Archive for 2010
Google Nexus S Coming: There Is In Fact A Demand!
Think back to some of the earlier stages of the Android operating system. Back when it even possibly being a competitor to Apple’s dominant iOS mobile software was just a fairytale. There was a phone called the Google Nexus 1 which became Google’s first stride into the hardware business. It’s main purpose was to give every other Android phone on the market a kick in the pants (or wherever you would kick a phone) to get to work and actually try to compete with the iPhone. It did an incredible job at doing that as we saw newer Android phones like the Droid series, Samsung, and many others. And once that job was done, the legendary Google Nexus 1, which had made headlines, was quietly discontinued and lost out of memory. Then somewhere in the blogosphere and social media globe, ideas came together asking when will a new generation of the Google Nexus be revived to compete with current Android phones and the current iPhone?
The Google Nexus S was nothing but a rumor at first but now it has official been announced by Google for release. This is a whole new generation of Nexus taking on a whole new set of features. First of all Apps are going to be an even bigger feature for the Nexus S as opposed to when the Nexus 1 was released the Android App Store didn’t have nearly as many applications as it does now. Tens of thousands of new applications and a whole new set of hardware like a higher resolution camera, a front facing camera, gyroscope, and a faster network will make it a sellers market and a consumers paradise.
Another great point to bring into the light about the new Nexus is it will be running the latest and greatest version of Android that has been dubbed Gingerbread. New hardware running much more improved software is always a great match for when you want to showcase some of your latest advancements. Samsung has proven with devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S and Tab that it is no stranger to Android OS and that this new take on the old Nexus phone will be no challenge.
However, the few problems facing this phone are of course the same we’ve seen for most. First is that a great phone like this or the iPhone is always cut short by the carriers. In this case T-Mobile got a hold of one of the possible future Android winner of the year with a 2 year contract for users. They didn’t even let the phone get access to their new and upcoming HSPA+ and 4G networks surprisingly. What better way to advertise your new networks then with a hot new phone. You can of course buy the phone unlocked but then you end up losing another $400 just on the phone. And then of course Samsung didn’t give it the King of Processors either. It retains a 1GHz Hummingbird which most likely will not see the next holiday season after Apple gets an update to it’s current 1GHz A4 Chips.
Now overall this didn’t look to be the revolution we may have wanted but it definitely is something to look forward to come December 16th. A whole new operating system with a new set of hardware to match. Sure the carrier could have been better like Verizon or even AT&T just to get a bit more world coverage through a quad-band connection but at least it’s running on T-Mobiles up and coming network. We still have hope for the carrier but the phone probably has all the hype it’ll need for a while. At least until other Android phones start getting better.
Hey! You Got Projector In My Camcorder!
How many times have you been told this lately? Well, if you are the proud owner of the BenQ DV S11 then you may get this a lot. But if not, then you may seriously want to look into one of these wonderful little pocket camcorders for yourself. Measuring up to be a size quite similar to your household cell phone and the all-famous Flip Mino HD camcorders, this little guy can shoot 1080p video right out of the box. It is fully touchscreen and provides a great LCD for viewing content for later. But one of the biggest tricks up it’s sleeve is the fact that all within this incredibly tiny package of a camcorder they managed to fit a tiny little projector. I actually hesitated to say the work “tiny” because when you turn it on it’s anything but tiny. This built-in projector can display up to 50” of all your prerecorded glory. The days of huddling around a single individual in a hallway or at the kitchen table are over. Now just sit down on the couch with a few of the relatives and whip out your camcorder after a full day of shooting. Dim the lights, find a big, flat, and preferably whitish wall and enjoy the show. You won’t even need to get cables and wiring to hook it up to a TV. Any flat surface will do, as long as it is semi-dark. This camcorder is also hooked up to take awesome looking photographs. You have the options of 5 or 16 MP and the photography is great looking but it still really is much more of a camcorder device due to it’s screen.
So looking at this you may be wondering where could this guy go wrong. Well, the fact that it is all relying on a touch screen and no physical buttons that the screen is going to get just a bit smudgier than usual. Also the camera has no real zoom with that wonderful 1080p lens taking up most of the room along side that projector. You do have a 100x Digital Zoom for video and a 60x for photos but do not be fooled. That is simply a way to get uneducated consumers excited about a Zoom that is like a telescope and will look as clear as one too. What it really does is just stretches out the image 100 times and calls it a zoom. So you lose a good bit of quality from a 5x digital but being it’s 100 it probably wouldn’t be worth it to get your kids soccer game from all the way inside the car. And other then just a few minor setbacks as in people who are used to an autofocus and manual controls can go somewhere else, the camera looks to be holding itself in a very great place right now. The camera is currently available in Hong Kong for $2,399 HKD which comes down to about $300 American. The ETA for one of these showing up in the states is unknown to a lot of people. If you can find a way to get one on the web then you will definitely have to send us the link so we can all get one too. Like I said, you would be a proud owner with one of these.
Mac App Store Looks To Make A Pre-Christmas Appearance
The next gold rush for developers is just about here. First it was the iPhone and iPod Touch. Then it was the even more popular iPad. Now, the Mac is getting back into the action with the opening of the Mac App Store. Developers will now have power and ability beyond what they ever had on the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad could have ever given them. When Steve Jobs announced this store he said it would be native to OS X Lion but we would be getting an earlier release sometime within the next 90 days. Well, it’s just about been 90 days in a few weeks so are we looking at a great Christmas present to all Mac owners or is this another White iPhone mash up?
From the looks of things, Apple is actually a bit ahead of schedule according to a few inside sources. What the sources are saying is that Apple is pushing developers to get their apps ready by today and then hoping to get the Mac App Store launched by the December 13th timeframe. If anything, this would definitely bring in those holiday numbers Apple is famous for during this time of year. It would also raise my wish list to several Mac App Store gift cards.
There are a few skeptic points to this vendetta (and by skeptic points, I mean difficult facts). The biggest one being that the Mac App Store would require, not recommend but require, a new update to Mac users for software and MacRumors has already reported that Mac OS 10.6.6 has been seeded to Apple developers so this may not be our luck for getting those couple thousand perfect gifts that we’ve been looking forward to. But this is the time of holidays and miracles. Maybe it just might happen and we also might see a White iPhone after all.
The Beatles On iTunes: Why Apple May Have It Wrong.
The moment of truth came to all of us at 10:00 AM EST on the Apple website about the big and unforgettable event happening for iTunes. We were all ready for live streaming, 1080p video downloads, and anything else that Apple could surprise us with. The big moment came with everybody refreshing their pages like there was not going to be a tomorrow and that’s when we all saw it in big bold letters across the screen. “The Beatles. Now On iTunes.”
Now what is strange is that many of us have wanted this for years now and now that it is here, well, we just don’t really see the excitement. We saw this coming to be quite frank. And honestly, we were just expecting something a whole lot more exciting then just The Beatles. Yes, just The Beatles. No Live Streaming services, no 1080p, not even the release of iOS 4.2 for iPad which we were expecting in October. Now, to be fair, The Beatles albums all have bonus content provided by iTunes Extras, you can buy the complete iTunes Box Set (as if you don’t have it already), and you can now get every album they made in one place to complete your collection. But the main problem with this is that the people who would want a full and completed Beatles collection most likely already have a full and completed Beatles collection. It’s not like The Beatles have been lost for several years, missed the age of CD’s and now are suddenly only available on iTunes for the world to be amazed by. The Beatles came to CD’s, we all bought the CD’s, and we ripped them to our computers and listened to them on our iPods for 9 years while we waited for Apple to do something about it.
Don’t get us all wrong Apple. We love the fact that you were able to get The Beatles onto iTunes for downloads by future generations. We really do. It’s just that we wanted something “unforgettable” to happen to iTunes. Kind of the way when you brought the iTunes Store to iTunes in 2003. That was unforgettable and we still are benefitting from that now. Or the App Store in 2008. It was the opening of a whole new market for developers and a whole new market for iPhone users to buy personalized applications specifically for their iPhone. We wanted something unforgettable like that but instead you end up making us all look at your addition of The Beatles music almost the same way we would look at another artists new set of albums. It just isn’t good enough to be called unforgettable. Hopefully you guys can just appreciate what whole new market The Beatles have opened for Apple and hopefully you guys at Apple can appreciate how this is not what we expected to be the unforgettable news. Next time you have something along the lines of this planned, just call it “Hey, You Might Like What We Have To Show You Tomorrow.”
Verizon iPad Commercial Hits The Air
I was never one for bragging but when Verizon has one of the most popular tablet computing devices in the world in their stores, who could blame them for getting a bit of a big head. Whether you heard it on YouTube or saw the commercial on the air with your own eyes, it is now official, Verizon has introduced their very own iPad commercial. Now this may seem a little bit weird since it isn’t really that Verizon has the iPad but they are just selling it at their store with a Mi-Fi add-on. And since the fact AT&T isn’t being brought in on some of this great iPad advertising is a bit strange. You would think that because they have their 3G cards built into the iPad that AT&T would be showing ads for one of the hottest products on the market today. But this isn’t much of a surprise either. In the beginning people could pay $30 a month and their iPad would send them every bit of data that they wanted from the Internet. Because of challenges and other physical limits, AT&T pulled that a few months after the iPad went on sale. The current offerings for AT&T’s iPad data plans are 500MB for $15 and 1GB for $25. Verizon is in fact offering 4GB more on their $30 than AT&T elected to. So that may just be why AT&T is afraid to show us the numbers we would get. More bars in more places with way less data than ever.
And this ad could really be a sign of things to come for the iPad and iPhone. What if not only this ad was to get people comfortable with the idea of Verizon in their Apple iPad’s life but in their Apple lifestyle all together? The several “confirmed” rumors of Verizon iPhones hitting the streets sometime within the next few months has become more and more of a liable concept. At first in the beginning it seemed as though Verizon would never enter the Apple world and that AT&T and Verizon would be the one difference that people would even give a second thought to buying an Apple product. Now it seems that barrier is going to come down rather quickly once Big Red will swoop in and rescue most people suffering from dropped calls and slow data connections a sigh of fresh air. One can only hope that this advertisement, greatly resembling both Apple’s customary style and Verizon’s fresh look, is the window of things to come and opportunities to arrive.
New Apple Products: iMacs, Displays, and Trackpads
Last night Apple’s site went down temporarily but came back bearing brand new toys for all you geeks. The first is a new iMac upgrade. Now incorporating Intel’s brand new i3, i5, and i7 Core Processors at speeds up to 2.93 GHz on a Quad Core chip in the 27” model. Overall this was not the full upgrade that we might had hoped for. There were no Blu-Ray drives added, no USB 3.0, no AMOLED technologies, and no multi-touch technologies into the screen or OS.
However, the one part about multi-touch is only half true. Even though it was not incorporated into the OS, it was included into a piece of hardware that is now an option to get with your new desktop machine. It’s called the Magic TrackPad, much like the ever famous Magic Mouse which was Apple’s way of trying to incorporate multi-touch into their systems. For the most part, it’s pretty much no different then if you ripped out the trackpad from your Macbook and put it on a keyboard with no keys. In my opinion, for some applications it has true potential but for the most part it would seem rather inconvenient for full time use when you could have much more full control using an actual scrolling mouse. Only time will tell and applications will just have to evolve.
You can truly never have enough AA Batteries and Apple has finally agreed with their own line of rechargeable batteries. Even though they would mainly be designed for their cordless mice, keyboards, and their Magic TrackPads, they could definitely be expected to work more then well for many other non-Apple gadgets. But it is truly odd in a way for Apple to be designing batteries that wouldn’t be built-in unlike their batteries for their unibody Macbooks. They would last much longer then the typical AA batteries and would make the product even smaller. But people just may need a bit longer to get that idea into their heads.
And finally, the rumors of Apple announcing the comings of the 27” LED Cinema Display have turned out to be true. Apple put up on their website that they will be creating the 27” LED screen to match their 27” iMac computer in their line-up. It will of course have the same connectivity as the old display for power and peripherals including the camera and built-in speakers. Models will start arriving in stores starting September.
That’s all the updates that Apple had to offer today. Be sure to head down to your local Apple Store to check it all out and be on the look out for other Apple products in the possible future (hint hint, there could be a possible iLife ’11 coming out August 7th according to a few rumors.)
UPDATE: The Mac Pro was also updated with 12 core processors across the board. You can have configurations of a 6-core Mac Pro at 3.33GHz, an 8-core system at 2.4GHz, or a 12-core system at up to 2.93GHz. Apple also raised the storage capacities to 8TB across 4 hard drives and 512GB of solid-state drives for high end use. Apple also raised the graphics processing with the new ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory for high speed performance. The models will be shipping in August.
