Seldom has the smartphone divide looked so broad. HTC‘s financial results for the last quarter, revealed earlier today, puts the company in with struggling Nokia and RIM, an ocean away from the cash-stacked Apple and Samsung. Having already posted one appalling quarter this year, HTC missed market expectations and posted another year-on-year slump in profit, as the One Series failed to set consumers alight in the way the company had hoped.
One of my Facebook friends recently posted about her 20-year high school reunion. We went to the same high school, and she was a year ahead of me. I have perhaps a dozen other Facebook friends from my high school who were all in that same graduating class, but she was the only one who mentioned the reunion. This took me by surprise for a couple of reasons. First, I had forgotten that my own high school 20-year reunion will happen next year. For those readers who are now thinking about how old I am to be writing such a thing, trust me, you won’t feel so old when you get here.
A StarTAC saved my life. Well, not really. I wasn’t accidentally transported to the World War II trenches, and saved from a bullet to the heart by an artfully placed Motorola in my jacket pocket. But the StarTAC – a phone dating back to 1996, and in fact the very first cellphone I owned – gave me a very necessary wake-up call: it showed me just how lucky we are with today’s smartphones, with a serving of delicious nostalgia on the side.
Apple’s Retina display has quickly become a major selling point for consumers. The technology is purported to deliver the very best picture quality out there, and the vast majority of folks that have actually taken the iPhone 4S or MacBook Pro with Retina display for a spin would probably agree.
Google IO opened with a bang last week, spilling Jelly Beans, cheap tablets, augmented reality and more, but for all the search giant knows we’re looking for, is it still out of touch? After the buzz of Google Glass and its base jumping entrance – thoroughly milked the following day by Sergey “Iron Man” Brin – attendees have been adding up what was demonstrated and questioning Google’s understanding of exactly how people use technology. Geeks getting carried away with “what can we do” rather than “why would we do it” is the common refrain, but make no mistake, everything Google showed us is rooted in solid business strategy.
When Google sent BASE jumpers hurtling from a blimp as part of the first day Google I/O Keynote presentation, I was barely impressed. The jumpers were demonstrating the Project Glass wearable computer that Google is developing, and which I and just about all of my friends are lusting over. I had seen plenty of skydivers jumping with wearable cameras strapped to them. Then the Googlers landed, and another team started riding BMX bikes on the roof of the Moscone center, where the conference is being held. Yawn. Finally, climbers rappelled down the side of the building. Ho-hum. The point seemed to be that Google Glass was real, and that the glasses would not fall off your face as you fell onto San Francisco from a zeppelin. But then Google showed something that blew my mind.
Jelly Bean, a Nexus tablet, even skydiving Google Glass: the Google IO keynote very nearly had it all, but the company’s decision to leave Google TV off the agenda in favor of the Nexus Q was a low. The zinc Epcot of Android was billed as a communal media player, and its presence on stage when Google TV was conspicuously absent undoubtedly led to confusion as to what its exact purpose was, especially given streaming favorites like Netflix and Hulu are missing. Google TV had been, in the run-up to IO, one of the topics most people expected to see covered, and its omission does not bode well.
Google I/O 2012 is almost upon us, and already Google TV is rallying for its second charge at the smart TV segment. Sony and Vizio have each revealed their Google TV set-top boxes, throwing hardware up for pre-order, and while Android tablets are expected to dominate the search giant’s keynotes this week, there’s likely to be at least a little time spared for the company’s TV strategy. It’s vital it does, too; sparse updates to the Apple TV in its third-generation has given Google a window in which to act, but it’s an opportunity that’s rapidly expiring.
Microsoft is adamant: it has no plans to make its own Windows Phones, and anything to the contrary is baseless speculation. The Surface tablet announcement had hardly crossed the wire before rumors of a home-grown smartphone began to proliferate, culminating in a clear denial of any “going it alone” intentions earlier on Monday. Have no doubt, though: Microsoft may be denying own-brand Windows Phones today, but that’s not to say it won’t announce them tomorrow.
Inevitable branch-out or needless dilution; mounting desperation or a prelude to a Nokia takeover. Surface struck chords with the Windows faithful and rang warning bells among skeptics, with the analysis as deep as Microsoft’s launch details were shallow. Yet one thing’s clear even at this early stage. No matter whether block-wrapping queues mark Surface’s in-store arrival, or if sales of the tablet make Zune look like a blockbuster, Microsoft will be crowing its legacy.
I’ve said it time and again on these pages: I’m a gaming fanatic. I’ve been playing video games my entire life, and have enjoyed everything from the arcade to console titles to handheld games. But we’re living in a different world now. And one of my favorite gaming exploits — handheld — seems to be succumbing to a slow and agonizing death.
Microsoft got credit for ripping up Windows Mobile 6.5 and hitting the reset button: unfortunately it seems to be trying to do the same with Windows Phone 8, leaving early-adopters behind. The news from the Windows Phone Summit today that existing handsets won’t get WP8 but will, instead, get a partial upgrade called Windows Phone 7.8 with the new Metro Start Screen but not much else means everyone who has supported Microsoft and its OEM partners so far can’t expect much in the way of software longevity.
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