We live in a funny world, don’t we? There was a time when homes had a single phone. And when it rang, the kids in the house had to hope that mom or dad would let them talk for a while. If the phone rang too late, it meant one of two things: something was wrong, or one of the kids had a friend calling at an inappropriate time.
Soon, things changed, and homes had more telephones, providing a bit more leeway in the way communication was handled. It wasn’t until the introduction of the mobile phone that dramatically changed how we would communicate with others, and it caused a radical change in our lives.
Now, though, everywhere I turn, I find people with smartphones. From elders who grew up in a time when phone lines were shared to priests, just about everyone around us has a smartphone on their hip, in their pocket, or hiding in their purse. A smartphone isn’t just an accessory to many people, it’s an extension of their lives. And without it, there would be no way to live.
For me, such a scenario would be impossible to even fathom. Each morning, the first thing I do after saying good morning to my wife is check my smartphone to see if I’ve missed any important e-mails. I might also check the news to see what’s happening around the world. During the day, my smartphone is with me wherever I go, so I can send off a quick text, check e-mail when away from a computer, and surf the Web when I need to. Oh, and I might also place a call from time to time.
So, earlier this week as I was on my smartphone, I questioned whether I could stay away from it for just one week. What would my week be like, I thought. How would my life be different? Would things be better or worse?
“It wasn’t long before I had ‘technology withdrawals’”
I decided after thinking that that it was time I explored the possibility of living without my smartphone for a week. So, for the rest of the day and a bit into the next day, I was smartphone-free. It wasn’t long, though, that I was desiring holding my smartphone in my hand and checking things. It also wasn’t long before I had what might only be called “technology withdrawals” — a seemingly chemical response in the brain to not having something I rely on to such a huge degree.
So, before long, I gave in and got my smartphone. I’m weak, perhaps, or just not very good at controlling myself. In either case, I realized that, for me, living without a smartphone isn’t even an option.
The next question, though, is, such an addiction good or bad? I can be more productive with my smartphone, but that I actually have it in-hand at all times and can’t let it go might liken it to something much worse.
So, I pose the question to you: can you (or, perhaps, would you) want to live without a smartphone for a week? Is it easier said than done? Don’t scoff so quickly and think it’ll be an easy task; it won’t. Be ready for a challenge. And be ready for the withdrawals.
The console market has been the subject of much debate lately. Nintendo’s Wii U has inspired some fans, and disappointed many others. Still others have ignored the device. Meanwhile, Sony’s PlayStation 4 has the gaming world abuzz with promises of dramatically improved graphics. And with Microsoft expected to announce a new Xbox at some point in the next few months, gamers are more excited for what’s to come than they have been in years.
But there’s more to it than that. A Kickstarter-funded company is selling a device known as Ouya that promises to combine the benefits of mobile and console gaming into one device that connects to the television. Steam is working on a console that will bring PC titles to the living room. There have even been rumors that Apple is planning a gaming push.
The Apple rumors are arguably the most interesting. They seem to indicate that Apple is going to bring iOS gaming to the console market and all of its developers will come along with it. And since the iPhone maker has become such a force in the gaming space in such a short amount of time with iOS, there’s no reason to suggest it wouldn’t make a similar splash in the console space.
Although I’d agree with that sentiment, I think we might all be missing the obvious here: Google might just sweep into the console space and win the war.
Now, I know that we’ve heard no indication that Google actually has plans to get into the console market, but is it such a stretch to say that it could? First off, the company has tried to make inroads into the console space with Google TV. And although that hasn’t been the most successful launch, it’s proven that Google is at least thinking about branching out into the living room.
At the same time, we mustn’t forget that Google has been taking some changes lately in the hardware market. The company now has smartphones and tablets that it’s selling and its acquisition of Motorola was a not-so-subtle attempt by the search giant to break into the hardware side.
“Android seems perfectly suited for the console market”
And then there’s Android. The operating system that has worked so well on smartphones, tablets, and other devices, seems perfectly suited for the console market. And with mobile processors getting more powerful by the day, it’s not such a leap for a game company to bring their top titles on Android to a device running that operating system from Google.
Oh, and one more thing: don’t you think that more than anything, Google would love to take Microsoft down in the console market? If there’s anything we know about Google, it’s that the company can’t stand Microsoft. And beating the software giant out on something is its favorite feat. By bringing Android to the console market and delivering its own device, Google might just have a shot at it.
Call me crazy, but I think Google could actually perform quite well in the console market.
The PlayStation 4 hasn’t even been shown off to the public yet, but already the box is on the minds of millions of people across the globe. In fact, in a recent earnings call with investors, GameStop president Tony Bartel said that his company has 900,000 people signed up for its first-to-know list on the PlayStation 4. And he expects demand to far outstrip supply of the console when it launches.
Such demand already might surprise some folks. After all, it took a long time for the PlayStation 3 to truly get off the ground and although it’ll likely end this generation with more worldwide sales than the Xbox 360, in the U.S., especially, it’s no match for Microsoft’s console.
To make matters worse, it appears that gamers aren’t all that excited about the next generation of consoles across the board. The Wii U, after all, has been watching its sales slow to crawl and even GameStop said publicly that it’s been disappointed by the Wii U. What in the world would make the PlayStation 4 different?
Well, I think there are a host of reasons. I’m a firm believer that Sony is still a household name in the U.S. and in Japan – its two key markets – and people buy products from the company solely because they trust the name. And despite the PlayStation 3’s initial troubles, the console turned out to be quite a success, allowing its predecessor to deliver solid results next time around.
“It’s unfair to compare the PS4 with the Wii U”
It’s also unfair to compare the PlayStation 4 with the Wii U. Nintendo’s console is one that’s a barely updated alternative to the predecessor. As I’ve said here before, I believe the Wii U is a catch-up device. And historically, catch-up devices don’t really perform all that well on store shelves.
The PlayStation 4, however, is a high-end product with all kinds of graphical firepower; it’s the kind of device that true gamers really want. And chances are, Sony will once again have the full support of the developer community to ensure it doesn’t fall short from a library perspective.
Most importantly, though, I think the strong demand for the PlayStation 4 tells us that, despite conventional wisdom suggesting that mobile and casual gaming is the future, console gamers are still extremely engrossed in their favored way of playing games. And that’s not going to change anytime soon.
The fact is that console gaming has a long way to go to ultimately match the promise gamers have been hoping for all this time. And companies like Sony and Microsoft are willing to push the envelope and put themselves in a position where they can capitalize on customers that want a true next-generation device, and not something that’s simply labeled as one.
So yes, I understand the excitement surrounding the PlayStation 4, and I can say without any hesitation that I’m one of those folks that’s excited to see what’s coming next from Sony. The future is now. And Sony is one of the few companies in the gaming industry that’s willing to embrace it.
I drive a two-seat roadster known for its great handling. The last thing I want is for a machine to take the steering wheel out of my hands. My car company isn’t into self-driving cars, but others are: Ford, BMW, Audi. And, of course, Google is moving quickly forward with road-worthy autocars that have accumulated 300,000 miles with only one (human error) accident. The advantages of cars that drive themselves are multiple and compelling.
Automobile intelligence already assists the driving experience by warning of dangerous situations and taking control of parking, which is, for some people, the most difficult maneuver to perform. We are gradually ceding control to our cars. When a completely automated consumer car launches, some drivers will hand over the reins gladly. But for me and other enthusiasts, driving a car isn’t just about reaching a destination; it’s about the journey and operating a beautiful machine. Unfortunately for people who feel that way, the greatest social benefits of self-driving cars would kick in if everyone were herded into a new era of hands-off driving.
I have a problem. I own a smartphone – an iPhone 5 – that comes with a nicely sized, 4-inch screen. When I surf to Web sites, I’m able to see whatever I want. When I go to the iTunes Store and buy a movie or two, I can enjoy them without any trouble whatsoever. For me, the 4-inch screen is an ideal size.
Then again, I thought the same with my former iPhone, which came with a smaller 3.5-inch display. I thought for sure that I wouldn’t need a larger screen. But when I got my hands on the bigger display, I decided otherwise.
Now, though, I’m looking at new devices from companies like LG and Samsung, like the Galaxy S 4, that come with screen sizes that hit 5 inches, and I can’t help but wonder why anyone would need a device featuring a screen size that large. Let’s face it – there comes a point when screen sizes become too big and unwieldy. And I wonder if a 5-inch display from Samsung is one such device.
Of course, those who love Android will have a much different opinion on the matter. They believe that Apple is delivering products that only come with 4-inch screens is absolutely ridiculous. It’s too small a screen, the critics say, and it’s the kind of limitation that Apple places on products that make them want an Android handset.
I can understand both points. Apple ostensibly believes that a 4-inch tablet makes sense for customers. Samsung and others, however, see that as one of the issues with Apple’s products, and believe that customers want the biggest display they can get. While I agree that there are literally millions of people around the globe that do want the larger screens, at what point do they become too big?
“There’s a point where a large screen becomes ridiculous”
The way I see it, we’ve pushed the envelope to a point where there might not be much more room for larger screens. Most people today put their devices into their pockets or in small places in their purses. They don’t have the room, necessarily, to keep putting larger and larger products into those places. It comes to a point when a device has such a large screen that using it becomes ridiculous. And there comes a point when companies have to realize that and find other ways to attract us. It’s not easy, for sure, but it’s absolutely necessary.
So, I think we should examine whether smartphone screen sizes are getting too big. As I said earlier, I’ll be the first to admit that I like a nice, big screen. But after 5 inches, I don’t think it makes sense for companies to deliver products that deliver anything bigger. And I’m not so sure that consumers will respond favorably to such a move.
So, before you buy that 5-inch-screen-equipped screen, think twice. Will it be too big? Will it be just right? Everyone is different. But not acknowledging the possibility of screen sizes being too big for their own good is a mistake.
Business battles are often ecosystem battles, in which brands develop a matrix of conveniently connected products and services, in an attempt to lock customers into a dependency. Offline companies follow this tack (think razors and blades). But the internet, with its many connection nodes, crossovers to tangential realms and parallel on-ramps is where ecosystem wars are most elaborately waged.
Only rarely do market conditions cultivate a broader ambition in which a company has a chance to step beyond mere ecosystem competition to a higher level of sovereignty. Facebook’s imminent release of Home represents a stab at that rare imperialism.
Your smartphone is dumb. Mine is too. I’ve got an iPhone in my pocket, and a Galaxy S III, and an HTC One, and they’re all stupid. The BlackBerry Z10 in my bag is a clot, and the Lumia 920 isn’t just thick in the hand, it’s just plain thick. Today, on the fortieth birthday of the first cellphone call, the gadget that was supposed to liberate us has turned us into plagued, screen-tapping obsessives, in thrall to every buzz and bleep.
Before you say anything – though I understand you may instantly have raced to the comments section before you even reached the period in my first sentence, desperate to berate me – I’m not a luddite. I love smartphones; I like Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and even have a soft spot for BlackBerry 10 in places. I don’t leave the house without at least one phone in my pocket. It – and its ringing alarm – is the first thing I reach for in the morning; with the exception of the light switch it’s probably the last thing at night.
That devotion, or maybe obsession, doesn’t mean I’m blind to the limitations of what we have today, however. The modern smartphone is faster, lighter, runs longer, has more apps, sensors, radios, and gadgetry than any before it, but all that complexity has only served to pull us in closer, to enmesh us more with the digital world on its terms.
Your phone still, generally, demands you reach for it and proactively consult it. If it has something for you, it’ll beep to let you know, but it’ll generally do that on its own timescale. Many devices have a “do not disturb” mode, which blanks all (or all but the most important) notifications between certain periods, and some can “intelligently” manage alerts depending on what you’re doing at the time, though that tends to amount to little more than bashing calendar entries against the clock and keeping quiet when you’ve remembered to log a meeting taking place.
“Most phones are dumb in how they understand context”
Beyond that, for all their sensors and smarts, most phones are pretty dumb in how they understand context. Right now, they’re portable terminals for the internet, for the most part: a smaller window than our regular browser, or one we view through the medium of function-specific apps. Much of the development we’ve seen from phone software and hardware over the past 3-5 years has been in translating the internet into something that fits onto a smartphone-scale screen.
And yet, our needs from a companion device are surely different from those we have of a regular computer. I don’t necessarily want every single piece of information out there delivered to the palm of my hand; I just want the right, most relevant information. You can find that on a phone, certainly, but for it to be a true companion it really should be one step ahead of what you need. Some emails, or IMs, or calls, are more important than others, but my phone beeps for all of them. Sometimes I don’t know what the most relevant information actually is, or that it’s even out there, and my digital wingman should be using everything it knows about me to fill in those gaps of its own accord.
That’s something all of the platforms fall down on, for the most part. Yes, iOS has Siri, and its clever digital personal assistant can certainly hook into your agenda, contacts, location, and other data to give better advice, but it only happens when you ask for it. BlackBerry is terribly excited about its “peek” system for better handling notifications on your own terms, but it still leaves you in the thrall of the beep and the blinking light.
There are glimmers of a change ahead, though only faint. Google Now for the most part still waits for you to check its curated cards, showing nearby businesses and scenic spots, flight times and reminders of when you might need to leave to make your next appointment, but it does at least try to fumble some sort of contextual link between what you’re doing, where you’re doing it, and what you might be interested in knowing given those factors.
At least, that’s the theory. I gave Google Now a whole homescreen pane of its own to play with on the HTC One recently – the only widget Android offers takes up the entire page – and, in all the time I’ve been using the phone, I haven’t seen a single card pop up. I’ve played with all the settings to try to coax something more out of it, but it doesn’t seem particularly keen to talk to me.
I know Google has more ambitious plans. When I sat down with Mattias Duarte and talked about Now and how it essentially forms the basis of Google Glass, it was clear that the company sees its mobile strategy evolving from one where it gives all the possible answers, to giving more specific results based on greater confidence that it knows what you’re likely looking for. That makes perfect sense for a bleeding-edge wearable, but it’s also something the mass market needs to tame the gush through to our everyday phones.
Faster, lighter, just plain shinier phones aren’t enough now. Squeezing in another core, or adding a couple of extra megapixels, isn’t going to address the underlying issue: today’s “smartphone” is a small, relatively dumb computer, not smart at all. Certainly, there was a time – and it wasn’t long ago – when firms were making groundbreaking steps with each generation of device, pushing the boundaries of mobile tech. Revamping hardware has become the easy way out, however, and we need to stop letting companies off the hook for not tackling what have now become the new shortcomings. Sure, it won’t be as easy as slapping a bigger display on the front, but until the question of context is addressed, we’ll forever be ruled by our phones, not liberated.
Android is the dominant force in the mobile operating system landscape. And now more than ever, people are finding that the operating system is not only a strong competitor to iOS, but in some respects, might just be even better.
Now, I’m sure that Apple fans won’t want to hear such a thing. After all, for years, they’ve been supporting Apple’s iOS platform and to hear that Android could possibly come with features that surpass those of iOS is anathema to them. But perhaps it’s time that we all agree that, at the very least, Android and iOS are in a neck-and-neck battle for mobile operating system dominance.
But how did Android get here? The fact is, Android wasn’t even close to iOS in terms of featureset when it launched. But over the last several years, as more vendors brought the operating system to their devices, it gained on Apple. And now, it’s far and away the most dominant operating system in the land.
Although many reasons for Android’s dominance can be drawn, and many of those are valid, I just don’t think any of them are as important or as noteworthy as Google’s shepherding of the platform. Without Google, Android wouldn’t be what it is today.
“An industry created by startups is now dominated by major companies”
If we’ve learned anything of the technology industry over the last few years, it’s that big companies determine the fate of most products. Save for a few cool Kickstarter ideas, the vast majority of successful products today come from major companies. It’s unfortunate that an industry created by startups is now so dominated by major companies, but it’s the reality. And we must begrudgingly accept that.
If an unknown company trying to deliver a new operating system to mobile vendors had delivered Android to the marketplace, it’s unlikely that it would have succeeded. At its launch, few tech media outlets would have picked up the news because of the company’s lack of notoriety, and vendors would have been suspect of such a small firm. A perfect storm would have developed that would have scuttled Android from the outset.
“Success was practically guaranteed”
But with Google behind the operating system, everything is different. When a company of that size and importance in the industry delivers an operating system, people listen. And because of its clout, the company has the unique ability to sign deals with other major firms and get its operating system out to the wild in no time. Success was practically guaranteed when Google, not a small, unknown company, delivered Android.
Now, I’ll freely admit that there have been other major companies that have brought up mobile operating systems, including the company formerly known as Palm and Samsung. And those two companies watched their operating systems fall short. But that’s more about time and a desire to control the hardware-software complex than about winning the OS market. The same might be said for BlackBerry. But Google is different. And its success has proven that.
But, I want to pose this question to you: would Android be Android if not for Google? I’d agree that other major companies could have made it work, but do you think smaller firms would have, as well?
I started off liking the HTC One. Now, having used it as my only camera while on holiday in Japan this past week, I’m in love with it. HTC has a whole lot riding on the One this year, and one of the more contentious features is the Zoe photography system, blending stills and short videos that are simultaneously captured in what the company says will “bring to life” your photo gallery. Attempts to differentiate from the gush of other Android devices with software customization is something we’ve seen so often now, it’s hard not to be cynical (and simply demand “pure” Android instead), but Zoe has turned out to be a different story.
I’m bad at taking photos, especially when I’m away. All too often I’ll come back from a trip and realize I have nothing – bar the memories in my own head – to show for it. Stills seldom capture the emotion of a moment, while video gets long and unwieldy, and thus goes unwatched.
Zoe, though, combines a burst of twenty stills with about three and a half seconds of Full HD video. You can shoot just stills, or just HD video, but HTC expects most One users to give up on regular images and instead use Zoe mode: once you’ve captured a cluster of shots, you can then scroll through and pick out the one with the best framing or facial expressions, or indeed combine features from two stills into one. The One also automatically combines a selection of Zoes into a highlight reel, 30s of curated content complete with music, effects, and transitions.
What Zoe is particularly great at, though, is putting photography into a framework. You’re not just snapping hundreds of stills and recording dozens of videos – which, if you’re anything like me, you have a strong suspicion that you’ll never actually look through or share after you’re home. Instead, you start to think about photography in terms of easily snackable chunks of content: a simple 30 second highlight reel that you can imagine actually showing someone without having to worry that you’re boring them.
It also makes you think of your life in terms of events. On every other phone I’ve used, I’ve never bothered with albums: all of my images and videos have been left in one long stream of content (and one I seldom bother scrolling back through). On the One, though, you start to consider how an event might look when seen as a highlight reel: I started purposefully shooting panning shots that I knew would be particularly good at setting the scene, for instance, and tried to take more photos of people and their reactions, rather than just impressive landscapes.
The result is a gallery I actually want to flick back through, and photos I actually want to show to people. Highlight videos that require less than a minute’s investment in time are perfect for attention-short social networks like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, and of course since it’s Android there’s fully baked-in sharing with whatever service you have installed.
“The result is a gallery I actually want to look through”
It’s not all perfect, however. As we noted in our review, right now the One gives you no control over what resolution the Zoe highlight reel is encoded at – it’s Full HD or nothing – and that makes for a big video. When you’re roaming abroad, it means finding a (fast) WiFi connection is essential unless you want to bankrupt yourself with foreign data fees.
That’s not the only upload-related headache. Zoe doesn’t work at all well with automatic-upload systems; I love how Google+ pushes new photos and videos to the cloud in the background, ready for me to share them later, but on the One every single shot is queued up for the same online treatment. Given each Zoe consists of twenty stills as well as the brief video, that means a whole lot of unnecessary duplication when you browse through online. “You have 3825 new photos ready to share” Google+ eagerly informed me, after suggesting that I might want to pay to upgrade my Google Drive storage.
In fact, there’s a sense that HTC only really thought about the photography experience on the One itself, not that people might want to explore their shots outside of the handset. Having spent a couple of hours sifting through all of the multiple Zoe shots after dumping them over to my computer, picking out the best/least blurry/most interesting to share with family, the comparative value of the highlight reels began to wane. For every scene there were twenty shots to key through, and the HTC Sync Manager app does nothing but push everything into iPhoto.
HTC really needs to offer more granular – and straightforward to use – control over which photos are treated as the default by other apps and services, particularly given the shortcomings of the current highlight reel selection process. Eventually, you should be able to pick out which images are used to build the automagically-edited video; right now, though, the only way to manually control what’s included and what isn’t is to sort them manually into different Event albums (the One splits up events that are at different times and locations automatically, but I found it still mixed together activities while I was away).
Those Events can then be used to create more specific highlight reels, but then you miss out on auto-uploading, since most such services only look at content in the root Photos folder. Events on the One are organized into subfolders, unless you copy rather than move them, in which case you run into storage limitations (which, since there’s no memory card slot, could quickly become an issue given the size of each single Zoe cluster).
I’d love to see HDR support in Zoe mode (at the moment, you can only use it in standard camera mode); that generally works well, though it sometimes left the sky oddly colored in brighter scenes. The ability to opt for longer highlight reels would be great too: a minute or 90 seconds, perhaps, to fit in more media from longer Events.
The fumbles and glitches don’t undermine the overall experience, however. HTC’s decision to opt for a 4-megapixel-equivalent sensor might mean we get stuck with awkward “UltraPixel” branding, but it doesn’t stop the One from taking solid shots and delivering great low-light images (useful for when you’re taking food photos in restaurants; yes, I know it’s a cliché, but I still did it).
Zoe seemed like a gimmick at first, but it’s enough to make me reach for the HTC One in preference to the iPhone 5 or any other Android handset when I know I’m likely to be taking photos. Now HTC just needs to bring its sync app up to speed too, as well as do a better job of explaining to potential consumers why they might end up thinking the same, if they’d only give the One a try.
You’ve seen the videos — thousands of starlings flocking in the sky to swirl and surge across wide, cloudless backdrops. The beauty of their coordinated motion is stunning. The phenomenon is expressively called murmuration.
There might be purpose to starling choreographies, but if so, it is movement without destination. The flock shapes and re-shapes itself continuously. Doing so makes preying on the flock difficult, but beyond that, the motivation of these group flights is ineffable. If ornithologists told us that starlings were imitating the group behavior endemic to tech-adoption culture, it would be easy to see the similarity. The science behind murmuration extends the analogy even further.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
