Customers Say: iOS 7 on iPhone 4 Is “Unusable,”

A number of iPhone 4 users are reporting a terrible experience with the new iOS 7, with some incurring an unacceptable lag when trying to use the virtual keyboard.

Commenters responding to our June 11 article on the iPhone 4 experience with the early iOS 7 betas are revealing that nothing has changed since. With the final version of iOS 7 out and into end-users’ hands, the same issues are being reported by some, confirming out fears that the A4 chip inside the iPhone 4 is no match for the new software. “iOS 7 has basically ruined my iphone 4,” writes a reader identified as micwich.

“There is at least a 5-15 second delay whenever I used the keyboard to type anything - pw to open phone, text, email, notes..... It is awful. I wish I could remove it and go back,” this person says. “i hope they fix this soon my phone is so slow and i cant type without a delay,” writes another. Others claim iOS 7 works fine on their iPhone 4 handsets, but that the battery now heats up tremendously.

“I installed iOS7 last night on my iPhone4 and my battery is worthless and my phone is HOT to the touch-burning hot....not a fan of that, otherwise, it seems to be working well...for the 5 mins it holds a charge,” writes a user identified as MP. A reader using the handle TinMan chimes in to say, “I upgrade on my iPhone 4 to iOS 7 and now the typing is very slow. It takes over a minute and a half just to type in a 10 letter password. Can I go back to my old OS?”

Finally, Betty tells us, “My iphone 4 is so slow, it's almost unusable. I'm no longer even able to text because of the delay when I type and the time it takes for the letters to appear ten or twenty seconds later. You'd think they'd warn the customers of the pitfalls. My phone is only 2 years old.” Numerous others are describing similar scenarios, but many of them seem to be unaware that downgrading to iOS 6 is not only possible, but really easy to do.

iOS 7 on iPhone 4
Image credits to ios.wonderhowto.com

Read more »

BBM for Windows Phone? Not So Fast

BBM was supposed to arrive on both Android and iOS this weekend, but due to technical difficulties, BlackBerry decided to pause the global rollout of the app for the time being.

While this is clearly bad news for those who wanted to at least try out BBM on their smartphones, it's also an indication that BlackBerry still has chances to get back on track. At some level, people are actually interested in its apps, hence the surprisingly big number of downloads that BBM for iOS experienced in the first hours on the market. The Canadian company claims that more than 1.1 million users registered to download BBM in the first 8 hours, even though the Android version wasn't yet available.

As you can see, we're only talking about two different platforms here, Android and iOS, both of which are said to be ruling the smartphone market at this point. But what about Windows Phone? Microsoft wasn't invited to the BBM launch party, but nobody knows the reason right now. And still, it's easily to figure out why. It all comes down to only a couple of reasons. First, Microsoft doesn't care about it. Secondly, nobody cares about it.

At this point, Windows Phone is still struggling to compete with iOS and Android on almost every market out there, even though Microsoft has invested a fortune in making the platform successful. The Softies have even lied to us, claiming that Windows Phone was growing so much that it could become number one at some point. That never happened though, and Windows Phone seems to remain a mediocre mobile OS that some developers are avoiding. Because the cash is somewhere else. Making and selling an iOS app, for example, is much easier than doing the same thing on Windows Phone. In a recent meeting with financial analysts, Microsoft has admitted that Windows Phone has almost no market share. Here's what outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer told the audience:

“If there's one thing I guess you would say I regret, I regret that there was a period in the early 2000s when we were so focused on what we had to do around Windows, that we weren't able to redeploy talent to the new device form factor called the phone,” he said during his keynote.

“That would probably [be] the thing I would tell you I regret the most, because the time we missed was about the time we were working away on what became Vista, and I wish we'd had our resources slightly differently deployed.”

So, if Microsoft doesn't think that Windows Phone has chances to succeed, why should we? And this makes porting BBM to Windows Phone a waste of time and resources. Which, let's be honest, BlackBerry doesn't afford right now. Now, let's get down to the second reason. As an avid BlackBerry user, I think that BBM is a great app. The only problem with it is that nobody uses it these days. With WhatsApp available on so many platforms and already becoming extremely popular in every little corner of the world, BBM has slight chances to impress. Even if it arrives on Android and iOS.

As a result, bringing BBM on Windows Phone, a platform that has a really small market share, isn't worth the effort. Again, BlackBerry doesn't have the time and resources to do it. Maybe at some point, when another company that has the financial strength to do it will buy BlackBerry, BBM might land on Windows Phone too, but for the moment, you have no other option than to stick to WhatsApp. I started crawling the web looking for an answer to this question this morning, and the same answer is basically posted on every forum, blog, or website. People aren't interested in BBM, not with WhatsApp holding such a large user base. And here comes my next question: if BBM is not at all appealing, how come millions of iOS and Android users are trying to download the app right now?

Native BBM on Blackberry 10
Image credits to n4bb

Read more »

Android 4.4 KitKat Screenshots Reveal SMS and Phone Apps

It's only been a day since the first screenshots revealing some of the visual changes in the Android 4.4 KitKat platform leaked online and now a new set of photos emerged.

The folks over at 9to5google have just published four screenshots allegedly taken from the upcoming Android 4.4 KitKat operating system. They're showing the Phone and SMS applications, as well as the “About phone” and one of the home screens that features the Hangouts shortcut.

The Phone app seems to have the same flat design recently adopted by Apple in iOS 7, though there are obvious differences. Some might like it, whereas other will surely hate it. According to the latest hearsay, Google is said to reveal more details on Android 4.4 KitKat platform next month, but we expect more info will leak ahead of the official announcement. Stay tuned for more on this.

Android 4.4 KitKat screenshot
Images credits to 9to5google

Read more »