Technology & Gadgets

What will Apple release onto the world this time? Well, a third-gen iPad, to be sure; but that may not be the biggest game-changer of the day. That title will go to the new 1080p AppleTV, with an emphasis on streaming from iOS devices, rather than localized apps on your TV. The iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch will be the primary interfacing devices, and the AppleTV just a conduit for throwing content to the big screen.

The problem with all the other ‘smart TVs’ is, nobody wants all those apps on their TV.

Nobody wants this.

There’s no good interface for browsing apps on a TV, and nobody wants to talk to their TV or have to swipe their arm in the air for Kinect-like control. The best device is already in most people’s hands: their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. While all the classic consumer electronics contenders rush to beat Apple to the smartTV market, they’re all running the wrong way, and Apple’s got something completely different up their sleeve.

The foundation already exists: You can use Netflix or Hulu or any one of a number of other streaming videos apps on your iPhone or iPad to stream straight through to your TV. The Comcast Xfinity TV app is the best interface I’ve ever used for searching or browsing tv listings & changing the channel on my TV. I’ll never page up & down that clunky outdated onscreen guide again.

Comcast Xfinity iPhone App

Hopefully, in classic Apple style, they’ll announce some licensing deals, and maybe even a new streaming platform to accompany the new device. At a bare minimum, expect a TV app, like Newsstand, to bring all the video content together.

And because the AppleTV will be an accessory to Apple’s other high-margin products, Apple won’t need to make a big profit off it. It won’t be so much about direct profits as it will be about selling more iPhones & iPads, and pulling more people into the Apple ecosystem.

Down the road, expect Apple to release the long rumored TV set, to sell alongside the set-top-box. It will be free from any convoluted settings menus or on-screen guides – that’ll all be controlled by your handheld device, too. Actually, expect just 1 power button, and… that’s it.

And even if no new licensing deals are announced today, expect Apple to keep working on breaking the old TV model with a more Netflix or Hulu-like experience, once the content providers realize they’re better off playing nice with Apple than trying to keep protecting their antiquated content delivery system.

So while the iPad 3 (or HD or whatever they call it) will probably get more headlines, it’ll be the new AppleTV platform that will really guarantee Apple’s continued growth into the foreseeable future. I for one can’t wait to retire my convoluted button-ridden Comcast remote once and for all!

We’ll all find out in just a few minutes.

With the release of the next-generation iPad just around the corner, speculation is heating up over whether Apple will announce significant price drops to ensure the future success of the device. PCWorld is predicting Apple will drop the price of the iPad 2 to $300, and possibly release an 8-inch iPad ‘mini’ for as low as $200 to compete with the Kindle Fire. To them, I say, why? Releasing a $200 or even $300 tablet would be the equivalent of Apple releasing a $500 laptop – it’s just not in their DNA.

They’re much more likely to continue selling the iPad 2 alongside the iPad 3 (or 2S, if that’s what it’s called) at a discount, in the same way they sell the iPhone 4 and 3GS alonside the 4S. They can do this, while maintining their profit margins, because of the constantly decreasing cost of components. According to Bloomberg, the profit margin on the nearly 3-year old iPhone 3GS is about the same as the recently released 4S; we should expect a similar case with the iPad 2 after the next-generation device is released (likely) in the next few weeks. But Apple has no reason to drop the price all the way down to $300; they’re still selling plenty of iPads at $500 and up, so a discount to $400 for the previous-year model would be much more reasonable, while still continuing to fend off most of the ensuing Android competition.

And what about Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and other 7″ tablets at half that price? As Apple’s said before, they’re not really concerned, and for good reason: they’re not really in the same market. The Fire is a high-end e-reader, and the iPad is a full-size tablet. While mini tablets can run a lot of the same kinds of apps that their larger counterparts can, not many consumers are going to replace their home PCs with a Kindle Fire; but an iPad? It’s already happening. And I think that’s the big difference: full-size tablets – currently heavily dominated by the iPad – are in more direct competition with the PC market, while 7″ tablets for the most part aren’t. If anything, they’re in closer competition with large-screen smartphones than they are with PC’s. So while similar, the iPad and Kindle Fire are in two very different product categories, the cheaper of which Apple has no reason or desire to pursue.

Now, this isn’t to say Apple will never release a cheaper iPad; I think they would be wise to release a rugged low-end version of the iPad aimed squarely at the education market some time in the future, perhaps at the $300 price point. I’m not holding my breath for that to happen this year, or even next, but maybe in 2014 or 2015, when the tablet wars have really heated up. After all, we’re still in the first quarter of this new game of tablets, and there’s a lot of plays yet to be made.

Remember this picture from Back to the Future? 

From a technical standpoint, it could work really well. You already pause for a second or so before you click the shutter button, lining it up & waiting for the person(s) to be ready; so it already has some good data to fill in the background where you want to ‘erase’ people, from when they weren’t ther. It just has to do a ‘difference’ filter to find things that changed over time, and overwrite those areas in your final photo with data from the adjacent shots.

Awesome! I hope they release an app, rather than lock it in to any single platform or manufacturer’s devices. They would make a killing, and everybody would be happy! Including me! I already have 4 different photo apps I use on a regular basis to post-process photos for various reasons (and no, not to ‘hipsterize’ them). This would be a welcome addition!

Via Gizmodo

Gizmodo thinks the next round of MacBook Pros will just be suped up versions of the Air – with no optical drive and no hard drive (SSD only). While I agree the optical drive is dead, and FireWire will be dropped in favor of Thunderbolt, I wouldn’t be so fast to dismiss good old-fashioned hard drives just yet.

MacBook Pros still need more storage than SSD’s can supply at a remotely reasonable price. I think even Apple realizes that a lot of pros still need 500GB – 1TB, and $1500 is too much to pay for *storage* space, which is what most of big drives are used for. I expect hybrid drives, or perhaps a combo SSD+HDD. If I can have a 128GB SSD for my boot drive with all my apps and files I access most often, and I could still store all my big files & archives on a HDD, it would be the perfect balance of speed, storage & price. Or perhaps (ideally) Apple will change the game again and release a custom hybrid drive with 32GB or 64GB built on (most max out around 8GB), to manage all the caching automatically, so my 1TB drive will feel as fast as an SSD for booting & all the files I use most, while retaining the high capacity at a reasonable cost per GB.

I agree that the optical drive and FireWire are both dead – that will allow them to increase battery capacity while slimming down the profile quite a bit – that optical drive is by far the 2nd biggest component in the current machines (after the battery of course). Ethernet port could go either way – you can get an adapter so it’s not a big deal if they drop it. 

Whatever the new Pros look like, I have a credit card waiting for them. My pre-unibody Pro is really showing its age, and I would have bought a new one already, but I’ve been waiting for the new optical-less models since last fall. And the wait is killlllling me!

I thought the iPad (and consequent tablets) was kind of pointless when it was released; after all, I already have a smartphone & a laptop, and if the tablet doesn’t completely replace either one, what’s the point? It’ll be a niche product for people with money to burn, I thought. Then the iPad2 came out & the original dropped to $400; So I cashed in my tax return & got one to play with.

At first, it was mostly a novelty; but then there was the moment I “got” it: I was sitting on the sofa one night watching TV & had the urge to look something up. My smartphone was in my pocket, & my iPad & laptop were both on the table in front of me. I reached up, hesitated for a second, & grabbed the iPad. It was just more convenient for quick web browsing & tasks like email, at least when I’m sitting/laying on the sofa. Since then, I’ve found I leave the laptop on the computer desk, and just have the iPad on the coffee table. I only use my laptop when I have to work on things most people don’t need to do on a home computer – and I think that’s the biggest thing to take away: there are some things tablets can’t do or don’t do as well as a laptop; but most home users don’t need to to do those things. Sure, typing a lot isn’t ideal, but the backlash over that is overrated – you get used to it fast – and you can always get a little keyboard for those times you want to write your Mom a novel.

Since then, I’ve found myself using the iPad for a lot more than emailing & web browsing: editing photos, recording & editing music, designing logos, crunching numbers; the custom apps really are amazing. And Maps & Yelp are a much better experience than a smartphone when you’re discovering a new city. They’re all things I could do on a laptop (if I tethered it for data), and most are things I *could* do on a smartphone, too; but after using a tablet, laptops really start to feel clunky, and for some tasks (editing music, graphic design), the smartphone is just too small to work comfortably. Laptops also aren’t ideal on the train, which is where I get a lot of work done in my iPad. As for the 7″ tablet, I think it’s better than a smartphone, but not enough of a difference to warrant carrying a second device. In many ways, 7″ tablets are more akin to big smartphones than they are to regular (9″+) tablets, but without the convenience.

As for reading, I actually prefer reading on my smartphone rather than my iPad, and I think it’s just a matter of convenience: My smartphone is always on me, and it’s not worth pulling out my iPad just to read. I can actually see a place for the classic Kindle for people who read a lot, because its screen is so much more paper-like; but I just don’t see the usefulness of a 7″ tablet over a smartphone. They’ll probably sell like crazy this year because they’re new & cheap, but eventually people will realize they already have a device that can do *pretty much* everything just as well, AND it fits in their pocket. After the novelty wears off, most of the 7″ tablets will likely just sit on a shelf most of the time. And yes, I realize I haven’t used a 7″ tablet regularly enough to really know how well it works as a tablet, but I have played with one long enough to decide its benefits over a smartphone don’t justify having another device.

I see a future where laptops are tools for work & computer nerds, and tablets (with 9″+ screens) are tools for average home-users. And for those who read a lot, I think there will always be a place for the cheap classic Kindle e-reader. But I think 7″ tablets are bound to go the way of the netbook: cheap, but rather pointless.

So until you’ve had a chance to actually use a (9″+) tablet, and I mean more than just toying around with it at your local Big Box store, I can see why you wouldn’t really see the point. I was the same way a year ago; but now I’m a happy, regular tablet user. Over the next few years, millions of others will likely come to the same conclusion.

The new Motorola Droid RAZR is generating lots of buzz, mainly for how how “impossibly thin” it is, at a skinny 7.1mm. It’s been reported all over, with that same number mentioned every time. What none of these reviews mention, however, is that the WHOLE phone isn’t actually that thin. There’s a pretty significant chunk at the top of the phone that’s considerably thicker. It doesn’t appear Motorola is releasing specs for how thick the thickest part of their phone is, which is generally how you measure something’s thickness. By Motorola’s reporting, the MacBook Air is only 3mm thin, since that’s how it measures at its thinnest point.

See for yourself. Personally, I’d rather have a couple extra mm width on the entire phone, than a thick spot at the top that sticks out an extra 3.4mm. But, maybe that’s just me.

A lot of people are questioning whether Apple has a case when it says Samsung, Motorola and others copied their design for their own tablets from the iPad. Take a look:

Source: MacRumors/SockRolid

Taken individually, Apple’s claims may not look like they have much merit. For instance, one of Apple’s trademarks includes, “The mark consists of the configuration of a rectangular handheld mobile digital electronic device with rounded corners.” Another states, “The color gray appears as a rectangle at the front, center of the device” (the screen). It probably isn’t hard to find prior art of rectangular handheld mobile electronic devices with rounded corners and a screen. But put them together in the same configuration as the iPhone – the rounded corners at the same radius, a grid of colorful square icons with rounded corners, with the bottom 4 set apart on a silver background, and the whole device surrounded by silver edges – and the merit of the claim begins to focus.

There are plenty of ways to design a phone, and nothing before the iPhone could have possibly been mistaken for an iPhone. You can put an LG Prada next to an iPhone and make a case for Apple copying some of their design aspects, but you would never mistake the iPhone for the Prada; and that’s what this lawsuit is about – in their hardware design, interface, icons and through to their packaging, Samsung’s products all-around mimic Apple’s quite closely, and that’s what intellectual property Apple is trying to protect.

In this set of visual charts, Apple’s trademarks and self-proclaimed trade dress are broken down line-by-line, and checked against Samsung’s products prior to (SGH-F700 smartphone & Q1 UMPC) and after (Galaxy S smartphone & Galaxy Tab tablet) the release of the iPhone & iPad. While no silver bullet, it does illustrate the transformation Samsung’s products have made since Apple’s devices have been on the market, and how similar they have become to those devices.

Start: Apple vs. Samsung Page 1: Hardware Design