Archive | Original Site

AIM Gets More Social

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 15, 2009 at 12:38 pm

AIMI use AOL’s instant-messaging network all day long, but I’m not sure when I last used the AIM software itself (with the exception of the iPhone version). I’ve associated it with feature bloat, annoying ads, and a sort of old-timy, Web 1.0 feel. So I long ago switched to other clients that support the AIM network (Apple’s iChat when I’m on a Mac, GAIM when I’m on Windows, and the Web-based Meebo anywhere and everywhere).

But AOL showed off new desktop and iPhone versions of AIM this morning at TechCrunch50. The new AIM is distinctly less clunky and annoying, and it aims to be not only an IM client but also an aggregator of social networking info (aka your “lifestream”) from other services, too. The new versions officially launch next week, but betas for Windows and Mac are available right now and the $2.99 paid iPhone version is live on the App Store.

AIM guy with Twitter logoI’m trying the Mac beta, and it’s a Mac AIM client I’d actually use (hey, I’m chatting in another window even as we speak). It seems to lack some of the irritations that drove me away long ago, like ads popping up without warning. As for the social networking features, AOL has added support for Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Fickr, Twitter, and YouTube. It combines them all in a tab called Lifestream, lets you view all of them in one river of updates, or one service at a time, and permits you to broadcast your AIM status to other services whenever you update it. It also displays photos and videos from your pals directly in the AIM window.

There aren’t many things harder to do than elegant integration of disparate social networks–actually, I’m not sure if anyone’s really nailed it yet–and AIM’s implementation, in this beta at least, is imperfect. I’m not sure why you configure networks in your browser rather than in AIM preferences, for instance. And if you’re the type who loves high-powered apps like TweetDeck and Seesmic, you’ll find the AIM client’s support for other networks to be bare-bones at best. I doubt that any semi-serious Twitter user will rely on AIM as his or her only Twitter client, and about 95% of the things that make Facebook interesting (the full-blown wall, events, third-party apps, etc.) aren’t available.

The new AIM makes most sense for folks whose social lives are centered around AIM rather than Twitter or Facebook or another network. There are millions of those people, so it’ll be accomplishing something if all it does is make them happy. As it will be if you can use the new clients without gnashing your teeth and seeking alternative clients less likely to drive you bonkers.

I’m still looking for the ideal social-networking aggregator, but so many companies are working so hard on the challenge that I’m optimistic that I’ll find one that works for me sooner or later.

As for the new AIM client for the iPhone, I’ve downloaded and installed it–but every time I try to view my Lifestream, I get an error. I’ll check back later.

AIM network users, are you still using the AIM client? If not, why not? If you try the new versions, let us know what you think.

One comment

Mario, and Why the Wii Will Still Reign

Posted by Jared Newman on September 15, 2009 at 12:19 pm

Super MarioIt’s been rumored lately that Nintendo will cut the Wii’s price from $250 to $200 some time this month. That wouldn’t be a surprising maneuver, as Sony and Microsoft have recently tinkered with their own home console pricing.

But at first, I laughed off the news. Nintendo doesn’t even have a killer app for the holidays, I thought to myself, wondering whether a measly $50 price cut would really help juice the lead between the Wii and its competitors.

Then again, I initially forgot about Mario.

Confession: I’ve had enough of Mario ever since 2007’s Super Mario Galaxy — hailed by critics as nothing short of perfection. In my eyes, Mario 64 was the last game to bring with it a sense of magic, so either I simply grew out of Mario, or Nintendo dropped the ball. Either way, after 20-plus years of playing video games, I approached Galaxy with a “been there, done that” mindset, and the game didn’t sway me.

But I’m in the minority, and sometimes I lose sight of Mario’s enduring popularity. That’s why, when I looked at NPD’s August sales figures, I was shocked to see New Super Mario Bros., a Nintendo DS game that is 3 years old, hanging in 12th place for software sales. And that doesn’t count the number of people who bought a used copy of the game. The Nintendo DS was the top-selling console last month, at 552,900 units, and I’m sure many of those consumers chose New Super Mario Bros. as one of their first purchases.

Here’s the kicker: New Super Mario Bros. Wii is coming out in November. It’s essentially the same side-scrolling, 2D Mario game you’ve been playing for decades, but with up to four players at a time. The idea couldn’t bore me any more, but I know people will lap it up. Pair that with a Wii price cut, and Nintendo’s golden again.

I know, I said 2009 is the Year of the Playstation 3, and I still believe it, in that Sony will hit a major turning point this year. But Nintendo, which has reigned since the Wii debuted in 2006, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

3 comments

Zune HD vs. iPod Touch: The T-Grid

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 15, 2009 at 11:29 am

It’s my instinct as a writer of stuff about technology to compare Microsoft’s new Zune HD against Apple’s iPod Touch. But the more I’ve played with the Zune, the less it feels like a direct competitor to the Touch: It has a number of features that the Touch doesn’t (HD output, HD radio, an OLED screen), a significantly different form factor (much smaller), and is missing the Touch’s single most interesting feature (support for tens of thousands of third-party apps). The Zune has no direct Apple counterpart–it feels a little like an iPod Nano in some respects, like the Touch in others, and is ultimately its own unique beast.

But like I say, my impulse is to compare the Zune HD to the Touch. So here’s a first pass at a T-Grid comparing the two devices’ specs and features. If all you care about is media playback, the Zune looks like a strong competitor–but stick around until the end of the grid.

Continue Reading →

36 comments

This is Not a Zune HD Review

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 15, 2009 at 2:43 am

Zune HD(UPDATE: This isn’t a Zune review, but now I’ve written one–here it is.)

Microsoft’s Zune HD–the first touch-screen version of the company’s non-iPod-killing media player–goes on sale today. I’ve been playing with one loaned to me by Microsoft, along with the new Zune 4.0 software, and am itching to review it. I can’t yet, though–the Zune Marketplace service still seems to be down, and it’s impossible to judge most of the features that are at the heart of the new Zune without snagging audio and video content from Microsoft’s store.

It’s not too early to share some initial thoughts based on the hands-on I’ve had with the features that are up and running. Such as…

The Zune HD feels small. I mean that mostly as a compliment, it’s noticeably less of a pocket-hog than my iPhone, which is suddenly feeling a tad bulky. Fits in the hand well, too.

The screen’s also smallish, but attractive. It’s 3.3″ with 480 by 272 pixels compared to the iPhone (and iPod Touch’s) 3.5″ screen with 480 by 320 pixels. So far, the reduced inchage and loss of pixels are only an issue in the Web browser–the Zune isn’t as good as an iPhone or Touch for reading more than a paragraph or two of Web content at a time. I want to watch video from the Zune Marketplace before rendering any verdicts on the OLED display’s overall quality.

Microsoft nailed the touch interface. It’s just as fluid and intuitive as Apple’s–unlike the clunky touch to be found on Windows Mobile phones. The user interface is more exuberant than the iPhone/Touch’s straightforward menus–items fly around in 3D space. Which sounds annoying, but it isn’t.

The browser is good, but basic. Pages render accurately; zooming works; speed over my Wi-Fi network is adequate, although it feels slower than my iPhone. It doesn’t have iPhone OS’s multiple-page manager, and typing in URLs is tricky simply because the screen is small. (The keyboard is similar to the one in the iPhone OS.)

There probably won’t be an app for that. The Zune Marketplace has an apps section, but Microsoft isn’t releasing a Zune SDK, and doesn’t plan to bulk up the store with gazillions of programs anytime soon. It does say that there will be 3D games for the Zune HD (which has powerful Nvidia graphics) and that it will be releasing Facebook and Twitter apps by November. It also says that Zune could become a meatier app platform eventually, building on work done by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile team. But for now, the Zune HD, unlike the iPod Touch, is in no way a pocket computer. It’s an audio and video player with a Web browser and a few other apps on the way.

The HD radio works. But I’m still deciding whether I prefer it to the new iPod Nano’s plain ol’ FM with TiVo-like pausing and rewinding.

I don’t like the Zune software for Windows. It seems overly complicated, with a user interface that emphasizes sizzle over straightforwardness. (iTunes has a lot of features, too, but it’s easy to ignore the ones you don’t like.)

Microsoft lost its price advantage, but the Zune is still competitive, more or less. When the Zune’s price was announced, it looked aggressively lower than that of the iPod Touch. But then Apple got aggressive–and now the 16GB Zune sells for $20 more than an 8GB Touch, and the 32GB Zune is only $10 less than a 32GB Touch. Many people will opt for the Touch given that it does so much more at generally similar prices, but if you’re interested mostly in music, movies, and the Web, the Zune is a plausible Touch alternative at a plausible price.

Like I say, I can’t review the Zune HD until I can try all its core features. But so far, mostly so good–the Zune HD seems to be well thought-out from both a hardware and software standpoint. It’s not entirely clear that the world still needs ambitious media handhelds that don’t try to be little computers and/or telephones, but if there’s still a place for them, the Zune HD looks like it’s going to provide genuine competition for Apple. This gizmo is most definitely not an iPod Touch knockoff–it’s a different kind of device with a different set of pros and cons.

More once I’ve had a chance to put the Zune HD through all of its paces…

14 comments

HP’s Windows 7 PC Extravaganza

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 14, 2009 at 9:38 pm

HP LogoWe’re a little over a month away from the launch of Windows 7–which means that a lot of new PCs are also imminent. Tonight, HP is announcing a bunch of new laptops, along with one desktop. I had a chance to see them recently; herewith, some thoughts.

I was most taken with two new notebooks called the Envy13 and Envy15. These 13- and 15-inch models are the successors to the Envy 133, an extremely slick machine from HP subsidiary Voodoo PC, and their appearance presumably marks the end of Voodoo as a separate brand. The new Envys are unquestionably aimed at the sort of  well-heeled, style-conscious computer buyers who might otherwise buy MacBook Pros–they’ve got cases that combine aluminum and magnesium (which HP says provides a better balance of lightness and strength than Apple’s all-aluminum unibody design), touchpads with integrated buttons (yes, like Apple’s), bright screens, function keys that (unlike most on Windows PCs) don’t make you press the Fn key, and “slice” extended batteries that make them a bit thicker . (HP says that the Envy13’s extended battery will power it for 18 hours.)

Continue Reading →

9 comments

Google’s Interesting, Useful, Odd, Imperfect Fast Flip

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 14, 2009 at 6:35 pm

Google Fast Flip LogoDid I just say that one of the differences between Bing and Google is that Bing is splashy and Google revels in its  plain jane interface? I lied. Google had a TechCrunch50 announcement of its own this afternoon, and involves a new Google Labs feature that has a high “wow, lookee there!” quotient: Google Fast Flip.

Fast Flip is based on Google News, and Google says it came up with it to address the fact that browsing through news sites is usually a slow process–not at all like the effortless instant gratification of flipping through a magazine or newspaper. Google has partnered with several dozen news sources–including the BBC, BusinessWeek, the Christian Science Monitor, the Daily Beast, Esquire, the New York Times, Newsweek, Salon, Slate, and TechCrunch–to create previews of their stories that live on Fast Flip but which display the first several paragraphs of the article in a form that looks like the originating site. You rifle through these previews by clicking left and right arrows, and the pages zip on and off-screen in high-speed, fluid animation–hence the “Fast Flip” name.

Continue Reading →

3 comments

Clicker’s Guide to Online Video

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 14, 2009 at 2:05 pm

Clicker LogoI’ve lost track of how many search engines have claimed to be a TV Guide for Web video, or have been described as such by others. This morning at TechCrunch50, another contender joined the fray: Clicker, which is headed by former Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone. It’s focused on professional content (content from broadcast TV, cable, and some Web-only items); aims to know more than competitors about the shows it finds to make it easier to find programs you’ll like (such as whether they’re comedies or dramas); embeds shows from Hulu, network sites, and other sources; and lets you maintain a personal library of shows so you can come back and watch your favorites.

Looks useful and straightforward enough, but it’s hard to judge until it’s open for business–which it isn’t yet. Here’s a video walkthrough:

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.3419185&w=425&h=350&fv=loc%3D%252F%26autoplay%3Dfalse%26vid%3D2162433]

Sites like Clicker are going to be important, unless Google and other garden-variety search providers add enough video-specific features to render them superfluous. But to me, the biggest problem with TV shows online isn’t that they’re hard to find, but that too much of the good stuff just isn’t available yet. I’m looking forward to the day when just about anything that’s ever aired on TV in episodic form is available online–including scads of items that never made it to DVD. When that happens–and I’m convinced it will–we’ll really need Clicker or something comparable…

6 comments