Przedstawiciel PLAY LUBLIN

No dobra, poświęciłem swój egzemplarz dla nauki i przeprowadziłem na nim podstawowe badania. Chciałem sprawdzić czy ten smartfon jest rzeczywiście rewelacją, albo jak chcą niektórzy rozczarowaniem sezonu.

If you’ve ever tried to use your smartphone in the freezing cold, no doubt you’ve had to take your gloves off in order to use it. Or maybe you’ve spent money on special smartphone gloves with finger flaps. Well, keep your money, stick to your old gloves and wave goodbye those cold fingers! With the new Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) update for Xperia™ sola, you’ll find a new feature called glove mode, which is an extension of the Floating touch technology. As you might guess, this makes it possible to use the touch screen even though you’re wearing gloves. In this article, we explain the benefits of glove mode, and talk to Andreas Sandblad at Sony, who’s the inventor of this technology. Read on for the full story!

Keep your fingers warm with glove mode
When we first unveiled Xperia sola, this also marked the introduction of a new technology never before seen in any smartphone called Floating touch. This technology lets you highlight the links in the web browser without even touching the screen. Now, with the Xperia sola ICS update, you’ll find a new extension of Floating touch™, called glove mode, which lets you use your Xperia™ sola with your gloves on.

Andreas Sandblad, software architect at Sony and inventor of glove mode, explains how he came up with the idea for glove mode:

I came up with the idea during a brain-storming session at the office, where we were discussing what cool features we could use Floating touch™ for. I’m much of an outdoor person myself, who likes to hike in the mountains, and I guess I was trying to solve the frustrating real world problem of not being able to use my phone with gloves. Turns out other people felt the same thing, and here we are. I really think glove mode is a must have.

Andreas Sandblad, software architect at Sony and inventor of glove mode.

How it works
Glove mode is enabled by default in the ICS upgrade for Xperia™ sola, so when you unlock the phone while wearing a glove (or with a bare finger in the air), you will enter glove mode and Floating touch™ mode will be disabled. In this mode, both glove touch and normal touch usage will work, for example, if you take off the gloves. There is also a cursor ring shown where you press the screen with your glove, to help you understand where you are actually pressing the screen. To turn off glove mode, you simply lock the screen and then unlock it with your bare finger touching the screen and you’re back to normal mode with Floating touch™ enabled.

Screenshot showing the cursor ring that guides you when using glove mode.

The solution to detect glove mode when you’re unlocking the screen is a quite clever concept, because it allows the phone to support both glove mode and normal mode supporting Floating touch™ – what mode is entered is decided by how you unlock the screen. In glove mode we support gloves and normal touch, while in non-glove mode applications can use the Floating touch™ API (a tutorial for using this API will be published soon).

To make it possible for you to use the touch screen with a glove, the Floating touch™ events that are generated when you are touching the screen with a glove (or hovering over the screen) are rewritten as normal touch events. As you may have figured out already, it is the finger inside the glove, and not the actual glove, that the touch screen reacts to.

To get an accurate behaviour and make sure the UI only reacts when the glove is actually touching the screen and not when just hovering above the screen, some clever algorithms are used to filter the Floating touch™ event stream (depending on the glove texture thickness) before rewriting them as normal touch events. This way, you are not generating a lot of accidental touch events on the screen, while wearing a glove.

Demonstration of glove mode on Xperia™ sola with ICS update.

If you like, you can disable the auto-detection of glove mode in the phone Settings, under Display:

Glove mode setting.

So next time there is an incoming call when it is cold outside and you are wearing gloves, you can impress your friends by picking up the phone and answering the call with your gloves on!

And for all developers out there, you will have the possibility to use Floating touch™ in your apps with the Floating touch™ API. Stay tuned to Developer World, we have more information and a tutorial coming up in the next couple of weeks!

More information

• Learn more about Floating touch on our Technologies page.
• Watch our YouTube video demonstration of the new Glove move feature.
• Get the details on Xperia sola.
• Check out our Floating touch video on YouTube.

We recently announced the Xperia Tablet S, which includes a new, unique functionality called Small Apps. Small Apps are special miniature apps that run on top of other applications, to enable true multi-tasking. And now you can create your own Small Apps for the Xperia™ Tablet S by downloading the Small App SDK and Small App SDK documentation.  By doing so, you can gain more visibility since your app will be listed in predefined searches, which will be easily accessible for Xperia™ Tablet S users. Learn more after the jump!

Screenshot showing the Browser as a Small App on top of Google Maps.

Small Apps provide an easy way to perform several tasks at the same time. For instance, you can have a Small App web browser running on top of Google Maps, as shown in the screen shot above. In general, a Small App can have almost the same functionality as a normal app, but it’s optimised to run on top of another user activity.

Screenshot showing the Small App launcher.

On the Xperia™ Tablet S, Small Apps are easily accessed from the Small App launcher always available in the system bar at the bottom of the screen.  A number of Small Apps are included on the Xperia™ Tablet S from start, such as Browser, Calculator, and Remote control. By touching “+ Add” as shown in the screenshot above, users can add a new Small App, either from Google Play, or by selecting and adding any standard widget as a Small App.

Example of minimised voice recorder Small App icon, showing recording time.

A nice feature is that you can minimise a Small App at the edge of the screen, by a simple drag-and-drop action. Then in the minimised view, you will have several options on how to define the display of the Small App icon in addition to using a basic graphic. For example, for the voice recorder Small App icon doesn’t just include a microphone graphic as its Small App icon; it also shows the recording time as it keeps recording, and shows this data even when the voice recorder Small App is minimised.

Why develop a Small App?
As mentioned earlier, using the Small App SDK can help you gain visibility for your application. On tablets, a Small App launcher is a part of the system bar. When you develop a Small App according to the developer guidelines, your Small App will appear in a predefined search on Google Play. All Xperia™ Tablet S users will then see your Small App when looking for new Small Apps through the Small App interface. This means you have a really good way to get more visibility by developing a Small App! How to implement this is explained in more detail in the section “Make your Small App visible on Google Play”.

Example of option to add a Small App from the Google Play Store by clicking the “+ Add” option in the Small Apps launcher on Xperia™ Tablet S.

How Small Apps work
From a developer’s perspective, a Small App is a framework that runs as a service in Android. However, unlike a regular service, it has a user-interface overlaid on top of the currently running activity. A Small App has access to all regular android framework APIs, just as a usual app would have.  And it can be either a self contained app or an extension to another app, with merged code, resources, and manifest.

Architecture of Small Apps framework showing the lifecycle of a Small App.

With the Small App SDK and Small App SDK documentation, you can give your app almost the same functionality as an Android™ activity, while running in a window on top of the currently running app. This means that there are several advantages with doing a Small App compared to a widget. For example, you can design your Small App window with a custom background, title, and size. You can also show a custom view when the window is minimised. Unlike widgets, a Small App can handle all types of input events, such as text input and pinch to zoom. Best of all, the Small App SDK offers a unique possibility to gain visibility for your app, which is described further down in the article.

How to develop your own Small App
To start developing your own Small App, download the Small App SDK and Small App SDK documentation and extract the files on your computer. The Small App SDK contains everything you need to make your own Small App, including Eclipse add-ons, code samples, emulator and guiding documents. Make sure to have a look in the user guide “Getting started with the Small App SDK – Developer guidelines” that is included in the Small App SDK package.

To make the Android framework recognise your app as a Small App, declare your Small App in the AndroidManifest.xml in the following way:

1. Add the following uses-permission (mandatory)

<uses-permission android:name=”com.sony.smallapp.permission.SMALLAPP” />

1. Add the following uses-library (mandatory)

<uses-library android:name=”com.sony.smallapp.framework” />

1. Add the following “service” (mandatory)
   1. “exported” attribute of this service must be “true” (mandatory)

<service android:name=“SampleSmallApp” android:exported=“true” >

1. This service must specify following intent filter (mandatory)

<intent-filter>

<action android:name=”com.sony.smallapp.intent.action.MAIN” />

</intent-filter>

1. If you want to show your small app on the small-app-launcher, you have to specify the following category to this intent filter (optional)

<category android:name=”com.sony.smallapp.intent.category.LAUNCHER” />

After performing step 1-3 above, your code should look like this:

<manifest>
	<uses-permission android:name="com.sony.smallapp.permission.SMALLAPP" />
	<application android:label="@string/app_name" android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher”>
		<uses-library android:name="com.sony.smallapp.framework" />
		<service android:name=“SampleSmallApp” android:exported=“true” >
			<intent-filter>
				<action android:name="com.sony.smallapp.intent.action.MAIN" />
				<category   android:name=“com.sony.smallapp.intent.category.LAUNCHER” />
			</intent-filter>
		</service>
	</application>
</manifest>

To help you get started creating your own Small App, we have also included a basic “Hello world” Small App code example in the Small App SDK documentation. This code example provides you with basic code to be able to create a Small App, along with the code you use to configure the size and layout options available.

package com.sony.nfx.app.smallappsample;

import android.view.View;
import android.widget.TextView;
import android.widget.Toast;
import com.sony.smallapp.SmallAppWindow;
import com.sony.smallapp.SmallApplication;

public class MainApplication extends SmallApplication {

	TextView tx;

	@Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        setTitle(R.string.app_name);

        SmallAppWindow.Attributes attr = getWindow().getAttributes();
        attr.minWidth = 100; /* The minimum width of the application, if it's resizable.*/

        attr.minHeight = 100; /*The minimum height of the application, if it's resizable.*/

        attr.width = 400;  /*The requested width of the application.*/

        attr.height = 300;  /*The requested height of the application.*/

        attr.flags |= SmallAppWindow.Attributes.FLAG_RESIZABLE;   /*Use this flag to enable the application window to be resizable*/
//        attr.flags |= SmallAppWindow.Attributes.FLAG_NO_TITLEBAR;  /*Use this flag to remove the titlebar from the window*/
//        attr.flags |= SmallAppWindow.Attributes.FLAG_HARDWARE_ACCELERATED;  /* Use this flag to enable hardware accelerated rendering*/

        getWindow().setAttributes(attr); /*setting window attributes*/

        findViewById(R.id.button).setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            public void onClick(View v) {
                Toast.makeText(MainApplication.this, R.string.hello, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
            }
        });
    }

    @Override
    public void onStart() {
        super.onStart();
    }

    @Override
    public void onStop() {
        super.onStop();
    }

    @Override
    public void onDestroy() {
        super.onDestroy();
    }
}

Make your Small App visible on Google Play
In order to make your Small App show up in the predefined Google Play query for Small Apps, the app description on Google Play must include “Small Apps extensions for Sony products”.

In addition, if the application apk file is only for a Small App, we recommended you to add “Small app” or “small app” to the application title on Google Play. For example, “Clock Small app”, “Viewer small app”, or “Note for small app”. Please note that this relates to the title on Google Play, not for the application name itself.

Download the SDK and get started right away
So, have we inspired you to develop a new Small App? Or do you already have an app that would be perfect to extend with a Small App? Head over to the downloads section and get the Small App SDK and Small App SDK documentation. We hope to see a lot of new innovative Small Apps on Google Play. And feel free to drop us a line with any questions or comments!

More information

• Download the Small App SDK and Small App SDK documentation.
• Read more about the Xperia Tablet S.
• Get the specs of Xperia Tablet S in the Product gallery.
• Watch the Xperia Tablet S video on Youtube.
• Have a look at our other development tools in the Tool guides section.

App developers, do you want to enhance the user experience, and reduce the power consumption & improve the network efficiency of your app?  We are happy to share our knowledge in the area, and one way to do this is by continuously contributing to initiatives like the guide called Smarter Apps for Smarter Phones. Published by the GSM Association (GSMA) earlier this year, this is the perfect guide for app developers interested in increasing the efficiency of their apps while enhancing the user experience.

In this tutorial, Håkan Jonsson from our Technology office has picked out some of the areas from the guide that he thinks are most important for increasing power efficiency and network usage in mobile devices. You will find useful and hands-on tips, as well as some brand new code examples that will help you improve your app. Read more after the jump!

Håkan Jonsson, research engineer at Sony.

Hi! I’m Håkan Jonsson, a research engineer at Sony Mobile’s Technology office. In my work, I have found that perhaps one of the most overlooked, but also most critical, areas of app development is to make your app power and network efficient. By doing so, you provide a clearly enhanced user experience, and while that might not directly translate in better reviews and increased sales, by not enhancing the user experience, you might get the opposite effect. According to the guidelines in Smarter Apps for Smarter Phones publication, there are five areas related to user experience improvements that are very important – scheduling, compression, asynchronous requests, caching, and push notifications. Let’s examine these areas in more detail in the sections below.

Remember to schedule background data sync
As part of scheduling tasks for your app, you can reduce the signalling load from background data. This is an important step to reduce power consumption and network traffic. To achieve this, you can synch your app’s network activity requests, such as HTTP requests, with network activities from other apps. By batching requests together, you reduce the network traffic and power consumption.

To begin with, you should use AlarmManager with setInexactRepeat and an interval constant provided in AlarmManager. For example, use INTERVAL_HALF_HOUR, which will make sure your intents are sent at least every half hour, without specifying when within that interval the intents are sent. For more info and guidance to how to implement this in your code, look in the Smarter Apps for Smarter Phones guide, where a short code sample on scheduling is provided.

Another important note is to make sure you use AlarmManager.RTC and not AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP. This will ensure that the application won’t be woken up unless some other app is also to wake up. On Google services-equipped smartphones and tablets, schedulers run regularly and will make sure your app wakes up now and then.

Use compression to reduce the size of HTTP requests
Another way to reduce the network traffic is to make sure that if your application is using HTTP, it should support compression. This will reduce the overall size of the HTTP entity bodies, which will potentially improve the user experience by making your app appear faster. For some data formats, such as XML and JSON, the average size reduction is as high as 80%. In Android™, there is support for qzip and DEFLATE compression of HTTP content. This means that it will take less time to download HTTP data to your app, which will then be faster and give the user a better experience.

To use these compressions, you need to add the “Accept-Encoding” header to the request your app sends. Then the received content needs to be handled according to its “Content-Encoding” header. In the Smarter Apps for Smarter Phones guide, you can actually download a code example that shows how you can implement compression using interceptors, with the Apache HTTPClient.

Improve the user experience by using asynchronous requests
When writing apps for smartphones, you should always consider the risk of having requests being sent over a mobile network to be delayed. Or that you might not even receive a response at all. To make sure the user experience is as smooth as possible in such an unstable network environment, you should aim to make your app ready to deliver some results to the user even if not all requested data has arrived. This can be ensured by using asynchronous requests.

To help you implement this, I have created some asynchronous request code examples for download, and that illustrate three different ways of downloading an image from Developer World. I have also included an example of bad practice. Just unzip the file at the link above to access the examples.

• The first example, the incorrect way of solving the task, blocks the UI during the download and result in a bad user experience. On Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) it actually results in an error message. This is obviously not a good way to use asynchronous requests, but is included to show what happens when poorly implemented.
• The second example uses an AsyncTask, and the third example handles a download in a separate thread, and uses the Handler mechanism to display progress in the UI. Both of these methods are good and easy ways to implement asynchronous requests, and can be used with most common file formats. These methods are described in the Android developers’ article Painless Threading.
• The fourth example is using byte wise download, which can be used for cases where you have a file format that is not supported by the Android framework, or if the file format is unknown. For all other cases, byte wise download is not recommended since it is more complicated.

Make your app appear faster with caching
If you use caching, it makes any network applications appear faster by using the most effective means of data storage or transfer. The purpose is to reduce the number of round-trips to a server through an expiration mechanism and to reduce network bandwidth through a validation mechanism. These mechanisms make it possible for both client and server to control and know when an application can use cached content, and when they need to download new content.

The cache is essential for network applications, especially when running in mobile networks. In the Android web browser, internal APIs are used to support HTTP caching. Since these APIs aren’t available to other applications, you will have to implement the support for caching yourself. In the Smarter Apps for Smarter Phones guide, there is a detailed description, including code examples, of how to implement caching.

Push notifications lets you save energy and network traffic
Many apps would benefit a lot from using push notifications more often, as it saves both energy and network traffic since data is pushed to the device when available, so that the device doesn’t have to poll the server regularly. To implement push notifications, Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is a really good method to use since it’s a service that provides a simple mechanism to handle all aspects of pushing data from a server to an application. It works for Android 2.2 and later.

To learn more about push notifications, check out Google’s API Guide and Demo Application.

Help us keep the guide updated
So, have I inspired you to make your app even smarter? Or have you already implemented any of the methods described in this article? The Smarter Apps for Smarter Phones guide is meant to be continuously updated, so any comments or feedback is welcome. I will bring your opinion to the work with the next revision, so drop us a comment below and let us know what you think!

For further information on this topic, you can also check out my previous tutorial about reducing power consumption.

More information

• Dive into the GSMA guide to developing Smarter Apps for Smarter Phones.
• Download the code examples implementing asynchronous requests.
• Check out this video from GSMA introducing smarter apps.
• Read Håkan’s previous tutorial on Reducing power consumption of connected apps.
• Have a look at Android developers’ article about Painless Threading.
• Learn more about push notifications in Google’s API Guide and Demo Application.

Thanks to mind-blowing innovations from chip manufacturers like Qualcomm, we’re taking more pictures, watching higher quality video, and surfing faster than ever on our smartphones. But what does the future hold? With the Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 set to hit shelves soon, we’ve taken a look at how the processor that powers them, Qualcomm’s revolutionary Snapdragon S4, will make your smartphone experience even more amazing.

1. Lower Power Consumption

First, let’s talk power consumption. The Snapdragon S4 processor has been transitioned to a 28nm process (from 45nm), which makes it smallest in the industry, yet it still packs in more transistors. This new process also reduces leakage so that the chip consumes very little energy, helping your smartphone battery last all day.

What’s more, it stays cool to the touch. To see how much cooler check out this experiment Qualcomm performed with a Snapdragon S4 and some butter. (Yeah, you heard right!)  

2. Better Performance

The S4 also introduces a new CPU and GPU, which work in concert to make the Windows Phone 8 experience lightning fast. Now that Windows Phone 8 supports multi-core processing, the Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 can fully take advantage of Snapdragon’s multiple Krait CPU cores.

In other words, even the most sophisticated apps and complex user interfaces will run buttery smooth. Paired with the new Adreno 225 GPU, the new Lumias also promise to bring console quality gaming and even more stunning graphics.

3. Lightning-Fast 4G Connectivity

For most of us, mobile surfing is one of the joys of owning a smartphone. With 4G LTE, you can surf the Web, video conference, or play multiplayer games at up to 10 times the speed of conventional 3G.

Although previous 4G LTE implementions used to come at the expense of battery life, that’s no longer the case with Snapdragon’s integrated LTE multimode modem. By combining the modem and application processor, having Snapdragon in your phone means better battery life no matter what the connection speed is. 

4. Higher Definition

One thing that really makes a smartphone special is the quality of its graphics. Within the Snapdragon S4 processor, you’ll find the Adreno 225 GPU. This both improves overall graphics performance and saves power in the process. The proof is in how fast your web browser displays pages, how quickly your navigation app responds, and of course, how amazing your favorite game looks when playing it.  

It’s the same graphics component that’ll enable the Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 to not only play the latest DirectX 3D games, but also drive HD content and support 720p displays at 60fps. If you’re a gamer, prepare to be wowed!

5. Better Security

Unfortunately, mobile hacking is becoming increasingly common, and the problem looks set to get worse. Fortunately, the Snapdragon S4 incorporates Qualcomm’s Secure MSM™. This is hardware and software-based security measures that provide features such as encrypted boot, secure code signing service, and Trustzone SEE.   

6. Cooler Camera

Thanks to PureView technology and Snapdragon’s Image Signal Processor (ISP), the Nokia Lumia 920 has an incredible camera.

Coupled with the S4’s zippy performance, you can take your video and photo experience to new heights. Get ready to enjoy silky smooth 1080p video capture and overall speed and image quality enhancements, including image stabilization.

7. Faster Location Services

Unlike some smartphones, Nokia Lumias use mapping software that you can rely on. The Snapdragon S4 makes it even more accurate by featuring support for both GPS and GLONASS.

Once you have access to both satellite networks, your phone can determine your location quicker and within a 2 meter radius. What’s more, you’ll get fewer service interruptions.

All of these magnificent seven features help make the Nokia Lumia 920 the world’s most innovative smartphone. But which ones have you yee-hawing loudest? As ever, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Time for our weekly round-up of the apps that have been grabbing my attention this week. From taking better photos and tweaking them to choosing your own fate in an interactive zombie apocalypse adventure, I’ve tried all of this week’s suggestions – in the interests of research of course.

Camera Extras

Cost: Free in the Marketplace
Availability: Various countries (check your Lumia)
In a nutshell: Get creative with your camera

Mentioned a few months back when it first came into being Camera Extras is something I’ve been meaning to include in the App News in detail for a while. So it seemed fitting when Izzi posted his video the other day that I weave it seamlessly into this week’s news. His demo of the Extras shows each of the four – Smart Group Shot, Action Shot, Panorama and Self Timer – for the uninitiated.

Bringing

‘more quality to the camera of your Lumia device’

Camera Extras is well worth exploring. Have you tried it yet?

 *****

Photo Shader

Cost: $0.99/£0.79
Availability: Everywhere – in the Marketplace
In a nutshell: Make your snaps sparkle

For those who want to add a little panache to their pics, Ryken100 has posted a review of Photo Shader

‘An excellent photo filtering app’

for those who want to try the all-pervading tilt shift technique or add a little glow to their holiday snaps. Give it a ‘try before you buy’, I did and enhanced some of my already excellent (due to the Lumia, not my skill) photos.

*****

Blackout Gamebook

Cost: Free in the Marketplace
Availability: Everywhere
In a nutshell: Choose your own interactive adventure

If you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books from when you were younger (like me…I was a big fan), then Blackout should provide some nostalgic entertainment. I saw that Paolo had posted about the app on WMPoweruser, and I had to give it a whirl. Initially I selected the geeky character to play, but as he was still ‘in development’ I went for the ‘promising gymnast’. The story is quite compelling – a virtual page-turner, if you will – but this is one for the avid reader rather than game playing crowd. Purely text-based, but replayability is quite high (going back to where you made a poor decision and taking a different path), even though I’m still navigating my way to my first fail.

Tried any of the Camera Extras yet? Share links to the results in the comments or on Twitter for everyone to see! Seen or written any app reviews that you think should be featured here? Drop me a line.

[Image credit - The Verge]

The beautiful look and finish of Nokia’s brand new smartphones, the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820, have caught the attention of many people.

Erik Kain, of Forbes.com, wrote of the Lumia 920:

“I love the colourful, rounded look. I love the fact that it looks so distinct and different from the rest of the smartphone pack. I love that I can get one that’s yellow.”

Meanwhile, Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 visionary, told Conversations that Nokia’s new smartphones were ‘gorgeous and awesome’ and declared the Lumia 920 a ‘work of art.’

Design heritage

Nokia’s designers are no strangers to such compliments. The company has a rich heritage and great expertise when it comes to material design, science and technology. 

Key to this continuing success is Nokia’s team in all the main Nokia Design Studios in London, Espoo, Calabasas and Beijing.

They are the people responsible for what your Nokia is made out of, how it feels in your hand, as well as what colour it is. 

In fact, Nicola Ralston, who is head of Colour and Material Technology Design at Nokia, says that materials are a very important part of Nokia’s design approach to product making.

“I hope that is why the products you see on the market today are much more complete and seamless than ever before because the materials and colours are not applied after the packages have been defined.”

This focus on materials – how they are produced, how to achieve the exact intensity of colour required, how the material performs, how it can be moulded and much more besides – is absolutely central to Nokia, says Nicola.

Polycarbonate

The release of the Nokia N9 in 2011 saw the debut of polycarbonate, a new premium plastic pioneered by Nokia and which is also used in the Lumia smartphones, including the new Nokia Lumia 920 and 820. 

Polycarbonate was developed as a result of huge project over several years examining different types of plastic ingredients. 

“What we were looking for was a material that could define a new character for Nokia and would allow us to make a great visual impact and project confidence at the same time as build on our heritage of durability and extreme product making,” says Nicola.

“We chose polycarbonate because of the colour approach we wanted to take – the ingredients that make up polycarbonate allow us to get the best intensity of colour.”

As well as being able to achieve vibrant colours with polycarbonate, the material is also durable, as well as flexible in how the designers can play with the finishes – matt or gloss – and still exude a Nokia character.

When I first got my Nokia Lumia 800, I told all my friends about how natural it feels in my hand. Again, this is largely down to the polycarbonate.

“The polycarbonate gives us a human touch – that is the best way to describe it,” says Nicola.

Ceramic and metallic

Another hi-tech material, and one that is making its first ever appearance within the range on the Nokia Lumia 920 is the ceramic zirconium camera detailing and side keys. This material is both scratch and wear resistance, which further drives Nokia focus on durability and strength.

This ceramic replaces the aluminium camera detailing and side keys in the Nokia Lumia 900. Nicola says metal remains an important material to Nokia, but this new ceramic ‘is a little bit different, a little more refined… and just works really well.’

Overall, on the wider issue of metal versus polycarbonate, Nicola concludes that: 

“What we want to achieve with the Lumia range is absolute top performance. The colour ability with polycarbonate is giving us all that character but at the same time it enables the highest performance relative to the antenna, NFC enablement, wireless charging and so on.”

Screen

With those ceramic details and the polycarbonate monobody, that just leaves the screen. 

Fans of the 2.5D curved glass on the Nokia Lumia 800 were thrilled to find out that it’s back on the Lumia 920. Nicola’s team had to work out how to scale up the curved glass for the larger screen size of the new flagship Lumia.

They also looked at how the glass transitions seamlessly into the body and how black the screen is. Not to mention the integration of the Nokia logo and the Microsoft keys.

In short, there is barely a square millimetre on your Nokia device that has not been considered, shaped and influenced by Nicola’s team. Again, it goes back to Nokia’s focus on materials.

Just a little colour… for now

Completely inherent in the materials are the colours. The colours are not applied or painted on afterwards.

For example, the yellow polycarbonate of a Nokia Lumia 920 is yellow all the way through and this starts right at the beginning of the manufacturing process.

Moreover, the colourful Lumia range has become one of Nokia’s defining and most beloved characteristics.

So, colour is a massive topic and we will be exploring this further in the second part of our interview with Nicola. Keep your eyes peeled on Conversations.

Thanks to mind-blowing innovations from chip manufacturers like Qualcomm, we’re taking more pictures, watching higher quality video, and surfing faster than ever on our smartphones. But what does the future hold? With the Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 set to hit shelves soon, we’ve taken a look at how the processor that powers them, Qualcomm’s revolutionary Snapdragon S4, will make your smartphone experience even more amazing.

1. Lower Power Consumption

First, let’s talk power consumption. The Snapdragon S4 processor has been transitioned to a 28nm process (from 45nm), which makes it smallest in the industry, yet it still packs in more transistors. This new process also reduces leakage so that the chip consumes very little energy, helping your smartphone battery last all day.

What’s more, it stays cool to the touch. To see how much cooler check out this experiment Qualcomm performed with a Snapdragon S4 and some butter. (Yeah, you heard right!)  

2. Better Performance

The S4 also introduces a new CPU and GPU, which work in concert to make the Windows Phone 8 experience lightning fast. Now that Windows Phone 8 supports multi-core processing, the Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 can fully take advantage of Snapdragon’s multiple Krait CPU cores.

In other words, even the most sophisticated apps and complex user interfaces will run buttery smooth. Paired with the new Adreno 225 GPU, the new Lumias also promise to bring console quality gaming and even more stunning graphics.

3. Lightning-Fast 4G Connectivity

For most of us, mobile surfing is one of the joys of owning a smartphone. With 4G LTE, you can surf the Web, video conference, or play multiplayer games at up to 10 times the speed of conventional 3G.

Although previous 4G LTE implementions used to come at the expense of battery life, that’s no longer the case with Snapdragon’s integrated LTE multimode modem. By combining the modem and application processor, having Snapdragon in your phone means better battery life no matter what the connection speed is. 

4. Higher Definition

One thing that really makes a smartphone special is the quality of its graphics. Within the Snapdragon S4 processor, you’ll find the Adreno 225 GPU. This both improves overall graphics performance and saves power in the process. The proof is in how fast your web browser displays pages, how quickly your navigation app responds, and of course, how amazing your favorite game looks when playing it.  

It’s the same graphics component that’ll enable the Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 to not only play the latest DirectX 3D games, but also drive HD content and support 720p displays at 60fps. If you’re a gamer, prepare to be wowed!

5. Better Security

Unfortunately, mobile hacking is becoming increasingly common, and the problem looks set to get worse. Fortunately, the Snapdragon S4 incorporates Qualcomm’s Secure MSM™. This is hardware and software-based security measures that provide features such as encrypted boot, secure code signing service, and Trustzone SEE.   

6. Cooler Camera

Thanks to PureView technology and Snapdragon’s Image Signal Processor (ISP), the Nokia Lumia 920 has an incredible camera.

Coupled with the S4’s zippy performance, you can take your video and photo experience to new heights. Get ready to enjoy silky smooth 1080p video capture and overall speed and image quality enhancements, including image stabilization.

7. Faster Location Services

Unlike some smartphones, Nokia Lumias use mapping software that you can rely on. The Snapdragon S4 makes it even more accurate by featuring support for both GPS and GLONASS.

Once you have access to both satellite networks, your phone can determine your location quicker and within a 2 meter radius. What’s more, you’ll get fewer service interruptions.

All of these magnificent seven features help make the Nokia Lumia 920 the world’s most innovative smartphone. But which ones have you yee-hawing loudest? As ever, we’d love to hear your thoughts.