Amazon has joined the trend set by Samsung in knocking Apple in its commercials. Amazon’s latest commercial for its range of Kindle devices goes all out to make the point that you can buy three Kindle devices for the cost of one iPad. That would be two Kindle Fire tablets and one Kindle which would come to a total cost of $477.

This is not the first time that Amazon has made comparisons with the iPad. In a previous Kindle commercial, Amazon made the point that the Kindle was easier to read in direct sunlight, is smaller, lighter and less expensive than Apple’s iPad too. This time it is purely about the price and no mention of feature comparisons.

The Kindle Fire does appear to be the closest competitor to the iPad so far. It is extremely cheap to buy at just $199 however it also lacks a lot of the main features that the iPad has to offer. It will be interesting to see how it is selling if Amazon ever reveals any figures.

Source: TNW

Luckily for Sony, soon to be appointed CEO Kaz Hirai formed a User Experience Group and culled all but one of the projects. This lead to the development of Sony’s Tablet S hardware along with its Playstation suite integration.

The company had long had a reputation for creating ‘silos,’ or divisions that operated in isolation from each other. Aside from creating a disunited front, it sometimes led to segments being actively jealous of each other and refusing to collaborate. Walkman and home theater groups, for example, didn’t get the cooperation from Sony’s own music and movie groups to make digital media stores.

Source: WSJ via Electronista

iOS devices combined — including iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch — may have outsold Android devices combined — including Android phones and tablets — by a narrow margin last quarter. During the Q1 2012 Apple conference call today, Tim Cook pegged the iOS device number at 62 million. Android numbers are harder to come by, but last month Andy Rubin said 700,000 were now being activated a day. Given the prior two months were likely less, the following month perhaps more, it probably works out to 60 or 61 million.

During the same call, Tim Cook also revealed that the Amazon Kindle Fire had no affect on iPad sales, far he can tell. Sprint ultimately paid dearly to get the iPhone on their network in order to remain competitive. Verizon announced their results today, and revealed that slightly more than half of their smartphone sales were iPhones.

Apple has long dominated their competitors in terms of smartphone profit share but recently Android was assumed to have a big lead in market share. I’ve long discounted that, saying it’s irrelevant.

And nothing that was announced today changes that.

Apple released the iPhone 4S last quarter, almost 3 months later than many people anticipated. There was massive pent up demand for the iPhone 4S and it sold gangbusters. But Apple probably isn’t releasing another new iPhone this quarter. Or next. Or the one after that. But there will be new Android phones. Maybe not next quarter, but certainly the one after, running Android 4.0 and likely once again upping the spec fight.

Carriers, who can control Android in ways Apple will never allow them to control iPhones, will push these new devices heavily — like they did the original Droid and a plethora of devices since — and many buyers, geek tweakers and feature-phone replacers alike, will buy them.

The market share trends and figures will change and likely change again.

But they’ll constantly be irrelevant. Because they ultimately don’t matter.

Earlier this month I walked into an Apple Store with scratches on my iPhone 4S screen and walked out 30 min. later with a new iPhone 4S and a stern lecture about taking better care of my gear. And without paying a dime.

Last week Apple released iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U, taking the first steps towards mainstreaming digital education.

Just this week, as is almost always the case, I downloaded apps with UI so well designed, UX so thoughtful, they made me smile and delight in using my iPhone and iPad again.

The best devices, the best software, the best service. That’s relevant. As a consumer, that’s what matters. Not Apple’s numbers. Not Google’s numbers. That’s what all companies should be fiercely fighting over. Delighting us. That’s the metric they should all be measured by.

That should be the competition.

It seems Acer and Samsung didn’t even wait for CES 2012 to officially start before announcing AcerCloud, PicStream, and SwipeIt, or basically what Apple announced in 2011. Acer was up first with a service called AcerCloud that sounds suspiciously like iCloud, even substituting PicStream for Photo Stream. Hmm…

And if that’s not enough, Samsung — who have made it something of a habit to copy Apple — have now gone so far as it to create an AirPlay clone called — I kid you not! — SwipeIt.

About the only thing left is the race to see who will launch the first real Siri competitor. While third party attempts like Iris, Google’s Majel project, etc. made some early noise, as did fake — and now removed — “Official” Siri for Android apps, it’s only a matter of time before someone like Samsung or Google themselves go all in on a Siri-like service all their own.

Imitation is still the sincerest form of flattery, right?

Source: Android Central

The late Steve Jobs called 2011 “the year of the iPad 2″ and almost a year after it was introduced, almost 2 years after the original iPad was introduced, it remains a product selling in the tens of millions with absolutely no competition in sight.

And that’s a shame because, as a consumer, the one thing I want most is strong, meaningful competition for the iPad.

It’s become a cliche to say “there’s no tablet market, there’s only an iPad market”, but like most cliches there’s more than a little truth to it. Very few people want a tablet. Not in the 10 years prior to the iPad when Microsoft sold Tablet PC to almost no one, and not in the almost two years since when Apple’s competition has tried to differentiate themselves by being more like PCs.

The simple truth is, the iPad was never designed to be a tablet. It was never designed to be a PC crammed into a slate form factor. Like they did with command line on the Apple II, and graphical interfaces on the Mac, and multitouch on the iPhone, Apple strove to make something that was more mainstream, more accessible than what had come before. It just turned out to look like a tablet.

For many people, PCs — personal computers — are anything but. They’re complicated, impenetrable stacks of boxes and webs of cables, with mice that never move right, buttons that never click right, windows that hide other windows, programs that make little sense, and files and folders that are as frustrating to find as they are to figure out how to use. They’re like cars back in the days when you had to be a mechanic to own and operate one, and very few people did.

The iPad is the opposite of that. You turn it on. You click home. You tap an app. You click home. You tap another app. You know where you are and if you get lost you’re always only a click away from getting back to some place familiar. It’s more approachable. It’s more understandable. It does 80% of the things 80% of the people need 80% of the time and that, it turns out, is a huge swathe more than most PCs could ever do for most people.

That’s why Apple is selling a so many of them, and why their competitors aren’t.

To compete with Apple, everything from RIM’s PlayBook to Google’s Android Honeycomb tablets offered more specs and more desktop-class power. To the exact people who wanted anything but.

Powerful multitasking metaphors don’t help people who think their internet is gone because their browser is lost behind their word processor. Flash doesn’t help mainstream consumers who have no idea what it is, even if their more obscure web video sites don’t play without it. Tegra II processors don’t help wives who just want to know why their messages won’t scroll without sticking and stammering. Bezel gestures and on-screen widgets don’t help people who just, for once in their technology plagued lives, want simple controls, for a simple screen, that does one app at a time and does it very, very well. Copying the iPad’s look won’t help when the software running it doesn’t work with anything approaching the same simplicity or feel.

Apple understood this back in 2005 when they started work on the Safari Pad concept, and while even they didn’t full get it when they made it manifest in 2010, they got it enough to release the iPad, and they got it even more in 2011 with the iPad 2, iOS 5, and iCloud.

It’s not about being thinner, or lighter, or faster. It’s not about specs or about content. It’s about experience. And now, as we enter 2012, as Apple is poised to release an iPad 3 with a Retina display that runs mobile software even better than GarageBand and iMovie, not a single one of their competitors have gotten that yet.

Until they do, until Amazon or Google or someone else puts the mainstream customer first, every year for the foreseeable future will be the year of the iPad.

Samsung has seemingly stepped up its spat with Apple by releasing an ad that not only resembles an iPad ad but incredulously even uses one of the same girls that Apple has used in one of its ads.

The new Samsung ad is for its Galaxy Tab device, it shows a young girl using the device for various tasks like reading and gaming.  Apple used the same girl originally in one of its iPhone 4S advertisements. The Samsung ad is definitely shot in a very similar way to an Apple ad too. This is either one amazing coincidence or more likely Samsung is going out of its way to provoke and copy Apple. The iPhone 4S ad is below so you can see the same actor in both ads.

Source: TNW

RIM announced their Q3 2011 results today, including the bloodbath that is PlayBook sales, and clusterfrak that is BlackBerry 10 superphones not being available until late 2012.

RIM needs to either get it together and become the competition we sorely need, or hope their stock drops low enough that CrackBerry Kevin can buy them with left over watch money and turn them around himself.

Either way, it deeply angers me to have to say, I informed you thusly.

• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via RSS: Audio | Video
• Download directly: Audio | Video

Rene, Georgia, and Seth talk using iPhones at work, what apps make the home screen, the Siri ad, iCloud and battery life issues, camera improvements, celebrating Steve Jobs, and Hal 9000. This is iPhone Live!

Meta

• iPad Live 79: 4 geeks and a beard
• Iterate 9: Zhephree
• ZENandTECH 20: Communication
• TiPb Asks: What apps are on your main iPhone 4S home screen?
• Seth: How I use my iPhone as CIO of a web and app development company
• Ally: How I use my iPhone to run a small iOS device repair, development and consulting business

iOS 5, iPhone 4S, and iCloud

• Apple airs first iPhone 4S commercial, focuses on Siri
• How to fix battery life problems with iOS 5 or iPhone 4S
• Poll: How’s iCloud working for you?
• How much has the iPhone camera improved over the years?
• Sprint working to fix slow iPhone 4S data speeds?
• T-Mobile US says they’re waiting on Apple, AWS-capable iPhone

News

• Apple posts Celebrating Steve video from October 19 Event.
• 60 Minutes: Steve Jobs [Videos]
• Aaron Sorkin being courted for Steve Jobs biography, the movie?
• iCloud data center to be powered by the sun?

The competition

• 2009 iPhone 3GS gets iOS 5, 2010 Nexus One doesn’t get Android 4.0
• Can Nokia + Microsoft’s new Lumia give iPhone a run for its money?

Accessories

• Nest learning thermostat helps iPhone users save energy
• IRIS 9000 lets you use Siri from across the room, HAL 9000 style

Hosts

Credits

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

Clearly a conspiracy to force me to buy a Galaxy Nexus…

Dan from WPCentral is over in London getting his formerly slab-hating hands on the first steel and glass tech to run Windows Phone 7.5 Mango… from Nokia. It’s dubbed Lumia and Dan wants one. Badly.

The device is pretty smashing. The screen really is one of the best we’ve ever seen both in terms of color (“wet” blacks) and just how it pops up at you. The touch sensitivity, always a finicky setting, seems perfect to us on the device as well. The unibody design makes it truly an elegant piece of art and with a top notch camera, really makes this an excellent device.

Check out the video, and WPCentral‘s complete Nokia World and Lumia coverage and then let us know — do you think Nokia and Microsoft together can give iPhone I run for its money?

Busy day in tech yesterday, with Android Central running a never-ending live blog, covering everything from the new Motorola RAZR to the Galaxy Nexus, to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). If there’s a common hardware thread to be had, it’s that Android continues to spit out phones that are big, thin, and as wedged as an iPhone 5 rumor. The Galaxy Nexus in fact, with a 4.65 inch screen looks big enough for me to hollow out and use as an iPhone 4S case. Pretty much top-tier components all around, including innovative features like NFC beam for content sharing and facial recognition-based unlocking. The camera seems strangely weak, however, and Super AMOLED while bright and beautiful still doesn’t seem as well balanced as LED.

As to RAZR, where’s the flip? My old RAZR flipped. Just saying…

ICS seems to deliver on the promise of merging phone-bound Gingerbread to tablet-bound Honeycomb, creating a consistent UI that scales across the vast range of Android device sizes. It looks like they finally let Matias Duarte — the designer of webOS who went over to Google — loose to interesting effect. There’s a new font, which clones Helvetica better than Microsoft’s Arial ever did, and now looks very close the iPhone’s current Helvetica Neue. It’s also decidedly un-skeuomorphic, with flat, untextured regions that are deliberately unlike iOS. (We’ll talk more about that on the next Iterate. The lack of clear differentiation between smaller screen phone and larger screen tablet apps could be either brilliant or baffling. We’ll have to see.

Meanwhile over at BlackBerry DevCon 11, CrackBerry sat through the longest. Presentation. Ever. Seriously, it had an intermission. RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis hosted most of it, almost like Regis Filbin doing a gadget segment, but the technology they showed off was really impressive. Everything from the new QNX-based BBX operating system to the Torch-powered HTML5 engine to the TAT-driven new Cascade UI and framework elements show that while RIM did fall behind, they’re investing heavily in getting ahead. The developer story remains a little overwhelming — yes, there can be too many options — but the focus on results seems better. Much of this will make it’s way into BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0. Sadly, no new BBX superphones were so much as previewed. Yet.

With iOS 5 and iPhone 4S here, the competition isn’t giving Apple any breathing room, and a ton of new devices are already hurtling towards us like a fleet of Star Destroyers.

Check out all the Android and BlackBerry coverage and then jump back here and tell us if any of it tempts you away from iOS.

It is 46mm square and powered by Android. It features a GPS system, heart rate monitor and wait for it…. Bluetooth so you can use it with wireless headphones; of course it is an MP3 player too. It can also pair with your phone and you can then read text messages and other alerts as well as answer calls using the 1.6-inch touchscreen.

So, a lot of what TiPb has been asking for in an iPod nano watch, only delivered by Moto for Android. And yes, it stings.

The MOTOACTV will be available in early November and comes in two flavors, an 8GB version for $249 and a 16GB version at $299. Apple could do so much more with that iPod nano, what a shame!

Source: Android Central

Apple had their big Let’s talk iPhone event a couple of weeks ago and have now released [iOS 5](http://www.imore.com/iOS 5) and iCloud, and launched the iPhone 4S — now it’s RIM’s and Google’s turn.

Kevin and Adam from CrackBerry.com are live at BlackBerry Dev Con 2011, hoping to get their keyboard-crunching hands on a next generation BBX (QNX) based superphone and Playbook OS 2.0.

• Full BlackBerry Dev Con 2011 coverage

Phil and the gang over at Android Central are waiting for the big Ice Cream Sandwich and Galaxy Nexus (Prime) reveal from Google and Samsung tonight.

• Full Ice Cream Sandwich and Galaxy Nexus coverage

Keep an eye on both, then run — don’t walk! — back here and tell us how you think they compete with iOS 5, iCloud, and iPhone 4S. Did they raise the stakes?

Now that Apple has officially announced the iPhone 4S and put its specs on the table, we can put those specs up against the other baddest phones on the planet — the current flagship devices for Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, and webOS.

Each, of course, has its own unique advantages:

• iPhone 4S is blazing fast with the elegant and powerful iOS 5 and the jaw-dropping Assistant artificial intelligence-meets voice control system.

• Samsung Galaxy S II has a huge, incredibly bright display, ultra-thin profile, and Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread with TouchWiz on top.

• BlackBerry Bold 9900 brings touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard together in a way unseen since the best days of the Treo and combines in all the killer communication power of the BlackBerry 7 platform.

• HTC Titan makes other big phones feel small, with a gigantic screen, the polish of Microsoft’s Metro UI, and the features of the newly releases Windows Phone 7.5 Mango update.

• Pre3 may never see the light of day, thanks to HP, but we include it here so a) we can look at the battle that might have been, and b) our webOS friends don’t kick us in the shins.

It’s a more competitive market than ever before so check out the phones above and let us know — did iPhone 4S just vault Apple back to the top?

Amazon has announced their iPad competitor and as rumor had it, it’s called the Kindle Fire. The biggest news is the price — only $199 for a 14.6 ounce, 7-in IPS 1024×600 169dpi display. It’s dual core, Wi-Fi only, and has only 8GB of storage (plus free Amazon cloud) but again — $199.

If you’re looking for something that resembles the BlackBerry PlayBook, is running a fork of Android OS, and comes with all the content Amazon is happy to sell you, this could be a very compelling product. But if $199 is still too much for you to spend on a Kindle, just wait — there’s more! They’ve also announced an ultra-cheap classic-style Kindle for just $79, and a new Kindle Touch at $99 for Wi-Fi only and $149 for 3G. Those are the prices with ad-subsidized “special offers”, however. They’ll cost you $30-$40 more or so if you want them clean and ad-free.

Also, Amazon remains focused mainly on the US market and its international content offerings don’t look to be improving just yet (though I’ll continue to hold to hope given all the money Apple is making outside the US.)

Kudos to Amazon, though, for doing what Apple so far hasn’t done — release the iPad shuffle and iPad nano tablet price-points into the US market.

And hey, if you’re thinking about pre-ordering, here are some handy links that let you test out the non-Apple waters, but still support your favorite Mobile Nations sites at the same time. Win. Win.

• $199 Kindle Fire
• $149 Kindle Touch 3G
• $99 Kindle Touch Wi-Fi
• $79 Kindle

For more on the Kindle Fire, jump over to Android Central‘s new Kindle Fire Forums, then jump back here and tell us what you think — did Amazon just announce the first viable iPad competitor?

Derek Kessler over at PreCentral.net has reviewed the hell out of the webOS Pre3, the no-longer-going-to-be-released iPhone competitor that HP bought from Palm only to leave broken and strewn across a mountain of mismanagement and corporate incompetence.

This could have been the great hurrah for webOS smartphones. The Pre3 could actually have stood a chance against the might of the iPhone and Android behemoths. Instead, it’s not even made it into the arena, let alone the ring. It demonstrates what the Palm team was truly capableof building a great smartphone with the right resources at their backs. Too bad the support wasn’t there too.

Shame on HP.

Source: PreCentral.net

The original Windows Phone 7 was arguably as limited as a 2007 iPhone in a 2011 world, but Microsoft aims to change that radically this week with the launch of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, and Dan Rubino and our sibling site WPCentral has been on it like Ballmer on a dance beat.

Despite fairly universal praise for its original, elegant Metro UI and finally getting Xbox integration underway, Windows Phone hasn’t taken off the way iOS or Android have in the market. Will Mango make a difference? Closing the functionality gap is one thing, closing the mind share gap is something else entirely. However, Microsoft did manage the previously inconceivable — a worldwide, cross-carrier, cross-device update to the new firmware, so who knows?

Check out WPCentral‘s complete coverage via the link below and then come back here and tell us if Apple needs to raise the game next week when they show off the final version of iOS 5 and introduce the next generation iPhone.

Source: WPCentral

Samsung, who is currently embroiled in a patent war with Apple, looks to have scored a particular nasty own goal — using icons which clearly belong to Apple in its advertising. The wall in the picture was taken in a concession store in Italy’s Centro Sicilia.

A concession store is basically a store within another store run by a separate retailer. In this one, the wall of apps clearly shows iOS icons for mobile Safari and the App Store. The icons are repeated across the wall at least three times. A strange one when you consider the shenanigans going on behind the scenes between these two companies. The last thing you would want is an embarrassing mistake like this to sway opinion.

It will be interesting to see if Samsung decides to make any comment on the picture. I am sure there is a totally reasonable explanation for the mistake, because Samsung does claim to have a commitment to innovation and distinctive design…

Source: AllThingsD

Amazon is sending out invites for a press conference on Wednesday September 28 in New York. The word on the street is that Amazon will finally make one of the worst kept tech secrets official and announce its iPad competitor. The invite gives nothing away; it’s just a text based invite with no clues at all.

Rumors have always pointed to Amazon launching a tablet around the October timeframe so this announcement would fit in nicely with that. The tablet in case you haven’t heard yet will be a 7-inch full color affair, built on a heavily customized version of Android and should be available for as little as $250.

One thing is now for sure, we will not have to wait much longer to see exactly how Amazon plans on taking on Apple and the iPad in particular. The next few weeks should be some of the most interesting of the year!

[This is my next]

Yesterday Microsoft gave us a brief look at its next operating system, code named Windows 8. The operating system will be aimed at not only desktop and laptop PC systems but also the tablet market. Will Windows 8 deliver enough for a Windows Tablet to become a real competitor to the iPad and iOS?

The answer at this stage is very unclear; Microsoft has previously claimed that older versions of Windows would work well on Table PC’s as well as desktop and laptop systems. Unfortunately a distinct lack of Windows tablet sales tell a completely different story. Apple on the other hand stepped in and released the iPad with a cut down version of OSX designed for touch input, all of a sudden Tablet devices were vogue and everyone wanted one!

Looking at the features of Windows 8, it could be a very appealing OS for Tablets. It integrates the Windows Phone 7 Metro UI with the full blown power of Windows . Any app you run on your desktop or laptop could be executed on a handheld tablet. That is very appealing; there is no doubt about that. What is a doubt however is Microsoft’s ability to deliver the full experience and make these apps usable with touch.

When I talk about experience I mean how easy the device is to use. Yes Windows 8 will be a great experience with a mouse and keyboard, I don’t doubt that. What I do have serious concerns over is how well that will work using your fingers. How will developers address the issue of not only writing their apps for a mouse and keyboard entry system but also for touch too? If they fail to do it, using a Windows Tablet will again be a frustrating experience.

Microsoft has a lot of work to do to bring all of this together. They need to consider every possibility with every app and interface. It needs to be standardized so users know where they are and how to get where they need to be without much thought. I really hope Microsoft can pull this off, they need to learn from previous mistakes and deliver a tightly integrated touch OS. Unfortunately history tells us they will fall way short of this goal.

If you want to see a short video of Windows 8, there is a demonstration video below from This Is My Next. Do you think Microsoft and its partners have what it takes to challenge Apple’s dominance in the tablet space?

[This is my Next]

Martin Fichter, the acting president of HTC America has been talking at the Mobile Future Forward conference in Seattle. He claims that college kids no longer find the iPhone to be cool. The information that he shares is not exactly based on hard facts; he talked with a few of the kids on his daughter’s floor and came to this rather strange conclusion!

“Apple is innovating. Samsung is innovating. We are innovating. Everybody is innovating. And everybody is doing different things for the end consumers. I brought my daughter back to college — she’s down in Portland at Reed — and I talked to a few of the kids on her floor. And none of them has an iPhone because they told me: ‘My dad has an iPhone.’ There’s an interesting thing that’s going on in the market. The iPhone becomes a little less cool than it was. They were carrying HTCs. They were carrying Samsungs. They were even carrying some Chinese manufacture’s devices. If you look at a college campus, Mac Book Airs are cool. iPhones are not that cool anymore. We here are using iPhones, but our kids don’t find them that cool anymore.”

What do you think? Is the iPhone losing the coolness factor with the younger generation?

[GeekWire via 9to5Mac]

While I can’t claim for sure TiPb was the first to say there wasn’t a tablet market, just an iPad market, we’ve been talking for a long time now about how the iPad has become so dominant, so fast, it’s left very little room in mainstream hearts and wallets for competitors. The latest cases in point:

• According to The Guardian, Lenovo director of consumer products, Andrew Barrow, said rival Samsung has only sold some 20,000 for the 1 million Galaxy Tab 7s they’d stuffed into channels last year. Also, due to Apple’s economies of scale and component pricing advantage, trying to undercut them with cheaper tablets “would be giving money away.” Will newer Galaxy Tabs that blur the lines between phones (5.5) and full on tablets (10.1) change anything?

• Meanwhile Android Central says the HTC Jetstream is now available on AT&T for… $699 on two year contract or $849 unsubsidized. The Jetstream specs and features look interesting, even the HTC Scribe stylus, but at that price I’m guessing not many people will even give it a chance.

• PCMag says Best Buy is cutting $150 off the price tag of the BlackBerry PlayBook 64GB. Again, with iPad starting at $499 and HP’s TouchPad having been on fire sale for $99, it’s tough for small tablets to justify big price tags. Will BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 turn that around, or will RIM have to suck it up and cut costs to gain share?

• Lastly, and sadly, while HP will be doing another limited run of TouchPad‘s to keep manufacturing partners happy, they don’t seem to be changing their minds about investing in webOS tablet hardware in the long run. They don’t even seem able to put out the larger capacity, different colored devices they had on the roadmap. And Derek from PreCentral.net so wanted one in white!

Is anyone besides Apple close to getting this right yet? When iPad 3 launches next spring, am I going to have anyone else even trying to tempt me away from it? Amazon? JooJoo? Who?

[The Guardian, Android Central, PCMag, HP]

Phil from Android Central went and got his geeky little hands on the new Samsung Galaxy S II phones set to hit US carriers soon — and come this fall go up against iPhone 5. And… they’re big. Up to 4.52-inches of big. So big I’m wondering why Samsung didn’t just simplify their branding and call them Galaxy Tab 4.5. (Maybe because Sprint Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch just rolls off the tongue so much more easily?)

They’re super-powerful, with a new Samsung Exynos 1.2GHz dual core processor, super-shiny with Super AMOLED Plus displays, and super thinner than thin, thin. And yes, they’ve got the iOS-inspired TouchWiz UI on top of Gingerbread, so Apple’s lawyers won’t be going hungry any time soon.

• Sprint Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch hands-n
• AT&T Galaxy S II hands-on
• T-Mobile Galaxy S II hands-on

Verizon might be getting an LTE Galaxy S II variant at some point as well.

Check out the video up top, and the rest of the coverage via the links above, and then come back and let me know — anyone think Samsung has a shot at outselling iPhone 5 this holiday quarter?

Acer has reported their first ever quarterly loss and Chairman J.T. Wang is placing the blame squarely on “tablets” (i.e. iPad), a “fever” he does not think will last. Having seen their fortunes rise with the netbook market most hurt by Apple’s iPad, Wang concedes it would be impossible for Acer to break even this year, but thinks iPad will face and netbooks will regain consumer interest moving forward.

Right.

It’s interesting corporations like HP last week and Acer now blaming their misfortunes on the “tablet” effect/market when they themselves make tablets — the TouchPad and Iconia respectively — just not popular tablets yet. Of course they’re not going to name a competing product like iPad, but neither should they blame a mythical “tablet” space — just their inability to thus far compete in it.

Acer has previously called iPad — and iPhone — a “mutant virus” and said iPad market share would drop to 20%.

Unfortunately for Acer, they’ve yet to find a cure for this mutant virus fever, and worse, it doesn’t seem like they’re looking. (Here’s a hint: look for the sings that point to make great products with fantastic experiences that delight consumers and figure out how to price them competitively.)

[Reuters]

Microsoft offers subscription music via their Zune service, and now another iPhone and iPad rival, RIM’s BlackBerry, might be joining the party. Kevin from CrackBerry.com has the scoop:

• Users will have to download the new standalone BlackBerry music app from App World
• Once installed, there should be a free trial (may vary by country/carrier – but expect a month free)
• Once the free trial expires, the service will cost $5/mo.
• With the app installed, you can choose up to 50 songs of your choice. Apparently the catalog selection is pretty good!
• From there, you invite your contacts via BBM, etc. to also download the app if they don’t have it and join your music sharing network (invited contacts must pay the $5/mo. also to take part and remain part of the service).
• From there, you can listen to not only the 50 songs you’ve selected), but any of the 50 songs from your music sharing network. So if you have 20 contacts, you’ll have access to 1,000 other songs in addition to your 50. We’re not sure yet if there’s a limit to how many people you can share with, but essentially the more people in your music sharing group the more music you’ll have access to.

While Apple offers music downloads via iTunes, and will offer a music locker via iTunes Match, they don’t currently have a subscription service nor do they have a way to share music (though they do have a network of sorts — Ping).

That means iOS users who want subscriptions need a third party service like Pandora, Spotify, Slacker, Rdio, last.fm, etc.

Are Apple users missing out here?

[CrackBerry.com]

After Apple introduced the iPad I wondered out loud on iPad Live whether it would leave any air in the room for eventual tablet rivals. It turns out I might have been right, but also might not have been right enough. The iPad, and now iPad 2, might not have left any air in the room for any hardware rivals, tablet or PC.

HP is not only killing off their webOS hardware and looking to license the software, HP is spinning or selling off their laptop and desktop computer business as well. Why?

The tablet effect is real and the TouchPad is not gaining momentum in the marketplace.

And since we know there’s no tablet market, just an iPad market, the real meaning there is pretty clear.

I was a PalmOS user since the Visor and while I never owned a webOS device, I have tried them and liked them and it’s disappointing to see HP cut and run like this. Sure it’s easier to say “make better hardware” or “get better carrier deals” or “ship more mature products faster” and really difficult to do, but that was the job HP signed up for.

Maybe Amazon or Facebook, or a jilted Android manufacturer will pick up webOS and show HP what a company of will can really do?

Keep reading PreCentral.net for ongoing coverage and let us know — did Apple and the iPad kill HP’s hardware business, and who would you like to see run with webOS?

HP has just announced that they’re killing off webOS devices, namely the Pre, Veer, and TouchPad — or everything that competes with iPhone and iPad.

In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

Derek Kessler, editor of our sibling site PreCentral.net pulls no punches:

So what does this mean? The statement was carefully worded to state that they’re “discontinuing operations for webOs devices,” not webOS as an operating system. If anything, this should add fuel to the second option we discussed earlier today when the shocking word of an HP breakup first surfaced: HP is more interested in webOS than devices. They tried to give it a go with hardware, but quickly realized that they weren’t going to be able to make it work without massive long-term investment and commitment. So less than a year after acquiring all of Palm for $1.2 billion, we’re looking at a hazy future for webOS.

My wish: Google buying Motorola to prevent against manufacturers turning away from Android leads at least one manufacturer with more savvy and stomach than HP to turn away from Android and towards webOS. An HTC ThunderBolt II or Samsung Galaxy S III with Cards and Synergy would be very, very interesting.

Keep your browsers locked to PreCentral.net for continuing coverage.

[PreCentral.net]

Apple has proven time and time again that they’re driven to innovate regardless, that they can successfully compete against themselves, but nothing drives them to innovate and compete faster and in a more focused fashion than a successful rival. Sadly, when it comes to iPad, rivals are proving anything but successful at the point.

• Sprint has canceled plans to launch a WiMax BlackBerry Playbook citing lack of interest from enterprise customers. [WSJ
• Best Buy is rumored to have only sold 25,000 of the 270,000 HP TouchPad’s they received in stock, and that number might not include returns. AllThingsD

Meanwhile the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from Samsung can now once again be stocked in the EU, but the Motorola Xoom LTE update has been once again delayed, this time until fall, and we’ve yet to get sell through numbers in any meaningful volume for any of the them.

Part of this is certainly the unbaked nature of virtually all iPad competitors to date, so perhaps the race should now switch from who can ship a rival tablet first, to who can make a much better, much more compelling tablet at a much better value first?

Bad news for everyone if the answer to that continues to be “nobody”.

Apple Chief Financial Officer, Peter Oppenheimer, was asked what he thought about Android maker Google’s intent to purchase handset maker Motorola Mobility during a Gleacher & Company conference call. Oppenhemier’s response?

“$12.5 billion is a lot of money.”

Indeed.

[Cult of Mac]

Kevin Michaluk of sibling site CrackBerry.com has just posted his BlackBerry Torch 9860, and just like his BlackBerry Bold 9900, it's jam packed with detail.

Now, if you were as confused as I was by RIM's new naming conventions, let's try to help -- this Torch is pretty much what the Storm used to be, a full screen, touch screen BlackBerry, with no slide-out keyboard like the original Torch (and no SurePress like the original Storm, thankfully.) Of course, there's also still a Torch with a slide out keyboard. (Could they have at least called that a Torch Pro, like HTC would have?)

Either way, this is in fact the closest thing to an iPhone RIM makes. So how does it stack up?

It's a smooth device that will certainly be a seller. How big of a seller is yet to be seen. Users that want the big screen and don't mind not having a physical keyboard will be in BlackBerry heaven. Once you adjust to using the virtual keyboard there really isn't much bad to be said about the 9860. But if you're like me, you want to get things done efficiently and in my opinion, having a keyboard really helps that cause, even if I have to sacrifice potential display real estate for a screen. I know I'm in the minority on that one these days - you should definitely head to your local store and try out the Torch 9860 and come to your own conclusions. If playing videos, viewing photos, snapping pictures and web browsing are tops on your list, then I can say the Torch 9860 may be just what you're looking for. With the boosted processor and increased RAM, the OS trucks along fast enough to keep up with pretty much anything you can throw at it.

Once again I'll ask -- if you're walking into a store this fall, iPhone 5 on one side, Android phone de jour on the other, would you walk past them for a BlackBerry Torch 9860? Check out Kevin's review and let us know.

[CrackBerry.com]

• Download it directly with this link
• Subscribe directly to the Podcast feed with your favorite Podcatcher here
• How to subscribe in Google Listen (YouTube link)
• Subscribe in iTunes
• Subscribe in Zune Marketplace

[Android Central]

Kevin Michaluk of sibling site CrackBerry.com has just posted his BlackBerry Bold 9900, with all the detail you’d expect, and a slick new presentation style that’s certain to wake you up. While many may think the new BlackBerry Storm 3 full screen BlackBerry Torch will be the true iPhone competitor from RIM, it’s hard to bet against the thing BlackBerry does best — front facing QWERTY.

Bottom line, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is the best BlackBerry to date. We love the design, and the upgraded hardware platform delivers a ton of performance to the end user. It really is the best of BlackBerry as we have known it.

That said, there’s nothing fundamentally different in BlackBerry 7 that’s going to change the way you use your BlackBerry. For some that’s not a bad thing. For others it may be. There has always been a lot to like in the BlackBerry OS. And this is the same BlackBerry OS, with the same strengths and the same weaknesses. It’s still by far the best mobile platform for communication and it’s still lagging in areas like the quality third party apps.

So if you’re walking into a store this fall, iPhone 5 on one side, Android phone de jour on the other, would you walk past them for a BlackBerry Bold 9900? Check out Kevin’s review and let us know.

[CrackBerry.com]

In what has to be one of the greatest keynotes of all time, replete with canned applause and canned questions, TabCo Fusion Garage announced the JooJoo2 Grid 10 tablet, and a Grid 4 smartphone.

They’re built on an Android foundation but with their own proprietary GridOS layer on top of it, and are doing this, they say, because Android might not really be popular, it might just be the only alternative… for now. In other words, they’re position Grid as the best user experience alternative to iPhone and iPad.

Seriously, they’re such a confusing mix of endearing and obnoxious, I’m not sure whether to lampoon or laude them. They’re an underdog you want to root for as it gets the $#!+ kicked out of it.

It’s almost enough to make you want to line up for a JooJooPhone. If you could line up for one, that is.

UPDATE: Video after the break!

[Android Central]

Grid10Beat0812 from Grid on Vimeo.

Holy heck! Waking up to the news of Google buying Motorola Mobility just shows you how fast our industry is moving and changing. But what does it mean for Apple, iPhone and iPad? Will Google really continue to run Motorola “as is” without much change, and Droids and Xooms will just come out again as they came out before? Or will Google start to copy the Apple model more and give Motorola exclusive Nexus handsets with much better, and even more competitive integration? Or will HTC, Samsung, and other Android OEMs feel screwed by this whole deal and start looking more seriously at Windows Phone or maybe even webOS, resulting in less choice for consumers on the Android side?

What do you think, TiPb Nation? Will Motorola for one welcome their new overlords and remain status quo, or is this the beginning of a new galactic order when it comes to iPhone and iPad competition? Vote in the poll above and give me your analysis in the comments below!

Google has just announced that they’re buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in an attempt to supercharge the Android platform. While the move will bring Google into the handset manufacturing business for the first time, potentially setting them up to deliver the same type of unified, integrated experience Apple is famous for, Google maintains they’ll be running Motorola as a separate business. Which raises some important questions:

1. How will the play out for other Android licensees like HTC and Samsung? (Microsoft making the Zune killed the PlaysForSure alliance.)
2. Will all future Nexus-type devices come from Motorola going forward?
3. Will all future Motorola phones run stock Android going forward? (no more Blur.)
4. Is Motorola’s patent portfolio strong enough to provide cover against Microsoft and Apple lawsuits?

Quotes from Larry Page and Sanjay Jha after the break.

[Google PR, Google Blog, Android Central coverage]

Larry Page, CEO of Google, said, “Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.”

Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, said, “This transaction offers significant value for Motorola Mobility’s stockholders and provides compelling new opportunities for our employees, customers, and partners around the world. We have shared a productive partnership with Google to advance the Android platform, and now through this combination we will be able to do even more to innovate and deliver outstanding mobility solutions across our mobile devices and home businesses.”

Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google, said, “We expect that this combination will enable us to break new ground for the Android ecosystem. However, our vision for Android is unchanged and Google remains firmly committed to Android as an open platform and a vibrant open source community. We will continue to work with all of our valued Android partners to develop and distribute innovative Android-powered devices.”

Just to remind us that Google will still be Google — unabashedly hypocritical to the last — Page added the following by way of the Official Google Blog:

We recently explained how companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding together in anti-competitive patent attacks on Android. The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to “protect competition and innovation in the open source software community” and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction. Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

Are “anti-competitive patent attacks” worse than “anti-competitive patent violations”? Google’s a big boy company now, facing regulatory scrutiny and lawsuits over their own practices, including their treatment of rival SkyHook, so how about we can the rhetoric and just make us some great new Googlerola phones, would you please?

UDPATE 1: Google’s ODM partners have responded to the news… in a way that makes us suspect Google snuck into their houses late last night and replaced them all with Android-powered Replicants. [Android Central]

Peter Chou, CEO, HTC:

“We welcome the news of today‘s acquisition, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem.”

Bert Nordberg, President & CEO, Sony Ericsson:

“I welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners.”

Jong-Seok Park, Ph.D, President & CEO, LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company:

“We welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners.”

J.K. Shin, President, Samsung, Mobile Communications Division:

“We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem.”

Yeah, like Georgia said, “we welcome our new Motogoog overlords…”

Update 2: GigaOm is reporting that Microsoft wanted to buy Motorola first, to use their patents to further sink Android, which is what brought Google to the table. [GigaOm

We’re likely only a month or two away from Apple announcing iPhone 5 but RIM is already launching their 2011 BlackBerry lineup, including the first BlackBerry Bold with a touch screen, and not one but two BlackBerry Torches — an update to the original slider and new, Storm-replacing, touch screen only slab.

They’ve got higher resolution screens, NFC options, voice, search, GPU-enhanced Liquid Graphics fluidity, BBM 6, and BlackBerry OS 7. But are they enough to hold off the coming iPhone 5 onslaught?

Jump over to our sibling site, CrackBerry.com, for complete coverage and join us tomorrow for some round-table discussion, Mobile Nations-style!

[CrackBerry.com]

T-Mobile has put up a new web page taking shots at AT&T and iPad 2 when it comes to their LG G-Slate Android Honeycomb tablet.

The Android™-powered T-Mobile® G-Slate™ with Google™ is more than two times faster than the Apple iPad 2 on AT&T and Verizon, and three times faster than the Motorola Xoom on Verizon—and it’s less expensive, too! See all the ways this entertainment powerhouse leaves the competition in the dust.

Speed claim based on comparison of devices on T-Mobile’s 4G HSPA+ 42 Mbps network, AT&T’s HSPA+ network, and Verizon’s 3G network.

iPad 2 doesn’t run on Verizon’s LTE network, so fair enough. But does it leave iPad 2 “in the dust?” I tried to do some research on the G-Slate to see just how killer a device it was, but — based on their tag page — even Android Central hasn’t written about it since April.

[T-Mobile via BGR]

During today’s Q3 2011 conference call, Apple Chief Operating Office, Tim Cook was asked about Android activation numbers being higher than Apple iOS numbers. Cook’s response, paraphrased:

Android’s activation numbers are difficult to get our hands around. Apple numbers are from a data sheet, add iPhone, iPad, an approximately 50% iPods sold are iPod touch. Apple sold over 33 million iOS devices. Now over 222 million cumulative devices. [Apple's activation] numbers are very straight forward, transparent, quarterly. iPhone is up 142%, more than 2x rate of market growth. Incredible. Apple sold every iPad 2 we could make.

Which is really more of a non-answer. By saying Android activation numbers are “difficult to get their hands around”, Cook is implying that Google’s “activations” might not be the same as Apple’s “devices sold”. In other words, that Android’s numbers are somehow being over-reported. The numbers in question, from Google’s Q2 2011 conference call:

CEO Larry Page announced that some 550,000 devices are being activated every day. That’s about 382 devices being activated every minute, or 3.85 million every week.

I have no idea what the math works out to over the length of the quarter (comments say 37 million), but it could be more than Apple’s 33 million. Cook then went on the offensive, though stopped short of echoing previous quarters’ comments about Google being fragmented and derivative. Instead, he focused on Apple’s positives, including the quantity of apps in general and iPad apps in specific, contrasting Apple’s 100,000 to Android’s “hundreds”. He also highlighted money paid to developers, and consumer satisfaction.

Which is a compelling answer, just not to this particular question.

Former Google CEO, current Google Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, had this to say about Apple patent infringement suits against Android manufacturers.

“We have seen an explosion of Android devices entering the market and, because of our successes, competitors are responding with lawsuits as they cannot respond through innovations. I’m not too worried about this.”

Because a) he’s not the one being sued and b) it’s nonsense.

Google and Android ODMs problem isn’t that Microsoft and Apple are suing instead of innovating. It’s that they’re doing both. And given Google’s lack of a similar patent portfolio, and lack of public stance on the issue, their manufacturers are handicapped, which is likely why HTC is already paying Microsoft $5 for every Android phone they ship.

As mentioned yesterday, Microsoft’s strategy is to make Android more expensive, Apple’s to make it less usable.

Google might have some genius master plan ready and waiting in their other trousers, but in the meantime they should either keep Schmidt and Larry Page off the mic, or let them say something substantive to ODMs and developers.

[ZDNet Asia via Android Central]

The Wall Street Journal claims Amazon is going ahead with a 9-inch Android-based tablet to compete with the iPad.

Amazon.com Inc. plans to introduce a tablet computer before October, said people familiar with the matter, in a move that will heighten the online retailer’s rivalry with Apple Inc.

The Seattle-based company will also release two updated versions of its popular Kindle electronic reader in the third quarter of the year, the people said. One will be a touch-screen device. The other won’t have a touch screen, but will be an improved and cheaper adaptation of the current Kindle, said people who have seen the device.

On the surface, that sounds great. A lot of other competitors, including RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook and HP’s webOS TouchPad have struggled to ship feature-complete, and previous Android Honeycomb tablets had a similar beta feel about them. All in all, they seemed to be bringing specs to an experience fight.

At first blush the idea of an Amazon-filled Android tablet sounds better than a non-Amazon filled Android tablet (though Samsung and other companies are putting together better and better content offerings of their own every day.) But that’s all it really is at this point. Until we see it, it will be impossible to know for sure, but the Kindle inspires absolutely no confidence in their industrial design chops, much less their user interface skills. If the next version of Android, Ice scream sandwich is ready by then, and if Matias Duarte has been able to work his web OS wonders on it, maybe Amazon will be able to stick with stock. But that’s a big maybe. Apple has made it very, very hard to compete on software polish, and their huge bank account has made it ever harder to compete on hardware pricing.

Amazon has content though. While they’re working on it, currently neither RIM nor HP nor Google have TV, movie, music and other content deals in place to match iTunes, nor do they have the 90-country strong check out system, with hundreds of millions of credit cards ready and willing to buy. Amazon does. Sort of.

While Amazon has an incredible array of content deals in place in the US, probably the most competitive to iTunes on the market, the international story is quite different. Sure, even Apple struggles with the archaic, fragmented media licensing model that assigns different publishers different rights in different geographies, but Apple’s App Store is in the aforementioned 90 countries, iTunes music is around the globe, and they’ve slowly and surely rolled out movies and TV shows to an increasing number of countries. Canada may not have TV rentals yet, but they have HD movie rentals and TV show purchases. They have something.

Amazon said they’d be bringing Amazon MP3 to Canada in 2008. It must be having a hell of a time at the border, however, because it still hasn’t made it across. When you listen to Apple’s earning calls, more and more of their revenue is coming from the international market, a market that now has incredibly popular Apple Stores to provide a retail jab to set up the iTunes Store uppercut.

So Amazon could be bringing content to an experience fight. But it would be mostly in the US, and if they nail the other aspects.

I really want a great iPad competitor. I haven’t seen one yet. Though they’re every bit as ruthless as Apple, if not more so, I really want Amazon to be that competitor. But I haven’t seen anything to date to make me think they will be.

Slapping a tablet on the front page of Amazon.com will get them sales, but they’ll have to make a truly exceptional product to get them into the game.

Especially if Apple is readying to ship an iPad 3 or iPad 2 Pro at the same time…

[Wall Street Journal]

There’s a fascinating answer up on Quora that suggests how Apple uses their massive $70 billion bank account to literally stay years ahead of the competition when it comes to manufacturing and components.

Apple actually uses its cash hoard in a very interesting way to maintain a decisive advantage over its rivals: When new component technologies (touchscreens, chips, LED displays) first come out, they are very expensive to produce, and building a factory that can produce them in mass quantities is even more expensive. Oftentimes, the upfront capital expenditure can be so huge and the margins are small enough (and shrink over time as the component is rapidly commoditized) that the companies who would build these factories cannot raise sufficient investment capital to cover the costs.

What Apple does is use its cash hoard to pay for the construction cost (or a significant fraction of it) of the factory in exchange for exclusive rights to the output production of the factory for a set period of time (maybe 6 – 36 months), and then for a discounted rate afterwards. This yields two advantages:

1. Apple has access to new component technology months or years before its rivals. This allows it to release groundbreaking products that are actually impossible to duplicate. Remember how for up to a year or so after the introduction of the iPhone, none of the would-be iPhone clones could even get a capacitive touchscreen to work as well as the iPhone’s? It wasn’t just the software – Apple simply has access to new components earlier, before anyone else in the world can gain access to it in mass quantities to make a consumer device. One extraordinary example of this is the aluminum machining technology used to make Apple’s laptops – this remains a trade secret that Apple continues to have exclusive access to and allows them to make laptops with (for now) unsurpassed strength and lightness.

2. Eventually its competitors catch up in component production technology, but by then Apple has their arrangement in place whereby it can source those parts at a lower cost due to the discounted rate they have negotiated with the (now) most-experienced and skilled provider of those parts – who has probably also brought his production costs down too. This discount is also potentially subsidized by its competitors buying those same parts from that provider – the part is now commoditized so the factory is allowed to produce them for all buyers, but Apple gets special pricing.

Apple is not just crushing its rivals through superiority in design, Steve Jobs’s deep experience in hardware mass production (early Apple, NeXT) has been brought to bear in creating an unrivaled exclusive supply chain of advanced technology literally years ahead of anyone else on the planet. If it feels like new Apple products appear futuristic, it is because Apple really is sending back technology from the future.

Once those technologies (or more accurately, their mass production techniques) become sufficiently commoditized, Apple is then able to compete effectively on cost and undercut rivals. It’s a myth that Apple only makes premium products – it makes them all right, but that is because they are literally more advanced than anything else (i.e. the price premium is not just for design), and once the product line is no longer premium, they are produced more cheaply than competitor equivalents, yielding higher margins, more cash, which results in more ability to continue the cycle.

Steve Jobs, when he announced the original iPhone, said it was 5 years ahead of the competition. This has often been discussed in terms of software, but the above makes a compelling argument about its applicability to hardware as well (or perhaps even more so). webOS and Android can easily be seen as equal to iOS, if not better than iOS in certain areas. By contrast, few would contend that Palm/HP phones, or any Android device on the market (many of which creak like old Hasbro toys) are anywhere near the build quality of the one year old iPhone 4.

It’s not even clear to me if the competition would make Apple-style investments in design, production, and components even if they could. It’s a risky gamble and many seem far more content to play the low margin game, hoping to make it in the volume that sometimes comes with it.

Philip Elmer-Dewitt of Fortune, crediting Asymco‘s Horace Dediu says:

Apple has become not a monopoly (a single seller), but a monopsony — the one buyer that can control an entire market.

If so, it’s not only by virtue of Apple being bold enough to step forward, but by everyone else hesitating or stepping back.

[Quora, The Critical Path via Fortune]

Kevin Michaluk, pinch hitting for our sibling site, PreCentral.net has done the perfunctory HP TouchPad unboxing, and towards the end shows it off against the Apple iPad 2 (and BlackBerry Playbook) by way of comparison. (No, none of that was a typo, Kevin loves all his gadgets now, and you’ll see him with Apples and Androids and HPs and more as the weeks go on.)

For more, fall back on Derek Kessler’s TouchPad review, but for now, hit the link below and watch the inimitable Kevin, in full fashion watch and glowing green table, do an unboxing the way it’s meant to be done.

PreCentral.net

PreCentral.net‘s Derek Kessler, who’s rapidly become one of my favorite voices in mobile, has just released the his HP TouchPad review. Widely anticipated due to its super smart, incredibly elegant webOS 3.0 operating system, but uncertain due to Palm’s recent history of middling hardware and tepid launches, it’s been simultaneously heralded as the first real iPad competitor and decried as a me-too device, both before it even hit the shelves. Which is it?

If you already have an iPad that you’re satisfied with or think you’d be better served by an iPad, you probably shouldn’t get a TouchPad. But if you’re looking for a multi-tasking monster with fantastic web browsing, email, a growing app store, and oodles of potential, then you might want to consider the TouchPad.

As expected, the are issues with the software — it’s version one of webOS on tablets after all — and in the sheer quantity of apps available. Time, patches, and the phenomenal webOS developer community can fix all that. Issues with the hardware were also to be expected — Palm has struggled with that for a while — and there’s really no fixing those, just hopes TouchPad 2 gets it better. As to whether or not they “copied” iPad with the form factor, frankly they’d have been stupid not to. The Palm Pre Plus was essentially an iPhone 3GS and that made for easy game porting via the webOS PDK. If HP can get iPad games ported over just as easily, it’s worth any amount of teasing over the spec similarity.

No matter which way you slice it, the HP TouchPad is a contender for second place now in the tablet market, and that’s going to be the first great battle to win, and an important step in proving there’s a market for these things beyond the iPad.

HP has all the pieces in place, they just have the nail the execution. And soon. (Or, like RIM, preferably prior to launch.)

Check out Derek’s review and then come back and let us know what you think — is the HP TouchPad the best contender to date?

[PreCentral.net]

Google has finally taken the wraps off their long awaited, highly-anticipated (what?) social network, Google+ and it looks like a really clever take on the age-old problem of mapping personal relationships to a virtual space. It will eventually roll out across Google’s web properties, but rather than one monolithic service, it’s comprised of several parts:

• Circles, which let you define your relationships and how much you want to share with who and when. These are usually annoying to set up so no one uses them. Google aims to change that.
• Sparks, which brings you content based on your interests and hopes to strike up conversations
• Hangouts, which is multi-person video chat. FaceTime is currently only one-to-one…
• Mobile, which lets you share and upload from your devices (iOS app in the works?)
• Huddle, a group messaging platform now in competition with the mature BBM on BlackBerry and nascent iMessage on iOS

Google hasn’t had much luck with previous projects like Wave and Buzz, but this feels both more ambitious and far better considered. Whether it will be enough to put a dent in Facebook’s 750 million member and growing dominance of the social space remains to be seen. (See how I snuck them into the post? I thought you did.)

One thing is clear, with Apple integrating Twitter into iOS and introducing Game Center, Ping (no snickering), and replacing MobileMe with iCloud, they’re getting more serious (if not yet more adapt) at Social. And Google’s just re-entered, once again, that game in a big way. Are you going to switch?

Videos after the break.

[Google blog via Android Central]

Google +

Sparks

Circles

Hangouts

Mobile (Instant upload)

Huddle

Hit and miss rumor site Digitimes is reporting that Kindle-maker Amazon is set to launch their own, fully featured, iPad competitor as early as August/September. That’s to catch the lucrative holiday sales period.

Amazon adopts processors developed by Texas Instruments, with Taiwan-based Wintek to supply touch panels, ILI Technology to supply LCD driver ICs and Quanta Computer responsible for assembly, the sources indicated. Monthly shipments are expected to be 700,000-800,000 units.

Amazon will provide streaming movie services for users of its tablet PCs, the sources noted.

So far no, not Google’s manufacturing partners Samsung or Motorola with the Galaxy Tab or Xoom, not RIM’s Playbook, have come anywhere close to encroaching on iPad’s tens of millions of units sold. HP will be fielding the TouchPad in just over a week, but like TiPb’s been saying from the start — there’s no tablet market yet, just an iPad market.

And with rumors Apple might introduce an iPad 3 or iPad 2 variant this fall, there’s no signs of anyone catching up yet either.

Can Amazon change that? Or would they still just be bringing content to an experience fight?

[Digitimes]

While rumors have been swirling for months that Apple was going to strap NFC (near field communications) to the iTunes cash register and boldly take iPhone 5 into the mobile payments future, Google is already there with the announcement last week of Google Wallet.

Teaming up with MasterCard, Sprint and Citi — and using MasterCard’s PayPass system — Google Wallet is being put into beta mode starting in San Francisco and is scheduled for full launch later this summer.

But is it safe to turn your mobile device into money machine?

If the phone’s screen is turned off, NFC is turned off. And NFC also is inactive until the Google Wallet App is launched. It’s got a tamper sensor as well, and will withstand laser attacks. Really. Google said so.

Apparently, even fricken sharks with fricken laser beams. They kid us not!

I very much like the idea of ditching my cards and simply using my iPhone to pay as I go. Will Apple announce the same type of service at WWDC 2011 or at their annual fall event later this year? They could want to enter the race and make iTunes the next great payment system, or they could decide to wait until NFC-equipped point-of-sales are more mainstream.

My question to you — do you want it?

[Android Central]

For the first time PC sales are set to decline and Citi analyst Walter Pritchard is pointing the finger firmly in the iPads direction. The graph above shows consumer PC sales growth percentages. Month on month they show positive growth; even through the disastrous Windows Vista period and the global recession. If you look closely, between March 2010 and March 2011 you can see a massive decline in growth with it bottoming out in December 2010 and hitting negative figures in March 2011. Now what happened in March 2010 that could have triggered such a decline in PC sales over the following 12 months?

Ok let us remind you! Apple introduced and launched the iPad!!

[Business Insider]

Google had their big, ice cream sandwich filled I/O developer conference Android keynote yesterday, and with Apple’s own WWDC just a month away, what they chose to announce — and maybe not announce — definitely helps sets the stage.

To keep up with the competition, and our sibling site Android Central‘s complete coverage, follow on after the break!

In previous years Google has showcased everything from hardware to software to sneak peaks to technology previews in volumes we haven’t seen since the great Bill Gates CES keynotes of yore. This year was no exception… unless you were hoping for a Nexus 3 (or Nexus M or H2 or S2) — but hey, we’re probably not getting an iPhone 5 until fall so there’s plenty of time still for that.

Sure, as usual a lot of Google’s announcements this year look like Apple’s announcements from previous years, what with music and movie rentals and accessory integration for the SDK, but WWDC will likely have some Apple announcements — perhaps including system-level voice control — that Google announced at their previous shows as well. It’s all about seeing and raising now. And sure, some of this won’t ship, or will stall (Google TV), or falter (Wave), but a lot of it will. And it will push Apple to keep raising the stakes. And that’s good for all of us.

• Google I/O podcast day 1
• Google IO Keynote Day 1 liveblog
• Ice Cream Sandwich officially announced, coming in Q4
• Android Honeycomb to get updated to 3.1, will bring Google TV support and much more
• Android Honeycomb to get updated to 3.1, will bring Google TV support and much more
• Android 3.1 rolling out today to Verizon Xoom owners
• First Look at Google Music Beta
• Music Beta video posted by Google, reminds us that no cables are needed
• Movies now available to rent from Android Market
• Google announces Android at Home, functionality ideas seem endless
• Google announces a team that will create guidelines for device updates
• Google announces Android Open Accessory
• Google IO post-keynote press briefing
• Samsung passes out 5,000 Galaxy Tab 10.1s to I/O attendees
• Hands-on with the Google IO special-edition Galaxy Tab 10.1
• Return of the crazy dancing Android: Google IO Edition
• Google I/O day one keynote video now available
• Android 3.1 update now rolling out to Verizon Xoom 3G owners
• Android Honeycomb 3.1 SDK add-on now available
• The new Android ADK sure can play a sweet tune
• Google: More than 400,000 Android devices activated everyday

Phew! And that’s just day 1! What do you think? Anything really compelling? Truly tempting? Anything Apple absolutely has to match at WWDC next month?

In a recent brand survey by Millward Brown, Apple has taken the top spot from Google as the world’s most valuable brand. The survey revealed the Apple brand to be worth a staggering $153 billion; which was a huge increase on last year’s figures. This resulted in Apple coming out on top and ended Google’s four year reign at the top.

Peter Walshe, global brands director of Millward Brown, says Apple’s meticulous attention to detail, along with an increasing presence of its gadgets in corporate environments, have allowed it to behave differently from other consumer-electronics makers. ”Apple is breaking the rules in terms of its pricing model,” he told Reuters by telephone. “It’s doing what luxury brands do, where the higher price the brand is, the more it seems to underpin and reinforce the desire.”

The survey takes the value that the company puts on its own brand in its earnings report as a starting point. This is then combined with the perceptions of over 2 million consumers in the market who are surveyed over a 12 month period. A factor is then applied based on the company’s short-term future growth prospects.

[Millward Brown via Reuters]

Our good friend CrackBerry Kevin has just gone hands-on with the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930, the new touch-enabled flagship phone from RIM. BlackBerry has always excelled at the front-facing QWERTY, and the Bold 9000 series has been the be very best of their best — and now with the 9900 and 9930 it’s going touch. Not touch like the Storm — thank Odin for that! — or even like the original underpowered Torch. No, this is doing it with BlackBerry OS 7, a 287dpi 640×480 screen, and a 1.2GHz processor.

Some questions remain, however. Can BlackBerry really do touch? The PlayBook says they can but this phone still runs BBOS, not the new QNX platform. Is the touchscreen and keyboard, like the old Palm Treo line, the best of both worlds or twice the compromises? And will “super apps” stop being a lame marketing quip and become truly killer software for BlackBerry?

The Bold 9900/9930 will debut this summer, which would typically put them head-to-head with a new iPhone, but this year iPhone 5 might only debut in the fall. Will that help RIM out? Will anyone get a Bold Touch to hold them over? Hit the link below, watch the video, and tell us if Apple and iPhone 4 have anything to worry about.

[CrackBerry]

I spent a couple hours this weekend trying out the BlackBerry PlayBook and Android 3.0, Honeycomb-powered Motorola Xoom tablets. I’d tried the PlayBook and seen the Xoom before at CES 2011, but both were unfinished at the time and I was interested in seeing what the shipping versions were like. Unfortunately, the shipping versions were still unfinished, or more properly, unbaked. They reminded me of cookie dough.

Cookie dough has all the right ingredients, so much so that people can and do enjoy it in its raw, unbaked state. They nibble at it, lick it off mixers, and eat ice cream filled with chunks of it. And why not? It’s delicious… In nibbles and licks and chunks. But no matter how good it is in small doses, you inevitably wish someone would just bake it already.

That’s how I ended up feeling about the PlayBook and Xoom. The BlackBerry tablet actually shipped without native email, calendar, or contacts support, with a browser that goes from smooth as silk to struggling, to crashing even with 1GB of RAM under the hood, and with a power button that challenged and annoyed many seasoned reviewers. The Motorola tablet had to wait on, or is still waiting on, software updates to enable USB and MicroSD, and a round-trip back to Motorola to have the LTE radio swapped in.

A trip to App World on the PlayBook yielded startling few apps in many categories despite the device supporting very nearly every development platform this side of Logo. The Xoom likely had far, far less. I couldn’t verify that, however, as it hadn’t been logged into a Google account so I couldn’t access the Android Market, or email client, or many other apps, which in and of itself is a blisteringly bad user experience. (Show us the store, just don’t let us buy anything. Show us the apps, just leave them empty. You know, like Apple does.)

The PlayBook for it’s part provided a fairly consistent, often buttery-smooth OS experience. Inspired by webOS no doubt, but realized as something unto itself. But it’s not a BlackBerry OS experience and someone coming from a Bold 9700 won’t have the same instant connection to a PlayBook that an iPhone user would have to their new iPad. (In fact, given the experience of the PlayBook, every BlackBerry user should be required to take back 50% of the nasty comments they’ve made in the last year about iPad being a “toy”).

The Honeycomb experience, while often spectacular, was far more disjointed, with different parts working in different ways. That the trademark lack of consistency has persisted to Android 3.0 makes me think webOS designer-come-Android UI savior Matias Duarte either wasn’t given enough time to work on the UI or isn’t being allowed the impact he should, both of which are troubling thoughts. It’s far more of a desktop-style interface than iPad, and could allow for a lot more power, but it’s caught at the moment between that desktop UI and tablet conventions, between where Android on smartphones was and where it wants to be. It’s unfinished to the point that Google has taken the unprecedented step of breaking from their “openy” model and not releasing the Honeycomb source.

The PlayBook and Xoom have so much potential, so many great ingredients, but no fit and finish — they were just put out on the shelves without seeing any time in the oven.

Say what you want about Apple — and we all say plenty — but most of the time they nail the fit and finish. They don’t provide all the features everyone wants, they try to control the experience to a sometimes untenable degree, but what functionality they include and systems they design are mostly elegant, easy to use, and fully baked. The email, calendar, and contacts worked even if you didn’t own an iPhone. The dock port and 3.5mm headphone jack were functional out of the box, and it didn’t need to be sent back to Apple to have the radio swapped out. (Insert antennagate joke here.) They even chose the embarrassment of 10 month white iphone 4 delay rather than releasing a product they deemed unacceptable.

Maybe RIM and Google/Motorola felt compelled to release their tablets before they were ready. Maybe they value impatient investors more than the people who buy their products. That’s too bad. You can’t just bolt on polish like you can an LTE radio, or integrate customer experience like you can a secure email client. These values have to be part of the corporate culture and development cycle from day one. (Apple likewise faces similar struggles to add functionality like fast app switching, something webOS got right from day one.)

There are a lot more tablets coming, from RIM, Motorola, and many, many — many — others. But as I’ve said before, the competitors can’t just bring specs (or content) to an experience fight, and especially not when they’re unbaked.

The S2 is the interesting model as the form factor is totally different to anything we have seen before. It has two folding 5.5-inch screens that can work together or independently.

Not many more details are available at this stage as Sony say specifications are subject to change. The two models are slated for a release in the fall of this year.

Take a look at the short promo video after the break, then pop back here and let us know what your think of Sony’s tablets in the comments!

[Android Central]

Turns out when you stop the ridiculous practice of comparing Android (an OS) to iPhone (a phone), and compare Android to iOS (another OS), Apple’s operating system outreaches Google’s by 59% in the US, or 37,868 phones to 23,763.

Now Android growth is still accelerating faster than iOS, and if nothing changes, Android will eventually eclipse iOS, but this remains a far better, saner, and more sensible comparison than the previously, convenient to the point of manipulative “phones that run Android vs. phones that run iOS” numbers we’ve been subjected to in the past. This is “devices that run most Android apps vs. devices that run most iOS apps”. It’s far more meaningful to everyone, from Apple and Google to developers.

“These data clearly illustrate the Apple ecosystem extends far beyond the iPhone,” added Donovan. “Though it’s frequently assumed that the Apple user base is composed of dedicated Apple ‘fanboys’, there’s not a tremendous amount of overlapping mobile device access among these users. This of course has significant implications for the developer community as they consider the market potential in developing applications for different mobile platforms.”

There are some other interesting numbers, like the percentage of smartphone to iPad owners. These results aren’t surprising. What’s surprising is that it took this long to see them reported.

[ComScore]

The Motorola Xoom launched to sales that were okay but not breakthrough, the BlackBerry Playbook has gotten hopeful though mixed reviews, and now Digitimes reports other would-be iPad 2 competitors may be getting cold feet.

But sales of Xoom tablet PCs have been lower than expected, said sources at Taiwan’s notebook makers, citing brand image, pricing, insufficient applications and the unstable performance of Android 3.0 as reasons for the doldrums. [...] With Google unable to offer sufficient support to cooperation partners at present, many players have decided to delay the launch of Android 3.0 tablet PCs, the sources added.

Last year we debated whether Apple had created a mainstream tablet market, or simply an iPad market, and whether tablets would end up being like iPods with Apple dominant, or like Smartphones with many players in contention. It’s far, far too early to tell but it is telling that a year post-iPad launch the competition is still feeling their way out the of gate. (If not entirely flummoxed as Steve Jobs suggested at the iPad 2 event.)

We know some of you are considering the PlayBook, an Android Honeycomb tablet, or an HP/Palm TouchPad, what do you make of the struggle to get a strong competitor to market?

[Digitimes]

As part of his BlackBerry PlayBook review, CrackBerry.com‘s Kevin Michaluk put RIM’s new tablet browser one-on-one against Apple’s iPad 2.

When we put the PlayBook head to head against the iPad 2 in a browser shootout (see below), we saw pretty comparable page load times but did notice on websites where there were flash-based advertisements present, this would slow down the PlayBook by a few seconds while the iPad 2 would serve up a faster loading static image. Disabling flash evened out the load times.

Check out the video after the break and if you haven’t already, check out the rest of Crackberry’s PlayBook coverage.

RIM finally gets their 7-inch, QNX-powered iPad competitor to market and our sibling site, CrackBerry.com has your positively gargantuan BlackBerry PlayBook review piping hot and ready! From hardware to software literally nothing is left out. It looks a bit like webOS, runs Android Gingerbread apps, and is going after the iPad. So is it a triple threat or are we not quite sure yet?

As a BlackBerry fan and somebody who wants to see RIM hit nothing but pure homeruns, I’m of course a little choked up over the PlayBook’s first at bat performance. There’s no doubt it has some raw talent and killer moves that are going to attract some fans and loud cheers from the crowd (including me of course), but to be a real superstar it’s going to have to mature a little more and roundout its skill set. A little more practice time in the batting cage before stepping out on the field may have been the call to make on this one (as in waiting until native email and core app integration were complete before hitting the market).

So he loves where it’s going, if not exactly where it is right now and that’s fair. QNX is RIM’s future and this is their first step towards it. Hopefully it keeps Apple swinging for the bleachers as well. Competition is good for everyone, especially consumers.

So grab your iPad, hit the links below, and enjoy a quiet night of reading because Kevin has outdone himself bringing you everything you need to know about the BlackBerry PlayBook:

• CrackBerry’s Guide to the BlackBerry PlayBook
• Official BlackBerry PlayBook review
• BlackBerry PlayBook specs

Our editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn, writing for sibling site PreCentral.net lands an exclusive first look at an HP/Palm webOS slab device, potentially code-named Stingray.

While we are quite confident that the image is legit, unfortunately we don’t have a lot of confidence in any further information. Is the device coming or is it simply a prototype that has been canned? Our tipster described it as “an EVO with webOS” and suggests it simply has yet to be announced.

If real and if HP goes ahead and releases it, it will be their first phone without a keyboard, leaving webOS itself as their key differentiators. With more an more emerging about the tablet-specific webOS 3.0 (similar to how iOS 3.2 was iPad specific), it’ll be interesting to see what ultimately launches on the phone.

[PreCentral.net]

In January 2007 Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. Summer 2007 he announced its release date and “sweet” web apps to go with it. In Fall 2007 he introduced the iPod touch and iTunes Store app. Spring 2008 brought iOS 2 (then iPhone OS 2.0) and the App Store. Summer 2008 saw iPhone 3G and MobileMe. Fall 2008 was iPod touch 2. Spring 2009 was iOS 3. Summer 2009 was iPhone 3GS. Fall 2009 was iPod touch 3. January 2010, iPad. Spring 2010, iOS 4. Summer 2010, iPhone 4. Fall 2010, iPod touch 4 and Apple TV 2. Spring 2011, iPad and…

Nothing. Maybe.

Momentum is a fickle thing. You can gain and lose it in the blink of an eye. For four years iOS software and hardware have been setting the pace for mobile. From a single app-less iPhone in 2007, iOS has grown to encompass iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Apple TV and a host of supporting software and services. The original iPhone was a true revolution, obsoleting then market-leaders Palm, Microsoft, RIM, and Symbian. They never saw it coming, denied it was happening, and then failed for years to frame anything close to a coherent response. And while they were spinning, Apple hit them again with the App Store. And again with the iPad.

Windows Phone has rebooted but is still in early days and has struggled to provide timely updates. Even with HP’s deep pockets and huge reach Palm has been slow to get new devices out the door. BlackBerry is counting on a tablet to bridge the gap between their phones of the past and superphones of the future. And Nokia is in the middle of a shotgun wedding with Microsoft. With the Verizon iPhone in the US and white iPhone 4 slated for spring, Apple could easily skate another 3 months in that competitive landscape.

But not in a competitive landscape that includes Android.

Originally shown off as a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile Standard competitor, Android rapidly changed focus post-iPhone and came straight at Apple. While the G1 was clearly unfinished they began to hit their stride with Droid. Half way through iPhone 3GS’ product cycle, Nexus One actually took the lead in some areas. An inspirational device, it was way ahead of previous Android phones and showed where the platform was going for the next year. iPhone 4 was Apple’s answer.

According to rumors, however, Apple may not preview iOS 5 this spring and may not introduce an iPhone 5 this summer. If these rumors turn out to be true, Apple will be facing 15+ months without a new phone or major OS update, and 3+ months of relative stillness in the incredibly fast moving market.

Meanwhile, Google’s “openy” Android will just keep coming. While Nexus S turned out to be more summation of the past year than indicator of the next, spring has sprung seemingly a dozen more with dual core, LTE, and 3D. Whether any of these new Android features are particularly compelling or not, they’re still new features, new phones. They’re still news.

Come June AT&T and other carrier contracts will be up and for the first time in 4 years there won’t be a new iPhone to drive renewal. For the first time people who just want a new iPhone, the way they’ve been accustomed to getting each year’s new fashion, won’t have one waiting for them. Existing owners accustomed to a software refresh, a breath of fresh air into their older devices, won’t be getting a major new version of iOS. Developers won’t have had several months with new APIs and won’t have a slew of new apps ready to take advantage of them.

Whether or not finishing Mac OS X Lion has caused a delay in iOS 5 the way iOS has caused delays for Mac OS X in the past, whether or not a delay in IOS 5 has caused a delay in iPhone 5, whether or not there are issues with components or engineering, or absolutely nothing but Apple’s will to schedule it so, for the first time since 2007 we’re facing… a break in Apple’s pace.

Momentum is a fickle thing. Come June there may be no lineups, no race to iTunes’ update button.

What then?

Turns out Amazon might have beaten Apple in the online music locker race by sprinting off the blocks well before the whistle was ever blown, at least if the stunned reactions by music labels are to be believed. Reuters reports:

Music labels were informed of the plans last week. Only later did Amazon address the issue of negotiating licenses, one source close to the discussions said. That executive called the move “somewhat stunning” and noted that some within the media industry said the service might be illegal.

“I’ve never seen a company of their size make an announcement, launch a service and simultaneously say they’re trying to get licenses,” said the executive, who requested anonymity because the discussions were not public.

I’m no proponent of the music labels, their myopic view of technology, their contempt for their own consumers, and their constant attempts to make us pay over and over again for the same content, but this might just explain how Amazon was able to launch so quickly. If Apple, Google and others are waiting to get licenses — or have been waiting for months or years — Amazon going without them is certainly a head start.

Ironically, the music industry has given Amazon head starts in the past — including early access to DRM-free songs and cheaper price-points — in order to bolster competition and try to reduce iTunes’ market share. That they didn’t this time is interesting, as will be the record labels’ response.

Whether you agree with the music industry’s position or not (and personally I hope they continue sinking into the same Jurassic tar pit their dinosaur brethren did eons ago), does the lack of proper licensing — and any uncertainty it might create — change the likelihood of you using Amazon’s new cloud music service? And if Amazon gets away with it, will Apple decide to skip the process as well and launch sooner rather than later?

[Yahoo!]

Amazon surprised the tech world last night by announcing Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services for streaming music to various platforms. Amazon has stolen a march on Apple after we heard the other day that Apple was supposedly planning to launch a similar service very soon.

The Amazon service will allow you to upload your existing music collection, as well as tracks purchased through Apple’s iTunes or any other medium to the “Cloud Locker.” All Amazon account holders will automatically be given 5GB of online storage which can be increased to 20GB either by paying for more storage or buying an MP3 album from Amazon. Music purchased through Amazon will be automatically added to the Cloud Locker and will not count towards your storage quota. Music can be stored as either MP3 or AAC and in its original bitrate; so there will be no loss in quality. The service also allows you to store other media such as photographs, videos and documents.

The Cloud Player, the playback part of the service, is available either through a desktop web browser such as Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, or as part of the Amazon MP3 application on Android phones.

Amazon Cloud Drive seems to be accessible internationally while Cloud Player is currently blocked outside the US. (This is likely due to licensing issues and may take a long time to resolve — they’ve barely expanded Amazon MP3 in the last 3 years.)

Amazon does not appear to be allowing access through iPhone, iPod touch or iPad Safari at the moment either. (Some readers are saying you can hit the download link to stream the music via Safari’s built-in QuickTime X player, just like any MP3 link but we can’t confirm that yet — let us know in comments!). Whether Amazon chooses to properly open up access to Mobile Safari, or whether they’ll try to include Cloud Player into an iOS app is unknown. Even if Amazon makes an app, would Apple allow it into the App Store or would it be seen as a direct competitor to iTunes?

What do you think of the Amazon Cloud Locker? Do you think Apple will announce a service as flexible as this? Let us know in the comments!

[Amazon PR]

There’s been talk of an Amazon super-Kindle running Android OS since… about 5 minutes after Steve Jobs left the stage following the original iPad introduction. Now that Amazon has launched their Appstore (TM in contention), that talk is heating up again. And why not? It’s an obvious play. I’d be surprised if Amazon hasn’t had one in the labs for a while now (just like I would have been surprised if Facebook hadn’t been working on a phone…)

Amazon has content like iTunes, including (in the US at least — and more on that in a moment), ebooks, movies, TV shows, music, and now apps. They’ve made hardware before with the Kindle line.

But they’re hardly the only one.

Sony makes phones, owns a movie studio and record label, and almost everything else in place to launch a similarly competitive offering but they’ve been struggling of late and don’t seem to be that Walkman strutting, Trinitron innovating Sony of old. Samsung, however, is coming on strongly with their Galaxy S range of devices in assorted sizes and their Hub media services.

What Amazon has is a single login, credit card holding advantage. Both Google and Facebook could probably match Amazon on logins but they’re internet based advertising companies (what they sell is users’ attention). Amazon is an internet based commerce company (what they sell are goods). That’s an important difference. Most importantly, Amazon has the only checkout system in the world to rival iTunes, in terms of both one-click ease of use (Amazon actually patented one-click) and sheer number of credit cards on file.

Even so, they will be “just another Android tablet”. It’s no coincidence all these competitors — real and rumored — are being built on Android. Google has done to mobile what Microsoft did to PCs — make an OS that’s so great OEMs and VARs can’t justify the effort, investment, and resources necessary to make their own mobile OS anymore. (That’s a good sign for the maturity of the space, though a loss for those of us still hoping to see more innovation like a true Facebook or Mozilla mobile OS.) That means that market, skin, and branding aside, Amazon (and others) will benefit from huge economies of ecosystem but will also have to face competition within their own platform and struggle for differentiation and attention in the market. (They’ll also be facing internal tension since they’re providing Kindle and other apps for their competition — Apple doesn’t make iBooks or GarageBand for Android.)

Let’s say for the sake of argument Amazon’s brand is big and strong enough to really stand out from the pack –it still only gives Amazon some pieces of the puzzle.

Apple is offering an almost 360-degrees of integration. Everyone else has some part of that same story but no one else has all of it yet. RIM and HP/Palm have integrated hardware/software but lack the global checkout system of Apple or Amazon. Google has great services but their checkout is lackluster, their content still in process, and they’re almost always at the mercy of their hardware and carrier partners. Microsoft also has a desktop OS and previous consumer electronics like Xbox that could help with a halo effect, but none of them provided the existing accessory base and upgrade path iPod did, and Microsoft’s entire mobile strategy has been slow to the point of abdication. And almost no one else has anything like Apple’s retail stores.

So while upcoming mobile competitors will be bringing specs to an experience fight, Amazon and their hugely successful ecomm business will at least be bringing content as well. But it’s still an experience fight.

At the end of the day — or more appropriately at the moment of consumer decision making — you can’t match Apple on content any more than you can match them on specs. You have to match them on the feeling of the person in the Apple Store, hands-on with the device, absent any distracting logos on the bezel, easily obtaining and joyously not only using apps, but having the device become the app.

It’s a visceral response from mainstream consumers, an ability to engage with technology in a new, more understandable and incredibly intimate way that’s selling iPads, and that’s what needs to be competed against.

Um. Okay. Wow. Sony Ericsson, makers of the Xperia Play (aka PSP Phone) went out and got Kristen Schaal from the Daily Show to go all NSFW on iPhone gaming in a new series of YouTube videos (these can’t air on primetime TV, right?). You’ve got your Killing It, Pwnage, Kittenlicious, Kristennetsirk, and Kristen within Kristen, and no kidding — there’s adult language, sexual situations, violence, and numerous potshots taken at our precious iPhone.

(Interestingly, the videos are actually light on real PSP game play. It would have been nice to see them show off their games vs. Infinity Blade, Real Racing 2, Dead Space, and other top tier iPhone games… Right?)

Check out the videos after the break and let us know what you think, full of win or marketing #fail?

[9to5Mac]

Just as Apple brings us iPad 2, RIM finally reveals pricing and release information for the BlackBerry PlayBook and Samsung unveils new designs and lower price points for a couple of new Galaxy Tabs.

The 7-inch PlayBook Wi-Fi, which is available for order now from retailers like BestBuy and will be in stores on April 19, matches the iPad 2′s storage and price points with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB at $499, $599 and $699. Do the features make the smaller size worth the same price? (And does the BlackBerry logo on the bezel annoy you as much as it does Rene?)

The Android Honeycomb Galaxy Tab 8.9 Wi-Fi, which is actually going to be cheaper than the iPad 2 at 16GB and 32GB for $469 and $569, and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi, which is the same price at 16GB and 32GB for $499 and $599. Oh, and both are thinner than the iPad 2 at only 8.6mm (Oh yes, it’s on!)

Interestingly, Samsung is one of Apple’s largest manufacturing partners. Now that they’re competing so directly with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, could we see Apple try to separate themselves the way they did with Google after the Android launch, or is Samsung too big and too important for Apple to even think about cutting the cord?

Galaxy Tab video after the break. Watch it and let us know what you think, has the competition caught up faster than Apple expected, or are they still bringing specs to an experience fight?

[CrackBerry.com, Android Central]

While we were busy getting our big iPad 2 review posted, Android Central was knocking it out the park with a complete Android 3.0 Honeycomb-powered Motorola Xoom review. It’s bigger, it’s Google-ier, and it certainly has more logos on the bezel, but what did our sibling site think about it?

Android’s Honeycomb branch has some serious potential. But Android 3.0 is very much a Version 1.0 as far as its tablet OS is concerned. But the hardware Motorola has provided here is powerful (even with quad-core devices waiting in the wings), and we’re pretty sure the Xoom won’t die as a platform in a month or two. It’s solid, and Google’s going to use it to improve the Honeycomb experience.

If a 10-inch tablet’s the size for you, and you can put up with the weight, and the headaches Android apps catching up to the Honeycomb universe, and the Xoom’s LTE radio not yet working, and making do with the 32GB of internal storage while you wait for the microSD card to be activated, and can afford the price, by all means, purchase. You’ll be among the first in exciting new world of Android tablets, and the Xoom’s not likely to let you down. But if you’re looking for something a little more polished, lighter and (eventually) cheaper, you might just want to hold off a bit.

If you want the promise of LTE, an app marketplace not curated by Apple, a more desktop-like OS, and a tablet big enough to beat down an alien invasion, the Motoral Xoom might be a good alternative to iPad 2. Otherwise you might want to wait for an Ice Cream (or… Jello?) based tablet on 2nd generation hardware because you know it’s already in the pipeline (Google iterates faster than anyone else in the business right now.)

Check out the whole Motorola Xoom review and Phil Nickinson’s hands-on video at the link below!

[Android Central]

It occurred to me recently that Apple is successfully reframing the market so their competitors look like they’re bringing specs to an experience fight. From hammering “post PC” in their iPad 2 introduction to the time spent on GarageBand and iMovie, Apple was clearly trying to not only raise expectations for what mobile devices should look and work like, but how they should be considered. They’re a feeling, an interaction, a smile, a riff, a clip. They’re jazz.

2x faster, 9x better graphics, thinner, lighter. Apple said that much but beyond dual core and Apple A5 we didn’t get the name of the CPU or GPU, much less how much RAM was wrapped around them. Contrast this to the Tegra-touting, Qualcomm-carrying on competition and they’re pretty much having two different conversations at this point.

It’s safe to say everyone is beginning to understand the velocity of tablets but so far only Apple has proven to understand the direction. That may soon change but until it does, checkboxes won’t be sufficient to differentiate from or compete with the feeling of using an iPad. At least not for the tens of millions of consumers that make up the mainstream.

Samsung is reportedly reconsidering the form-factor and price of their forthcoming Galaxy Tab 10 following Apple’s iPad 2 announcement this week.

“We will have to improve the parts that are inadequate,” [Lee Don-joo] told Yonhap News Agency. “Apple made it very thin.”

The 7-inch Galaxy Tab was priced at nearly US$900 without a two-year contract from mobile operators, while the price of the iPad 2 starts at $499, with the most expensive model costing $829. Samsung did not announce the pricing details for the 10.1-inch tablet.

“The 10-inch (tablet) was to be priced higher than the 7-inch (tablet) but we will have to think that over,” Lee added.

I’m guessing that wasn’t a unique reaction by competitors and would-be competitors, and is refreshingly candid despite the fact that persistent rumors should have given Samsung et al reason to be reflective long before this week.

The reality is this — even if Android OS tablets eventually outnumber iOS tablets (aka iPad) like Android phones do iOS phones (aka iPhone), they’ll be split among numerous manufacturers making it unlikely any of them will individually ship more product than Apple. Since Apple can purchase and even pre-pay for components in huge volumes their economies of scale will likely far outstrip what separate Android manufacturers can manage. That, combined with COO Tim Cook’s legendary supply chain management, will keep Apple’s costs low and, even with their traditionally beefy margins, their overall price points low.

Likewise Apple has a Senior Vice President of Design — how many other companies put that much emphasis on design? Apple’s focus and the profits they make to feed that focus mean they are often far ahead when it comes to the build quality of the products they can field.

Given that Apple is already bringing iPad 2 to market before most are bringing their first tablet — great artists ship — Samsung is probably wise to consider and reconsider everything from price to package. But really, it’s not iPad 2 they need to worry about. It’s iPad 3.

If Samsung or Motorola or HTC can release their iPad 3 competitor within the next 6 months — the way Google released the Nexus One 6 months into the iPhone 3GS product lifecycle — then things will start to get interesting.

[Yonhap News Agency via Android Central]

Apple announced the iPad 2 today so — of course — the first thing we did was drag in our friends from PreCentral.net, Android Central, and CrackBerry.com and get them to spec up with the Android 3.0 Honeycomb-running Motorola Xoom, LG Optimus Pad, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10, and the HP TouchPad and BlackBerry Playbook.

The results are above, and all we can say is — what a great time to be a consumer! Also, given the hardware being thrown around Apple’s going to have to work hard on their integrated software model — that means iOS 5 — to keep the lion’s share of the market. The space is literally exploding with new, compelling devices.

Except from Microsoft and Nokia. Will they field something in 2011 or will we have to wait until iPad 3 or iPad 4 to add them to the spec wars?

Apple’s Steve Jobs took the stage immediately today as part of the iPad 2 event with 15 million sold and 90% market share. That’s more than every tablet PC ever sold.

Jobs said it “flummoxed” competitors. While some made fun of Jobs calling iPad magical, and others complained about the price, Jobs said to “ask our competitors now”. (Referring to the difficulty in matching iPad’s price point.)

Jobs showed off 65,000 apps for iPad and 100 — and they were being generous, he says — for Android 3.0 Honeycomb and then went into a video of Apple execs, users, educators, professionals, and others proclaiming 2010 the year of the iPad.

As a final shot, Jobs asked if 2011 would be the year of the copycats. With more Honeycomb tablets, HP’s TouchPad, and RIM’s Playbook all on their way it will be interesting to see how Apple’s iPad 2 holds up in 2011.

Following the epically brutal “our platform is burning” memo, Nokia announced today it’s going to start using Windows phone in an effort to better compete with — and disrupt if they can — incredibly successful upstarts like Apple’s iPhone, iOS, and iTunes App Store ecosystem. Nokia makes great hardware and Windows Phone is about as elegant a piece of software as Microsoft has ever written. That’s a powerful combination — if they can execute (and that’s a big if).

Video after the break and for complete coverage see our sibling sites:

• WPCentral on Microsoft/Nokia alliance
• Nokia Experts on Nokia/Microsoft alliance

Then come back and let us know what you think, is the new Nokia Windows Phone going to be greater competition than the sum of its parts?

HP held their Something Beyond event today where they announced the new, tiny Veer, the beefed up Pre 3, and their iPad competitors, the TouchPad. (And I’ll note with sadness it was HP, and no longer Palm that announced them.)

The Veer replaces the Pixi as the mainstream fashion phone, only now it packs the Pre slider form factor shrunk down to credit-card size (don’t call it MiniPre!). I’ll miss the iconic front-facing QWERTY that made the Treo famous but for slider fans there’s a lot — read: a little — to like here. Check out PreCentral.net’s Veer hands on for more.

The Pre 3 is the Pre on Hulk serum. Bigger screen and far more powerful internals. If HP can nail the build-quality they could realize every dream original Pre-users have had. I’d have liked a slab form factor here, but I have an iPhone so HP is at least sticking to Palm’s guns on hardware keyboards. Check out PreCentral.net’s Pre3 hands on for more.

The TouchPad is HP’s answer to the iPad, with identical display size but quadruple the RAM, a front-facing camera, and webOS 3.0 which really shines on the big screen. The UI doesn’t scale automagically (it was unrealistic to think it would) but HP has moved some controls to the top, made notifications into a hybrid drop down, and cards and stacks just look gorgeous on a tablet. Check out PreCentral.net’s HP TouchPad hands on for more.

HP also promised webOS as an ecosystem on everything from printers to webOS PCs to devices, all tied into the cloud. (They even showed TouchShare, where they “bumped” a web page from Pre3 to TouchPad by touching the devices together.)

It wasn’t a home run — Palm-now-HP has to start delivering more, faster if they want to keep up. But it was a solid at-bat in a game that’s nowhere near the end yet. (2 hours was also long for an event, half the time would have made the highlights twice as dense.)

The lack of firm release dates or pricing info was disappointing, as is the nebulous state of webOS updates for previous generation Palm devices. And while the Pre3 and TouchPad specs look solid we’re weeks away from iPad 2 and months away from iPhone 5, so HP has a heck of a pace to keep up with. HP has money, however, and that buys time (see Microsoft, Nokia) and at the very least they’ve shown webOS isn’t dropping out of the race.

Check out all the videos linked above and then come on back and tell us what you thought of HP’s Think Beyond event, does it raise the bar for Apple’s 2011 iOS lineup? What’s the threat level?

New Nokia CEO Steven Elop, who formerly ran Microsoft’s most successful business unit, has written one of the most brutally candid and forthright state-of-the-enterprise memos the mobile industry has ever seen, including an assessment of their position post-iPhone. Their “platform is burning”:

In 2008, Apple’s market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.

The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don’t have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.

Nokia makes brilliant hardware, arguably the best in the business, but they’ve been slow to adapt to the capacitive multitouch, app-centric, ecosystem-driven new smartphone world. And their software strategy has been fractured and frustrating. Elop clearly recognizes the issues and plans to start addressing them. Our own resident Nokia Expert, Matt Miller says:

Nokia will be holding their Capital Markets Day on Friday where Mr. Elop will reveal his future strategy. There are rumors that he might partner with Microsoft and release Windows Phone 7 devices or go with Android in an HTC-like multiple platform approach. As a fan of both Nokia and Windows Phone 7 you know what I would prefer. If Windows Phone 7 is brought to Nokia hardware then get ready to see a LOT more writing here on Nokia Experts as WP7 is my personal preferred platform at this time.

Will Nokia go with Windows Phone 7 or Android, try to relaunch MeeGo or Symbian at a faster pace with better user experience, or do something else entirely? And how, if at all, will it effect competition with iPhone? We’ll find out Friday.

[Engadget via Nokia Experts]

On the same day Apple and News Corp debuted The Daily, Google held their own event to once again show off Android 3.0 Honeycomb, a tablet-centric version of their mobile OS that Motorola, HTC, Samsung and others will use to compete with iPad 2.

Android Central has literally a ton of coverage up and from the looks of it Google is trying to be a little more desktop about the tablet than Apple has thus far. We’ll see Android 3.0 Honeycomb on the Motorola Xoom and no doubt a plethora of other tablets this year. We’ll see iPad 2 this spring and just as certainly an iOS 5 event soon as well.

Check out the Honeycomb event video after the break and let us know what you think. Anything Apple needs to pay particular attention to come iPad 2?

[Android Central Android 3.0 Honeycomb event recap]

Still surprising if not a surprise, Sony has made the decoupling their PlayStation games from PlayStation hardware — like the new PSP2/NGP — official with the launch of PlayStation Suite. Android is the only other platform targeted right now (which makes sense given Sony Ericsson’s Android phone investment) but could the 160 million install base strong iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad iOS platform come online in the future?

Hey, Verizon is getting the iPhone so anything can happen, right? Still, with Apple maintaining tight control of the App Store they and Sony would probably have to come to a special licensing and development deal to get the same type of PlayStation content onto iOS. It wouldn’t be as easy as Android and likely webOS would. Sony could always develop/port iOS-specific versions of their titles but that would take more effort on their part, even with 160 million reasons to do it.

Sony also announced their next generation portable (NGP), aka the PSP2 and it’s a monster in every sense of the word. If you thought the rumored Apple A5 chip was hot, this thing is on fire with a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 and quad-core PowerVR SGX543 chipset (they claim it’s close to PS3 in terms of power). No word on what kind of battery that will require to deliver significant online gaming life. The 5-inch OLED display is 960×544 (close to iPhone 4′s 960×640 but at a much larger size) and touch sensitive. It’s got at the 3Gs and Wi-Fis, as well as a touch-sensitive area on the back of the device so you can swipe without obscuring the display. Dual cameras, dual analog thumbsticks and the usual PS controls round out the input methods. It’s also got a new interface that they claim is more social but — at least so far — doesn’t look as clean or consistent as the old crossbar. Sony does say it will be ready for a holiday 2011 release which will put it up against iPhone 5, iPod touch 5, and iPad 2 (with iPad 3 on its way).

Both Sony and Nintendo have been losing mobile gaming share to iOS over the least couple years, will hardware like the PSP2 and software like PlayStation suite start turning that tide?

[Android Central, Engadget]

While sales of Android-powered phones are increasing, Android Market’s paid app sales aren’t keeping pace so an unhappy Google seems to be considering several very Apple App Store-style changes to help give things a jumpstart. Speaking to Forbes platform manager Eric Chu said these changes include in-app purchases. iPhone and iPad users have shown they’ll often chafe at spending $1 to $10 on a game but will happily download a free game and then spend $10-$100+ dollars on in-app purchases to make their farms, castles, and mushroom homes look nicer.

Another change is the move to carrier billing since Google’s own checkout system hasn’t caught on and doesn’t provide the international footprint of Apple’s 90-country iTunes Store system. That’s important to get more paid apps available in more countries.

The most interesting change, however, involves… wait for it… a type of curation:

Chu said there is a human team in charge of weeding out apps that violate Android Market’s terms of service. It sounds like Google is continuing to invest in that team.

While Apple does this in advance, rejecting apps that violate their guidelines before they hit the App Store, Google believes in a more open marketplace and so is handling violations after they hit the store. Whether that’s better or worse for both developers and user experience is debatable. However, finding high quality, paid apps is apparently a big challenge amid a sea of keyboards, low-functionality apps, and other flotsam and jetsam.

With companies like Amazon and the carriers themselves preparing to launch competing Android marketplaces of their own, perhaps with higher levels of curation and easier checkout experiences, Google could be feeling the pressure. 10 billion apps downloaded later, could becoming more like Apple’s App Store be the answer, or do you prefer having the option of another platform with a very different app ecosystem?

[Forbes, Android Central]

Dieter’s been killing it today over on sibling-site PreCentral.net, digging up tons of details on HP/Palm’s upcoming “Topaz” tablet, their big iPad competitor. Not surprisingly it lines up almost identically to the current iPad and rumored iPad 2 specs, including a 9-inch 1024×768 screen, gyroscope, and front-facing camera. Given how successful Palm was at attracting developers to the Pre given its iPhone 3GS spec-matching, maintaining the strategy and getting iPad games via an updated PDK is a no brainer.

The hardware is the least interesting part of the leak, however. Of course it will be running webOS, one of the most elegant mobile operating systems on the planet, but as always there some amazing Palm innovation along for the ride:

The Topaz will support Touchstone inductive charging – but obviously it won’t work with the current Touchstone. Instead, HP is developing something they were calling “Touchstone v2″ that supports additional functionality. That functionality looks to include both Bluetooth for wireless streaming of content and speakers for music.

That last is intriguing. The idea is that you can start watching a movie on the dock, but when you lift the Topaz out of the dock it switches into a wireless remote to control the video that it’s wirelessly streaming to the controller for play on your television.

It’ll also have Flash, which the iPad won’t, and it should include some nifty cloud integration into the rest of HP’s webOS and Windows-powered ecosystem.

While Apple COO Tim Cook recently took Google’s Android tablets to task for bizarre fragmentation, Palm uses the same integrated approach Apple does and that could make for some pretty compelling competition.

Check out the full leaks via the link below and then come back here and tell us what you think. iPad 2 need to worry?

[PreCentral.net]

The Verizon iPhone is coming February 10 and some of the big questions are: who will leave the AT&T iPhone for the Verizon iPhone, who will leave the Verizon Droid for the Verizon iPhone, and most importantly, what will the next huge wave of Verizon feature phone upgraders choose?

AT&T’s reception — or the lack thereof in some areas — will certainly propel some current iPhone users to switch networks (our poll shows about 19% of TiPb readers are considering doing just that). Some wanted the iPhone badly enough that they tolerated a poor network experience for years but now that they have the choice they’ll switch to a network that better suits their needs as soon as contract and/or cash allow.

On the flip side some wanted the iPhone but just couldn’t or wouldn’t live with AT&T service in their area so stuck with Verizon and got BlackBerry Storms or, especially lately, Verizon Droids. I’m deliberately using Droid and not Android because, like it or not, Android is not a mainstream brand. And no matter how much market metric companies like to graph it, it’s not a phone any consumer can buy. Droid is, in several models, and thanks to Verizon’s massive advertising campaign coupled with Google’s powerful software, it’s a phone that gained some mainstream mindshare.

(Samsung’s Galaxy S, while popular, has a fragmented brand with different names on every carrier so despite incredible sales it collectively doesn’t enjoy the same level of mainstream mindshare.)

No doubt many people bought Droids because they love Android. They’re probably the same people who know what Android is and specifically why it’s great at what it does. They also know Galaxy S and the other models. Many others just wanted a smartphone and Droid did — original, Pro, 2, Incredible, Bionic, etc. They went into the store and it was a brand they recognized thanks to Verizon’s advertising and, with the only other recognizable brand being BlackBerry, they probably picked one or the other (increasingly Droid based on the share numbers).

Now those same customers will walk in and see iPhone. Money Verizon used to spend on marketing Droid is now also being used to market iPhone on Verizon. Apple is also marketing iPhone on Verizon. AT&T will continue to market iPhone (Verizon and AT&T will be competing not just for users but for iPhone users and that benefits the iPhone brand). No one else is marketing Droid.

Some who previously bought BlackBerry Storm or Droid will switch to iPhone, also when cash and/or contract allows. Some will stay with both (productivity mavens and power users), but those who wanted the iPhone and couldn’t get it will switch when they can.

Existing smartphone users are also only the tip of the iceberg. The giant, ship-crushing base of the iceberg is feature phone users who either waited for the iPhone or see the iPhone as just another phone they’ll enjoy using (as opposed to other, more complicated even if more powerful smartphones). The partial migration of AT&T iPhone users and Verizon BlackBerry and Droid users is one thing. The inevitable migration of mainstream feature phone to mainstream smartphone users is another. Because right now iPhone is almost synonymous with mainstream smartphone.

Right now Verizon customers going into a Verizon store to get a new phone might recognize BlackBerry or Droid. Next month they absolutely will recognize iPhone. Just look at how Verizon is positioning it:

• iPhone is front and center on the Verizon home page
• Click on Verizon’s Phone menu and what choices do you get? iPhone, smartphone, feature phone.

Not only is iPhone listed first, Droid and BlackBerry aren’t listed at all. You have to dig for them. [Daring Fireball]

The number of Droid users — of all Android users — on Verizon today is small compared to the number of iPhone users on AT&T. Collectively, across all US networks, Android phones have numbers that equal or beat iPhone just on AT&T. [New York Times]

Next month iPhone will be on Verizon as well. How many will switch to iPhone from Droid? How many will switch to the Verizon iPhone as their first smartphone? No one knows for sure but the number will pass 1 million very quickly, probably in the first week, and several million, probably the first quarter.

Up until now the choice may have been iPhone on AT&T or Droid on Verizon. It also may have been iPhone on AT&T or no-iPhone on Verizon. We’ll find out which next month. My suspicion is Apple’s investment in brand will pay huge dividends and will be something other OS makers and manufacturers will have to start taking much more seriously.

During the Apple Q1 2011 conference call today, Apple COO Tim Cook was asked about iPad competitors and remarked that current Android tablets were “bizarre products” and future ones were still “vapor”.

He based his comments on current tablets like the Galaxy Tab running a version of Android that Google itself says was not meant for tablets. Thus they have small screens and phone experience, which Apple thinks is a “bizarre product”. When compared side-by-side, Cook thinks a huge percentage of users will select iPad.

When it comes to future Android tablets, like those announced at CES running Android 3.0 Honeycomb, he doesn’t know. They aren’t shipping yet, lack specs and pricing, and as of today they’re still vapor. He’ll assess again when they ship.

He emphasized that Apple isn’t standing still, however, and has a first mover advantage, incredible user experience, as well as iTunes, App Store, and the Apple ecosystem.

Cook said Apple is very confident entering a tablet fight with anyone.

UPDATE: As a follow up, Cook said that they believe Apple’s integrated approach provides a better user experience than Android’s fragmented approach. Even Android app stores are becoming fragmented and users will be “pulling their hair out” trying to figure out where to update their apps. Repeating Steve Jobs from the last call, Cook said they don’t believe customers want to be systems integrators.

With iPad specifically, Cook said they’ve had 3 months without any significant competition.

We know iPad 2 is coming (the rumors won’t stop!) but we know RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook, Android 3.0 tablets, and PalmPads are all coming. What do you think? Is Apple confident or over confident?

Our good friend Phil over at AndroidCentral managed to capture a video showing off the Motorola Xoom tablet at CES. The Motorola Xoom could bring some real competition to not only the iPad but the iPad 2 as well. Packing a dual core 1Ghz processor, 10.1-inch (1280 x 800 and 16:10 aspect ratio) display, 2-mega-pixel front facing camera, 5-mega-pixel rear facing camera, microSD slot, HDMI out and a whopping 1024Mb of RAM.

The Xoom will run Android Honeycomb and supports Adobe Flash. Availability is said to be first quarter of this year and exclusive to Verizon. No details on pricing yet.

Strangely, LTE won’t come immediately and will require a hardware update later. SD card support will require a software update.

The video is after the break,  make sure you visit AndroidCentral for more details and hands on pictures, then pop back and  let us know what you think of this one in the comments!

[AndroidCentral]

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

Rene, Chad, Georgia, and Chris discuss iPad 2 rumors, Verizon iPad, will it get a new version of iOS, what Jailbreak concepts Apple should steal for iOS 5, and the competition coming at CES 2011. This is iPad Live!

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

CES 2011 starts in just a few days and once again the iPad competitors are lining up to take a shot at Apple’s breakthrough tablet. I say “once again” because last year, even before Apple had announced the iPad, rumor of it alone was enough to get Steve Ballmer on stage showing off a Windows-powered HP Slate, and to line the halls with all sorts of in-development tablets based on Android, Linus, etc.

None of those materialized for the mainstream but now that Apple has launched iPad and sold millions upon millions of them, you can bet this year will be different, and here are just some of the players:

• Microsoft‘s Steve Ballmer is giving “a number” of slates another shot on stage, this time by Samsung and Dell (HP now has webOS, see below). The SammyPad is said to be similar to iPad but not as thin, allowing for a slide-out keyboard as differentiator. They’ll run full-blown Windows 7 but have a layer on top for better touch-computing. [New York Times]

• HP/Palm’s webOS PalmPad was rumored to be showing up for CES dressed in the old HP Slate duds from last year, but that rumor now seems to have been smashed. Too bad. Palm Pre and Palm Pre Plus both debuted at CES, and a Palm Pad debut would have had interesting symmetry. webOS optimized for the big screen, like iOS was for iPad, could be a serious contender for Apple in usability, elegance, and design — where it’s usually ahead — so hopefully if we don’t see it at CES we’ll see PalmPad soon thereafter. Worst case scenario, Palm is focusing on phones, which isn’t a bad thing… [PreCentral.net]

• RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook will almost certainly grab a lot of attention at CES. A bold departure from the traditional hierarchy of BlackBerry strengths — BBOS, keyboards, communication — RIM’s tablet runs their new QNX-based PlayBook OS with UI layers powered by Adobe’s Flash. That means RIM can brag about a “fuller” web experience than Apple provides. So, while it might look like an iPad running something akin to webOS, it’ll have the RIM brain-trust (and security focus) behind it. For years they’ve been making fun of Apple’s “toys”, but putting the BlackBerry brand (and BBM) on the device might just get all those who’ve had secret iPad lust in their hearts a way to get some PlayBook, and play-time all their own. [CrackBerry.com]

• Android 3.0 Honeycomb-powered tablets will probably the biggest, baddest competition coming Apple’s way, and Motorola’s (DroidPad?) will spearhead that assault. Demonstrated by Andy Rubin last month, the prototype was as big as an iPhone and looked to really take advantage of that extra size. Android apps can split out into pane-views (perhaps similar to Apple’s column-views, perhaps more free form like windowed computing?) and who knows what else at this point? We’ll also likely see a googolplex of other Android tablets on the floor, shipping with a variety of versions and customizations to the OS, showing again the strength-in-numbers of the platform. [AndroidCentral.com]

There will no doubt be a lot of other contenders as well, some ultra-cheap, some amazingly innovative. Yours truly from TiPb and the rest of SPE, including Dieter, Kevin, and Phil will be on the ground covering the event and will bring you back all the highlights. Which of these devices do you think will be the biggest story and the toughest competition?

Which one do you think Steve Jobs will target the hardest when he takes the stage just a short time later (don’t know when yet!) and introduces iPad 2?

Looks like Samsung, makers of the iPhone-like Galaxy S phone series and iPad-like Galaxy Tab tablet series, will be adding the iPod touch-like Galaxy Player to its North American lineup post-CES:

The most recent version, the YP-GB1, is said to have Android 2.2 (take that, all you Galaxy S phones!), the same 1GHz Hummingbird processor, a 4-inch SCLD touchscreen, 480×800 resolution, 3.2MP rear camera and front VGA camera — and 8GB, 16GB or 32GB storage. Basically, a Galaxy S sans phone radio.

No word yet on the GalaxyMac.

[Samsung Hub via Android Central]

Why is RIM running away from BlackBerry in order to try and keep up, never mind compete, with Apple’s iPad, never mind iPhone? Georgia, Chad, Ally and I spoke about this at length on last Sunday’s iPad Live! podcast but given RIM’s financial results and accompanying comments this week, I think it’s appropriate to get some text behind it now as well.

Note: I’m not going to use direct quotes in this piece. I need a translator to understand RIM’s co-CEO’s, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. They don’t speak any language I’m familiar with, not English, French, Klingon, or marketing. There’s no app for translating what they’re saying lately, and certainly no web service (zing! reserved, as you’ll see later). I’ve read what CrackBerry Kevin and Sascha Segan, geniuses both, have managed to extract but I’m still baffled. Or RIM is still baffling. I think it’s the latter.

End of life equations

BlackBerry is the ultimate communications device for those whose hierarchy of needs are founded on communication. While competition from third-party IM apps is growing, for those who need instant, addictive, information exchange and the best tiny keyboard in the business, BlackBerry still has no equal. It also has no future. It grew from a pager and has been bound and gagged and kept from growing further by the increasingly outdated, increasingly restrictive Java2ME-based architecture. Push-wise their technology is fantastic. Hardware-wise their build quality is among the best. OS-wise they’re dead in the water.

Apple faced this with OS 9, bought NeXT, and now we have Mac OS X and iOS. Microsoft faced this with Windows ME and Windows Mobile 6.5, merged NT on the desktop and re-architected on the mobile side, and now we have Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7. Palm faced this with Palm OS and the Treo, went back to the drawing board and came out with webOS and the Pre. Google began making a BlackBerry clone, took one look at iPhone, switched gears, and now we have Android 2.3 Gingerbread (and Chrome OS, perhaps after seeing webOS).

In each of those cases a company whose core technology was at its end of life brought in or rebuilt a new foundation to take them forward another step with their core products. Apple didn’t buy NeXT and launch a gaming console. Microsoft didn’t bring in NT and launch a walkman competitor. Palm didn’t build webOS to get into the printer game (listening HP?), and Google — well, Android was additive for them; their advertising business is doing just fine thanks. RIM has done the first part, they’ve bought QNX but instead of using that to build a 14 million a quarter selling iPhone competitor, to make a better BlackBerry… they’re deploying it on a tablet to take on the 5 million or so a quarter selling iPad. Instead of using it to regroup, retrench, and relaunch, they’re using it to branch out and buy time. And they’re making incredible compromises to do it.

Webapps for that

First, RIM is playing the HTML5 card for developers, the one Palm played with webOS 2 years ago. Now HTML5 is great for webapps and maybe webapps are the future but we’re nowhere near that future yet. RIM’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie suggested Apple’s App Store-class apps are only necessary on iOS because iOS can’t handle the web as well as the PlayBook (a product which does not yet exist for consumers). He said “you don’t need an app for the web”.

Except of course you do. The browser is an app, a generic frame app that’s good for most things but not great for all things. My Mac and Windows PCs can all handle the web well — better than any PlayBook real or imagined — and I like many others still use native apps all the time. (MailPlane does things with Gmail that Gmail.com stuck in a browser just can’t do.) Google, the king of webapps, makes all sorts of native apps because they — being the king — they understand the internet pipes better feed native apps at this point than the browser. (Witness the exception that proves the rule — Chrome OS.)

It’s become a cliche but when Steve Jobs announced sweet, sweet webapps as the original iPhone 2G SDK back in 2007 he was met — rightfully so — with the jeers and condemnation of the developer community. Now it’s 2010 and mobile apps have proven so successful that web browsing is actually down on iOS. People like using apps better than the web on mobile because internet-enabled apps currently work better than the web browser on mobile devices.

Destiny dependent

Second, RIM is using Adobe’s AIR as stop-gap SDK and Flash as a presentation layer. While that’s great news for Flash developers because it allows for the mythical “code once, run anywhere” travesty that’s tortured users for over a decade, it’s the same trap RIM was was in with Java2ME on BlackBerry OS. It’s an intermediary, code-intepreting layer based on outdated, historically poorly performing technology that RIM can’t control. If AIR and Flash languish and fall far behind the curve, as Adobe has let them do in the past, or if Adobe takes AIR and Flash in a direction that’s at conflict with RIM and their users, what can RIM do? They’re once again not masters of their own destiny, something Apple, Microsoft, Palm, and Google decidedly are.

Forgetting phones

Third, QNX and the AIR layers don’t seem to be able to run on phones, which are RIM’s core business. It demands too much processing power and consumes too much battery life to actually power the products RIM sells. In 2010. iOS has been powering iPhones well since 2007. Android, UI challenged as it was, worked fine on the 2008 G1. webOS did wonders with the Pre in 2009. Microsoft, who had their head in the sand (to put it politely) for years still managed to launch a new OS that ran on phones by 2010. That it took one or two years post-iPhone is understandable. That it took three is perplexing. That RIM will take four, maybe five is as flabbergasting as the PlayBook itself.

The BlackBerry inexperience

Fourth, given RIM doesn’t have a native development environment of their own or a next-generation OS that can run on current generation phones, the tablet-style PlayBook might seem like a smart, place-holder play to keep the BlackBerry faithful, well, faithful.

Except the PlayBook is a BlackBerry in name only. As I mentioned at the beginning, BlackBerry, OS-challenged as it is, still leads the industry in enterprise push, messaging, and overall communications. Those are their core strengths and competencies. Say what you want about the BlackBerry OS user experience — and I’ve said plenty, as have lots of BlackBerry lovers — tens of millions of people use it everyday. And the PlayBook is nothing like it. The PlayBook, which RIM can only hope to sell to Enterprise and BlackBerry addicts, has a user experience completely alien to BlackBerry. It’s interactivity is all Apple iPad and its UI metaphors are all taken from Palm’s webOS.

Apple was criticized for not doing something more original with the iPad, of simply scaling up the iPhone. But that’s exactly right and Apple said why at the introduction — there were already tens of millions of users who knew how to use iPhone and would instantly know and feel comfortable using iPad.

How many BlackBerry users will instantly know PlayBook based on their BlackBerry use? BlackBerry users are BlackBerry users — if they’re still BlackBerry users — because they don’t want iPhones or Pres. They want BlackBerrys. If they wanted iOS they’d have already gotten iPads and if they want webOS they’ll wait for a PalmPad.

PlayBooks sound like they’re for play. BlackBerrys are known, trusted, and loved for work. Even the name shows the utter disconnect at the core of this device, and at the core of RIM.

Love is blind

Like Ballmer at Microsoft and Colligan at Palm, Lazaridis and Balsillie at RIM probably thought they were so entrenched, so far advanced, that no upstart like Apple (or Google) could challenge them. By the time they did start responding with their “Apple killer”, the BlackBerry Storm in 2008, the negative reaction should have shown them that what they were doing wasn’t and wouldn’t work, that they needed to think different and leap ahead.

I’ve always thought Android and Windows Mobile suffered because the CEOs of Google and Microsoft didn’t care about them. They’re just another screen that needs to be owned. Steve Jobs loves the iPhone. Jon Rubenstein went to Palm to make the Pre. Lazaridis and Balsillie obviously love the BlackBerry (maybe even more than Kevin). But the love that can launch and platform can also blind a company to the platform’s decline. Founders have a tough time recognizing when change is needed. Witness the BlackBerry Torch.

It’s taken RIM over three years to recognize the trouble they’re in and since they wasted so much time they’ve now become desperate not to waste any more. That’s why Balsillie is firing away at Apple and that’s why Lazardis came off so poorly when interviewed by Mossberg and Swisher at the Dive into Mobile conference. Unable to show off anything but the PlayBook prototype, unable to concede the failure of the Torch and risk the Osborn effect on existing BlackBerry OS devices, and unable to tell a story about smartphones that can’t be told until next year at the earliest, he’d have been better off not doing the interview at all.

Why is RIM running away from BlackBerry to battle Apple?

RIM doesn’t have Windows and Office, or online advertising to keep them afloat while they (re)invent their smartphones. They’re like Apple when Jobs came back or Palm when Rubenstein came in, only it’s not then it’s now and the space is accelerating faster and the climate is more competitive than ever before.

That’s why RIM has to make so many compromises, playing the HTML5 card, getting in bed with Adobe, going with a tablet instead of a phone, and creating an alien experience, and why they’ve had to run away from the Blackberry to battle Apple — because today’s BlackBerry has proven can’t battle Apple and tomorrow’s BlackBerry is still way more than a day way.

They waited too long and now they’ve bet on the PlayBook to to keep them going until chips and batteries let them re-enter the smartphone game. It’s a huge gamble and not one that’s guaranteed to pay off .

iPhone 4. Nexus S. There’s probably more to say about the differences than the similarities. Different operating systems? Check. Don’t work with 3G on the same networks? Check. Different screen sizes? Check. Different philosophy and methodology towards multitasking? Check. Different video conferencing solutions (insofar as few to none work yet on the Nexus S)? Check.

The list goes on, but we’re sort of guessing that for most the choice between the Nexus S and the iPhone 4 will be determined by carrier choice and OS preference more than whether Android’s latest can go head-to-head with Steve Jobs’ glass-encased wonderphone.

All that shouldn’t stop you from hitting us after the break for a photo fight between the iPhone 4 and the Nexus S – with some extra attention paid to how the iPhone still has the best music player around while Android’s just-released Google Maps 5.0 makes iOS’s version look a little lacking.

Want more? Be sure to hit up our frenemies at Android Central for all the latest on the Nexus S.

Google has just announced the Nexus S, a pure Android 2.3 Gingerbread-powered, Samsung manufactured smartphone aiming to take the Nexus One into generation two and set the standard for a legion of subsequent devices in 2011. Our sibling site, Android Central has got your full Nexus S and Gingerbread coverage, and they’re even giving away a free Nexus S in their Android Forums, so go check that out. What interests me, however, is that like the Nexus One, Nexus S shows that Google is one of the few companies that really know how to counter-program Apple and iPhone.

Apple sold 14 million iPhones last quarter. Released in June. On one US carrier, with controversies real and imagined about the antenna, and with one of the two models — the white one — delayed until next year. Other phones that were announced around a similar time either got overshadowed, lacked brand power or distinction, or suffered carriers meddling with and defiling them at every turn. Aimed at mainstream consumers who probably had little idea what version of Android they ran or whether they were Galaxy S behind all the different names, as often or not they were probably sold as “like an iPhone”. They’re one of an unremarkable many at this point. A me-too. A memory.

Nexus S will be different.

Like the Nexus One, it’s released far outside Apple’s iPhone cycle, when early adopter, influencer types just might be getting bored with iPhone 4, or the latest from Motorola or RIM or HTC. It’s marketed to geeks and power users, the type of people who want unlocked devices and unmodified software. The ones who want the latest hardware that’s guaranteed to get the latest updates first. Sure, the T-Mobile/Wind/Videotron only 3G bands at the moment are a colossal fumble, but only for the moment.

Now don’t get me wrong, given those limited 3G bands and Google’s demographic there’s no way Nexus S will put a dent in Apple’s iPhone 4 numbers. But far removed from WWDC’s iPhone debut, it will make a huge impact with bloggers and those who read blogs, technologists and those who love technology. Nexus One was the talk of CES 2010 and it had 3 months in the spotlight before Apple could preview iOS 4 and 6 months before Apple could respond with iPhone 4.

There’s every chance Nexus S with its curved screen, near field communications, and other bar-raising features could do the same thing at CES 2011, leaving Apple again unable to respond until their yearly cycle allows, with an iOS 5 event in March/April and an iPhone 5 debut at WWDC 2011.

Howard Stern, at the height of his radio popularity, was asked how other stations could counter-program him. Many had tried — and failed — at using shock jocks of their own, so Stern’s answer was as sensible as it was surprising — go music only. You’re not going to get his audience, you’re going to get the one he’s not reaching.

Google gets that. They aim the Nexus line squarely at that audience and so far, they’re doing it well.

[Android Central Nexus S coverage]

This week we found out the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab would be hitting Verizon for $599, with a $20/1GB month data plan, and the Windows 7-powered HP Slate, 10 months after Steve Balmer showed it off on the CES stage, will be available to Enterprise for $799. RIM has the BlackBerry PlayBook coming next year and HP the PalmPad in the pipeline as well.

The baseline iPad 3G is $629 with a $15/256MB month AT&T plan, the baseline Wi-Fi iPad + MiFi bundle on Verizon is likewise $630 with a $20/1GB month data plan (the Mi-Fi isn’t built in but can serve as a router for up to 5 devices). At that price, the iPad includes a 9.7-inch screen at 1024×768 , aluminum unibody, 1GHz A4 SoC, 256MB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a 35,000 iPad and 300,000+ strong compatible App Store, the iTunes ecosystem, and a good, tablet optimized OS that’s about to become great with iOS 4.2 in November.

The Galaxy Pad boasts a 7-inch screen at 1024×600, 1GHz hummingbird SoC, 512MB of RAM, 16GB+ MicroSD storage, the Android Market (most apps are compatible if not optimized), and an OS that Google hasn’t yet optimized for tablets but Samsung has done a great job of embiggening all on their own. And it has cameras.

The HP Slate comes to the table with an 8.9 inch screen at 1024×600, 1.86GHz Intel Atom Z540 processor, 2GB of RAM, 64GB SSD,Windows 7 which means it can run Windows 7 applications, a stylus, a pull out tab with — we kid you not — a Windows barcode sticker, and a CTL-ALT-DEL hard button. And it also has cameras.

We don’t know BlackBerry PlayBook pricing yet, but the specs don’t look too far removed from the Galaxy Tab, albeit with a dual-core processor and the new QNX-based BlackBerry Tablet OS. Native apps will probably take a while to come but their supporting Flash and AIR out the gate so rich internet apps developed on that platform should be good to go.

There’s no information on the PalmPad yet, but it will run webOS which Palm aficionados say scales automagically but given the size differences between 3.1-inches and 7 or 9.7-inches we’re guessing they’ll have to right-size UI elements and probably re-conceptualize the UI in general to make use of all that extra space. (Twitter for iPhone would look really sparse at 9.7-inches which is probably why Twitter for iPad is very different, and the same goes for most apps).

Microsoft has said they’re sticking with Windows 7 for the tablet, which means we’re expecting Windows Phone 7, with its tiles and panoramas to make an appearance as soon as engineeringly possible — or at least we’re hoping.

Steve Jobs famously — or infamously depending on your point of view — said earlier this week that he doesn’t think competitors can match Apple’s price points. Apple uses the same guts — from A4 processor to battery chemistry to case machining to core OS development — across a huge range of products. That kind of internal coordination is unheard of in most other companies and those economies of scale very difficult to match. Jobs accused Samsung and RIM of using 7-inch screens (48% smaller surface area than iPad) in order to keep costs down. However, Samsung and RIM are adding cameras, ports, and other features simply not available in the first generation iPad, and some of them likely not coming to iPad 2 either. (Apple’s not adding a ton of ports any time soon, they’re moving further way from the power user and aiming squarely at the mainstream with iOS and OS X now.)

Will the Galaxy Tab and HP Slate sell 7 million+ in the first 6 months the way the iPad has? Probably not. The tablet market right now is an iPad market. But it doesn’t matter. More Android tablets are coming, and Google is working to make sure either the next version of Android, Gingerbread, or the version after that, Honeycomb, has full support for larger screens. BlackBerry is coming with its BES and BBM. HP is coming with Palm’s visionary webOS. And Microsoft just might be there too, eager to own a piece of the Tablet PC market they began and Bill Gates championed for many, many years.

And that’s not even counting netbooks, cheap laptops, or Apple’s own, newly announced 11-inch MacBook Air.

Steve Jobs might be right. Apple has a huge lead, incredible economies of scale, and the greatest product-savvy CEO in the history of the business. The market could end up like iPod, where Apple built such a lead it now enjoys 70% and everyone else fights for what’s left over. Will everyone who wants a tablet, as Georgia has suggested, already have bought an iPad? (Including some of our fellow SPE editors and writers?) Or, given the stakes, is it more likely iPad could end up like the iPhone, where Apple winds up with a highly profitable slice of a gigantic pie, incredible mindshare, and competitors who hunt them, Cylon-like, every step of the way.

[Android Central, Engadget, CrackBerry.com, PreCentral.net]

HP/Palm have officially announced webOS 2.0 and the Palm Pre 2. Dieter, covering it for our sibling site PreCentral.net, says:

WebOS 2.0 is without question the biggest webOS update we’ve seen since Palm first unveiled webOS at CES in January 2009. You could argue that the main features — Stacks, Just Type, Exhibition, improved speed, and a bevy of developer tools are mainly evolutionary and you wouldn’t be wrong. However, the sum of these updates adds up to an OS that is coming into its own. Rather than try to play catch-up with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, HP chose to bolster webOS’ advantages over those platforms. webOS 2.0 is not a me-too operating system.

Odd, though, that HP/Palm dumped it in a press release, and once again right before an Apple event (though iOS and iPhone shouldn’t have much, if any role to play tomorrow). The original Palm Pre and webOS unveiling at CES 2009 deservedly won best of show, and Palm out engineered Google at their own game last year — creating a web-based, connected, mobile device. HP can solve the money problems, Palm can solve the carrier problems, but now they both have to solve the momentum problem.

Check out Dieter’s webOS 2.0 in 10 minutes video, then come back and let us know what you think.

Microsoft has launched Windows Phone 7, a bold re-imagining of their mobile platform with innovative “Metro” UI and more manufacturer and carrier partners than you can shake a “customization” at.

Mal, Phil, and Dieter are knocking the coverage out of the park over at our brand-new sibling site, WPCentral, so check out all the phones, all the features, and all the fun and then come on back here and let us know what you think. Is this the next Android-level competitor for the iPhone, or like Zune HD, will it be wonderful technology simply too late to market?

For my part, I still say they should have called it XPhone and debuted an exclusive Halo Edition to put on the shelf across from iPhone 4 at launch…

[WPCentral]

Interesting visualization of smartphone market-share vs profit-share and how it’s changed from 2007 to 2010. Also interesting how survey results use terms like Android vs. iPhone while the actual business metrics always seem to break down by manufacturer (notice it’s Apple, not iPhone or iOS above, and no Android is mentioned, though Moto, Sammy, et al are front and center).

What I’m curious about is whether consumers think they’re buying an iPhone or iPhone, an Android phone or a Motorola or HTC phone, or an AT&T or Verizon phone? For Apple it doesn’t matter much in the US (or internationally with unlocked models now available pretty much everywhere), but for Google and Microsoft (when Windows Phone 7 launches), what phone do mainstream consumers think they have? Do they know a Droid Eris is an HTC Hero and that’s why they bought it or do they just know it’s on Verizon and does apps?

For developers, manufacturer certainly isn’t anywhere nearly as important as platform (iOS vs. Android) because, with a few exceptions to insure compatibility between devices, they’re targeting OS not hardware. In that case, however, iPhone isn’t a device unto itself because iOS apps also work on the extremely popular iPod touch and iPad, meaning iOS smartphone market share (i.e. iPhone) isn’t the whole story.

That I’ve spent this whole post focusing on Google and their partners and Apple is also strangely consistent with the directions of them arrows on that chart. With Windows Phone 7 launching this month, new webOS 2.0 hardware next year, and BlackBerry on a hot new QNX OS sometime in the future could make it change again by 2012, which is great for consumers.

(And Microsoft, it’s still not to late to launch as Xphone with a Halo Special Edition right on the shelf at AT&T across from iPhone. Really.)

See, we shouldn’t be “fans” of a manufacturer or platform — though we can certainly find one or the other better suited to our current needs — and fight over them. Manufacturers and platform makers should be “fans” of users and fight over us by making the best, least crippled, most advanced, powerful, and delightful products they can, with great services and killer customer support.

Because momentum — and money — will go with those arrows.

[asymco, thanks everyone who sent this in!]

Apple just launched the second edition of Apple TV (see our review), Microsoft has Media Center, and now it’s Google’s turn with Google TV. Logitech launches their vision soon, as does Sony, so once again it’s Apple’s integrated model against Google’s de-coupled software, and only consumer choice can win.

To make their case for your living room eyeballs, Google has set up a new http://www.google.com/TV/ site, and it looks… well, I can’t tell because it’s in Flash but here’s the friendlier version and that looks great. While Apple hasn’t (yet?) seen fit to give us apps (or a browser) on our iOS Apple TV’s, the Android-based Google TV has them out the gate. (Though like every similar service, there’s likely to be much less available outside the US.)

This is serious competition from a serious competitor, is Apple TV 2010 enough for now or does Apple have to iterate faster now?

[Android Central]

Angry Birds, the hit iPhone game that’s spread to Android, webOS, and Symbian is finally coming to BlackBerry.

Who says iPhone competitors aren’t competitive in gaming? Screenshot after the break.

[via @joshuatopolsky]

Nokia went after Apple today as part of their Nokia World event, taking issue with how Apple counts mobile devices (Nokia only counts phones), and how Apple SVP of iOS, Scott Forstall, appropriated Nokia’s connecting people meme and dared to make it happy.

Unfortunately, where it counts, with innovative, mind-share stealing smartphones Nokia still seems to be lost in multiple OS’ and iterative hardware. What’s more they’ve recently exchanged their longtime CEO for a former Macromedia and Microsoft business exec, Stephen Elop, and their lead designer and VP of mobile solutions, Anssi Vanjoki is moving on as well. A cross-roads to be sure. (And one that still doesn’t seem to have a clear path to North American carrier support).

Our own Matt Miller is there covering the event for Nokia Experts and ZDNet, and if there’s anyone who loves those devices and those platforms, it’s Matt, so check out his complete Nokia World Coverage.

Then come back here and let us know what you think. Can Nokia own the mind as well as the market again, or is it an iOS world now? (Okay, with some Android and Berry too…)

Amazon’s new Kindle ad says a) it’s easier to read an ebook on in direct sunlight, b) it’s smaller and lighter, and c) it’s way less expensive than Apple’s iPad.

It doesn’t show what happens when the guy spins his chair around, quickly corrects a PowerPoint pitch so he doesn’t have to go back to the office, wows the bikini lady with Epic Citadel, then looks up a great restaurant on the full color web, gets directions from maps, and takes her off to dinner while they listen to streaming music.

This is the second Amazon Kindle ad to feature a lady in the sun; interesting demo they’re targeting. Video after the break.

Phil and Dieter over at sibling site Android Central have gone a little Samsung Galaxy-class crazy, with a full review of the Sprint Epic 4G and an advanced look at the Galaxy Tab tablet (including hands-on video and spec shootout vs. our own iPad).

So is the Epic 4G… epic?

Compared to the other Samsung Galaxy S phones, the Sprint Epic 4G has a leg up in several departments. There’s the keyboard, of course, which is pretty darn good. Not perfect, but above average. The addition of a 4G radio is a big plus. But along with that comes a slightly higher phone bill, and battery usage. (Same is true with the Evo 4G, of course.)

And is the Galaxy Tab fit for launch?

As it is, we can’t say for sure just how the Galaxy Tab will fare – its fate is tied to the release date, carrier customization, and most-of-all app support from developers. It’s not enough that the Tab has access to the market, it needs Android apps that by hook-or-crook take advantage of this extra screen size and the powerful processor. Samsung’s fate isn’t entirely out of their hands, though, as we still have yet to hear the full Media Hub story for getting ahold of video content.

Based on our short time we think the Tab should be on your short list, but while Samsung has made a great device here, the devil will be in those carrier/pricing/app details.

Epic 4G seems like it will be another monster. Not as polished as iPhone 4 but more open and adaptable. Galaxy Tab is harder to predict given the “pad” market didn’t really exist before March. Are there enough people who want a “pad” just not an iPad to create a competitive market like we have for smartphones?

Palm webOS news often seems to land right before Apple iPhone news and while we’re waiting for tomorrow’s Apple special music event and iOS 4.1 announcement, PreCentral.net’s gotten the scoop on what’s coming later this year for webOS 2.0:

• Palm’s multitasking ‘card’ metaphor is getting a refresh with Stacks
• Universal Search is getting majorly beefed up with ‘Quick Actions,’ will be opened to developers, and rebranded as Just Type
• Apps can have custom Touchstone at-a-glance views with Exhibition
• Synergy is opening up to developers
• HTML5 and Javascript support is much improved
• Hybrid PDK/SDK apps will be fully supported

What, no interruptive, modal dialog notifications? Sigh. Seriously though, the multitasking looks interesting and once again while webOS isn’t open source, it leads the game in being a far more open platform for developers and users than just about anybody else in the industry. Check it out and let us know what, if anything, Apple needs to do to keep up in 6 months for the iOS 5 preview…?

[PreCentral.net]

While rumors persist Apple will be introducing a 7-inch version of iPad at some point, it looks like Samsung is wasting no time getting their 7-inch competition — the Galaxy Tab — ready for launch. Hey, at least they’re not calling it GalactiPad or SammyPad, right?

Here are the purported specs:

• HD video playback
• 7″ screen
• Android 2.2 (Froyo)
• Video calling
• Augmented reality
• Swype
• A Sept. 2 coming-out party in Berlin (at the IFA conference).

Samsung manufactures the Apple A4 chipset that powers the iPad and iPhone 4, and we expect they’ll use the similarly specced Hummingbird that powers their Galaxy S-class smartphones here. While Android 3.0 Gingerbread is rumored to have true tablet-sized UI scalability, skinning 2.2 up to fit 7″, especially at a rumored 1280×600 resolution shouldn’t be a huge stretch from the current 800×480. They’ll also, apparently, be offering a range of iPad-like accessories, including a keyboard dock.

So what do you think? Is getting the Galaxy Tab out before a 7-inch iPad (if Apple ever actually releases one) a smart move to grab market share for Samsung? And how does 7-inches of Froyo compete with 9.7-inches of optimized iOS on the current, non-speculative iPad?

[More on the Galaxy Tab from Android Central]

Derek Kessler over at sibling site PreCentral.net let us know that developer logs are showing traces of webOS 2.0 supporting the same 960×640 resolution as Apple’s iPhone 4 Retina Display:

This time the developer was Killin’ It, and the app was the relatively popular game Cloud Hopper, As before, it’s entirely possible that somebody has performed some malevolent trickery to make this happen, but unlike theRoadrunner spotting in Foursquare’s Metrix logs, this one wouldn’t be quite so easy. Cloud Hopper’s source code has not been made publicly available like Foursquare’s, which means any charlatan attempting to pull the digital wool over our eyes would likely have to perform some pretty tricky modifications to the webOS emulator to get it to spit out Roadrunner HD as the device, webOS 2.0 as the OS, and the heretofore unseen 640×960 as the display resolution.

Given that the original Palm Pre matched iPhone 3GS in resolution and processors, and the easy iPhone games to PDK porting benefits that’s given them, it’s not hard to imagine a Pre 2 (or whatever the next generation device is called) will match iPhone 4 in the same way.

[@KillingItLLC via PreCentral.net]

Phil Nickinson from Android Central has done a full review of the Verizon Motorola Droid 2, the second coming of the first Android phone to really rocket into the mainstream. With a big screen, ample app marketplace, full hardware keyboard, and Android 2.2 Froyo, it seems to improve upon the original in every way, even if it now faces stiffer competition from its own sibling on its own network, the Droid X. How does it net out?

If you’re coming from another platform, you can’t go wrong with the Droid 2. And the same goes if you’re comiing from another carrier. If you’re already on Verizon? It’s a bit of a tougher choice. The Incredible is another solid phone and has the HTC Sense customizations on the same size screen. The Droid X has a larger screen and the same customizations as on the Droid 2. (Anecdotally: We watched on launch day as the second person in our Verizon store — we were the first — traded in a Droid X for a Droid 2.)

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, changes in that equation if rumors of a Verizon iPhone 4 pan out this January

We’ve been asking where the iPad competition has been for a while now, and it seems like it’s slowly starting to pick up with LG, Palm, and Google/Verizon hitting the news this week.

We’ll take a look at a few of them, after the break.

Palm, recently acquired by HP, is full steam ahead on a webOS tablet, which may just be the best OS from a UI standpoint to compete with iOS:

In their earnings call today, HP responded to a question about whether or not tablets (read: iPad) were hurting netbook sales. In reponse, HP publicly confirmed that a webOS Tablet is coming in the timeline we were expecting, saying they will release “a webOS-based product in Early 2011.” [PreCentral.net]

Verizon, who’s had great success with the Android-powered Droid smartphone brand looks to be turning towards Google’s other OS, Chrome, for their tablet (DroidPad?):

Yes, our source tells us that Google is building a Chrome OS tablet. It’s real, and it’s being built by HTC. No surprise there, since HTC churned out the Nexus One for Google.

Yes, they plan to offer it in conjunction with Verizon — which probably doesn’t come as a shock to anybody at this point. The two recently tag-teamed that Net Neutrality proposal and they’ve had plenty of discussions in the past about cooperating in some capacity. [Download Squad]

LG, who makes the terrific LED IPS panels for the current iPhone 4 and iPad, says they’re going to focus on content creation as a way to compete, and that their tablet will “be better than the iPad”:

The tablet will include content focused on creation such as writing documents, editing video and creating programs. It will also have “high-end features and new benefits,” many of which will focus on productivity, Mr. Ma said.

“It’s going to be surprisingly productive,” he said. [WSJ]

Think any of these will put a dent in iPad sales this holiday season?

Kevin has done his usual monstrous job of reviewing RIM’s new BlackBerry Torch 9800 and BlackBerry OS 6. It almost seems hard to remember but before Android came around almost every competitive article here on TiPb was BlackBerry focused, and with the Torch 9800 RIM is hoping to regain that mindshare. Will they succeed? It’s $199 and exclusive to AT&T — familiar ground to US iPhone users. Then they took the best-in-class BlackBerry Bold 9700 keyboard and melded it with the, well, not-so-classy Storm touchscreen, absent SurePress, and gave it a Palm Pre-style slider. Is it the best of all worlds, sum better than the parts?

We’ll have to see. The specs don’t impress but RIM’s genius has always been battery and push messaging, not duking it out with the Apple’s and Android’s of the world on hardware. Is BlackBerry OS 6 then enough to keep the BlackBerry faithful happy? To bring those who have strayed back to the fold? To convert iPhone 4 users? Check out CrackBerry.com’s review then come back here and let us know your thoughts…

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, under whose watch Office, Windows, and Server profits have soared while mobile has stumbled and faltered, was bombastically candid when addressing Apple’s 3.3 million strong iPad install base:

“they’ve sold certainly more than I’d like them to have sold.”

In response, Microsoft is hard at work on a Windows-based alternative (which is curious given Bill Gates’ almost singular drive to popularize Tablet PC over much of the last decade):

“They’ll be shipping as soon as they are ready,” Ballmer said, offering few details on the products, which he said will come from partners, not Microsoft itself. “It is job one urgency. No one is sleeping at the switch.”

So Microsoft won’t be making their own tablet the way they made their own Zune music player or Xbox gaming console, nor will they be using the panoramic Windows Phone 7, set for release this fall:

“We have got to make things happen,” he said. “We’re in the process of doing that as we speak. We’re working with our hardware partners. We’re tuning Windows 7.”

Apple of course didn’t try to put Mac OS X on the iPad, they went with iOS. HP has gone out and bought Palm webOS, and Google is readying both Android and Chrome OS, and even RIM is showing signs of life. There were tons of Windows-based tablets being touted at CES 2010 back in January, but none have really appeared on the market yet and while Microsoft’s Courier project was interesting but they KIN’ed it pre-launch. 3 months and as many million sales later and iPad pretty much still has the category it created to itself. It needs competition (from more than just the Kindle).

Hey, maybe if they call it WinPad?

[CNET, thanks to everyone who sent this in]