Posted in Rants

Success isn’t overnight (Or in 3 months either)

I am just ranting here, so if you don’t want to read it, I am warning you now.

Ok, I am just completely tired of these big companies pulling out on their projects so quickly. It’s like if the thing doesn’t make a profit after 3 months or so, pull the plug, we don’t need to waste the time on it. For example, the Windows Phone 7 has now basically been on the market for 3 months, and it seems from the Steve Ballmer speech about revenues, that Xbox Live is killing it, and everything else is just background noise. I have already heard speculation that they may pull the phone from the market, much like their KIN phone that failed last summer. WHAT?? I really hope that this is pure speculation because from the early adopters, I have heard nothing but good news. Even Alex Albrecht had made mention of it on diggnation somewhere after episode #287, but before #291. He said the phone is a great phone, but it is a 1.0 product. There isn’t any multi-tasking built into the phone, and there isn’t enough developers for the platform just yet. I think part of the reason is that Microsoft came way too late in the game in this one. At this point, if you are going to come to the game, you better bring your A game and then some. Android and iOS devices are leading the pack, no matter what Blackberry says.

I would even like to try out a Windows Phone 7, well up until I ran into the Motorola Atrix. That seems to be the phone that will put Motorola back on the map like the V3 did back in early 2000s. Which actually brings me to the 2nd product. The Motorola Xoom. A tablet that is apparently already having issues with retailers. Why is it before the thing even launches, we already have nay sayers?? It isn’t even on the market! All I am hearing is about the sticker shock that people are having about the price of the thing, and the fact that it doesn’t have a wifi version. Which apparently is the way the Galaxy Tab went as well, to help subsidize the price. The only problem is, LOTS OF STUPID people can’t seem to lock themselves into a 2 year contract.

(ranting about commitment)

Are you kidding me?? REALLY? How often do you people change carriers? Like is this a 6 month thing? Do you constantly look for the blog post from INSERT_BLOG_NAME_HERE that tells you how to get out of your contract once the TOS changes, or do you constantly just pay the ETF fees? I don’t get it. You people have turned int to commitment fearing, single mother or father living, spineless pieces of CRAP. I AM SICK OF IT. (I am looking at you most of the tech world) (in my most sarcastic boo hoo voice) Oh, it’s so scary to sign a 2-year contract. I don’t want to be locked in. I’ll just keep paying MORE for my month to month. I can’t commit to that, who knows what will happen in TWO years! That’s just to much pressure. I can’t take this.

SHUT UP! Do you know how fast two years goes by? I’ve been with AT&T since 2001. That’s 0. 1. that’s right, 10 years. Just pick a provider you like and stick with them. I just don’t understand it anymore, I am so sick of hearing even good friends of mine, and NEIGHBORS who say they don’t want to be locked in. You got married didn’t you? How hard was that? I have neighbors who won’t sign a 1-year lease, 1! They say they don’t want to be locked down. REALLY?? REALLY?? You’re married and have an 8 year old kid. Have you seen your porch? It looks like you have been stocking everything out there like you are going to be there for a while. Oh wait, you’ve been there for 7 years. 7!

Now back to my original thought, I guess Microsoft and all these other companies are expecting overnight success. The Xbox 360, the Kinect for Microsoft has done well. The Kinect may have been a slight overnight success, but you have to understand the R&D that went into that and the years that it took to bring to market. I guess everyone is expecting that every product they bring to market, to be a an instant success. It takes time. SERIOUSLY. Don’t give up after three months. Just because it isn’t making sales numbers. Let the public know what it is, let them try it out, let it be blogged about, DANG. Just go back to the drawing board, start all over again, and try to come out with something that blows us all away. Like Apple did with the iPhone.

I am not saying Apple is the end all be all, but they have been very successful with their iOS devices. They started a whole new revolution by staying away from all other crap that was out there, and Steve Jobs said, there is NO WAY I am putting anyone else’s crap on my phone, and I am doing it my way! That’s what he did. Now look at the iPhone. You people have to step back and re-invent. Don’t just copy and expect it to win.

I’m done. I could go on, but at this point, I am 885 words in… I think that’s enough.

Posted in Technology, Videos

Forget tethering. Just get a Motorola Atrix 4G

Ok, so I first have to say the 4G part of the phone is a little misleading, or as I like to say Incorrect. Outside of the fact that At&t’s 4G isn’t 4G at all (it’s really 3.5G), the Motrola Atrix announced at CES seems to be the phone to have this year. I have seen a few videos from podcasts that were there live at the event, but I don’t think they did the phone justice. So lets go over the features real quick.

It is the first dual-core processor phone on the market. Which actually helps in the multitasking issues that our current smartphones seem to have. It has 1GB of RAM for memory. It has 16GB of on-board storage that is expandable up to 48GB with a 32GB SD card. It has the ‘full’ web with Flash support built in. This amazing phone has an optional laptop that weighs less than 3 pounds, that you can attach it to, so you can have the laptop experience out of your phone! It has a HD camera for video recording and front facing camera for video chat w/video share. It has HDMI out for quick viewing of your content on an HDTV. You can get the optional docks (there are a few different ones) instead if you want to use this thing at work, home or in the car! Check out the promo video for the smart docks they will sell for this bad boy:

If you missed the announcement of this thing, it’s fine, they just made a great video for promotion as well that I saw on Engadget, check it out:

I really think, that this may be the real iPhone killer. Because unless the iPhone can dock into the MacBook Air, Apple will have to rethink the strategy. Especially with the dual core processors as well. Right now, this will be the largest storage on a mobile phone as well, with the 32GB being added to the 16GB that is on-board. Since Skype has added video chat to the iPhone though, I hope soon that android version of Skype will inlcude the same. I don’t want to have to use Qik for my video chatting, but since Skype bought them, I guess that is their door into the android world. We shall see, Motorola hasn’t had a huge phone success since the overplayed and remolded over and over V3. I hope this is the next one!