MobileViews Blog

Category: Mobile Devices

  • MobileViews Podcast 146

  • Paul Thurrott’s Surface Pro 4/Sufrace Book rant: Ref: Thurrott.com
  • Greatly improved weather search results in Android Google app. Ref: Google Inside Search Blog
  • How much has the free Google Android OS earned? $31 billion! Ref: Bloomberg Business
  • Office 365 for iPad & iPad Pro adds new inking tools. Ref: Microsoft Office Blog
  • Apple Music Memos for iOS app. Free. Much simpler than Garageband. Not perfect. But, still impressive
  • iPhone 5se. 4-inch display. Features of 6s line. Ref: 9to5mac
  • Conversation on our mobile setup circa 2016 compared to say 2006
  • Jon’s app pick of the week: “Copied” on iOS and MacOS copiedapp.com

  • MobileViews Podcast 142: Enterprise mobility discussion with Don Sorcinelli

    In this podcast Jon Westfall and I (Todd Ogasawara) welcome our old friend and enterprise mobility expert Don Sorcinelli.

    – Wolfram Open Cloud. Try Wolfram Language for free in your browser.
    – I thought I lost my Moto 360 while walking to work. Big sigh. But, no! Turns out the Android Wear “last seen” feature doesn’t work.
    – Google says the requirement of a steering wheel, pedals, and a licensed driver slows down driverless vehicle development – Skynet.
    – Project Fi lets you add specific LTE Android & iOS tablets without any extra fee. You just pay for the data used
    – Enterprise mobility discussion with Don
    – Each year companies do a few “Evil” things (MS & OneDrive this year, Apple not providing 3rd party faceplates for the Apple Watch, Google Fi destroying Google Voice accounts). What are our predictions for “Evil” 2016?

  • TIL: Amazon Echo’s Bluetooth can pair with Apple OS/X computers but not Microsoft Windows 10 PCs

    echo_osx_bt_20151213

    Amazon tells us that is Echo intelligent speaker can pair with mobile devices? But, I wondered what about desktop PCs and notebooks? It turns out that it pairs and works fine with Macs running Apple’s OS/X (I tested it with the current El Capitan release). However, Microsoft’s Windows 10 Bluetooth stack couldn’t even detect the Echo let alone pair with it.

    So, if you have a Windows PC and want to use the Echo as a wireless speaker, you are out of luck. However, if you run OS/X on a Mac, it works fine.

  • MobileViews Podcast 139: 7th year podcast anniversary. Android discussion w/Frank McPherson

    Jon Westfall and I (Todd Ogasawara) welcome back special guest Frank McPherson for the MobileViews Podcast 7th anniversary. We discuss Android from its launch in September 2008, podcast #2 w/Frank on Nov. 28, 2008, where its been, and where it might go in the future.

    The topic 7 years ago was the then new T-Mobile G1 – the first Android phone available in the U.S. It was released in September 2008. I had returned mine before the podcast because of its awful short battery life.

    All three of us have used various Android phones in the past 7 years. We discuss our experiences with them and speculate where it might go in the future.

  • MobileViews Podcast 132: New Google products discussion w/Frank McPherson

    Jon Westfall was on “special assignment” (the football game he was at ran late). So, I’m (Todd Ogasawara) joined by my old friend Frank McPherson on this podcast. He wrote a blog entry about the Sept. 29 Google new product announcements on his blog if you want are interested in his personal take on all of this.

    September 29 Google announcements

    – Nexus 6P
    – Nexus 5X
    – Pixel C Android tablet with optional Bluetooth keyboard.
    – New Chromecast
    – Chromecast Audio
    – Google Play Music – Family Plan
    – Google Photos gets private labels & Chromecast support

    Sidenote: Todd’s Google Fi Welcome Kit arrived

    We also discuss reports of Evernote’s decline Ref: Business Insider. Evernote is a favorite service/product for both Frank and me.

  • MobileViews Podcast 122

    Jon Westfall and I (Todd Ogasawara) take a look back on Microsoft’s ultra-mobile strategy since 1996 in light of its recent announcement that it will write down $7.6 billion in assets related to its purchase of Nokia’s smartphone business and lay off an additional 7,800 employees (most of whom came to Microsoft from Nokia). Ref: Microsoft

    You can find more details and my recollections of Microsoft’s mobile strategy since 1996 in this article I wrote for Extreme Tech: Microsoft Windows Phone: A 20-year retrospective of a meandering mobile strategy

    We also briefly discuss Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 10166 released on June 9 and my initial impressions of joining the smartwatch club by buying a Moto 360.