August 10, 2006
The Wireless Report asks whether advanced music phones will ever be able to compete with the iPod and comes up skeptical owing to the product’s extensive ecosystem. I’m more bullish on such products. Yes, we’re in the early days but we’ve already seen great strides forward and even Apple concedes that music phones are bound to improve, hence the empty admission that they’re “not doing nothing” in the space.
Something I haven’t seen much coverage about regarding the iPod is that, despite its increasing functionality, media support and vast range of accessories that have developed over the years, Apple has not opened it up to developers the way Palm did with the original Pilot. Want to develop a new game for the iPod? You can’t. One could argue that a platform or API didn’t really save the PDA in the end, but it continues to be important in the realm of smartphones, which could be the iPod’s future and is certainly one direction for portable digital music in general.
August 9, 2006
Sony recently introduced Mylo (My Life Online), a device with a resurrected name that resembles its PSP (but is actually much smaller) and boasts an integrated slide-up keyboard. Early coverage labelled it an instant messaging appliance, perhaps a higher-end version of the Wi-Fi-enabled K-Byte Zip-It, but it really is more of a mobile Internet appliance akin to the larger but comparably priced Nokia 770, which Nokia unfortunately sometimes treats like an open-source science project.
Two main differences are that the 770 has a high-resolution screen better suited to Web browsing and Bluetooth. The absence of Bluetooth in Mylo is a quandary; I’d prioritize it more highly than Wi-Fi. If Sony is concerned about the difficulty of pairing or the availability of DUN-capable phones among young hipsters, it should recognize that they can already get a capable Bluetooth-enabled handset (and headset) for less than the Mylo.
In any case, like the 770, the Mylo has the de rigeur music and photo capabilities as well as an integrated Web browser. Mylo reportedly uses Trolltech’s QTopia operating environment; let’s hope its browser is better than the PSPs and that its keyboard is better than the Vaio UX’s. Unlike the 770, it includes a Skype client and hotspot directory, the latter of which it wouldn’t need (as much) if it had Bluetooth.
May 27, 2006
Samsung's Q1 microsite marks the first time that the rubber has hit the road in terms of UMPC marketing — no vague concept videos here. On a macro level, the phrase "digital freedom" has a solid ring. The site does the best job to date of articulating the form factor's benefits including functionality such as "instant entertainment" (being able to watch videos and photos without having to boot XP) and a microphone that should enable VoIP with appropriate Wi-Fi availability.
On the other hand, "convergence" as a marketing term doesn't represent real benefit to consumers per se and the demonstration of the Q1's ability to switch orientations to accept notes like a Tablet PC features the drawing of a funny face. That doesn't make a strong case for plunking down $1100 and may be the most blatant demonstration of frivolous technology functionality since the tongue-in-cheek Saturday Night Live Macintosh Post-It Note parody.
April 30, 2006
Earlier this week, Yahoo! acquired most of the assets of Meedio, one of a handful of Windows Media Center-like software products that had its roots in open-source. The other major Windows-based products are from SageTV and Media Center predecessor SnapStream, with Linux offerings MythTV and Freevo still options for the open source crowd. Whereas Medio had become a commercial product, Yahoo! will give away its rebranded version Yahoo Go!.
Following last year's acquisition of Konfabulator technology — now called Yahoo! Widgets, Yahoo! now has platforms in place for each of the major "three screens" of TV, PC and mobile phone. However, even though Yahoo!'s acquisition strategy has created a predictably disjointed family of products, the diversity of the products demonstrates the tremendous differences in context that media companies will face developing a three-screen strategy.
In these times when Google has been aggressively adding many sites that rival Yahoo!'s, Meedio's acquisition provides fresh fuel for the old rumor that Google would acquire TiVo. Unlike Meedio, which is still simply Windows software, TiVo has actual eyeballs in front of the glass it commands, and Google could afford the kind of generosity that would eliminate its odious monthly fee, boosting TiVo's popularity. EPIC may not be far away.
April 20, 2006
I’ve had a lot to say about mobile navigation this week. First came a presentation on the state of the market given to institutional investors. Also, my Engadget column this week focused on fusing portable video with GPS devices. Last year, I’d had discussions with one portable video device manufacturer planning to do just that, but it seems those plans haven’t yet come to fruition.
However, a reader pointed me to software for the TomTom Go that will enable it to function as a video player. Developing this should be pretty trivial as
TomTom’s portable navigation software and devices are based on Windows Mobile.
Of course, one reason many eyes are on this space is because of Sony’s entry with the Navu-U. The Navu-U a great product… for 2004. I haven’t found it particuarly easier to use than, say, a TomTom Go (although the text may be more legible) and the icons that lacked labels were, of course, confusing. Sony touts its front-firing speakers, but I’ve never heard anyone complain about GPS directions being hard to hear. Sony should follow through on concept designs that would add GPS to the PSP. UMD would make it easy to update maps and a simple USB connection could link the antenna.
April 18, 2006
No two MVNOs seem to be going more directly head-to-head than Helio – the JV between EarthLink and Korea's SK Telecom — and Amp'd Mobile, Verizon Wlreless's hipper half. I suppose CDMA is the official network infrastructure of youth. Whereas Amp'd seems to be focused more on entertainment, though (albeit "cooler" entertainment), Helio CEO (and EarthLink co-founder) Sky Dayton offers a cool head when it comes to cramming convergence down acolytes' handsets in another great Engadget interview. On digital photography:
We’re not going to integrate technology just for the sake of technology, like putting a ten megapixel camera on a phone. We could do that — we know where to get ‘em, you know — but it’s a little bit of a freak show as a handset, right? I mean it’s not a very good phone, it’s huge and it’s not really a very good camera. If you want ten megapixels, go get a D50, you know; that’s a great camera.
April 14, 2006
With all the intrigue surrounding its former executives and their cars, I’ve been surprised to see no coverage regarding Gizmondo’s Web site being down for weeks. I fear this may be the end for what one of the few reviews I read described as the taco-shaped portable console. While the little handheld that couldn’t followed in the footsteps of Tapwave, another handheld gaming failure based on a PDA operating system, I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before some of Gizmondo’s unique features such as WAN and GPS data support appear in products from more established companies.
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.
