Ashlee Vance and Claire Cain Miller are reporting that Google is asking hardware companies to delay announcing Google TV products until it can refine the software, which has received iffy reviews. Sounds liked a good idea to me.
Tag Archives | The New York Times
Ballmer at CES: Windows Slates, Windows 8?
The New York Times’s Nick Bilton is reporting that Steve Ballmer’s CES keynote next month will include demos of slate computers running Windows 7. Sounds like deja vu all over again: At this year’s CES, Ballmer did the same thing. The 2010 Windows slates failed to buck the long tradition of Microsoft products unveiled at Comdex or CES failing to change the world. (At least HP finally released its slate PC.)
This year’s slate PCs were basically Windows 7 laptops with touchscreens and the keyboards chopped off. Bilton’s story says that the 2011 versions are a bigger departure from Windows notebooks, and, for the that matter, from the iPad. They involve features like slide-out keyboards and user interfaces that differ depending on whether the device is held in landscape or portrait orientation.
I don’t wanna pre-judge devices that we don’t know much about yet, but if Microsoft figures out a way to make Windows make sense on computers that don’t have physical keyboards-or at least don’t assume you’ll use one at all times–I’ll be impressed. After all, it’s been trying for a decade and had made pretty much zero progress on the whole idea to date.
Meanwhile, the very end of Bilton’s article had a tidbit I’m more excited about: It says that Ballmer may also demo Windows 8 during the keynote.
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Google TV: The Critics Are Being…Critical
The Wall Street Journal‘s Walt Mossberg and The New York Times‘ David Pogue are often among the first tech writers to review major new products. In the case of Google TV, however, they took a bit more time. Both wrote about the platform for their columns this week (here’s Walt’s story and here’s David’s), a few weeks after the first reviews. (such as mine) appeared. Neither of them is impressed–they have overlapping-but-not-identical lists of usability gripes, and come to the conclusion, as I did, that it’s just not ready for prime time.
At this point, I think it’s fair to say that Google TV, as represented by the first products that incorporate it–Logitech’s Revue and Sony’s TV and Blu-Ray player–is a critical dud. (I got a advertising e-mail from Logitech that optimistically referred to happy critics writing positive reviews, but it linked only to Oliver Starr’s review at TechCrunch, which is the most favorable one I’ve seen.)
I’m curious how well the Logitech and Sony products will sell this Christmas, especially since they compete with much cheaper options, such as the Roku players which start at $59.99. Also unknown: Is Google going to stick with Google TV for the long haul, or will it turn out to be a Wave-like fling? I hope that the company sticks with the idea and improves it–for one thing, I think the people who buy Google TV devices this year are getting an alpha product and deserve to get a more polished update. For another, I still think the idea has plenty of potential–a Google TV with fewer bugs and kludgy design decisions and a more harmonious relationship with Hollywood could be a winner.
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I Guess It’s All But Official, Huh?
Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times now say there will be a Verizon iPhone early next year. It’ll be astounding if it doesn’t happen–and assuming it does, it’s good news for everyone except AT&T.
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Pogue on the New Kindle
The New York Times’ David Pogue reviews (and likes) the new improved Kindle.
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Resolved: Programming is Hard Work
Over at his New York Times column, David Pogue has reviewed Google App Inventor, the toolkit–currently in private beta testing–that aims to let normal non-gearheads write applications for Android phones with no programming knowledge. His experience wasn’t sensational. In fact, he found Inventor so cryptic, cumbersome, and glitchy that he was unable to write a program–even after he brought in an expert consultant in the form of his 13-year-old son.
I enjoyed reading the column: It’s an entertaining, necessary antidote to some of the initial hype surrounding App Inventor. But it also left me feeling a tad melancholy. The concept behind Inventor remains exciting, and I hope that Google sticks with it and eradicates at least some of the gremlins that David encountered.
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Good (But Confusing) News for New York Times Fans Who Own iPads
Barnes & Noble has released a Nook application for Android and is (logically) rebranding all its other e-reader apps with the Nook name. But it has another piece of news today that’s more intriguing: iPad owners can now use Barnes & Noble’s app to subscribe to a full-blown digital edition of the New York Times. Cool–but I’m more confused than ever by the Times’s own iPad app, which is beautifully and intelligently designed but which offers only a smattering of content.
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Google and Government
The New York Times thinks that maybe the federal government should have some sort of oversight over Google’s algorithm. Which gave Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan an idea that sounds about as sensible.
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Lance Armstrong, Meet Lance Armstrong
Department of unfortunate editorial/advertising adjacencies, from NYTimes.com:
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The New York Times vs. Pulse
At yesterday’s Apple WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs listed the cool Pulse newsreader first among the iPad apps he praised. I like it too. But All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher is reporting that the New York Times (which recently published an upbeat story about Pulse) successfully lobbied Apple to yank Pulse from the App Store shortly after its keynote kudos. The Times contends that Pulse’s use of Times newsfeeds and framed NYTimes.com content violates their terms of service.
It’s unclear what damage is being done to the Times: Its RSS feeds provide summaries only, so you use Pulse to read the newspaper’s stories without visiting the Times site and being exposed to the advertising it carries. You gotta think that it’s Times lawyers, not Times journalists, who think that Pulse is a problem rather than a source of new readers.
Here’s hoping that the kerfuffle doesn’t keep Pulse out of the App Store for long. Yanking the Times from the default feeds would be one solution. The Times reconsidering its complaint would be a better one.
[UPDATE: It’s back!]
[UPDATE: The Times is unhappy that it’s back!]