SOMM Soapbox

It seems AT&T and its top brass can’t stop complaining. AT&T complained when mobile market players like Sprint as well as the government (DOJ) went against its attempted acquisition of T-Mobile here in the states. They didn’t want to see it in the light we all saw it as, a potential duopoly between Verizon and AT&T. Now, AT&T’s chief executive regrets giving iPhone users unlimited data because it cost them too much.

I wrote last year about the possibility of Apple entering the console gaming space and if the report by Appleinsider is correct, Apple may have their hand in a gaming system.

The Apple iPad (3^rd Generation) was announced on March 7^th, 2012 and the tech media was buzzing, although not quite with the hysteria normally surrounding an iDevice announcement as in the past. The third iPad is better than its predecessors and arguably will be the best tablet on the market, but there is letdown. All of the hardware upgrades in the world don’t suffice if the operating system powering it hasn’t truly changed since 2007.

The success and popularity of iOS and Android powered mobile devices are having an impact on traditional computing. From Microsoft’s focus on making Windows 8 mobile friendly to Apple’s iOS-like makeover of its upcoming OS X Mountain Lion, the mobilization of computing is here to stay. The question is will the advantages of this mobilization outweigh its disadvantages?

Since writing Ban Used Games Sales in September of last year, it seems the game industry has grouped piracy and used games sales together. How does illegal copying of Intellectual Property (I.P.) equal the resale of a previously purchased video game is beyond me. According to Jameson Durall, Design Director at Volition, Inc, they are one and the same.

I have read and heard stories of peril that stem from the dark underbelly of tech manufacturing across the global and like most Americans, have turned a blind eye to it all. That is until the name of one Chinese company kept popping up in the headlines, Foxconn. On January 25, 2012, The New York Times posted a lengthy article with insider looks into the supply channel of Apple, Inc. After reading the article, I was shocked and angry. Shortly afterwards, I read a CNET piece that tried to rationalize the entire matter in Apple’s favor and I then completely lost it. Are we really in the age when a product requires human costs?

In December of 2011, Google chairman Eric Schmidt let out a big announcement in an interview, “In the next six months we [Google] plan to market a tablet of the highest quality”. I had a long discussion awhile ago with good friend and fellow blogger (Lasha of Onefusedlife.com) during the release of the first wave of Android powered tablets that Google, itself would have to enter. Google would have to do for Android tablets, as they had with Android smartphones with their Nexus line. Do them justice.

Samsung, with its bestsellers thus far in the Galaxy S II smartphone series, is now openly mocking Apple and its sub-culture through a funny new commercial.

It seems I may have angered the Android gods with my last entry, the five things I hate about Android, as my HTC EVO 4G will no longer take a charge. Instead of buying a new EVO or using my upgrade (I’ve been eligible for an upgrade for 5 years now), I went back to my Blackberry Curve 8330. So I thought I would start a short miniseries of blog entries that will document my readjustment to a phone I once loved. Could my misfortune allow RIM to win me back?

I am a strong advocate of Google’s Android mobile operating system, but I assure you I’m not a totally blind zealot. Android has matured but still features its fair share of problems. Some of these problems are nerve wracking and could have caused me to leave the Android ecosystem if there were any viable alternatives (in my eyes).  From bugs to security, Google has a lot of issues to solve and here’s hoping that Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) does that. Until I get ICS in hand, here are five things I hate about Android.

Much time has gone by since we parted ways. I won’t lie and say I don’t miss your superior messaging or e-mail experience. Lest not forget your amazing battery life either, others counted in hours, yours in days. The problem was I couldn’t continue to spin those positives into the faces of friends and family when your negatives are so overwhelming.

Apple, Inc has more ammo to use against Android in the mobile war and it’s a feature almost all smartphone users are familiar with, ‘Slide-to-Unlock”.

The days of getting the most for your gaming dollars are gone. A trend brought on by the digital age. The digital age was once herald as the end of high costs for many products and their respected industries, especially videogames. I fondly remember reading an article in Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) as a teenager about how digital content would forever change gaming. Buying video games digitally would be much cheaper and would allow developers to release patches, game expansions (remember those?!) and other digital content to you quickly. The article was partly right on the latter part, but as for the cheaper prices, we’re still waiting

One of Call of Duty: Black Ops's many DLC packs.

Steven Paul Jobs, co-founder and master of all things Apple, has passed at the age of 56 yesterday. We at Sliceofmymind.com, want to extend our condolences to his family and friends. This is an extremely sad day for the entire tech sphere, regardless of your tech preferences or alliances.

Now it all makes sense. It is made completely clear. With the announcement of the iPhone 4S by Apple yesterday morning, we can see why Apple has gone after Samsung and its Galaxy S II (and Tab tablets) smartphones. Is it because Apple truly believes Samsung copied its designs? Or. Did the Galaxy S II surprise the hell out of Apple?

Apple is set to reveal the next iPhone today at 10:00AM PST, but rumors and reports persist that the “next” iPhone is nothing more than a minor hardware upgrade from the iPhone 4. The minor upgrade is said to be the Apple A5 processor (same processor in the iPad 2) and more RAM, noting there is nothing about a radical change in neither the phone’s screen size nor its resolution over the iPhone 4. What does this all mean?

How many features can someone put into a product before they come off as superfluous bullet points? In a new series I am dubbing the Superfluous Tech Top Five, I take a look at tech categories, single products and everything in between to find product “features” that are overwhelmingly superfluous fluff.

The product I am examining today is produced by a company that has a history of overzealously placing superfluous bullet points to “features” that are most of the time common in their competitors’ products. If you haven’t guessed the name of the company by now, it is no other than Apple Inc and the product is iOS 5.

There is a new trend going on in the game industry. This trend is to curve or somehow destroy the used game market. GameStop Inc is enjoying huge success and most of it is due to the sales of used video games. On one side of the coin are publishers and developers looking to find any way to slow down the sale of used games and on the other are consumers hurting from an economy that just won’t pick up and are trying to get the best value for their dollar.

Google’s music service joins a new wave of cloud-based offerings that have the ability and leverage to turn the music industry’s business model upside down on its head…again. Not since the dawn of the MP3 and file sharing has the music industry faced such a major threat and this time, it’s legal (for now).

Imagine purchasing an album one time and with a few clicks, have that album be made available to you on any computer and/or device at anytime. This scenario while possible now isn’t quite legal due to the restrictions imposed by modern digital music services like iTunes. Sure, music downloads don’t have the Digital Rights Management (DRM) embedded into their files but the terms and conditions you agree upon when you download still place restrictions on how and where you can use your music. This is set to change with services like Music Beta by Google.