Hasta La Gadget!

Hard to believe a whole week’s gone by since we last cozied up for a podcast, but what a week it’s been — IFA is underway, and the announcements have come fast and furious. Join the gang at 430PM EST for a live rundown — the player and chatroom are right after the break. See you in a few!

Update: Annnnd — it’s over! As always, our live audience made that incredibly fun, but if you missed it, our regular podcast post will be up tomorrow.

Filed under: Podcasts

The Engadget Podcast, live… now! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Last week, Sony introduced Reader Daily Edition, the latest and most advanced Reader in its 2009 lineup, and attempted to recapture the excitement around the category that it had at the launch of the original Reader but then gave up to Amazon. By adding 3G connectivity to the Daily Edition, Sony’s answered the biggest perceived feature gap between its products and Amazon’s e-reader.

However, far from playing me-too, the Daily Edition tells quite a different distribution story than the Kindle, from purchasing devices to the content. The $400 Daily Edition (a term that warmly evokes printed books and newspapers without being corny) will join the $300 Touch Edition and the $200 Pocket Edition. Of these, the Pocket Edition has the most near-term potential for success due to its greater portability and low price, particularly in these grim economic times.

Speaking of which, Sony seems to have picked up more positive buzz about its library integration for free book lending than it has for adding wireless to the line. For all the struggles of subscription services, consumers don’t have any problems with renting content as long as it’s free.

Continue reading Switched On: Sony plays both ends against the Kindle

Filed under: Handhelds

Switched On: Sony plays both ends against the Kindle originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Few tech giants have circled each other as intently over the past decade as Microsoft and Nokia — Big PC vs. Big Handset, not quite direct competitors but hardly partners, and only occasionally backing common initiatives such as DLNA.

But this year there have been signs that relations between the two companies have been thawing — the Finnish tundra’s warmed to the Seattle rain. In March, Nokia announced that it would support Microsoft’s Silverlight on its S60 handsets. And earlier this month, the two companies announced a “global alliance” that will begin with Microsoft porting Mobile Office to Symbian in order to compete more effectively against fast-growing Research in Motion.

Just weeks after that announcement, however, both companies have made moves in each other’s space that show they’re willing to break with longstanding positions in order to capture a share of the other’s opportunity.

Continue reading Switched On: Microsoft and Nokia trade posturing for pragmatism

Filed under: Wireless

Switched On: Microsoft and Nokia trade posturing for pragmatism originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Snow Leopard. Even the name seems to underpromise — it’s the first “big cat” OS X codename to reference the previous version of the OS, and the list of big-ticket new features is seemingly pretty short for a version-number jump. Maybe that’s why Apple’s priced the 10.6 upgrade disc at just $29 — appearances and expectations matter, and there’s simply not enough glitz on this kitty to warrant the usual $129.

But underneath the customary OS X fit and finish there’s a lot of new plumbing at work here. The entire OS is now 64-bit, meaning apps can address massive amounts of RAM and other tasks go much faster. The Finder has been entirely re-written in Cocoa, which Mac fans have been clamoring for since 10.0. There’s a new version of QuickTime, which affects media playback on almost every level of the system. And on top of all that, there’s now Exchange support in Mail, iCal, and Address Book, making OS X finally play nice with corporate networks out of the box.

So you won’t notice much new when you first restart into 10.6 — apart from some minor visual tweaks here and there there’s just not that much that stands out. But in a way that means the pressure’s on even more: Apple took the unusual and somewhat daring step of slowing feature creep in a major OS to focus on speed, reliability, and stability, and if Snow Leopard doesn’t deliver on those fronts, it’s not worth $30… it’s not worth anything. So did Apple pull it off? Read on to find out!

Continue reading Snow Leopard review

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Software

Snow Leopard review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

As Engadget’s resident former attorney, my first instinct when I sat down to re-read Apple, AT&T’s and Google’s FCC filings regarding Google Voice was to put on my lawyer hat and try to find inconsistencies that might shed some additional light on what had actually happened — if Apple’s account differed from AT&T’s, for example, perhaps those subtle differences would reveal the actual truth. This proved to be much more difficult than I had imagined, however: not only had Google redacted the most interesting part of its statement, I came to a profound realization after just a few moments of work.

I don’t care.

Each of the responses was long, dense, and polished to a high-gloss shine that made each company’s actions seem not only rational and justified, but almost inevitable in a way — as I wrote at the time, Apple isn’t exaggerating when it says that these are entirely new problems, and simply reading the individual letters paints a fairly sympathetic picture of how this whole chaotic process ended up in such disarray. But that’s a perspective that assumes deeply-rooted interest in the systems and procedure of the App Store, a perspective that assumes there’s a good reason we should be looking to lawyers and government regulators to figure out what’s going on with the most exciting and vital software market that we’ve seen in a long time.

Continue reading Editorial: Apple, the FCC, and the sideloading solution

Editorial: Apple, the FCC, and the sideloading solution originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments