The Lumia 920 was supposed to be the savior of Windows Phone. It was going to finally usher Windows Phone into the mainstream. It packs the right goods for the job with forward-thinking features such as wireless charging, NFC, and a gorgeous large screen. But none of that matters now. Like the Lumia 900 before, the Lumia 920 is exclusive to AT&T. And that’s just dumb.
Windows Phone is finally ready to stand tall against Android and iOS. It’s a great platform with many exclusive features and design cues. Even considering HTC’s upcoming devices, the Lumia 920 was destined to be the flagship of WinPhone’s growing fleet, ready to carry the standard into battle. But this exclusive deal with AT&T strips the 920 of its potential impact on the mobile battlefield.
The Lumia 900 is also available exclusively from AT&T. That phone launched with much fanfare earlier this year. AT&T claimed it was the carrier’s largest device launch to date. There was a NYC concert and a lot of video ads. But even with all that noise and a killer price tag of $ 99, AT&T launched the phone on Easter Sunday. AT&T didn’t care about the Lumia 900. Don’t expect anything different this time around.
Most of us paying attention to the mobile wars are quietly rooting for Windows Phone. It’s hard not to like the system after playing with it for just a few minutes. It features elegance not found in iOS or Android. The front-end allows owners to get in and get out. But the platform still needs help primarily in the app department. Developers haven’t latched onto Windows Phone simply because it’s a smaller market share than iOS, Android or even BlackBerry. The Lumia 920 was supposed to help change that.
Nokia and Microsoft needed to get the Lumia 920 out there. It’s a waste that this phone is only available on one carrier, let alone a carrier that has shown in the past that it doesn’t know how to launch or support Windows Phone devices. This phone should have been available on multiple carriers. But instead someone was paid off. Carriers often pay manufacturers large stacks of cash to carry a phone exclusively.
The Lumia 920 is still a fantastic device. This exclusive deal does not remove anything from the 920 itself. However, with its availability limited to AT&T, there is no way the device will sell in the numbers required to make a meaningful impact for Nokia or Windows Phone. Until Nokia and Microsoft get these devices on more than one carrier, the Windows Phone doesn’t stand a chance to increase its market share.
“If we shadows have offended, / Think but this, and all is mended, / That you have but slumber’d here / While these visions did appear. / And this weak and idle theme, / No more yielding but a dream, / Gentles, do not reprehend: / if you pardon, we will mend: / And, as I am an honest Puck, / If we have unearned luck / Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue, / We will make amends ere long; / Else the Puck a liar call;”
HALO REACH ARE YOU KIDDING?? YOU HAVE RUINED CABELA’S NIGHT FOR THE LAST TIME, WE ARE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO PUT AN END TO THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL GOODBYE Video Rating: 4 / 5
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It’s safe to say that anticipation is high for the upcoming Windows 8 Release Preview, which will become available in the first week of June. While we’re still curious to see if Microsoft can better integrate the desktop and Metro environments of its latest operating system, the company has now revealed a significant change to the desktop portion of Windows 8 — a completely restyled visual appearance. As you might remember from the Consumer Preview, window borders and widgets featured a simplified and subdued look in comparison to the glass-like materials of Aero, which Microsoft now calls “dated and cheesy.” With the latest refresh, however, the company has pushed its modernistic philosophy even further to reveal a spartan (yet functional) interface that draws less attention to the chrome elements and allows the user to focus more on content.
Microsoft’s latest reveal was made as part of a larger, retrospective look at its development of Windows and the evolution of the operating system. At every step, the company states that its emphasis has been on the overall “learnability” of the environment. As such, Microsoft claims that it’s making great strides to ensure that consumers may quickly get up to speed with the latest OS, and hints that it has a number of reveals yet to be seen. In its very next breath, however, it also emphasized people’s ability to adapt and move forward, which suggests the number of changes might not be as concilatory as some might’ve hoped. Regardless, we’ll know for sure what Microsoft has in store in just a few weeks.
Kiss Aero goodbye: Latest Windows 8 build reveals minimalistic desktop UI originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 May 2012 19:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Bloomberg is reporting that the recently popularized Kunming-area fake Apple store is being investigated by Chinese authorities and it, along with another store, has been ordered to shut down.
The owners of said stores, including one Yu Cheng (who claims he’s doing Apple a favor), have been trying to become official, authorized retailers for years and they say they’re not violating any laws.
Not everyone is pleased:
“The authorities should stop these fake stores from operating and selling whatever they want,” said Xie Yonglin, an employee at Nanfang Yuan, one of Kunming’s authorized Apple sales agents. The unauthorized stores “have a negative impact on our products and brands.”
The funniest thing? Yu says Apple stores are woefully easy to copy, calling them on par with a school chemistry lab. We must also remember that except for the whole authorized reseller issue, it’s not completely illegal to have a nice, well-lit environment with lots of stuff for hipsters to do. If that were the case, Starbucks could sue almost every single modern coffee shop in Western Europe.
2011 looks a lot like 1984. One authority. One design. One way to work. It’s time for more choices. It’s time to explore. It’s time to live a free life. Learn more about Motorola XOOM™: moto.ly
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Graphene, “one of the hottest new materials in the field of nanotechnology,” has just made your car’s windshield wipers obsolete. Researchers at Vanderbilt University have devised a way to re-jigger graphene so that it sticks to smooth surfaces like ship hulls and windshields. Given that graphene can effortlessly repel water, you’ve just created a simple method to make rainproof your windshield. Quite handy.
“Graphene, eh?” Yup, it’s a new material that’s created by the alignment of “rows of carbon atoms arranged in rings.” I don’t think I need to remind you that carbon is everywhere, so it’s not exactly expensive to create.
Just as exciting is that the material is “10 times” (!) stronger than steel, and it’s quite handy at conducting electricity at room temperature.
It sounds like a comic book super-material. “Graphene—the solution to all the world’s problems!”
Now watch the windshield wiper lobby try to have the substance banned.
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Deloitte, the multi-faceted professional services company that’s perhaps best known for its annual Football Money League study, says that 2011 will be the year that computers stop being computers. The agency says that more than 50 percent of all “computing devices” sold this year will be non-PCs. You know, things like tablets, smartphones, and the like. So not only are the days of big, hulking desktops behind us (with the exception of gaming PCs, like the Digital Storm Black Ops), but other traditional computers, like your friendly neighborhood laptop, are on the way out.
There’s two other “big” predictions from Deloitte in this release.
One is that there will be zero operating system standardization when it comes to smartphones and tablets this year. I suppose that’s true, but there sorta is standardization in that there’s only two real options out there: iOS and Android. And really, both are fine operating systems; it’s not as if you’re walking in with a loss if you pick one over the other.
The other one is that enterprise will take tablets seriously this year. Remember netbooks? Those were big for about a minute (well, a few years), and then tablets showed up on the scene, pretty much out of the blue, and flashed that Men In Black memory-easer on us all, making us forget notebooks ever existed. Enterprise never really “took” to notebooks, but that will not be the case with tablets, where it’s predicted that enterprise will purchase a solid 25 percent of all tablets this year.
Are we looking at the final days of BIOS? Apparently so, if we’re to believe the BBC. Its replacement, UEFI (which I’ve taken to pronounce like UEFA, as in the UEFA Champions League), will be found on more and more PCs beginning next year. For end-users that immediately means one thing: much faster boot times.
The deal with BIOS is that it’s really quite old—it’s pushing 25 years old at this point. It’s not very efficient to try to run modern hardware when you’re constrained with that kind of legacy code.
Should your next PC use UEFI instead of BIOS you could see boot times go from minutes to seconds. I mean, your hard disk drive will still have to rev up, but it should no longer be the case where you can take a shower before you see the Windows logo.
And since the E in UEFI stands for extensible, it means it can be modified as companies develop cool new stuff for us to slap into your PC.
If this were Slashdot I’d say something like “I eagerly await our new UEFI overlords.”
The Jackson 5 on the Flip Wilson show singing Never Can Say Goodbye. This is a nice remix they did on the show, and the dancing is awesome. Thanks cdog.
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