Google Nexus 7– First impressions

Considering the fact that in our family of 3 we have 3 Ipods (1 of them being the Ipod-touch) and 2 versions of Iphones, when it came to choosing a tablet pc, the ideal choice should have been the Ipad. But after reviewing the amount of usage the Ipod touch has received in the last year of ownership, I was hesitant to pay the Apple tax and buy the Ipad, thus started the hunt for alternatives. 

Thankfully I only could find 2, one being Kindle Fire and other being Google’s own Nexus 7. If I had to buy an year ago, I probably would have bought kindle fire itself but after reading the reviews on the product, I went with the other alternative. 2 things that prevented me from going with Kindle Fire, 1 is its exclusion of accelerometer and the other is its extreme customization of Android OS (updates have to come from Amazon).

First impression, I loved it. It has a nice rubber grip on the back,.a nice responsive touch screen, pretty slim form factor. and is fairly light weight. The size was something I was apprehensive about (for Ipad has a 10” screen while this is only 7”), boy was I surprised, it being 7” makes it easier to hold in 1 hand and use other hand to manipulate the tablet. The battery life is pretty impressive (haven’t measured or compared but it seems to last a while). The underlying CPU is pretty responsive and even after playing around with Google Earth for a while, I didn’t feel it warm at all. One other thing I liked the most was the lack of mechanical home button on the Nexus which is a standard for Ipad.    

It is an Android OS and not the IOS, so it has a bit of learning curve but in less than a couple of hours I was able to install apps and check updates and all the good stuff. The screen resolution is not very high but I could hardly make out the difference between my Iphone4 (with retina display) and the Nexus 7.

One caveat though, the screen on my Iphone is so strong that I have let my daughter toss it around couple of times on a tiled floor and it has come out unscathed, but I don’t think Nexus 7 can stand that treatment.

I haven’t played around with the front and back cameras or taking any videos or pics with those. I doubt if I ever will do it considering we use our Iphone’s for most of that work and if we need more precision and clarity we bring out the big guns (Canon Rebel Xsi).

If you are in the market for a tablet PC and are on the fence whether to pay APPLE the tax or not, then I would recommend Google Nexus 7.       

Iphone 4 home button problem – revisited

Before Apple introduced the iOS 5, my iphone 4 with its iOS 4 had to be connected to the PC to update the software once in a while. But with iOS 5 it introduced “over the air updates” and said even Iphone 4 can be upgraded too but forgot to mention that the phone needs to be connected to the computer once in a while and do a sync with iTunes, In my case failing to do this makes the home button on Iphone 4 irresponsive. 

I had written a blog post a few months ago that one needs to hook up a vacuum cleaner to clear the dust beneath the home button. I think I was wrong, I realized accidentally and proved to myself again and again that if the home button becomes irresponsive then connect to the computer and do a sync with iTunes.

One interesting thing to note is that my wife’s Iphone 4s which was launched with iOS 5 does not suffer the same problem. She rarely syncs with ITunes but her phone’s home button seem to be working like new for ever. My guess is that APPLE made changes in the hardware to support the iOS 5 over the air updates which was never revealed to the public. 

One more interesting thing to note is that the solution I found for the home button problem on Iphone 4 is not recorded anywhere on the web. So, I wonder if my solution works with my phone only.

Iphone Home button

Iphone users can tell you how important the home button on the phone is. Time and again it goes out of calibration (it did it twice for me in last year and half). In my case It got so bad that some times I had to click multiple times before the click got recognized and the ,more frustrating the behavior was random for it sometimes would treat multiple clicks as multiple clicks itself. I would have taken it to the Apple’s Genius bar but the phone was out of warranty. 

While looking for solution on the web, I came across a simple one. The solution was to turn off the phone and stick a vacuum cleaner or an air blower to the place where stick the charger. Since I had nothing to lose, I decided to give it a shot. Instead of air blower, I used the vacuum cleaner and vola it fixed the problem.

I have repeated this step twice so far and have gotten good results both times, so give it a shot before tearing apart the phone or driving up to the genius bar.   

ps: There is one more software solution, I came across. I haven’t tried to see if this works, but you could try.  

iOS 5 and lateral thinking

In general with Apple and its iOS everything is always perfect and over time I have come to expect the simplicity and perfection from them. Any small deviation from this is completely unheard of and my lateral thinking mind does not come into play when working with Apple devices. Last week I had to do a tiny bit of it with my Iphone4.

When Apple rolled out the iOS 5, I was eager to get the new OS and adopted it pretty quickly. The updating even though it was a 2 step process (update ITunes, reboot and update the OS) was pretty clean. After the OS was updated, I saw a notification in the App Store that the the Flickr app I have installed needs updating. I clicked on the update and nothing seemed to happen. I kept pressing it to update and it refused to do anything. For a moment I started to wonder if the screen has lost its touch sensitivity (thankfully no).  

I went a bit lateral in my thinking and deleted the Flickr app and asked it to be freshly installed, this time around, it refused to install. It said the terms and conditions have changed and I need to accept them before I continue the installation, I clicked on OK but instead of taking me to terms and conditions it kept taking me back to App Store. I repeated the process multiple times but to no resolution.

Since I can’t let go of the Flickr app, I took the additional step of connecting the phone to the computer and getting the Flickr app through ITunes. This time around it popped the updated terms and conditions and once I agreed it installed the app.

Now for some good and bad about the iOS5, I like the new OS but I have noticed some issues with the same.

• The news stand app seems like a joke for the only news paper that qualifies for this is NY Times (rest are all some form of magazines).
• I have turned off Face Time and used to work beautifully in OS 4 but in OS 5 it appears as though turning on or off of Face Time doesn’t make any difference.
• The Reminders feature is a nice one to have but it is unlike the APPLE I was used to, just takes too many steps to setup a reminder.
• The are a few cool things in iOS5, one them is the iMessage ( a blessing for people like me who refuse to sign up for the text message plan).
• Another big improvement I noticed is in the camera utility (more post processing capabilities).
• Because of the added features, the settings app has become bit more elongated and complicated. I liked the iOS4 in this aspect. 
• Haven’t used the icloud service, hence no comments.

A year with Iphone

About a year ago when I decided to upgrade to a smart phone, I wanted to get a cool Android phone. But thanks to AT&T the only good smart phone they had in their line up at that time was the Iphone4.

After a year of usage, I am pretty impressed with the Iphone4 and now I am almost a fan of Apple and iOS.

My usage model of the phone is pretty limited, I use it mostly like a phone to make and receive phone calls. There are only couple of smart features on the phone that I use very regularly, One is the calendar and the other is the Notes. I do check my Gmail once in a while on the phone but rarely reply to emails from the phone. Once in a while I use the GPS. To give an example of how less I use the phone for the web related things, I have never exceeded the 100MB data plan that AT&T offers. 

Initially when I got it, it felt a bit big in my hand but over time I got used to it. The phone is snappy and the touch screen is really touch sensitive. The glass front and back of the phone are magnets for finger prints, I suggest getting a protective coating done (most malls have one or two shops to do this). The GPS is fast loading (even without the cell signal). The notes are easy to type into and the calendar feature is easy to work with. Of the limited apps I have installed (Flickr, Google, Google places and so on) most everything load real fast.

The 720p resolution video camera is really good and I have managed to capture some of the once in a life time moments of my daughter with this. That said, I am not really impressed by the still picture performance of the camera. The images look great on the phone but once loaded on to big screen it appears a grainy. I wonder if it has to do with the HDR function of the iOS.

The other feature I really cherish in this phone is the Ipod feature. I use it so much that I have rarely turned on the radio in the car. The sound quality from the phone is not the best but good enough for my purposes.  

One thing I do not like is the fact that Apple does not provide an easy way to turn on the flash led to be used as a flash light. I had to download an app for that, even though the app itself is free, it keep loading ads.  

The battery life is pretty good, without loading a single YouTube video I manage to get 4 to 5 days of battery life but watching videos from the web really drain out the battery. I do keep the wi-fi on all the time, but the GPS function I have enabled only on for a few applications.

I noticed a few things that Apple has done to optimize battery life. The first and very obvious one for me was that the mail checking frequency set to default once a day (I have changed it to manual). The other thing is, the phone doesn’t keep searching for wi-fi round the clock but only looks for it only once when it wakes up from sleep and doesn’t bother after that. I am sure the GPS is kept off unless an application demands it.  I am not sure if the phone goes into different states of sleep to save power, for sometimes I need to press the top button and not the bottom home button to wake up the phone.

I paid $199 to get this phone and surprisingly Apple has reduced the price to $99. At that price I think it is definitely worth considering. Now looking forward to iOS 5.