Samsung Gear Fit vs Apple Watch 2 - a review and comparison

Recently I was given an Apple Watch 2 - it's very nice and I've replaced my Samsung Gear Fit with it. After wearing the Watch for a week, there have been a few tangible differences between the two I thought it might be worth noting. If you're unfamiliar with the devices they look like this:

These images are the same as the devices that I have. The physical differences are obvious - the Apple Watch is significantly bigger, with the more square face. Both have OLED displays which make for bright, colourful GUIs. Both are touch screen and both share a variety of internal sensors like heart rate and accelerometer. The Gear Fit is lighter, narrower and for what I've used it for - holds a longer charge than the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch has many more sensors - including GPS/GLONASS and WiFi, checks your heart rate with great frequency daily and keeps telling me to "Breathe"! (this gets a bit annoying after a while)

Here are a few of the summary differences I've found in the last week (and please bear in mind I wore the Gear Fit for 2 years before replacing it).

• The sleep function on the Gear Fit is much better than the Apple Watch - you have to get a 3rd party app for the Watch which I found annoying. It's built into the Gear Fit, mutes and blocks the device and gives you some nice reporting via the Samsung Health app. Also, access to the sleep function I found is better - put the Fit into sleep mode and it's ready to track your sleep, then give you a report in the morning when you turn it off. The Apple Watch - using the AutoSleep app, alleges that it can work out when you go to sleep and then when you get up via some sort of magic I assume. I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of the sleep reporting (which is irritating in and of itself).
• The Watch hasn't locked up yet but the Gear Fit has twice in the last week. This is a full reboot, and lose all of your sleep data - something that happens with semi frequency on the Fit and is quite annoying.
• Notifications are roughly the same through both - configurable and fairly useful. The ability to send detailed replies with the "Scribe" function (you use your finger to write each letter) on the Apple Watch is pretty neat - I've used that several times.
• Both watches can answer the phone, or more likely - divert to message or voicemail. The Apple Watch you can actually talk into the watch and I've been on the receiving end of that a couple of times. It wasn't bad really, but I think you'd feel like a dill talking into your watch like Get Smart rather than use the phone.
• the summary from the Samsung Fitness software is much better than what Apple Health provides (at least for me). I find the sleep data and the way its presented to be significantly better than the Apple information. The Samsung software tells you how often you got to bed on time, and how often you got up on time. I like that. It provides a small sense of accomplishment just for getting my lazy backside out of bed in time.

As a bit of an update to this review - it's been an extra week of using the Apple Watch and I'm still unimpressed by the sleep thing. I have set aside some time to look into this in greater depth because I feel it's so lacking. Keep an eye here for some more info. The alarm feature on the Apple Watch has been pretty good. The vibration on the wrist isn't startling to wake up to, and it doesn't disturb my wife (which she is happy about). 

In summary both of them are really quite good devices. They lock you into their respective ecosystems (Samsung vs Apple) and this is to be expected, potentially not loved though. For purpose, I think the Gear Fit was better for tracking sleep, better battery life and a robust device. The Apple Watch's aesthetics are lovely, it has a tonne of functionality and I've barely scratched the surface of it. I'll go into it more as I play with this thing a bit. It's easy to see where the extra value in the Apple Watch is.

MacBook Pro (late 2016) first impressions

One of my clients who is a bit of an early adopter grabbed a new MacBook Pro (MBP) last week. It's the 15" i7 wizzbang bit of gear that looks really quite lovely. He asked me to migrate his data from his old MBP to the new one. I ran a full backup to external USB and it was all going swimmingly, and then I remembered - damn! The new MBP's don't have regular USB! They only have USB-C! Aaargh. Fortunately the Apple Migration tool is great and I was able to punch it all across via wireless (this is very slow - I recommend an alternative via ethernet)

After using the machine for an hour or so this morning, this is what I've come up with:

Pros:

• The screen is gorgeous - the Retina screen is just so lovely to look at and has such awesome colour depth. I really liked it. Flicking through some of the desktop images and pictures showed the resolution and colours beautifully. I reckon my next one has to have this
• the touch bar above the keyboard - I thought this would be gimmicky but after a bit of use I found it quite handy. I do miss my Function keys though.
• touchpad - this is responsive and super accurate. One of the biggest faults I have with a laptop is the poor accuracy and/or speed of the touchpad. This one was quite nice (although it has it's faults)
• physically a very easy laptop to move around - light but solid construction and good hinges on the screen

 The Expected

• great build quality (like other MBPs - even my 5 year old one)
• snappy - i7 processor (2.6Ghz Quad Core i7)
• lots of RAM (16GB)
• fast disk (256GB PCIe-Based SSD)

 In short - I expected high performance from this laptop and while it was crunching the iPhoto database from the old machine, I installed and ran Parallels, with a full Windows install running some fairly intensive image software and the thing didn't miss a beat. It really cracked along and I expected that to be the case.

 Cons:

• The Keyboard - is shite. I'm sorry but the keys have no feeling to them, bugger all travel and just have a weird texture that I didn't like. I was jumping between the client's mid 2012 MBP and this brand new one and the comparison was no favourable. Seriously - typing is a kinesthetic experience. How about a bit of nod in that direction?  Check out Lenovo's L series laptops for a great typing experience. I hated the keyboard
• The touchpad clicks - while the touchpad was accurate and fast, the clicking feeling again was sub-par for me. I like a bit of tactile response (as you've guessed) when I'm wailing away on the keyboard. I don't want to have it feel like a tablet (which I despise typing on) or a phone (also = despise)

That's really all. For me though that keyboard is almost a deal breaker. Perhaps I'd get used to it over time though (if someone wants to give me one of these toys to play more with). Would I buy one for? There's a very high probability of that. It really is a well constructed laptop.

Here is the link to the model closest to what I was playing with: http://www.apple.com/au/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/15-inch - for $3600 it's a big price tag for a pretty decent machine. Is it worth it though? Well I had a bit of a poke around and looked at Lenovo's site. For a similar machine (size, processor, RAM, disk etc) Lenovo have a nice little ThinkPad P50.

Specs are:

System component

• Intel Core i7-6700HQ Processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.50GHz)
• Windows 10 Home 64
• 15.6" 4K (3840x2160), anti-glare, IPS
• 16GB DDR4-2133MHz SODIMM (8GBx2)
• NVIDIA Quadro M1000M 4GB
• With Color Sensor
• 720p HD Camera with Microphone
• Backlit Keyboard with Number Pad - English
• Integrated Fingerprint Reader
• 256GB SSD PCIe-NVMe OPAL2.0
• 170W AC Adapter - ANZ (3pin)
• 6 Cell Li-Polymer Battery, 90Wh
• Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC(2x2) 8260, Bluetooth Version 4.1 No vPro
• 1 Year Depot
• 
  

And this is $5050! See: http://www3.lenovo.com/au/en/workstations/thinkpad-p-series/P50/p/20ENCTO1WWENAU0 

I've specced it up from the basics to get close to the MBP. Hopefully this provides you with a little bit of perspective when you look at the MacBook's price. The Lenovo is a well built bit of kit too - I've used one of these before. The build quality isn't up to the MacBook though. It doesn't have the clean lines and aesthetics of the Apple products either. Still, I'll take either one if someone wants to give it to me!

3 Word Processors compared - Microsoft Word, Apple Pages and Google Docs

In the course of work and university I've been jumping a bit between Word, Pages and Docs for various reasons. I thought it might be useful to compare them. Let's start.

Price

• Google Docs is included either in a free Gmail account or G-Suite. Its available for free on your mobile device with native apps on iOS and Android
• Pages is $30.99 and can be found in the Apple Store. It's included in iOS on the iPhone or iPad
• Word is part of the Microsoft Office Suite. The cheapest of which is Office365 Personal (for Mac) which is $89 inc GST per year (See the Microsoft Office pricing page here). Includes a licence for a single mobile device

On price Docs is the obvious winner. Free to get access to and solid support on mobile devices. 

Usability

All three of these applications are very useable - but which one is *most* usable? Google Docs is a clean, uncluttered interface with relatively few options available:

Simple and uncluttered with everything there and looking like every single other word processor through history.

Pages has a different take on it, and one that can be a bit confusing to begin with.

The sidebar gets added into the mix, and many controls are moved out of the top menu and into here. I don't mind this personally, but I do find on the MacBook that I dislike losing the screen real estate to this menu. It is functional though.

Word has the infamous "ribbon". This is the Office365 version of it:

Since Microsoft changed the menu titles back to being in regular capitals / lower case, the readability of these menus has improved immensely. I remember when the ribbon came out and people loathed it. It just is now and I find it to be quite useful. The drawback for me with Microsoft Word is the sheer number of options available. We are spoiled for choice, control and capabilities and it can be overwhelming at times.

The usability winner is a totally individual choice and I leave it up to you to decide. Personally I like Pages but I'm ok getting around all three.

Functionality

This is a big one to consider. Word has clearly got it all (and most users will touch about 10% of it's capabilities day to day). Pages is likewise heavy on features and Docs comes in last, with its smaller range of functions. I think because Docs is web based then it was forced into more simplistic functionality and Google had to really choose the key word processing capabilities to include.

There is one function that stands Word out from Pages though in these heavy hitters. The ability to have a section in landscape, while the rest of the document is in portrait is not available in Pages (that I could find). Now most people probably won't care about this overly, but for me, if I'm inserting a large landscape graphic or big table it is critical and stupid Pages won't do it. Very frustrating. I've never really tried it in Docs, but a 3 second Google search shows it's not possible. Word wins for this!

All three offerings have Table of Content, header, footer, page numbers, insert stuff blah blah - you get the drift. All the basics and day-to-day stuff is there, and its only the more advanced activities where they are differentiated.

Aesthetics

Which one is the prettiest? A very subjective question of course. It should be noted that Apple have spent a lot of time on fonts and appearance, but so have Google and Microsoft (they just aren't as talked about). This is up to you - but I rank them Pages, Docs, and Word. Word is a bit busy for me - lots going on and when I'm working on an assignment or report I need clarity. Docs is very good for this, but something about the Pages appearance appeals to me.

Things to note about the different applications

Pages is Apple centric - don't bother looking for it on anything that doesn't have the Apple logo. That being said, it integrates very well with iCloud and syncs to your mobile device quite happily. 

Word is starting to become ubiquitous everywhere - Microsoft have released Office365 in a web browser, it's installable and available as an app on most mobile devices. The experience is the same across them all and really is improving.

Google Docs is maturing constantly and more features are being added frequently. For collaboration it is King. See updates and writing by other people in almost real time and easily give various levels of access to documents. For working with colleagues Docs is the best - Pages and Word are not in the same realm.

Breaking the iPhone's encryption

For the last few days the internetz has been in an uproar. If you haven't heard then have a look at this:
Apple ordered to help the US government. For the TL;DR folks out there:

• some terrorist killers in the USA used an iPhone 5C
• the FBI want to know what was on the phone
• the phone has that lock where 10 incorrect pins wipes it
• a judge has ordered our old mates at Apple to disable the wipe function so the FBI can break in
• Apple have told them to go away and refused to do it

So, gentle reader, why do we care about this? A bit of backstory might be useful...

The iPhone has quite solid built in encryption. Check out the Apple Privacy policy here for all the goods (PDF download) https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf - lots of goodies in there. From iOS 8 onwards, the basic iPhone data was heavily encrypted, and Apple have always claimed they don't access passcodes or data. Here is their privacy policy if you'd like to have a read: Apple's Privacy Policy

Bottom line: Apple have long claimed that without the passcode an iPhone is basically inaccessible and now the FBI have a judge ordered Apple to disable this protection. This is a pretty full on hack. In his open letter, Tim Cook, the Apple CEO basically said we'll have to rewrite the code, install it on this iPhone and then let the FBI in. Oh and now that's out in the open, welcome thieves, pirates and governments who want access to iPhones! Prior to iOS 8, Apple had assisted law enforcement with access to iPhones in the past, but now they're saying we can't do this anymore. Tim Cook's letter is here: Apple Letter to our Customers and all the details are here. 

My analysis of what this means for us, the consumer, is that once again law enforcement and government have requested the capabilities to break through our privacy. At the moment, Apple users are reasonably confident of the privacy of their devices. If you lose it then best of luck to anyone try to break into it. Different to an Android device with an SD card in it - where you could pinch the SD card and get whatever you want, unless it's encrypted. The iPhone does this already. I was looking the other day at the security of Apple Notes. It's encrypted on the device, in iCloud (if you use it) and in transit between the two. I'm not sure it's encrypted on your Mac though - something to check. My point is that the security is pretty good out of the box. Not being a chap involved in dodgy behaviour I've never had a real need to have heavy protection on my iPhone but I was certainly pleased to see that I had decent encryption on the device. 

I think there's a parallel here between Pandora's Box and introducing a back door into iOS. When Pandora opened the box and let evil into the world the big corporations were born (yes I have a hate for them and yes I'm aware of the inherent irony of using Blogger to write this - a part of the biggest corporation Google!), in this instance, once the iPhone's security is broken to allow law enforcement  a backdoor in, that's a genie that doesn't go back into the bottle. From there, it's relatively easy to see how the police or feds get compromised and that backdoor gets into the wild. Voila! No security any more for people's devices and anything you put on them might as well be in the public domain. Apple have said they won't comply with the order and that it's technically very difficult. I believe them. Encryption is tricky at the best of times and getting it right is hard. Breaking back into it, once you've worked so hard to establish it isn't easy. 

This story has garnered a lot of press in the last few days and there are plenty of people talking about it which is important. The right to privacy, which I think is closely linked to the core desire for security of oneself is critical. I hope that Apple fight this one hard and/or make it incredibly difficult for the hack to be repeated. I understand law enforcement need access to stuff to prosecute etc. I do understand that. But with so much warrantless invasion of privacy I'm not inclined to be a huge supporter. In a small scale this probably seems callous - those poor people murdered by the crazies and I don't want to know the truth about it all! Shame on you ryv! But in the broader scope, this affects all iPhone user's security and I'm concerned about that too. 

I'll be keeping an eye on this issue as it develops - if you're an iPhone user, you should too.

iPhone App store compared to Nokia Ovi Store

Recently I was given an iPhone for work. Given that I use an e66 Nokia for my personal stuff I thought I'd compare and contrast the two devices' application stores. Ovi vs iTunes. Clearly the base operating systems are significantly different - Symbian S60 3rd Edition (e66) vs iPhone OS (iPhone (naturally)). Clearly given the differences in the OSes, the iPhone seems to lead itself to better application support. This, plus Apple getting in first, have given the iPhone a significantly better application store, variety and apparent implementation of user provided applications. I'm quite sure that Nokia wanted to get on board with this, but given that Apple got there first I'm not sure they'll catch them. The Ovi store is still developing from what I can tell and the phone based interface to it is not terribly impressive. Taking into account the difference in the user interface (non-touch phone vs touch phone), the iPhone is still better. Navigating the Nokia Ovi menu is poor and at times damn confusing. Tap tap installed - iPhone kicks butt.

The breadth and depth of the available apps is a telling point too - Ovi doesn't have the depth nor the breadth of the iTunes store. There are a few points which mitigate this though. For example, the e66 does not require you to jump through a bunch of hoops like converting mp3's to some other format to get it in as a ringtone. So to a certain degree the ringtone downloads isn't quite as important - hence the Ovi store doesn't need the same level of focus - the customer demand is probably not as great. The iTunes store though, has millions clamouring to change the default ringtones to something reasonable. So it stands to reason they'd have to provide a better service. Also given iTunes focus initially on the iPod and music etc the background development for iTunes was already there and done. Nokia is playing catch up all the way and trying to develop this revenue stream. So the question is - will the community support behind the Ovi store be as great over time as what it appears to be for iTunes?

In the interests of full disclosure I really like both of these phones. I really like making and receiving calls on my Nokia and not have to charge it every single day. I really like the awesome utilities on the iPhone and I especially like the onscreen board for sending texts and emails. I'll compare and contrast the phones in another post but at this point, they both have many pluses and minuses.

In conclusion, the iPhone store - iTunes kicks the butt of the Nokia store Ovi.