Archive for August 9th, 2009

I’ve had a half dozen or so longer posts about Apple brewing in my head the past couple of weeks. There is no shortage of controversy surrounding the company right now thanks largely to the hugely popular and hugely unpopular aspects of the iPhone. But Jason Calacanis’ post yesterday entitled “The Case Against Apple-in Five Parts” serves as a great springboard for bringing up a lot of it.

The Backstory

While my story with computers doesn’t go back quite as far as Calacanis’, our stories are pretty similar. He said that 6 years ago he made the switch to Apple products after a 20-year affair with Microsoft. I made the same switch 5 years ago after a roughly 15-year affair with Microsoft.

Regular readers may have heard this already, so forgive me if I’m repeating myself, but in the 1990s I loved Microsoft products and hated Apple stuff. I grew up on DOS, installed Windows For Workgroups because I thought it was cooler than regular Windows 3.1, bought Windows Bob, made my dad take me to the midnight launch of Windows 95, bought Windows 98 the day it came out, actually bought and used Windows ME, and bought Windows XP the day it came out. I could fill that timeline in with many other pro-Microsoft details, but let’s just say I was hooked.

Looks like Microsoft wasn’t able to keep all the cameras away from the Zune HD at the gdgt launch party in San Francisco after all — we just got tipped this video of a hands-on demo showing the interface and media playback. The OLED screen looks lovely as always, and the UI appears to be fluid and smooth, but we’re a little bummed that the multitouch browser doesn’t make an appearance. Still, it’s definitely intriguing stuff — hop on past the break to check it out.

[Thanks, alf]

Continue reading Zune HD interface and media playback demoed on video

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Zune HD interface and media playback demoed on video originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At the end of July I declared my intention to quit the iPhone and AT&T, port my mobile phone number to Google Voice and use any mobile device that I pleased (or lots of them at once) in the future. Like others, I will no longer blindly follow all things Apple. Today I’m pleased to report a status update on those efforts: complete. I am no longer a member of the Cult of iPhone.

Porting my phone number to Google Voice was a three day process, which I was pre-warned about. The mobile carriers in the U.S. have made the porting process between them fairly easy, and it occurs over a couple of hours. But they are in no hurry to help customers move their phone numbers to Google Voice, and so it took a few extra days. Also, I’m one of the first people to port their phone number to Google Voice, and there are always a few hiccups when you’re a guinea pig.

A week ago I was an unhappy AT&T iPhone customer. I couldn’t get cell phone reception here at my house and so I was always missing important calls.

Today I’m a happy Google Voice customer. My old mobile number, which all of my contacts already have, now rings simultaneously on my home Vonage phone and the TMobile myTouch 3G Android phone that I’ve started using (and, by the way, TMobile works just fine here at home, too). If I want to start using a new phone, I can make a switch in the settings at Google Voice and calls will ring through to that instead. no carrier will ever have a stranglehold on me again.

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/Walls_are_no_longer_a_limitation_for_U_verse_remote’;
For those who have far too often felt confined by having to point remotes at the devices being controlled, news of AT&T’s new Point Anywhere RF remote for its U-Verse customers should be a sweet siren song. The relatively simple remote is backlit for your convenience, letting home theater owners hide their set-tops away in a closet without having to go all aftermarket for a control solution. Changing channels from previously impossible areas like the bathroom, kitchen or outside comes at a cost of $49 for the remote and USB dongle, available from AT&T’s online store beyond the read link.

[Thanks, Anthony]

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Walls are no longer a limitation for U-verse with new RF Point Anywhere remote originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It is the end. Jason “The Animal” Calacanis is thinking about maybe quitting using Apple products, reporting that the company has gone all corporate and mainstream and that Steve has lost his hippie, dippy LSD edge. Look at this language, people:

Years and years after Microsoft’s antitrust headlines, Apple is now the anti-competitive monster that Jobs rallied us against in the infamous 1984 commercial. Steve Jobs is the oppressive man on the jumbotron and the Olympian carrying the hammer is the open-source movement

For folks in the tech industry, this is not a new discussion. Another radical visionary, Steve Gillmor, has been hosting this discussion since Apple’s draconian iTunes updates led smart people to *downgrade* their software. Think about that mind bomb for a second: people downgrading their software to maintain their freedoms–is this a William Gibson novel?

Steve Jobs is on the cusp of devolving from the visionary radical we all love to a sad, old hypocrite and control freak–a sellout of epic proportions.

This is not the thought process of a well man. Perhaps Jason spent too much time next to his Tesla roadster or maybe the stress of running Mahalo has finally gotten to him but someone needs to send Jason an iPod Shuffle STAT. Intra-cardial insertion of the Shuffle, much like the needle in Pulp Fiction, has been known to snap anti-Apple zealots out of their madness.

As far as we’re concerned, Nokia’s 5530 XpressMusic far and away out-classes its more expensive older brother the 5800, even if it is lacking in the 3G department. British phone retailer mobiles.co.uk thought it best to tease us with an unboxing video of their own, along with some quick impressions of the touchscreen device. It’s certainly a looker, and a sleek device they’re pretty confident will do well. Some of the S60 5th edition additions are very welcomed, such as the new scrolling contacts bar, but for better and for worse (mostly worse), it’s still S60. See it for yourself after the break, and if you wish really hard, there’s a good chance this still won’t get 3G, but at least you can say you tried.

[Via Cell Addict Blog]

Continue reading Nokia 5530 XpressMusic out of box, handled on video, preferred over 5800

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia 5530 XpressMusic out of box, handled on video, preferred over 5800 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 09:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Decent design, nice specs, bargain price, and a pretty poor chance of coming stateside? Yep, this must be RAmos. Its latest touchscreen media device, the T11 RK, sports the same Rockchip RK2806 processor as the Terminator T12, and also has a 5-inch, 800 x 480 display, 8GB internal memory, 720p TV out, FM radio, and support for numerous codecs including H.264 HD, DivX, XviD, MPG, and FLV. As you can tell from the picture above, it’s also wielding the ever-important clock and calendar widgets, as well as a dock with some all-too-familiar, borderline KIRF inspiration, although judging by the other pictures, the UI is overall pretty classy. If you find yourself in China, this baby can be yours for 699 Yuan, or about $102 in US currency, and if not, feel free to live vicariously through the video after the break.

[Via Cloned in China; hanks, xleung]

Continue reading RAmos T11 RK boasts 720p H.264 support, a stylish but all too familiar UI

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

RAmos T11 RK boasts 720p H.264 support, a stylish but all too familiar UI originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s an interesting case. A new Motorola GPS unit, the MOTONAV GC550, has popped up in a filing to the FCC. It’s got external photos, a full manual, all the relevant tests, the works — and yet, somehow as of this writing, it seems to have never been mentioned anywhere on the internet, at least as far as Google, Bing, and Twitter are concerned. From what we can glean from the manual, the touchscreen device sports 3D mapping, voice commands, Bluetooth pairing with your phone for hands-free use, a microSD slot (presumably for updates like the previous models), Google local search, and information on weather, traffic, and flights. Not contained in these unearthed documents, unfortunately, is price or release date. Come on, Moto, don’t keep us waiting long.

Filed under: GPS

MOTONAV GC550 GPS device found in FCC filing, nowhere else on the internet originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Meeting what we’d call the bare minimum for being able to say there’s “touch capabilities,” the new Archos 2 Vision PMP has quietly stepped out of the shadows and onto UK retailer MyMemory’s website. Just under the 2-inch, 220 x 176 resolution display is a tactile slider for menu navigation and volume control. The credit card-sized player also sports a FM tuner and recorder, a microSD slot in addition to internal memory, and support for MP3 / WMA audio and AVI video — nothing too fancy here. Battery life is a depressing 10 hours for audio and 4 for video, which at €60 / $85 for 8GB and €99 / $140 for 16GB models, it’s just a tinge south of acceptable in our book. Europeans still intrigued can pick one up now, while US consumers will either need to pay a premium for import or just wait patiently.

[Via DAP Review]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

New Archos 2 Vision PMP pictured, priced, and predictably short on battery life originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Apple and Google made informal deal to not pilfer each other’s employees? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Aug 2009 21:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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