Sony is in big trouble with the PSP. They can’t figure out how to market it. First it’s a gaming machine. Then it’s a multimedia machine. Now, it’s something of both.
The truth of it is that the PSP is a remarkable machine. It could be so much more. But, one of the problems is that Sony’s advertising is misleading, in my opinion.
Take a look at their new “find me” commercial: Find Me PSP
The girl in the commercial drops off a memory stick with the message “find me” to a guy sleeping (we can only assume it’s his bedroom – which is interesting because the situation implies he’s already “found her” and spent the night with her – but I digress).
Anyway, the guy looks at the various things on her memory stick for clues to her whereabouts. We see a video of her singing and a photo of her in a shirt with a unique logo that he finds on a poster.
Sure, its nice that you can put pictures and video on the PSP. What they don’t tell you is that you can’t do that very easily. You can if you cough up another $25 for Sony’s media manager. Or you can dig around for one of the freeware apps.
But, what would make the PSP a really cool machine is if the girl in question could have done all of this on the PSP natively. Oh yeah yeah, they have that nasty god awful brick of a camera that’s supposed to come out at some point (and costs more $$$).
Pics of PSP camera / GPS unit
So, why not just go ahead and make a PSP2 or PSP redux and integrate the camera in it? You would think it wouldn’t be that hard since every cell phone now has some type of camera in it, if not something with 2-3 megapixels.
While you’re at it, let’s rethink the GPS thing as well. I don’t care if it’s integrated, but I would like it to be a separate attachment that looks like it’s part of the overall design, not a big clunky block sticking out on top of the PSP.
And, go ahead and open up the source. The modders are coming up with really cool things for the PSP, so why stop them? How hard is it to make good music player UI?
It’s really sad because the PSP is one really cool little machine. It’s unfortunate that Sony can’t make up their mind about what they want it to be or invest the resources in making it a much better machine.
Wii are the champions…
For anyone not paying any attention to the world of gaming lately, two of the latest next gen consoles have released in the last week or so: the playstation 3 (ps3) and the nintendo wii (yes, it’s “weee”).
If you look at what’s out there now, I think the Wii is going to blow away the competition in sales over the next year, even though the Xbox 360 has a year-long head start. Why? Simple:
1) The Wii doesn’t use the bleeding edge technology the other guys have, which is a plus because they can crank them out production-wise. Sony barely managed to get out 400k units of the PS3 at launch, and they’re still struggling. Rumor has it that Nintendo plans to have 4 million Wii’s out there by end of year.
2) The Wii has a lower price point than the others. At $250, it’s a bargain compared to the other two (360 is at $399 and PS3 at $599 – don’t let the marketing guys fool you – sure they have a “lower end” model – but you’re better off getting the higher priced one by the time you buy the components separately).
3) Nintendo is making sure their major brands are out there with new games at launch, especially Zelda, which is by far one of their most popular titles. The worlds of Zelda and Mario have sold them millions of machines over the years, and their popularity transcends the usual gamer market. That means, someone would buy a Wii purely on the basis that there’s a new Zelda or Mario game. Microsoft and Sony don’t have anything on their consoles that can even compare to that type of consumer loyalty.
4) Nintendo is trying something different with the way we play video games. They’re trying to make the experience more interactive with their unusual controllers. It’s hard to say how well this will work (and they can easily come out with standard controllers if it doesn’t), but the initial reviews have been positive.
In a way, Nintendo appears to be borrowing a page from Apple, whose ability to design products that “just work” is uncanny. Instead of making something bleeding edge, Nintendo went the other way. Let’s make a video game system that’s “FUN” to play.
Wow. Imagine that.
Things could get interesting if Microsoft chose to drop the price of the Xbox 360 to $199/299, but there’s no indication at this point that they are willing to do that. Even so, after looking at all three consoles this week with my family, there’s not a single title on the Xbox or the PS3 that entices me to buy the game.
But, that new Zelda game, on the other hand, might be worth picking up…
Now, if I can just get my hands on one of those Wii’s…
losing my (mac) religion
Although I have long since gone back to the world of windows, something happened last week that no one really expected.
Apple released a beta of a product called ‘Boot Camp’ that would allow owners of intel-based Macs to install Windows. The product will eventually be merged into the core OS X product, but it allows users to boot their shiny new intel-Mac with either OS X or Windows XP.
Apple takes great pains to note that they do NOT support Windows XP on the Boot Camp download page.
Already, the Mac fanatics are declaring victory — saying that this will convince the masses to abandon their pcs and make the switch to macs. Even Wall Street seems to be convinced this will mean a boost in Apple sales.
Others, from CNet and Robert X. Cringely, take other stances, saying that it’s a gimmick and/or it only helps Microsoft, not Apple.
Microsoft is currently debating supporting Macs running Windows XP, and I predict they probably will. Why? Because, after supporting all the other guys (Dell, HP, Gateway, Lenovo, Acer, etc, etc), Apple is just one more hardware vendor.
Will it really convince the masses to switch? Probably not. Boot Camp provides a nice security blanket for anyone sitting on the fence about switching, because now they can happily boot Windows XP on their Mac and run any apps that don’t have a mac counterpart.
The biggest problem, still, is the price point. Macs are still cost several hundred dollars more than their PC competition. That’s not counting software, and a lot of that is in flux because every sofware company on the Mac side of things now has to build ‘universal’ binaries that will run on the new intel-based machines as well as legacy systems.
So, why would I really pay more for a Mac if I’m just going to put Windows on it?
I looked long and hard for the last month at my options for a new laptop. My choices came down to three: an HP nx9420, the Acer Travelmate 8204, and the MacBook Pro. The mac intrigued me more for the design/weight features than the OS. The HP, though light for a 17″ notebook, was going to be too big for what I wanted. I looked at 15.4″ and 17″ laptops side by side at a local CompUSA, and I decided that the 15.4″ screen was plenty big.
So, it came down to the MacBook and the Acer. Ultimately, I chose the Acer, and it was at my door before the Boot Camp announcement. Would that have made a difference? Probably not.
Don’t get me wrong, the MacBook is one nice piece of hardware. The Acer had the same basic configuration as the MacBook Pro, and it was several hundred dollars cheaper. And, I can run everything I have on it.
For me, the OS doesn’t matter to me, so long as it doesn’t get in my way. Windows XP has been relatively painless for me, and it gives me the flexibility to run just about anything.
Linux woudl be nice, but it’s still a long way off from being a desktop contender. They are making great progress, though. I plan on installing SUSE 10 at some point.
Vista promises to have some of the spiffy OS X features that wows everyone, if it ever ships, that is.
But, now that OS X runs on an intel machine, wouldn’t it be cool to run it on my Acer laptop? After all, the hardware is basically the same.
Cringely suggests just that. Apple will take things one step further at some point in the future announce a “Boot Camp for Windows” that would allow OS X to be installed on standard PCs.
Heresy! cry the Mac faithful. Jobs would never allow it!!!
But, why wouldn’t he?
Ah, say the faithful, if OS X ran on any PC, then the masses would flock to OS X and kill Apple’s hardware business in the process.
But would they? Really?
The masses haven’t flocked to Apple for anything besides iPods, iTunes and QuickTime in years. Apple still holds 2.3% ish of the PC market, but that hasn’t really changed (maybe shrunk a few tenths of a percentage point – but it’s never really gone up).
Or, the fanatics argue, it kills the entire “Mac experience” by running OS X on something other than Apple hardware. Well, doesn’t booting up Windows XP on that spiffy intel-based Mac kill the “mac experience” as well?
In a way, rolling out Boot Camp for Windows benefits Apple in the same way Boot Camp is benefiting Microsoft now — more sales of their OS.
If Apple does such a thing, it will probably issue a lot of “not supported” statements, or they may partner with a couple of vendors. It may be that some features are intentionally disabled as well.
It’s providing the security blanket the other way. Here, keep your PC and Windows XP, but check out our cool OS. Give it a test drive. Maybe, you’ll learn to like it so much that you’ll completely switch over.
Worse case? Apple makes a bit more money off of OS sales and maybe loses a few hardware sales. But, I think, it might win them a few more converts.
Actually, I think the best way that Apple can help raise people’s comfort level with switching is to provide them a list of equivalent apps. Oh, you like Office? We gotcha covered? Like graphics? Check out Adobe products on the Mac. Need development tools? Look at these.
Maybe there’s already a list out there, and I just haven’t seen it.
Now, what would be really wacky would be if Windows, after Vista, announces it’s abandoning its core for a unix/linux flavor, and the next version of windows would be unix-based.
Now, at that point, you would have three operating systems all running on the same basic hardware, competing over who provides the best ‘user experience.’
At that point, the REAL OS wars would begin…
Ah, the joys of ebay, part 2
And here we go again….
I thought I had sold my laptops finally. There’s still a chance the buyer may come through on one of them. But, the toshiba….
Third auction on the toshiba finally got all the way through to the end. I normally won’t accept bidders with zero feedback, but I thought I’d take a chance on this one…
Well, turns out that the person who won the auction was actually someone’s teenage daughter who was off playing on the computer while the folks were out of town. The girl set up her own ebay account and started winning auctions. The parents were just lucky that she forgot their paypal account info, or she would have tried to buy all of this stuff as well.
The people apologized and were nice enough to help me clear things up through ebay, but it put me back at square one again…
So here’s hoping the fourth time is the charm…
So far… only one scammer…
hello seller am so much interested in your item firstly i will like to know the condition of the item and i will like to know maybe you ship abroad because am getting it for a friend in west africa and i will be willing to pay you the sum of US$600 through western union auction payment(money order) including shipping through either USPS or Fedex to west africa”
ebay already nailed this one before I could forward it.
Continue reading “Ah, the joys of ebay, part 2”
alas, poor macromedia, I knew thee well…
Last monday, I saw an article on news.com that I never thought I would ever see…
Adobe buys Macromedia
Dvorak has a good theory on why this has happened. To me, being an ex-macromedian, it still sounds like something out of the twilight zone.
His theory is that Adobe was worried Micro$oft was going to snatch up Macromedia in a bid to get into the online publishing business. Better to buy them out and chuck them into the garbage than compete against Micro$oft.
What do they really gain? Well, they will get Flash, which will give them two of the most popular (and annoying) technologies on the web. Acrobat was cool up until version 6.0, when Adobe slapped that annoying updater onto it.
What about the other products? That’s the big question.
Since the internet boom, Macromedia’s big sellers have shifted from Director, FreeHand (yes that’s a capital ‘H’), and Authorware to Flash, Dreamweaver and Fireworks.
Adobe may hang on to Director and Authorware because they don’t have products in that space.
FreeHand, though, has been stagnant since version 8, so it’s on the way to oblivion.
Dreamweaver? Adobe has GoLive. I haven’t touched that product since the early days (before Adobe snagged it), so I can’t comment on it as a product. If it has a better rendering engine than DW, I would welcome it ( I still can’t get DW to display a halfway complex design correctly ). These products may get thrown into a blender to create GoDreamweaverLive.
Fireworks is the product I’m the most worried about. Fireworks, even though it has a few hiccups, is my favorite Macromedia product, and I would hate to see it go away. But, Photoshop/ImageReady (from Adobe) are already huge bloated products, and I’m afraid that Fireworks will get assimilated into one/both of those products. That would truly suck.
The rest may get to stick around for awhile, simply because they don’t really compete with Adobe’s existing product line.
Well, ok. Kill Cold Fusion. Make the pain stop. That shite should have been put out to pasture years ago. JRun is still a decent app server, though.
There are a lot of good people at Macromedia, and I hate to see the company being devoured by Adobe simply because they’re worried about a much much bigger beast getting to the company first.
Hang onto your Macromedia products if you’re using them because they may be the last versions you’ll see.
UPDATE: Well, maybe Adobe isn’t so paranoid after all. Micro$oft is going to enter the online publishing market when Longhorn comes out. But, they are coming up with their own standard, code-named ‘metro’ ( oy ). Where does Micro$oft come up with their code names? ‘Metro’ makes me think of that stupid new term ‘metrosexual’ — Does that mean the Queer Eye guys are leading the development team?
At least Apple comes up with cool code names. : )
For those of you who haven’t seen this, ‘metrosexual’ is supposed to be a label for ‘straight’ men who are not afraid to embrace their feminine side. Don’t ask me why we needed a term for it. If you’re worried you might be infected, you can take the Metrosexual Quiz.
And, no, I only scored an 8 on the quiz, so I am safely assured I’m nothing of the sort. So, there, beat that score! Or, well, maybe not.
cool blog app
I am just now getting into using some of the programs that I have downloaded for the iBook. So far, the coolest one I have used has to be MarsEdit.
It’s a nifty little utility program that allows you to compose/edit your blog entries. Then, when you are ready, you can either upload it as a draft or publish it. You can easily find and add images to your blogs as well. I tried that feature out with the mac portable entry. Very cool.
I did have to find an patch a specific php file for WordPress, but it has worked pretty seamlessly after that. Someone probably has something similar available for windows.
This may be the first program I buy for the iBook. : )
The first “portable” macintosh
I stumbled across this on the internet the other day, and it brought back memories. This site has a number of stories about old macintosh computers, and I had completely forgotten about the original macintosh portable. It wasn’t much more of a machine than the mac plus I had back in those days, and it weighed in at a ‘mere’ 16.8 lbs. It could be yours for only $5,799.00. *cough*
In comparison, the G4 iBook I have only weighs 4.6 lbs, with an even bigger screen, and it’s in color. And, I’m not even sure where to measure the cpu comparison, but I imagine the mac plus is something like .000001 percent of the speed of the iBook. The original macs used to only have black and white screens. I don’t mean grayscale. I mean two colors: black and white. Grays were simulated using patterns of black and white dots. But, at the time the macintosh originally came out, it was considered revolutionary. The operating system, even when they eventually moved to color screens, kept most of the original look and feel of the black and white windows.
I am pretty sure I even had this copy of MacUser when it originally came out. The scary part is that this is from 1989. That’s how far technology has advanced in fifteen years.
About Techie
This section is meant to hold any tech-related subjects….