Blackberry Apps on any Android (with APK links)

The Blackberry Priv hasn’t yet reached the masses but the first party Blackberry apps for android have already been stripped out for general consumption by some APK genius’, so far I have got the BB Keyboard and Calendar working perfectly. The calendar doesn’t offer much in the way of new features but the keyboard is actually an absolute delight to type on and I may end up using it on the daily. Be sure to download BB services to ensure everything works smoothly, let me know your experiences!

 

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Credits to XDA

Microsoft Windows 10 Device Event

Following along with Autumn’s usual tech madness, Microsoft held their first Windows 10 Device event. It was all hardware right from the get go and Microsoft quickly announced two new windows 10 flagship phones, the Lumia 950 and the 950 XL, two true premium devices.

The 950 sports a 5.2” Quad HD Amoled Display powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808, thats a 1.8ghz Hexa-core processor. On the back is what promises to be a fantastic camera, 20mp paired with Carl Zeiss optics and a triple LED Flash (hopefully) allowing for natural skin tones even in the darkest situations. All of this is will be kept going by a 3000 mAh with quick charge VIA a USB-C connection. The 950 XL is a very similar device with a few important spec bumps, a 5.7” screen, Snapdragon 810 and a 3340 mAh battery to name a few. The stand out feature here is liquid cooling (!?) which could be huge. These phones start at $549 and $649 respectively

On the other end of the scale is the all new Lumia 550, the first true Windows 10 budget device. A 5 inch display dominates the face of the phone, powered by a 1.2ghz Snapdragon 210, although the storage only starts at 8gb, there is support for microSD up to 200gb. A smaller but still completely usable 2100 mAh battery should keep you going. The 550 starts at just $139.

Stuck between computers and phones, is the microsoft display dock, which enables Microsoft Continuum, or the ability to turn your windows 10 phone into an (almost) fully fledged desktop experience. Plugging in via USB-C gives you access to HDMI and USB for a display and keyboard/mouse. Right now however, the desktop experience is pretty bare bones, no side by side apps, or even windowed apps for that matter. But while plugged into the display, you can still use your phone to its full potential to text, call etc. and most importantly, it makes me want a windows phone, for the first time.

On the less portable side of things (but still quite travel friendly) Microsoft announced some pretty killer new devices. The new Surface Pro 4 shouldn’t surprise anyone, but that doesn’t make it any less of an incredible product. In the same body as last year, Microsoft managed to fit a slightly larger screen with PixelSense promising high contrast and low glare. A new generation of processor at each level (Core m3, i5 and i7) will keep the Tablet/Laptop super hybrid running smoothly, at the top end, you can now go up to a crazy 16gb of RAM for some serious power. As usual, the surface comes with the Surface Pen for note taking, sketching etc. new this year is an eraser on the end of the pen which allows for the deletion of lines without the need of pressing any buttons.

Alongside the tablet-laptop hybrid is, well, a more laptop oriented tablet-laptop hybrid. The all new Surfacebook is the professional friendly Macbook Pro competitor that consumers have been waiting for. Starting at $1500 (CAD) it definitely is a high end laptop, a huge feature here is support and inclusion of the Surface Pen, with a detachable screen, this turns into a very attractive hybrid.

I know this has been quite a long one, so I’ll leave a couple smaller things out for now, but look for a future post on some more microsoft related things.

Apple Music had a 3 month impact

Apple music is nothing new, being able to stream unlimited tunes to a phone, tablet or computer has been done either successfully or horrendously by companies for years. Spotify and Google Play (among others) have risen to the top and gained the most prominence. Apple has long been the king of purchased music, no-one will ever dispute that iTunes is the most popular place to purchase single songs or whole albums. But, being Apple, they had to throw their hat into the well established industry of music streaming (yes I know iTunes radio existed). Offering a novel 3 month free trial to users, Apple Music had millions of day one users and tons of buzz in press and over social media, the biggest differentiator for Apple was Radio, or more specifically, Beats One Radio which is a station on Radio, on Apple music. There are other stations in on Radio but Beats One is the only one that is live (24/7!!!!!) and the only real difference from other large streaming services.

Being the tech geek I am, of course I quickly signed up for the free trial (then cancelled it so I was never charged) and used apple music for a couple days, well apple music streaming at least. This was mostly due to the fact that I was already well ingrained into Spotify with hundreds of playlists set up for optimal listening pleasure. But something that I routinely kept coming back to was Beats One, it’s amazing how novel it can be to think that thousands of people across the world can be listening to the odd DJ’s spinning tracks on Beats One at the same time as you, it’s not a new concept, but because it’s Apple, it’s popular. But here’s the kicker, my 3 month free trial just ran out and I was legitimately disappointed because I was going to miss Beats One, that was until I realized that anyone with an apple device (for now) can listen to Beats One for free! No subscription required. This of course was great news as I can continue to jam out to whatever’s happening on the station, however from a business standpoint I just don’t get it. Beats One was the only big differentiator from other services and you don’t need a subscription to access it? For this reason alone, Apple music lost millions of (free trial) subscribers who just went back to their regular services. Apple needs to rethink their strategy.

Top 5 Back to School Apps

Back to school is just around the corner, and that means a slew of new phones, tablets etc. that need to be filled with productive (and not so productive) apps. In this list you’ll find single, or groups of apps meant to make your next school year slightly easier.

1. Google Drive Suit

Google drive is one of the best options right now for mobile text, spreadsheet or presentation editing. Just for signing up, you get 15gb of cloud storage free which doesn’t sound like much but I’ve been using the service for over 3 years and I’ve only used up half a gig of the 15 for documents. On Android and iOS (sorry windows phone users) there are separate, free, apps for Docs (think Microsoft word), Slides (Powerpoint) and Sheets (Excel). If you use Android the experience is slightly better with seamless printing with Google Cloud Print. I would argue though, the best feature overall is the real time editing allowing more than one person to edit the same document in absolute real time.

Android iOS Web

2. Cram

Every single year, I always tell myself that I am finally going to use flashcards to memorize all the little bits of info for each class. But I never do, until last year, days before a big test I was procrastinating, browsing the app store and I came across this great app. Cram lets you create flashcards via text input, or, just by taking a picture of the note. This feature is incredibly useful and makes creating flashcards extremely easy. Going through the flashcards is a great experience using games and different tactics to memorize info.

iOS Android Web

3. My Study Life

A beautifully designed app that gives you an intuitive way to keep track of your class schedules, homework, tests and exams. The flexible scheduling actually allows for school schedules, weather your school is a semester system, terms, week by week or day by day, this app will allow you to schedule your year. The only thing missing here are widgets.

iOS Android Web

4. CamScanner

Easily digitize your school life by scanning whiteboard notes, papers, receipts (why not?) or whatever you like. Simple app with auto upload features and OCR available. Another great option is Microsoft Office Lens

iOS Android

Office lens

iOS Android

5. Games

School is hard, get some games! Strongly recommend Leo’s Fortune, Asphalt 8, whatever you can find to blow off some steam!

Windows 10 on the HP Stream 7

Windows 10 has launched and updates have been rolling out to devices over the past few weeks, if you reserved your copy but still haven’t received your update, I suggest you update manually as I have, I will leave a link in the description. The update took a little while but I mostly just left my tablet charging for a few hours and when I came back it was finished. Being quite an underpowered, cheap tablet, I didn’t expect the stream to handle windows 10 too well, but I have been pleasantly surprised, I’d say it runs just as well as windows 8.1 if not slightly better. That is, when it does run. I have had numerous occasions when apps either froze or quit altogether. Thats not to say that I didn’t have this issue before, it is an 89$ tablet after all, but I have noticed it more with the new update. The features that are great about windows 10 are of course great here, cortana runs surprisingly smoothly, The new edge browser is sleak, if underpowered, and mail has a welcome update for gmail users. Overall I’d say that windows 10 has a great new interface as well as some killer new apps and features, and if you have a windows tablet or computer, I would strongly recommend you give it a shot no matter what the level of your device. As a side note, if you are not happy with windows 10 there is a one button shortcut to undo the update and return to Windows 8.1 (or whatever your previous version was)

Asus Zenfone 2 Review

It’s been a while since I have posted here! And things have changed, most notably, I have been using the Asus Zenfone 2 for roughly 3 days and thought I would write a review for this device. If you’re not familiar with the Zenfone 2 it is a mid-range (priced) phone with what would be seen as high end specs. For 299$ unlocked for the more premium model you get almost unheard of specs in this price range, a 2.3ghz Quad core Intel Atom Z3580 processor (64 bit) a 533MHz PowerVR GPU with 4gb of DDR3 RAM, this all powers a 5.5in FHD (1080p) Display. For cameras we get a 13mp f2.0 (Toshiba sensor) rear facing shooter with Dual Tone flash,  up front there is a 5mp f2.0 wide angle camera. So what does all this come to in the real world?

First up, the Cameras. The front shooter is perfectly fine for selfies that are destined for social media, but don’t expect anything exceptional, video conferencing also looks just fine. The back camera delivers good looking photos but is really lacking in the fine details, I shot both with the built in camera app as well as Google’s camera app. Though not much different I preferred the pictures outputted by Google’s app, however the Asus default does include some great features such as super resolution (combines 4 pictures into 1 52mp Shot) and low light mode which blends pixels together in order to bring in more light. Samples below.

Sample Video, no audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RfUPgC1jac

Performance on this machine is fantastic. It’s as simple as that. With 4gb of RAM there really never is any lag, playing 3D games is a breeze and everyday tasks don’t even make a dent. However, I have found the phone to be warm (not hot) to the touch on many occasions. Just for reference I switched to the Google Now Launcher and Next Lockscreen just for personal preference, but performance is identical to stock ASUS software.

Battery on this machine is interesting. Today for instance I started using my phone (off charger) at 2pm and now at 8pm I am down to 40%, however that is with heavy usage, lots of screen on time and many pictures taken, brightness has been set to full or near full for the whole time. The phone is still also suggesting I will get another 5hrs off of the battery with similar usage. A huge bonus here is the included (on the higher end model) quick charging which will get you about 60% battery in two thirds of an hour charging (40mins). This has proven very accurate and extremely useful. Every phone should have this from now on.

The screen that has been taking up most of my battery is a nice one, colours pop and viewing angles are more than decent, however the panel does not get bright enough to read easily in bright sunlight, as well as not dimming enough for nighttime use. Very frustrating.

Wrap Up

The Asus Zenfone is an amazing buy for this price (299 off contract), the performance is unmatched by other midrange devices and almost every other aspect meets or exceeds expectations, however there are a few catches. Cameras are both decent but not amazing, the phones single, rear firing speaker is barely passable, battery life is good but not great, and the power button is awkwardly placed at the very top of the phone right in the centre, though thankfully you can double tap to wake/lock the device.

Verdict

Buy. If you are in the market for a midrange priced phone, this is the one to get. No question about it

CES 2015 so far

CES 2015 has been on for a couple days now and heres a quick rundown of my personal favourite announcements.

LG G Flex 2

Update to lasts years G flex that was met with moderate responses, the G Flex 2 comes with a much needed 1080p 5.5 inch screen (smaller and higher res than last year), Laser focusing for the back camera and updated internals.

New Dell laptops

The XPS 15 now has a 4K screen (everything else stays the same)

The XPS 13 is now the worlds smallest 13 inch laptop because of an edge to edge screen, also boasting a new high accuracy trackpad and 15hrs of battery life.

Toshiba Encore 2 Write

This tablet comes in 8 or 10 inches and ships with a TruPen stylus made with Bamboo (349 and 399 respectively)

Lenovo AnyPen technology

This technology allows you to use any metal object (Pencil, Pen, Fork????) on a Yoga Tablet 2 as a stylus.. interesting.

Parrot CarPlay and Android Auto console

Thats right! This console runs both Android Auto and Apple’s CarPlay to bring hands free control and awesome smartphone integration to existing cars (as its a standalone product).

Lets see what else CES 2015 turns out!

Best Looking Free iOS apps of the year

Yahoo Weather

Simply Beautiful, Yahoo Weather offers a great, simple vertical interface that presents the info you need right away (temperature, condition, location, time). A simple swipe up reveals extra info such as, Forecast for the next 24hrs (hourly), a week forecast, Precipitation forecast for tonight, overnight, early morning and morning, a more detailed version of the current weather, a map showing weather around your area (with colour coded graph info), Wind & Pressure and last but not least Sun & Moon, which shows when sunset and rise is, and the current moon phase. The best thing is, all these different sections, all fully animated,  can be rearranged for your taste, and all the info is displayed over a beautiful (changing) image of your current location from flickr.

Forza Football (soccer)

Though not for everyone, Forza Football is simply gorgeous, as well as very functional offering real time results, notifications for every major event during a game as well as a widget in the notification centre with live updates.

Tempo

Nicely designed Calendar app with lots of different views as well as insights into the people you are meeting with allowing you to see there recent Facebook post, tweets and linkedin feed

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Top 5 Last Minute Tech Stocking Stuffers

Portable Battery Pack

Perfect for anyone that is always looking for a charger or a wall outlet so they can play another level of candy crush without their phone dying, make sure to look for a pack with large capacity (6000 mAh+ is ideal to charge most phones a couple of times) as well as a USB port to allow for all sorts of devices, and if needed support for tablets.

Google Chromecast

This funky looking device plugs into a HDMI port on your TV and basically turns it into a smart TV for around $35, however a phone, tablet or computer is required as the Chromecast can’t do anything by itself. But with a quick explanation almost anyone can get Netflix, Youtube, Pandora and much much much more on their TV

Earbuds

Who doesn’t love some tunes once in a while? On the bus commute to work, office, school, walking on the street or anywhere else that music is required but playing through speakers isn’t an option, a pair of earbuds is essential. I recommend sticking around the 20-30 dollar price range for good sound to value ratio. Sony and JVC are safe bets for the low price range.

Storage

USB Sticks for the student and office worker, MicroSD cards for loved ones who watch lots of movies or listen to tons of music on their phones and full size SD cards for the photographer in the family! You can’t go wrong with a nice large (32gb+) addition of storage

Bluetooth Speaker

For sharing their new favourite band or jamming out at home a bluetooth speaker hits the spot. But be warned, some speakers at lower price rangers are just junk, do some research and go with name brands on this one (JVC, Bose, Monster, UE etc.)

3 best free iPhone scanning apps

3. Genius Scan

Genius scan is a simple scanning app that doesn’t off much more than taking picture, cropping it and putting a black and white filter on it, there is limited support for sharing in the free version. When zoomed in the text just really doesn’t look very sharp (with all the scans I took)

2. CamScanner

CamScanner is easily the most fully featured scanning app and allows for password protection of scanned documents as well as a ton of sharing and uploading functionality. When zoomed in text is moderately sharp and overall very readable.

1. InstaPdf

Very, very simple scanner with a lovely interface, quite sharp and perfectly readable with a bevy of sharing options including microsoft onenote.