Hasta La Gadget!

To this day, I remain in love with my HTC One X, but its fate has already been sealed. Soon enough, this fast and beautiful smartphone is going to find a new life in a drawer that holds my spare change, sunglasses, checkbook and various receipts. Is it wrong to relegate one of the best phones on the planet to my stash of odds and ends? Perhaps, but the past few months have taught me that excellent hardware alone doesn’t make a device that’s sufficient for enthusiasts.

Like many, I’ve been waiting for an upgrade to Jelly Bean ever since HTC first promised it back in July. I have no doubt that the company is working hard to prepare the Android 4.1 update for its customers, but the software is already past its expiration date. Google has moved onto something better. Quite frankly, I’m no longer willing to perpetually live behind the curve. I want to play with new toys as they come out, and that’s wholly impossible outside of the Nexus ecosystem.

Why should HTC care about my personal revelation, or the desire of anyone else who wants to stay on the cutting edge? Well, I’d like to offer the simple suggestion that enthusiasts matter. Take any introductory marketing class and you’ll learn the early adopters — in other words, the nerds who like playing with the very latest stuff — set trends and influence others. Companies should be falling over themselves to cater to this influential segment, and yet within the Android ecosystem, that’s the exception to the rule. There’s only one device for sale today that’s suitable for enthusiasts, and it’s high time for that to change.

Continue reading Editorial: All I want for Christmas is a new HTC Nexus

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC

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Facebook’s new Poke app – borrowing the name of its “remember me?” digital jab to the ribs, but the functionality of “sexting” app Snapchat – is an interesting start, but ten seconds sells it short. The headline grabbing purpose of flaunting your undercarriage (and the one to which Facebook coyly and obliquely refers to with a reminder that you can report anything you’re uncomfortable with) will undoubtedly get plenty of use from teenagers and cheating spouses, but with some timer tweaking Poke could become a legitimately useful “Getting Things Done” style tool.

There are times when ten seconds are more than enough. With all due respect to my friends on Facebook, any longer faced with their whimsical bon-mots or grizzled genitals and I’d probably be violently ill. But there are plenty of times when a non-permanent message that lasts longer than the average coughing fit could be very useful.

Email isn’t fashionable, but it’s still a sizable part of our lives. The number of mailing lists, sale-now-on notifications, “let us know by X if you want Y” reminders, and other time-sensitive messages that drop into my inbox seems to only increase, no matter how many I unsubscribe from. Sometimes they’re useful there & then; sometimes I think they might be useful later down the line. Right now, my casual (read: awful) triaging system basically marks as unread anything I might want to act on in future, with flags saved for the most important.

“I forget about things tomorrow that were Very Important today”

I miss a lot of stuff that way. I forget about things tomorrow that I marked as Very Important today. And I’m left with hundreds – maybe thousands – of messages that are old, expired, no longer important, but which are cluttering up my mail and keeping me from inbox zero.

A self-destructing message – one that automatically counts itself down to invalidity, and then deletes itself at that point – has plenty of appeal. Even better, a message that might remind me that the time for final action is upon me, before vanishing once my opportunity is gone. Since it’s Facebook we’re talking about, think along the lines of a virtual to-do list, an “I saw this and thought of you” system where you can ping over suggestions for the weekend that automatically expire come Monday morning, or ideas for a birthday meal venue that fade away along with the torn wrapping paper.

We also know Facebook is eager to sell the space in front of my eyes to as many paying advertisers as possible, and I might be willing to ease my ad-antipathy if the deals came with timers. I’d probably be more likely to sign up to mailing lists through Facebook rather than email or some other method, if I knew they’d clean themselves up along the way. Plus, it might get me looking at my phone – and adverts – more frequently, helping Facebook to monetize its mobile users.

Poke as it stands is a gimmick, briefly fun but with questionable longevity. I honestly can’t think of that many times – smut aside – when I’d want to fire over a transient link or photo to somebody. If Facebook can coax it into being a topical to-do list and recommendations engine, though, using everything it knows about context and relevance, that might earn it a place on my smartphone homescreen.

Sorry Facebook, a 10 second Poke just isn’t enough is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Apple Television has been rumored for a long, long time. We’ve heard that the television will come in multiple sizes, probably be priced a bit higher than the average set on the market, and integrate iCloud. Better yet, it’ll support apps, allowing for more functionality across the board.

The most talk surrounding the television cropped up last year when Walter Isaacson published his Steve Jobs biography. In that, Jobs noted that he believed that he had finally “cracked” the code for a television that would best all others in the marketplace. Analysts, ready to predict Apple’s plans, performed a host of supply chain checks to find out if Apple was in fact working on a television. Nearly universally, they said that it indeed was.

Over the last several months, however, we’ve heard precious little about an Apple television. Either the set never existed in the first place, or Apple has closed ranks and is keeping its plans extremely secretive. It’s as if the television, which was once so much a part of our lives in the technology world, is now a ghostly product that might or might not exist.

That is, of course, unless you read through the lines on what Tim Cook recently said in an interview with Brian Williams of NBC. He stopped short of actually saying that Apple was working on a television, but his admission that the industry is one that’s awfully intriguing to the company makes me believe that there is in fact a set on the way. Exactly when it will launch, however, remains to be seen.

That launch date could be extremely important to Apple’s television’s success rate.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, a host of television vendors are expected to show off Ultra HD televisions – sets that are running the technology formerly known as 4K. Although those televisions won’t be ready for the average consumer in 2013, it’s a sign that they’re going to be hitting more consumer-friendly price points sooner than later.

“Apple prides itself on being ahead of the curve”

Realizing that, Apple, a company that prides itself on being ahead of the curve, will need to decide if it wants to stick with 1080p HD or go with Ultra HD. The smart move, of course, is to go with 1080p until Ultra HD pricing comes down. However, the clock is ticking. Ultra HD might be several years away from hitting consumer-friendly prices, but the later Apple launches its television, the sooner it might become obsolete.

Meanwhile, we can’t forget the growing importance of apps in the mobile space. At CES, companies like Samsung and LG are likely going to deliver televisions with boatloads of bundled applications. If one of them includes access to a broader application store than what’s already available, it could once again make Apple look late to the game.

I guess what I’m trying to say is time is of the essence if Apple finally launches its own television. It’s nice to be Apple and have everyone interested in your products, but if you wait too long to launch a supposed “groundbreaking” device, you might actually be stepped over.

And Apple cannot forget that.

When Will That Apple Television Finally Launch? is written by Don Reisinger & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The gaming industry is ready yet again for a major change. Every five years or so, gamers are asked to toss away their old hardware and buy the new stuff. The cost, of course, is high, and the effort to actually get a new console is somewhat ridiculous in the beginning, but like good, trusting gamers, we oblige.

The so-called “next generation” is starting now. Nintendo has launched its Wii U, and that device delivers HD graphics and a vastly improved experience compared to the company’s previous console, the Wii. For now, the console is sold out and likely will remain so for the next few months.

Although the Wii U will continue to dominate the console market for the next several months, there’s trouble on the horizon. Microsoft is expected to launch its next console, the Xbox 720, next holiday season. The PlayStation 4 from Sony will likely follow close behind. Both of those consoles are expected to come with better graphics than the Wii U and have more features. In other words, they’ll probably be better all-around consoles than Nintendo’s option.

Realizing that, I don’t think Nintendo has any choice but to launch a new console in 2014. Call it the Wii U 2 or something else, but whatever Nintendo does, the company must deliver a new device in 2014 that’s capable of competing against the actual “next generation” of consoles.

It’s almost laughable that Nintendo would say that the Wii U is a next-generation device. In my own time with the console, I find it to be a nominal upgrade over the Wii. And although HD graphics is a nice addition, we’ve had those for years now from Microsoft and Sony.

“Nintendo is hiding behind the Wii’s success to prove it doesn’t need bells & whistles”

Oddly, Nintendo doesn’t appear willing to launch a new console in 2014 that can actually compete against the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720. The company is hiding behind the Wii’s success to prove that it doesn’t need all of the bells and whistles to be successful. After all, Nintendo says, the Wii had fewer features and lacked HD graphics, and dominated the console market.

But let’s not pretend that past success can inform our understanding of future market dynamics. After all, if we assume a console will be successful because its predecessor was, shouldn’t we also assume that a failure like the GameCube would spawn another loser? Obviously that didn’t happen.

Nintendo needs to consider the changing market. Today’s consumers want more-capable products in the living room, and like the idea of having consoles that are meaningfully better than those that came before them. The Wii U isn’t that device. And I’m still not convinced that third-parties will embrace the GamePad the way Nintendo hopes. Add that to the Wii U’s lofty price tag and the impending obsolescence at the hands of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720, and I think there’s a recipe for disaster being cooked up as we speak.

With a new console in 2014, however, Nintendo can change all that and put itself back in a position to control the hardware market. The Wii U should be an iterative step to whatever major upgrade might come in 2014. Without that launch schedule, Nintendo might be in serious trouble.

Why Nintendo Must Launch A New Console In 2014 is written by Don Reisinger & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Nintendo quietly announced the Wii Mini recently. The console, which will be available in Canada for $100, supports over 1,000 Wii games, but lacks a host of important features, including backward compatibility with GameCube titles and the ability to connect in any way to the Internet.

Of course, Nintendo has said that the Wii Mini is the perfect value. The console is cheaper than the Wii and is smaller. Plus, it’s the perfect entry point for new gamers who don’t care about the old days and simply want to get their motion gaming on.

But perhaps Nintendo’s view on that is short sighted. One of the best aspects of the Wii is that it supports the company’s Virtual Console, a nostalgic repository filled with titles from its many popular devices. Old school gamers can get everything from the first Super Mario to the finest Legend of Zelda games downloaded directly to their consoles. It’s a wonderful thing.

Wii Mini owners, however, won’t have that option. Instead, they’ll be forced to sift through Wii games in the hopes of finding some gems that can match the classics available in the Virtual Console. Admittedly, there are some Wii titles that will appeal greatly to gamers. But before long, it becomes clear that save for first-party games, there isn’t a whole lot to like in the Wii game library.

“Under the guise of the “nice” company, Nintendo looks to drain every last profit from customers”

The more I look at the Wii Mini, the more I see it as a cheap way for Nintendo to generate some extra cash. After all, it’s undoubtedly cheaper to produce and the lack of Internet connectivity forces would-be Wii customers to the more expensive model. Once again, Nintendo has, under the guise of the “nice” game company that hides under Mario’s hat, looked like a big company looking to drain every last profit out of its customers.

Thankfully, the Wii Mini is only coming to one market for now, so Nintendo shouldn’t be viewed as unfavorably as some might think. However, what if the Wii Mini actually sells relatively well in Canada? Don’t expect it to take too long for Nintendo to bring the underpowered and unnecessary console to the U.S. and U.K. After all, if Nintendo thinks it can make some extra cash, why wouldn’t it?

For seasoned gamers, the Wii Mini looks like yet another example of Nintendo failing to understand the changing market dynamics. Gamers want more Internet functionality, not less. And despite the GameCube’s sub-par performance in the console market, backward compatibility still matters.

Nintendo is simply playing by the wrong rules. When gamers ask for more, Nintendo has been giving them less. And when gamers had hoped for better features, Nintendo has almost always told them that it knows better.

With the Wii, Nintendo seemingly knew better, since the console sold extremely well. But the Wii Mini is a different beast altogether. And despite Nintendo’s best attempts at showing why the Wii Mini is really necessary for customers, the company has failed.

Sorry, but the Wii Mini is one big, bad idea.

Nintendo’s Wii Mini Is One Big, Bad Idea is written by Don Reisinger & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.