Lenovo Z2 Vibe Pro:
Why Such Phones Are UNpopular In The United States

By Kia Dargahi

A show of hands please for the people who knew that Lenovo made smartphones. Let’s see… Nope nobody, and there seems to be a plethora of reasons why that’s the case. Time and again, smartphones are announced with seemingly attractive features, great specs, and amazing pricing but just cannot penetrate the United States market. Sony was the latest to try and enter the US market aggressively but even with brand recognition like that of Sony’s, it seems that their marketing comes to no avail. So even with a QHD display, the latest processor and version of android plus a stellar camera, phones like the Z2 Vibe pro do not find a home here in the US.  Here’s a rundown of why that’s the case.

Limited/No Brand Recognition in the Market

Perhaps the most obvious reason, capitulated on with the “show of hands” experiment, is that only certain manufacturers are on the immediate minds of American consumers. Although Lenovo is a very respected name in the computer industry and Sony has good penetration in several fields, they are not particularly praised for their smartphones. Techies (much like myself) will doubtless disagree with me but one must remember that techies not only represent a small minority of consumers but also aren’t willing to buy every new piece of hardware that hits the shelves. Sony and Lenovo have to essentially start from scratch and impress US consumers so that their respective Xperia and Vibe lines become a part of mainstream consumer information. Nowadays if someone is caught without an Apple or Samsung handset, they are often questioned on why that is not the case… No Official/Limited Partnership with Stateside Carriers.

Here’s an important one. Most big name smartphones such as the iPhone 5S, Samsung Galaxy S5, and HTC One (M8) are available on all big name US carriers and as such have more room for advertising and appeal to a larger group of people. Sticking with the Lenovo and Sony motif, Sony only has a partnership with T-Mobile and Lenovo handsets have and will only be available through third party online retailers at full price. See the problem? For Sony’s case, not only are there more popular brands selling their handsets for the same price (Apple, Samsung, HTC…) but T-Mobile themselves stop marketing the Sony phones a month after their launch. For Lenovo phones (and other manufacturers like Oppo, Huawei, and Blu), they are only available on GSM carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile and must be bought at full price. There’s hardly an incentive for the average consumer to do his or her own research, find relatively obscure phones, and purchase them at a higher price then they would more mainstream and RELIABLE phones, which brings me to my next point.

Limited Availability + slow/no Customer Support

By far the biggest risk with buying phones such as these off contract (except in Sony’s case) is that they have no customer service for the United States. Let’s say that you’ve noticed your phone is dropping calls lately, nobody can officially tender to your questions from the companies themselves as they are not officially being sold in the US. Furthermore, since the only practical manner of purchasing these phones is through a third party online retailer, returns, damages, and especially availability will be an issue. Since people around the world are purchasing these handsets, the USA has an even smaller priority to the online retailer since there really does not exist a market for the likes of the Z2 Vibe Pro. This means that you’ll be getting the phone months and possibly up to half a year after its release and by then an even better mainstream handset might be available.

Final Summation

There is a convoluted process of finding which phones are available for your carrier’s specific spectrum and if it is even compatible at all. Since the smartphones take months and months after their original announcement to become available on third party retailers, one is better off waiting for a new mainstream handset to be released in the USA than to scour the deepest parts of the internet for a rather obscure device that does NOT come with official US support. In a world where smartphones are as important as our computers, it would be unwise for one to take all the risks and reap little rewards; practicality trumps theoretical advantages.

WWDC 2014: Apple’s Future is Looking Bright

By Kia Dargahi

Smell that? It’s the essence of software updates wafting through the air, and today, we will be exploring what Apple had to offer at its annual WWDC conference on June 2nd. Apple played it very safe this year by not announcing anything outside of expected software updates (unlike last year’s breathtaking Mac Pro). This being said, I am more or less optimistic on the matter regardless of nothing “exciting” having been announced. But before I get into that, let’s go over the key features of the software put forth by Apple.

We’ll start off with iOS 8. Looking back to last year’s unveiling of the drastically new iOS 7, Apple had rebuilt its operating system from the ground up and the stability and near flawless performance had seemingly disappeared. That’s where iOS 8 comes in. With it comes a heavy emphasis on user friendliness, security, and synergy between all platforms. While these may sound like words coming straight out of the mouth of an “iSheep”, rest assured iOS 8 is no joke and without further ado, let’s cover the key points.

iOS 8 brought with it a handful of new gadgets for consumers to use and an equal if not larger amount of resources to developers. There wasn’t necessarily a take away feature from the iOS 8 announcement, but Healthkit certainly caught the eyes of many. With this app, all health related information is displayed right in front of you so that you wouldn’t need several fitness apps from different developers in order to maintain health. Interestingly, Apple emphasized the role of wearable health accessories for the use of its consumers without releasing a wearable accessory themselves. I interpret this as a prelude to an imminent iWatch either announced alongside the iPhone 6 (in a similar way that the galaxy gear was announced alongside the Samsung Galaxy Note 3) this fall or a few months later with the launch of refreshed iPads. Finally, a long awaited multitasking on iPad has also notably surfaced.

But I think the meat of the conference is held in Apple’s customer service. Tim Cook himself specifically mentioned reading emails that influenced him to make certain changes to developer APKs and the addition of certain features to the operating system. For example, notification center was made infinitely more useful with the inclusion of widgets and the ability to act with apps without closing the existing one i.e. quick replies to text messages. Moreover, iCloud was updated to become an actual cloud storage with the ability to store more than photos and documents within it. Other minor updates such as that to Siri, touch ID, and improved family sharing shows Apple is oriented towards aiding the consumer experience. Furthermore, the keyboard was massively improved (a long needed update to the archaic keyboard) to incorporate predictive typing with multiple layouts, ensuring a more pleasant typing experience. This, coupled with the almost 100% confirmed increase in screen size to the iPhone 6 will make for a successful keyboard experience overall. Speaking of keyboards, developers can now create different keyboards for users to download with iOS 8 (which brings me to the developer’s side of things).

There really is a lot to say about all the improvements that Apple has done on the developer’s side of iOS 8 (this is a developer’s conference after all…) but I’ll try to condense it to the main features that the consumer’s will be able to notice. For example, with metal, Apple has removed a layer of processing so that the full power of the A7 processor would be able to be tapped into, making operations more rapid and rendering of any kind snappy. The huge update here was with the extensibility of iOS. Further blurring the lines between Apple and Google’s respective operating system, Apple has opened up its OS to the developers (who are at this point jumping with glee waiting for the official release to be proud of their new creations). Third part apps now have similar access as stock apps to things like Touch ID (custom app opening) notification center (widgets) keyboards, and this is only glazing the surface. Furthermore, Apple has created a new coding language by the name of swift and it looks promising. In their usual Apple-esque fashion, they have shown the percentages of productivity with different benchmarks and shown how tantamount their improvement really is. All in all, iOS 8 is a very bright step towards a stable and satisfying OS.

Arguably the underdog of the show, OSX 10.10 Yosemite brings minor but still significant improvements to the desktop OS. At first glance, looks familiar don’t it? That’s right, the full-fledged OSX has taken design cues from its younger brother mobile OS. Once again, this only consists of one of the many improvements Apple has made. It is important to note that this is yet again going to be a free update to anyone with access to OSX Lion and above. Although it may seem that I’m being repetitive, continuity and the overall link between all iDevices is the hallmark of OSX Yosemite. With almost no effort, photos, notes, videos, calls, messages, all important information is synced between the platforms. You can even make phone calls from your mac through a connection to your iPhone as of late. On a final continuity note, you can now airdrop files between mac and iOS, a feature that seemed clearly absent from the previous iteration of the OS. Your typical Safari and Mail improvements are of course included with the upgrade and on top of the expected and design changes, spotlight was made smarter by being connected to the internet and using resources such as yelp and Wikipedia for things like movie times, restaurants, and general information. Although there isn’t much to say about the computer side of the conference, leave knowing that Apple is most definitely heading on a right path to success with these updates. I’ll see you in September when the iPhone 6 will be announced, but until then, keep your hopes high Apple fans, it’s looking to be a great time for the Apple ecosystem.

The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival

For one week, May 1 through May 8th, the 9th Annual Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival will screen films that have been “chosen” from around the world that celebrate films highlighting Jewish heritage and experience. http://www.lajfilmfest.org.

This year's opening Gala Event will honor Carl Reiner, a pioneer in comedy, and include a tribute to the late Sid Caesar with a special showing of a rare 1974 documentary, Ten From Your Show Of Shows.  The event will take place at the newly named, Steve Tisch Cinema Center at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills.  

A couple of films that will certainly bring attention to their filmmakers are the Los Angeles premiere of One Small Hitch a charming romantic comedy directed by John Burgess starring Shane Mcrae, Aubrey Dollar and Daniel Travanti.

In this lighthearted and engaging  comedy, Molly (Aubrey Dollar, Failure to Launch) has promised to bring a boyfriend home to her mother’s Chicago wedding. En route from LA, she dumps one sketchy man, and instantly gets involved with a family friend, Josh (Shane Mcrae, The Help). This leads to two old friends innocently agreeing to fake an engagement to make Josh’s dying father (Daniel Travanti, Hill Street Blues) happy. Things quickly get out of hand with their two hysterically boisterous families. A series of events causes them to pretend to be a couple and start planning a phony wedding. When the play acting begins to foster real feelings, the two must make some serious decisions. The film screens at the Laemmle's Town Center in Encino on Sunday, May 4th at 7:00 pm.

Another movie to watch out for is the 2013 Phillippines' Offical Entry to the Acadmey Awards, Transit.  LAJFF is presenting the West Coast premiere of this world Film Festival favorite and directorial debut of Hannah Espia. This much praised Filipino film offers a surprising perspective on another aspect of Israeli society, with a poignant portrait of Filipino guest workers in Israel. Set in and around Tel Aviv amidst an immigration crackdown, the story crosscuts between the intermingled lives of one Filipino family and their Israeli-born children of mixed identity, who only know Israel as their “home” and only speak Hebrew. Moises is a single dad who works as a caregiver for a kind-hearted Israeli retiree while frantically trying to keep his young son Joshua hidden indoors. Also under threat is Janet, a domestic worker on an expired visa, struggling to hide her half-Israeli daughter, Yael– a rebellious tee. The film screens at the Laemmle's Music Hall in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, May 6th at 7:30 pm.

For the complete line up of all the films, visit the Los Angles Jewish Film Festival website here.