Wireless Archive

This article takes a close look at the Razor phone's display, which is rather unique among Android phones for its 120Hz refresh rate (iPhones have 120Hz displays as well).

There's something refreshing about seeing Windows 95's controls and widgets running on a modern smartphone.

There aren't a whole lot of alternative mobile operating systems of any substance - not even Microsoft and BlackBerry could keep theirs afloat, after all - but there's a few exceptions, and Sailfish OS is one of those. At Mobile World Congress, Jolla, the operating system's parent company, announced not only that Sailfish OS is coming to more devices, but also that Sailfish OS 3 is in the works and scheduled for later this year.

Engadget had some hands-on time with Sailfish on the Gemini PDA, and I find it a fascinating combination I'd love to try out. Sailfish OS 3 also seems like a worthwhile upgrade, planned for the third quarter of this year. My own Jolla Phone and quite rare Jolla Tablet are still collecting dust somewhere in a closet, and I'm hoping Sailfish OS 3 gives me enough of a reason to dust them off again - I've had little reason to otherwise.

Over the weekend, Nokia released a new feature phone, the 8110 4G - a re-imagining of the phone used in The Matrix. I really like the design of this phone, and at a price of just €79, it looks like a steal. The most interesting part of the phone, other than its lovely design, is the operating system it runs. It's called KaiOS, a distant cousin to Firefox OS.

It's a HTML5-based operating system already in use in a whole bunch of phones today - they claim it's already on 30 million phones in India and North America - and on the 8110 4G, it has that traditional, classic Nokia design with a modern touch. I'm really curious to see just how powerful or expandable (maybe even hackable?) this feature phone platform is.

The platform was clearly winding down for a number of years now, ever since BlackBerry moved to Android, but it's still yet another casualty on the road towards the iOS-Android duopoly. I know a surprising number of people here on OSNews absolutely adored their BB10 devices, and I'm sad I never managed to purchase a Passport, the most enticing BB10 device to me.

I'm still keeping an eye out for an affordable used Passport, because I definitely want to write about BB10 in more detail in the near future.

Another point release of one of the few - maybe even only - alternative mobile operating systems still being actively updated.

It's a relatively minor update, but still - it's good to see Sailfish progressing.

This might be the first release I've seen which contains a feature or fix that isn't coming to the original Jolla Phone - namely, the updated Android support. The original Jolla Phone was released in December 2014, so that's not a hugely terrible run.

Joshua Topolsky:

Apple really, really wants you to "embrace the notch" and consider it a design element. With the home button gone, the iPhone X lost the iconic shape we've come to expect from iPhones, and to set a recognisable shape for the iPhone for the next decade, Apple chose the notch, and decided to embrace it.

The goal of the industry is clearly to move to truly fullscreen displays; no notches like the Essential phone or the iPhone X, and no thin chins and foreheads like the Galaxy S8 or the LG V30. With Apple trying to build a visual brand around the notch, we're going to be inundated with article after article explaining how the notch is great design, how it's a good idea, how it actually makes a lot of sense to have the notch because of , how it is the pinnacle of design.

And all those articles will look entirely foolish once Android phones start moving to true fullscreen with under-display cameras and sensors in a few years from now, after which Apple will drag its feet, only to eventually move to true fullscreen displays 2-3 years later, at which point the authors of the aforementioned articles will do a complete 180 overnight, as if the notch never happened.

Notches and chins and foreheads are necessary imperfections due to technological limitations on the way to fullscreen perfection. Pretending they are not will only make you look foolish five years from now.

It'll have hardware killswitches for the camera, microphone, WiFi, and the baseband. I wish the team a lot of luck - they'll need it, because making a phone is hard.

The Verge does this thing where they list what they consider to be the best laptop or phone or whatever, and they state the Samsung Galaxy S8 is the best phone for most people.

You can definitely make a case for the S8 being the best phone for most people, but personally, I still consider the iPhone to be the best, safest choice for most non-geeky people. Personally, I prefer Android, and for my personal use, iOS on the iPhone is an exercise in frustration - but iOS provides a more consistent, all-around phone experience that remains fairly static from phone to phone, it's a little simpler to grasp than Android, and Apple has an excellent support system in many countries that's far better than Samsung's hands-off let-the-reseller-handle-it approach.

I wonder - what do any of you consider the best phone for most people? If one of your non-geeky family members seeks your advice, which phone do you suggest they get?

The Verge named the Surface Laptop the best laptop, which I find a baffling choice. It's new and unproven, so we have no idea how it'll hold up over the next few years. An odd choice for sure.

Ars has started a series on the advent of the IBM PC, and today they published part one.

Fascinating history of the most influential computing platform in history, a statement that will surely ruffle a lot of feathers. The IBM PC compatible put a computer on every desk and in every home, and managed to convince hundreds of millions of people of the need of a computer - no small feat in a world where a computer was anything but a normal household item. In turn, this widespread adoption of the IBM PC compatible platform paved the way for the internet to become a success.

With yesterday's ten year anniversary of the original iPhone going on sale, a number of people understandably went for the hyperbole, such as proclaiming the iPhone the most important computer in history, or, and I wish I was making this up, claiming the development of the iPhone was more important to the world than the work at Xerox PARC - and since this was apparently a competition, John Gruber decided to exaggerate the claim even more.

There's no denying the iPhone has had a huge impact on the world, and that the engineers at Apple deserve all the credit and praise they're getting for delivering an amazing product that created a whole new category overnight. However, there is a distinct difference between what the iPhone achieved, and what the people at Xerox PARC did, or what IBM and Microsoft did.

The men and women at PARC literally invented and implemented the graphical user interface, bitmap graphics, Ethernet, laser printing, object-oriented programming, the concept of MVC, the personal computer (networked together!), and so much more - and all this in an era when computers were gigantic mainframes and home computing didn't exist.

As for the IBM PC compatible and Wintel - while nowhere near the level of PARC, it did have a profound and huge impact on the world that in my view is far greater than that of the iPhone. People always scoff at IBM and Microsoft when it comes to PCs and DOS/Windows, but they did put a computer on every desk and in every home, at affordable prices, on a relatively open and compatible platform (especially compared to what came before). From the most overpaid CEO down to the most underpaid dock worker - everybody could eventually afford a PC, paving the way for the internet to become as popular and ubiquitous as it is.

The iPhone is a hugely important milestone and did indeed have a huge impact on the world - but developing and marketing an amazing and one-of-a-kind smartphone in a world where computing was ubiquitous, where everybody had a mobile phone, and where PDAs existed, is nowhere near the level of extraordinary vision and starting-with-literally-nothing that the people at PARC had, and certainly not as impactful as the rise of the IBM PC compatible and Wintel.

It's fine to be celebratory on the iPhone's birthday - Apple and its engineers deserve it - but let's keep at least one foot planted in reality.

Android's creator, Andy Rubin, has been teasing his next big project for a while now, and today he finally unveiled everything: his new company Essential has a new smartphone, an Amazon Echo-like device with its own operating system, and a few accessories. Just another company trying to break into the smartphone market, surely, were it not for the creator of Danger and Android at the helm.

The phone has all the latest and greatest specifications, including an almost bezelless screen. It makes an interesting design choice by placing the front camera inside the screen at the top, which I'm sure most people will either not care about or deeply hate. I want to see the whole thing in person first, but I like that they at least try to 'own' this design choice. Another rather unique element is the ceramic back, which is a material choice we'll probably see more of over the coming years.

Of particular note: the company is hinting at using stock Android, with fast updates. I've seen those promises before, so I'm not exactly taking them at face value when I hear them for the 1038th time.

Their Amazon Echo competitor, the Essential Home, has a screen and sports its own operating system, but the company doesn't have a whole lot to say about it other than some marketing fluff, such as this:

So probably Android with some custom API bits on top. They do state they are focusing on privacy, doing the AI and API bits on-device instead of in the cloud - which is a plus for me, but I'm not sure normal people really care too much about this at all.

In Rubin's blog post announcing the company and its devices, he has some... Interesting words to say about what Android has become.

Is it just me, or is Rubin not happy with who his child has become?

The keyboard BlackBerry phones are the phones I wish were more popular, but really aren't. The Priv had QA and update issues (it's still on an old version of Android), and this one isn't exactly my personal cup of tea because I'd much rather have a slider (preferably a horizontal slider). Still, I hope these phones somehow manage to find a small, but perhaps profitable niche so they can keep throwing time and development at them.