Category: Society

Apple by Joe WilcoxJan 7, 20109:14 pm

Nexus One Foreshadows Google Mobility That Could Get Ugly for Apple and Microsoft

Microsoft and Apple underestimate how quickly Google is consolidating its mobile platform—clearly so do geeks reviewing Nexus One. Google isn’t just going for one piece of mobility but the whole shebang. Google is putting together the pieces to offer a single mobile lifestyle, with no PC required, supported by search and other Google informational services. Like everything else the company does, free is the glue sticking everything together.

Google’s decision to sell Nexus One direct, even the carrier subsidized model, is part of the strategy. Open-source licensing has its limitations and risks fragmenting Android. As I explained in March 2009 post “There’s an App for That,” Apple changed the rules for mobile operating systems by breaking carrier control over updates. Apple distributes iPhone OS updates, preventing the kind of fragmentation typically caused by carrier distribution. By selling a handset direct, Google takes control of Android updates for a flagship phone that also acts like a baseline design model for handset manufacturers licensing the mobile operating system.

Money by Joe WilcoxJan 7, 201012:38 pm

'Walk Away from Your Mortgage'

Morgan Stanley recently decided to stop making payments on five San Francisco office buildings. A Morgan Stanley fund purchased the buildings at the height of the boom, and their value has plunged. Nobody has said […]

Digital Lifestyle by Joe WilcoxJan 5, 20104:20 pm

Google Takes Ownership of a New Mobile Category

Today’s Google Nexus One launch is as game changing as Apple’s June 2007 release of the iPhone. Perhaps, Nexus One is more important, although judging from blogs and tweets, geekdom doesn’t yet get it. Apple supercharged the smartphone category with a more natural user interface. Suddenly, there was a new way to interact with a mobile phone that was seemingly magical. Today, Google turned on the superpowers, by finally starting to integrate cloud services into its mobile platform in a hugely useful way. Additionally, Google is transcending the limitations of one natural user interface by extending the capabilities of another.

With Nexus One and Android 2.1, Google is doing what Microsoft failed to with its March 2007 Tellme acquisition: Offer a more natural mobile phone user interface. Voice should have been it, but Microsoft failed to bring the technology to Windows Mobile in a big way. By comparison, Google has been hot on voice search, which promises to be much better on Nexus One and other handsets running Android 2.1. Google is extending voice search to other services, which just last week I blogged the information giant should be doing.

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 5, 20103:32 am

Stuck in Newark Airport

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQeG1kaddsw] I agree 100 percent. “Maybe there is hope for our ever-increasingly isolated and anti-social (no, Facebook is making us less social) society after all”, nmook.

Apple by Joe WilcoxNov 9, 20094:40 pm

Two Stories of Smartphones Stolen

Yesterday someone stole my daughter’s new smartphone from a school locker. On Friday, a good friend’s iPhone 3GS disappeared from a car dealership, while he was talking on it. Both stories, which go oddly together, are cautionary tales about social media, cloud computing and the risks of identities stolen with the hardware.

Stolen phones used to conjure fears of minutes usage overages or big bills from calls placed to faraway places. Now the cost could be you.

Digital Lifestyle by Joe WilcoxSep 25, 20091:24 pm

What is an Ad?

TechFlash’s Todd Bishop and I disagree about what constitutes an ad. I ask you which of us is right. The disagreement started over Todd’s post “Windows Ads, Finally Cool?” He reports about some Windows 7 videos that popped up online a few days ago.

I saw the same vids on Tuesday night and almost blogged about them. But I recalled reading something a few weeks ago (from the esteemed Long Zheng) about the same videos being produced conceptually for Microsoft. Also, the run times were all wrong for broadcast. Nobody airs a 51-second commercials. I dismissed the videos as YouTube-distributed marketing material, but not advertisements.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 24, 20092:16 pm

Headline of the Day: ‘AT&T to Welcome iPhone Users to 2003 Tomorrow’

All Things Digital—and it’s an understatement. “At some point late tomorrow morning, the carrier will release an update enabling MMS,” he writes. About a minute later, AT&T’s network will go all to hell—it’s the end of the world as we know it—as iPhoners break out in one giant unison MMS.

Ah, the iPhone. A few weeks ago, I pronounced that my Nokia N97 is gone, it’s back again. I dumped the iPhone 3GS, and I’m surprised how little I miss the smartypants phone. Perhaps it was a psychological sense of missing out on something that caused the “disconnected” feeling using the N97 that I blogged about . No more.

Society by Joe WilcoxSep 22, 20099:15 am

Why the Dow is So High But Consumers are So Low

Yesterday, I warned that signs of economic recovery are nothing more than a mirage. Today, I’m freaking out because Robert Reich has got an explanation so simple and so obvious. If the former US Labor Secretary’s analysis is correct, as I believe it is, the economy’s in deeper doo doo than even my worst warnings about it.

Digital Lifestyle by Joe WilcoxSep 10, 20092:43 pm

'I'm a PC, and More Happy Is Coming'

Kylie is back! Everyone’s favorite Windows Photo Gallery youngster pushes Windows 7. (Say, is she a first grader now?) Kylie kicks off what the YouTube version of the commercial calls the “Good News” advertising campaign.

Society by Joe WilcoxAug 30, 20098:16 pm

Laptop Hunter Sheila's First Post-Hunt Big Project

Say, do you remember Sheila Dvorak? The filmmaker who bought an HP HDX 16t, in one of those Microsoft “Laptop Hunters” commercials? The stereotypical filmmaker uses a Mac, running Apple’s Final Cut Studio. But not Sheila. She’s completed her first project using the HDX 16t.

Apple by Joe WilcoxAug 28, 200912:03 am

My Nokia N97 is Gone

I am mad at Apple and Nokia. Apple has the best mobile software and services platform anywhere. Nokia offers the best hardware platform—granted, HTC closes in. This difference has forced me to choose one company’s smartphone over the other, leaving behind dissatisfaction with the compromise.

Society by Joe WilcoxAug 22, 200912:57 pm

America's Health Insurance Cartels are the Problem

Two things that go oddly together: $20 and a quick physical. That’s what my daughter got yesterday so she could try out for the local high school volleyball team. The school recommended the doctor, who was fast, friendly, thorough and cheap. From watching the patients going in and out of the physician’s office, I observed that he provides a valuable service to San Diego’s uninsured.

The doctor’s visit got me to thinking, again, about what’s fundamentally wrong with America’s health-care system and why the Obama Administrations’ reform proposal can’t fix it. The problem and solution go oddly—and quite badly—together. Litigation, not legislation, is the solution.