Screening Pleasure

You can turn your Android home screen into a museum of sorts with little more than an app. Muzei offers up a painting from a well-known artist every day. We're going through a spell of Vincent Van Gogh these days.

With An I On India

Xiaomi's india ambi-tions are no secret. In a short period of time, the Chinese phone maker has become a bit of a household name and no doubt given dominant players a whole lot to worry about. The company couldn’t have made a bolder India statement than they did with the launch of their Mi 4i, with the i standing for India and the global launch being held in New Delhi and not Xiaomi’s home turf. Xiaomi is interested in manufacturing in India.

What’s Next For The iPhone?

Rumours abound on an upgrade to iPhone 6s with a better camera and specs The rumour mills are overheating again as the possibility of a refresh to the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6s, as early as August comes up, according to the Cult of Mac. All the speculation is sparked off by leaks that come all the way from China, where the iPhone is manufactured. Supply chain workers talk about components and schedules, galvanizing Apple-watchers into a state of excitement. It’s nothing new – and yet it always is. One of the main things being talked about, thanks to China analyst Kevin Wong’s comments on Weibo, China’s Facebook, is the next iPhone’s camera. Apple has stuck to its 8 megapixel camera since the iPhone 4, although it improved the optics a great deal for the iPhone 4s. But now it’s said to be moving on to 12 megapixels, at least for the rear camera, with smaller pixels being used in the images. Nothing seems to be known about the front camera, though the selfie phenomenon started on the iPhone and it would be safe to assume the front camera too receives a bump. The iPhone camera is still considered by all Apple fans and a significant portion of others as being one of the best cameras on a smartphone, if not the absolute best. On the face of it, there may be no real need to change it or join the megapixels race that Android phones are engaged in: 13, 16 and 20 megapixels being the norm on these devices that have mostly left the 8 megapixel standard behind, unless it’s a very cheap phone. Of course, few of these match the 8-megapixel iPhone in its optics. It’s just the top flaghsips that are compared with the iPhone with regards to the camera capability. The iPhone has been singlehandedly responsible for sparking off a phone photography revolution. It even has a name, “iPhonography” and is the reason social networks like Insstagram even exist. But the prospect of a camera that is even better would likely give iPhone users a really strong reason to upgrade to the new iPhone 6s, if these rumours and leaks are anything to go by. The “s” upgrades have also not tended to be minor, expect perhaps in the case of the 5 to 5s, which was much more of a tweaking. Other specs are rumoured to be getting significant upgrades as well. According to Business Insider, “Force Touch” could be one of the new features coming to the iPhone 6s: a detection of extent of pressure of a touch on the screen. The phone will also be optimized in many ways to make it work in tandem with the Apple Watch. All basic specs are also expected to be enhanced now. Rumours on the iPhone do pan out to be true, and if they do this time round as well, we could see iPhone 6s and 6s Plus sales extended Apple’s phenomenal reach even further.

Just Your Basic Tablet-notebook

What? All that for just Rs 19,999? Well, even less, if you look around online for even better deals. The Swipe Ultimate 3G Tab was showcased at CES earlier this year, and is one of a number of affordable hybrid tablet-laptops coming out now. Look at all it’s got going for it… The Swipe 3G is of course, 3G SIM enabled. You can’t make cellular calls on it, but you can of course, get internet access via the SIM and Wi-Fi. It’s a nice 10.1 inch tablet, a bit heavy but usable, and it attaches at the hinge to a keyboard when you get into laptop – or rather, netbook – mode. When you close the screen-lid of the device, you have a wrap around case which not only looks good but lets you carry it off like a file. When the screen is lifted, the back of the case has flaps that provide the backrest for it to be upright. Here’s where you do have to be a little careful though. Someone knocking into the tented flaps could bring the screen down with a thud on whatever surface you’re using it on. When you lift the screen out of the hinge, it’s a tablet. So you have the best of both worlds for a good price. Because it’s a tablet, it’s obviously touchscreen, which works out just fine for Windows 8.1 which is free on this device, along with Microsoft Office, for a year. There’s nothing cheap about either the 1280x800 IPS screen or the keyboard. The viewing angles have often been awful on smaller machines, but not on this one. The keys have often been horribly plasticky on cheaper devices, but not on this one. The Swipe Ultimate isn’t a workhorse of a machine but it’s just fine as a basic tablet-notebook. It works on an Intel 1.86GHz processor with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Email, browsing, video, working with Office documents, reading, are what this device is great for. And it’s got a 5 and 2MP set of cameras for your video calling needs. There are lots of connectivity options, including Bluetooth 4.0, Mini HDMI, USB, OTG and support for a dongle. You don’t have a microSD slot though and will need to use cloud storage to add to the onboard space. It’s also silent, because there’s no fan to contend with. All in all, it’s a great deal for those who can be careful not to let the screen or tablet part fall while moving positions. 

An Echo Of Things To Come

If Amazon’s Echo wasn’t interesting enough, it’s just got a little more so. Launched in November last year, Amazon Echo is a speaker that is as Internet-of-Things as we can get today. What makes it different from the millions of others around is that you can talk to it, and it answers back. Echo has to stay switched on. As it sits there, you command it to play music for you – specific artists, playlists, genresand albums in your collection, or to access streaming services. You can also just call out questions, such as on weather or some simple answerable ones that can come up from a search.  Amazon’s demo shows how Echo can virtually be part of the conversation as one person asks it to play rock music, another tells it to stop, mother asks it to add wrapping paper to the shopping list, and someone else asks it the definition of the word annoying. Siri-like, all the answers are out pat. Echo is a Bluetooth speaker, so you can happily take it from place to place. All it needs is its internet connect so it can access the cloud and give you the music and answers you want. It can even handle to-do lists, read the news, check facts, and more as long as you wake it up with the name, Alexa. You don’t need to shout across the room or go up very close because it has seven microphones at the ready. Now, Echo also adds shopping to its list of skills. It figures, since Amazon is after all, a great big shop, so it was only inevitable that it would tie in with what Amazon does. The Echo isn’t available per se in India for now. First of all, voice recognition would have to be optimized for India, no easy task with all the languages and accents spoken here. You could get it through a workaround from Amazon.com, but there’d be little point as many things available on Amazon for US customers aren’t within the reach of customers elsewhere. And this is particularly true for music. Much of what’s available for the Echo is tied into Amazon’s Prime Membership programme, right now. But Echo is nevertheless a fascinating product because one can see the possibilities in the not-too-distant future when you will have many objects around that are connected and interactive and not restricted to Amazons, by any means. There are other voice enabled speakers even now. SpeeCup is a speaker that responds to voice and gestures. It’s been years since Samsung’s smart TV’s have been able to respond to voice commands. More than the hardware it’s the execution and the careful fitting in into users’ lives that will make or break a new product like the Echo.

Just Your Basic Tablet-notebook

What? All that for just Rs 19,999? Well, even less, if you look around online for even better deals. The Swipe Ultimate 3G Tab was showcased at CES earlier this year, and is one of a number of affordable hybrid tablet-laptops coming out now. Look at all it’s got going for it… The Swipe 3G is of course, 3G SIM enabled. You can’t make cellular calls on it, but you can of course, get internet access via the SIM and Wi-Fi. It’s a nice 10.1 inch tablet, a bit heavy but usable, and it attaches at the hinge to a keyboard when you get into laptop – or rather, netbook – mode. When you close the screen-lid of the device, you have a wrap around case which not only looks good but lets you carry it off like a file. When the screen is lifted, the back of the case has flaps that provide the backrest for it to be upright. Here’s where you do have to be a little careful though. Someone knocking into the tented flaps could bring the screen down with a thud on whatever surface you’re using it on. When you lift the screen out of the hinge, it’s a tablet. So you have the best of both worlds for a good price. Because it’s a tablet, it’s obviously touchscreen, which works out just fine for Windows 8.1 which is free on this device, along with Microsoft Office, for a year. There’s nothing cheap about either the 1280x800 IPS screen or the keyboard. The viewing angles have often been awful on smaller machines, but not on this one. The keys have often been horribly plasticky on cheaper devices, but not on this one. The Swipe Ultimate isn’t a workhorse of a machine but it’s just fine as a basic tablet-notebook. It works on an Intel 1.86GHz processor with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Email, browsing, video, working with Office documents, reading, are what this device is great for. And it’s got a 5 and 2MP set of cameras for your video calling needs. There are lots of connectivity options, including Bluetooth 4.0, Mini HDMI, USB, OTG and support for a dongle. You don’t have a microSD slot though and will need to use cloud storage to add to the onboard space. It’s also silent, because there’s no fan to contend with. All in all, it’s a great deal for those who can be careful not to let the screen or tablet part fall while moving positions. 

Future Now: An Echo Of Things To Come

If Amazon’s Echo wasn’t interesting enough, it’s just got a little more so. Launched in November last year, Amazon Echo is a speaker that is as Internet-of-Things as we can get today. What makes it different from the millions of others around is that you can talk to it, and it answers back. Echo has to stay switched on. As it sits there, you command it to play music for you – specific artists, playlists, genresand albums in your collection, or to access streaming services. You can also just call out questions, such as the on the weather or some simple answerable ones that can come up from a search.  Amazon’s demo shows how Echo can virtually be part of the conversation as one person asks it to play rock music, another tells it to stop, mother asks it to add wrapping paper to the shopping list, and someone else asks itthe definition of the word annoying. Siri-like, all the answers are out pat. Echo is a Bluetooth speaker, so you can happily take it from place to place. All it needs is its internet connect so it can access the cloud and give you the music and answers you want. It can even handle to-do lists, read the news, check facts, and more as long as you wake it up with the name, Alexa. You don’t need to shout across the room or go up very close because it has seven microphones at the ready. Now, Echo also adds shopping to its list of skills. It figures, since Amazon is after all, a great big shop, so it was only inevitable that it would tie in with what Amazon does. The Echo isn’t available per se in India for now. First of all, voice recognition would have to be optimized for India, no easy task with all the languages and accents spoken here. You could get it through a workaround from Amazon.com, but there’d be little point as many things available on Amazon for US customers aren’t within the reach of customers elsewhere. And this is particularly true for music. Much of what’s available for the Echo is tied into Amazon’s Prime Membership programme, right now. But Echo is nevertheless a fascinating product because one can see the possibilities in the not-too-distant future when you will have many objects around that are connected and interactive and not restricted to Amazons, by any means. There are other voice enabled speakers even now. SpeeCup is a speaker that responds to voice and gestures. It’s been years since Samsung’s smart TV’s have been able to respond to voice commands. More than the hardware it’s the execution and the careful fitting in into users’ lives that will make or break a new product like the Echo.

At Your Finger-tips

Write It With Google There may be a smartphone in every pair of hands, but not every pair of hands is comfortable with inputting text on their touch devices. There are quite a few methods available to make input easier, but not everyone ends up exploring these. Google has just added to the bunch with a handwriting input app.

New King Of The Androids

For years people have whined about the design of the Galaxy smartphones. The unchanging contours, the inescapable cheap plastic and the Apple-wannabe styling minus the build, have been major annoyances. By the time the Galaxy S5 came along, potential buyers had had it and turned to other options. And then Samsung decided it had better listen to the world after all and created the Galaxy S6 and the Edge. Gone is the plastic, replaced by the more loved metal and glass especially on the back of the phone in its Platinum Gold variant. Gone also is the Apple-wannabe look: now, from the front, it looks exactly like the iPhone! And has the build to carry off the look.While practically everyone who sees it has something to say on the resemblance to the iPhone, they do think the S6 is the best-looking phone Samsung ever made. The S6 is really thin and light and although that’s a delight, it means we sacrifice the ability to open up the back panel and get at the battery and a slot for the memory card.The S6 looks even better the moment you turn on its razor-sharp screen. It’s a 5.1-inch 1440x2560 pixels resolution QHD Super AMOLED display with a whopping 577ppi density. I didn’t think the colours overdone, nor was there any question of compromise on the viewing angles. It’s also more sunlight-friendly than Samsung’s previous phones, including the Note 4 I use.The screen is the perfect canvas for what is turning out to be the best camera on a smartphone. Camera reviewers are reporting impressive test results for the S6, beating the iPhone 6 on the camera front. Samsung has worked hard on the camera. The home button on the device, when pressed twice quickly, opens up the camera and it does so fast, even from the locked screen. The camera app is minimalistic and neat and offers a Pro mode from where you can set exposure, white balance, ISO, focus, and make your own presets. The cameras are a 16MP on the rear and a 5MP on the front, and both have an f1.9 aperture. There’s an LED Flash optical image stabilisation, and real-time HDR. It takes excellent fast shots in daylight and good ones in indoor low light. It shoots 4K video. If you’re looking for a powerful camera phone, the Galaxy S6 is the one to go for right now. Upgraders from high-end phones like the Note 4, you have a pretty good camera to begin with.You have all the power you need on the S6 with its own Exynos 64-bit Octa Core (Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2.1 GHz Cortex-A57) processor. There’s 3GB of RAM and variants with 32, 64 and 128GB storage. It’s 4G capable. All the power does mean it heats up a little though, even if you just use the camera for a while. The battery, a 2,550mAh, is barely adequate, but then you do have fast charging.The S6 is terribly important to Samsung at this point when it’s draining profits despite being the No 1 smartphone vendor, beating Apple. The world is not the same as it was when the Galaxy S3 took the world by storm and cheaper smartphones today offer superb design and top-notch specs, except the camera, at shockingly low prices. The S6 starts at Rs 49,900 for the 32GB model. The beautiful S6 Edge, is Rs 56,300. The S6 faces great competition and even though it’s been given an Editor’s Choice status by several publications, it’s anyone’s guess how the device will eventually fare in the market.  Honor 6 PlusElegant and flagship-like, the Honor 6-Plus is nicely understated. Not something you’d hesitate to carry around, for Rs  26,499. A 5.5-inch Android smartphone, it would have been difficult to tell apart from so many others if it weren’t for some tricks in the camera department. Parent company Huawei claims it can take better pictures than a DSLR. If only life were that easy….The Honor 6-Plus has three 8-megapixel cameras on board. The focus, so to speak, is on getting that depth of field look where you have the things in the distance all blurred, and whatever you’re focusing on, nice and sharp. In outdoor light, the two back cameras do this quite well, though it’s still a bit of a gimmick. If you hold very still and are good at framing photos that will result in this contrast between focused and unfocused, you can get some impressive 13MP pictures. The bokeh in the background can look quite good, though ultimately it looks good for a phone and it isn’t anywhere near what you see with a “proper” camera. The camera’s software has a wide exposure mode but this is mostly software-led. You can also focus the photo after taking the shot. That’s a trick that started out on Nokia phones and is also part of the Google camera app. The two 8MP cameras are auto focus. The 8MP front camera is a fixed focus shooter. In darker conditions, the image gets light-filled, but is definitely a bit warm toned.The Honor 6-Plus is otherwise quite a power-packed device. A powerful home-grown processor, 3GB RAM, a 1080x1920 screen, 32GB onboard storage and a 3,600mAh battery. It works with Huawei’s Emotion UI skin which is light and unintrusive, other than being quite simple. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 18-05-2015)

Inverse Duty Structure Is The Obstacle To Manufacture Smartphone In India, Says Suneet Tuli