Category Archive: Software

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Walking a fine line with Apple fans this week

  By TurboFool | October 7, 2011 - 10:57 pm | Computers, Electronics, Phones, Software 4 Comments

The tech world is in mourning this week, and that’s fine. We (and I do mean we, despite what’s coming) lost a great, visionary leader in our world who had a major, profound impact on the shape of technology. No, he wasn’t much of a designer himself, and he wasn’t the messiah he was made out to be, but his drive was very, very much responsible for pushing the industry in some major directions.

The iPhone alone has been profoundly impactful on my life, even though I’ve never owned one. Although Android was in development well before its release, and other smartphones existed, and ALL of the technology that was put into the iPhone existed before it (plus plenty that didn’t hit it for months or years after), Apple managed to make it visible, usable, and accessible to the consumers. They also had the balls to use hardware that drove the cost of the phone up to 2-3 times what people expected to pay for a phone, knowing their hardcore fanbase would buy it, and allowing them to bring the cost of these parts down for the rest of the tech community. The need and the availability made the other smartphones that many of us prefer a feasible option.

Out of respect this week I’ve tried to hold my tongue in places I normally don’t. I try to avoid the Mac vs Windows (Macs are PCs, which even Steve referred to them as before their marketing decided to try to brand them as some other class) debate as much as possible, and more importantly I try very, very hard to avoid expressing a biased, fanboyish angle on it. I try to be fair, and I cede a ton of points in Apple’s favor despite my personal conclusions. But this week I’ve tried to avoid even that out of respect.

But the hyperbole the fanboys are spouting right now has reached a level that I just have to speak up on one thing that’s the most common issue I deal with here, and the most ridiculous one of all. And it comes down simply to this:

Windows users are not merely unenlightened.

(more…)

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Tablets are nothing like game consoles

  By TurboFool | August 22, 2011 - 6:38 pm | Electronics, Gadgets, Software, Video Games Leave a comment

Today I saw a status on Facebook that caught my eye. A friend commented in reference to the failing of WebOS that it was time tablet manufacturers learned to go with the game console model of selling their hardware at a loss. I thought about this, and realized the flaw. Here’s my reply, copied-and-pasted:

Those two models can’t be compared for a variety of reasons:

In game consoles the manufacturer designs high-end hardware that’s beyond what’s feasible to sell at the price the market will bear. They take anywhere from a $100-200 loss at launch (unless you’re Nintendo, in which case you take no losses). Licensing fees, per game sold, are somewhere around $5-10 per game, so the manufacturer on games sold alone makes back that loss in 10-40 games sold per launch-priced console over its lifetime, plus profit on extra controllers and other accessories which are a higher profit margin. Meanwhile they don’t continue to take that same loss. Over the course of the first year the volume sold, die shrinks, and manufacturing improvements shave a good half of the loss off the cost of the unit, and typically there are no price drops. Price drops tend not to come until year two, when there’ve been even bigger die shrinks, various chips have been combined, and other components have been shrunk and cheapened. The first price drop typically correlates with the manufacturer being able to finally stop taking a loss on the hardware, now breaking even. The costs continue to decrease, and usually by year three or so they begin to make a small profit on the hardware while continuing to drop its price. By the end of its life they’re making a profit on every unit sold, continuing to sell games with those licensing fees, continuing to sell accessories that haven’t dropped in price at all, and have successfully recouped the lost profits on the launch systems while having more quickly recouped said costs as time went buy with each later system sold. This entire process is allowed for by one simple principle: the specs and capabilities of the system never change over those 5-10 years. Maybe pack-in hard drive increases in size, or hardware gets smaller, but the expensive design and specs never change.

In tablets, first off, unless you’re in a closed OS like iOS or WebOS, you’re not making ANY money off of software sold for it, and the vast majority of accessories are not licensed or made by you, and the vast majority of users don’t want them anyway. But assuming you’re on one of the closed OSes, there are two very notable differences: One is the price and profit of apps. Most of the apps are free, and most users stick as closely to the free apps as humanly possible. Of the apps that aren’t free, most are $.99-$1.99. Assuming a common figure, the cut of the app store is as much as 70 percent of that, so basically $.69-$1.39. Pretending they subsidized by the above-mentioned $100-200, that would be anywhere from 72 to 290 apps sold before they broke even on their initial loss. And unlike game consoles, they don’t get the luxury of continually lowered costs, eventually selling their hardware at a profit. Because they’re expected to release a new, better, faster, smarter, cooler, slimmer, higher-resolution model every six months to a year. So by the time their costs could begin to reduce, they’re forced to re-up with new hardware that costs about the same and the process begins again. And of course for Android and Windows Phone 7 it’s even hardware because the manufacturers have no cut in the app store, so their ONLY profit comes from the hardware, itself.

I’ve personally bought no more than ten apps since I switched to Android two years ago, and I’m on my second Android phone. Pretending either manufacturer could make a profit, they would have lost a ton of money on me with that model. I know we’re talking about tablets and not phones, but the model’s the same and the store is the same. Over the year or two I’d own a tablet before upgrading it–and pretending I’d even consider a closed OS–the odds of the manufacturer making even $50 from me is slim to none, and I doubt I’m anywhere near alone in that. It just makes no sense.

One place we may see this carry out differently: Amazon’s upcoming tablets. Rumors are they’re going to subsidize, and for them there’s more logic to this. Odds are they’ll customize the hell out of the Android OS to make their own Appstore the only one built in, and the easiest-to-use default. So they’ll have all the app sales, definitely. But Amazon also has arguably the best music store available, so they’ll also gain all the profits from people more easily buying music through them. And finally they have Kindle, which has already eclipsed all hardcopy book sales on their site. They’ll have a ton of new Kindle owners with their tablet buying books directly from their store. But it’s only by combining these THREE exclusive revenue streams that they could likely have any real hope of recouping their losses on the hardware. And even so, I doubt the discounts will be as huge as people are claiming. But time will tell.

Any thoughts? Flaws in my logic, or models I’m not thinking of in which a tablet, whether closed or open OS, could manage to earn its manufacturer money while sold at a profit?

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I’m Officially Done with Smartphone Hardware Keyboards

  By TurboFool | March 4, 2011 - 8:45 pm | Electronics, Phones, Software Leave a comment

My first smartphone was the HTC Mogul for Sprint. Before that I had a long line of dumbphones (AKA “feature phones”) of various sorts. I had begun to really get into text messaging as a primary form of communication, and although I was pretty damn quick with T9 (like riding a bicycle I can easily pick it back up now), I longed for a REAL keyboard to pick up speed with. So when I went to a smartphone it was a no-brainer to get one with a keyboard, partially because I wanted one so badly, and partially because there really weren’t any smartphones at the time without them (the HTC Touch came a few months later).

I picked it up quickly, and immediately found the benefits. As a touch-typist I learned the layout and began writing at a pretty darn high speed, autocorrecting my errors like I do with my computer’s keyboard, and quickly reaching the point where I no longer needed to look at the screen. My suspicions were confirmed, and it became a must-have feature.

Soon after the iPhone was unveiled, and I was floored by it, at least for most of its unveiling. The lack of expandable storage, replaceable battery, availability on anyone but Cingular, and hardware keyboard sunk it for me. I knew I could never type as quickly, accurately, or without looking on an on-screen keyboard and its lack of tactile feedback, and I moved on and stuck with keyboard models ever since.

But prior to my current device I had seen the pattern phones were taking. The coolest, slickest, best-specced phones didn’t have keyboards, and I knew I was going to have to make a change and get used to it. I played with the Moment’s on-screen options and determined that even if they slowed me down a bit, I could get used to it. Plus Swype was actually pretty cool for one-handed writing. I had also determined that I was going to get an EVO 4G if Sprint didn’t get a variant of the Samsung Galaxy S. And then all my desires were answered in the form of the Epic 4G which was both a Galaxy S AND had a keyboard.

It didn’t take long for me to run into a serious problem with the Epic, though: the keyboard sucks. Physically, it’s fine. The keys feel good, and they’ve got a nice give to them, and the spacing’s good. I was able to get my speed up to usual pretty quickly and I would have been fine with it, except it randomly SKIPS inputs. You can type a whole paragraph and go back and notice that a third of your words are randomly missing letters that you DEFINITELY typed. I know myself, I know my autocorrection, and I typed those letters. But they’re simply not there. So not cool.

I put up with this for a while, and finally I decided to see if I could do better. So I installed the freshly-ripped Gingerbread keyboard on my phone and told myself to spend a couple of days without the hardware keyboard. And in the last few months my keyboard’s been used for nothing but checking whether my phone’s frozen.

Turns out onscreen typing’s not only not as bad as I thought, but faster. For one thing the built-in autocorrection works better than I expected and is certainly an improvement over the random missed letters. Common little errors are corrected as you go, and while sometimes its recommendations are laughable, most of the time it’s pretty helpful. I also quickly found that, to a degree, I still didn’t need to look at the screen. Even with the lack of the physical feel of the keys, I knew their positions well enough to make do pretty darn well. All in all, I adjusted much faster than I expected and with the exception of entering odd strings of text or URLs I didn’t mind it the way I expected. Punctuation’s a bitch in many cases, but I struggle through it.

But things came to a head today when I upgraded to the latest Bonsai4All ROM for my phone, which includes a FIX for the damn keyboard problem. Finally. So I figured it was time to try it out and see if I can go back to my beloved hardware keyboard and switch the onscreen back to Swype for easy one-handed use. Boy was I surprised to find that, despite the hardware keyboard being noticeably more accurate (although still not perfect), my typing speed was DRASTICALLY slower than I had gotten used to. It had nothing to do with lost familiarity (my fingers were finding the keys just fine) and everything to do with the spread-out spacing and the physical effort in pressing the keys. Silly things I never considered an issue before, but the subtle loss of time in traveling distance and depressing buttons adds up quickly when you’re hitting a large number of keys in a short period of time with only two thumbs available.

And that’s that for me. The allegiance I held to hardware keyboards on phones has ended with that final realization. Unless Sprint’s next awesome phone has a keyboard and no comparable alternative without, I will now have officially switched to onscreen keyboards from now on, gaining me access to much slimmer phone (even if I wish they’d stop making the damn things slimmer and start putting in bigger batteries).

But good luck prying my hardware QWERTY desktop keyboard out of my cold, dead hands… ;)

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YouTube Remote – An example of the future

  By TurboFool | February 26, 2011 - 1:28 pm | Computers, Electronics, Entertainment, Gadgets, Internet, Phones, Software, Television, Video Leave a comment

No question one of the best parts of Android is its extensive app marketplace. On top of that, if you’re a fan of Google’s various services the integration it offers with them is extensive. From having your contacts available within seconds of first setting up your phone to having Google Maps remember your recent search history from your desktop, the connections are great. One place this ties in especially well is with YouTube.

ss-0-320-480-160-2-5e4bc14e6d6c83f703d7c95b99fdfeba7d39b28fNow of course Android ships with a solid YouTube app for viewing YouTube videos on your phone. It works beautifully, makes searching, accessing favorites, playlists, etc. easy, and it has a slick interface. But a few months back Google released an app called YouTube Remote that takes a different tact. Initially it appears quite similar in setup and layout, except it doesn’t actually play any videos—at least not on the phone. Instead you browse to YouTube.com/Leanback on your computer (preferably a HTPC) and make sure you’re logged in, then log into YouTube Remote with the same account. Suddenly you have Play/Pause/Skip Back/Skip Forward/Next/Previous buttons on your phone that control the video on the screen, you have access to your favorites, playlists, searches, and a queue so you can manage your entire experience from your phone.

Besides the portrait list view, if you tilt the phone to landscape you get full-screen controls overlaid on top of the video’s still and access to the Thumbs rating buttons and the ability to do most of the other things you’d want to do with a YouTube video besides simply watch it.

ss-1-320-480-160-2-f16ac65b78cd0622ecf8c6528667c9a7edc33507In my home a common activity when friends come over is for someone to remember this cool video they saw on YouTube and put it up on the TV. While that’s happening I’ll often think of another video we need to watch afterward, or someone else will shout out one we need to watch. With YouTube Remote, instead of having to remember these and search for them when the video’s over I can just search for them right on my phone, click the + button and add them to the queue so as soon as the current video’s over the next one starts. I can also reorder the search results or other lists, so if I’m on a Tim Minchin kick, or want to play some of Bo Burnham’s greatest hits I can just search for them, hit play, and then start reordering the search results without ever messing with my queue.

To me this represents a prime example of the future we’re living in. I’m using the slick, intuitive, touchscreen interface of my phone to control YouTube directly and have it push its contents to the computer on my TV. It’s so simple, it’s so easy, it’s so effortless, and I think it’s easily overlooked by most people as being exceptionally cool and sophisticated. Heck, I’m pretty sure few people have any awareness of this app, which is a shame.

What are the catches? Well, I think it’s arguably not that handy if you’re not on an HTPC, as directly using a keyboard and mouse are still easier options, minus the ability to add to the queue without interrupting the current video. Also if you get a text message or an email and go check it and the app manages to unload itself from memory, when you go back in it will completely overtake the current play session on the computer and start over with whatever video is at the top of the list it loads. I hope this gets fixed in a future version, as it’s about the only aspect of the setup that’s limited.

I hope to see better collaboration between devices of this type. There’s a lot of great syncing in place already, such as with Chrome automatically transferring EVERYTHING immediately upon logging in in a new location (including the Cr-48 netbook I was surprised with earlier this month), and there are great streaming options like Windows 7’s ability to stream my home music and video library to my notebook via Windows Media Player, or even using Remote Desktop to connect to my home computer from anywhere (including my phone). But it’s this type of instant communication between devices that genuinely enriches the experience and isn’t merely showing off that I’m excited about. I can’t wait to see more of it.

You can get YouTube Remote from the Android Market.

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Why I hate Android

  By TurboFool | February 24, 2011 - 10:21 am | Electronics, Gadgets, Phones, Software 2 Comments

Okay, first things first: that headline was pure sensationalism at its core. I love Android, and there are currently no alternatives to it that I would consider as reasonable replacements for everything Android does so damn well. But it’s very often the little things that can really frustrate you when dealing with a device or platform.

Case in point, Android’s handling of its multimedia duties. See, when Apple decided to get into the smartphone biz, they completely changed the paradigm of what we expected. Instead of a phone built around business needs that could also browse the web and play audio files, they started with an iPod and built around that. In fact that’s what led to many of the early jokes about the iPhone really just being an iPod that made phone calls. It was initially best at its roots and poor at everything else. It’s since improved drastically, although the joke that it’s terrible at making phone calls remains.

Meanwhile Android came from a more base concept of trying to do everything, and launched after the iPhone set the standard for these concepts. It, IMO, got the overall OS concept down much better, appreciating that we need to run more than one app at a time, that when something wants our attention it shouldn’t completely overtake the activity we’re participating in, and allowing applications to tie their needs together in all kinds of clever and involved ways. But what it lacked was the long history of multimedia experience to inform that functionality, and that’s where it still fails.

To be clear, Android’s built-in media abilities are fine. They do the job well, their interface is decent, and I have little need to complain about it. Some phones, such as the Galaxy S line, include support for a lot more codecs making it actually EASIER to play videos on my phone than on an iPhone (my Epic 4G has so far played every single video format I’ve thrown on its card, without conversion) or Zune, and include improved media players. As well the Android Market is packed with alternatives for better podcasting software than Google’s passable Listen app, better video players such as mVideoPlayer, better music apps such as DoubleTwist or WinAmp or a dozen others, streaming options like Slacker, etc. Point is, its flexibility allows it as a media device to functionally match or surpass the iPhone and Windows Phone 7 quite comfortably, even if not as fluidly or naturally. So it’s not in its technical abilities that Android fails me. It’s merely in one simple overlooked place: audio mixing.

Android seems, under most circumstances, unable to mix two disparate sources of audio into its output at the same time. When playing music, a video, streaming audio, playing a podcast, etc., any other audio playback that occurs (such as the variety of notifications your dozens of apps can use to get your attention, carefully customized to exactly your needs, or directions from your navigation software), the OS will simply kill whatever audio track was already playing for as long as it takes to play back the other audio (including any dead silence that was included in the clip before or after), and then continue playing the original line of audio. It doesn’t pause the audio, it merely mutes it. When playing back music this is unbelievably annoying and distracting, and when playing back an audio book or podcast it’s simply unforgiveable. The number of times I have to hit the skip back button in BeyondPod to see what I missed because an email came in while I was enjoying the latest Drabblecast is ridiculous, not to mention mildly unsafe. And even in music it leads me to avoid using Slacker or my other amazing music sources when I have guests in my car because it’s simply embarrassing to have the audio constantly shut down while we’re trying to enjoy ourselves. I find myself apologizing for it or simply shutting it off and switching to FM.

So far Google seems unconcerned with the issue despite the large number of complaints in their support sites about it. The problem’s existed throughout every version, and it doesn’t seem to be acknowledged. But it’s enough to make me consider digging out my Zune again just for audio, except it still fails to provide me the streaming options I’ve grown to expect since switching to Android.

Another smaller failing in this area is Android’s handling of Bluetooth when there’s an audio cable plugged into the device. It seems to assume that if I have anything plugged into the headphone jack that I must prefer to use that as my hands-free solution instead of the paired and connected Bluetooth headset. This might make sense if I were using the included headphones with microphone built in, but it’s a failed assumption when I’m in the car and have an audio cable plugged into my sound system. It’s even more of a failure since it doesn’t notice that my audio cable doesn’t have a line for microphone, can’t deliver audio to it, and doesn’t leave the phone’s built-in mic open. So when I’m driving and listening to music through my phone and I get a call, despite having my Bluetooth headset on and in my ear, I have to reach over and unplug the audio cable from my phone and then answer the call, otherwise I hear my caller through my car’s speakers and they hear nothing in response. The iPhone, as far as I’ve witnessed, actually asks you which device you want to answer through when a phone call comes in, routing to your Bluetooth or other options accordingly. Presumably if you were to hit the answer button ON your Bluetooth it would be smart enough to route there. Android still doesn’t do this.

These issues aren’t enough to override everything that I love about Android, but they are enough to cause some audible profanities in my car for reasons I don’t think are necessary. These SHOULD be easy to fix, as even Windows Mobile, for all its failings, worked fine in these circumstances. And yet, at least for now, they remain untouched. Google’s lack of concern on these types of matters seems to border almost on Apple’s methods of telling their users their desired features don’t matter, except Google instead simply ignores the problem entirely. It’s unfortunate, and I really hope it improves. While I’m sure there are other issues with Android that bug me, if these two problems were resolved I’d feel as close to 100% happy with it as I could in a technology world with a constantly moving target of expectations. Let’s shore this up and move on.

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“Still Alive” – Children’s Chorus Cover

  By TurboFool | March 29, 2010 - 6:36 pm | Electronics, Entertainment, Humor, Internet, Music, Software, Video, Video Games Leave a comment

All right, so I’m a geek. This is well known, and nothing I hide. Still, there are moments my geekdom sinks (or soars?) to new levels. This is one of them. Below you’ll find a video I literally teared up over, and no it’s nothing remotely sad. I’m just a big frakkin’ geek, and hearing a kids’ chorus beautifully cover the incredible Jonathan Coulton end-credit song to Portal (one of the few games I not only beat, but have replayed after doing so) was a bit too much for me.

So sit back and enjoy. If you’re not a geek or haven’t played the game, you may not get this, but it’s still funny listening to these kids performing the lyrics, and much funnier if you understand them. It’s one of the most wittily-written games ever, and the song plays so well into it.

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Windows 7 Product versions revealed

  By TurboFool | February 3, 2009 - 12:29 pm | Computers, Internet, Software Leave a comment

As the majority of the sites that are reporting this are doing a dreadful job of it, I’m going to link to the only site that explained it well (Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows), and I’m going to summarize:

Microsoft announced that, yes, there are again six skus for Windows 7 instead of the single sku that all the closet Mac-lovers are supposedly crying for (like they really want to switch). But it’s a lot simpler than it sounds when you pay attention. In particular, only THREE versions will be relevant to consumers (and probably only two will be that visible anyway), and four for people in the computer support industry.

While there are still Starter and Home Basic versions, these are now ONLY for ultra-low-cost developing countries or some netbooks. We’ll likely never see either one in the US in normal use, and consumers shouldn’t be aware they exist.

  • Home Premium now becomes the base version. Just like the current Home Premium, it’s like XP’s Media Center Edition was. Everything the home user needs, including Media Center, DVD movie burning, etc. This is what we’ll see shipping with the vast majority of computers.
  • Professional replaced Business, but unlike Business it is a step ABOVE Home Premium and doesn’t sit beside it. So it contains everything Home Premium does (including Media Center), plus domain joining, remote desktop hosting, advanced backup functionality, offline folders, etc. This is the one most small to mid-size businesses should be buying or upgrading to.
  • Enterprise/Ultimate are essentially the same OS as each other, adding Bitlocker, Applocker, Branche Cache, booting from VHDs, etc. Enterprise is the VLK version, while Ultimate uses retail licensing. Ultimate will have virtually no visibility, existing as an upgrade box, an upgrade option in Anytime Upgrade, and a rare incentive for OEMs to throw in for promotional purposes.

So the new nested structure makes it less confusing for someone to choose between versions (having no MCE or DVD movie burning in Business was annoying, but not having the fax center, shadow copy, remote desktop host, or domain support was a no-sell for me). Also, upgrading’s much easier. Anytime Upgrade for Vista allowed you to pay a lower fee to step up, but they made it so they had to ship you a disk and the appropriate license for it (initially you could use your original install disk and an emailed key, but supposedly this was too confusing, so they made it “easier” by doing it all by mail). 7’s process is a lot simpler, as it requires NO disk (everything’s already on your hard drive), the new key is given to you online at the time of purchase, and the upgrade process takes 15 minutes. So for the many, many business customers who will buy a computer at Staples with Home Premium only to learn upon their support technician’s arrival that it won’t work on their network, they’re one credit card transaction and 15 minutes away from the solution.

No, it’s not the easy, one-size-fits-all solution so many people were asking for, but it’s much better than what we had with Vista, and when marketed properly will be no more confusing than XP’s version structure.

Nothing’s been said yet about pricing, but I wouldn’t expect much better than the current Vista pricing structure. Then again, with all the surprises Microsoft’s thrown at us lately (7’s awesomeness, the beta’s incredible stability, the speed of launch, the genuinely original functionality, and this improved version structure), who knows what we’ll see. It sure would be nice to at least see some deals for people who bought retail copies of Vista. Especially Ultimate, with its almost-forgotten promises of “Ultimate Extras.”

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