However, I was also expecting that the display would be surrounded by a thinner border than the Galaxy S2, thus creating a device that was basically of equal size as the S2. Instead, they kept that border width and we now have a phone that is 10mm taller than the already-not-small S2. And that is the main reason for me not buying one: it is simply too large.

The other reason is the lack of a microSD slot though I could live with that in the shape of the 32GB version, but it’s certainly a disappointment.

I do expect though that we, by Christmas, will see other Ice Cream Sandwich phones, among which I’d like to see a new top-of-the-line device from HTC, which I expect will have learned from their mistake with the Sensation compared to the Galaxy S2 (only 768MB RAM vs 1GB) and pack everything they can into a device with a slimmer form factor.

But if we don’t get anything for the holidays there is always the rumored Galaxy S3 of course, which will surely be worth waiting for; in the meantime, ICS running on the S2 hardware is certainly nothing to sneeze at….

But for the last couple of days the blog has been flooded by a spam bot, so at the moment I’ve set that all comments needs to be approved by me: I really don’t like that process I prefer to see the comments being published immediately, but it will have to be that way until the spamming stops.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Given how they are voluntarily choking the availability in various countries of the Nokia N9, which could provide them with much needed revenue, it is sad to see how Nokia are desperately recurring to the same tactics that Microsoft is known for; whether it is just a coincidence that all of this is happening, including Nokia’s economical calamities, at the same time that Stephen Elop – a former Microsoft employee – is Nokia’s CEO, is anyone’s guess….

1. A way to easisly scroll a webpage by a full page (i.e. pageup/down). Currently, the constant dragging of the page is tedious and unnecesarily fatigues the eyes by forcing you to track how much you drag the page. This functionality could easily be implemented by either some gesture, or better still, to allow for a remapping of the volume keys so that they could [optionally] provide this functionality within the browser only.

2. The ability to add shortcuts to the multitasking screen. If you look at the multitasking screen in both Android and iOS you’ll notice that there is a lot of empty, unused space there. But that space could be put to excellent use if you were able to define app-shortcuts in that empty space; that would be an easy, and intuitive, way to significantly boost the number of “one-click-away”-apps, beyond the four permanent apps at the bottom of the home screen.

Both these ideas would greatly increase the usability; will we ever see them in our smartphones?

Well, duh! That is hardly surprising, nor impressive, given that WP7 has so far been little more than a feature phone, with no multitasking; if WP7 wouldn’t be rock solid even under those conditions then that would truly be an impressive feat of crappy engineering, wouldn’t it? But I guess WP7 fans just need something to rave about, what with the lack of other basic functionality.

And for the record, my iPhone 4 hasn’t had a single reset in the 9 months I have owned the phone. So what’s his point?

Rather, that still begs the question: what’s the point of WP7? Why would anyone bother with WP7 at all instead of an iPhone if you’re OK with a “walled garden”, or something like the Samsung Galaxy S2 (which is my current device) if you want a truly powerful and customizable phone? That’s the question that WP7 fans still have not been able to answer, beyond their loud yet empty and nonsensical hyping of the platform.

The latest example of their attitude and behavior towards anyone who is not impressed by WP7 can be seen at WMPoweruser, who sum up Cnet’s Molly Wood’s experience for the last two weeks with WP7 Mango. It’s seemingly incomprehensibly to them that someone might simply not be impressed by, or even dislike, WP, and that WP actually might not be good. But what’s worse, it certainly was no good at all before Mango, and yet they reacted, behaved and responded exactly in the same way back then.

Is anyone, beyond your typical WP7 user/fanboy, surprised that WP Mango failed to impress a potential user?

The latest rumor says that the iPhone 5 will be out in stores in October, which sounds reasonable. Spec-wise, I’d guess that it will be very similar to the Samsung Galaxy S2, i.e. with a 1.2-ish Ghz dual-core CPU and 1 GB of RAM (the screen will likely be smaller – whether that is a pro or a con is entirely subjective of course). Now those specs, in themselves, are obviously very good and it would make the iPhone 5 compete directly with the SG2.

However, the SG2 will already have been out for over 4 months by the time the iPhone 5 is released, and though I am certain the SG2 will be able to hold its own against the iPhone 5, it really won’t be the new iPhone’s real competitor. The real competition will be the (Samsung?) Nexus Prime, which is rumored to be out before Christmas – maybe even by November – and which, presumably, will have a Super AMOLED HD display and a 1.5 Ghz dual-core CPU. That will be the iPhone 5′s competition almost from day 1, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone 5 is “outspecced” by the Nexus Prime. And if you add to that that quad-core CPUs are just around corner (in the shape of the rumored Samsung Galaxy S3), and that the next iPhone won’t be out by the summer of 2012 at the earliest, I think there is a real possibility that the iPhone 5 specs will fall short throughout its lifetime when compared to the competition, and might provoke a reaction that goes little beyond a mere “Meh.”.

At most, I think the other OEMs might watch Google a little more closely, just to see if the will in fact live up to what they said in that press release that nothing will change for the other OEMs. Beyond that I think they are genuinely relieved that Google has showed, in a huge way, that Google will aggressively defend Android and thus them.

For us smartphone lovers, or at least for us agnostic/neutral (and Android) smartphone lovers (as opposed to miscellaneous fanboys), this is great news as each platform will be able to go head to head in the market, with no restrictions due to IP, and it will be us, the consumers, who will decide which is the best platform and business model – not some patent portfolios and sleazy lawyers.

“…Although we are delighted with the very positive reception [my emphasis] that the Nokia N9 has received, here in the UK there are no plans to offer the Nokia N9 at present.”

Given that Nokia is hemorrhaging money through their jugular vein right now, you would expect them (heck, any company!) to be desperate to sell a device that has had a “very positive reception”, even more so given that Nokia don’t have any other new high-end product right now and their WP7 phones don’t even have a launch date yet. And since, according to Stephen Elop, WP7 is superior to MeeGo/Harmattan, there is no chance of the N9 cannibalizing Nokia’s upcoming WP7. Right? Because that has been Elop’s message and argument all this time. Right? That WP7 is what consumers want, not the N9, hence Nokia’s decision to fully go with WP7. Right? Thus, the people who buy the N9 will eagerly jump to Nokia’s WP7 phones once they are out. Right? Because those devices will be superior to the N9 and will be what consumers really want, what with their “ecosystem” and everything. Right? So Nokia could make twice the profit by first selling people the N9 and then any WP7 phone, that people will be dying to get their hands on. Right? Because that should be the logic if Elop’s all-out WP7 bet is so right and sound. Right? Because if Nokia really wanted to release the N9 in every country then they would be allowed to do so because Nokia, under Elop, is not Microsoft’s biotch now. Right?

Yeah, right.

Given everything that Stephen Elop has done and said regarding the N9 since it was announced, I think it is now safe to make the name ‘Elop’ a synonym with the word ‘stupid’.

Thus, you could say:
“That’s just plain Elop!”

Or:
“What are you, Elop!?”

I wrote a post a few weeks back that could then be titled:
“It is not about Qt, it’s the OS, Elop!”

You could also use different forms of the name to mimic a noun. So Einstein’s famous quote would be:
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human Elopness, and I’m not sure about the former.”

Of course, any word with a negative connotation (such as ‘stupid’) can also be used as an insult:
“You’re an Elop!”

‘Elop’ is obviously also equivalent to any of the synonyms of ‘stupid’, such as ‘dumb, ‘imbecile’, ‘ignoramus’, ‘dense’, ‘idiot’, ‘dimwit’….

So what other examples of ‘stupid’, sorry ‘Elop’, can you come up with??

But Apple is apparently taking a Bizzaro-style, reverse route to make the smartphone OS meet the desktop OS: with the latest OS-X (Lion) Apple have included the iOS style of silently closing down apps in the background in their desktop OS! To that you can add the other iOS behavior of (by default) only showing the scrolling bars when you scroll a document.

So what’s next for OS-X users: no file system? A single app-store of Apple-approved programs only? No possibility of attaching files from the email? No Flash?

Is that how Apple view their users? Do they think their users are so incapable, or lazy, or intellectually challenged, or detached, that they can’t manage the programs they themselves have opened?

That is just ludicrous and is certainly not something I would want on my mobile computer, let alone my desktop.