iLounge

Mirror’s Edge

By Jeremy Horwitz | 05.09.08 | 0 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

First, watch this:

Then, read this: Parkour.

Then, if you’re still intrigued, watch this:

The controls could be a real issue. And it’s possible that the gameplay, like so many other “total first-person” experiences, ultimately won’t work in the end, despite how impressive it looks right now. But as a real demonstration of what the PS3 and Xbox 360 hardware can do, EA and DICE’s Mirror’s Edge is now one of my most anticipated titles for whenever it ships in 2008. 

Same-Day iTunes Movies Are Worth More Than a Golf Clap

By Jeremy Horwitz | 05.01.08 | 4 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

It might not be the flashiest press release that Apple’s put out in the last two years, but today’s announcement that U.S. customers will be able to buy movies* from the iTunes Store on the same day they’re released on DVD is huge. “Walmart and Amazon and Target and Best Buy are probably freaking out right now” sort of huge.

This particular omission from the iTunes Store was, to our eyes, seriously crippling Apple’s ability to compete with the big boys on video sales. Imagine what iTunes would have looked like for music buyers if it couldn’t sell or pre-order new releases—well, you don’t really need to imagine it, as the video section of iTunes used to look that way, filled largely with films you’d all but forgotten about and had to search to find something interesting. There was also that daunting question: why pay $15 for a “new release” today when you could have gone to Target and gotten the DVD for around the same price a week or more ago?

When iTunes movie rentals—both SD and HD versions—are truly available on the same day as DVD releases, Netflix and Blockbuster have a lot to worry about. And that asterisk above? Apple still needs to bulk up its video catalog, a lot, before it can truly compete with DVD stores. But there’s no doubt; Apple’s finally on the right path with video, and anyone who doubts that it’s driving a bulldozer would be well-advised to bulk up or get out of the way.

The Other New iPhone?

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.30.08 | 15 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Remember last year, when a little-known company named Uniea announced new iPod nano cases—with correct physical dimensions—before the new iPod nano was ever shown? As we mentioned shortly afterwards, readers were quick to slam Uniea and its mock-ups, but the cases proved perfect fits when the new nano was released. Now, there are all sorts of friend-of-a-friend stories swirling around about the second-generation iPhone, and perhaps not surprisingly, they contradict one another. Yesterday, a Taiwanese newspaper claimed Hon Hai/Foxconn was making an iPhone with a 2.8” screen, which would present certain major interface challenges given the way the current iPhone works, and might well be a “mini” iPhone rather than a full sequel to the current model. Additionally, like you, we’ve heard about another model that is supposedly coming soon, and sounds more like a true next-generation iPhone. Companies overseas have already started working on products for this one, which is basically the same size as the current iPhone, but has slightly different curves, coloration, and materials. Specs for either or both of these models could be nothing more than disinformation put out to burn developers, but they could also be correct. In any case, here are the details they’re working from.

Developers believe that the “glossy black plastic iPhone” details that have been circulating are partially accurate. When you first hear the word “plastic,” you tend to think “cheap,” but the premise here appears to be to approximate the look of metal through automobile-style gloss, while eliminating the presence of matte plastics and metal found in the original iPhone. The rear shell becomes larger, with the hard aluminum casing disappearing entirely, but a silver metallic bezel remains on the front—just much thinner than before. Once flat on both the back and front, the enclosure now is tapered like a MacBook Air, thicker at the center than at the sides. From the side, top, or bottom, the curves and proportions look more Blackberry than iPhone, but from the front, the new model looks basically unchanged from its predecessor. Perforated bottom speaker and microphone grilles have been transformed into larger shapes alongside the Dock Connector, as well.

While the screen size stays the same in this model—3.5” diagonal, with 3” height and 2” width, some currently unexplained changes are made around the ear speaker. On iPhone, a proximity sensor and ambient light sensor sat above this speaker; the new version has what appear to be three separate sensors, or two sensors and a tiny second camera—the original camera stays where it was. Though it would be great to picture this new dot as a video iChat-ready camera location, it’s entirely possible that this is nothing more than a rearrangement of the proximity sensor array. And colors? Glossy black or white backs are apparently locks, with a red version possible, too. Each would have the same silver bezel on front, and substantially black material surrounding the screen.

Of course, only Apple and its key partners know if any of this is correct, but some companies are assuming that it is. It’ll be interesting to see whether they’re right, and new cases begin to appear immediately after iPhone’s launch, or whether a multi-month delay is in store.

Shrinking iPhone, Shrinking Interface: The Issues

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.29.08 | 6 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

When Apple created the iPhone’s touchscreen interface, it also created a fundamental “going forward” challenge—how can the size-obsessed company keep making its devices smaller without over-compromising their usability? Steve Jobs, after all, dismissed with a “yuck!” the idea of using a stylus with the touchscreen, noting that a finger was the best possible way to interact with the device. Apart from shrinking users’ fingers, how can the screens of future iPhones and touch-based iPods fall in size without making the icons and other buttons too small to use?

Today, a Taiwanese newspaper claimed that the new iPhone’s screen will be reduced from its current 3.5” diagonal size down to 2.8”—a compromise which will necessarily require Apple to do one of three things: shrink the current interface down, crop it, or shrink it and crop it. If this measurement is accurate, to merely shrink the interface would require a higher pixel density screen, and the user’s indulgence for icons and keys that would lose around 20% of their current size. Cropping the current interface would eliminate some of the icons and keys, while a combination of cropping and shrinking could preserve more icons and keys than the pure crop, making them more than 80% of their present size, but you’d still have to lose some size and white space to make it work.

The picture above shows how icons currently fit on an iPhone screen, and how they’d fit on a purely cropped or a purely shrunk screen. In the crop scenario, the 20-icon main menu becomes capable of holding 12 at full size; the shrunken version preserves all 20 but shrinks them down to around 0.3” per icon in width.

The next picture shows what might happen on a 2.8” screen with the current vertical orientation keyboard. Apple’s already too-small keys would drop to baby finger-sized 0.2” by 0.1” keylets. Those who already find the iPhone’s keyboard marginal would find the miniaturized one useless unless new predictive software was developed to make it smarter at guessing the words they were trying to type.

Another option would be to restrict the keyboard to operating solely in widescreen mode. Here, the keys would remain substantially usable even on a 2.8” screen, falling to roughly 0.2” by 0.2” in size. While not as large as the .25” by .25” keys of the larger iPhone, these would have twice the surface area of the vertical keys.

Does any of this really matter? Yes. What Apple does with successive iPhones’ interfaces is literally all-important. Should the screen size shrink at the same size pixel density increases, Apple’s applications—and third-party ones—will need to be updated to be sure text and buttons aren’t too small to be used by most people. Should Apple cut screen size and preserve pixel density as-is, such that you might get 12 icons on the main screen rather than 20, third-party applications may need to be developed in separate versions for old and new screen types. (Apple might even fully redesign the interface for its “mini” or “nano” devices, or lose the current iPhone operating system altogether, but the iPhone SDK wouldn’t be much good then, would it?) Of course, similar issues will also crop up if the mobile OS X (aka iPhone/iPod touch) platform winds up on larger-screened devices, as screen real estate will increase while pixel density either goes down, stays the same, or goes up; they’ll also happen if Apple goes with a higher-density, miniature 720x480 display… all of this assumes, of course, that it doesn’t just decouple the touch interface from the display in some way, such as adding a slide-out or plug-in keyboard.

What do you think will happen? Will Apple preserve the current iPhone interface as-is for the entire next round of iPhone and iPod touch devices, or are smaller screens, icons, or keys the likely near-term future of the family? We’re anxious to see your comments below.

MacBook Air Sales, Decoded: “Successful,” Not “Thrilling,” Means…

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.24.08 | 7 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Those accustomed to hearing Apple executives discuss sales performance of new products are familiar with certain restrictions: the company rarely breaks out model-by-model sales for individual new releases, instead issuing only broad sales figures for categories such as “Mac desktops,” “Mac portables,” “iPods,” and “iPhones.” Then, in quarterly conference calls with financial analysts, its executives talk about the figures with enthusiastic code phrases that might sound “smug” to casual listeners, but sometimes subtly signal how well the products are actually performing in the marketplace. Apple’s sale of 1.1 million iPhones during its first full quarter on the market? The company was “thrilled,” according to CFO Peter Oppenheimer. Apple’s opinion on the beginning of the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store and then-new relationship with Starbucks? “Very pleased,” said Oppenheimer, in a phrase that is used with great frequency. Underperforming products? They tend not to get mentioned at all.

So where does the MacBook Air sit on this spectrum? It was “successful,” Oppenheimer said yesterday, and “customers have responded very well.” That sounds more like the light, standard enthusiasm Apple exhibited for the Starbucks deal than the “boom!” enthusiasm for the iPhone, right? Further quantification came around the 26:40 mark in the call, when an analyst from Goldman Sachs asked about potential revenue shortfalls for the next quarter.

“Our Mac channel inventory this past quarter did increase by about 60,000 in the March quarter,” revealed Oppenheimer, “as the result of the MacBook Air launch and accelerated sales velocity.” This is quite telling. Because of both the MacBook Air’s launch, and the growth of Mac sales in general, Apple—now increasingly good at conservatively managing its Mac inventory to respond to projected demand—has added 60,000 machines that are just waiting to be sold. Since Apple aims for approximately 4 weeks of channel inventory for Macs (3-4 weeks or 4-5 weeks is typical), if the MacBook Air alone had added 60,000 projected Mac sales in 4 weeks, that would suggest that Apple’s prepared to sell around 180,000 Airs per quarter.

However, that number is probably too high. Oppenheimer mentioned that the 60,000 unit bump also includes “accelerated sales velocity” for additional other Macs, both desktop and portable. Notably, though Mac sales grew both seasonally and from the year ago quarter, they were almost flat from Q1 2008 to Q2 2008 - 2.319 Million Macs versus 2.289 Million, or -1% growth from the prior quarter. In other words, total Macs manufactured and shipped into the channel were pretty close to the same from the prior quarter, even taking the launch of MacBook Air into account. We could guesstimate that 50,000 of Apple’s 60,000 increase came from MacBook Airs being added, which would put the Air at 150,000 per quarter. That’s probably still a little high, but maybe not, if the 60,000 number was closer to 3 weeks of channel inventory than 4.

Since Apple sold 1.433 million portable Macs during the quarter, and had MacBook Air on the market for only two of the three months in the quarter, 50,000 units per month would put estimated sales in the 100,000 range, with 60,000 units per month in the 120,000 range. That’s 7% to 8.4% of total portable Mac sales. For obvious reasons, such numbers would be “successful,” but not “thrilling.” Estimates of the size of the ultra-portable computer market peg it at around 10% or less of the total portable market, putting Air in line with expectations, not above it, with future growth expected to come from small, cheap machines like the Asus EEEPC.

There are two other related things worth noting. First, Apple’s television advertising campaign for the Air was extremely vigorous during the past quarter, with commercials airing multiple times during individual American Idol episodes, as well as across many other popular (and ad-expensive) shows. We’ve been wondering: how much could Apple have shaved off the price of each Air sold if it wasn’t advertising so aggressively, and would a lower price have alone triggered more sales?

Finally, we found it interesting that the iPod touch was described in the same terms as MacBook Air. Oppenheimer described the touch as a “success” and said that Apple is “very pleased,” without going into much greater detail about the flatness in iPod unit sales during a time when Apple has said that it’s shipping its best iPod lineup ever. Ten million more iPods in the quarter is fantastic by our yardstick, but we’re still crossing our fingers for “thrilling” new products in the near future.

Your thoughts, readers?

iChat Video Problems + Solutions, or Don’t Return Your New Mac Yet

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.22.08 | 5 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

I love Apple’s iChat. Currently in version 4.0.2, and once known as iChat AV, this single, simple-looking program enables even novice users to quickly establish video, audio, or text chats, and is one of several key reasons that I repeatedly hear that people are switching to the Mac. But iChat has a serious problem: more than any other program most people use on the Mac, it depends on a properly set up network to work, and if your network’s not set up properly, it doesn’t provide detailed error messages or a troubleshooting wizard to help you trace what’s wrong. So when I heard that a family member just bought and almost returned a Mac because he couldn’t get video iChat to work properly, even after searching for help in Apple’s Discussions boards, Help menus, and Google, I realized that I might be able to share a few solutions that could help other people get iChat video chats to work as expected.

The problem: everything else on the Mac worked, but iChat would not connect for video chats. You’ve probably seen the generic error messages before: “There was a communication error during your chat.” “No data has been received for 10 seconds” timeouts. “User cancelled the connection.” “Did not receive a response from user.” And so on. My family member spent five or so hours with the MacBook’s integrated help system and people on the telephone trying to figure out what the issue was. Was it port forwarding? No. A lack of general Internet connectivity? No. User error? No. Nothing seemed to help, and the computer was literally moments away from being boxed and sent back to Apple.

What ultimately worked in this case was a solution that, in my view, should be your starting point: the wireless router was removed, and the Mac was connected directly via a wire to the cable modem via its Ethernet port. Suddenly iChat began to work perfectly—no mysterious errors. This single step demonstrated that the Mac was capable of working, and that the cable modem was doing everything it should be doing, too. There was something wrong with the wireless router. Maybe.

At this point, I will tell you a little something about wireless routers. People have really bad experiences with them, and the companies that sell them. Unfortunately, these problems actually come from numerous sources: existing wireless home phones, microwave ovens, other wireless devices, poorly made routers, poorly written wireless software and firmware for both the routers and wireless computers—the list goes on and on. Because there are so many ways that wireless networks can hiccup or fail, router makers often throw up their hands and leave customers to troubleshoot their own problems. They point to Apple and other computer makers. They point to the cable modems, DSL systems, and their providers. And then, when you call your computer or cable modem company, these companies point somewhere else. It’s nobody’s fault.

I can’t tell you for certain that the iChat problem you’re having is going to be the exact same one as discussed here, but I can tell you this: eliminating the wireless router as a cause is a critical first step. Once your computer is connected directly to your broadband modem, and you confirm that your web browser can connect with a web site, you can then test your connection with one of three little-known Apple iChat test buddies. These are added using the + icon on iChat’s buddy list, keeping the Account type as AIM, and creating 3 separate buddies by entering one name at a time into the Account name: field, hitting the Add button, and repeating that process until all 3 are added.

appleu3test01
appleu3test02
appleu3test03

The next step is to click on the bright green camera icon next to one of these names, the first two of which run Apple commercials on non-stop loops (below), the third of which is supposed to mirror back your video to you. If one of the three names is grayed out, someone else is testing with it now, but if it’s bright green, you can connect and do a test right away. If it works and runs stable, your machine’s just fine and your connection is just fine. If it connects but runs sluggish, your Internet connection is probably to blame if you’re not running any other programs and using a recent (G5 or Intel) Mac.

If it doesn’t connect, run your Mac’s Internet diagnostics, found under System Preferences > Network, with the “Assist me...” button at the bottom of the screen. This process should sort out whether the problem’s in your Mac, your broadband connection, or the wireless router, and it’s probably going to be the router. If everything works, you can try to reconnect the router again and work through the problems.

When my family member reconnected the router, it was obvious that the issue was tricky to diagnose. The correct next step, and one that worked immediately to solve his problem, was to temporarily turn off wireless security altogether: once WPA was turned off, iChat worked perfectly. But what about the need for wireless security? Ultimately, experimenting with this feature—trying WPA2 security, for instance, making sure that both the router and the computer were set up to use the newer, apparently more reliable WPA2 standard—was something that solved an iChat problem I had long ago.

The ability to talk over video or voice chat with family members, friends, and/or business associates is a killer feature of the Mac platform, but it’s obvious that people who have iChat problems can find their new Mac enthusiasm killed instead. Until a troubleshooting wizard for iChat or better diagnostic error messages appear, the steps above should help you figure out what’s really wrong with the most serious iChat failures. I hope they’re as useful for your family as they were for mine.

Making Apple TV Stickier - Your Thoughts?

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.21.08 | 25 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Successful electronic devices are “sticky,” meaning that you keep wanting to use them rather than doing or using something else. If the device is designed from the start with the right set of features, it will be both appealing and sticky to all of its potential buyers; otherwise, it might take a few iterations—and added features—to get to the point where people can’t live without it. A few examples of stickiness:

* iPods. Being able to play any piece of music from your collection, at any time, originally made iPods hugely sticky for audio fans. The additions of photos, podcasts, videos, and games have helped the iPod increase its portable entertainment value, and thus its stickiness. An iPod owner generally won’t turn to another portable device for audio or video on the road.

* Web-connected computers. Before the web took off, it was easy for everyone except for hard core fans to walk away from their personal computers and, say, go outside. Now kids, parents, and grandparents alike are computer users, and it’s hard to imagine a modern home without a computer connected to the Internet.

* Mobile phones. For people who love to communicate, mobile phones didn’t need anything more than decent reception and reasonable billing rates to become necessary, take-it-everywhere devices. The additions of text messaging, e-mail and web access have only made these phones stickier over time.

Any common threads above? Apple makes iPods, web-connected computers, and mobile phones—devices that are now widely regarded to be “musts” because of their features and interfaces. It also makes a little device called Apple TV, which very few people would claim to be “sticky.” As most people know, Apple TV connects to certain TVs and lets you enjoy your pre-existing music, videos, podcasts, and photos on a big screen. Recently, it’s also started to let you acquire additional content from the Internet—more music, videos, podcasts, and photos—but that’s pretty much all that it does.

Apple initially justified Apple TV’s existence by calling it a “DVD player for the 21st Century,” capable of playing mostly video content on TVs with better-than-DVD-quality display capabilities. However, it was obvious then, and more so now, that such a product was not going to match the gotta-have-it nature of Apple’s other key products: a DVD player, even a next-generation DVD player, is just not sticky. At a time when living room entertainment is increasingly multimedia, rather than limited to just playing back videos, there needs to be something to make you want to use Apple TV more often than you’d want to watch DVDs.

Past Backstage entries have made suggestions on how this might be accomplished. Nintendo’s Wii, for instance, has launched a global news reader, a weather forecast page, and a vote-against-the-world channel, all essentially widgets to keep you entertained and Wii-connected even when you’re not playing games. There’s also a web browser. And now Wii Fit, the exercise accessory and software package, which is about to sell its 2 millionth copy. Clearly, people enjoy interacting with their TVs, and the launch of Apple TV made plain that Apple wants to be involved with that—somehow.

Apple has been exploring potential expansion options for Apple TV since before the device was even announced. Back in August 2006, it filed for a patent that suggested people might be able to use widgets to do video chats with the Apple TV, and perhaps access web pages, or interact with DVDs—each most likely requiring additional hardware not included with the current device. Another patent suggested that Apple has envisioned the device extending into DVR functionality. Unfortunately, the only expansion it has actually received—apart from a new menuing system—is the ability to stream and download photos, video, and audio from the Internet via Flickr, .Mac, YouTube, and the iTunes Store.

No one seemed to remember its birthday in late March, but Apple TV’s now a year old. What do you think Apple should add to the device in order to make sure that there’s something worth celebrating next year? Does it need something as simple as composite video ports, or more complex features, like DVR, disc, or widget functionality? We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments box below.

Blue’s Snowflake, the Cute Little USB Mic That Could

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.18.08 | 1 comment |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been on an office clutter reduction drive—gone is the 4x4 cube shelf system that once held iPods, speakers, awards and the like, and away went most of the things that have been stealing space from my desk, off into storage. The goal has been a more minimalist, zen working space that looks and feels less like an Apple Store than it has for the last few years. So when I say that I’ve decided to add a new item to my desk, hopefully you’ll get the sense that the phrase actually means something.

The new item is a Blue Microphones Snowflake ($79, Amazon price $59/Dr. Bott price $59), which is described as a “portable professional USB mic,” but thanks to a great design is a lot more than those words would typically lead you to believe. Larger than a full-sized iPod but still easy to toss into a bag, the Snowflake consists of four parts: a globe-shaped microphone, a USB cable, and a two-piece base. Blue’s microphone and main base are permanently connected to one another, but the globe can be spun 360 degrees around, pivoted to your choice of angles, or even recessed back into the base, which has enough room inside to store the USB cable. You can also separate the base into two halves, which enables the microphone to be mounted on some monitors.

Why would I care about a USB microphone? Two words: voice chat. My MacBook Pro spends most of its day folded up and tethered to an Apple Cinema Display, which has been awaiting an iSight- and mic-based upgrade for two years now. Try to have a voice chat with the microphone built into the closed MacBook Pro, especially with the internal fans running from whatever has been going on lately with Leopard, and callers will tell you that you’re difficult to hear. They’ll say almost the same thing even if the MacBook Pro has been opened up, and even if the fan’s off, they’ll still prefer the sound of an external microphone. At least, they do with Snowflake.

The mark of a great accessory design is that you’d still want to keep it around even if you stopped having an immediate use for it. Griffin’s PowerMate is one of those accessories—it’s just a cool-looking metal knob with a glowing blue light at its base, and despite its limited applications remains on my desk (and desks of many other users) to this day. Snowflake is equally attractive. It’s done in high-class silver polished metal, with a mix of silver aluminum and white plastic for the base, striking just the right visual balance with the other Apple gear on my desk. By computer microphone standards, it’s large, with a nicer mic inside than the pinhole-sized ones that are commonly tossed into web cameras, and that’s likely a good part of why people think it sounds so good. People on the other end have described it as “very good” and “quite good overall,” with our U.K. editor Bob Levens calling the sound “1000 times better” than the MacBook Pro’s built-in mic. I didn’t realize that it was possible to make such an improvement, and that may be a little generous, but I’m glad to hear that I’m sounding so good now on the other end of chats.

Could Snowflake be any better? Ideally, the metal part could fit on my Cinema Display, but it can’t, as the Display’s too thick and Snowflake’s body would need to really bulk up to accommodate it. Thinner monitors—and certain laptop screens—will be a better match, which is fine considering that Snowflake works with Windows PCs and all the USB Macs that lack integrated mics or would benefit from superior external ones. And yeah, it would be great if Blue went beyond the mic and offered a full iSight-style video camera, which would be especially appreciated given that Apple hasn’t offered an iChat-ready solution for Cinema Display users for some time now. But Blue is a microphone company with a huge stable of cool and differently purposed microphones, not a general purpose accessory designer, so it’s not surprising that what Snowflake does, it does very well, without trying to reach beyond the company’s core competency. With design and performance like this, however, I hope they’ll consider giving other genres a try.

OK, Maybe Apple Has Nothing to Learn from Microsoft

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.16.08 | 13 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Remember yesterday’s Backstage entry noting that Apple might be able to learn something useful for Apple TV from Microsoft? Well, simply watching this Windows Vista SP1 promotional video is enough to completely erase any thought of that sort. Never before have the words “epic fail” resonated so much.

Wow. Just wow. Thanks for pointing this out, Bob.

Xbox Live Marketplace: Could Apple TV Learn Anything From Microsoft?

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.15.08 | 1 comment |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

After putting together the photo gallery from the updated PlayStation Store earlier today, we were reminded of two things: first, Microsoft’s Xbox Live Marketplace, and then, a famous Steve Jobs interview from 1996:

“The only problem with Microsoft is, they just have no taste,” said Jobs. “They have absolutely no taste… I mean that in a big way… they don’t bring much culture into their product. ... I have no problem with their success… I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products.”

Obviously, a lot has changed over the past decade since those words were spoken, and it’s unclear as to whether Apple’s CEO would say the same thing today as he did back then. Yet no matter what you think of Microsoft, the company has enjoyed success in the living room: its Xbox 360 console has sold 18 million units worldwide, roughly the same as the considerably less expensive Nintendo Wii, which has shipped (not sold) 20.13 million, and more than Sony’s PlayStation 3 at around 10.5 million sold. By comparison, Apple TV sales estimates are in the sub-1-million range, meaning that its custom version of the iTunes Store only reaches a small fraction of Apple’s over 50 million iTunes customers. Put another way, no matter how much you hear about Apple TV, it’s a comparatively small player in the living room, and more people see Microsoft’s digital download store Xbox Live Marketplace than the Apple TV version of the iTunes Store. (Sound familiar, Windows users?) So, “taste” aside, it seemed worthwhile to take a quick look at how the Xbox Live Marketplace store works, to see what Microsoft might have gotten right. Click on the article’s title or the read more link below for a brief walkthrough.

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Can Sony Trump iTunes With New PlayStation Store? [Updated]

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.15.08 | 7 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Two weeks ago, Sony froze the catalog of its online PlayStation Store—the central hub it uses to offer downloadable content for its PlayStation 3 console—and announced that it would be performing an extensive makeover in two weeks. This morning, the new PlayStation Store launched globally, and it’s a major improvement over the prior version, offering a simplified interface for browsing and downloading games and videos.

To go one step further, it looks like Sony finally has an online store interface that outdoes the one on Apple TV—now, the PlayStation 3’s only challenges are to populate the store with similar content, and get enough hardware out there to make a real impact on the digital marketplace. More photos and details are available by clicking on the headline above, or the read more link below.

[Updated: For readers unfamiliar with the past, present, or future of the PlayStation Store, Sony has been planning to challenge Apple by adding movie and TV show downloads to the Store. According to a report, the company has recently demonstrated the video download service to retailers and publishers, and Sony’s official PlayStation blog has confirmed that additional details are coming “very soon.” As such, the PlayStation Store, Microsoft’s Xbox Live Marketplace, and Apple TV’s version of the iTunes Store will be in direct competition with one another as sources for digital video downloads; this piece is intended to look at some of the ways Sony is bringing the PlayStation 3 up to speed for that fight.]

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The Microsoft Store, in Slides

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.11.08 | 5 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

People are reporting a rumor that Microsoft wants its own retail Apple-style stores as if it might actually happen. We doubt it, but since it’s a slow Friday, we thought we’d take a stab at how the internal Microsoft executive presentation might go.

There probably should be a snack bar in there, too. It could happen.

What S-GOLD3 Could Really Mean For the Next iPhone

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.09.08 | 1 comment |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Whenever Apple selects a major chip for a new iPod or iPhone, two things are established: first, the nearly complete potential of that device, and second, the fact that some of that potential will not be realized in the actual Apple product. Having peeked into the most recent beta version of the iPhone 2.0 software, hackers think that they’ve discovered the chipset that will power the next-generation iPhone, and if history’s any guide, they’re right: Apple’s software tends to contain little clues to new features (iTunes movie rentals, for instance) in advance. So what does Infineon’s S-GOLD3H processor offer that isn’t included in the current-generation iPhone’s S-GOLD2 processor? Here’s the breakdown of new features, and what they mean.

Enhanced Data Networks and Rates: Arguably the most important new features of S-GOLD3H are also semi-obvious ones. The new chip supports the 3G network standards picked by leading domestic and foreign mobile phone companies, including HSDPA category 8 (7.2Mbit/second) data transfers, as well as WCDMA with 384kbit/second simultaneous upload and downloads, or 640kbit/second independent uploading or downloading. It also adds support for third-generation GRPS, versus the second-generation GPRS in the current iPhone. Together, these standards could allow the new iPhone to work in virtually any country on the planet, and deliver tremendous improvements in web page, e-mail, and other data delivery: four to eight times faster with WCDMA, and potentially ten times that with the right HSDPA network. Real world speeds are likely to fall short of the theoretical maximums, but they’ll still be a lot better, and iPhone will be more compatible, too.

Video Capabilities: While the prior generation chip included MPEG-4 and H.263/H.264 playback, encoding and streaming features, the new generation appears to be improved, and can handle 30fps, full screen resolution video telephony and, though a separate module, digital video broadcast reception as well. Dedicated 2G graphic hardware is also included.

Improved Display Interface: Though still capable of supporting a 480x320 display at maximum—the same as the current iPhone’s—S-GOLD3H has a high-speed interface that permits “cost effective clamshell mechanics” for a screen of this resolution. What this most likely means is that the display needn’t be right next to the motherboard; affordable wiring can separate the screen from the chipset without compromising performance. Our gut feeling is that a 3G clamshell design of this sort is not in iPhone’s immediate future, but is a generation or two off in 3G iPhone nano land.

Audio: The iPhone’s S-GOLD2 included three bi-directional digital audio interfaces for audio chips and Bluetooth modules; S-GOLD3H only includes two. This is unlikely to matter at all for iPhone.

Card Slots: While the prior version included a single MMC/SD card interface; S-GOLD2 has twin MMC/SD card interfaces. Again, this is unlikely to be used by iPhone.

Multitasking: Infineon notes that the S-GOLD3H can run multiple applications at once, such as surfing the Internet, downloading e-mails, and listening to music over a stereo Bluetooth headset at once. While not surprising given the iPhone’s multitasking features, the company’s suggestion is that the data speeds of HSDPA and the system’s ability to work with separate chips (Bluetooth, connected SD cards) at once are the distinguishing factor here; S-GOLD3H can quickly route different types of data from the cell network and its own memory to different destinations, such as the screen, wireless earphones, and memory cards all at the same time.

Camera: S-GOLD3H now supports higher-resolution 5-Megapixel camera hardware, versus the prior-generation’s 2-Megapixel limit. Unlikely to see its full potential reached with whatever add-on camera Apple chooses to use, but we could see better still or video imaging as a benefit.

Memory: S-GOLD3H now supports faster DDR-SDRAM, which will likely help make applications and the interface just that much smoother.

Encryption Technology: S-GOLD3H adds hardware encryption technology to protect media files, the SIM card, and the boot code.

As previously noted, Apple may or may not use some of these new features in the next-generation iPhone, and it’s also possible given the iPhone beta software’s generic reference to “S-GOLD3” rather than “S-GOLD3H” that Infineon will sell Apple another version of the chip for the company with slightly different features—typically fewer, for a lower price point—but in any case, it’s interesting to see what’s there. A number of factors in the new iPhone’s performance will be affected as much by the support chips Apple chooses to couple with the S-GOLD3, as well—Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, sound quality, and other features will depend on these chips. We’ll need to wait for the actual release to see what the 3G iPhone can really do, and how well it does it.

About that iPhone 3G “in 60 days” thing

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.08.08 | 1 comment |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

Nuance is an extremely important, but under-appreciated element of communication; our soundbite-heavy culture prefers quick, simple, and conclusive explanations rather than ones that demand thought or raise ambiguities. When is the next iPhone coming? “In sixty days” is the answer people want to hear—it gives everyone a chance to mark their calendars or set their countdown widgets with some degree of certainty. Last week, the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg obliged them, stating casually on video that the iPhone would go 3G within that timeframe. There was a rush to report the statement as fact, under the assumption that it wouldn’t have been said without certainty. But today, he retracted the statement, explaining that his number was just a ballpark estimate based on speculation.

As much as we like Mr. Mossberg, you might note that we didn’t post anything in our news section regarding his initial quote or the followup. The reason? Nuance. We’ve heard the same buzz about the next-generation iPhone that he has, but there was a subtle difference between what we heard and what people have been claiming over the last few days: “in 60 days” would mean that the 3G iPhone would be on the market by June 5 or sooner, but we’ve heard that the actual launch timeline is looser than that, such that Apple wasn’t making more than a two-month commitment to current-generation iPhone products as of mid-March.

Nuanced? Yup. What that wordy phrase means is that, come mid-May, all bets are off regarding whether Apple will be pushing the current-generation iPhone or a sequel. An announcement could come then. Or at WWDC in early June. Or July. Or August. As with all things Apple, a number of loose ends have to be tied up, and if they take a while longer to resolve, them’s the breaks. On a month to month basis, the company will continue to make decisions about manufacturing, selling, and promoting current-generation iPhones, and you won’t see the company telling people to stop buying today’s model until the next one is ready to order. That’s just not the way Apple does things. The only time the company pre-announces a product hugely in advance of release is when it doesn’t have something else to sell in the meantime—or when it miscalculates the actual release date because of engineering or manufacturing delays, as with Leopard, Apple TV, and so on.

So what accounts for the recent 8GB and 16GB iPhone shortages in stores? The answer is most certainly miscalculation, and probably the good type rather than the bad. As we saw with the iPod mini years ago, sometimes demand grossly and unexpectedly exceeds supply—with Apple products, this tends to happen with brand new releases rather than years-old products. Apple has spent the last decade making conservative decisions regarding manufacturing of new products so as to avoid the inventory buildups that plagued the company in the early 1990s, and with the current iPhone still in its first year of sales, it’s not a shock that the supply/demand balance will sometimes be off. This is especially true when the company has to decide whether to make more units of a product it’s about to discontinue.

Right now, the supply/demand balance is off in the other direction in Europe: the supply has exceeded demand, enough that T-Mobile is now offering €99 subsidized iPhones in Germany to entice customers to buy in. The catch: you have to sign up for a 24-month contract—quite a long time to be bound to the current-generation iPhone, right?—and the deal expires June 30, the day after iPhone’s first anniversary. Coincidence? Just wait and see.

The Mac Guessing Game, Part 2

By Jeremy Horwitz | 04.04.08 | 3 comments |  tell-a-friend |  digg this story

As promised; Dan Nicholls got it right. Cube aside, it’s the only Mac I’ve wanted to own, but never had. Here are some other Mac-as-commodity pictures from Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan—the trip that cemented my need to pick up both of these machines, soon.