Google released Android 4.0 , also known as Ice Cream Sandwich or ICS  in mid November to the world at large. Assuming that was the earliest date that carriers, mobile makers and developers got their respective hands on it (which is not likely as at least handset OEMs were probably getting release candidate  builds at least) then why has over four months gone by and ICS is at best dripping onto new phones? Just in the last few days are seeing Samsung releasing the Android 4.0 update on the Galaxy S2  on O2, and there are some  Nexus S devices out there reportedly getting the update. Galaxy S users are however high and dry for which you can apparently thank Touch Wiz. While the Nexus S and Galaxy S are essentially identical under the bonnet, the presence of Samsung’s Touch Wiz features means there is not enough memory for Ice Cream Sandwich. HTC is claiming several of its phones will be getting the Android update, only the HTC Sensation on Vodaphone is actually seeing an update at present.

And  it is not just phones. Supposedly the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 was to release in the UK in March, but the release was pushed back to April because of problems with adapting TouchWiz. Motorola rolled out  OTA for ICS for the Xoom tablets starting in late January. Some would say that tablets can release updates far faster because the maker does not have to get the blessings of the respective wireless carriers. First, since many tablets come with wireless data options, that is not really true. Second, as owners of unlocked Galaxy S2s can tell you, not being tied to carrier approval apparently means nothing as they will be the very last group of  phones to get a taste of ICS.

According to recent surveys, less than five percent of Android users are currently running Ice Cream Sandwich  and the vast majority are running Gingerbread or lower. True, if you want the latest and greatest you can root your phone, but not everyone is a power user who fearlessly voids warranties. Further, one must consider the cost of incurring the wrath of the IT gods. Hacking your company issued device is risky at best and may be impossible in any case. Even if you bring your own phone or tablet to work, many corporate systems will not allow access to e-mail and the like with rooted devices by either technical means or threat of being sacked if discovered. So the vast majority is at the mercy of the phone and tablet makers for “official” upgrades. Those upgrades seem to come about as often as Henry VIII paid alimony.

What do you think?

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It’s Spring: where is my Ice Cream Sandwich?

The biggest obstacle to purchasing a Kindle Fire for use as an everyday tablet, OTHER THAN YOU CAN”T GET IT FROM AMAZON.CO.UK (apologies, but I feel much better now)  is the fact that the current Fire lacks any way to connect an external keyboard. Amazon had to keep the cost down somehow, and not adding Bluetooth or an external keyboard was apparently part of the process. Put this firmly in the speculation category, but there are some programs out there already that enable handwriting recognition for the Kindle Fire and some evidence that  Amazon may have to either tout handwriting recognition over an expensive accessory or add features to the Fire to match Apple and other Android products.

Accurate handwriting recognition has been one of the Holy Grails of any hand held device. One of the most famous first attempts was the Apple Newton, but it became more well known for its flubs than its accuracy. The late, great Palm brought handwriting recognition mainstream with its easy to learn Graffiti language that made Palm PDAs the geek standard for keeping track of your personal information.

The advent of the Handspring (later Palm) Treo and RIM Blackberry line and smart phones generally pushed handwriting recognition to the background in favor of keypads and texting. However, the Apple iPhone, ushered in capacitive touchscreens and until the advent of Capacitive stylus products the only way to input into recent smart phones and tablets was your finger, your voice or if truly cold and desperate a meat stick.

As smart phones started losing hardware keyboards in favor of more screen real estate, users were finding the onscreen touch keyboards unsatisfying. In other words, we ham handed people who do not have either the hands of a surgeon or a child had a hard time entering information at any reasonable rate. Further, handset makers were discovering that there was a reason that people wear gloves in the wintertime. Even Apple can’t ignore the market where it gets cold. And meat sticks can be so greasy.  Enter the capacitive stylus.

Some have speculated that Apple sees a world where we talk to our phones and tablets as evidenced by Siri on the iPhone and voice dictation on the third generation iPad. Android appears to at least be competing in this arena as well. However, unless you live in the world where you have a private office, a car and driver and the like, the rest of us run the risk of suffering the fate of those who appear to be talking to themselves in the Underground. Or at least brassing off our coworkers.

Right now the Kindle Fire, like other Android products have access to several handwriting recognition programs. Unlike many other Android products,  there is no way at present to mate a Kindle Fire to a hardware keyboard of any stripe and thus Amazon has to either provide a way to do some kind of input or be relegated to a media player on steroids and not a viable tablet option for anyone who sees a tablet as a possible notebook replacement or supplement for serious email or note taking. Pushing handwriting recognition may be the most cost effective way to do it.

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Is Amazon going to tout Handwriting Recognition on the Kindle Fire?

Looking at Apple’s education announcement and the later statements by McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw that; 1.  school boards would have to pay the $14.99USD “pilot pricing” per year per student and. 2.a paper text book costs $75.00USD per book and is replaced once every five years or so, and that Mr. McGraw expected to make money on “volume”, I had to wonder how Apple was going to knife the publishers? There has to be a plan to take out the publishers, because it is in Apple’s corporate DNA to screw the old school content providers. They almost have to, because the scheme as presented has absolutely no cost savings to cash strapped American school boards, and the prospect of a huge investment into the Apple ecosystem.Here is how I think it is going to play out.  In the US, publicly funded schools are generally overseen by the various states and each county and or city has its own school board that is for the most part funded by local taxes. Apple is going to point out to the state oversight school boards (if the states don’t figure it out on their own) that they can create their OWN textbooks using their own state university resources (ie graduate students) Essentially, once the primary texts are done, its just  a mater of updating and revisions.  For example, the American State of Tennessee has 971,524 students enrolled in K-12. (Think of it as Grades 1-13) The cost of one Apple iTextbook at say $15.00 USD would be $14,572,680. Admittedly, the number includes the entire group of K-12, but, I could see using iPads in kindergarten even if they were not issued to students below 3rd or 4th grade. Assuming 6 courses per student per year and figure 6 textbooks (at least-don’t forget lab books in upper forms)per student, per year, doing the  iMath comes to at least $90USD a year. per student, not counting the cost of the iPads.  However, if the schools create their own content, even at market cost there is about a five year break even for the cost of an iPad. Over, $14 million  US dollars would pay for a lot of work study time to do the basic research and writing of the texts All that has really stopped many state school boards from doing their own textbooks was the economies of scale for for publication.Take out the printing costs and its a whole new match. One the textbook publishers are likely to lose.

Commentators have mentioned that nothing was said about university level textbooks. I suspect not only that was deliberate on Apple’s part, it is where textbook publishers will start feeling the heat. Uni professors love to inset their own spin on the texts they use, even to almost writing their own. In the US, college textbooks are hitting $200USD a book in many subjects. Whilst UK textbook costs are usually 20-50% lower in the US, everyone is looking to cut costs.  Not to mention the potential savings on classes where you get a lecturer who almost never uses the book, but often has other material to read.  In the college setting, an iPad based textbook ecosystem could pay for itself in the FIRST TERM.  The idea of updated content is particularly appealing for technical subjects. From  the university’s perspective, there would not be any real need to issue iPads, students would be expected to buy them.

Where is Apple in all this? Selling a lot of iPads. Where are the textbook publishers? Trying to steal the pudding of the record companies at the home for obsolete business models.

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Is this Apple’s plan for the textbook market?

Microsoft gave users and developers many things to think about at the BUILD conference in California this last week.  One that is getting a lot of traction is the idea that Microsoft will be developing a Metro style, touch friendly version of Microsoft Office that will run on tablets. Metro is the name of the user interface language used for Windows Phone 7, and after BUILD, seems to be the direction that Microsoft Windows UI is heading going forward. A lot of analyses are saying that if Microsoft can follow through on the promises made to developers at BUILD, then they will have an OS ecosystem at least on par with Apple.

In fact, Microsoft better be working on a tablet friendly version of Microsoft Office. Office is probably the second largest source of revenue after Windows itself and played a large part in establishing Microsoft’s global dominance.  Microsoft Office has become the default bundled business productivity suite for concerns from mom and pop stores to FedEx and JP Morgan.

However, as tablets become more popular, Microsoft is going to have to rely on a “Metro Office” if it expects to have a chance at blunting the hold Apple has on the tablet market. Apple has a self contained ecosystem of products and apps and right now is so far out in front it is rumored that Apple is delaying the introduction of the iPad 3, because in essence it’s lapping the competition.  Microsoft seems to be adopting a similar approach through its co opting of Nokia to [produce Windows Phone based handsets and the direction being taken with Windows 8 and Metro.

Microsoft has made a lot of exciting promises with Windows 8 and Metro.  Microsoft also has a bit of reputation for talking about new things that never see retail shelves.  However, the last time Microsoft had the kind of competition it is facing now from Apple and Google for operating system market share Bill Gates was writing code for the company and IBM was selling PCs.  In order to succeed, Microsoft needs its star business tools ready for the tablet generation.

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Rumors of Microsoft Office on Metro Tablets? It better be a fact

DNet UK, HP’s head of the Personal Systems Group in the United Kingdom, Paul Hunter confirmed that the Pre 3 would be released in the UK sometime in August. He was mum on an exact date, but as it looks right now, the Pre 3 is likely to be in British hands well before Americans will get to do more than read about it.

The HP web os sales site for the Pre 3 lists the phone as being available for pre-order unlocked for £399.99, a bit dear for a phone whose specs have slipped to barely mainstream since they were announced six months ago. HP is beating the bushes for developers to get their Pre 3 apps in for approval as soon as possible along with releasing an updated emulator.

HP released the Pre 2 to Europe before it was made available in the States. At that time it appeared the US GSM carriers were a bit skittish about taking on the phone since it was early in the assimilation of Palm by HP, and there were already rumors swirling about the Pre 3. Now, HP may want to build buzz for the phone in the UK that the HP marketers hope will pull the phone out of the backwash that the upcoming Droid Bionic and iPhone 5 will create in the US .

Time will tell.

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HP confirms Pre 3 for August UK release

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Unfortunately we have been neglecting the blog a lot this year, it is only myself that contributes to the blog at the moment and I have been extremely busy with my company Dolphin Promotions. I have been trying to find a new member of staff and until then I am doing 2 peoples job, we have also been looking for new offices which takes up a surprising amount of time and therefore have not had much chance to blog here or the SEO Blog for Dolphin.

Finally things seem to be getting close to being sorted, we are in the final stages of sorting the office and hopefully we have found someone who fits the bill for the job role.

I am hoping to be able to blog a little more and to get back into things I have decided to update the theme with a template our designers created. The old theme seemed to have a few problems in IE and lots of other little irritating issues so instead of fixing them I am starting a fresh. Unfortunately there is no branding yet but we will get around to it! Overall I think the theme is a good choice, its nice and bright and there are less sidebars allowing for more room for the blog text to spread out.

I am also considering implementing some adsense on to the site at the end of the day I started the blog to be able to generate a small profit from it. I promise I wont plaster adverts around everywhere!

I am also looking at getting one of my friends to help contribute to the site which should avoid the site getting neglected when I am  to busy to blog myself.

I am also currently reviewing the new LG KF600 / LG Venus which will be done this week or next and was kindly provided by LG Blog.

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New theme and the end of the blog neglect!