My Samsung Galaxy S4. Too Old Yet?

Verizon is nagging me to upgrade my phone to a Galaxy S7. But I haven't even learned all about my S4 yet. This video shows a bunch of things it can do, several of which I didn't know:



I'm sure the S7 has it's charms, but the S4 is more than filling my needs, and it's paid for, which means I'll be sticking with it for a while yet. Probably at least until I've got it all figured out ;-)

Also See:

Galaxy S 4 Camera: Everything You Need To Know

25 Samsung Galaxy S4 Tips and Tricks in Under 10 minutes!
 

Android VS iPad. Is Android Winning?

Looks like that may be the case:

Android Tablets Pushing Aside iPad: IDC
Influx of low-cost Android-based devices will tip the tablet market in Google's favor this year, says IDC.

[...] Android tablets may have a leg up on the Apple iPad and iPad Mini thanks to their lower price point. Devices such as the Asus Nexus 7, with its $199 price tag, are appealing when compared to more expensive Apple hardware. The iPad Mini, for example, starts at $329 and jumps up quickly if you add features such as LTE 4G or more storage. Consider, also, the recently announced Galaxy Note 8 from Samsung. This appealing 8-inch tablet brings many of the Note II smartphone's features up to tablet size at a price that still beats the iPad.

The Nexus 7, Galaxy Note 8 and other Android tablets will account for 48.8% of the 190.9 million tablets shipped during 2013 (about 93.6 million tablets). That's up from IDC's previous forecasts for the year, which were much lower at 41.5%.

At the same time, IDC said, Apple's share of the tablet market will slip from the 51% of shipments it held at the end of 2012 to about 46% of shipments (about 87.9 million) by the end of 2013.

That means Android-based tablets will outmatch the iPad for the first time, with 48.8% of the tablet market this year, compared to 46%. That will certainly sting Apple, as it defined the current tablet market with the iPad.

Android and Apple aren't the only players in the game, however. Believe it or not, Microsoft is going to make some noise in the tablet market this year, said IDC, thanks to Windows 8 (think Surface Pro) and Windows RT. Both of Microsoft's tablet platforms will steal share that would otherwise have gone to Apple or Google, but not everything is necessarily going well with Microsoft's tablet plans. [...]

But then there is also Samsung's own operating system, "Tizen":

Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

[...] Up until now, everybody had assumed that Tizen would focus on the lower and middle end, with Android focussing on higher-end phones (and also low-end). This new statement by Samsung seems to contradict just that; Tizen will be on high-end devices.

Add all of this together and it becomes clear what Samsung is going for. The company wants to decrease its dependence on Google, and Tizen is the way they're going to do that. For most Samsung smartphone owners, TouchWiz is Android, and since Tizen could easily get a TouchWiz-like user interface, the average consumer wouldn't notice a thing. OpenMobile's Application Compatibility Layer takes care of the application situation, and will allow Android applications to run on Tizen unmodified.

In other words, since most Samsung users are familiar with TouchWiz and Android applications, Tizen should not provide them with any difficulties - yet, at the same time, it will give Samsung control over its own platform, independent from Google. It won't have to conform to Google's wishes, it won't have to deal with sudden code drops from the Android team - it can do what it wants.

Of course, this won't happen overnight; it'll be a gradual process that may take several years. I also highly doubt Samsung will drop Android altogether - most likely, Samsung's big sellers, top-of-the-line devices will run Tizen, while others will run Android. [...]

More choice. Good! Read more about the open-source Tizen OS here.
     

Lt. Uhura and I have something in common

No, I haven't gotten big boobs or a red mini skirt. But like she, I too now have a silvery metal thing sticking out of my ear. Yesterday I got a bluetooth device to use with my cell phone.

I wasn't particularly keen on getting one. I had been using a wired earphone set with my old cell phone that worked just fine. But then our cell phone company, Edge Wireless, was taken over by AT&T.

At first, they changed nothing. But eventually, we got a letter saying they would be closing down the Edge Wireless net, and we would have to transfer to AT&T or lose our service.

When we went in to their office in town to transfer our account, they said we would need new phones, because our old ones were not supported. We got nice new Samsung phones, which were better than our old Motorola models. But my old wired earphone set did not work with the new phone, the plugs were different. Suddenly, I had to hold the phone when I was using it, and I missed having my hands free to do work while I talked.

I paid $8.00 for a wired earphone set for the Samsung phone, but everyone complained it was hard to hear me. The folks at the AT&T store suggested a blue-tooth device. They let me try it out in the store, and I got a decent Samsung model, the WEP 301, for $40 bucks.


It seems I'm not the only one to make an Uhura-Bluetooth connection. Interestingly enough, Nichelle Nichols, the actress/singer who played Uhura, has herself been seen apparently using a bluetooth device at a NASA event:




What can I say; everyone's doing it? But I didn't do it to be trendy, it's actually quite practical. I can tell you though, I won't have it glued to my head 24/7. But some people who do use cell phones a lot, wear them all the time. Probably because of the fear of brain cancer from constant exposure to intense radio waves so close to the brain, as well as the convenience of having one's hands free. But not everyone is happy with this new trend:




Bluetooth Anti-Fashion
Star Trek nostalgia meets the pragmatic dilemmas of suburban life

As weird as they look, I have a certain fondness for Bluetooth headsets because they always make me think of my childhood heartthrob Lt. Uhura, everyone's favorite communication officer on the Starship Enterprise. Besides being a pioneering role model for African-American women, her low-cut uniform and high-tech headset presaged the geek-chic look twenty-five years ahead of its time. While we may not be able to open a hailing frequency, or decode an Antarean sub-space transmission, with the Bluetooth headsets that have blossomed lately in so many ears, they certainly give us a taste of what the future may look like. And now that reality is bumping up against fiction, I've got mixed feelings about the whole thing.

[...]

... I find it hard to completely condemn those little headsets -- even though I don't own one. I certainly agree that the damned things look terminally dorky and are probably inappropriate in many of the situations people insist on wearing them. I wonder if one of the reasons you see people sporting those headsets in restaurants, bars and other social venues is because it's sort of like the old days when pagers were new and having one on your belt meant you were important (I seem to remember they were called chick magnets for a little while, although the term quickly shifted to electronic leash). Hopefully, the status factor will fade quickly so that half the people I see at my kid's lacrosse games won't look like the Borg with those chunks of metal and plastic jutting out of their skulls. [...]

The article goes on about people wearing them in "inappropriate" places. Apparently this annoys a lot of people. The guy who wrote this article was discussing it nicely, compared to some of the really nasty stuff other people have written elsewhere on the internet.

Well for me it's not a fashion statement, I'll be using it in the farmyard mostly, where only the chickens, ducks and dogs will see it. I doubt it will become a Borg-like attachment to me; I don't generally like to talk on the phone all that much. Fortunately I don't need to be on the phone that much as part of my job. But for someone who does, I can understand why they would wear it a lot.

Will practically everyone be wearing them eventually, most of the time, almost constantly "plugged in" to... whatever? I don't know. But I suspect, we shall see. Brave New World, and all that.


Related Links:

Star Trek Communicators - Star Trek Communication Images

Cell Phone Dangers: how true are they?