And the fanboys rejoice, from this day onward, let it be known as the day Samsung Galaxy S4 owners didn’t have to deal with Android Lag every again! Wait, lets slow down, this is simply a teaser image from the famous Dan Rosenberg. So, its not unlocked right now…. but rest assure this man is working hard to get you S4 lovers the tools you need.

Hang in there folks, you’ll be able to flash a good and proper custom rom soon enough, until then, lag on my brothers, lag on!

I swear I went in with an open mind, primed to give it five stars for just for effort. The app which you may have heard about (if not, here) scans through the apps you have installed and attempts to find and list identical or presumably acceptably-similar apps for Windows Phone, the idea I believe being that it quickly snuffs out what may be a heavily-exaggerated reluctance to switch from Android to Windows Phone due to a perceived lack of apps. Right?

As I was installing it, I saw some harsh reviews, the term bait-and-switch here, used car salesman there etc. Whatever, hit the install button, it went through my apps, came up with a 77% match figure — higher than I had anticipated actually, I was impressed and wanted to take a closer look at the list and explore the notion of getting a Windows Phone (or at least playing along). I imagine the bait-and-switch remarks were along the lines of this app failing to find a significant portion of your apps on Windows Phone made by the same developer and therefore quite similar, rather making matches under the perhaps liberal discretion of the app’s producer. But I didn’t get to that bait-and-switch. I didn’t get to a list.

I didn’t get there because I encountered a sign-in box for a Microsoft account (Skydrive/Live/MSDN/Hotmail/Xbox/MSN/etc) that I either had to sign into or go through the motions of creating an account with them and then sign in to have this list dumped someplace else unnecessarily. Seems using Google Drive or, heck, just displaying the damn list without involving cloud storage was just not good enough an idea in Redmond where you gotta juice these opportunities, they seem to feel, to take advantage of this situation to get a few more Outlook.com signups. So what if it’s much less effective in its ostensible purpose. So what? Screw just pushing WP, got the original bigger picture to think about, golden opportunity to get a couple new Hotmail users!

Anyway, thanks a lot Microsoft, or whoever made this thing that might otherwise have impressed me were it not for this bullshit. Just another sign that Windows Phone rides in the back seat of priorities still at Microsoft. So I guess that’s the takeaway..

You rely on your smartphone for many things. One area that is lacking is integration with your TV watching. At best, the smartphone was used as a simple remote control to change channels. New apps make use of your phone as a search tool and scheduler. Finally, the phone and TV might really work together.

DirecTV Taps Into Your Phone

This summer, DirecTV will release into beta its latest app, DirecTV Voice. They have been working with Nuance, creators of Dragon Naturally Speaking, to create a voice controlled app to search DirecTV channels for your favorite shows. Their goal is to finally get rid of scrolling through the program grid displayed on the TV screen to find programs.

By using voice recognition, they are trying to also get away from pushing buttons or sliding through nested menus. Nuance is the county’s premier voice recognition specialists so they plan this release to have a high rate of success with this voice-driven application. Think of it as Siri with infinite knowledge of TV shows and movies.

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What’s this? The brand new lag infested Samsung Galaxy S4 comes with just a little under half of its advertised 16gig memory gone! Bloatware and “features” don’t come cheap in the storage world. But wait, how come the world chewed out Microsoft for this very same thing on the 64gig Surface Pro, but you never hear a word about this Samsung scum bag behavior. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t care less, but for those of you who made this a big deal on the surface, I expect to be making it a big deal on the SG4. Right?

But does the HTC One love the Mophie? Since I’ve been running my HTC One to the ground, I can honestly say the Battery had yet to disappoint or leave me stranded. So, I’ll go out on a limb here and say the One doesn’t need it, but for those of you who are super obsessed with your battery life, the HTC One version of the iPhone savior will cost you $99. I will admit, it is a nice complement to the HTC One’s lack of replaceable battery. Continue reading »

Kristofer Brozio: testfreaks.com: AT&T HTC One Not Quite Compatible with HTC Media Link HD (Yet)

Marti Meyers: Ugh.

Jim Szymanski: I’ll say it again, and again, and again if need be. HTC makes some great hardware, but every one of their software engineers should get booted today. They are destroying the reputation of a good company. And when a software problem is detected, it takes a new HTC model to get it fixed. HTC could take some pointers from Nokia in the software development area. Make sure it works before you release it. And if despite that, there is still a problem, drop everything and focus all your attention on the current issue, for your current customers. Not for those who may buy your next One.

Murani Lewis: I seriously don’t understand how some people come to secure such positions and miss such obvious things. These are the types of things that simply require common sense to be caught and fixed.

Ramon Trotman: Sense…. Muahahahaaaa…. I see what you did just there.

Marti Meyers: Haha that was totally unintentional. But now funny

Comment now if you got the HTC One from AT&T!

Doug Simmons: I think Google Glass is one product I would have preferred Google to make a little harder to root, given the potential validity of some of the premature criticisms voiced here and the need for Google to keep things controlled (like pre-approving all apps) in order to try to curb misuse. Even Schmidt has his reservations. Now we need to rely on XDA admins to be responsible.. anyway, hello spycam and modified (like automobile-unlocked) texting and youtube apps.

David K: The guy used known vulnerabilities. You’d think Google would close the known vulnerabilities to at least attempt to harden the OS. iOS shows how good these guys are at .. 

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It may not be a bad decision, but it is not financially fruitful for Google if it was planning to extort money from its baddies Microsoft, Apple and others.

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The war is on snitches. Microsoft is releasing a new Android app that helps Android users make the switch to Windows phones by showing them that they can move to Windows phones without losing their favorite apps. It’s called “Switch to Windows Phone” and  is an Android exclusive at this point:

Switch to Windows Phone inventories all the applications on the Android phone and sends that inventory to the Microsoft SkyDrive cloud. When customers log in to the same SkyDrive account from the Switch to Windows Phone app loaded on their Windows Phone 8, the app finds the same set of applications. If there are no exact replacements, the app recommends similar ones, according to Guru Gowrappan, executive vice president for products at application search firm Quixey.

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In case you didn’t know ZTE is the fourth largest producer in the world. That’s a boatload of Android phones and tablets that are about to be adding coins to Microsoft’s piggy bank. As it stands approximately 80 percent of Android devices sold in the US are licensed reports Microsoft. The notable exception is Google-owned Motorola who continues to battle Microsoft in court with mixed results.

Yes Windows Phone still has a small market share but when your Android derived revenues can be shifted to fund your Windows Phone division the long play for Microsoft continues to be firmly in place.

Source: arstechnica