October 2011

Siri’s Predecessor, and “Good Friend”

I think it’s safe to say that most iPhone 4S users have toyed around with Siri’s capabilities and limits. We’re all telling her that we love her, asking her absurdly subjective questions, and the developers anticipated all of it. While I was making a fool of myself with Siri last night (did you know that she can’t –or just chooses not to– hear certain four letter swear words?) I found myself uttering a mysterious question that rose up from some murky place in my id: “Do you know Eliza?” What? Where did that come from? I then remembered the world’s…

Editorials, Game Diary

Gear Games Guest Viewpoint: Jeff Vogel on Why “You Can’t Have Every Game for a Dollar”

Today we have a special treat: Jeff Vogel is providing a guest editorial on game pricing. Vogel is the founder, CEO, and primary developer of Spiderweb Software – a company that was making ‘old school’ RPGs before it was hip to do so, and from the very start using the ‘shareware’ model of a generous demo with paid unlocking that we see so often now under the guise of ‘in-app purchases’. Many of the games Mac & PC RPG fans love now – such as “Eschalon Book 1 & 2” from Basilisk Games, “Depths of Peril” and “Din’s Curse” from…

Editorials

iPhone 4S First Impressions

Carly got her iPhone 4S first thing in the morning. If my recollection is correct, by 8:30am she was on her way to work with a newly activated handset. Her first “Siri-enabled” email came just moments later. I was less fortunate. UPS didn’t arrive until much later in the day and, once the phone arrived, it still didn’t work for hours thanks to AT&T forgetting that there would be a number of phones needing to be activated.Their system choked and my iPhone was, at least for the first few hours, a brick. It was a beautiful brick but it was…

Gear Bits

AT&T Lets Us Down Again

Ah, AT&T. So, I’m sitting here staring at my shiny new iPhone 4S. It’s unusable right now, thanks to AT&T’s lack of preparedness. They’ve had several years to figure out how to handle the spike in the load on their servers that accompanies the launch of a new iPhone model. Yet they still manage to hack up a hairball when it comes time to process orders and activate phones. Apparently, I’m not the only one, either. Several blogs are reporting AT&T customers are experiencing widespread problems with activations. When AT&T carried the iPhone exclusively, I could at least understand that…

Reviews

iPad 2 Keyboard Case Review: Belkin Keyboard Folio

Yesterday I was speaking with someone who, at one point, pulled out his iPad 2 and looked up an address. I asked him how he liked the tablet and he replied that he loved it. He then went one to share with me that his company had given every employee one and, since doing so, very few are actually using their laptops anymore. It is a story that is being repeated in business after business, school after school and home after home. He also told me that while he likes typing on the on-screen keyboard, many colleagues don’t and they…

Music Diary

Music Diary Notes: Digital Music Consumes Increasing Amount of Decreasing Pie

I have written about the continuing decline of music sales, as well as the increasingly desperate measures labels are using to puff up their chosen ‘top stars’ by means that might land them in jail in other industries. It has also always been clear that the industry hates digital music – and especially digital singles! This at the same time as consumers have increasingly shown a desire for digital music – and the ability to only buy the songs they want. The impact of this cognitive dissonance is clear: consumers are being pushed in a direction they don’t want to…

News

Motorola Droid Pro (finally) Gets Gingerbread Update

Last fall Motorola and Verizon put out a trio of phones including the slider-keyboard based Droid 2, the large screen Droid X and the Blackberry-esque Droid Pro. I reviewed the Droid Pro here, and while I love the form factor and most other things, I did have some criticisms: The Droid Pro comes with Android OS 2.2 Froyo, and has seen a single ‘quick fix’ since release. It was released alongside the Droid X and Droid 2, both of which have been updated to Gingerbread (2.3), but it is doubtful the Droid Pro will get the update. That is just…

Music Diary, News

Music Diary Notes: The Pied Piper of Dubstep

I have mentioned the musical sub-genre Dubstep before, and the practitioners including Daft Punk, Deadmau5 and Skrillex. My son is a MASSIVE fan of this style of music, so I have become more aware of it than I would otherwise. It is hard to describe the musical style to someone who hasn’t heard it, but from his bio at AllMusic they say he “combines the Benny Benassi and Deadmau5 styles of electro with the over the top samples and giant noises of acts like the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim.” Here is the official video for his biggest hit, Scary…

News

iCloud Quick Tip: Manage Your Backups!

I’m already a big fan of iCloud and its ability to seamlessly back up your iDevices without your having to even think about it. I liked it so much that, even while still in Beta, I upgraded to a 25GB account (20GB paid, 5GB free). That should be plenty of space but, as it turns out, it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. In fact, when I checked this morning (Settings, iCloud, backup…) I had just 1.5GB of space left. I tapped “Manage Storage” and immediately saw the culprit. My iPad was using 12.8GB for backup and my iPhone was…

Gear Bits, News

Ask Siri anything…as long as you’re in the US

Having trekked down to the Apple Store this morning, I had no trouble picking up my brand new white 64GB 4S. The feature I was most interested in trying was Siri, the “Personal Assistant” included with every new 4S, but unfortunately between the US and the rest of the world, everything is not equal. Asking Siri to find the closest petrol station greeted me with this unexpected rebuff: Having had a look through the Apple Australia website and rewatched the Siri section of the keynote (link), I can’t find anywhere that it says that business listings are not available outside…

Gear Bits

Lining Up for the iPhone 4S, Australian Style!

Rather than lie in bed lazily this morning (or tomorrow morning, for those of us in the United States), Mitchell has been waiting patiently in line at a local Apple Store along with a crowd of other hopeful iPhone 4S owners. The irony of photographing the Apple launch on the EVO 3D. I should have brought the Galaxy S II! 😛 In an email with the subject line, “I’m a nerd,” Mitchell let me know how his morning was going. Well of course you’re a nerd, Mitchell! But there’s no shame in it, and you’re in good company! After all, I’m the…

Reviews

iPad 2 Case Review: Beyzacases Executive II

Finding the perfect iPad 2 case can begin to seem as impossible as finding a golden pearl in a sea of clams, but if you keep looking then you may find your oyster. I’ve watched Dan go through one iPad case after another; every once in a while he’ll find one that he truly likes, but there was ultimately always an issue: “this one makes the iPad too fat”, “this one makes the iPad too heavy”, “this one doesn’t close the way I’d like it to, but I like the materials”. It’s all very “The Three Bears”, isn’t it? And…

Reviews

iOS App Review: MyTunes from SRS Labs

In my experience, new iOS applications fall into one of a number of categories. There are “Wow” apps; these are the ones that are released into the iTunes App Store that blow you away from the very start. There are “Ow!” apps; these are the ones that are released into the iTunes App Store, and you wonder how they ever got through Apple’s screening process in the first place. Then there are “Not quite now” apps; these are the applications that show a great deal of promise but are not quite there… yet. You want to keep them on your…

Editorials

Let the iPhone 6 Rumors Begin… WE Already Have the “Proof”

I was reading through my feeds today and a story on Droid Life cropped up about some pictures appearing on Picasa that were tagged as being taken by a Droid RAZR and the Galaxy Nexus. Both phones are all but confirmed, with tons of evidence throughout the web, but these pics are being labeled as evidence as the phone being out real soon now. They may actually be out, but posting pictures that purportedly came from the devices is hardly evidence. Why do I say that? I will show you. The above picture was taken with my Droid 2. Yeah…

News

Watch out for Fake Netflix Apps

Here’s the dark side of Android fragmentation: if you have an Android device that’s not running 2.2 (or a device that doesn’t have the Android marketplace), you don’t have Netflix app access. So you conjure up some google-fu and find a copy of the Netflix app floating around, or maybe it’s an Android app store you’ve never used before. Be very, very careful before you download it. Apparently, there’s a fake version of Netflix floating around that steals your login data. As you can see from the image, it looks super similar. In fact, it looks EXACTLY like the login…

Music Diary

Pop Goes the Music Diary: Been Caught Stealin’ (Again)

Apparently Beyonce’s team who creates the stuff she puts her name on has a pastime – stealing every idea and ‘repurposing’ it into a Beyoncé video. This happened before … and now it has happened again with her latest video. According to Digital Music News: The Beyonce camp isn’t admitting guilt. Instead, they’re admitting ‘inspiration’ from the famous work. “Clearly, the ballet ‘Rosas danst Rosas’ was one of many references for my video ‘Countdown’,” Beyonce offered with a straight face. “It was one of the inspirations used to bring the feel and look of the song to life.” Here is…

Music Diary, News

Music Diary Notes: Watch Wynton Marsalis 50th Birthday Concert Live Stream

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has been a touchstone in the ‘what is jazz’ debate for more than three decades now. After growing up in a jazz family – his father is pianist Ellis Marsalis – Wynton came up through the ranks with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and then did a stint with Herbie Hancock’s VSOP before striking out on his own. Soon Wynton was simultaneously winning Jazz and Classical Grammy Awards, and record labels were signing jazz artists to recording contracts again. He has maintained a high profile – and been very vocal with his opinion of music –…

News

Kogan Launches 8″ and 10″ Android Tablets

As Michael pointed out this week, pricing of some upcoming tablets has shown that the manufacturers haven’t been listening. Some people want tablets, but most want iPads, and to get the average consumer interested, the price needs to be low enough to make it an impulse buy. Kogan’s new Android tablets look to fit the bill. Available in 8″ 800×600 (SVGA) and 10″ 1024×768 (XGA) models, the tablets come with Gingerbread 2.3 (no Honeycomb here, folks), a single core 1GHz Cortex A8 processor with 512MB RAM, 4GB built-in storage, microSD slot (up to 32GB can be added) HDMI output and…

Reviews

Bluetooth Headset Review: Jabra SUPREME

I have been using one specific Bluetooth headset in my car for the past year or so, but I lost it a few weeks back. Okay, I didn’t exactly “lose” it but, rather, my wife Elana took it. I was thrilled to have her take the headset because: A. She’s my wife, and I like her to have stuff she wants B. She’s my wife, and I wanted her to have and use a headset so she would be safer on the road C. I knew I had a headset on the way that would be just as comfortable and…

Reviews

The Sansa Clip Zip MP3 Player Review

I love Sandisk’s Sansa line because they are cheap, use standard connectors and work on just about any OS. So when they offered to send me the new Clip Zip to review for Gear Diary I jumped at the chance. Will it be as nice as their past devices? Let’s find out. The Clip Zip is the next version of the Clip. My friends in the Linux community have much love for the Clip. It’s cheap, supports Ogg Vorbis codecs, and it connects to your computer as conveniently as any flash drive. That means you can us any OS that…

News

More iOS 5.0 Fun as Apple Releases New Apps

Today is shaping up to be a fun day for anyone who loves their iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. As you know iOS 5.0 should be released some time today. That also means iCloud is coming and, of course, the iPhone 4S arrives Friday (although reviews are already coming in, and it is awesome). The fun has already started with two new apps from Apple being released. The free Find My Friends app that was discussed last week is now live in the iTunes App Store. We will be trying it out and will bring a full review shortly. Grab…

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