Did you know: First Generation iPhone launch could have been a disaster

On this date two years ago, the world lost a true visionary when Steve Jobs died due to pancreatic cancer. In Saturday's New York Times, there are some excerpts from an upcoming book entitled Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution that go inside the first launch of the Apple iPhone. For example, the software in the Wi-Fi radio packed into the unit that Steve Jobs would introduce to the world, was unstable. As a result, wires had to be run off stage and connected to the phone's antennas so that the signal would not have to travel so far.

Even though AT&T had brought in a portable cell tower for the event, Steve Jobs had the iPhone that he would use in the unveiling, programmed to always show 5 bars of signal strength regardless of what the true reading was. Andy Grignon, the senior engineer responsible for the radios in the phone, was so nervous about the event that he packed on 50 pounds in the weeks before the launch. "If the radio crashed and restarted, as we suspected it might, we didn’t want people in the audience to see that, so we just hard-coded it to always show five bars," Grignon recalled.

But the biggest worry was that the demo iPhone would crash while Jobs was multitasking on stage. In case the unit he was working with ran out of memory, Apple's CEO had a few other units with him on stage that he could instantly switch to. The phones had just 128MB of memory and were prone to crashing. It seems hard to believe now, but one of the greatest consumer products ever launched was far from complete on that January day in 2007 when it was unveiled. Not one unit ever came off an assembly line, and the 100 or so units built before the introduction of the device had plenty of faults. The software was buggy and the device couldn't even finish playing one song or video without crashing. Send an email and browse the internet and the phone would work. Reverse the order and it would crash. The challenge for Steve Jobs was to show a smooth running phone at the unveiling, make the public drool now, and hammer out the bugs over the 6 months before the phone was actually launched.

Jobs had to be feeling nervous. If you view a video of his introduction of the Motorola E790 iTunes phone (aka ROKR E1), a glitch during the presentation made Jobs look lost and you could see him getting annoyed on stage. Ironically, Apple almost purchased Motorola in 2003, but at the time it was considered a company too big for Apple to swallow. Even more ironically, Google bought out the handset maker eight years after Apple failed to do so.

Things fell into place as Apple worked on the software that became iOS. Multi touch, which by 2003 could be used on a tablet like prototype, was introduced to the public with the new touchscreen phone. Despite this, the first prototype was similar to an iPod with a click wheel for dialing. Another prototype looked more like the device we know as the first-gen iPhone. But constructed of brushed aluminum, the radio signals could not escape the inside of the phone.

Security was tight. Apple didn't even tell the companies whose parts were driving the phone what it was building. Companies like Marvell, which produced the Wi-Fi chip, thought that its part was going into a new iPod. Phony schematics were drawn up to throw people off the scent. Amid some rumors about an Apple manufactured handset, the Apple iPhone was finally introduced on January 9th, 2007 and the world was changed. Not that the engineers who worked on the project realized what they had unleashed on the world. Fortified from a flask smuggled in during the event, they were all feeling no pain.

Source Phone Arena and nytimes

Are Benchmark scores for mobiles fake?? LG,Samsung , HTC all found to boost scores

Samsung has made the news a couple times because the company has been caught artificially boosting benchmark scores on various devices, most recently with the Galaxy Note 3 which saw 20-50% increases in benchmark scores depending on the tests run. And now, more research from AnandTech is showing that almost no manufacturers are innocent in this practice, which really shouldn't come as a surprise.

AnandTech has been looking through the data since July, and has concluded that benchmark gaming is a pretty common occurrence. In fact, the only devices that were found to not change CPU behavior when a benchmarking app is detected were Nexus devices and newer Motorola devices (most pre-Google Moto devices weren't tested). The testing showed that at least one device from major manufacturers like HTC, LG, and Asus all push higher CPU frequencies in order to score better on benchmark tests. 

So far, Samsung seems to be the only manufacturer that has also changed GPU frequencies in order to game benchmark tests, and not all tests are being gamed. AnandTech talks about the need for manufacturers to simply stop the entire practice of altering test results, but that idea seems unlikely to us. Manufacturers all want to gain advantages, even if the number of users who would care about said advantages is relatively small. 

In reality, the most likely scenario is that benchmark makers and OEMs will continue to play cat-and-mouse. Benchmark makers will try to stay ahead of the optimizations, and OEMs will keep trying to gain artificial advantages. We can always try to rename every benchmark test, and get around the optimization whitelists. But really, the best option all around is just to stop putting all that much faith in the raw numbers (which were never that useful to begin with), and just look at real world performance. 

source: AnandTech

Nokia Lumia 520 is the top selling Windows device in the world

We've often commented on how Nokia has really been sizzling hot in the lower end of the smartphone market. No surprise then, that the Nokia Lumia 520 is the highest selling Windows device on the planet. That includes other Windows Phone flavored handsets, Windows powered PCs and tablets. Microsoft itself has realized how important the Nokia Lumia 520 has become, not just for Windows Phone, but for the entire universe of Windows products. This is the impression that blogger Paul Therrott took away from the recent Microsoft company meeting.

The popularity of the Nokia Lumia 520, and it's twin T-Mobile branded Nokia Lumia 521, comes as a result of a low off-contract price (the latter recently was available for just $80 with a coupon code, off contract) and the features available on the model. Yes, there are certain things that the device cannot do because of its low-end specs, but that is more than made up by the things the phone can do. For an example of that, we can look at the recent GDR2 update. The Nokia Lumia 520 and Nokia Lumia 521 both offer FM radio reception after the update, but it will not have the new Glance Screen which includes an always on clock and the ability to wake the phone with two taps to the screen.

The Nokia Lumia 520 is equipped with a 4 inch screen with resolution of 480 x 800. A dual-core 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus is under the hood with 512MB of RAM aboard. The device offers 8GB of native storage and a 64GB capacity microSD slot is available. The 5MP camera on back does not offer flash, and there is no front-facing camera. In other words, the Nokia Lumia 520 is giving you a handset with 2011 specs. But for those who would rather not spend the money on a more expensive model, this device has proven to be a capable handset.

For Nokia and Microsoft, the big question is whether the Nokia Lumia line will continue to struggle with the high-end of the smartphone market where the Nokia Lumia 1020 currently sits. AT&T has already made a permanent $100 price cut to the subsidized price of the camera-centric unit, bringing the cost down to $199.99 with a signed two-year pact. This is the area of the market where Nokia and Microsoft have been concentrating their marketing dollars, but have not been able to get any traction so far. Will the upcomingNokia Lumia 1520 phablet, with improved specs thanks to the GDR3 update, light the spark for Windows Phone in the upper segment of the smartphone world?

A look at the specs of Nokia Lumia 520.

Can Blackberry survive??

In June 2012, when Blackberry delayed the launch of its Blackberry 10 OS, I had a thought in mind that it is too late.
Blackberry has always prided itself as a end to end solution provider, a maker of not only software and hardware products but also device security and management services that have helped enterprises to keep their data secure.
There was a time when Blackberry was class apart. It was always seen as a corporate centered company and it had a large customer base. Its messenger service called BBM was so popular that it was almost impossible to crack down its code for others who dreamt of creating a messenger service like BBM.
But as we all know, everybody has a dream run for a certain period of life, for blackberry its golden days are now over. The company which had once the potential of locking horns with giants like Apple, Samsung and Google is now crying even for its survival.
The company declared in August that it is available for sale.
The company has also planned to cut down 4500 jobs across the globe i.e. 40% of its workforce and has posted nearly 1 billion $ loss in recent quarter.
On september 23, fairfax financial made an offer to purchase blackberry for 4.7 billion $ or 9$ per share in cash. Fairfax already has a 10% stake in the company.
The question is: Can Blackberry survive?..Well, I doubt it.
In today's fast changing world, one has to keep itself updated to stay in competition but blackberry never learnt a lesson. It always advertised itself as a company that is focused on corporate employees. Companies like Samsung and google are the best examples of keeping themselves updated with time. They have brought so much innovation in their products through the years that it has now become impossible for a company like blackberry to even think of surpassing them. Blackberry woke up but it was already late. BB10 OS came at a time when market was already flooded with Android and iOS powered devices and people just cant leave them. So , when BB10 came in market, despite its awesomeness, it did not manage to win hearts.Also, its BBM application is now no longer an alien thing, applications like whatsapp have filled the gap for android iOS users who used to feel jealous of people using BBM. Company is posting  more and more loss after every quarter. None of their strategies are working. Recently, they thought of introducing their popular BBM service to iOS and Android but on the day of release, it leaked online creating a fuss and blackberry had to postpone its launch. The question here is: A company which focuses so much on security is now seeing such a low day that its major release gets leaked?? Clearly the passion for work is missing in employees .

It is sometimes the nature of pioneers to think that the advantages that helped them achieve their leading positions will always be there. Companies that build successful business models using one set of assumptions tend to ignore upstarts and trends that run counter those assumptions, and thus wind up writing their own obituaries.

Yet that is the nature of the capitalist world--the "creative destruction" that economist Joseph Schumpeter hailed. It breathes life into new business, new models and new ideas. The downside is that is also destroys old ones, which is what we're seeing with BlackBerry today.

The Lunchbox Review: An exceptional breed

Rating: 4.5/5 stars (Four and half stars)

Star cast: Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Denzil Smith, Bharati Achrekar, Nakul Vaid, Lillete Dubey

Director: Ritesh Batra

What’s Good: The film is a cinematic delight filled with the right amounts of love and warmth.

What’s Bad: Nothing

Loo Break: Don’t even think of one.

Watch or Not?: Don't even think of missing this!!

Analysis: THE LUNCHBOX is a story of a beautiful relationship triggered by the wrong delivery of a lunchbox that's delivered daily within the bustling metropolis of Mumbai.

If you think that in the modern age of Email and Whatsapp, old-styled romance will not work, then you are perhaps wrong. It is the precision with which it is portrayed on screen that actually matters. When you see 'The lunchbox' you will fall in love for it. Illa(Nimrat Kaur) is a housewife who has been neglected by her husband and she make his favorite dishes for him so that he can somehow notice her. One fine day the lunchbox reaches to wrong destination i. e to Government officer Saajan Fernandez (Irrfan) and that is how this sweet romance starts.

On the edge of retiring, Saajan has no spice in is life and nothing to look forward to. He is soon to be replaced by a trainee played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

The letters exchanged through lunchbox changes his life and he begins to get drawn to a life filled with colors and liveliness. Director Ritesh batra has shown Mumbai in its true sense, the crowded Mumbai local trains, messy Government offices and always high on spirits Dabawallas who feed thousands of Mumbaikars daily.

Illa bares the marble of her boring marriage and suspects that her husband is having an extra-marital affair. The two actors share their memories with each other through letters and it looks so natural and sweet that you will actually feel happy at heart.

Saajan recounts to her, the memories of his past wife laughing over and over at same jokes of 'Yeh Zo Hai Zindagi' and recording them while he kept looking back at her reflection.

There is a hidden beauty in every shot. Even the supporting actors are at their best.

Nawaz plays Shaikh, the man who is to replace Saajan at work, a young man who chops vegetables on his files and always add weight in his lines by saying some random sayings of his mother. Let me tell you Nawaz is one of the finest actors ever produced on Indian soil. he delivers his performance with so ease that you will feel that he is actually saying the dialogues naturally and not before a camera.

Every time when he says 'Good morning sir, kaise hai ap?' , you will feel something at heart.

The voice of Bharati Achrekar as deshpandey aunty is also a delight although you will not be able to catch even a glimpse of her.

If I talk about performances, Irffan is a delight to watch and he do not want any introduction to prove himself. He slips into a character much older than him with so much ease.

He is terrific and somehow so charming in his role, that even as the retiring old man he will make your heart skip a beat.

Nirmat kaur is natural. She is not an eye-candy actress but she is someone who understands every shade of her character and her performance is top notch.

Nawaz as I have already told essays his role with keenness and brilliant at his work.He will make you fall in love with him by his work.

Direction: Director Ritesh Batra has done something which many film makers will not be able to achieve in years.He has make a simple story so convincing and natural that you will fall in love at first sight at the very first frame of the movie. The way he decided to end his movie at climax could not have been better. He leaves the decision to audiences and surprisingly you will come home with a positive head .

Last word: The lunchbox is a cinematic gem and a rare breed. I have watched the first show, you do not even think of missing it. People were literally clapping when the movie ended, that is the appreciation every director would think of.