Samsung New Flip - Phone Running Android

Samsung have decided to take us back to the 80s,  when flip phones were considered sexy and stylish.

Although with the advent of touch screen phones made popular by iPhone and the likes, flip phones became something of the past until now.

Samsung have revealed plans to release flip phones that would run android Jelly Bean with latest hardware technologies embedded.

Although,  the Korean company haven't released any full specifications, however,  it says that the device would be available in Europe and Asia with plans for other markets.

Why Nokia Choose Windows Phone OS Instead of Android

Nokia's chief executive Stephen Elop have given a reason why Nokia didn't choose Android to replace Symbian  in 2010 when it decided to ditch  Symbian OS from its phones and replace it with the struggling Microsoft OS for mobile, Windows Phone OS.

According to Elop, the choice he made was right and he and his team  are happy to have made the choice back in 2010 and still stands by it even now.

He stated that Nokia decided not to go with Android because it seemed like and OS that would be totally dominated by one manufacturer which is what is happening now.

He stated and implied that Samsung is totally controlling Android giving other phone manufacturers little or no chance at success as evident with what HTC is facing in the android space.

In Stephen Elop's words "I'm very happy with the decision we made," he said.

"What we were worried about a couple of years ago was the very high risk that one hardware manufacturer could come to dominate Android. We had a suspicion of who it might be, because of the resources available, the vertical integration, and we
were respectful of the fact that we were quite late in making that decision. Many others were in that space already."

"Now fast forward to today and examine the Android ecosystem, and there's a lot of good devices from many different companies, but one company has essentially now become the dominant player."

That one company is Samsung.

While some may see good number of points in Stephen's rationale,  some may see it as a bad call especially considering the fact that Nokia was already in the phone business long ago before Samsung.

Nokia is a known name amongst so many people, with trusted and quality hardware that are known to be built to last.

Should in case they completed talks with Google back in 2010 and use Android as symbian substitute they would have really gone far.

Besides, there's a huge amount of people who don't really like the Korean company for their copying of iPhone and consequently most westerners would have favoured Nokia as their choice for Android rather than Samsung.

The truth is,  Android have really become a force in the mobile ecosystem and Nokia would have benefited strongly from it if it joined Android in 2010 when Samsung wasn't even a force.

Nokia refraining from Android because of Samsung or because of manufacturer dominating the Android platform shouldn't be a huge reason at all. Instead, Nokia should have challenged Samsung to the call.

Even though Samsung has a lot when it comes to manufacturing power, Nokia is also has equal amount manufacturing power combined with patents and superior hardware and name that would have set it apart from Samsung completely.

Well, as far as Stephen is concerned, there is no going back now.  They are sticking  with Windows Phone 8 and will get to that level they plan to.

Is this really a smart move by Stephen Elop to go with Windows Phone OS instead of Android?  You tell us.

The new Gmail for Android smartphones

Google have rolled out new Gmail app for Android smartphones with easy access and messages are now tagged with alphabets for easy identifications of mails and groupings as we pointed out in our recent post last week.

The first character of the Message sender or subject is boldly placed in a colored box for fast identification of the sender. This makes it easier to recognize and even group messages from the same sender together. Check out the images below for you consideration.

This color coding effect is wise, cool and well done. The mail is less loud and more soothing.

Also, swiping from right to left puts the message in Archive. If you don't want the swipe to archive function, you can disable it by going to Settings, General Settings and uncheck the Swipe to archive function.

Furthermore, by default, the Delete icon isn't present in the options when reading a mail. To enable this, go to Settings, tap General settings, tap Archive & delete actions, check the options you want when presented with  the menu. The Delete button would be present.

Finally, you can enable action confirmations at the General Settings option. This you would see when you scroll down giving you choice to Confirm before deleting, Confirm before archiving and Confirm before sending a message. You can also configure the Label settings as shown in the images below. This would give you the choice of using any label you please to identify a message.

If you haven't gotten yours yet, i suggest you go to Play Store or click the download link below to update your Gmail app to the latest version and enjoy the best, simple and effective mail yet. 

 

I believe this is a work in progress and would even get better in the following updates to address minor issues. However, as of now, this new Gmail is accepted and we are loving it already.

Do tell us what you think of this new update. Do you find it better and actually doing what its suppose to do faster? 

Download link