Skyping between iPad and Windows Phone 8

One of the reasons I moved up to a smartphone with front-facing camera was so I could Skype with my dad, allowing him to see our preschooler more often.  But after many attempts trying to use my Windows Phone 8 device to "phone" his iPad, I was almost ready to give up.  On the iPad, no incoming call was being detected. 

I was going to resort to Google Hangouts and using my wife's Android phone.  Google Hangouts required a iOS upgrade, so I updated my dad's 3rd generation iPad to iOS 7.0.2 and in the process, I updated Skype as well on the Apple device. Before heading home, I decided to try Skype once more and eureka, video-conferencing finally worked! 

Now the challenge is to get my dad to learn a couple of steps and try Skyping with me when we are at two different locations and I can't directly assist him.

The one major problem with the BlackBerry PlayBook

Some rights reserved by Charles Williams

With the availability of a good alternative Web browser, OrigamiBrowser, the Playbook became a very adequate tablet.  But it still has two serious and related failings:  poor battery life/high power consumption, plus a very long boot time from cold.

Under my normal usage (connected to Wifi, not a lot of video playback), my Playbook lasts about 3-4 hours.  Even with attempts to conserve power by turning on Airplane mode and putting the device into Standby, it still drains the battery more than expected.  If I turned off the tablet until I needed to use it I'd need to wait upwards of 3 minutes for the Playbook to finish booting and be ready for use:  completely unfeasible.

So I purchased an external battery with 2A output, capable of charging an Ipad, and on paper, capable of charging the Playbook.  Playing with the connectors, which I don't have to do for either an Ipad or my Lumia 920, I am able to get the Playbook to charge about 10% of the time.  To top it off, using a wall charger, it takes 3-4 hours to completely charge, about as long as the device lasts on a single charge.  Something is not right here.

So while the Playbook lasts long enough for a couple meetings and my daily commute, it isn't a device you can take to a conference and expect to use for the entire day.  I'd like to keep using the Playbook and not buy another tablet device but it will likely be relegated to use by my preschooler in the near future.

Nokia Lumia 920 first impressions

Coming from a Samsung Focus running Windows Phone 7.8 background, my first impressions:

• Faster Web browsing as pages rendered quickly.  Ditto for PDFs
• No need to plug into computer to update operating system software as was necessary for WP7 and need for Zune
• Larger screen is good but expected to be able to put more Live Tiles on screen, that is, 5 small tiles across rather than 4 as with Samsung Focus.  Tiles almost look too big
• Sharpness of resolution appreciated - back to what I was used to with 4th generation iPod Touch 
• Camera is disappointing in terms of sharpness but need to test further with latest Lumia updates 
• Weight of phone is hefty but I think should be something manageable.  I notice when I think about the weight of my Focus in hand, even though it is an extremely light phone like the iPhone 5, it begins to feel weighty when you deliberately think about its weight 
• 
  

Continue with Windows Phone?

I've been using a Samsung Focus since November 2011.  I bought it used and it was already released for a year.  It was missing a front-facing camera which I didn't think of much use until I wanted to have grandpa see my son using video calling.  I came from a pairing of a Windows Mobile 6 phone plus a 4th generation iPod Touch.  In retrospect, the WM6 device was awful but I hung onto it for almost 4 years due to the initial cost of $400.

So what are the options now:  iPhone 5S, Moto X, Nokia Lumia 1020?   The iPhones prior to iPhone 5 have a screen that is just too small for reading fixed-format PDFs and the like but the iPhone 5 has a decent-sized screen and iOS 7 is intriguing.  Moto X is also interesting and has some subtleties that I probably would like; it's Leo Laporte's current phone of choice.  Lumia 1020 is too camera-centric and too expensive at this time. 

Well, I'm one to watch my budget so I'm considering the almost year-old Nokia Lumia 920.  Yes, possibly another Windows Phone. 

A good web browser makes a huge difference

Some rights reserved by elPadawan

While I was testing out the Maxthon web browser for Playbook, Origami Browser was released.  For almost all web sites tested, this excellent browser is able to render them well, browser menu usage (accessing bookmarks, going back/forward, etc.) is quick and easy, and finally text editing capabilities, as I noted as a must requirement in my previous post, is superb.  I donated to the developer of this free browser; an excellent developer for an end-of-life product deserves support. 

Text editing capabilities are built on top of Playbook functionality, which is actually very good.  This is unlike the Maxthon browser that poorly implements its own text selection, copy-paste, etc. functionality.

Maxthon browser for Playbook versus iPad Safari browser

Not having access to a laptop, I am using a Playbook.  While the default Playbook browser is less than adequate for many tasks and web sites, the free Maxthon browser performs admirably with many web sites, due to it mimicking an Android browser user agent (among others).  According to What's My User Agent?, the user agent is:

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.4; zh-cn; HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e Build/GRJ22)Maxthon AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1

Compare this to the user agent of the default Playbook browser:  

Mozilla/5.0 (PlayBook; U; RIM Tablet OS 2.1.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/536.2+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.2.1.0 Safari/536.2+
   

Using Google Docs is a better experience than with the default Playbook browser and no Bluetooth keyboard.  Having said that, I am now typing this post using an iPad and the ease of use is noticeably higher.  The iOS copy and paste, text selection and cursor repositioning (magnifying glass), and auto spelling correction features are more intuitive than those of the Maxthon browser (Maxthon doesn't use the default Playbook OS edit features).  I used to think that the iPad is mainly a "consumption" device but it is large enough to do multi-finger touch typing with the virtual keyboard.  Combined with the excellent edit functionality, it is an worthy laptop alternative when you have a table and case/stand.

Hmmm, just noticed some weirdness with attempting to apply some labels to this post, but I think it was because I was zoomed in.

So what makes a good web browser?  Besides web pages rendering as intended by the page author, if you're going to do anything where you have to type some characters (this may include typing a URL or search term) and if you don't have a hardware keyboard, you should have good text editing capability.  That is, auto spelling correction and cursor repositioning, and for productivity:  copy-and-paste and text selection features.

[Updated August 2, 2013]

CBC Spark: Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection

• Listen
• Need to realize that media out of context can be misinterpreted by others.  Need to have a conversation with those upset with us, rather than just saying they are "wrong"
• We get less international news than before from broadcasts (newspaper, newscast, etc.).  Broadcasts are giving us what we want (local news) rather than what we need.  We also curate for news that we already have an understanding of.  International news is important because we live in a globalized world.   
• Broadly, news/information comes from three channels:
• professionally curated (newspaper, newscast, etc.)
• our own searches
• social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
• Despite being able to look at any web site around the world, we are still very narrow-minded
• One problem is homophily:  Our friends typically have the same view and get similar news as we do 
• Language restrictions:  Most of us have no access to the part of Web created by hundreds of millions of Chinese people due to language issues
• Bridge figures - those that know two cultures equally well and can explain one culture to those of the other culture
• Difficult to find information via serendipity because Web is programmed to provide links to things we will like with great certainty (that is, similar to things we liked before).  This is caused by the risk-adverse nature of  the Web driven by advertising