Confession: My secret, innermost desire for the iPhone 3G was a 420p display. I knew Apple wouldn’t do it yet — there was nothing in their simultaneously released SDK to support any other resolutions — but still… I wants-ded it!
Imagine my fanboy chagrin, then, when HTC goes and not only makes a device in exactly the same dimensions as the iPhone 3G (obvious much?), but slaps a monstrous 800×480 display on the beast! (Not to mention a 5(!) megapixel camera)
The HTC Touch HD (which we’re pretty sure means “Hi Dieter!” — see the afore-linked WMExperts for why…) represents the next expansion of HTC’s Touch brand — something spread so thin Asus’ Eee marketeers are wincing. It may seem questionable to show the HD off this early (it’s not expected to land until 2009, and doesn’t even seem to support US 3G frequencies yet) since, frankly, who’s not gonna put off Osbourne-ing a Touch, Touch Duo, Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, etc. when this baby’s around the bend, but we’re guessing the announcement was aimed more at Apple’s gut than any potential customers’ wallet.
And in that regard — ouch!
Sure, it doesn’t have the Apple/iPod ecosystem behind it and it’s still using TouchFLo 3D to try to hide the UE (user exasperation) that is Windows Mobile 6.1, and multiple layers of OS are never a Good Thing, but this is the first iClone that’s actually got us worried.
Apple, you’ve got almost four months until Macworld 09, and we’ve got three newly urgent words for you: iPhone HD, b’okay?
The iPhone shook up a very complacent smartphone world, but if we think it exists in a vacuum, if we think the other big players won’t respond (no matter how embarrassingly long it might take them), and if we don’t hope that they do — hardcore style — to prevent Apple from one day getting just as complacent, then we’re not doing our jobs as bloggers or consumers.
With that, splinter-like, in mind, witness RIM launching the Blackberry Thunder, their first touch screen device. If you ever wondered how brilliantly Apple handled the release of the iPhone, from Steve pulling it from his pocket to the first videos and commercials, wonder no more. RIM’s shows us by way of terrible — near Microsoft’ian — example, how badly that could have gone… (Though Mike Lanman certainly makes a convincing Doby to Lazaridis’ Gollum…). Couldn’t have hired them Virgin folks again?
We’re still not sure about the whole-screen’s-a-button approach. And the newly launched GDGT podcast is right on when they say RIM needs new software and they need it now (and tell a very funny story about how RIM’s co-CEO really doesn’t get that… scary…)
The. Whole. Screen. Is. A. Flipping. Tic. Tac. Tile. Button.
Seriously. We kid you not (though RIM could be kidding us all?). Sister-site Crackberry.com has all the deets, but…
Seriously? Who’s the usability wizard who came up with this one? Who came up with the single-click point of failure concept? The one mechanism to break it all?
We get that haptics are hard, but the iPhone pretty much showed the industry how to do Touch, and rather than just add the Blackberry messaging powerhouse to that buttery goodness, RIM went and grafted on an mechanic straight out of every 1980s playschool game?
Bravo for challenging Apple (they certainly need it). And kudos for being brave enough to push the metaphor, to take the next step, to propel technology forward. But — seriously? — we hope the feel is light-years beyond the look on this one, and not just for Crackberry Kevin’s sake… Otherwise most annoying gadget innovation of the decade awards beckon…
We guess a certain internet dead-pan funny man was right on the “button” when he said:
THERE’S a reason that R.I.M. is averse to the iPhone’s glass pad. “I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it,” says Mike Lazaridis, R.I.M.’s co-chief executive and technological visionary. “It’s hard to type on a piece of glass.”
Presuming he was really talking about the ThunderStorm…
This one is for our very own Dieter Bohn… For those of you who do not know, and it pains me to say this, Dieter loves his Windows Mobile.
It seems like the tables have turned here for this edition of “Send in the iClones”. I suppose it is only fair that we as iPhone owners have the tables turned on us sometimes. What we have here is called iPhoneFLO. It is a simple theme you can use if you have Summerboard on your Jailbroken iPhone. To find it go into the installer.app and search for iPhoneFLO. Be sure to have Summerboard installed as well, which can also be installed via the installer.app.
For more information please visit our section of the forums devoted to Jailbreaking. Anyone going to give this a shot and Jailbrake simply for this theme?
By now I’m sure you are all tired of seeing other companies try to follow in the footsteps of Apple’s success. Well Meizu has been working on the M8, eh… ok it’s a iClone, for some time now. The following video was posted by the founder of Meizu, J. Wong, showing it off running a highly customized version of Windows Embedded CE 6.0 (the underlying core beneath Windows Mobile 7.)
Still with no firm release date, it does sport a 3 megapixel camera along with 8 gigs of storage. I suppose it does not look too bad for a WinCE device. Does this peak anyone’s interest or are we all sick of these clones?
Sure, the iPhone 3G launch is tomorrow. Consider this an amuse bouche. Or the opposite of that, an annoy bouche. Whatever. Something salty to make Friday taste all the more sweet!
The subject of today’s battle royal? Nope, not iPhone vs. Blackberry. That’s old. This time it’s Blackberry vs. Blackberry, Blog vs. Blog, over the iClone to end all iClones: the touchscreen Blackberry Thunder!
Touchscreen BlackBerry Thunder Keyboard To Utilize Haptic Technology… AMAZING Implementation! [...] Leave it to RIM to CRACK the touchscreen keyboard nut.
The keyboard is incredibly annoying to type on, and the screen actually shows ripples even when pressed ever-so-lightly. [...] Most of the people who have handled it thinks it’s a joke.
Ouch. Seems Samsung and Sprint tried to bring an Instinct to an iPhone fight. At least that’s how venerable Wall Street Journal columnist and “D” All Things Digital tech yoda Walt Mossberg made it sound in his iClonic “review” (to be fair, the still unreleased iPhone 3G gets more attention — and love — than the unfortunately release-timedInstinct).
How does Mossberg sum up his feelings, some several paragraphs and umpteen iPhone mentions, references, and comparisons down?
If you’re a devoted Sprint customer, or want to avoid AT&T, the Instinct is an OK choice. But it’s no iPhone.
Watch the video accompanying video after the break!
Pop Quiz: You’re the brain trust up at RIM and Samsung. You know that Apple might just be dropping something hawt today, and last time they did that they set your profitable if complacent industry on its ear, and your execs scrambling to clone catch up. So, your on the precipice of the WWDC 2008 Steve Jobs Keynote — the only thing anyone has been talking about of late — what do you do?
If you answered stay quiet and wait for the hype to pass, you’re now officially smarter than either RIM or Samsung. Absent something innovative and decidedly non-Apple of their own to announce, better not to announce anything at all.
Nice try, but buying a cheap knock-off of the prom queen’s dress and showing up before her at the dance won’t hide the fact that you’re hairy dudes with three-piece clone-suits on underneath.
Overly harsh? Maybe, but it’s an iPhone blog on Jobsnote day. They shoulda know betta. In fact, they shoulda saved their energy for their soon-to-be-launched iClone 2.0 initiatives…
Confession: The real reason I can’t wait for the iPhone 3G to drop? So that at long last the rest of the smartphone industry will have something new to copy!
Today’s offender is the Samsung SGH-i900, and boy does it run the iClone checklist: rounded rectangular slab? Check. Glossy black facade? Check. Silvered trim? Check. Job dropping interface or any sense of pride in innovation? D’oh! Not even close.
Sister site WMExperts.com offers up the usual suspects specs:
[O]ne of the upcoming batch of über-Windows Mobile phones – 6.1 Pro, 240×400 (weird) screen, 1500mAh battery, FM Radio, TV out.
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the first ever live demo of Google’s new Android platform… and it’s on the iPhone!
[Er... That's the HTC Dream.]
What? Sigh. Okay.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s a proof of concept. Maybe it’s because of the Diamond. Maybe it’s just a hormone thing. But does all the innovation have to lead back to Cupertino these days? Does it?
So, another week, another iClone, and more specifically another HTC iClone. (At least they’re giving RIM a run for their Bold, Thunder, Storm money for the official iClone volume title…)
Still, it’s nice to see Android. As I mentioned in the Top 5 Things the iPhone Could Learn From the Competition, the cloud looks to be the future, and Google currently owns the cloud. Never mind their CEO is on Apple’s board of directors (he reportedly recuses himself from iPhone discussions to avoid a conflict of interest), the industry needs the drive Google can provide, even if they wrap it up in a horribly derivative package for now.
