Switched On: Hail to the hybrids
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
In the world according to Apple, there are OS X-based Macs and iOS-based iPads and, as it stands now in the era of disparate kitchen appliances, never the twain shall meet, even if they tend to borrow features from each other. Point the finger of blame at synthetic pointing devices that offer precision at the expense of intimacy. Google has played it a little looser with its two-pronged operating system strategy. It has reserved Chrome OS for such traditionally touch-deficient computing form factors as desktops and notebooks while allowing Android to support keyboards and mice. However, as Switched On noted nearly a year ago, we’ve seen few pure clamshells that use Android.
Microsoft, however, has thrown these distinctions out the window, or at least with Windows. The latest release of its PC operating system seeks to dissolve the interface differences between laptops and tablets. It will appear on both types of devices as well as touch-enabled all-in-ones and desktops. But Windows 8 — with its tablet-friendly face and ability to run traditional productivity applications — will also turn more PC manufacturer attention toward portable devices that live somewhere between a completely unadorned tablet and a notebook. We can expect two main kinds of these hybrids.
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Filed under: Handhelds, Tablets
Switched On: Hail to the hybrids originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Oct 2012 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Switched On: Surface damage
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
As Switched On discussed a few weeks ago, and as Microsoft noted in its recent 10-K filing, it is an unavoidable truth that the company getting into the hardware market will cause conflict with its partners. The extent of that conflict, though, depends on many variables and Microsoft can — and must — take steps to ameliorate it.
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Filed under: Tablet PCs, Software
Switched On: Surface damage originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Aug 2012 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Switched On: An Office outside the Metro
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
The two worlds of Windows 8 – one: a traditional desktop UI and the other: the touch-optimized Metro UI — can, at first, seem so different that they contrast like the multiple personalities of Batman’s enemy Two-Face. Yet, despite the different appearances, the forthcoming version of Microsoft’s venerable operating system is not about absolutes, but optimizations.
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Filed under: Desktops, Tablet PCs, Software
Switched On: An Office outside the Metro originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Jul 2012 17:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Switched On: The Year of Reversal
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Back in 2005, Switched On dubbed its first full year of existence “The Year of the Switch” as IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo, Apple announced plans to leave the PowerPC platform for Macs and Microsoft moved to PowerPC processors for the XBox 360. But the dramatic reversals we saw in 2011 made even some of those decisions look tame by comparison.
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Switched On: The Year of Reversal originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 25 Dec 2011 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Switched On: TabCo’s tease
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology
Tomorrow, we will find out whether TabCo is a FabCo, a DrabCo, or a skunkworks LabCo, ending the best guessing game to hit the tech industry since the identity of Fake Steve Jobs.
The significant spend on the PR campaign (to quote TabCo’s Web site, “That skywriting stuff isn’t cheap, you know. Neither are these videos.”) as well as a reference to “a large colony of nerds” have led many to believe that TabCo is a large corporation. (Its Web site says it is a global company and TabCo is planning to launch in the US in August and Europe in September.) But there are also signs to the contrary. Take, for example, TabCo’s founder and CEO — the Google-elusive Ian “IQ” Quincy (TabCo has used pseudonyms such as “Beige Foul” — a clear reference to Apple engineer Gray Powell), who has played a major part in the campaign. Let’s dive a little deeper.
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Switched On: TabCo’s tease originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Aug 2011 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Switched On: A legacy from the Flip side
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Last week’s Switched On discussed some of the challenges the Flip camcorder faced trying to grow in the marketplace, an effort abruptly scuttled by an indifferent Cisco. But while Kodak, Sony and others are now poised to fill the Flip void, no competitor exactly matched Flip’s combination of simplicity and sharing. With point and shoot cameras, camcorders, traditional MP3 players and standalone GPS units in decline, the jury remains out on how long portable electronics can fight the smartphone, but Flip’s success taught the industry some valuable lessons that may have relevance going forward.
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Switched On: A legacy from the Flip side originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 Apr 2011 20:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Switched On: A suite segment for PlayStation games
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
One thing that has set Sony apart from its home console rivals has been the extended lifecycles of its hardware. Riding the momentum of a massive install base, both the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 each kept selling strong nearly a decade after their debut, and years after their respective successors were introduced. In fact, as late as 2009, Audiovox began offering a PS2 integrated into an aftermarket ovehead car video system with a 10″ screen. Sony could pursue this strategy in home consoles because the PS2 was the runaway unit volume leader of its generation. Not so with the PSP.
When Sony introduced the PlayStation Portable, it entered a portable console market with fierce, entrenched competition from the incumbent Nintendo, and the powerful widescreen handheld was outsold by the Nintendo DS and its later derivatives. Sony couldn’t attain the market share it needed to steamroll existing competition.
With Sony’s announcements this week, however, the PlayStation purveyors seem to have found a way to take their one-two punch on the road with a strategy that takes the PSP and segments its evolution.
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Switched On: A suite segment for PlayStation games originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 23:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Switched On: Getting from Kno to yes, part 2
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
The last Switched On introduced the opportunity of the Kno tablet, which is in transiton from having a large hardware footprint to having a large customer footprint. Without question, the Kno hardware is an outlier, but could be simply a first salvo in a battle for digital textbooks that will take years to play out.
Look at the ironic development of e-readers. Today’s LCD-based Nook Color would not exist if Sony and Amazon had not opened (and soothed) consumers’ eyes with e-paper-based readers that were themselves an answer to an early generation of LCD-based products like the Rocket e-Book. The outlier shows the potential.
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Switched On: Getting from Kno to yes, part 2 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Nov 2010 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Switched On: Why the digital hub died
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
A decade ago at Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs provided a rare look into the vision guiding Apple. Breaking with naysayers foretelling the demise of the PC, Jobs said that the PC was now entering a third golden age of “Digital Lifestyle,” following those of productivity and the Internet. In this era, the PC would serve as a digital hub.
The presentation was rife with references that are amusing with a decade of hindsight, one in which Apple has received more attention for its work in advancing popular digital spokes. For example, in pointing out some peripheral devices that will connect to the digital hub, Jobs showed the Rio flash-based MP3 player as well as the Palm V, both of which would succumb to Apple’ own iPod and iPhone.
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Switched On: Why the digital hub died originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Switched On: ZuneForSure
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
The moon has only four major phases, but as the Zune — that satellite around Microsoft’s gravitational pull — enters a familiar fifth phase, what some consider a pale reflection of the iPod has made few waves despite inspiring its share of romantics.
Zune began as a new salvo against the iPod as Microsoft grew frustrated in its attempts to make inroads versus Apple’s soaring digital media device with its abysmally named and convoluted PlaysForSure rights management scheme. PlaysForSure had actually achieved some level of acceptance on digital music players and even handsets, but as Steve Ballmer has explained, devices that sell in the tens of millions of units per year — as opposed to hundreds of millions like PCs and handsets (Kin notwithstanding) — can be a good opportunity for vertical integration of hardware and software
And so was born Zune, welcoming us to the social with its chunky profile, brown color option, “double shot” facade and the quirky and later abandoned WiFi-based song-squirting sharing feature. Its next major iteration introduced the “squircle” — a rounded square clickable trackpad that surpassed the click wheel just as Apple was gearing up for the game-changing iPod touch: strike two.
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Switched On: ZuneForSure originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Aug 2010 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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