Phone Updates

Tons of news on the phone front.

Amazon introduced their first phone, Fire. Running on Fire OS (built on Android) just as the Kindle Fire, this phone's most distinctive feature has to be Dynamic Perspective which adds depth to the experience with some application; this has motion sickness written all of it, similarly to Apple's parrallax motion feature. With five cameras in the front, there seems to be tons of wasted space on the front that could probably be used to increase that 4.7 inch screen. The design is simplistic and I like it; and the speaker isn't on the back of the phone!

Amazon's exclusive application, Firefly, for the phone definitely Amazon's way of extending their marketplace to its users by recognizing items (by sound/image) and displaying more information about a produce including purchasing info. The "home" interface on Fire OS seems interesting and lacked complexity unlike other mainstream Android interfaces; I'm not sure having one widget on the screen at time is for me. And with Fire OS, you'll be missing out on tons of Android applications that just don't exist in the Amazon App Store (e.g. Google Apps (Gmail)) without rooting the phone.

But at $650 off contract, the phone just doesn't seem to offer anything special worth its price. The lack of the Play Store is a major turnoff. While cool, the Dynamic Perspective seems to be a novelty more than anything else especially without buy-in from majority of app developers. (But I'm willing to give it a try). This will be for those users already in the Amazon ecosystem but otherwise, I don't see it drawing massive numbers with this version of the phone.

T-Mobile's popular CEO John Legere introduce some major changes to T-Mobile services. The biggest change of all is that music data from the major music streaming services (currently Google Music is left out) won't count against your bandwidth; this is a big deal. They have even included a free music streaming service, Rhapsody Unradio, to their new unlimited LTE plans! (But it looks like my plan isn't eligible...) They are also partnering up with Apple to offer a 7-day T-Mobile Test Drive; I'm not sure how I feel about this... Apple bias anyone?

In other news, some useful features on applications are never advertised to the user; Google is well-known for this. I would like to bring up a couple features I think could be utilized better/more often:

Google Locations: In the Google+ app, there is a "Locations" section where you can view friends' locations (if they give you permission). From there, you can even get directions to them by swiping their name. You can edit your location settings here.

(See it at the bottom?! I think the removal of the side menu on the G+ application was a mistake on Google's part)

Whether you hate it or not, tons of people are on Facebook. Adding someone can be difficult at time but there is a function that allows it be simpler. QR Codes! Hidden in the depths of the Facebook app, there is an option of adding friends based on a QR Code (Navigation: Menu Tab->Friends->QR Code). I think this feature should be more prevalent.

Now you can test it out by adding me!