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Samsung Galaxy Nexus review roundup

Posted by in Android, Mobile on Nov 18th, 2011 | 0 comments

 

Myriam Joire, Engadget

“Then again, we’re quite fond of the app list which now doubles as a task manager, and the ability to access the camera directly from the lock screen is a lovely touch (and a hat tip to HTC’s Sense UI). Other tidbits include the search bar which is persistent across each of the five home screens, the clever app tray animations (pure eye candy), and the Easter egg in the “About” menu. There’s one more thing we noticed immediately: multiple text sizes in the Gmail client — at last.”

Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch

“Thankfully, the device’s giant screen has an upside: it’s a beauty to look at. Text looks fantastic. And the relatively vast screen real estate means that applications can fit in more buttons and content without feeling cramped. Oh, and remember the three software nav buttons I discussed earlier? When you’re watching a movie, those vanish entirely, which means nearly the entire front of the phone becomes a video display. It’s really nice.”

Josh Topolsky, The Verge

“The Galaxy Nexus is the best Android phone ever made. It’s one of the best smartphones ever made, and with a couple of minor tweaks (particularly to the camera), it could be the best smartphone ever produced.

Still, there’s really not much to knock here. The hardware is elegant and smartly designed. The software is beautiful and useful. Google has cleaned up a lot of the bad, and replaced it with a serious amount of good. It’s faster, smarter, and a lot more friendly than any of its predecessors. Ice Cream Sandwich easily gives iOS and Windows Phone a run for their money, and in many ways, it’s a superior operating system than either of them.”

Daniel Bader, Mobile Syrup

“There is something immediately friendly about the Galaxy Nexus, as if you’ve seen it  somewhere before. In spite of its curved silhouette, the design owes a lot to two previous Samsung devices: the Nexus S and, more effusively, the Galaxy S II. It retains the slight bottom hump, though less marked, and the pitch-black Super AMOLED display. The front is remarkable in its austerity; there are no capacitive touch buttons to interrupt the bezel and its symmetry. It’s as if you’re staring into a black hole.”

Kent German and Jessica Dolcourt, Cnet

“The Samsung Galaxy Nexus brings a ton of new and very welcome features with Ice Cream Sandwich. The design is sharp, the screen is gorgeous, and the internal performance is fantastic.

Mike Isaac, Wired

“My personal favorite hardware feature is the Nexus’ snappy rear-facing camera. On paper, its 5 megapixels don’t sound like a whole hell of a lot, especially considering many of today’s high-end Android phones come standard with 8 megapixels. Google says it isn’t interested in a megapixel spec war with other devices, and instead wants to speed up its phones’ shutter speeds and response times between shots.”

Adobe adds support for BlackBerry PlayBook, iPhone and iPad to Adobe Flash Builder 4.5.1

Posted by in Adobe, AIR, Android, Apple, BlackBerry, Development, Flash, Flash Builder, Flash Mobile, Flex, iPad, iPhone, Mobile, PlayBook, Tablets on Jun 22nd, 2011 | 0 comments

Developers can now use the Adobe Flash Builder platform to develop applications for iOS devices, such as Apple’s iPad and iPhone, as well as for the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

Support for the devices (which had been announced in April) in Flash Builder 4.5.1 allows developers to create apps for a variety of popular devices and platforms using one code base with different presentation layers.

“The reaction from developers to the new mobile capabilities in Flash Builder 4.5 and the Flex 4.5 framework has been absolutely fantastic,” Ed Rowe, vice president of developer tooling at Adobe Systems, said in a statement today.

Adobe’s Flash Platform evangelist Serge Jespers shows us what “one tool, one framework, one codebase” means, and demonstrates an app developed for different devices using Flash Builder and Flex:

Developers from different industries have been using Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5 to help them reduce development time and the cost of delivery to build some pretty amazing apps across the major platforms:

  • Politifact.com: A project of the St. Petersburg Times and a 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner, the PolitiFact.com team extended its website content into a mobile app available across leading app stores. The PolitiFact.com app helps readers find truth in politics by investigating statements by members of Congress, the President, lobbyists and other Washington D.C. personalities.
  • Netflix Queue Manager: Using Adobe AIR 2.5, Flash Builder 4.5.1 and the Flex framework, RIA design and development group UnitedMindset created the Netflix Queue Manager, which allows users to connect with and manage their Netflix queue across devices and features intuitive search capabilities. With success in the Android Market—over 340,000 downloads since October 2010—the app is coming soon to BlackBerry AppWorld and the Apple App Store.
  • Mr. Mixit and Pyramix: Web design and development agency HD Interactive first released Pyramix, a word game combining the strategy of Cryptoquote and the simplicity of Boggle, and Mr. Mixit, a spin-based matching game where you mix record labels against the clock, to Apple’s App Store. The new updates allowed HD Interactive to use the same code to deliver the apps to Android Market and BlackBerry AppWorld in record time.
  • Muni Tracker: Are you from the San Francisco Bay Area or maybe planning to visit? This app helps you track locations, arrival times and bookmark your favorite stops and lines for Muni (San Francisco Municipal Railway), San Francisco’s public transit system. The developer was able to quickly and easily port this original Android app to iOS.
  • Conqu is an easy to use yet powerful task management tool designed to help conquer an e-mail inbox and get things done. Using Flash Builder 4.5, the developer, AsFusion, was able deploy the app on multiple platforms with minimal effort. They were also able to reduce the time to develop the app since there was no need to debug different code for each individual platform.

Adobe AIR 2.7 now available

Posted by in Adobe, AIR, Android, Apple, BlackBerry, Flash, Flash Builder, Flash Mobile, Flex, iPad, iPhone, Mobile, PlayBook, Tablets on Jun 15th, 2011 | 0 comments

Adobe is pleased to announce the availability of Adobe AIR 2.7 SDK and the Adobe AIR 2.7 runtimes. Adobe AIR 2.7 includes new features for both desktop and mobile applications with mobile support for Android 2.2+, BlackBerry Tablet OS* and iOS 4+ operating systems. Companies can build and deploy AIR 2.7 apps using Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 with an upcoming update to AIR 2.7 later this month.

*BlackBerry Tablet OS is scheduled to receive an OTA (over the air) update of AIR 2.7 by the end of June.

New features in AIR 2.7

Mobile

  • Enhanced rendering for iOS: AIR apps for iOS render up to 4x faster in CPU mode.  This change will improve the performance of many AIR for iOS apps, including those built with the Flex framework.  Watch the performance improvements
  • Video: Adobe AIR 2.7: Faster App Performance on iOS (Renaun Erickson, Adobe Flash Platform Evangelist, demonstrates faster AIR 2.7 app performance on iPad)
  • Faster development time for iOS applications: Developers can now debug and build iOS applications faster than with previous versions using a new mode available within the AIR Developer Tool (ADT). During the development of an application, developers can now choose to use “interpreter mode” to streamline the testing and debugging development cycle.
  • AIR installation on SD cards for Android devices: This feature allows end users to install or move the AIR runtime onto the SD cards within their Android devices so they can free up storage space on the phone.

Desktop

  • Integrated support for Media Measurement:  The Adobe AIR 2.7 runtime now includes the same built-in support for media measurement as Adobe Flash Player 10.3, allowing companies to simplify the collection of real-time, aggregated reporting data for how content is distributed and viewed by users. With direct support for Adobe SiteCatalyst, powered by Omniture, developers can implement video analytics for existing or legacy video players with as little as two lines of code. For additional information, see the article on measuring video consumption in Flash.
  • Acoustic echo cancellation: With integrated support for acoustic echo cancellation, developers can now add real-time VoIP capabilities to games, enterprise, and other types of applications without requiring users to wear a noise-canceling headset. Users can now chat using the speaker built into their desktop or laptop computer. This new capability is also available in Flash Player 10.3.
  • Navigation Improvements for HTML Content: Enables seamless weblink-style navigation within desktop apps such as magazine viewers and eBook readers.  Developers can now respond to a new event to be notified when content within the HTMLLoader control attempts to change the location of a page. This enhancement provides developers with a better way to implement intra-application navigation.

Rossignol Experience iPad Application was created and designed by La Haute Société thanks to Adobe Flash technologies.

For more information go to the Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash Player Team Blog and read this article http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2011/06/adobe-air-2-7-now-available-ios-apps-4x-faster.html.

BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet

Posted by in Adobe, AIR, BlackBerry, Business, Enterprise, Flash, Flash Builder, Flash Mobile, Flex, Mobile, PlayBook, Tablets on Jun 6th, 2011 | 0 comments

A few weeks ago, we decided to fly to Johannesburg to attend the “Meet The BlackBerry® PlayBook™” event at the forum | the campus on 24th May 2011 in association with Adobe. The event was split into a business track and a developer track, which catered for most of the attendees. A few of us went to both tracks and found the presentations to be very useful, gave us an insight into what markets BlackBerry are aiming PlayBook at compared to the Apple iPad and other tablet competitors. After chatting to many of the BlackBerry representatives at the event, they all said there has been a lot of interest from small, medium and large enterprises in South Africa regarding the PlayBook. So we are looking forward to the official launch of the device next month.

The reason ThoughtFaqtory is so interested in this device, is because we can leverage our existing Adobe Flash and Flex skills to develop great user experiences for the enterprise market. If you are interested in getting an app developed for the BlackBerry PlayBook, please get in touch with us on our website at www.thoughtfaqtory.com or email us inquiries@thoughtfaqtory.com.

We have also ported some of our apps over to the device already, if you are interested in seeing any of them please let us know via the details above.

Also, check out this video below regarding the “BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet for Business”.

Another video called “BlackBerry PlayBook – Flash”.

ThoughtFaqtory @ AppsWorld Africa 2011 in Cape Town

Posted by in Adobe, AIR, Android, Apple, Conferences, Enterprise, Flash, iPad, iPhone, Java, Mobile, RIA, Tablets on May 30th, 2011 | 0 comments

“AppsWorld” – powerful word wouldn’t you say… makes me think of how our world is changing and revolving more around Apps in the IT Industry… hence the reason we didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to a be a part of an exciting conference happening this week. ThoughtFaqtory is thrilled to have the chance to exhibit our thoughts and experiences at the AppsWorld Africa 2011 in Cape Town at the CTICC on Wednesday, 1st June and Thursday, 2nd June 2011.

This conference will offer you and us the opportunity to engage with leading developers and a whole host of different specialists involved in the Mobile Apps Development industry, who will be able to swop useful information and find out more about what is actually happening in that world some of us know a pinch of salt about….!!!

Our founder, Simon of ThoughtFaqtory will be on the Enterprise App Developer Panel & the MD, Phillip will be chairing the Developers Workshop Stream.

We will have some exciting new mobile apps to showcase.

For more information about the conference go to AppsWorld Africa 2011.

 

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