“Inspired” by Apple

HP Slate7: It actually has a screen with the acronym “FFS”. FFS.

(image from The Verge)

Toshiba Excite 10SE: Not just the Toshiba Excite 10, but the Toshiba Excite 10SE. Comes with climate control, front AND rear electric windows, and an upgraded stereo.

(image from The Verge)

The Family Christian Edifi: From the Family Christian website:

Our full-color touch display e-reader puts thousands of ebooks at your fingertips! Download your favorites through our pre-loaded Family Christian Reader app and enjoy edifi’s suite of family-friendly features including: Safe Search Wi-Fi web browsing, 27 Bible translations and Christian internet radio. Plus, check email, social networks, display photos. Tap, swipe, read!

Who, exactly, needs 27 translations of a single book? Good job Christians aren’t gullible.

(image from Gizmodo)

Archos Carbon 97: Yeah, good luck with that.

(image from The Verge)

Nexus 7: It’s good, but where’s the keyboard? It’s almost as if the they are positioning this as a content consumption device, and not a PC substitute. Almost as if they are positioning it as something that you would buy instead of a Kindle Fire, and not buy instead of an iPad.

What a disappointment.

Also, the Kindle Fire is fucked.

(image from The Verge, via 512 Pixels)

Microsoft Surface Tablet: So many thoughts running though my head. Yet I am already late to this particular snark party.

Here’s Jon Moltz:

Wonder where they got the idea for it?

Scene: Microsoft meeting room, March, 2011, just after the unveiling of the iPad 2.

Steven Sinofsky: ”We think people are really going to get into mobile computing. Our independent market research all points to this. The only question is, how can we create a user experience that delights and amazes our customers in this burgeoning field?”

Steve Ballmer: “Wait a second! Why don’t we make the hardware and the software!”

Steven Sinofsky: ”Boss, you’re brilliant! Where do you come up with these ideas?!”

Here’s Jim Dalrymple asking:

What do Microsoft and Axl Rose have in common?

Ben Brooks:

Some smart features but not worth thinking about until three things happen:

1. Price is announced.

2. Firm ship date announced.

3. Battery life announced.

Until then, you don’t really have a product.

Finally, back to Jon again (and this really is snark worthy of “Inspired” by Apple):

Looks great! Not available yet! No pricing! Don’t look at Apple, look at us!

It does look great, though, and is really just the kind of thing Microsoft needs to do to regain relevancy in the tablet market, if it hasn’t already slipped away from it. So, on first blush and with a big fat question mark still over the pricing and availability and build quality and half a dozen other things like battery life and having two completely incompatible versions, I’d say good job, Redmond.

OH, GOD, I JUST BURST INTO FLAMES.

Well done, guys. Saucers of bitchy, catty, snarky milk for all. I SALUTE YOU.

(image from New York Times)

Google Nexus Tablet: Experience has taught me that, much like in the first verse of Jerusalem*, the answer to questions posed in linkbait headlines is usually “no”. 

So when Gizmodo, that bastion of journalistic greatness, screams “Is this Google’s Nexus Tablet?”, I’m wary. No, wait. Not wary. I just DON’T CARE. Even if it is not true (and Gizmodo can’t even be bothered to notice that it is Asus, not Acer, that seem to be the manufacturer), the question they should be asking is “Does this new tablet thing look like an iPhone?”. In that case the answer is yes, yes it does.

*This is worth reading. The words are widely misinterpreted.

(image from Gizmodo)

Sharp RW-T110: Here’s something you didn’t know about me - my first laptop was a this sucka. Man, I loved that little dude like a brother. So great. No power. And a rubbish battery. And no hard drive space. But it was tiny. I loved it SO MUCH. Anyway, it was cool. And…I’m sorry I’m thinking about it again. I really love it.

But to paraphrase Janet (Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty) “Sharp: What Have You Done For Me Lately?” (do-do-do-do).

Well, it looks like Sharp have been hard at work thinking of nothing better to do than to yawn out something or other that looks like an iPad, runs an old operating system, looks like an iPad, has a stupid name, and looks like an iPad. Presumably this will sink without trace. I wonder how much money they will have lost developing it.

Actually, a query: has any tablet manufacturer, apart from Apple and Samsung, made a profit on their tablets? And I’m just assuming Samsung will have done, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they hadn’t. 

(image from Engadget)

Google Tablet: There was good news last week for the four people that use Android tablets, with the release of Instagram, the world’s favourite cup-of-coffee-at-an-angle-but-with-a-vintage-feel photo-sharing app. Unfortunately, it turns out Instagram’s business model was, like prostitutes, footballers, or lawyers, to sell themselves.

I, for one, am not worried about Facebook buying Instagram - of course, I will delete my account, but in the interim period, the only things that they will be be able to ascertain is that I like the Finnieston Crane, the M6 from Preston to Glasgow  and some sick at Waterloo station, none of which, the last time I checked, were for sale.

Speaking of companies that harvest your data and sell it to the highest bidder, rumours are doing that flying thing again that Google that will release their own tablet. Here’s a picture of one that shows virtually no original design cues and instead checks out Apple’s Instagram feed and goes “Ooh! That iPad, shot at an angle, with a vintage filter looks nice. We’ll have that, thanks! Yoink!”.

(image from Pocket Now)

Aldi Medion Life Tab: It’s been a rough week for those that copy other people’s products. The world and his wife appear to be tearing Readability a new one, and someone that I had never heard of until today (who would appear to be a consultant for them) is now defending them. Shady business practices aside (and let’s make no mistake about this - what they are doing sucks) I will quite cheerfully admit that the reason I don’t like Readability is that I love Instapaper, Readability’s main competitor, and the reason I don’t want Readability to succeed is that I don’t want Instapaper to suffer, because I really like Marco Arment, Instapaper’s creator, despite never having met him, or even spoken to him and OH COME ON, YOU WERE ALL THINKING THAT TOO.

Kind of like when another, better funded, company attempted to steal the march on a smaller, but better, company and ultimately made more money in the interim period, almost sending the smaller company bankrupt, only for the smaller company to ultimately change the way we listen to music, buy music, use computers, and…oh you get the point.

The more observant among you may have noticed on Apple Keynote Bingo that there was a square that read “nice independent software maker totally undermined by a new feature”. That was a direct reference to Safari’s Reading List feature.

There’s a strong argument that competition encourages innovation - probably the best example of this is your car, which sits on your driveway for three years. When you come to upgrade? Chances are that your car will be better because of the advances made by another manufacturer in the interim period, which made the maker of your new car improve theirs. 

Equally Marco Arment has already said that he dropped the ball over the fonts used in Instapaper. Readability looked lovely. And what happened? Instapaper now has some beautiful fonts. And I feel justified in my slavish devotion to a great product. Job done.

Meanwhile, here’s some crappy Apple knock-off. Who would want this? And, crucially, will it make Apple improve their own products? No. Of course it won’t. When it comes to hardware, the only people that compete with Apple are themselves.

I should probably start a proper blog for wine-fuelled rants like this.

(submitted by Martin. You can buy Instapaper here. I have no financial interest in any of the companies I write about. Apart from Apple, in that I have spent probably close to $4,000 on Apple products in the past two years. So, technically, Apple is financially interested in me. They should probably employ me.)