Whatev’s

So the Good. They look good. This is extremely important. As I have stated quite a few times in my past posts, anything that you put on your head must look good. Cannot get around this. And they do. The Image capture quality is very good as well. I took a picture in low light and the image was corrected once it got to the app on my phone. Nice.

Call quality was good as well. Not great, but very good. The person I was talking to on the other end could not tell the difference between this and normal headphones. I took a few calls on it and really liked it. In fact, I like it more then putting in and taking out ear buds if for no other reason then its easier.

The Bad. Sound quality for other the voice calls was NOT so good. Perhaps this is not intended for listening to music. I tried two tracks, a chillhop where I listen for clarity, and something a bit more bass heavy. The chillhop middles and highs were ok, but really could not feel the bottom. When I hit the bass heavy track, not only was there no bottom, it started to get noisy as I tried to turn it up. This was a BIG disappointment given how great the Bose Glasses sound.

So this is a bit of a short review, and I may add to it later, but basically, if you are into take lots of casual photos and short videos, these are pretty good. As long as its not of yourself. If you are into music, like I am, give it a miss.

• Quick note.  Look likes it US phones only running the Qualcomm chip for now.

Some games seemed to have a glitch the first time I would try them.  I tried Fallout Shelter first.  Did not load the first time, but worked fine after that.  Not sure what the story is here. Same with Pokemon Go. Did not work the first time, then works fine.  However,  it locks to portrait and when using AR, the camera does not display correctly.  I turned AR off and it was fine after that. few other games seemed locked to one view port or another, but that was not too much of an issue after I got used to it.  I would make the window a bit smaller for portrait games, larger for landscape.

I then tried Monument Valley, a favorite of mine.  This took 3 tried, but again, seems to work after that.  That game play was even nicer with the view port set to the largest setting despite portrait mode.  I have it smaller in my screenshot.  It took a little bit of effort to get used to the controller, but I got it down soon enough.  I do not like this screenshot that much, but for some reason, screen capture and video capture are iffy with PhoneCast.  There is a video of this at the bottom of the post as well.

What was really cool was trying ARCore apps in PhoneCast.  It ‘mostly’ works, and when I say mostly, that is because the viewport is not locked to the head. If you check out the video below you will see what I mean.  Still, VERY cool! I tried the first ARCore app that was released, ‘Atom Visualizer‘ from Signal Garden.   I contacted the good people involved in this project and made a request, we’ll see how it goes.  If they can lock the view port, this would be really fun!  Have a look for the video at the bottom of this post.

Here is a Pro tip for you.  The controller takes a bit of time to get used to, so don’t get put off.  Keep working at it.  BTW, there is not pinch to zoom.  Something I found out on Fallout Shelter.  Hopefully they will find a work around.  I suggested they should map something on the controller for zooming and zoom around the center view.  That could take some work though.

So there you go!  Enjoy.

Microsoft does have there own line of ‘watches’ although they are more exercise bands then watches, but so far they have not gone full-in on the smartwatch market.  They may at some point, but that is not why I think Microsoft is going to try to get on the Pebble.  They want Microsoft everywhere. And right now, the Pebble watch works on the two major OS’s, iOS, and Android.  If Microsoft wants to be considered a major OS in the mobile market, its a bit of an embarrassment that they are not considered important enough that Pebble, maintaining its position as a major watch brand, is not included.  As such it would make sense for Microsoft phones to be able to use the Pebble watch as well showing they are a major player.

So for now, you can downloaded from a link provided by windowscentral.com from their post. I have not tried it so proceed with cation.

A final note about the Gear VR and the lenses fogging up.  Every time I put this one the lens fog up on me.  To fix this I went to a sky shoppe and bought defogging liquid for the lens.  It works great for one use, but once it drys, then you are back to where you started.  This is a first try at a VR HMD for Samsung and they made it clear this is a developers version, so I’ll give it a pass for now.

Oh and use earplugs.  Worth it.  Many of these demos lose something when playing sound through a speaker.

Unlike other sites, I will put the list down here first, then I will create a page per app because each one make the list for a different reason.

10.   Playhead

I was really on the fence with Playhead because it did not appeal to me, but I appreciate the effort and the imagination that went into this effort.   I’m sure this would be higher on other peoples lists.

9.  DarkNet

8. Titans Of Space

7.  Vanguard V  :  Nightitme Terror  : Lunsee

6.  Dreadhalls

5.  Anshar Wars

4  Herobound: First Steps

3. Matterport VR : Gyeonju VR Museum

2.  Esper

1.   360 Video’s .  BTW the NBA videos look good but still wish the video was a bit more HD.  In a few weeks we are suppose to be able to watch the All Stars game.  Not sure if we get to see the whole game, or highlights or what.

Temple VR did not make it because they violate a basic rule in VR, do not move a users point of view too fast.  When you dodge from one side to another you will get VR sickness pretty fast.

Square lets you get it hot.

View original story here.

Microsoft Sway

View original story here.

Pinterest

Advertisers will now be able to add a tracking pixel to their Promoted Pins to collect information on how well a Pin is doing. That pixel on the advertiser’s site can determine which customers are arriving after either viewing or clicking on an advertiser’s Promoted Pin. And in turn, Pinterest can then use that data to customize a consumer’s experience on its website. The company says it will update its Privacy Policy on October 19th.

You can view the original story here.

So there you go!  This will make my top ten pebble apps for sure.  I’ll try to update that list tomorrow.

– up button starts recording
– down button stops
– long press on the select button erases the highscore

Records how long you take, how many faps total end faps per second.
The highest fps is saved in the watch’s persistent storage.

Pure Genius

I liked the Pebble but it never really worked right.  Was hearing there were apps that could address many of the issues but I had to upgrade.  So I upgraded to 6.1.3 (no choice) then performed a tethered jailbreak.  Kind of a pain, but it worked.  However, the problems persisted.  The iPhone would still lose connection to the Pebble, I would not get all my notifications, and names never showed up when people called me, only numbers.  I was getting pretty sick of this so I upgraded to 7.0 hoping that would help.  It did,  but only a bit.  However, now my phone was becoming so slow, I could barely use it.  At the time, there was no way to go back to 6.1.3.  That was the last straw.  I was done with the iPhone.

But I have been thinking of bailing for awhile now anyway lest you think it was just about a watch.  I have been watching cooler and cooler Android devices coming out and nothing new from Apple.  I was getting annoyed that I had to work twice as hard to do basic customizing that Android basically allowed out of the box. My Girlfriend had a Samsung and it took better pictures and the few times I used it, I thought the UI was actually better.  The big thing that really bothered me is that Apple was always trying to force me to update to the latest version and never go back.  And there was always this game of cat and mouse with jailbreak.  I should not have to work this hard to customize things on my phone.

Once iOS7 came out it was clear they were playing catch up with the Android OS. So why was I holding on?  I can get an Android device with a bigger screen, cheaper price and do everything the iPhone can do and more. And so, with my trusty iPhone 4 no longer usable as it once was, I got a Samsung S3.  (it was on sale)

My first impressions was ‘Oh God Why?’  I had to start over with everything; all my accounts, installing my normal suite of apps, and learning a new way to do everything.  However, after a little more then a week, I fond that I was doing things faster on the Samsung then I could on the iphone. I’m still getting used to the keyboard, but swipe has won me over. I’m still getting used to the larger screen and the phone being more slippery, but that will be addressed once I get a good case