Minggu, 27 Maret 2011

What's new on SlashGear.com

What's new on SlashGear.com

Apple’s Big Success: Devaluing Everything

Posted: 27 Mar 2011 02:40 PM PDT

It was while writing SlashGear’s Nintendo 3DS review that it really struck me, the disparity between “traditional” software – whether that’s for your desktop or a game for your console – and the new “app” ecosystem is Apple’s biggest accomplishment. Where once computer software was a $40+ boxed product – and where 3DS games, and those for other consoles, are still $40+ boxed cartridges – it’s now a $0.99 download, instant gratification at a cost that won’t wrinkle your conscience. Tech is cheap, apps are throwaway, and Apple is to blame.

It’s hard to get attention when there are thousands of apps out there; harder still if you want to price your apps at any more than a few dollars. We judge in the first few seconds, based on price and a couple of star reviews. There’s no motivation to surprise and delight the user later on, as they explore the software, because there’s every chance they’ll never get that far. If you’re not upfront about every last thing that makes you special, then the user will take their dollar and hit next.

Arguably a similar commoditisation has happened in hardware. Our devices are simply portals to our apps. With that, the hardware itself has become devalued: smartphones, PCs and tablets all contracting to a median point. Oh yes, there are plenty of Android phones out there, and there’s iPhone too, but there’s little in the way of real hardware differentiation. It’s a box that runs our apps, and we want to pay accordingly.

There was a time when the wild card was Apple’s own products, when they were the premium option with pricing considerably higher than anything in the PC sphere. It’s still, to some extent, correct – you’ll pay more for a MacBook Pro than you will food a similarly-specified PC notebook from Dell or HP, though in many cases those Windows rivals simply won’t offer elements of the Apple proposition, like an all-metal chassis and Thunderbolt – but the gap is decreasing. It’s more obvious in Apple’s iOS range, with iPods and iPhones the obvious picks when the competition is basically priced the same.

For the iPad 2, Apple is even leading the field, with Android alternatives struggling to achieve the same eye-catching price points just as they chase the functionality. It’s having an interesting affect at the company’s top-end, too. Just last week I heard of one would-be Mac Pro buyer, met with blank faces at an Apple reseller when asking about the high-end desktop. Not that they didn’t know enough about it; they simply didn’t know it existed in the first place. Surely you must mean an iMac, they said, or are you confusing things with an LED Cinema Display plugged into your MacBook Pro?

Now, that’s likely just one dumb vendor with an eye on Apple’s glitzier, more consumer-friendly line, but it’s a sign of the shift all the same. Keeping Apple as our example, the company used to be best known for its high-end, quality notebooks and computers; now that reputation has shifted to iOS. In the industry more generally, where once the focus was on notebooks and PCs, the speed-battle between Intel and AMD, now we’re only really curious about smartphones and slates. So you’ve got a 0.2GHz-faster chip in your laptop, and can load Excel 2-percent quicker? Cool story, bro.

With that, the attention has dropped into a lower price bracket: cheaper mobile devices, cheaper instant apps. Apple has redefined the value of software (just as it did with music and movies) to build a structure around their hardware and, more importantly, their ecosystem as a whole. Developers face releasing their hard-crafted wares – and make no mistake, it’s still expensive, in time and money, to build a good application – into a market near-saturated with titles, where attention spans are minuscule and prices match.

When an app was $40 you stuck with it, learnt its foibles, saw past a poor first-impression gleaned from the 30 seconds after hitting the icon. When an app is one of a few hundred thousand, priced at a buck or even free, it’s a whole lot easier to bin anything that doesn’t instantaneously appeal. And yet, when it comes to upgrade time and you’re looking at the shelves of devices, you’re far more likely to pick the platform which runs all those $0.99 apps that quickly added up to a significant software investment.

Ask any retailer and they’ll tell you, it’s easy to drop prices but it’s incredibly difficult to put them back up again. At least, if you want to remain in business for long, or unless you offer some commodity – gas, food perhaps – that consumers can’t do without. Decide that your wares, whether content, software or something else, are worth more than the status quo, and prepare yourself for a significant battle.

We’re watching the publishers doing that now, trying desperately to wrench away pricing control from retailers like Amazon and set their own figures as to what they – and many of their authors – believe the content is worth. In return, they’re being decried as “old media” and told to get with the times: content is cheap, the fickle customer is king, and the app store gatekeepers call the shots.

Cheap apps are certainly good for consumers on the face of things: more software for less money. Problem is, when you teach people that apps are worth $0.99 then they start to believe that. App piracy may not be all that widespread, when the cost of entry is so low, but in the process developers are making mere pennies on their hard work. Meanwhile there’s little incentive, with the current state of consumer attention span, to invest in anything that offers any great depth. Why think of the long-tail when your uses will already be overlooking your app by then, or when you can sell them another quick hit via a $0.99 in-app purchase.

So, on the one hand cheap new toys and all the low-guilt software you could hope for to run on them. On the other, zero-attention-span apps and little incentive for developers and content providers to do more than glean a few launch day headlines before moving on to the Next Big Thing. I’m as guilty as the rest in downloading and discarding, downloading and discarding, but I do miss the days when we’d invest more than a couple of taps in figuring out how software worked, how it could help us, and how the blend of that and our devices could better work in our lives.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Nintendo 3DS on sale now: Are you buying?

Posted: 27 Mar 2011 02:14 PM PDT

It’s March 27 2011 and that can only mean one thing: the Nintendo 3DS is finally on sale in North America. The company’s long-awaited 3D handheld, which we reviewed last week, has not only the familiar clamshell dual-screen design of previous DS models, but a glasses-free autostereoscopic display and a new form of StreetPass communal gaming and social networking baked in from the ground up.

The question early-adopters must answer, of course, is whether the $249.99 3DS and games at $39.99 each are worth it, considering the rising popularity of smartphone games and their comparatively low price. Nintendo has an 18 title line-up of 3DS games at launch – the full list is here – but that pales in comparison to what’s available for iPhone and iPod touch gamers in the App Store, even when you take into account the back catalog of older (and 2D) DS titles. Where once Nintendo and Sony were the first port of call for mobile gaming, now it’s a decision between the older stalwarts of the industry and the new upstarts putting increasingly challenging software on convergent devices.

You’re not on your own in figuring that out, thankfully; there’s the full SlashGear Nintendo 3DS review to walk you through each step of the process. The 3DS certainly fits its brief – the 3D works, and as adoption picks up the StreetPass wireless system should gain traction – but it’s not going to be an easy ride.

Do you intend on picking up a Nintendo 3DS? Let us know in the SlashGear poll below.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Changing My Relationship Status

Posted: 27 Mar 2011 10:09 AM PDT

I found out that my sister broke up with her last boyfriend because Facebook told me. Not a Facebook friend, the Web site itself. She had linked to him as her “relationship,” so when you went to her profile page, it said that she was “in a relationship with . . . ” that guy. Then they broke up. Being children of a digital age, they decided to tell Facebook before they told actual humans. They both changed their relationship status to “single,” and Facebook sent out a message to all of their friends. The message said they were “no longer in a relationship.” Facebook is a bit too smart for its own good. It saw their relationship status change and put two and two together. Or rather, it subtracted from two, and came up with zero.

After ten years of marriage, and fifteen years together, my wife and I are getting a divorce. I’m not going to get into the details, but needless to say that we’re getting along well, and for both of us our sole priority is remaining great parents to our wonderful 2-year old son. It’s very sad, but we both understand that we’ll be better off, and our family will ultimately be happier, if we’re apart.

Now I have to figure out how to tell Facebook the news.

When we came to the hard decision, I told one person per day. I told my sister, my best friends, my parents, and some close friends who had also gotten divorced. The phone calls were not easy, but everyone was supportive. During each call, I made it clear that I wanted them to pass along the news. I told my cousin that I knew this would be great gossip, and she shouldn’t hold back. I did not want to have the conversation multiple times, especially not with cousins I see once every two years, or friends of friends. I did not want to hide the news, but I didn’t feel like it needed to come directly from me.

Facebook is an entirely different case, though. I have a good group of friends on Facebook. I have culled the list extensively. In the last year, I have cut far more Facebook friends than I have added. I have also redefined my relationship with Facebook. I made a resolution to not wish Happy Birthdays on Facebook anymore. I’ll either call, or I’ll just keep quiet.

My wife and I had been a couple since college. We were married fairly young, by today’s standards. There are very few people on my Facebook friend list who don’t know me as a married man, and many of them know my wife just as well. They deserve to hear this news. I want them to hear it. I don’t want them to ask, the next time we talk online or in person, how she’s doing, as if we’re still married. I don’t want to have to tell an old friend whom I run into at a reunion, “Oh, no, we’ve been divorced for five years now. Sorry I didn’t mention it until now.”

In a similar way, I wasn’t sure about writing this column. By reading this story, my editor and friend Chris Davies is learning about my divorce. This may be too personal for SlashGear, but that’s the point of this column. I’m exploring how our digital world and our daily lives collide in interesting and unexpected ways. I’ve written about life and death, about my family and friends. It would be disingenuous if I didn’t also write about the end of my marriage.

After the decision was made, I decided to remove all of my wife’s friends from my Facebook list. I consider many of these people to be my friends as well, so it was a hard decision. My wife’s best friend is one of the top people I would consider to raise my son if something ever happened to us. I’ve spent numerous Thanksgiving dinners with her whole family instead of my own. There is no doubt that she is on my wife’s side, but that’s only because she wants what is best. That’s not why I cut her.

I’m worried that I will vent on Facebook. I haven’t posted much there since this happened. I couldn’t figure out what to say. On Twitter, I posted that my life feels like a Liz Phair song, but at least it’s one of the early songs and not one of the recent tunes. That’s the sort of cryptic tweet that can be tossed off without a second thought. It adds character to my otherwise professional timeline.

I don’t tweet after I’ve been drinking, since Twitter is a professional space for me. But occasionally I’ll have a few slugs of barrel strength bourbon and hit the Facebook wall hard. I’ll get nostalgic. I’ll get sardonic. Not enough to get me in trouble, but enough that my true feelings come out. There are so many emotions connected with my divorce. Sadness, depression, disappointment, self-loathing. Anger. I hope that my friends will understand, but I can’t expect the same of my wife’s friends. I want to feel like I can express myself on Facebook as needed, without worrying that my updates will be misconstrued, or repeated, or used against me.

I also just need some space.

My best friend asked if I had thought about any old flames since my wife and I reached this decision. There aren’t many to think of. I’m a long-term relationship type of guy. But I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I considered reaching out.

Except that I had already cut those connections. I have no former girlfriends or old crushes on my Facebook list. I eliminated them in the great culling I undertook last November. I was married, and happily, I thought. Why torture myself with updates from happy old girlfriends, and news about their kids or photos of their drunken escapades? Why bore myself with the tedium of lives I was trying hard to avoid?

Now I won’t be making those connections again. I won’t be looking anyone up, even though it is easier than ever. It would feel too obvious. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s time for me to be obvious again. I don’t think so. I think it’s time to start over, to start fresh. It’s time to add new friends to the list, and to make a clean, amiable break from the past.

So, SlashGear readers, I’m telling you my sad news first, before I tell Facebook. So if any of you could pass the news along to my social network, I’d appreciate it. I don’t want to have this conversation twice.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

iOS 5.0 this fall with Cloud services, Latitude rival and iPad 3?

Posted: 27 Mar 2011 09:19 AM PDT

Apple is readying iOS 5.0 for a fall release, a major refresh of the mobile platform and including several cloud-based services including an online “music locker” for streaming content, and a location-tracking system for friends and family. According to TechCrunch, Apple may preview iOS 5.0 at WWDC 2011 in early June, but release it later in the year alongside the iPad 3.

The music streaming service – which is expected to allow users to store their content in an online repository, and stream it to multiple iOS devices rather than rely on local storage – is likely to launch simultaneously in the fall, and be announced at Apple’s traditional music-themed event. Meanwhile, the LBS service will be an Apple rival to Google Latitude. They’re tipped to be two of several new cloud-based services Apple has in the works.

Meanwhile, OS X Lion – which is expected this summer – is likely to also include various overlapping cloud-based functionality, further bridging Apple’s iOS mobile range and its Mac lines.

As for the iPad 3, there’s no new information about the third-generation slate, but according to earlier leaks and rumors it’s expected to mark the introduction of a higher-resolution display than the current 1024 x 768 offered by the iPad 2.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

SlashGear Week in Review – Week 13 2011

Posted: 27 Mar 2011 07:47 AM PDT

Welcome to another SlashGear Week in Review! This week was a big one in the mobile world with CTIA underway and lots more going in. We learned that AT&T had offered to purchase T-Mobile for $39 billion. AT&T hopes to repurpose some of the T-Mobile spectrum for 4G service. The full details of the HTC Evo 3D and Evo View 4G tablet surfaced early in the week. The Evo 3D has a 4.3-inch screen and a 1.2GHz processor and should be an interesting device.

The Asus Eee Slate EP121 got an official release date. The tablet will hit the UK on April 20 and it will sell for the equivalent of $1627 here in the US, which is a lot of green. Microsoft might be eyeing 2015 for a replacement for the Xbox 360 game console. The tip on the date comes from the portfolio of a designer working with Microsoft.

T-Mobile customers will eventually need to replace their mobile phones once the merger with AT&T goes through. AT&T notes that it will be years down the road before that happens and most people will need a new handset by then anyway. The Blackberry PlayBook tablet got an official price and launch date Tuesday. The tablet will hit the US on April 19 starting at $499.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 went official at CTIA. The new offerings are billed as the world’s thinnest mobile tablets. We spent a bit of hands on time with both of the tablets at CTIA. The tablets are nice, but Samsung is mum on pricing which is one of the most critical aspects of the tablet.

Sprint held an event at CTIA where the HTC Evo 3D smartphone was unveiled for the first time. The device has a dual core processor 4G connectivity, and 3D with no glasses needed. We got our geeky mitts all over the Evo View 4G Tablet at CTIA as well. We think the Scribe Pen that the tablet can use might be the superstar feature.

In more hands-on action, we felt up the HTC Evo 3D under the bleachers at CTIA. The phone is cool but the test unit had poor viewing angles and the screen looked bad in 3D from anything but straight on. A former curator for the Science Museum in London built a model of an ancient astronomical calculator. The model found that the original was able to precisely predict the yearly motion of the sun, moon, and planets and was a calculator.

Sony claimed late in the week that GeoHot had run away to South America to get away from the legal crusade Sony is on. Sony also claims Hotz sabotaged HDDs that were handed over to third parties for investigation. 2K announced that Duke Nukem Forever has been delayed again. The game was pushed to a June launch making this the shortest delay in the games history.

NVIDIA has unveiled a new video card called the GTX 590. With the card NVIDIA laid claim to the world’s fastest and quietest crown. Google has announced that for now it has decided not to release the source code for Android 3.0 to outside devs. This is the tablet specific OS, it seems that with the Tablet focus Google fears it would land on some smartphones and provide a bad user experience.

RIM has announced that the Playbook will officially support Android apps. The announcement came Thursday as RIM promised to expand the app ecosystem for the tablet. GeoHot responded to Sony’s suggestion that he fled the country to avoid prosecution on Friday. Hotz says he is on vacation for Spring Break, not running away.

The Nook Color eReader is getting access to apps on Barnes & Noble and Flash support in April. The new features will make the Nook Color into a cheap little Android tablet. Researchers have created some really cool batteries that have very fast recharge times. The tech in a full-scale battery would be able to charge to 90% capacity in two minutes.

Friday we posted up our review of the Nintendo 3DS. We figure 3D is a bit gimmicky and while the 3DS is cool, seeing value in the expensive console and the expensive games is tricky. Thanks for reading this week’s edition, see you next time!

Relevant Entries on SlashGear
Diposting oleh di

Tidak ada komentar:

Posting Komentar

Langganan: Posting Komentar (Atom)