Today is Droid X Day, meaning that while it’s not as big a deal as a new iPhone or anything, the Droid X launches today on Verizon Wireless.

As much as Verizon Wireless has gotten a great deal of publication, love, and overall approval from smartphone lovers and geeks alike for the release of the Droid by Motorola and the subsequent releases of other powerful exclusive Android phones like the Droid Eris and Droid Incredible by HTC, prior to their releases, leaks, and announcements, Verizon Wireless was the carrier that people begrudgingly signed on to because the voice and data networks were robust and covered the majority of the country – business signed on so they could get their employees cheap BlackBerry phones, and if you wanted a smartphone your options were BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, all on horrible horrible devices – the rest of us either had to jump ship for another carrier that had good handsets and smartphones, or we had to deal with feature phones or simple handsets because we couldn’t give up the network.

I’m in that boat – I was ready to jump ship to AT&T at the end of my contract last year just because I wanted a smartphone and Verizon Wireleess’ selection was awful; and then something glorious happened. The Droid by Motorola was released, and to this day I consider it one of the best technology purchases I’ve ever made, and I haven’t considered leaving for AT&T, iPhone or no, since then. The combination of a solid Android phone that’s not loaded up with Verizon Wireless’ standard suite of bloatware that you find on their feature phones and their amazing network, and even though I still think the iPhone is a slightly better device than the Droid, the combination of the Droid and Verizon’s network simply overwhelm the combination of the iPhone and AT&T’s network.

The odd thing is that I don’t know that I’m not the only one here. So how did this happen? Google and Verizon Wireless are closer now than they’ve ever been, and both are dedicated and determined to working together on Android phones. So did Google ride to Verizon Wireless’ rescue and save their image from cementing as the stodgy, old carrier with cheap voice handsets but good call quality, bargain basement smartphones for individual users, and the only way to get any attention from them is to have a BlackBerry and be on a business plan? Here’s a hint: I think so, and let’s dive into why after the jump.

Continue reading Spinning Gears :: Did Google Save Verizon Wireless (or At Least Its Image?)…

I had all but written off Gawker/Gizmodo’s exclusive This is Apple’s Next iPhone as an item that everyone and their mother has covered at least once – and while I admit that I was as intrigued as anyone else at the story and found it incredible and unbelievable as anyone else, I have to say that it probably is the biggest scoop pulled on Apple to date, and the biggest gaping hole in their veil of secrecy anyone’s ever found.

The poor guy who was field testing the next iPhone is likely out of work at the very least (although I hope Apple realizes he just made a mistake) and probably would like to find another job quickly at the very best (I wouldn’t want that rep to live down at work every day). Still, it was a pretty rookie mistake, but it’s not one that hasn’t been made by people at all levels of an organization in any company in the past.

This is why I was particularly interested when Anil Dash, a man for whom I have nothing but the utmost respect as a member of the technocrati, said this at Twitter earlier this week:

A simple case of human error shouldn’t be a big story. A company that treats such things as a firing offense is what’s worthy of criticism.

Now on the surface, I completely agree with Anil – he’s absolutely right. Every time someone in a company makes a mistake, it shouldn’t be some of the biggest news on the Net for the next several days, or if it keeps up like this, weeks. Additionally, I’d hate to be in his shoes, and hate to risk being fired or laid off because of a simple mistake – having a few too many beers at a bar and forgetting to pick up my phone.

Still, something about the statement nags at me a bit, and I wonder if Anil is being a little harsh because it’s clear we’re talking about Apple and the next iPhone here. Would he be as forgiving if, for example, a Microsoft engineer lost the next Zune HD prototype in a cab somewhere, and someone was smart enough to know what it was and sold it to Gawker for $5000? (the amount that Gawker paid – omitted from most of the articles about it – to get their hands on the prototype iPhone from their anonymous source)

Honestly, a Zune HD prototype found in the wild likely wouldn’t stir up quite so much media attention, but is that fact a good or bad thing? The reason why everyone’s busy covering this story – including mainstream media outlets like CNN – is because the iPhone is ridiculously popular in America and Apple has a long-held reputation for secrecy. Microsoft, for example, doesn’t have the popular product and doesn’t have the cone of silence over its labs. But when a 64GB version of the Zune HD was leaked on a couple of Web sites a few weeks back, tech blogs still covered it. Is that a bad thing, according to Anil?

What about a corporate employee or CEO who leaves a laptop on a plane or in a cab; a laptop that contains proprietary information about the company, or Personally Identifiable Information (PII) about their customers? Sure – it’s orders of magnitude of difference, but we’ve seen heavier media scrutiny when a government contractor leaves a hard drive in a cab than this kid leaving a prototype iPhone in a bar, and we summarily expect that contractor or CEO to be fired for their negligence.

Sure, sure – a laptop with personally identifiable data on it doesn’t just harm the company, it harms its customers and the people whose information has been compromised; the impact is much wider than a simple prototype cell phone, so the consequences have to be broader to match the transgression – but they’re both still simple cases of human error. If the government contractor or the bank that lost the personal data fires the employee who lost it, are they equally “worthy of scrutiny?”

I’m in the camp where I would sincerely hope that Apple doesn’t cut this poor kid loose – he’s obviously got talent and a history of trustworthiness or else he wouldn’t have gotten the prototype in the first place. Even so, I can’t deny that when a hard drive full of credit card numbers or social security numbers goes missing, we as the public expect someone to be held accountable – we’re not in quite the forgiving mood that Anil is in. It’s possible it’s just because one affects us directly and the other only affects people interested and even then in a tangential way.

Still – I have to wonder if Anil’s perspective is colored a bit. By what, I’m not certain. If he read this, he would probably take me to task for using the slippery slope argument too much, and acknowledge that 140 characters isn’t a lot of space to get into nuance, and I agree on both counts. Like I said at the beginning, I completely agree with him, I just wonder if we should be so forgiving in this case, or – more preferably – maybe we should be more forgiving in all such cases.

Last week’s launch of the Apple iPad was probably a bigger splash than I expected in any possible way. I mean, I expected the product to be successful – any Apple product generally is, and the first Apple product to pave the way into an entirely new market will do well because it’s the first; but as of today Apple’s passed the 500,000 mark when it comes to iPads sold, and they’ve only been available for over a week. If trends go strong, Apple could very well rack up over a million iPads sold in its first month.

A lot of people like the iPad, a lot of people hate it, and there are both valid and completely invalid reasons on both sides of that line (I’ve written about as much about irrational Apple hate lately as I have about irrational Apple love) but the one thing that’s caught my eye is the visible explosion of the app market with the launch of the iPad. Selling apps is nothing new – the App store is populated with free and paid apps available for your iPhone, Android phone, Blackberry, and more, and for as much as I disagree with the people who claim the iPad is just a glorified iPod Touch, they’ve been available for iPod Touch users as well.

What’s different though is that with the launch of the iPad, all of the apps launched have made use of the iPad as a platform – somewhere between buying software for a shiny new computer (as well as downloading freeware) and apps for a mobile phone. Clearly Apple’s model is closer to apps for a mobile phone than software for a computer, but with the announcement of iPhone OS 4.0, Apple’s portable devices and tablets are looking more and more like computers every day.

The point though is this: the app market has exploded and people are willing to do two things:

1. Buy apps by the bushel (but decline to pay for PC software)
2. Buy apps but demand Web content remain free (within reason)

Let’s dive into both of these below the jump.

Continue reading Spinning Gears :: Will the iPad Save Publishing and Content Producers?…

Earlier this week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft took the stage and finally announced a product that people in the mobile space have been waiting for for a long time: Windows Mobile 7, or more appropriately (since Microsoft re-dubbed the product a couple of months ago “Windows Phone,”) Windows Phone 7 Series. Windows Phone 7 will be Microsoft’s new mobile operating system, replacing the aging and unattractive Windows Mobile 6.5 that’s the mainstay of a number of enterprise-class and tech-savvy smartphones currently on the market.

Faced with stiff competition in the smartphone space from companies like Apple and Google, Microsoft was forced to come to the table with something strong or risk falling even father behind in the smartphone space – a slip that likely would have met with their downfall in the mobile marketplace. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile has never been a particularly strong OS, and the bulk of its functionality came from the fact that because it’s a Microsoft product and Exchange is also a Microsoft product, the only competition for it on the corporate side has been RIM’s BlackBerry, which unseated Windows Mobile in a huge way. Now, Windows Mobile looks dated, aged, and reminds us of an era when it’s major competition was the old Palm OS (not to be confused with Palm’s WebOS, which is on its new smartphones.)

Windows Phone 7 on the other hand, looks incredible. It’s been updated, it looks modern, it looks sleek, it’s got integration with your social networks and services, it’s got a stunning touch-screen interface, and it brings in two of Microsoft’s most successful properties to the mobile space: Zune and XBox Live. That’s right – your music and your Windows Phone 7 Series device will sync with Zune marketplace and you can snag your music from there, and your mobile gaming experience will be integrated with XBox Live. This alone proves that Microsoft means business and is rolling up its sleeves in the mobile space again.

But it’ll take more than rolled up sleeves and determination to make people abandon their iPhones and G1s for a Windows Phone 7 device.

Before we dive into why, here’s a hands-on video with Windows Phone 7 by my friend Sascha Segan at PC Magazine, who was out at the Mobile World Congress and got to see a live demo of the new operating system:

Continue reading Spinning Gears :: Thoughts on Windows Phone 7…

VIdeo game console manufacturers, set-top box makers, and even television manufacturers are all clawing to get their hands on a partnership with Netflix or Blockbuster Online so buyers can do what they obviously want to do; stream audio and video straight to their HDTVs.

The rationale is simple – streaming Netflix and Blockbuster Online over broadband to the home has become a huge part of both companies’ business models, and clearly video on demand is the future of rented movies and material. Even Netflix’s CEO said that they expect their physical disc-mailing business to decline over the next several years as their streaming business soars.

So clearly the general public is happier with paying for temporary access to video content, whether they pay Netflix or Blockbuster Online to send them DVD or Blu-Ray discs straight to their homes, where they watch them and then return them in a mailer or they get the content streamed directly to their XBox 360 or their Boxee Box or their HTPC. We’re all comfortable with the concept that we pay a monthly fee to watch as many movies as we can stand or the mail can deliver to us, and when we’re finished watching or we send it back, the movie’s gone forever unless we want to watch it again. When we cancel our accounts with Netflix or Blockbuster Online, our access to that content is gone forever.

So, then, why isn’t the same for subscription music services? The Zune Marketplace, Rhapsody, Napster, all of those services operate using exactly the same business model, if not more generous than the video services’ are. The Zune Marketplace, for example, gives you a number of credits you can spend monthly to download and permanently own the songs you really like, instead of losing access to them if you ever terminate your account. Netflix doesn’t say every month “you’ve been such a great customer, why don’t you keep these movies from your queue, go ahead, take them,” but in order for a service like the Zune Marketplace to survive, they have to.

Why are we so okay with essentially leasing our movies from Netflix and Blockbuster Online, but we’re not okay with leasing our music from Zune Marketplace and Rhapsody in the exact same way? I have a couple of ideas, but it mostly has to do with history and perception – not functionality. Let’s dive in.

Continue reading Spinning Gears :: Why Are Rented Movies Okay but Rented Music Not?…

So Facebook has announced a number of changes to its privacy policy – turns out the whole “networks” thing, which most people used as their high school, middle school, city or town, or workplace, were ambiguous ways that people were allowing others they may not have intended to have access to their profiles to get access to those profiles. It’s not so much closing a loophole as it is the advancement of a privacy policy that Facebook has been working on for a long long time.

In a blog post at Facebook, founder Mark Zuckerberg noted that these are only part of the changes – privacy settings will be simplified so you only allow access to one of three groups: friends, friends and their friends, or everyone. While everyone is talking about how this change will streamline privacy settings and change the way you allow people to access your profile and the information on it, and how it’s removing the concept of “networks” as an outmoded way of creating an artificial sphere of influence (Zuckerberg correctly points out it’s clearly a holdover from when Facebook was organized by participating schools), there’s a couple of things – namely how the new privacy settings will allow you to choose who sees what as you post it – that I think are worth talking about.

Let’s dive in behind the jump.

Continue reading Spinning Gears :: Facebook Privacy Changes May Actually Make It Useful…

I’ve been mulling over this column for a long long time, and it’s pretty difficult to write, but some recent developments have really thrust the topic forward. Let me give you the breakdown first: there’s a problem with Linux: it’s just not ready for prime time. As much as Ubuntu users will cry the opposite, and while admittedly they have the most robust and close to prime time version of Linux for the desktop available, it’s just not there yet – it’s not an OS that anyone would seriously install on a system for the average user. The fact is that virtually every distribution of Linux is still too bulky, too difficult to administer and manage, too quirky, and too poorly supported.

This isn’t news in and of itself; the Linux community has been struggling under its own weight for years now, with half of it complaining that if you can’t figure out how to manage and administer Linux distros on your own then you have no right using it (the elitists), and the other half begging and pleading with the rest of the community to build a version of Linux for the desktop that can actually get some traction with everyday people and some support from software developers other than ones who want to port Windows apps to it (the populists). This schism is at the heart of the problem, and it always has been.

But lately, there’s been a dramatic shift in the Linux landscape, and it hasn’t had to do with this schism – it’s been in the way that other companies have gotten behind customized distributions of Linux for selected platforms and really put their weight behind advancing them, each in their own specific way. The big news? They’re (almost) skipping entirely over desktop Linux in favor of mobile platforms.

Let’s dive into this a bit more behind the jump.

Continue reading Spinning Gears: The Linux “Problem,” and How Apple and Google Are Solving It…

I’ve often wondered what steampunk would look like if it (and we, as I’m more than a fan of steampunk, I wholeheartedly embrace it as a subculture) had more opporutnities for perspective outside of victorian-era Europe. Of course the euro-centricity of steampunk is natural; the idea stemmed from the wonder of what the past, present, and possibly future would look like if the industrial revolution had been built on steam and steam-powered technologies instead of the dominance of coal-fired and gas-powered technologies that we adopted instead. If steam still powered our cars and massive airships still roamed the skies, for example. The very idea comes from the technologies prevalent in Europe during the Edwardian and Victorian eras.

That being said, it’s not like Europe was the only part of the world to play with steam-powered technologies, and if that rose to prominence in Europe, I’d be curious to see what some of the other prevailing regional technologies could have arisen in other parts of the world without the same influence of Europeans at the same time periods. In other words, what would a steampunk-style Asia look like? Or Africa? Maybe South America? What would a steampunk Incan or Aztec city look like? How about a steampunk (or equivalent technology) Masai tribe? What about a steampunk Japan (we got a brief glimpse in a skit in the collection of Anime shorts called Robot Carnival where a steam-powered, wooden giant “robot” built for a Japanese festival faces off against a western steam-powered invading robot come to crash the ceremonies.

Videos and more thoughts behind the jump:

Continue reading Spinning Gears: What Would Steampunk Look Like Outside of Europe?…

David Pogue took some heat on last week’s This Week in Tech (TWiT) with Leo Laporte and John C. Dvorak (the generally out-of-touch-but-entertaining-anyway crankmaster himself) over being actually bubbly and happy about some of the good products he’s reviewed. When he finds a good product, he’ll laud it with praise, and when he finds a bad one he actually offers constructive criticism about the product. Pogue makes no secret of the fact that he has a fondness for Apple products, but sees flaws in them like anyone else would, and lives a cross-platform life – much like yours truly, on all of those counts.

Maybe that’s why I can relate to him to a certain extent. I also do product write-ups and reviews for a number of online publications and pride myself on being as impartial as I can be and honest about my opinions about a product. If Apple releases a stinker, I like to think that I’m able to call them out for doing so instead of sweeping it under the rug, for example. Similarly, if I’m reviewing a new gadget or product and it’s just horrible to configure and use, I’ll call that out in my review. By the same token, if I get my hands on something and it’s absolutely fabulous and I love it, I’m going to be bubbly and happy about it and suggest that other people try it as well.

I don’t have nearly the clout that David Pogue does, but after the crankiness and general jadedness I heard from some of the other panelists on that episode of TWiT, I had to stop and say to myself: what’s wrong with being happy when you find a good product? What’s wrong with championing good services as well as calling out the bad ones? Have we as an industry of technology writers and geeks and people passionate about tech become so incredibly jaded that we can’t even enjoy the good products and services when they’re available to us?

Let’s dive into that a little bit more after the jump.

Continue reading Spinning Gears :: What’s Wrong with Good Reviews? (or, Why Snark is the Mind-Killer)…

I make no qualms about how much I love Twitter (you can follow me at @halophoenix), even love Plurk (I’m halophoenix there also), but hate Facebook with a passion. Why? It’s all about the way you use your social networks – or the way your social networks use you.

This is also the answer to a question a friend of mine (a friend in more ways than social networking, which is worthwhile to point out) put to her Livejournal followers a few weeks back. She asked, in a nutshell, whether the proliferation of social networks and ways to connect and communicate with people like Facebook and Twitter and even long-form blogging and community blogging like Livejournal is a way for people to share their lives with people, connect with friends and loved ones that they truly want to stay in touch with, or whether it’s little more than a new, technologically-based way for people to stroke their own egos and put on a “my life is better than yours” show for their so-called friends to see.

The answer really is that it’s both, and which one you experience depends highly on you and the type of community you decide to keep on all of those services. While I can’t claim that it’s entirely dependent on you and that you have complete control over what your social networks look like, you do have control over who you let into your social circles and who you exclude: who gets in behind the velvet rope and who doesn’t.

Full disclosure (and some personal examples) behind the jump.

Continue reading Spinning Gears: Social Networking: Reconnecting, Preening, or Just Depressing?…