Author Archive for Darren/Kain

My take on the iPhone 4

Published on July 17, 2010 in Rants and Technology. 1 Comment Tags: Apple, iPhone, ShinyThing.

Well I have managed my first review in a very long time here on Kainzy.org. It’s obviously been long overdue but with real life work commitments, it is so hard to spare the free time. Anyway, I have written a short ‘review’ if you will on Apple’s latest iPhone. The device is already a heavily controversial one, but at the same time it is a device feature packed with great hardware. As always, you can find it in the reviews section.

WordPress 3.0 Arrives

Published on June 19, 2010 in Site Stuff. 2 Comments Tags: Wordpress.

It has taken 218 people to contribute to the new release of WordPress 3.0 codename ‘Thelonious’ and it looks stunning, especially with it’s new Twenty Theme, which has a ton of feature, which you can find listed Here. I just have to update this blog now… I must admit to being somewhat SCARED!

WWDC Is Upon Us

Published on June 6, 2010 in Technology. 5 Comments Tags: Android, Apple, iPhone.

wwdc banner

It’s been so long since I last wrote a post on this blog that I had actually forgotten my blog login details!

Enough of my long abscence from this blog anyway. I will be posting a lot more frequently here as the mobile wars I predicted earlier hots up this week.

Apple’s WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) begins tommorow in San Francisco, Moscone West for three days. Of course the one highlight of WWDC every year is the most talked about mobile device since it’s first launch in 2007 – the iPhone. Love it, or hate it you just cannot ignore the massive impact the device had on the mobile world. Anyone denying this is pretty much fooling themselves to be honest.

I have previously stated that 2010 will be all about the mobile operating systems such as Mobile OSX found on the iPhone, Google’s Android as well as Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7 arriving towards the end of the year. My predictions of Apple falling behind couldn’t have been more accurate. The Android OS is gaining ground at a colossal pace, but at the same time OS fragmentation is occuring as certain Android apps work with the latest version of Android and not earlier versions.

Apple’s recent Mobile OSX 4.0 preview was less than impressive, infact it was very poor when you look at the improvements Android received a few weeks later at the Google I/O conference. Apple introduced nothing new, well nothing new that the Jailbreak world already had. Apple’s multitasking features looked ‘tacked on’, and don’t get me started with the ‘folders’ in which you can organise apps into – Jailbreakers have seen it all before, a long time ago. Also shown was the inclusion of iAds – in-app advert banners that are meant to be non-intrusive…I can’t see any users liking that imposed upon them. What was shown by Apple was ultimately rather poor, but there was a lot more that we never got to see.

Since then there have been numerous ‘leaks’ of the next iPhone. Gizmodo recently got into trouble for obtaining the lost device, which was left in a bar and more recently another phone somehow turned up in Vietnam of all places, sporting a slightly different build around the camera lens area. These devices, to me look like engineering prototypes or samples that contain the latest iPhone 4 hardware but not the final ‘look’. The general build of these ‘lost’ devices stray from Apple’s general designs in the past, but it also lines up with various case patents they have taken out over the past years. So who knows?

Credits: Gizmodo

Tomorrow will be very interesting indeed. Hardware wise I cannot see Apple really bringing anything impressive to the table, especially given that the HTC Evo 4G has some of the most insane hardware known to man at present. Since I bought my iPhone 3G it has spent most of it’s life jailbroken to give me custom features I just cannot live without and that Apple don’t want to allow. I shouldn’t have to go to such lengths just to unlock a device’s true potential. Suffice to say I am tempted by Android’s potential but Mobile OSX has a solid set of quality apps now…at last, whilst Android apps are just taking off.

I for one look forward to the show, just to learn about what will be coming for the year ahead in the mobile world and also for the newly announced iPad.

The Apple iPad Lands

Published on January 27, 2010 in Babble and Technology. 5 Comments Tags: Apple, iPhone, ShinyThing.

iPad Image
So Apple’s Conference just ended with announcement of the much fabled Apple Tablet, named the iPad. I’ll keep this short and sweet as I hadn’t set my expectations high unlike most people out there. I knew exactly what I expected of the device but have been surprised by a few things. Firstly I’m a major gadget geek, but instead of looking at the usability of devices I tend to be more interested in the hardware side of things, the internal components. That said, these was my predicted specs for the tablet prior to it’s announcement.

Two Tablet models:

Tablet 1:

10″ LED Backlit TN Panel Widescreen feat a touch display and a resolution of 1024 x 768
3GS style Oleophobic coating to be present on the screen
Wifi N ONLY wireless connectivity
Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR Tech
Assisted GPS (same as iPhone 3G/3Gs)
16, 32GB storage ability
Dual Cortex A9 Tegra 2 SoC
2x USB ports
Twin speakers and a Microphone
3.5″ Headphone connector
Accelerometer
Runs Mobile OSX (the same OS that is present on the iPhone’s and iPod Touch)

Tablet 2: All of the above with the following additions.

10″ OLED Widescreen display featuring the same details as Tablet 1.
Built in iSight web camera
Wifi N & 3G wireless connectivity
64, and 128GB storage capacities

Continue reading ‘The Apple iPad Lands’

Concept Designs by Mac Funamizu

Published on January 21, 2010 in Technology. 1 Comment Tags: blogs, PC Hardware.

As an IT nerd working amongst Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineers I have over the past couple of years become intrigued and fascinated by conceptual designs of large scale machinery, right down to the smaller desktop based futuristic designs.

I have been following Mac Funamizu’s work for quite a few years now and have always been in awe at his thought processes that results in his conceptual designs. Mac Funamizu is amongst the best, he is a web/graphic/industrial designer working in Tokyo, Japan. His blog petitinvention has a wealth of some of the most gorgeous designs I’ve seen.

These are some of my favourites.

This first design is a transparent futuristic desktop known as Zafiro. It resembles designs that wouldn’t be out of place in Sci-Fi movies such as The Island, or Minority Report. Transparent OLED panels are already out and about today, but not perfected just yet. Several transparent OLED designs were shown off at the CES show this January.