Archive | June, 2011
“Why Should Somebody Buy This Instead of an iPad?”
It’s been fifteen months since the first iPad shipped. Nearly every sizable company that makes anything that looks even sort of like a computer or a phone has rushed into the market that Apple created. Many of these companies haven’t yet shipped the tablets they’ve announced. Still, a critical mass of major iPad alternatives are now here–tablets such as Motorola’s Xoom, RIM’s PlayBook, and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1.
And yet no Apple competitor has started selling anything that clearly answers a fundamental question: “Why should somebody buy this instead of an iPad?” Sure, it’s easy to point at specific things that other devices do better (or at least differently) than the iPad, and some of the people reading this article can explain why they chose another tablet and don’t regret the move. (If you’re one of them, please do!) Still, sales figures for tablets show that when consumers compare the iPad to other choices, an overwhelming percentage conclude that the iPad is the best option.
As a reviewer of gizmos, I think that the iPad 2 is easily the best tablet on the market–and that most of the competition so far is too half-baked to be credible. As a lover of competition, though, I’m itching to see other tablets arrive that deserve to do well, too. So that question–”Why would somebody buy this instead of an iPad?”–is stuck in my head. I’ve been trying to figure out how an Apple rival can come up with a tablet that pretty much answers that question for itself. And I’ve come up with thirteen ways it could happen.
Google’s (Unpleasant, Heavy-Handed) Father’s Day Surprise
20. June 2011
To celebrate Father’s Day, Google inserted a line underneath the Google Voice calling feature in Gmail’s Chat feature: “Reminder: Call dad.” Sounds innocuous, huh?
Well, no. Some people who don’t have dads were understandably upset by the note. Eventually, most of us won’t have a dad to call; I’m surprised that nobody at Google figured out that the message would be at best irrelevant and at worst an unhappy little moment for a meaningful percentage of Gmail users.
Companies like Hallmark and 1-800-Flowers presumably don’t worry much about Father’s Day and Mother’s Day advertising hurting anyone’s feelings. But Google’s “reminder,” while promotional in nature, was presented as a task-like item within a piece of Web-based productivity software. That made it feel more personal. It also involved Google futzing around with an application used by millions of people. Microsoft wouldn’t insert a Father’s Day requirement reminder into Outlook–and even though Outlook is a paid product and Gmail isn’t, Google crossed a boundary which it apparently didn’t realize existed.
It’s a safe bet that Google won’t commemorate Father’s Day or Mother’s Day in this particular way again. But I hope it comes away from this with another lesson: it needs to tread gingerly when it comes to messing around with Gmail and other apps for any reason except making them better. And sometimes even then.
Maybe We Need New Game Consoles After All
20. June 2011
Microsoft and Sony — but not Nintendo — would have you believe that we’re in for a long game console cycle, with no rush to replace current-generation hardware.
But after seeing the PC version of Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 3 at E3, and hearing how the console version will compare, I beg to differ.
Johan Andersson, a rendering architect for EA developer DICE, confirmed over Twitter that the console version of Battlefield 3 will be choked back to 30 frames per second and 720p resolution. On PC, Battlefield 3 runs at a silky smooth 60 frames per second, and it looked wonderful during a brief hands-on demo at E3 earlier this month. DICE is making compromises to the console version to allow for bigger levels, lots of vehicles and certain visual effects.
Naratte’s Zoosh Does NFC Without the NFC Part
20. June 2011
If you polled mobile pundits about what the next big thing was going to be, Near Field Communications (NFC) might take the top spot. The technology, which allows devices to exchange data with a quick touch, is theoretically going to change the way people pay for stuff. But it’ll only do that once most phones come with NGC technology built in–and today, only a handful of phones, such as Google and Samsung’s Nexus S and Nokia’s Astound, are ready to go.
That opens up a window of opportunity for a startup called Naratte. It’s created a technology called Zoosh that lets virtually any phone perform NFC-like tricks without needing to support NFC. Zoosh does that by using phones’ speakers and microphones to transmit data encoded in audio at ultrasonic frequencies. The company showed me several demos last week, including making PayPal-style payments by tapping two phones together and digital loyalty cards and coupons that could be redeemed by touching a phone to an inexpensive gizmo that hooks up to a retailer’s payment-processing terminal. (The coupon was in the form of a MMS message with video and embedded Zoosh audio–pretty clever.)
I’m Feeling Endangered
18. June 2011
According to Google Operating System, Google is testing a spruced-up home page and search results with one striking change: they remove the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button that’s been part of Google forever (or at least since 1998).
Google has a gazillion tests going on at any one time, many of which never turn into permanent, pervasive changes, so it’s a tad early to mourn the loss of I’m Feeling Lucky. And I’m not sure when I last used it–or used it at all, except as an experiment rather than a feature I liked and needed. Still, I’d miss it. I think that’s because it’s a reminder that Google wasn’t always the Web’s dominant company–there was a time when it was an up-and-coming search engine invented by a couple of Stanford students.
Mobile Data Usage Nearly Doubles
17. June 2011
In case you hadn’t heard, we’re using more and more mobile data these days. With apps becoming ever more connected, the need to use our wireless data connections has also increased–and we’re increasingly going mobile instead of sitting in front of the computer screen.
Research firm Nielsen has numbers out today that show an 89 percent increase in data usage from the first quarter of last year to the same period this year. Where we were using about 230MB on average a year ago, that has jumped to about 435MB now.
This puts into question the need by mobile carriers to rethink their bargain data offerings. While a lot cap those cheap plans at around 250MB, it’s now evident that a large majority of us need more data than that.
Want some even crazier statistics?
The Case for the Galaxy Tab 10.1″
17. June 2011
My friend Seth Weintraub of 9to5 Google (and 9to5 Mac) makes a coherent case for choosing Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1″ over the iPad 2. (Sure, there are at least as many arguments for choosing the iPad 2, the biggest by far of which is LOTS OF GREAT TABLET APPS–but Seth does a much better job than most of summarizing why you might opt to choose a non-Apple tablet.)
Yahoo Tries Its Hand at App Discovery
17. June 2011
The iOS and Android application marketplaces may both stock hundreds of thousands of programs–a reasonable percentage of which are pretty darn impressive–but it can be surprisingly tough to find the good stuff. Neither Apple’s App Store nor Google’s Android Market does a fantastic job of steering you towards every program you might find useful and/or entertaining, giving third parties such as Chomp an opportunity to full the void.
Now a very large third party is entering the fray: Yahoo. It’s launched an app search engine for iOS and Android designed for desktop browsers, plus an app called AppSpot, available in iOS and Android versions, that recommends apps and lets you search for them. I’m glad it’s doing it–this is a logical challenge for a search engine to take up–but the results so far are mildly pleasant at best.
Redbox Game Rentals Go Nationwide, Filling a Void Left by Blockbuster
17. June 2011
Redbox is coming to the rescue of video game rentals, adding games to every one of its ubiquitous DVD kiosks.
Starting today, all 21,000 Redbox kiosks in the United States will rent video games for $2 per night. That’s more expensive than Redbox’s $1 per night movie rentals, but it’s on par with Blockbuster’s game rental rate of $9 per five nights, and is more flexible.
And besides, Redbox kiosks are easier to find nowadays. After Blockbuster declared bankruptcy in September, the number of U.S. stores in operation dropped from 3,300 to 1,700. Redbox is hoping its grocery and convenience store presence will lead to more game rentals. “We make it very convenient by having our kiosks in front of the places people are at every day,” Joel Resnik, Redbox’s vice president of games, said in April when the company announced its game rental plans.
Still Missing: A Place to Get Those Crazy Kinect PC Apps
17. June 2011
As promised, Microsoft’s making it easy for developers to create Kinect PC apps with a non-commercial Kinect for Windows software development kit.
The SDK provides access to raw data from Kinect’s motion sensors, skeletal tracking of one or two people, advanced audio processing (such as identifying a sound source) and plenty of sample code. To show how developers can make their own Kinect apps, Microsoft hosted a 24-hour coding session that resulted in a motion-controlled quadricopter, a virtual orchestra conducted by hand gestures and a video conferencing tool that can identify and zoom in on the speaker.
Just one problem: If you’re a Kinect owner who wants to see what the motion-sensing camera can do — beyond dancing video games on the Xbox 360, that is — Microsoft still doesn’t make it easy to find and download these creative Kinect PC apps.
Facebook’s HTML5 Surprise?
16. June 2011
Yesterday, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler wrote about an unreleased Facebook photo app for the iPhone. Today, he’s reporting that Facebook is working on a super-ambitious platform for Mobile Safari on the iPhone and iPad–one that uses HTML5 to deliver the sort of experience usually associated with native iOS apps. He doesn’t have any real details, but it could be cool, and would explain Mark Zuckerberg’s famous disinterest in doing a Facebook app for the iPad.
There are some nifty browser-based mobile apps out there–Google’s Gmail for phones and tablets comes to mind. But there hasn’t been a truly killer app yet of the sort that leaves millions of people thinking that Web apps rather than local apps are the wave of the future. If Facebook is at least trying to pull off something like that, it’s exciting news.
Google’s Challenge: Being Itself, Only More So
16. June 2011
Here’s my newest TIME.com Technologizer column, on the new search features which Google unveiled this week.
Am I the Only One Who Likes Physical Android Buttons?
15. June 2011
Boy Genius Report has posted some thorough alleged specs for Google’s next unannounced Nexus phone, possibly dubbed the Nexus 4G. Many of the specs are what you’d expect from a flagship Google phone, such as a dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 1080p video capture and LTE connectivity.
But what’s most intriguing about this rumor is the possibility that Google will completely do away with hardware buttons on the next version of Android, called “Ice Cream Sandwich” or Android 4.0. The home, menu, back and search buttons will presumably become part of the software.
It wouldn’t be an unexpected change. Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the software version optimized for tablets, already lacks physical buttons, and Google has made clear its intentions to merge smartphones and tablets onto a single software version with Ice Cream Sandwich. But it’s harder to picture how Android tablets’ button-free concept would work on Android phones.
Mobile Location Privacy a Hot Topic on Capitol Hill
15. June 2011
An effort to ensure consumers know how their mobile location data is being used and shared is underway on Capitol Hill, with a bipartisan bill now making its way through Congress. Called the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act, the bill was written by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).
The bill was simultaneously introduced in both the House and Senate today.
It aims to codify how companies may use and share data, as well as giving consumers more power in consenting to such tracking. In addition, the legislation provides guidelines on how government and law enforcement may use the location data on wireless phones.
Copious Aims to Help Real People Buy From Real People
15. June 2011
Who would you rather buy something from–a shadowy stranger or a person with a well-established, positive online reputation? A new online marketplace called Copious that’s launching today is betting that just about everybody would opt for the latter. And it aims to shed light on its buyers and sellers by tying together their activities on Facebook, Twitter, and other social venues so you know a bit about them before dough exchanges hands.
Facebook’s Photo App for iPhone
15. June 2011
TechCrunch says that it’s got its hands on a massive cache of info about an unannounced photo-sharing app for the iPhone–from Facebook. And it says that the app looks amazing.
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20. June 2011
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