Skype to add synchronized messaging, battery conservation in coming months

Microsoft's Mark Gillett - the vice president responsible for Skype - describes improvements coming to the popular communication service in the coming months. Those changes include synchronized chat messages, improvements to battery management on mobile devices and more. From the Skype blog:

We also know that people are engaging more and more with each other and with Skype across multiple devices at home, on the go, and at work so we are working to synchronize chat message status across all of your devices so you will know the current status of all of your chats on every device you use to interact with Skype. This capability will be rolling out across clients over the next few months.

The secret behind Skype's battery preservation on mobile devices comes from keeping the app in "sleep" mode and waking it only when necessary using push notifications.

A common feature in mobile apps, these notifications are the same technology that provide updates on sports scores, weather bulletins, or breaking news. In order to send a push notification message to a sleeping Skype app, the calling app sends the Skype ID and IP address of the parties, as well as the time and date, to our cloud.

Right now, when you open Skype on a second device, be it iOS or Mac or another platform, messages will explode at random intervals and otherwise make you want to end it. If Skype can fix that - big if - they'll take a huge step forwards to being a true multi-device communications systems.

But can they really do it?

Source: Skype blog

iPhone engineer recounts challenges leading to original iPhone announcement

A senior radio engineer on the original iPhone has talked about the stress the team felt in the days that led up to the announcement of the iPhone in 2007. Andy Grignon had been on the iPhone project since the beginning. Much of his stress came from Steve Jobs' insistence on a live presentation, where most such demonstrations are canned in order to avoid problems. Grigon was in charge of all of the iPhone's radios, and if they had any problems in the first public demonstration of the iPhone, Jobs would have blamed him, according to the New York Times:

Cellphones do innumerable useful things for us today, but at their most basic, they are fancy two-way radios. Grignon was in charge of the equipment that allowed the phone to be a phone. If the device didn’t make calls, or didn’t connect with Bluetooth headsets or Wi-Fi setups, Grignon had to answer for it. As one of the iPhone’s earliest engineers, he’d dedicated two and a half years of his life — often seven days a week — to the project.

The run-up to the event saw Apple completely take over the Moscone Center, with extra security hired to look after the iPhone prototypes 24/7. Jobs rehearsed his presentation for five days, and each day brought a new iPhone malfunction, from dropped calls to random freezes to complete shutdowns. On the day of the unveiling, Grignon brought a flask of Scotch to share between the engineers. Every engineer would take a shot after the portion of the demo that they were responsible for had worked. By the end of the presentation, the Scotch was gone, and the first public presentation of the iPhone had been a complete success.

Grignon later left Apple to become a part of the webOS team, moving on from there to found Quake Labs, a software startup.

Source: The New York Times

Dead on Arrival 2 as seen on the Nvidia Shield

 Dead on Arrival sequel played on the Nvidia SHIELD

Recently released, Dead on Arrival 2 is downloadable from the Google Play Store (see the link above). Controller and Tegra optimized, DOA2 pairs seamlessly with the Nvidia SHIELD. The game is free to download and play with in app purchases to advance, although our Kevin O'Quinn says

[those] aren't required. You can unlock seemingly everything through gameplay, with the purchases speeding up the process.

The game seems to run fantastically on this device; the integrated controller allows for precise hand-eye movement, the audio is nice and crisp, and the gameplay leaves nothing to want. You can learn more about the game by viewing the video after the break, If you've got a SHIELD at home and enjoy shooter games, feel free to take on the undead and let us know how you survive. 

Stock Talk: HTC's Q3 loss isn't good, but neither is it unexpected

The question remains, though: How (and can?) HTC regroup financially to compete in this industry? 

Earlier this week HTC Corp. published its unaudited results for the third quarter of 2013. Despite the number of headlines making a big deal out of the company’s first quarterly loss (yes, it lost money this quarter), the news was easily anticipated.

Like many public companies, HTC shares its business outlook in every quarterly press release. Last quarter it said to expect $50 billion to $60 billion (local currency) in revenue, and it expected an operating margin as low as -8 percent.  In actuality, HTC posted slightly less revenue ($47.1 billion), and the operating margin was slightly better than the worst-case scenario in its outlook at -7 percent. 

How did the market respond? The stock is actually up 1.5 percent today. That’s a tiny move for a tech stock, so it pretty much tells us Wall Street yawned at these numbers. 

It’s unfortunate that products like the HTC One and the HTC First “Facebook phone,” released earlier this year, didn’t turn around the company’s fortunes.  I honestly don’t know what these guys should be doing to fix things. There is no question HTC makes good products. People have long respected HTC’s design skill and product quality. But it clearly isn’t enough to sustain the business. The mobile business is now heavily concentrated around Android and iOS, and in the Android market it’s practically impossible to compete against Samsung. Not only does Samsung make by far the largest number of (very good quality) phones, but it has strong control over much of the supply chain by making its own screens, memory, and more.

AS WE'VE SAID TIME AND TIME AGAIN — THE PRODUCTS AREN'T THE PROBLEM.

Still, HTC isn’t in imminent financial danger quite yet. Last time we saw HTC's balance sheet, it had about 14 times as much cash on hand as compared to this Q3 operating loss. Unless revenues plunge from here, HTC probably can get back to profitability with some careful cost cutting — which, yes, unfortunately often involves cutting people, which happened recently as HTC America confirmed it's laying off 20 percent of its employees. But contrast this with BlackBerry, which just announced plans to cut 40 percent of its staff, reduce operating expenses by 50 percent — and it still faces a heavily declining service business, which threatens to re-ignite the company’s cash burn rate even if management puts out the current fire.

What’s your take, folks? What strategic options should HTC implement? Should HTC look to sell itself? Shut down the business? Find another way to compete in the market somehow?

What options do these guys have to remain relevant?

AT&T HTC One Android 4.3 update passes certification, pushing out next week

HTC America President Jason Mackenzie has confirmed on Twitter that the Android 4.3 update for AT&T's HTC One has passed carrier certification and will be pushing out "early next week."

HTC is in the midsts of pushing out its Android 4.3 update for various regions and carriers. Sprint's HTC One got Android 4.3 this week, while the U.S. developer version and Canadian versions got it last week. T-Mobile is expected to get the 4.3 update by mid-October, while Verizon is slated for the end of the month.

The update brings HTC's flagship up to the latest version of the OS, while adding in new (to the U.S.) HTC Sense features like additional video highlight templates, Instagram support in BlinkFeed and the ability to disable the on-screen menu button.

LG G2 tips and tricks: Long-press the volume buttons for app shortcuts

The LG G2 brings with it some interesting new features. Chief among them is the moving of the power button and volume buttons to the rear of the phone. Used in conjunction with the "Knock-on" feature for turning on the display, it brings (somewhat) of a sense of normalcy to a very different phone.

But there's a bit of added functionality that we'd recommend you not forget about — and that brings us back to those rearward-facing volume buttons.

LG G2 tip: Hold volume-down for a camera shortcut

Most phones give you a shortcut to the camera on the lockscreen. The LG G2 is no different — but it actually goes a step further. You don't even have to wake the phone first to get to the camera.

Hold the volume-down button on the LG G2 — they say 3 seconds, but you'll feel the phone vibrate when it triggers — and you'll immediately launch the camera app. 

And once the camera app is open, you can press volume-down (or volume-up, for that matter) to serve as a shutter button. An awkward shutter button, perhaps, but a shutter button all the same.

LG G2 tip: Hold volume-up for QuickMemo

QuickMemo is a major feature for LG, allowing you to annotate just about anything. So, LG's given you a shortcut to it, too. Hold down volume-up for a couple seconds and it'll fire it right up. No having to wake the phone first. 

See? It's just like the other one. Only different.

Android sees slight dip in US market share, still holds over half the market

Samsung still the largest among Android makers, but still far behind Apple

As of August, 2013, Android still controls over half of the US market share, according to analysis bycomScore. 51.6 percent of the mobile market is impressive, but it is down 0.8 percentage points compared to May of this year. Apple's iOS, on the other hand, has gained market share in that period, up to 40.7 percent from 39.2 percent a few months earlier.

In terms of which manufacturers are selling devices, naturally Samsung is still on top of the Android heap. With 24.3 percent of the US market secured — up 1.3 percentage points since May — Samsung is solidly behind Apple's 40.7 percent (the same as its OS market share, of course) but far and away ahead of everyone else.

Rounding out the top five manufacturers are HTC at 7.4 percent (down 1.3 percentage points), Motorola at 6.9 percent (down 0.9 percentage points) and LG at 6.7 percent market share.