Hands on with Samsung’s Galaxy Tab Tablet

Thursday morning at the IFA show here in Berlin, I attended a Samsung press conference and watched one of the company’s executives brandish its new Galaxy Tab tablet. It was intriguing. But I had a much better time that evening at the Showstoppers press event, where I was able to spend some time exploring the Tab for myself.

The Galaxy Tab I tried clearly wasn’t a done deal: Its touch-screen froze for several minutes then began to work again, and its browser didn’t seem to want to load anything except Google. It’s too early to come to any firm conclusions, but I did discover aspects I liked (the basic form factor, some of the software) and problem areas (other software).

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Ping-Pong: Facebook, iTunes Still Talking

Kara Swisher reports that Facebook blocked Apple from accessing its API after the Cupertino company failed to reach an agreement with the social networking service over Ping, and then proceeded to attempt to use the APIs anyway. Facebook allows free access to its APIs unless its a potential drain on resources. iTunes has 160 million plus potential Pingers — obviously no small change. There is a chance Facebook integration could still happen: Kara’s sources say the two companies are still talking.

Less Annoying Laptop Stickers from AMD

Forget the iPods and Apple TV; David Pogue has the best news I’ve heard all week: Starting next year, AMD will make the stickers it slaps on laptop palm rests considerably less annoying to remove. They’ll peel off easily and leave no sticky gunk behind. Maybe other companies will follow suit, or better yet, get rid of those ugly advertisements altogether.

Microsoft’s Arc Touch Mouse Materializes

I, for one, was a little disappointed when the mystery product Microsoft teased last month turned out to be the Arc Touch, a two-button mouse with a touch-sensitive middle strip. Not that there’s anything wrong with touch-sensitive mouses, but all the hubbub seemed misplaced considering that Apple pulled off the multi-touch mouse a year ago.

Fortunately, touch sensitivity isn’t the really cool thing about Microsoft’s Arc Touch. Its most novel feature is shape-shifting. When in use, the Arc Touch is curved to rest comfortably in the hand, and to turn it off, you just pound the arch into a pancake, so it’s about 0.6 inches thick at its fattest point.

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Virgin’s Wireless Broadband: Such a Deal!

David Pogue of the New York Times reviews Virgin Mobile’s pay-as-you go MiFi: Once you’ve paid $150 for the MiFi itself, you get unlimited wireless broadand on the Sprint network for up to five devices at a time. For an amazingly reasonable $40 a month. If I weren’t on contract with Verizon for a MiFi for the next 18 months–at $60 a month–I’d be on this deal in a nanosecond.

Apple Gift Card Report

And…we have a winner! Frequent Technologizer commenter MikeCerm entered our Apple Music Event Predictions Survey and won the random drawing for the $100 Apple gift card. Congrats to Mike and thanks to all who participated.

Your Apple Music Event Predictions: The Upshot

Earlier this week, I asked you to predict what Apple would announce at the music event it held yesterday. Time for a recap! (Executive summary: You got a bunch of stuff right but missed out on a few key points.)

You said: Apple will announce a new iPod Touch, a new iPod Nano, and a new Apple TV. It won’t announce any other new products.

What happened: Apple did announce a new Touch, a new Nano, and a new Apple TV. But it also unveiled a new iPod Shuffle. (It released a new version of iTunes as well, but I’ll cut you slack on that one, since I didn’t ask specifically about that app.)

You said: The iPad will get at least some of iOS 4′s new features.

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Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is Official

I’m in Berlin for IFA, Europe’s biggest consumer-electronics trade event. The show floor doesn’t open until tomorrow, but yesterday and today have been filled with press conferences by major tech companies–and Samsung’s conference this morning ended with the official introduction of its Galaxy Tab tablet, the biggest IFA news so far.

The Tab is certainly an iPad-like device, but there are some striking differences. Its screen is 7″, making the device a bit larger than a Kindle and substantially smaller than a 9.7″ iPad. (Samsung says it’s pocketable, and it is…if you’re wearing a jacket.) The Tab weighs 13.4 ounces–far less than the pound-and-a-half iPad. It has cameras on the front (for video chat) and back (for snapping photos and apps such as augmented reality). And like the 5″ Dell Streak, it’s not only a 3G data device but a 3G device that can make phone calls.

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Windows 7 Family Pack: It’s Baaaaaaack! And That’s Annoying

Good news! Microsoft is celebrating the first anniversary of Windows 7′s release by bringing back the Windows 7 Family Pack which it briefly offered when the OS shipped. The Family Pack offers three Windows 7 Home Premium upgrades for $149.99, and is an excellent deal considering that one upgrade license sells for $119.99. It goes on sale October 3rd in the US, and as before, it’s available “while supplies last.”

I don’t mean to be churlish about an attractive offer, but I simply still don’t understand why the Family Pack is a once-in-a-while special offer rather than a basic fact of life for Windows users.

With Apple’s OS X, the Family Pack is a version, not a sale. Multiple-user pricing is quite common elsewhere, too (random example: Buying Trend Micro’s Internet Security entitles you to install it on three PCs). Offhand, I don’t know of any other software company that offers family pricing, then takes it away, then brings it back…and warns you that it’ll go away again at some unspecified point.

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Ten Random Questions About Apple’s Music Event

I’m sorry I wasn’t at Apple’s music event today to cover it live. I had fun watching it via Apple’s live video stream from the lobby bar here at the Grand Hyatt in Berlin, though. (I give the experience a B- from a technical standpoint: Eighty percent of the time, the stream worked well, fifteen percent I got audio but the picture froze, five percent it misbehaved in other ways. Then again, I was on iffy hotel Wi-Fi, so the glitchiness might have been on my end rather than Apple’s.)

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Apple vs. Sony and Nintendo: The Smack-Talk Continues

It was all fun and games when Apple slung mud at Sony and Nintendo during last year’s iPod press event, but this year’s smear was just nasty, and not entirely accurate.

Before Steve Jobs introduced the new iPod Touch, he immediately started bragging about the device’s gaming dominance. He claimed that the iPod Touch accounts for half of the portable gaming market, with more sales than and outsells Sony and Nintendo’s handhelds combined.

A claim like that needs a bunch of asterisks. As I pointed out a year ago, fighting a console war means manipulating statistics to your favor, and Apple is guilty once again.

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iPod Classic LIVES!

Quite a few people — including myself — thought when Steve Jobs walked off the stage saying not a thing about the now aging iPod classic that it was the end of the line for that model. That is not so: Apple PR has confirmed that the classic line will live on, keeping the same price and capacity structure as it has now, but with no yearly refresh like its counterparts.

Such a move is quite unusual for a company that typically lets none of its flagship products go more than a year without some type of redesign or rework. But it’s also telling — Apple likely thinks the days of the classic are numbered.

As it stands right now, Apple is unable to offer a high-capacity flash based iPod as flash memory prices are still too high. Remember that the iPod classic has a maximum storage capacity of 160GB at $249: the highest capacity iPod touch comes in at 64GB, but has a fairly prohibitive $399 price tag along with it.

Not a good deal for those of us with insanely big digital media collections.

It is quite possible that Apple is hedging its bets that flash will continue to drop in price allowing it to offer a comparatively sized iPod touch in the near future. Also, there is not much more that the Cupertino company could do to the design other than add multi-touch — but the touch line is the future of the iPod so why bother?

I don’t fancy myself a Apple prognosticator but I would venture an educated guess that the classic has only a few more months left. It just so happened that the market didn’t cooperate with Apple’s scheduling that it could have announced a phase out at its September music event. It is coming though, and likely very soon.

I’m Live-Tweeting Apple’s Music Event

Or trying to, at least, from Berlin (I’m here for the IFA consumer electronics show). Join me at twitter.com/harrymccracken.

Hands on with Windows Phone 7

Cnet’s Ina Fried tries, (mostly) likes Windows Phone 7.

Gmail or Geverything?

Is Gmail an e-mail service or a comprehensive receptacle for just about every Web-based service you’ll ever need? This guest post at TechCrunch argues that it should stay focused on getting e-mail right.

Amazon Working on TV Service, Says WSJ

Sounds like Netflix Watch Instantly may get some Amazonian competition soon.