Tag Archives: switchedon

Switched On: Taming Evernote’s paper tiger

Posted on by

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

In April, Evernote CEO Phil Libin announced his company was getting into the hardware business -- gradually, at first, by partnering with others. Carrying through on that intention at the company's third developer's conference in September, Evernote rolled out its first electronic product as part of Evernote Market. Amidst a number of bags and personal accessories (including what must be the most famous technology-related socks since the ones Apple offered as iPod cases), it introduced the ScanSnap Evernote Edition scanner. The sheet-fed paper ingester boasts a sleeker, more modern design than the Fujitsu original. However, it is already a bit behind the times when compared with, say, the latest cloud-centric WiFi models, such as the Brother ADS-1500W, Doxie Go and the new, high-end NeatConnect.

Comments

Switched On: A wristed development

Posted on by

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

It is difficult enough to turn around one niche product category and make it successful, as Apple did with the iPad. But combining two marketplace failures is almost certainly a recipe for disaster. FiLIP, the new kid-tracker, is part connected watch, part smartphone. Prior attempts to optimize these devices for children -- or at least for the parents who want their kids to wear them -- haven't been well received. On the wristwear side, there was the Wherify Wireless watch, a monstrous wrist-locked GPS device. It was so optimized for the kidnapper-concerned that it sent an alarm message over the cellular network if it was removed without authorization.

Filed under:

Comments

Switched On: The Yoga Tablet does kickstands with a twist

Posted on by

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

If one takes a narrow view of the tablet market, the largest PC makers have fared especially poorly as a group. At the launch of the iPad, HP, Dell, Acer and Lenovo had little experience with the Android ecosystem, which itself was not optimized for tablets. And Windows, their go-to operating system, was still not available in a version that would show off bold, finger-friendly tiles and yield long battery life in a slim form factor. Even now as these companies have experimented with all kinds of hinges and accessories on Windows, their Android efforts can be hard to differentiate as with HP's Slate 7 and Dell's recent 7- and 8-inch slates.

Into this spiritless landscape, Lenovo has dropped the Yoga Tablet, available in 8- and 10-inch sizes. Unlike its namesake Windows laptop, which reveals no obvious signs of its differentiation at first glance, the Yoga Tablet has a silver, cylindrical side that is reminiscent of extended laptop batteries. Indeed, it contains the battery here as well as making for a grip that is at first unfamiliar, but which allows the rest of the tablet to be very thin.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Switched On: The why of the ‘i’ buy

Posted on by

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

DNP Switched On The why of the 'i' buy

For the past few years, the media has met iPhone introductions with skepticism that precedes great sales success. This has become such a cliché that the superstitious might worry what would happen should new iPhones be introduced to universal praise. But there was no cause for worry as far as the iPhone 5c and 5s were concerned. In the weekend following their initial availability, Apple reported that it sold 9 million iPhones, which set a new record for the company.

A few of the reasons behind this success likely had less to do with the strength of the product per se. The new iPhones were launched in 11 countries as opposed to nine in the previous launch. The fast-growing market of China was one of those. It was also the first launch to include Japan's NTT DoCoMo. And back in the U.S. this marked the first time that new iPhones had been launched on all four major US carriers -- a significant shift from the product's first years as an AT&T exclusive. In fact, T-Mobile, the newest carrier to participate in an iPhone debut, has been particularly aggressive about promoting its Jump service that encourages upgrades, and its competitors have introduced their own upgrade-facilitation programs that grease the upgrade wheels for Apple and others.

Filed under:

Comments

Switched On: Microsoft’s mobile monster

Posted on by

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

DNP Switched On Microsofts mobile monster

On September 2, Microsoft announced that it would pay $7.2 billion for Nokia's handset business, including its smartphones and Asha phones aimed at consumers in developing economies. Key personnel from that business, including Nokia's former CEO Stephen Elop, would be joining Microsoft, and Nokia would now be a company that focused on location technologies (via its Here services) and wireless infrastructure (via NSN, for which it had purchased Siemens' share).

The move marked the exit of one of the most storied and, for many years, most successful mobile phone companies in history. It also marked Microsoft's entry into the handset market proper, taking an approach more aligned with Apple's than Google's. It's not only that it's the first time Microsoft has acquired a licensee, but it's also that it acquired one that had a dominant share of its licensing business in a device category.

Comments

Switched On: For Samsung, more is more

Posted on by

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

DNP Switched On For Samsung, more is more

Motorola's return to the smartphone market after a year ensconced in Googliness raised many questions about how the handset pioneer would introduce a competitive smartphone without appearing to have most-favored manufacturer status from Google. The company responded in two ways. First, instead of trying to smother the look and feel of Android, it embraced it nearly to the extent of a Nexus phone. Second, it added a few thoughtful differentiators. These include a pulsing time display that adds notifications even when the screen is off and camera activation via a twist of the wrist. More notably, it enhanced access to Google Now by enabling hands-free activation with the prefix, "OK, Google Now..."

LG, another Android handset company that had fallen from feature phone grace, came next with its G2. Like the Moto X, the G2 implements some clever sensor-driven and gestural features, including a "knock" (double-tap) to activate the screen and an automatic call-answering feature activated by putting the phone up to your face. But unlike Motorola, LG muscled up its device with a nearly bezel-free 5-inch display, a battery that more efficiently fills the case, a 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization and the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, which sees its US debut in the G2. (LG also highlighted much of its rear-mounted power and volume control placement, which is different, but not necessarily better (at least for the right-handed).

Filed under: , , ,

Comments

Switched On: More wedge, less edge, no hedge

Posted on by

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

DNP Switched On More wedge, less edge, no hedge

Casting aside such permutations as the DSi and the DSi XL, it makes ordinal sense for the Nintendo 3DS to have followed the Nintendo DS. This is true even if the "3" was for the number of dimensions and not necessarily generations (in which case it might have been named the DS 3). But it seems a bit puzzling on the face of it to come out with a product called the 2DS after the 3DS. Changing the sub-brand immediately calls the notion of compatibility into question even if one can see why Nintendo wouldn't want to include "3D" in a product that doesn't display it. (At least it's not being called "the new 3DS.")

And that's but one of the confusing things about the 2DS, in which the strongest champion of hand-held gaming hardware has eliminated the signature feature of its latest portable console generation as well as the clamshell design with which the DS series has been identified since its debut a decade ago. The result is a makeover of the portable 3D handheld that is a bit less portable and a lot less 3D.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Switched On: Windows ReTried

Posted on by

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

DNP Switched On Windows ReTried

Last week's Switched On discussed the initial confusion and rough ride for Windows RT, which became a dealbreaker for inventive PC designs that used the operating system. Despite ASUS dropping out of making Windows RT devices and joining such abstainers as HP, Acer and Toshiba, the operating system is due to be updated to include improvements in Windows 8.1, creating what will apparently be Windows RT 8.1.

While Windows RT may have survived the chopping block, Microsoft faces some tough decisions regarding its future. Here are a few scenarios on how its future may play out.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Switched On: Windows ReTreat

Posted on by

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

DNP Switched On Windows ReTreat

Today's hottest and best-selling tablets and smartphones have one thing in common: they are powered by ARM processors. Offered in such variations as NVIDIA's Tegra, Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Samsung's Exynos and Apple's A6, ARM processors dominate the leading edge of mobile products. At LG's recent announcement of its clever and well-appointed G2 smartphone, much was made of it being the first globally launched phone to include Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800; Android, in contrast, wasn't mentioned once. And the long reach of ARM extends far beyond the bleeding edge. The Hisense Sero 7 Pro -- recently cut to $129 just a few weeks after its launch -- has a Tegra 3 processor while ARM chips from Rockchip and MediaTek power Android tablets at even humbler price points.

For years, Intel has promised it would be competitive with ARM in terms of performance per watt (if not in price). It has made great strides both in its smartphone-focused Atom chips and its performance-oriented Core chips (including Haswell, the CPU behind the MacBook Air's huge gains in battery life), but those in the ARM camp have kept their processors' competitive heat up while keeping their generated heat down.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Switched On: The camera phone

Posted on by

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

DNP Switched On The camera phone

In that human-behavior lab known as the New York City subway, a vacationing family recently sought to get in a group self-portrait on their last day in the Big Apple. But the rocking train kept thwarting the capture of their jostled bodies. To frame the picture, they tried trading the quality of their smartphone's rear camera for the one above the phone's display so they could better preview the picture, but still had trouble composing the shot. Finally, a local passenger riding with them stepped in and offered to take their photo, which he did to their expressions of gratitude.

The incident served as an illustration of the often precarious situations in which we use our smartphone cameras. Had their phone been Nokia's Lumia 1020 and the stranger not intervened, the 41 megapixels of light-capturing prowess might have gone for naught as the family would've had to rely on the phone's middling front-facing camera.

Filed under: ,

Comments