512 Pixels

I get chills every time I come across this quote.

Ever wonder why Apple’s displays are so pricey? Wonder no more.

Peter Cohen wins the for headline for the day. I love it.

Federico Viticci:

Evernote’s biggest change on iOS is the possibility of creating and editing notes with rich text styles. Whereas previous versions of the mobile app forced users to always edit notes in plain text — thus breaking styles coming from the desktop app — Evernote 4.1 allows basic creation of numbered and bulleted lists, as well as sections, paragraphs and blockquotes straight from an iPhone or iPad. Obviously, users can now also select text to make it bold, italic or underlined, with more options such as strikethrough and highlight available in a new formatting bar.

It is about time. This always held me up from using Evernote in the past. I like the idea of the application, but since falling in love with .txt files, I’m just not sure I could ever try it again.

This morning, the HP Touchpad’s price was slashed to $99 at most resellers.

Within hours, most resellers had sold out of the ill-fated device.

This is a pretty crazy situation. This week, HP announced it would no longer be shipping any webOS-powered hardware, including the Touchpad, which is less than 2 months old. And yet, at $99, most nerds I know seriously considered pulling the trigger on one.

So, would the Touchpad have succeeded at a lower price, or was today’s rush simply a scramble at what is probably the best — and last, at least for now — webOS device?

Whatever the truth may be, I still think HP’s shuttering of the division — and the spinning off of its consumer PC division — is still pretty shocking. Maybe HP can see that its future is most secure in the enterprise end of things. Or maybe everyone over there has lost their minds.

Thomas Brand, in an interview with Shawn Blanc:

I carry my MessagePad and keyboard separated in two large jacket pockets, or sandwiched together in the Newton keyboard case. When I am writing I position my MessagePad in a landscape orientation with the keyboard in front, and my wallet underneath to give my Newton the desired viewing angle. My MessagePad can only display ten lines of text at a time so I tend to write in small paragraphs correcting my prose with the stylus as I go.

When I am finished writing I return home and transfer the notes from my MessagePad 130 to a MessagePad 2100 via infrared. I use a 802.11b wireless card to email what I have written from the 2100 to whatever modern Mac I am using at the time.

I used a 2100 with a keyboard in college to take notes in class. While the ladies loved it, I ended up selling to pay off my wife’s engagement ring.

I now own an eMate 300, which I love. I use it to write some of the longer posts here on Forkbombr. They keyboard is pretty usable, and the minimal interface (and distractions) make it a pretty decent writing environment.

With Markdown, writing with a Newton or eMate is even easier, since all of the markup is easy to do in plain text. I can write something up, shoot it to my Mac, and post it with little friction.

Dieter Bohn:

Given the stiff competition webOS faced in the marketplace, it’s tempting to just say that webOS has failed. The truth is that we don’t really know if webOS could have succeeded given HP’s utter inability to execute on the basics of making smartphones and tablets.

I think it’s better to say this: HP failed webOS.

I agree. HP didn’t push the webOS team to build anything besides a mediocre tablet, really. By pushing to get it out the door in a year, HP showed as little concern about the product as I think some Android tablet builders show.

HP could have thrown its weight behind a slab-like device, like the iPhone or any other handset out there that sells well. The Veer and Pre 3 are just variations on the same design and the same phone Palm tried selling for years. It could have gotten developers on board with incentives. It could have gotten its phones on more carriers.

But it didn’t. It let the Palm group do what it always did — which hasn’t ever worked. Bohn is right, webOS didn’t fail — HP failed it by letting it languish, after such great promises.

I really hope HTC picks it up. With the Google/Motorola Mobility thing hanging over its head, I’d imagine HTC is looking for other options besides Android. Maybe the third time is the charm?

Chris Ziegler:

In the company’s earnings call today, HP CEO Leo Apotheker just announced that its shutdown of the webOS hardware business — covering the Veer, TouchPad, and Pre series — will wind down in the fourth quarter of the year.

I’m offline for one day and HP goes and does something crazy. This move really bums me out.

Glenn Brensinger at Small Dog Electronics:

The most common reason drives fail is a cheap component. Hard drive makers are constantly trying to lower their prices, and the sad fact is that the drive components don’t care whose brand name is on the drive. Whoever made it, the drive was made with components from the lowest bidder. It doesn’t matter who sold the system—HP, Dell, Apple, Sony—they all use hard drives manufactured by another company who had to cut costs in order to get the contract. Apple makes every attempt to use only the highest quality components in their systems, but to say that a hard drive will never fail simply because it’s in an Apple computer is wishful thinking.

John Brownlee at Cult of Mac:

For the past several hours, the Apple Store has been down, but unlike when we usually say that, Apple’s seemingly not doing just maintenance… instead, store.apple.com seems to have totally crashed.

Making things stranger, the Apple Online Store fell over on a Wednesday, as opposed to the traditional Tuesday maintenance period. Some users have reported in the last hour the usual ‘We’re Updating The Store” message… so could a new product be imminent?

If so, the best guess floating around out there right now is new Apple TVs boasting A5 CPUS and 1080p. Best Buy Mexico has been dumping its stock of Apple TV units for no apparent reason.

This is why I hardly subscribe to any Apple news sites these days.

I love my eMate and this photo.