Would You Prefer an iPad Mini or iPod Touch XL?

There's talk this morning that Apple is looking at a sub-10" screen to add a new tablet to its line-up.  I've been asking for something like this since the original iPad.  No, I've been asking for this since the iPod touch.  Will we get it?

Patent War: Why Does Samsung Keep Doing This?

The patent war between Apple and Android device makers will last a while, giving folks on both sides a lot to talk about.  What's interesting in all this is that from time to time, Samsung will trip itself up.  Don't believe me?

Here, on Samsung Galaxy Player's webpage, an observant user saw this:

This is a screen shot that I captured myself.  So, yeah, it's still there.  According to Electronista via Daring Fireball, it's been since August.

And this isn't the first time.  A few months back when all the rage with the iPad 2 was the smartcover.  Well, just as things started heating up, Samsung started to sell their own smartcovers for the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

So, yeah, things don't look good for Samsung now.  Samsung needs to create a task force and go through all their marketing materials and projects they've outsourced and sent out a memos about all this.

Siri Struggling To Keep Up With Demand

I have read online that Siri was having some issues. Though when I gave Siri a try, it did not seem to have any issues. However, I did notice that it seems to have issues understanding what I am saying.

I think this is expected. Apple has sold over 4 million iPhone 4S. Even buy Apple standard, that is a lot of iPhones. So we have to keep in mind that maybe Apple did not expect this much traffic in the beginning. More than that, I don't think Apple realize why people were buying up the iPhone 4S.

Perhaps, Apple thought people were buying the iPhone 4S for the better camera, faster CPU, and people just upgrading in general. I think the powers that be at Apple totally underestimated the draw of Siri.

Furthermore, keep in mind that Siri is still in beta. I think there will is down to be a lot of growing pains. Furthermore Apple will likely increase capacity as well as Siri's abilities.

When I was demoing Siri for my coworkers this afternoon, they were very impressed with Siri's responses and the speed. Moreover, they were very impressed with the accuracy.

Let's see what happened over the over the next few days. Let's see if Apple is able to get Siri back online more consistently.

Anyway, I hope this doesn't dent in user enthusiasm for Siri. I highly doubt that it'll happen. Furthermore I can't wait to see Siri when he gets out of beta. Siri represents the potential for artificial intelligence and a new form of mobile computing.

Note: this post was dictated on the iPhone 4S.

RIM: First The Service Disruption, Then $100 For Apps? Talk About Kicking Customers While They're Down

RIM will compensate customers who were affected by the outage last week with a $100 and more apologies (via CS Monitors).  I don't know but I think the pain and trouble that customers went through was worth more than the $100.  I think RIM should have offered an additional month of service as well, to demonstrate that they are seriously apologetic.

They need to do more to show customers that they're serious about mobile and that they get it.  Right now, they're far from getting it.  And RIM making it too easy for Apple and Google to steal users away.

Way too easy.  More at Greenjava.

Siri And The Great Firewall of China

Siri rocks as far as its potential goes.  And while I'm not exactly sure of most of the details of how it works, I think we can safely say that it has a lot to do with servers in data centers that Apple maintains.  Query something and it gets to a gateway, gets crunched, and spits the answer back out to the user.

Okay, how would this work in parts of the world where the iPhone is very popular like China where there is a lot of censorship going on?  You know, the Great Firewall of China.

Most of our readers kind of take these things for granted.  Whether in China, Iran, any other place where free flow of information is frowned up, to put it mildly, how would Siri work?  To my mind, this could be the first time where Apple will have to decide if it has to clamp down on services or information to avoid getting on the bad side of Beijing.

One might say that Apple knows a thing or two about control information.  It does and it is quite good at it.  Walled ecosystem and corporate information lock-downs aside, Apple really has never not limited access to Facebook, Google, or Twitter.  Apple has been known to make things difficult for competitors but playing hard ball is something totally different from just shutting out information, which is what China does.

So, when the iPhone 4S launches in China, I get the feeling that Siri will not be available.  Not because Siri isn't available in most countries.  Rather, China will bar Siri from entering China altogether.

Let's See, One Million Plus Something Equals Four Million iPhones

Apple announced that it has sold 4 million iPhones over the weekend, besting the 1.7 million iPhones it sold last year.  I have a couple of comments and questions about that.

First comment.  Wow.  Second comment.  Insanely Great!

Now some questions.  Are all these iPhone 4S or a mix of 3G and 4?  And compared to the iPhone 4 that went on sale last year, we know there are more carriers but how about markets?

From Apple's press release, it appears this 4 million figure is iPhone 4S only.  So, this is huge.  iPhone 4S only figure. I think Apple came out with this figure so early on because it wanted to dispel any notion that the 4S is a disappointment.  And this is precedent for this.

When the 3GS came out, I did not think it was going to sell beyond some minimal growth due to added international carriers. But then, the 3GS did not generate the initial disappointments that bloggers and tech pundits, who had been perpetuating rumors, fabricated.

So, the 4S is definitely a hit.  And 4 million sold, I don't know if this is also a lowered figure from Apple actually moved.  Think about it.  Apple likes to surprise on the upside when it announces earnings.  Personally, I think Apple sold a lot more than the 4 million they reported.

Another question.  Does the 4 million figure include the 1 million pre-orders?  I think it probably does.

From a mobile experience stand point, I think Siri has been the main draw for the 4S more than just the speed factor.  I think people coming over to the 4S and those pre-iPhone 4 upgraders will be very happy with the speed and "just works" iOS.  However, it'll be Siri, which is still in beta, that has caught the imagination of users.

iOS 5: Weather App Allows Location Update

One other new feature I like is that in the Weather app, there is a new feature called "current location".  It's able to figure out via Location Services where you are and provide you with the current location.  If you enable that, the location if where you're at appears in Notification Center.

A lot of times, I'm pretty much just around town but in different parts.  And where I live in the Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles, the weather can change pretty dramatically from one location to another.

And especially if you're traveling, you probably want to know if before you head out of the hotel what the weather is going to be like.  Local Weather helps.  Of course, if you have the iPhone 4S, you can simply ask Siri which is quicker.

But having Location Weather in the Notification Center is a nice touch.