Microsoft announces Lumia, soon to be released

Nokia Lumia is obviously history already, although it’s quite a great cellphone, coming with a spectacular batch of accessories to make it even more useful and entertaining as well. But back to the news, the fellas from Microsoft announced the new Microsoft Lumia, a smart phone addressed to the masses, arriving with some promising features.

The release date is said to be this November, on 11.11 we will get a grip of what Microsoft has to say in terms of mobile technology. Until then, we have some appealing “rumor has it” news that unveil a little of what this new mobile piece of technology has to bring to the table.

So, the specs of this device are not really addressed to the high-end users but rather to a more friendly and with lack in pretensions public. Microsoft Lumia will be a very high quality device but forget about innovation and last generation specs, because they’re not into that.

Instead, the Microsoft Lumia is coming with a 5” screen, with 1GB RAM, a 5MP  camera and the news are also  announcing a forward-facing camera to this particular model, something Nokia chose to cut from the recent low-end Lumia handsets. Also, we will have 8GB of storage and 3G only connectivity.

Thanks to Chinese regulators, we’ve already got a pretty good idea of what Microsoft’s first Lumia will look like, but now the company is ready to start showing it off. While the handset retains Nokia’s familiar design, it will be the first to sport Microsoft’s logo, which’ll be located beneath the earpiece on the front and in a vertical stripe running down the back.

The upcoming mobile phone will bring a colorful approach on its appearance, coming in nice shades of black, white, gray, blue, orange, blue and green.

Until Microsoft will take over with the new Lumia, we will always have the old and steady Nokia Lumia, complete with its set of accessories. With perfectly friendly prices also.

Oops…Apple did it again

With all the fuss, trials and tribulations that appeared shortly after the long awaited launch of iPhone 6, these guys are still in trouble with a trial that is about to begin. This concerns all the data inconsistencies some Apple customers were confronted with, when changing their Apple device into a non-Apple one. Seemingly, the Apple OS bans the message delivery towards the former Apple users that switched to other mobile devices.

It seems that these guys are quite often neglecting some essential technical consequences that may cost them a lot. After the bending issue that turned out to be a great publicity stunt in their very favor, now they’re facing a major lawsuit. Everything started in the land of all possibilities, with the US district judge Lucy Koh, who gave the go-ahead for plaintiff Adrienne Moore to “alleged that Apple’s intentional acts have caused an actual breach or disruption of the contractual relationship.

The claims are that Apple failed to reveal iOS 5 could interrupt the delivery of messages from other iOS users if users switched to a non-Apple device.

While Apple seems to have resolved issues and expanded messaging functionality across its own platform, there are still problems if your want to switch from Apple to non-Apple hardware. The iMessage service is tied not only to your Apple ID but also your phone number and operates over your data connection rather than your carrier’s cellular network. Because of this, if you don’t actively switch off iMessage before heading to another OS like Android or Windows Phone, other iOS users’ handsets still think you’re using the service, and their messages will continue to be delivered over data connections as iMessages, says Wired.

This is serious business because it affects the exact aim of mobile technology, which is to make communication easier, faster and more efficient. Anyways, although the trouble Apple makes either with the new iPhone or their services, they will probably get a new grip of reality and realize that they must make some pretty serious efforts to come with something great to make us forget all the bad things that happened lately.

Above all, it seems that they tried to solve the problem by launching a support page that offered info about how to avoid the issue by de-registering iMessage on your mobile phone before switching to a new phone. They have also been offering a de-registering process using your phone number. Past fixes which had mixed results included deleting and then re-adding iPhone contacts.

What Should You do if Your Apple Gets Picked?

iPhone theft is a major problem that unfortunately has spread to all corners of the world, but the iPhone is such a great gadget that it gives us the possibility to lock it, erase it or locate it in the events of theft or loss.

I hope that you’ll never lose your iPhone or worse, have it stolen by someone, but the truth is that hundreds of phones are stolen daily and the price and value of iPhones makes them especially attractive to thieves despite the protection and security options offered by the devices and despite the fact that these anti-theft feats have led to the capture of the thieves in many situations.

Most people are careless when they are using their iPhones and only a small percent of all iPhone 5owners activate and use its anti-theft feats and apps included in their smartphones which is probably why thieves keep going for them. But the good news is that just like the many owners that get careless so do many thieves; they keep the stolen iPhones turned on or they use them, which makes it easier for us to block them and find them. Here is what you can do to prevent losing your iPhone or in the unfortunate case that it happens to you:

Preventing the theft of your iPhone is a good thing to start with. Be aware of your surroundings and your pockets or purse especially when you’re in a crowded place. Don’t think that if you are holding your phone in your hand you can’t lose it; in many cases the thief grabs the phone straight from the oblivious owner’s hands, sometimes while they are talking on it so you should always pay attention when there are people around you.

If you don’t mind having an unlock code on your phone you should use it – it’s a good first step that you can take to prevent the thief from using your phone, but there are more than a few methods to bypass the iPhone’s lock, so you shouldn’t stop here. You can also install a device finding app, you can find them in the app store and some do a better job than the pre-installed app. Device Locator, GadgetTrak and Phone Trace 4 are some good apps besides Apple’s Find My iPhone app that you can find in the iCloud settings menu (make sure you turn it on if you haven’t already). Also, you should perform backups of your iPhone more often, you’ll feel a little better knowing that at least you still have your messages and photos or files saved somewhere.

If the horrible thing does happen to you and someone else takes possession of your precious iPhone you should go to the nearest computer as soon as you discover the theft and log to iCloud.com with your Apple ID. Then you can click the ‘find my iPhone’ icon and wait until your phone’s location appears on the map. Next you can click on ‘remote lock’ to prevent anyone from using it. If the thief turns the phone off this won’t work so in this case you should call your provider to block the SIM card or wait until he turns it on again – you’ll receive a notification if this happens. Other apps offer more options, for example Phone Trace 4 can give you the new number of the phone if someone changes it or it allows you to send remote tasks to the stolen iPhone.

f you keep important data on your phone you can use apps that encrypt it so no else but you can have access to it. Find my iPhone or any device tracking app will allow you to fully wipe your data from your lost phone but this will also delete the apps that can track it so think about it before you do it. Another good idea would be to change all your passwords after the event so the phone’s user can’t access any of your stored accounts.

Once you find your iPhone you should report it to the police, don’t go and confront the thief yourself, this could be dangerous!

Use Your iPhone as a Mouse or Keyboard!

WiFi Mouse Pro is an iPhone app that can turn any iDevice into a mouse touchpad or virtual keyboard that can control any PC!

Anyone who uses a laptop, Mac, or PC as a media center knows how tiresome it can be to get up and walk to the device each time the pause or rewind buttons need to be pushed. WiFi Mouse Pro is an app that can turn your iPhone into either a wireless keyboard or mouse and even more, it can enhance your media or browsing experience by adding some new features such as text-to speech for all languages and multi-touch support.

Besides the app you must also install a program on your PC or Mac and that’s all you need to connect your iDevice and start using it the app each time you launch it. You can the turn any iPhone or iPad into a mouse trackpad, keyboard, controller or media remote that supports pinch-to zoom, two finger scrolling, left and right clicks and text-to-speech if you don’t feel like writing, on any Windows or Mac OS version.