russian

Phone Search:

RSS

Samsung Galaxy Note. First Look

Today, large companies, especially corporate giants like Samsung, do not surprise users with extraordinary products...

Apple In A Post Jobsian World HTC Sensation In Use iPhone 4S: Part One

Reviews Editorials

Mobile Phones Editorials MP3 Forum

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Google Engineer: Google+ Is An 'Afterthought' [ 12-10-2011 18:37 ]

Author: Ivanov Konstantin Source: via Gizmodo Translation by: Paul Smith

Google+ has had something of a mixed reception with some heralding it as a saviour from the privacy nightmare of Facebook whilst others say it has no real purpose or point. Entering into the debate is Steve Yegge. You probably won't recognise that name, but he is an engineer at Google and last night he accidentally publicly posted a rant about Google+ on Google+.

Let's start with Yegge's comments on platforms, which he claims Google doesn't understand:

Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership (hi Larry, Sergey, Eric, Vic, howdy howdy) down to the very lowest leaf workers (hey yo). We all don’t get it. The Golden Rule of platforms is that you Eat Your Own Dogfood. The Google+ platform is a pathetic afterthought. We had no API at all at launch, and last I checked, we had one measly API call.

That's pretty stinging criticism right there. Essentially Yegge sums Google+ up as an 'afterthought'. Hardly a ringing endorsement. It gets better though:

Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking, predicated on the incorrect notion that Facebook is successful because they built a great product. But that’s not why they are successful. Facebook is successful because they built an entire constellation of products by allowing other people to do the work. So Facebook is different for everyone. Some people spend all their time on Mafia Wars. Some spend all their time on Farmville. There are hundreds or maybe thousands of different high-quality time sinks available, so there’s something there for everyone.

Our Google+ team took a look at the aftermarket and said: “Gosh, it looks like we need some games. Let’s go contract someone to, um, write some games for us.” Do you begin to see how incredibly wrong that thinking is now?

Again we get the argument that Google+ is an 'afterthought' and that it's essentially a manufactured attempt at emulating Facebook. To be fair Yegge is right in what he says here about how Google+ has approached social networking. It's not been created in response to a demand or to create a new demand (with the possible exception of satisfying those fed up with Facebook), rather it has been created in response to Facebook.

Whatever your thoughts on Google+ it is certainly fascinating reading and you can read the full post here.

Rating:

Comment
All comments (0)

Apple Readying Lower Priced iPad For 2012? [ 12-10-2011 18:30 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: BGR Translation by: Paul Smith

Apple may be readying a lower priced version of the iPad for launch early next year. That's the rumour to come from comments by Brian White, an analyst at Ticonderoga Securities. White has been meeting with various supplier in China and it is from those meetings that White got an inkling of a new iPad being prepped for launch in early 2012.

Our research is pointing to the unveiling of a lower priced iPad in the first few months of 2012 that is aimed at expanding the company's market potential by tapping into amore price sensitive consumer segment. Essentially this 'iPad mini' will also fend off the recently announced Amazon Kindle Fire that addresse the low-end tablet market with a $199 price tag but could lead to bigger ambitions from the online retailer in the future.

It's important to clarify that White's use of the term 'iPad mini' isn't used here to mean smaller sized device, but rather a lower price point. This is where I have a spot of trouble with this rumour because it hinges on Apple taking on Amazon in the low-end price segment. That's not an unfeasible notion, but frankly over the past few years Apple have shown little to no sign of specifically targeting such markets when it comes to iOS devices. If the device isn't going to be physically smaller, etc then it is likely going to have to cut down on features to attain a lower price tag. That just doesn't feel very Apple like to me and it reminds me of this video:

Rating:

Comment
All comments (0)

Samsung Galaxy S II On Sale In OZ For $2 [ 12-10-2011 18:25 ]

Author: Ivanov Konstantin Source: Sydney Morning Herlad Translation by: Paul Smith

There's no love lost between Apple and Samsung, especially Down Under where some of the fiercest battles in their patent war have been waged. It should come as no surprise then to learn that Samsung are trying to steal Apple's thunder as the company prepares to launch its new iPhone 4S. Samsung have setup stall (almost literally actually) just around the corner from the Apple Sydney store and they have an offer on ... a very good offer ...

... the Samsung Galaxy S II ... for $2 ... without contract!

Yes. Seriously. The first ten customers each day will be able to buy a brand spanking new Samsung Galaxy S II for just $2 and they don't have to sign a contract or take any sort of deals. Ok so it's a gimmick, but a pretty bloody good one we have to say.

Now 10 people a day isn't going to see the device notch up millions in sales, but it does draw attention to the device and at a time when Apple are looking to keep eyeballs firmly focused on the iPhone 4S. Apart from generating publicity it also has the added bonus (for Samsung) of giving Apple a bit of a slap in the face and that, as they say, is worth more than money.

Rating:

Comment
All comments (0)

BlackBerry Outage Spreads - What Is Going On? [ 12-10-2011 18:12 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Translation by: Paul Smith

The BlackBerry saga continues ...

On Tuesday of this week millions of BlackBerry users were affected by an outage that saw them loose service. The fault was with RIM so it affected users across different networks and devices, even in different countries. As you would expect Twitter at al was full of people complaining about the outage. Service has been sporadic at best across Africa, Europe and the Middle-East ever since Tuesday and now the problem seems to have spread to the United States as well.

RIM have said that the initial problems, first encountered on Tuesday, were due to core and back-up switch failures. Presumably the latest round of problems in the U.S. are due to something similar although there hasn't been direct confirmation of this yet. What is clear though is that American users have taken to Twitter for information about the loss of service so the problem is very real. RIM have previously stated that its services were backup and running, but the Twitter evidence clearly doesn't support that.

So what's happening now? Well it's pretty simple really; when RIM's service first failed a back-up was supposed to kick in. That didn't happen. Because the back-up didn't work there is now a backlog of data that RIM is having to work through. That's going to take time and for the users there's really nothing that can be done other than to wait.

Interestingly enough though BlackBerry corporate customers seem to be unaffected by the service loss. This is because RIM runs two services; one for consumers and one for enterprise. It's the consumer side of things that has experienced the crash.

As annoying as the service loss is for BlackBerry users it's also worth considering how this is going to affect RIM's prospects. The company is already faring poorly in the market as both Android and iOS squeeze its marketshare and consumers seem to be increasingly turning away from its handsets for more exciting options from other manufacturers. RIM obviously needs to get things back up and running quickly, not just for its customers, but also for its reputation. The longer this goes on the less reliable RIM looks and with little else going for the company at the moment reliability had been something they could always fall back on.

Rating: