Author: Daniel Pope

Smartphones made of glass, lol

Wikipedia lists glass as ‘a non-crystalline amorphous solid that is often transparent and has widespread practical, technological, and decorative usage in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optoelectronics’. Here’s a further list of some things that are made of glass: Light bulbs Drinking vessels Spectacles Greenhouses Ashtrays Smartphones …

The evolution of bunny rabbit ears

During my twelve years of using smartphones, I’ve never felt the need to use a case. I’ve instead kept my phone in good condition by ensuring that it gets a pocket to itself alongside nothing else such as keys to scratch it. I also ensure that I handle …

The “i” in Google

Descartes wrote ‘i think, therefore i am,’ or he would have done had he been using Google Gboard for Android with auto-correct turned on. This bug, where the letter “i” for the first-person singular pronoun failed to default to the upper case “I”, has recently been fixed with a …

It’s a red one

Author’s Note: I apologise for the lateness of this article, since the product under discussion was released several weeks ago. To blame is my unfortunate visual impairment. I happen to be colour blind. If you’re wondering what this is all about, head to the product page for the …

In praise of older devices

I am a mobile technology geek. Along with my Huawei P9 and my Lumia 640 phones, I carry round a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 tablet and an iPad 3. I don’t have specific use cases for each of these devices, but just like to have a range of …

You fanboy you

Google defines a fanboy as ‘a male fan, especially one who is obsessive about comics, music, film, or science fiction’. To most of us, however, a fanboy is a passionate, perhaps an irrational, but most definitely a misguided fan of a rival mobile phone operating system (could be …

The future is Perspex

Two devices have recently launched aimed at the sizeable retro, or nostalgia markets. One is the Nokia 3310, a kind of glossed-up redesign of a classic dumb phone, snakes and all, which was so popular and ubiquitous back in its day that even people who didn’t own one …

Stores without apps and cities without streets

Nokia may well be springing to life again with the announcement of new models at MWC, but according to most commentators Windows 10 Mobile is still manifestly kicking the bucket. Can’t you just hear that clanging sound?   Much of the blame for Windows Mobile’s failure to take off …

I think it’s time for a new Twitter app

Enjoy Twitter? Or are you a Facebook fan? I’m definitely more of a Twitter person myself, and have the official app installed on my Android phone. I have a bit of a love / hate relationship with the app because it tends to conveniently “forget” my settings every …