Windows on ARM fixes much that is wrong with Windows, but lack of apps makes it Microsoft’s big risk

Vendors who create new platforms work hard to attract developers, because high availability of apps is seen as essential for success. This is why, for example, RIM is offering free PlayBooks to developers who submit apps to BlackBerry App World.

Why then would Microsoft deliberately and consciously choose to release a new family

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Users petition Asus over locked bootloader in Asus Transformer Prime

The new Asus Transformer Prime TF201 Android tablet is winning praise for its performance and flexibility. It is driven by NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor and can be equipped with a keyboard and dock that extends battery life and makes the device more like a laptop.

All good; but techie users are upset that

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Why developers need a Mac

I am by no means an Apple fan. For one thing, I find Windows (and Linux) stable and fast, so you are not going to hear me argue that my computing life was transformed once I made that Switch (with a capital letter). Admittedly that is partly because I am familiar with how to

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Windows 8 Tablet in June 2012? If so, I am betting ARM not Intel x86

An interview with Paul Amsellem, new boss at Nokia France, includes this remark:

Et en juin 2012, nous aurons une tablette fonctionnant sous Windows 8

which even my schoolboy French can translate:

and in June 2012 we will have a tablet running Windows 8

Now, that is sooner than I had expected based

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PCs down, Android up: astonishing figures from Gartner show shift to mobile

Want to know why Apple is suing Samsung over Android, or why Microsoft is re-imagining Windows as a touch-friendly mobile OS? Look no further than Gartner’s latest report on European and worldwide sales in the third quarter of 2011.

First, this release shows PC sales in Western Europe, not helped by HP’s dithering over

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Quick thoughts on Xcode and Objective C versus Microsoft’s tools

I have been trying out JetBrains’ AppCode which meant working in an Apple development environment for a time. I took the opportunity to implement my simple calculator app in iOS native code.

Objective C is a distinctive language with a mixed reputation, but I enjoy coding with it. I used Automatic Reference Counting

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Delphi XE2 FireMonkey for Windows, Mac, iOS: great idea, but is it usable?

I am sure all readers of this blog will know by now that Delphi XE2 (and RAD Studio XE2) has been released, and that to the astonishment of Delphi-watchers it supports not only 64-bit compilation on Windows, but also cross-platform apps for Windows, Mac OS X and even iOS for iPhone and iPad (with

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A few observations on Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango”

I received a Windows Phone running version 7.5 “Mango” for review yesterday. Here are some initial observations; I am not going to call it a review after such as short time.

There is still no screen capture utility – well, there is this one but it requires a developer accounts. So no screens,

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Adobe to ship Flash 11 and AIR 3, repositions Flash vs HTML 5

Adobe has announced that Flash 11 and AIR 3 will ship in early October.

There are significant changes in this release.

Flash gets Stage 3D (previously codenamed Molehill), a set of low-level 3D APIs, GPU accelerated where hardware allows, which will make console-like 3D graphics and games possible in Flash. Stage 3D wraps DirectX

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Building Windows – when Microsoft shows its hand

I’m in Anaheim, California on the eve of Microsoft’s BUILD conference. I have heard the phrase “wait until BUILD” so many times from Microsoft over the last few months that it has given this conference a special flavour. After Wednesday, the company will have to think of another way to avoid awkward questions like

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