Monthly Archives: March 2011

Katherine Noyes from PCWorld believes that tablets are just a fad- “Apple is nothing if not master of the glitzy sales pitch, and there’s never been better proof of that than the iPad’s current success.

Mark my words: The device–and all the others of its ilk that have sprung up for a piece of the action–are nothing more than a passing fad, at least in the mainstream. Here’s why…”

John Gruber of course does not agree with Katherine and uses only two words to emphasis his opinion- “Words marked.”

I agree with Katherine. I see no point in the future where the tablet form will be as popular as it is today, unless some remarkably good data input solution is created and they end up as bloated as desktop software is today to give us the functionality we all need.

My iPhone 4 ordeal continues. Following the drop that cracked the back cover I replaced that quite easily and then set about using it as normal again. The problem is that it started to turn off randomly and wouldn’t charge anymore. It seems that the drop (from just 3 feet) caused more damage than I initially thought.

I am now without the iPhone while I await the replacement unit and am going to take the opportunity to see if there is life outside of the iPhone for me. For many it is difficult to see past their current smartphone, and I believe this is even truer with the iPhone. In all my years using and reviewing smart mobile devices no product has come close to the iPhone 4 in terms of making me not look elsewhere. I see all of the clever Android and Windows Phone handsets, the highly useful BlackBerry phones that look exactly like the ones they replaced and the webOS handsets that need some work on the hardware side. How can any of them possibly match the iPhone for usability, the ecosystem and the killer feature which is the ability to switch between apps and functions in the blink of an eye without ever thinking about what you are doing?

In my experience reviewing other smartphones, I still find myself thinking about what I am doing in Android, BlackBerry and Symbian. webOS is much more natural to use, but there are currently some limitations that steer me away from it for daily use, but it is the closest to iOS in my opion.

The Orange San Francisco will be my sidekick for the next few days (a £99 budget Android unit) and I will try to do everything I can with the iPhone on it. Crucial tasks for me are GPS, email, web, calendar and … OK, the list goes on and on, but I am interested to see if I can train myself to enjoy Android as much as iOS, or if indeed it becomes as natural to me. Wish me luck and expect a quick update each day on the experience.

Great comment of the day from David today concerning paying to view web content- “From one point of view, who said the internet was free? Access charges have to be paid, either by yourself, or some corporate entity. So paying extra for content on said internet could be perceived as a double charge …

From another aspect, a lot of us shop online for chattels, but in this case, we are getting something substancial in return for our money. Information is insubstancial, so paying for it leaves a feeling on not getting a good return for expense.

This is probably the hurdle that the news press have to overcome, pay your money, you can have a substancial newspaper, an eNewspaper doesn’t have this substance attribute.

If I was to subscribe to a magazine in digital only format, I would want to ensure that said digital edition could be accessed again, after it is no longer “current”. Of course the lifespan of a magazine depends upon its content, IT related would become redundant after several months, but for others, the lifespan could be considerably longer.

I have digital design magazines from several years back because that content has a very long lifespan.”