Posts Tagged ‘Apple’

Apple’s Music Event 2010: Death of the Click-Wheel

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Another Apple announcement has come and gone, treated with the understated calm that we’ve come to expect from the technology giant. That’s bull, of course, asking Apple to announce something quietly is like asking that same thing of Brian Blessed. Of course, I’m going to propagate the hype myself now by blogging about it.

Incidently, I wrote about last year’s music event and made some semi-serious predictions for 2010.

Of course, the event began with Steve Jobs’ usual self-congratulatory ejaculation as he delights in just how well his products have sold, ignoring the criticism that the iPhone 4 had. Then he spends half an hour rolling around in piles of your money. YES! YOUR MONEY! YOU PATHETIC PRICK!

Ahem…

iPod Nano Sixth Generation

The sixth-generation iPod Nano is perhaps the biggest overhaul, mainly because it’s no longer a Nano — more a result of a horrific gene-splicing experiment between the Touch and the Shuffle. It’s inherited the Shuffle’s belt-clip and restores the square form factor that the third generation Nano had. Instead of the new Nano being a diminutive version of it’s Classic brother, it now sports a fetching touch-screen. This multi-touch (and no, I don’t know why you’d need multi-touch on an iPod Nano) and capacitive addition essentially does away entirely with the original iPod layout we’ve all come to know which, given that no new Classic announcements were given, marks the death of it’s former look. Instead of a click-wheel, the entire front of the device is a touch-screen, allowing navigation of the device. From the images I’ve seen, it does look like this screen is far too small and cramped to be comfortably used, although the newly redesigned interface for the Nano clearly has a touch-screen in mind. But the main reason I’ve not bought an iPod Touch already is the notorious fragility of touch-screens — I’m not convinced.

The iPod Touch has also had a minor touch-up, but nothing like the plastic surgery of the Nano. It’s slimmer, which by now is practically assumed of any newly released device, and has a screen supporting Apple’s randomly-named ‘Retina Display’. Another throwback to the iPhone 4 is the front facing camera (and the inclusion of a back-facing camera) to allow Apple’s new video-calling service FaceTime over Wi-Fi — given it has no 3G antenna band to get screwed up, this iPod might be less of a commercial balls-up than it’s cousin, iPhone.

iPod Touch with FaceTime

In perhaps the biggest U-turn since Clinton, Apple have reunited the iPod Shuffle with it’s buttons. The last iteration of the cheap and chirpy noisemaker removed almost all the physical buttons on the device itself, meaning it had to be controlled instead by the buttons on the tinny travesty of headphones that come in the box, and navigation was aided by an almost as tinny voice. Though the voice remains (which is fine given most Apple fanboys hear voices anyway, mainly telling them to buy more Apple products), the buttons are back.

In a display of balls-out ripoffery, Apple have taken several chapters out of MySpace and Spotify’s books and will introduce a music-oriented social-network feature into the next incarnation of iTunes, known as ‘Ping’. Essentially, this will broadcast your appreciation of ‘The Fast Food Rockers’ to your friends, leave you without any friends and persuade you to find solace in the purchase of an iPad. I kid, of course. The real point is that you see what your friends are listening to and then you (because life is one big futile attempt at gaining social acceptance) purchase the same songs to demonstrate just how like-minded you are with your mates — kerching for Apple. Like a bit of Tinchy Stryder do you? No, you don’t. Nobody does. Everybody just thinks they should.

Something happened to do with the Apple TV, but that’s irrelevant seeing as nobody bothers with them — not while we’ve got Sky+ at least. It’s smaller, obviously, and is just a media streamer for your computer to your TV but with it’s own film and TV rental service. Boring.

All in all, the Nano is the biggest change, which is usually the case at Apple’s September music event. I’ve always loved the Nano precisely because it’s a middle-ground between the cheap but relatively feature-less Shuffle and the complex, expensive Touch — now, the Nano is less intermediate and more horrendously choreographed mix’n'match. Nothing unexpected or unusual, Steve Jobs didn’t come out in a floral dress and announce his impending sex change. Nor did he emerge holding Bill Gates’ hand, vindicating years of rumours. Once the Nano hype has died down, the tech world will breathe a collective ‘meh’ at yesterday’s announcement and we can all get on with our lives.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

iPhone 4: Damn you, Gizmodo.

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Hey all, this is an article I wrote for MediaKick about the iPhone 4, announced by Steve Jobs at yesterday’s WWDC Keynote Speech. I’m not totally sure what MediaKick’s feelings about me reposting articles I’ve written for them but if this post undergoes a swift exit you’ll know…

Keeping up his tradition of announcing a new iPhone at WWDC each year, the bespectacled Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the newest addition to their smartphone range, the unimaginatively named iPhone 4.

iPhone 4

To build up anticipation ahead of his official announcement (which was no mean feat considering Gizmodo leaked a prototype of this phone several months ago, to which Jobs made a sly reference when showing off the new handset’s design), Jobs described this new version as “the biggest leap since the original iPhone”.

The new iPhone departs from the casing style of its predecessor in the biggest way seen so far. As it does away with the slippery bevelled edges that caused many a drop-induced screen crack, replaced with a steel edge that nicely frames the handset. What’s more is that the stainless steel edges make up the band for the antenna system within the phone, fitting all standard connectivity medium antennas (GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, et al) in a feat of engineering that Jobs claims was worth sacrificing Apple’s traditional aversion to distinct lines in their products. The new edges also allow the phone itself to be notably thinner, reduced to an anorexic 9.6mm, with Jobs claiming it to be 24% slimmer than it’s past incarnations, making it the thinnest smartphone on the market today; which, to me, sounded like a challenge. The buttons on the edges remain more or less the same, volume rocker (but now with an added mute toggle) on the side, headphone jack atop and microphone beneath. Jobs referenced the Gizmodo leak by insisting that nobody had seen this before, to howls of laughter, none of which (I assume) were coming from Jason Chen.

The new iPhone 4 also packs a new screen, a 3.5 inch display with an 800:1 contrast ratio and a 960×640 pixel display, figures until now unheard of on a mobile phone. A new feature allows this called ‘Retina Display’, which, despite it’s cool-sounding name, is simply a quadrupedal increase in pixel density on the screen; meaning that text and displays will be far crisper even at close range as the ppi (pixels per inch) is increased to 326. Indeed, Jobs went into scientific detail explaining the working of the human eye and explaining that the limits of the retina is 300ppi and, with a display comfortably over that limit, text viewed at a longer distance should resemble a printed book. Arguably, this (pretty poor) comparison was in response to the critics of the iPad’s capabilities as an eBook reader as it uses a backlit screen, rather than the traditional eInk screens, and is less comfortable to read at length – surely if the problem doesn’t exist on the iPhone, people will be more confident about iPad purchases for it’s eBook functionality. After some technical difficulties in which the iPhone 4 seemed to lose Internet connection which caused Jobs to, paradoxically, request that the journalists in the room, promoting his product online, stop using the Wifi, the ‘retina display’ was further demonstrated through a wealth of comparisons between the iPhone 4 and the 3GS. Jobs reassured the assembled app developers that their existing apps, when used on an iPhone 4, would render in the sharp retina display, before rounding off his demonstration of the display by describing it as the “best window on the planet”, I can only assume he was excluding the human eye.

Eager not to leave out the major techies in the room, Jobs went under the hood of the iPhone 4 and for the first time in WWDC history we were shown the innards of the new iPhone, he started talking about the A4 processor, designed and built in-house by Apple; currently only available in the iPad, the A4 chip packs 1GHz of punch. The most noticeable thing within the new iPhone is the larger Li-ion battery, taking up a good 30% of the immediately visible back, accompanied by the usual unrealistic stabs in the dark estimations about battery life, claiming 6 hours of 3G browsing, 7 hours of 3G talk and an amazing 300 hours standby. Not to be outdone on the ecological front, Jobs’ next job was to fly the green Apple logo for a moment and explain how the iPhone 4 meets all the environmental standards that the users have come to expect from his products – good to know that the Apple is compostable. The phone also comes with 32GB of storage (though it’s pretty likely models with varying capacities will be available), dual mic noise suppression (using the back mic to identify noise and attempt to filter it out of the front mic input), support for 802.11n Wi-fi which has recently come out of draft and a fairly standard HSDPA connection speed.

Rather than bringing out their own gaming device, Apple has opted to infiltrate the gaming sector in the guise of an MP3 player as they touted, above anything, the gaming features of the iPod Touch. Now the gate is open for the iPhone to throw it’s antenna-edges in as, to go with the classic accelerometer and the oh-so-pointless compass, the iPhone 4 packs a gyroscope. This 3-axis addition gives a far more accurate representation of the device’s position and movement to make motion-controlled games even more immersive. The gyroscope, combined with the accelerometer, now give the iPhone a 6-axis sense of motion putting it at about the same as early PS3 controllers, this is the first time anything Apple has produced has been directly comparable to a gaming-specific product so it’ll be interesting to see if this will lead to any degree of competition between the large gaming companies and Apple. The iPhone 4 also comes with the proximity sensor that deactivates the touchscreen when, for example, the user lifts it to their face to talk, to avoid face-dialling (a word I just made up) and a light sensor.

In response to one of the biggest criticisms of the iPhone, a feature oft-rumoured but never vindicated, Apple has finally introduced a front facing camera to the iPhone’s otherwise unblemished front. Though the cameras are now 5 megapixel instead of it’s normal 3, Jobs insists that for image quality and professional photography the focus shouldn’t be on simply increasing the megapixels in a camera and one’s effort should, instead, focus on “capturing photons and low light photography”, to which Apple’s solution is a backside illuminated sensor. Other features of the camera includes a fairly standard LED flash and 5x digital zoom, but also continues the development of Apple’s ‘tap to focus’ feature which directs the camera to focus more on areas indicated by the viewfinder and less on other areas. A very interesting, but perhaps ultimately superfluous, addition is the camera’s ability to record video in high definition – a video quality of 30 frames per second at 720p quality, integrated with the iPhone’s antecedent video editing application (or a new development which I’ll come to later) and one-click sharing with major social media websites.

After gleefully announcing the introduction of iMovie for the iPhone, Jobs left the stage and ushered in Randy Ubillos, one of the people behind Adobe Premier, Final Cut Pro and now the new iMovie for iPhone. This new app incorporates the functionality of the original Mac application into a portable format, into which you can import recorded video and chop’n’change to your heart’s content; it even includes visual effects, transitions, sounds and geotagging to give you the full experience of a basic video editing package. The iMovie app can even allow you to export your edited creation into a variety of sizes and resolutions: 360p, 540p and 720p. Attempting to stuff so much functionality into one cramped, if well pixel-occupied, screen inevitably meant that the screenshots appeared to be quite cramped, but hopefully this will be resolved with later versions. The app will be available soon in the App Store for $4.99.

Steve took the stage once again to again request that the journalists, for whom this whole keynote is for, refrain from using the Wi-Fi and even requested that Wi-Fi cards be switched off as it was interfering with the smooth demonstration of the iPhone 4 features. His return was to talk about the iPhone OS 4.0 which will now, and forever more, be known as: iOS 4; this segment was little more than a rehash the new features of the iPhone OS 4.0 as he did in April: multi-tasking, unified inbox, etc. Jobs mentioned that the Safari search engine feature, which already houses Google and Yahoo! search engines will now also support Bing, and Jobs was surprisingly kind to his companies rival about how Microsoft have done with the introduction of Bing.

As with the iPad, the iPhone 4 will have a focus on eBooks as the app for this, ‘iBooks’, is added to iOS 4 – combining an eReader with a PDF reader to act as a pseudo-document management application as well as a bookshelf with the charming visuals for iBooks that we saw on the iPad demonstrations. Jobs also touted the ability to sync your eBook collection with all your Apple devices, saving the need for repeat purchase and syncing your place in a book and your notes, along with a heavy focus on interactivity within the text, such as finding word definitions with the in-built dictionary and searching the web for words, phrases or references within the book you’re reading.

A new feature within iOS 4 is the inception of iAds, the inclusion of advertisements within apps to, as Jobs explained here, to help app developers (and, no doubt, Apple themselves) earn money and, thus, encourage the development of free and low-cost apps. He demonstrated how these apps would seamlessly integrate with the app and, in fact, the overall effect was quite pleasing; the ad wasn’t distracting. Given the controversy that this move has been met with, Jobs assured the developers present that clicking an ad wouldn’t, thanks in part to the new addition of multi-tasking, cause the app being used to exit, nor would the developer be required to do any sort of hosting or management of the ads, all of which will be served by Apple servers. Apple already has a very wide range of surprisingly well-known companies signed up to advertise on iAds, collectively committed to pay $60 million; money which would come back (minus Apple’s fees of course) to the developers. Jobs delighted in explaining how this close communication between advertiser and platform owner meant that new ways of advertising where possible, and continued to demonstrate using an in-app advertisement for the Nissan Leaf.

Jobs then takes his audience back to 2007 when he demonstrated the first public iPhone call to Jony Ive, one of the lead Industrial Designers at Apple, and he says that he has the honour of doing so again. The large iPhone on the screen showing what Jobs’ handset shows flashes up with the normal outgoing call display to Jony Ive when suddenly a face fills the screen, a face belonging to Jony Ive himself. Now, Jobs and Ive begin a sort of double-act to introduce ‘FaceTime’: Apple’s new iPhone VoIP application, allowing video calling using the front or back facing cameras between any two iPhone 4s. Jobs was coy enough to mention that the app currently only works for “calling” over Wi-Fi, as they are still working on deals with carriers to allow this data-heavy service. The call to Ive came through very clearly with no palpable lag, even in spite of Steve’s Wi-Fi worries so it remains to be seen if this service can compete with Skype, which has recently moved into mobiles. My prediction is that, considering the high number of iPhone users and FaceTime’s video calling prominence (where Skype has, on mobiles, failed to bring that out yet), Skype should retreat – fast.

Wrapping it up, Jobs mentioned that they’d resurrected the white iPhone for it’s fourth iteration to co-exist, once more, with it’s black twin. Details of US pricing were much the same as in the past and there was, understandably, no mention of UK pricing [O2 will be announcing pricing in the coming days - Ed]; though it was mentioned that the UK was one of the first five countries the iPhone 4 will ship to upon it’s release on June 24th. Before signing off, Jobs pleased music-lovers and early iPhone adopters everywhere by announcing that iOS 4 would be available for past models of iPhone and iPod Touch, unfortunately it would be feature-limited on the 3G and not on the first generation Touch due to hardware capabilities.

With the keynote speech over, loyal Apple fans will go away happy that practically all their past demands have been met, if 2009 was any indicator then 2011 will probably be simply a minor variation on what we’ve witnessed now; but you can’t help wonder where Apple can possibly go next…

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Apple iPad Nano

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Not that I’m one to recycle old news – unless you’re not a geek, you will have heard the fable of the now unemployed Apple tester. In a show of stupidity that would make politicians tut with hypocrisy, an Apple employee was testing out a, supposedly, prototype iPhone 4th generation in a bar and left it behind. Whoever picked it up got on the wire to Gizmodo and came away an iPhone prototype poorer and, apparentely, $5,000 richer.

iPhone Fourth Gen - bit like an iPad

For my money, I’d say this is genuine. Firstly, it addresses most of the big problems that iPhone users have, including a front facing camera and a bigger battery (Gizmodo cracked it open and found it to be 16% larger). It has a totally new shape that removes the weird bevels around the edges and slightly rounded back-casing, which made the previous incarnations kinda slippery, to a flat cuboid but maintaining the rounded edges, to stop the people who realise how much money they’ve spent on a piece of crap and attempt to poke their eyes out to punish themselves. Looking at the images, the build seems too well-made to have been an amateur and no professional company would dare mock up an iPhone lest they have their arses handed to them (see Apple’s reaction below). Apple generally announce a new iPhone model at WWDC every summer, and have done for the past three years, so it’s entirely plausible that they’d have a completed model in the prototyping phase by now. Plus, given the collective feeling of “meh” about the 3GS last year, which saw the addition of no major dealbreaking features, Apple would surely want to bring out something that, at least visually, is noticeably different.

Apple are not best pleased about this, apparentely, and e-mailed Gizmodo almost immediately after the story broke asking for it back, which I guess they’ve done. They gave the tester, Gray Powell, a 3GS case to hide the different appearance and, I imagine, told him not to show it off given that the front facing camera (and probably a bunch of prototype serial numbers) would be visible. After Powell abandoned it, the finder picked up the device and, reportedly, noticed the front-facing camera, soon realising (after removing the case I gather) that this was an iPhone – but not as he knew it.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Apple purposely leaked this – intending to drum up hype and interest in the device before formally announcing it in a couple of months. Of course, none of this has been admitted to, but many devices with significant aesthetic or feature changes that Apple have developed usually have a few workshop pictures leaked by “anonymous sources” on the inside; having done it so many times, if Apple wanted to leak this, they’d have to go big. However, Gizmodo is of the opinion this cigar is just a cigar – that this wasn’t a controlled leak but exactly how it looks: an internal screw-up. Certainly, Apple’s insistence to get the thing back is a break from form, acknowledging a leak at all is a new one, as well as (were it a controlled leak) giving an actual device into the public to be dissected and meticulously examined doesn’t play well for them should their competitors get wind of anything particularly groundbreaking (which I don’t think there is) and rush to answer back.

The leap of faith they must’ve had to take, also, that this would fall into the right hands to get plastered across the geek kingdom is perhaps too big for them to feasibly have taken, with only a slim chance that someone would recognise this as something new. After that you get into the territory of paying off bar staff, Powell or even Gizmodo, to explode the story but that’d be an expensive feat and feels a lot like overkill just to get a bit of attention, with no obvious financial benefit – previous “leaks” have been mere pictures and much cheaper with an almost identical effect.

Gizmodo’s reasons for feeling smug about besting Apple at their own game hinges mainly on their own experiences with Apple’s PR – a generally secretive affair – but makes the point that their secrecy over the years would be completely upended if they were to “leak” working prototypes significantly early before an announcement (generally “leaks” occur days, if not hours, beforehand).

Time, as it always does, will tell – I’m looking forward to Jobs’ demeaneour when he announces it to the suprise of no-one. Knowing Jobsy he’ll either be really coy about it, make a joke or won’t show up at all. What’s the point of being on an endlessly repeated clip announcing a new chapter in the iPhone saga if the crowd’s reaction will be so underwhelmed?

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

iPhone OS 4.0 – Better Spam Integration

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

As if we needed any more evidence that Apple’s flagship smartphone, iPhone, was severely lacking in the most basic features – Steve Jobs has held another media-frenzy of press launch to announce a minor upgrade to the phone operating system – Version 4.0 – with over 100 new features. Mock them, though I do, for holding an entire press event for something so minor, I admit that I am going to propagate that by reviewing it, when I didn’t do so with my own phone’s OS upgrade last week – ho hum.

iPhone OS 4.0 Features

One of the very first things Apple have addressed is multi-tasking, with Jobs giving a piss-poor explanation about how they’ve developed their own way to do multi-tasking that doesn’t drain battery life – unfortunately their way is exactly the same way as the Palm Pre has done multi-tasking since it came out more than a year ago. In any case, the iPhone’s multi-tasking features simply involves allowing multiple applications to run at the same time, except when their exited they no longer function or update, which can be adapted using their new API to work with, for example, playing music while the app is open but not active. Double-pressing the home button brings up a list of running apps and will likely involve some sort of functionality within that list of each app, such as the list showing music controls on running music apps and so on. The Palm Pre does much the same, and always has, running multiple apps in a “deck of cards” fashion that allows you to scroll through running apps much like pressing the Windows Key and Tab does in Vista, except linearly, saving on battery life by having the applications stop updating themselves or running at full pelt when they’re not the foreground app, until the user specifically elects to close the app. The difference is that Palm have had this for a year, and haven’t had the device out for three years of development – so when Steve Jobs says they were working on this “So that’s what took so long” – I can all too quickly call bullshit.

As if Apple’s baffling desire to tout the iPod Touch as a gaming device rather than what it is, a music player, wasn’t bad enough, now the iPhone is getting a “Game Center” to turn the games in the app store into a socially competitive time-killer. Simply put, this involves better network play, leaderboards and acheivements, something already present in the games themselves quite often, but something Apple wants to usurp for themselves. The upcoming Windows 7 Phone will include integration with XBox Live, which will undoubtedly trump this attempt by Apple for serious gamers because the latter option actually has a high-end console rather than a pissy little handheld alone.

In a shameless display of lazy, ball-scratching capitalisation, the new iPhone OS comes, like it or not, with built-in spam by third parties, giving Apple a cool 40% of the revenue generated. “iAd” sticks adverts into apps which include interactive elements (as in those godawful shoot 5 iPads to win one) and videos – of course, none of these ads, as they do on the web, will run in Flash, instead his holiness has decreed that no ad shall enter his kingdom unless they are scripted in HTML5, which Jobs weirdly claimed was “industry standard”……..no Steve, no it’s not.

When asked if any of the devices in what I’ve just named Apple’s iRange will ever support Java or Flash, Jobs’ reply was a flat “No”.

iPhone OS 4.0

Other notable features include allowing background location apps to use triangulation instead of battery-behemoth GPS, which I hope will be an optional feature – some people are pedants for an exact location, something which bouncing signals randomly around nearby cell towers to give a vague idea of where you are can’t do – so that running things like FourSquare doesn’t kill your battery and making an available idea of your location ironically important as you have no battery left to call anyone if you need a lift.

Menu screen wallpapers, app grouping, unified e-mail inbox, bluetooth keyboard support and a feast of other new features paled into obscurity in the face of the announcement that the new iPhone OS will be able to run iBooks – Apple’s eBook store that was created around the announcement of the iPad and it’s eReader functionality. Tellingly, an update to my Palm Pre last week to allow support for paid apps saw the appearance of thousands of eBooks – none of which I have bought specifically for the reason that, if trying to read a book on an OLED screen wasn’t bad enough (*cough*iPad*cough*), reading on a screen so small would be insufferable – which renders the integration of iBooks on the iPhone completely pointless. Some will try, and they will suffer.

iPhone OS 4.0 will come to the iPhone 3GS and 3rd-Gen iPod Touch in the summer and to the iPad in the autumn. So far, no announcement has been made about the cost, if any, of this update but there’s been no indication that the update will come out for the original iPhone or the 3G – meaning there’s now an actual reason to buy a 3GS – Steve Jobs, you cunning fox!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The ‘Need It’ Theory

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

I have a theory about the link between technology geeks, such as myself, and the coverage of gadget releases called the “Need It” Theory.

iPad - We can't see the point either

Like it or totally indifferent to it, tablet computers, that were first demonstrated by the greasy showmen at CES 2010 in January, have arrived in earnest. Leading the foray, as ever, was Apple’s take on how they think a tablet computer should be and, as ever, the device has been ejaculated on by fanboys and had the piss ripped out of it by everyone else. Other tablet’s are coming up to their release dates, a preview of which can be read at my CES 2010 post. The most vocal competitor to Apple’s iPhone Jumbo at the time of writing is HP with their “Slate”, due for release very soon – this post is not to discuss the various merits of either device, which will come as soon as both are released and sufficientely reliable reviews have been written and/or I somehow manage to get hold of a review model.

I am writing to consider one major aspect of technology, having been interesting in consumer electronics for so long, and having only recentely turned that interest into a creative outlet, such as this blog, I found myself ferventely reviewing every minor detail, every review and everything possible about the iPad and the Slate to decide which one I would buy. I found myself going through the normal motions that one does before a significant purchase, including considering the price and even checking my own bank account to see how it would fair £500ish lighter. It wasn’t until I had thoroughly considered it that I remembered that I have absolutely no intention of buying a tablet computer either way, indeed I had absolutely no clear use for a tablet computer whatsoever. So why was I so meticulous in my scrounge for every last detail………journalistic thoroughness? Perhaps, if I am going to advise people on the best gadgets I better know my friggin facts – but I couldn’t shake the idea that it went deeper than that, hence the inception of my ‘Need It’ Theory.

I am not, despite how it may sound, awarding myself some sort of intelligent credence for voicing something so painfully obvious, but as far as I know there’s no eloquentely put description of this tendency. Newton’s Laws were, however, known in every long-lived human in a practical sense, everyone took care when disembarking a boat lest the opposite push of the boat leave them falling in the drink. However, Newton’s Third Law, and all his other laws for that matter, took what was noticed in humans and explained them using the science – which has been tremendous in the advancement of the human species. On a mediocre, nobody really gives a fuck, level this is what I am doing – taking something noticable and known and doing my level-best, albeit probably failing, to explain this articulately.

The ‘Need It’ Theory is simply that people who are technology enthusiasts, writers or magpies (like shiny things) spend so much time following the releases of new products onto the gadget market, observing their competitors and in some way expressing opinions, at least for the writers, tend to make the assumption that they need this product. Founded, perhaps, on the idea that if one was to advise somebody on the best product in a certain field, for the sake of arguement let’s say tablet computers, they should put themselves in their shoes. However, the effect, subconciously, overreaches itself and the subjects come to believe that they need to buy these products. The effect is horribly visible, a lot of tech shows I watch have had their (apparentely well-paid) presenters asking one another which tablet computer they’re going to buy, forgoing the normal procedure of deciding if you need a type of product before deciding which specific product to buy.

Of course, for companies selling these products, that’s the entire point. Apple, in a show of balls-out ‘Need It’-ness, have developed their entire following around the central idea that theirs are products you need to have, that somehow this is the product you never knew you wanted, until you buy it and, having dropped anywhere between five-hundred to several thousand pounds, realise that you don’t need it. It’s easy for Apple, they have such a cult following and fanboys who, before I quote the Kevin Rose survey for the billionth time, would buy this product regardless of….well….anything. For Apple, it is quite literally a case of, to paraphrase ‘Field of Dreams’, “if you build it, they will come”.

Going back to Newton’s Third Law of Motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and that’s certainly observable here as well. As loud and obsessive as the Apple fanboy crowd are, there’s an equally as vehement, though significantly smaller, anti-Apple crowd who will do literally anything to avoid buying an Apple product and, for no discernible reason, omit the half-eaten fruit logo option of anything in their search when looking for a type of gadget. These people would buy something that isn’t Apple simply as an act of defiant AT Apple, something which their competitors know all to well – they leave Apple to get people talking about a type of product and leisurely bring out their rivals, *insert Apple product name*-killers, to stand as the “Apple-alternative” which people will also buy in droves, believing that this is a product they need, but not wanting to buy into an Apple product.

I have written, often, about the long-standing rumours of Apple’s tablet computer and, as an outside observer, it hinders on conspiracy. Collectively, every tech company with tablet aspirations, noticed these frequent rumours and began developing, in full public view, i.e. CES, their own tablets, Apple – possibly fearing someone was going to get their first – sent out their press invitations, at rather short notice I might add, and unveiled the iPad. Now that Apple had people sufficientely talking about the iPad, they can finish up their competitors and release them to market; safe in the knowledge that, though a match for Apple they may not be, they at least have a chance to claim those buyers who would rather do squats on a pinecone than buy Apple, all of whom believe that this type of product is a type of product that they NEED to buy.

Make of that what you will.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Talking out of his iArse

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

In 2008, Apple deity Steve Jobs damned the Amazon Kindle to the technological abyss by asserting on eBook readers, “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.” Fast-foward to 2010 and chuckle with glee from your comfy desk chair as you watch his holiness make a u-turn with all the elegance of an agitated baboon as the iPad comes out, brimming with eBook reader features and plans to release books on the app store. But maybe Jobs wasn’t talking out of his iArse back then, as Google takes up hammers to nail down the coffin of the printed word, people are still reading – but Google want their own say on how they do so.

Google have been, for lack of a better word, prolific in their endeavours – rising from an obscure, oddly named search engine to a main player in almost every digital pie they can stick their grubby little fingers into. Having perfected and, with increasing speed, enacted the art of data collection, and having catalogued nearly every scrap of data, they’re moving on to the most old school of old school information distribution and are attempting to digitise books…

For around six years now, Google have been feaverishly cataloging books faster than a hyperactive librarian, meticulously scanning page after page and applying character recognition to create a vast database of books and their content, with a view to have search terms passed through the data and return books that contain information on your search term. The amount of content that you’ll get to see from results is, as of yet, undetermined, as Google are, as you’d expect, being put through the motions of copyright issues. The overarching concept is that, rather than searching to find websites with the information you need, or having to face the daring feat of going to your local library for books on the subject, you can get information the credibility of a book without the hassle and trauma of standing upright.

We’re missing the bigger picture here – Google have tirelessly worked to build what is essentially a global centre for websites, videos, shopping and anything that the internet can do. But there’s always been a divide (a ‘digital divide’ if you will) between information readily available digitally and what’s hard to obtain, but often more useful, in hard copy – once again, also, it’s a trade off between convenience and precision.

It’s not unlike Wikipedia, show me a single regular internet user who hasn’t used the editable encyclopedia in some capacity, it is used because it is a prolific and centralised hub of information. The problem with Wikipedia, as with any website, is that there is a big difference in how this information is moderated – although, despite the bad press it gets, Wikipedia is arguably a more reliable source than other sites as a whole, because it is moderated to a degree whereas the web is not – which means there is no guarantee that the information you see is correct. Getting a book published is another aquatic vertebrate teapot, however, as a manuscript, reseach and information is subject to detailed editing, proof reading and review before a publisher sinks it’s cash into bringing it to paper and print. Non-fiction, therefore, and in particular publications of a scientific or otherwise factual matter is heavily moderated and it’s content is, again arguably, of greater veracity. Google is using their technology to make an online encyclopedia of entirely moderated information, with a plethora of fiction to boot.

I’m usually the first, or at least the second, to bemoan how a new project or gadget won’t be a success for this reason or that reason – but for once the sneeringly cynical side of my brain is taking a holiday, because I think this is fantastic. Many have accepted the sad but ultimately inevitable fact that libraries and books aren’t the primary method of getting information anymore, as with everything the convenience of our ability to retreive massive volumes of information with little more than a few finger movements has lead to it’s downturn. However, if we can get the same availability from sources as reputable and scrutinised as books, plus Google’s ubiquity as an information source, the oft-quoted dystopian vision of a world built on unmoderated and inaccurate information can be shut down by the luddite morons that preach it.

If Jobs is to be believed, the printed word might be dead, but it lives on in another form, albeit an abstract and entirely non-physical form, almost like a spirit…it’s oddly poetic. Gah, that was sickeningly sentimental.

Oh yeah, and if anyone smugly declares anything about the printed word technically living on as eInk screens on eBook Readers they will receive a swift and precise beating with my Sherlock Holmes collection – which is a heavy motherfucker.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Have a happy period, iPad

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

Completely ignoring my Apple iToaster idea, bespectacled pencil Steve Jobs has finally laid waste to years of tablet speculation by bringing out the Apple iPad.

image

So big it takes up an entire wall.

Ignoring the name that sounds like the most technologically advanced sanitary towel, this new product from, soon to be religious cult, Apple no longer seem content with branding everything they create with a half-eaten fruit and feel the need to make everything look like an iPhone. The iPad is the latest in an explosion of new Tablet PCs – devices which blur the line between netbook and smartphone as they boast the convenience of the latter with the performance of the former. Apple, as expected, declined to unveil this at CES in front of their undoubtedly jealous rivals and staged yet another overhyped product launch in which Steve Jobs walked the huddled masses through the device.

The iPad is, of course, a touchscreen tablet computer that runs Apple’s 1GHz “A4” processor, the first device to do so and, indeed, the first time in recent years Apple have developed a processor rather than sliding between AMD and Intel like an overexcited horse on ice-skates. 1024×786 resolution screen means good video playback but not full HD (or 3D, they’ve missed a trick). It also comes with a choice of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB flash memory capacity and a battery claiming up to 10 hours of use time and more than a month in standby time. Now, I don’t know a lot about batteries, but that’s quite a discrepancy.

Under the hard stuff, we have the OS which appears to be simply a variation on the iPhone OS – similar icons and support for iPhone apps, upscaled to fit the larger screen, and a choice of buying it with or without 3G and needing a data plan. I suppose not including the same OS you would get on a computer presents this more as a leisure device, which is at odds with the unwritten apparent application of tablets which is to replace netbooks as a portable, work device (illustrated helpfully by Steve Jobs and some handy graphics involving a middleground and falling words at the keynote speech, the netbook was crushed by the mere name iPad).

One of the biggest problems I see with the iPad, is the lack of Flash support in-browser, which absolutely fucks the idea of this being used as either a leisure device OR a work device. Using it as a leisure device, in this age of the internet, means web browsing, and that’s made a whole lot harder when the platform that a big chunk of the web is built on isn’t supported. This will also affect is as a business device given that any company worth it’s bisto does publicity and presentations in big shiny flash videos. Sure, Apple were kind enough to offer us a scraping of flash in the stuff we do most (namely BBC iPlayer and YouTube) but this device absolutely needs Flash support or it’s going to have problems; other tablets support flash, within months (if not weeks) Adobe will release their mobile flash plugin and I’ll be able to view Flash content on my Palm Pre, but the iPhone won’t support this. Apple, stop being petty, get your shit together, let Adobe pass it’s mobile flash for the iPhone and please your obsessive, salavating hounds of fanboydom or……well nothing. Admitedly, nothing will happen to damage the sales of the iPhone, or even the iPad, without Flash because most don’t understand it. While people see and know the term “Flash Player” bandied around on the web, usually in those few seconds before it kicks in on a YouTube video, but few understand what it is or understand when you mention it doesn’t support it. Someone I know, on mentioning that there’s no Flash support, replied knowingly ‘Oh that’s ok, I always take photos in the day’. Typical.

Typing, of course, is handled by an onscreen keyboard and this, I feel, is where the iPad, and indeed the whole tablet concept, falls down. At the keynote speech Jobs demonstrated it by resting the device flat on his lap and typed facing straight down. This is one of the major flaws I see with tablets, in that, to do anything worthwhile involving typing you need to suffer excruciating neckstrain and it just isn’t worth it when you can have a netbook. Laptops were designed with hinges below the screen for a reason. It’s not all bad, however, because in a very Apple-like move, Jobs announced a keyboard that can dock with the tablet making it, that’s right children, a sodding computer. If I were to own one, I wager it’d spend a lot of time sitting docked (and plugged in) on my desk and be used as a second computer.

I actually feel that this device is pretty under-spec, it’s supposedly a work-on-the-go device with all the things you’d need, yet it runs a measly 1GHz processor. Apple fanboys will tear the tape away from their mouths (I got pissed off with the 3GS and started kidnapping them, is anyone complaining?) to tell me that a slower processor doesn’t matter in an Apple environment because it the OS runs faster and more efficiently. Excuse me while I wipe yet another cliché that Jobs tries to sell from my ears and call bullshit on that. Sure, Windows is bloated but I cannot allow you to say that, even if that were true of Apple, a 1GHz processor would run at a bearable speed, it just doesn’t gel.

Obviously the rumours of this device have been around since Duke Nukem Forever was in pre-production but, for the most part, these have been dashed. The toenails of rumour-man were getting so long that it’s good Apple have decided to clip them (I’m not sure what made me think of that metaphor, I must cut my toenails), but it’s a shame because some of the aforementioned rumours, which is now relegated to rank of “made up bullshit”, were quite intriguing and would’ve made the device really stand out, like if it had run Mac OSX (which of course they couldn’t do otherwise it would be a Mac and have the price to show that). Instead of introducing an entirely new looking device, the “big iPhone” look makes sense I guess but putting it on a larger and definitely not pocket-sized device confuses the idea of a phone handset. It’s hardly surprising that Apple wanted to spread this form factor as a brand having managed to do so with every other possible aspect (even with music, going so far as to create their own DRM a few years back), but I think they needed a new look to set out this device as the laptop-smartphone ‘middle ground’ they’re so fond of and not merely an extension on the latter. The screen is laced with a black edge bigger than Steve Jobs’ piggy bank, so the whole things feels like they’ve compromised a lot of screen real-estate for the purposes of the iPhone-look. I would’ve gone with a screen touching the very edges of the device, but that’s merely to feed my uber sci-fi technolust.

What advantages does this tablet have over every other tablet that were announced at CES last year. Apple’s unsubtle timing with the Creation event clearly generated enough hype to overshadow the devices announced in Vegas so that anyone contemplating a tablet will automatically think of Apple. To be honest, there’s nothing that would feasibly set this apart, I was privy a little while ago to some of the visuals of the OS that made it onto the final unveiling and they did make me salivate, but unless it’s in practise I can’t say anything. The eBook reader interface was what I liked the most, but it’s worth mentioning us Bulldogs won’t get native eBook support, and bear in mind that it lacks the e-Ink screen. Maybe it’s because I’m a tech writer, but if I was going to buy a tablet I’d feasibly look at my options and include the iPad as a contender, but not automatically assume it was best and blindly buy it.

Scarily though, fanboys wouldn’t be quite so discerning, and it doesn’t really matter what this device does because there’s already a market who would’ve bought it a month ago. Creator of Digg and co-host of Revision3 show Diggnation, Kevin Rose did a survey a few weeks ago essentially saying that if Jobs said we have a tablet and told you nothing else about spec, features or price but just said that you can order it now, would you buy now? Shockingly, around 30% of the people who took the poll essentially said “Yes, I trust Steve Jobs and would buy right away”. Apple’s hold on these obsessive Apple fanboys is so absolute that regardless of how tablet computers fare in the future, Apple will always have customers.

I like this device, I have to confess, but I think the target of tablet computers in general need changing, and will probably do so organically as these devices become commercially available. These devices are being touted as a replacement for netbooks, as a portable yet functional device, but they won’t work like that; a functional device needs a keyboard that you can use without breaking your neck. I think that these devices will become perfect gadgets, not for “on the go”, but for “around the house”. I can picture myself sitting down on a sofa in the morning with a coffee to read some news, read a book, check my email – but not work.

Though I lose any future Apple-bruising points for saying this, and risk being called an Apple-polisher, but I may actually buy this, or I may buy some other tablet if it’s got a better spec, but this is pretty good. It’s being sold in the US for $500, which equates to around £300ish in the UK, so it’s a relatively cheap device for Apple. However, for the reasons I mentioned above I’d only go for the WiFi one rather than shelling out for another data plan.

But I’m not using that fucking onscreen keyboard…

P.S. I apologise for the lateness of this post, I’ve been quite ill this week and had to wait for my thumping headache and nausea to subside momentarily so I could read the keynote coverage. Night.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

CES 2010 – The Geek Synapse

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Hey all, this is my roundup of the tech being shown off at CES in Las Vegas this year, this is the article I’m writing for Spark* and won’t need to submit until Tuesday so any feedback or corrections would be appreciated. I wanted to talk about more stuff but I was fairly limited on the word-count so I’ll probably talk about each of the topics covered in more detail later on for a post.

CES 2010
Mat Greenfield

Amongst the glitz, glamour and gambling geriatrics of Las Vegas, January saw the arrival of the biggest technology trade shows of the year, the Consumer Electronics Show, parading the latest innovative, shiniest and weirdest tech that bespectacled geeks and corporate suits have to offer. Unfortunately, the Spark* budget didn’t quite stretch to shipping me off to Sin City to attend the show in person, but I’ve still managed to put together a round-up of all the gadgetry-goodness that you’ll be craving in 2010.

New mobile phones were an inescapable point of intrigue this year, as Google showed off their first handset – the Nexus One. While Google have had their Android OS on the market for some time now, this is the first phone that they have designed themselves, with the aim to sell it directly to consumers SIM-free rather than going through network providers. motorola-backflip_1 Motorola demonstrated their quirky new phone, the Backflip, a phone with a full QWERTY keyboard on the back that you can flip out rather than the traditional slider. Both these phones are gimmicky and otherwise unremarkable 3G touchscreen handsets, the former dripping with hype, having been promoted far and wide as the “Google Phone”, but lacking any particularly groundbreaking features that set it apart from its HTC cousins. Relatively unknown phone manufacturer ‘Sonim’ garnered more publicity than they’d hoped when they challenged BBC Click reporter Dan Simmons to break the “unbreakable phone”, who subsequently rendered it inoperable by smashing it on the corner of a fish tank.

Netbooks, having well and truly embedded themselves into the realm of the everyday use device, were less innovation and more preservation this year. Asus announcing nothing new to their eeePC range but more carbon-copy models that have barely changed since the last CES besides slightly new cases and more names totally unrelated to their use or purpose (i.e. the Seashell or the Surf with no discernible beach link).Alienware M17X Notebook The only major innovation on the show-floor here was the theatrics of Alienware in demonstrating their M11x gaming netbook, the first small laptop with sufficient graphics and processing power to run all the usual niche features of a gaming laptop, like customisable case lighting, without breaking your spine when carrying it, a definite plus.

While the turn of the decade didn’t see the invention and full-scale integration of flying cars that we’ve been promised since the mid-eighties, Ford have done their bit in making modern cars seem a little more Futurama by introducing Sync. A user interface fully integrated into the car, allowing you full scale control and customisation, allowing you to almost totally change your displays on the dashboard, console or any display around the car. Along with advanced phone synchronisation via Bluetooth, voice commands, navigation and, most importantly, cup holders.

PolarBearTV Other tech treats from CES included the Powermat wireless charging technology, an adorable TV screen embedded in a toy polar bear from Hanspree, media streamer the Boxee Box, more information on Microsoft’s Project Natal, seeking to rid the gaming world of controllers and a NIMble microwave with a touchscreen Android phone built into it – for some reason.

Surprising no-one this year was the appearance of new eBook reader models, devices that can store and display digital books with e-ink screens to avoid eyestrain and glare. To take on the Amazon Kindle, Samsung wasted no time in announcing a range of eReaders, the E101 and E6 models come in 10-inch and 6-inch displays, have built-in Wifi and touchscreen and support ePub formats which allow flexibility with ebook stores instead of tying you to a device’s store. entourage_edge_ebook_netbook_2 Entourage’s eDGe eReader is a clever dual-screen device has an e-ink screen attached to a tablet computer, allowing integration between the two devices, such as opening links, searching for references and viewing images in colour from the eBook page on the tablet screen. The Que ProReader set itself apart by being “a professional tool, not a leisure device”, which explains it’s cumbersome A4-page screen size, 3G internet and news subscription feature on the home screen. This costly device would look more at home on the desk of a pristine office, not hastily crammed into a bag and would certainly awkward to carry around or read on. The Copia Ocean 9 eReader seeks to turn digital-literature into the next Facebook with social network features built into the device, allowing discussions and reviews between other people reading the same books as you. But if all these different models and features are too much to handle, the simple jetBook Lite solves that issue with a simple, cheap and no-thrills eReader, with 100 free pre-loaded books to get you going, or Bookeen’s small Cybook Opus. It seems that, with the 2009 showing just how profitable the eBook market can be, companies are eager to write their own chapter, unfortunately their desperation to stand out has lead to many bringing out overly expensive and impractical devices that will not, in the most part, stand up to everyday use.

Keeping up with 2010’s futuristic theme, the appearance of several new Tablet PCs at CES this year exploded the ‘don’t need but really want’ synapse in every gadget-geek’s brain. These new devices blur the line between netbook and smartphone, boasting the processing power of the former with the convenience of the latter; even though they can seldom fit in pockets. Dell showed off their Mini 5 Tablet Concept, a prototype device that so closely resembles a smartphone and even runs Android, though Dell were adamant that this qualifies as a genuine computing device and not a phone, despite needing a data plan SIM card to surf the web and its ability to take calls. Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer made an unusually reserved appearance at a keynote speech to talk about new slate computers running Windows 7, with particular focus on the HP Slate, a touchscreen device tailored for the OS. Lenovo-IdeaPad-U1-Hybrid-1-540x407 Lenovo came out with their Ideapad UI, a sleek touchscreen tablet that runs a Linux OS for 3G web browsing and on-the-go usage, but also comes with a keyboard attached to a laptop-esque casing. Sliding the tablet into this case instantly turns it into a Windows 7 machine for more intensive work and solving the onscreen keyboard problem that, for many tablet-adopters, will be a bitter pill. Though Apple has been rumoured to be developing a tablet computer since Steve Jobs had hair, the company was, as per usual, absent from the proceedings in Las Vegas. But did, last week, send out invitations for an event on January 27th to the US press emblazoned “Come See Our New Creation!” so, with ever more persistent rumours and the explosion in tablets so huge it can be seen from space, odds are that Apple will announce their tablet as this goes to print; I apologise if it turns out they announced a new line of toasters.

With the release of Avatar at the end of 2009, 3D films are officially here to stay, and CES was packed with displays showing how home-cinema will handle the new format. Sharp paraded their 3D “quad-pixel” technology adding yellow to the RGB configuration that’s happily been in place for years, whereas Samsung triumphantly brandished (and rotated simply for emphasis) their pencil-thin 0.3 inch display. Panasonic are perhaps the company embracing 3D the most, announcing the best quality 3D-HD television at CES and showing off their 3D camcorders. Panasonic even announced a partnership with US satellite service DirecTV, which will allow broadcast of 3D HD content to homes in the States, as will Sky in Britain later on. Unfortunately, enjoying the new format almost definitely means you’ll need a new TV, new cabling and a new receiver, meaning that (like HD) it will take a few years to become widely used; if it takes off successfully at all.

Yeah I know this isn’t rounded off particularly well but the article had to be in four sections and I don’t know how my editor wants them arranged, but didn’t mention any sort of closer so yeah.

Feedback please! Much love.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Apple – “Come see our latest media circus”

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Apple has cock-teased fanboys of the universe by sending out invitations for an event on January 27th to the US Press, emblazoned “come see our new creation”. Suggesting that (having thought themselves too good for CES) they plan to announce, unveil and, no doubt, parade a new tablet PC; complete with Steve Jobs seeking constant validation from the assembled journalists by saying “isn’t that cool?” every twenty seconds like an insecure parrot.

The reason that they are probably going to announce a tablet pc is because it’s been rumoured since Steve Jobs had hair and we’ve had so-called “leaks” of information suggesting they will do so. Despite the rumour persistence and it’s prior lack of grounding, the explosion of tablets, slates or any variation on that title suggests that now they want to get in on it. Tech websites have been inundated with “leaks” of details on the gadget, as well as (quite ironically) a leaked e-mail about their procedure in leaking details to titillate the geek proletarians. Furthermore, the exponential growth of the Malus-domestica empire (thank you Wikipedia) means that they won’t want to let a market open up without their input, letting another company build up the dominance that they have in the smartphone market in a, albeit delicious, rotation of bureau, wherein they now have to struggle to overthrow the tablet King.

However, for the purpose of merely playing the atheist-devil’s advocate, this is why they might not announce a tablet. Firstly, such a device will be nearly indistinguishable from an iPhone and, unless they find some sort of amazing new feature, they needn’t bother. Secondly, Apple have a habit of letting a new market settle down, look at the problems that the current devices have and then pull out a trump card. Before the iPhone, Windows Mobile owned the market and there was almost no alternative – now every Thomas, William and Harrison company has some OS or device out, ever since Apple started it off; yet none of them have usurped the leader of the crusade, who did very well first time. The leaks could easily be a way to throw people off the scent of their latest gadget, it seems very odd that Apple would enter a market this quickly, let alone with a brand new gadget. Rather than bringing out a Flip-killer, they stuck a camera on the iPod Nano. Rather than bringing out a games console, they promoted the iPod Touch more as a gaming device than a music player. History has shown that Apple usually has to ridiculously confident in their new product to release it as a whole new gadget rather than piggyback it on something they’ve already bought out. I think it’s reasonable to assume that they’re not simply gluing something new onto something old this time, due simply to the hype instead of waiting until MacWorld of WWDC as usual.

Now, it’s clear that Apple have worked up enough media hype that they have to follow through with something truly groundbreaking come January 27th. Whether or not Apple will manage to follow through remains to be seen, but past experience tells me they probably will. If it IS a tablet, then it has to be something truly remarkable to tell it apart from simply a fat iPhone, or any other Tablet PC announced last week, but if it isn’t then it has to be some equally, if not more, astounding to live up to the hype that they’ve created. Either way, this should be fun to watch!

Frankly, I’m still anticipating a new line of “Apple Toasters”.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Tech² Episode 2: Anti-Farmville

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Apologies my dears, as my heavy workload means I must neglect you again from my amazing blog posts, so instead I’ll leave you with the latest episode of Tech² – the podcast that me, Louis and Paul make – for you edification and enjoyment.

I’m technically the presenter, giving the introductions and links etc as well as putting in reviews, discussion and shamelessly plugging this blog, but given my trouble with speaking you can see that any time I speak it flows with all the grace of a drunk giraffe – enjoy!

image

Tech² Episode 2:
Anti-Farmville

In this episode, we discuss the new iPod Nano 5th Generation, Snow Leopard, £30 Windows 7 Student Discount, Super Webcam, Command and Conquer, the slaughter of digital animals and, of course, plenty of Apple bashing.

Find in iTunes

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »