Applidium, the company which brought the widely popular, play-it-all VLC Player to the iPad has finally made a version for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The new version supports more video formats, which is the base of the popularity of the player and a much faster decoding process. It was a surprise to the fans since it was thought so that this app would not make it through Apple's ultra-strict apps-approval process. The number one issue is that this app is a direct competitor of Apple's native Videos app on the iPhone/iPod Touch.
So when the news broke out that the app is finally approved on 25 Oct 2010, the world rejoiced. Including me. ^.^
The new VLC Player App is able to play most video formats and has a faster decoding process. It is only available for iPhone 3GS, 4 and iPod Touch 3G and 4G. I bought an iPod Touch 3G in July this year. I usually stay clear of Apple products but I decided to splash out extra money to get one for a few reasons, the main reason being the convenience of watching videos on the go, especially on my way to school. Previously, I used to watch videos on my PSP Phat aka PSP 1000. While it was sufficient for me, I didn't like the bulk and weight of it and that I had to convert the files to an MP4 format. It was just so troublesome.
I was enticed by the large screen and thinness of the iPod Touch. Unfortunately, I haven't been thorough in my research on the video playback. After I bought it, I realised that while the audio/music app was nicely streamlined, the videos app was an absolutely pain to use. Video conversion was still needed before transferring the video onto the iPod and the onboard conversion-process in iTunes was useless. Furthermore, the video had to be specifically supported by Apple's Quicktime before it can be converted. So no MPG or MKV or other popular formats. Therefore I had to download converting software and therein lies another problem, most of these softwares do not convert into the proper aspect ratio. Letterboxing for widescreen videos are not automatically added, thus making the videos stretched. Eventually I managed to find one that could mass-convert videos with letterboxing, but the converted videos have errors most of the time.
Additionally, the video app on the iPod Touch has no sorting methods at all. At all. I have like 250 videos in my videos app now and the only way to sort the videos is to rename them individually before transferring as they only appear alphabetically. The video filenames also do appear in full, which is a problem when I have a few videos in a series with the same title except towards the back. For example, The Simpsons S16E03 - xxxxxxx. The app would truncate to The Simpsons S16.... So if I had episodes 1-22 from the Simpsons Season 16, I would see 22 video files with the same name. Truly irritating. There's also no way to sort the newest added video other than look at the green dot to indicate if it's been viewed or not.
To make matters worse, there are no substitute video player apps on the AppStore as Apple does not approve apps which "replicate functions" with other apps, as stated in the app-approval guidelines. In other words, they don't want any app to compete with their own. So in the end, I just gave up on watching videos on the iPod.
All hope seems lost but suddenly, the VLC Player app surfaced on 25 Oct 2010 and I immediately went to download it. I admit I was a bit suspicious that the king of video player has been toned down to get approved. Boy was I wrong and what can I say, it truly is a play-it-all video player, even on iDevices. I need not convert my video files anymore. What a relief! AVIs and MKVs now play smoothly. Transferring videos is as easy as drag-drop-sync. Now that VLC is on my iPod, I can chuck the Apple's video app away into oblivion. Although there is no sorting options too, at least I can see the full names of the videos and the time needed to convert the files are gone. That itself is a huge convenience to me already and I am finally using the iPod Touch for the reason I bought it in the first place. Also within 2 days of its release, the app is among the top 3 most-popular apps in the AppStore. That shows how many people hated the Apple's video app.
Features SHINee, SNSD, Miss A, Katy Perry, Flo Rida, Lil Jon, Timbaland, B.O.B., Owl City, Cascada, Ke$ha, Taio Cruz, Jay Sean and many more!
I didn't quite like the last mix I made, Shake Mix and Bake. It's not the songs, but rather the overall feel of the mix, I felt that lots of the transitions were shabbily done. So, I set about to create this mix to try again. Once again, I added a few korean songs to some requests. If you would like me to mix a song of your choice, let me know in the comments below. Thanks. =)
If the song above doesn't load, go here to listen. Tracklist for "Fireflies and Airplanes"
1) Lil Jon ft Kree - Give It All You Got 2) Owl City - Fireflies (Remix) 3) B.O.B ft Hayley Williams - Airplanes (Remix) 4) Train - Hey Soul Sister (Remix) 5) LMFAO ft Hyper Crush - La La La (Remix) 6) Taio Cruz ft Ludacris - Break Your Heart (Remix) 7) 3OH3 ft Ke$ha - Blah Blah Blah 8) Rihanna - Don't Stop The Music 9) SHINee - Lucifer 10) SNSD - Run Devil Run 11) Miss A - Break It 12) Timbaland ft Katy Perry - If We Ever Meet Again (Remix) 13) Katy Perry ft Snoop Dog - California Gurls (Remix) 14) Cascada - Evacuate The Dancefloor 15) Hyper Crush - Ayo 16) Flo Rida ft David Guetta - Club Can't Handle Me 17) David Guetta, Akon, Kid Cudi - Sexy Bitch vs Day N Nite (MashUp) 18) Lil Jon ft LMFAO - Shots (Remix) 19) David Guetta ft Fergie, Chris Willis, LMFAO - Getting Over You 20) Jay Sean ft Nicki Minaj - 2012 (Remix)
After building lots of anticipation of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has finally debuted their new WP7 OS and phones on Oct 11, 2010. There have been images and videos of phones bearing the WP7 OS since the official announcement of it earlier in Feb this year. Not to be confused with Windows Mobile OS, Window Phone 7 is set to take on the smartphone world.
Windows Phone 7
Microsoft may have been leading the smartphone OS many years ago with Windows Mobile. However, the new generation of smartphone OS which are touch-operated, heralded by Apple's iPhone has slowly pushed Microsoft out of the picture. Even though Microsoft has upgraded the WinMo platform to a more finger-friendly 6.5, the Redmond company just couldn't catch up with Apple's iOS and the fast rising Google's Andriod. Not wanting to give up, Microsoft announced in early 2010 that they are developing Windows Phone 7, leaving many wondering if they can really pull it off. Many leaks and teases were dropped in the period leading to the official debut on Oct 11, 2010. Impressions have been really good and praises were given for the slick and fresh minimalistic user interface, the silky smooth animations and deep integration with Microsoft Office, Hotmail and XBox-Live. However, limited information was made know and many questions about this amazing new OS were left unanswered, until tonight.
By the way, the images I used below are all captured and edited on my own while watching the keynote live via streaming off Microsoft's website. The stream is of a variable quality, so some of the images were captured during hi-quality broadcast and others during the low-quality, thus some of the images are sharper and some are fuzzier, pardon that. =)
The windows phone 7 homescreen, scrolled from top to bottom, picture left to right.
So right off the top, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer formally introduced the Windows Phone 7 platform to the world. Microsoft has already signed deals with many top phone companies, such as HTC, Samsung, LG, Dell, Asus and others, to bring WP7 to you. During his keynote, he has unveiled 9 WP7 devices that will be available to consumers soon. Microsoft has also gathered telcos around the world to exclusively sell WP7 phones when they are available. If you look closely at the list the Microsoft has shown, you can clearly spot SingTel. =)
Above: The 9 windows phone 7 devices that will be on sale soon Below: A list of companies that are collaborating with Microsoft to bring WP7 to you. SingTel is among them.
So a quick tour of the Windows Phone 7 experience, or based on what I can remember. It's been about 2 hours since I watched the keynote and I can forget things quite easily, so bear with me. Haha.
2 pictures above depicts the WP7 homescreen. Each square is called a "Live Tile" where information for that tile, if any, is constantly updated and reflected there. Unlike other phones out there, almost anything can be put on the homescreen, such as SMS notifications, Emails, individual contact card, a facebook feed widget, photo slideshow, weather display, apps and almost everything imaginable. The colour of the tiles, or rather the colour theme can be changed as you can roughly see in the 9 phones picture above. Unfortunately the background have to remain black, but that's only for the homescreen as you will see soon enough.
A repeating theme that you will see with all the apps are that to view a different screen, the user will have to simply flick the screen left or right, instead of pressing any physical or soft buttons.
People Hub
A contact card, flicking the screen left and right reveals different information about the contact.
Windows Phone 7 has a different way with dealing with contacts. Instead of just an app showing contact information, Microsoft has made it into a hub where you can view all sorts of information related to that contact. Being called People Hub, it is a place where you can find anything you want with your friends.
When you launch the People hub, it starts simple, showing a whole long list of contacts arranged by alphabets and with their corresponding profile pictures. Selecting any contact will take you, with a nice transition animation of course, to the contact card where you can find all the personal information such as phone number, email, address, website and any other information you have stored. For each contact, you are given the option to link the contact to any social network available, such as Facebook and Twitter. Doing so will allow you to flick the contact card screen to slide it to the left, which will reveal the What's New screen where all the status updates and tweets for that current contact. Pretty amazing. And what's more, the phone will automatically take the profile picture from either Facebook or Twitter and use it for the contact card image. Very useful!
Music+Videos Hub
Music + Videos hub, where you can listen to music and view videos
Next is the Music+Videos hub. In here, you can use Microsoft's popular Zune player to play music, much like Apple's iPod player. As expected, you can browse the music according to songs, artists, albums and playlists. In addition, you can also view videos in this hub. Video apps like YouTube are able to integrate here so that all the video needs are presented simply in this one hub. The hub will feature a "music and video history" list that will show you what you have recently played and allows you to view them again at a touch, without having to go through all the menus. If you subscribed to video or audio feeds through the integrated apps like YouTube, there's even a screen where some new and recommended videos are listed.
Microsoft Office 2010
Microsoft Office integration and Pictures hub
WP7 also offers really deep integration with their new Microsoft Office 2010. The phone allows you to take quick notes with OneNote, which is the homescreen for the Office hub. All the other programs such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint are also in the Office hub, which allows you to view and edit the documents on the go. You can choose to save the documents on the phone or in the Microsoft cloud so that you can access the document on any computer through the internet without having to plug the phone in and transfer. It's much handier that way. Also, a bonus feature is that you can run Powerpoint slideshow directly on the phone with all the transitions. Yup, that's not made up, it was demo-ed there live with a WP7. And with the correct cable, you can even connect to a projector and set up a slideshow, all from the phone. Say goodbye to lugging a laptop the next time you have a business presentation to do. Just whip out the phone, connect to a projector and you're all set!
Pictures Hub
Next is the Pictures hub or basically a photo-viewing app, but with a difference. What set this apart from other phones is that you can link the Pictures hub to a Facebook account or other photo-sharing websites. So besides just viewing photos on your phone, swipe the screen to the side and you're presented with photo feeds from Facebook. That's all too convenient. Anytime you want to view your own photos and/or Facebook photos, just need to start up the Pictures hub and everything will be there. No more do you have to open both the photo and Facebook apps separately. You can also upload the photos to Facebook through the Photo hub. Simply put, anything you want to do with photos, you can do it in the photo hub, though I'm not too sure about photo-editing just yet.
Camera
Ok, the next, which I don't have any photo of, is the camera function. The camera quality and megapixel count will differ from phone to phone, but all will use the same camera app. The camera is similar to all other phones and offers touch-to-focus. You can switch the camera on by pressing the shutter button on the side of the phone or launching the camera app. Start up time is impressive at about 2-3 secs from app-launch to photo-taking ready. When the photo is taken, the snapshot slides to the left and out of the screen while the camera is ready for another shot, similar to an iPhone camera, except that the iPhone camera has a pretty jarring bar at the bottom of the screen to display previous snaps and that takes up precious screen space that you will need to use to help frame the next shot that you want to take.
If you want to view the previously taken photos, all you have to do is just swipe the screen to the right and the photos on the camera roll will slide in and you can see all the photos taken thus far, not just the ones taken in this session. You can also choose the display style as just plain or with a film-strip look. A small but visually appealing move.
From the video below, you can see that the camera app allows you to make very detailed adjust to suit your photography needs. All settings like ISO, Shutter Speed, Exposure, Metering, Resolution, HDR, WDR, Panorama, Scene Modes and many other adjustments can be made directly in the app.
Email Hub
The email app and calendar (black screen)
One must-have app for business users out there is the email app. Simple and easy to use, you know how it is, flick the screen left and right to view message categorised in different ways. The email app is easy to set up with Hotmail and uses all their features. Furthermore, the email app can sense appointment timings and other events and automatically update it to the calendar app if you instruct it to. Quick and convenient with no fuss. To add even more intelligence, the phone will let you know if the new appointment clashes with any other booking for that same time slot. As you can see in the screenshot above, the black screen is the calendar app. The left column shows the booked time slots and the right shows the new appointment that clashes with the current bookings.
Maps App
The Maps app, zooming out shows the map, zooming in enough shows the satellite view.
The Maps app in WP7 is exactly what you will expect. You can view maps and search by locations. The WP7 will function like a GPS and direct you to the destination turn by turn. As a bonus touch, when you're zoomed out, you will see the map and directory, however, zooming in close enough will change your view to a satellite view with the road names overlaid on it. Nothing much to say besides that.
WP7 Apps
Some of the apps on demo. From left, U-Verse AT&T, IMDB and eBay. All of them sport the same user interface to maintain familiarity and intuitiveness.
Of course, any phone nowadays count on the apps to enhance the experience and WP7 is no different. With about 2000 apps developed already, there's a new world waiting when the first WP7 hit the stores. While 2000 may seem like a small number compared to the 250,000 on Apple's AppStore and the 90,000 on Google's Market, I don't think you need 20 Facebook apps or 15 YouTube apps. Regardless, once the WP7 starts selling, the appcount will definitely pick up. All the apps on WP7 conform to the same style of displaying photos, videos and information on the screen. Menu screens are navigated by flicking left and right and there are almost no screen buttons. This is to ensure that the apps stick to the same interface design as the WP7 so that it will feel familiar and is easy to use. From the screenshots I see above, the style is definitely unique and very pleasant on the eyes. The video below will show you the "appstore" or Windows MarketPlace. Looking great too.
Games Hub
The Games Hub pages.
The last feature that Microsoft is betting heavily upon is the integration with XBox Live. WP7 will be able to support some of the XBox games and also shared leaderboards and avatars. This essentially makes the phone an extension of the Xbox console. If done properly, they may just attract the millions of Xbox Live users in the world to consider getting a Windows Phone 7 to enhance their gaming experiences. Furthermore, games graphics and performance on Windows Phone 7 phones are looking good. The games are able to utilise the built in accelerometer to enhance gameplay. With quite a good lineup of games, WP7 is set for mobile gaming too, behind Apple's iPhone and Google's Andriod powered phones. Also announced by Microsoft is the partnership with Electronic Arts (EA) to develop games for the WP7, some of which will also find their way to full-fledged games on the Xbox.
The Sims 3 (top and middle), Illio and Milo (bottom) Both games are fully rendered 3D.
The video just above shows some of the games that are already developed for the Windows Phone 7 platform. Big names like Guitar Hero and Bejeweled can be found. With Microsoft also a game developer, one can expect some great games from the software giant. At around 1:02, you can see CarneyVale, which is a Singapore-produced game.
Conclusion
Microsoft has shown that with Windows Phone 7, they are still able to compete in the smartphone market. They have brought in a fresh new user interface, that may wow some and disappoint others. However, they have also shown that touchscreen phones can offer a fantastic experience based on a properly designed and functional operating system.
Animations are plentiful on this OS, but so far, I haven't seen so much as a lag in any of the phones that have been demo-ed. Many of the animations are small and subtle but the overall effect is visually stunning. What results is a brilliant balance of visuals and performance.
Unlike Andriod phones, these WP7 phones are to conform to Microsoft's list of hardware specifications before they are allowed to run the WP7 OS. What this means is that you can expect all WP7 phones to run alike, smooth and without hiccups. As the software for all the phones are the same, what will differ is the hardware. Vendors are free to add on additional features that will improve the experience of the phones. Samsung has made their Omnia 7 and Focus phones with their acclaimed Super AMOLED screen and HTC has added a slide out Dolby Surround speakers for their HTC Surround. LG has made a side slideout keypad for their phone and Dell has a bottom slide out keypad for their Dell Lightning.
HTC Surround with their side slide out Dolby Surround Speakers
Samsung Focus with its Super Amoled screen
In case you have the feeling that these phones will be extra expensive, the HTC Surround and Samsung Focus have been announced to be selling for US$199.99. That's equivalent to about SG$270, with contract. It's still cheaper than the Apple iPhone 4. With a polished OS, more features and at a lower selling price, I say that Windows Phone 7 may just be a formidable opponent to the iOS and Andriod platforms.
NB: For some reason, WP7 does not support "cut and paste" function at the moment but Steve said that there are plans to enable that via an update when 2011 rolls in shortly.
Features Super Junior, Hyun A, 2NE1, Justin Bieber, Akon, David Guetta, Wonder Girls, Katy Perry, Adam Lambert, Ludacris, Agnes, Taio Cruz and more! Track Duration : 42 min 50 sec If the music widget above doesn't load, just refresh the page. Otherwise, listen to it here.
I just made a new mix. Unlike all my previous mixes, I decided to mix in some korean songs for fun cause I thought they sounded nice. Feel free to listen and download the mix above. If you like the mix or want to hear a particular song in my next mix, let me know!
Full track list below: 1) Akon ft David Guetta and Clinton Sparks - Take A Chance 2) Example - Kickstart 3) Wonder Girls - Nobody 4) Usher ft Pitbull - DJ Got Us Falling In Love 5) Mike Posner - Cooler Than Me 6) Katy Perry - California Gurls 7) Adam Lambert - If I Had You 8) Hyun A - Change 9) 2NE1 ft Lil Jon - Fire 10) Super Junior - Bonamama 11) Taio Cruz - Dynamite 12) Will.I.Am ft Nicki Minaj - Check It Out 13) David Guetta ft Michele Belle - Read Your Mind 14) Taio Cruz ft Ke$ha - Dirty Picture 15) David Guetta ft Chris Willis - Louder Put Your Hands Up 16) Agnes - Release Me 17) Justin Bieber ft Ludacris - Baby 18) Katy Perry - Teenage Dreams
Facebook is a great social network. It allows you to share photos and videos. While video sharing is adequate, I find that the photos is the exact opposite. Although Facebook allows you to upload high-resolution photos, it downsizes them to a 720pixel high photo, meaning at a lot lower resolution.
It may not be a bother to many people, but it does bother people like me who want to share and appreciate hi-res photos. This has led people turn to other photo-sharing sites such as Flickr and Picasa to satiate their need for ultra high definition photos. Finally, Facebook has listened and now allows people to share high definition photos. Just how high? They've kindly provided images to illustrate their new system. Although the photos will be very large in size, I believe that the display size will still be the same as now, but with the option to zoom in on the photo for its full glory.
Facebook will now support very high-res photos
Also, Facebook improves the viewing interface of photos with a new lightbox style that you will see on many websites, such as STOMP, where clicking an image will lead to a white box expanding over a dark background to display the photo. One benefit of this is that you no longer have to load a new page everytime you want to view a new photo. Instead the lightbox widget pop out and you can view photos and even albums without ever leaving the page. As only the photos and the comments will refresh, you can browse through photos much faster.
Facebook promises a more comfortable photo-viewing with this method. Although I myself always wanted photos against a dark background, I'm a little apprehensive of this lightbox style as I find it a little annoying if it is not implemented properly. The Facebook blog also included a screenshot to give a preview.
The new lightbox style will show a popup photo display.
Also, Facebook has promised to update their uploading and tagging system. When uploading photos, the new uploader will allow you to choose between uploading at standard or high resolution. Also, tagging is improved and it will allow the user to tag multiple images at once, making it even more convenient to share photos over this giant of a social network site.
The new uploader allows you to choose between standard and hi-res.
Finally, Facebook says that it will slowly roll out this new photo display over the coming weeks, so let's just see how things work out. Good things may just come to those who wait. ^.^
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