mip's scan

A Quick Look at the iPod Touch

So for the past while I've been enjoying the use of the iPod Touch.  There have been numerous reviews of this device and so I'm not going to do an exhaustive review of every little feature here.  Suffice it to say that the iPod Touch lives up to the hype.  Often with new technology, the hype around a new product grows so large that when the device is finally released it has no chance of living up to the hype surrounding it.  The iPod Touch (and first the iPhone) had a lot of hype.  I'm happy to say though that it all works as advertised.  Dive into the video review I've got below; there I'll step through some of some of the smaller, not often mentioned aspects of this device.  It is the little things, the small attention to detail that Apple gives it products, that really enhance the ongoing use of a product.

A Demo of the Sony DSC-T200

Hi everyone!  I'm so glad to see a lively discussion taking place at the 2 posts I created regarding the DSC-T200 digital camera from Sony (you can see them here and here). So here is a my follow on post with a video demonstration of this great little camera.  You can see th video below and then I've got some further details and photos samples after you click through the rest of this post!

Awaiting the iPod Touch

Of course by now you know that Apple introduced a refresh to its iPod line and in that announcement, the also introduced the iPod Touch.  I can hardly wait for this device to arrive!  I didn't want to write anything about the iPod Touch until I'd actually received it, because I like to be able to give firsthand info about the tech I write about, and not just regurgitate the news.  And rest assured, I will do a detailed post on the iPod Touch when I receive it at the end of September / start of October. 

But I thought I'd would post a thought about one application I am really looking forward to using on my iPod Touch, an application that hasn't appeared anywhere in the demos or other press releases.  I'm looking forward to being able to use Typepad, the tool I use for posting my blog.  I read with interest the details this morning as I was working on some posts-in-progress.

I have a small Typepad app on my HTC smartphone that I've used from time-to-time, but I find it to be a very bare-bones, lackluster application that misses key functionality for me. The Typepad interface for the iPhone looks gorgeous, but more than that, it looks very functional.  It allows me to manage my blog and not just put out posts.  I like that a lot.  I have found that the Typepad application I use on my HTC is more like a simple text editor, while the one for the iPhone give a much richer end-user experience to make posting blog items as natural as when sitting down at your computer.  Of course, to use this on an iPod Touch, you'd need to be leveraging the WiFi rather than being to type up a post and then simply push it out.  But the reality for me is that I'm always around WiFi enabled locations, from my home, to coffee shops to being up at the cottage, so I don't see this as being an issue. I think being able to simply turn my iPod Touch on its side, have the screen automatically go into landscape mode and begin typing posts will be an absolute joy!

And so, of course there will be many many things for me to like about the new iPod Touch, but knowing I can blog easily from it is the icing on the cake for me.  The sad part is....the end of September seems so far away. 

Stay tuned for more!

I Received My Sony DSC-T200

I was thrilled to receive my DSC-T200 2 days ago!  You'll recall that I wrote about it a short while ago and that I'd pre-ordered it before it even officially went on sale!  Well, after 2 days of playing with this camera, I must say, I am very pleased.  There are several things I really like about the T200.  First, I like the size.  It is so compact!  It is also very light.  I carried it in my shirt pocket yesterday and hardly noticed it was there. 

Secondly, I love the display screen.  It is huge!  At 3.5" it takes up the entire back of the unit.  That of course does have one thing that will take getting use to - where to grab/hold the camera.  It is an odd feeling when taking a picture to only hold the camera by the outer frame since if I hold it as I normally held my old camera, I am really holding it by the screen!   But the large LCD screen is great for viewing pictures.  It is also a touch screen and I find it to be a very natural set of controls.  Of course, with any such "touch" device, carrying a small cloth to wipe the screen is a must. 

The face detection and smile shutter work exactly as advertised.  I love those two features.  What is nice about the smile shutter is that once you select the subject by tapping the face, the camera will not take a picture until that person smiles.  As soon as they smile...CLICK...the camera shoots the picture.  What is nice is that it will go on tracking the face and keep taking pictures each time they smile until you press the shutter button again.  This will be nice for birthdays as the kids unwrap gifts.  I'll just keep the camera trained on them and as soon as they smile as they unwrap that "I-absolutely-wanted-this-gift" - CLICK - the shot will be captured. 

I will give a more detailed review once I've used the camera a bit more and I'll post some sample shots.  I love that I can shot in 16:9 format - looks awesome on my widescreen Macbook Pro.   I'll probably include some video in the review since it'll be hard to have the DSC-T200 take pictures of itself!

Is the Pen Mightier Than The Computer?

This post comes from watching my daughter use a new piece of tech.  It is called the Fly Fusion and basically, it is a pen with smarts.  To understand how it works (because this is not a review of than pen - that will come later once I shoot some video) check out their Fly World site.  Watching my daughter use this pen as she wrote on paper, but was capturing it into her computer, it got me thinking.

After all these years that computers have promised the paperless environment (homes, offices, schools, etc), we still have paper, and lots of it.  The computer promised it, but never got there.  The Tablet PC promised it, but that never really took off.  Could it be that perhaps we've been chasing the wrong the dream and shouldn't be striving for a paperless world?  Could it be that we need to embrace the 5000 year old technology we call paper?  Perhaps the future is not in desktop, laptop or palmtop computing, but rather, perhaps it is pentop computing?

Smile: Sony DSC-T200

My tried, trusted and true Canon Powershot that I got 6 years ago has finally reached the end of the line for me.  The battery hardly hold a charge, the sliding cover has become so loose that at times when it is opened the camera doesn't turn on.  I love this camera.  It has been a good little 4 megapixel camera for me, capturing thousands of pictures of the past 6 years.

Alas, I have been hunting for a new camera and had several important objectives.  Obviously, it has to take good pictures, and I wanted a decent optical zoom.  I also wanted a camera with a large LCD display for viewing pics.  Laslty, I wanted something that would shoot in HD.  Well, minutes ago, I pre-ordered a newly released camera from Sony, the DSC-T200.  I can't wait for this to arrive.  It has some very impressive features.  Read on to find out what has me so excited about this sleek camera.

StreetPilot c330

This is not a new piece of tech.  It is new for me, but not in terms of being out in the market.  But that's ok, because here on mip's scan, it isn't always about breaking tech news.  It is about talking about real world use of technology. 

I'd been wanting an in-car GPS for a while.  I was using a neat Bluetooth transmitter that sat on my dash and then leveraged Google Maps on my smartphone (more on this setup in a future post).  While it was a neat setup, it wasn't always practical.  It didn't work well, for example, because

1. I would be in the middle of navigating and I'd get a phone call
2. I was in an area where cellular data coverage wasn't great and the maps wouldn't refresh quickly enough
3. no audio turn-by-turn directions
4. was hard on the battery

So I decided to purchase an in-car dedicated unit.  Here are my thoughts on the StreetPilot c330.

Skype and the Netgear SPH101

A long while back I spoke in a podcast about the wonderful Skype phone from Netgear, the SPH101.  I didn't do a full blog review on this phone at the time because I had just been using it a few days.  So here now is a full review of this little VoiP phone.  Over the Christmas holidays there were lots of phone calls being made to friends and family in different cities - all on this Skype phone.  Between myself, my wife and my visiting family we easily used 10 hours of talk time catching up with people.

The SPH101 performs very well.  The sound quality is excellent and I didn't realize that it had a built in speaker phone when I bought it. The speak phone is a nice addition and works well.

The user interface is very nice and the display of your contacts is much better than the previous USB-connect vTech phone.  You can see contacts coming on and offline and call them very easily with a single click. 

The phone connects to my Wi-Fi at home without any issue.  Of course I had to set it up the first time with my WEP key and other security items but it was fairly straightforward and took about 5 minutes to do so.  After that, whenever you power on the phone, it finds the Wi-Fi router, connects and then logs into Skype.  I've also taken it with me to other places (peoples homes, open public Wi-Fi connections, etc) and it finds the WiFi access, connects and I'm good to go.  You can't use it unfortunately in a public hotspot like you might find in a Starbucks for instance, because that would require you to login/connect via browser to your account.  This phone doesn't work that way. The reality for me however is that I'm using this phone 95% of the time in my home and it works super well.  I'm planning on taking it with me over seas in March so I can use the hotel Wi-Fi and make inexpensive calls home.

If I have any complaints with regard to the SPH101 it is the battery life.  I was finding that often when I would go to use the phone, the battery would be dead.  It is Wi-Fi so of course after several hours of being connected, the battery finds itself dead.  What I do is simply keep the phone plugged in all the time in our kitchen.  When I want to make a call, I unplug it and use it, no problem.  I spoke for an hour and had drained about half the battery.  Then I plugged it back in.  You can of course use it plugged in as well, just that then you can't walk around with it.  My wife however often just sits at the kitchen table with the phone plugged in and talks away without any battery draining at all, obviously.

I should say a word about Skype itself since that is the service this phone uses.  Through 2006 Skype allowed us to make free calls in Canada and the US.  This ended January 1st, but don't despair.  The package they are offering is awesome.  If you order before January 31st, for $14.95 you can get a year of unlimited calling in Canada and the US.  International calls will be 2.1 cents a minute.  Get all the details here.

So given the great offering from Skype and the excellent performance from the Netgear Skype phone I'd recommend it to anyone looking to leverage this tech in their home or small business.   

The Zune Strategy

Ah...the joys of being right once and a while.  Remember my post from a few days ago where I said that the real iPod killer will simply be Microsoft throwing gobs of money away to gain marketshare?  Well with today's announcement on the Zune pricing, it would seem to be exactly Microsoft's strategy.

The Redmond, Washington-based software giant has said it plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and market the Zune, and acknowledged the investment may take years to bear fruit.

You can read in the announcement that Microsoft doesn't plan to make any money on the Zune this holiday season - they are fully prepared to sell it at a lose.  This is where it becomes tricky and dangerous for Apple.  They can't really afford to take "years of loses" like Microsoft.  I repeat my mantra from before.  This is the time, now that the Zune features and pricing have all been announced, that Apple should strike fast with their next generation iPod to put real distance between themselves and Microsoft.  Failure to do so will see market erosion, reduced revenue and perhaps a spectacular stumble as Sony did with the Playstation products.

Could "This" Be the Real iPod Killer?

What is "this" that I am talking about? 

Money.

That is something that Microsoft has a lot of.  A couple of weeks ago someone sent me an email that alluded to the fact that Microsoft's Zune might not knock the iPod from its market dominant position, but that future versions of it could.  The argument went like this: remember when the Xbox came out, and Sony's PS2 continued to dominate.  But Microsoft sold the Xbox at a loss, never turning a profit on it and then rapidly came out with the next version of it before Sony could deliver the PS3.  If Microsoft can do that with the xBox, is the Zune destined to take the same strategic path?  Microsoft could sell the device at a loss and continue to evolve it until it bested the iPod.  Apple on the other hand does not have the luxury of selling the devices at a loss.

I thought about that approach, and then let it go.  Then I read another opinion piece on another very good blog, Blackfriars' Marketing and they drove the point home even more.  What if Microsoft decided to simply give the Zune away, say sell it for $99?  Now they'd have pushed the price down so far that it could be an impulse buy.  Something people could/would buy and figure, "hey, if it sucks, who cares....I only spent $99."   In this give-it-away-for-nothing scenario it could indeed cause Apple to falter and stumble in the same way that Sony did.  The reason would be, because Apple can't afford to give the iPod away at a loss.  Microsoft has deep pockets and has often given products away by subsidizing them with dollars from their cash cow products, like Windows XP and Microsoft Office. 

Now I still stand by my belief that end users want a complete and robust end-to-end user experience and not necessarily a less expensive device.  If it was cost, then there have been many devices that have already come and gone that cost less than the iPod.  But what if Microsoft delivers an experience that is not as good, but pretty good and virtually free?  Give the device away and make money on subscription fees.  That's what they are doing with the Xbox 360 right?  Losing money on the hardware and making it up on games and Xbox Live?  This pressure that is created by not having to be concerned with what a product launch does to the bottom line is exactly what has caused Sony to become utterly incapacitated by Microsoft.  The same could happen to Apple and we could see the iPod lose marketshare. 

Is all this good for the consumer?  Sadly it isn't.  Microsoft did it with Internet Explorer to kill off Netscape and what did it leave us?  Years where nothing was ever done to advance the web browser.  As soon as Microsoft manages to drive a stake into the heart of Sony, do you think that we'll see revolutionary things being done with the next Xbox?  Not a chance.  Once the competition has been eliminated then it is time to stay the course and begin to make back the money that you lost in the early years.  The same I'm afraid would be true with the iPod.  Once Microsoft could gain a toehold on the market and eventually dominate, they would limit choice and simply make money from the current basket of Zune-products at hand. 

So will it be a single device that comes along to kill the iPod?  No.  It'll be slow death grip that Microsoft applies to slowly try and chock the air supply (cash flow) of Apple's world class product.  What Apple needs to do to ensure that they don't become roadkill like Sony's  next generation game machine is to move quickly and outpace Microsoft.  They need to continue to differentiate the total user experience.  By doing so they can refuse to play Microsoft's price game and force Microsoft to come play their game of innovation.  I was disappointed that Apple didn't launch the next-gen iPod that we thought they did, but perhaps they were bidding their time? Perhaps they want Microsoft to release the Zune and then, once the market sees what it is and what it is priced at, Apple will effectively say "That's nice...but so last year...here is the new standard in portable entertainment."  Then no matter what price Microsoft sets the Zune at, be it $99 or $9, Apple can stay out of arms length.

It is a constant cycle of innovation and not allowing the "other" guy to catch up.  In the scenario of Apple vs. Microsoft however, it isn't just innovation that Apple needs to worry about, its the deep pockets and patience of the Redmond giant.