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Just a Thought: Apple iPad vs. Microsoft Surface

By Jeremy Horwitz | 01.28.10 | 4 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

I was going to post this brief iPad-related thought on Twitter, but figured it needed a little more than 140 characters.

A while back, Microsoft introduced the Surface table and Apple introduced the iPhone. Those who didn’t grasp the fact that Apple was offering a pocket-sized, actually commercially viable version of a similar multi-touch technology understand as much now. Microsoft still hasn’t commercialized anything relating to Surface.

It was obvious then that the only thing Apple was missing was a multi-touch device with greater surface area. Less than three years after the iPhone first became available (6/2007), the iPad will achieve this goal.

If Apple had showed up at its event yesterday with a killer, Minority Report-style application running on the iPad, everyone—even the current iPad haters—would be flipping out right now. Have a few video windows getting swiped around on screen at once, video overlays on top of maps, whatever tech demo sort of stuff you can imagine. For all its failings, Microsoft knew to do this with Surface—the problem was that people could never afford whatever it demonstrated.

But Apple didn’t bring flashy demos. It dropped the ball on a few arguably trivial parts of the UI and didn’t bring any really showy software to the event; rather, it focused almost entirely on updates to old apps. The biggest hint of what the iPad will enable was a two-second reference in the N.O.V.A. demo to opening airlocks by putting your fingers on the screen and turning the door handle. It was shown, and if you knew what it was—basically, Metroid Prime using your fingers rather than a Wii controller—you realized what this meant for games, and for other apps on the iPad. This is just not possible on the little iPhone screen unless you have baby fingers.

So there’s your Minority Report moment. It’s on the video. There are going to be many, many more such moments to come, and you’re going to be able to carry them in your hand or enjoy them while sitting in a chair, not whilst standing next to a huge table. Unfortunately, like the iPhone, it may well take a year before the apps catch up with the hardware’s capabilities. Just imagine what we’d be looking at today if developers had started working on the iPad simulator last year…

First Look In Progress: Apple iPad (and TONS of new details to share)

By Jeremy Horwitz | 01.27.10 | 49 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

You want impressions of Apple’s new iPad? We have impressions. They’re going to go here until we’ve had the time to build a proper First Look; we’re in the process of adding more now. Updated! The complete Apple iPad First Look with YouTube and HD Vimeo interface walkthrough videos is now online—this article has not been updated with the additional (over 45) photos, videos, and details, so go check out the final Apple iPad First Look.

The Big Concept. Apple’s iPad is designed to be a bridge device between the smartphone and the PC/Mac—a tablet-shaped computer that allows users to access data like the iPod touch and iPhone, including streamlined Safari web browser, e-mail, and iPhone OS applications, without providing voice calling functionality. The pitch is that it does a better job of presenting the web, photos, videos, and apps than a smartphone, due to the large 9.7” multi-touch screen, and makes them easier to use than on a computer because of the simplified touch interface.

The Big Gripes. Starting at $499, Apple’s iPad costs as much or more than a PC netbook computer and, apart from the multitouch interface, falls short in many other categories: storage capacity starts at a mere 16GB, no camera or videochat functionality is included, only a single device connector is integrated for charging, wired synchronization, and accessories, and the device’s apps and features feel more like stripped iPhone OS programs than powerful PC or Mac applications. It has no integrated stand for video viewing, and even when you’re using the on-screen virtual keyboard, you need to support it yourself unless you buy an accessory to hold it up. Either you “get” the idea that this device is supposed to be super simple, thin, and carry-friendly—like an iPhone or iPod touch, used in your lap or with one hand while standing up—or you see it as an overly stripped-down computer.

Different Versions, Capacities, and Confusion. There are two different versions of the iPad, each sold in three storage capacities: 16GB ($499/$629), 32GB ($599/$729), or 64GB ($699/$829). The lower price refers to a version that is wireless just like the iPod touch, only with 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR capabilities, while the higher priced versions add unlocked 3G wireless features for a $130 premium, plus the ongoing monthly cost of no-contract service. The iPad versions with 3G add a black plastic antenna stripe to the back of the otherwise aluminum casing, positioned near the top of the device immediately below the headphone port, microphone, and sleep/wake switch. Users can pay AT&T $15 per month for 250MB of data or $30 per month for “unlimited” data on the 3G versions. International data plans are not yet negotiated.

Screen and Body. If you want to look at the iPad completely objectively, there’s one fact you need to understand up front: sales pitch aside, it is in fact the equivalent of a big iPhone or iPod touch with a 9.7”, 1024x768 screen. Rumors and reports from sources aside, the screen’s old-fashioned aspect ratio, 132dpi detail level, and other characteristics are not groundbreaking or shocking. But the actual quality of the LED backlighting, the IPS screen technology, and the multi-touch responsiveness of the display are all essentially beyond reproach. The screen mightn’t be OLED, or ultra high-resolution, or widescreen like the new iMacs, yet it’s beautiful: strong, rich colors, great viewing angles, and of course, that glass top surface that makes everything glossy. It’s oleophobic, just like the iPhone 3GS, for reduced smearing. People are going to love watching videos on it, even if the aspect ratio could use a little tweaking in a future version of the device—not that it’ll actually get these tweaks for various reasons.

The body of the iPad is what we heard (very late in the process and with conflicting details) that Apple had shifted to: a design that looks just like the lid of a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, only smaller. On the top are a headphone port and tiny microphone hole, along with a small sleep/wake switch. The right hand side has volume buttons and a switch to mute the speaker, which is located on the bottom with three little mesh-covered grilles—odd—near the single Dock Connector. There’s nothing on the left-hand side of the unit, contradicting reports we’d heard that there would be a second Dock Connector for widescreen mounting of the iPad, like a computer screen. Apple appears to have hidden the 802.11n wireless antennas inside the Apple logo; the version with 3G antennas will differ visually from the 802.11 Wi-Fi only version in that it has an antenna stripe on the back like the iPhone’s, only at the top instead of the bottom, and not extending fully from one edge to the other.

Speaker. Apple’s built-in speaker didn’t have a prayer of competing with the volume level in the room where everyone was testing the iPads. You can feel the iPad vibrating when the speaker’s turned up. There was no application on the device for Voice Memos to make use of the microphone; it’s unclear at this point how exactly Apple intends users to make use of it. The Apple web site shows the 3G version of the device as being “data only,” not for making phone calls—obviously there’s no Phone app on the iPad right now—so it looks like it’ll be up to developers (such as Skype) to offer similar functionality.

Size, Weight, Battery, and Pack-Ins. iPad’s physical size is 9.56” (tall) by 7.47” (wide) by 0.5” (thick), and it weighs 1.5 pounds with Wi-Fi features, or 1.6 pounds with Wi-Fi and 3G. Only the Wi-Fi version was available to be held during the hands-on session after Apple’s event, and it felt very solid and substantial rather than flimsy—the weight is, in our view, not an issue in any way, shape, or form. It’s unclear how the iPad will stay cool, but the answer appears to be that its aluminum body will work as a heat sink, and the chips inside are essentially smartphone-class mobile processors that don’t give off as much heat or consume as much energy as laptop components.

iPad is packaged with a new 10-Watt Dock Connector-based power adapter and a USB Dock Connector cable like the ones used for iPods and iPhones since 2004. The battery is rated for 10 hours of Wi-Fi data or video viewing, with the same number for listening to music, however, it’s highly unclear as to whether the iPad will actually only achieve such limited music runtime if used solely for that purposes—not that this is likely.

UI. The user interface is obviously very familiar from the iPhone and iPod touch, but there’s going to be a little learning curve for some of the new features, and there are some questions as to how much of the software we saw—iPhone OS 3.2, incidentally, not 4.0—was just buggy rather than non-responsive. Almost everything we tried to do on the iPad was very fast—faster than the iPhone 3GS and current iPod touch despite pushing considerably more pixels—but there were buttons, screen rotations, and other features that didn’t seem to be working at all, or properly, during our tests. You’ll see this for yourself in our complete interface video, which we’re about to post for your viewing pleasure.

Turning the device on presents you with a slide to unlock screen and a new button that looks like a photo icon. Press it and you turn the iPad into a picture frame for displaying photos from your photo collection—the slideshow activates immediately after you press the button, without having to unlock the device. You can also choose a background image now for your home pages—a single image that remains the same when you switch between pages of apps. If there’s one disappointment in the iPad UI as-is, it’s that the apps and dock UI really hasn’t evolved as much as it should have from the iPhone: it’s just more space, with similar-looking icons, spread out. The one nice twist is that you can now navigate the home screens in tall or wide mode, and the icons reshuffle automatically to fill the screen. We wish (and hope) the iPhone could do this.

Apps. Expect a lot more in the detail department here soon, but here’s the skinny. Every one of the “old” apps feels a lot like the iPhone version in terms of simplicity and functionality, as if Apple used the iPhone and iPod touch apps as a base, but each has grown features that range from merely displaying prior “second screen” or pop-up content as an overlay, to now being able to do more—generally a little more—than they did before. The expanded calendar views are going to be key for people who do their social planning digitally, and the photo viewer, maps app, and video viewers are obviously benefitting a lot from the expanded real estate. That said, there was nothing revolutionary in any of the updated apps: they all were a step or two forward from the versions we’ve previously seen for the iPhone, some dating back to the 2007 launch of the device, and obviously, a number of apps—the calculator, weather, stocks, clock, voice memos, and compass apps, as a handful—have disappeared entirely from the device, presumably because Apple would be fine with you acquiring your own apps if you want them.

iBooks and the iBookstore. Apple has capitalized on its prior iBook laptop name for its eBook reader, which provides access to a fairly sophisticated book reading program built upon the popular (if old-fashioned) ePub standard. The reader provides users with a choice of five fonts and multiple font sizes to read their books in—unfortunately, neither of these features actually worked when we were trying to test the application, despite reloading the app a couple of times—and can also shift into widescreen or tall orientations to provide one- or two-page viewing options, making use of the full display. In tall orientation, you can actually use your fingers to turn a page so that you can preview the words on the next page, or just tap on the screen to change pages. Apple’s iBookstore is built into the iBooks app to let you buy new books, which appear automatically on a virtual bookshelf that rotates around on the screen like the entry to a secret passage in an old house. The features are slick, as is the paper-like texture applied to the screen behind the black words of the books to give them more of a “real book feel.”

But the iBooks app falls short of really bringing books forward into the 21st Century—they are basically the same black and white things you see on an Amazon Kindle or Barnes and Noble Nook, only presented on Apple’s nicer color screen with little bits of extra shading. Nothing was said or shown about magazines or newspapers within the iBooks app; Apple instead demonstrated access to these publications via the Safari web browser and publication-developed apps (such as the New York Times app). Thus, Apple appears set to let individual publishers evolve their products through apps rather than ePub-format eBooks, and isn’t providing a special newspaper or magazine reader, or subscriptions, to push this forward. At least, yet.

More on Pricing, Capacities and Versions. The 16GB base capacity of the iPad almost seems like a joke, but like the very limited 8GB iPod touch, it’s clearly being produced as a “get them in the door” model with a super-attractive $499 price tag. This iPad will wind up being the one people buy for their kids, and the others will be the ones that power users buy—unless they wait for the inevitable second- and third-generation versions of the iPad to get in.

Regarding 3G/Wi-Fi, no one expected that Apple would actually charge more for the 3G version of the device—rather than going the subsidy route—or that there would be a no-contract way to make the service purchase. The approach that it took, namely offering 3G for those who want it, unlocked, at a $130 premium, seems like a fair compromise at a slightly higher price than it would optimally be offered at. The lack of an obvious tethering option for those who are already shelling out money for their iPhone service is a big miss, as well, but one that could possibly be addressed before launch. Here’s hoping.

Video Output Capabilities. The 1024x768 screen is just shy of natively displaying full 720p resolution for high-definition video, however, iPad is capable of playing 720p H.264 videos, with standard MPEG-4 videos capped at 640x480 like the current iPod and iPhone models. Output from the device to a TV appears to be capped at 480p/576p with audio, or 1024x768 output without audio if you use the new Dock Connector to VGA Adapter cable.

iPad Accessories. (Click here for more photos.) There’s a new VGA to Dock Connector Adapter ($29) for attaching the iPad to a projector or monitor; it outputs from the iPad at 1024x768 resolution without audio. Apple will also sell a Camera Accessory Kit ($29) that comes with a USB adapter and a SD card reader in one package, two separate pieces, to let the iPad import photos from a camera or SD card. There are two different docks: the Keyboard Dock ($69) has a normal keyboard grafted on to the front of a plastic dock; the function keys include shortcuts for adjusting brightness, accessing photos, search, volume levels and iPod music playback keys, returning to the home screen, and changing keyboard features. Apple offers a standard Dock ($29) with audio and dock connector ports on the back, with no keyboard. Bluetooth keyboards will also be supported on the iPad for those who want to use the wireless functionality instead.

And an Apple case ($39) made from plastic and microfiber, with a front flap that folds backwards to serve as a stand. Finally, there’s a new 10W power adapter that is included with the iPad or sold separately for $29; it uses a Dock Connector but obviously supplies more power than a typical USB port. There’s nothing amazing about any of these items, but they’re all coming; check out the article linked above and our Flickr photostream for more accessory photos.

A Note For iPhone Developers: It’s Partnership Time

By Jeremy Horwitz | 01.22.10 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

For every Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, the App Store offers something between 100 and 5,000 games that fall into the “sorta kinda a real game” category—titles that everyone knows would never have seen release on a Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft platform prior to the opening of the App Store. Even today, many of these titles are the sort of brief, semi-amusing distractions that no one will remember three years from now, perhaps even three months from now; some are just plain bad, and plenty of others are titles that are just missing a little something special that would take them from okay or good up to great. Since developers have been e-mailing me for advice on how to make their titles worthy of As rather than Bs and Cs, I’ve been mulling a useful, general pointer for a while. Today, I have one.

What I’d like to propose today is beyond my personal ability to actually implement, but it’s something that everyone in the iPod and iPhone development community should be considering right now: partnerships. Having spent the last year and a half testing applications that so often feel incomplete—really great graphics and a nice game engine but no music, or a great puzzle idea with cool levels but awful art, and so on—it’s very obvious that the vast majority of iPhone OS game developers are one- to three-man acts with a couple of core competencies and a couple of big missing pieces. Developers know this, too: the e-mails I receive often acknowledge their missing assets up front and ask how to fix them. Partnering up with the right people is the answer.

I’m going to draw just three examples from the big pile of games I’ve been playing over the past few months in order to illustrate how this could and should work.

Hook Champ (reviewed here): I don’t know them personally, but the developers at Rocketcat Games are clearly very smart, funny, and abnormally talented at transforming a seemingly simple play mechanic into something deep via upgrades. They also need help with artwork and audio. If there’s any game that has been released in the past year or so that plays as well as Hook Champ but looks or sounds this much like an 8-bit game, we can’t think of it; the developers have even said that they are planning an update or sequel that will bring the art into the 16-bit era. That’s 1992, for those who have forgotten the days of the Sega Genesis and Super NES. It’s my feeling that if these guys were paired up with the art and engine team behind, say, Minigore, the world would be their oyster. Probably. There are other talented developers out there, but the trick is finding one that has the right visual style to match a game’s theme, gameplay, and most importantly, potential; artwork is going to become considerably more important as Apple boosts the resolutions of its upcoming devices.

Ramp Champ (reviewed here): There’s zero doubt that The Iconfactory has some of the most wickedly talented art, music, and UI people making App Store software today. Ramp Champ is, at times, an assault of beauty and aesthetic polish on your senses, slapping you out of any delusion that the iPhone has some little-known technical limitation that prevents it from performing pixel-perfect art, brilliantly themed- and crossfaded music, or useful downloadable content. The Iconfactory proved that it’s all about possessing the talent and ability to just execute properly. Yet many months after its release, the game still doesn’t play quite right, as the extremely simple ball-rolling controls continue to feel imprecise relative to other identical skee-ball titles we’ve tested. No game this good should have an almost equal percentage of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5-star ratings, and this would change in a heartbeat if a partner skilled in polishing gameplay (like, say, people at Ngmoco) worked on tuning the swiping and increased the game’s depth.

Speed Forge Extreme (not reviewed): Over and over again, Wipeout clones show up on the iPhone from companies I’ve never heard of before, and every time, they get part of the way towards replicating Sony/Psygnosis’s series of masterpiece-class futuristic racing games, then fall off somewhere significant. This time, Ratsquare is the developer, and the result is Speed Forge Extreme, which uses blur and lighting effects to create one of the better graphics engines we’ve seen in a Wipeout wannabe, then adds a techno soundtrack that’s sufficient to evoke the same cool Wipeout vibe. That’s two big checkmarks, and on challenging boxes to fill, right there.

What’s missing? Unfortunately, basically all of the gameplay. The action is soulless, and due to a weird little “unlock one item per race” idea, you start the game just doing laps, then move onto a track with one (unbalanced) weapon floating around, then another with acceleration and deceleration pads, and so on. Ugh. Double ugh. Then there are even less appealing arena levels where you and other ships zoom around in an open space trying to hit each other with missiles. It’s this sort of stuff that makes Speed Forge Extreme feel completely unfocused, despite the fact that it actually looks and sounds better than most of the futuristic racers on this platform. One can only imagine how great this title might have been if it had started with the underlying AI and physics engine from, say, Real Racing. And mightn’t a developer like Firemint benefit from having a second team developing cool and diverse spins on its popular realistic driving game? A partnership of this sort could work for all involved, and the results would be much better games for everyone.

For those who might be skeptical of the partnership prospects from either side—the “would a big developer really work with a smaller one,” or “won’t the big developer exploit the little guy” questions—my suggestions are relatively simple. In most cases, developers who want to stay independent should be looking for partnerships with equals rather than companies that are grossly disproportionate to their size; by contrast, those looking to be acquired need to have complete, working teams assembled that are actually capable of turning out polished, finished products. Slightly larger developers with known discrete needs should obviously consider bringing on one or two people to fill their gaps, such as music, level design, or art, which will bring them up to the level of polish needed for growth and an eventual acquisition. But in any case, serious developers need to start figuring out at this point what they’re good at and not good at, and start addressing it.

As I suggested above, it’s not possible for one person—an external person, like me—to get developers to introduce themselves to one another, pitch the deal terms necessary to work together, or even in some cases to realistically identify their own weaknesses so that they can find the right people to make their games better. It is, however, possible for an internal person like you—developer reading this—to figure out who you admire and approach them about working together. If today’s indie game makers hope to become tomorrow’s bigger, better developers, partnerships like this are going to be the way it happens. The alternative is that yesterday’s (and today’s) big Sony and Nintendo developers will so flood the market with ports of Nintendo DS and PSP titles that smaller names and games will fade into the background. Given the success of the App Store and the growth of Apple’s devices as a viable gaming platform, it’s only a matter of time before this happens, and smart companies should be planning now for a better tomorrow.

TwelveSouth’s BookBook: So You Can Book Your MacBook

By Jeremy Horwitz | 01.21.10 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

“Yo dawg,” the Pimp My Ride meme would start, “I heard you like Macs and books, so we put your MacBook inside a fake book so you can look like you’re carrying a crazy big book around!” That’s the pitch, essentially, behind TwelveSouth’s $80 BookBook, which uses a deliberately aged leather hardbound book as a facade for a zippered carrying case.

The spine says “Book Book,” and “Vol. XII,” a cute little reference to TwelveSouth itself, and you can choose between “Classic Black” (actually brown) or “Vibrant Red” versions, each in either 13-inch or 15-inch MacBook-ready sizes. Inside is a soft, velvety lining, with enough padding to keep your MacBook safe while it’s being carried around. Twin zippers have leather pulls that match the case.

Is BookBook going to keep someone from stealing your MacBook? Maybe, maybe not. Is it worth $80? Ditto. But as with the other TwelveSouth products released thus far, we have to say that we dig the idea and most of the execution. Little streaks of gold ink on the book and other small texture and stitching touches speak nicely to the distressed theme, and it’s really not hard to imagine giving one of these as a gift to someone who loves books. Both kinds. It’s a cute idea.

New Tablet Details: Twin Dock Connectors, a Big Antenna Panel, and Pricing Q’s

By Jeremy Horwitz | 01.21.10 | 19 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

So yesterday, I promised on Twitter that there would be a tablet-related update today. Here are a couple of late-breaking, interesting details that we’ve had double-confirmed by sources.

(a) Double Dock Connectors. We’re hearing that the tablet is going to have one on the vertical bottom edge and one on the horizontal bottom edge, enabling this device for the first time to be both mounted and charged either in portrait or landscape mode. iPhone and iPod touch users have long had to deal with the unusual sight of a cable or hard-mounted connector sticking out of the side of their devices when it’s being used as a widescreen video or game player, and accessory companies have struggled for the past three years to figure out ways to accommodate Cover Flow and the like in their speakers and docks. Two Dock Connectors fixes this, and depending on how Apple handles multiple accessory connections, could have some other nice benefits, as well.

(b) Antennas. The various reports of the tablet’s iPhone-ish-ness continue with the antenna compartment, which like the original iPhone has a long rear stripe for wireless radio broadcasting. This is necessary due to the metal used in the rest of the shell, which would inhibit radio performance, and the size of the stripe—not an iPod touch-sized pill—suggests room for nice-sized antennas, and 802.11n compatibility.

Obviously, nothing’s 100% certain here, but these details come from highly reliable sources.

The other interesting topic of discussion around here: pricing. I need to make clear that none of what follows comes from external sources—it’s purely our internal discussion and speculation—but it’s seriously worth thinking about in the lead-up to next week’s announcement.

It’s an absolute certainty that the tablet (or, uh, iPad) is going to have Wi-Fi functionality, and every piece of information we’ve had for many months has suggested that cellular service will be offered optionally to enable it to access the Internet when you’re not near an 802.11 hotspot. This naturally raises three related questions: “subsidy,” “type of data service,” and “service fees.”

(1) Subsidy. If one carrier, or two carriers, were to get rights to offer the tablet with multi-year data service contracts, they would likely cut the up-front price of the tablet in exchange for ongoing monthly revenues. The typical subsidies these days are in the $350-$400 range for a 2-year contract, such that an unlocked iPhone 3GS would sell for $599 and an AT&T locked one would sell for $199. A similar slice would apply, presumptively, to a tablet.

(2) Type of Data Service. We’ve heard theories that Apple will, matching Amazon’s Kindle approach, offer free coast-to-coast data services for the tablet. But that doesn’t really make a lot of sense when you think about it. Kindle and similar devices barely touch their data networks by comparison with data-hungry iPhones, which gobble plenty of data from the web and other types of apps. Might Apple’s partners offer a limited level of free service—basically sub-10MB iTunes Store and App Store downloads, so you can grab books, music, and the like in the same sort of way that Kindles work—with data plans for those who want full web access? Or will there be no such free offering: buy cellular data or use Wi-Fi, that’s it? And will voice minutes be offered at all for this device?

(3) Service Fees. Obviously, the fees will vary depending on what the cell companies are actually offering, but it’s worth noting that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are all in generally the same ballpark right now in offering data service packages for netbooks—the easiest analog to the tablet in terms of data hungriness. T-Mobile offers 200MB of data for $30 per month, with AT&T charging $35 for the same 200MB, and Verizon $40 as a base price for 250MB. All three companies offer 5GB of data for $60 per month, with T-Mobile also offering a less expensive $40 unlimited plan for certain devices.

Is anyone going to actually be willing to cough up $30-$60 per month for cellular access on a tablet? Our guess is that this would be a hard sell, particularly for the earliest wave of Apple tablet adopters—people who already likely have iPhone service contracts that would suddenly go way, way up in price for the tablet. This reality might well compel prospective service providers to offer more aggressive service pricing, or better yet, a combined iPhone and tablet service pricing plan.

Strictly speaking, there’s no reason that tablet and iPhone users should have to pay anything above the cost of their existing iPhone service contracts if they buy an unsubsidized device: the iPhone is capable of tethering, and in every country with tethering support (say, Canada) can connect to a Mac or PC via cable or Bluetooth to provide data access. Making the same connections between an iPhone and a tablet would be a no brainer. Interestingly, you wouldn’t even need an “unlimited” data plan to be comfortable doing this: the iLounge editor who tethers the most—Jesse in Canada—has used a whopping total of 8GB of data in one year between his iPhone and tethered MacBook without trying to limit himself in any way. He pays for 6GB of data per month and actually uses less than 1GB per month with tethering on the road. Obviously, the numbers would vary from person to person, but most people would be well under his usage numbers, and harder core video and audio streamers might easily go above it.

Even though an iPhone-tethered data solution would work for millions of potential tablet buyers, we’d be shocked if AT&T wouldn’t salivate over another opportunity to charge customers a $36 activation fee and additional monthly service fees, “necessary” of course because of the additional strains tablet access would place on its fragile infrastructure. That way, it could finally have enough cash on hand to make its network reliable. Right? Right?

Feel free as always to discuss and debate the possibilities in the comments section below.

A Few Words on Civility and Decency in Comments

By Jeremy Horwitz | 01.18.10 | 1 comment |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Over the past half year or so, you might have noticed that our administrators have taken a different approach to moderating comments, and that there are consequently far fewer of the obnoxious trolls who once threatened to turn many of the reader conversations here into pointless flamewars.

At some point in 2009, the moderation philosophy shifted from what was once “anything goes” to a “sorry, but if you’re a jerk, you’re banned” attitude. Readership hasn’t suffered in any way as a consequence, and the vast majority of our readers have been able to enjoy a more relaxed, less snarky environment as a consequence. Now that the dead weight’s been cleared out, we’d like to re-invite everyone who might have been holding off on posting to do so—we and the rest of the iLounge community appreciates your insights and opinions.

Just be civil and decent. Disagreement and debate with your fellow readers is welcome, but our moderators will swing the ban stick if they see conversations devolve into name calling, personal attacks, or posting of falsehoods. The golden rule continues to apply here. And, once again, if you have issues with an article, contact an editor directly through e-mail - news (at) ilounge (dot) com for news articles, or me [jeremy (at) ilounge] for anything else. Thanks!

Post-CES Editors’ Notes: Big in 2010 + Apple Tablet/iPhone 4 Details

By Jeremy Horwitz | 01.14.10 | 3 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

As you probably already gathered, this year’s CES was a massive success: attendance was up, lots of seriously cool new iPod and iPhone products were debuted, and companies appeared ready to reverse the sleepy past year of uninspired releases. So much was going on that we decided to let the dust settle before sharing this list of five big picture things you should be looking out for in 2010—big topics of discussion within the Apple development community.

1. Apple Tablet and iPhone 4. Though one might have guessed from media reports that Apple’s upcoming tablet device was casting a huge cloud over competitors, there was surprisingly little buzz about its specifics on the show floor—most companies were very focused on their current products, and waiting for the other shoe to drop with an official announcement from Apple. We heard whispers about what’s apparently the final tablet housing, which takes design cues from the iPhone, MacBook Air, and unibody MacBook Pro: it looks like the top casing of the MacBook Air and Pro, only smaller—roughly the same width as Amazon’s Kindle DX but a little shorter—plus space on the side for a surprising number of I/O ports.

Apparently, the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro curves are carrying over to the next-generation iPhone, as well, which will resemble a shrunken, thinner bottom half of the MacBook Pro laptop casing, bringing Apple’s lineup of portable computers, tablet, and phones into visual alignment.

2. Enthusiastic Response to Both CES and Economy. Early in 2009, the prevailing wisdom was that the battered economy would improve somewhat by mid-year, and that the consumer electronics industry would start a real recovery during the holidays. The optimism and positive responses we saw at the 2010 CES appeared to validate this timeline, as third-party developers told us about better-than-expected year-end results, plus impressive new lineups that were more thoughtful and distinctive than the ones in previous years. They also committed to the 2011 CES with record speed, selling out the previous 25,000-square foot iLounge Pavilion space in only one day (!), and demanding twice the booth space for the upcoming year.

3. Cases Are Making a Big Comeback. iPod and iPhone cases didn’t evolve much in 2008 or 2009, and readers were as tired of reading about them as we were when writing about them. This year, cases are making a huge comeback thanks to new designs from a number of companies: Case-Mate and Uncommon—former Nike iD folks—both showed cases that could be customized with user-created or -submitted artwork. Speck blew people away with its incredible Special Edition lineup of Fitted, CandyShell, and SeeThru cases. Incipio had aisle-filling lines for its new Dotties case and debuted the impressive DuroShot DRX, unusual Q, and other interesting designs. SwitchEasy debuted an anti-scratch case called Nude that has far-reaching potential for the durability of future designs. And finally, XtremeMac launched some iterative but very attractive designs for both soft and hard cases. We haven’t been this excited about iPod and iPhone protection in a long, long time.

4. App-Enhanced Hardware As Growth Area. Griffin and Belkin may have been first to connect App Store downloads to their accessories, but iHome made a huge splash with its iHome+Sleep app and multiple compatible alarm clocks, transforming the iPhone or iPod touch into uber-clocks with weather, sleep tracking, and Facebook and Twitter integration. Parrot provided an even more tangible demonstration of the App Store’s potential with its AR.Drone, which enabled iPhone and iPod touch users to control a toy hovercraft using touchscreen- and Wi-Fi-based Apple devices as remote controls. The challenge: Apple representatives at the show were actively pushing more developers to tie apps to future accessories, but the technical and cost factors involved in doing so can create a quagmire for companies. It’s going to be very interesting to see how this plays out in 2010 and 2011.

5. Awful AT&T Phone Service. When companies weren’t talking about their products, people couldn’t stop complaining—rightfully—about how terrible the AT&T service was in Las Vegas: even outside the Convention Center at various hotels, iPhones were failing to make calls, dropping calls after only seconds, and generally proving useless—voicemail and text messages weren’t sending or arriving properly, and web access was stopping before pages would load. Battery drain was staggering, too; users learned that they had to literally switch off 3G in favor of EDGE just be able to make telephone calls. Our editors from Canada and the United Kingdom couldn’t believe how slow and unreliable the service was, even when most of the influx of show-goers had left town. At some point, we stopped counting the number of people who were praying for AT&T’s exclusivity to end in favor of Verizon-compatible iPhones, but different people continued to have varying opinions on whether the issues were actually AT&T’s or Apple’s fault. We continue to think that the evidence strongly suggests AT&T is the big problem.

Comments and thoughts are, of course, welcome.

iLounge Pavilion, Backstage (Under Construction)

By Jeremy Horwitz | 01.06.10 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Here are a few behind-the-scenes shots of the 2010 International CES iLounge booth and Pavilion under construction—the physical incarnation of the Backstage section of our web site. The iLounge booth offers guests a place to relax and recharge their iDevices during the four-day CES.

There’s much more to come, soon.

Japan’s Simplism Arrives On U.S. Shores, With A Big Lineup

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.28.09 | 2 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

There aren’t many major iPod and iPhone accessory brands that haven’t brought—or tried to bring—their product lines to consumers in the United States. The launch of Japanese brand Simplism here enables us to cross one more name off the ever-shrinking list; the company has developed a dominant position on store shelves in Japan, as we noticed during our most recent visit there in November, and now it is bringing a massive collection of its products to American customers.

We’re going to be posting a bunch of First Looks shortly, but wanted to call out a couple of things that were noteworthy about the lineup as a whole. First, it’s unusual these days to see a company show up with a fully-formed family of quality products in matching, sharp packaging, ranging from cases to remote controls and simple electronics. For products that are made in China—a distinction from much of what has been developed and popularized by Japanese companies such as Power Support—Simplism’s lineup actually looks pretty nice.

There are little touches, such as polished metal against the leather cases, atypically clean tapering in the silicone cases, and Apple-inspired touches on one of the wall chargers (“Dual USB Charger Air”) that people will like. The company’s look is consistent at the very least, and at times, impressive.

On the flip side, the leather cases aren’t using the really expensive stuff, and some of the items have wonky seams, the goofy circular Apple logo cut-outs we dislike, or other imperfections. And there’s very little in the collection that we haven’t seen before in some similar form, with the exception of an iPod shuffle case and some of the design touches mentioned above. Some of the items will be of more interest and curiosity to iPod addicts, third-party designers, and our editors than to everyone else.

So why should this matter to the rest of our readers—or, at least those who check Backstage now and again? One reason: seeing an entire product lineup appear here at once was common in years past, but there wasn’t anything like that in the whole of 2009; releases slowed dramatically and companies were retrenching rather than growing. Simplism is making the sort of strong first impression over here that we haven’t seen from companies in a while, and we’re hoping that it’s the sign of better things to come from the rest of the iPod and iPhone world in 2010. It’s high time for the turnaround we’ve all been waiting for.

Updated: Here are a few of the more interesting items:

Simplism Remote Controller 3 Buttons for iPod
Simplism Nike + iPod Sensor Holder
Simplism Emergency Battery, Dual USB Charger Slide + Dual USB Charger Air
Simplism Cases for Fifth-Generation iPod nano

Metal Gear From Twelve South: BookArc MacBook Stand and BackPack Monitor Shelf

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.22.09 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Though we’re sent quite a few Mac accessories for possible coverage, the only ones that really interest us these days are designs that offer something really new and interesting—that’s the reason some of Twelve South’s new products have caught our attention. BookArc ($50) is a stylish curved laptop stand designed to match Apple’s MacBook Pros and Cinema Displays, holding the computer upright alongside the monitor, while BackPack ($30) is a miniature shelf that attaches to the back of a Cinema Display or iMac, providing an extra space to store a small hard disk, hub, or decorative object. Both are made from silver aluminum, with a matte finish that’s just like the metal in Apple’s monitors and computers.

Of the two items, the one that would interest us more is BookArc: the pairing of a portable laptop with a larger monitor for at-home use is increasingly common these days, and we’ve been using and liking Power Support’s Docking Stand for this purpose for a while. BookArc has its advantages: it looks cool—to our tastes, cooler than the Docking Stand—and its easily swapped rubber central inserts enable it to work with any thickness of MacBook or MacBook Pro without any need for tightening or loosening screws.

We found it easy to pull one of the inserts and replace it with another; the thick rubber padding gave us an added sense of comfort over the Docking Stand’s thinner pads, which have worked without problems but have always led us to be very careful when putting the MacBook inside or taking it out. Click on Read More for additional details.

read more »

Video: Why a Waterproof iPod nano 5G Case Is Cool For Movie Makers

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.18.09 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

One of the relatively underappreciated features of the fifth-generation iPod nano is its collection of realtime video filters—overlays, color and lens distorters, plus other neat little tricks that enable the device’s camera to create more than just vanilla video imagery. Now pair those filters with H2O Audio’s Capture case, the first waterproof case for the new nano, and the only way we’re aware of to use the camera of any iPod or iPhone while underwater, and you have something that could never be done quite so easily before.

iPod nano 5G Video with H2O Audio Underwater Capture Case from iLounge on Vimeo.

Total time to create this video after putting the nano in the case: 30 seconds. Ready to go and share, except that we pulled the audio portion out because the sound of a showerhead hitting a plastic case for 20 seconds isn’t fun to hear. It’s actually sort of amazing that audio gets recorded at all when the nano’s in a case like this—snorkelers, surfers, and pretty much anyone interested in, uh, filming in the shower could find an interesting use for this. Hopefully a safe one.

At 2010, Reaching The End of the iPhone Road

By Bob Levens | 12.16.09 | 10 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

My current contract with O2 is coming to an end soon, and while the last 18 months with my iPhone have been ‘fun,’ the cost is something I’m seriously considering as possibly not worth bearing. The question: do I continue my contract, seek another provider, or drop the iPhone as a data device altogether?

Bear in mind that I haven’t come close to using all my inclusive texts and minutes on the £35 plan I have been on, and don’t want to be roped into another year and a half or more of a contract in order to get an iPhone 3GS, which by June or July will be old hat. So what are my options as the end comes near?

I called the nearest O2 store to find out what it would offer. Continue on the current tariff forking out £35 a month is one option, and I’m not keen on this one: it’s expensive and I’m paying subsidy-replenishing rates without getting any subsidy for my paid-off phone. Another is to move to a Pay & Go package—£15 a month Top-Up provides Unlimited Texts and unlimited web—with a data bolt on of £10 tied in, leaving £5 a month for texts, is another. The third way may be to buy a new SIM card and pay £20 a month for 600 minutes/600 texts with mobile internet and email no more than 98p each day of use.

The other network options appear to be:-

T-Mobile - get a free SIM card on Pay As You Go, then pay £10 month for ‘free’ internet & texts (for life) - £1 per day maximum for internet access
Orange - “Dolphin” plan - £10 a month with a maximum daily charge for mobile Internet browsing £2
3 - PAYG SIM - £9.99 one off cost, minimum £5 top up and “A generous allowance of mobile internet access”
Vodafone - £20 a month SIM only with 500MB of mobile internet and webmail

These tariffs and SIM only/PAYG options are what I have managed to glean from the various providers websites and I may have missed other available options.

As T-Mobile and Orange are in the throws of a merger then maybe switching to their combined network might fill in the gaps in 3G service that I have suffered ever since getting an iPhone on O2.
Further head scratching and confusion caused by the plethora of tariffs and PAYG SIMs with possibly hobbled internet, will no doubt be evident over the holiday period and upcoming CES trip.

I’m not the only one about to be off contract, so now that O2’s non-exclusive—a state of affairs that didn’t exist when we signed up for the iPhone originally—I’m wondering, how are other iPhone users in the UK going to celebrate the end of their respective contracts?

Twitter’s Pros and Cons: Jeremy, On iLounge’s New Twitter Feed & Approach

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.09.09 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Sea changes are often the products of tidal waves, but smaller currents are responsible for something we’re announcing today: iLounge’s brand new Twitter feed.

As you may already know, iLounge has only modestly participated in Twitter for the past couple of years, as our editors have had very polarized feelings about the value of the service for both us and our readers. We’ve maintained twitter.com/ilounger as a glorified RSS feed, and a couple of our editors have had their own separate unlinked Twitter accounts, but we’ve done very little to publicize them—we never even posted a news story to mention that they were around. Twitter fan and iLounge editor Jesse Hollington assembled this amazing guide to iPhone Twitter apps, and we’ve recognized several apps in our annual top 100 lists, but that’s been pretty much it on the Twitter front for us.

Why? Several of our editors, including me, have basically been steering clear of Twitter: say whatever you will about the value of the service as a concept—a mass instant messenger—but it quickly became a voyeur’s window into people’s bathroom habits, a playground for narcissists and self-promoters, and a place where spam—invitations to join “mafia families”—ran rampant. These problems persist today, a point that iLounge editor Bob Levens absolutely cannot get past, and frankly, the rest of us can’t blame him: Twitter is, like YouTube, filled with tremendous quantities of junk that virtually no one would actually care to see.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, and more importantly, focusing on all of Twitter’s junk is akin to turning on the television just so you can whine about the 200 channels you can’t stand. There is useful content to be found on Twitter, if you know how to sift through all the junk to find it, and this week, we decided that we wanted to add to its usefulness.

Thus, we’re in the soft launch stage of a new Twitter account, which can be found starting today at twitter.com/ilounge. Two or three of our editors will be adding individual contributions to our prior news feed, linked via a new List called @ilounge/editors. You’ll be able to find the raw stream of updates via Twitter, and the main page of iLounge.com will filter all of the important content from our List for your reading pleasure.

Note a few things about the way we’re doing this. First, we are not—repeat, not—going to turn the iLounge feed into the typical collection of useless, off-topic babbles. If you want to follow our editors’ personal accounts to see whatever they’re talking about, feel free—we welcome it—but the only stuff you’ll see on our main page is content related to our coverage of Apple products. Just as with iLounge itself, where we focus on delivering quality over quantity, we are going to take a completely different approach from the typical Twitter account: to us, this isn’t about racking up tweets or followers, but about providing a useful, high-quality service to readers who are interested in seeing it.

Second, our goal is to have this begin a discussion rather than become a one-way feed from us to you; to that end, we will reply to worthwhile tweets and questions when we can, and want to hear your questions when news breaks or topics interest you. Obviously, we won’t be able to reply to everything, but this won’t be like the silent RSS iLounger feed of the past.

Third and most importantly, we are treating this feed as a new way to bring information, particularly bite-sized editorial perspectives, directly to you. There are times—sometimes, many times a day—when we have brief thoughts to share on a topic that might otherwise require an hour or two to write up in a full article. Properly harnessed, Twitter can serve as an immediate conduit for such information, and we are going to do our best to make truly good use of the service for that purpose.

To sit back and see the feed work its magic, look to the left side of the main iLounge.com page starting in the next 24 hours. You can add the official iLounge Twitter account to see our main news feed, and if you want to get a more complete picture of what our editors are up to, now would be a good time to start following Jeremy Horwitz’s Twitter account and Jesse Hollington’s Twitter account. We’ll post a story and the iLounge feed directly on the site’s main page when everything’s running smoothly. Thanks in advance for following.

Twitter’s Pros and Cons: Bob, On Seriously Hating All That Twitter Stands For

By Bob Levens | 12.09.09 | 16 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

To paraphrase the song “War” by Edwin Starr:

“Twitter, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
Twitter, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Retweet it, y’all”

I have railed against Twitter for some time now—much to the amusement of one or two colleagues, I’ll add—and since iLounge has decided to embrace this medium, I am going to take a moment to explain why you won’t be reading any tweets from me in our new iLounge editors’ feed.

I loathe Twitter and all that it has come to represent. The world does not need an aggregator of every few minutes of a person’s life in 140 characters, starting from when he wakes up in the morning, to a banal list of his habits and haunts—shopping lists to Starbucks and so on—to toilet tweet updates, all concluding with the predictable, moronic “Goodnight tweeple, sweet dreams, blah blah blah.” From my perspective, the only thing more awful than such updates is that some of this junk attracts thousands of “followers,” who then also share their every movement with thousands of followers, and so on. Is anyone actually reading all this, or is it just a bunch of junk being “followed” by people for the sake of aggregating invisible friends? No matter; hard-core Twitter users seem to relish this cyber scalp hunting and useless milestoning: “Twen thousandth tweet coming up, welcome to my twenty-thousandth follower!” That’ll be 10,000 short sentences of banality you have shared with 20,000 SEO accounts, and do any of them really give a damn what you’re typing? No! Facebook is for people who have friends; Twitter is for people who don’t but still have the ego to think that people care what they say.

Don’t get me started on the lexicon that has grown exponentially with the popularity of Twitter—it is making me want to throw my iPhone, laptop and Internet connection into the nearest bin. “Attwicted,” “Tweeple,” and “Tweetup” are just a small example—for god’s sake, most of you people are adults, can’t you realize you sound like 3-year-olds? The fact that some sad Twit has sat down and compiled a whole dictionary is even worse. Suddenly the dumbed down human race portrayed in the film Idiocracy seems to be here and now, communicated in 140-character jumbles. And now books are appearing on store shelves to help you understand Twitter! What is there to understand? It would be amazing to me if some of the people on Twitter even had the ability to read something as complicated as a book, especially one where the pages have more than 30 words each and need to be considered in sequence.

But struggle against the tide as I might, more and more established media are now urging viewers to “follow us at @XXXXX” because they think it is the trendy thing to be saying and doing. People I respect from various walks of life are now jumping onto the Twagon (I made that one up) or Twain (not Mark), though when I was asked whether I would follow them if doing so provided a better understanding of their activities, the simple answer was no. This video got it right many moons ago; sadly, this sequel showed the futility of struggling against the fail whale.

Can Twitter be reclaimed from the Idiocracy wannabees and put to good use? Perhaps iLounge’s feed will convince me that it can be done, but I’m not interested in joining in to be a part of the tweeting. I couldn’t even restrict this tirade to 140 words, let alone 140 characters, as the Twitriol inside just came bubbling out. Agree? Thank you. Disagree? Please retweat into your Twittersphere and twemble in outwage.

Read the Pros side of the Twitter discussion here.

The $300 Bribe, Or, On How Not To Get An App Featured On iLounge (Updated)

By Jeremy Horwitz | 12.07.09 | 11 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

It’s going to be very, very interesting to see where stories for this particular application wind up—we’ve omitted the name and related details so that no press is given to this title.

“Hi there,

I’m [omitted] of [omitted], creator [omitted].

I’m developing the new version of [omitted] ([omitted] 2).

In order to promote my new version, I’d like to sell some more copies of the original [omitted] and spread the word of our upcoming application.

I’m willing to pay 300$ (USD) if you’ll write an article about [omitted] where you’ll mention about an upcoming version ([omitted] 2).
I’ll be able to pay you right after the article is published and you sent me a link - please include your paypal email

Let me know what you think

Thanks in advance,

[omitted]”

The e-mail was sent to multiple members of our staff. We’ve already seen a story on it appear elsewhere. It’s not coming anywhere near iLounge.

Updated: Far from being shamed by an e-mail chiding him for trying to offer money for coverage, the developer increased his offer to $500.

Updated, Again: The developer is the creator of “Wobble.” You can see his subsequent attempts to offer cash for coverage here.