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!
Blackberry Out of Outages?
Given CrackBerry.com's near-constant updates on RIM's outages, unscheduled, scheduled, re-scheduled, and beyond, I thought there would be no way RIM could top themselves again. Boy, was I wrong. This week marked the first time in a long time (long time being the history of this series, 'natch) that RIM was complete out of outages!
Talk about poor supply-chain management. Sure, they've had infrastructure and service failures before, but a failure failure?
Brain trust in Waterloo: get on it!
India to RIM: Push This!
Those hoping RIM would conceded to India's desire to invade the privacy and security of every user in the nation -- by, for example, setting up proxy servers the way they have in China and Singapore, or just giving Indian security agencies the keys to encryption-city -- tough luck!
Crackberry.com tells us Sriprakash Jaiswal, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, has gone and forced carriers to block any and all Blackberry to Blackberry messaging.
India and RIM will meet again soon, but the carriers aren't wasting any time in fighting back themselves. Expected this week: new advertising campaigns, boasting the first Blackberries in the world with equally good email and media handling!
Microsoft: Gotta Get You Some! (Taste, That Is!)
While WMExperts.com was all over the WinMob news this week (doubtless yet another iterative handset or 3rd party patch for missing OS functionality), I really couldn't follow it after exposure to Microsoft "leaked" "internal" "moral-booster" video for the troops. Blind and deaf, yet unmercifully not amnesia-tic, I'm left to wonder why they insist on releasing things the world can never un-experience?
(Poor Paul Thurrott was so traumatized he blamed the interwebs for not getting the "joke", not realizing there are levels of joke, and failing at a joke this spectacular becomes an even bigger joke -- laughing at it, not with it, b'okay Paul?)
Treo 800w -- Beta!
You're Palm. You revolutionized the handset industry only to fall so far behind you can no longer see the competition. You've saddled yourself with a monstrous OS almost as dated as your design specs. And due to chronic mismanagement you have no hope of releasing your own product or updated OS in the foreseeable future. What do you do?
Drop the beta bomb.
That's right. Treocentral.com brings us word that Palm is looking for a few good beta testers. Beta, of course, implies unfinished, unfinished demands forgiveness, forgiveness leads to understanding when the inevitable shortcomings and delays follow.
So the company that should have innovated us an iPhone-class device 5 years ago may manage to release a single, dated device this year. In beta.
Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Rubenstein!
And in No Other News...
Zip. Zippo. Ziltch. You'd have better odds getting Motorola's software and hardware divisions working together. Seriously. It's getting to the point where you just want to give Samsung a gesture alright...
The new Nothing Ear (1) earbuds are funky — and as cool — as hell
Nothing, the company from former OnePlus founder Carl Pei, has its first product. The Nothing Ear (1) have been confirmed today and they're unlike anything you've seen before.
$400,000 in undeclared Apple Watches & AirPods Pro seized by Indian customs
Customs agents at the international airport in Mumbai seized more than $400,000-worth of Apple gear as it made its way into the country. None of the 160 Apple Watches and 600 pairs of AirPods Pro had been declared and are now all sat in a warehouse.
Mark Ronson talks Apple TV+, Amy Winehouse, and more in Variety interview
Apple TV+ will gain a new music show on July 30 when Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson lands on Apple's streaming services. Ronson, a DJ, songwriter, producer, and more will be the man interviewing other huge musical personalities like Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney — and he's been talking to Variety about a whole host of things.
Automate your home with the best HomeKit smart plugs out there
If you're new to home automation, a smart plug is a great first step in building out your connected home. You can simply plug it in and go. Here's our guide to the best smart plugs for HomeKit.