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Microsoft Surface: First Thoughts

June 18, 2012 20:00:26.637

I've been watching this (the live stream from the MS announcement for Surface). First thoughts:

  • The case is nice, but not 10 minutes of steamy love affair nice
  • A stylus? Let me check the calendar... nope, not 1999
  • Metro. Let me gag. Repeatedly. That has to be the ugliest UI ever, and I'm including the first few versions of Squeak in that comparison....
  • No pricing at this time, or launch dates. I take these as bad signs - MS is back to VaportWare (tm)!

I don't think I'll be rushing out to replace my iPad. Having said that, if this comes out relatively soon, it could be the final nail for RIM - Windows Phones and Surface could take the professional space completely away from them.

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posted by James Robertson

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When in Doubt, Reset to Factory Settings

May 30, 2012 10:18:04.901

We bought a second AppleTV a little while ago - my wife wanted one set to her account, and the pro=ice is certainly right for that sort of thing. However, the thing had issues right from the start. Whenever we would try to watch anything (even the settings screens), the TV would lose the signal from it every minute or so for a couple of seconds. I was pretty sure that it was a hardware issue, but went ahead and did a factory reset anyway. Lo and behold, the thing updated itself, reset, and now it seems to be working fine. We'll have to see if the problem resurfaces, but right now, it looks good. Weird problem....

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posted by James Robertson

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So Much For Convergence

April 16, 2012 13:31:09.462

Never mind the legal hassles Apple is having in Australia over the 4 G thing - the larger issue is that 4G networks around the world are not converging on a standard:

In its grievance, the ACCC has contended that labeling the tablet "iPad Wi-Fi + 4G" in Australia is misleading since the device's flavor of 4G doesn't work in the country. Australia does offer 4G service through its Telstra carrier. But that service operates under an 1800MHz frequency band, according to ZDNet Australia, while the iPad requires 700MHz or 2100MHz frequencies for 4G. Hence, the two are incompatible, leaving Australian 4G iPad buyers stuck at 3G.

There was some hope that going to 4G would "fix" the international standards problem, but apparently not...

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posted by James Robertson

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Massive Storage

March 20, 2012 21:33:41.000

This is amazing:

The technology used to achieve the benchmark, which Seagate said it would introduce in products later this decade, will also lead to the production of 3.5-inch hard drives with up to 60TB of capacity.

I'm trying to figure out how cloud based backup (heck, any backup) strategy works with that. With that much space, I'd never worry about how much space a VM took up again....

posted by James Robertson

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Google Plus Ate My iPhone

March 7, 2012 13:00:00.000

Last week, my phone (an iPhone 4) started losing charge rapidly - it would go from fulll to red within 2 hours, just sitting idle on my desk. It was also warm to the touch, indicating that background jobs were obviously chewing up the CPU and battery. But what?

As it happens, I have lots of things providing me notifications - facebook, Twitter, Drudge, you name it. I started turning notifications off, but that wasn't helping. I finally sat back and replayed when this started happening, and came up with it: a friend used the Google "hangout" feature earlier in the week, and I responded to it. Since then, the problem was rampant. I turned off all notifications for Google Plus, and bam - problem solved.

I'm not sure what Google did wrong, but it sure was using up my phone's useful life. I'd be curious to know whether or not anyone else has seen this....

posted by James Robertson

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The Fading Blackberry

February 25, 2012 18:33:36.023

This isn't good news for RIM:

In response to a user who asked about a possible Netflix app for the BlackBerry Playbook tablet, Netflix's Twitter support account replied that the company has no current plans to support BlackBerry devices, including the Playbook.

Most people don't want two phones/tablets (one for work, one for personal use) - they want one. Given that, this kind of thing makes the path in front of RIM pretty darn hard to thread....

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posted by James Robertson

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We Love Our Mobile Devices

October 13, 2011 7:21:22.146

We love them so much that they now outnumber us:

That's only going to rise - lots of people will end up with a phone, a tablet, and maybe a separate e-reader. This has implications for anyone who thinks we can "easily" reduce power usage as well...

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posted by James Robertson

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iPhones for All?

October 4, 2011 9:52:10.000

Sprint just got into the iPhone game:

For Sprint, the iPhone could be its savior, or its doom. The company has arranged to buy at least 30.5 million iPhones over the next four years, a deal worth around $20 billion today, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Here's where I'm confused though:

  • ATT "4G" is one variant of LTE
  • Verizon "4G" is another (not necessarily compatible with ATT) variant of LTE
  • Sprint "4G" is WiMax

Meanwhile, the 3G story is CDMA (Verizon, Sprint) and GSM (ATT). So... does Apple wait on 4G, or start slapping a huge number of radios in the phones (or have multiple SKUs, which they hate)? This doesn't give consumers as much choice as it sounds like, either - given the disparate networks in play, your phone is probably a brick if you decide to switch vendors....

posted by James Robertson

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The Real Tablet Fight

September 30, 2011 9:38:35.830

Gordon Weakliem nails it:

That’s the difference I see people missing all the time. They’re chattering about how Google might benefit, how this strengthens the Android platform. They’re missing the point. Apple and Amazon are increasingly in the content business, bringing a real stream of cash off of content, and particularly for Amazon, the hardware is just a necessary tool. They care about it the same way retailers care about their store because a good customer experience is critical if you want customers to spend money. But in the end, what they want is for you to use their device to spend money . People were misled thinking that Amazon was taking on the booksellers. Borders was just collateral damage.

What makes the iPad - and now the Fire - compelling, is the content, and the ease with which you get content onto the device. Amazon gets that, just as Apple does. The others? Not so much.

I was speaking to my daughter about this yesterday. She likes her Android phone, but really, really hates the work she has to go through to get music on it. The specs are way less relevant than the apps and interfaces are.

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posted by James Robertson

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Weird iPad Fix

September 28, 2011 21:14:41.165

My daughter came home after a long Greyhound trip, complaining that her iPad didn't play sound through the headphones. On the off chance that I'd find something simple, I Googled - and it turned out that this thread gave me a solution. My guess? Some app left sound in a bad state, and Skype, when starting up, resets the bad state.

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posted by James Robertson

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