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This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, September 6th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:55:21 +0000

Not evil twin to theiPhoneBlog.com Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!

This week: Zilch again. Nadda. We're too busy getting ready to cover the no doubt universe denting news Apple will unleash at "Let's Rock" on Tuesday. And, frankly, so is the competition. Face it, they've been quiet as little blue-OLED mice lately.

Blackberryboss Lazeridis is all dressed up like Leo Laporte and is already lining up in San Francisco to find out what Apple's releasing this year... so he can release it next. Palm-Top Colligan's not releasing anything new until Nova ships sometime in 2012, and Larry and Sergey have shifted the focus off Android and onto their new Chrome browser, which we just know they've been running on gLinux in-house for years but is somehow only released (in what will not doubt be perpetual Beta) for Windows.

And speaking of Windows, Steve Ballmer's off preparing an extra-special CES-sized Monkey Boy dance (YouTube it) for his first adult Keynote since Bill Gates retired to make $10,000,000 mockumentaries with Jerry Seinfeld (Wikipedia him).

No doubt they'll return to their usually scheduled schedules next week, and so will we!

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, August 30th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:55:30 +0000

This week: Boldly browsing (or not), AppClones, HTC's dreaming, and Treo requiem.

The Bold and the Buggered

We can't even make fun of this. Seriously. It harshens even our mellow. Crackberry Kevin spent days and days simply trying to get a freaking javascript enabled website to load up on his state-of-the-RIM Blackberry Bold, and basically every other Bold he could get his addicted fingers on, and word is he's still waiting for the progress bar to hit 2%.

Yeesh, who does RIM think it is, shipping a buggy, clearly pre-release firmware on one of the most hotly anticipated handsets of the year? Apple?

Official List of Blackberry OS 4.6 Features and Enhancements

First!

Okay. Fine. Crackberry.com deserves some bragging rights over predicting the new RIM iClone... er... Touchscreen Blackberry would be called both the Thunder and the Storm. However, as any long term reader of this column (hi mom!) knows, WE were the first ones to bust out ThunderStorm and it's inherent brando-confuso. NOT them. Us. So on behalf the the TWiSS nation:

Nailed it!

(And when Microsoft finally unveils WinVistaZuneMob for Windows Live! (Technology Preview), we'll be right back to claim credit for that to!)

That Ain't a Browser

While they may handle Javascript better than the Bold (and likely Flash better than the iPhone!), Crackberry claiming Nokia leads in "Mobile Bowsers" just because they've jammed a WAP rendering engine on 8 kazillion frighteningly insecure feature phones is like claiming Microsoft Paint is the premiere graphics package in the world just because it ships on every Windows PC since 3.1 (Take that, Photoshop!).

When it comes to the really realz browser champion of the world, if Crackberry even dreams of calling it any other way, they better wake up and apologize to the iPhone...

Putting the Carts Before the Stores

First came the iPhone, then came the iClones. Next came the App Store, so now we're getting the Aped Stores. Kinda. Google is doing one for Android called Market (because it's not a store, get it?), which has no production units yet, and it looks like Microsoft is doing one for Windows Mobile Se7en called SkyMarket, which has no modern SDK.

We suppose it stands to reason that, what with the App Store making developers money handset over fist, all the commodity OS makers would try to duplicate it. Would that they would spend half the time or effort, however, duplicating the innovative spirit and business prescience that drove App Store.

(And seriously, SkyMarket?! To fit in so perfectly with Xbox Marketplace and Zune Marketplace? What, we're supposed to believe Windows Mobile Marketplace was taken? Does it tie in to SkyDrive, and leverage Mesh? Could Microsoft's branding be anymore broken? We can't even make fun of it anymore, because every week they come out with something funnier than we ever could... yeesh!)

Does Android Dream of Engadget Peeps?

We've got to give full faith and credit to HTC, they actually made manifest a handset that so totally embodies the palette and yet completely misses the spirit of the Google home page. Bravo-oh.

Given the 87 fold out slider keyboards this gPhone sports, however, why couldn't they squeeze in a hardware button for "I'm feeling lucky"?

Xperia'ncing Delays

HTC must be super busy pumping out phones for Google, Palm, and... themselves, what with Sony being pushed back to 2009 (which can feel like decades in gadget time). We could joke that they're waiting on WinVistaMob for Windows Live! Se7en (Technology Preview) to hit, but that's more likely to be 2012 on the outside... What's especially confusion is that Dieter actually used the Xperia waaaaaaay back in April and it seemed to be working fine. His thoughts on the delay?

Good luck to ya, SE, given how long you've been working on this since we saw it, we suspect you're going to need it.

You Only Look Twice, Mr. Bohn

Speaking of Dieter, his mega-super-ultra-everything-plus-the-kitchen-sync-and-pipes Treo Pro review is now online, finishing the "beauty and beast" double feature that began with the 800w a month back. As we're unlikely to see any more Treo's out of Palm this year, and certainly nothing rocking NovaOS 2.0 (What comes after Garnet and Cobalt anyway... Kryptonite?) it's be best to savor these. The truly masochistic among us might even want to join Malatesta for second look...

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, August 23th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:15:06 +0000

This week: A day late but sadly no jokes short, Boldly browsing, unboxings galore, big love from HTC, who does Rubenstein really work for, and ZOMG! a new Android beta!

b.engadget.com...

...the Blackberry specific, RIM-browser optimized version of one of the most popular tech blogs on the planet... doesn't exist. Neither does t.engadget.com for those of you who've actually figured out how to load a semi-functional browser on a Treo.

Nope. Turns out one of out-going Editor-in-Chief Ryan Block's final acts at Engadget was to set up the iPhone, and the iPhone alone, with the keys to its own special gate. We wonder why...

(Hint: Palm Treo 755p: 0.1% share. Blackberry Anything: didn't even make the list...)

And special well wishes to Mr. Block, with thanks for all the hard work he put in at Engadget, and best wishes for whatever he chooses next. Health, happiness, and much success!

Speaking of Blackberry Browsers

Lots of brouhaha this week over some dodgy iPhone vs. Blackberry Bold browser battles. Crackberrians cried foul, saying the Bold was hamstrung by a pre-release ROM and faulty WiFi connection. The initial test was against the original, iPhone 2G, however, and subsequent tests run on the iPhone 3G still smoked the poor little Bold. Admittedly, the Bold was again a pre-release ROM, however anyone who's ever used an iPhone 3G running 2.x knows that's pretty much a pre-release ROM as well, every bit as buggy. So until Crackberry.com runs some of their own tests, no doubt against a specially prepared iPhone, we're calling it fair fight, and iPhone by complete domination.

Attention Blackberry Developers

Remember RIM's answer to Apple's iFund? You know, the VC pool established to fund Google-class iPhone App development? Yeah, us neither. But Crackberry.com has confirmed what we'd already forgotten: Even though "Blackberry" is in the name, RIM has nothing to do with it (just like Apple really has nothing to do with the iFund, we swear), and -- get this -- neither does the Blackberry.

Just tell the money-bin that one day you might possibly (wink) consider thinking about maybe porting (wink wink) a future beta of your hawt new iPhone App to the Blackberry, and you're golden. Literally.

The Hunt for Bold All Over

Congrats to Crackberry Kevin on actually finding a Blackberry Bold in stock somewhere in the harshest hinterlands of Canada. With RIM reportedly only shipping 1 or 2 units per metric googlometer, his threats of SMASH no doubt precipitated Lazaridis to pull up in front of Crackberry HQ, fresh new Bold offered atop a red velvet cushion.

Palm-Treo Games

Likewise, congrats to Dieter on getting his already over-phone'd hands on a Treo Pro. Though his story wasn't as blog'd out as Kevin's, it was probably every bit as Tom Clancy-worthy in its own right. And if you're into fringe smartphone Pr0n, check out WMExperts Treo Pro vs. Everything video. They even sacrifice it to an iPhone 3G, poor little [redacted].

Speaking of [Redacteds]

Last time we asked why the Treo Pro bore little-to-no resemblance to it's 700 series forefathers. Turns out the 700 series might not have been any of its fathers. Mamma Palm, it seems, went and dallied with HTC. Given how the 800w turned out, however, can you really blame the old girl?

The HTC Xperia'nce

Sparing us all some overly obscure Foxworthy-esque joke about the HTC Palm Treo Pro and HTC Sony Xperia getting divorced but remaining cousins (whoops, so much for sparing), we'll just point out that the next in a long line of nouveau-chic Windows Mobile handsets that were announced ages ago but have yet to actually ship, has now been announced to still eventually actually ship. One day. In Europe.

For those who don't remember that far back -- and who can honestly blame you? -- yes, this was the banana slider Sony abandoned Sybian and cozied up to Microsoft for.

What's the UI Equivalent of a Paper Bag Over the Face?

Seems to be a third party shell or launcher. And if you've been afraid to take your Windows Mobile out in public looking like its been beaten with the Redmond stick, Brian heartily recommends this... er.. iPhone "inspired" full facial replacement.

Looks good to us. Now how do you fix the OS?

All Rubinstein, All the Time

Rubinstein helped Steve Jobs and Apple launch the iPod to the stratosphere, and while Jobs' second mobile act, the iPhone, has pretty much revolutionized the industry, Rubenstein's has... er... had somewhat less of an impact.

The man who left Apple when he wasn't allowed to jam a tic-tactile keyboard on the elegant, full screen iPhone, is now ~~over~~running Palm (or, at least, serving as plenipotentiary most excellent to Lord Bono), canceling "several" Treo's, and tweaking many others (though sadly not the cosmetics on the 800w...).

Why? Not to make an iPhone killah. Oh, no. That might harshen Poppa Jobs' mellow and lead to the resurgence of Palm. No, Rubinstein simply wants to ~~kill Treo~~ make a killer Treo. Even if that honor currently belongs to HTC...

(Anyone bother to check and see if Rubinstein is really off Apple's payroll?)

Another Beta

No, not the 4th release of Apple's iPhone 2.1 Beta in almost as many weeks, but the first new beta build of the Android "platform" in Google knows how long. (And no, we're not counting those secret builds given to select privileged elite developers while the common mundanes were left to wonder what "open as in beer" really meant to the folks in Mountain View).

Dubbed 0.9, this new beta, which seems prepped to give Gmail's beta period a run for its money, may eventually set the possible stage for the OS that finally ships one day with HTC's Dream handset (2nd cousin once removed to both the Treo Pro and Xperia for those charting smartphone genealogies at home).

And no, we're not poking a little fun at Andorid here. Android is poking a lot of fun at all the developers and users who really, truly want something to keep Apple competitive. Let's hope they get serious sometime that is soonish.

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, August 16th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:32:27 +0000

This week: All Bold all the time, spy pics, HTC gets red, and happy five-oh!

Rogers Hoses Hopeful Bold Hosers

When notoriously gouging Rogers Mobility in Canada gave its 11th hour reprieve on data rates to save its July 11th iPhone 3G investment, we all kind sorta knew it would someday, somehow, come back and bite us in our wallets. Well, it didn't. It bit Crackberry Kevin in his instead. Rogers official price for an iPhone 3G 16GB on 3(!) year contract? $299. Rogers semi-official price for a Blackberry Bold 0GB on a 3(!) year contract? Priceless. Or dang near. $399.

No doubt news reports of a giant green Crackberry yelling "Kevin Smash!" and laying waste to Rogers HQ will follow shortly.

And good on that.

All Bold All The Time

Or at least it seems that way. Canadian pricing fiasco aside, the Bold little buggers are really taking the cake these days. Popping up everywhere. Maybe Crackberry's right? They're going to be huge.

Just not at HSBC...

Kickstarting the Pearl

Of course, the iPhone 3G isn't the only handset Rogers is likely subsidizing out their vice-clenched assets. The new Pearl flipberry (nee KickStart) is going for a relatively tiny $49. They're likely targeting the same new users that the Palm Centro has been so successful at attracting lately.

Given RIM's brand power and compelling messaging on... er... messaging, seems like a can't miss, doesn't it? Especially with the ever increasing femal demo. Extraspecially if Virgin Canada keeps helping out...

Uber-Hawt New Spy Pics Leaked!

The intertubes FTW! Fresh new spy pics of still undisclosed, unreleased, unauthorized smartphone hawtness. And what do we get? Sleek, elegantly curved black form-factor, flush screen(!), brand-defining centralized button navigator with oh-so-easy to hit task buttons radiating outwards, above a killer tic-tactile keyboard combined with enterprise-class "push" technology!

Luddites to Gentoo-men, we present the:

Treo Pro! er... Blackberry Javelin... er... Treoberry Javepro???!!!

Seriously, this is a "bold" new step for Palm away from the locked-to-Treo-600 design-dearth of yore. Given Rubenstein and all the other Apple droppings they've picked up lately, it makes perfect sense the Pro should resemble a... Blackberry. We mean, hey, while everyone else and their OEM is lately -- and lamentably -- iCloning themselves to innovation-less stupors, here comes Palm stepping up the WinMob side of their Harvey Dent-esque product strategy with something at least on par with the latest/greatest from sales leader RIM.

It's about time.

HTC Dazed and Con-Fuze'd?

Seems like AT&T might be all set to launch the artist formerly known at the HTC Touch Pro, now re-dubbed the HTC Fuze. Yeah, we had to look it up too. Turns out it's an iClone slider...

Word to HTC marketing: While you may have had Fusion on the brain (something Palm nailed years ago with the Treo brand, and again just recently with Centro), never leave ambiguity enough in your product name to conFuze perspective buyers or they'll just reFuze to take you seriously. No way to deFuze it now though. Thankfully, at least, Moto must have had FUZR pre-marked (or was that BeastWars?)

Diamond Already in the Red?

So WMExperts would have us believe. If he didn't have his wee mits all over the Treo Pro, we'd suspect Bono was [Product]-izing just in time for the holidays...

Still, red being the color of Blood, and this Touch being branded as the Diamond, perhaps another word needs be taken with the marketing geniuses over at HTC...

Blackjack II vs. Q9h

Is sort of like the battle for 53rd place in the Olympics, isn't it? At least "Atila" has a shot at making it a three-way race...

Palm Set to Unleash the Hounds

No, not of the long, long, did we say loooooong?, promised Palm OS 2.0 (?!) Nova-based handsets. Just tons of new WinMob devices. Yay?

When those of us who loved the Palm OS first saw Bill Gates hoist a 700w up on stage at CES, even with all the talk of more options and better business plays, should we have recognized it as Colligan really just opening the seventh seal of stop-gapocalyps?

Signs point to yes.

Happy Anniversary

The TreoCentral Treocast got all golden on us this week, celebrating its 50th episode. May the next 50 be just as grand, and we look forward to hearing you on episode 100...

...probably covering the possible impending future potential pre-launch of Nova (beta).

And to Mike and Dieter -- the premiere duo in smartphone coverage -- Congratulations mobile accomplishers!

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, August 9th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:55:03 +0000

This week: Pearl gets kicked, ZuneNokia cometh, Android isn't late (again!) and... a Centro clone?!

Blackberry Developers Conference...

...Now taking registration. For anyone who still wants to code for Java Micro Edition. Seriously. All 2 of you.

And for the record, no, this isn't a panicked attempt to re-court developers who may be considering jumping ship to the modern, Objective C, desktop class iPhone SDK, what with all the money to be made there (and the FreeRiders still waiting -- and waiting -- on the various LinMo initiatives).

Of course, serious Blackberry developers (aka the ones who work for RIM and thus have access to the actual APIs) are waiting on the next gen OS anyway, currently scheduled for some time after the square of the date Palm's Nova hits divided by the root of the tangent of Android's first handset's delivery...

KickStarting the Pearl

When we joked that Blackberry had more code names for their KickSeaStart-tacWolfRAZR flip phone than Microsoft had Vista SKU's, little did we know yet another -- and at the same time much, much older -- was about to be grafted on for release.

Yup, say hello to the... Pearl.

WTF is right. With the flip putting the actual pearl on the inside, shouldn't this be more properly branded the "oyster shell" ?

Blackberry Curve Price Cut

Just in time for consumers to cut it from their shopping list.

Reason? Not iClony enough, what with the ThunderStorm now firmly on the horizon... er... Verizon.

Still, given that Amazon was paying people to take Blackberry's off their hands just a short time ago, isn't this still $199 to much?

Crackberry.com Says Show Your Blackberry How Much You Loves It

By yanking out the battery. We concur.

Crazily enough, however, they actually suggest you put it back in right quick thereafter...

It's Not the First Sip That's Going to Kill You...

Delicious Monster's Wil Shipley takes on what he considers to be the poor science and worse concept behind Microsoft's "Mojave Experiment".

The bottom line? Try a little sip, then go watch Super Size Me.

What does this have to do with smartphones? See Diamond, HTC Touch...

ZunePhone's Coming, and... Nokia is Coming With It?!

Probably not so much, what with Nokia being all SymbiLinMo But then again, Nokia is ditching Blackberry for Exchange as part of the Grand Plan to actually get people off of one buggy, proprietary, outage prone service (no, not MobileMe... grumblegrumble...) and into another even buggier, proprietary, distributed outage prone service. But why do all the hard core punditry ourselves when, in grand bloggy tradition, we can just quote/link to it!

Nokia is already trying to establish its own Ovi portal as a mobile music store. It needs Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace as much as it needs another Symbian virus. Not only is the Zune Marketplace a sleepy, deserted mall with no customers and scant merchandise, but it has absolutely zero traction (or attraction) in Europe or other markets where Nokia sells its phones. The Zune is only sold in the US, where Nokia has minimal uptake. Adding the Zune Marketplace to its phones would do nothing for Nokia apart from making its own store look sidelined and associating the company with another megafailure brand. Nokia already has NGage for that.

Android Isn't Late!...

...At least when it's compared to WinVistaMob Se7en.

Okay, so the spin is Android is still on schedule but as anyone who's ever tried to run a simple school function by committee knows you can't settle on themes and decorations, much less deploy a brand new OS across multiple OEMs using different form factors and semi-secret SDK revisions on the backs of already beleaguered developers without a schedule more flexible than the whichever girl wins a heap of gymnastic medals this week. It's simple chaos theory.

And, sure, WinVistaMob Se7en isn't technically behind schedule either, unless you consider releasing an OS in 2009(ish) that's meant to be almost (squint and tilt head) competitive with what Apple released out-of-the-gate in 2007, as not being behind something...

Alert Custer

Motorola has just totally ripped off his strategy.

From the once mighty empire that ruled the world with the first RAZR, comes pinning their final, futile hopes on WinMob 6.6.6. And to think, Moto, people have accused you of running the company into the ground...

How To: 2 Tips to Make Windows Media Player on WM Suck Slightly Less

Yank out the battery. Oh, sorry, we covered that already under Crackberry... wait... here it is... Dieter claims there might just be a way.

Attack of the CentroClones... Er... CloneTros... Er... ?

No, we don't mean the Blackberry Javalin (that's more a Treo 680 clone, n'est ce pas?), we mean this poor confused little OQO G900.

Hey, we appreciate them giving the iPhone iCloning a rest, don't get us wrong, and when Palm sold 2 million of these lowest-end smartphones, it pretty much guaranteed some uber-cheaper knock off would be spun up. But, irony of ironies... what if it's actually more profitable than the real thing?

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, August 2nd Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:42:07 +0000

This week: Bold, Bull. Bull, Bold. WinMob Can't Count to 20, and Colligan Loves the iPhone

It's Cosmo Cramer, Cracky!

We had to suffer Krakow's silly iPhone spewings, so it's only fair our sister site, Crackberry.com gets the the man who pushes market o-spin-ion almost as well as RIM does email.

So, yeah, bullish on Bold. Just sell before he does.

We Who Are About to Dial Salute You!

It is BlackBerrious TicTactilous Maximus, Leader in smartphone sales, email pusher extraordinaire, loyal enabler of the one true unpaid overtime, mate to workaholic partners, child to absentee parents, and in this generation or the next it will totally pwn you.

Fair enough, then, that Crackberry.com tortured the tyrannical little handset to death in retaliation.

Well done.

Flipping the Berry, Part Deux

KickSeaStart-tacWolfRAZR exclusive video reviews continue. Watch them fast before RIM NOC's them off!

WinMob to Sell 20M Licenses... Eventually

Sorry... we're... reporting... near... Redmond... and... have... to... keep... ducking... to... avoid... flying... furniture...

Whew! Ballmer finally blue-screened. Anyway, seems when Microsoft said they'd infect 20M units this year, seems what they really meant was that they wouldn't infect 20M units this year, because, well, they didn't. Still, 20M is a HUGE number. 20x what the iPhone sold in one weekend. Though the iPhone only has one model still on the market, by one manufacturer, running on one technology (GSM), in 22 countries, mostly on exclusive carriers. And, well, while we're admittedly mathlexic, we seem to remember there are more than 20 weekends in a year?

Maybe that's why:

iClones Becoming iCliches

Stop it. We mean it. The first dozen or so iPhone wannabes were at least mockable. Now they're just a mockery. We'd tell you to fire your industrial designers -- if we thought for even a moment you actually employed any. Bad enough Palm's been rereleasing the Treo 600 for what seems like 10 years now. How long do we have to put up with the iClones? Lazaridis? Colligan? Ballmer? Little help?

Bad Branding: Microsoft Advanced Studies Program

Does the tech industry have their own special version of the Razzies? They must, given how badly Microsoft keeps gunning for one. Last week we jokingly suggested Redmond would rebrand their struggling handset business as WinVistaXZuneMob Se7en Cairo Edition Phones for Windows -- LIVE! And little did we know that was actually BETTER than the stuff Microsoft could spittle out on their own, at least if the new names WMExperts.com says they're kicking around (quite literally) for Live Search!

Look upon their words ye mighty and despise:

Bing
Hook
Kumo

Too. Many. Jokes. Crashing. Server.

Statler & Waldorf Dept.

Fear not, dear listeners of our sister podcast, WMExperts has not been secretly taken over by pod-people far more concerned with film, books, weather, shower habits, or basically anything even remotely NOT having to do with Windows Mobile, it's still firmly in control of Dieter and Malatesta -- who just happen to be far more concerned with film, books, weather, shower habits, or basically anything even remotely NOT having to do with Windows Mobile.

But seriously, given the previous news items, can you blame them? We can't.

Colligan Gets His Tech Checked!

TreoCentral.com informs us that Palm CEO Ed Colligan sat down for chat, and sure, typically we'd tear apart whatever non-sensical, factually challenged, anti-iPhone rhetoric bullet points he was fed by Ruby, Bono, et al. but turns out that -- wait for it -- he likes it! Okay, so he can't figure out how to email with it (hint: try the envelope icon), but overall he has some love for the design and innovation.

Unfortunately for Palm, the market pretty much agrees with him.

Could Palm Have an Earnings Surprise in FY Q1?

No.

Treo 800w: Selling a lot or Not enough to sell?

That's why.

Maybe they should drop the price below cost? It's working for the Centro...

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, July 26th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:55:36 +0000

This week: ThuderStorms, iClone Double Feature, Dead Treo's, and Open Marriages!

Crackberry Dubs the New Blackberry: ThunderStorm...

...Only 3 days after we did. Congrats, sister siters. This week we're all about the KickSeaStart-tacWolfRAZR. We look forward to seeing it Monday!

(WinVistaXZuneMob Se7en Cairo Edition Phones for Windows -- LIVE! is already dibbed by WMExperts. Sorry.)

Introducing the iClone Nano!

Dear reader Kevin sends in these spy shots from "the wilds". Is it the long-rumored iPhone Nano? Nope, just an iClone Nano, courtesy of the usual suspects at Research in Motion. Seems like gloss black and silver trim is this years gloss black and silver trim...

If only Waterloo could iClone the interface and iTunes experience, eh?

Introducing BlackBerry Media Sync

D'oh! Well, we guess it's technically not iClone iTunes if RIM just stoleded it outright, right?

Your Music on Your BlackBerry Smartphone. It's That Simple. Easy to Update

Because it's connecting to iTunes, of course. Imagine if Apple hadn't tried to roll their own MobileMe service and just hacked their way into RIM's NOC (Network Operations Center). Who'd have functional push then, huh? Who?

(Sorry, not having had email for two weeks makes us a little prickly...)

Speaking of Little Prickles...

Yes, we do listen. We appreciate the feedback. And we'll redouble our efforts. Much love.

Attack of the iClones: WinMob Supplement

WMExperts is ~~masochistic~~ kind enough to show us a real life, side-by-side comparison between the iPhone 3G and the iClonic Samsung Omnia and HTC Touch Diamond, and what can we say? Good job with the screen quality there. 1 degree viewing angle must be an industry record of some kind, right?

(Actual photo at top of post. Thanks for sparing us any photoshopping this week, OEMtards!)

Enter... the ZunePhone!

May want to hold on to them tats a smidge longer there, Zune-dude. WMExperts reports (and we spin) that Microsoft is all shook up, and along with throwing chairs, Ballmer may just throw a ZunePhone our way as well...

Good luck with that. We hope it's like totally as successful as the Zune proper. Sincerely.

TreoCentral Asks:

Will the BlackBerry KickStart be a Centro Killer?

Yes.

(Unless you hate flippies. Then no. But yes.)

The More Treo's Change

The Treo 755p is dead. Long live the... er... ah...

When's Nova exploding again?

And in No Other News

Analysts, which is increasingly another word for those who lost employment within an industry and now make even more money spouting even worse nonsense from without, are saying the troubled "Open" Source Android platform may be merging with the soon to be troubled "Open" Source Symbian platform.

And if you believe that, we've still got that second bridge left over from WWDC to sell you...

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, July 19th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:44:45 +0000

This week: Blackberry device outages, Android SDK, Palm launches Treo 700 v3

Bold Behind, ThunderStorm Downgraded

Congrats to sister-site Crackberry.com for breaking the first images of the Blackberry ThunderStorm's soft, virtual keyboard (you know, the one RIM's CEO can't use and would never make). Might just be a sticker, though, as NERDFIGHT or no reports continue to say the latest iClone just don't work yet. (But dig the UI work! Jonathan Ive must be quaking in his elegant yet understated ash black #7 boots...)

No problem, right? Because the Bold is launching any day now? Er... no so much either... Looks like it doesn't work so well either yet. Radio code, they say. That or RIM's desperate scramble to try and launch their iClone double punch as fast -- and loose it seems -- as possible.

Chill guys. Take your time. Get it right. And here's a thought -- why not innovate something of your own while you're at it?

Asked... And Answered!

Crackberry.com asks:

How come every new big BB app is running into such teething problems!?!

And Crackberry.com responds:

RIM just updated their site with BlackBerry JDE 4.5

Ahem.

When you have scads of devices scattered across multiple outdated OS versions all based on Java Micro Edition, you have a development nightmare that makes Windows Mobile look, well... not completely horrible by comparison.

Memo to Waterloo: In addition to innovative handsets, let's add a real OS to the list. You know, something that couldn't run a RAZR. We hear LinMo is the rage with all the cool kids these days...

Crackbettey Brings Less Hawtness to the Blog...

And dang right, ours is better than yours.

But we could teach you to use an iPhone, L-Loh, now that Fake Steve is no longer in charge...

AT&T Crackspiracy Redux

We covered this story early in the week (and of course Crackberry.com iCloned it with a rapidity that would make RIM proud).

Way to go, tic-tactile-tards. Next time just be honest. Tell them you ran out of iPhones and you'll order them some when Apple can find your out-of-nowhere parking-lot kiosk. Better to be embarrassed than humiliated.

Does Android Dream of Exclusive Sheep?

Huge surprise. Mega. Potential Android developers (yup, some people are still waiting for their iPhone App Store acceptance and have to keep busy somehow) are growing impatient with the lack of SDK updates coming out of Mountain View.

Only not so much. Turns out there hasn't been a lack of updates at all -- they've just been reserved for specialer, more privileged partners.

Non-disclosure agreements and selective access to development tools are hardly emblematic of an open ecosystem. Google has intentionally disadvantaged many developers and kept the broader Android community in the dark about the progress of the platform. Google's failure to fulfill its commitment to openness has eroded one of the principle differentiating factors that made Android a relevant alternative to Apple's iPhone operating system. If Google cannot change course, the lack of transparency in the development process will likely push disenfranchised developers towards other mobile platforms.

Way to embrace the spirit of "open" there, eh, Google? Not evil phase all past us now then?

Making an OS is hard, even when you have a CEO on the Apple board and the iPhone to use as a blueprint. Making an OS by committee is even harder. Making an OS by committee and expecting it to work on multiple, different handsets from OEM partners is something that probably still gives Bill Gates night sweats.

Hate to say we told you so... not.

Live Mess

At least we figure the "Mesh" thing must be a WMExperts typo, given the state-of-the-art-of-1990 GUI...

Opera... Oprah. Oprah... Opera

The browser you've all been waiting... and waiting... for to replace the massively outdated Pocket Internet Explitivor is finally here. If one of the many known issues isn't a deal breaker. And if it's available for your device. And if you don't mind resource hogs.

Maybe they should pull a Krakow and just license LinMo and WebKit?

Palm Releases a Treo!

Stop the presses... er... posters! Palm has released a new Treo! No, we're not joking, TreoCentral.com even has a review!

It's the ~~700w v3~~ 800w, which sees the antenna become an intenna, and the Treo finally getting some WiFi. (Yeah, we fainted too). Screen's still recessed, form factor's still jurassic, the OS ain't Palm or Nova, but hey -- it's a NEW TREO!

And in No Other News

Pop quiz: You're Motorola and you've recently been all but Icah'ned apart. Through lack of vision and hubris-filled mismanagement, you've lost more ground than even the RAZR bump ever gave you, and now, facing the iPhone, what do you do? Beg back the designers and engineers that once made you great? Take a RSK on making something new and wonderful? Or just sue one of the poor souls who jumped ship before it broke itself open on the RKS?

The latter of course. You're Moto, right?

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, July 12th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:27:03 +0000

In this week's edition: What? Surprised we're here? Thought we'd be taking this edition off so we could play Super Monkey Ball or Bomberman Touch, or otherwise just hide in our tasteful Cupertino estates drooling over our totally awesome new, glossy plastic backed iPhone 3Gs? We did that last time. We totally had the device before Mossberg and like 99% of the people at Apple. Totally.

We're having a bit of weekend, is all. Maybe you heard about it? MASSIVE failures. Epic. Keep reading on to find out why its all Microsoft and RIM's fault!

Thanks Bill! Now Who's Running the Asylum?

Confession: Apple had to use Windows on iPhone 3G launch day. Embarrassing, of course, but due to monopolistic abuses, Microsoft has just totally wormed their way into the carriers. Do you know how distressing it is to have UK Apple Stores running VMWare Fusion because O2 can't connect to anything but Internet Explorer? Putting ActiveSync on the iPhone is one thing -- Sun Tzu told El Jobso he'd have to make some deals with the devil if he wants to break into enterprise -- but IE on iMacs? It'll take weeks of iTunes meditative podcasts to restore their sense of wonder.

And hey, Rogers up in Canada, what's the sound of a million Canadian IE6 browsers cr@pping out? Sales Central Down?! What's running the back end, a 386 on Windows for Workgroups? How about next time we pay our ISP bill on time, b'okay?

Of course, iPhone firmware 2.0 dropped at the same time, and since like some huge percentage of iPhone users are Windows users, so all those quirky we-had-to-make-them PC iTunes fired up trying to grab it all at once... At Infinite Loop, the OS X Leopard Data Center -- which is shaped into a perfect Yin/Yang of mechanical alignment in matching aluminum and black glass trim -- running the iTunes authentications services was just totally flooded in raw Microsoftian harshness. Ever seen kernal panic? Imagine that gone nuclear. Total loss of mellow. Total. Apple IT will reportedly be in intensive yoga all week.

Funny how this all happened the minute Bill Gates left the building, though, isn't it? If he and Ballmer weren't waiting in line over night at the Apple Store in Seattle, it would be uber-suspicious. Sure, they could have used body doubles or something, but Ballmer completely lost it waiting for his shiny new iPhone 3G to get unbricked. Chairs and sweatstains flying like that are rather unmistakable...

RIM Stealing iPhone's Thunder?

Why not, they've stolen everything else, right? What better way for RIM to hypejack some press coverage on iPhone 3G launch day than to carefully plant the seeds of a NERD FIGHT! Tell Crackberry.com that the iClonic new touchscreen Blackberry Thunder may actually work, then tell the Boy Genius Report the much more believable story that the Thunder is totally hosed, step back, and laugh your apps off. After all, this is the company whose CEO just recently said touchscreens were unusable. Why not prove it with an unusable touchscreen device? Especially when Apple's new MobileMe service is bringing the heat!

(Though, in all fairness, Apple did start the latest round with some retaliation of their own, what with copying RIM's NOC failures, first with random .Mac outages, and then with the complete clusterfail of the MobileMe transition...)

Palm: We Want to Lose 30% More This Quarter!

After recent financial losses widely attributed to the spectacularly poor business strategy of selling the Centro entry-level, candy-bar cool smartphone for LESS than it costs Palm to make it, it seems the pressure of the iPhone 3G has sent Colligan and Co. even further over the edge. Witness TreoCentral announcing that as of now, you can get a green-keyed Centro for only $70.

Why not -$70. Pay people to take them, that's what Amazon did with Blackberry's after all. Should we expect this, what, next quarter at the latest?

And in No Other News

Unbelievable as it may sound, Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola, along with Google, announced the unprecedented--

Cannot connect to the iSatire Server. An known error has occured...

D'oh! Not again!

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, July 5th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:19:18 +0000

In this week's edition: Nothing. Sorry. No time. We're already lining up for the iPhone 3G. Dieter got here early, but the rest of us are way back, forced to climb over ever-growing mounds of junked Crackberries and WinMobs and about a million Centros -- ouch! Heckuva tailgate going on, though. Ballmer keeps breaking out the Monkey Boy while Colligan and Lazaridis take turns timing their virtual keyboarding.

So yeah, sorry. Zip this week. Zilch. But it's totally not our fault. We don't even think the sister sites have been updated. (We'd ask Kevin and Jennifer but they're off playing hacky-sack with Sergey and Larry.)

UPDATED: Okay, fine. The Commenterati have spoken. We'll scour the interwebs. We'll find something. You'll get your fix. Anything to stop from harshening our pre-launch mellow!

Blackberry Kickstart Special TV Offer -- While Supplies Last!

Attention Crackberrians! You're not gonna pay $249 for the new RIM Kickstart Flipberry, are you? No! And you're not gonna pay $149 either, are you? Nope! You're not gonna pay $99 or $79 either. All you're gonna pay is one easy payment of $49! But wait, there's more! Act now and we'll throw in near-weekly service outages, and the classic StarTac form factor, for FREE! Tell them Crazy Mike sent you, and we'll even throw in a free Flowbee!

(Yeesh, when did entry level become throw away? We know Amazon was even paying people to take Blackberry's off their hands for a while, but crack open Palm's books sometime, Mr. Canadian CEO of the Year, and see what selling stuff for less than it costs to make it does for the old bottom line, b'okay?)

Blackberry Done Copying iPhone, Starts Copying Windows 95

Yeah, so the Thunder will still iClone the iPhone, at least as much as the old-but-not-Palm-old Java "OS" is capable of, but RIM isn't intent on just copying Apple, oh no. Their next target -- Windows 95! Seems just like good old Win95 (which knowing MS was probably release in 1997, right?), one day in the distant future a Blackberry OS may -- wait for it -- try to avoid "nuked" or "bricked" units by allowing users to -- wait for it again -- boot into safe mode!

(We need to pause here to explain to iPhone users that those poor unfortunates with "smartphones" rather than mobile computers don't have OS's for realzies like OS X, just weird little management systems that are far less stable and are just as likely to turn on as they are to spontaneously cease functioning. Think Xbox 360).

Rather than a function key, the tic-tactile escape key will do the trick. Press it and you're in safe mode. Kind of makes you wonder just how unsafe regular mode is if you have to escape it...?

In faker news, head BBOS developer Marty McFly tells us we can look back to a DOS-style CTRL-ALT-DELETE "feature" by 2020...

Windows Mobile Gets... Facebook!?

Confession: We're not sure what the story is here. Windows Mobile finally gets an application even the Palm Centro's already had? Or is it that Pocket IE is such a non-browser that WinMob requires an entire application (GUI created in MS Paint, really?) simply to load Facebook? Or is it that people with WinMob have just now discovered this neato new site called Facebook where -- just maybe! -- all the cool kids used to hang out?

Now it's WMExperts Giving With the Paper Cuts and Lemon Juice

Not enough that last week Crackberry.com made fun of the disgusting money grab that passes for Rogers' Canadian iPhone price plans, this week the diabolical editor of WMExperts just has to point out that the HTC Diamond Touch, is getting all-it-can-eat unlimited data from Bell for $30.

Well done, Rogers, you've succeeded where neither HTC nor Windows Mobile have before -- you've actually made people consider getting a Diamond Pro. Enjoy whatever layer of Hell greedy telco's get condemned to (we forget the exact number, same as the latest WinMob release number, right?)

Palm Hires Interface Designer!

How about that? We can't believe we typed it either, but this is big news from Treocentral. Huge. Palm actually hiring someone to consciously improve their user experience is like... hmm... if Windows Mobile actually hired someone to consciously improve their user experience (taking notes there, "J"?)

Turns out they got someone ultra-hip, ultra conceptual too. Same guy who did Helio, which according to Google Image Search has an interface consisting solely of a white flame brand over blue field. We're not kidding. That's all there seems to be. Makes the Google homepage looks busy. But who knows how the kids smartphone these days.

What'll he bring to Palm? Probably something just as innovative. We're guessing no screen at all. Joke all you want, but it would be light years ahead of Palm's vintage-yet-still-sadly-current anti-anti-aliased 8-bit circa 1990s groove.

And in No Other News

That's it. We have to go. The Motorola boys are playing the "iPhone 3G is the only reason we have left to live" card, trying to cry their way up in line. Brian and Casey aren't buying it, but Chad might let them in. Meanwhile, the Nokia and Samsung iClone teams have gotten bounced for trying to get early peaks inside. We feel for them, really. Rules are rules and all, but c'mon. If they don't find out what Apple is releasing this year, what'll they have to copy for next year?

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, June 28th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:55:58 +0000

In this week's edition: Boldly late... and on strike, WinMob vs. Android, more Windows raves, and Real Ed vs. Fake Steve!

Blackberry Bold-ly Not Going Where the iPhone Will Have Already Gone Before

The 11th reason the Blackberry still doesn't compare to the iPhone 3G? The iPhone 3G will be out on time.

Unlike Apple, who typically doesn't pre-announce but sends CEO Steve "El" Jobso out on stage to BOOM! their tech when its good to pretty much G.O., in its panicked desperation to pip the iPhone 3G to the publicity post, RIM rushed to pre-announce their Bold before it was finished and, it seems, before they had a real idea of when it would be finished.

So, also unlike Apple's Jobs who gave us an emphatic July 11th to circle in red on our calendars (and bank accounts!), RIM's Lazaridis gave a nebulous date which, according to Crackberry.com, has just gotten "pushed" back:

August. Maybe 2008.

Rumor has it battery issues and overheating are to blame. Yikes. Either way, that's a full month after serious futurists have already gotten themselves an iPhone. I guess diehard Crackberrians should just expect it when they ship it.

Take Your Push and Shove It, We Ain't Emailing Here No More!

Yup, seems like members of the Writers Guild, among others, believe that both unfair and unequal treatment for their work on the internet and in DVD sales is matched only by having to use Blackberry's as reasons to go on strike.

Crackberry.com says ABC (the American one, not the Australian one, we're properly ethnocentric on this) backed down quickly in face of the Blackberry-out, and no scripts or fall season release schedules were harmed under the repetitive stress.

Crackberry Gives Papercut, Pours Lemon Juice On it

Yes. Thank you, Crackberry.com. Potential iPhone 3G customers in Canada are going to get Rogered by the local GSM monopoly -- almost as badly as the RIMtards. The difference? Whereas the Blackberry is pretty much a business appliance typically subsidized by companies, the iPhone is a mobile computer platform typically paid dearly for by consumers themselves.

Way to drag us down with you, hosers.

WinMob vs. Android: Complexity Showdown!

WMExperts gives us a peak beneath the Android Kimono, and what a peak it is! Seems Google's little mobile monster is poised to give Windows Mobile a run for its so-many-versions-developers-will-tear-their-neck-beards-out money. Way to go. May the least of the worst win the bottom of the most!

More Raves for Windows!

Typical Windows user feedback?

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues. [...] So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated. [...] Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time? [...] Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up. [...] What an absolute mess. [...] The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind.

Nope. THE Windows user feedback to rule them all, courtesy of Kaiser Bill Gates himself. Now, sure, this is technically about the desktop version of Windows 5.5 (aka XP), and not the similar-in-name-and-ill-conceived-GUI-only handset version, currently on 6.6.6 (or something), but the probative value far exceeds any potential prejudice (or the humor outweighs the difference, whatever).

Sadly, though much like typical user feedback, it had absolutely no effect on future development.

Keeping Palm Real Fake

Real Ed:

We are more confident than ever in our transformational effort. We've added extraordinary new talent, the Centro is a smash success, we have an incredibly competitive product pipeline, and are developing a world class software platform. I expect together, these efforts will deliver positive results in the coming years.

Fake Steve:

You turn your $500 Treo into a $100 Centro, sell each unit at a massive loss, and make it up on volume. How totally brilliant! Why didn't we think of that? I mean here at Apple we're still stuck in that old-economy mindset where you sell stuff for more than what it costs you to make it. Meanwhile Palm is getting inquiries from Chris Anderson of Wired who wants to do a big cover story on how "selling for less than cost" is the new future of business.

Real Ed:

I have never felt more enthusiastic about our product pipeline and our ability to get back on the right track.

Fake Steve:

If you really want to scare the crap out of yourselves, check out your company's official earnings statement and scroll down to the balance sheet. Little item called "Total stockholders' equity." Look at where it is today versus a year ago. Teeny tiny drop from $1 billion last year to $100 million now.

Real Ed:

We are extremely confident that the enhanced functionality of this new platform and its accessibility to the developer community, combined with the game changing hardware we have designed for it will usher in a new era for Palm. This platform development effort is proceeding very well and we look forward to bringing these products to market.

Fake Steve:

Well, nothing to worry about, I'm sure. Ahem. Anyway, much love to all of you. We miss you. Not really. And if you're thinking about maybe you'll crawl back here when Palm goes under, um, don't bother. Peace.

And in No Other News

Motorolo is pinning all their hopes for the future on the Alexander. That's not a joke. The sentence, I mean. Motorola definitely is.

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, June 21st Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 22:46:52 +0000

In this week's edition: Blackberry iClone's visual voice mail -- but don't make them angry! Windows Mobile 6.0 ready to crash already frozen Treo 800wx's, and can Centro has future?

Apple Reinvents the Phone. RIM Regurgitates the iPhone.

RIM loves them the iPhone. They love it's glossy black facade. They love its silvered bezel. They love its rounded rectangular slab-like form factor. They love its iTunes connectivity. And despite we-think-they-doth-protest-to-much comments to the contrary, boy do they love its touchscreen. They love it so much, they've done nothing but spend the last year iCloning it. They're latest, according to Crackberry.com?

Visual Voice Mail.

Yup.

Way to go, Lazaridis. A year and a half later, and you're finally copying something Steve Jobs showed off six months prior to the iPhone launch...

Good news for Crackberrians, though! At this rate, you'll get a MobileSafari class browser by 2011!

You Won't Like Crackberry Kevin When He's Angry!

Okay, we totally take back that last story. It wasn't us, and it certainly wasn't RIM. In fact, it was probably those troublemakers over at AndroidCentral saying the iPhone was copying the Bold again. Totally. Just don't get Crackberry Kevin angry. We don't like him when he's angry. We mean, did you see what he did to Rogers' data rates when he got angry? We don't have the healing factor to take that kind of pain!

We'll just stick to making fun of WindowsMobile for the rest of this edition, okay?

Please?

Obsolete Hardware, Meet Outdated OS!

Speaking of making fun of Windows Mobile, looks like the Treo 800wx will finally be getting an upgrade to version 6.0. No, that's not a typo. They're actually taking the oldest WinMob Treo (actually, the "fixed" rev of the oldest WinMob Treo, but why split petrified hairs?), and cramming the previous (not current) version of Windows Mobile on it.

And they're not even doing that yet, so some poor battered-consumer syndrome hax0rs have stepped in and actually made the monstrous little FrankenTreos themselves. Think getting XP up on your 486. Sorta.

WMExperts.com has the gory details. Or it could just be another spy shot of the 800w. Either way...

Centro: Can Has Future?

TreoCentral.com bravely asks: "Can Palm's Centro Still Roll With The Big Dogs at AT&T?"

In a sentence: About well as Motorola has post-RAZR.

In a word: No.

But if they play the chihuahua card low and long enough, they might sneak by until their next handset can go... er... Nova.

And in No Other News...

Samsung announced, and Sprint spat up $100,000,000 to advertise, the Instinct to compete with the old iPhone about 5 minutes before Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone 3G, officially making the Instinct a year too late and a (next) generation too short (not to mention quite a bit too expensive when faced with a $199 price tag for the Real Thing). So, the big bosses at Samsung and Sprint bit the bullet and dropped their prices... But not enough to impress Uncle Walt, much less our own big boss, who summed up the whole thing thusly:

Honestly - is anybody out there seriously considering an Instinct over an iPhone? We’ll grant that there are some people who prefer to pick their carrier first, phone second — but still, is it possible to even pick up the clean end of a piece of …Instinct?

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, June 14th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:14:44 +0000

In this week's edition: RIM Flips, Windows Mobile is why Ballmer should quit, and Palm's Centro is a... hit?!

Kirk to Enterpise, the [Redacted] NOC is [Redacted] Down Again!

Crackberry.com continues their awesome trend of RIMsclusives, this week bringing us the pre-release (and bathroom-floor?) pics of the upcoming BlackBerry Flip... er... KickStart. Kudos to RIM marketing, the idea of kicking your new form factor to start it is both glee-worthy and certainly cathartic. The first live YouTubes of a boardroom full of business suits round-housing the flipugly little things through the plate glass and down to 100 story doom will earn our inaugural "favorite" badge.

RIM design should likewise be praised for boldly (oops, wrong model!) flippedly going where no one since 1960s sci-fi has gone before. Maybe the Aurora will sport it some phaser chic?

Blackberry Can Has Windows Live Candy?

Yes, that's apparently NOT a typo. This really does pass for screencandy on the Blackberry.

If an iPhone app ever came out looking that 2001, it would only be because Ashton Kutcher had developed it and was filming the reaction from backstage...

The OS Update Heard Around the World!

As we're all probably sick of hearing about now, a little OS update was announced this week. Flaunting a host of new features, the update will soon let everyone, everywhere, experience the next great revolution in smartphone... er... experience. Unfortunately, the announced OS update won't be released right away. Nope, we're all going to have to dig deep and wait just a little bit longer. But the relentless media coverage, the rumors, the anticipation, the fanboy frenzy... it will all be worth it soon.

Yup, in just a few short weeks, WMExperts.com says we'll be getting Windows 6.6.6 for the Moto Q9h! Booyah!

Windows Mobile -- Yup, THAT's a Firing!

Seems Jim Lynch over at ExtremeTech loves him some Windows Mobile almost as much as pundit Paul Thurrott. How much is that? Enough to make it his #4 reason Microsoft CEO Steve "Internet Monkey-Boy Dance Phenom" Ballmer should be fired:

Windows Mobile has been a dismal failure for Microsoft that has only become more apparent with the launch and success of the iPhone. Microsoft blew a lot of money and time with Windows Mobile and never managed to come up with a good mobile operating system. Apple, on the other hand, managed to hit a home run the first time out by using Mac OS X in the iPhone. I remember owning a Compaq iPaq years ago and, at first, I loved it. But as time went on I stopped using it and finally just got rid of it. Looking back at it now, from the perspective of an iPhone owner, I see that the iPaq was a good product but it suffered from a poorly thought out and awfully implemented operating system. Microsoft never got it right and still hasn't. As usual Microsoft is playing catch-up to Apple and we'll no doubt see Microsoft blatantly copying Apple's iPhone interface and features in a future release of Windows Mobile. For letting Windows Mobile continue to be a failed also-ran, Steve Ballmer should be fired.

No Dev in the Palm is Worth 2 Million Centros?

TreoCentral.com informs us that the "breakthrough hit" that is the Palm Centro is on track to sell 2 million units this year... of an OS Palm introduced only 6 years ago! And now they'll be selling on shiny happy Verizon as well! Everyone is thrilled. Seriously. Stock is up 9%. Colligan and Rubenstein are high-fiving in the halls.

Sure, instead of 2 million with a 6 year old OS, Apple sold 6 million with an OS introduced barely a year ago, but think about how much work that must of been, all that innovation and stuff. Why break a sweat when you get sit on your apps for 6 years and still bump the stock, right?

And since by the sounds of it, the next generation Nova OS will basically be a web browser, it looks like Palm has finally found it's winning strategy and is going for it! All engines in reverse, and straight ahead 'til yesterday!

And in No Other News...

Pop quiz, hotshot: You're a once relevant mobile phone manufacturer who once struck gold with the then-innovative RAZR and has since done everything corporately possible to never again recapture the lightning in that bottle. Your boogeyman of the last few years has just switched his attention to the MicroHoo! debacle, and Apple has shown you can still shake up the space with a breakthrough device fresh out the gate.

What do you do, hotshot? What do you do?

If you're Moto, you fire half your design team. That's what!

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, June 7th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:22:43 +0000

In this week's edition: Nothing. Seriously. It's like there's some event on Monday that's blotted out the smartphone sun...

(Okay, fine, maybe there's some small something or other we can dig up. Hit the read link...)

Breaking: TiPb Welcomes Messrs. Lazaridis, Ballmer, and Colligan!

More fake breaking news, as we've received no tips reporting that the head honchos over at RIM, Microsoft, and what's left of Palm have done nothing all week but wire up fiber channels and practice hitting "refresh" in anticipation of our live meta blog coverage of the WWDC keynote on Monday.

When reached for non-comment, dead-pan funnyman Lazaridis said, "C'mon, I need to know what Apple's new phone looks like this year so I can figure out what RIM's will look like next year!"

Monkey-Boy dance phenom Ballmer didn't chime in with, "We'll be selling 3 friktillian smartphones with Windows Mobile Se7en on by 2012, and we're going to need to know what else to copy beside Multi-touch!"

Colligan, however, when awoken from his 5 year stasis, never remained cool, "We have no interest in duplicating the iPhone. We're about to release our 19th version of the Treo 600, and we've got 37 more where that came from!".

Alrighty then...

ATTN: Crackberry.com, RE: Coming Back Around...

Confession: We make a little fun of RIM's well-publicized and hugely embarrassing network outages (see, we did it again right there). But last week, when .Mac went down and we here at TiPb reported it pro-forma as the nothing little insignificant blip on an otherwise perfectly clear iPhone sky that it was, Crackberry.com wasted no time, and spared no level of glee, in NOC'ing it up, and twisting it into some big brouhaha.

Bulletin: A .Mac outage probably effects exactly 3 iPhone users. If that. We don't like to publicize it, but even Dear Leader doesn't really use the service (he's using the new one already, which is why they needed some massive super secret upgrade you may be hearing about at a little developers conference you may have hear about, b'okay?) Anyway, .Mac going out is like the 300th ranked ISP in Bavaria going out -- barely anyone noticed. They were all busy with setting up their new Exchange or MobileMe accounts for Monday.

Payback: However, you noticed, and we noticed you noticing, so we called up our "friends" in Waterloo and convinced the former Canadian Tire cashier whose hand's on the giant red NOC-off lever that, since everyone on the planet will pretty much be iPhone-only this weekend, it would be the perfect time for a "scheduled" outage. Poor kid. We're talking hook, line, and voice-cracking sinker...

We're not sure what Crackberry addicts pop when the push is down (our guess -- Solitaire on Win95), but enjoy the weekend!

Microsoft Out the Gates and High on Life

Or something! First up we have Microsoft (probably Ballmer), who according to WMExperts.com is sending letters (probably cut out of a soon-to-be-extinct magazine and stick-glued onto unsold Vista boxtops...) to their partners desperately reassuring them that Windows Mobile 6.6.6 (or 6.1, whatever the latest -- and by that we mean most currently behind schedule -- release is) will somehow still be relevant come Monday after El Jobso drops the iPhone 2.0 bomb.

Er... yeah... Not sure how to break this to you, but Windows Mobile 6.x wasn't relevant after iPhone 1.0 back in January 2007. And instead of trying to get Windows Mobile Se7en up to iPhone 1.0 standards, you might want to think outside the little beige box and shoot for something innovative your own self?

And no, spreading rumors of a Blu-Ray Xbox 360 in some attempt to "steal Apple's thunder" is not innovative. A giant, red-ringing, PowerPC, noisy, inelegant gaming machine, no matter how we loves us our Gears of War, suddenly getting the technology that beat the stuffing out of your own HD-DVD format years after Sony released it in the PS3 just doesn't crossover the same news circles.

But here's an idea: maybe call that friend of yours Bill. You remember him, the one you no longer need but may still use? (Leastways he could help keep you from blurting out your envy towards the iPhone's admittedly top-tier browser experience...)

Government Tracking Treo Users

TreoCentral.com is claiming that the US government is tracking cellphone users. Since some of us aren't in the US, or in Government, we have no way of knowing whether this is true or not, but since we grew up on everything from Orwell to the Matrix, we kinda just assumed it already.

What's particularly disturbing, however, is that TreoCentral.com reporting this makes us think the US Government is tracking Treo users as well.

Why?

Is it for anthropology, like when the Discovery Channel finds some lost, never before contacted Amazonian tribe and wants to study their behavior? Is it that they think tax dollars are well spent analyzing a people untouched by mobile technology since 1999?

Dunno. But we sure hope Dr. Jones doesn't get a shunning for his troubles.

And in No Other News

HTC finally got around to still not releasing their HTC Touch Diamond, which early reviews say just crackles on EDGE, given its lack of support for North American HSPA. Not a problem though, as it seems the OS is slow enough that you can barely notice...

Points for consistency, but you had to know slapping an extra layer of OS on top of WinMob and then chipping down the radio was putting the advertising spin before the handset, right?

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, May 31st Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 31 May 2008 19:55:52 +0000

In this week's edition: Windows Se7en, Great Googley Android, India's circling the RIM, the Treo 800w guest commentary, and no other news on Safari for Samsung...

Windows Se7en

Microsoft is still the only real game on the planet, especially when it comes to business, what with their whopping 90%+ share of the market. And as Bill Gates rides off into retirement, he can be justifiably proud at how close he came to his dream of a computer on every desktop and in every home. In that light, his swan song with longtime crony and internet "monkeyboy" dance phenom Steve Ballmer at the "D" All Things Digital was particularly poignant this year, especially given that they chose to use the event to showcase their next generation OS to the public for the very first time.

What groundbreaking new features did they show off? What killer new technology was highlighted? Was it WinFS, the revolutionary all-registry all-the-time file system they've been promising since the code-name "Cairo" vaporware of yore? Was it MinWin, the ultra-small, ultra-modular kernel that will return some long absent agility to the platform? Was it a complete revamp of the horrible mishmash that passes for an API stack, cleansing 8-bit fossils and 16-bit artifacts, providing something uniform for the 64-bit future? Was it a renewed focus on their core business users, streamlining bloat and minimizing eye candy in favor of virtualized compatibility and blazingly fast architectures moving forward?

Nah uh.

It was 10 finger multi-touch paint. 10 @#$%ing finger multi-touch paint! Are you kidding me?! From the team that brought us the big @$$ table, we get nothing of the future promised us for decades by Microsoft, nothing by way of making up for the titanic PR disaster that has been Vista, nothing that may convince consumers who are routing towards the Mac in ever increasing droves, and businesses who are stubbornly clinging to the terribly outdated XP or jurassic 2000, to hold out for a better tomorrow. No. We get 10 @#$%ing finger multi-touch paint and yet another in the endless string of failed Gatesian prognostications about interfaces, inks, and whatever else makes him think tablets have been a booming success for over a decade. (Word to Bill - the only thing even remotely resembling a tablet that's even approached a modicum of cultural penetration is -- wait for it -- the iPhone, and it wasn't made by Microsoft).

But what does Windows Se7en have to do with Smartphones, you may ask? (After all, WMExperts.com thought it barely worth a mock-mention). Unlike Apple, aren't Microsoft's mobile offerings similar only in that both have the word "Windows" grafted in front of them? Nope. They're also similar in terms of the minds driving them, the vision of the future those minds have, and the experience those visions seek to bring to us, the end users.

And right now both Windows Se7en and WinMob Se7en are driven by minds so drunk off their collectives posteriors that their futuristic visions are entirely consumer by 10 @#$%ing finger multi-touch paint.

Great Google-y Moogley: Android Gets Slightly Less Vapory!

Microsoft loses money on search, which is pretty much just a way to glue eyeballs to pages so said eyeballs can be blinded by flashing neon "hit the bouncing monkey!" banners. By contrast, Google's bouncing monkey banners net them somewhere near 8 kazillion dollars a year. Likewise, while Microsoft's busy showing off a 2010 desktop OS that really, truly hopes to be competitive with Apple's 2007 mobile OS, Google is readying an iClone that may just ship this year!

Confession: We thought the Google Android demo was right skippy. Caveat: We though the exact same thing when Steve Jobs did it at Macworld 2007.

Memo to Google: We know your CEO, Dr. Evil... er... Eric sits on the Apple board of directors. We've heard he recuses himself from iPhone discussions to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. Here's a thought: how about avoiding the reality of one as well?

Apple is all about the paradigm shift. The command-line in your home with the Apple II. The GUI on your desktop with the Mac. Multi-touch in your hand with the iPhone. It's what Apple does. The gloss, the shine -- the boom.

You need to embrace what Google does. All white screens with nothing but search boxes. That's what Google does. Forget about the overcrowded iClone market and embrace that. That's your niche. That's your Zen.

Circling the RIM: India's Never-Ending Ultimatum

Yeah, we thought this had been resolved too. Seems India's still demanding and RIM is still claiming it has a headache. Or whatever. Crackberry.com somehow retains the energy and interest to cover it. We just can't stop snickering over the fact that it's the Network Operations Center (NOC), pusher of all pushers, single-point-of-snooping, that let's India push RIM so hard to begin with.

Big brother FTW!

So You Think You Can Smartphone?

Okay, so we've been giving the Treo 600... er... 800w a bit of a hard time around here. Fair point. Certainly opinions must vary, and much like we had special guest quotes from Windows Super Siter Paul Thurrott a few posts back, in the spirit of equal time we turn this segment over to TreoCentral uber-editor Dieter Bohn. Go ahead, boss. Tell us all how great the 600 v3 is:

Look at it. It looks cheap. It looks cheap. I'm like secretly hoping that this isn't the final casing. That they have a secret casing and this is just the stuff they're sending out to the beta testers. [...] It doesn't look professional. I mean recessed screens are so 2003. Whatever. Right? [...] The way it's recessed looks chintzy. The soft buttons underneath the screen are just sort of randomly there. Nothing about it speaks like... It doesn't speak like... to being solid or futuristic. [...] A business phone should project an aura of power. [...] This is just not good looking. I've been saying for a long time now that this is the year you've got to cut Palm a ton of slack, and I've been cutting Palm a ton of slack, but this looks like cr@p. [...] It does not look great. This needs to look great. They should have one great phone this year and this does not look great. This looks the opposite of great. [...] I tell you what, [when This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude put up an image of the Treo 600 as the Treo 800w] I didn't notice. Somebody had to point out the joke to me.

Score!

For those truly interested in the complete, uncensored, Treo 800w curbing, check out the podcast (spoiler: in the name of all things merciful and nostalgic, Mike pulls Dieter off and holds him at bay until the Smithsonian can show up and cart off the old girl's mangled, circuit board-strewn corpse. NOT for the squeamish).

And in No Other News

Speaking of maulings, some Executard or PR flack over at Samsung, in a fit of drunkful-thinking, shot up a release stating the notly anticipated L870 S60 slider (honestly, do they pull these names off of pseudo-random password generators?) would have not just a WebKit browser, but the full on iPhone Mobile Safari king-of-all-mobile browsers. Absent, you know, an OS, UI, or the basic design and engineering skills to support it.

Riiiiiiigggghhhhhttttt...

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, May 24th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 25 May 2008 02:23:24 +0000

BREAKING! RIM to Preemptively Release bbTablet!

We don't break fake news here often, so when we do, you know it's going to be big -- and dare we say -- bold. No, scratch that, BOLDER!

Keenly aware that Apple may be releasing the long-anticipated iTablet at WWDC this June, and fed up with being called on for blatantly copying the design of the iPhone, RIM has decided to strike first this time and rush out a tablet of their very own: the bbTablet, aka Blackberry 1200, aka BOLDER!

Crackberry.com probably has one on order from eBay as we speak, but it's tiPb that's scored the exclusive specs: ultra-wide 1920x320 "Lawrence of Arabia" screen, OSish 4.6, and full desktop size Qwerty keyboard! Take that, Apple!

Mike "Deadpan Funnyman" Lazaridis, when asked for fake comment, had this to say about what makes RIM's device the "iTablet Killer":

Full desktop Qwerty keyboards. I'm sorry, it really is. I'm totally not making this up. Totally. People don't like screens. They really don't. Makes them squint. And read. Totally. They're getting tired of looking at their old tablets and they're coming into the stores and they want to be able to do, like, Facebook and they want to be able to do, like, instant messaging and they want to be able to do, like, e-mail and they ask for those features thinking that they're going to get another tablet, and I tell them they don't need screens for those things, they need keyboards, big @

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, May 17th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:55:47 +0000

Not evil twin to Phone Different Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!

WinMob on ur Blackberryz

No, Crackberrians, no need to have an OS attack. Ballmer isn’t threatening to unleash his BSOD’d “platform” on the Javaware that passes to power your little e-mail monster (yet). Our bad. Maybe we should have titled this “WMExperts on the Blackberry Bold”, or maybe just “Hawt or Not?” instead?

Anyway, seems WMExperts.com had this to title about the first-to-market iClone job from RIM:

Alright, the BlackBerry 9000 is Hawt

Far be it for us to argue with Fearless Leader... So we’ll just yield the titular comeback to the Mossbergites over at D|All Things Digital:

Think of It as an iPhone With a Broken Touchscreen

Will do! Because we all know RIM CEO, and noted internet deadpan funnyman, Mike Lazaridis’ whiplash inducing take on the touch anyway: They stink -- let’s make one!

Blackberryz in ur iTunez

Sadly, this title is accurate. First RIM announces a $150 million development fund for “all mobile platforms” (read “iPhone”, since pretty much every other platform has had development going for years now and should already be a huge success, right?). Then, flabbergast-ingly enough, RIM -- incapable of, you know, actually engineering their own way to effortlessly sync media to the Blackberry even with $150 million to throw at it -- has decided to use Apple’s. So far there are no reports of RIM actually licensing iTunes connectivity from Apple, like... say... Apple just licensed Exchange ActiveSync connectivity from Microsoft.

Oksy, so let's get this straight. First, RIM says they’ll give to the iPhone whether Apple likes it -- or needs it -- or not, and now they’ll take. Fiendishly clever, Lazaridis. Or it would be if you were a 12 year old 133t Hax0r in your parents’ basement, and not the CEO of the (technically) dominant smartphone maker in the world.

Hey RIM, how’d you like it if Ballmer monkey-boy danced his way into your NOC?

Epic kludge.

State of the WinMob -- A Microsoft Mulligan?

Microsoft pundit and Apple-baiter extraordinaire, Paul Thurrott gave an(other) impromptu State of Windows Mobile speech on last week's Windows Weekly:

You know, Windows Mobile is horrible. [...] It's horrible. Horrible. [...] Don't even get me started, we don't have time. I... I... Windows Mobile is a disaster. [...]

[Is Windows 6.1 better?] Better than what? Yeah, it's better than 5. But so what? This thing has the latest, 6.1 or whatever, the phone I'm using now. God, what a... it's terrible. It's terrible. They should be ashamed of themselves. They've had this thing... I don't.. God, it's embarrassing.

And, you know, I stuck around and I had the motorola Q for along time which I stuck with because of the high speed network and the fact that I could tether it to my laptop and use it as a high speed modem for my laptop. That's great. I miss that. I'm going to tell you, though, the Windows Mobile stuff.. geez... It's like going back.. Oh, god, it makes Windows 95 look futuristic by comparison.

[Is it challenging getting an OS onto mobiles?] Okay, Apple did something pretty impressive.

[The iPhone doesn't have cut and paste.] I hear ya, I'm just saying, you know, from a usability standpoint -- night and day. [...] This thing is a piece of crap. They should completely start over. It's horrible. It's a complete waste of time. They should just pretend this never happened. This is.. it's... it is the mulligan. They should just start over. Nobody uses the thing anyway. It's just ridiculous.

[Treo 700w, HTC, and people love Sprint handsets...] I wouldn't say love. Remember what they love about these devices are the form factors. The keyboards and, you know... You're not going to find too many people who... I... I shouldn't say that because, of course... [...]

You know what, look, I hear from Apple guys obviously. At least that I get. I mean, I could have my arguments with these people but at least Apple makes high quality stuff so we can arg--we can nitpick over whatever we want.

If someone is actually going to come to me and explain that Windows Mobile is not, in fact, a piece of crap, I'm sorry, I don't entertain lunacy. This... This thing is ridiculous.

No, it's terrible. No, it's not even like a debate, it's terrible. There's no -- you know what I'm saying -- we can debate things. We can't debate this.

[...] It's terrible.

There's nothing there. And this from a man who likes the Zune...

Yowza.

Palm's 800th Verse -- Same as the First!

Okay, even we have to admit it: the upcoming 800w is the Palm device we always wanted...

Back in 2005 when it should have shipped.

It takes until now to get WiFi? Now? Really? And still not on Palm OS "Granite", but on Windows Mobile 6.1, which even HTC is desperately trying to hide like a Remond-headed stepchild?

Treocentral.com has the first "spy" pics, but honestly, who can tell if that's even an 800w and not a 680 or even a 600 with a clever case and antenna mod?

And word to the "shadowmite", how about obscuring the serial number on the proto and, hey, your reflection on the screen, so, you know, Colligan doesn't have the hounds unleashed next time he spots you sneaking into the antiquities wing of Palm HQ, b'okay?

Definitions of Nova

nova |ˈnōvə|
noun ( pl. -vae |-vē; -ˌvī| or -vas ) Astronomy
a star showing a sudden large increase in brightness and then slowly returning to its original state over a few months.

Do they pick these code names just so these columns write themselves? Seriously. Nothing says next generation, second coming, return to dominance like something that explodes, kills all life, only to end up an infinitely sucking mass of dark matter.

On the other hand, since it won't ship until first half 2009 at the earliest -- by which time iPhone 3.0 will be on its way, and maybe a new, non-iClony Blackberry revolution (we dare to dream!) as well -- perhaps Colligan and Co. really are code name picking geniuses?

And In No Other News...

We already covered how Sprint is ~~spending~~ wasting $150 million advertising dollars just to make the brand new Samsung Instinct pale in copy-catastrophe next to the last gen iPhone, but in an effort to be more helpful than hurtful, here's some advice:

Just spend the money giving the devices away to your few remaining customers. You'll move far more units than if you try and sell them, and maybe even engender a few more months of gratitude usage.

Wow, being nice really is its own reward...

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, May 11th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:53:07 +0000

Not evil twin to Phone Different Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we ~~mock~~ review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!

[Note: Due to the dust settling from our mega-merger -- and our subsequent allergies -- we’re keeping it short this week. Just the low-lights.]

Crackberry Cracks the Net

Big week down Crackberry.com way as none other than Kevin himself plastered the interwebs -- from Daring Fireball to Engadget to Gizmodo -- with his exclusive videos, reviews, and... video reviews of one of the most hotly anticipated handsets of the year.

Or so we thought.

Nice try, Crackberry. While the elegant chrome bezel and glossy black facade almost had us fooled, the huge, honking tic-tactile keyboard kicked our aesthetic back to reality.

So what device did Crackberry.com break the interwebs (and likely Kevn's paypal account) for? Confession: they lost us at keyboard, so -- shrug -- Treo 400?

Assault and Blackberry

Celebrity publicists, eager to meet the needs of the Paris Lohan’s of the world, often seem to karmically torture their torturous clients with whatever RIM product Amazon will pay them to take (while expensing it at full price, no doubt...)

But what about the poor celebrities that have to use the tiny screened, tiny keyboarded, media-challenged monsters? What are they supposed to do?

Turns out one got so angry she tried to destroy her hated handset by bashing it (repeatedly?) into a Brooklyn neighbor.

No jail time for the celeb, Crackberry.com tells us. The Blackberry? Authorities are reportedly seeking the recycle penalty.

Attack of the iClones

Our special Wait-a-Thon edition covering the HTC Touch Diamond, and posts on the Philips x800 and the Sprint Instinct $100 million ad campaign show that some carriers and manufacturers can, by throwing vast amounts of money down the pit, make a sixth generation Windows Mobile handset flounder and ultimately still fail to copy the inaugural iPhone. Point taken.

Now how about taking this point -- and all that money, engineering skill, and software architecture experience -- and making a great Windows Mobile handset that is, you know, like not totally ashamed to be Windows Mobile?

Windows Seat on the TyTn’ic

The good: WMExperts.com lets it be known that HTC will finally fix the crippled video drivers that have been plaguing TyTn II owners since the dawn of time (or, at least, since the dawn of them buying the disastrous device).

The bad: They probably won’t be fixing it for any version anyone is likely to own, including the AT&T Tilt.

The ugly: HTC won’t be fixing the crippled drivers pandemic to any of their other devices either.

Nope, they’re too busy claiming the shoddy performance of their grafted-on TouchFLO interface on the Diamond iClone will be fixed in a future update. Credibility much?

Super-Size Your Centro!

With over a million Centro’s served, Palm finally asks the next logical question: want fries with that?

Yup, TreoCentral.com says official Centro branded accessories are on the way. Or more of them. Or just a mediocre cradle and audio adapter. Or something. But at least now every bargain-basement, ancestral-generation would-be smartphone neophyte can get the combo.

Look, More Palm News!

We can’t believe it either, but we actually have two (2!) minor Palm items this week. And speaking of minor Palm items, it looks like both the 800w and 850v (or 500z or whoknowswhat?) will see the cold, cruel light of day some time this year (and not, as many thought, flux-capacitor-like back in 2001 where their design seems frozen...)

And In No Other News

In apparent retaliation for the iPhone, and the sense of childlike wonder it is now threatening to restore around the world, those Norfindwedish fiends at Nokia are now retaliating by bringing more of their hyper-powered, Soviet designed handsets to North America, including the N95, a handset so costly it made Steve Balmer briefly consider picking up a relatively inexpensive iPhone...

What’s next, the similarly military sounding E66 and E71? (Or were those old Epson dot-matrix designations...?)

Death by utilitarianism. Fiends.