Nothing Better to Do: Gripe about Smartphones

I’m taking it easy because I just had my lower wisdom teeth extracted this morning. In case you’re wondering, I’m feeling fine. Really great, actually, considering I was told I’d feel like hell. Anyway, since I’m making a point of doing nothing today (and probably most of the weekend) I thought I’d write about something that has been annoying me about smartphones.

It seems intentional to me that smartphones are given cripplingly little RAM. We are now seeing the first phones with multi-core processors on board. But those same phones are only now pushing the 1GB mark for RAM. I am more than happy with the single core, 1GHz Hummingbird processor in my Droid Charge. But 512MB of RAM? Really?

Apple Patents Circles, Sues Wheel-Makers

Here are two articles that summarize, really, what my fundamental problem with Apple is:

TechCrunch: Tablet Zero

Baekdal: Apple Never Designed the iPad, They Undesigned It

Apple’s chief aesthetic is simplicity. “It just works,” as their ad-campaigns say. But when you’ve “designed” your devices–OS, hardware, and all–to be so simple as to not have room for confusion or error, then everything that follows is going to have to share all of those elements. By necessity. You cannot create a wheel without using a circle.

I do agree that other companies should take some risks to differentiate their products. And actually, most do. But they are not going to take risks in every part of the design. When working from the most basic form, it only takes a few additions of complexity and features to make a device unique. Especially this early in the game when nothing other than the most basic version has proven successful.

These two articles clarified for me why I don’t use Apple products. They have no strengths. They are so basic, intended to do everything, and so they do nothing particularly well. I want a product that is differentiated, that is designed to fit my particular use-case and needs. I am still waiting for a device that is actually designed to do something and fill a need.

Personalized to Death

First, visit this site.  Watch the video.

Alright?

I’ve been reading about this recently. And it has me more and more concerned. I read this New Scientist article just a couple of days ago.

Initially, I wasn’t concerned about my data being tracked. “I’ve got nothing to hide,” I thought.  I was naive. It’s not about the information I give them, it’s about how they use that information to shape the information they give me.

Project Cafe: Nintendo Unifies Their Platform

Nintendo will unveil their new game console, codenamed Project Cafe, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) next week.  Serious rumors that the key feature of Nintendo’s new device will again be a revolutionary controller have been circulating for the last six months or so.

Speculation says that the new controller will feature a large touchscreen embedded in a more traditional game controller.  Most believe the screen will be single-touch, but feature a high-resolution display.  More wild rumors claim that the console will then stream games directly to the controller so you can play anywhere in your house or that the controller itself will be a portable game device.

I see a real opportunity for Nintendo should the new console feature a touch-screen controller.  Between your large TV screen and the touch-screen in your hand, using Project Cafe will be a lot like using a DS.  One of the first opportunities for Nintendo will be selling DS games through the updated Virtual Console.  This is an easy place for Nintendo to continue to provide access to (and make money from) a library of older software titles.

More importantly, though, is that Project Cafe could unify Nintendo’s game platform.  For an entire console generation, Nintendo portable games and Nintendo console games would be the same format: dual-screen and touch-enabled.

A unified game platform is something neither Sony nor Microsoft can benefit from.  This could be the real win-factor for Nintendo in the next console cycle.

 

Interested in Project Cafe?  The Wikipedia entry has a lot of information.  The Nintendo E3 press conference is June 7th at 9:00 am PT.  You can catch a live stream and blog of the event from 1up and GameSpot.

The Social Media Garden and How I Make a Salad I Want to Eat

We’re bringing our relationships, no matter how minor or inconsequential, online.  The struggle, though, is how to translate our analog relationships to the digital paradigm.  When I accept a friend request from a cousin I only see at family holidays or a classmate from high school that I had one class with, they are automatically given the same status within the social network as say my wife or a friend I see every couple of days.  Twitter and Facebook and the like have tools available that allow me to treat these connections differently within the network, but everything is still so new, there is no existing etiquette and protocol.  We’re still learning how all of this is supposed to work.  How do I make sure the people I want to hear from, the people with whom I have real connections, are given priority in my feed?  More importantly, how do I filter out the noise of the over-sharers, the people that don’t realize everything they post is shouted at such a volume that everyone they are connected to can hear it?  What does it mean to friend someone and to be someone’s friend?