Windows Phone 8 and hardware upgradeability

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]There has been a lot of posts recently talking about the hardware upgradeablity of first generation Windows Phone 7 devices to the upcoming Windows Phone 8 release, but does it really matter?

Looking at all the rumors around about WP8, it would seem like the real question is, is MS going with the NT kernel or not?

If they are not, then it would make sense that all WP7 devices would be a pretty easy upgrade to WP8 and it would then just be a simple task for the hardware makers to implement the upgrade on their hardware.

However if MS does go with the NT kernel (and in my opinion they should, they get all kinds of benefits like the standard driver model, true multitasking, etc.), then it seems unlikely any WP7 phones will be upgradeable as the amount of effort to create new drivers for the NT kernel would not have enough return on investment.

So lets assume the worst case for a moment, no WP7 hardware will be upgradeable to WP8.  First generation devices, like my HD7, will not be upgradeable, however they will have been out for over 2 years by the time WP8 ships.  For most users this will be at the end of their contracts and they will be looking to upgrade to new hardware anyway.

For the second gen WP7 devices it gets a little murky, for most of these users who upgraded from a gen 1 device, they probably had to purchase the new device while still in the middle of their contract, s0 they may very well be eligible for a new device by the time WP8 gets to market.

Where it gets ugly is for the people who just picked up their shiny new Titan II or Lumia 900, these users, if no upgrade is available, are likely going to be stuck with WP7.

But when I say “stuck”, perhaps “stick” would be a better term.  Let’s face it, WP7 is great and no matter what WP8 is, that won’t change.  WP8 is going to be all about bringing new users to the fold and as such they are not going to have WP7 devices that need upgrading.

So yes, there may be some disappointment about when a user can upgrade to a WP8 device, but that is just life in the fast moving world of mobile phones.

And don’t forget, that’s the WORST case.  The best case is of course that all WP7 phones are upgradeable to WP8, but even if that’s not true, there seems likely to be a middle ground, where some WP7 devices are upgradeable.  I would think Nokia would want the 800 and 900 upgradeable, even if it means having to invest resources in device drivers for them.

That’s why I think MS has been quiet on the upgradeability front.  They don’t know who’s going to invest in writing device drivers for the new kernel and who isn’t.

One thing is for sure though, all signs point to an early fall release for Windows 8 and that means Windows Phone 8 will likely be along for the ride.  And what a ride it’s going to be!

PS Vita memory card swap

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]When I picked up my PS Vita I only bought an 8g card, however I recently acquired at 32g card so it was time to swap out the old for the new.

Like most new electronics these days, there is no manual with the PS Vita, only on-line documentation.  Likewise the memory card didn’t come with anything but how to install it in the Vita.  Searching the Internet didn’t reveal much, apparently there hasn’t been much need to replace memory cards yet Winking smile.

Anyway, after a bit of searching around I found the content manager, which let’s you backup the Vita to your PC and then recover it.  It does not support Wi-Fi, it requires a USB connection to the PC to function.

The largest hurdle during the install of content manager on my PC was FINDING content manager.  There’s no obvious link on the Vita but Google of course came to the rescue.

Once installed I started the backup.  Now an 8g card through USB 2 should take a few minutes, but over 3 hours?  An my card only had a little over 1.5g on it!

Restoring it to the new card took just as long!

What I thought would be a quick swap turned in to an all day affair.  However it did work in the end and that’s what was important.  I certainly won’t be doing it again any time so.on.  I’d had to think how long it would take if I had a significant portion of the 32g card used Winking smile

MetroTwit 1.0

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:software-category ]Back in August, 2011, I posted my thoughts on MetroTwit, a cool Twitter client for Windows.  Recently they released versin 1.0 and so it’s time to take another look.

The big change is the layout of the client.  Previously the message column took up the entire left to right space in MetroTwit, with all the controls at the top and bottom of the window.  With version 1.0, multiple account support is included and now the left hand column is dedicated to the account list.

While this seems like a small change, it is a great design choice that really makes MetroTwit stand out from Windows Phone 7 based Metro apps.  They have taken the greater screen real estate on the desktop and found a way that extends the Metro design principles without being beholden to what has come before.

Another great addition that this new layout has enabled is the status icons under each account, the four icons are:

  • Tweets from Friends
  • Mentions
  • Direct messages
  • Activities and Requests

These allow you to focus on your primary feed without having to have extra columns open all the time for little used features.

Another great little addition to the UI is the column resizer, when multiple columns are open you can simply click on the resize button and the columns will shuffle themselves in to a better position, you can of course still manually adjust them as well.

There are lots of new options as well, though I’ve left them all alone, some will find them to be very useful.

In my original post there were a few items I was looking forward to getting “fixed”:

  • Load time: 1.0 is MUCH faster loaded, no longer an issue.
  • Twitter disconnect dialog:  Haven’t seen it so must be fixed right? 😉
  • Trending topics: Still no way to pin them as a column.
  • Still limited theme options.
  • Still no help file.
  • Random update failure: I haven’t had the feed stop updating since I update to 1.0, so it looks like this is fixed.
  • Sync with Nest:  Still not available 🙁

Overall it’s a nice upgrade and has fixed a few items that held back the beta’s.  I highly recommend checking it out if you use Twitter from your desktop.

Desktop Hardware Plateau

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:hardware-category ]I’ve been thinking of desktop hardware over the last couple of months as I consider replacing my main PC.

On a day-to-day basis, my primary PC get’s used quite a bit and it stays on all the time.  Some of the various tasks it performs are:

  • E-Mail client
  • Blog writing
  • Web surfing
  • Media player
  • Video transcoding
  • PHP development
  • Perl development
  • Windows Phone development

Currently it’s a AMD 2ghz, dual core processor with 6g or RAM and a 10k RPM 300g hard drive and an ATI 5400 series video card.

At the end of the day though, I don’t find any issue with this PC.  The only task that takes any noticeable time is the video transcoding and that’s just the nature of the beast.  Even the fastest processor isn’t going to make that instantaneous.

Now of course there is one big caveat here, my gaming is done on a console. If you were using your PC to game, then the answer to upgrade is obvious Smile.

This PC must be at least 3 years old, maybe more, so the question is has desktop hardware plateaued?

For most people, I think the answer must be yes.  Why would I replace this much computing power when  even the most strenuous of day-to-day tasks have it spinning its wheels for the vast majority of its time?

So I guess the answer is going to be no for now, until something significant comes along that I need more desktop horsepower for that is Winking smile.

P.S.

On a side note I wonder if the recent slow down in PC sales is less to do with other form factors (phones, tablet’s, etc.) than with the realization that most people don’t need to upgrade their PC’s on the same kind of schedule as they used to.

Tablet Usage

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]I’ve had my TouchPad now for almost a year and while I still use it quite a bit, there has been realization over the last few months about how I’m actually using it.

The TouchPad OS has undergone several upgrades since release which have really brought the OS in to its own, however I find I’m actually only using the mail app consistently.

The other app I use most of the time is the RDP client.  I use it to get to a virtual workstation I have so that I can actually get something done.

I’ve found that all mobile OS’s seem to share a similar issue, they’re ok and get the basics done, but you want to do anything a little bit different and you’re walking back to your PC asap.

I think the solution is a proper OS on the tablet, something that you can do whatever you want with.  Run background tasks, multiple applications, etc.

The only company I see working on this is Microsoft.  As many missteps as they’ve had with tablets (and they were pushing tablets before Apple even consider them by the way), I think in the long term Windows 8 will be the OS people will want on their tablets.

Sacrilege I know, but I’m looking forward to picking up a Windows 8 tablet this year.