Category: Tech

ebooks by Joe WilcoxAug 9, 201410:30 am

With Whom Should Authors Unite?

That’s the question on my mind since I started self-publishing ebooks about a year ago. Falling ebook prices and rising number of cheap reads—an increasing number of them serials built around single characters—offer readers bountiful choices. What’s good for consumers may not be best for producers, though. If 99 cents is the value of all books, who can make a living writing them? The answer to that question makes Amazon the savior of publishing or the great Satan destroying it.

I write about this today because overnight Amazon sent long email “Important Kindle request” announcing Readers United. But the letter didn’t come to me as a reader but as an author, from Kindle Direct Publishing. Amazon and publisher Hachette are engaged in a dispute that, long-term, could affect future ebook pricing. Hachette Authors United seeks resolution from Amazon, which calls on readers—and writers—to respond in kind.

News Media by Joe WilcoxAug 6, 201411:11 am

WTF is the Right Domain Question

I must thank Todd Bishop, whose tweet about a GeekWire story alerted me to the then forthcoming .wtf domain extension, which is now available. Generally, I think these dot-com wannabes are just plain stupid, but someone wants them—or ICANN decision-makers believe so. I ignored every domain registrar solicitation to grab one until .wtf.

My first concern is brand protection. I’ve pissed off more than a few fanboys over the years and I worried about someone snagging joewilcox.wtf and using that as a platform against me. You should worry, too, if you have any kind of brand to protect. “What the fuck?” is right. If your name is your brand, grab .wtf before someone else does.

Gear by Joe WilcoxAug 4, 20145:11 pm

Smartphones come of Age

Wired hits a homer with an incredible August issue on smartphones. As battery life and utility expand, so does my device’s use as secondary—and sometimes primary—device. Nokia Lumia Icon is all the digital device I carried to San Diego Comic-Con 2014. Snap. Edit. Share. And I took notes during the panels. It’s not a question if my smartphone replaces a PC but when.

Five years ago (this month) I asserted, perhaps a bit prematurely, that “Your Next PC is a Smartphone“. That was before the tablet craze sidelined attention, but I’m convinced the smartphone’s day is come—and so do Wired editors.

Apple by Joe WilcoxJul 29, 20148:07 pm

My Daughter’s iPhone is Too Destructible

Sshould I blame daughter or device? Last night, she texted: “My screen cracked again. I’m so sorry”. That’s the third shattered iPhone 5s since May; two 5ers busted before that. Clearly, she’s fumble fingers, but something just doesn’t seem right. The college student sticks the damn device in a protective case. Did Apple put pretty design before damage durability?

I spent several hours searching for smartphone breakage data today—on the web and contacting several sources compiling stats. Strangely, the most compelling comparisons are years old. For example, in late 2010, SquareTrade reported that iPhone 4 accidents exceeded the 3GS and devices from competing smartphone manufacturers. In a 2012 survey of 2,000 iPhone users, 30 percent had damaged their device in the previous 12 months.

Google by Joe WilcoxJul 28, 201410:28 am

More Chromebook to Come

Last week, while I attended San Diego Comic-Con, the ASUS 300M Chromebook arrived for review. I will work on the review concurrently with a new ebook tentatively titled Choose the Right Chromebook, while also updating […]

ebooks by Joe WilcoxJul 26, 20146:24 pm

My Books are Now Exclusive to Amazon

I have removed my ebooks from Google Play and all stores but one. Amazon. The decision wasn’t easy, but as an author I believe it is the right one. The retailer just launched Kindle Unlimited, which some social sharers call the “Netflix for books”. Subscribers pay $9.99 per month for whatever written or audio books participate in the program, and Amazon claims 600,000 titles.

To join the Kindle Unlimited program, independent publishers must put their books into KDP Select and give exclusivity for 90-day intervals (or longer). As a writer and reader, I love the “Netflix for books” concept, but as an independent publisher my participation means commitment to Amazon.

Gear by Joe WilcoxMay 27, 20144:27 pm

I am a Chromebook Convert

Two years ago this month, I adopted Chromebook as my primary PC. Except for brief betrayal last summer, mine is the Chromie lifestyle since. “Can I use Chromebook as my primary PC?” It’s a question I see often across the Interwebs. The answer is different: You can use Chromebook as your only computer.

The only PCs in my home are Chromebooks. There are no Macs or Windows machines doing double duty. Chromebook is more than good enough. Most people will be surprised just how satisfying Chromebook can be—and how affordable. For 96 cents more than the cost of one entry-level MacBook Air, you can buy from Amazon four HP Chromebook 11s. User benefits are surprisingly similar.

Apple by Joe WilcoxMay 23, 20144:51 pm

AppleCare+ is Less of a Good Deal

I learned about the change yesterday, unhappily. File this story under “read the fineprint department”. Since Apple introduced its extended warranty plan, I have praised the benefits and plucked down the extra $99 for every new iOS device. AppleCare+ extends standard repair coverage to two years and offers fairly affordable replacement—up to two times. Somehow I missed that Apple raised replacement price to $79 from $49 for iPhone.

The saga started around the midday meal. My daughter expressed amazement how last week her iPhone 5s popped out of her jeans and fell from a third-story balcony. No damage. Twenty-minutes later, while we sorted clothes for the thrift store in the garage, she fumbled the device, which fell face flat onto the cement—shattering the screen. No words can describe either of our reactions. The irony was so thick my eyeglasses fogged.

Apple by Joe WilcoxMay 19, 20143:32 pm

Beats Spotlights Where Apple Needs Change

The more I ponder Apple’s Beats acquisition, the less sense it makes. Buying big well-known brands that compete with yours is usually a bad idea—worse when the acquirer owns no foreign brands. Extinguishing the big name, as Microsoft does with Nokia, is marketing murder. There’s no place for the Beats brand in the Apple lexicon. The gun is drawn and ready to fire.

What I do see is another sign that Apple has lost its way. Tim Cook is a very able CEO, but as stated previously he is Star Trek’s Spock without Captain Kirk (Steve Jobs). Cook’s approach to business logistics, while brilliant, unmakes Apple. Beats is an acquisition that is off-key—out of tune with the culture that made the fruit-logo company great. As such, on this Thursday in May, comes my confession. I was wrong five years ago in post “Why Apple succeeds, and always will“. That company is gone. But it can come back.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 11, 20143:45 pm

HTC One M8 is a Worthy Phone Camera

I snapped this cat around sunset under overcast skies using HTC One M8. Both renditions are cropped. The left is otherwise untouched. To the right, I applied the phone’s UFocus feature. The One uses a duo-lens system to capture photo and additional depth information. I applied depth-of-field centerpoint to the cat’s face, which blurs rest of the image. I cropped afterwards. UFocus can also change the focal point, even after shooting.

Quite a few reviewers ding The One for having only a 4-megapixel camera. I shake my head and laugh. Look back a few years when 4MP was state of the art, and the same reviewers raved. Here’s the problem I see: Relativity. Making relative assumptions about A to B. Not long ago people praised 4MP for printing large photos, close-cropping, etc.—cited criticisms today. Now that there is 8MP and greater, 4MP is looked down upon.

Apple by Joe WilcoxMay 9, 20148:02 pm

Aggregation Beats the Wrong Drum

BGR used to give great scoops. Now, too often, it scoops up posts from other sites and poops them out. Can you say “aggregation”, dudes? Case in point is today’s post: “Beats acquisition called Apple’s ‘best idea since the iPad’“. The “best idea” belongs to Marcus Wholsen, writing for Wired.

So what? BGR blogger Zach Epstein has to recap Wired’s opinion piece about the rumored Apple-Beats merger rather than write his own? Not that there isn’t already too much punditry about an acquisition that hasn’t taken place and might never will.

Apple by Joe WilcoxMay 9, 20147:11 pm

Phablets hang Tim Cook’s Ass to the Wind

Analyst punditry is exhaustive about why tablet shipments declined during calendar first quarter 2014. Apple missed Wall Street consensus by about 3 million iPads. Tech-Thoughts analyst Sameer Singh expected tablet shipments to exceed PCs during the first quarter, and that didn’t happen. But major reason why is significant.

He writes today: “As of now, we can assume that ~20 percent of all smartphones shipped have screen sizes large enough to become acceptable substitutes for tablet computing tasks”.