Category Archives: Just being me

iPad – great marketing trumps great technology every time

Posted on by

It’s been called everything from the “second coming of pod” through to the Jesus Tablet but finally the iPad arrived (well in video anyway) last night with all the usual Steve Jobs fanfare and hyperbole.

This has got to have been the most hyped piece of technology in recent years. Back in September I posted an article from AppleInsider saying that “despite the fact that no one has seen it, a new survey says that 21 percent of buyers are interested in purchasing an Apple tablet device” and it seems they were spot on.

At the launch even yesterday comments ranged from the typical Apple lovers superlatives through to “it’s just an iPhone with a big screen”. Clearly both points of view are wrong and based on little actual data or experience so here’ what we know

Hardware

  • Apple A4 1GHz chipset (…. wow Apple are now in the chip business !!)
  • 9.7in LED backlit 1024 x 768 pixel, multi-touch display
  • Dimensions of  – 242.8 x 189.7 x 13.4mm and weighing about 700g
  • WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and an optional 3G add on
  • 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities
  • “Up to” 10 hours battery life, one month on standby
  • Accelerometer, digital compass, speaker, mic, dock connector, 3.5mm jack

Software

  • Modified variation of the iPhone OS and “almost all” iPhone apps compatible with the iPad
  • Contacts, email, music, video and photo iTunes synchronisation
  • HD capable (720p) video playback
  • New iBook (eBook) store  with publishers like Simon and Schuster, Penguin etc already signed up
  • iWorks productivity software available at an additional cost of $9.99 with word processing, spreadsheet and powerpoint functionality

… and most importantly it costs $499 (£310) for the entry level 16GB model without 3G, $599 for 32Gb and $699 for 64GB with a 3G facility costing an additional $130 extra – NOTE that it will use SIM Unlocked but use a mini SIM (how many of you have one of those)

As the FT put it “Arriving with few new content deals despite months of heavy hype, the half-inch thick gadget, which looks like a giant iPhone, met with mixed reviews”. Hardly a revolution ??

Trustedreviews.com went a bit further saying “For a product so massively hyped I think it is fair to say Apple certainly hasn’t managed the Wow Factor like it did with the launch of the original iPhone. The iPad is certainly a competent product, but one that with its strong iPhone roots lies more closely to smartbooks than netbooks and keeps in place the typical fenced gate Apple likes to enforce about how its customers use its products.”

In fact, most analysts have focussed on the negatives – particularly the Guardian however to do this is missing the point. A colleague of mine once told an audience of CIOs and technology leaders that great marketing trumps great technology every time …. and he was right !

The power of Apples brand ??

Posted on by

One-fifth of buyers interested in Apple’s unseen tablet.

According to AppleInsider –  in a survey of more than 3000 people (presumably all Apple owners ??), over a fifth said they were interested in Apple’s long-rumored tablet device. That’s more than the 9 percent that said they were interested in the original iPhone back in April 2007.

The survey also assumed that the product would be priced between $500 and $700 for its question.

So something no-one has seen, with dimensions and functionality that no one can describe, is wanted by over 20% of potential buyers !! I bow to the friend how told me that great marketing trumps great technology every time – he was so right

Spotify for iPhone – it had to come but …

Posted on by

…. will it be crippled

Spotify have confirmed their iPhone application and a short video demo is sitting on my favourite trusted resource TrustedReviews.

With offine modes, sharing facility (with other Spotify users) and multi device sync this looks a really interesting development in the current streaming vs downloading debate. It also now creates a reason for you to pay for the premium spotify service as the iPhone app will only be available to premium subscribers.

However the big issue here is whether those nice folks at Cupertino will certify it and more importantly ever allow it to run over HSDPA/3G connections. What ??  Simply protecting their iTunes franchise in the face of competition from the streaming market ?? Surely not  ??

Lets wait and see.

My favourite free apps

Posted on by

As the world of free applications continues to grow almost exponentially, I’m often asked what’s the best “free stuff” you can load up on a spanking new laptop. Well, as always, there’s no definitive list of what’s best because “best” is all down to personal opinion and preference. Well, not being one to sit on the fence, here’s a list of free stuff that sits on some of my machines

Spotify – I’ve blogged on this just about anywhere I can – if you’re into music you must have Spotify which is free so long as you’re happy to put up with a few adverts. Quite simply the best quality music  streaming out there and simplicity itself

Mozilla Thunderbird – remarkably there are people out that that hate both Microsoft (so no Outlook) and Google (so no Gmail) – go figure. Anyway, if you fall into that camp then take a look a Thunderbird. Its had a checkered past but now seems to have a new lease of life with powerful tools and extensions from the Mozilla family

OpenOffice – another one for the anti MS/Google brigade but actually its a really powefull (and MS compatible) suite of office applications.

MediaCoder – a superb video encoding and transcoding application with specific solutions for all the popular device types that can be downloaded as separate modules. ave to be everywhere at once, and are happy to be signed in automatically by a 3rd party app, then this is for you.

Paint.Net / Inkscape – excellent Photoshop and Illustrator clones. They may not have all the features of their grown up cousins but they’re freeeeeeeee

Comodo AV/Firewall – the Comodo Internet Security suite was recommended to me by a colleague and it knocks the free competition as well as the more established brands for six. Simple to set up, ad free and low performance overhead.

Picassa – even the anti Google fraternity have to give Picassa a go. Simple way to organise, share and edit your photos

Slingplayer – I know its not exactly “free” because you need a slingbox back at home but the player is a fee download. Full control of my SKY+ and other attached media devices from anywhere in the world with a broadband connection – don’t leave home without it.

I’ll add more as I remember but that’ll do for starters

Anyone wanna recommend some others – go for it

New iPhone – big disappointment

Posted on by

Am I the only one who was disappointed by Apples iPhone announcement yesterday ??

Look – don’t get me wrong – I really want to love the iPhone. It’s cool, its sexy, its hip – it’s got an app store with some really good stuff but why does it have to be such a crap phone. For months now I’ve been wanting to ditch my old Windows Mobile device but every time I asked whether the iPhone did something the answer was always “no” to even some of the most basic stuff. No cut and paste!!  No sms forwarding !! No MMS!! No video!! No Voice-dial (kind of important for the Bluetooth brigade who want to stay legal when driving)  etc etc  …. Even the lowest cost HTC winmo devices could do that

So I waited with bated breath for the new iPhone announcement. Surely not only would all those deficiencies that Apple lovers happily overlook be rectified but we’d also see a new ground breaking device taking smart phones to the next level and throwing down the gauntlet to Google’s Android upstart.

Well actually no. What we got was the iPhone 3G S (…a sort of iPhone 3G with go faster stripes)

  • something that’s a bit faster than something that went so slowly Apple had to put disclaimers on their TV ads
  • something that has a bit more battery life than something that could barely last a day in average use
  • and loads of so called “new features” like Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS* and a landscape keyboard alongside a new camera (that’s still underpowered compared to market norms),  voice command (yep seen that before), a compass app (woohoo) etc

So no new form factor, no new call handling, no improved screen resolution (it stays at  320 x 480 pixels), no front mounted camera for video calls, no expansion slots or removable battery, no camera flash.

Saying all that, now that it’s the phone it should have been when it was launched, it’s actually quite an attractive proposition ….. until Google put android on some new hardware (the impending Samsung i7500 springs to mind) and slap down a new challenge.

Suddenly the mobile market is getting interesting again…. so what will I buy ?

No Kindle required – Google to sell eBooks

Posted on by

According to the New York Times, ” Google signaled its intent to introduce a program by that would enable publishers to sell digital versions of their newest books direct to consumers…. through Google”.

This was the big news at this years BookExpo convention in New York and seems to have been warmly received by publishers who have been concerned by Amazons pricing and revenue share policies. Google have said that they will leave pricing to the publishers in as much as the publishers will be able to set a list price for a publication, however Google will set the price paid by consumers through the e-Book program.

Now to be fair, we’ve heard this stuff before from Google however Tom Turvey, director of strategic partnerships at Google, used the phrase: “This time we mean it.”

More importantly, this is apparently going to be a device agnostic initiative as Google’s program would allow consumers to read books on any device with Internet access, including mobile phones, rather than being limited to dedicated reading devices like the Amazon Kindle. “We don’t believe that having a silo or a proprietary system is the way that e-books will go,” continued Mr Turvey.

This could get intertesting – watch this space

Spotify on Google Android …..

Posted on by

… now that might just be a buying decision

You all know how much I love spotify – well in all the announcements about the slew of new android phones we’re gonna see this year, this little nugget of information seems to have passed almost unnoticed.

Thanks to the nice guys over at TrustedReviews.com we have details of an early spotify app for Android. Building on their propose iPhone app (that still has the Apple boys in a bit of a lather) this one has something even more interesting under the hood – the promise of an offline mode where tracks can be stored for later listening.

Suddenly, android looks even more attractive

…. of scarcity and abundance (and the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince)

Posted on by

You’ll remember that Prince famously gave away his last album as a cover mount with the Mail On Sunday and, whilst the music bigwigs threw their hands up in horror, a few of us contemplated that the purple one really understood the new economics of scarcity and abundance – particularly after seeing him live.

Last week Prince announced that his 3 new albums – LOtUSFLOW3R, MPLSoUND and Elixer – will be sold as a triple disc set and will probably retail for less than £10 in the UK. Value indeed (even though he only sings on the first two). However consider this … according to the Guardian, Princes other release in 2009 will be … “21 Nights :The Prince Opus, comprising a limited edition book and iPod, has been announced with a price-tag of £1,500″.

Now £1,500 should buy you a one hell of a book and indeed the report claims “its a massive 280 pages, almost two feet wide, and weighing 17kg”. The book documents Prince’s 21-night stand at the O2 arena in 2007, interspersed with lyrics, poetry and photographs by Randee St Nicholas. A engraved iPod, pre-loaded with Prince’s Indigo Nights live album and a special 40 minute film “made by Prince”, documenting the O2 residency is also included in the package. Only 950 sets will be made available and one lucky “buyer” will win a flight to LA for a private Prince gig.

That’s a smell over £1.4m just on the “special offer” and before any album sales

…. of scarcity and abundance or what ?