All Web Apps are “Glorified Bookmarks”

Whether you love or hate the idea of Google’s Chrome Web Store, you’ve got appreciate the discussion it’s provoked on the nature of web apps.

So far, a prevailing criticism is that many of the store’s offerings aren’t really web apps at all. They’re just glorified bookmarks to existing websites, at least according to some folks who’ve written user reviews. And if they’re just glorified bookmarks, why do they even exist?

We’ll get to that question shortly. But first, I want to challenge the term “glorified bookmark” as a pejorative. Because really, everything in the Chrome Web Store is nothing more than a link to another website. That’s the point.

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Nothing Is Forever: Tech Products I’ll Never Buy Again

[NOTE: Here's a story from our most recent Technologizer's T-Week newsletter--go here to sign up to receive it each Friday. You'll get original stuff that won't show up on the site until later, if at all.]

I can tell you when I bought my first computer. (1982–it was an Atari 400 with a tape drive, which I bought at a Service Merchandise in New Hampshire.) I can tell you when I got my first VCR (1985–a cheesy Sharp model with a wired remote; I think I bought it at the late, lamented Boston electronics retailer Lechmere). Same thing for cell phones (a Nokia I still miss), MP3 players, and sorts of other gadgets.

Countless technology products have meant a lot to me. Few have meant a lot for more than a few years, though–they tend to either break or be rendered obsolete by something even more exciting. And even entire classes of products which I thought I couldn’t live without eventually become dispensable.

Herewith, a few categories of gear I’ve owned, and my best guess as to whether I’m done with them yet.

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A Technologizer Prize Extravaganza

Say, want to win a cool prize? Here are eleven chances to do just that. We’d like members of the Technologizer community to nominate the best tech products and services of 2010. If you participate, you’ll get a shot at winning one of the following prizes.

Kobo Wireless eReader. Courtesy of Kobo, a Wi-Fi enabled e-reader with a 6″ E Ink screen.

Zune HD. Courtesy of Microsoft, two 32GB touchscreen media players with color OLED screens and one month’s access to the Zune Pass service apiece.

Ooma Telo. Courtesy of Ooma, its VoIP phone system, which lets you make U.S. calls for free.

Roxio Creator 2011 and Tron Premiere tickets. Courtesy of Roxio, its Windows creativity suite for editing, managing, and burning videos and photos (including 3D ones), music, and more–plus two tickets to see Tron Legacy (premiering December 17th) at an AMC theater.

eBooks. Courtesy of Kobo, electronic versions of five books about technology (picked by me) which are readable on Kobo’s ereader, PCs, Macs, iPhones, iPads, Android handsets, BlackBerries, and other devices:

• The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick
• Googled by Ken Auletta
• iWoz by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith
• Say Everything by Scott Rosenberg
• Twitterville by Shel Israel

You have until Monday, December 13th at 5pm PT to enter; we’ll draw eleven names from among those who entered at random and award each lucky person one of the prizes above.

Click here to name your favorite products (which will take no more than a few minutes) and enter the drawing. Good luck, and thanks!

Netflix Gets Lost, and Other ABC Stuff

Yep, Netflix is throwing around a lot of money for streaming TV. The company will spend an estimated $200 million for shows from Disney and ABC, including Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty and the entire series of Lost.

Chrome OS and Android: Questions, Questions, and More Questions

Google's Cr-48 Chrome OS notebook

It’s been an exceptionally eventful week for news about the future of Google’s operating systems. On Monday night, I attended the opening session of the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco, cohosted by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. It featured a meaty conversation with Andy Rubin, the father of Android. Then yesterday, I took a side trip from Dive Into Mobile to go to Google’s Chrome event, which ended with details on Chrome OS’s rollout. (The Chrome OS notebooks that were supposed to go on sale this holiday season have been postponed until the first half of 2011, but Google is launching a pilot program based around a test Chrome OS device called the Cr-48.)

Both events answered some of my questions about what’s next for Google’s OSes, but they also left me asking new ones. Here they are–starting with ones relating to Chrome OS, since we learned more about it than we did about the next generation of Android.
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Spotify’s Ship is Sailing

CNet’s Greg Sandoval has an update on Spotify, the music service best known for streaming free, ad-supported songs.

Although Spotify debuted in Europe two years ago, the service has yet to launch in the United States. Record labels are worried that Spotify can’t convert enough people to its premium subscription plan, and that its free version would cut into iTunes and other a la carte download services. As a kind of insurance against cannibalization, record labels want to charge Spotify a premium for licensing.

Now, Sandoval reports, Spotify will miss its promised 2010 launch, and Daniel Ek, the company’s founder and chief executive, won’t commit to a later date. No major labels have licensed music to Spotify in the United States.

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I Don’t Even Want to Think About How Much the Raisinets Will Cost

Would you pay $20,000 for the privilege of paying $500 to watch a new movie in the comfort of your own home? I wouldn’t!

Chrome Web Apps Scream for Tablets, HTPCs

For the better part of this afternoon, I’ve been gorging on apps from the Chrome Web Store, which went live today. Yes, I’m easily lured by the prospect of hoarding bubbly little icons that appear on my web browser’s home screen.

And yet, I have very little interest in using many of these apps on my laptop, where productivity reigns. My most frequently-used tools and websites — Gmail, Google Reader, WordPress, Pixlr, Bit.ly and so on — were bookmarked long ago. Chances are the Chrome Web Store is only going to slow me down.

But for leisure, Chrome’s web apps are killer. Once this blog post is wrapped, I’m headed straight to my home theater PC to install a boatload of video apps, music players and games. (I’ll share my favorites before I go.) And the app craze is clearly clouding my better judgment, because if Google was selling a Chrome OS tablet right now, there’s a good chance I’d buy one on impulse.

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OnLive Lands on iPad, May Stream Windows Apps

Now that OnLive’s cloud gaming service is available on computers and televisions, tablets are next, starting with the free OnLive Viewer app for iPad.

You can’t actually play any games in the app, nor can you purchase them. For now, you can only spectate other games, send messages to friends, browse OnLive’s library and watch trailers for upcoming titles.

Of course, watching someone else play a video game is kind of like being at a rock concert without hearing the music*. OnLive does plan to have playable games on the iPad, but it’s not clear which ones will get the touch screen treatment.

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Rule One: Don’t Mess With How People Do Things

Recently, I drove a Mini Cooper for the first time. (Rented from Zipcar for $13/hour. Not bad.)

That’s not news, obviously. They’ve been around forever. But it taught me something very important about product design: It’s really hard–and aggravating–for us consumers if you mess with our way of doing things.

For example, it took me several minutes to figure out how to put the window up. Nothing on the door, where I would first expect it. Nothing on the center console, my second choice. Finally, I found a barely labeled button near the radio controls. I had similar trouble trying to put the seat back to get luggage in the rear of the car. The levers weren’t where they are in every other car I’ve driven.
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Once Again, “PC or Mac?”

My new TIME.com Technologizer column is up–it’s a quick look at the pros and cons of Macs and PCs as of late 2010. As always, I’m agnostic rather than partisan.

I talk a little bit in the piece about pricing issues, but they deserve a story of their own–the pricing comparisons I’ve done in the past are all woefully out of date.  (I’ve often found that Mac pricing is reasonable compared to truly comparable PCs, but it seems high at the moment–it’s been a while since Apple has done its periodic CPU/RAM/disk bumps on most models. Time to do the math again.)

Me on Bloggingheads.tv

I had fun recording a Bloggingheads.tv diavlog with Slate’s technology scribe Farhad Manjoo about the year in tech (and what 2011 may bring). Here we are chatting…

Turn Your Mac Display Into an HD Display

Last Gadget Standing Nominee: Kanex XD

Price: $149.95

The Kanex XD does one thing and while it’s probably something that shouldn’t need doing in the first place, it does it well.  It transforms your 27-inch Apple iMac or Apple LED Cinema Display into a High Definition display. This allows you to connect and play your HD devices:  Blu-Ray DVD player, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, or digital set top box in HD format. Reviewers have noted that Apple’s limit of 720 dpi 720p on the screen (no fault of Kanex) is an issue. But, they’ve also noted that  Kanex provides a true, crisp, and clear picture from any HD source with no video scaling. To sweeten the deal, full control of volumn and brightness is available through the unit’s Bluetooth keyboard, and the XD also supports audio pass-through to enhance sound as well as video.

Gmail Priority Inbox Update

Google has tweaked Gmail’s interesting, ambitious, and occasionally aggravating Priority Inbox feature. One feature sounds essential: It now explains why it thinks a particular message is important.

Attack of the Streaming Video Subscriptions!

Now that Netflix has done the messy work of building a subscription streaming video service and proving its success, here come the imitators.

The Wall Street Journal reports that several tech companies are now trying to build their own online video subscriptions, including Vizio, Amazon and OnLive. Also, Microsoft and Sony are reportedly being wooed by media companies who want to license content directly, and Microsoft may be putting together a subscription package that’s like cable over the Internet.

This is all rumor, given that most of the companies would not comment to the Journal, but the idea of more steaming services from would-be Netflix competitors at least seems plausible.

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Rogers Has One Bucket of Data for Two Mobile Devices

Oh Canada, land of free health care, and now home to a data plan that can be used across multiple devices.

Rogers’ so-called data share costs $15 per month on top of existing mobile broadband plans. Subscribers can then share up to 5 GB of data between a smartphone and another device (think tablets or 3G-ready laptops).

I’ve hoped that U.S. carriers would move in this direction ever since AT&T and Verizon Wireless started offering capped data plans. If there’s going to be a limit on how much data you can consume, consumers should be able to use that data however they want. After all, your home Internet service provider doesn’t care whether you’re on a laptop, tablet or game console, so why should wireless carriers?

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