The Tab is being introduced over the next week by three major U.S. wireless phone carriers at $400 with a cellular data contract, or at $600 with cellular capability but no contract. The iPad starts at $499 for a Wi-Fi model with no cellular-data capability or contract, and is $629 for the least expensive model with cellular data capability but no contract.

Like the iPad, the Tab, which uses Google’s Android operating system, is a good-looking slate with a vivid color screen that can handle many of the tasks typically performed on a laptop. These include email, social networking, Web browsing, photo viewing, and music and video playback. It also can run a wide variety of third-party apps. But it has major differences, most notably in size.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab has less than half the screen real estate than that of the iPad.

The Tab has a 7-inch screen versus the 9.7-inch display on the iPad. That may seem like a small difference, but the numbers are deceptive, because screen sizes are always described using diagonal measurements. In fact, the actual screen real estate on the Tab is less than half of the iPad’s. That’s a disadvantage, but it allows the overall unit to be much smaller and lighter, and thus more easily used in one hand, something some users will welcome.

The new tablet will be introduced in coming days by Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, with a variety of cellular data plans. AT&T also will carry the Tab during the holiday season but hasn’t announced its timing or data-plan pricing. Although it is being sold by cellular carriers, the Tab, like the iPad (which offers optional month-to-month cellular data through AT&T) can’t make cellular voice calls.

I’ve been testing the Tab for a couple of weeks and I like it. It’s a serious alternative to the iPad and one that will be preferred by some folks. It includes the three most-requested features missing in the iPad: a camera (two in fact); the ability to run Web videos and applications written in Adobe’s Flash software; and multitasking, though, to be fair, the latter feature is coming to the iPad imminently via a software update. Another strong point is that like Apple, Samsung has rewritten some of the standard apps, such as the email and calendar programs, to make them look more like PC programs and less like smartphone apps.

On balance, however, I still prefer the iPad. For one thing, I like getting twice the screen size for a little more money up front—as little as $29 for the no-contract model with cellular capability. For another, the iPad has vastly more apps specifically designed for a tablet versus a smartphone—about 40,000 according to Apple, compared with just a handful for the Tab. And it can run about triple the apps overall, if you count smartphone apps that aren’t optimized for tablets.

Also, in my tests, the iPad’s battery life was about five hours better than the Tab’s, its maximum storage capacity is higher, and its aluminum body is more rugged than the Tab’s plastic casing. Finally, the iPad can be bought in a Wi-Fi-only model that frees you from any entanglement with cellphone carriers. The Tab also has Wi-Fi, but, so far, no Wi-Fi-only version, though Samsung is promising one next year.

Still, the Tab is a very attractive product and I enjoyed using it. For buyers who want to spend less up front, don’t mind the smaller screen, prefer the more compact dimensions and one-handed usability, and place high value on the cameras and on Flash, it may well be a better choice.

Hardware

The Tab is a rectangular slate about two inches shorter and three inches narrower than the iPad. It is also a tad thinner. It weighs less than a pound, compared with 1.5 pounds for the iPad. While its screen is smaller, it has almost the same resolution as the iPad, so almost as much material can be displayed on it.

The screen is sharp and generally responsive to touch, though, in my tests, a bit slower than the iPad’s screen. The Tab comes with 16 gigabytes of flash storage, the same as the base iPad. But with some carriers, this storage is internal and in others, it’s on a removable memory card. The card slot comes on all models and can hold up to 32 gigabytes at extra cost. The iPad, also at extra cost, comes in versions that go up to 64 gigabytes, all internal.

With its lighter weight and smaller size, I found the Tab easy to use while standing and moving. It easily fit in one hand, though for many tasks you’ll still need two hands.

Battery Life

Samsung and its partners make wildly varying battery claims for the Tab. The former says it can last up to 13 hours on a single charge, while T-Mobile claims just eight hours. I gave the Tab the same test I used for my iPad review: I put the screen on nearly full brightness, left the Wi-Fi on to collect email and played back-to-back videos until the unit died. My test Tab lasted six hours, 50 minutes, though at six hours, 10 minutes the screen dimmed irrevocably to a darkness level that made it useless. In the same test last spring, the iPad logged 11 hours, 28 minutes.

Cameras

The Tab has a 3-megapixel rear camera with flash and a 1.3-megapixel front camera mainly for video calls. Still-photographs and videos I took were of average quality, but videos taken with the front camera were fuzzy.

I tested video calling using a pre-release, tablet-optimized version of Qik, the software being preinstalled for this purpose on the Tab. Results were mixed. It will work over either cellular or Wi-Fi connections, but the version I tried wasn’t tuned for cellular, so we used Wi-Fi. In my conversation with a Qik executive, the call at first failed to go through. When it did go through, it worked fine for awhile, and then failed when I tried a feature designed to hide my image. Later, the audio dropped altogether. Qik says it is fixing the problems.

Software

The Tab uses the latest version of Android, and it generally worked very smoothly, even though Google has warned that Android isn’t yet ready for tablets. I was especially impressed with Samsung’s attractive and usable rewrites of the calendar, email and contacts apps, which, like their iPad cousins, use multiple panels to make them more computer-like, while still remaining touch-friendly.

I found the Web browser to be a bit jerky in zooming into text and scrolling through long pages. I tested several Adobe Flash videos and websites written in Flash. Sometimes they played and sometimes they didn’t. In all cases, they slowed the browser down. On one site written in Flash, I got a warning saying I might want to “abort” lest the computer become “unresponsive.” In another case, the Tab crashed. So I conclude that while the Tab does play Flash, it needs work on that score.

I downloaded a few third-party apps. I couldn’t find any that were rewritten with extra features for tablets, nor any way to discover these in the Android Market. Some of my downloaded apps scaled fine to tablet size. Others were surrounded by large black bars.

Cellular pricing

On an iPad, if you opt for cellular-data service, there is no contract and only two monthly prices—$14.99 for 250 megabytes and $25 for 2 gigabytes. On the Tab, it’s much more complicated. Verizon, which is selling only the $600 no-contract model, says its pricing will start at $20 a month for 1 gigabyte of data. Sprint charges $29.99 monthly for 2 gigabytes and $59.99 for 5 gigabytes. T-Mobile has different prices for no-contract and contract models, and different rates for new and existing customers. Just two examples: a new customer under contract on a Tab can pay $30 monthly for 200 megabytes or $50 for 5 gigabytes.

So, I urge Tab buyers to do the math carefully on the overall cost of the device under various carriers and plans.

Bottom Line

The Tab is attractive, versatile and competitively priced, though monthly cell fees can add up. It’s different enough from the iPad, yet good enough, to give consumers a real choice.

Find all his columns and videos at walt.allthingsd.com Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

http://allthingsd.com/20101110/macbook-air-rises-to-top-of-consumer-reports-ratings/ http://allthingsd.com/20101110/macbook-air-rises-to-top-of-consumer-reports-ratings/#comments Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:48:54 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=52278 More good press for the MacBook Air. Consumer Reports updated its computer ratings earlier this week to include the machine, and while it had some criticisms, it ranked the 11-inch Air and its 13-inch sibling at the top of their respective categories and gave both machines a “recommended” rating. (Sorry, full rating access is for subscribers only.)

The 11-inch Air scored 67 points out of 100, well above its closest rival, the Toshiba Satellite, which scored a 51. Meanwhile the 13-inch model scored 78 points out of 100, two points better than the Toshiba Portege. The publication found the Airs’ performance, displays and ergonomics to be their stand-out features, but wasn’t quite as impressed by the speakers on the 11-inch model and the versatility of both, which it rated as “fair.”

And then, of course, there is the issue of price. Both Airs exceeded their closest rivals on that front as well. At $1,300, the 13-inch Air is $520 more than the Portege, and at $1,000, the 11-inch is approximately double the price of the Satellite. ’Course, the Satellite also weighs over a pound more and pales in the performance, ergonomics and display categories, so there are obvious trade-offs here.

In any event, a good showing for Apple. If the Air truly is the future of the MacBook, as Steve Jobs claims, Apple has a lot to look forward to.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101110/macbook-air-rises-to-top-of-consumer-reports-ratings/feed/ 0

http://allthingsd.com/20101109/digital-cameras-improve-zooms-hd-function/ http://allthingsd.com/20101109/digital-cameras-improve-zooms-hd-function/#comments Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:26:27 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/?p=1488 With Thanksgiving fast approaching, so, too, comes the start of the holiday shopping mayhem. Once again, digital cameras are rocketing to the top of wish lists, and once again, shoppers are tentatively entering electronics stores with bewildered looks on their faces.

To alleviate some of that shopping stress, I’ve compiled a buyer’s guide for different camera categories with prices and pointers to innovation. This year, manufacturers have improved photo-location tagging and are offering artistic photo alteration and clever ways to label images for future sharing on social networks.

Let’s Get Physical

Consumers are starting to understand that better sensors make it possible to do things like taking photos in low light, which can really make a difference in photo quality. Some high-quality sensors are making their way into affordable models, like the CMOS sensor in Nikon’s $300 Coolpix S8100. High megapixel counts aren’t overly important, though more megapixels per photo still make it easier to zoom in while editing and give higher resolution in a larger photo or poster. A 14-megapixel camera like the Olympus FE-47 costs just $100, but a recent Consumer Reports review gave it low marks in handling shake and liquid-crystal-display screen quality. Optical zoom, or the physically manipulated distance between the camera and a subject, is still more important than digital zoom, and it’s easy to find many models with 7x optical zoom or better. LCD screens on digicams are so large that they leave little room for optical viewfinders, thus making built-in image stabilization all the more important. Image stabilization comes on nearly all new cameras. And more digicams than ever are capable of recording high-definition videos.

Breaking It Down

Digital cameras can be divided into four broad categories: pocket-size, point-and-shoot, super- or mega-zooms and digital single-lens reflexes (D-SLRs). I’ll leave SLRs out of the discussion, since they’re still primarily aimed at hobbyists who don’t mind the cost and effort of buying additional lenses, filters, flashes and other accessories.

Most pocket-size digital cameras cost between $100 and $300, weigh no more than seven ounces and lack optical viewfinders, forcing users to look at LCD screens to compose pictures. Most of these LCD viewing screens measure between 2.6 inches and 3.5 inches diagonally. Samsung, however, has an even bigger touch-screen LCD, at 3.7 inches, on its CL80 camera priced at $350.

These small but powerful machines capture images with 10, 12 or 14 megapixels and their optical zoom lenses usually range from 3x to 7x, though a handful of manufacturers are boosting their cameras’ optical zooms. The $170 Casio Exilim EX-H5, for example, is equipped with a 10x optical zoom lens.

Today’s point-and-shoot digital cameras are sleeker and more stylish than they used to be, though they remain somewhat bulkier than their pocket-size relatives. The point-and-shoot size can allow for better optical zoom lenses, and these models sometimes cost less than the pocket sizes. The $300 Canon PowerShot SX210 IS and $280 Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5 are equipped with 14x and 12x optical zoom lenses, respectively.

Super-zoom or mega-zoom digital cameras satisfy people who want the power of a great zoom and optional manual settings without the hassle and expense of an SLR. At a glance, you might mistake these models for SLRs due to their bulkier bodies, and, in some cases, detachable (or hot-shoe) flashes. Nikon’s $400 Coolpix P100 offers a 26x wide-angle optical zoom, and Olympus’s $350 SP-800UZ is the smallest camera with a 30x wide-angle optical zoom. Both cameras have built-in flashes, but the Nikon includes an optical viewfinder while the Olympus offers only an LCD screen for viewing and capturing photos.

Shaking It Up

Camera manufacturers are adding creative new features to these devices. Starting the week of Thanksgiving, Casio will provide Hybrid GPS on its $350 EX-H20G, which geotags (adds digital location information to) images indoors where GPS satellite signals can’t reach. This works using a combined GPS radio and motion sensor to measure the direction in which the camera has moved, and how fast. When you’re back in satellite range, the camera corrects the geotag by cross-referencing its own estimates with satellite-provided latitude and longitude.

Olympus now has art filters, which let you view your subject with special effects before capturing the photo. Some filters supply gentle sepia, soft focus or grainy film. There is also a drawing filter, which makes a subject instantly appear as a sketch.

Samsung’s $150 PL90 model has a pop-out USB arm that reminds me a lot of the pop-out USB connector on Cisco’s popular Flip camcorders. Samsung’s USB arm eliminates the need for messy wires, or the removal of a memory card to transfer photos from a digicam to a PC.

Many cameras have and continue to supply guides that appear on screen as a photo is being captured. Sony’s NEX-5 offers this, and the Olympus Live Guide let you preview photo adjustments—like brightness or color saturation—on the screen as you make them. Nikon’s Scene Auto Selector, found in the Coolpix P7000, Coolpix S8100 and Coolpix S80, will automatically adjust the camera’s settings so users can stop worrying about scrolling through menus to select the right scene from a list.

Fujifilm offers the only true (not simulated) three-dimensional digital camera in its $500 FinePix REAL 3D W3, which I reviewed in August. These 3D images can be seen through the camera’s LCD viewing screen but not on laptops or television sets unless they’re 3D-capable and you’re wearing 3D glasses.

Kodak is trying to encourage sharing with its cameras by including a Share button that, when pressed, digitally tags images and videos with labels for Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Kodak Gallery or email, then automatically sends the photos to those places when you next plug the camera into a PC.

One last warning: Don’t be seduced by lower prices or better technology alone. Be sure you try a camera in the store before buying it. The way it feels or works for you is just as important as any technological specification.

Email Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101109/digital-cameras-improve-zooms-hd-function/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101109/the-shipping-news-plenty-of-iphones-for-the-holidays/ http://allthingsd.com/20101109/the-shipping-news-plenty-of-iphones-for-the-holidays/#comments Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:40:48 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=52178 It’s taken the better part of four months, but iPhone 4 supply has finally caught up with demand. Ship times for the device fell to 24 hours yesterday for the first time since its June launch, which bodes well for Apple as it it heads into the holiday season.

“We believe the iPhone should see continued solid growth into the December quarter with support from improved inventory in the US,” Barclay’s analyst Ben Reitzes said in a note to clients today. “Apple has now expanded distribution to Target (Target also sells the iPad) to join others including Apple stores, AT&T, Best Buy, Radio Shack and Wal-Mart. Perhaps more importantly, we believe availability is improving overseas, with the iPhone 4 set to ship for its first full quarter in China. International demand seems strong into calendar year-end.”

For the quarter ending in December, Reitzes figures Apple will sell 14.8 million iPhones, with sales ramping up after that, assuming the company moves to a multicarrier model in the states. Says Reitzes, “As we move into C1Q we continue to believe it is quite likely that we will see the iPhone introduced on Verizon in the US which should continue sales momentum. By CY-end 2011, we believe Apple will have more than 2 carriers in the US, which could help its market share vs. Android significantly.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101109/the-shipping-news-plenty-of-iphones-for-the-holidays/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101103/a-fall-guide-how-to-pick-your-next-computer/ http://allthingsd.com/20101103/a-fall-guide-how-to-pick-your-next-computer/#comments Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:05:08 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1603 If you’re shopping for a new computer this fall, you won’t find big surprises. But you’ll still have to juggle a lot of technobabble terminology and watch your budget. Perhaps the biggest question for some buyers will be whether to get a tablet or a laptop, now that Apple’s iPad is a proven hit and a flood of competitors is on the way.

So, here is my annual fall computer buyers’ guide, a simplified road map to the key decisions shoppers must make. I’ve focused on laptops—the most common purchase—but much of this advice also applies to desktops. As always, these tips are for average users doing the most common tasks. This advice doesn’t apply to businesses, to hard-core gamers, or to serious media producers.

Tablets vs. Laptops: If you’re looking for a light-duty, highly portable computer, it’s worth considering the iPad, which starts at $499, instead of a small laptop. This is especially true if you’re in the market for a secondary computer, or one mainly for use on the go. Many owners of iPads, including me, are finding it handily replaces a laptop for numerous tasks, such as Web browsing, email, social-networking, photos, video and music. It has superior battery life, lighter weight, and it starts instantly. I don’t recommend it for people who are creating long documents, especially spreadsheets and presentations, even though it is capable of those tasks. And I don’t recommend it for users who require, or prefer, a physical keyboard.

If you don’t like the iPad, there will soon be alternatives. For instance, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, which has a 7-inch screen versus the iPad’s 10-inch display, and runs Google’s Android operating system, will be available this month from major wireless carriers. Sprint, for example, will offer it at $400 with a two-year contract. But some tablet buyers may want to wait till the first half of next year, when many more models will be available, and Apple will likely roll out the second-generation iPad.

Netbooks: These low-cost, low-powered little Windows computers are losing popularity, but are still available, typically for about $350 to $500. They are being hurt by the rise of tablets and by light but larger laptops. Some buyers also find the screens and keyboards are too cramped. But these are evolving. Some now have bigger screens and roomier keyboards. And Dell will soon introduce a sort of hybrid netbook-tablet. Called the Inspiron Duo, this model, starting at $499, has both a regular keyboard and a touch screen that flips around when the lid is closed to act like a tablet.

Windows vs. Mac: Windows laptops can be much less costly—and come in many more styles and varieties—than Mac laptops. The Macs start at $999, versus as little as $500 for a decently equipped Windows portable. Windows laptops are still dominant. But Apple laptops are stylish and reliable, and usually boot much faster than Windows machines, in my tests. Also, Apple scores high on surveys of customer support. Its latest models, like the new, light MacBook Airs, have extraordinarily good battery life. Macs also aren’t affected by the vast majority of malicious software, have much better built-in multimedia software and, at extra cost, can run Windows programs in cases where Mac equivalents aren’t available.

The light but speedy 13-inch Toshiba R705 offers good battery life.

Cost: Most of the popular consumer Windows laptops cost $500 to $800. You can get full-size laptops for as little as $280, but their processors and graphics are weak and some lack webcams. If you can afford it, a light but speedy 13-inch machine like the Toshiba R705 offers very good battery life for just under $800. All-in-one desktops typically cost around $1,000 and some, like the HP TouchSmart, offer touch screens with special touch software. Apple’s popular all-in-one iMac starts at $1,199.

Processors: The most promoted chips are Intel’s i3, i5, and i7 Core models, the latter two of which can turn on and off some of their functions to boost power or save energy. But there is nothing wrong with buying a PC that uses chips from rival AMD, which usually cost less. For average users, Intel’s older Core 2 Duo still works just fine, even with the latest software. Intel’s weaker Atom processor line powers most netbooks.

Graphics: Integrated graphics, which share the computer’s main memory, are fine for most common tasks, but costlier discrete graphics, which have dedicated memory, can speed things up by taking some of the load off the main processor. They also are better for games. Some computers have both and can switch among them.

Wireless: More and more laptops are coming with optional cellular modem chips in addition to Wi-Fi. These can be handy while traveling, but be warned that they require a cellular data contract, which can be costly.

Connections: If you plan to connect your laptop to a TV, look for a connector called an HDMI port, which is used on most high-definition TVs. Some laptops also come with a feature called Wireless Display, or Wi-Di, which, with an extra-cost adapter, can beam your laptop screen to a TV without a cable. There is a new, much faster USB port, called USB 3.0, but, so far, it’s on very few machines.

Memory: Aim for 4 gigabytes of memory, or RAM, on a new computer, and never settle for less than 2 gigabytes.

Hard disks: A 320 gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs, though 250 gigabytes is OK if price is key, or if it’s your secondary machine. Solid-state disks, which lack moving parts and use flash memory like smartphones do, are faster and use less battery power. They cost much more, but are coming down in price fast. However, they typically offer much less capacity.

64-bit: Many models now use a 64-bit architecture, which allows properly written software to use more memory and run faster. If possible, buy 64-bit, which will become more and more important.

Touch: Some Windows 7 computers have touch capability built into the screen, though Windows wasn’t designed with touch as a core element and the combination isn’t ideal. Computer makers try to resolve this with special touch software, which you should try in a store. Apple laptops use huge touch pads as the multitouch surface, instead of the screen.

As always, don’t buy more machine than you need.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101103/a-fall-guide-how-to-pick-your-next-computer/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101028/ipad-sales-begin-at-verizon-and-att/ http://allthingsd.com/20101028/ipad-sales-begin-at-verizon-and-att/#comments Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:01:06 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=51574
The iPad officially went on sale today at the two largest wireless carriers in the U.S.–AT&T and Verizon. AT&T is selling all three iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models at their standard prices, while Verizon is peddling the Wi-Fi-only versions paired with a MiFi 2200 mobile hotspot.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101028/ipad-sales-begin-at-verizon-and-att/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101027/macbook-air-has-the-feel-of-an-ipad-in-a-laptop/ http://allthingsd.com/20101027/macbook-air-has-the-feel-of-an-ipad-in-a-laptop/#comments Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:11:38 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1590 Some of the nicest, if little discussed, benefits of using an Apple iPad tablet are that it starts instantly, resumes where you left off, and has a long enough battery life that you aren’t constantly fretting about running out of juice or looking for a place to plug it in. And it can do a lot of things for which people use laptops.

What if somebody designed an actual laptop that worked this way—you know, a computer with a real keyboard and a larger screen that could run traditional computer software and store more files than an iPad? And what if it was almost as light and portable as an iPad? Well, somebody has, and that somebody is Apple itself.

The computer in question is the company’s new MacBook Air, which went on sale last week, starting at $999—a price that’s very low for an Apple laptop, though hardly a bargain for a Windows one. The new Air comes in two sizes. The base $999 model has an 11.6-inch screen (versus 9.7 inches for an iPad) and weighs 2.3 pounds (versus 1.5 pounds for an iPad). The larger—but still thin and light—model starts at $1,299, has a 13.3-inch screen, and weighs 2.9 pounds.

I’ve been testing both versions, but especially the 11.6-inch model, and I find that, despite a few drawbacks, they really do offer the different, more iPad-like experience Apple claims they do. Battery life is strong, and the wake up from sleep is almost instant, even after long periods of being unused.

Apple’s new MacBook Air laptop.

Like their predecessors in the Air family, these are gorgeous, very thin and light, but very sturdy aluminum computers. And, like their predecessors, or like iPads and smartphones, they rely on solid-state storage—flash chips—instead of a conventional hard disk to hold all your files. But Apple has dramatically reduced the physical size of the flash storage to make room for larger sealed-in batteries, so battery life is longer. It has also cut the price from the last version of the Air, a 13-inch model that cost $1,799 with a solid-state drive.

Also, the company has re-engineered the way these new Airs sleep, adding a long “standby” period of very low power consumption that Apple says lasts up to 30 days. This standby mode kicks in after about an hour of idle time, and replaces the traditional hibernation system, where your current activity is saved to a conventional hard disk just before the battery dies. With hibernation, getting back to where you were can be slow and somewhat uncertain. With the new “standby” mode, the process just takes a few seconds, only a bit longer than normal sleep.

These are just the first of a number of changes Apple plans in order to make its computers behave more like the iPad and iPhone, without losing their greater power and more traditional keyboards, touchpads and mice, and ability to run conventional programs.

For instance, Apple has said it will soon introduce an “app store” for the Mac, which would make it simpler to find and download programs for the computers, and notify users of updates. And it will also roll out, in its next Mac operating system, called Lion—due next summer—a system of apps icon screens, like those on iPhones and iPads, that you can flick through with the company’s multitouch touchpad gestures.

In my harsh battery tests, I found the two new Air models almost matched Apple’s battery claims, even with all power-saving features turned off, Wi-Fi kept on, the screen on maximum brightness and a continuous loop of music playing. The 11-inch model lasted four hours and 43 minutes, versus Apple’s claim of up to five hours. The 13-inch model lasted six hours and 13 minutes, versus Apple’s claim of up to seven hours.

This means that, in normal use, with power-saving features turned on, you’d be almost certain to meet, or possibly exceed, Apple’s claimed battery life. For comparison, I did the same battery test on a new Dell 11.6-inch model, the M101Z, which costs about $450, but is much thicker and heavier than the smaller Air, and uses a conventional hard disk. It got only two hours and 41 minutes of battery life, which means that in normal use you’d probably get three to four hours.

The MacBook Air 11-inch (left) and 13-inch models have long battery life, but storage capacity is limited.

The new models are designed to hardly ever require a traditional bootup or reboot. The idea is that you’d only reboot if you had a problem, or installed software that required a reboot, or if the machine had been idle and unplugged more than a month. But even booting is very fast.

In my tests, a cold boot took 17 seconds and a reboot, with several programs running, took 20 seconds. By contrast, the Dell I tested took more than three minutes to fully boot up and be fully ready for use.

Unlike on many netbooks, these two new Apples also have high screen resolutions so you can fit more material into their relatively small sizes. The 13-inch model has the same resolution as Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Pro and the 11-inch Air has greater resolution than the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Also, unlike on many netbooks, they feature full-size keyboards, though the 11-inch model has reduced-size function keys.

The new Airs aren’t meant to be the most robust machines. They use last-generation Intel processors and have only two gigabytes of memory in their base configurations, and their storage is well below typical hard-disk capacities.

For example, the 11-inch, $999 model has a paltry 64 gigabytes of storage; the 13-inch model starts at a still-weak 128 gigabytes of storage, and even the high-end version of the larger model, which costs $1,599, has just 256 gigabytes of storage. And neither the storage nor the memory can be expanded once you choose your initial specs.

I’d recommend buyers of the 11-inch model spend $200 more to double the storage to 128 gigabytes. And people doing a lot of video editing might want to double the memory on either model to four gigabytes, for an extra $100.

Also, as with the earlier Air models, these two lack a DVD drive and an Ethernet port. Apple sells an external drive for $79 and an Ethernet adapter for $29. If you add in all these extras, prices can climb quickly.

They also lack ports called HDMI ports, becoming common on Windows PCs, for easy connection to televisions, and their keyboards aren’t backlit. The two new models do, however, have two USB ports instead of the single USB port in the older Air.

I was surprised to find that even the base $999 model was powerful enough to easily run seven or eight programs at once, including Microsoft Office, iTunes and the Safari browser with more than 20 Web sites open. It also played high-definition video with no skipping or stuttering.

So, if you’re a light-duty user, you might be able to adopt one of the new Airs as your main laptop. If you’re a heavy-duty user, who needs lots of power and file storage, they’re likely to be secondary machines.

Overall, Apple has done a nice job in making these new MacBook Airs feel more like iPads and iPhones without sacrificing their ability to work like regular computers. But, as always with Apple, you’ll pay more than you will with Windows PCs.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101027/macbook-air-has-the-feel-of-an-ipad-in-a-laptop/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101026/video-editing-made-easier/ http://allthingsd.com/20101026/video-editing-made-easier/#comments Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:18:18 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/?p=1460 Have you ever watched someone editing photos and videos on a Mac and wondered why they seem much more talented and tech savvy than you are with your Windows PC? These Mac users have a leg up thanks to Apple’s iLife software, a suite of programs that comes loaded on every Mac, making it a cinch for consumers to work with videos, photos and music. Just last week, Apple announced the 9th version of iLife with a new edition of iMovie for editing and sharing home videos.

But what’s a Windows user to do with home videos? Many resort to Web-based services for editing and storage, but these require uploading media from camera to PC and then from PC to website. Some use a Microsoft program called Windows Live Movie Maker or editing software that comes with their video camera. But many people will assume there aren’t any good options and give up on editing.

This week, I tested Adobe’s $99 (before $20 mail-in rebate) Premiere Elements 9 video editing software program. This installs on the computer via DVD or by downloading and aims to help mainstream consumers edit, organize and share videos. All past iterations of this product were only available for Windows PCs, but Premiere Elements 9 is also available for the Mac, giving Apple users an iMovie alternative.

Other new features of Premiere Elements 9 include the ability to simply import and edit video clips from Cisco’s popular Flip hand-held camcorder, as well as built-in ways to store and share videos via the Web using Adobe’s Photoshop.com site. Several editing features have been improved and some are new, like one tool that removes irksome humming in the background of your video and another that converts your footage into a cartoon in one step.

I tested Premiere Elements using videos I captured with my Nikon Coolpix P90 digital camera and Flip minoHD camcorder on a recent vacation to Argentina and Uruguay. I installed the video-editing software on both my Windows 7 PC and on my MacBook Pro, and used it to edit out the noisy background noises of an airplane in one video captured from 30,000 feet, and the sounds of a bottle-labeling machine in another video I took during a vineyard tour.

Adobe’s $99 Premiere Elements 9 video editing software program

But I found myself spending more time trying to figure out how to edit videos rather than simply editing. Editing tools are buried in several layers of menus and are poorly named. The option that turns a video clip into a cartoon is called “NewBlue Cartoonr Plus,” found in the Edit tab under Effects at the bottom of a long, scrolling list of other options.

The tool that eliminates background din is called “NewBlue Hum Remover” and is only discovered by opening Edit, Effects and an almost unnoticeable drop-down menu called Audio Effects. A spokesman for Adobe said these new features aren’t exposed differently than existing effects because that would have been confusing. But I found it aggravating to frequently hunt for features and tools.

Adobe separates Premiere Elements from an Organizer application, where all photos and videos are held. This is confusing because a Share tab in Premiere Elements offers to help you upload videos to Photoshop.com, YouTube, or Podbean (for podcast hosting), but Organizer offers additional sharing options like Facebook, SmugMug, and Flickr. If you didn’t dig around in Organizer, you’d never know these options were available.

Adobe signed me up for a Plus account, which costs $50 to renew each year or can be bought with Premiere Elements for $139 (before rebate). Adobe also sells its digital photo organizing software, Photoshop Elements 9, with Premiere Elements 9 in a $149 bundle (before rebate). The extra cost of a Plus account includes 20 gigabytes of online backup and storage—roughly four hours of DVD-quality video or 15,000 photos—versus the 2 gigabytes allotted to regular accounts.

The cartoon function is hard to find in Premiere Elements 9.

I worked on my Mac and PC, dragging video clips down into what Adobe calls a Sceneline (a timeline is also viewable), which shows still clips of each video and lets you drag effects on to those clips to put them into action. For example, I dragged the Old Film effect on to a video clip of tango dancers at a Buenos Aires street market and the footage suddenly looked like an old black and white movie.

I often used Smart Trim Mode, a feature that was added in the last version of Premiere Elements and automatically analyzes footage to suggest what could be trimmed due to blurriness, shaky footage, low contrast or brightness.

Another helpful feature called Smart Tags automatically sorted my still photos and videos into several categories like One Face, Two Faces, Small Group, High Quality, Low Volume, Dialog and Shaky. I selected Dialog and High Quality and instantly found two video clips that I wanted, without scrolling through my library.

Adobe Premiere Elements produces good-looking stuff, even without the extra upgrade cost for a Plus account. But new users should expect to take some time to learn the system and read through directions. If Adobe cleaned up its long, scrolling lists and gave its editing tools more mainstream names, people would feel more comfortable using it.

Email Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101026/video-editing-made-easier/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101025/amazon-selling-so-many-kindles-it-cant-count-them/ http://allthingsd.com/20101025/amazon-selling-so-many-kindles-it-cant-count-them/#comments Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:25:38 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=25034 Right? Maybe that’s the reason Amazon doesn’t release sales numbers for its e-reader line–it literally has no idea how many it sold?

Oh. No. That can’t be it, either: Here’s another Amazon press release, which tallies up Kindle sales without actually telling you how many Kindles Amazon has sold.

As usual, Amazon presents a comparison instead of a count: The company says it has moved more third-gen Kindles, which went on sale in August, than its total of older models for the last three months of 2009. Pause. Does the apples-to-pears nature of this one throw you for a loop? Me too.

And another data point: Amazon is now selling more Kindle titles than hardcover and paperback books. That’s a new wrinkle on an old bragging point: In the past, Amazon said that it had sold more Kindle titles than hardcovers.

Not surprisingly, Amazon doesn’t mention the impact of  the iPad on its e-book sales, but it’s likely substantial, since iPad owners can read Kindle titles on Apple’s tablet.

Want to read about Kindle sales from a source other than Amazon? No problem. Here’s a discussion of J.P. Morgan’s report on the e-book boom, and one from Citi about the impact of the Kindle on Amazon’s P&L; Mark Mahaney thinks the Kindle will account for seven percent of the company’s revenue this year.

New Generation Kindle Device Sales Already Surpass Fourth Quarter 2009 – The Peak Holiday Shopping Season and Busiest Time of Year on Amazon

Amazon.com Customers Now Buying More Bestsellers on Kindle Than Paperbacks and Hardcovers Combined—At a Rate of 2 to 1

SEATTLE—October 25, 2010—(NASDAQ: AMZN)—The new generation Kindle devices are the fastest-selling Kindles of all time and the bestselling products on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.  Today, Amazon.com announced that sales of the new generation Kindle devices since their introduction have already surpassed total Kindle device sales from October through December 2009.

“It’s still October and we’ve already sold more Kindle devices since launch than we did during the entire fourth quarter of last year—astonishing because the fourth quarter is the busiest time of year on Amazon,” said Steve Kessel, Senior Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “Readers continue to choose Kindle for its all-new electronic ink screen with 50 percent higher contrast, readability in bright sunlight, long battery life of up to one month, light 8.5 ounce form, flexibility to read their books across all major LCD devices and platforms, and low $139 price.  It’s clear that this is going to be the biggest holiday for Kindle yet—by far.”

In addition, Kindle book unit sales continue to overtake print on Amazon.com, even while print book sales continue to grow.  During the past 30 days, Amazon.com customers purchased more Kindle books than print books—hardcover and paperback combined—for the top 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 bestselling books on Amazon.com.

“For the top 10 bestselling books on Amazon.com, customers are choosing Kindle books over hardcover and paperback books combined at a rate of greater than 2 to 1.  Kindle books are also outselling print books for the top 25, 100, and 1,000 bestsellers—it’s across the board,” said Kessel.  “This is remarkable when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover and paperback books for 15 years, and Kindle books for just 36 months.”

Other recent milestones for Kindle include:

• In the 12 weeks following the introduction of the new generation Kindles, Kindle devices or Kindle-related items such as Kindle books and covers represented 15 of the top 15 bestselling items on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined.

• Amazon sold more than 3 times as many Kindle books in the first nine months of 2010 as in the first nine months of 2009.

• The Association of American Publishers’ latest data reports that e-book sales grew 193 percent between January and August 2010. Kindle book sales growth during the same period exceeded this rate.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101025/amazon-selling-so-many-kindles-it-cant-count-them/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20101020/microsofts-new-windows-phone-7-novel-but-lacking/ http://allthingsd.com/20101020/microsofts-new-windows-phone-7-novel-but-lacking/#comments Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:03:42 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1579 Nearly four years after Apple unveiled the iPhone, and more than two years after Google introduced its first Android smartphone, Microsoft is launching its effort to catch up. On Nov. 8, AT&T and T-Mobile will begin selling the first phones powered by the software maker’s new Windows Phone 7 operating system.

I’ve been testing two of these initial Windows Phone 7 phones, the Samsung Focus from AT&T and the HTC HD7 from T-Mobile; each will cost $200. Both are slender phones with large screens and virtual keyboards, though the Samsung is thinner and lighter than the HTC.

Microsoft has imposed tight requirements on the new Windows Phone 7 phones—including fast processors, decent screens and adequate memory. However, in my testing this time, I didn’t focus on the hardware. Instead, I bored in on the new Microsoft operating system, set to show up on nine phones this year, including some with physical keyboards.

My conclusion is that Microsoft has used its years in the smartphone wilderness to come up with a user interface that is novel and attractive, that stands out from the Apple and Google approaches, and that works pretty well. Instead of multiple screens filled with small app icons, or the occasional widget, Windows phones use large, dynamic tiles that can give you certain information, like your next appointment, at a glance. And it has special “hubs” for things like contacts and entertainment that use bold, attractive interfaces and offer personalized, updating information.

The Samsung Focus’s large touch tiles

However, despite having all that time to study its rivals, Microsoft has inexplicably omitted from Windows Phone 7 key features now common, or becoming so, on competitive phones. These missing features include copy and paste, visual voicemail, multitasking of third-party apps, and the ability to do video calling and to use the phone to connect other devices to the Internet. The Android phones and the iPhone handle all these things today.

Plus, because it has waited so long to enter the super-smartphone market, Microsoft is starting way behind in the all-important category of available third-party apps. At launch next month, the company hopes to have about 1,000 apps available for the Windows Phone 7 platform, compared with nearly 100,000 for Android phones and around 300,000 for the iPhone. That means Windows phones will, by definition, be less versatile than their main competitors, at least at launch.

In addition, Microsoft, unlike Apple, has ceded prominent home-screen real estate to the phone makers and carriers so they can push their own apps, like subscription-based TV and navigation services.

To be sure, Windows Phone 7 has a few advantages. These include built-in mobile versions of Microsoft Office (present for years on earlier Microsoft-powered phones) and of its popular Xbox Live gaming service, which also interacts with Xbox game consoles. There is a nice feature that allows the camera to be used quickly, even if the phone is locked. And search works particularly well, including a mode that allows you to enter search commands by voice from any screen. Phone calling also worked just fine, with few failed calls, good voice quality and easy connection to a Bluetooth device I tried.

But I couldn’t find a killer innovation that would be likely to make iPhone or Android users envious, except possibly for dedicated Xbox users. Even the built-in Office can be replicated with third-party Office-compatible apps on competing platforms; and the iPhone and Android phones also can interoperate with Microsoft’s corporate Exchange email, calendar and contact system.

So for now, I see Windows Phone 7 as mostly getting Microsoft into the game, and replacing the stale, complicated Windows Mobile system that preceded it. It will get better. The company is already working on a copy and paste system, and said it is coming early next year. But, today, I see Windows Phone 7 as inferior to iPhone and Android for most average users. It’s simply not fully baked yet.

The main feature of Windows Phone 7 is the Start screen, which takes the form of a long vertical list of tiles that can represent either an app or a hub. The phones lack multiple home screens or traditional folders for grouping apps. These tiles are dynamic: They can show things like rotating photos of friends, or how many unread emails you have.

Microsoft doesn’t intend for you to place every app or feature on the Start screen. Instead, some apps, like games, go automatically into one of the special tile hubs, which combine related functions. And all other apps pre-installed or added to your phone go into another long master list you can see by flicking aside the tile view or tapping an arrow.

It’s a clean, simple, different approach. But there is a downside. As you “pin” your favorite apps, contacts, photos or Web sites to the Start screen, the list of tiles grows longer, and you have to scroll further and further to reach some. There is no shortcut for getting back to the top of such a list, as there is on the iPhone.

The hubs have a level of social and functional integration seen on some Android phones and on Palm’s webOS operating system, now owned by Hewlett-Packard. For instance, in the People hub, you not only see your local contacts, but those synced from Facebook or Microsoft’s own Windows Live service. This hub, like the others, borrows the elegant interface from Microsoft’s failed Zune music player, so you can flick left and right to see just recent contacts or to see your friends’ status updates. But the People hub doesn’t have Twitter.

Microsoft sees this combination of tiles and hubs as a “glance and go” interface for quickly seeing important information without opening apps, as on the iPhone. But I was disappointed that more information wasn’t presented on the tiles. For instance, unlike in some Android apps and widgets I’ve used, a stock market tile and a weather tile I downloaded didn’t show on their surfaces the latest information.

The calendar, which syncs with Exchange, Windows Live, or Google, can’t sync with Yahoo or MobileMe, and lacks a week view. The email program syncs with a variety of services, but lacks a unified inbox, so you have to clutter your Start screen with separate tiles for each account.

Another downside for some users: The phones can be used in horizontal view for photos and Web pages, or for typing email, but some screens, like the Start screen and hubs, are fixed in vertical mode.

Microsoft has done a good job with the Web browser, which I found generally comparable in speed and features to the iPhone and Android browsers. But unlike on some new Android phones, it doesn’t support Adobe Flash content.

The People hub borrows the elegant interface from Microsoft’s failed Zune music player, so you can flick left and right to see just recent contacts or to see your friends’ status updates.

The built-in Office suite is very nice. It can link to Microsoft’s SharePoint corporate online document system. One of its apps, OneNote, also synced in my tests with Microsoft’s consumer-focused SkyDrive Web file-storage system. It has a nice feature that makes it easy to jump to sections of long documents, allows for making comments on files, and lets you see presentations broadcast over the Internet.

However, this new mobile Office failed to open a simple Word document I tried. Microsoft says this plain document had some hidden corruption, but it opened on an iPhone and Android, and was editable in their Quickoffice app. Microsoft says it is working on a fix.

Music, video and photos all worked well, and you can use a Zune subscription on the phone. I was easily able to sync media files with a Windows PC using a new version of the Zune software, and I also tried a pre-release version of the new Macintosh Zune software, which is more limited, but also worked properly.

The Microsoft app store, called Marketplace, worked fine, and has a nice try-before-you-buy feature for some apps.

Last but not least is the Xbox Live hub, the center for gaming. It contains games from Microsoft and other developers, and includes your avatar from the Xbox Live service. You can socialize with, and play against, others on the service. For Xbox Live fans, this is mobile heaven.

Overall, I can’t recommend Windows Phone 7 as being on a par with iPhone or Android—at least not yet. Unless you’re an Xbox Live user, or rely on Microsoft’s SharePoint corporate Web-based document system, it isn’t as good or as versatile as its rivals.

Find all of Walt’s columns and videos at walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101020/microsofts-new-windows-phone-7-novel-but-lacking/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101013/microsoft-office-2011-mac-review/ http://allthingsd.com/20101013/microsoft-office-2011-mac-review/#comments Thu, 14 Oct 2010 02:03:34 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1569 A new, faster, better version of Microsoft Office is coming out Oct. 26. But it isn’t for Microsoft’s own Windows operating system. It is for the Macintosh computers made by the software giant’s archrival, Apple. And, among other things, it will bestow upon the Mac a benefit heretofore available only on Windows: Outlook. The popular email, calendar and contacts program is finally arriving on the Mac in a version that looks and works very much like the Windows version.

The advent of a robust, full-featured Outlook for the Mac isn’t all that’s new in Office for Mac 2011, but it’s a big deal, especially for Mac users, or those wishing to switch to the Mac, who work in companies where Outlook is the standard. These folks already have been able to use the Windows version of Outlook on their machines, using special software that lets the Mac run Windows. But now, they can use a native Mac version of the program that can import data directly from Windows Outlook.

I’ve been testing this new version of Mac Office—in fact, I’m writing this column in its new edition of Word—and I like it a lot. While it isn’t an exact clone of Office for Windows, I found in my tests that each of its key components—Word, Excel and PowerPoint—has been significantly improved and made more compatible with its Windows sibling.

So, even Mac Office users who don’t use Outlook will be pleased by the changes. And, while there are some features in the Windows version still missing in the Mac edition, there are also some new Mac-only features. In general, there’s now more parity between the two.

Like the prior Mac version, Office 2008, released nearly three years ago, the new Office 2011 uses the same file formats as the Windows version. It can read and write Office files without any conversion or translation, so a document produced in, say, Word for the Mac, can be read by a user of Windows Word without the latter even knowing it was created on a Mac—and vice versa.

Unlike the 2008 version, the new Mac Office can seamlessly interact with Microsoft’s new stripped-down, free, online version of Office, called Office Web Apps. And it can save to, and open documents from, Microsoft’s free online SkyDrive file repository, or its SharePoint online service for businesses.

The first thing Mac Office users will notice about the new 2011 version is its speed. While the 2008 version was faster than its predecessors, this latest version is dramatically snappier. In my tests, all the components launched much, much faster than their 2008 counterparts, and opened even large documents much more quickly.

A new full screen view in Word shows just a single line of minimal tools.

High Fidelity

Another big plus is fidelity with Windows documents. Because the Windows and Mac operating systems are different, fidelity isn’t perfect, but, in my tests, it was much better in this new version. For instance, some fancy Word layouts and font treatments created in Windows that formerly looked wrong when opened on a Mac now look the same. This is especially noticeable in Excel, where charts and layouts on complex spreadsheets sometimes didn’t carry over. In my tests, I found that many of these incompatibles have been banished.

These fidelity improvements, however, are much better with documents created in the latest Windows version, called Office 2010, and are weaker with those created in older Windows versions. Also, the new Mac version has restored the same macro system present in the Windows version, so automated actions created by power users and companies in Windows documents can now be used in the Mac version.

There still are some things the Windows version does that the Mac version doesn’t. These include pivot charts in Excel, full video editing in PowerPoint, and the new “backstage” feature that presents printing and other options in a large, easier-to-use mode. But there also are some Mac-only features, including the ability to dynamically reorder PowerPoint slides in a 3-D view, plus a new Full Screen view in Word that allows reading and editing documents with no toolbars, or with just a single line of minimal tools.

The radically different Ribbon toolbar that appeared in Windows Office several years ago—a series of tabs organized by function—is also in this new Mac version. But, unlike in the Windows version, the new Mac Office retains the familiar menus and toolbar icons, and the Ribbon can be turned off completely, except in Outlook. However, unlike in the latest Windows version, you can’t add custom tabs to the Ribbon.

Outlook replaces a Microsoft (MSFT) email, contacts and calendar program in Mac Office called Entourage, which itself succeeded an old, very limited version of Outlook for the Mac produced years ago. Many users found Entourage clunky and complicated, and it couldn’t directly import data from Outlook on Windows.

Microsoft strove hard to make the new Outlook look and work like the one on Windows. There still are some Windows Outlook features the Mac version lacks, such as side-by-side calendars and task status reports, but, overall, I found it worked well.

Microsoft strove hard to make the new Outlook look and work very much like the one on Windows.

The Sync Situation

I was able to import a nearly 3-gigabyte Windows Outlook data file with no problems. And I was able to easily and perfectly import all my messages and settings from Apple’s own built-in Mail program and to sync with Apple’s (AAPL) built-in Mac address book. But Microsoft is still working on syncing with Apple’s iCal calendar program, and the Outlook calendar can’t sync with Google Calendar. Also, while the new Mac Outlook can import Windows Outlook data, it can’t export its data to Windows yet. Microsoft says it is also working on that.

In general, Outlook on the Mac proved fast and capable in my tests. It doesn’t work exactly like its Windows counterpart, but Windows users will find it very similar. And it has some Mac-specific features. For instance, its contents can be easily searched by the Mac’s built-in universal search feature, Spotlight, and can be backed up by the Mac’s Time Machine backup system.

Office for Mac 2011 will be available in two versions for average consumers: a $199 Home and Business edition, and a Home and Student version, which costs $119, but lacks Outlook, whereas Entourage was included in the $149 similarly named 2008 package. Prices on both new editions are higher if you want to install them on multiple machines. There is also a $99 special academic edition, mostly aimed at college stores, that includes Outlook, but has no option for multiple installations.

Microsoft’s new Mac Office is by far the best Mac version of the suite I’ve used, and I can recommend it.

Find Walt’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101013/microsoft-office-2011-mac-review/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101012/facetime-apples-killer-app/ http://allthingsd.com/20101012/facetime-apples-killer-app/#comments Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:10:18 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=50632 Apple’s FaceTime didn’t launch as a killer app, but it may end up as one as the company broadens its distribution and floods the market with more devices supporting it. And, according to Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes, Apple is well on its way to achieving exactly that.

Don’t underestimate FaceTime, Reitzes said in a note to clients today that suggests we’re at the beginnings of a FaceTime networking effect that will goose sales across many of Apple’s product lines, particularly if Apple (AAPL) adds support for the video conferencing feature to iPads and Macs, which seems likely.

“We envision a world eventually where all major Apple devices incorporate FaceTime, including Macs, iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads,” Reitzes writes. “While Android and competitive devices either have or are working toward incorporating a similar feature, we believe this particular feature benefits from Apple’s vertically integrated model…. We believe the ‘FaceTime networking effect’ could provide a halo effect on Macs and iPads once the feature becomes available. Note that FaceTime is an ‘open standard’ so if Apple is successful in making this feature ubiquitous, more non-Apple devices could be made compatible in the future.”

Running with that thesis a bit further, Reitzes figures Apple will have sold some 63 million FaceTime devices by the end of fiscal 2011–40 million FaceTime-compatible iPhones, 15 million FaceTime-compatible iPods, and 8 million FaceTime-compatible iPads. And he says that number will more than double the following year.

“[In fiscal 2012 we see] an installed base of over 150 million FaceTime enabled devices, which could prove conservative if FaceTime is put in all iPads and all Macs,” Reitzes concludes. “Given Apple’s high share among college students, it would seem like it could basically get to a point where an entire campus could communicate using FaceTime in some way on a device if desired. While we believe the Android platform can do a good job with this type of feature, it seems that Apple has the complete package to make FaceTime grow into a multiplier for its device sales through vertical integration.”

[Image credit: FacePlant]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101012/facetime-apples-killer-app/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101012/ipad-hits-wal-mart-friday/ http://allthingsd.com/20101012/ipad-hits-wal-mart-friday/#comments Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:00:37 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=50593 With the holiday shopping season nearly upon us, Wal-Mart (WMT) is gearing up to sell the iPad. The big box retailer says Apple’s tablet will go on sale at hundreds of its stores on Friday, October 15, reaching all 2,300 by November. That’s some serious retail visibility–not that the iPad needs it. With the device already being sold at Best Buy and Target (TGT), as well as in Apple’s own retail stores, this holiday season is likely to be a very, very good one for the iPad.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101012/ipad-hits-wal-mart-friday/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101006/ford-drives-digital-dashboards-to-next-level/ http://allthingsd.com/20101006/ford-drives-digital-dashboards-to-next-level/#comments Thu, 07 Oct 2010 01:03:22 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1558 Americans spend vast amounts of time in their cars, where many feel cut off from the digital world. Using a cellphone or digital music player, even in a legal manner, can be clumsy. And a car’s user interface for non-driving functions can seem ancient compared with how other devices are controlled outside the vehicle.

So, auto makers have been trying to bring some of the feel of computers and consumer electronics to the dashboard, making it easier to use phones and music players in a safe way, through big screens and voice-command systems that allow the use of these devices without handling or seeing them. Ford placed a large bet on this trend in 2007 with a system called Sync, which I liked when I reviewed it then.

Now, Ford (F) is taking another big step, introducing a second generation of Sync that aims to redesign the entire user interface of the dashboard with color-coded touch screens, better voice recognition and five-way control pads on the steering wheel. This new system redefines the way you control in-car entertainment and climate settings; permits personalization of things like instrument-cluster gauges; and even lets you set up a Wi-Fi network in the car.

I’ve been testing the new Ford system, called MyFord Touch, for a couple of weeks on a 2011 Ford Edge Limited SUV, one of the first two models on which it is being offered. (The other is the Lincoln MKX, with a MyLincoln Touch system.) The Edge starts at $27,000, but the configuration I tested, on which the new interface is standard, lists for $36,000. On other versions of the Edge, MyFord Touch is available as part of a $1,000 option package.

MyFord Touch’s 8-inch touch screen, with function icons in the corners that switch the screen among four main functions: multisource audio entertainment, navigation, phone and climate control.

In general, I liked MyFord Touch, once I got used to it and configured its settings and its connection to phones and music players. The layout of most of the displays is clear and logical, and the voice-command system is still the best I’ve ever used in a car.

But Ford’s new user interface has so many options and functions that I believe it presents a challenging learning curve. Learning the new system can be distracting while driving, at least at first—even though Ford disables some functions while the car is in motion and even though voice commands are easy and plentiful, allowing you to keep your eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

I urge caution, because this a very different dashboard than you may be used to. I only had the car for a short time, and put very few miles on it, so I can’t say how quickly the new features can become second nature and nondistracting. But anyone buying a car with MyFord Touch should always set up and configure it while parked, use voice commands whenever possible and avoid experimenting with new features and functions while driving. My advice is to learn these in the driveway, gradually.

Instead of the usual array of knobs, dials and passive screens, MyFord Touch is dominated by a giant 8-inch touch screen, with large function icons in the center and color-coded corners that you touch to switch the screen among four main functions: multisource audio entertainment, navigation, phone and climate control. There is also a “home” view, combining common functions that can be personalized.

The system also has several other elements. There are twin 4-inch screens on either side of the speedometer. The one on the left presents vehicle information, such as miles traveled, and allows you to customize some of the gauges so that, for instance, you can finally banish that tachometer you never use in favor of, say, a digital readout on gas-mileage efficiency. The one on the right replicates, in simpler form, the main functions of the center screen, so you can select and check things like audio and climate control without looking at, or touching, the main screen.

These smaller screens are controlled by five-way arrow clusters on the steering wheel, like controllers on iPods and other devices usable by touch alone. There also are some large, touch-sensitive buttons below the main center screen for things like setting volume and fan speed.

Finally, most, but not all, of these functions can be controlled by tens of thousands of available voice commands. And many of these commands can now be spoken without prefacing them with special terms. For instance, you can dial a contact by saying her name at any time, even if you’re not in the phone module on the screen, and even if you don’t first say “phone.”

This voice system worked very well for me, and is the crucial element of reducing distraction. But it wasn’t perfect. For instance, it had trouble with some names in my contact list with multiple entries, and with some streets in the navigation system.

Ford believes the combination of the touch screen, the instrument cluster screens and controls, and the voice commands provides a redundancy and ease of use that should allow both a familiar digital experience and safe driving. Of course, some believe doing anything but driving, no matter how those tasks are performed, is dangerous.

I tested MyFord Touch with an iPhone and an Android phone, which I connected wirelessly; and a standard iPod, which I connected via one of the two USB ports built into the car. I also tested a USB flash drive containing music and a couple of photos, since you can add a personal photo to one of the available views on the big screen. In addition, I tried a USB cellular modem lent me by Ford that creates a Wi-Fi network in the car, presumably only for the use of passengers with laptops and other devices.

All of these devices worked pretty well, but not without issues. The car easily recognized and used both phones for calling, and the iPod generally worked fine. But Bluetooth streaming of music from the phones, which is still an evolving industry feature, periodically failed and never displayed song or artist names. On the physically connected iPod, some album covers didn’t display.

At the moment, only one USB modem, an AT&T (T) model, works with MyFord Touch, and setting it up proved complicated. My general view is that, while operating the touch screen’s main functions is easy, the various setup and option menus are too complex.

The new Ford system can read text messages to you and let you send a limited number of canned responses—the idea being to make texting in a car somewhat safer. But I couldn’t try this as neither of my test phones supported this function.

Ford also has announced that the new system will support some third-party apps, like the Pandora music service, and will eventually have a Web browser for the big screen that would only work when the car is parked. But neither of these features is available yet.

For those who believe doing anything but driving in a car is dangerous, no amount of touch screens, voice commands or redundancy will do. But, for people who would like to enjoy some of their digital lifestyle in a car, MyFord Touch is worth checking out—as long as you take it slowly.

Write to Walt Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101006/ford-drives-digital-dashboards-to-next-level/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100915/finding-the-best-way-to-read-books-on-an-ipad/ http://allthingsd.com/20100915/finding-the-best-way-to-read-books-on-an-ipad/#comments Thu, 16 Sep 2010 01:04:42 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1525 Though it’s just five months old, Apple’s iPad is a certifiable hit, having already sold millions of units and spawning tens of thousands of apps tailored for its 10-inch screen. The tablet has prompted many of its owners to use it instead of their laptops for everything from email and social networking to games and Web surfing.

It’s also a very good e-reader, in my view.

Unlike dedicated e-reader devices like Amazon’s Kindle, the iPad offers a wide selection of e-reading apps, and I have used several of them heavily to devour scores of books. In particular, I have spent the past few weeks testing the best known of these iPad e-reader apps, comparing their strengths and weaknesses.

My verdict is that none of the three apps I focused on—which mimic and often interact with dedicated e-readers like the Kindle device—towers over the others. Each has its good and bad points, and I personally switch among them.

First, let me note that this isn’t a comparison of the iPad and the dedicated e-readers. It is about software readers on the iPad itself. Some folks will prefer the focused e-reader hardware, such as Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s (SNE) Reader and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The latter devices cost much less—the base Kindle is now $139 versus the iPad’s $499 starting price. They also have longer battery life and are much lighter. But others—including me—prefer the iPad’s big, bright, backlit color screen to the smaller, gray screens of the dedicated e-readers, and the fact that they can pause periodically in their reading to do so many other things on the iPad without reaching for a laptop.

For this review, I compared Apple’s own fledgling e-reader software and store, called iBooks; Amazon’s Kindle iPad app; and the newly revamped Barnes & Noble iPad app, called Nook.

Overall, they are more similar than different. Each is free and operates much like the pioneering Kindle device, offering access to an online library of books you already own and an online store to buy more. Each remembers where you left off in your books, and includes built-in search, dictionaries and the ability to enter notes and to highlight text. All also offer the option to search for more information on terms in your books, using Google or Wikipedia.

Apple’s iBooks app visually is the slickest of the three. Its library screen looks like a wooden bookcase, and when you turn a page, it curves like a paper page and even shows the text on the other side bleeding through. When you hold the iPad horizontally, iBooks switches to a two-page view with a rounded rise in the middle, like a paper book’s binding. The iBooks app is the only one of the three to offer a built-in bookstore, while the Amazon (AMZN) and Nook apps require you to jump into the Web browser on the iPad to shop. This is because Apple charges third-party app developers 30% to make in-app purchases, a price Amazon and Barnes & Noble (BKS) prefer not to pay. This may be an unfair advantage for Apple, but it’s convenient for users.

The iBooks app also can handle personal PDF files, synced to the app via iTunes on your computer. Neither of the other two apps offer PDFs on the iPad, though Amazon and Barnes & Noble say they’re working on it. Also, Apple (AAPL) has harnessed the iPad’s accessibility features to allow its e-books to be read aloud, something I couldn’t make happen in the other two apps.

But iBooks has some big downsides. The most important is that, being only five months old, it has a smaller catalog than its rivals—just 130,000 titles, versus around 700,000 for the Kindle app and about one million for the Nook app. For instance, the popular Swedish mystery series by Stieg Larsson is absent from the iBooks catalog. And iBooks doesn’t offer any periodicals.

Amazon’s Kindle app has the biggest catalog of commercial, copyrighted, in-print books—about 655,000 titles. The Nook catalog of a million books is larger overall, but about half consists of out-of-print books. The Kindle app also instantly displays the dictionary definition of any word you highlight. The others require you to press a dictionary icon to look up a word. And, like iBooks, it was fast at opening books.

The Kindle app also lets you see popular highlighted passages selected by other users, and it synchronizes the last page read, your bookmarks and notes with the Kindle hardware reader and Kindle apps on Windows PCs, Macs, and BlackBerry and Android devices. iBooks only syncs these things to the iBooks app on other Apple hand-held devices, the iPhone and iPod Touch. The Kindle app also can be set to turn pages with the same curved effect as iBooks (but without the text-bleeding effect) and it has a two-page view in horizontal mode.

The Kindle app also lacks periodicals, though Amazon says it’s working on this. And the Kindle app, like the Kindle hardware, doesn’t use real page numbers, relying on confusing “location” numbers. The others use page numbers. Also, some books appeared in the Kindle app in scanned, hard to read typefaces, while the same books on the others appeared in more readable type.

The Nook iPad app, like the Nook hardware device, has a big plus: It lets you lend and borrow some titles to and from other Nook users for two weeks. It’s also the only one of the three to offer periodicals, though not all are available. For instance, The Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe can’t be downloaded, though the New York Times can.

The Nook also offers more visual effects than the others, including color themes for background and text colors. Also, like the Kindle app, it syncs with Nook apps on numerous other devices, though, curiously, not yet with the Nook hardware device.

But I found more limitations and flaws in the Nook app’s basic book functions. For many words, the app lacked dictionary entries the others had, and books loaded more slowly. Also, one book I downloaded on the Nook app had the first few pages missing and another turned out to be a different book from its title. Also, its horizontal view didn’t work for all the titles I tested.

In my tests, book prices seemed roughly similar on all three apps, though some books may cost less on one or another. For instance, Jonathan Franzen’s new book “Freedom,” is $12.99 on each; David McCullough’s classic “1776″ costs $13.99 on each; and Laurie King’s “The Beekeeper’s Apprentice” is $9.99 on all three. Amazon says 574,000 of its 700,000 e-books are $9.99 or less. Barnes & Noble says the “vast majority” of its commercial e-books are $9.99 or less. And Apple says 75% of its paid books are $9.99 or less and 25% of its paid books are less than $4.99.

Overall, each of the three iPad apps makes the device a fine way to read e-books. Multiple apps and stores—including many not covered here—allow choices absent from dedicated reading devices.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

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