An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Nexus 4 | TechCrunch

An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Nexus 4 | TechCrunch:

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Android Central looks at the HTC One Ultrapixel camera vs the GS4:

On the whole, though, the Galaxy S4 produced the better-looking images in our testing, despite its comparative weakness in low light shots. The HTC One's camera is by no means bad, but its performance is clearly weighted towards indoor and low-light photography at the expense of daylight performance. The opposite is true of the Galaxy S4, which excelled in daylight photography, and is backed up by an excellent HDR mode.

Talk/Messenger/Voice/SMS/Babel/Hangouts

According to the rumour mill Google is working on a new messaging app, there are tons of rumours flying around about it so lets see what we may have here.

 First off yes this is a problem that Google needs to solve. There are way too many chat programs that involve Google products that work in different ways. There is Google Talk which has been around for ages and right now works in Gmail, Android and many other mobile platforms, and the desktop web chat client for Google+, then they have the Messenger application that runs on iOS and Android in conjunction with the Google+ app, they have Google Hangouts through Google+, there is a chat client within Google Drive, then there is Google Voice which works on the web and on mobile and then there is the standard SMS/MMS app on Android. This is a mess.

In an ideal world there would be one application that could be used on phones, tablets and computers that allow for seamless communication and notification across devices.  This is where the rumoured 'Babel' app comes in. The internet has been abuzz with leaks and information about the service with even some possible screenshots a couple weeks ago.

In my opinion it looks like the chat window that pops up when you use Google+ on the web. It also looks like it would be easily transferrable to a mobile environment. I like how clean it is and absolutely love the card based interface that has been going on with Google design.

The rumour is that at launch everything will be rolled up into one application except for Voice and SMS/MMS. This is a big win for Google, having everything rolled up and working together, I wish they had been able to roll SMS/MMS into the application at launch and of course with no official announcement yet it could still be included. This would be an important addition in order to compete with both iMessage and WhatsApp and would make using it that much easier.

Another feature I would like to see from it is taken directly from BBM and that is read receipts. I don't really know what difference they would make but I do like the idea of it. I also like the idea of integrating service that I use with all of the Google Apps that I use.

Interestingly enough a commenter in The Verge forums may have given the best information we have about the new service. In the forum he states that the service would be called Hangouts, and will not include SMS and have a full Holo design. These are pretty safe bets in general but for the non-believers out there this specific commenter also gave accurate information about the launch of the Nexus 4 and 10 in the fall leading to some credibility behind the story.

I truly can't wait for this to be announced at I/O in a week and hope it catches on to beat out the many many competitors that are out there. I have a big hope that there will be some way for it to work on all of the major platforms as I still have friends that use Blackberry or Windows Phone and if I could use it with them it would be a very big deal.

Once again I cannot wait for I/O to see what surprises Google has in store for us, and it still makes me wish that I had friends inside Google that would let me play with things before they were announced.

Trojan Horse

Google updated their iOS Gmail app today with some cool new tricks. Now when you access links in messages that include Map links, YouTube videos or Chrome links they will open directly in the app if you already have it installed. This is yet another step for Google to take over the iOS platform, each Google app on iOS is an incredible experience and now they are creating links between them that keeps you within the Google experience. Google is taking over the mobile experience in both an overt way through Android and a backdoor way through iOS. They say that anytime someone uses the internet Google makes money, now they are trying to make that true of the mobile experience. I for one can't wait to see what happens in two weeks when Google unveils there new ideas at Google I/O 2013.

Google Drive Update

Looks like a little update to Google Drive desktop is coming. Right click on documents on your computer and you will soon find a share button that allows you to send files quickly and easily. I use Drive all the time and love seeing all the improvements the team makes.

Check out the Google Drive G+ post for more info.

Keep your enemies closer

Big congratulations to MG Siegler on his new position at Google Ventures. I think he will be a great contribution to the team which already includes the visionary Kevin Rose. As very vocal supporter of Apple some people may find this new position an odd one for both MG and Google, however the more I read of MG's material the more I see that he really does speak fairly and accurately for the most part and is very willing to give new things a try to find what works better for him. I think this will be a great addition to the Google Ventures team and wish MG all the best! (I say that like I know him, which I definitely do not, though I think conversations with him would be very entertaining)

Octo-core power!!!

I find it very interesting that the octo-core did not show much if any improvment over the quadcore snapdragon version of the GS4. The battery life and use cases are virtually the same according to Engadget  The one area that it seems to help is the slight lag when scrolling through homescreens which makes me wonder if it was just a matter of Samsung optimizing the software a little more for their own chip over the Qualcomm version.

Apple Retail Mogul out at JC Penney

After leaving the comforts of Apple to try his hand as CEO, reports state that Ron Johnson has been relieved of his duties at JC Penney. Since 2011 Johnson has been trying to revitalize the long lived American chain with little success. It may be a sign of the times as many brick and mortar retailers are having trouble surviving in a time when you can order items online for cheaper and have them almost instantaneously delivered to your door.

Just saw this on the website of my favourite podcasting app. I don't know of many apps that are still supporting WebOS but good for them to make that available. For those of you who don't know WebOS was way ahead of its time when it was released and never caught on due in part to carrier politics.

Chris Ziegler at The Verge wrote a great piece on the WebOS and its legacy last June. It is interesting to see how much of the great parts of WebOS have been slowly merging into Android since Matias Duarte has joined the team. I wish that JustType would make its way over some day but for now I still love my Android phone.

I would love to play around with WebOS but don't really have the means to play around with it unfortunately.

Open vs closed

Great post by John Gruber about the success of various systems. He doesn't often create posts this in depth, should be on everyone's must read list this week.