April 14, 2006
Ultramobile PCs are certainly not iPod killers although ithey are among the smallest devices capable of running iTunes. With a UMPC, you should be able to take all your tracks purchased at the iTunes Music Store and play away with a semi-mobile form factor. The main difference is licensing. While tracks purchased at the iTMS can be transferred to an unlimited number of iPods (luckily for Karl Lagerfeld), the UMPC would have to count as one of the five computers on which you're allowed to authorize iTMS downloads.
As iPod popularity has exploded, though, third parties (and to some extent, Apple) are now stretching its role from digital spoke to digital hub. Belkin, Logitech and others have enabled it to transfer its music across a house. And now, with video output, DLO, Xitel and others are creating living room docks that increasingly sophisticated interfaces. I haven't seen anything yet that can turn the iPod into a DVR, but that seems to be a logical jump from the many video editing packages from Pinnacle, Intervideo and others out now that can export movies to the new "small screen."
So, forget the Mac mini. Apple's leading media center fits in your pocket, and is a lot cheaper and easier to use than the VIIV avant garde from Microsoft's customers.
Sony Ericsson continues to turn itself around. That's great news for the entire North American handset market as it shows that consumers are willing to embrace more media-rich (and I don't mean in just the carrier-fed J2ME/Brew way), functional handsets that have been increasingly well-designed. And take note, Nokia, they're doing it without having to create a complex retail infrastructure. Despite criticism that the Walkman brand has lost its luster, those branded music phones have been selling well. Perhaps the wireless world will boost the brand instead of leveraging it.
At CTIA, I was impressed by the M600 — a keypad-based handset that combines two keys on each button, similar in appearance to handsets such as RIM's Blackberry 7100 series. However, unlike a similar offering from Samsung, it actually enables you to specify which key is pressed rather than licensing RIM's SureType predictive text system. While many users say SureType works well, I would still have a hard time placing my trust in it. The M600 keyboard seems to be an improvement over the flimsy flip of the P910.
Text input is starting to get better. In addition to these SureType-based systems, offerings from LG and others will finally use Digit Wireless's Fastap. I was briefed by Digit Wireless many years ago and always thought it was a very clever system, although perhaps not suitable for extended text input.The M600 may be the sleekest full-featured QWERTY smartphone in the market when it hits the States.
Between this and Sony's Bravia success, Sony looks like it's starting to address some of its many challenges. Of course, much hinges on the PlayStation 3's reception.
Reg Hardware breaks news of a T-Mobile Sidekick-inspired high-resolution, low-cost, fully loaded UMPC that Averatec plas to offer in the fall. Well, it won't be all those things at the same time, but that's ok. A $600 price point would go a long way toward helping consumers overlook the lack of a killer application for this platform.
The concept drawings Averatec's offering has a dedicated keyboard, which is generally good. However, I don't think the typing while standing usage scenario will prove very popular. Flat surfaces are plentiful, and having to type more than a sentence of two on a device as heavy as the UMPC s just palnful. I learned that a while back.
In other news, the Samsung Q1 bundle that will go for about $1,400 in Korea — with its wrap case that includes a detached keyboard — brings back memories of a Newton 2000/2100 package that appeared near the end of the line for Apple's uber-PDA.
…may not be parted soon enough at "only" $399 per month. C'mon, guys, you don't even take the Centurion Card? Looking at the features page illustration, I can just picture the direction to the graphic artist/stock photo scrounger. "I need something that says 'pompous.'"
Still, this isn't so different in spirit from what Sony tried with Qualia and Nokia is still trying with Vertu. On the other hand, Dell sold out of its $10,000 XPS Renegades. Yep, they sure needed Alienware to crack flashy high-end systems.
April 10, 2006
Charles Cooper at CNet, after an abbreviated history of Apple’s Windows outreach efforts that is similar to one I detailed a few months ago, writes that Boot Camp is a gimmick. I join him in decrying Wall Street’s overreaction. However, he then seems to validate Apple’s reasoning, that is, that Boot Camp is essentially a bridge to allow tire-kickers to run Windows apps or at least postpone painful data conversion. That sounds like something that has real value, not a gimmick.
My colleague Steve Baker also points out that not everyone — and certainly not every Mac user — has a full copy of Windows XP lying around. Macs make for pretty expensive PCs especially after the $200 Microsoft tithe. He argues that Boot Camp will appeal to the lunatic fringe of Apple zealots that can’t stand the notion of buying PCs, and that perhaps that’s how Apple will expand market share. Read the rest of this entry »
Ever get the feeling that the Web moves two step forward and one step back? Blogs are the new personal home pages, RSS is the new push, and now Webaroo is the new Freeloader, one of the first "offline browsers" from the days before flat-rate Internet. Webaroo offers to suck down gigabytes of the Web for perusal offline. I could see some usefulness for this. It even works on PDAs via sideloading, although it seems less compelling than even Freeloader was back in the day. Still, it may be a decent way to spur hard disk upgrades.
April 7, 2006
Apparently, there were two CTIAs that happened this week — the expo that I attended and the conferences that I did not. At the conferences, apparently, there was much discussion about content, but the discussions on the show floors focused more on continuing to roll out 3G networks, which is key to solving any content issues.
The wireless world doesn't need content or interactive services. There's more than anyone could ever consume on the Web and it's growing by the hour. If the carriers can figure out how to optimize delivery of it, they'll never hurt for demand. Related to this is a focus on personal content that companies are starting to tap into, with promising offerings from Motorola, Sling Media, Avvenu and others. Read the rest of this entry »
April 6, 2006
At CTIA, Palm was handing out T-shirts celebrating its tenth anniversary that read "Ten years. One vision." But an "anniversary" connotes too much monogamy for Palm, which has had more of a polyamorous past — independent startup, US Robotics ownership, 3Com ownership, independent company (again), PalmOne (after merging with Handsprng), and Palm, Inc. one more time.
Ten years. One vision. Six corporate identities.
Palm executives had their sense of humor intact about the company's storied past as well, noting that it has received presents from its printing company for all the changes to its letterhead over the years.
Yesterday, Apple announced and released the public beta of Boot Camp, a boot manager and set of drivers that enable Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP (Vista s not yet supported). I'll discuss the trade-off between dual-booting and virtualization another time, but one advantage of enabling XP to run natively on Apple hardware is that Windows games will be able to utilize accelerated graphics hardware. In other words, Mac owners will be able to play most PC games at native Windows speeds.
Apple's stance is that what is good for the Mac is good for Mac developers, and the company has an interesting theory that this capability will show game developers just how many Mac gamers are out there. But I still don't think that that will help the fundamental economics of the Mac game market. The translators and publishers of titles that appear first on Windows like Aspyr Media and MacPlay and are going to feel some at least some short-term pain, pain that could be prolonged if Microsoft continues stepping up efforts to evangelize Windows gaming.
April 3, 2006
CNN.com has the latest ringside reports from Apple Corps vs. Apple Computer, wherein the Beatles’ music label wants the computer company to stop using the latter’s logo on iTunes. Apple Computer’s attorney notes that “even a moron in a hurry” could tell the difference between iTunes and a music label.
Frankly, I don’t see Apple Corps’ photographic logo as all that similar to the more abstract Apple Computer’s. How many ways can one depict the fabled fruit? Nevertheless, while contract law in the UK may differ from how it is here and I am certainly not a lawyer, I think this comes down to whether the agreement specified whether Apple cannot sell the specific physical media cited, e.g., CDs and cassettes, or more generalized terms of “songs” or “albums.” Arguing that digital downloads are “the new CDs” doesn’t cut it.
At least now the world knows why Apple doesn’t offer physical CDs as an alternative on the iTunes Music Store — something that competitors offer.
