of a Tizen running Samsung Galaxy S6 most users outside tech circles would struggle to tell the difference. Samsung would have maintained its sales and gained

Reviewing the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet

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Sony continue to iterate their Android line-up to good effect. I reviewed the Xperia Z2 Tablet over the weekend, and while owners of the first Z Tablet don’t need to be looking yet for an upgrade, anyone looking to the market for a new ten-inch Android tablet should seriously consider this tablet. …every piece of hardware is about compromise, and Sony has made different decisions to Samsung, Amazon, and Apple with the Xperia Z2 Tablet. Those decisions (go for a thin design, focus on media consumption, and beef up the IP55 and IP58 protection) have created a distinctive tablet range

My Apple highlights from the last seven days

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I;ve been keeping an eye on Forbes’ weekly Apple column, ‘Apple Loop‘,  over the last few weeks. This week’s column covers a number of areas, including the ‘honestly we don’t know if it’s an Apple Store or not’ on Princes Street here in Edinburgh. The iPhone 6 screen size is debated online, Microsoft Office arrives on the iPad, staff are being sought for the iWatch, Mavericks reaches 40%, what is happening with the sapphire production, diversity in emojis, iBeacons at MLB parks, and the secret Scottish Apple store plans are a little less secret.Apple Loop is here to remind you of

Reviewing the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact

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Let’s put aside the point that a 4.3 inch screen is not a ‘small’ smartphone in the history of the smartphone, because Sony have actually done something I’ve been looking for in the last few years – a ‘small’ smartphone that has the same specs as the larger handsets. With a 2.2 GHz Quad core Snapdragon 800, 2GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage, microSD, and a 4.3 inch TFT IPS screen, the Xperia Z1 Compact is a little bit of a pocket rocket. Sony has supplied me with a review handset ahead of its general availability. Sony’s research shows

Reviewing the Jolla handset and Sailfish OS

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A few weeks after receiving Jolla’s first handset (called, er, the Jolla), I’ve posted an in-depth review of the Linux powered smartphone over on Forbes. All of that said, the Jolla handset has me excited. I’ve been following the project for some time, I ordered my device in May 2013 as part of the first wave of orders, and I knew that when it was delivered to me in December I was not getting a finished product… just a Finnish product. The Sailfish OS at the core of Jolla’s vision is delivering a stable environment and handles the mid-range specs

Reviewing The Russian Reversible Smartphone

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With an LCD screen on one side, and an e-Ink screen on the opposite side, Yota’s prototype smartphone was one of the big winners of CES 2013. Now, a year later, the handset is now on sale in a number of European territories. I’ve taken a closer look at the handset over on Forbes: The easiest way to think about the e-Ink screen implementation is that it is related but subservient to the main interactions on your smartphone. To set up one of Yota’s applications on the e-Ink screen you need to ‘send it to the back’ from the LCD screen… In my time