The sensor itself works in a swipe manner, which means that you would need to swipe the entire pad of your finger, from base to tip, across the home key to register your fingerprint properly. Also, you would need to keep your finger flat against the home key and swipe at a moderate speed or else it won’t recognise your fingerprint. The fingerprint sensor is sensitive to moisture, as well. So, don’t try to use it with wet fingers because it will, literally, give you an error and tell you to dry your fingers first.
Whatever happened to all that talk about Apple’s Touch ID being a gimmick?
HTC blames Nvidia for delay in One X update to Kitkat
Apparently, the outcry from One X owners was loud enough that HTC is “actively exploring” the possibility of a KitKat upgrade. Without support from Nvidia, though, the One X+ and international One X will remain stuck on Android 4.2. When asked why certain Tegra 3-based products like the 2012 Nexus 7 could support Android 4.4 but the One X+ couldn’t, the team blamed slight differences in the various Tegra 3 SoCs.
It’ll be interesting to see what Nvidia has to say about these “slight differences”.
iOS devices accounted for 73 percent of all enterprise mobile device activations and grabbed the top ten spots for most popular devices in the fourth quarter of 2013, reports Good Technology in its Mobility Index Report for Q4 2013.
50% of enterprise smartphone activations:
The device usage report from these enterprise users shows that the iPhone made up 54 percent of total device activations, while Android smartphones followed with just over 20 percent.
91% of enterprise tablet activations:
The iPad maintains a strong hold on tablet activations, claiming 91.4 percent of enterprise tablet activations in Q4 2013, while Android accounted for the remaining 8.6 percent. The iPad was most popular in Financial Services and in Business and Professional Services, with the two sectors accounting for 60 percent of all Q4 iPad activations.
Farhad Manjoo named Apple, Google and Amazon as companies that he recommend relying on because of their business models.
Microsoft’s chief spokesperson Frank X Shaw was annoyed by Microsoft’s omission from the recommendations:
And with a cross-platform connected ecosystem that spans the workplace to the living room featuring best in class products like Office, Skype and Xbox, we’re a pretty safe bet too.
Microsoft’s chief of marketing Tami Reller gave a very different insight as to how the company makes its decisions:
If that wasn’t clear enough, Reller pointed out that changes to Office’s platforms would be a business decision, not one based on customer requests.
“We come at it from that angle, which is ‘What businesses do we need to drive forward?,’” said Reller. “That’s how we will make the decision [to go cross-platform]. It really ends up being business by business, product by product. There’s no sweeping one decision.”
Ben concludes:
So to summarize, Office is not available everywhere, and probably won’t be anytime soon, because Microsoft has a devices business to prop up. Oh, and Microsoft’s business needs are a priority over user needs. Tell me, Frank, how is that a safe bet?
It might be too late to jump into the device business and the purchase of Nokia is a last-ditch attempt to turn things around. Meanwhile, Microsoft is losing ground in their services as mobile continues to grow rapidly.
Bringing Microsoft Office to iOS might stop the slide long enough for Microsoft to find its feet as a service and device company with its Nokia devices. Time is running out for Microsoft as consumers have already shifted to iOS solutions, Google Drive for iOS, and most recently Apple’s iWork for iOS.
Now go to Mozilla’s own weblog, where they announced this with the headline “Publisher Transformation with Users at the Center”. What a pile of obtuse horseshit. If you want to sell ads, sell ads. Own it. Don’t try to coat it with a layer of frosting and tell me it’s a fucking cupcake.
I can’t agree more with what he said. Why would they want to avoid being upfront about it? Trying to spin it to make it sound user-centric just makes them look desperate to please their users.
New Android OEM licensing terms leak shows how “open” Android is
The agreement places a company-wide ban on Android forks, saying OEMs are forbidden from taking “any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android” and specifically disallows distributing or encouraging a third party to distribute “a software development kit derived from Android.” Google has full control over the countries its apps are released in and distribution methods used to distribute the apps. This allows Google to restrict its apps to the Play Store and will keep them out of competing stores like Amazon and Samsung. Google also stipulates that the Google apps must be distributed free of charge, and they cannot be modified, reverse engineered, or used to make a derivative work, and ads are not allowed to be placed in, on, or around Google’s apps.
Google must be the default search engine:
Google also says “all other Google Applications will be placed no more than one level below the Phone Top”—meaning the app drawer is fine—and requires that Google be set as the default search engine for “all Web search access points on the Device.”
The irony:
We’ll close with the most ironic clause in the 13-page agreement: “Open Devices. The parties will create an open environment for the Devices by making all Android Products and Android Application Programming Interfaces available and open on the Devices and will take no action to limit or restrict the Android platform.”