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- If the Apple TV Was Discontinued, Would Anyone Care?
- SlashGear Week in Review – Week 17 2011
- Sony admits PSN hacked: No restore date in sight
- iPhone 5: iPod touch-slim, MBA-styled, 3.7-inch and NFC?
- White iPhone 4 for T-Mobile caught in testing
| If the Apple TV Was Discontinued, Would Anyone Care? Posted: 24 Apr 2011 10:44 AM PDT Since the second-generation Apple TV has been on store shelves, 2 million units have been shipped, a recent report claims. That report followed a release Apple sent out late last year saying that it would hit one million Apple TV sales in December. Now, like everything else related to Apple, debate rages over whether 2 million Apple TV shipments are good or bad. Some say that the device is selling well and catching on with consumers. They point to the general lack of interest in the first Apple TV for proof of that. But I'm not in agreement. Like many others, I'm not very impressed by 2 million Apple TV shipments. The Apple TV is a device from the world's top technology company. It's a product that, on paper, would give consumers the ability to extend their entertainment in the living room — a prospect that is becoming increasingly popular. Most importantly, it only retails for $99, making it one of the cheapest set-top boxes on the market. When all those factors are considered, wouldn't it make perfect sense for Apple to sell many more Apple TVs? The device seemingly has everything going for it. And yet, as far as I'm concerned, it's only enjoying lukewarm demand. So, I can't help but wonder if anyone would care if the Apple TV was discontinued. Consumers aren't exactly jumping at the chance to buy an Apple TV. And Apple has once again done little to promote the product on its own. Like its predecessor, the Apple TV is being treated like a hobby. Admittedly, there are some good reasons for that. The Apple TV lacks storage, access to an App Store, and any integration with the user's DVR. It's simply a streaming box. For its part, Apple says consumers want that kind of functionality, and storing content isn't important to them. But that's debatable. As far as I'm concerned, having storage could drastically change the Apple TV's value proposition. Most importantly, it would make the device far more useful, since with storage, Apple would almost undoubtedly provide access to its App Store. As an Apple TV owner, I view the device as a fine first step. But it seems unfinished to me. And if I didn't have one running in the living room, I don't think I would miss it all that much. After all, many of the things I can do with my Apple TV are available to me via other devices. I can watch Netflix on any number of devices in my living room, and streaming my iTunes music library to my speakers is quite simple with the help of an AirPlay-compatible receiver. I just don't think I'd care if Apple discontinued the Apple TV. And quite frankly, I don't think I would blame the company. Until it can deliver a device that the mainstream cares about, and Apple itself actually wants to get behind, why should it continue on the same path? But that's just me. Would you care if the Apple TV was discontinued? Let us know in the comments below. Relevant Entries on SlashGear
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| SlashGear Week in Review – Week 17 2011 Posted: 24 Apr 2011 06:24 AM PDT Happy Easter everyone and welcome to this week’s edition of the SlashGear Week in Review. With all the legal troubles between Sony and GeoHot behind him George had some loot left over in the legal fund that geeks donated to him to help fight Sony. With that money no longer needed Hotz took the $10,000 and donated it to the EFF and took the chance to laugh at Sony one more time. The white iPhone 4 went live at Three in the UK early in the week. The product page shows that the white smartphones will ship on April 20. Samsung has a new processor that will be here by next year called the Exynos that will take on the NVIDIA Tegra 2. The Samsung processor will operate at a blazing fast 2GHz speed. Some details of what Nokia has coming with Windows Phone onboard leaked early on Tuesday. The leaks show off a chassis 2 prototypes that have a much better flexibility for customization and more. Apparently, there are X7 and N8 variants and a touchscreen candy bar style phone like the E6. The Blackberry Playbook is now on sale in a WiFi only version. The Playbook comes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions starting at $499. One of the bigger stories of the week was the suit Apple filed against Samsung over the Galaxy series of smartphones. Apple is alleging that Samsung stole the look and feel of the iPhone for the Galaxy line of devices. A video surfaced with a white iPhone that is running what is supposed to be iOS 5. According to the person on the video, the OS is set to be launched this year. Korg unveiled a cool new app this week for the iPad called the iElectribe Gorillaz. The app is a little digital beat box that allows you to make all sorts of beats. The app sells for $9.99 for the first 10,000 purchases. Netflix may be considering revamping its service to encourage users to have more than one stream within each home. That would be an interesting way to allow you to streamed different movie or show to different TVs. The investor FAQ outlines a way that Netflix will allow a family to have multiple accounts under one umbrella account. We reviewed the Blackberry Playbook this week and found it lacking. The tablet has rough edges and needs a Blackberry smartphone for some of the features to work. A man was arrested in Florida this week for trying to rob a store using a PlayStation remote control. The robbery was foiled when police officer walked in during the robbery. Vince reviewed the T-Mobile G2x smartphone mid-week. The smartphone is the best Android device in the T-Mobile line up and has the powerful Tegra 2 processor. 7-Eleven stores will have a crazy new cup for the Slurpee coming this summer. The cup has two chambers so the flavors don't mix and a two-piece straw to enjoy those flavors too. A Verizon executive has confirmed that the iPhone 5 will be a global device and has both a GSM and CDMA radio inside. The revelation came during a conference call about the financials for last quarter at Verizon. Amazon had a massive failure of its Cloud services this week that knocked out several major websites. The sites that went down included Quora, Reddit, and Foursquare. The cause of the outage wasn't offered at the time it occurred. A leak Friday has lead to some details of the Wii 2 “Stream” console leaking out. The leak revealed that the new console has HD resolution and a touchscreen. Another interesting rumor that floated around late in the week had Apple seeding game developers with new iPhone 4S prototype devices. The new devices were said to have an A5 chip inside just like the iPad 2 uses. Researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered a new property of light that allows they to harness light’s magnetic attributes. The hope is that the discovery might lead to a new type of solar panel that is more efficient. Verizon activated LTE service in six new cities on Friday. The wireless carrier also noted again that it has plans to activate 100 more cities in the next nine months. The Sony Playstation Network went down for unknown reasons. Sony is investigating and has noted that it could have been the work of outside sources. There were several new websites that launched as few weeks back that offered to unlock your iPhone without having to use software. Apparently, they were manipulating the IMEI number inside the Apple database. All of the sites have now been shutdown with no indication of what happened; presumably, the Apple legal ninjas cut them down. Thanks for reading, see you next week! Relevant Entries on SlashGear
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| Sony admits PSN hacked: No restore date in sight Posted: 24 Apr 2011 03:08 AM PDT Sony has admitted that “an external intrusion” is responsible for the PlayStation Network downtime, which began last week and has continued throughout the weekend. The exact nature of the attack has not been identified, but forced Sony to take both the PSN and its Qriocity media streaming services offline late on Wednesday evening. Work is now underway to rebuild the PSN with “additional security” according to a company spokesperson.
Unfortunately, that rebuilding process is also “time-consuming” and has left Sony unable to confirm exactly when gamers and A/V users can expect either the PSN or Qriocity to go back online. All Sony’s Gallagher can say is that it will demand “a little more” time in order to finalize. Meanwhile, hacking group Anonymous – previously blamed for an attack on Sony – has denied any involvement in the recent downtime. “While it could be the case that other Anons have acted by themselves” the group suggests, “AnonOps wa not related to this incident and takes no responsiblity for it. A more likely explination is that Sony is taking advantage of Anonymous’ previous ill-will towards the company to distract users from the fact the outage is accutally an internal problem with the companies servers.” Relevant Entries on SlashGear
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| iPhone 5: iPod touch-slim, MBA-styled, 3.7-inch and NFC? Posted: 24 Apr 2011 02:57 AM PDT More iPhone 5 whispers this weekend, as speculation about the fifth-generation smartphone – already tipped to be an all-encompassing World Phone with perhaps even support for T-Mobile USA 3G – prompts a new mockup with a distinctly iPod touch flavor to it. Contrary to recent suggestions that the iPhone 5 would be similar in specs and design to the iPhone 4, This is my next is hearing that it will be “more like the iPod touch than the iPhone 4″ with a thinner chassis more akin to the MacBook Air in profile. They put together the mockup on the left – with what they admit is an over-exaggerated taper – and then Corey Daniels put together a more MBA-styled alternative, shown on the right. The home button has been enlarged, and now doubles as a gesture area, while the screen has grown to an expected 3.7-inches – with a 312 ppi pixel density, allowing Apple to continue using its Retina Display branding – with minimal bezel. That could be the result of new bonded glass technology, minimizing the amount of extraneous space required, and perhaps even allowing Apple to put the earpiece and sensors behind the display itself. It’s not the only sensor shift tipped: there’s what’s marked in leaked (and unshown) diagrams as a “swipe area” on the bottom and/or top of the iPhone 5, which could well be an NFC sensor. Apple is believed to be working hard on NFC wireless payment technologies, though there has been argument over whether the system would show up in the fifth-gen phone. World Phone support from a GSM/CDMA chip – like the Qualcomm Gobi MDM6600 inside the Verizon iPhone 4, which is currently locked to CDMA mode – also seems a lock-in, especially as it would open up the Chinese market too. In short, rather than a spec-bump, the iPhone 5 could well turn out to be pretty revolutionary. Relevant Entries on SlashGear
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| White iPhone 4 for T-Mobile caught in testing Posted: 24 Apr 2011 02:38 AM PDT Images of a white iPhone 4 test device with what looks to be support for T-Mobile USA’s 3G bands have leaked, though whether that means the expected launch for the white variant this coming week will also mark its long-awaited debut on the network remains to be seen. BGR‘s sources sent them the shots, which show the white handset marked “confidential and proprietary” (just in case it’s found in a bar) and with 3G support for T-Mobile’s network. Until now, Apple has only supported AT&T’s 3G bands in the US. While unlocked iPhone 4 handsets could use T-Mobile USA’s GSM/EDGE networks – it’s a standard quadband GSM device in that respect – it lacked support for the faster connectivity. The situation has been significantly different in Europe and elsewhere in the world, where matching 3G bands have seen multiple carriers in the same countries offer the iPhone 4 and earlier versions, without any negative impact on sales. The test version is marked N94 – the original AT&T iPhone 4 is N90, and the Verizon CDMA model is N92 – and is running a test version of iOS similar to what was seen in leaked videos last week. That could well date the handset to the earlier stages of iPhone 4 development, rather than something we’ll see go on sale imminently. In fact, it’s speculated, the white T-Mobile iPhone 4 could in fact just be a test mule to polish the band support for the incoming iPhone 5. That’s already tipped to be a World Phone with both AT&T and Verizon GSM/CDMA support in the same device; it could well be the first iPhone to handle both AT&T and T-Mobile USA 3G. Relevant Entries on SlashGear
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