Category / Smartphones

by Henry Hunt

App of the week: Dungeon Hunter 3

Well I never saw this coming – I have chosen an Android app of the week. If you have read some of my earlier articles, you will be as surprised as I am. The reason for this is that my mum got an award-winning Android tablet and, me being me, I had to play with it the second I came home from school and, having been using it for the last few hours I was inspired to do an Android AOTW. So here it is: This weeks Android AOTW it Dungeon Hunter 3.

This is the best android game I have played so far, but admittedly I haven’t played a lot, and I wish that it were available on more platforms. When you start playing the game, you have to chose between four different classes, each one with different strengths and weaknesses. I personally chose the warlord as I always chose the tank class, but you can also chose from the astromancer, trickster and the shaman. Once you choose your class you are then given a quick tutorial, showing you how to both play and upgrade you character. Once completed, you are then free to kill and maim to your hearts contempt.

The gameplay is very detailed, with each kill giving you both money and experience, slowly helping you to buy countless upgrades and items to help your character on their way to becoming invincible, but, for those more inpatient people out there, each level and mission comes with three additional goals that, when completed, give you a large boost to both gold and XP.  The game is easy to get the hang of, with the tutorial teaching you know all you need to know, but having played it for about two hours I can tell that completing it and fully upgrading your character is no mean feat. It will take countless hours of gameplay.

Dungeon Hunter 3, iOS and Android, Free
Download from Google Play or the App Store

by Henry Hunt

No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop hating Microsoft

The title of this article is a little misleading, as those of you who read my posts, follow me on Twitter or know me in person will know that I love Microsoft. Windows Phone is my phone platform of choice, I would never consider using anything but a Windows computer, and the thing that I want most in the world right now is a 15.6″ one of these. But even with all the love I bear for the love-child of Ballmer and Gates, there are a large number of things about them which annoy me.

The first and foremost of these annoyances is with Zune. As a Windows Phone user, I am forced to use Zune in order to update, add music and video to and do a large number of other things to, my phone. This is fine, I can add and take away music to and from my phone quickly and easily, and updates will automatically commence if they are available. But when I got my HP Pavilion dv7 with Beats Audio, I began to play music through my laptop, whereas previously I had been using speakers connected to my phone. It soon dawned upon me that Zune, a beautiful piece of software, is one of the buggiest pieces of crap since Windows Media Player. Quite often while playing music, the song will randomly pause, move to a different point or just skip altogether, and on occasion I have closed Zune to find that the song that was playing doesn’t stop playing, much to my teacher’s dismay. When this is Skrillex, chemistry lessons can be quite awkward. What the hell is up with that? A company whom incorporated software into its very name can’t be bothered or is unable to iron out the bugs in their music software. Even iTunes, something which is essentially designed to work on a different operating system and much maligned on Windows, is nowhere near as buggy. This being said, with the Zune name being dumped, and the software being incorporated into the OS, I surely hope that for Windows 8’s sake that at least some of the bigger glitches will be ironed out.

And secondly, what is the point in Windows Media Player any more? The whole thing is utter crap and nobody in their right mind would ever use it. I mean seriously, software that causes computers to blue-screen (I speak through personal experience) through use is not right in any way. And if any person out there does use this utter piece of crap, please explain to me in the comments below why you would put yourself through it. Please.

My final point is the most obvious one. Internet Explorer. This is in every way the single most hated piece of software out there. It is crap, it crashes, freezes and is only there for sane people to download either Firefox or Chrome. And, to make matters worse, you have to have specific permission from Microsoft to be able to uninstall the software. Of course, you can do what both I and Xavier (our EIC) have done and bury it deep within our program files, but it will always be there, taunting you with the possibility that you may one day, have to use it.

So those are the main reasons that Microsoft pisses off even myself, a true Microsoft fanboy. Despite the wonders of things like the Arc Touch Mouse, SkyDrive and Windows Phone, Microsoft isn’t perfect, but by ironing out the bugs and listening to consumers, they could get pretty close.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Nokia uploads (and pulls) Rack City parody developer advert

Nokia‘s not a company to shy away from a bit of viral marketing, but releasing a parody video of the horrendous Rack City by Tyga might be taking the advertisement of Windows Phone development a bit too far. Having been uploaded by Nokia to YouTube, TechCrunch reports that the video was pulled, but we found a copy on Vimeo and downloaded it to reupload if necessary. It’s Dev City bitch!

Lyrics and description courtesy of My Nokia Blog:

Bringing cool to coding. Mobile devices are cool. Mobile apps are cool. Mobile Developers are about to get cooler. Nokia Developer is turning towns into Dev Cities with its Ready.Set () {Code} Challenge. We are hitting 13-cities looking for developers who want to build an experience not just another app. Developers who build the coolest, baddest apps for the Windows Phone platform and Nokia Lumia devices earn devices & prizes. Sign up for a Challenge near you: http://www.nokiadeveloper.eventbrite.com/

LYRICS
dev, dev, city kid, city kid
dev, dev, dev city kid, city kid, dev
dev, dev, dev city kid, city kid
Mutha on the beat

Hah!
[Verse 1:] – Smixx
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
ten ten ten twenties and we flippin’ bits
100 deep coding hard no guest list
Nokias who we’re messin wit
Got my other bits messin’ with my other bits
Codin’ all night figure we ain’t ready yet
Make it work too dope I ain’t selling it
Decoder’s fresher than another stick a peppermint
Dope sweater we the first kings killin this
Young money young money gettin’ bounty rich
We got that Metro on this ish

you know what it is
[Chorus:] – Smixx (Cory)
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
ten ten ten twenties and we flippin’ bits 

dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
Been codin’ since a youngin now I’m gettin’ rich
[Verse 2:] – The Product (Christian)
I’m a money makin’ star
buy the club rounds on my card
Got the sick rims on my brand new car…
y’all dev’s get out walk the boulevard

I get my apps done pronto
Push it in the mornin’ and I’m gonzo
Hanchos gonna make it rain buy a poncho
You ain’t gettin’ money made but you want dough

Head phones on tilt seat back
Steady codin’ on it keys get tapped
lovin’ this platform, some too packed
d/l numbers going up like gas

Hot damn pull away from the pack
Localized it so I’m big in japan
Tat t-t-t-tatted up gettin stacks

Steve Balma love’s me
you know how it is

[Chorus:] – The Product (Christian)
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
hacking code on them apps and I’m getting cheques

dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
dev city kid, dev, dev city kid
ten ten ten twenties and them fifties Smixx

[Verse 3:] – Smixx (Cory)
I want a lumia in my pocket
so I’m ready to win
I choose to rocket
and not just contend
I see the leaderboard 
and want my name at the top
just to know that I brought it
to know I’ve still got it
that I’ve snagged my reward
and man I’m not bored
when I’m out for blood
and I’m going in hard
I want to build an experience
not just another app
this whole mobile thing
is not just another fad

Nine hunnids, hunnids
Nine hunnids, hunnids
Nine hunnids, hunnids
Nine hunnids, hunnids

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Flipboard heads to Android via XDA and becomes our app of the week – again

Flipboard, last year’s runner-up for Best App in the Digixav Awards, is on its way to Android with exclusivity to Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III, but one XDA member has got the .apk for anyone with Android 2.2 or later to download and enjoy, regardless of device. This makes it a worthy app of the week – again.

Flipboard, Android, Free
Download from XDA or visit the website

Xavier Voigt-Hill's avatarDigixav

This week’s app of the week is Flipboard.

Flipboard is a fantastic app that lets you add whatever content you desire to a virtual ‘social magazine’. Complete with Facebook and Twitter integration, it is more than a conventional RSS reader as it corroborates your social feeds and go-to websites in one place with a beautiful flipping interface. A free account will sync your feeds across devices, and a recent update allowed the app to work on iPhone and iPod touch. Take a look at what Flipboard themselves have to say about it in the video below.

Flipboard is now my only source for news and social updates. The app is free and gloriously ad-free and I would recommend it to anyone with an iDevice. Even Apple love it, having made it their iPad app of the year. It might also be in the running for a more prestigious award from a

View original post 16 more words

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Nokia introduces advert shot entirely on a phone

Remember the Nokia 808 PureView? Announced at MWC, the Symbian device has a 41MP camera that is more than a marketing gimmick. Now, with its launch coming up in the next couple of months, Nokia has released a promotional video on YouTube – shot entirely on the phone itself. We’ve already seen how phenomenal the shots can be, and we can’t wait to go hands-on. Watch the video below, and marvel at the camera over on the galleries at My Nokia Blog.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

X-ray smartphones are being researched at the University of Texas

Have you ever dreamt of having x-ray vision? If so, new research from the University of Texas that could lead to x-ray cameras built into smartphones should be right up your street. The range of vision would be restricted to 4 inches for privacy reasons, and such cameras are years away from commercial availability, but these developments are exciting nevertheless.

Ryan Kim's avatarGigaom

While the smartphone of today has become a pretty amazing sensor for discovering the real world, the smartphone of tomorrow may just give you the ability to have X-ray vision. That’s the potential implication of a breakthrough at the University of Texas, Dallas, where researchers say they have taken a big step closer to enabling a phone to see a short distance through wood, walls, plastics and other objects.

It comes down to the ability to bridge what’s called the terahertz gap in the infrared band. The terahertz band is largely unused because the band is too high for electronics and too low for light-based systems. But an engineering team at the University of Texas at Dallas has found a way to create images with signals in the terahertz band without having to use multiple lenses inside a device. Basically, they’re able to focus light without using a lot of big lenses and…

View original post 199 more words

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Apple unveils iPhone 4S adverts with Zooey Deschanel and Samuel L. Jackson

We’ve reported on Apple’s iPhone 4S advertising before, so when we spotted some new ads on the internet that were showing off Siri, we knew you needed to see them. One of them even has Zooey Deschanel in the rain. The other has Samuel L. Jackson looking for organic mushrooms on a plane.


by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Samsung announces Galaxy event for May 3rd in London

GS3

Samsung has announced an event scheduled to take place on May 3rd in London, where it is widely speculated that the Galaxy S III will make its debut. The official invite, pictured above, states that visitors will be able to meet the new Galaxy, but the question remains as to where this new device will fit into Samsung’s Android lineup. The Galaxy S III is rumoured to come with a quad-core Exynos chipset with integrated support for 4G LTE networks, similar to that found in the refreshed Meizu MX, support for the S Pen that comes with the Galaxy Note range and a 4.65″ Super AMOLED Plus display of 1280 x 720 resolution. The ‘Plus’ denotes that the display would have a standard RGB subpixel arrangement, compared to the Pentile RGBG layout on devices such as Samsung’s own Galaxy Nexus. As with any major event invite, Samsung’s invitation has set the theorists into action, with some suggesting that the blobs of liquid refer to a curvaceous design or display, while the brushed blue surface could be code for a colourful brushed metal finish. Vlad Savov of The Verge even came across a Korean commercial for the Galaxy Note, which you can see below, in which the protagonist excitedly makes an appointment for May 3rd, and the numbers 5 and 3 flash around quite a bit, although this could be just a simple reference to the 5.3″ Super AMOLED display on the device that has pioneered the phablet industry.

What do you expect from the event? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to check back on the day to get the news fresh from London.

by Henry Hunt

Windows Phone AOTW: GIFStudio

This week’s best Windows Phone app is GIFStudio by Daniel Gary.

This great app allows you to create animated GIFs from the comfort of your own Windows Phone. You use your phone camera to take a number of pictures that the app then stitches together into GIF form. You then can proceed to manipulate the GIF, by changing the speed, adding and removing frames, including those already saved on the phone, or sharing them with your friends. We at Digixav love GIFs and web have had quite a lot of fun with this app. Without GIFs, we would not have lives.

GIF Studio, Windows Phone,  £0.79
Download it from the Marketplace

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Nokia & AT&T unveil their Lumia 900 ad campaign

Nokia‘s Lumia 900 launches this weekend, with both Nokia and AT&T promising their largest ever ad campaign – even bigger than that for the first iPhone. The Smartphone Beta Test ads, starring Chris Parnell of Saturday Night Live fame, state how every smartphone in the last 5 years has been part of an elaborate beta test.

Do you think the campaign will work? Watch the ads and vote in our poll below.

Update: Here is another ad for the phone, but not with Chris Parnell or reference to the Smartphone Beta Test. This one is pure AT&T.