Hardware

There’s a certain amount of cleverness in rotating the Zune image and, as far as I know, all that credit should go to MacDailyNews. Funny image aside it turns out that the Zune (no surprise here) isn’t selling too well. What’s the prescription for a slow selling product? Price cuts and advertising. Not that price cuts and advertising will work, just that that is what you try to do if you’re falling farther and farther behind in the mp3 player marketplace.

The reality is that Microsoft is trying to make an iPod killer when the iPod is already dead. The iPhone stands over the bloody corpse of the iPod like some weird Viking on a Molly Hatchet album cover. So Microsoft is trying to beat something already beaten with price cuts and advertising. That is like trying to beat papyrus with cave wall writing when APple has already come out with the printing press. To put it another way: Microsoft is being reactive in an already dead market.

But, sure, Microsoft could come out with an iPhone killer. Microsoft could make Windows mobile… more...

The iPhone is a triumph of design and engineering. The thing is practically all screen and you can use one almost as soon as you pick it up. Fantastic device all around but even more fantastic when compared to the competition. That doesn’t mean the iPhone can’t get better, there are improvements that can be made. The first improvement most people would name is cut and paste. But that is just a programatic thing, if you wondering where the iPhone can really improve you have to look ahead to new technology.

Today’s tech that could help the iPhone down the road? Fuel Cells for mobile electronics. Fuel cells are interesting because they work like batterie as far as the device is concerned but, unlike batteries, fuel cells actually devour the reactant. So if you replace the reactant you’ve got a newly powered fuel cell. Most of us are familiar with fuel cells for large devices but there isn’t a good reason why fuel cells can’t be used for tiny electronics. That is just what my FC is trying to do with FuelCellSticker technology. These impossibly thin stickers generate almost a watt of power @ half a volt. The… more...

In case you haven’t heard (and you might not of, this is a new Blackberry not a new iPhone) the Blackberry Storm is coming out this week on November 21st. You’re going to be hearing a lot about the new Storm and how it compares to the iPhone. There will be useful lists which discuss each and every little difference in the spec sheets that will try and make it seem as though people are choosing between the iPhone and Bold as though they were trying to pick stocks. This stock has a trailing PE ration of.....

Don’t believe it for a second. The differences between an iPhone and a Bold, for the vast majority of consumers, comes down to the network. Or more precisely, the decision comes down to “I am friggin stuck at Verizon, what phone do they have that is most like the iPhone?” I come to this conclusion by a simple study: On the refrigerator there is a bit of direct mail announcing the Bold and the get in on date. I’ve got an iPhone so I don’t need the reminder. The wife is tied to Verizon but… more...

If you look through the specs of the HTC Fuze you’ll see a lot of overlap with the iPhone. Touch screen, tri band communications, decent looks. The Fuze has some features the iPhone lacks: slide out keyboard, ability to edit Microsoft documents 3.2 megapixel camera and a few others. The iPhone one spec sheet advantage: $100 cheaper (and with the Fuze you have to use a coupon). Fro the spec sheets it seems like it would be a fair battle between the two cell phones with a 50/50 split between AT&T users (like the iPhone the Fuze is AT&T only). But it won’t be a fair fight and you cna already tell that the Fuze is going nowhere.

How can you tell?
First: The hype.
You haven’t heard anyone clamoring for the Fuze and the only people that seem mildly excited by the thing are those that generate press releases.

Second: it runs Windows Mobile
Ah, the achilles heal of the Fuze. Windows Mobile is being rejected for both OS X Mobile and the RIMM OS. and both of those are dominated by Symbian… more...

In the olden days the big battle was Mac or PC now it seems like the tech culture wars are all about the iPhone versus the Blackberry. Todays volley in the never ending battle? The iPhone fails much less than the Blackberry. We’re not talking just a little less but around half as much. That’s according to a study by SquareTrade which concluded that the iPhone failed at a rate of 5.6% and the Balckberry failed at a rate of 11.2%. Both numbers were better than the Treo which clocked in with a cool 16.2% failure rate which may be why no one seems to want a Treo.

Now you want to know why does the iPhone go bad at even a 1 in 20 rate? The answer is your bumble prone fingers. Yep, the most likely cause of iPhone failure is accident. Dropping the thing, seeing how far it will skip across the glass like surface of the pond outside your cabin door, the all over beer bath etc. So if you buy a great case you shouldn’t have much trouble.

How does SquareTrade get this data? SquareTrade sells… more...

Apple Matters dimmest writer (Chris Seibold) has posted a bit about lessons Apple learned from not turning the original Mac into a dominant computing platform. According to the dullard the original Mac was fantastic, leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, but Apple’s slow response to changes consumers wanted led to the marginalization of the machine. Here’s an example of Chris’ reasoning:

The last thing to note about the original Mac was the failure to be responsive to the market. Macs cost twice as much as a PC but Apple never seemed to notice. When the company should’ve been trying to drive adoption the company chose to focus on driving profits in a big way apparently realizing too late that early adoption could drive later profits. You’ll note the iPhone is very competitively priced.

Okay, so the guy is a little slow. Maybe he can pick it up in the conclusion:

The answer of why Apple is being so flexible with the iPhone when the company hasn’t been flexible before is obvious. Apple learned a lot from the Mac. Apple learned that being way ahead in technology is great but that… more...

That’s a video of an obviously jailbroken iPhone being used with a nifty keyboard. Is this the shape of things to come? A third party iPhone keyboard add on? Would you buy it?

via:9to5Mac

The Blackberry Bold is finally here. And in the US you can only get it at AT&T. The specs match up with the iPhone fairly well with the notable exception of the price: The Bold will set you back an extra benjamin with a coupon. Without the coupon (onine only) the bold retails for $399. Memo to RIM, the new price to match is $199 expensive phones are too 2007ish.

Great, with that out of the way it is time to take a look at what other folks are saying about the long awaited Blackberry. First stop: 13 Good Reasons to Dump Your iPhone for BlackBerry Bold Read the whole thing for all thirteen points but here is the conclusion:

Sorry Mr. Jobs, please don’t revoke my Mac Club Card, but the iPod touch with a mediocre phone = an iPhone that just isn’t eve close to the functionality of the Blackberry Bold. If you want a business communications handset with excellent multimedia internet capability, GPS, WiFi and a 2MP video camera, get a BlackBerry Bold.

Interesting.… more...

Some people really get into the hardware of the iPhone. They worry whether or not Intel or Samsung makes the next chip in the iPhone (hint: it won’t be Intel’s atom). The rest of us, the vast majority of iPhoners, just don’t care. Give us a responsive snappy phone and it could be powered by a Dorito.

For those that really do care, the passionate three of you out there, there is speculation that Apple might make the next iPhone chip themselves. The evidence? The acquisition of PA Semi and the hiring of Mark Papermaster from IBM. But don’t get carried away, the moves might nor have anything to do with the iPhone, they might be moves to boot Intel from Macs or something altogether different. At this point only Apple knows the company’s long term plans and the company isn’t telling.

via: Forbes

Here’s something you didn’t know: The iPhone sucks. It sucks because it is too slow and the reason it is too slow is because of the ARM processor powering the thing. All this from two Intel executives.  Shane Wall (VP mobility group) said “Any sort of application that requires any horse power at all and the iPhone struggles” Which was backed up by Pankaj Kedia (Directory of ecosystems) who added “The shortcomings of the iPhone have come from ARM” The two were happy to extend their criticisms to any phone powered by an ARM chip.

Clearly, Intel thinks ARM is a worthless, market throttling chip. Fair enough since the company competes against ARM but yI didn’t see any Intel powered phone with super speedy web browsing on Intel’s website. Maybe they are worried about ARM coming up with an Intel competitor on people chucking their laptops to go all iPhone all the time. Besides, I’ve never seen a better web browsing implementation of a mobile device. Whatever the reason Intel is already running away from the comments calling the swipes ”inappropriate”

Perhaps the Intel guys… more...