Can this save the newspapers — or undo them?
Related to all this is the need for publishers to have a direct relationship with subscribers and the desire by Apple to keep certain customer information private. Google appears to be trying to woo some publishers, like Time Warner and Condé Nast with the idea that Android will give them everything the publishers want. It’s not all sorted out yet, but here’s some background by the Wall Street Journal — subscription may be required — “Google Digital Newsstand Aims to Muscle In on Apple.”
If a company whose website you visit, comes back at you and starts to sniff the history of where you’ve been on the Internet, is that a violation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act? A New York resident and his attorney think so and have filed suit against McDonalds, CBS, Mazda and Microsoft. According to Wendy Davis, “History-sniffing technology exploits a vulnerability in browsers to discover the Web sites users previously visited. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego recently brought the technique to light when they published a paper explaining the technique and naming 46 Web sites where history-sniffing technology was being deployed.” There’s much more in the Online Media Daily article.
Not to worry, it’s only a Website peeking inside your Mac
Who better to review Google TV than a TV expert, Steve Smith, so here’s a review at VidBlog that digs into some of its problems. It’s just the first part, so you’ll want to come back and find the follow-up articles. “The Google-ification of My TV.”
You are either on the rise in the mobile electronics business, or you’re in decline. Stopping the decline is a lot harder than companies would like it to be, and, often, nothing they can do will stop the fall. To see that trend in smartphone market share, GigaOm provided this chart. (Click to enlarge the chart.) “Apple Holds Smartphone Lead, But Android Is Gaining.” Note that this is smartphone market share, not Android OS vs iOS market share. I can’t wait to see what this chart looks like in 12 months.
This next item is current, but I just found it this week. Have you ever had that WTF feeling when Microsoft releases a product? You’re dumbfounded, especially when you compare the product design and release process to Apple’s. Here’s an interesting explanation that could also apply to Google: “The Redmond Reality Distortion Field.” Really. These engineers need to get out more.
Again, along those lines, it seems that the Windows 7 tablets still require a lot more horsepower than their Android counterparts. That leads to this humorous piece by Matt Rosof at Business Insider: “See If You Can Spot The Problem With Microsoft’s Tablet Strategy.” Ok, you can stop laughing now.
Eee Slate Tablet
“How sticky is Android?” That’s the question Horace Dedlu asks, and the upshot is that one has to question the proposition that once a customer selects a product, they’ll stay with it forever. That’s the stickiness factor. This article explores that issue with a little bit of math — but that’s good! The author’s conclusion: “It’s not a clear cut case in my mind that Android benefits from these as much as iOS does. If that’s the case, users are more likely to be moving on a one-way street between these two: from Android to iOS and not vice versa.” The (rumored) introduction of the Verizon iPhone will test that assumption. Meanwhile, see if you agree.
What were the major tech trends at CES 2011? Here’s CEPro’s slide show that summarizes what was big this year. Even so, that doesn’t mean that customers are of the same mind. For example, at Christmas, 3D HDTVs left customers yawning, and they headed straight to Best Buy and Apple to buy Kindles and iPads instead.
We know that Google has been telling tablet makers to hold off on Android 2.x as the preferred OS, but many ignored Google in their rush to compete with Apple. However, Android 3.0, code named Honeycomb, is designed for tablets. Here’s a sneak peek at Honeycomb. Will it carve a piece out of the iPad? We shall see.
Now here’s an easy question: Can most users replace their desktop or notebook computer with a smartphone connected to a keyboard and a large display? It sounds foolish, but Motorola is going to see what sticks to the wall with its new Atrix 4G smart phone. Reports are that the large screen performance with animations is jerky, and the Linux side of the dual Linux-Android system can only run Firefox. Here’s a photo of Moto’s vision for the Atrix. It might work for a few, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on Moto’s vision.
This morning, our Ted Landau went into some of the details of the Mac Apple Store (MAS) in a very nice summary article. But not everything is rosy with the MAS, and here are some of the downsides to the new Apple system written by Whiston Gordon. This serious food for thought, as are the sobering Apple rules for what Apps will be excluded from MAS. As I mentioned in an editorial earlier today, the laws of the Kingdom often need to be broken. MAS may not always meet our specific needs, and that’s fine.
Finally, If you’ve seen those T-Mobile myTouch ads on TV that take shots at AT&T and Apple…
… you may be interested in these four photos taken at, I believe, CES of “Miss T-Mobile.” They’re provided here as strictly technical commentary on the nature of the T-Mobile ads which use the same technique against Apple and AT&T as the Apple “Get a Mac” ads used against Microsoft.