No Flash support for Windows Phone 7? No cut-copy-paste?! Say it isn't true!

Various news outlets are reporting on the surprising information coming out of the Microsoft camp; Windows Phone 7 will not support Flash or cut-copy-paste.  Yes, you heard that right, Windows Phone will not support cut-copy-paste. The hell Microsoft, did you not learn from Apple?  Having the ability to cut and paste bits of text and applications is an essential part of an operating system, especially on mobile platforms where shortcuts make the world go round.  No one likes typing the same phrase over and over Microsoft.  On a less surprising note, Flash support seems to be more of an Adobe issue than anything else.

Microsoft’s lack of Flash support seems to be the general theme of things in the mobile world.  Apple has expressed absolutely no interest in Flash support on the iPhone and the iPad, Flash for Android has been in development for God know how long, and now word from the Adobe camp sings a similar tune for Windows Phone 7.  Adobe developer Mike Chambers said in a recent blog post:

“One thing I wanted to clarify as it may have been lost in some of the other news is that Adobe and Microsoft are working together to bring Flash Player 10.1 to Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Phone 7 Series,”

The inclusion of Flash player support could very well make or break Windows Phone 7, but the impact of Adobe’s plug-in support is yet to be seen.  Here’s to hoping that Android leap into flash land spells good tidings for the rest of the mobile world.

[Via http://fonefrenzy.com]

#oneaday, Day 64: Act Your Age, Fanboys

Why does the phenomenon of fanboyism still exist? And more to the point, why does it exist amongst men (and it pretty much is always men) who are old enough to know better?

The simple and easy answer is, of course, that it’s always been around. I remember growing up as an Atari-based family and all of the Atari magazines at the time belittling the competition with stupid names like Spectrash (Spectrum) and Crappydore (Commodore 64). Then came the schoolyard arguments – SEGA vs Nintendo. Sonic vs Mario. “We’ve got Street Fighter II! Hah! …Oh wait, now you have, too.” It got pretty silly.

Once the Dreamcast came out, it was hard to justify fanboyism because, certainly once SEGA’s wondermachine came out, it was so far ahead of its competition – the 64-bit Nintendo 64 and the 32-bit PlayStation – that half-hearted attempts to call it things like “Dreampants” always came across as more than a little desperate.

Things then kicked off again with Sony vs Microsoft, with Nintendo kind of relegated to “background observer” by this point. The PS2 and the original Xbox both had fiercely loyal supporters when, in fact, you’d have a far better experience if you bought both systems, played the relevant exclusives on their respective platforms and played multiplatform titles on the Xbox. That’s what I did, and I never felt the need to slag off any of the systems.

And it still goes on today, despite each of the consoles arguably offering a more distinct and unique experience from each other than ever before. The Xbox 360 offers its legendary ease of online play, the PS3 is home to a variety of unusual and interesting games (like Flower, flOw, Linger in Shadows, the Pixeljunk games) and the Wii is the family-friendly bundle of fun.

Still the hating goes on, though.

But nowhere is it more apparent than in the world of smartphones, particularly between the owners of iPhones, BlackBerries (let’s pluralise it properly, please) and Android-based phones. iPhone owners are either Apple fanboys who bang on about how great Apple is all the time or jailbreakers who bang on about which ludicrously-named hack they’re installing this week – and, of course, which apps they could get for free rather than paying for them on the App Store. BlackBerry owners seem to be updating their OS every night. And Android owners seem to be particularly sore about the iPhone for some inexplicable reason.

The question is: why? When it came to the early console wars, slagging off the systems your friends had was just schoolyard banter. You didn’t really think that the systems were inferior, otherwise you wouldn’t have gone around to their houses and played those games with them. The fact that this juvenile banter has grown up with people who have been using gaming and other consumer electronics for years is utterly baffling. Even people who started gaming at the same time as me – or before – are still bitching and moaning about how much better their handset is that [x]’s handset, and blahblahblah open source, blahblahblah build quality, blahblahblah BlackBerry Messenger, blahblahblah… You get the picture.

Am I alone in thinking that all of this stuff, without exception, is seven degrees of awesome and we should appreciate the brilliant things we have? Yes, some of them have more features. Yes, some of them are objectively “better” in terms of capabilities, power and technical specifications. But is that really any reason to act like 5-year olds telling each other that their respective Mums smell of wee?

No, it’s not. So why does it still go on?

[Via http://angryjedi.wordpress.com]

Something for the weekend: 8 minute HTC Desire Video

Just found a great little 8 minute video on YouTube showing off the HTC Desire and Legend – but mostly the Desire.

It’s not the usual MWC video where the rep just reads his script out; there’s actually a few diferent things he shows you and he certainly seems to know what he’s talking about. Makes a change at least!

Enjoy

[Via http://desirefanatics.wordpress.com]

My own contradictions

As a a matter of fact, I don’t like companies running a monopoly or having a dominant position that let them being arrogant. As I try to be consistent with my convictions in my electronic day to day life, I find my self using strange pieces and bits of softwares and services.

Currently, I’m using

• OS: Linux (Ubuntu flavour) on a vintage laptop
• Search Engine: Bing
• Mobile phone: Toshiba with Windows Mobile (OK I didn’t pay for it) and a very nice Android powered device, the Motorola Milestone

Here are my own contradictions: using Microsoft for the Search and having  Google  to power my Mobile … anyway positions are shifting quite quickly these days. That’s the reason why this market is so exciting!!!

[Via http://issard.wordpress.com]

HTC to Apple -- We Were First

Smartphone maker HTC has been largely silent since hit by Apple’s (s aapl) suit claiming patent infringement. The company is not satisfied with being silent any longer and sent over a statement addressing its position. Basically they want to remind everyone that when it comes to smartphones with color touchscreens, HTC was first. The statement doesn’t address the Apple suit specifically, but it is seems HTC is preparing to embark on a course calling into question the validity of Apple’s patents. That would be the logical assumption of the “we were first” path.

“HTC disagrees with Apple’s actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible,” said Peter Chou, chief executive officer, HTC Corporation. “From day one, HTC has focused on creating cutting-edge innovations that deliver unique value for people looking for a smartphone. In 1999 we started designing the XDA.

The O2 XDA by HTC was the first 3.5-inch color touch screen smartphone in the world in 2002, and the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition by HTC was the first 3.5-inch color touch screen smartphone in the United States in 2002. [sic] Our first touch-screen smartphones, and they both shipped in 2002 with more than 50 additional HTC smartphone models shipping since then.”

HTC has a point about having an “iPhone-like” smartphone long before the iPhone shipped, but it may very well come down to proving the Windows Mobile (s msft) phones of yesteryear are similar to Apple’s phone. Most folks familiar with the HTC/Apple situation believe that Apple is really going after Android (s goog), as HTC is the largest maker of Android phones in addition to Windows Mobile. This whole situation is not clear, and lots of eyes will be watching it unfold.

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Google’s Mobile Strategy: Understanding the Nexus One

[Via http://jkontherun.com]

Android iPhone Coolness

Most of you when encountering my Make Android Apps look Like iPhone Apps posts understood that it was not literal in that I did not mean make an Android App look like iPhone  but meant in polishing the UI of the Android Application look and feel to implement a greater user experience. There is a large difference between iPhone and Android and even the now Open Symbian OS.

In the Steve Jobs world the iPhone Application Developer only gets to access UI APIs that Steve Jobs wants them to access and use and only give users the UI Application experience that Steve Jobs believes the user should have.

You will never see an iPhone Application Developer deliver a better Application UI experience to the user because Steve Jobs prevents that action. Not only has Android moved away form straight-jacketing Application Developers in such a manner even Open Symbian OS has moved towards giving Application Developers full reign in coming up with a new Application UI experience.

Thus, if I am spending too much comparing Android  Application UIs to iPhone Application UIs this week there are those reasons above and the fact that the last time a Mobile OS market share increased by 5% in one quarter was when iPhone OS was first released in 2007. My point is that Google and OHA gave us, the Mobile Application Developers, the freedom to come up with new Mobile Application UI user experiences beyond what they came up with.

But to get that new Android Application UI  user experience w2e have to polish our Android Applications UI user experience first.

[Via http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com]

New Android Thriller On The Fast Track

Last fall, DreamWorks optioned the still-unfinished novel Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson, a Ph.D. robotics expert. The story is based on the human race’s attempt to avoid extinction following a robot uprising. Yes, we’ve experienced this angry robot plot before in Terminator, Terminator Salvation, I, Robot, War Of The Worlds, Transformers and Transformers Revenge Of The Fallen. But, Wilson, the author of How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion, Where’s My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived and soon-to-be released Bro-Jitsu: The Martial Art of Sibling Smackdown, says this story has a twist and it will make robots proud of humans. Drew Goddard has been hired by DreamWorks to write the script for Robopocalypse. That’s the same Goddard who wrote Cloverfield, a thriller with a hardly-visible villain. Even more intriguing is the rumor that Steven Spielberg, who partnered with Tom DeSanto to bring Transformers to the big screen, may direct Robopocalypse.

[Via http://mojosimon.wordpress.com]