Just soak these in:
The moral of the story? Less is sometimes more.
Dustin Karnes, on HTC Sense, Motorola Blur and Samsung’s TouchWiz:
I’m not saying I don’t like these UI overlays. I simply think that the manufacturers should give users the options to shut off these overlays without having to hack their devices or download home screen replacements to do it. I know they’re probably just trying to keep us loyal, but hey – we already bought their device, shouldn’t that be enough? So, manufacturers, if you’re listening, take this to heart, and give us the freedom to choose what our open-source experience should look like.
Way back in the dark ages before the App Store, the only way to add functionality to an iPhone was through Safari. In iPhone OS update 1.1.3, Apple added webclips, an easy way to launch into a web app from the iPhone’s homepage. While these were not full-featured apps, it wasn’t a bad compromise. While they didn’t offer much in terms of integration 1 with the rest of the OS, they did allow users to more easily pop in and out of websites designed specifically for iPhone use. Twitter clients abounded, as did to-do apps and news apps.
This seems… underwhelming, but not as much as the AppleTV. No one has gotten this figured out yet.
Gmail updated today with a new option that allows users to turn off its trademark threaded conversation view for a more traditional email inbox.
I like threaded messages, but hate how Gmail splices in sent messages.
This is a fascinating interview of the Google CEO by Charlie Rose.
Jared Newman over at PCWorld has posted a piece titled “4 Ways a RIM Tablet Could Smoke the iPad, Galaxy Tab.”
Obviously, a loaded headline. Let’s take a look at this:
One feature that both the iPad and the Galaxy Tab lack is a quick and simple way to communicate with others. Messenger could be a cornerstone of the BlackPad, allowing people to stay in touch with Blackberry phone users. Businesses who use Blackberry would love it.
Stephanie Lyn Flosi at comScore:
53.4 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in July, up 11 percent from the corresponding April period. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 39.3 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 23.8 percent share. Google saw significant growth during the period, rising 5.0 percentage points to capture 17.0 percent of smartphone subscribers. Microsoft accounted for 11.8 percent of Smartphone subscribers, while Palm rounded out the top five with 4.9 percent. Despite losing share to Google Android, most smartphone platforms continue to gain subscribers as the smartphone market overall continues to grow.
Google Voice applications have had a pretty tumultuous history in the App Store. At first, Apple approved them, and the people rejoiced. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, they were pulled, with “duplicating features that the iPhone comes with (Dialer, SMS, etc).” cited as the reasoning. The people were, understandably, pretty friggin’ mad.
Over the past few days, the developers of at least two such applications have been indicating that they’d been hearing good news from Apple, suggesting that the Apps would be making an Apple-approved, no-jailbreak-required return. Sure enough, they’ve just started popping up in the App Store.
Samsung’s gotten all four of the major US carriers in its court — and just as we’d heard, the 7-inch Galaxy Tab will be heading to Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile sometime during the October / November timeframe.
Sounds like Samsung has gone where the Nexus One couldn’t — to every major US carrier. Additionally, they will be offering a no-contract Wi-Fi only version.
The big issue is that Android hasn’t really been on a major tablet yet, and Google itself has said the OS isn’t ready for such devices. While Samsung’s TouchWiz interface may be able to patch things up, the truth is that Android hasn’t been made to scale as smoothly as iOS does.
“To-Be-Shipped” still seems to be the status on any iPad rivals. This means that the iPad is still the only device in its class, which is good news for Apple, and for the folks who own the device too. For the consumers, it means that there will still be developers focusing on making amazing apps for them to make their iPad even more useful!
While I agree that there are no real competitors to the iPad at this point, her article only points out two oddball clamshell devices that don’t stand a chance of doing well — or ever being produced, in Lenovo’s case.
