ALL I EVER WANTED

Every now and then, and it doesn't happen nearly as often as it should, you stumble across a piece of technology so brilliant in its simplicity, you can't comprehend how you ever got along without it before.

These are those, "Why didn't I think of that?" things that are obvious, but only obvious once somebody else has done them.

Two notable examples of this in my life are MySky and LightSpeaker.

Imagine being able to access your TV guide and then digitally record what you want directly from it at the push of a button. On 2 channels at once. For the whole series. Even if they change the schedule time. Brilliant. Of course, MySky is now just one of a whole collection of similar services now available, but when I first used it I was totally blown away. Even the Domestic Manager thought that particular remote was pretty useful.

Then there's LightSpeaker. Wireless speakers built into LED lights that simply screw into your existing light sockets. An instant, wireless, multi-zone sound system you can't see. Also brilliant.

The really important thing with these two examples is they both work. All very well having the brilliantly obvious idea, but if it doesn't actually do what it promises, or it only SORT OF does it, that's no good. It should either just work, or forget it.

So what does all this have to do with phones?

If you've been reading some of the previous editions of this blog, you'll know I've been weighing up the various merits of the Samsung Galaxy SIII, the Nokia Lumia 820 and the Nokia Lumia 920.

Today I announce my winner; all of them.

To be honest, technically it's the Galaxy SIII, but only because I've turned it into a Windows Phone.

Let me explain by saying today's blog is more of an app review than a phone review. The app is called Launcher 8 by the Qihang Dev Team. Not only does Launcher 8 make my S3's home screen look like my Lumia, it actually works even better than the original.

Here's what I love about Windows Phone 8: the way it looks and the way you navigate around it. What I love about the S3 is the way it actually works - browsing, uploading, downloading etc.

As it turns out, the Samsung's Android OS let's you put a home screen over the top of existing one that really is a dead-ringer for WP8.

Launcher 8 displays your apps in the Windows Metro Style, but it doesn't stop there. It replicates the now iconic People/Contacts tile which randomly flips over little pictures of your contacts. It let's you display your favourite pics as a little slideshow on the photos tile, just like WP8. A simple swipe to the right reveals all the apps you haven't already pinned to the home screen, again, just like Windows. Here's the kicker though; unlike the home screen on your average Lumia, all the tiles are completely customisable. You can call them what you want, make them whatever colour you want, assign a Metro-style icon to them or just a picture of your own choosing.

It gets better...

Although you've now made your Samsung LOOK like a Nokia, you still want some of those Android widgets on the start screen, right? Not a problem - in fact, you can even resize them to fit exactly how and where you want. This is literally the best of both worlds.

I can't recommend this app highly enough. In fact, if you're a Lumia 800 user, considering upgrading to an 820 or 920, Launcher 8 could well be the reason you go with the Galaxy S3 instead.

Pity it's going to be obsolete in about a month's time when the S4 hits the shelves. Ah, well - that's phones for you.

THE BIG LAUNCH

On Friday NZ time, Samsung launched their new Galaxy S4 handset. They packed out New York's Radio City Music Hall and broadcast it all to thousands watching big screens outside in Times Square.

And I was there... in a function room at a bar on Quay Street in Auckland. I still saw the whole thing though.

This is not a review of Samsung's new phone. I'm not going to review something I haven't actually used yet, otherwise I may as well just cut and paste the press release, listing off all the new features they've packed into an even slimmer box. I'll get to that stuff once I've had a go on one.

This is a review of the launch itself.

This is a picture of someone taking a picture of the Samsung launch with their Samsung.
I took it with my Samsung. (Oh and yes, the telly IS a Samsung)

I'm no expert when it comes to product launches, but it seems to me, smart phone manufacturers put a big effort into theirs - a bigger effort than most. This time round, Samsung took the showbiz theme literally. Not only had they hired the Radio City Music Hall, but there was a cast of actors and dancers, a full orchestra and they'd paid Will Chase (who plays the cheating husband on Smash) to MC.

There was a kid with a really big box, which I thought was weird, given the phone is supposed to be a bit smaller than the last one. Then came Mr. Shin.

That's literally how Will Chase referred to him, Mr. Shin. He has a first name of course (if J.K. counts as a first name) and he's one of Samsung's 3 co-CEO's. I know, this is getting weird, right? Who has THREE CEO's? Anyway, Mr. Shin is specifically in charge of the mobile communications bit, he took the stage and just stood there smiling. For ages. I really hope it was because thousands of adoring fans were cheering and clapping madly, but on the satellite feed I was watching, we couldn't hear them, so Mr. Shin ended up looking a bit like an evil genius from a Bond movie. Once the crowd we couldn't hear died down a bit, Mr. Shin gave us a brief overview of what they were trying to achieve with the S4.

This is where I really started getting interested. Mr. Shin wasn't trying to tell ME what I wanted from a phone, he seemed to be saying they'd actually been listening to US. A host of new photographic functions, along with some neat biometric interaction, longer battery life, it was all sounding good.

We were then presented with a suite of sketches performed live on stage to demonstrate the various new abilities of the S4. We watched a pretend proud dad inserting himself into his own kid's dance recital picture. Pretend backpackers synced their photos directly into their parents' living rooms. A rather disturbing fake hens party created a surround-sound stereo by turning each of their phones into a separate speaker. The acting was corny, but the phone certainly looked cool.

While all this was going on, I was sitting in a wing-backed armchair eating mini-burgers, prawns on a stick and sipping a Peroni. Alright, maybe I sipped TWO Peronis - but it WAS lunchtime, and I HAD been up since 3AM.

If I was being schmoozed into loving this phone, it was working. Take note, prospective schmoozers; I really love mini-burgers.

Like I say, I can't honestly tell you if this phone deserves all the hype until I use it myself, but from what I've seen so far, Samsung is definitely continuing a trend in smart-phone innovation Apple started, but I now wonder if the iPhone was left behind a couple of generations ago. The Glaxay S4 is promising more than a few genuinely new tricks, and I don't just mean a bigger, clearer screen and a faster processor.

There's a big difference between TELLING the customer what they want and GIVING the customer what they want, and I've got a feeling Mr. Shin and his team know what that difference is. Some of the other phone-makers out there could take a leaf out of Samsung's book.

Then again, maybe it's just the Peronis talking.

A LITTLE LIGHT READING ANYONE?

The eBook has changed my life.

I like to read. After watching B-grade movies in the middle of the day while eating something I've melted cheese over, reading is just about my favourite thing to do.

I'm not overly fussy about WHAT I read. I prefer science fiction but I don't mind a tell-all biography either. Thrillers keep me turning pages, but I'm just as enthralled by a sexy vampire as the next guy. (That didn't sound weird at all, right?)

Unfortunately, I can get a bit OCD when it comes to a series of books. If I discover a new author I like, for some reason I'm suddenly compelled to read everything that person has ever penned. Immediately. This used to involve a lot of hanging about. Book stores would have me on back-order, I'd be on the waiting list at the library.

Thanks to the advent of the eBook, all that waiting is behind me now.

I was a fairly early adopter, eagerly taking the original Kobo eReader home with me and never looking back. Now with just a few clicks and not much money, I can download an entire author's back-catalogue for non-stop, volume-after-volume reading. Paradise. All totally portable too, of course. How convenient to be able to carry a virtual encyclopedia of pulp fiction around with me inside a device smaller than the hard copies of most of the books it contains.

Me being me though, I wasn't satisfied. As portable as the Kobo is, I don't always have it with me. Sometimes in life, there are opportunities to read another chapter of your book - waiting rooms, slow moving queues, at work. Of course, as with cameras, now we can carry our library around in our phones.

Is it really possible to read a book on your phone? Is the screen big enough? Is there an interface "booky" enough for it to seem natural? How difficult is it to physically GET the books INTO your phone?

Well I've done it and it's actually pretty good.

As usual, I tried eReading on both the Samsung Galaxy SIII and the Nokia Lumia 820/920. Unlike the iPhone/iPad, there's no native eReader for these devices so I had to try out a few different apps before I settled on the best one for each device. On the Galaxy I went with Moon+ Reader and after a brief flirtation with Raccoon Reader on the Lumias, I settled on Bookviser instead. Both Bookviser and Moon+ Reader are free and I'm not quite sure why I'd need to buy one because they both performed admirably.

Both apps allow you to access your books via SkyDrive (or in the case of Moon+ Reader you may prefer DropBox, since you're already on an Android phone and probably have a DropBox account) You can also access various online libraries to purchase new books which will load straight onto your phone. I get mine in epub format because that's what I use on my Kobo and these load into both apps with no difficulty.

The only real differences are minor but do affect the overall reading experience. Moon+ Reader simply has more features - more fonts, more backgrounds and most importantly, more controls. Both apps can simulate a turning page if that's your thing, but Moon+ Reader has a nifty scrolling function which you can adjust to match your reading speed. This means one page melts down over the previous one at the pace you select. Call me lazy, but the I found the ability to turn pages without having to touch anything pretty awesome.

The other thing Moon+ Reader offers that Bookviser doesn't is clearer information about where you're up to in your book - not just what page and what chapter, but how far through that chapter you are. This is very helpful if, like me, you might be reading the same book on several different devices and you need to find your place quickly. Both apps give you the option of searching a particular word or phrase but for some reason, Bookviser wasn't very helpful displaying the table of contents, showing only the chapter numbers and not their titles. This may have been something to do with the electronic formatting of the books, but probably not, given they displayed perfectly well on Moon+ Reader.

Is it just as easy to read a book on a phone-sized screen as it is on the Ink-Screen display of a purpose-built eReader like a Kobo? Of course not, but the screens on both the Galaxy and the Lumia 920 are big enough to suffice. Even the smaller Lumia 820 proved totally adequate, due in large part to it's impressive clarity.

So this time, it's not really a battle between phones, but between apps. Unfortunately for the Windows 8 Phones, as usual, they just don't have the selection of apps Android offers so were always going to struggle to match a product like Moon+ Reader or iBooks. Ultimately though, there's not much in it, and certainly not enough to warrant changing phones for.