Apple's Newest Mobile Rival, Google, May Leave Search Market Over Censorship

Google may close up shop and leave the Chinese search market after a string of cyberattacks.

Also, Google, my favorite tech giant at this moment, will cease censoring its search engine. It will enter into discussions with Beijing on "the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all".

This is huge news.  This is how you do it, Yahoo, Microsoft, the West!  Very Very proud of Google!

More at Yahoo News, CNBC, Gizmodo, LA Times, CNet News.

Which iTablet Would You Want?

Over at CES, Dell just unveiled their own slate (I think this will be 2010's most overused word).

It's a 7" iPod Touch lookalike except it runs Android.

So, let me ask you this. Would you be interested in a 5-7" iPod Touch that you can use as a tablet? Personally, I would be very very interested.

Perhaps, this is what some of the rumors is about as far as Apple tablets are concerned. There have been talk about 7" all the way up to 11". I am hoping that Apple will come out with a few models that will satisfy a wider range of customers.

For anything around 7", I think customers would be satisfied with the 7" Touch to be running the regular iPhone OS. However, for the 10-11" model, I like to something more spectacular.

More on Dell's slate at Gizmodo.

Excited About the iTablet? My E-Mail To A Friend About it.

This is my reply to Dave The Mobile Warrior about the excitement building up to the 27th, which is Apple's event that will supposedly unleash the iTablet-iSlate upon the world: Hey, This is the future-Paul. I have pre-preordered this baby. :-) This is the future Paul with the itablet/islate. Let the now-Paul know he's going to be very satified. He is also very happy for future-Dave who listened to the Jan 27th-Paul about preorderig as well. Sent from my iPhone (from a not too distant future)

Editorial on iTablet Rumors

Here's a post I wrote at Onxo on dealing with iTablet rumors.  I think it's great to be able to indulge in them but we just have to prepare ourselves to be disappointed when what we hope for and what we get doesn't compute.


Basically, enjoy the rumors but until we see Steve Jobs on stage holding an iTablet, it may as well be free because it still doesn't exist.  Yet.


More at Onxo.

App Store Suggestion: Apple Should Take Out Apps That Doesn't Work

I know that Apple already has an iron grip on the app store approval process. Personally, I haven't had too many run-ins with the enigmatic exercise. But recently, I decided that I was going to get on board with Barnes and Noble's ebook initiative. Boy, was that a mistake.

Here's a bit of my history with ebooks. I've been reading on a mobile device since Palm V back in 2000. Been reading ever since despite what Steve Jobs would like us to think. And for more Apple fans, I think you all pretty much read ebooks or otherwise. Some of these books are downloaded and other bought from eReader.com and Fictionwise (Fictionwise bought eReader and, in turn, Fictionwise was bought out later by Barnes and Noble).

I have a couple of books with Kindle on the iPhone as well, one of the better things to have happen to the iPhone and iPod Touch in my opinion. But what has kept me from siding with Amazon is the little fact that Amazon feels it has the right to come into your mobile device or Kindle to steal back books you already bought whenever it feels like it. No, let's not splice this. Amazon reserves the right to do this. Fine. I'm sure others do as well but with BN and others, I can make a backup copy of everything I buy.

So, I decided I was going to go with BN for all my future ebook fixes. The probably is that for BN, you either have to use the Nook or the iPhone app (assuming you're using an iPhone or iPod Touch). The Nook is viritually not for sale as there is a long wait. Hence, you're stuck with the iPhone app.

But it doesn't work. I mean there's some quirky things going on with the app that makes it crash right after startup. I don't know what the deal is but BN really dropped the ball on the app and it has seen complaints rise on its own website as well as on iTunes while the app's ratings and reputation plummeted.

Now we get to the meat of this post. Apple ought to provide a process of pulling bad apps like this from the store until developers can fix complaints such as thing. Apple already has a tight control of the app store process, it might as well as exert greater control in issues where quality of the app is at play.

When we use the iPhone and iPod Touch, or any other Apple products, we pay a small premium because Apple gears just work. And when it doesn't, as in the case of the BN reader app, Apple ought to pull it until BN's software guys can fix this.

Qik: Live Video Streaming For Mobile Warriors

Qik. I like you to meet the company that’s going to be on the forefront of mobile video streaming. And it’s not just ordinary stream I’m talking about here.

With the Qik app for the iPhone and Android devices, any mobile warrior can become a broadcaster.

Qik has been around for a bit now but it was only recently when Apple allowed Qik to stream live video from the iPhone app that it has suddenly gained a lot of attention in the media and blogs.

For instance, I was able to provide a live stream from my iPhone 2G tethered to the G1 via Wi-Fi Tether and show off a couple of minutes of video from last night’s dinner to a friend overseas.

There is a wide range of implications for this new mobile app. Forget citizen journalists providing near instant updates with still pictures, now folks can report on news right from their mobile device.

How about for folks who can’t make it birthday parties and weddings? No problem if someone at the event is kind enough to provide some live video of the vow or candles being blown out.

The video quality for Qik was good enough consider where we are today with streaming technology and I’m confident that we’ll get to play with better quality videos as mobile devices become apt at handing the load and wireless speed improve with additional 3G upgrades to 7.2mbps or 4th generation wireless. Keep in mind that I was streaming through a tethered iPhone over 3G.

But there is something that I have to come back to: battery life. Wow, did Qik kill my battery on the iPhone. It wasn’t the app’s fault. It’s a fact of life, you know? If live user-provided content are to make inroads, battery life has to improve vastly. I’m going to try this weekend to see what kind of battery life I’ll be able to get out of this.

I’ve got an external battery glove for the iPhone and I’m also able to stream directly from the G1. And I’ve got an extra battery for the Android phone.

Apple's Dec Shipment Costs for iMac or iTablet?

Here, I’m going back to the last financial call between analysts and Apple executives. Specifically, the part about the December transportation cost being higher than normal. I visited this in past posts but I think it’s time to do it again since we have some new developments.

The first likely theory is that the transportation costs to air freight products is related to the iMacs. Apple in its wisdom has anticipated the popularity of the iMacs. Hence, we’re seeing a 2-week delay in shipment. I did a couple of walkthroughs myself and haven’t seen one in stock. In trying to satisfy its likely high net-worth customers, Apple is shipping backordered iMacs by air.

Okay, that was the more likely scenario for the higher cost associated to shipment. Now’s less probable scenario. Apple has been stocking up on the iTablets. And once that announcement is made at a time and venue of Steve Jobs’ choosing, which most people agree it to be in January, he will also say that you can rush out and pick one up right away.

Improbable but not impossible. Apple has been able to secure new product into production and shipment without anyone getting a whiff of it. The most recent example in memory was the iPod Touch. No one had any idea, including partner ATT, that Apple would be shipping a, now very successful, phoneless iPhone.

But it makes sense that this is something Apple has the resources to pull off and is capable of scaring its sourcing partners into silence. Remember when Foxconn set up on the employee who lost an Apple preproduction device? Yeah. I do too.

Now back to reality. I don’t see this in our hands until the February or March time frame. That might not be a bad thing for Apple as many folks may be awash in tax returns.