Hasta La Gadget!

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

It is hard to believe that Apple has been trying its hand at the Internet services space since the year 2000, when it launched iTools. Like nearly all of iCloud, with which it shares its trademark vowel prefix, iTools was free. Unlike iCloud, though, its collection of services was all over the map, ranging from Web page creation to greeting cards. iCloud marks the third reboot of Apple’s Web services suite since that foray. In the intervening years, we’ve seen .Mac (essentially a subscription version of most iTools features), and MobileMe, which paved the way for the contact and calendar synchronization that will be free as part of iCloud.

Modern-day Apple has shown an appreciation for seamless network access since the launch of the iMac in 1998, which eschewed floppy drives in favor of network-based sharing. One can even trace a belief in the power of the network further back to eWorld, AppleLink, and even the Mac’s early, simple networking technologies, AppleTalk and LocalTalk. Internet services are clearly complementary to advanced devices running sophisticated software — two areas where Apple excels. So why has the cloud rained on Apple?

Continue reading Switched On: Apple’s cloud conundrum

Switched On: Apple’s cloud conundrum originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Jun 2011 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ross Rubin contributes Reserve Power, a column focused on personal perspectives and products.

With handset screens getting larger and applications such as streaming primetime shows and video chat becoming more prevalent, it’s not surprising that some handsets such as the HTC Evo 4G include a built-in kickstand. Most phones, though, suffer from LifeCall commercial syndrome — when they’ve fallen, they can’t get up. To offer some assistance, a whole cottage industry of pocketable products – many with inventive designs — have appeared to let you enjoy your handset’s screen without your hands in the way. But how universal are they?

I tested a variety of popular and unusually-shaped handsets — including the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, Droid 2, Droid X, BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Torch, Palm Pre, HP Veer, Samsung Captivate and the monstrous Samsung Infuse — finding, for example, that some phones fit in some stands only when their physical keyboards were extended. Surprised at how well a few of the stands held up, I even tried them with a few tablets, including the BlackBerry PlayBook, Apple iPad and Motorola Xoom. This column will introduce the first six devices after the break, while the next Reserve Power will discuss several more, conclude with my favorites, and link to a spreadsheet detailing which devices and stands paired appropriately with one another.

Continue reading Reserve Power: Stand Off, Part 1

Reserve Power: Stand Off, Part 1 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 May 2011 22:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Last week’s Switched On discussed some of the challenges the Flip camcorder faced trying to grow in the marketplace, an effort abruptly scuttled by an indifferent Cisco. But while Kodak, Sony and others are now poised to fill the Flip void, no competitor exactly matched Flip’s combination of simplicity and sharing. With point and shoot cameras, camcorders, traditional MP3 players and standalone GPS units in decline, the jury remains out on how long portable electronics can fight the smartphone, but Flip’s success taught the industry some valuable lessons that may have relevance going forward.

Continue reading Switched On: A legacy from the Flip side

Switched On: A legacy from the Flip side originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 Apr 2011 20:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Last week’s Switched On discussed how some next wave notions from a decade ago were trying to reinvent themselves. Here’s one more. Surging smartphone vendor HTC is seeking to bring back an input method that many wrote off long ago with its forthcoming Flyer tablet and EVO View 4G comrade-in-arms: the stylus.

A fixture of early Palm and Psion PDAs, Pocket PCs and Windows Mobile handsets, slim, compact styli were once the most popular thing to slip down a well since Timmy. Then, users would poke the cheap, simple sticks at similarly inexpensive resistive touchscreens. After the debut of tablet PCs, though, more companies started to use active digitizer systems like the one inside the Flyer. Active pens offer more precision, which can help with tasks such as handwriting recognition, and support “hovering” above a screen, the functional equivalent of a mouseover. On the other hand, they are also thicker, more expensive, and need to be charged. (Update: as some have pointed out in comments, Wacom’s tablets generate tiny electromagnetic fields that power active digitization, and don’t require the pen to store electricity itself.) And, of course, just like passive styli, active pens take up space and can be misplaced.

The 2004 debut of the Nintendo DS — the ancestor of the just-released 3DS — marked the beginning of what has become the last mass-market consumer electronics product series to integrate stylus input. The rising popularity of capacitive touch screens and multitouch have replaced styli with fingers as the main user interface elements. Instead of using a precise point for tasks such as placing an insertion point in text, we now expand the text dynamically to accommodate our oily instruments. On-screen buttons have also grown, as have the screens themselves, all in the name of losing a contrivance.

Continue reading Switched On: Pen again

Switched On: Pen again originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

When Apple introduced the iPad, it had but a smattering of third-party applications, but the company stressed its own. As Apple iPhone software SVP Scott Forstall stated in the iPad introduction video, “We looked at the device and we decided: let’s redesign it all. Let’s redesign, reimagine and rebuild every single app from the ground up specifically for the iPad.”

Compare this to the strategy employed by RIM, makers of the upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. One year after the iPad’s debut, Apple’s head start in apps has proven a formidable advantage against the onslaught of slates announced by its competitors in the smartphone world. Some have chosen to latch onto Android and attain backwards compatibility with over 200,000 existing smartphone apps. HP, with its TouchPad as flagship, will circle its wagons of PCs, printers and phones around the webOS platform. However, the announcement this week that RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook will support Android apps says much about how the company sees its position in the tablet wars.

Continue reading Switched On: The PlayBook polyglot

Switched On: The PlayBook polyglot originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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