Android Updates with New Permissions

Permissions, the system by which apps declare which hardware or special functions they wish to use, are getting a huge overhaul in the next version of Android, codenamed 'M'. Full details can be found here, with a slightly more palatable version here. This may or may not make developers more aware of the impact of the APIs they use, declare, and how users view, care or don't care about how apps use the hardware and special functions of their Android devices. Certainly a recent published vulnerability within Stagefright (an Android component) has given Android security the unwanted spotlight yet again, so both enterprise and home users alike may be getting more wary, we can only hope. I wrote about the need for a better security patching system for Android 15 months ago, and nothing has changed, it is still a problem given the Stagefright vulnerability.

However, with the current system of permissions declaration in play for a number of months yet before 'M' is released, and perhaps even longer given the slow roll-out of new versions of Android across manufacture and carrier variants, here's some examples of how permissions should and shouldn't be dealt with! Android users will know that in some app updates, developers add features which require them to use extra permissions, and these are displayed to the user at update time.

Case 1

Here's an example from a voicemail app, which for some reason now wants extra permissions from no less than 9 different categories:

When developers publish app updates, they are encouraged to give proper release notes, explaining what has changed in the new version. Here is the accompanying text:

They seem like mainly fixes, improvements to existing features, and that's about it. So why all the new permissions? Why should I be happy, as a user, to suddenly allow this app to get much more of the content and functionality within my device? I contacted the developer, and the response below seems to suggest they were forced into declaring all these permissions just to add badge support for the app's icon in the various launchers.

"Unfortunately we had to add them in order to set the badge counters but they are ALL related to that and are specific to different launchers from various manufacturers and third parties."

This may or may not seem appropriate to you. most apps asking for further permissions are usually legitimate, and sometimes Android will put developers in a corner with certain APIs and permission. However, it would have been far better to include reference to this in the release notes.

Case 2

Here is an altogether better example. This is a password management app, which itself was in the news for a breach last month, but takes a different approach. Here's the app update, and the new permissions it wants to declare:

Not as many as the voicemail app, granted, but still permissions I might be interested in if the privacy of my location is very important to me. Let's see what the release notes say:

A full list of new features, with new permissions called out where they are needed. Much better, more transparent, and the users understands why they are required. Furthermore, for extra credit there is a link at the bottom which follows through to their website, where every single permission used by the app is described in detail, not just the new ones.

 

Now, if I didn't want the app to use the new permissions, I only have one choice; don't install the update. This becomes tricky if I want other new features of fixes, as a user I can't be granular. However, as previously described, the new version of Android, 'M', is due to make significant improvements to the granular control and to the user experience of being notified that apps are using certain hardware or software functions.

And finally...

Whilst we're on the topic of app updates, a special mention has to go to Shifty Jelly for their Pocket Casts release notes. They do the job of describing new features and permissions required, but also include some great humour at the same time, always amusing!

DIY Nexus 4 Refurbishment

At the time of writing my full-time device, for work and play combined, is a Moto G. There's nothing much to tempt me away at present, given my usual caveats about "phone-sized phones" and wanting decent value for money. My better half dropped her old Nexus 4, several times, until the digitiser finally gave up and she inherited my unloved Z1 Compact. Whilst I wait for my next phone to be announced (Moto X2? Moto G2?) I decided to refurbish the Nexus 4 myself, and here's how it went...

WARNING: This is not a "how to", should not be mistaken for step-by-step guide, and contains very mediocre photography...

I had nothing to loose. The back had been cracked and smashed for a while before the final accident which took out the screen glass and digitiser, leaving the touch screen completely dead. The phone was as good as useless, so I couldn't really make it less functional with my average DIY skills!

For less than £40 I was able to source a replacement screen/digitiser unit and a back glass panel from eBay. I opted for just the glass panel for fixing the back of the Nexus 4, although you can get the whole back case unit including (or excluding if you wish) the coils for wireless charging and NFC.

The screen/digitiser unit included a set of "handy tools". The Torx screwdriver was actually too small, so I ended up using my own.

The back cover is mostly cosmetic on the Nexus 4, so I opted to start with the more important screen/digitiser. A couple of Torx screws and some levering with the plastic tools and the back cover popped off. A further 11 or 12 small Philips screws later and the battery and plastic motherboard covers were free and removed. The battery in particular was held in place with strong adhesive, this took some encouragement to release from the case!

The links between the motherboard, daughter-board and other components like the rear-facing camera and 3.5mm jack were next to be disconnected, then each of those parts were removed from the device. Knowing I had to put this bunch of parts back together once the screen was replaced, I scored geek points by numbering the components as I pulled them out, making re-assembly much easier.

At this point "the device" was was just a screen/digitiser and some side buttons! This matched (almost) the state of the screen/digitiser unit I had been supplied. The compare and contrast was interesting, as the numbers of the parts didn't totally match from the original. I wasn't surprised, this would most likely be the evolution of the manufacturing process during the time the Nexus 4 was being manufactured, leading to different part numbers along the way.

One genuine omission on the new screen/digitiser unit was a diffuser which should sit in front of the notification LED. On the left the original clearly has a white diffusing layer, which is actually secured between the screen and the casing. On the right, there is no diffusing layer, you can see straight through to the black outer casing, which is almost transparent when any amount of light is present. I added my own diffusing layer, made crudely from printer paper, but it seems to have done the job!

Re-assembly then began, starting with the side buttons, the camera, the 3.5mm jack, the daughter-board, the main motherboard, the plastic motherboard covers and the battery. I had a scary moment when the device didn't power up after re-assembly, but a few minutes on charge from a wall socket subsequently revealed the battery was flat. In hindsight this makes sense; with touch input not working, I was unable to actually turn off the Nexus 4 in its broken state, so I most likely left it in a corner somewhere where it would have drained entirely!

With the screen/digitiser replaced, I started work on the back cover. Having gone for the cheaper option of purchasing just the glass panel and not the entire casing unit, I had to remove the old glass panel fro the plastic outer case. The glass was already shattered in one corner, so starting there I began to pull apart and pick out the shards of glass. The NFC/wireless charging coils made this job trickier; they are on effectively a gold sticker, pressed onto the inside of the back cover. I had to peel this off the old back cover with some force due to the strong adhesive, but not so much force as to break or tear the coils!

The plastic table cloth was very useful, as at the end of this glass work I was able to round up and dispose of the large amount of small pieces of glass, not the kind of stuff you want to be on your kitchen floor when you're walking in barefoot to get your breakfast in the morning!

Having picked out all the glass pieces, the back cover was free of its original panel. Almost. There were still many bits and pieces of glass and other dust and grime, which would need to be removed to ensure a good adhesion with the new panel. Some rubbing/cleaning alcohol and cotton buds did the trick to clean up the plastic case ready for the new panel.

Before assembly, a compare and contrast was again interesting. The new glass panel did not include the speaker grill, or a small square rubber spacer around the rear-facing camera. They were relatively easy to transplant to the new glass panel however.

The last steps were the placement of the glass panel on the back cover case, and attaching the back cover to the device again. One more boot up confirmed that the back cover work had not broken anything, and the refurbishment was complete.

Whilst I've flashed more ROMs and rooted/jailbroken more phones than I'd care to mention, I've never attempted any hardware work on any smartphones, so I was chuffed that this one worked out well. Given this was a popular device, there were lots of helpful articles and videos on the Internet for reference, so I didn't have to do much brain work myself! I just has to ensure I wasn't too clumsy with the small components and delicate electronics! Having brought it back to life, I'm looking forward to using the Nexus 4 with its beefier specs compared to my Moto G, and hopefully it will tide me over until my next phone is announced and released!

EE Kestrel Mini-Review

As usual, this loan device came courtesy of Steve and Ted from Phones Show Chat, and is a curious one, something a little different to the flagship devices which get most of the attention of the technology press. I hesitated to title this as a mini-review, it's certainly not a full review, the reasons will become apparent. In the end it's more of a comparison to its nearest competitor and my current day-to-day phone, the Moto G.

The EE Kestrel has a 1.2Ghz quad-core SnapDragon 400 CPU, 1GB RAM, 4G connectivity, a micro SD card slot, 4.5” qHD screen, and a 5MP camera. The obvious comparison is against the Moto G, which now has a 4G model which also has a micro SD card slot. The Kestrel and Moto G share matching CPU, RAM, connectivity and micro SD specs. Their cameras are on par with each other, both pretty poor. Their speakers are similar, both distort at around 50-60% volume. They both have a notification light! Whilst being very similar, here is how they are different...

Kestrel Positives

• Price: At £99 the Kestrel wins by between £20-£60 depending on where you buy your Moto G, and if you buy the 3G or 4G model.
• First impressions: The Kestrel feels snappy on first use, it doesn't feel like it weighs much either when you first pick it up.
• Capacitive buttons: Gives more screen space versus on-screen buttons.
• Connectivity: SIM unlocked it works with Three 4G perfectly, which is great given Three is most mobile geeks’ network of choice!
• Some genuinely very interesting OS additions on top of a base Android build, including:
• “Networked apps" - you can control access to wifi and mobile data per app.
• “Startup manager" - control which apps can or can't launch on device boot.
• “Notification manager" - control which apps can send push messages to the notification panel.
• "Do not disturb" - on a schedule, per contact restriction of ringing/vibrating.
• “Power saving" - including ability to select protected apps which are kept running no matter what, an analyser to let you know any power-intensive background apps, and another analyser telling you settings that may be adversely affecting battery life (GPS, screen brightness, etc).
• “App operations" - show how often each app calls APIs such as location services, personal data, messaging, and device hardware.
• Audio profiles (a la S60/S40 in the old Nokia days) and a nice easy way to change between them form the notification shade.
• Split screen for settings - with the "all" pane with the usual Android settings menu, and the "general" pane which has just commonly-used settings, not cluttered up by all the other million and one settings in the "all" pane.
• Two built-in launchers, although they’re called "home screen styles"...
• One for normal not tech-savvy folk, which has no app drawer, all icons are on the home screens (a la iOS).
• One for even less tech-savvy folk, with big easy tiles (a la Windows Phone) for apps and commonly used functions. This would be truly great for those with no interest in learning to use a smartphone, but who want a little more than a feature phone can offer. This home screen style also bumps up the system font, a giveaway that maybe this is aimed at the older person?!

  

Left: Choose your home screen style.

Middle: "Standard" style. No app drawer, just lots of icons like iOS.

Right: "Simple" style. Probably aimed at smartphone novices.

Kestrel Negatives

• The capacitive buttons aren't very responsive, and their lights turn-off too quickly (the only setting is auto-off and permanently off).
• The screen is pretty dull, and only qHD (even the Moto G has 720p).
• The charger (top) and headphone (bottom of left edge) ports are in unorthodox places, a little annoying.
• Whilst the built-in launchers have their use-cases, anyone reading this blog post would HAVE to install an alternative.
• In the capacitive buttons row the Kestrel has an old school menu button instead of a recent apps button.
• The OS is v4.3 and unlikely to be updated in a timely schedule, if at all... (a side effect from all the customisations which have been added?)
• And the deal breaker... 8GB internal storage. Not so bad given the presence of a micro SD card slot, but this 8GB is partitioned such that apps have less then 1GB. I couldn't even finish installing half of my usual apps. This is exacerbated by the presence of built-in apps like Facebook, Kindle, EE Film and more which you can’t uninstall.

Left: I didn't get to install even half of my usual apps when this happened.

Right: There's loads of space left, just not for apps.

I'd conclude that the storage partitioning is a complete deal breaker for me, so much so that I couldn’t use it as my full-time device to test it properly, and find out how good the battery life was for example.

Huawei/EE have put some very nice touches on top of Android. Some of these are available on other operating systems of course; on Android they may be available via a big bunch of third party apps, plus the need for root in some cases, but they are all here by default on the Kestrel. Whilst the built-in non-removable apps are a pain, the extras on top of a standard Android OS build are mostly commendable, usable, and designed fairly well. I think a lot of normal (non-geek) users would find them useful. To go a step further, the "simple” home screen and launcher could be the basis of the perfect smartphone for an older person or a complete smartphone novice. This is a great Android smartphone for a novice, as Android is still too complex for the average non-geek, and this device with all its customisations makes it much easier for the inexperienced user.


For the money, you would never expect a great camera, high-end CPU or great quality screen. It's great that the Kestrel does 4G at a cheaper price than the Moto G, but the Moto G has a better screen, doesn't suffer the app space partitioning, and is hugely more likely to be kept up-to-date. I would pick the Moto G over the Kestrel any day, though the Kestrel is a very, very interesting device with some very nice touches.

Feels Like a New Moto G

I factory reset my Moto G last night and set everything up from scratch. I'd not done this since I bought the phone 7 months ago. It took until past midnight, and I was short on sleep anyway!

However, battery life in the 48 hours since the reset has been much better, and the feel around the operating system is much quicker, along with only one app crashing where previously there would have been several. This is with the same set of apps and data as before the reset. To be complete in the detail here, that 7 months usage did include the update from Jelly Bean to KitKat. The conclusions are therefore:

• Android now behaves like Windows, in that users who consume lots of software/apps/services will accumulate crud, which over time slow the device down and make random things (crashes, force closes) happen, and only a fresh install gets you back to the speed and stability you know the hardware is capable of.
• Major version updates of the operating system should always be followed by a factory reset where possible.
• Android's native backup and restore of apps and app data is still pathetic, and very rarely restores a complete set of apps or app data, if it starts at all. There’s very little control of how it happens, and no web portal to see the apps Google has linked to your account, such that you know the apps it will restore, and have a choice to prune the list. Android is far, far behind iOS in this area, which has had flawless back and restore for years.
• The Moto G really is a brilliant device, especially given the context that this (albeit non-4G variant) 16GB model cost me £81 brand new from Tesco with ClubCard vouchers plus £3 for a SIM unlock.

None of this is news par se, but as one of those annoying folks who wants his phones to be "phone sized" (that's around 130mm x 65mm for me) it does justify my feeling that there isn't a better phone out there for me right now, over 7 months after the Moto G originally 

I've been tempted by a Moto X, the natural migration path in some ways from the Moto G, but as it is now a year old, a successor is likely around the corner. Given the Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini and HTC One Mini 2 were both disappointing and overpriced, my hopes for a new phone-sized phone to purchase seem to rest on rumoured devices such as:

• Sony Z2 Compact, where they'll hopefully have fixed the Z1 Compact's problems like the under-performing camera, the nasty factory-fitted screen protectors, and the chassis design that makes it feel larger than it is.
• Moto X2, where they'll have a much better camera in than that on the Moto X, and release it in the UK promptly (versus 6-7 months delay on the Moto X after it launched in the US)
• Some other thing that's a bit off piste and will surprise me into a purchase (a small Xiaomi device, a OnePlus One Mini, etc)

That list doesn't include anything too concrete, or even anything likely to be released in the near future. It's just as well this feels like new Moto G since the factory reset, as I seemingly won't be buying anything actually new any time soon...

Android Needs A Better Security Update System

Recent security issues such as Heartbleed, which reportedly affects Android 4.1.1 (http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/google-services-updated-to-address.html), and permissions being a bit too permissive (http://www.fireeye.com/blog/uncategorized/2014/04/occupy_your_icons_silently_on_android.html) have both apparently resulted in Google releasing fixes to their partners. We all know that their partners, the device manufacturers, have a poor history at updating devices, especially those devices which are more than a year or so old. In some countries, mobile network operators add a significant delay to the update process, sometimes many weeks or months.

It must therefore be time for Google to implement a direct system for applying security updates to devices, which does not rely on device manufacturers or mobile network operators. Sure it's not the ideal scenario; both device manufacturers and mobile network operators would much prefer to test the updates before releasing them into the wild. However, the direct system is surely better than having many hundreds of thousands of devices stuck on vulnerable versions of an operating system? Depending on which set of statistics that you look at, there could be anywhere from 10% to 34% of Android devices in use today on the 4.1.1 version that is vulnerable to Heartbleed.

Somewhat ironically, Microsoft's Windows operating system, which is not usually held up as a shining light for security best practice, has had a direct system for updates for many years. It's not perfect or 100% interoperable in every scenario, due to the massive array of both operating system customisations and end user software on the market for Windows. However, it does give Microsoft a direct route to deliver security patches, a route which isn't dependant on anybody else (outside of the corporate environment anyway, where rolling out updates is typically managed by the organisation centrally in a controlled manner).

Apple has the klout to do system updates direct for its iOS devices, but having control of the hardware and operating system stack end-to-end means there are less integration risks than the plethora of Android-based devices in the wild. Maybe that appeases the concerns of the mobile network operators. Apple also control app releases in their App Store much more than Google do in the Play Store, and the apps themselves have far less access to the operating system, with much fewer and wider ranging APIs available to app developers. Maybe that too reduces the risk of interoperability failures when updates are rolled out without mobile network operators having their testing time.

Google Play Services, a set of core modules responsible for providing the majority of APIs to non-system apps (amongst other things), are already updated directly from Google without any middlemen and without a user having to visit the Play Store, tick any boxes, or even "accept" the update. This system works already, and is responsible for bringing some new features to devices without them needing an operating version upgrade or a firmware upgrade from the device manufacturer. It would therefore not sound inconceivable that the next major version of Android, be it numbered 4.5 or 5.0, should include some form of device update system, similar to that used for Google Play Services, to bring security updates to users in a timely manner, for the good of everyone.

The Moto G, And Updating Without New Firmware

It's widely recognised that Motorola, now owned by Google, have created the best value-for-money phone this year in the Moto G. I managed to get hold of the 16GB model from Tesco in the UK for £81! It retails for £129 normally, but Clubcard vouchers brought that down, and with a £2 SIM unlock from eBay, it is comfortably amazing value for £83 all-in. However, in the week since I've had the device, it's something less obvious which has surprised and impressed me.

The first was on 9th December 2013, when the list of apps with updates in the Play Store included "Motorola Boot Services". Whilst the update description merely said "Enhancements to the power-up experience", the update actually changed the initial boot-up animation to a Winter-themed one. I've meddled with boot-up audio and animations before on other devices, but that required you to have root, as it would mean replacing protected system files. Motorola have however built the Moto G firmware such that a Play Store app is able to modify these system files. A new boot animation capability isn't going to change the world, but it's something I've not seen any other Android manufacturers put into their devices, and is a nice touch and something different from Motorola, as well as a pretty clever idea. I also love that the boot animation app package is called moodles! (com.motorola.moodles)

The second was yesterday, 12th December 2013, when another Play Store update caught my eye, "Motorola Camera". The LG Nexus 5 launched with Android 4.4, and was updated recently with new firmware images to 4.4.1 and 4.4.2. Whilst the 4.4.2 update's change log was slightly shrouded in mystery, the 4.4.1 update definitely contained camera app improvements. This is great for the Nexus 5 owners, however, the clever thing Motorola have done by siphoning off the camera app into a Play Store updatable package, is to allow updates to the camera app without touching the entire phone's firmware. That means much less hassle getting the firmware updates tested, regression tested against existing functionality, and then getting it approved and tested by networks/carriers around the world.

A look at Motorola's entries in the Play Store (below) shows there are quite a few apps which can update via the Play Store, including the FM Radio, the Migrate app, the Assist app, the SMARTACTIONS app... All of these can be updated without the need for the lengthy process of building, testing and network/carrier approving a new firmware. Google Play Services was updated at Google I/O this year which allows core APIs, services and apps to be updated by Google without manufacturers releasing new firmware as well. Google have also started to release other apps into the Play Store such as Calendar and more recently Keyboard, and the likes of GMail, Maps and YouTube were already updatable through the Play Store, so all your core Google apps are updatable without firmware updates too.

The sum of all of this is that whilst the Android version problem is not getting any better, the version problem itself is in fact becoming less and less of an issue. Getting those version updates for your non-Nexus phone, give or take the highly popular devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4 or HTC One, is slow due to development time and network/carrier approval process. Or for many other devices updates never happen at all! Now however there is an argument that you're not missing out on a huge amount if you're not running the latest point release of Android, given all the other software components can be updated outside of firmware updates, and especially if you have a Moto G of course!

iPhone 5c Lust!

Unfortunately, I believed the rumours leading up to the Apple launch event on 10th September 2013 which were suggesting that the new colourful iPhone would be a "cheap" device, maybe even so cheap that it would be within reach of the those in developing countries.

As a mobile enthusiast, if you want to be able to comment on the industry, be able to genuinely make comparative commentary between devices and ecosystems, you simply have to have an iPhone. That or have very convenient access to one, and with my better half moving from iPhone to Android, that's left me needing one of my own. Whilst not the biggest by market share any more, the iPhone is still arguably the single most important device, if not the most important ecosystem, and every product announcement, price change or hardware glitch becomes mainstream news.

Apple's service of keeping older handsets eligible for newer operating systems is very commendable, something which is much easier to maintain when you don't have the disconnect between one company writing the operating system source code, and another company making the hardware and customising the operating system almost to their heart's content. Android phones in particular can find themselves stranded on very old versions where a manufacturer has seemingly lost interest. Yet it is only this year that the iPhone 3GS, released in 2009, has fallen off the support train being the newest device not to have iOS 7. This however means that the old 3GS I can see in the corner of the room, next to a bunch of charging cables and a couple of old Android phones, is no longer good enough for that job of being a relevant comparison device.

So with the rumours of the 5c being such a cheap device, I was quite excited at the thought of being able to buy an iPhone again. It's not feasible to buy full-priced, or even second-hand iPhones of the latest generation or two when you are using them as comparison devices, they're simply too expensive (although they do hold value very well of course). I reckon anything up to £350 at a push and I was in, and the fact that they were coloured only made me lust more. 

I'd already been eyeing up the HTC One Mini in blue, and I'm glad that manufacturers have started building colourful devices again. The multi-colour approach has in recent years been most utilised by Nokia in the Lumia range, and I really hope they've sparked all the manufacturers to think again about colour, and take us away from the land of black rectangles!

Needless to say I was of course then disappointed when Apple announced that the iPhone 5c would start at £479, completely out of the price range for a device used mainly for comparison purposes. Not only that but as I buy all my devices SIM free, it is probably too expensive even to buy as a main device, and I'm not even sure I could live with iOS on my main device even if I thought I could justify the cost.

We now know that the iPhone 5c was never going to be a budget device, and actually sits nicely between the 4S and 5s (yes, one is upper case and the other lower...) in the Apple range, allowing Apple to drop the iPhone 5, and presumably make a lot more margin on each 5c they sell, boosting profitability, whilst adding new marketability and product differentiation in the 5c with its coloured casing. Very smart move as ever from Apple, but a shame for me and anyone else who were excited to pick up a shiny new colourful budget iPhone!

BlackBerry Q10 Mini-Review

Thanks to Steve and Tim from Phones Show Chat, I've been lucky enough to get a short loan of a BlackBerry Q10, and I've been testing it out as my almost day-to-day work phone*. All email and Internet access plus outbound calls have been on the Q10, leaving only inbound calls on my previous handset. I was concerned that in going after the consumer market, BlackBerry's version 10 operating system would lose some of the efficiencies of its predecessors as a raw efficient phone call and email machine, instead going after flashy graphics and fancy gesture controls. Well, they have indeed gone after those features, but the physical qwerty keyboard is happily alive and well! This is only a mini-review due to the short time period I had with the handset, and that I was unable to get enough time to test out some major features with a busy workload!

*The almost is because there was simply too much hassle in 1) cutting up my current mini SIM into a micro SIM, plus 2) getting the IT department to remove the BES service on my account, then have it put back on a week or two later!


The Q10 is BlackBerry's latest incarnation of their most traditional form factor; the wide candybar with a physical qwerty keyboard. It's where they made their name many years ago, and is still what most people think of when they hear the word BlackBerry. It's also a favourite form factor of mine for work and getting things done, having already tried touch-based keyboards for the that purpose. When typing acronyms, technical terms, names and lots of punctuation into emails whilst on the move, which my job regularly requires, I still find there is nothing better and more efficient than a physical keyboard. Unfortunately for me, there can't be much other demand in the market for this, as this form factor is now an endangered species.

BlackBerry OS 10

The Q10 launched with BlackBerry OS 10, which is a big departure from the recent BlackBerry OS 5, BlackBerry OS 6 and BlackBerry OS 7 versions seen on the last few years' worth of Bold, Curve and Torch devices. Out go a lot of the old style menu driven functions, and in come swipe gestures. Out goes the entire concept of a traditional home screen used by iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Out goes the nasty low resolution displays and slow CPUs and in comes a lovely screen, lots of RAM, and with it some very nice transition animations. Fortunately this all runs very smoothly, which is probably no surprise given that BlackBerry OS 10 is built on QNX, a real-time operating system built to be dependable and lag-free in multi-tasking environments. Seriously  the animations around the OS are buttery smooth, to borrow a phrase from Google! At the time of writing the Q10 was running version 10.1, with version 10.2 allegedly being around the corner based on leaks into the wild earlier this month.

The new gesture controls take a while to get used to, as does the lack of a genuine "home" screen. The "main" screen is arguably the multitasking view, which gives a vertically scrollable 4x4 list view of running apps, which works really well. Swiping to the screen on the right gives you a horizontally scrollable app drawer, where apps can be re-ordered and put into folders like iOS and many Android-based devices. Swiping to the left from the multitasking view takes you to BlackBerry hub, a unified messaging area for all your email accounts, SMS, BBM, notifications, and calls. Swiping down from the top of the screen in any of these views brings up quick settings for WiFi, Bluetooth, Alarm and a link to the main settings area for the whole device. Within some individual apps this top down swipe gesture gives you the app's menu area, and commonly the app's settings and shortcuts. Swiping from the bottom of the screen upwards at any time takes you back to the multitasking view, which as previously mentioned makes this view (arguably) the home or default screen if you were forced to pick one. Check the bold sections there, that's a lot of gestures to remember! As a full-time geek I found I got my head around this eventually, but I'm not so sure the average user would find this easy at all, especially compared to simpler user experiences and paradigms found in iOS and Android.

Multitasking

App Drawer

It should be noted that BlackBerry no longer requires BES or BIS connectivity with OS 10, where OS 7 and previous did. For the average user this is great, as BlackBerry bolt-ons for BIS were only ever confusing, and forced traffic through BlackBerry's own servers which weren't known for their stability, particularly during 2012. For business use, a server-side upgrade to BES 10 is required for the handset to use BES to sync email and PIM data. With my employers not forking out for this paid-for BES 10 licence and upgrade, I opted instead to use ActiveSync. In practice this worked just fine, although during my test period I found it to be 10-20 seconds slower updating email and calendar entries. The standard Microsoft Exchange-based remote wipe functionality wiped the entire device, as opposed to removing the ActiveSync account and its related data.

Apps

My primary use case during this brief period was for work purposes, which only really needs call, SMS and email functionality, and these all pass with flying colours. I use Evernote a lot, and was excited to find it was integrated into the OS. Until I found it was very basic, not even bringing in tags for example. There is no standalone Evernote app, as there isn't for many other marquee services and apps found on iOS and Android, and even Windows Phone in a lot of cases (probably because Microsoft are paying for them). This was one of the areas I didn't have time to fully explore though, as I was using the Q10 only for work purposes, but anecdotally there do seem to be many big-name apps missing from the BlackBerry World app store, and quality games also seemed hard to find. If I were to have the handset for personal use, I would also have tested Google services integration, and was unsurprised when I found very little in the way of first-party Google apps in BlackBerry World, instead finding third-party paid apps for access to Drive and Maps for example. Note that anyone using Google 2-step authentication will have to use an application-specific password to add your Google account for email, calendar and contact sync.

One very interesting feature I ran out of time to test was being able to run Android apps within BlackBerry OS 10. At present this is limited to Gingerbread (v2.3) compatible apps only, but version 10.2 is rumoured to bring support for Jelly Bean (v4.1) apps.

Hardware

This is the best hardware qwerty keyboard device I've used. Unfortunately that's not a great accolade, as all the other efforts in this area, particularly the Android-based ones, were so incredibly poor. We haven't seen an Android phone with physical qwerty keyboard in the UK since the Motorola Pro+ in December 2011, which is 18 months ago, and that too was poor, under-powered and underwhelming in almost every way! There is no such thing as an iPhone with a physical keyboard, and next to none for Windows Phone. The last big stand on physical keyboards outside of BlackBerry was by Palm (subsequently bought out by HP) with the Pre range of handsets, and that didn't end well! So it seems this is a dying breed, which is a real shame for those who love the form factor.

The keyboard buttons have slightly softer click than previous BlackBerry models, but still retain the per-button curved raised edge, making each button easy and quick to locate under your thumbs. I found I was equally fast on this keyboard as I have been on all the previous generation of BlackBerry handsets. The overall build quality is great, very sturdy, and has a great feel in the hand. I didn't have much chance to properly try out the camera or speakers in any meaningful way, but quick tests showed them to be no cause for concern.

Conclusion

Again, I must stress this is mini-review only, and I lacked enough time to properly test things like the camera, using Android apps, and many other consumer-facing apps, features and integrations. However, as a business tool and a natural successor to the Bold and Curve ranges, I was pleased to see that the new BlackBerry OS 10 direction had not detracted too much from the origins of being a very efficient business tool, and whilst it is a little larger than previous models to accommodate a bigger screen, I could definitely use it day-to-day at work. It's great to see a manufacturer put some decent specs behind a handset with physical qwerty keyboard, but I'd still prefer it with Android or even iOS if I were to have the handset for personal use as opposed to work use.

Same Phone, Same Build, 4 Months!

Something strange has happened!

Since 2009 I'd fallen into the habit of change with mobile phones. The materialisation of good value "pay as you go" deals rivalling "pre-pay" monthly contracts meant it became truly feasible to drop out of the 12, then 18 and even 24 month tie-in to one mobile network and a single device. Sure you could buy a SIM free device even if you were mid-contract, but your monthly payment was still paying for your contracted device, because it was subsidised, not "free". That meant buying a new device mid-contract was an extravagance, but once you drop into "pay as you go", you free up the subsidy portion of your monthly payment to spend on devices.

This led to a rapid turnover of devices, driven I think by four factors:

• Each device turned out to have a significant deal breaker
• The grass was greener; there was a better/faster device, gadget lust took over
• The grass was different; there were major new features or new form factors in the market
• I could turnover devices quickly outside of pre-pay contracts

This sent me through Symbian, Android, Windows Phone 7, even WebOS; you can see my personal device history over here. Throughout that time I didn't stay on the same device for more than a couple of months, three at the absolute maximum. Whist I may have not purchased a new device every couple of months, I ended up changing my SIM card between devices in my possession for a few weeks at a time. More than that, some devices (for example the Motorola Defy, Sony Xperia Ray, Samsung Nexus S) were customisable enough that I went through multiple operating system builds as well. Non-Nexus Android devices in particular can change dramatically when moved form the manufacturer's build of Android to something built by the community, either direct from CyanogenMod or from the very talented folk hanging out in the XDA forum.

This was all great fun, but skip forward to the present day and I'm writing this post having had my SIM card in the same phone with the manufacturer's build for well over 4 months. The Motorola RAZR i. Is it some kind of amazing super phone. No. Is it the manufacturer's amazing implementation of Android. No. So why have I settled after all that previous fluidity? Going back to the reasons I kept swapping in the first place:

• The deal breakers - For me, this device has none. Past deal breakers have included poor battery life, poor camera or no camera flash, device too big, device's core hardware going out of date leading to latest versions of operating system running like a dog, and end of support for the device both from the manufacturer and the community. I can't leave this section without calling out Motorola's use of an Intel chip in the RAZR i, as opposed to ARM chips in 99% of other Android phones. There are still some apps which don't work, most high profile in the UK is iPlayer (if you really want to watch TV on a phone). There are zero apps which I use that don't work however, so no deal breaker for me personally, but maybe for others.

• The grass is greener - I haven't seen any device released since the RAZR i which would tempt me, even with an unlimited budget. This is mainly due to my personal preference for "phone-sized" phones, and with flagship devices from HTC, Samsung, Sony et al arriving with 4.5" to 5" screens, I am simply not interested. Anything in the manufacturers' line ups below this screen size seems to have been relegated to mid-tier, as if the size of a screen is directly correlated to how good a phone should be. This means there is very little in my size range with specs worth getting out of bed for! This is subjective I know, however, Motorola did a great job of packing a large screen in such a small case. Ideally I'd still have the RAZR i made slightly smaller, but it comes just about inside my tolerance for size! The grass is greener argument has also faded away in terms of operating system build. I still run CyanogenMod on a few low-end devices which use exclusively for the gym or mountain biking, and they continue to do an amazing job, but the days of having the time or inclination for fiddling with custom recoveries and ROM installations are waning. Do I wish Motorola had been much quicker getting the latest version of Android out for the RAZR i, of course! However, the only thing I'm truly pining for from Jelly Bean is Google Now. The rest is minor tweaks or background "under the hood" improvements.

• The Grass is different - This goes in some ways hand in hand with a previous post about form factor monotony. Referencing just the Android world, we've seen that there has been nothing but rectangular slabs for well over a year now, and innovation with form factor has simply died off. Nokia's industrial design for the Lumia range, previewed with the N9, was a nice slant but ultimately the same. HTC's efforts with the recently announced One are also to be commended, if only for putting the speakers on the front of the device and not the back, but again still a rectangular slab. Physical keyboards appear to be out for good, as do sliding and flipping form factors. With this kind of stagnation in hardware design there is simply far less chance of seeing any different grass.

• Because I could - This one actually hasn't changed. I'm still "off contract" and have the option of selling the RAZR i at any time and using that money to buy the latest and greatest, but the the previous three points explain why I haven't!

Does this mean the RAZR i is the greatest phone since sliced bread? I suspect many, it not all, would argue against it, but it is pretty close for me, and that's why it has been with me for over 4 months, unheard of in the my recent phone geek history. The scary part is that I may be on the RAZR i for some time to come, unless one of the manufacturers decides to break rank and release, shock horror, a flagship-spec phone-sized phone. I can dream...