JBL'S FLIP II SPEAKER RS 7,990JBL, a line from US-based Harman International, has brought out another Bluetooth portable speaker in its favourite shape. Like the Pulse, which displays colourful lights while playing, the Flip II — a sequel to the original Flip — doesn’t light up, but it is surprisingly loud for its size. I got a sport yellow cylinder to review, but it comes in black, white, red and blue as well. It feels rugged, solid and well-built, without being heavy. At first glance, I immediately thought it would make a great gift for a teenager, especially given its loudness. The Flip II’s design is minimalist while making use of colour as a style element. It can sit on a surface any way you like — up straight, or on its side. The top and bottom plus a ridge down the centre are rubbery in a somewhat classy way. On top, you have a power touch button surrounded by two volume, a Bluetooth and phone button. One touch of the Bluetooth button connects you to the device of your choice. The Phone button lets you take calls using the speaker’s microphone; and you can also use the button to end a call. On a call, I was told I sounded clear enough except with a bit more bass. As far as the bass is concerned, it makes its presence felt as with any JBL audio device, but to my surprise there isn’t a wide range of sounds and the high frequencies don't stand out in particular either. Overall, loud and bass-y is just what a youngster may want. The Flip II has around five hours of battery life. At Rs 7,990, it has a lot of competition from other JBL models as well as other brands — such as Bose, Beats, Ultimate Ears and Soen Audio — that are a bit more expensive but also have more audial finesse. SOEN AUDIO'S TRANSIT SPEAKER Rs 12,990You wouldn’t buy speakers for their design, but with Soen Audio’s Transit Bluetooth speaker — you just may. You can get a glimpse of its unique design from the packaging onwards — it’s classy. There's an Apple-like finish and attention to detail, and you won’t want to throw this box away, which comes with a charging cable, a 3.5’m connector, adaptor and a beautiful magnetic cover — under which lies the Transit.The wireless speaker is a single unit and can be used with any device that has either Bluetooth or a 3.5mm jack — that means everything. As the name implies, it is ideal to put into a backpack or big bag, but it is probably a bit heavy to slip into a woman’s handbag, though. One of the most enjoyable ways to use it is to take it around the house, such as when you go into the kitchen to make a cuppa.To get to that remarkable design — the Transit is a neat rectangle, has rubbery matte finish, with a metallic strip down the centre which goes right through to the back of the speaker. That's where you can press a portion of it to pop out a kickstand. This is particularly well-executed. The device’s build quality is also great.And now, the most important part — sound. You can tell it’s going to be good the moment you put the power button on and hear the notes that indicate you’re powered on. Connect to a source via Bluetooth or the jack and you get a clear, clean sound, which is surprising given its small size. The bass isn't thumping and booming — just balanced and full. The sound range is more sophisticated and wider than you would get on small speakers. The Transit costs Rs 12,990 and competes with speakers from Bose, JBL, etc. It is available on love4apple.com, Amazon and several other online stores.THE SENNHEISER CX 275S IN-EAR EARPHONESRs 2,990 The Sennheiser CX 275S in-ear earphones don’t look anything special at all. You would think they should, because they’re from one of the most high-end audio brands in the world. But no, this barebones pair of earphones is completely unassuming — no colour, no design elements... nothing. They look like the usual black earplugs; you could dismiss them as being your everyday ear plugs; that is, until you put them into your ears and switch on the music. The rich and full sound made my eyes widen in surprise. The bass was perfect and the higher frequencies very nice. In fact, I’d venture to say the Sennheiser CX 275s is about the best sound I’ve heard on earphones that small. The earphone set is supposed to cut external noise and, to some extent, it does, but when you hear such quality music, you’re not likely to notice noise anyway. It’s very comfortable to wear, but you’ll need to the care of them, ensuring that one good accidental tug doesn’t snap them. A single control on the wire gives you ON or OFF and control over tracks. And there’s a microphone so you can interrupt the music for a call. Testing this out, I was told, much to my amusement, by many friends that I sounded clear for the first time. At Rs 2,990, it may seem expensive, but it is a steal given its incredible sound and clarity. It works with any smartphone or device that has a 3.5 mm jack, is OS agnostic, but not Bluetooth-enabled. It comes in a little cloth pouch, with an extra set of caps for the ear buds. mala.bhargava@gmail.com;twitter@malabhargava(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 10-03-2014)
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One of the pioneers behind the iPhone, software engineer Greg Christie, is leaving Apple, a spokesman has said. "Greg has been planning to retire later this year after nearly 20 years at Apple," an official said in an email yesterday, saying he had made vital contributions to Apple. Christie was part of the team that developed the iOS software for the first iPhone, which came out in 2007. Christie was until now leading a team working on a so-called human interface team developing more software for Apple. His role will be taken over by the current vice president for design, Jonathan Ive. Ive in recent years has been working on Apple products' external look. But industry publications say he has played a major role in developing the latest version of the iPhone operating system iOS 7. (AFP)
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Slideshare Now MobileIt's difficult to believe that Slideshare, the presentations portal now owned by LinkedIn, didn’t have a proper mobile app all this time. However, the mobile version of the website worked pretty well so in a sense it wasn’t missed. But now LinkedIn has just released a free app for iOS and Android. You do a quick sign-in with a route of your choice, and you’re good to go. But you can’t create presentations through this app — it’s strictly a viewer. The app works with a slick smoothness. You choose from topics of interest, or use the search to look for something specific. Problem is you can’t filter and refine the search. The topics are also very broad and don’t help you get to specific interests. The results throw up many old presentations, which is always a nuisance the search. The topics are also very broad and don’t help you.Click It, Google StyleGoogle has brought some nice photography tricks to its new app, Camera, available for Android 4.4 users free on the Play Store. The app works separately from your phone’s own camera. It’s obvious that it’s been designed to keep things utterly simple. That will make casual users happy but annoy those who want to have some control over settings like ISO and white balance. Well, they’ll just have to switch to the phone’s camera app for that. On Google’s Camera app, what you get is the ability to take a photo and then give it some bokeh, even if it is faked. You aim at an object, shoot, and then move the camera slowly upward to capture some additional background info. Then, if all goes well, you get the object in focus and the background nicely blurred out. You can also shoot panoramas and 360 degree photo spheres.Medium On Your Minithe publishing platform Medium, spun off by Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, has a stunningly beautiful app for the iPhone which works well on the iPad by going 2x. It isn’t bad looking on the web, medium.com, either, of course, but the smooth way the app works really enhances reading pleasure. Medium (for which you sign in with Twitter) is all about content and is really for people who love to read. From your Twitter feed, Medium collects and surfaces articles you might want to read and also has selections and collections to browse and read from. The free Medium app really uses the iPad’s screen beautifully and fits right in with what the tablet was first envisaged for — leaning back and enjoying content. Swipe to move across articles, bookmark to read again and share with others. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 16-06-2014)
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These days if anyone asks for a recommendation for a decently priced smartphone, I immediately think Moto-something. The Moto X and then the Moto G offered a great Android experience for half the price of other brands. And, now, the Moto E takes the cake. At Rs 6,999, we have a device that Flipkart ran out of in a day or so. Stocks get replenished, but lapped up again as Android fans on a shoestring budget head to the online store — the only route the Moto E that is available. Obviously, that means you can't see and feel it in a shop, but enough reviews and users will tell you that it's fantastic value for money. There’s no doubt that all the other phone makers squabbling for a share of the sub-Rs 10,000 market now have serious trouble on their hands. The fact that the Moto E is only available online and won’t easily reach first-time buyers in rural India, where Motorola has no mindshare, is the only saving grace for them.Not light, not heavy, not big, not small — the Moto E is well-built and well-designed. It looks similar to the Moto G and Moto X, though it’s a little thicker and heavier. It’s all excellent material at the front and back, and has the ergonomics down pat. Its glass face — Gorilla Glass 3 — gleams out at you and the back is rubberised; and even though greasy fingers will smear it, you can easily wipe it clean. The phone has gently rounded corners and softened edges that meet the slightly curved back to make the phone very easy and comfortable to hold. Perfect for someone who makes a lot of calls — and it’s a dual SIM, just the way buyers in India, especially in the low-cost segment, like it. The Moto E has a wonderful grip, both because of its size and the material on the back panel. The white version could get dirty if you’re not careful. Theoretically, you can also change backs, provided the back panels are available when you need them.Like the other two Motos, but even more so, the E doesn’t bank on specs to be a worthwhile device. That’s one of the refreshing things about this series, so far. The Moto E’s specs are, in fact, outdated. Who looks at a dual core any more when even inexpensive phones are quad cores. And just 1 GB RAM? A tiny bit of storage space? On the other hand, the phone runs the latest Android version and will get updates quicker than others. We hope! Even the screen is low-res compared to what you get these days. And, yet, its colours pop out and it looks just fine and there’s not too much compromise on viewing angles.Without much skinning and trickery, the Moto E works smoothly. Not super-fast, but good enough for many things, including moderate-level gaming. Navigation is the smoothest. Movie watching is good, social networking is fine and so are all the Google functions you get on an Android phone such as Google Now and Maps. The battery is a 1980 mAh and should last you the day if you don’t use it heavily. So what’s to dislike?Well, the camera. We have on board a mere 5 MP rear camera — no front camera, so no grainy selfies. You can capture a car number with it, a big flower outdoors, but forget about really getting into the joy of mobile photography with this little thing. There isn’t even a flash, though there’s a collection of filters and effects including panorama and HDR. You don’t get 720p video recording. If there’s one thing to miss, it’s really the cameras considering how quickly that becomes important to users even if they didn’t think they wanted it in the first place. But then, all arguments come to a screeching halt at the price. If Motorola were to go up the alphabet a little more, one could have a phone that would kill off the feature phone.(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 16-06-2014)
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Wearable computers like Google Glass and the Samsung Galaxy Gear watch may not have caught fire yet, but that hasn't stopped mobile game developers from rushing to create apps for the new devices, eager to seize what they hope is the next big moment in consumer technology. An array of new smartwatches and devices like fitness tracker Fitbit will go on display this week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, heralding a potential breakthrough for the devices in 2014. Of the 3,300 companies exhibiting at the conference, starting 7 January, about 300 are focused on digital health, according to Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association.And there is reason for this optimism. A new Accenture survey (Accenture Digital Consumer Tech Survey 2014) found that more than half of consumers (52 per cent) are interested in buying wearable technologies such as fitness monitors for tracking physical activity and managing their personal health. The survey of more than 6,000 people in six countries – Australia, Canada, India, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States -- showed that many are also interested in buying smart watches (46 per cent) and Internet-connected eyeglasses (42 per cent).In a consumer electronics world dominated by smartphones, HDTVs, laptop computers and tablet PCs, a new market category is generating significant consumer buying interest: wearable technologies. Wearable technologies deliver a wide range of capabilities: fitness monitors track a person’s heart rate and calories burned, while Internet-connected eyeglass displays enable consumers to browse the Internet, take digital photos and receive hands-free notifications. Among the six countries, consumers in India were most interested in buying fitness monitors (80 per cent), smart watches (76 per cent) and Internet-enabled eyeglasses (74 per cent).“In the past year wearable technologies have emerged as the next big consumer electronics market category, particularly for health and wellness,” said Mattias Lewren, global managing director of Accenture’s Electronics and High-Tech industry group. “To capitalize on this growth opportunity, consumer electronics companies should consider investing in wearable product innovation and industrial design, and building ecosystems that connect wearables to the broader array of interactive digital networks. Every consumer is a digital consumer, and the keen interest in wearable technology provides further evidence of that.”In addition, the survey found significant consumer interest in purchasing phablets, an emerging category of mobile devices that combine smartphone and tablet PC functions while featuring a screen size of five-to-seven inches -- in between a traditional smartphone and a tablet PC. The survey also unveiled strong purchase plans over the next year for traditional smartphones, HDTVs, laptops and tablet PCs. Consumers Crave PhabletsMore than half of consumers (52 per cent) who plan to buy a traditional smartphone in the next year indicated they would prefer a phablet. And while interest in phablets was significant, the surveyed also revealed that consumers continue to show strong interest in buying traditional smartphones and tablet PCs. During the next year, for instance, 52 per cent plan to purchase a smartphone and 40 per cent a tablet PC. Similarly, 41 per cent intend to buy a HDTV and 38 per cent a laptop. Consumers’ plans to buy these four types of multi-function devices – typically the most popular product categories in consumer electronics -- far exceed the percentages that plan to purchase single-function devices such as home game consoles (25 per cent), Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) navigation units (23 per cent) and ebook readers (22 per cent).Indians Among Keenest ConsumersConsistent with their keen interest in buying wearable technologies, consumers in India ranked highest among the six countries in the percentages that plan to buy consumer electronics products during the next year in numerous categories. For example, 80 per cent plan to buy a smartphone; more than two-thirds (69 per cent) a HDTV; nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) a traditional tablet PC, and almost two-thirds (63 per cent) a laptop PC. “India is clearly a major growth market for consumer electronics,” said Lewren. “Craving more personalized digital experiences, the country’s consumers rank among the world’s most willing to pay for and use consumer electronics devices -- including wearable technologies.”
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How does one look with an evaluative eye and a level head at a product that started a revolution? Apple’s iPad certainly changed aspects of my life in countless ways as I’m sure it did others’. Reading, news, and art are only some of the wonderful things that took up large welcome spaces in my everyday routine, purely thanks to the iPad. So today, when I look at the fifth avatar of this amazing creation from Apple, I feel almost guilty even at the fleeting thought that the iPad Air isn’t quite the dramatic difference we saw between a MacBook or any other notebook, and the MacBook Air, that sliver-thin work of art that seems impossibly light even years after it’s been around and been compared with ultrabooks that sprouted up in imitation. The iPad Air isn’t a breathtaking difference from its earlier versions. But I’d have to agree with the majority of reviewers when they say it’s the best tablet around. That, it is. I’ve been through all generations of the bigger non-Mini iPad, skipping the 4th gen. I use my iPad 3 to the hilt. I can certainly say that between the iPad and the Samsung Note 2 and 3, I’ve tortured my left hand more than it deserves with one device being too heavy and one being too wide to be held for long hours. So holding the Air feels so much better that I envy those who get their first iPads now. As ever, it’s that seemingly flawless design that only Apple knows how to come up with. The tablet is now narrower and thinner, and the bezels on the sides are down to half their width, giving more screen space to the user. The screen is very nice and somehow lets iOS 7, Apple’s newest operating system for mobile devices, sit comfortably and look as if it fits just right. I wasn’t overjoyed with the change in style from iOS6 to iOS7, but It’s beginning to grow on me on the iPad Air. The design has been tweaked in keeping with the popular iPad Mini of which the new Air looks a larger version. The iPad Air, like its predecessors, is premium and feels it. When you lean back with this device, you never doubt for a moment that you’re holding something of solid value. No hint of plastic here. The iPad Air can’t really be thought of separately from its software and the fact of the massive ecosystem of apps that have practically sparked off the app industry. If you’re wondering Android or Apple, that’s one of the things you should consider. Android tablets get along better with other devices, but on the other hand, there are hundreds of devices and accessories created just for the iPad or iPhone. Android tablets still don’t have a big selection of tablet-specific apps, but yes, they are so customisable. And then there’s Windows, slowly growing in popularity. Also, they seem more work-friendly as many Windows applications aren’t on iOS. With the iPad Air, Pages, Numbers and Keynote, equivalents of Microsoft Office, are now free. As expected, the new iPad works very fast and is great for gaming, movies and heavy visual rendering. Interestingly, the older generation iPads still work well for most people. So, if you’re getting a great deal on an iPad 3 or 4, you’re not disadvantaged though if you have repetitive stress injury, a lighter device is so much better. You may also want to consider the iPad Mini. If budget is not a constraint and you are going in for your first iPad, the iPad Air is the device to go for. mala.bhargava@gmail.com (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 27-01-2014)
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LG is being a little modest by calling this 5.5-inch smartphone “Lite”. True, it has a Mediatek MT6577 processor, a 540 x 960 pixel display with just 200 ppi density and just 1GB of RAM, but the G Pro Lite is otherwise so packed with capabilities and features, that it’s definitely another great option for those who want a mid-level phone without being left envying the top-enders. The G Pro Lite is not in any way a new design – it has the same familiar look and feel and could be any phone at all, from the outside – but if you’ve been hunting for a budget phone, (it costs Rs 22,990 but is available for less), give this device a good look. It’s about the size of a Galaxy Note and quite comfortable to hold. Rounded edges help there. Look closer and you’ll see two things that are different on the G Pro Lite. First, there’s an extra capacitive button on the bottom row. Tap it and you can switch between two SIM cards, one of which supports 3G. While we’re on the subject of taps, you tap twice on the screen to wake the screen up and again to make it go to sleep – an incredibly useful feature. On this phone, it chooses to sometimes not work, even if you tap quite firmly, and you can bet this will happen when you’re trying to show it off. But when the knock-knock feature does work, it beats pressing a button to start up. The phone runs on Android 4.1, a few steps behind, but nevertheless works fast. It’s got all of LG’s favourite software, including the multitasking apps. The display on the G Pro Lite isn’t high on specs but is very workable with strong colours and uncompromised angles. It’s smooth and responsive, as is the rest of the phone. It’ll handle mid-range gaming, for example. And it has a hefty huge battery with a 3,142 mAh rating. There’s also expandable memory. The 8MP camera is middling and just fine for everyday casual shots. But I did mention two things that were different and visible and the second is a surprise thin stylus fitted into a slot on the top of the device. It doesn’t work in the same way as Samsung’s Note does, but it works. mala@pobox.comTwitter: @malabhargava
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Sizzling hot startup, Uber, is now in Delhi to offer its point-to-point car service - with a tap on an app. Download the Uber app on Android, iOS or BlackBerry, and sign up, completing your brief profile. You can also use m.uber.com if you don't use these phones.Once in, you can just move a pin on a map to choose your pick up and drop point. The fare will show up and your car will turn up in 15 minutes. But this isn't your everyday rattletrap. You get to ride in luxury in an Audi, Accord, Camry or other cool cars at only a little more than the price of ordinary cabs. The car in no way looks like a cab or has any branding on it, so it's like your own. The Uber app also shows up the driver's photograph, name, and contact. You can track the car real time as it makes its way to you and when you're on your way, they can send your ETA to someone who's expecting you or keeping an eye on you. Particularly nice for women who need a safe ride someplace or for anyone who plans on going for a party and doesn't want to drive. The base fare in Delhi (Uber is also available in Bangalore and will make its way to other cities) The fare is based on both distance and time. Rs 70 is the base fare, and then it's Rs 20/km and Rs 2 per minute. Uber happens to be powered by Google - it funds the service which is now in 50 cities around the world.mala@pobox.comTwitter: @malabhargava
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