Tag Archives: IPad

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#Android Tablet vs #iPad: @RepublicofDoyle Disappoints

Apple continued to win out in terms of tablet market share this past quarter, according to the latest figures from ABI Research, with a 55 percent share of all shipments during the period. That’s a lead it has had since 2010 when the iPad was introduced, but it’s also the slimmest lead it’s ever had, and represents a dip of 14 percent versus the previous quarter. At this rate, Android could overtake the iPad for tablet share sometime next year, something which seemed unlikely or even impossible in 2010 and 2011. Source

I am a rabid fan of CBC’s Republic of Doyle. I fall in love with St. John’s every episode. I find Jake-speak invading my vocabulary, Oh Yeah! You can imagine my excitement then, when the Ride Along app was introduced. According to the promotional video, I could continue my two-screen watching of each episode, but with many more interactive opportunities. Particularly tempting was the Oh Yeah button. If you don’t watch RofD, you won’t understand the thrill I would experience hearing my tablet emit an oh yeah when Des saves the day or Jake removes his shirt. Oh yeah!

Allan Hawco

Allan Hawco

Oh no! The RofD boffins only built an iPad app. Yep, the increasingly loyal, vocal and stubborn “droid users were overlooked. I did enjoy watching the Powers that Be at RoD put out the @RepublicofDoyle twitter fires, when the oversight was disclosed. They scaled up on Twitter and Facebook the messages promising users like me that something was coming – eventually. Every time they touted the advantages of the Ride Along app, it was followed by a shout-out to ride along using the website version. Clearly no one on the RoD team uses an Android. Doing anything within a browser on an Android is like driving a Charger with a flat tire. Oh wait, Jake’s done that.

A better woman than I would not point a finger at Republic of Doyle, because much time is being spent developing iOS apps by any number of entities while ignoring the Android users. Entities that fail to build equivalent apps for Android end up on my don’t buy, use, or promote list. I just can’t do that to RoD…Republic of Doyle is the exception. Oh yeah!

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#Wishsomeonehadtoldme – My Google Phone

English: Google Nexus S - Samsung Android Phone

Image via Wikipedia

I like my Google Android. Don’t like the little green man that inhabits it. But I do have the option of downloading an app that allows me to play dress-up with him, so the minor disgruntlement might become moot.

But there are things I wish someone had told me when I acquired the phone. Public Service Announcements if you will. So today, I am passing on the garnered wisdom of a single month of use. With luck, I’m also putting a bug into a developer’s ear that will improve life for us all!

Two Exterior Buttons = Kaput

Note the slight extension on the left hand side of the Android depicted above. There is a similar, but slightly smaller extension on the right hand side, slightly higher up than the one on the left. The right hand extension is the power on/off button. The left is a mode button. If the two buttons are pressed at the same time, the phone goes into a crisis mode that delivers code messages and the little green man, but absolutely nothing else. The phone is kaput.

For the first month, this happened to me on a frustratingly regular basis. Because – this is the truly important part – because when I hold the phone in the palm of my hand my thumb naturally sits on the mode button and my pointer finger on the power button.  Without intent, when I activated the phone I activated the mode button at the same time wreaking Android havoc. If my fingers were longer, the problem wouldn’t exist! Ergonomics, ergoshomics!

Clearing the browser cache

Some evil tweep mentioned me in tweet. I fell for the ego stroke, and clicked on the URL embedded in the mention. Got Spam. Spam that would not go away, no matter what I pressed. So I had to Google, clearing the Android URL history. What a pain!

You have to use your browser’s tools to clear the history, which means with a Google phone, you have to log in to your account and follow a series of permission steps before you are successful. I suppose the process is to protect me, but please…does it have to be so time consuming and clunky?

You’ve been warned.

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I’m on holiday and disconnected.

BBC reported about an experiment conducted with 4 youngsters. The subjects spent  24 hours without their electronic devices – no music, no email, no phone, no computer, no Internet. The quartet was of the generation connected since birth. Unlike me, who remembers typewriters and the introduction of faxing – old school, eh?
 
The subjects of the experiment observed that 2 hours of disconnection was interesting, but not recommended. Going cold turkey was distressing and ultimately darn near impossible – because of the ubiquity of electronic devices.
 
I’m pulling the plug for about a week. Day 1, I’ll suffer withdrawal symptoms, including restlessness and the inability to focus. But by Day 2, I’ll start feeling a different connection –  to the natural world. Wonderful! Until November 2, then, Polarprisca is running silent.
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WordPress and IE 9 – the Beta Version

The logo of the blogging software WordPress.

Image via Wikipedia

Oh boy, oh boy, I’ve been an idiot. I downloaded the Beta Version of IE9. I should have let well enough alone, because I just lost a post that I had been working on for the last 30 minutes due to the incompatibility of wordpress and IE9.

You could say it was my inability to understand the “intuitive” actions of IE9. Dag nab it – if I click I’ll accept even the unsafe items – the program shouldn’t overrule my decision. So here I am using Mozilla to post a diatribe about IE9. All is well in the blogosphere.