Apple. Samsung. Motorola. HTC. Which will you get?

Hi all. Its an interesting time in technology for mobile devices as well as tablets. Device manufacturers look poised to find their way into consumers pockets as the holiday season approaches quite quick. A host of devices are set to come to you soon and one can only speculate which will be the best, but its more of a personal preference that will find its way into consumers pockets. Lets see what they are.

Like the 5?

The biggest hype getter as always is the iPhone 5 or the "new" iPhone as some (me) choose to call it. Apple being silent up until just this week; announces their event for September 12th. The ad would imply the 5 is upon us, but Apple usually chooses to release new iPods before the holidays. Rumors of an iPad mini always are floating around, so lets hope Apple releases 5 new products instead of making a horrible name choice for the prestigious iPhone. Whatever Apple announces, the iPhone will be on tap to make its grand entrance to put potential buyers minds at ease for the new phone.

Motorola hit the stage on the 5th of September to announce their new line of phones, which primarily are for the Verizon wireless network. Motorola looks ready to take a leap of upping their displays which have primarily been qHD that equates to sub par in my opinion. With other phones having SUPER AMOLED or Retina display, a qHD display looks like the screen on a phone from 2007. Moto announces the Droid RAZR MAXX HD, Motorola Droid RAZR HD, RAZR M all with global versions for customers. Motorola says that Jelly Bean will also be coming to these devices by the end of the year sometime which should make Moto devices a true competitor for the upgrader and new costumers wallets during the holiday season.

Samsung recently announced the Note 2, and riding the success of the Galaxy S III, Samsung will be looking to get consumers to join in on the fun. Apple looks to rain on the parade by trying to get the GS3 banned from sales as well as a host of other phones and tablets. The courts will have some tough decisions to make, but hopefully to keep the market innovative for all. Samsung will also be dropping a Galaxy Camera running Android which looks very nice. The Samsung Note 10.1 tablet should be catching consumers attention if looking for a multi tasking tool to do more things than the iPad out of the box. Sporting a S Pen will be great for people that aren't entirely sold on touchscreen functionality.

HTC has a September event planned off the heels of Apples event, rumors of a 5+ inch screen phone with red trim implying that it will be heading to Verizon sometime soon. Rumors of HTC being the designers for the next Nexus phone have been running about, but nothing concrete yet.

Hello Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft announces their new OS, Windows 8 coming to tablets and mobile phones soon. Microsoft has been dormant for years ith their innovation, but clearly have been working to gain market share in the tech world. The Surface being announced just a few short months ago looks interesting for the tech person in your life. Steve Ballmer says that the price of The Surface will be competitive, but no release date has been announced yet. Acer, and Sony are also tapped to run the Windows 8 OS with some very nice tablets coming to consumers. Nokia windows 8 phones are apparently heading our way too. Yesterday these new devices announced are generating a lot of talk in just a short time. This is good for Microsoft, Nokia, and the consumer, freshening up the stale market is really what we all need. 

Thank the heavens for my UK buddy, I almost forgot the Amazon event today. The Kindle is Amazons baby, and a new Kindle Fire is on the horizon. The bigger picture however is the rumors of an Amazon phone, which have peeked the interest of consumers. eReaders being a big market along with the Nook by Barnes and Noble could be a holiday sleeper that people over look.

So, what will you get? Maybe you wont get anything. As of right now I'm not looking for anything new, but who knows what tomorrow brings.

~Thanks for stopping by~

Luke

What Happened to Fun?

This was the best ever.

Remember 2007? I do. I made some awesome friends that year. Why? Maybe because of a little something maybe you've heard of it.....Call of Duty 4. Yea, I know right, the very thought of it would make any person drool. Remember how fun it was? Was, yea, not so much now. Besides the fact that the game is fastly approaching the 5 year mark, but hackers and what not have ruined the game that was, fun. 

Today fun is a loose, loose term. Somewhere along the way, fun was somehow replaced with crap, and crap being the community that came over to the Call of Duty series from Halo. Do they have the right? Yes. Did companies like Infinity ward and Treyarch see the potential that could be gained from this? Yes. Did Activision want to make more money? Yes. Did any of these companies care what they were doing to the fans. NO!

Year after year Call of Duty franchise series makes more and more money and breaks records upon records. While doing almost nothing different. They keep releasing the same game, and we keep buying it. "Not this year god damn it." You bought it, I bought it. We all buy it on the grounds that this one might capture that feel we got from Call of Duty 4 and relive the magic once again. Lets be honest though, it isn't going to. For that matter it really isn't even going to come close. We could argue and blame the community for the things they have done while playing the game. Blame them. You can't. The Call of Duty developers are the ones that put all that stuff in there to make them do the things they do. Please show me a man that can run around with a Barret .50 Cal sniper rifle and fire it with hardly any recoil, and I will produce to you the front door keys to the Bermuda Triangle, as well as the body of Jimmy Hoffa. It wont happen.

Modern Warfare 2. Quite horrible online play.

Fun, doesn't exist anymore, and I thought Battlefield 3 would be a breath of fresh air and be fun, but it isn't. Getting shot at the spawn, I will play call of duty if I want to be hosed that bad. Thats another beast entirely its own.

Where will the fun come from again? Sadly, I don't think there will be any online games that are fun anymore. Co-op games are a blast, but working around schedules to play with certain people lets the game sit on the shelf for awhile, then its back to Call of Duty, because there is nothing. I want to be happy, but all I feel is anger. If I'm not playing that, I'm playing something else that just doesn't hold my attention span. Remember my rant about Ghost Recon? That had the tools to be great, and not so great. If the game wasn't broken, there may have not been a problem.

The future of gaming may be done for me. As I am perhaps just getting too old to give it a thought. I look at my Xbox 360 and sigh, I want to have fun again, but I cant. Gaming has become ruined. People and the game companies just turn the cash cow into a bore. 

Blackops 2. The future never looked so bad.

What will Blackops 2 do? The multiplayer trailer was released and I was excited for the first watching of it, but then the second and third time got me thinking. Its the same game. The same damn game all over again. New maps, new guns, same game modes. Thats another thing too. Why cant people play objective type games the way they are supposed to be played. They don't help you half the time, I have many ideas for fixes for this, but will we see them? Nope. Will I still buy the next Call of Duty which is Blackops 2? Probably. Will I complain about it? Yup. I'm only human, and bored. Bring on NHL '13!!!!!

~Thanks for stopping by~

Luke

Hey Jellybean 4.1

Do you have an Android? Just a few short years ago I would have said you were dumb if ya did, but Google has made amazing strides to making the Android OS amazing to say the least. Better than iOS and the iPhone? Understatement.

He is cute no matter what.

I say better than the iPhone and if you take a look at it, you have to take that with a grain of salt, that's right, its only better than an iPhone on a low spectrum. High end Android devices such as the Samsung Galaxy SII, the Nexus, the SIII, and HTC One X blow the iPhone and the operating system out of the water. Sadly the Android tablets that are out cant hold a candle to the iPad, but aren't very far behind, and I don't want to start a comparison war either. At both ends both devices appeal to a certain individual, and I'm okay with that. Its about what you like as an end user. Anyone tries to steer you different is just a fanboy. Enough, lets talk about Jelly Bean for a second, and I mean a second.


I don't know what little tweak Google decided needed to be done to Ice Cream Sandwhich, but it was for the better. Google now is a SIRI like novelty, but what sets it different from SIRI is it doesn't sound like a speak and spell trying to posses and rob you of you're idiocy. There are a million sites that talk about what Jelly Bean can do, and why they love it. I'm not here to review it, I'm here just to say it is out and I like it, and liking it is an understatement honestly. JB is very smooth on the GNeX as I like to call it, which I wouldn't have thought could be smoother than ICS, but Google did a good job. Cards, Beam, to list a few coming in tow, will make users want JB soon for their device, and from experience I only feel for them because I have it. 


To defend Apple's iPhone a little. The iPhone is amazingly built, there is no doubting that. The retina display, and the shape are stellar. Until Apple realizes that the OS needs an overhaul, I fear Apple may lose in the end. Dont even get a bigger screen iPhone, and that's fine, but something must be done to you're OS and the way it is displayed. Truth.


~Thanks for stopping by~
Luke

Ghost Recon Future Soldier Broken

I love video games, and I will defend them til the end. I remember when they were going up in price and I said "I wont pay that price!", every new generation system I said that, and I never held up to my claim. I've been through a lot of systems in my life time, the list is endless. Lately, I feel like I'm being played for a sap. 

Sixty Five dollars is a lot of money these days for a game that might get you 6+ hours of enjoyment. Some may say, "well, a book only last as long as it takes you to read it." Although that is true, you want more for $65, a book is far cheaper. Whatever the case might be, for what a system cost, and what the games cost you expect to have a good experience. good, great, amazing experiences is what I usually get from these gold nuggets of creativity. Usually. Currently a game has not only pushed me to write this blog, but has even had my best friend say enough is enough, and yank it out of his system and say hes done.

Ghost Recon Future Soldier, oh you wicked marvelous piece of garbage. First off, I was never a fan of the Ghost Recon series, I tried many and was just never my flavor. I have always been a fan of First person shooters (FPS) since I touched Zero Tolerance for Sega Genesis. This Ghost Recon came out at a good time. The summer game releases are stale and boring, so this game seemed good to try. Let me start off by saying the graphics are amazing. The fun I was having playing cooperatively with my friend was top notch, and seemed like something I really needed to experience as I was bored with the other typical gaming such as Call of Duty. The environment, the graphics, all of it were just breath taking. Until. Yes, until all the glitches kicked in, the textures not loading, the corrupted saves. 

New tactic: fight from underground.

Normally I can deal with this, because you either load a previous save or turn it off and turn it back on and the problem fixes itself. No, not this piece of garbage. Thats right, garbage. the game is broke. My buddy and I tried everything, loads, turn offs, everything. The problems just either stop for a minor amount of time and show back up, or they just get increasingly worse. In a mission, I snapped the neck of an invisible man, this was after I loaded the game back up from the ammo box that I got stuck on. Oh, and this was all while my friends character was running around with no arms. when the arms did appear he looked as though he was trying to pull a Goose and Maverick and fly his fake F-14 around. 

To the checkpoint, here we couldn't walk up the stairs to get to the next part of the mission, where this terrifying vehicle was going to get us, which was also invisible and shot at us. Luckily by the good graces of guess work, we blew it up. Note, we loaded this part many times as well. when we finally got through that, all I can say is enemies shouldn't look like they are wearing Sears Roebuck blue jeans. the textures would never load. Loads, and loads later, we just gave up completely. Why? Especially being so close to the end. All we had to do is go to Moscow I think and should have been almost there. With reloading the games as many times as we did, we already wasted 3 hours. Sad. 

All in all, I hope others don't have this horrible luck. I'm sure other people haven't, but as much as you pay for games, they should be flawless for every user. I just searched and found a bug report form by the developer. I doubt they care, but maybe it will help them in the long run. It is just sad to say the least.

I have to take a stand in a personal war. It is personal to me for the simple fact that I love technology. Especially technology that is in the form of mobile devices, tablets, and personal computers. Not Windows, not OSX, personal computers, ya know, what makes it yours. Mac vs. PC is the most dumbest statement ever. PC is personal computer, which means my iMac is a PC. Fanboys drop dead on site nt that statement, and I'm glad. DIE! I hate all of you.

If I sound bitter, I am. This Apple vs. Android thing is driving me insane. Why? Because I stated it above, it is personal to me. It is my passion that I can no longer enjoy. Apple, Android and Samsung have ruined it for me. I no longer feel the love from all sides of the spectrum. I just want to get a flip phone and call it a day. I loved Apple devices until Apple stopped making Apple devices and started making the Apple brand.

The Apple brand is just the same thing they put out before, tweaked it a little bit and told you that you must buy it cuz you would be stupid if you didnt buy it. Android, and I am not trying to sound biased here, but they atleast still create. Apple decide that creating was a lost art they never felt the need to revisit. I have an Android phone for a reason, because I dont want to be like the 75 year old women next to me in line. Or the 13 year old girl that thinks she is better than everyone because her parent sdont want to pay attention to her, so its just easier to give her something to shut her up. I own an Apple iPad for a reason, becaus eit is the best tablet on the market. Didnt push the envelope on creativity much, but atleast it is still supreme. I own an iMac for the fact that I dont like to get malware and viruses or replace it once every year or 2, and yes that has been my experience with Microsoft OS's. NOT PC's. Get it right.

Here is where I stand, do I care if you like it or not? NOPE! Not for a god damn second. If I am reading a text message from my wife while you are standing next to me do not pull out your device and try to compare it to mine, for I will more than likely punch you in the fucking face. You know why I'm irrate? 3 times today I have heard someone compare their life to their phone. Its been an iPhone everytime.

I dabble on both sides oif the spectrum. DO NOT tell me I am being biased. I will chew you down about fifty pegs. End of story.

Luke

Apple to show nothing at WWDC except the NEW iPhone

Reinventing the phone......AGAIN!!!!

Is it already time for the new joke...I mean iPhone? This is what the wonderful web site that gave me the image would have you believe. Now before I get fanboyisms thrown my way. Wait, who am I kidding, no one shows up here so I can say whatever I want. Not that I care what anyone else opinions are, I will just lay it down the way I want.

June being right around the corner, Apple holds their yearly event known as WWDC (look it up), and the old routine was to unvail an iPhone, tell everone how its the next best thing that you must have, and expect you to go buy it. Then Verizon ruined that by pissing and moaning that they needed the iPhone and broke the AT&T exclusive death grip it had on the iPhone. Wait, Death grip? Anyone catch that? It wasnt even planned. The result was a change in announcment of the next device. Great history right? I was one of the Apple loylists who enjoyed the announcment of the next device, and I will partake in WWDC as well, but lets get real. You all want the next iPhone dont you? Thats right the next shinning beam of light to rain down on you, to make you feel like your somebody. I'm sorry, but the iPhone has become a mockery of itself and the company that represents it. Look it up if you dont believe me. Apple stood for being different and ya da ya da ya da, its like beating a dead horse, so I digress.

To beat this down a few pegs and its lucky it even gets a few pegs really. The above pictured device is the next iPhone. Thats right, its the iPhone 5...or 6, or is it the "NEW" iPhone? Hard to tell. I mean the iPad wasnt the iPad 3 or HD, it was the New iPad. Whatever! 9to5mac.com reports that this is the latest rumor piece of the next iPhone. Look at it in all of its glory. Isnt it sexy? Yea, if you said yes you are officially going to have to go get your eyes checked. This is ugo by all ugo terms. Even if this was parts from the next iPhone and that might just be a protective film on the back, the wonderous head phone jack at the bottom remains to be comical.

Be honest, would you say that is the next best thing? Probably not. I'm sure this is just another leaked mock up that likes to float around as of the last 3 years. Although I have been correct so far since I got in this game of iPhone/Android geekness, I could be wrong. this could be the next latest and greatest. If this is whats next, you wont see it this June for sure. Apple shouldn't leave the one year formula of device dropping anytime soon. Its what makes me respect them the most, aside from their computers. I would hope the iPhone 5x or 6b or iPhone LTE or.. whatever it is would be so amazing that you have to dip into the savings account no matter what it cost.

Apple lost me (mobile wise) when they stopped pushing the envelope and started pushing the product. Love my iPads, and I love my iMac, but I cant justify the same phone over and over again being worth my money, when Android offers much more options. I will however continue to be intrigued, excited, and of course very critical.

~Thanks for stopping by~
Luke

Semester has ended

The semester has ended. Duh, that's what the title said right? Overall my semester was filled with the joy of learning new and exciting things on my path to get my degree. The problem i have with that, is I feel there should have been more.

I enjoyed my professors this semester, some more than others, but I felt I'm talking away on half assed information. This night class I took was only one day a week and I felt like the information was shoved down my throat. Learning the things I did from her were great, but not at all fulfilling. Two of my favorite professors were always there when you needed them. Might I add without attitudes, Tim and Karl always were there to lend a hand when needed and I like to feel that even though I am needy, that I can get that extra 1 on 1 help if I desire. 

I don't know where the next semester is taking me, but I do hope that I can just get this over with, get back to working again, and have what I feel will be like a normal life. It would be nice to have something to talk about with my wife, except for what a video game did wrong to me, or the latest hack for my phone. Lets face it in all honesty, wives are good listeners, but trust me, they really don't care about man stuff that much. Luckily my wife is the best listener there is, or I would be doomed.

~Thanks for Stopping By~

Luke