Samsung Galaxy Gear is not the future of smart watches

This has been around for about a week, but still amazes me:

Also important will be the Galaxy Gear's battery life. It does use the Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy standard to communicate, but at 315mAh its battery is decidedly small. Samsung promises "about a day" of endurance from the Gear, but by the end of our briefing with the company, the cameras on most of its demo units were refusing to turn on due to the watches running low on power.

I gave up wearing my 2011 iPod Nano as a watch not because it lacked features, but because I needed to charge it every day. The next thing I wear on my wrist needs to have a considerably longer battery life, especially at $300.

Sony PS Vita TV

Sony has just announced PlayStation Vita TV, a 6 x 10 cm console and set-top box that connects to a TV. It's based on PS Vita hardware, and besides playing Vita, PSP, and PS1 games, also offers access to a range of entertainment services and PlayStation 4 cross-functionality. It will cost 9,480 yen, or around $95 excluding sales tax, and is out in Japan on November 14th.

Not enthused by the name, but in conceptual terms it looks like Sony understands where the battle lines are being drawn. 

How'd you like them Apples, Samsung?

According to a report by Reuters, Samsung's prior "series of record profits" from smartphones is now being seen by analysts as linked to a segment that "may have passed its peak this year as the market saturates and competition from cheaper phones intensifies."

What goes around, comes around, eh? On the bright side, If they're lucky Apple might soon have a mid-price strategy that Samsung can copy .

C is for China

Apple's Cupertino event is expected to see that launch of a new flagship iPhone 5S and a lower-cost iPhone 5C that will have internal components similar to the iPhone 5 encased in new colored plastic shells. In a report last month, the iPhone 5C was projected to give Apple a "huge boost" in China, with its lower cost making it an attractive choice for the market. 

I've recently speculated that, internally, Apple considers the 5C its "China iPhone". A medium-cost iPhone that's not a two-year-old model could go gangbusters in South East Asia.

Whither Nokia?

Great piece on the Microsoft Nokia buyout:

If there is one upside, then I do believe that this just might be the best thing to happen to Finland and the Finnish startup scene. A lot of the talent draining out of Nokia will look for new opportunities in their areas of expertise — radio engineering, manipulating sensors and embedded systems. If anything, this is Finland’s big opportunity to become the epicenter of the Internet of Things.

For what it's worth I'm not sure where this leaves Microsoft either, other than with a big obvious candidate to be Ballmer's preferred replacement. 

Flattening Nintendo

I'm in two minds about the Nintendo 2DS.

 On one hand it's a solid strategy: When I was introduced to the 3DS on launch day (in a Currys/PC World/Black store)  the very first thing the shop assistant showed me was how to turn off the 3D. I've met literally no-one who tells me they bought one for the 3D, and I know of dozens of kids who are gaga over the DS/DSi. Even my own daughter (who has, and loves, her iPod touch) revisits the DS (the original silver version which I imported at the US launch!) regularly. The 3DS is way too expensive this long after launch (even second hand). The 2DS could sell shedloads of households on the next generation of games, and leave those old DS models at the back of a drawer.

On the other hand it seems like a botched, reactionary move, designed to sell those (struggling?) games in a market dominated by free-up-front iOS games perfectly designed to occupy young minds and hands for short bursts of play, yet crippled in design terms by a hingeless slab design that won't fit into any jacket pocket ever designed. The 2DS brings nothing new to the table, and repackages old technology in a bid to extend the razor-and-blade business model for one last generation.

Like I say, in two minds.

Another thought: What if Apple uses what it learns in building a more affordable mass-market iPhone 5c to launch a more affordable mass-market iPod touch? What then Nintendo?

Champagne-Gold iPhone Looks Really Nice

That's a sentence I didn't imagine I'd be typing anytime soon.

Finding the Sweet Spot for Gesture Control

The process of taking my hands off the keyboard to wave them in the air to perform a gesture which I could do just as easily with keyboard shortcut, however, seems counterproductive. This is part where the Leap controller starts feeling like a novelty device. There are, however, times that I sit in front of my computer and I don’t have my hands on the keyboard. For instance, when I dictate.

This is the key to making something like Leap Motion Controller work well. I'm looking for how it might be used for presentations, where I'm similarly unlikely to sit down and use a keyboard.

The Wrong Compromise

So what's not to like about the new Nexus 7? For one thing, its 7-inch screen isn't as big as the nearly 8-inch iPad Mini's. While an inch of difference isn't remarkable, smartphone screens are growing to over 5 inches, making the Nexus 7 look more like one of those than a tablet.

Another drawback: In my test, the new Nexus 7's battery life was underwhelming. Compared with the same battery test of the iPad Mini and first Nexus 7, it fell short at just six hours; the others clocked in at 10 hours and 27 minutes and 10 hours and 44 minutes, respectively. Google claims the battery life can last over nine hours, but the company tests it in Airplane mode (Internet connection off), with screen brightness set to 44% while playing video. I keep Wi-Fi on in the background and screen brightness at 75% while playing video.

Design is all about compromise, despite what Microsoft would have you believe. Great design is about making the right compromises. I once noted that the original iPad was essentially a more-than-good-enough display bolted to a great battery, and I still think that's mostly the right balance for a tablet. The new Nexus 7 seems to have prioritised screen over battery (that display is a remarkably tight 323ppi). That'll demo well, but over time it'll annoy to have the device die on you at the six-hour mark. (Hat tip to The Loop for the original link)

An Input Device You'll Always Have Handy

In addition to offering nearly fail-proof feedback, using body parts as input devices also has another distinct advantage: the device is literally always with you — because your body is you.

Yes, people often carry their mobile phones, but they'll never be without their hands or their ears. Thus they'll never be without system functions that have been assigned to their hands or ears.

While we're on the subject of novel user interfaces. 

Leap Motion & The Pains of the Early Adopter

One problem is arm fatigue—holding your hand within the Leap's field of view in a comfortable fashion might require some workstation adjustment. I found that if I rested my elbow on my chair's arm, my hand wasn't at an angle that the Leap particularly liked to register; I spent quite a bit of time moving things around to overcome arm tiredness so that I could play with my elbow supported.

This has been my initial takeaway too. While the software and the hardware are bound to improve rapidly, holding up your hand towards the screen for any length of time is just horrible. Nevertheless, it's a very interesting device, even if it's not ready for prime-time just yet. 

 (Hat-tip to the always-interesting myapplemenu for the article link.)

Sword & Sorcery iOS Revenue

With over 1.5 million copies sold, it’s pretty obvious that #Sworcery has been a resounding success, and we’d like to share a few details of that success with you. There’s not that many titles out there that began on iOS and made their way to this many other platforms over time, so we hope that this info is helpful in some way/shape/form.

Useful infographic revealing the platform split of sales of the much-admired Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery game. In short: iOS accounts for a third of 1.5 million copies sold, but 55% of all revenue. Even more interesting is that 86% of iOS copies were sold at full price ($5.99), compared to only 23% of the copies shipped on Google Play. As is often the case, iOS might not always dominate units, but it definitely still dominates profits. My rough calculation is that S&S has brought in $1.5M in revenue to the developer (after Apple's 30% distribution cut). Sounds like pretty good money to me.

The 1937 Office of the Future

When the project is complete, SC Johnson's headquarters will once again resemble its 1950s-era look, upgraded of course with the technology of the second decade of the 21st century. And Wright fans will surely continue to come to visit the building that inspired "Life" magazine to compare the building and the 1939 World's Fair, "Future historians may well decide that a truer glimpse of the shape of things to come than is represented by the New York World's Fair was given in a single structure built strictly for business--the Administration Building of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., in Racine, Wisconsin."

The department where I teach has been moving into the new Parkside building in Birmingham this week, so you can expect a plethora of office-related posts. For what it's worth, I really like our new building, but it's no S.C. Johnson.

The Death of The Telephone

But by middle of the 20th Century most workers had a phone on their desk. They got used to the constant ringing and interruptions. People didn't get up to talk to each other, they spoke on the phone instead. The office switchboard was the hub of office, a sort of social glue connecting everyone to everyone else.

And that's how it stayed - until the last couple of years. We are now witnessing the death of the office landline, and with it the main switchboard.

Continue reading the main story

If anyone really wants me, they send me an email, and because I don't like random disturbances any more than the Edwardians did, I've stopped answering my desk phone altogether.

This is how I feel about the telephone too. During the 1990's I relied on the phone for almost all business, though  our ability to do more by email grew steadily throughout the decade. From about 1999 to 2005 I was really dependent upon people contacting me by mobile phone, but my dependence upon voice calls dropped off  rapidly afterwards. About the time of the introduction of the iPhone I pretty much quit calling people. There's a phone on my desk in the new office, and the first thing I worked out how to do was to turn the ringer off.

With Logic Pro X, iPad becomes a great Control Surface

The most obviously useful way to control Logic Pro X from the iPad is to use the tablet's surface as a mixing board. This mode literally puts a bank of faders in front of you, up to eight at a time, and you can jump between different banks of eight faders at will. Manipulating the mixing board faders via iPad instead of a mouse and keyboard has one big advantage: thanks to the multitouch screen on the iPad, you can grab several faders at once and manipulate them in real time. On a laptop or desktop, you'd have to link several tracks together or else record fader automation one track at a time.

This for me is one of the big appeals of Logic Pro X, as I've been looking for a way to use the iPad to control recording levels live, and to quickly automate mixes for podcasts. I've been using Auria, which is great, but I'd love something that ties into a fuller production environment on the Mac.

There's a decent video overview of the iPad Remote features at the CNET link.

EA Games and Apple are a Gaming Powerhouse

For the first time ever, Electronic Arts (EA), the world's third-largest gaming company, gained more revenue through Apple than any other single partner. All-told, the company's mobile and tablet revenue hit $90 million last quarter, representing 18 percent of its overall takings. Digital revenue in general grew to $378 million, meaning less than a quarter of EA's $495 total revenue came from traditional sales.

It's worth clicking through to EA's own Investor portal too, where you'll probably spot that they're the top iOS publisher. When you put Apple's platform and distribution together with EA's software you've got a pretty formidable gaming behemoth. More to watch here I think.

Re:Sleeves On Davis Bowie Is

Ben Waddington's Re:Sleeves podcast has been on holiday for a while, but we broke radio silence yesterday in order to get together and share our thoughts about the V&A's massive David Bowie exhibition, which closes in a couple of weeks before heading to Canada. We were joined for the show by sculptor Ana Rutter, who was one of a small number of artists commissioned to produce original work for the show, and we talked about our experiences of the show, and our thoughts about what makes Bowie's visual legacy so compelling. Hope you enjoy the episode.

Logic Pro X and Apple's Professional Commitment

Earlier in the week Jim Dalrymple over at The Loop posted a really detailed look at Logic Pro X, and has some insights into what it indicates about Apple's commitment to the professional market going forward. The response to LPX has been markedly different to that which greeted Final Cut Pro X, and the whole experience seems to have focused Apple on getting this one right. I really like how Logic seems to blend the depth of pro features expected with some effective use of consumer-oriented UI design. It's a tough balancing act, but one which they seem to have pulled off, at least on first impressions.

Logic Pro X is probably overkill for my current production needs, but as we shift things up a gear over the coming months (more on which soon) I can really see us moving to this (on the Mac at least: I'm still liking how much I can do with Auria on iPad)

The Ethics of Biological Video Games

While these games are a far cry from Halo or World of Warcraft, they’ve garnered international interest from both scientists and the general public over the past five years. Creators believe this concept has the potential to engage both kids and adults in learning about biological processes.

But a small number of observers think that interfering with living things for entertainment, even on such a microscopic scale, raises ethical issues. At the heart of this argument is a concern for human beings’ level of control over life. If we alter organisms or manipulate them for fun, are we entering into an unhealthy relationship with the world around us?

Fascinating. Perhaps the ethical questions may disappear when astronomers finally discover the Universe's coin slot.

Frontiers will be funded in 5 hours

Big congratulations due to Lars Simkins, whose game project Frontiers  will in 5 hours' time be funded on Kickstarter. He's more than trebled his goal of $50,000, which means the game gets its stretch goal features (including multiplayer!).

If you want to make sure you get a copy before official target release next year, head to Kickstarter now and get on board. And if you want to hear all about the development so far, check out the Doom Ray interviews with Lars at Futurilla Radio.