Gmail for iPhone and Android Gets Slicker, Adds Offline Capabilities

Google’s browser-based version of Gmail for the iPhone is pretty darn impressive–good enough, in fact, that I’ve been using it as my primary iPhone email program instead of Apple’s Mail app. But Google is rolling out a new Gmail for iPhones, iPods Touch, and Android phones today that looks like a significant leap forward. It’s got some basic offline features (you can read recent messages and compose new ones even when you’re disconnected) and it’s got some new interface niceties (you don’t need to scroll around as much to get to tools such as the search bar). And Google says it’s a lot faster.

Back when the iPhone was young(er), Steve Jobs briefly tried to convince the world that it didn’t need native apps, because sophisticated Web apps would do everything you needed. He turned out to be wrong, which okay, since Apple announced the iPhone SDK within months. But I still think that Web-based iPhone apps have tons of potential, and I’m glad to see companies like Google explore it.

The Gmail and Android versions of Google Calendar–which are nowhere near as sophisticated as Gmail–also got some new features today.

More thoughts once I’ve had a chance to spend time with the new Gmail; for now, here’s a video walkthrough from Google:

[UPDATE: I've been playing with the new verson, and it's terrific--really polished and well done. I just wish that there was a way to cache larger quantities of old e-mail for offline use, as you can with desktop Gmail.]

Coming This Summer: iPhone Video Capture?

Apple may have said that its iPhone 3.0 software includes more than a hundred news features at its press event last month, but it didn’t say anything about letting its phones capture video. But MacRumors has published an image of what it says is an iPhone 3.0 beta camera application that can capture both still images and video. The alleged spy shot comes on the heels of a bunch of rumors relating to new iPhones with better, higher-megapixel cameras being in the works.

I’m not going to accept anything about next-generation iPhones as gospel until an Apple exec strides on stage and announces it, but video certainly falls into the “that sounds logical” rumor bucket. My big question, however, is this: Will Apple unlock video capability in existing iPhones, or just in ones with snazzier cameras? Companies such as Qik have proved that there are no technical limitations that prevent iPhones from capturing video (albeit choppy, fuzzy video)…

Spybot S&D Claims Other Anti-Malware Providers Playing Dirty

Independent anti-malware company Spybot Search & Destroy is claiming that bigger companies are picking on them. The company, which has arguably made its name for itself through its listing on Fileforum alone (they claim 67 million downloads), went to Fileforum’s sister news site Betanews to levy some serious charges on its competitors.

SS&D is free, which may bother those in the anti-malware industry trying to make a buck on keeping your PC clean. This may be spurring some to go as far as to actively break or force the uninstall of the application in order to use the for-profit application, claiming “incompatibilities.”

At least three software packages are playing dirty with SS&D, the company claims. They are Trend Micro, Kaspersky Labs, and McAfee Software. The setup applications in these company’s products causes a conflict with SS&D in something called ‘TeaTimer.exe.’ This causes the application to become unstable.

Continue reading this story…

Apple Goes to Variable Pricing, Amazon Now A Better Deal

Well, it happened. iTunes instituted variable pricing early Tuesday, and the effects are already rippling through the online music store. Five of the top 10, and eight of the top 25 songs now cost $1.29.

One thing we’ve still been unable to locate? Those 69-cent tracks. Nowhere to be found — maybe we’re missing them? But I guess if we’re looking at things overall, the price increase isn’t as widespread as some may have thought.

The price hike certainly opens up the door to Amazon MP3. All songs on that store are still 99 cents, but this could be more a function of a different expiration date on that store’s contract with the record labels. Then again, this could be a veiled trick to push all of us to music stores other than Apple in an attempt to break iTunes dominance.

Record labels have made it no secret that they aren’t happy that Apple is pretty much the only game in town when it comes to digital music.

In any case, Amazon MP3 is showing signs of life. While iTunes had a 87 percent share of the market in 2008, its competitor has managed a 16 percent share, the best showing so far for anybody according to NPD data.

Amazon’s music store is having a good deal of success with the older crowd, so the company may find it prudent to begin targeting this demographic a little heavier in an attempt to gain some more share.

5Words for April 7th, 2009

Care to read some news?

Google searches return local info.

New logos for Intel chips.

New BlackBerry Storm in September?

Problem! Mysterious missing Twitter avatars.

Boxee rolls out API, fixes.

Dual-thumbstick PSP for Christmas?

iTunes variable pricing goes live.

Arrington on FriendFeed: cool, unused?

Drobo introduces eight-bay storage.

AP: hands off our content.

Blockbuster–R.I.P.?

The death knell may be ringing for Blockbuster. Today the video-rental giant admitted that if it cannot complete the financing deals that it is currently working on, there is a good chance the company may be forced to shut its doors. While the company last week said it was in the process of getting a $250 million revolving loan from creditors, that may be in jeopardy.

Why? The loan apparently has some conditions to it, and Blockbuster is now not sure it can meet them. Even worse, whether the loan goes through are not, it is not even sure that would be enough to save the company.

During my days at BetaNews, I always seemed to get the Netflix vs. Blockbuster stories and the pricing war and war of words that went on between the two. I can tell you from what I wrote during that period that Blockbuster’s financial problems stem from that fight.

Neither side was willing to lay off, and both put out lots of money to one up the other through promotions, advertising, and the like. Even more, the pricing war that went on between the two cut into each company’s revenues. While Netflix is still going, it too was bruised financially by the fight.

(It’s probably fair to say Netflix’s lack of overhead is why its wounds were less deep.)

I sure hope that Blockbuster can find a way out of this mess, but it could be a victim of the changing face of how we consume media just like the newspaper industry. I guess time will tell.

Yahoo Music Gets Friendly With YouTube, iTunes, Others

Tomorrow, Yahoo will embrace all sorts of third-party widgets at its Yahoo Music pages, allowing visitors to create their own layouts of videos, listening stations and online stores.

The relaunched Yahoo Music intends to become a “starting point for music fans,” according to the press release. The logic goes that curiosity or love for a recording artist will compel you to visit the artist’s page on Yahoo Music, which acts as a content hub. Widgets, or “modules,” can be added, removed or moved around the page for each individual viewer, allowing you to nix iTunes if Amazon is your preference and dump Pandora if you prefer Last.fm. There are modules for YouTube and Rhapsody as well.

Yahoo Music currently hosts 500,000 artist pages, but down the line, the company wants to open artist page creation for any musician or record label. That sounds like an ambitious undertaking, but it could work well for indie bands with enough devotees.  A spokeswoman tells me that other modules will follow, such as online merch shops. CNet says this is all part of the company’s “Open” strategy of adding third-party features to its existing Web services.

I poked around the old Yahoo Music site today, and actually enjoyed its current form. The listening limit on the embedded Rhapsody links are a downer, but otherwise the site was clean and easy to navigate. Hopefully, the addition of extra modules won’t clutter the screen or grind down on my poor little netbook.

My other concern is remembering to visit when my first instinct for any curiosity is to plug a search into Firefox’s Google toolbar. Yahoo searchers will find the stuff easily, but it’d be really great if Yahoo Music could get enough Google juice to land on the front page of those Web searches, above or near Wikipedia. That would probably be too friendly.

Get a Bunch of Mac Software for $39, Support a Charity

Unfortunately, we’ve run across this a bit late but a group called MacHeist — probably a nod to the steal of a deal for the amount of software you get for a rock bottom price — is offering a special deal on Mac software with 25% of all proceeds going to charity.

You’ve got one day to snap it up.

The group got it’s start in December 2006 with the first software bundle, which featured 10 software apps and raised nearly $200,000. Another bundle came a year later with 14 applications, raising over $500,000.

Both times the package was offered, it cost $49. However this year, in what the group has called its own “stimulus package,” the price has dropped to $39. Since the event has reached a certain level of donations, again 14 apps are available for download.

Continue reading this story…

Silly Sony, PSPs Are for Kids!

Though I try to abstain from fanboyism, I’m addicted to the console wars. And I’m not talking about insults flung around by loyal customers; only official company statements from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony will do. The more ridiculous, the better.

Spin factor is always high, but the latest remarks on the Nintendo DSi by SCEA director of hardware marketing John Koller are even more satisfying, because they’re false.

Here’s his statement, in part:

“If Nintendo is really committed to reaching a broader, more diverse audience of gamers beyond the “kids” market that they’ve always engaged, there isn’t much new with the DSi to support that. Significant gamer demographic groups are being ignored … Compare that with the PSP platform, where we have many blockbuster franchises from our publishing partners launching this year, representing a wide variety of genres and targeting diverse demographics.”

I want to focus on the idea that the DS is for “kids,” while the PSP is apparently for everyone. Let’s put aside anecdotal evidence, such as the recent release of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the DS, because then you’ve got to subjectively compare entire game libraries.

Instead, let’s look at what Sony’s Koller said to Edge magazine last September as he explained why the PSP was losing support from third-party publishers. Koller himself said the PSP’s demographics had shifted younger since launch, and publishers weren’t grasping that fact because they kept putting out mature games that sold poorly. To wit:

“When we launched the PSP it launched at a 28-year old, heavily male, New York subway [demographic], and that slowly trended down. Now we’re in the mid-teens with a lot of tracking even younger than that. Our research shows that in the next 12 months young moms actually are set to have the highest propensity to purchase the hardware and software for their young children.”

Isn’t this the “kids” demographic Koller was alluding to this weekend, or was he trying to say that Nintendo DS owners are primarily young goats?

Windows XP: I’m Not Dead Yet(?)

Well, Microsoft just can’t seem to quit Windows XP. It is now being reported that the company has given HP an extension to continue selling the aging OS until April 10, 2010.

The rumor’s source is fairly dubious — it comes from AppleInsider, which typically only reports on Apple rumors, and even there its accuracy rate has not been the best. In any case, it claims the information comes from a source within HP.

If true, it would mean that Microsoft would essentially offer XP and Windows 7 side by side with at least one manufacturer for possibly as long as six months. While no firm date has been announced for Windows 7′s launch, it is expected to debut later this year.

Support for XP officially from Microsoft will end on April 14, save for important security updates. If this rumor is true, it may be worthwhile to watch Redmond over the next week to see if they go ahead and push the support cut-off for the OS once more.

I always thought Microsoft would end up doing this, especially with the number of netbooks still coming out preloaded with XP.

When Did You Last Read a Newspaper? Me, I Can’t Remember

On Friday, word came out that the New York Times is threatening to shut down the print incarnation of the Boston Globe unless the paper’s unions agree to $20 million in cost reductions. As a former Bostonian, I still think of the Globe as one of my hometown papers–and my current hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, is currently under a similar deathwatch imposed by its owner, Hearst.

I’m shocked and distressed by both developments. But I’m also part of the problem. I stopped subscribing to the Globe years before I left Boston, and have never taken the Chronicle. The last print paper I subscribed to was the New York Times, and I canceled that a couple of years ago–in part because it kept getting stolen off my stoop, but also because it often sat unread in my living room.

But it’s not just that I don’t need any newspaper enough to pay to get it delivered to my home. I’m having trouble remembering the last time I read any copy of any newspaper. It was probably a USA Today that was sitting outside my hotel room during a trip–when I pick up that paper and stick it on the dresser, I usually glance at the headlines, at least. But not always. And I can’t tell you when I last spent enough time with USA Today to open the paper up and read the stories it contained. (By the time I encounter it, I’ve usually read a lot of news. On the Web. Which I can do without so much as opening the door.)

I’m feeling guilty just writing this–I grew up in a family that subscribed to three or four papers; my first job was delivering the Boston Herald (badly); I used to spend hours in the Boston Public Library’s newspaper room reading articles and comics from around the world; and I might not have gotten into the profession I did if it weren’t for all that exposure to inspiring journalism printed on dead trees. But I get my news from the Web now, with a dose of radio and a smidgen of TV. I don’t think I could retrain myself to read papers if I tried.

Here’s a little silly T-Poll:

Will the iPhone Go FM? Maybe. But I Kind of Doubt It.

9 to 5 Mac is reporting that the new iPhone–whatever it is, and whenever it arrives–will sport a Broadcom wireless chip with the ability to send and receive FM signals. 9 to 5 is saying that it could enable the new phone to broadcast music over stereo systems (a feature some people currently enable by buying a third-party FM transmitter) and to receive FM radio broadcasts (a feature that’s common on other MP3 players but famously absent on iPods).

Assuming that the Broadcom chip is indeed inside the next iPhone, I’d still be surprised to see the phone use it for FM transmitting and reception. Even the best FM transmitters I’ve used are pretty fuzzy and crackly under all but optimum circumstances, and I find it hard to believe that Apple would be satisfied. And the time when the ability to listen to FM radio on an Apple device came and went a long time ago–the wealth of Internet radio that’s already available on the iPhone would make FM redundant.

Or so I think. I’m happy to be proven wrong–especially if Apple and Broadcom have figured out a way to do truly decent wireless FM transmitting to a car stereo…

Coming May 31st: A Conference About Twitter for Business

I’m happy to report that Technologizer is helping Modern Media plan TWTRCON SF 09, a conference on how businesses can join the world of Twitter to make their customers happier, at San Francisco’s Hotel Nikko on May 31st. I’m happy about it because I think it’s a good idea–and I think it’s a good idea because…well, it was my idea.

Among the confirmed TWTRCON speakers are Porter Gale of Virgin America, Seth Greenberg of Intuit, DanceJam founder MC Hammer, Twitterville author Shel Israel, Silicon Valley renaissance man Dave McClure, and PR blogger Steve Rubel. The event is cohosted by Gina Smith and Modern Media’s Tonia Ries. And I’ll be there too, providing the official Twitter feed of the day’s doings.

I’m looking forward to attending the event, sharing ideas, meeting people, and–most of all–learning from it. If you’re going to be there, lemme know. And you can keep tabs on news about the conferencing by following @TWTRCON at Twitter.

NYT: T-Mobile to Use Android in Home Phone, Tablet

T-Mobile has been one of Google’s biggest supporters in the US when it comes to Android. Confidential documents obtained by the New York Times indicate that the carrier plans to take that partnership even further with at least two new devices due to launch in 2010.

The first of the two would be a home phone unit that would plug into a docking station and would have some type of additional device for data synchronization. It sounds very similar to the Hub that Verizon Wireless has begun selling recently.

As for the tablet, it is said to be a 7-inch device without a keyboard. While it’s exact specs are not known, it would likely act much like the netbooks that have seen increasing popularity in recent months.

Spokesperson Peter Dobrow would not confirm the report, but did share that the company plans to release “several” Android devices in the future. It will be interesting to see if T-Mobile’s gamble on Android pays off, if/when the OS takes off.

5Words for April 6th, 2009

It’s baseball season, everybody! Finally!

MLB’s superambitious Web video plan.

New FriendFeed: Fast. Very fast.

Sony movies coming to YouTube?

New iPhones: The suspense builds!

IBM: Sorry Sun, no sale.

Please welcome the…Obama PC?

Unfinished Wolverine movie’s Web premiere.

More Android devices from T-Mobile.

Firefox hits 22% market share.

Hey, BlackBerries are still booming.

How Would You Market Windows?

Over in the comments on my post about Microsoft’s new “Giampaolo ad,” blogger/Microsoft employee Bob Caswell asked me how I’d market Windows. I didn’t give a full-blown answer–hey, I’m grateful that it’s not my problem. I was, however, inspired to pose the same question to my pals over on Twitter (where I’m @harrymccracken and a feed of all Technologizer stories is available at @technologizer). After the jump, you can see what they (and a Facebook friend or three) had to say.
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