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BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[Wow! It sure has been a busy month in mobile platforms, with the 500-pound gorillas of the industry — Apple and Google – rolling out the latest versions of their mobile operating systems for phones and tablets, and relative newcomer Microsoft hitting India with phones sporting its latest Windows Phone 7.5 ‘Mango' platform. What do these latest releases mean to you? Here's the lowdown on the new features I've loved and which ones I couldn't care too much for!   iOS5 Arguably the most mature and polished of the platforms, not to mention a solid apps ecosystem, Apple's iOS platform has not been without its feature holes either. Which is why iOS5 is as much about addressing long-standing feature requests as it is about pushing the envelope.   What I Liked Notifications: Apple has righted its pre-iOS5 notifications sins in a rather ‘inspired' fashion. As with Android, a list of recent notifications is visible by dragging downward from the top of the screen, and new notifications appear discretely at the top of your screen, and disappear after a few seconds. You can set per-app notifications, deciding how many recent items (missed calls, new tweets etc.) should show up for each app and how intrusive they should be.   Lock Screen: The lock screen overhaul deserves special mention – with iOS5, your lock screen gives you a scrollable list of all your notifications, listed in the order that you received them. Best of all, swiping any icon will unlock the phone and take you right to that application, so you could return a missed call or reply to an SMS directly from the lock screen. Oh, and did I mention you can launch the camera from the lock screen as well? No more fidgeting around with unlocking the device and launching the Camera app.   PC Free and iCloud: Arguably the most important changes, these. PC Free will let you activate and update your device over the air, without docking it into a computer (or wireless synching with your computer, should you want). As of this writing, the first wireless update went out to iOS5 devices – no more plugging into the PC to update your iDevice! iCloud is Apple's cloud storage and synching service, which lets apps store upto 5GB of data and documents free (pay and get more), and subsequentlysynchronizes all your stuff across other devices registered on the same account. Photos and documents on your iPhone seamlessly find their way to your iPad, almost instantaneously.   Location-based reminders: The new Reminders app in iOS5 packs in a innovative feature, even if Apple's not the first one to roll it out. At its most basic, the idea is that if you want to be reminded to do something at a particular place—say, remembering to buy eggs and ketchup when you're at the grocery, or even when you leave your office, you can input that location and, when you arrive there (or depart as the case may be), your iPhone will display a notification. It does have some caveats – it needs you to add a contact for the location (clumsy, much?) and works only on the newer devices like the iPhone 4 and 4S.   Older Hardware: iOS5 runs on all current-gen iOS devices, and supports even the now two-year-old iPhone 3GS (although somewhat grudgingly). Talk of truly supporting your users!   What I Didn't iMessage: What started of as BlackBerry Messenger for iOS users needs serious address book tweaking to be functional. There's also no way of finding out who in your contact list is on iMessage or not. However, what I did like (and this is something Google should seriously consider for Android) is the fact that Apple has combined SMS and iMessage into one app, so you don't have to go to a different app to send an SMS or an iMessage.    Ageing UI: Apart from the Notification Center, not much has changed in the user experience, and while functional, it looks rather dated compared to the other platforms on this page.   <img src="/businessworld/system/files/WINDOWS-mdm.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 5px;" height="240" width="150">Windows Phone 7.5 Having arrived on the scene late, there's no denying that Microsoft needs to hit the ground running. Windows Phone 7.5, codenamed Mango, brings to devices a ton of features – no less than 500 – many of which I've missed dearly.   What I Liked Fresh, signature look: Pick up any Windows Phone 7.5 device, and you'll be greeted with a uniform user experience – the Metro UI (user interface). The two columns of live tiles now dynamically update with information such as unread Facebook messages or emails, and you can even pin third party apps to the Start screen. Instead of looking at different apps for Facebook and twitter, your social stream is now built-into the OS and available on a tile. Perfect for glancing and going.   Vastly improved email and messaging: Multiple email accounts in one universal inbox, threaded conversations, texting, FB-chatting and IMing from one single app— it manages to pull off integrated messaging in way that feels more complete and natural than any other platform.   Internet Explorer 9 Mobile: Packing in the same rendering engine as its desktop sibling, IE9 Mobile is highly compatible with websites of all sizes and shapes, and it sports the same hardware-assisted text, video and graphics representation as well, which makes it very fast to boot!   Improved Multitasking: How much you get to enjoy the multitasking capabilities of the device depend a lot on which apps you run. Some apps, music players for example, are allowed to run in the background, but most apps allow you to do the same fast-task switching as before, with the addition of an app picker view so you can choose what you want to go back to. Newer apps, written specifically with Mango in mind resume much faster, and can run certain background processes via the OS as well. It's a handy compromise between true multitasking (keeping the full app running in the background) and battery life.   Battery Saver mode: Really, each smartphone should come with this. When your battery gets low, this mode turns off Wi-Fi, push email and background apps, squeezing extra life out of the phone when you need it not to die on you.   What I Didn't Still very much Work In Progress: Multitasking is occasionally fidgety, services like Google Talk, Foursquare aren't tied into the Start page experience. And while I'm at it, how about allowing device manufacturers to customise the look and feel, Microsoft?   Apps: Still a long way to go to even match the depth and variety of Android apps, leave alone iOS apps.   <img src="/businessworld/system/files/android_ICS-mdm.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 5px;" height="200" width="200">Android 4.0 It may well be the only update that hasn't yet hit the market, though that doesn't stop enterprising geeks from giving it a shot. Codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich, Android 4.0 is the platform that will unify phone and tablet form factors.   What I Liked New multitasking UI: Switch from one to another is now enabled via a list of tiles showing which apps are open and their most recent content to help you recognize what's going on. If that sounds familiar, that's because its reminiscent of the Cards system employed by Palm's WebOS and then in the BlackBerry Playbook.   Richer Social Experience: A bevy of social networks linked to each of your contacts, allowing you to keep track of their social presence all in one place.   Better Photos: Adding new camera capabilities like continuous focus, zero shutter lag exposure, face detection and a panorama mode, Android phones are certainly set to rival compact cameras in the features department.   What I Didn't Availability for your Phone: Anyone's guess, really! If you own even a recent Android phone, the general rule of thumb is that devices released in the last 18 months have a fair chance at getting an upgrade, but when those devices will receive their update is truly guess-work. technocool at kanwar dot net<br style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 16px; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">twitter@2shar