Top 3 reasons for buying an iPhone X — “One more thing” at Apple’s September 2017 event

It’s around 4 AM in Shanghai and I have been up watching Apple’s September event which took place at Steve Jobs Theater, and was streamed live. Though I did enjoy the announcements and demos related to other products like Apple Watch as well, I am writing this post to share with you, my top 3 reasons for buying an iPhone X; despite of it’s high price.

Reason 1: Face ID

I have been reading the rumors and watching Youtube videos that rediculed this feature of the new iPhone X, but I was right to wait for the actual announcement where it got explained in more detail. If there is one thing that Apple has been able to convince the masses about; it’s security. So all those videos of people wearing a mask and making fun of this feature can literally be laughed at, once we read about the underlying technology and the kind of testing that has been performed by the engineers at Apple. Simply put in numbers, it is 20 times more secure than touch ID.

Just last week, one of my acquaintances asked me, “What if I pass out at a bar, and someone uses my thumb to unlock the phone and transfer all my money while I lay unconscious?”. Well, I bet opening the eyes of such a victim would be far more difficult than forcing his or her thumb.

In terms of accessibility, I think Face ID is going to open a whole new avenue for people with disabilities.

Reason 2: Wireless Charging

From removal of the headphone jack, to removal of the home button, Apple has been making things cleaner and getting rid of all the moving parts. From my perspective, a machine with more movable parts is subject to more wear and tear. I like the haptic feedback based home button in iPhone 7, which feels far better than the traditional home button. Now with an all new glass design (the most durable glass ever in a smartphone, front and back. Surgical‑grade stainless steel), iPhone X allows wireless charging which is a game changer for many Apple fans.

After visiting manufacturing hubs like Huaqiangbei in Shenzhen, I am pretty sure that other companies would soon be manufacturing products like AirPower Mats to help Apple users charge their devices wirelessly (probably before the actual 2018 launch of mats by Apple).

Reason 3: A11 Bionic Chip

To put it in simple terms, other than being faster and smarter while still providing slightly better battery life, this new chip would allow you to make use of features like machine learning (Face ID is one of it’s implementation), augmented reality (enjoy many AR games like Pokemon Go), animoji and real depth selfies (the new true depth camera along with A11 Bionic chip can analyze more than 50 of your muscle movements and create impressive photo effects)

These are my top 3 reasons, what are yours? Please do share them via comments.

P.S.- Say hello to the future 🙂

You can also checkout the Hands-on video by engadget:

Movie Review: Don’t Underestimate Shamitabh

Don’t underestimate this movie as another Bhoothnath flick. If you don’t believe me yet, check the IMDB rating. The story is good, acting is better and Amitabh Bachchan is the best. This movie made me laugh and enjoy several moments that includes sarcasm and egoistic remarks shared between Dhanush and Amitabh. Some things did fall apart for me like the lessons given by Akshara in a primary school and the chemistry between Dhanush and Akshara. But I guess it’s ok as per Bollywood standards. What I liked though, is that the movie also had an important appeal with it which makes us think about people who work behind the scenes and never get the recognition.The fact that you will see the names of the corresponding valets in the credits at end, establishes this further.

It also explains how ego can hurt us all if not controlled at the right time. Some of the sequences were simply excellent and succeeded in sparking the targeted emotions. The theme set for Dhanush as a die-hard movie fan, plays an important role in justifying some of his extreme actions. The child like playfulness, the fun loving personalities and the human bonding is portrayed very well.

I also felt that what Dhanush was trying throughout the movie while acting as dumb, Amit Ji pulled off right at the end with much more perfection.

AskMe – The Bapp of all apps

Gone are the days when you had to install different apps for taking care of different needs like finding the location of nearest grocery store or the best deal on mobile phones or searching the contact number of the local apple store. Askme takes care of all your daily needs and gives you the smart tips that your smartphone was built for. The smartness with which it finds appropriate results for you is magical. If you have ever downloaded an app which helps you find local businesses, you must have noticed that search results are not very relevant, especially when it comes to businesses which are less common. But Ask me gives you the results which you were looking for. To make this possible, the results have been divided into three sections:

ASKME: This section only displays the list of businesses which are searched from within the database of askme. Millions of businesses across various cities have been added to this database which makes sure that you are provided the best results.
FREEADS: This section only displays the advertisements that have been added for free by various businesses or people like you. Keeping them in a separate section makes sure that your primary search results are not hampered.
DEALS: In the age of discount coupons, finding a deal can be more important than simply finding the nearest business or store. For instance, if you want to buy a mobile phone, finding the nearest mobile store will be less important than finding the best deal available in the market.
In spite of the above results, if you are still unable to find what you need, all you need to do is tap on the last option available on your search result screen and AskMe experts will help you further. This facility might be quite handy especially when you are not able to think of the relevant search terms which are most important for finding the best results. This scenario is quite common in India due to the variation in ways different languages are used.

Once you have the list of businesses, you need to identify which one of them suits your needs. Even the list of relevant results can be pretty long which makes the task of narrowing it down quite tiresome. Hit and trial, may not always work in case of common businesses. But don’t worry, Askme is not going to leave you there. It also provides its users, the ability to add reviews and these reviews help you determine which business is most suitable for you.

The next step after finding the required business is to call them up. Askme makes it fairly easy to make that call by providing you a call option right next to the listed item. Also, you can share your findings with you friends via Facebook, Whatsapp, Email, Google hangout or Bluetooth. The fact that this particular app has replaced 3 apps on my smartphone, indeed makes it the Bapp of all apps. And yes, this application can be installed for free. I think now I am getting it, why Ranbir Kapoor is so confident about it.

Flarry Harry Android Gaming Application Review

Being an android user, I get to choose from a large pool of options when it comes to mobile gaming applications. While going through some new launches, I came across this game called Flarry Harry. Though The name of the game is itself a USP for it, there are various other things that make me play this game from time to time. This post is to state all those reasons and present to you the importance of simplicity.

1) It’s Easy!

In the virtual age of gaming, we are getting into more and more complex gaming scenarios, but if you look at the recent trends, people who are working in a multinational company, or those who are quite busy with their ongoing schedules, seldom take out time to play such challenging games. If they are supposed to go through some tutorials and brush up their skills before they could enjoy the game, the point of gaming for taking their time off gets destroyed. On the other hand, Flarry Harry is an android game that is easily understandable and is still quite inviting. All you have to do is tap your fingers timely and enjoy the journey crossing the hurdles one after the other.

2) It’s Small

The high-end games that we talked about in the last point can usually range anywhere in size from 50 MB to 4146MB, as other than the hosted app, they can also use 2 expansion files which are again limited to 2GB each. This makes the installation process quite cumbersome. Also, when you decide to uninstall the files, you have to get rid of all the temporary files and expansions as well. But when we talk about Flarry Harry, the application occupies a mere space of 3.1 MB on your phone. This in turn ensures that your phone’s performance will not get affected due to the installation as it is occupying very less memory.

3) It’s Free

The best thing about most of the popular android applications is that they are free and so is Flarry Harry. That is the reason, android users are so satisfied with the market as they always find an application that meets their requirements and gets installed for free. So unlike apple market, users don’t have to use their credit cards and a simple click of a button will get them what they want. In addition to this, web users can also browse through the applications at the Google Play Store and click on Install button if their phones have been configured with the same account as the one they are using for logging in online.

This game is one of a kind and will surely remain installed in my phone for a long time. I like to get involved with it when I get free time, whether it be standing in a queue, travelling far distances and sometimes even while attending unimportant calls; if you know what I mean ;). Kudos to the developer!

Movie Review: Highway 2014

I gave this movie a rating of 8/10, because it made me think about things that I once pondered upon but then forgot. In the daily rush of life, we often get so involved with our tasks that we forget what we were aiming at. There comes a point in the lives of most of us, when we are performing mundane tasks just for the sake of it. The best way to learn if this is true, is to sit alone and think; why are you doing this? What was your goal when you started? What all things have changed? Do you think what you are doing is not making you happy? Once you find these answers, you will know what you have to do next and more importantly, what you need to stop doing.

This movie is another form of such a philosophy. If you believe in free spirit, if you were once confident about your life’s aim, go watch this movie, and it will help you get back on the right track.

P.S.: Happiness is the answer!

More reviews at: http://www.imdb.com/user/ur23208665

Would you like to live a recluse life?

Just watched another Korean movie called “Castaway on the moon”. A very insightful movie indeed.

We often come across incidents when people lock themselves in a room and cut off from the society. What leads us to think like that? Even animals like birds like to stay in a group, then how can a human being want to be alone? After all, man is called a social animal.

I started by looking into my own thought process. Of course I don’t like being alone but there are times when I just need my space. I tried thinking about the reasons and I couldn’t come up with one that is justifiable. Maybe the mind gets so confiscated that it starts asking for a vacation. But our mind never stops working, so even when we are trying to sleep or just doing nothing, we are thinking about one thing or the other. Which makes me wonder, can we really give our mind a rest by meditation? I have tried meditating, but I could never reach the state when my mind stops questioning. No matter how hard I try to keep my eyes closed and relax, it doesn’t work that way for me.

Coming back to the recluse thing, many of us are already moving towards this lifestyle without even knowing it. It’s natural for us to stay busy with our work and ignore the society. This habit of ignoring then becomes a way of living. For instance, we may stop greeting people, first due to lack of time and later because we just don’t find it comfortable. We get so busy making friends on social networks that we forget how to make new friends in real life. We are so scared of getting duped that we can’t risk to pass a smile to a stranger. This is why I have created a poll:

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then probably you like a recluse life.

But one is not born thinking like that. It is what the society makes of us and what we make of the society. People may accept us or cast away, we may adjust with them or just run away. Just something we need to figure out.

You can watch the movie with english subtitles here:

Part 1:

 

Part 2:

 

Motorola Defy Plus Unboxing- My first smart phone

I created this video while unboxing my first smart phone i.e. Motorola Defy Plus:

I had done a lot of research before buying this product from flipkart and finally decided to go for it because of its ruggedness.  Though it lacks a front camera, it is not much of an issue for me as I am not interested in video chats.

As for the specifications, I am quite satisfied because it announces something called ‘value for money’. 2GB of internal memory ensures that I can try enough applications from the android market (Called Google Play); without looking for other storage measures. Within the first week only I had installed about 50 new applications on this phone and experimenting with them was all I could think of even during my dreams.(Kinda exaggerated)

Five mega pixel camera is enough to take clear shots in day light; but even with an LED flash, the shots taken in dark are not that impressive. You can have a look at some of the pictures taken by me at http://instagrid.me/kushalashok

It being water and scratch resistant has been quite helpful as I don’t treat it with much respect. In fact I have dropped it so many times that I sometimes wonder, how come it’s still working fine. The reason behind is its light weight and adequate size; which makes it a perfect tool to be circumvolved within my hand, with the help of my fingers and palm. (will probably post a tutorial video about the same later)

If you didn’t believe me when I  specified I bought it coz of it’s ruggedness, than these videos might help:

I haven’t tried 3G yet but the internet speed has been quite satisfactory with minor upload delays. Tried out WiFi once and updated all my applications within an hour. This was also the time when I watched 3 movies back to back while streaming them online on this device. The earphones are of good quality and will work fine until you decide to do something like what I did; crushing them under your feet(accidentally of course) or trying to pull them out when you are wearing a helmet. (By the way, I fixed them with feviquick and they are now working just as fine)

Related articles

• Motorola DEFY MINI Arrives in Ireland via Vodafone (news.softpedia.com)
• Motorola Updates Ice Cream Sandwich Roll Out Schedule (itproportal.com)
• Google says it won China’s approval for Motorola deal (reuters.com)
• How to install Cyanogenmod 7 (android 2.3 gingerbread) on Motorola defy (newtechworld.net)
• Rugged Motorola DEFY+ Now Available in the UAE (news.softpedia.com)
• Review: Motorola Defy+ (stuffmideast.com)

When I watched the Bollywood Movie Kahaani

The word of mouth that I have been getting from all those who watched this movie before me turned out to be true. The movie had an awesome plot and was jumbled very appropriately so that the audience can try connecting the dots while the climax is being planned differently. The comedy elements were placed nicely; for instance, the deplorable guest house in which the main character (Vidya Balan) was staying had a board saying “Running hot water”. Thus, when the manager was asked why there is no hot water in tap, he explains very plainly that it is delivered to the rooms by a kid who RUNS with a hot kettle in his hand and thus it’s called “Running Hot water service”. The humor was also tried with the name ‘Vidya’ being translated as ‘Bidya’ by the Kolkata people.

The quick shots that were showcased in the beginning as well as during some of the songs, were very impressive and showcased Indian culture the right way. From local vendors to the school kids all the routine activities that can be seen in an Indian metro city were demonstrated well.

On one side there were people like the taxi driver and the police officer ‘Rana’ who were kind enough to offer help to a pregnant woman. While on the other hand officers like “Khan” depicted the hauteur and arrogance towards the inferiors.

Vidya has done a praiseworthy job and the emotions of a wife and a mother were very well addressed. Again the shots that accompanied the corresponding scenes were well planned. For instance, during one of the songs there was focus on ‘kids with their parents’ which was well connected with the story.

The feelings that ‘Rana’ builds up for ‘Vidya’ are demonstrated at few points and were handled very well towards the end as he offers Vidya a saree on behalf of her husband.

The last thing I would like to add is that while being a suspenseful flick, this movie not only exhibited the Indian culture but also gave a message that Women can be very strong and impregnable indeed. The reference to ‘Ma Durga’ was made in the same context.