photo credit: extraface
I’m always one for the underdog, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a big part of why I chose to purchase a Helio Ocean last winter. At the time, I was looking for a slick smartphone that wasn’t a Blackberry, had 3G (so the iPhone was out), and generally appealed to my geeky sensibilities. The Ocean, Helio’s flagship phone, fit the bill quite nicely–so I eagerly made the jump.
(Honestly, I was waiting for the release of Google’s Android phones, but knowing that they wouldn’t show up until the end of 2008 (at the absolute earliest), I decided that the Ocean would tide me over for the next few years.)
But, like every underdog tech product/company I’ve loved (see: HD-DVD, the Rio Karma), it looks like Helio is ready to call it quits. They’re selling to Virgin Mobile, who will be getting rid of the Helio brand and making all Helio customers Virgin subscribers. Read more…
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photo credit: Cristian Levin
In the midst of all the Firefox 3 debut insanity, a tweet by blogger Louis Gray got me thinking. At the time everyone was trying to download Firefox 3, but most were failing miserably due to Mozilla’s servers collapsing. Gray casually suggested in his tweet that we download Safari instead. I considered the thought, especially since Safari is also a good escape from Firefox 2’s tiresome memory and CPU hogging, but then quickly realized that it was impossible.
I realized then something I should have noticed long ago: I could never abandon Firefox. This isn’t out of some illogical fanboyism, or a naive belief in the almighty nature of open source code. No, I could never abandon Firefox because of one key feature that no other web browser can compete with: Extensions.
Yes folks, I’m a Firefox extension addict. Read more…
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photo credit: _Andrish_
The iPhone 3G announcement has come and gone, and it seems like the main take-away for many is the $199 price, along with the new 3G and GPS capabilities. Of those three, I think the surprisingly low price for the 8GB iPhone 3G is the most important. Let’s face it, while 3G and GPS are new features to the iPhone, they’re not exactly fresh technologies in the cellphone market.
But while I’m all for a cheaper iPhone, I’m personally more interested in the iPhone software announcements from the WWDC than anything else. Everything from the SDK, to the application store, to the new MobilMe synching all cement the iPhone as a major mobile computing platform. And now that Apple is actually taking enterprise users into account, it has the potential to trump Microsoft’s Pocket PC platform and become a major competitor to RIM’s Blackberry domination.
Saul Hansell at the NY Times Bits blog (someone who I’m finding myself linking to a lot these days) seems to agree. In a recent column, he writes:
The most important battle here isn’t between the iPhone and the latest from Samsung or Nokia. The fighting now is over what will become the dominant platform for mobile computing. In that fight, Apple is competing with Microsoft, Symbian, Google’s Android, Palm and R.I.M. The company’s play is to make the iPhone, and the tools to develop for it, very closely related to the platform it uses on the Mac and on the Apple TV.
Read more…
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photo credit: markhoekstra
How sad it is that the biggest news to come from the Zune front in the past few months is anything but positive: Word is out that Gamestop has stopped selling Zunes.
Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long, not because the Zune 2 is a worthless player (despite what some other news reports seem to love implying), but because it was a dumb idea to sell the Zune 2 in a freaking video game store in the first place. I’m sure some genius marketing drone figured it was a good spot because 1) Gamestop fit the target Zune demographic, 2) they could easily market it as a companion product with the Xbox 360, and 3) they didn’t have any iPod competition. The rest of us saw the futility in that move from the very beginning.
I can only assume that the Gamestop deal wasn’t a large part of Microsoft’s Zune strategy, if only because it would be truly dumb if it was. And let’s not forget the fact that the Zune is still readily available in major stores.
But come to think of it, I haven’t heard much regarding the Zune 2 ever since Microsoft launched Zune Originals program, a service which lets you customize your Zune 2 with artwork by famous hipster types. While it’s certainly cooler than the bland metallic backside of the iPod, it’s certainly not a feature that will convert the iPod faithful or lure away first-time customers to the portable music player scene.
The Zune Store is finally beginning to shape up by adding some television content, but it’s still playing a desperate game of catchup with Apple’s iTunes Store. While MS has always had the $14.99 monthly music subscription model to lord over Apple, it’s simply a matter of time before Steve Jobs decides to implement something similar.
So I suppose the question to ask now is clear: What the heck is Microsoft doing with the Zune? Read more…
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