Dave Kemick
Geek Swagger.
Can the Motorola Xoom Survive at $699?
Jan 27th
I wrote about my favorite CES product yesterday, the Atrix 4G, and while heaving loads of praise upon Motorola I mentioned in passing that I also thought the Xoom looked interesting. Combined together the two products "won" the show for hello moto in my opinion, so I wanted to take some time and focus on the Xoom today. If ypu don't know, the Motorola Xoom is an Android 3.0 Honeycomb-based device (Honeycomb being a release of the Android OS built specifically for tablets) that is the most promising iPad competitor we've seen since the iPad itself.
The Hardware
From a hardware perspective the Xoom is sparse in the best possible way, that is to say that Motorola outdid Apple by making a device that has 0 physical buttonss or toggles on the from of the device. The device has a 10.1 inch capacitive screen so it's almost the same size as the iPad, 1280x800 resolution which exceeds the iPad, a dual core Tegra 2 processor, 32GB of storage, a front-facing camera for video chatting and a slew of other interactive hardware such as:
- Accelerometer
- Gyroscope
- Barometer
Yup, there's literally a straight-up barometer in there. Why? Probably to predict the weather or some other crazy business. I don't even know! More on that when I talk about te price though.
The Software
Like I said the Xoom runs Honeycomb, which was created with tablet-style devices in mind, and I have to say I like the user interface quite a bit. I could go into detail but just like with yesterday's post Engadget has already done a stunning job of giving us a video walkthrough. Take a look below!
I really lie the look of the Gmail application especially, and the thumbnail view for multitasking is pretty great. They've also modified the notification bar to be located along the bottom part of the display, but you ca still drag it out to view more information like ou can in other versions of the OS. One thing I will note is that it's a little troubling that the device was only being shown with a video demo of the software rather than the software itself, especially since te Xoom will be available at Best Buy on February 14th (only a little over a month after CES). Hopefully the software's ready for primetime by then!
Will Price Be An Issue?
Okay, so it's better than the rumored $800, but can the Xoom be successful at $699? That's $100 more than the current 32GB iPad (which has been ), and we can only assume that the iPad 2 is just around the corner that will have an improved resolution and front-facing camera. Apple's usually pretty good about keeping prices close to their starting point, and in a lot of cases they actually reduce the price a bit. As much as I like the Motorola Xoom I can't help but feel like it's being left to twist in the wind with a $700 price tag.
Motorola Atrix: The All-In-One Mobile Powerhouse
Jan 26th
Android-based phones and tablets seemed to dominate the discussion during CES this year, and in particular Motorola had an awesome show. Not only did they launch the most substantial iPad competitor in the Xoom tablet, but they also had some interesting new phones on display as well. The one that impressed me the most was the Motorola Atrix 4G, not only because of its hardware specs, but some really cool things they're doing with dock support.
Beefy Specs
As I mentioned Motorola has rolled some cool features into the Atrix, some of which involve a PC-style computing experience, so they need to have the hardware to power that functionality. To start off the phone uses a Tegra 2 dual core processor which is significant. It's a chip developed by Nvidia that is the world's first multi-core CPU crafted with mobile devices in mind. They've also packed in a gigabyte of RAM, a front-facing camera and a fingerprint reader. That's the boring part though - things get interesting when you take a look at some of the accessories and integrated software features, most-importantly the Webtop OS.
Webtop OS
Where the Atrix really shines is when you see it seamlessly transition into a desktop or laptop computer by simply inserting it into one of its docks. Webtop is an operating system that runs on the phone to give you desktop-like functionality from a device only 4" in size. There are two implementations of the custom Atrix dock - one that allows you to hook up an external display and one that's integrated right into an inexpensive laptop enclosure. The easiest way to understand how Webtop works is to see it in action, and the folks from Engadget have put together an awesome hands-on video that certainly gets the point across.
Can you say perfect business and travel device? Given the tiny stature of the laptop dock especially I can imagine using the Atrix with Webtop anytime I met with clients or whenever I needed to fire off emails in the car. There's no wonder why this phone was Engadget's best of CES!
Some Concerns
I would happily trade my current phone in for the Atrix, but I am somewat concerned about the fact that getting the most out of Webtop OS requires an investment beyond just buying the phone and paying the contract fees. Although not required and certainly affordable in its own right, the 11.6" laptop dock is rumored to cost $150 when it's available for purchase later this year. I tend to get a new phone every year or so, and therefore the prospect of paying roughly $350 (assuming the Atrix is about $199 with a contract) for a device I won't have in a year is somewhat troubling. Hopefully Motorola will continue to make Atrix phones without changing the form factor of the dock so that you don't have to re-buy hardware.
There's also the whole AT&T exclusivity thing. I'm not a fan. Motorola did announce a Verizon-based phone that uses the Tegra 2 chip called the Droid Bionic, but it only has half the RAM and there hasn't been a whisper about Webtop OS integration. That said I'm proud of Motorola for becoming the premiere Android device developer in the market by building on the success they began with the Droid and Droid X.
Dribbble: Show and Tell for Creative People
Jan 25th
Today I have yet another social network to share with you called . Dribbble is billed as a place for creative people to share what they're working on at any given moment with their peers. Say for instance you're a designer working on the latest and greatest Pepsi logo, you could get access to Dribbble, upload a snapshot of the logo (simply called "shots" to stick with the basketball metaphor), and then other people can comment and give you feedback. A big-name brand like Pepsi probably wouldn't use the service fo fear of letting trade secrets leak early, but you get the idea.
Prospects & Players
One unique aspect of Dribbble is the two-tiered user structure. Anyone is able to sign up as a "prospect," which means you can search for and follow creative people whose work you like, but only "players" can submit their own shots and "rebound" other people's shots (basically reply to someone's creative work with your own). Prospects can become players by being "drafted" by someone who is already a player, but there's no guarantee you'll be drafted.
Inspiration for App and Web Developers
Sparrow 1.0 icon, uploaded by its creator to Dribbble
Although I'm not really interested in submitting my own designs to the site, I still plan to be active on Dribbble for the same reason I use LittleSnapper: inspiration. I was very happy to see that there are a lot of folks who work in web or application design that are submitting their work. For example, the image to the right is the new icon for the next version of Sparrow, the email app I wrote about last week. Since Dribbble lets prospects save their favorite works from their favorite creators you can easily establish a nice reference portfolio to review when you start a new project. Anytime one of the players you follow uploads a new shot it'll show up in your timeline just like tweets on Twitter. Plus if you are interested in posting your own work you don't have to worry about plagiarism because all shots have a size limit, meaning you can only post a "preview" of whatever it is you're working on at a given time.
Dribbble is an awesome example of some of the newer social networks that are targeted to a specific group of people, and I hope to see more like it in the future! I think the commitment to the basketball metaphor could be a little dense for some folks, I'm not sure how easy it is to make the jump from sharing creative works to rebounding and player drafts, but apparently the founders are huge Boston Celtics fans so they're allowed to have some fun. and let me know what you think!
Netflix Instant Watch Pick: Vice Guide to Travel
Jan 24th
I had been thinking that a Netflix streaming-only subscription was a good idea long before they followed through, so when it finally became a reality I jumped all over the $7.99 plan. It should be noted that Netflix is now also scaling back their DVD offerings in general to favor streaming content, a move that I full support but that has caused a lot of controversy among their loyal customer base.
The way I look at it is, including computers, I have 7 or more devices that are able to stream Netflix content on-demand, so why would I want to wait for physical DVDs to be sent to me? Also, for whatever reason, if I have a physical Netflix disc sitting near my entertainment center that goes unwatched I tend to feel much more wasteful than if I go a while without using Instant Watch. I'm sure it's completely psychological and I chalk it up as one of my myriad quirks. This post wasn't really suposed to be about the Netflix service itself though - instead I have a recommendation that will put your subscription to good use!
Vice Guide to Travel
Simply put, the Vice Guide to Travel involves a group of people that travel to turbulent, dangerous or seldom-exposed places in the world for the purpose of documentation. It's a multi-part series that's billed as a travel guide but in reality it's more a candid look at interesting places that you would probably never want to visit. I've watched just about the entire season and have seen episodes about the radiation in Chernobyl, the gun markets of Pakistan and a war waged over the origin of vodka. Although slightly disturbing in some cases, most of the episodes are extremely interesting if you're into different cultures and areas of the world. There was, however, one episode which sticks out as a must-see regardless.
Vice Invades North Korea
Let me preface this by saying that the reason the Vice Guide to Travel caught my eye in the first place was this episode. I had recently watched a presented by National Geographic that showed me just enough about North Korea to know that I wanted more. What sets the Vice Guide to North Korea apart is that where the National Geographic reporters would tread lightly the Vice guys pushed the boundaries to the point of risking imprisonment. I make an effort to never veer down the path of discussing politics or religion here (or really anywhere if I can avoid it) because more often than not those discussions lead to conflict. That said North Korea is a crazy place, a sort of communist micrcosm cut off from the rest of the world, and I find it endlessly intriguing (though saying that makes me feel guilty to an extent).
So that's it really, go take a look at the and if you enjoy it like I did you may end up giving the other episodes a look as well!
Weekly Round-Up #3
Jan 23rd
Happy NFL Championship Sunday! If you have a team still in the hunt I hope they win, I'm pulling for the Steelers and Packers. Enjoy!
Audio Commentary
What I’m Listening To
Jan 22nd
I absolutely love music and my Rdio subscription has been coming in handy a lot lately. This won't be another Rdio post though, I promise. Instead, these are some of the albums that are new to me within the past month that I'm really digging. One cool thing about workin at the p80 office is that we all love tunes and have something playing 9 times out of 10, so I have to give the guys credit for the inspiration for 2 of my "picks" today.
The Postal Service - Give Up
I had mentioned in passing to that I really liked "Soul Meets Body" by Deathcab for Cutie and he introduced me to the now-disbanded group The Postal Service. The Postal Service is led by Ben Gibbard, Deathcab's current singer, and so when he played Give Up for me I was hooked from song one. I love the electronic twangs in this album when paired with Ben's singing and songwriting, and the backup vocals are also great. I can't wait to check out their other albums.
Daft Punk - Alive 2007
Truthfully I have never been a huge Daft Punk fan, and that's not because I prefer similar artists in their genre but rather because I've never really investigated the genre to begin with. My interest in Daft Punk was first sparked when I quickly became addicted to the TRON Legacy soundtrack. I was obsessed with the catchy hooks on songs like Derezzed, so when I saw someone give Alive 2007 a positive review I loaded up Rdio and nearly broke my neck bobbing my head to the beat. I still don't consider myself an electronica connoisseur but this album confirmed that I need to make a solid effort to see Daft Punk live sometime in my life. The way the album begins (a mash-up of "Robot Rock" and "Oh Yeah!") coupled with some videos I've seen of their live shows makes this a necessity for my life to be considered complete.
The Decemberists - The King Is Dead
This is the only album of the three that I'm going to talk about today that actually came out recently, in fact it dropped just this week. Again, my love for this album and group is owed entirely to my friend who turned me onto them. After his recommendation I became obsessed with "The Hazards of Love" for a couple weeks, and I still can't think of a single other album that has impacted me as much as it did, in my life. "The King Is Dead" differs from "Hazards" because it doesn't set its focus on one succinct narrative, and also because Colin Meloy and company strayed into a more Americana-inspired sound this time around. Despite the changes the album is still a masterpiece.
I can't think of a band that can pull off imagery through music better than The Decemberists. My favorite songs on the album right now are hymns focused on two separate seasons, "January Hymn" and "June Hymn." "January Hymn" inspires flashbacks to the winters of my youth and, since we're experiencing some bitterly cold weather in my area right now, "June Hymn" makes me ache for summer.
So what are you guys listening to right now? Let me know with a comment and I'll check them out!
LittleSnapper: An Awesome App for Designers
Jan 21st
I was perusing the Mac App Store a few days ago and noticed an app called LittleSnapper that was said to be an excellent addition to any designer's toolkit, and having used it a lot since then I can vouch for that. I you're into design and have access to the web (which you must if you're reading this) you'll absolutely love LittleSnapper. If you're a designer that works with the web or software, doubly so. It's a beautifully designed app that fills a need you might not know you had, but once it's brought to your attention you'll wish you had started using it months ago. So what the hell is the damn thing??
Say Cheese!
example full-page websnap
LittleSnapper is, at its most base root, a screenshot management program. It sits in your mac's menu bar and anytime you see something cool you can quickly take a snap which is stored in your library. The snaps can be categorized and tagged so you can easily find particulars after the fact, and the best part is that they're all displayed in a -like interface that is full of awesome. Screen snaps can be customized quite a bit, including singling out specific windows to snap and even selecting multiple windows to snap together (that's how I got this picture for my post about Sparrow).
You can also make websnaps with a supported browser like Safari. Why is this cool? A couple reasons. First off LittleSnapper will always snap the entire length of the page, no scrolling necessary. You get a clean look at all of the elements on the page with no browser window cluttering the picture up. Secondly, you can import a web snap right into LittleSnapper's integrated web browser to pinpoint individual elements on the page to snap. That's awesome if there's just one cool page section that you need to make note of. Finally, to top it all off, all edits to snaps are non-destructive, so if you mark a snap up in editing or crop out everything but one element in a page, you can always get back to the original source image.
Inspiration Database
If you're a designer how many times have you been on your computer, saw something cool and thought "man, I could work something like that into a project" only to forget entirely when the time comes to go to work. No worries, LittleSnapper remembers all of those cool websites and photos for you. I can foresee sitting down to start working on a new project and going to LittleSnapper before anything else for inspiration. So far I love it.
I bought LittleSnapper on the mac app store at a discounted introductory price and unfortunately for anyone reading this they've returned to the normal retail price. There is a at their site though, so give it a look and if you like what you see be sure to (with your cash money, of course).
Sparrow: Twitter-Like Email for your Mac
Jan 20th
I've tried a TON of different email clients over the years, including all of the staples like Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple's Mail.app and Windows Live Mail. For whatever reason I never end up sticking with any of them, and after a few days I end up back in my web browser using gmail's web client (which is admittedly great, as far as email web clients go). All of that changed when I found out about , however.
"Sparrow" even sounds like a Twitter client...
Sparrow (left) and the Official Twitter App for Mac
Sparrow is billed as a minimalist desktop client meant for accessing gmail in particular. Instead of a near-fullscreen window displaying your email you get a small column showing your inbox much in the way most Twitter apps display the latest tweets from your news feed. If you want to take a closer look at an email a drawer slides out giving you the full message, including threaded responses much like gmail has natively, and you can also apply labels to messages in a snap. Sprinkle in some and the ability to manage multiple gmail accounts and you have one heck of an email client.
Sparrow is still in beta (currently beta 7) and is completely free with ad-support. I'm assuming that they'll have a paid version down the road that removes the ads, but even the ads are nicely designed so they aren't hard at all to look at. You can also turn the ads off altogether in the app's preferences pane. I have to say I adore Sparrow's slimmed-down approach to email, and its unobtrusiveness has caused me to stick with it for about a month now. I still check gmail.com from time-to-time (it's almost an instinctual habit at this point), but I have Sparrow running all the time on both my macs. and let me know what you think, or leave a comment below with your favorite email client!
Accept Credit Card Payments With Square
Jan 19th
A week ago I shared a video interview Kevin Rose recorded with the inventor of Twitter and the founder of the project, Jack Dorsey. In that post I mentioned that I'd write about Square once I'd had a chance to try it out, and now it's time to deliver on that promise. Square is an awesome combination of hardware and software that makes it possible for anybody to accept credit cards as payment from their phone.
Think about it - how many times have you paid for a friend's dinner or drinks after they swear they'll pay you back, but when it comes time for them to pony up they never have cash on them. Alternatively, if you've ever been in a band or other organization that sold merch, how many times did you miss out on a sale because you couldn't accept a credit card? Square solves these problems, and best of all, both the Square card reader and the accompanying app are completely free!
The Square Reader
The hardware piece of the Square puzzle is remarkable because it's so unremarkable. It's simply small white square (fitting, isn't it?) with a groove in it, through which you swipe the credit card to be charged. The device is about the width of a quarter, and it plugs into your phone's headphone jack. Truthfully there aren't many comments to make here other than to say how tiny it is, and that it "just works" if I can borrow that commonly-used Apple term. It fits perfectly into your pocket and it has become a mainstay in my laptop bag just in case I need to use it.
Square: The Appsperience
Where things get really cool is when you start to use the reader in conjunction with its free app (available for and devices). I tested my reader with both the android and iPad apps and the experience is fundamentally identical. Using the on-screen keypad you insert the amount to be paid, an optional note about the transaction as well as an optional photo if you're selling an item. Next you swipe the credit card through the Square reader (if you haven't received your reader yet you can also insert the card's number using the on-screen keypad). The credit card will be authorized and you can even send an automatically-generated receipt via text message or email to the person who paid you.
I think the receipts are one of the cooler parts of using Square. I absolutely hate managing paper receipts (in fact I'm not a big fan of information on paper in general, it''s too inconvenient), so the fact that you can get a digital receipt in the first place is pretty cool. That said, the developers took things an extra step further by using some of your phone's inherent features to improve the receipts. For example, instead of signing with a pen like you usually do when you use your credit card, you instead input your signature using your phone's touchscreen. Additionally if your phone has built-in GPS and you allow the Square app to access your location at the time of the transaction, it will embed a Google map of where the transaction occurred right on the receipt. That's extremely helpful when you're trying to figure out what a particular charge was for 3 months after the fact.
It should also be noted that you can always review your transactions and receipts at the , so you don't have to worry about accidentally deleting a receipt from your email or text messaging inbox. If you really want to geek out you can even export your transactions to an Excel file for further data manipulation.
How Is This Free?
So the card reader is free, the app is free, AND the website is free. How can these guys make any money off of this? Well, much like with any credit card payment processing system there is a very small percentage taken out of each transaction that goes to Square. The exact fee as of the day I'm writing this is 2.75% + 15 cents of each transaction. To give you an idea of how much that is, if you were to receive a 3 dollar payment you'd end up with $2.77. That's less than a quarter for this awesomely free service. Obviously the bigger the transaction the bigger the fee, but from what I've read these fees are extremely competitive. Plus keep in mind the scenarios I gave at the beginning of this post - these are probably payments you would have never been able to receive without Square unless you made a significant investment in a credit card processing system. I happily let Square take a small piece of the transaction because they deserve to.
Square is truly one of those things in life where you try it once, realize it's the most ballin' thing ever and then become a fan instantly.
A Trial Run With Linux Mint 10
Jan 18th
One thing I like to do every now and then is try a new distribution of linux, so when I heard about Linux Mint 10 I had to give it a try. I'm constantly looking to give new life to older computers I enjoyed in the past, fo instance my 2006 black macbook, and linux is a perfect way to do that. In many cases you'll end up with a computer that's much more functional when you had to begin with, and above all else it's just fun to try new operating systems.
Why Linux Mint?
I'm not gonna lie, I'm one of "those" types of linux users. You know the type, they install linux every now and then and they usually go with Ubuntu or some variation of it and there's really no commitment there because they have a Windows or Mac OS X machine within reach if they really need it. That's me. I have friends that committed to linux as their primary operating system for years at a time and I envy their immense knowledge and skill-set, but I'm not there yet. Linux Mint 10 plays to those attributes perfectly as it packs a whole lot of functionality in a simple and intuitive package, and since it's a derivative of Ubuntu there's no learning curve.
Easy To Setup & Use
I said above that I installed Linux Mint 10 on an older MacBook and as is the case with Ubuntu the install process was a snap. Pop in the live CD, click install and away you go. Best yet all of the laptop's hardware worked straight away without having to hunt for drivers, and even some seemingly mac-specific features like two-finger trackpad scrolling and awesome windows management via an exposé-like UI element made me feel right at home.
Finding and Installing Software
Remember, the best I can get on this MacBook is OS X Tiger so I couldn't even run current versions of iTunes or Google Chrome let alone a photo editor like GIMP, but finding and using all of those applications (or superior alternatives to them) with Linux Mint's software package manager is just as easy as using the mac app store. Best yet, all of the applications are free, so I don't have to worry about blowing $100 on apps I'll use once and then forget about.
Lightning Fast
One of my biggest pet peeves with operating systems is when they take a decade to boot or shutdown. Linux Mint 10 is the perfect representation of what I like to call "lean functionality," that is to say all of the capabilities you'd expect out of a modern OS with a 5 second boot or shutdown time. I'm not sure if part of the way Mint cuts down on load speeds is by removing some of the UI niceties that Ubuntu 10.10 has (which I think is gorgeous, by the way), but the result is a greasy fast user experience.
The takeaway is that if you have an older computer that is prohibitively dated, especially in the case where the native operating system is unsupported by newer third party applications, do yourself a favor and pursue a distribution of linux. As a casual user as I stated at the outset of this post I can recommend none higher than Linux Mint 10.
