Hasta La Gadget!

The Canalys numbers are out, and with Android coming off an 886 percent jump reported at the end of the second quarter we were expecting something big. So, here it is: Android is up 1,309 percent worldwide from this time last year, taking over 43.6 percent of the US smartphone market in the third quarter. In terms of mobile operating systems that makes it the dominant player in America, but with Apple capturing 26.2 percent it now jumps into the lead when it comes to hardware, beating out RIM’s 24.2 percent. That’s a swap from last quarter, where BlackBerries beat iPhones 32 to 21.7 percent, and worldwide things are looking the same: Apple at 17 percent compared to RIM’s 15. However around the globe it’s Nokia and the Symbian Foundation still dominating the stage as the leading smart phone OS vendor, owning 33 percent of the market compared to 38 last quarter, while Microsoft sits at a lowly 3 percent. With WP7 ready to rock the world, and Ballmer ready to release the advertising hounds, that’s a figure we’ll be keeping a close eye on for the next few quarters.

Update: NPD has posted its third quarter smartphone market share and Mobile Phone Track reports; they basically back up Canalys’ report, though NPD gives both Apple and RIM slightly less market share. Interestingly, RIM’s BlackBerry Curve 8500 series is identified as the second-best selling phone in the US in the quarter, while the lowly LG Cosmos for Verizon takes third. Weird, huh?

Canalys: iPhone becomes most popular smartphone in the US, Android continues as most popular OS originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Resolution independence, or the lack of it, is one of those nagging problems most users don’t even realize have a name. But the concept is simple: user-interface elements like icons, buttons and window borders on the same OS should be the same physical size no matter what screen you’re using.

From the 1980s until just a few years ago, the gold standard for computer screen resolution was 72 dots per inch (dpi). This wasn’t an accident.

“When the Mac first came out, one of its great WYSIWYG features was that a pixel on the screen was supposed to be equal in size to a printer’s point: 1/72″,” says Mac blogger Dr Drang. “Back then, onscreen rulers matched up quite well with physical rulers, and 12-point type on the screen looked to be the same size as 12-point type on the printed page. But those days are long gone.”

Manufacturers can fit an ever-larger number of pixels onto screens. This is generally a good thing, as it makes images sharper, clearer and more like physical objects. But it also makes anything defined by its pixel-count resolution smaller.

Operating systems, including Mac OS X, began to move away from 72dpi in the middle of this decade. “The old assumption that displays are 72dpi has been rendered obsolete by advances in display technology,” Apple said in 2006, in a developer overview of OS X 10.5 Leopard. “But it also means that interfaces that are pixel-based will shrink to the point of being unusable. The solution is to remove the 72dpi assumption that has been the norm.”

Leopard and then Snow Leopard were supposed to do away with pixel-defined resolutions, allowing developers to draw user interface elements using a scale factor. But while screen resolutions kept getting sharper, resolution independence never quite came.

That is, it never quite came for the desktop. For iOS, resolution independence is essential, mostly because the UI elements need to match our bodies. On the desktop, if icons get smaller, well, pointers and cursors get smaller too. Your fingertip is always the same size.

But even on the iPhone and iPad, resolution-independence is only partial. Yes, icons might register at the same size, but images within the application don’t. Developers who built a pixel-defined app for an older model iPhone find those apps not looking quite so sharp on the higher resolution of a retina-display iPhone 4 or blown up onto the larger screen of an iPad.

For Dr Drang, the absolute size of interface elements matters less than their variability. “On an 11-inch MacBook Air, a 72-pixel line—which would measure 1 inch long against an onscreen ruler—is just 0.53 physical inches long. On a 21.5-inch iMac, that same line is 0.70 inches long. User interface items, like buttons, menu items, and scroll bars are 30 percent bigger on the iMac than on the Air.”

Application developers are necessarily conflicted. Keeping UI tied to pixel counts saves them work rewriting their apps. On the other hand, they can’t count the physical uniformity of experience across every device. Desktop publishing and design pros also have to factor in differences in size from the screen to the page, or one screen to the next. Images and text all materialize differently.

“Microsoft has universal settings to change the size of UI elements,” Dr Drang adds. “Even X Windows allows you to set a screen dpi for fonts. Apple has nothing. With screen resolutions increasing at an accelerating pace, this has to be addressed soon.”

See Also:

• Apple Tablet Will Likely Support 2 Kinds of Apps
• Buy Big or Don’t Bother: Five Tiny Gadgets That Suck
• iPhone 4’s ‘Retina’ Display Claims Are False Marketing
• IPhone 4 ‘Retina Display’ Suffering from Discolored Blobs
• Better Than Retina: The Next Big Display Technology

Your iPhone’s passcode entry can’t block everything, it seems — at least not with iOS 4.1. We’re hearing various reports that simply inputting a random number in the emergency call field, pressing call, and then promptly hitting the hardware lock button will take you to the Phone app, thereby granting you access to the call history, voicemail, and address book. We’ve tried this with iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4, all with the same result. We can’t get out of the field without trying to place a call, and after that we’re still stuck back at the passcode screen. Additionally, selecting “share contact” and then the camera icon will give you access to the photo album. Pay mind that your particularly paranoid pals could probably use this to see if you really did stop calling your ex and delete all his or her pictures. We won’t judge, but they will. Video proof of concept after the break.

Update: Feel free to hold down the menu button to access voice control and play some locally-stored tunes while you’re at it. And if you’ve got 4.2 beta like some of our staffers do, this “trick” should work just the same.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading iOS 4.1 glitch lets you bypass lock screen to access Phone app, photo album (video)

iOS 4.1 glitch lets you bypass lock screen to access Phone app, photo album (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 21:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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About a year ago Viper got into the app game, releasing SmartStart the iPhone and allowing control of the locks, trunk, and ignition on their car. Since then Android and BlackBerry versions have trickled out, but now it’s time for 2.0. What wondrous new functionality does this new major release offer? Not much, really, but it does come with one major improvement: cost. Before you were out at least $299 while the new version is said to cost as little as $199 according to the PR below, though the wording is awfully vague. PR states you can find “dealers advertising Viper SmartStart as low as $199,” but under Viper’s 2.0 site the MSRP is stated to be $299 — the same as before. So, YMMV on the price cut, apparently depending on what your local dealer feels like charging, but know that whatever you pay you’ll now get “Viper Motor Club” roadside assistance included. That should offer a little extra peace of mind as we enter dead battery season.

Continue reading Viper SmartStart app goes to 2.0, gets potentially cheaper and throws roadside assistance into the mix

Viper SmartStart app goes to 2.0, gets potentially cheaper and throws roadside assistance into the mix originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon has good news for Kindle owners that it wanted to share with them first. A post from the Kindle team on Amazon’s Kindle Community forum says that 14-day lending will come to the Kindle sometime this year.

There is a catch: “Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period.” If you’re familiar with Barnes & Noble’s lending feature on the Nook, this isn’t a surprise. “Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable – this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending.” Again, to borrow some jargon, this is a known issue.

Books will be lendable both to Kindle owners and users of Kindle apps, which is nice: even if you don’t have your own Kindle, you can borrow an e-book from someone who does.

The Kindle team also revealed that Kindle app users will soon also be able to read Kindle magazines and newspapers through the app. Periodicals had been a Kindle-only feature. Support for newspapers and magazines is coming to iOS “in the coming weeks” and Android and other app platforms “down the road.”

Since there’s so much news about Kindle’s e-reading competition lately, I guess Amazon just wanted to let Kindle users know that the company still loved them — and more importantly, that it’s going to keep giving them reasons to love the Kindle.

Coming Soon for Kindle [Amazon/Kindle Community Forums, via Kindle Review]

See Also:

• Barnes & Noble May Present Nook 2 Next Week
• Report: Nook Color Will Be Android-Based Reader/Tablet
• Kindle for Web, Blackpad, Sure; Amazon Android Tablet, Maybe …
• How to Do (Almost) Everything With a Kindle 3
• Amazon Updates Mac Desktop Client, Kindle Firmware
• New Amazon Ad Shows Kindle As Sexy Competitor
• Despite Reports, B&N Nook Competes Just Fine, Thank You
• How to Root Your Nook and Run Android Apps