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A look at common tablet gripes
BGR reports that FixYa has released its December 2013 Tablet Report. This report summarizes problem complaints from over 10,000 posts on the Fixya site. The devices in question include the Apple iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display, Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9, and Microsoft Surface 2. BGR lists the top five problems for each device listed above, but none of those problems are a deal breaker if an iPad Air or iPad mini with Retina display is on your Christmas wish list. If a Kindle (main complaints are browser and apps) or Surface 2 (main complaint is no apps) are on your wish list, well ... you need a new list. Complaints with Apple iPads include Safari instability and crashes, grey lines or a yellow tint on the iPad Air, and display issues on the iPad mini with Retina display. Ghosting, in which you can see a faint image of the app you were using when you switch to another app, seems to be the most common complaint with the smaller iPad. FixYa recommends the fix for an off color tint on the iPad Air is to go to settings and turn off sleep mode. Next turn up your screen brightness to full and let the battery die down. If that doesn't work, either call Apple support or bring the Air into an Apple store. FixYa does not say whether Apple will replace or fix the iPad Air. To fix the ghosting on an iPad mini, Fixya recommends you change the contrast and brightness settings, plus reduce the motion in the accessibility settings. If that doesn't work, again talk with Apple support. FixYa is a troubleshooting site that provides a place for users to post complaints and solutions to a wide variety of products from sewing machines and microwaves to cars and variety of electronic equipment. It's a modern version of our once beloved MacFixit.com site that was solely devoted to Apple products (now owned by Cnet), but Fixya covers every product category. You can see a list of Fixya's summary reports on Smartphones, Mobile Browsers, Fitness Bands, Headphones, and more on the Fixya Blog Reports page.
Fixya provides report on top five issues for four popular smartphones including iPhone 5s
Friday's probably going to be a huge day for smartphone sales, so Q&A website Fixya.com decided to give holiday shoppers a helping hand by pointing out the major issues with some of the most popular smartphones on the market: the iPhone 5s, the Samsung Galaxy S 4, the Moto X and the HTC One. Seeing that we're a bunch of Apple fanbois and fangrrls here, we'll talk about the failings of the other phones first before pointing out the issues with the iPhone 5s. To begin with, Samsung's Galaxy S 4 has problems with overheating -- primarily due to the fact that it is made from plastic that doesn't dissipate heat all that well. The Galaxy S 4 is also known for "severe battery drain over the course of a given day" and a darker-than-usual display. According to gripes from Fixya's readers, the Moto X suffers from a lack of local storage. It has the least on-board storage of all competing smartphones, and like the iPhone, has no way to increase storage with a memory card. Like the Galaxy S 4, the Moto X's display has issues. In this case, it has "text pixelation and saturation (overly bright colors)," partially due to the 720p display's fairly low resolution. Camera quality is also listed as a turnoff, with Fixya saying that "the Moto X is likely not going to be a popular phone with consumers who are heavy camera and photography users." For the HTC One, battery life is awful -- according to Fixya, that's due to the "big screen and fast processor." It also takes a long time to recharge, with users reporting that it takes as long as five hours to charge up. HTC One users also report a "subtle hiss in the background while making phone calls and ... when listening to music." The phone also has problems shooting images in the middle of the day (they're too saturated), but does quite well in low-light conditions. So what do people report as their main gripes with the iPhone 5s? Battery life still haunts users, particularly when using location services regularly. Fixya offers a disclaimer on the next "issue," fingerprint passwords through Touch ID. Apparently a number of users were concerned that their fingerprints were being shared with the NSA, but as Fixya points out, "Apple stores the fingerprint password on an A7 chip on the actual phone device and does not upload that data to iCloud or share it with any other apps." The final issue for some iPhone 5s users appears to be display size, with some people feeling that the 4-inch display is small in comparison with other phones on the market. Choose wisely when making your selection of a smartphone as a gift for yourself or others. We know what we'd pick, but you may have reasons to wander off of the Apple orchard for a phone. Don't say that TUAW and Fixya didn't warn you...
Daily Update for October 16, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Safari tops Fixya mobile browser usability scores
Fixya is a Q&A website that compiles fix-it requests for a variety of items from cars and chainsaws to routers and monitors. Recently, the site turned its attention to mobile browsers, looking through a total of 61,582 different help requests for the category to determine which browser had the best usability score. The winner? Apple Safari for iOS. The company combined and analyzed data from the problem impressions on its site, mixed it in with market share data from NetMarketShare, and came up with a usability score. The higher the score, the fewer problem impressions Fixya saw in relation to total market share for a browser. Safari came in at 1.31, with the stock Android browser falling well behind at 0.87, Opera coming in at 0.70, Chrome at 0.64 and Internet Explorer dropping the ball at 0.28. When it came to Safari, most of the so-called issues dealt with the lack of Flash support in the mobile browser, along with the UI. However, it should be noted that most of the numbers were gathered prior to the release of iOS 7, so many of the UI issues (e.g., lack of screen real estate) have been addressed. The full report is available on the Fixya blog, and goes into tremendous detail about the pros and cons of every mobile browser.
