Someone at Palm should probably be kicking themselves: The first reviews of its much-hyped Palm Pre aren't bad, but they are not incredibly good, either. This sets a pretty low bar for what coming competitors must achieve to appear more advanced than Palm's newest device.
Suppose someone lifted up the body of your car and slid a whole new automobile, minus the body, underneath. Would it still be the same car? Similarly, is it fair to compare today's Palm to the Palm of old in predicting the Palm Pre's future?
Now that its available, my first experiences with Microsoft Bing lead me to a simple, inescapable conclusion, "So what?" I had imagined that something as widely hyped as Bing would be a life-changing experience. It wasn't. Not even close.
It will be interesting to see how Apple reacts to news that Palm's Pre knows how to interact with iTunes. While not a business feature, iTunes support would make buying or switching to the Pre much easier for millions of the iTunes faithful.
The bankruptcy filing by Apple cloner Psystar is hardly a surprise. Rather, it is hard to imagine any sensible person wanting to take on Apple's legal department and US$29 billion bankroll. However, that doesn't mean business users don't need--and want--Apple clones.
Google's Chrome browser is now faster and has gained the ability for users to hide thumbnails on its New Tab page. The update, internally called Chrome 2, is being automatically rolled out to current users and is also available for download, according to Chrome team member Darin Fisher, writing in the Google corporate blog.
Ask people what they like most about the Firefox browser and the answer is almost unanimous: The add-ons. Though blamed for slowing browser performance, the downloads allow users to customize the Firefox experience. Jetpack, announced yesterday, hopes to make these extensions easier to create.
The idea of Google looking into buying a newspaper and then backing off would be funny, if it weren't a case of the killer returning to the scene of the crime. And trying to marry one of the survivors.
It would not be the end of a slow news week without more rumors concerning an Apple product with a large touchscreen. Some call it a netbook, others say a so-called "mediapad" is probably on the way, and now comes word of a "tablet" Mac, rumored to be headed our way in 2010<. What gives?
The sky isn't falling and neither is the Global Positioning System, the U.S. Air Force said during a Twitter news conference. "No, the GPS will not go down," tweeted Col. Dave Buckman of the Air Force's Space Command. "GAO points out, there is potential risk associated with a degradation in GPS performance."
What appears to be a deliberate plan to create an opening day shortage of Palm Pre smartphones may backfire and, in any case, makes it look like Palm and Sprint have money or production problems.
Wouldn't it be great if, a few weeks after next month's WWDC, Apple maximum leader Steve Jobs returned--tanned, rested, healthy, and brandishing next-generation iPhones and other toys?
News that the Research In Motion BlackBerry Curve outsold iPhones in Q1 surprised many observers, but for those who follow the smartphone market closely, it makes a certain kind of sense. Push-button BlackBerry models like the Curve play well against the iPhone's most notable weakness: text entry. Among other things, this demonstrates why RIM would be wise to skip the consumer smartphone business and stick to what it does best--business handsets. And, in my opinion, that requires keypads, not touchscreens.
Is it really a surprise that, right after the rumors of AT&T and Verizon pairing off start hitting the news (again), suddenly Microsoft enters the picture? Out of the blue comes news of "Pink" a supposed Microsoft Zune-phone to be sold by Verizon. This doesn't seem like a mere coincidence.
Is Apple's rumored "mediapad" entertainment device a threat to Amazon's Kindle e-book reader? I think it is, but the only people who may care are current Kindle owners, some of whom may end up wishing they had waited on their purchase.