Although RIM has delivered excellent hardware and a well-designed user interface, the software experience still falls short of expectations. The tablet offers little functionality out of the box and suffers from an abysmally poor third-party application ecosystem. The PlayBook’s lack of standalone messaging software further erodes its potential value to a mainstream audience and will pose a serious barrier to adoption.
Despite the major weaknesses out of the starting gate, the underlying platform has compelling technical assets that could make future iterations of the PlayBook appealing to consumers. More significantly, the excellent work that RIM has done to polish the PlayBook home screen and built-in software sheds some light on how the company could modernize its aging phone operating system and boost its competitiveness relative to Android and iOS.
Category: General Tech
On Dropbox and Security
Here’s a snippet from Dropbox’s FAQ page on security:
Like most online services, we have a small number of employees who must be able to access user data for the reasons stated in our privacy policy (e.g., when legally required to do so). But that’s the rare exception, not the rule. We have strict policy and technical access controls that prohibit employee access except in these rare circumstances. In addition, we employ a number of physical and electronic security measures to protect user information from unauthorized access.
On Apple, Samsung and ‘Look and Feel’
Go read Nilay Patel’s coverage of the new Apple v. Samsung lawsuit. I’ll wait for you to come back.
Ok. Welcome back. Crazy stuff right? To me, its pretty clear that Samsung intentionally ripped off the look and feel of iOS and Apple’s hardware design when making its phones and Android UI, TouchWiz.
This is about Samsung’s design choices. And while Patel is careful not to draw parallels between this suit and the one Apple had against Microsoft in the mid–1990s.
On Samsung and Apple
Nilay Patel, on Apple’s case against Samsung:
Taken as a group, it feels like a remarkably solid case — Samsung can’t just up and countersue Apple with its own patents and hope to walk away with a handshake and a cross-license because of the various trademark, trade dress, and design patent claims. How the company decides to deal with those issues remains to be seen; there’s no question in my mind that Samsung designed TouchWiz to look and feel as much like iOS as possible, and then marketed it as such.
RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis Needs a Cookie
RIM’s leadership has gone from comical to just plain sad.
The All-in-One Device
Earlier today, Cisco announced that the Flip line of cameras is no more. Here’s what Marketwire said:
Cisco today announced that it will exit aspects of its consumer businesses and realign the remaining consumer business to support four of its five key company priorities — core routing, switching and services; collaboration; architectures; and video.
Now, I have no doubt that Cisco is trying to focus more on its core strengths. But at the same time, Cisco, as a cooperation, exists to make money. Piles and piles of the stuff. My guess is that the Flip wasn’t helping that happen anymore.
Fifty Years
On April 12, 1961, a young test pilot from the Soviet Union named Yuri Gagarin climbed into a space capsule called Vostok 1.
Space travel fascinates me.
Chernobyl Tours, 25 Years After Accident
Jim Heintz, for the Associated Press:
But Chernobyl is in fact still a dangerous place, as the rules for visitors make clear. Don’t touch any structures or vegetation, don’t sit on the ground or even put your camera tripod there, don’t take any item out of the zone, don’t eat outdoors. Guides make sure the visitors understand that various spots in the zone are more contaminated than others and insist no one wander off the designated paths.
‘The Death Star was my Idea’
These videos combine two of my loves: Star Wars and making fun of Windows.
‘Adobe has no Bias Between HTML 5 and Flash’
“Liar, liar, pants on fire” comes to mind. Does anyone believe Dave Burkett when he says stuff like this?
CS 5.5
Has a Decent Wordpress iPad app Arrived?
Federico Viticci seems to think so:
Overall, Blogsy was a surprise. The app is far from perfect and it needs a couple more features to become the ultimate WordPress client, but it finally brings quality blogging to the iPad — a device that was desperately waiting for an app like this to change the way bloggers can get things done without giving up on rich content editing, and media. If you consider that Blogsy is a new app with a (hopefully) long road ahead, I think I’ll be able to write posts for MacStories exclusively from my iPad 2 this summer, even more than I already can with the current feature set. Blogsy can only get better from now on, and while we’re all waiting for MarsEdit to show up on the App Store, I believe Fomola has released a great 1.0 version bloggers should check out right now.