Tech Wars-Mobile OS Edition

Copyright 2014 Joshua Zenn. All logos within are property of their respective owner(s)

iOS vs Android. Their makers seem locked in an infinite battle. And now Microsoft has (re)entered the mobile arena with Windows Phone 8.1. It's time to put these mobile operating systems to the test. Now before we begin we have to explain that we are only using CONSUMER editions of the operating systems. That means that WP 8.1 Developer and iOS 8 are excluded.

	iOS 7.1	Android 4.4	Windows Phone 8.1	Winner
First released	June 29, 2007	October 2003	2004	Android 4.4
Fanbase	410 million (2012	900 million (2013)	Unknown (less than 5% of market share)	Android 4.4
Apps in app store	more than 1 million	950,000	120,000	iOS 7.1
Kernel/code roots	Darwin/Unix	Linux	Windows Kernel	NA
Device support	Apple branded hardware	Most ARM based phones with at least 512 MB RAM	Microsoft branded hardware (mostly Nokia and Samsung at the moment)	Android 4.4
Screen sharing support	Airplay	Chromecast	USB or Miracast	WP 8.1
Voice Assistant	Siri	Google Now	Cortana	WP 8.1
Developer program	$200 USD a year plus you must own a Mac	one-time $25 USD fee plus any computer that will run Java	$90 yearly fee plus any PC running Visual Studio 2013	Android 4.4
Enterprise device management	Yes, certificates	Unknown	Yes, Microsoft Exchange	Tie, iOS and WP
Emulators	Yes, only on Macs with the Developer Program	Yes, with devkit. And boot a fully functional version with the x86 project	Yes, included with devkit	Android 4.4
Developer previews	Yes, requires full DevCenter subscription	Yes, but only on supported devices	Yes, using app with free AppStudio account	WP 8.1
Built-in browser	Safari	Chrome	Internet Explorer	Three way tie, category eliminated
Unlock methods	Jailbreak	Root	None	iOS 7.1
"silent" mode	Do Not Disturb	Unknown	Quiet Hours	WP 8.1

Winners	Average user	Developer	Buisness user	Overall Winner
	Windows Phone 8.1	Android 4.4	Windows Phone 8.1	Tie, Windows 8.1 and Android 4.4

So for this episode of Tech Wars, we divided up the results a little bit differently. Now can break down each section to show how we selected a winner.

Average user:
Windows Phone just barely won this catagory with it's amazing "Quiet Hours" mode that supports geofencing, calender events, and manual triggers. It also has the most flexible screen-sharing function and it has one of the best voice assistants. We chose Cortana as the best voice assistant because Cortana can intelligently display more information than Siri and Cortana is also very expandable through the Windows Phone API.

Developer:
Android took this catagory by storm by having an extremely cheap developer program and a universal devkit that works on just about any computer that is capable of running and compiling Java. It also has a decent emulator and there is an unofficial port to the x86 (32-bit) PC platform.

Business user:
As discussed above, Quiet Hours is an amazing feature of Windows Phone 8.1. And a "silent mode" is a must for any business professional. Windows Phone also has Cortana and offers the best support with enterprise profiles by integrating with your business's already-existing Microsoft Exchange services. And it also offers a nice screen-sharing feature so you can give presentations using the included Microsoft Office app.

Overall Winner:
Windows Phone 8.1 is great and all, but Android has an iron grip in the market share holding 900 million device registrations. Plus Android has lots of apps already in it's app store. But Windows Phone 8.1 is feature rich in almost every other category. So this Tech Wars ends in a tie.

So let us know in the comments, do you agree with our pick? Would you have picked something else? Do you think we left out a worthy competitor? Let us know in the comments. And stay tuned every Tuesday and Thursday for more Tech Wars.

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Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_iOS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone

Windows 8.1 Myths - Fact or Fiction?

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We all know how bad Windows 8 was. It was like Microsoft combined their Windows Phone Team and the Windows Team and somehow they got too much of the Windows Phone. Many desktop users were left in the dark with an operating system that really didn’t like mice and keyboards. Windows 8.1 inherited this bad reputation, namely because it still has an 8 in it. But with Windows 8.1, and even the spring update for it, is Windows 8.1 really that bad?

Myth: Windows 8.1 is horrible for gaming.

Reality: Fiction

I have one computer where I have been switching in between Windows XP Media Center 32-bit, Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit, and Windows 8.1 32-bit (I use 32 bit Windows 8.1 because my processor doesn’t support PreFetchW). In all, I see better performance in games in Windows XP hands down. But between Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, I see AT LEAST a 10 FPS increase in all of my games. And I’m talking games Like Dead Space, Just Cause 2, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and several other intense games. Just to test it, I opened up Minecraft 1.7.9 and set all settings to max. Here are my results:

Windows 7: 45.2 Avg FPS

Windows 8.1: 59.8 Avg FPS

All of these tests were done on a near fresh installation of Windows with only Steam running in the background (which is required to launch most of my games). As for the upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, I had a friend who had recently bought a laptop that came pre-installed with Windows 8 64-bit Standard. He had bought it with the hopes that it would be able to play his games on the go. He was highly disappointed when he installed Call of Duty: Black Ops and found out that it operated at <20 FPS. Sometimes, it would even dip down to the below 10 range when he was in a large gunfight. He brought it to me and the first thing I noticed was that he hadn’t installed a single update from Windows Update (He was missing around 10 updates). We installed them all to no avail. In fact, I think I made it worse. I then proceeded to install the Windows 8.1 Upgrade from the store. After that, MASSIVE improvement. His FPS can peak at around 45 FPS and it rarely dips down lower than 20 in a really messy fight. I haven’t heard back from him whether or not the Spring Update boosted his FPS or not. It did on me, but only by about 5 FPS.

Myth: Windows 8.1’s metro apps are dumb

Reality: Fiction

Initially, we all hated the metro interface. It was like someone accidentally put a tablet app store in a PC operating system. Really though, they can have some potential. Sure touch screen desktops are a long way from claiming the market, but they still have their uses. In the spring update for Windows 8.1, they added the a ability to pin metro apps to the taskbar and to be able to minimize metro apps. And they even added the ability to see the taskbar while within the app. Sure you might hate the fact that the app demands all of your screen space, but now with the update, you can now just think of it as a really big desktop app.

Myth: Windows 8.1 doesn't support many devices.

Reality: Depends

For USB devices, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.x all use the same Windows update database for drivers. There is no reason it shouldn't support your previously working devices. As for computer internals, I have heard some rumors that Windows 8.x is a little bit picky with what it will run on, but I have no experience with this, everything worked perfectly on my three computers.

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Life of Sudo – Day 001 – 16 colors is better than none

Hello blog readers! This is a blog of all my crazy tech adventures. I am constantly making unnecessary upgrades to ancient hardware and usually spending lots of time trying to fix them. If you have something crazy you want me to try on one of my old computers (as long as it doesn't break it!), feel free to drop a comment below.

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They said it couldn't be done, and they were right. You cannot run Windows 8.1 on a Pentium III. So, I went with the next best thing, Windows 7! I finally got it to install on a 833 MHz PIII with 512 MB of RAM. I was surprised when it booted up in under 2 minutes. Not bad. Then I saw the login screen and just about had a heart attack. For some reason, Windows 7 didn't like the integrated Intel 810e graphics card, so it just decided to default to 16 color (read color, not bit) at 800 x 600 resolution. After going through the setup (and obviously skipping the activation, ‘cause nobody got time for that), I fired up IE8. Then I found out that I wasn't connected to the internet. Turns out that Windows couldn't get the driver for my Ethernet card. Problem was that it had to go online to get the driver for the card so it could connect to the internet. Stupid Windows. I stuck a Wi-Fi stick into the PC and got it online. Then the computer locked up. Should have known, Windows was trying to install about 183 updates. After letting it run all day, it finally restarted. Then I tried to go back to the problem with the graphics. I fired up IE8 again. Trying to expose myself to IE as little as possible, I immediately installed Firefox since Chrome is a little bit of a resource hog. After searching the Intel driver database, I found out that they just deleted the entire 810 driver database after Windows Vista was released because of the new WDDM driver framework. So much for that. I'll try Linux on one of my other computers tomorrow.

Hello blog readers! Be sure to drop a comment below to see if I should continue this series on my blog. And if you want me to do something crazy with one of my old computers, be sure to drop a comment below. Don’t forget to like, +1, and share this article! If you have a tech company or product that you want me to review or mention here on this blog, visit http://www.fiverr.com/armmaster17. Have Fun!