Ice Cream Sandwich...The little time I've had

Hey Guys i recently stumbled on a rom for my evo...ICS of course. Those of you who follow my page on twitter you guys know i have a rooted evo and i mess around quite a bit with custom roms, i even want to begin building my own...EVENTUALLY. But here i will give a quick, VERY quick review of ice cream sandwich.

Now as I write this review you must know I've currently upgraded my phone. Actually ill be rooting this in the near future but still had quite some time to play with the speedy OS known as ics. The lock screen has mainly stayed the same. Except now instead of sound and unlock you have unlock and camera. Mainly because now you can drop down the notification bar on the lock screen without unlocking the phone and wasting precious seconds. The new layout in general is refreshing blue....I love it. The fonts are crisp clean and easily readable even on the wvga EVO screen. So i can imagine the larger screens will send people into epileptic attacks...screen transitions are nice. The new shortcuts? Simple, easy, the OS walks you thru as you use it. Not directly at the beginning like the older os versions. Now what I had was still a test build something that someone still added their touch to so still had extras that aren't in final builds but the OS takes away the need for many third party apps, task killers, apps that help u keep count of data usage. All in the OS itself. I can't wait to get a final build. Now by the time I do have a final build my phone will have a full HTC build...I guess ill just wait for that.

WebOS? Can it live on?

Ok before I begin this guys. I usually use facts for my blogs. Today this is all opinion. Maybe ill have a fact here and there. But this one is strictly opinion based and what I think of WebOS, and the moves they've made in recent months. I This post will be directly what i think about the os and what moves i feel needs to be made to bring them back to the Brink.

Now a few months back, I'm not sure how many, HP released what what it thought would make its stamp in the field of tablets...Then something went awry, webOS was shutdown, and HP decided to fire sale all Of these new Devices Codenamed the TouchPad. I remember saying this, and i should've youtubed myself saying this, "in two weeks someone will have this rooted using Android"...Fast forward to that friday 2 weeks from when i said this..Click your way over to Ebay, and some quick witted soul was turning his 99 dollar investment into a 200 dollar profit. Now i speak on the TouchPad in Excess because Hp had Invested time into this device and the Pre3, but someone pulled the plug on WebOS and these devices were left in the cold.

Now fast forward to as few weeks ago HP made announcments of reviving WebOS, and making it Open sourced, which i absolutely love this idea. They also Provided another fire sale on TouchPads and even released a much needed firmware update for WebOS. Is WebOS out of the deep? Not quite yet, what iI feel is that they need to ship the system to a top tier developer. If I were Hp i'd shop it out to Microsoft, If they don't bite i begin looking to great 3rd party developers...If im correct i read a few days ago that a brain behind Cyanogenmod that happened to be contracted to Samsung to help build the new life of Touchwiz...Now wouldn't it seem almost dead on to ship the Source Code exclusively to the Cyanogenmod team? A team that have Revolutionized the open source known as android...Now doesn't it seem like an amazing thought to ship the code to a team that builds amazing options for Operating systems? I can see cyanogenmod, breaking down the code, Stripping it to it core and finding what separates it from other operating systems, not only would it revive WebOS but it would assist the cyanogenmod team as Top tier developers, they would go from the android solution...To the savior of webOS.

Now in closing i want to say these are all opinions, and ideas for Hp and WebOS...I know nobody important will read this, but if i were a big wig over in WebOS I would ship the code to small development teams that are known to consumers. And take my defibrilator to the heart of the OS...

Apple And its movement forward, ios, ipad3 and iphone5

Recently apple has made moves that set them up for further in an industry that they already strongly succeed in. They've signed a couple contracts, released the cloud, released the iphone 4s, ios 5. They've won a couple of court battles, it seems like apple is on top of the world.

So in the past month or so apple have made major moves, They signed a new contract with famous texas instruments, to begin producing the next generation of processors for the line of macbooks, they decided to step away from intel, a move that i agree with personally, everyone uses intel and the i series of chips. They've also been looking at a new Taiwanese company to produce the apple a6 chip, which im sure would be displayed in the iPhone 5 and iPad 3. Nothing is set in stone here and i honestly think it has something to do with the brand new shiny facility in texas producing a5 chips like their going out of style. Now with this happening i cant see apple going to another company to produce the a6 chip, especially with exynos being on display in the galaxy s2 series, it just seems almost insane, to stray away from samsung as your chip manufacturer. Especially when they;ve just opened a new plant for the a5 chips? Doesn't it just seem like the plant will open to perfectly produce devices in general after awhile? Maybe its me.

Samsung doesn't want to lose any contract, especially with such a large company as apple, i can see Samsung hashing this feud so that both companies can live in harmony, just because we happen to be your direct competition, doesn't mean our competition has to be fierce and bloodthirsty, we can help each other and grow our successes side-by-side. They currently assist apple, they build the retina display, as well as apple a5 chips, not to mention the apple a4 chips. Why feud with your right hand man and shoot yourself in the foot. I can see Samsung keeping the contract building apple a6, and both companies continuing to grow. The ipad 3 will be a monster, i even think it'll step up the screen size, nothing major just 8.1 and boost the resolution. The cloud will continue to evolve and apple will keep its grasp in the industry.

Android vs iOs! An app breakdown FIGHT!

I just rolled across an interesting article. Which truly caught my eye, it was about the amount of SALES in the apple app store, and how they've declined this year. The article sited a rise in Microsoft and its availability of apps. Which was also stated was the difference in prices between ios and android apps. In terms of downloads i'm sure that android has more, but purchases yes ios and ill explain today why.


A while back, I'm not certain when, certain apps exclusive to ios began their ports over to the google branded os. Some of these popular apps are, Bakery story,  and some of the well known swiping games that ios made infamous. Heres an example of apple making money on apps that gives them sales. Say 15,000,000 ios owners download all 3 versions of angry birds, of those 15,000,000 downloads 1 in 5 consumers purchase all 3 apps at 99 cents each, thats 15million dollars of profit...and of course rovio needs their cut...Now say 15,000,000 android owners download all 3 games...there is no purchase, thats just 45,000,000 downloads of maybe the most popular game on either platform.  Now i chose angry birds because im 100% certain that this franchise is top 10 download on either platform.


Heres a breakdown for you ios is not an open sourced os, and android is. This is where google and android make their money, they done rely on one company to produce profit, google has way more than just android making money, so they don't have to attempt to turn profit off of as much as they can, actually as i type this post, the android market has a great sale on music 4.99 albums and 49 cent songs...not on music we don't care about, Its actually from top selling artists. Check out my twitter @crashcoursetech i have some screenshots uploaded of artists that are available for download. Even without this sale, full albums on the google market are 2 whole dollars cheaper than albums in itunes, now i understand you are paying for aac format in itunes, and now most likely paying to keep the cloud running, but i can see a boost in android SALES thanks to this nice deal, Even last week they had their 10 billion download mark, and a great amount of top apps were available for just a dime....which i know i scooped up quite a bit of these fire sale apps.


What will help the android market overtake the apple app store will be movie streaming and music. Books may not catch on with the nook color selling so well, but those little bit of sales will help every bit that they can. Androids new version 4.0 ice cream sandwich brings new funtionality and will open the app market and its apps. Consumers will enjoy, not just this refresh of android but this complete overhaul, it opens the app store to new things, google+ will definitely add a touch to what people begin to download. The galaxy nexus? Having internal memory makes music downloads almost a must have, there's no reason to have separate memory card for music and anything else...So apple here comes android.

Nfc chips, and google wallet. How will it help us shop?

A few years ago, MasterCard and visa invented paypass and payway, a quick way to pay.using your credit card, no swiping. Nfc chips are relatively new but been around for a little while. They are similar to Bluetooth technology with some extra abilities. Samsung, with the ics (ice cream sandwich) flagship known as the galaxy nexus, have joined with Google to create Google Wallet. Joint technology to save credit card, and gift card information to your phone And turn your phone into a scan and go device. How will this help us?

Now to begin I like this technology, im pretty sure its password protected and its safer, and more convenient. What it will do is keep us in line as far as our spending, im sure companies will begin producing Apps that track spending on real time (which im sure already exist). But with the info being all digital the nfc chip can directly stream the info to your bank, or card and you can receive notification of successful payment right there. People will no longer need bulky wallets, and all the plastic that goes with it. Just place the back of the phone to the credit card Machine, and keep it moving.

At first I know everyone will not agree with this technology but I'm sure the developers have come up with amazing strategies to safeguard your information, especially Google, I know theyre on they're game. With the galaxy nexus launching on multiple carriers I can see carriers offering the rebate cards directly to the phones via your Google account. No more 5-8 weeks of that aggravating wait. So, that's a little bit of info on nfc chips and Google wallet.

Ics the 4th installment of android.

Recently I stumbled upon an ics alpha release mod...(I have a rooted HTC evo) ^_^ the 4th installment of Google's mobile os runs very smooth. Screen transitions are quick, fluid, and responsive. Now I had to self install all of the Google branded apps. Which was a pain, but I didn't mind. The new wweb browser, renders websites very quick, loads them in HTML format and offers great responsiveness. The new keyboard offers tweaks from Gingerbread which were much needed and I love it. The new call screen is huge, instead of that small picture you have, now contact images fill the entire screen (you now know who is on the phone)It has never been easier to access your settings,  there will no longer be a need for a 3rd party app that tracks your data usage, the os does it by itself now which is very, very refreshing. I can't wait until I have the final release of the os. I will then offer aa full breakdown of it all. ^_^ take care guys.

Ulltrabook? Hybrid laptop? or something better?

An Ultrabook is a computer in a category of thin and lightweight ultraportable laptops, defined by a specification from Intel. The name Ultrabook is an Intel trademark. By this marketing initiative and an associated $300M fund, Intel hopes to stimulate the market for Intel-based laptops similar to Apple’s Macbook Air, against rising competition from ARM processor-based Tablet Computers. For a laptop to count as an Ultrabook, it needs to be thin...20mm or less, very lightweight (around 3 pounds). With no optical drive. Internally the memory is flash based, also known as a Solid State Drive. This is how Ultrabooks are defined on Wikipedia.

Before I begin this post, I’d like to say that Ultrabooks, are revolutionizing, or will revolutionize the way we compute outside of home. I wanna say (and don’t hold me to this) that the Macbook Air was the first Ultrabook to be produced, i believe I’m wrong about that though, but i do know that apple with that beautiful machine revolutionized this now expanding market, but lets be honest doesn’t Apple tend to revolutionize every piece of hardware they set out to make? I honestly remember when the 1st generation of Macbook Air landed...I cant remember which brand were producing Ultraboooks, but i do remember the commercial leading up to its release. a hand put it down....it was pencil thin, you didn’t know what was happening, and then the hand lifted the lid...to show what it was....sent chills up my spine. The camera rotated to show it was a Macbook, except 1/3 of the thickness, with just about the same power. Flash memory loads faster, no spinning disc means better energy efficiency, it also meant a slimmer body. Since the chassis happened to be so thin, it couldn’t house an optical drive, so what you began to need was an external drive, apple of course had its branded superdrive. Personally, i support the idea of Ultrabooks, i love it. In this time where everything is coming in the form of downloads, and data, there isn’t always a need for an optical drive.

The downside of an Ultrabook, is still the pricepoint. the size is absolutely mind blowing, and the speed of it, for that size is still utterly amazing, but the reason it achieves this is the ssd. Solid State Drives, which are still a fairly new piece of technology are pretty expensive, therefore you aren’t catching too many consumers jumping ship just yet. But what you need to realize is that, the life span of Ultrabooks, theoretically, would be longer than your average notebook...NO SPINNING DISK. The risk of overheating is way down. Asus makes beautiful Ultrabooks, and just recently the well known company Lenovo decided to begin producing their lines of Ultrabooks. If I’m correct they actually built an optical drive in the latest build, without sacrificing depth, but of course they sacrificed a little bit of weight. So now the question is, is it an Ultrabook? It still is, but barely. And i know what your thinking, James how do i watch my dvds? play my cds? ENTER THE CLOUD!!! We are in a time where this cloud technology will take off, Ultrabooks are perfect partners of cloud technology, quick, Ultraportable, thin, bright screens, long battery life. Ultraviolet? The blu ray Cloud i believe is a godsend for Ultrabooks, and amazon, and icloud with their respective services open the floodgates for these devices, granted 500gb of ssd isn’t the norm yet, its only a matter of time until it becomes standard. Ultrabooks, are more for streamed data, not permanent data, But give the technology a few years, and i guarantee that Ultrabooks will be in 60% of laps.

Apple Vs Samsung...What does it mean for you?

        Apple and samsung have been at each others throats for quite awhile, and im not just speaking on ios vs. android. Im speaking Apple vs. Flagship devices of Samsung. Since the 2nd quarter of this year. I wanna say this started when Apple sued Samsung for "copying" the blueprint of the iPhone 3gs. Yes i jus double checked this. The original article ran in the wall Street Journal. Apple claims that samsung directly imitated the build, body and even patented single button layout of the 3gs. Now the phone they attempted to sue about was the original galaxy s. Not a variant. The very original with no body enhancements or anything. In this post im gonna shed some light on what this means for you, the consumer. 

Smartphones and the war on your wallet. Which phone is right for you?

In this day in age companies, and carriers are releasing phones which appears to be daily. And you may be asking yourself. Which phone is correct for me? Well today im gonna do my best to help you with this decision. Screen size, processors, memory, camera, and bloatware (stock applications). So take this stroll with me as I help you with this tough decision.

The evolution of mobile technology, And the introduction of cloud based services.

Hey guys Its James here, and i have a bit of a rant for you. A couple of my own opinions about the evolution of mobile technology and the introduction of cloud based services to our digital world.

Recently, i wanna say around 8 years ago or so, our world began to heavily turn the corner with mobile technology. Two well known companies took to the streets with phones geared towards 2 types of consumers, Business and personal. These companies were Nokia, and RIM (Blackberry)