This is AWESOME! Apple, please hire this guy/girl!
Internet Cars
Car manufacturers are experimenting with technology nowadays. Mini for example has the iPhone or iPod Touch integrated in the HiFi system. Apple has been talking to the car manufacturing industry, so the rumour goes. TomTom, the navigation software specialist has made deals to be pre-installed in cars from, I believe, Renault. But does your car need to be connected, or do you need to connect tot the car?
That last idea, you, being your mobile device, are connected to the internet and carry all of your songs and photos. Your car can connect through Bluetooth (e.g. 4.0) with your phone and act as an extension. On the other hand, your music, photos and what not will move more and more to the cloud. This means your car can connect via the internet to your personal cloud environment and play the music you want. Would be a bit difficult if you drive through a long tunnel somewhere in the Swiss Alp. Nor do the roaming costs in a foreign country appeal for this kind of usage. The Dutch EU commissioner Neelie Kroes is working hard to legislate the absurd high roaming charges (read).
Back to cars. If car manufacturers would adopt a standard connection for mobile devices, they can focus on the car itself and the interior design. I call for a giant touchscreen like in the Tesla Model S. Oh an while you’re at it, do all install solar photovoltaics in the roof. The future of cars will be more and more digital, causing also new software problems. The Fisker Karma had a problem after launch. Planes which have gone to electrical wiring for their in flight controls can also face this problem. With cars this phenomenon is not new, the Renault Laguna was reported to have them, the Toyota Prius and probably many more. Software is always human written, and mistakes are human… we just have to live with it.
To end it I want to share with you this new Dutch car manufacturer which have built a very beautiful car, or a roadyacht as they call it. The Savage Rivale. A promo video can be found here.
Where did my battery go?
The power level of your mobile phone drains faster than it did on the old ‘dumb’ phone. Your new smartphone uses more services and features and so need more energy. But has the mobile battery industry kept up with the mobile phone industry or is it lagging behind?
The smartphone industry has boomed since the iPhone was introduced in 2007. A lot more has been asked of it since then. Just as on your computer, watching flash video(YouTube) causes fast drainage. Apple’s founder and former CEO refused to allow Adobe Flash on the iOS system. But if this was known, why don’t battery manufacturers tackle that problem? And why doesn’t Adobe fix the drainage?
This problem ignited a new industry, mobile battery chargers. With solar panels or embedded in a smartphone case. Duracell has the solution to supply power when you need it most.
Apple has filed a patent for a hydrogen cel battery for devices. I expect this technology first in computers and later in mobile devices, but all in 5 years or more. This technology is too sophisticated for usage right now. It shows that the industry is not sitting back but is actively trying to solve or relieve the #1 issue with phones today. Another big drainer of power is the screen, LCD screens uses most power and newer panels like AMOLED uses less power and have deeper black colours, but use more power when displaying white.
The processor and other chips also ask a lot from the battery. The beautiful thing with technology is that it always improves, so maybe in a year or two we can do twice as long with one charge.. who knows.
Did you find any interesting new technologies to improve battery life? Please share!
Processor Power
Not everybody understands the linkage between the processor and the operating system. For example, a laptop with 2 GHz and 2GB RAM running OS X could be/is faster than a laptop with 2,8 GHz and 8GB RAM running Windows. Why? Because the operating system houses a power management part which distributes the processing power available.
Why do I bring this up? I saw a video review of the new iPhone 4S (For the Dutch, @ tweakers) and they talked about the processing power of 800 MHz, which is not that high. And new processors would be introduces beginning of next year which have more than double the speed. But they forget to mention that iOS is more power efficient in combination with the A5 Processor. The iPhone kicks ass in power and web browsing benchmarks, and wins from phones with more processing power. This kind of superficial statements will make less knowledgeable customers make decisions based on the wrong information.
Gizmodo tested the browsing speeds of several Android Phones vs the iPhone 4S right here. And Slashgear tested it versus the new Nokia Windows Phone here. And then, to make it worse, they say that there are many Android phones with a bigger screen and the iPhone is small compared to them. So if there are many large screen phones its bad that the iPhone has a smaller screen? I have a HTC Desire HD and constantly have to move my hand to reach everything. Gizmodo (sorry for all the Gizmodo links here, I just like that website) posted an article about why the iPhone screen size is just perfect here. They (Tweakers, red) say, in their defence, that depends on what you like your screen size to be, and that’s true. I like the big screen to look at, but it is not really ergonomically comfortable and it drains my battery in no time.
I really like Windows Phone 7(.5), Android and iOS. I’m fine with whatever you choose, it just depends on your set-up, what kind of computer you use and your daily tasks.
Why the TV can evolve with Apple
I own a TV, a modern one with a flat panel. On there I can watch movies and shows from my USB drive. On more expensive models you can use a variety of services nowadays, ranging from YouTube or NetFlix to Picasa. It all works fine when you know how to use it, but it still is time consuming, frustrating at some points and just doesn’t seem to fit all together.
There comes Apple into play. As blogged about by many, Steve Jobs biography tells that he found a way to make it all work. And if one company knows how to make an experience work its them. Imagine a TV with iOS, other than AppleTV iOS we currently have, but more comprehensive, with applications and really easy to use. You could do so much more with it, opening so many doors for content providers to profit from the closed system Apple provides, guaranteeing a simple working device which works great with other iOS devices. Imagine a household based on iOS, devices working seamlessly together making life as easy as possible. Setting your reminders app on the iphone to your iCoffee to pour a cup at 07.15 when you wake up, having heated your apartment first to a cosy 21 degrees C. The future starts today!
But because it is mentioned in his biography, other companies have the advantages of knowing it before hand instead of the usual day of release. It could also be a distracting move from Apple to lure the industry away from the actual product/service… Only time will tell…
p.s. Apologies for the delay, blogging wasn’t my first priority the past few weeks. I’ll try to release more often now, and with more content/depth. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to contact me.
I’ll never read rumours again!
Well, probably I will. I’m too interested in the newest technologies that I can’t leave rumours alone. The problem with rumours is, however, that you never know how trustworthy one is. We have seen the rumour hype grow bigger and bigger as we approached the launch of the newest iPhone. Some said it would be the iPhone 5, some said the 4S, others said both. It turned out to be the 4S. And because of all the rumours some people were disappointed. But if you look at it objectively, you see that it is completely in line with previous introductions, only a few months later. From a business perspective I can tell that has to do with money. What doesn’t nowadays?
The question remains, why do we spread rumours? There are many explanations to be found, such as the feel of Power and Control, to feel Superior, to be part of a group/community. But the worst part is out of boredom. People who are bored think its funny to make up stories and see it get blown up. What goes around will come back around eventually. Remember the bullies at school? I bet you turned out better than they did.
And although these rumours about technology are useless (I don’t think Apple will care), they are part of the ecosystem called Apple. I even think Apple will spread rumours, but not the biggest ones. Because when a rumour gets accepted, and is better than the actual product, the people might be disappointed after the release. We saw the hype with the original iPad where people were disappointed about the lack of camera and such. And that is then a good marketing point for competitors which fuels future rumours about the successor. Yeah, its vicious circle were in, and I don’t think will get out of it very soon. Just read them, don’t take them too serious and think clear, objective and reasonable about them and you’ll be fine.
Gaming back in the days…is about to get even better!
Back in the days when you needed a PC to play a game that was stored on a floppy disk… Wow.. that is a long time ago and I’m not even that old! Gaming on the PC has gone through a rough period, first the Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo violence, and now the mobile gaming scene is being the bad-ass. What do the above mentioned platforms have in common? No, they are consolidated platforms.
One company has made billions out of such consolidated platform, combining and tuning hardware with software; Apple. The reason it does, is because it works. With PC gaming you can put all kinds of hardware together with some version of Windows. There is no specific guidebook for game developers to develop a game that will work on all systems, so gamers had to upgrade their system or buy a new one. That was how it was. Until the consoles broke down that wall, and, except for the ‘first generation’, stayed a while with unchanged hardware. Untill now, the PC world had no answer, and even HP is quitting.
Razer Blade is the name, and it’s here to kick some ass! A multiple touch LCD screen next to your keyboard to provide in-game information?? That is some really heavy sh*t! Razer teamed up with Intel for the i7 core processor and NVIDEA for the graphics to build a whole new experience from the ground up. It comes at a price… and I hope it’ll get a bit more affordable … Check out the website
How Apple sells all year round iPhones
Apple has a track record of introducing a new iPhone in July, except for this year. As usual, the secrecy around the new product is tight, all that we can do is guess. Most of the guesses say that Apple will introduce a new iPhone 4s/5 in September. But without a new phone right now, consumers still buy the ‘old’ iPhone 4.
In a research from ComScore among 30.000 US mobile plan subscribers it showed that Apple sold 7.9% in March, and even 8.9% in June! People bought the phone while they new there would be knew one coming soon. The Gizmodo blog had a special name for the 6-month milestone, but forgot the name. Anyone an idea?
It is amazing how Apple is able to keep sales up, and even increase those with only one product, where HTC, LG and other manufacturers have a multiple product line and multiple introductions. Although, according to ComScore, LG, Samsung and Motorola have a higher market share, their share is not increasing as much and not for just one phone. What would be your next smartphone operating system?
Why Microsoft needs to kick its own tail
Microsoft told us, back in October 2010 that the Zune application (iTunes for Microsoft) will be headed to the Mac. But, today, we are still stuck with the Windows Phone Connector which isn’t that good. The main reason I bought a Windows Phone 7 when it released was the promise of the software coming to the Mac, but when it failed to deliver in February I traded my phone for Android. Also because with the update it completely filled my mac with stuff that was already on my laptop, but as back-up for the phone, and I couldn’t easily locate and delete it!
Microsoft should take a good look at how Apple uses iTunes to sync, and improve it. Mac users will not easily choose for a Windows Phone with the Connector in place, but will when syncing becomes easier. I even had problems with syncing; the connector duplicated everything all the time, a real pain in the bottom. Microsoft should pressure the Zune software department to get the product out when the first Mango phones will hit the market to really gain market share, because the interface and the whole experience is awesome! But, to put it into Apple words, it just doesn’t work for me right now.
Syncing is so 2010? The cloud will take over? Yeah maybe for the data and applications, but downloading your music will take a long time, especially over 3G. And streaming is not an option when your in the subway for example. I prefer a physically stored music library. Apple’s iCloud will be great on WiFi, not on 3G.
