Which apps are killing your battery life?

Interesting research came out today about battery life and smart phones. This study specifically examined Android phones – the finding was that free apps that serve advertising use up to 75% of their energy to serve ads . Crazy, huh?

In general, I would love a third party to scientifically assess/rate apps on efficiency of battery usage, memory usage, stability, etc.  Seems like a market opportunity? Maybe this is something the App stores should do themselves as part of the approval process?

In-App Ads Consume Mucho Battery Life

Jacob Aron, NewScientist: Up to 75 per cent of the energy used by free versions of Android apps is spent serving up ads or tracking and uploading user data: running just one app could drain your battery in around 90 minutes.

via: www.newscientist.com

 

Related articles

• Smartphone Battery Drainage Due to Ads by Free apps (madrasgeek.com)
• Why Battery Life is Key to Smartphone Development (techie-buzz.com)

The Biggest Phone You’ve Ever Seen

A couple of months ago, I was riding the subway when I saw a woman holding [what I now know] is the Samsung Note.  If you haven’t seen it in person, the Samsung Note looks like either a gigantic phone or a miniature tablet.  As per the critics in the article below, I thought this was an awful idea, but the consumer traction shows that at least so far there’s demand for a phone like this.

So why didn’t other manufacturers design devices like this? I think that at least one reason there is a disconnect is that many consumer electronics devices are designed by men. Like me, I imagine they think about how they could fit a smartphone in their pants/jeans/jacket pocket.  For women who carry a purse most everywhere, this might be less of a consideration.  Similarly, new consumer electronics devices tend to be designed by younger people. I have been astonished at how many older relatives and friends have asked if they could use their iPads as phones. The larger screen sizes and therefore fonts and spacing are a big reason why older people have flocked to the iPad and other large tablets, and would potentially gravitate toward a phone of this size as well.

So I think we all need to be cognizant of our biases regarding end users/use cases. (Note (pun intended): I still think this phone is ridiculous)

How a Gigantic, 5.3-Inch Smartphone Is Proving Critics Wrong

The Samsung Galaxy Note comes with easy-access note taking software and an S Pen stylus. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired Too big to be a wieldy smartphone, too small to be a generously sized tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note hasn’t received a warm critical reception.

via: www.wired.com

Related articles

• [CES 2012] The Biggest News To Come Out Of CES So Far (Day 1) (androidpolice.com)
• Samsung Galaxy Note Review Roundup: What People Think of the ‘Phone with a Pen’ (ibtimes.com)

NFC: the next big thing in mobile?

Someone asked me recently what I think the next big thing will be in mobile. My answer was “probably NFC”.  What’s NFC? From Wikipedia:

Near field communication (NFC) is a set of standards for smartphones and similar devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity, usually no more than a few centimetres. Present and anticipated applications include contactless transactions, data exchange, and simplified setup of more complex communications such asWi-Fi.^[1] Communication is also possible between an NFC device and an unpowered NFC chip, called a “tag”.^[2]

Many people are excited about the ability of NFC to facilitate mobile payments. As per the post and accompanying photo-set below though, I think there are a ton of other [potentially more] compelling use cases.  Here’s some that are exciting to me:

• Simple pairing of bluetooth devices  - no more passcodes, just scan the tag on a bluetooth device and you’ll be paired. Great for getting in/out of the car and pairing with the car or a headset.
• Access to cars/homes/offices – per the motorcycle example below, NFC can be used as a replacement/complement to a key.  This could be great to give dynamic access to homes for hired help, guests, renters, etc. and similarly for cars, e.g. Zipcar.
• Wifi networks – Log-on to a wifi network in a cafe or office you’re visiting with a simple swipe.
• Marketing-  finally realistically interactive billboards, signs, etc.  Scan to download an app, get a coupon, a video, etc.
• Exchanging content with others – imagine Bump without having to open an app, etc.
• Better mobile boarding passes/check-in/boarding.

I think there are lots of other things that will be built, but I’m excited for a technology that will let people intuitively interact with the world around them without having to download/open an app, take a picture, etc.

What do others think? Will it really be the next big thing or another failure like QR codes or other mainstream applications of RFID? Any other predictions of cool use cases?

NFC: More than just mobile payments

LG’s Optimus L5 is a confused smartphone Making a purchase is a prime example, of course, but NFC also can be used to secure your motorcycle, navigate your way through an unfamiliar subway system, and check in for Foursquare. There are a realm of possibilities, to be sure, and I took the opportunity to check them out while roaming the show floor.

via: reviews.cnet.com

Related articles

• Three Ways NFC Technology Can Be Used In Healthcare (bostinno.com)
• NFC #101: All you need to know about NFC (thehindu.com)

Top 10 Tips for New iPhone Users

Verizon started shipping new iPhones this week! Looks like the negotiation was resolved.

I’m very excited to [eventually] switch from At&t to Verizon. I do expect that a significant number of people, like myself, will switch from At&t to Verizon, even incurring the cost of a new phone and potentially a termination penalty.  I also expect that many Verzion (and Sprint and T-mobile) customers who have been waiting for a Verizon iPhone for years will finally take the leap.  Here’s my advice for those newcomers to the iPhone platform. Some of this will be rudimentary advice for those that have never had a smartphone before, and some will be more advanced.

I predict that the two greatest sources of new iPhone users will be those who currently have regular cell phones (know as feature phones) and those with Blackberry devices. So some of this advice will be specific to former Blackberry users, will note it as such. Ok, here are my tips, click each title to get to the specifics:

1. iTunes/syncing
2. Default Settings
3. Battery
4. E-mail
5. Apps
6. Search
7.  Multitasking
8. Notifications
9. Autocorrect
10. BBM

1. iTunes/syncing – This is very confusing and somewhat unintuitive.  When you purchase your new iPhone, in order to start using it at all and to activate it, you’ll need to connect it via the USB cable that comes with it, to your computer. Your computer will need to have iTunes installed.  Open iTunes on your computer if it doesn’t launch immediately.  Then follow the instructions on the screen to get your iPhone set up and activated. It’s frustrating that one still needs to connect the iPhone to a computer to set it up and also to back it up/sync it.
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2. Default Settings –  There are a number of default settings on the iPhone that I think you should change right away. Click the settings icon, then:

-Wi-fi:

1. Toward the bottom of this page, there is an option “Ask to Join Networks”, that is set by default to “on”.  I suggest turning it off. If you don’t, every time you walk by any wifi network, it will ask if you want to join it.  This is not only annoying, but drains your battery.

2. I suggest immediately adding the wifi networks and passwords for your home and work (and other places you frequent).  Your phone will then automatically switch to wi-fi for data when you are in those locations. You’ll get faster data, use less battery life and generally be happier.

- Sounds:

1. Silent – can’t remember what the default is on this, but I suggest turning vibrate on for silent mode.  Unfortunately there are no “profiles” for iPhones like blackberry users might be familiar with. There’s basically regular and “silent”, flipping the switch on the top of the left side of the phone changes between these.

2. Mail alerts-  I prefer to have no sound/vibrate alerts for new e-mail, as I find it too distracting, this is a personal preference though. I prefer to save sound/vibrate alerts for SMS and application alerts.

3. Keyboard clicks – another personal preference is to turn the sound for keyboard clicks off.  I think these sounds are comforting to those who are new to virtual keyboards, but I think they become annoying pretty quickly (particularly to those around you.) Lock sounds are a similar preference.

- General Settings:

1. Bluetooth – unless you plan to frequently use a bluetooth headset or other bluetooth device, I suggest turning this off to save battery life (see below)

2. Security – Lifehacker has a great post on this.  Passcodes and related settings are also subject to personal preference/debate but I definitely recommend activating the free find/erase feature for your phone. Here is how.

-Phone:

1. Facetime (video calling to other iPhones and Macs) is turned off by default. Turn it on in the Phone settings.

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3. Battery-  There are a number of recommendations that Apple and others make to improve battery life. Here are mine:

- Let your battery totally drain every once in a while.  You can use an app called System to monitor/recharge it to get to its fullest potential.

- Push e-mail and other services are a huge battery drainer.  If you can avoid using an exchange server (most work e-mail/calendars…) to push e-mail to your phone, you’ll generally get better performance. Similarly if you set your e-mail to update less frequently, you’ll get better performance.

- Bluetooth – as I mentioned above, turn it off unless you need it.

- Streaming – streaming video (e.g. Youtube) and streaming audio (e.g. Pandora) will drain the battery pretty quickly so plan accordingly.

- Continuous location – services like Google Latitude, Loopt and others will constantly update your location in the background. This is a pretty serious drain on your battery life, so beware.

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4. E-mail

- There are many e-mail options on the iPhone. I use GMAIL and the default IMAP option to send/receive e-mail.   In Settings> Mail, Contacts & Calendar I set it to fetch only every 30 minutes.  For other webmail services, you’ll see some default options.  For your work e-mail, you’ll probably have to use a Microsoft Exchange account and your office will probably set it up or give you the relevant details.  You can add multiple e-mail accounts and switch between looking at each different account or a merged view of all your e-mail accounts.

- If you are using GMAIL, the default “trash” action on the phone is archive. If, like me, you prefer a true delete option (you can always use the move to all folder for archiving), go to Settings>Mail, Contacts & Calendar and then your GMAIL account and turn “Archive Messages” to off.

- There are some more setting options in Settings>Mail, Contacts & Calendar under mail.  I select 75 as the number of messages to show in the view and the maximum amount of preview lines per e-mail (5).  I use “small” font to optimize the display of all those lines.  These are personal preferences of course.

- Signature – “sent from my iPhone” is enabled by default. Some people like this, many don’t. You can delete it under Signature in this same settings area and leave it blank or replace it with anything you like instead.

- One handy thing to know in e-mail is that when in the inbox view, you can swipe to the right to delete any e-mail straight from the inbox.  Also, clicking edit on the top right lets you select multiple e-mails and perform a single action(like moving something to a folder)

- Searching your e-mail on your phone works well for recent e-mails but when the iPhone says that it is “continuing the search on the server”, it almost never works in my experience. For those instances, I use the GMAIL web app (go to gmail.com in your safari mobile browser).

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5. Apps

- The easiest way to get apps is to go to the App Store icon and search or browse.  Click to install or buy and make sure you have an iTunes account to download.  I will write a separate post on my favorite apps.

- Organizing your apps – there are two ways to do this. One is to do it on your computer via iTunes and then sync it. This is definitely easier/quicker but probably not as convenient.  On your phone itself, to move apps around – hold your finger down on any app until it starts to blink.  You can then drag and drop it to wherever you want it to be.  To create a folder of apps, drag one app onto another app and it will auto-create a folder. It will guess a name based on the types of apps, but you can change it.  You can have as many folders as you want, but only 12 apps per folder.

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6. Search

- There is a great universal search tool on the iPhone.  You can get to it by clicking the home button twice slowly or once if you’re already on the home screen.  By default, you can search here for apps, people, emails, etc.  I use this search to quickly type the first few letters of an app that I want to open and click it in the results (I have so many apps that this is usually faster than finding it manually.)

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7. Multitasking

- This is a confusing one.  Last summer Apple launched the ability to run more than one app at a time.  What does that mean? If you click the home button twice quickly, you’ll see a row of apps displayed at the bottom. These are all of your “open” apps. Clicking any  of them usually results in a quicker switch back to it and it usually saves where you were when you were last in the app.  I recommend closing the ones you aren’t using periodically, as any app will stay open by default and eventually these take up a lot of memory (it’s like Windows/programs being open on your computer).

- Separately, certain apps/functions can run in the “background”, meaning they can actually be running certain tasks while you are in another application. This only works for a few specific types of apps/tasks:

* Music, like Pandora

* Voice apps, like Skype

* Location apps, like Google Latitude

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8. Notifications

Unfortunately, notifications (alerts) is something that could be a lot better on the iPhone.  As mentioned above, you can set preferences for phone,  mail and calendar notifications in the Sounds settings.  For all other apps, you can set options in Settings, and then Notifications.

For most apps, the default settings will be that all notifications will be enabled. These are Badges, Alerts and Sounds.  Badges are little displays on the icon of an app showing, for example, new messages in Facebook.  Alerts are text boxes that pop up with a notice of some sort.  You can actually click  on one of these alerts when the screen is locked and when you unlock it, it will open up the app to the alerted area. I recommend setting all of these notification settings conservatively (i.e. less notifications are better), lest you get woken up in the middle of the night for a spurious notification…

9. Autocorrect

- This is another one that can be confusing to start.   By default, when you type on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, you’ll start to notice that the iPhone will auto-correct/auto-suggest certain words.  The way this works is that the iPhone software assumes that you’ll hit the wrong keys sometimes. It tries to guess which word you meant to type based on the fact that you usually hit the wrong key next to the one you meant to hit. Usually it does a great job guessing and if you just press the spacebar after each word, it will correct it.  Sometimes it guesses wrong though and you see it’s about to correct it (a bubble to the right of the word you’re typing).  You can click the x on that bubble (hard because it’s small) and it will let you type the word the way you intended.

Sometimes this autocorrect feature results in hilarious unintended words/sentences/conversations, like here: not safe for some workplaces: http://damnyouautocorrect.com/

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10. BBM

- Ex-Blackberry users will probably miss BBM even more than their physical keyboards.  The iPhone doesn’t have anything just like that and doesn’t have a way to chat with your ex-BBM- buddies.  The SMS/texting app is pretty good though and threads conversations like BBM. Also, some direct alternatives:

- Beluga Messenger seems to be the latest favorite cross-platform messaging app, works on Android and I think Blackberry too, just like BBM but with photos and videos too. Competitors include Ping Chat and others.

- Meebo – great app for every type of  IM.

- GroupMe – create groups of your friends or co-workers and stay in touch by sending an SMS to one number and having it go to all of them. Fast Society has a similar product.

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Hope these are helpful tips! Any others that I missed from current iPhone users? Questions from any new or about-to-be-new users?

Related Articles

• A look: what phones are Verizon iPhone users switching from? (electronista.com)
• Verizon iPhone 101: What new owners need to know to get started (tuaw.com)

iPad Follow-up

Image via CrunchBase

Unfortunately I haven’t blogged in a while, I aim to remedy that….

I wanted to follow-up on my iPad post now that I’ve had a while to think about it and that it’s almost out now.  There were a lot of people criticizing the critics of the iPad and basically calling them geeks that were too obsessed with features and miss the point of the transformative nature of the device.  They specifically pointed to the early critics of the iPhone who were adamant about some missing features.  I thought this was a somewhat justified criticism and point and decided to examine it.  I remember those critics and the associated missing features, as I was one who lamented those features and thus waited to buy the 2nd generation (3G) iPhone.

Initial things that bugged me about the iPhone:

- At&t Network – had terrible reputation even then

- No 3G data

- No removable battery (worried about replacing after deprecated battery life)

- Completely closed platform (no 3rd party apps at all)

- No physical keyboard

So some of those concerns were addressed in the release of the 3G and some I learned to live with (e.g. keyboard). However, those issues that remain are still some of the most frustrating things about the iPhone, frustrating enough to make me consider Android for my next phone:

- At&t Network

- Battery life is terrible

- Platform is still controlled by Apple – hence Google Maps is crippled (no turn by turn directions for example) and no Google Voice

So, while the argument has some merit, I’m not sure that the criticisms from my original post should be dismissed offhand.  With all its faults and frustrations, the iPhone has transformed the world of mobile and computing, and my own life as well. I’m not yet convinced that the iPad will be such a transformative device, but remain open to seeing how it plays out.  I was certainly much more excited about the iPhone even though its initial feature issues kept me from buying one for a full year until the 3G came out.

My biggest gripes with the iPad are:

1. Seems that the iPad will be awkward to hold/use while typing and perhaps even just while passively reading/watching.

2. I still can’t decide which device this would replace for me.  Since the answer right now is none and most people don’t have tons of spare cash laying around these days, unconvinced about widespread adoption.

Certainly early demand for pre-orders and associated hype show that there are a good number of people who are anxious to try it.  I’m anxious to see how they like it and will adjust my opinions when I see/try it in real life.

What do you think? Are you ordering one?