Developers, developers, developers, developers

Eh, I'm fine with android's requirements. The froyo era was still a bit wild west, only once ICS came did things get a bit more uniform. Its hard to find a phone without an ALS isn't it? And really, the only omission most phones have is the secondary cam, which is pretty useless imo.

Zach said:

I guess Android does have more laid back hardware requirements.. I found a ROM on XDA that allowed for Jellybean 4.1.1 to run on an HTC Droid Eris, which dates back to 2009. Jeez.

Of course the ROM was laggy on the phone though :P

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Seriously? Man, I don't think my old Android phone of Galaxy Pro could use Jellybean 4.1.1, my phone is way too old now.

I really think it's best though if you don't go and exceed a phone's minimum requirements (e.g. root to ICS or Jellybean if the highest-supported OS is Froyo). But I still see lots of Android phones today that only run Gingerbread.

Gingerbread, eh? When I was buying my Froyo phone back then, Gingerbread is already booming, and then some months later I got the news that ICS will be out soon. Oh my, Android sure is evolving these days.

Yeah Android is evolving indeed..

Just found out my phone has an FM radio receiver, which is cool considering that I can listen to my stations on the go for music now :D

Twiggy said:

I still see the occasional BlackBerry user on the bus in Singapore. Most people have moved on to iOS, Android, or Windws Phone, though, for smartphone users.

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Here in Canada, BlackBerrys are everywhere. If you got your phone from work, it will almost always be a blackberry too.

To add a new discussion to this chat, has anyone picked up some good Boxing Day sales? Myself, I just ordered a 600W Corsair PSU for $40 :D

Zach said:

Yeah Android is evolving indeed..

Just found out my phone has an FM radio receiver, which is cool considering that I can listen to my stations on the go for music now :D

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The fun thing about the FM radio support is that none of the first Windows Phone 8 phones came with FM radio support... but not because of missing hardware.

The Windows Phone team couldn't port the FM radio player to Windows Phone 8, based on the Windows NT 6.x kernel in time. Guess what happened. (Windows Phone 7.x was based on Windows CE.)

It got reinstated in an update for everything but a few phones that didn't have an FM aerial connection.

It sucks though, because I can't seem to listen to the stations in stereo :/ oh well.. but having an FM radio is certainly better than having no music at all if you ask me.

Zach said:

It sucks though, because I can't seem to listen to the stations in stereo :/ oh well.. but having an FM radio is certainly better than having no music at all if you ask me.

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Windows Phone FM radio should support both stereo audio and RDS.

Reception's gonna be worse than what you'd get on a dedicated FM radio, though. Most radios will stick with mono output if the signal-to-noise ratio is too low for good stereo.

Perhaps you should try it again when you're outdoors.

What's the point of fm radio on a cell phone? I always use internet radio over 3G.

I've seen some feature phones in the past that had FM radio on them, and even some Android phones as well. I think it's a convenience for people who just really enjoy listening to FM radio, such as talk shows.

SS01 said:

What's the point of fm radio on a cell phone? I always use internet radio over 3G.

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It doesn't take any data. This is important for people that use prepaid mobile plans.

Also, given good enough reception, it's going to sound better than an MP3 or AAC stream at 96 kbps or lower. (Windows Media Audio Professional, on the other hand...)

It would have been even better though if it could tune HD radio frequencies though, if you ask me. But I can deal with standard FM.

We don't even have HD radio over here. Analog FM radio or nothing.

(Speaking of music, FM radio, and streaming, I find it very interesting that Windows Media Audio Professional is capable of pretty good stereo audio at just 32 kbps without any of the characteristic mushiness.)

I find going between FM radio and Nokia MixRadio (or, as I'm stuck on WP7, Nokia Music) gives me the right mix of music most of the time. (Bonus: the latter is also a music store, so if I find a keeper...)

the radio nowadays is almost obsolete. :/ Well, here at least. 99% of the peeps here use internet/satellite radio.

Also, I see a blackberry user every DAY. *glances over at my dad and his Blackberry Q10*

It's a shame physical keyboards just get in the way of a sleek device. They add moving parts just to have a sliding mechanism if you don't want to have it permanently staring at your face, and the keys are all you'll get for the lifetime of the device. Software keyboards, while not too tactile, are very flexible.

I don't think I'd want to deal with tiny physical keys, either.

Yeah, most of my listening is on FM Radio, so I'm glad that most smartphones have it as a standard. Also thankful that we're past the accessory days where you needed an unholy amount of wire connected to a handsfree just for it to work.

Speaking of music...

*is browsing and previewing tracks*

Axeliira said:

the radio nowadays is almost obsolete. :/ Well, here at least. 99% of the peeps here use internet/satellite radio.

Also, I see a blackberry user every DAY. *glances over at my dad and his Blackberry Q10*

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I'd die if AM radio stopped. I listen to most hockey games with it. D;