smartphone – Page 2 – Stilgherrian

12 May 2014

Talking mobile app privacy on radio 2MFM

Here’s the final of this week’s media spots that was triggered by Privacy Awareness Week, a chat about the privacy issues relating to mobile apps on Sydney’s Muslim community radio station 2MFM.

This interview was recorded on Tuesday 6 May, and this 23-minute edit was broadcast the same day. The presenter is Nadia Zahr.

2MFM has made the audio available on SoundCloud, but has not allowed for the file to be downloaded, so I’ve just embedded the SoundCloud link immediately below.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/148141679″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true&show_playcount=true&show_comments=true” width=”100%” height=”81″ iframe=”false” /]

15 April 201415 April 2014

Talking smartphone privacy on ABC Radio’s “Life Matters”

A few weeks back, I had a conversation on Twitter with Natasha Mitchell, presenter of ABC Radio National’s Life Matters, about smartphones and just how much data they’re handing on to, well, all manner of organisations. This morning we came back to that conversation live on national radio.

Do you know what data you’re really sharing, and with whom, when you download and use smart phone apps? Companies are collecting as much as they can get away with, says Stilgherrian.

We spoke for 20 minutes and covered a lot of territory.

If you want to know more, then you can listen to my guest lecture at University of Technology Sydney (UTS), and then follow the links to more than 30 references.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.5MB)

06 September 201308 September 2013

Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 39

I’ve finally wrapped up my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial. I’m impressed with both the phone and the operating system, but is it too little too late for both Nokia and Microsoft? Who knows? I’ve made a video! You can scroll down for that.

That possible problem with Wi-Fi dropouts that I detailed last time? I couldn’t reproduce it with the replacement handset — or at least not in a way that couldn’t also be explained by the swirling electromagnetic soup in the vicinity of my desk and all the wireless devices thereupon — so let’s just write that off as a false alarm.

So where does that leave us?

Well, to reiterate, the Nokia Lumia 925 is a nice piece of kit, in keeping with the best traditions of the brand. Windows Phone 8 is also a solid forward-looking operating system. I’d been told about Windows 8’s design heritage at TechEd on the Gold Coast last year. Now, having used it for a month, I can see where it’s heading. App developers should be able to do good things with it.

But with both Nokia smartphones and Windows Phone 8 having such a tiny market share, will it all have been in vain? Has the flood of iOS and Android mobile devices taught the business world that, no, they’re not actually shackled to Microsoft’s products after all? That there are other ways of doing things? And that “producing documents” isn’t actually the purpose of business?

Sometimes when I look at Microsoft’s strategy with Nokia, or the previous one when they inserted Yahoo! into Bing, that the two potentially troubled companies are clutching to each other in terror as they plunge, each hoping the other brought a parachute. And maybe they have. But all the talk I’ve heard so far is your common or garden variety corporate waffle. Good luck, guys.

The only other loose end is to post the video I shot. And here it is. Over the fold is the full 16-minute video Strathfield to Central, shot on the Nokia Lumia 925 at full 1080p resolution, and all other video settings on their defaults.

Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 39”

11 August 2013

Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 10

“‘Day 10’? But the last post was Day 5,” I hear you complaining. Well, the dynamic of my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial changed a bit last week, so I’m skipping over the dull bits.

Day 10 is Thursday 8 August 2013, and the photograph with this post was taken one minute before dawn on that day.

In the intervening days, I had continued to use the Lumia 925 much as I had been, and I continue to appreciate the quality of the camera and the ability to customise the start screen in Windows Phone 8. It makes the iOS grid of icons look positively old-fashioned.

However you may remember that I was having trouble with the Wi-Fi link dropping out when the phone was physically handled. Well, I put that question to Nokia and Microsoft on Monday.

Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 10”

10 August 2013

Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 5

It’s time to catch up on my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial, skipping over Day 4 to Day 5, Saturday 3 August 2013 — when I finally discovered the proper way to synchronise the phone with my MacBook Pro.

I’d been frustrated by the slow process of using Bluetooth to transfer photos. Nowhere in the “Welcome” booklet that comes with the phone is there even a suggestion that you can plug the phone into a computer, let alone that there exists an official Microsoft Windows Phone for OS X application!

And it works!

Furthermore, if you use Apple’s default workflows for managing your images in iPhoto and your music in iTunes, then that all works too.

OK, so I’m an idiot. Maybe I should have looked, or perhaps browsed Nokia’s support site. But I still think this is something worth mentioning from the beginning — particularly as certain phone configuration options are only available from the management software.

Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 5”

04 August 201304 August 2013

Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 3

On Thursday I decided to check out the Nokia Lumia 925’s video capabilities. That’s a frame grab above I continue to be impressed with this phone’s image quality.

Indeed the video, which I’ve entitled Strathfield to Central for obvious reasons, is the highlight not only of Day 3 of my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial but of the entire trial so far.

I had hoped to embed the full video here. But I’m on mobile bandwidth today, and unless I upload a gigabyte or two of data, it simply won’t do it justice. So it’ll have to wait a while. Stand by.

Meanwhile, here’s the rest of my bullet-point observations from Day 3.

Continue reading “Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 3”