It ain’t heavy, it’s my Lumia 920

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I’ve ditched the iPhone and picked up a bright Ferrari red Lumia 920. I’ve had three iPhones since 2008 and 2013 may well be the first in which I may not own one, at least not a working one. I’ve been using the original iPhone for three years until I left it in a cab early last year, which led me to get myself a used 3GS and later an iPhone 4. The latter of which I promptly left, also in a cab in August of that year, just three months after I bought it, so back to the 3GS I went before it kicked the bucket a few months ago.

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Review: Samsung Galaxy S III

Of all the phones that I’ve ever had to use, I’ve never had one anywhere near as large as the Samsung Galaxy S III. At 4.8 inches, the S III is the largest phone I’ve ever held in my hand, but it’s also the thinnest. The screen is simply enormous and it is quite a sight to behold. It is also very clear and very sharp. This new flagship phone from Samsung runs Google’s latest version of Android, called Ice Cream Sandwich, and comes in two colors which it calls Marble White and Pebble Blue. It officially retails for Rp 6,999,000 (USD 740).

I hardly ever use the telephone function on these so-called smartphones. As far as I’m concerned, these are data pads, mobile devices that take advantage of the high speed cellular connections for various Internet-reliant apps and services, and for this purpose, the S III simply screams. It’s clearly up there among the best, if not the best Android phone I’ve ever used.

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Today Tumblr rolled out a completely rewritten iPhone app. Gone is the two panel interface replaced by a tabbed interface that’s becoming more and more common on recent iOS apps and at a glance would remind you of Instagram. The center tab is the primary activity tab for posting content with options to choose which Tumblr account to post it from. The new app introduces post settings on the composition screen, accessible by swiping the screen to the right. While on the post settings page, swiping to the left takes you back to the composition page. Due to the way iOS apps are traditionally designed, it’s very tempting to tap on the top left button on the screen where the back/return button is usually located, to go back to composing a post. You don’t want to do this as that position is used by a cancel button that thankfully prompts you with an option to save or clear the post instead of abandoning it outright. On the settings page, Tumblr finally adds a custom tweet option so now tweets don’t need to come out looking like a mess. Now that there’s a tab for Likes, you can look at all the posts that you’ve marked on Tumblr directly in the app without having to go to the website on a desktop, notebook, or tablet computer. Tumblr now allows account creation right on the app as well as reading and replying to messages, recognizing the fact that having to go to the website to do all this is becoming tedious and that for a lot of people, the mobile device is the primary interface to the Internet. Overall, the app is now much more comprehensive, more usable, and more practical with an interface that makes it easier for you to post more frequently to all the multiple Tumblr blogs that you may have.
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Today Tumblr rolled out a completely rewritten iPhone app. Gone is the two panel interface replaced by a tabbed interface that’s becoming more and more common on recent iOS apps and at a glance would remind you of Instagram. The center tab is the primary activity tab for posting content with options to choose which Tumblr account to post it from.

The new app introduces post settings on the composition screen, accessible by swiping the screen to the right. While on the post settings page, swiping to the left takes you back to the composition page.

Due to the way iOS apps are traditionally designed, it’s very tempting to tap on the top left button on the screen where the back/return button is usually located, to go back to composing a post. You don’t want to do this as that position is used by a cancel button that thankfully prompts you with an option to save or clear the post instead of abandoning it outright.

On the settings page, Tumblr finally adds a custom tweet option so now tweets don’t need to come out looking like a mess.

Now that there’s a tab for Likes, you can look at all the posts that you’ve marked on Tumblr directly in the app without having to go to the website on a desktop, notebook, or tablet computer.

Tumblr now allows account creation right on the app as well as reading and replying to messages, recognizing the fact that having to go to the website to do all this is becoming tedious and that for a lot of people, the mobile device is the primary interface to the Internet.

Overall, the app is now much more comprehensive, more usable, and more practical with an interface that makes it easier for you to post more frequently to all the multiple Tumblr blogs that you may have.

Just about everybody’s linked to this epic review of Color on the US App Store by someone who goes by the name Ghostmoth and you’re more likely to have read it since it went up a few days ago. What’s the fuss? The fact that the team behind Color got $41 million in seed funding from a number of investors while the app so far has caused nothing but confusion among its users. TechCrunch is clearly obsessed by the startup, they’ve devoted a week’s worth of coverage to it. Here’s the link to Mike Cohen’s original post on his discovery of the review but if you’d rather read it in its full glory, here’s a screenshot of the entire description from the App Store on iTunes on my Flickr account. Creative writing has reached another high this past weekend.
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Just about everybody’s linked to this epic review of Color on the US App Store by someone who goes by the name Ghostmoth and you’re more likely to have read it since it went up a few days ago.

What’s the fuss? The fact that the team behind Color got $41 million in seed funding from a number of investors while the app so far has caused nothing but confusion among its users. TechCrunch is clearly obsessed by the startup, they’ve devoted a week’s worth of coverage to it.

Here’s the link to Mike Cohen’s original post on his discovery of the review but if you’d rather read it in its full glory, here’s a screenshot of the entire description from the App Store on iTunes on my Flickr account.

Creative writing has reached another high this past weekend.

Simplenote. The notes app Apple should have came up with

Being a web oriented writer, I don’t have too much to ask from a text app, just one that has a built in word and character counts and a simple interface. I don’t find the need for text formatting or all the other fancy stuff that many word processing apps offer. Most of the stuff I do don’t even warrant text formatting although there’s that thing with embedding links in text.

Apple’s Notes in iOS is as simple as it gets but it requires me to copy out the text and put it into Pastebot because it doesn’t have word count, which is important in what I do. Notes also uses Marker Felt which tries to look friendly but reminds me of Comic Sans too much.

Along comes Simplenote. It’s the Notes app Apple should have came up with for the iOS. I’ve been using it for a while but it’s been recently updated. I suggest you read Shawn Blanc’s review of it.

Low on Gore, Big on Eye Candy

“…the special effects fail to give any real credibility to this grisly movie. The slashing seems unrealistic, the flayed wounds look dry and unconvincing, and for a movie that is supposedly a bloodbath, this 80-minute thriller just doesn’t show enough red liquid.”

Jakarta Globe reviews Air Terjun Pengantin, the latest Indonesian slasher movie

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