AllThingsD » touch screen

The iPad Now Can Take Command of Computers

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:03:08 +0000

It has long been possible to control one PC or Mac from another, legally and with permission. Though the process can be tricky to set up, companies often use it as a maintenance and training tool, and some consumers use it to help others solve computer problems, or to reach back to their home or office machines while on the road to access information.

But what about remotely controlling a PC or Mac from the newest category of digital device, a multitouch tablet? Well, it turns out there are apps for that.

[ See post to watch video ]

Such apps have been around on super-smart phones like the iPhone for years, but phone screens are so small that using them to open and operate programs and folders on a Mac or PC is very frustrating, at least to me. The iPad, with its roomy 10-inch screen, is a different story. It actually has the real estate to make the process much more practical.

I’ve been testing a couple of these apps on my iPad, using them to remotely control Windows PCs and Macs at my home and office. In fact, I’m typing this paragraph in Microsoft Word on a Mac remotely from the iPad.

My conclusion is that these apps do work, but even on the large iPad screen, they’re too clumsy and confusing to use on a regular basis, mostly because touch-screen tablets aren’t a great match for the way traditional computers—designed for a mouse and a physical keyboard—work. Also, the apps have some functional limitations, and they are heavily dependent on the speed of the network or Internet connection, which can make them slow at demanding things like video.

A view of a Windows PC on an iPad via LogMeIn Ignition.

For my tests, I selected two apps squarely aimed at average consumers. One is called LogMeIn Ignition, and is the iPad and iPhone incarnation of a longstanding computer-to-computer remote-control product called LogMeIn. The other is called iTeleport. It has been around, under various names, since the early days of the iPhone, and now comes in an iPad edition as well.

Both apps get around the complexity of setup by installing a special free program on the computer you wish to control that talks to the iPad app. The apps can see and control all the computers on which you have installed companion programs. I found setup easy and the connections generally reliable and fast enough, except for video.

But the big drawback to these products is that they are clumsy in controlling the target computer. Each allows two basic methods for this. In one, your finger moves the computer’s mouse cursor and you click the virtual mouse by tapping. In the other, you can directly tap on things on the remote screen. In my view, LogMeIn was better at the first method and iTeleport was better at the second. But I found both clumsy and tedious in both programs, especially when I tried to combine controlling the remote computer with the frequent need to use touch to move the image of the screen around the iPad’s display.

LogMeIn Ignition costs a one-time fee of $29.99. The iTeleport app can be used free for 30 days, after which it costs either $2.99 a month or a $24.99 one-time fee. For the next seven days, iTeleport is running a sale that cuts the price to $1 a month, or $10 for the one-time fee.

Both apps can control multiple Windows or Mac computers, at no extra cost. For my tests, I used each to remotely access the same two Windows PCs and two Macs, both desktops and laptops. One limitation: neither app allows you to transfer a file from a computer to the iPad.

While there are some differences between the products, they are fundamentally similar. Once you log in, you see the remote computer’s screen on your iPad screen. In my tests, with both products, I was able to open Web pages, check email, view photos and use productivity apps. I also was able to print documents from the computers on my home printer, even while I was miles away.

In both apps, you pinch and zoom to enlarge or reduce the view of the target computer screen, and can rotate the image of the screen.

The iPad can’t play Flash videos, but these apps allow you to view such videos from your PC or Mac on the iPad. But there are catches. For one thing, neither program lets you hear audio from the computer through the iPad, so the videos (and music you play remotely) are mute. Also, in my tests, even over a fast connection, I could never get a video from the remote computer to play smoothly over either app.

LogMeIn also offers a version for Android, unlike iTeleport, and that allows audio to be transmitted. I tested this on a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and it worked.

One big difference is in the level of security or privacy the two apps offer. Both encrypt the remote connection, but LogMeIn requires you to sign in twice: once to its own service and once to the computer itself. iTeleport skips the computer login, so it feels less secure. In addition, iTeleport outsources its authentication to Google. You sign into the product using your Google credentials. This is simpler, but requires you to trust Google with the privacy of the contents of your computer.

Each program has special keyboards and shortcuts to add things to the iPad that computers use but the tablet lacks, such as function keys. Each also has various gestures you can use as shortcuts. But the overall effect is confusing.

Bottom line: You can control a PC or a Mac from an iPad, without any complex setup, using these two apps. But, unless you spend a lot of time learning to get good at it, the process is clunky and best used only when you absolutely must.

Find all Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com.

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

Screen Industry Success Is a Touching Story

John Paczkowski — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:37:37 +0000

Here’s a truism: 2010 was a banner year for the touchscreen industry.

Driven by the steady proliferation of multitouch smartphones and tablets–one in particular–the worldwide touchscreen industry will probably see 30 percent year-over-year growth in 2010 by the time the year is over. So says NPD DisplaySearch, which figures suppliers shipped 6.3 million tablet/mini-note touchscreens in the first half of 2010 and more than 20 million in the second half. Quite the upward trend and one that we’ll almost certainly see continue next year as the iPad juggernaut rolls on, more Android tablets arrive at market and consumer and enterprise demand for all of them grows. Wintek and TPK Touch Solutions have a lot to look forward to next year.

A Device Does Everything But Sing

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 23:02:13 +0000

Just when you think you can’t fit anything else into an all-in-one device that already prints, copies, scans, and faxes, HP ups the ante. The HP Photosmart eStation e-All-in-One performs all those tasks and includes a seven-inch, touch-screen tablet computer that doubles as a display when snapped onto the printer. This tablet lets users do things like check email, Facebook or weather, but I can’t imagine using it much as a stand-alone tablet, at least in its current version. And people who just want basic printer functions may grow tired of the tablet’s extra features.

Over the years, printers have progressively shifted from PC accessories to devices that can work independent of PCs. They started small, as dedicated 4×6 printers that had built-in memory-card readers and used basic photo-editing capabilities, and have matured into models like last year’s HP Photosmart Premium All-in-One with Touch-Smart Web that offered apps for printable things like maps, coloring book pages and recipes.

[ See post to watch video ]

The $400 HP e-All-in-One (http://3.ly/DP8b) takes this concept a step further by enabling even more independence from the PC because its tablet—named the Zeen—is more robust and can browse the Web, check email in a dedicated email program and run a limited selection of apps. It also works as a stand-alone tablet when detached from the e-All-in-One, though it only connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi rather than a cellular connection. It runs on the Android 2.1 operating system, but can only access certain apps rather than any app in the Android Market.

Perhaps an even more important new feature is that this all-in-one will print anything emailed to it from any device connected to the Internet, thanks to ePrint, a cloud-based printing system. This system assigns an email address to the e-All-in-One during its set-up and almost anything sent to that email address will print out, including attachments, no matter where the email is coming from.

One catch is that you must only send the document to the e-All-in-One’s email address and can’t CC anyone else or add another address to the “to” line of the email. A spokesman for HP said that this is done to prevent spam print-outs because batches sent to several people won’t print.

HP also has an exclusive relationship with products running Apple’s latest iOS 4.2 operating system for hand-held devices. Apple’s iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches now have a built-in feature called AirPrint which allows them to print anything directly to HP’s new ePrint printers as long as these devices and the printer are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. I tested this several times using an iPhone and it worked, printing Web pages, emails and photos. I liked the ease of using ePrint and AirPrint. Printouts looked sharp and printed quickly.

But I found the concept behind the e-All-in-One’s detachable tablet screen to be both alluring and confusing. It’s great to be able to do more with the printer’s touch screen and apps—but you don’t want to stand at a desk looking down at this screen, so it makes sense that the tablet is detachable. On the other hand, tablets often work in place of printed paper. I use my iPad for things like finding a recipe online, standing the iPad on my kitchen counter and cooking from that on-screen recipe. If I used the eStation All-in-One like that, I would ultimately print less often, which seems to defeat the purpose of having this big thing in your home. The HP eStation All-in-One measures about 18 inches wide and about 14 inches deep.

HP’s Zeen tablet can be detached from the e-station, but its uses as a stand-alone are questionable.

In order to save energy, the eStation All-in-One goes to sleep when it hasn’t been used for 15 minutes. This is a fine idea for environmental reasons, but in sleep mode, it also turns off its connection to the local Wi-Fi network. This means that if documents are emailed to its assigned address it may not print if it’s not awake and online. An HP spokesman said the company recently issued a fix for this problem that wakes up the printer when something is sent to it, but not all printers have been updated.

The Zeen tablet’s battery recharges every time it’s docked in the eStation All-in-One’s base, and HP estimates that its battery life is around four to six hours with Wi-Fi turned on. Hard buttons for volume and power are hidden on the Zeen’s back edge, as are speakers. A spokesman for HP said that eStation All-in-Ones will be updated early next year to run Android 2.2, which is faster and plays Flash videos.

The Zeen’s four gigabytes of internal memory hold roughly 100 apps, 35 of which come pre-loaded on the tablet. These include apps for MapQuest, Disney, Facebook and the Barnes and Noble bookstore, from which digital books, magazines and newspapers can be purchased and downloaded. Photos, videos, music and other files must be stored on an SD card in the Zeen’s SD card slot.

All documents sent to the e-All-in-One using HP’s ePrint can be seen online at hp.com/go/ePrintCenter as long as users register their printer and set up an account, which I did in about two minutes. Here, too, users can add or remove apps from their printer. I preferred adding and removing apps directly from my Zeen tablet’s screen, but it takes some digging to find the Add More icon for adding apps. Over a dozen HP products support ePrint; they range from $100 to $450.

The concept of ePrint is a smart one, but the printer’s tendency to go into sleep mode to save energy is a problem. I like that the Zeen tablet detaches from the e-All-in-One, but its functionality as a tablet with limited apps and capabilities isn’t very sensible.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Digital Cameras Improve Zooms, HD Function

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:26:27 +0000

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.

[ See post to watch video ]

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

T-Mobile's HD2 Has Great Screen, Weak Software

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:03:02 +0000

For all the buzz about tablet computers, the hottest category among small digital devices remains the super-smartphones, those pocket-size, touch-screen computers for running apps.

Apple this week reported strong sales of its iPhone. New phones running Google’s Android software platform seem to appear almost monthly and reportedly sell briskly. As these phones have added capabilities, some have gained larger screens. While Apple has stuck with a screen that’s 3.5 inches diagonally, some Android phones sport 3.7-inch screens. Now there is a competitor with a truly huge screen—4.3 inches. It’s the HD2 from Taiwan-based HTC, and it is being sold by T-Mobile in the U.S. for $199 with a two-year contract.

[ See post to watch video ]

T-Mobile boasts that the HD2′s screen is the biggest on a U.S. smartphone. But how big is too big for a device that is meant to be toted in a pocket or purse? How valuable is a large screen compared with well-designed software?

To find out, I’ve been testing the HD2. My verdict is that, despite the larger dimensions required by its giant screen, the HD2′s hardware is attractive and unlikely to put off people who have already crossed over to bigger devices, like the BlackBerry or iPhone.

However, I found the HD2 to be significantly inferior overall to touch-screen rivals from Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG), mainly because of its software, based on the aging mobile Windows platform from Microsoft (MSFT). While HTC has added its own software overlay to dress up the design, I still found using the HD2 to be too often a chore. It looks cluttered, a patchwork of different interfaces. And, in my tests, it was prone to error messages and even freezing. Also, despite a fast processor, the software responded sluggishly too much of the time.

Another important downside for prospective HD2 buyers is that the Microsoft software version on which it is based can be viewed as a dead end. The software giant is producing an entirely new mobile-software platform, Windows Phone 7, due late this year.

The HD2 supersmartphone

HTC says the HD2 won’t be upgradable to the new Microsoft platform, nor will it run the new generation of third-party apps Microsoft hopes to attract. The HD2 has access to only about 1,200 third-party apps, versus 185,000 for iPhone and over 30,000 for Android.

The HD2 is both wider and taller than the iPhone and the flagship Android phone, Google’s Nexus One. But it is actually a tad thinner than either of those. The bigger difference is weight. While the iPhone and the Nexus One tip the scales at under 5 ounces, the HD2 weighs substantially more—5.54 ounces.

Despite the larger footprint and weight, I didn’t find the HD2 clumsy to carry in a pocket or odd to hold up to my ear. The screen isn’t only large, but vivid and pleasing. Videos and photos look beautiful on it.

T-Mobile has bundled some nice apps with the HD2 and placed them on the home screen. These include the Barnes & Noble e-book reader, the Blockbuster video download service, and a trial of the MobiTV live TV app. After some false tries and error messages, I was able to rent and watch a movie from Blockbuster (BBI), watch TV and buy a couple of books from Barnes & Noble (BKS). I also could sync photos, music and videos from my own PC and Mac.

The camera, which takes photos and videos, has a 5-megapixel resolution and a flash, and took better pictures than my iPhone does. Phone calls were crisp and clear, the 3G-cellular connectivity was fast, and the built-in Wi-Fi worked fine. Memory is generous for the price, at 16 gigabytes on a removable card, plus another gigabyte internally.

But my problem with the HD2 is mainly its software and user interface. Unlike on Android phones and the iPhone, there is only one home screen available for app icons, and much of it is taken up with a huge clock widget that can’t be removed. That leaves only nine icon slots to fill with your favorite apps or functions, compared with scores on competing phones.

To help make up for this, there is a band of smaller icons along the bottom of the screen, which offers limited customization. But the combination was a confusing jumble, to my eye. In addition, I found the touch functionality was often sluggish and halting. It frequently took hard presses to activate icons on the screen. And twice, while simply dialing a phone call, the device froze on me. I have occasionally had similar bad experiences on rival phones, and T-Mobile says these problems aren’t typical. But the glitches occurred too often for my taste on the HD2.

So, my bottom line is that the HD2 might be fine for folks who value the large screen above all. But, for everyone else, I’d look elsewhere.

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

An iPad Review Roundup

John Paczkowski — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 01:31:54 +0000

A handful of iPad reviews published online moments ago and they’re largely positive–with some expected caveats about its lack of a camera and support for Flash and multitasking. Consensus seems to be that Apple (AAPL) has a great shot at creating a new category of device with the iPad.

Interestingly, a number of reviews make special mention of its speed (Walt Mossberg describes it as “wicked fast”), a battery life that exceeds Apple’s claims (David Pogue says the battery on his review device lasted 12 hours on a single charge–two hours more than Apple promised), and Apple’s hopes for 1,000 specially designed iPad apps to be available by launch this Saturday.

Below, excerpts from eight of those early reviews.

I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop. It could even help, eventually, to propel the finger-driven, multitouch user interface ahead of the mouse-driven interface that has prevailed for decades. But first, it will have to prove that it really can replace the laptop or netbook for enough common tasks, enough of the time, to make it a viable alternative.

– Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal

The first iPad is a winner. It stacks up as a formidable electronic-reader rival for Amazon’s Kindle. It gives portable game machines from Nintendo and Sony a run for their money. At the very least, the iPad will likely drum up mass-market interest in tablet computing in ways that longtime tablet visionary and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates could only dream of.

– Ed Baig, USA Today

No company can generate as much hype around a product launch as Apple. But that’s perfectly OK because no company is also nearly as successful at producing a new product that can justify almost any level of excitement that precedes it. They don’t do it with every product launch, but bloody hell: they’ve done it with the iPad….The most compelling sign that Apple got this right is the fact that despite the novelty of the iPad, the excitement slips away after about ten seconds and you’re completely focused on the task at hand…whether it’s reading a book, writing a report, or working on clearing your Inbox. Second most compelling: in situation after situation, I find that the iPad is the best computer in my household and office menagerie. It’s not a replacement for my notebook, mind you. It feels more as if the iPad is filling a gap that’s existed for quite some time.

– Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun Times

The techies are right about another thing: the iPad is not a laptop. It’s not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it’s infinitely more convenient for consuming it–books, music, video, photos, Web, e-mail and so on. For most people, manipulating these digital materials directly by touching them is a completely new experience–and a deeply satisfying one. The bottom line is that the iPad has been designed and built by a bunch of perfectionists. If you like the concept, you’ll love the machine. The only question is: Do you like the concept?

– David Pogue, New York Times

Is the iPad a perfect product? No. And the omissions will give the anti-Apple crowd plenty of ammo. Why do I need this extra device that’s not a full-fledged laptop? Where’s the camera? What about Flash? Um, how about multitasking? These are all valid complaints, but one thing I can say about most Apple products, and certainly the iPad: There may be things it doesn’t do, but what it does do, it does remarkably well. Aside from the aforementioned limitations, there isn’t a lot else to gripe about. And to my great surprise, you can actually get real work done with the iPad.

– Tim Gideon, PCMag

Manic, nonstop use revealed a number of things: battery life is better than I anticipated. I got a full day of constant internet-connected use (it barely left my hands) on one charge. It fits well in my lap when eating, and it’s easy to wipe off stray noodles and arugula leaves and get right back to Twittering….I like it a lot. But it’s the things I never knew it made possible–to be revealed or not in the coming months–that will determine whether I love it.

– Xeni Jardin, Boing Boing

It turns out the iPad isn’t as much a laptop replacement as I thought (though it could easily be used as one). Instead, it’s an entirely new category of mobile device. For example, now when I want to surf the Web from the couch or back deck, the iPad is the device I choose. Starbucks? Same thing. Think of the iPad as a new arrow in your technology quiver, an arrow that will often be the best tool for a given task. I had high expectations for the iPad, and it has met or exceeded most of them.

– Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle

Apple’s engineers know something those other companies don’t: form has trumped function. You can load up a tablet with horsepower and extra features till it can do your taxes and lick the stamp, but if it’s not instantly obvious how to use those features without a manual–and if you don’t look good using them–nobody cares. The iPad isn’t wildly feature-rich. It doesn’t run Flash, and the only browser it runs is Safari. Like the iPhone, it can’t multitask, and it doesn’t appear to have a serious file-handling system. I’ve tried its much ballyhooed full-size virtual keyboard, and it feels like typing with frostbite. It doesn’t even have a damn camera. But you will care about it, because whoever designed its graceful lines and intuitive interface cared about you.

– Lev Grossman, Time

In Mobile Gymnastics, the Motorola Backflip Scores a 6

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:47:23 +0000

Touch screens are now prevalent enough on mobile devices that I find myself touching the screens of every new gadget I see. My trusty index finger of a stylus is ready at all times to swipe, pinch, double tap and scroll since these are natural gestures.

[ See post to watch video ]

Yet touch screens have some downsides. Finger gestures leave smudge marks on the glass screens and monopolize screen real estate, making it hard to show the screen to someone while navigating. Also, touch screens often require two hands.

This week, I tested a smart phone with a solution for two of the three touch-screen problems. The Motorola Backflip (http://3.ly/Ku9), which became available March 7, lets people navigate its screen by touching a panel behind it, thus keeping fingers off of the screen. This trackpad-like panel is appropriately named the Backtrack and works like magic: On-screen objects are selected, text scrolls and screens open, but you can’t see the fingers manipulating the screen because they’re hidden behind it.

The Backflip, which runs on AT&T’s (T) 3G network, costs $100 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a two-year agreement. Its name comes from its design: The Backflip’s screen seems to flip backward when the QWERTY keyboard flips down for use. In the device’s “closed” position, the keyboard flips back up and is automatically turned off.

I’ve been using the Motorola Backflip for emailing, Web browsing, social networking, taking photos and making phone calls. While I applaud its creative design and the idea of the Backtrack, I think it sacrifices functionality for form. Take, for example, its QWERTY keyboard, which has a subtly handsome design when the Backflip is closed. But when used for typing, its shallow keys don’t give much tactile feedback and are tough to use. Likewise, the Backtrack is clever, but only works when the phone is the flat, opened position, forcing people to reach around both the keyboard and the screen to use it. I often found myself giving up and just touching the screen directly, which also works.

Other companies’ mobile devices have found ways around actually touching their touch screens, silly as it may sound. Palm’s (PALM) Pre and Pixi models use a gesture area beneath the screen to navigate—with just one hand holding and swiping.

The Backflip in opened position.

I easily set up two email accounts and Twitter and Facebook accounts on my Backflip. There are also shortcuts for setting up accounts for Picasa, Photobucket, Bebo, LastFM and MySpace.

The Motorola Backflip runs Motoblur, the company’s social-network and message-consolidating software, which I found to be an attractive interface with intelligent capabilities. For instance, if it senses you’re checking it a lot, it will update the displayed messages more frequently. Motoblur also uses images from contacts, like their Facebook or Twitter photo, and displays these as small background icons behind Motoblur messages from that person. This is a small detail, but it brings an extra spark of life to everyday messages.

But Motoblur lacks one of the most popular Twitter functions: the ability to re-tweet, or re-message someone else’s tweet (Twitter status). A Motorola (MOT) representative said re-tweet is under evaluation, but won’t disclose details about timing. Motoblur has been available for six months, first seen in the Motorola CLIQ.

Oddly, the Backflip runs the Android 1.5 operating system, not the newest Android 2.1. A Motorola representative said the company plans to update this but wouldn’t say when. It seems strange for a brand-new device not to run the newest operating system.

Phone calls were clear and loud, and photos captured on the five-megapixel, flash, digital zoom camera looked great. I enjoyed using the Backflip’s bright, 3.1-inch screen with 320×480 pixel resolution. Though I wasn’t crazy about typing on its keyboard, I did like the keyboard shortcut keys for the Web browser, home, email and search. With the Backflip in its opened position, I used the Backtrack—the trackpad behind the screen—to skip around from one thing to the next. Double tapping on anything selected it, and I swiped my fingers down on the Backtrack to scroll a long news story on the browser.

The Backflip is designed so that whenever it’s plugged into its wall charger or set at a 90-degree angle, it goes into Tabletop mode, showing a large digital clock with the local weather, date and options for setting an alarm. This mode also offers a button for watching the device’s photos in a slow-panning, Ken Burns-like slideshow, which is useful for sharing with friends.

Monthly AT&T plans that work with the Backflip include a combination of the carrier’s required $30 unlimited data plan and a $40, $60 or $70 voice plan. It comes with a 2-gigabyte memory card, though it will work with one that holds up to 32 gigabytes. Its internal memory is 512 megabytes, and the memory available for apps is 220 megabytes, though certain apps can offload some data they use onto the roomier card.

Motorola deserves credit for trying an innovative design and for offering a unique way of moving fingers off of the touch screen. But the Backflip device seems unfinished because of several features that don’t work as well as they should.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

E-Readers Fall Short for News, Study Says

Sarmad Ali — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:20:17 +0000

The newspaper industry is struggling to hold onto its audience, and e-readers such as the Kindle may not help, according to a new University of Georgia study.

Among its findings: Younger consumers find the Kindle “old” compared to their smart phones, while older consumers miss the traditional newspaper fixtures that they get in the print edition.

During the six-month study, conducted by the university’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, participants read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the Amazon (AMZN) reader and provided feedback.

For younger adults, the Kindle fell short because it lacked a touch screen and multiple applications–from music to surfing the Internet–available in many smart phones.

Older adults were overall more receptive to the concept of an e-reader, but missed the crossword puzzles and comics available in traditional papers.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Almost Famous: Harold Smith IV of OWLE

Drake Martinet — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:59:21 +0000

A feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: We we had a Skype visit with, asked some questions of and gathered a few pertinent stats about Harold Smith IV and OWLE: Optical Widget for Life Enhancement, a superbeefy accessory for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone that attempts to bridge the gap between a camera on a phone and professional camcorder.

Who: Harold Smith IV

What: CEO and co-founder

Why: After early prototypes and iPhoneDevCamp, Harold patented a product that uses off-the-shelf lenses and microphones coupled with nearly a pound of custom-machined aluminum to stabilize and supercharge videos taken by iPhones. Harold and his team just finished churning out the first 500 OWLE Bubos (Bubo is the model name), which shipped at the end of 2009.

Where: wantowle.com (Web site); @wantowle (Twitter); Scottsdale, Ariz. (analog place)

Who else: A Japanese company called Factron makes a case, called Quattro, with detachable lenses, although similarities are thin. The OWLE is a one-of-a-kind product at this point, but Harold sees competition on the horizon as video apps improve.

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job: I worked at Taste of Chicago, a hot dog shop. I guess it was my first experience in the truth of what goes on behind the scenes at a restaurant. This one day, I spilled a bucket of diced tomatoes on the floor, and my manager just kicked them back into the bucket and put it back on the counter. I didn’t last very long.

Has a Geek Crush On: Jim Jannard, he founded Red, the digital cinema camera company. Basically, he just saw a need and a product that didn’t exist yet and he just made it. That’s basically what we are trying to do.

Gadget of the Moment: You are gonna laugh because it’s so simple. I got this iPhone battery from Tumi for Christmas. It’s great. It holds five full charges and recharges the phone in two hours.

Wishes There Was an App For: Well, I really want to have more control over iPhone video. There’s no reason why we can’t have control over white balance, selective focus and everything. I mean, it’s all digital, and we have the tools. Truthfully though, I’d really love to play Halo on my iPhone in augmented reality. That’s coming.

Fails At: Spelling and grammar. I rely on the Internet to fix my mistakes. I think it would be the greatest prank ever to turn off all the spelling and grammar check in the world for one day to see how we all really type.

Bio in 140 Characters

Split his early years between Scottsdale and San Francisco. Couldn’t decide on a college major. Sold software, sold vitamins, invented OWLE.

The Five Questions

Give us the short history of how you decided the iPhone needed to be better at shooting video.

It all started with my day job at Natural Partners, a vitamin distribution company. They wanted to use video to reach customers in a way that competitors weren’t, so they started doing a Web TV show. We got into broadcasting trade shows live and wanted a mobile camera. The Nokia (NOK) N95 had just come out and Qik [online mobile streaming service] was around. I ended up building a rig to make live broadcasting with the N95 better. It just looked awful, all brackets and tape. When the iPhone came out, it was so thin and nice, I wanted to build something nice for it. That was the first OWLE prototype.

What exactly is the OWLE now?

Well, the OWLE Bubo is the current model. It is a custom-machined piece of billet aluminum, anodized black. We tried a lot of different sizes, and we settled on a version that weighs 0.9 pounds. You want it to be heavy enough so that you get stability without being a pain to carry around. The second component is the lens that it comes with. The body itself has 37-millimeter threading, the largest standard when it comes to camcorder lenses. These are things you can get at Best Buy (BBY) as add-ons for your camcorder. The lens even comes in two parts, and the first stage can be used alone for close-up shots. It also has an add-on microphone from Vericorder, so that you can hear what’s going on in front of the phone while it’s in the OWLE. You get the whole thing for $129.99.

Where do you hope people will be seeing these for sale in the future?

Well, we just launched a new Web site last week, and we are already filling orders from that. Right now, we are based out of a distribution center in Scottsdale, so we are filling orders ourselves today, but we could ramp up very quickly to larger order fulfillment. In my last job, I was running a $6-million-a-year e-commerce site, so when we are ready to ramp up, that’s my world, I’m ready for that.

We just struck a deal with ThinkGeek.com, so you can buy an OWLE there right now. Nothing is official yet, but we are currently in talks with Apple about selling OWLEs in Apple stores. That would be the dream location, I guess.

Picard or Kirk?

Picard for sure, I mean that’s what I grew up on–that was the touchscreen stuff. That was my first real exposure to touchscreens and HD video. It wasn’t shot in HD or anything, but Captain Picard would stand there, and there was that huge screen in full quality with a Klingon on it or something. We were there watching it on our little CRT televisions. That was the future. That’s what I thought when I first got an iPhone. I mean, it was a tricorder, that was “Star Trek.” I’m still waiting for my transporter.

What’s the OWLE story that beats them all?

Well, we just got this video from our marketing team–I’m not sure we’re going to release it. It’s basically of the team taking an OWLE Bubo with an iPhone inside and throwing it off a building like five times. The iPhone was, like, totally fine, but we don’t want to endorse people chucking their iPhones like that.

The In Living Color Interview

[ See post to watch video ]

Yes We Can: Have the Jesus Tablet Soon! But What's in the Package?

Kara Swisher — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:18:12 +0000

The noisy kerfuffle that broke out yesterday over whether a France Telecom exec did or did not confirm in an interview whether there is or is not an Apple tablet computer coming soon would be comical if it were not so–how shall I put it delicately?–inane.

But that’s going to be the way it is for the next few weeks until Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs finally unveils what everyone in Silicon Valley pretty much knows he has been cooking up for a while now.

Which is, of course, the iSlate. Or iPad. Or the iWhatever.

There’s the planned Apple event on Jan. 27, of course, as well as a steady stream of decent reporting by many that this is exactly what’s coming.

The Wall Street Journal, for example, reported last week that Apple plans to ship the tablet in March and that it will feature either a 10-inch or 11-inch touchscreen. The paper also cited analysts who estimate the tablet will cost $1,000 and may include a built-in wireless plan.

Other than that, there is not much more new detailed information out there.

And, as it turned out, what the exec from France Telecom, which owns the Orange mobile service there, actually meant got lost in translation.

Along with doing a John the Baptist, he seems to have said that the device will include wireless and a Webcam.

But not so fast! Orange PR told paidContent that the exec’s remarks were “a few comments taken out of context, then interpreted into English.”

As paidContent further wrote:

“A full statement emailed to us has further back-tracking: ‘These responses in no way reflect Orange’s confirmation of the existence of the rumoured device. The spokesperson was merely confirming that he is aware of the speculation surrounding a launch and that Orange would be delighted to have such a product were it ever to be available.’”

Well, that clears it up!

Actually, it would be great to see more information about what is and what is not in the new device over the next days before we all get to see it, as well as much more on exactly which entertainment, wireless, publishing and other partners are involved.

That’s a lot of folks, so concentrating on finding out what’s in the package instead of wondering if Christmas for Apple fanboys is coming would be a good idea about now.

In other words: Yes, you geeks, Steve Jobs will be Santa Claus soon.

Now let’s find out whether what he’s bringing will be naughty or nice, innovative or not so much.

Until then, here is the video of that tongue-tied dude from France making a mess of it (you have to know French to understand):

L’interview politique de Jean-Pierre Elkabbach
by Europe1fr

50 Percent Chance Apple Will Announce Tablet Next Month. 100 Percent Chance We'll Keep Talking About Tablet, Whether It Appears or Not.

John Paczkowski — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:15:17 +0000

Is Apple planning a special event for January? If so, what are the chances it will feature this mythical tablet/slate device everyone’s jawing about?

In a research note this morning, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster hazards a guess, putting the odds of the company hosting a special event at 75 percent and the odds that Apple (AAPL) will use the event to debut a tablet-like device at 50 percent, with an eye toward a March release date.

“Based on new media reports of trademarks connected to Apple (iSlate, Magic Slate), and our own conversation last week with with a Taiwanese component supplier, we are reaffirming our expectation that Apple will likely ship a tablet device by the end March,” Munster writes. “We believe there is a 75% chance Apple will host a January event and a 50% chance it will be held to announce the tablet.”

And if Apple does announce such a device, what can we expect from it? Largely what we’ve been hearing recently, says Munster, who outlined his own expectations for an Apple tablet in another research note issued earlier this month. “We expect the tablet hardware to be similar to an iPod touch but larger (about 10″); we expect the key differentiator of the device to be its software,” Munster wrote.

“While there are several options ranging from a touch screen Mac OS X to an iPhone-like OS,” the analyst elaborated, “we expect the tablet to be driven by a new version of Apple’s iPhone OS that runs a new category of larger apps alongside all the current apps from the App Store. We believe Apple’s tablet would compete well in the netbook category even though it would not be a netbook. Rather it would focus more on apps, entertainment content (from the iTunes Store), and web surfing.”

That would make for a pretty compelling device at the right price point. Indeed, says Munster, “we believe Apple could sell about 1.4m units if the tablet shipped in March, adding 2 percent to revenue.”

Easy Digital Listening: Sonos ZonePlayer S5

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:15:05 +0000

Installing a multiroom stereo system can involve drilling holes in walls, running wires throughout the house and spending a lot of money. And after all that, the stereo still won’t have access to as much music as your computer. This week, I tested an alternative to the traditional stereo system that lets you control digitally delivered music in multiple rooms without spending a lot of money.

[ See post to watch video ]

I tested Sonos Inc.’s $399 ZonePlayer S5 (Sonos.com/S5), an all-in-one system that plays music off of your Windows PC or Mac, including music files on the computer, content from Internet radio sites Pandora and Last.fm, local radio stations, Sirius Internet radio, Napster and Rhapsody. The S5 plugs directly into your router and a wall outlet, and a simple software program installs on your computer, working as a desktop remote control. It can work in concert with other S5s or other Sonos products to create a multiroom system around your house. And a free iPhone or iPod Touch app facilitates full remote control of multiple systems.

Since 2005, Sonos has offered high-end audio systems that permit people to listen to their digital music in multiple rooms on stereo systems with straightforward setups and simple remote controls. But its past products were relatively costly and required users to provide an existing stereo setup, powered speakers or a device (like a Bose Wave Radio) that allowed adding components via an auxiliary line-in.

Streamlined Setup

The ZonePlayer S5 is Sonos’s first product that works right out of the box and doesn’t require additional pieces. It took me very little time to set up and, once set up, sounded great. Music fans will want to know that it has five speakers powered by five dedicated digital amplifiers, two tweeters, two midrange drivers and a subwoofer. Discreet buttons on the top of the S5 can be pressed to mute, raise or lower volume.

The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 can be part of a multiroom digital sound system controlled by a free iPhone app.

Sonos’s $99 ZoneBridge accessory frees the ZonePlayer S5 from being wired to a router. Most people will need to buy one of these because they don’t have their routers set up in the same rooms where they want to keep their ZonePlayer S5s. The ZoneBridge is what it sounds like: It can bridge a connection between your home network and one or multiple ZonePlayer S5s—or other Sonos products. There’s no limit to the number of Sonos products that can work with one ZoneBridge.

Last year, Sonos created a free app for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and iPod Touch that, as of a recent release last month, works just like the standalone $349 Sonos Controller 200, a touch-screen remote control. Using either the free app or the Sonos Controller, people can control music on multiple ZonePlayers and on other Sonos devices. For example, from my iPod Touch, I can mute one ZonePlayer and crank up the volume on another; I can skim through and play a list of Billboard Chart hits from Napster or listen to one of my personalized stations on Pandora.

If you’re like me, you don’t like bothering with plugs as you move electronics around your house. Even though the ZonePlayer S5 has a built-in handle and can easily be moved around (it weighs only about nine pounds), it will need its AC adapter cord wherever it goes. And the ZonePlayer S5 doesn’t have a dedicated iPod dock. Sure, you could buy a cord to plug an iPod into the auxiliary port on the back of the ZonePlayer, but that’s not the same as a dock.

Competition Report

Competitors, such as Bose Corp.’s $270 SoundDock Series II, work as speakers and iPod docks. The Bose can’t sync with other SoundDocks, as Sonos products are made to do, nor can it wirelessly play music from the hard drive of a nearby Windows PC or Mac. But as long as an iPod Touch or iPhone is loaded with free apps from Pandora or Last.fm, it can be placed in the SoundDock to play Internet radio through this system. And Bose’s $360 SoundDock Portable works plugged in or for over three hours on rechargeable batteries, making it easier to move around the house.

It took me less than 10 minutes to set up two ZonePlayer S5s, one ZoneBridge and a Sonos Controller 200 remote control in three different rooms. The ZoneBridge is just 1½ inches tall and its surface measures about the area of a piece of toast. It plugs directly into a router so the S5s can work anywhere within the Wi-Fi network, though they still must each be plugged into a power outlet.

I installed Sonos’s setup software, which came on a disc with the ZonePlayer S5, on a Dell (DELL) XPS One running Windows 7. When prompted, I followed on-screen instructions that explained how to press a button on each ZonePlayer S5, the ZoneBridge and the remote to wirelessly link them to my system. An indicator light on the S5 and ZoneBridge changed from blinking to solid to signify the connection.

Listen Up

Free 30-day trials of Sirius Internet Radio, Napster and Rhapsody come with the ZonePlayer S5, and the software is smart enough to set everything up in one step so users can start listening without first filling out any forms (like email address, name etc.). If users don’t have accounts with Internet radio sites Pandora and Last.fm, they must go to those sites to create accounts online.

I entered my Pandora Internet radio user name and password on the computer, and my saved radio stations appeared on the computer screen. These personalized stations also showed up on the Sonos Controller’s colorful touch screen, as well as in the Sonos Controller app on the iPhone. And Pandora’s thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons also work on these portable remotes, so my musical preferences were saved in my account as I selected each to indicate whether or not I liked a song.

I played all sorts of content from the Web directly on my ZonePlayer S5s: hip-hop from Jay-Z, Ella Fitzgerald jazz, classical Christmas songs sung by the York Minster Choir, my local NPR station and tracks from Shakira’s new “She Wolf” album. I also listened to music from my computer’s hard drive.

The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 lets you build a stereo system that can be wirelessly spread around with help from the company’s $99 ZoneBridge. And, as is the case with all Sonos products, the setup process is fantastically simple. Now that the iPhone and iPod Touch can use a free remote-control app that works just as well as the Sonos Controller 200, these players are even more accessible.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

The Apple Tablet Is Delayed? So What?

John Paczkowski — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:00:14 +0000

Apple has reportedly decided to postpone the launch of its rumored tablet/slate until the second half of 2010. That’s the latest rumor from the occasionally reliable Digitimes, which claims that the device’s original March 2010 debut target became untenable after some component changes.

The report, should it prove true, will no doubt be a disappointment to overanxious tabletites awaiting the mysterious device’s arrival, but really, that’s immaterial to Apple (AAPL). In the end, a six-month delay is simply six more months of rumor and speculation with which to build the bonfire of publicity that will erupt when (and if) the tablet/slate arrives.

Moreover, the tablet market is a nascent one; it’s not as if Apple is losing market share to its rivals by delaying entry. It’s best, then, for the company to take it’s time and uncrate the tablet/slate when confident that it has everything right. As Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote in a research note to investors Thursday, “the exact timing is irrelevant given Street models do not currently reflect the tablet, expectations for actual units in 2010 are low, and investors focus is more on whether the tablet is real and less on timing.”

Munster, it’s worth noting, envisions Apple’s tablet/slate as a $500-700 device about three times the size of the iPod touch.

“We expect the tablet hardware to be similar to an iPod touch but larger; we expect the key differentiator of the device to be its software,” Munster writes. “While there are several options ranging from a touch screen Mac OS X to an iPhone-like OS, we expect the tablet to be driven by a new version of Apple’s iPhone OS that runs a new category of larger apps alongside all the current apps from the App Store. We believe Apple’s tablet would compete well in the netbook category even though it would not be a netbook.”

A Downsized BlackBerry Bold With Oomph

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:16:08 +0000

Almost exactly one year ago, Research In Motion introduced what I then called the Buick of BlackBerrys: the BlackBerry Bold. It was bulky, heavy and seemed made for the holster-wearing set. But what it lacked in style it made up for in comfort. It had a generously sized keyboard, bright screen and even a leatherette back to accent its luxurious side. The Bold was RIM’s first BlackBerry to run on the fast 3G network, and AT&T was asking $300 for it—$100 more than the least expensive Apple iPhone at the time.

Much has changed in a year, most notably the growing number of serious competitors vying to steal customers from RIM (RIMM) and Apple (AAPL), and the surge of applications (“apps” for short) available for these super smart phones.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, I tested RIM’s new BlackBerry Bold 9700 (na.blackberry.com), which will be available on Nov. 27 for $200 with a two-year T-Mobile contract. Like the original Bold, the Bold 9700 has a leatherette back. But that’s where the similarities end. This new version reminds me of the original Bold after a diet: smaller in every dimension—width, height, depth and weight—and, physically, it’s a lot like the newer BlackBerry Curve models. (I use the Curve 8900 every day, and after using the two together for a week I still mistook them for one another at a glance.)

RIM has long been proud of its diverse selection and the fact that it doesn’t force a “one size fits all” theory on its users. Instead, it offers BlackBerrys in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Pearl Flip, a flip phone with a built-in BlackBerry, to the Storm 2, a touch-screen device without a physical keyboard, and several models in between.

Now, the Bold has dropped its distinguished characteristics. The Buick of BlackBerrys has become as common as the Toyota Camry. Is there nothing left for the user who likes a large, luxurious BlackBerry?

In a side-by-side comparison between this new Bold 9700, the Curve 8900 ($150 after a $100 mail-in rebate) and the Tour 9630 ($150 after Verizon’s $100 online discount), the physical differences are almost imperceptible. And these models don’t look all that different from the Curve 8520, which costs $50 with a two-year T-Mobile contract when bought at Wal-Mart (WMT).

The new Bold’s smaller size means its keyboard also is slightly smaller than its predecessor: It measures about 5.5 centimeters across rather than 5.9 centimeters. I still found it relatively comfortable to use. But this keyboard is almost exactly the same as the keyboard on the BlackBerry Tour, except the new Bold’s bottom row of keys is slightly shorter. Unlike the keyboard found on the Curve 8900 and other less-expensive Curves, the keys on the Bold 9700 are positioned side by side with no spaces between them, and horizontal rows are divided by chrome frets.

Look familiar? The BlackBerry Bold 9700 now resembles existing BlackBerrys.

While the Bold 9700 looks rather undistinguished, it has a few less-obvious attributes that give it a little oomph. For starters, it uses a trackpad for scrolling the screen. Longtime Blackberry users will remember the original scroll wheel, which was on the right side of the device. In 2006, the scroll wheel was replaced with a trackball on the front of the device. This September, that trackball was replaced by a trackpad as first seen on the Curve 8520, and its appearance on this new Bold confirms RIM’s decision to use it as the navigational tool of choice.

This trackpad is a tiny, touch-sensitive square that works by sensing a finger’s directional movements. Pressing in on the trackpad, like pressing in on the trackball, selects something on the screen. At first, I missed the satisfying physical feel of scrolling with the trackball, and the trackpad felt fast and less controllable to my thumb. But I soon got used to the trackpad and appreciated that it does away with all moving parts that could possibly get stuck—a trackball hazard for many BlackBerry users. The trackpad also establishes a flat layer beneath the screen that looks sleek and smooth in line with the four navigational buttons.

Another advantage of the Bold 9700 is its battery life. If you take off this BlackBerry’s leatherette back, a battery that measures almost the size of the device itself lies beneath. This large battery supplies the Bold 9700 with enough juice to last up to 19 days in standby mode. By comparison, the BlackBerry Tour and Curve 8900 last for up to 14 days each in standby. The new Bold’s talk time is up to six hours, slightly better than the Curve 8900′s 5½ and an hour better than the Tour’s five-hour talk time.

This thinner, lighter, smaller Bold is more comfortable to use for phone calls than the original, which could make users feel like they were holding a small piece of toast up to their ear during calls. I made several calls with no problems. Emailing on this Bold 9700 was as simple as always, and I set up four email accounts for testing.

Despite its fancy new BlackBerrys, RIM needs to overhaul the way it handles apps. The Bold 9700 comes preloaded with a prominently positioned icon for RIM’s BlackBerry App World store. But apps downloaded from here still go right into the “Downloads” folder, sending users unfamiliar with this system into a frantic search for their newly downloaded app.

And not all apps go into that folder; the Facebook app goes straight to the “Apps” folder. Why not put every new app right on the home screen and let me put them into folders if I so choose?

Once apps are downloaded, RIM neglects to notify you when all apps need to be updated. On my personal Curve 8900, I recently dug into the settings of my TwitterBerry and Facebook apps and manually checked to see if updated versions were available for each. This was the case, and I downloaded the new versions, but most people would never think to check for this kind of thing. Instead, RIM should send notifications about available updates for all apps.

The Bold 9700 runs on T-Mobile’s 3G network, which isn’t nearly as established as the 3G networks that Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) offer. It also can connect to Wi-Fi and allows voice calls to be made over Wi-Fi. (The BlackBerry Tour connects to Verizon’s 3G network but doesn’t have Wi-Fi—a huge downside. The Curve 8900 connects to Wi-Fi but not to 3G.)

The other attributes of the Bold 9700 are like the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and Tour: They all have cameras with flashes that are capable of capturing 3.2-megapixel photographs, bright 480×360-pixel displays, built-in GPS and slots for microSD memory cards so as to expand their memory.

If you’re considering a BlackBerry upgrade, the Bold 9700 offers 3G and Wi-Fi, a combination not offered by another BlackBerry with a full physical keyboard—other than the original Bold. But since many of the Bold 9700′s features are about the same as less-expensive BlackBerrys, it’s worth considering the Tour and Curve 8900 before you spend $200 on a device that no longer lives up to its bold name.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Operating Systems Offer New Choices in PC Shopping

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:02:04 +0000

Now that both Microsoft and Apple have finally shipped the new versions of their operating systems, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard, respectively, it’s time for my annual fall computer-buying guide.

This guide stresses laptops, which have become the prevalent choice, but most of its specs also apply to desktops. As always, it is aimed at average consumers doing typical tasks, such as Web surfing, email, social networking, word processing, photos, video and music. It doesn’t apply to businesses, hard-core gamers or serious media producers—groups that need specialized or heftier hardware.

[ See post to watch video ]

Consumers shopping for new computers this fall have a wide variety of choices with the new operating systems pre-installed, making the machines faster and better. Windows PCs are no longer burdened with the disliked Vista OS.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Windows hardware makers and retailers generally are trying to nudge you to spend more. They are anxious to guide consumers away from the popular, but low-profit, stripped-down netbooks to somewhat larger Windows 7 laptops from which they can make more money. This larger-size category goes by a variety of names, which can be confusing.

Windows vs. Mac: The arrival of Windows 7 makes PCs from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL) and others much better choices than their Vista-equipped predecessors were. Microsoft (MSFT) has closed most of the gap with Apple’s (AAPL) Mac OS X operating system. Also, Windows PCs are often priced hundreds of dollars lower than Macs, and offer many more choices.

But Apple’s hardware is stylish and sturdy, and, in my tests, Macs usually boot faster than Windows machines. Plus, Apple’s chain of retail stores offers a better buying experience and strong post-purchase support. Also, in my view, Apple’s built-in software still has the edge. Snow Leopard is fast and reliable. And it comes with a full suite of excellent built-in programs, including email, photo and video software. Microsoft has stripped Windows 7 of such programs. Some PC makers have restored some or all of these in certain models, although I consider Apple’s counterparts better. Another huge plus: The Mac isn’t susceptible to the vast majority of viruses and spyware.

Cost: Prices on Windows PCs are creeping upward. You can buy a Windows PC for under $500, but many stores are pushing costlier models. And those $250 netbooks are much scarcer. Now, they typically run between $300 and $450. Apple has mostly stuck with its same, higher, prices, though it has boosted the specs on many models. The cheapest Mac desktop, the minimalist Mac mini, is $599. The cheapest Mac laptop, the new MacBook, is $999. The heart of Apple’s line starts at $1,199.

New category: Windows PC makers this season are pushing a category of laptop that is meant to fit between a netbook and a full-size laptop. It goes by a variety of confusing names, such as “ultrathin” or “thin and light,” though these models are often no thinner or lighter than some laptops of the past. They typically cost between $500 and $800, and often have 13-inch screens.

Memory: All Macs come with at least two gigabytes of memory, which is plenty for running Snow Leopard well. Mainstream Windows PCs have at least three gigabytes. But the cheapest Windows machines sometimes come with less. I recommend at least two gigabytes.

64-bit: PCs have long been based on something called a 32-bit architecture, but many models now use a 64-bit architecture, allowing properly written software to use more memory and run faster. If possible, buy a 64-bit computer, which is likely to dominate eventually, even though some software and add-on hardware may be incompatible at first.

Graphics: The new operating systems allow software makers to speed up some tasks by offloading them from the main processor onto the graphics chip. So, if possible, get a “discrete” graphics processor, which has its own memory. Otherwise, find a potent “integrated” graphics chip, which shares your main memory.

Processor: Mainstream Windows PCs sport fast, dual-core processors from Intel (INTC) or its rival, AMD (AMD). These pack the equivalent of two brains onto one chip. But many lower-price Windows PCs have slower processors, such as the Intel Atom, which are best suited for light duty. Apple models all use Intel’s dual-core processors, except for the highest-priced desktops, which come with quad-core chips.

Hard disks: A 250-gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs. On a netbook, look for at least a 160-gigabyte disk. Solid-state disks are faster and use less battery power, but often add hundreds of dollars to the price tag.

Touch: Windows 7 lets you control the computer by touching the screen with your fingers, and some PC makers add their own touch-screen features. But this only works fully with newer types of touch screens, adding cost. Make sure any touch-screen model you buy has a full multitouch screen that supports all Windows 7 gestures. Apple uses the laptop touch pad, or its new mouse, as the multitouch, finger-gesture mechanism, instead of the screen.

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

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

Running Windows Programs on Macs

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:57:15 +0000

If I purchased an Apple Mac that runs both Apple’s OS and Microsoft Windows, is there a way to move my Windows files and applications over to the Mac side? If that was done, would those applications need to be run in Windows? Is there a way to “convert” them so they could run under the Apple OS?

A: Windows programs cannot be “converted” to run directly in the Mac operating system, which is called Snow Leopard. But, if you use virtualization software like Parallels or VMware fusion, and install Windows, then a Windows program like Microsoft Outlook can run simultaneously with your Mac programs. Technically, you are running it in Windows, but the two operating systems are active at the same time. With both of these virtualization products, you can even hide the entire Windows desktop, so that the Windows program you are running simply occupies a window on your Mac like any Mac program does. You don’t even notice that Windows is running.

In the case of files you created in Windows, the situation is even simpler. Most of the common types of files consumers use—including Microsoft Office documents, MP3 music files, MP4 video files, JPG picture files, text files, Adobe PDF files, and others—can be run in native Macintosh programs without conversion and without the need to run Windows programs. So you can just copy them to the Mac side and use them in Mac programs like iPhoto, iTunes, or the native Mac version of Microsoft Office, which uses the same file formats as the Windows version.

If you have an unusual or proprietary Windows file for which there isn’t an equivalent program on the Mac, you would run it in a Windows program, as described above.

If I am planning to upgrade a Windows XP machine to Windows 7, can I buy the upgrade copy of 7 or must I buy the full version?

A: According to Microsoft’s Web site, XP is one of the older versions of Windows upon which you can indeed indeed use the less expensive upgrade versions of Windows 7. The company’s online store says: “All editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista qualify you to upgrade. So, if you’re running either on your PC today, buy a package labeled ‘Upgrade’.”

I’ve been holding out (for what feels like forever) on purchasing a Netbook because I read that Apple was coming out with one. Can you tell me anything about when they might really begin selling them?

A: Apple executives have said repeatedly and emphatically that they don’t plan to offer a netbook, which is essentially a cheap, small laptop. Instead, Apple is widely believed to be working on a small slate or tablet device that would be controlled via a fingertip touch screen. This would be sort of like a larger iPhone or iPod Touch. The company hasn’t confirmed that such a product is in the works, but many analysts and Apple bloggers predict it will debut early next year.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

But in PCs, Windows 7 Is the Spoiler

Justin Scheck and Nick Wingfield — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:00:32 +0000

Cash-strapped consumers have been slow to buy personal computers in the recession. But with the launch of Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) new Windows 7 operating system Thursday, PC makers are aiming to reverse that trend–and then some.

Companies are expecting that Windows 7′s improved features over earlier Microsoft operating systems, including Vista and XP, will lure more consumers into stores. And they are betting that heightened demand will allow them to stanch recent price declines in the market.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Dell Inc. (DELL), Toshiba America Inc. and Acer Inc., among others, are releasing a flood of high-end laptops with slim cases and glossy designs, and new one-piece touch-screen desktops, that they hope consumers will be willing to pay a premium for.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The CLIQ, Storm2 Join Long Parade of iPhone Threats

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:02:09 +0000

(See Correction & Amplification below.)

It’s raining smart phones. No, make that super-smart phones, the type of hand-held computer, like Apple’s iPhone or the models powered by Google’s Android software, that browse the Web well, have sophisticated communication functions and are made to run a wide variety of modern third-party apps. This holiday season, new super-smart phone models seem to be appearing weekly.

[ See post to watch video ]

So far, the king of this new field, in my view, remains its pioneer, the iPhone. Apple’s phone has its limitations, but its design, usability and versatility have kept it ahead. There’s a well-equipped iPhone model available for as little as $99, and the platform offers a staggering 85,000 downloadable apps. By comparison, there are around 10,000 apps for Android, 3,000 for the newer models of the Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry, a few hundred modern apps for phones running the latest versions of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile software, and even fewer than that for Palm’s (PALM) Pre and its soon-to-be released little sibling, the Pixi.

But nobody is conceding the game to Apple (AAPL). A flood of new Android models is upon us, and RIM, which has a fanatical following for its BlackBerry models, is still potent despite the disappointment surrounding its first touch-screen model, the Storm.

Motorola CLIQ

I’ve been testing two new contenders, and both represent second chances of sorts. One is the revised version of the BlackBerry Storm, called the Storm2, from Verizon (VZ). The other is the first super-smart phone from Motorola, the fading former phone leader. It’s an Android-based model called the CLIQ, which will be offered by T-Mobile.

Here’s a quick look at these two new pocket computers.

Motorola CLIQ

The CLIQ is a hefty slider phone, with a touch screen on top and a slide-out physical keyboard underneath. It has a smaller screen than the iPhone or Storm, and comes with just two gigabytes of memory versus 16 gigabytes for the $199 iPhone. But the CLIQ claims six hours of talk time, an hour more than Apple’s device, and, unlike the iPhone, it has a removable battery and expandable memory. It also has a higher-resolution camera—five megapixels versus three megapixels.

It boasts all of the standard Android features. But what sets the CLIQ apart is that it’s built around the idea of consolidating all your communications and social networking, and making them easy to access. Motorola (MOT) does this with special software called Blur, part of which exists on the device itself and part on a special Motorola-run server.

Blur takes the form of special on-screen widgets. One constantly displays your own status on various services, such as Facebook and Twitter. Another, called Happenings, shows your friends’ latest updates on social-networking services, without requiring you to enter separate apps. A third, called Messages, offers a quick snapshot of current emails and text messages from all your accounts. Each entry in your address book also displays the person’s social-networking status and information.

In my tests, all of these Blur features worked nicely and proved handy, except that I couldn’t get it to consolidate both of my Gmail accounts.

My biggest gripe was with the physical keyboard, which I found cramped and hard to use. The top row is too close to the bottom of the screen and, on the bottom row, I kept hitting the symbols key when I was aiming for “M” or “N.” So I found myself constantly resorting to the virtual on-screen keyboard, which worked pretty well.

BlackBerry Storm2

The original Storm, RIM’s first phone without a physical keyboard, didn’t convert droves of traditional BlackBerry lovers. This was partly because it had an odd typing mechanism where the whole screen moved with each tap on the virtual keyboard. Also, the phone lacked Wi-Fi and, when held vertically, the device offered only a cramped on-screen keyboard with multiple letters on each key.

BlackBerry’s Storm2

The Storm2 fixes all those flaws. The screen now stays still when tapped, providing tactile feedback electronically instead of mechanically. This allows for faster, smoother typing. The new model also has Wi-Fi. And you can now use a full, albeit squeezed, virtual keyboard in vertical mode.

In addition, while the dimensions haven’t changed, the Storm2 looks sleeker and has a few user interface refinements, like an on-screen Send button.

Overall, I found the Storm2 worked well in my tests. Battery life was decent, with 5.5 hours of claimed talk time, and typing was much improved, though I doubt it will satisfy lovers of physical keyboards.

The browser is still inferior to Apple’s, Google’s and Palm’s. And the traditional BlackBerry interface cries out for a major overhaul in a touch device like this, especially when you add a lot of apps. RIM’s menu and folder metaphor seems tired on this device.

Verizon hasn’t set a launch date or price for the Storm2, but it’s likely to appear in November at around $200.

The super-smart-phone war is still in its early stages. There are more and even better devices on the way, and Apple will have plenty of clever competition.

Corrections & Amplifications

The Motorola CLIQ comes with two gigabytes of memory and the $199 iPhone comes with 16 gigabytes. A previous version of this column incorrectly expressed these figures as megabytes, not gigabytes. An earlier version of this column also mistakenly stated, based on a BlackBerry fact sheet, that the Storm2 will ship with two gigabytes of memory. Wednesday night, after the column was published, the company said the Storm2 will actually ship with 18 gigabytes of memory.

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

A Windows to Help You Forget

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:02:03 +0000

In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft’s long operating-system nightmare will be over. The company will release Windows 7, a faster and much better operating system than the little-loved Windows Vista, which did a lot to harm both the company’s reputation, and the productivity and blood pressure of its users. PC makers will rush to flood physical and online stores with new computers pre-loaded with Windows 7, and to offer the software to Vista owners who wish to upgrade.

[ See post to watch video ]

With Windows 7, PC users will at last have a strong, modern successor to the sturdy and familiar, but aged, Windows XP, which is still the most popular version of Windows, despite having come out in 2001. In the high-tech world, an eight-year-old operating system is the equivalent of a 20-year-old car. While XP works well for many people, it is relatively weak in areas such as security, networking and other features more important today than when XP was designed around 1999.

After using pre-release versions of Windows 7 for nine months, and intensively testing the final version for the past month on many different machines, I believe it is the best version of Windows Microsoft (MSFT) has produced. It’s a boost to productivity and a pleasure to use. Despite a few drawbacks, I can heartily recommend Windows 7 to mainstream consumers.

Like the new Snow Leopard operating system released in August by Microsoft’s archrival, Apple (AAPL), Windows 7 is much more of an evolutionary than a revolutionary product. Its main goal was to fix the flaws in Vista and to finally give Microsoft customers a reason to move up from XP. But Windows 7 is packed with features and tweaks that make using your computer an easier and more satisfying experience.

The new taskbar shows small previews of many windows and allows for larger previews.

Windows 7 introduces real advances in organizing your programs and files, arranging your taskbar and desktop, and quickly viewing and launching the page or document you want, when you want it. It also has cool built-in touch-screen features.

It removes a lot of clutter. And it mostly banishes Vista’s main flaws—sluggishness; incompatibility with third-party software and hardware; heavy hardware requirements; and constant, annoying security warnings.

I tested Windows 7 on 11 different computers, ranging from tiny netbooks to standard laptops to a couple of big desktops. These included machines from Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), Acer, Asus, Toshiba and Sony (SNE). I even successfully ran it on an Apple Macintosh laptop. On some of these machines, Windows 7 was pre-loaded. On others, I had to upgrade from an earlier version of Windows.

In most cases, the installation took 45 minutes or less, and the new operating system worked snappily and well. But, I did encounter some drawbacks and problems. On a couple of these machines, glacial start-up and reboot times reminded me of Vista. And, on a couple of others, after upgrading, key features like the display or touchpad didn’t work properly. Also, Windows 7 still requires add-on security software that has to be frequently updated. It’s tedious and painful to upgrade an existing computer from XP to 7, and the variety of editions in which Windows 7 is offered is confusing.

Finally, Microsoft has stripped Windows 7 of familiar built-in applications, such as email, photo organizing, address book, calendar and video-editing programs. These can be downloaded free of charge, but they no longer come with the operating system, though some PC makers may choose to pre-load them.

In recent years, I, like many other reviewers, have argued that Apple’s Mac OS X operating system is much better than Windows. That’s no longer true. I still give the Mac OS a slight edge because it has a much easier and cheaper upgrade path; more built-in software programs; and far less vulnerability to viruses and other malicious software, which are overwhelmingly built to run on Windows.

Now, however, it’s much more of a toss-up between the two rivals. Windows 7 beats the Mac OS in some areas, such as better previews and navigation right from the taskbar, easier organization of open windows on the desktop and touch-screen capabilities. So Apple will have to scramble now that the gift of a flawed Vista has been replaced with a reliable, elegant version of Windows.

Here are some of the key features of Windows 7.

New Taskbar: In Windows 7, the familiar taskbar has been reinvented and made taller. Instead of mainly being a place where icons of open windows temporarily appear, it now is a place where you can permanently “pin” the icons of frequently used programs anywhere along its length, and in any arrangement you choose. This is a concept borrowed from Apple’s similar feature, the Dock. But Windows 7 takes the concept further.

For each running program, hovering over its taskbar icon pops up a small preview screen showing a mini-view of that program. This preview idea was in Vista. But, in Windows 7, it has been expanded in several ways. Now, every open window in that program is included separately in the preview. If you mouse over a window in the preview screen, it appears at full size on your desktop and all other windows on the desktop become transparent—part of a feature called Aero Peek. Click on the window and it comes up, ready for use. You can even close windows from these previews, or play media in them.

I found this feature more natural and versatile than a similar feature in Snow Leopard called Dock Expose.

You can also use Aero Peek at any time to see your empty desktop, with open windows reduced to virtual panes of glass. To do this, you just hover over a small rectangle at the right edge of the taskbar.

Taskbar icons also provide Jump Lists—pop-up menus listing frequent actions or recent files used.

Desktop organization: A feature called Snap allows you to expand windows to full-screen size by just dragging them to the top of the screen, or to half-screen size by dragging them to the left or right edges of the screen. Another called Shake allows you to make all other windows but the one you’re working on disappear by simply grabbing its title bar with the mouse and shaking it several times.

File organization: In Windows Explorer, the left-hand column now includes a feature called Libraries. Each library—Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos—consolidates all files of those types regardless of which folder, or even which hard disk, they live in.

Networking: Windows 7 still isn’t quite as natural at networking as I find the Mac to be, but it’s better than Vista. For instance, now you can see all available wireless networks by just clicking on an icon in the taskbar. A new feature called HomeGroups is supposed to let you share files more easily among Windows 7 PCs on your home network. In my tests, it worked, but not consistently, and it required typing in long, arcane passwords.

Touch: Some of the same kinds of multitouch gestures made popular on the iPhone are now built into Windows 7. But these features won’t likely become popular for a while because to get the most out of them, a computer needs a special type of touch screen that goes beyond most of the ones existing now. I tested this on one such laptop, a Lenovo, and was able to move windows around, to resize and flip through photos, and more.

Speed: In my tests, on every machine, Windows 7 ran swiftly and with far fewer of the delays typical in running Vista. All the laptops I tested resumed from sleep quickly and properly, unlike in Vista. Start-up and restart times were also improved. I chose six Windows 7 laptops from different makers to compare with a new MacBook Pro laptop. The Mac still started and restarted faster than most of the Windows 7 PCs. But the speed gap has narrowed considerably, and one of the Lenovos beat the Mac in restart time.

Nagging: In the name of security, Vista put up nagging warnings about a wide variety of tasks, driving people crazy. In Windows 7, you can now set this system so it nags you only when things are happening that you consider really worth the nag. Also, Microsoft has consolidated most of the alerts from the lower-right system tray into one icon, and they seemed less frequent.

Compatibility: I tried a wide variety of third-party software and all worked fine on every Windows 7 machine. These included Mozilla Firefox; Adobe (ADBE) Reader; Google’s (GOOG) Picasa and Chrome; and Apple’s iTunes and Safari.

I also tested several hardware devices, and, unlike Vista, Windows 7 handled all but one smoothly. These included a networked H-P printer, a Canon (CAJ) camera, an iPod nano, and at least five external flash drives and hard disks. The one failure was a Verizon (VZ) USB cellular modem. Microsoft says you don’t need external software to run these, but I found it was necessary, and even then had to use a trick I found on the Web to get it to work.

System Requirements: Nearly all Vista PCs, and newer or beefier XP machines, should be able to run Windows 7 fine. Even the netbooks I tested ran it speedily, especially with the Starter Edition, which lacks some of the powerful graphics effects in the operating system. (Other netbooks will be able to run other editions.)

If you have a standard PC, called a 32-bit PC, you’ll need at least one gigabyte of memory, 16 gigabytes of free hard-disk space and a graphics system that can support Microsoft technologies called “DirectX 9 with WDDM 1.0.” You’ll also need a processor with a speed of at least one gigahertz. If you have a newer-style 64-bit PC, which can use more memory, you’ll need at least two gigabytes of memory and 20 gigabytes of free hard disk space. In either case, you should double the minimum memory specification.

Aero Peek lets you see your desktop by making your windows transparent.

Installation, editions and price: There are four editions of Windows 7 of interest to consumers. One, a limited version called Starter, comes pre-loaded on netbooks. A second, called Professional, is mainly for people who need to tap remotely into company networks (check with your company to see if you need this). A third, called Ultimate, is mainly for techies who want every feature of all other editions. Most average consumers will want Home Premium, which costs $120 for upgrades.

The system for upgrading is complicated, but Vista owners can upgrade to the exactly comparable edition of Windows 7 while keeping all files, settings and programs in place.

Unfortunately, XP owners, the biggest body of Windows users, won’t be able to do that. They’ll have to wipe out their hard disks after backing up their files elsewhere, then install Windows 7, then restore their personal files, then re-install all their programs from the original CDs or downloaded installer files. Then, they have to install all the patches and upgrades to those programs from over the years.

Microsoft includes an Easy Transfer wizard to help with this, but it moves only personal files, not programs. This painful XP upgrade process is one of the worst things about Windows 7 and will likely drive many XP owners to either stick with what they’ve got or wait and buy a new one.

In my tests, both types of installations went OK, though the latter could take a long time.

Bottom line: Windows 7 is a very good, versatile operating system that should help Microsoft bury the memory of Vista and make PC users happy.

Correction: The edition of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system aimed at business users is called Windows 7 Professional. This week’s Personal Technology column erroneously stated it was named Business.

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

HTC's Hero May Be Your Scene

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:02:02 +0000

Super-smart phones based on Google’s Android operating system have been relatively slow to take off since the first one appeared a year ago. Despite Google’s iconic brand, they have yet to develop the strong bond with U.S. consumers achieved by the Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry or the Apple (AAPL) iPhone. And, after a year, Android has less than 10% of the 85,000 apps the iPhone now offers.

[ See post to watch video ]

But Android is beginning to blossom in the market for this class of device, which is really a hand-held computer that performs many laptop-like functions.

In August, T-Mobile began offering a new $200 myTouch Android phone. Motorola (MOT) will shortly launch a new $200 Android model called the CLIQ. And, on Oct. 11, Sprint (S) will start selling perhaps the most unusual Android phone so far, the $180 HTC Hero. I’ve been testing the Hero, a touch-screen phone without a physical keyboard that has some important distinctions from earlier Android models. In general, I like the Hero and can recommend it to Sprint customers, or others looking for something powerful, but different.

HTC, a veteran Taiwan-based maker of phones, has altered Android more than anyone else so far. It has been gradually developing its own signature software layer that sits atop phone operating systems. With the Hero, it has applied this software for the first time to an Android phone, and that’s what sets the Hero apart from its Android brethren. The latest, beefed-up, version of this HTC software is called “Sense.”

Sense includes handsome, large widgets with extra features that go beyond the vanilla Android experience supplied to everyone by Google (GOOG). So the Hero looks and behaves somewhat differently. For instance, a contact page in the address book application consolidates that contact’s Facebook and Flickr accounts. The music player and photo album look better, and the Hero with Sense can use Microsoft’s Exchange service to synchronize mail, calendars and contacts.

Sprint’s HTC Hero

Sense also offers something called Scenes—entire collections of sets of screens and apps, either canned or customized, that can change the phone software’s look and feel. With just a couple of clicks, you could switch between a work-oriented “scene,” that prominently features apps such as a stock tracker and your work email, and an entertainment-oriented scene filled with the music player, photo album and other apps.

As with Sprint’s Palm (PALM) Pre, the Hero’s price is a bit deceptive. To get the phone for $180, you must remember to mail in a rebate form worth $100. At purchase, you have to put up $280. On the other hand, Sprint’s monthly fees can be much cheaper than those for other carriers. You’ll have to pay at least $70 a month to use the Hero, the same minimum fee that AT&T charges iPhone owners. But Sprint’s fee, unlike AT&T’s (T), includes unlimited text messaging and unlimited free calls to any mobile number on any network.

The Hero’s hardware isn’t especially beautiful. It’s a dull grey, noticeably thicker than the iPhone, with a smaller screen and six buttons plus a trackball, which adds another navigation option to the touch screen. It’s the same length as an iPhone, but is a bit narrower and lighter. It comes with just two gigabytes of memory, compared with eight gigabytes on the $99 iPhone and 16 gigabytes on Apple’s $199 model, though the Hero’s memory, unlike the iPhone’s, is expandable via a hard-to-reach slot under its removable back cover.

One big drawback is battery life. Sprint is only claiming up to four hours of talk time for the Hero, versus five hours for the Pre and iPhone. But, unlike the iPhone’s, the Hero’s battery is removable. Another drawback: I sometimes found the touch screen unresponsive, requiring multiple pokes at an icon.

On the plus side, the Hero has a much higher resolution camera than the iPhone’s or Pre’s—five megapixels versus three megapixels.

It also functions as a video camera, and in my tests, both still photos and videos I took looked very good. Phone calls, even on speaker phone, were clear and strong, and the phone has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in addition to Sprint’s high-speed network, which in my view is better than its reputation. Web browsing was adequate.

HTC’s Sense gives the Hero seven screens on which to place apps, versus Android’s standard three screens.

And, in addition to the standard Android apps and the 8,000 downloadable apps from Android’s Market app store, there are a variety of large, beautiful HTC “widgets” you can use. The downside of these is that they can occupy an entire screen.

The most impressive widget is called People. It’s an address book in which each contact’s page features a scrolling bar at the bottom with icons that allow you to see that person’s most recent Facebook status, photos from Facebook and Flickr, plus emails and text messages she’s sent to you and recent calls between you. This is somewhat similar to Palm’s Synergy feature, which is also based around people.

Overall, I found the HTC Hero to be the best Android phone I’ve tested, and a worthy competitor to the iPhone, the BlackBerry and the Pre.

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

Touch-Screen Laptops, iPhone Apps, and Vista Ultimate

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:44:02 +0000

I’m looking to purchase a laptop, and I am quite intrigued with the newer touch-screen models. Do you know when there will be more of these available, especially with larger screens?

A: You will begin to see more touch-screen laptops after Oct. 22, when Windows 7 comes out, because that new operating system has optional fingertip touch-screen navigation built in. In addition, many of the major Windows PC makers are adding their own touch-navigation systems to newer models.

However, I’d offer two caveats. First, not every touch screen will be capable of performing all the multitouch actions and gestures Windows 7 will offer. Some are more limited in their capabilities.

Second, the hardware makers will likely be cautious at first about adding fully capable touch screens to all or most of their laptops.

This is partly because these screens can add significant cost in a price-conscious market, and partly because nobody is certain how popular touch-screen navigation will be on laptops as opposed to, say, on all-in-one desktops where reaching for the screen is more obvious and natural.

I have an Apple iMac, and an Apple iPhone with around 122 apps. My question is, why don’t these iPhone apps work on the iMac? Both units use the same operating system, so why not?

A: While the iPhone and the iMac each use a version of the same operating system, Apple’s OS X, they aren’t the same operating systems. The version on the iPhone is stripped down, and has been modified to support an entirely different user interface, navigation system and set of hardware capabilities.

So there are two separate collections of apps, or programs, that run on the two platforms.

I am currently running Windows Vista Ultimate on my Dell PC. I have regretted it ever since I upgraded from XP because of its terribly slow performance. I have heard good things about Windows 7 but I am afraid I will have to buy the more expensive Ultimate upgrade (which I don’t really need) instead of an upgrade to Home Premium or Professional. Is that true?

A: According to Microsoft, owners of Vista Ultimate can only perform an “in-place upgrade” to Windows 7 Ultimate, not to lesser versions. An “in-place upgrade” is the type most people think of, the type where all your programs and files and settings are preserved just as they were, but you emerge with the new operating system.

Even then, you must be careful to buy the edition of Ultimate that matches the type of architecture your machine possesses, either 32-bit or 64-bit.

However, you can downgrade to the Home Premium or Professional versions of Windows 7, if you are willing to do a lot more work, by opting for what Microsoft calls a “custom installation,” something commonly known as a “clean install.” This typically means, first, backing up all your files and settings to an external hard disk, then allowing the Windows 7 installation disk to wipe your hard disk clean before installing your preferred version of Windows 7.

You would then copy back all your files. But you cannot do the same with your programs. For these, you would have to reinstall every one, from their original disks or downloaded installation files, and then download and re-install all the patches and program upgrades that have been issued by their makers since you acquired them.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital Web site,

http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Countertrend: H-P Says Please Print Often

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:18:02 +0000

If your company makes printers but general trends are leaning toward using less paper and moving digital content to e-readers and smartphones, what can you do? Hewlett-Packard’s solution is to find new ways to get people to print more.

The $399 H-P Photosmart Premium All-in-One with Touch-Smart Web (hp.com/go/touchprinting) will print, copy, fax and scan like other all-in-ones. But it connects to the Internet using built-in Wi-Fi and displays customized Web applications on its 4.33-inch touch screen. These apps are designed to promote printing in any way possible, including photos from Snapfish, Sudoku puzzles, movie tickets from Fandango, coupons, maps from Google (GOOG) Maps, coloring-book pages and news articles—all without using a computer.

[ See post to watch video ]

The print apps are part of the new H-P App Studio, H-P’s (HPQ) answer to the flurry of app stores—Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry World, Android Marketplace, Palm’s (PALM) App Catalog and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Zune Marketplace—that ease the process of downloading onto mobile devices. A “Get More” icon on the printer’s touch screen presents descriptions of available apps. There are currently 15 available for download onto your printer, and more will be added in coming months.

The Photosmart All-in-One connects to Web apps that promote printing of everything from photos to tickets.

This printer is designed to work with more than just the H-P App Studio. A downloadable tool called the H-P Photo Print Gadget installs on computers running Windows 7 or Vista (not Windows XP) so people can drag and drop photos to it for printing. PlayStation 3 owners can capture and print screen shots as evidence of their game success. And a long-available free app in Apple’s App Store called H-P iPrint Photo lets iPhone and iPod Touch owners send photos to this and other H-P printers.

The goal of this product is obviously to get people to print more, and in my case, it worked. I used more paper in a week of testing the Photosmart Premium All-in-One than I normally print out in three weeks at my office. The printer quickly churned out dual-sided pages with photos in rich colors.

But the concept of adding apps to a printer while also asking people to become more paper-reliant seems like one step forward, two steps back. I could see this concept working on a thin, stylish printer that could fit neatly on an entryway table, making it a cinch for people to grab maps, movie tickets and coupons on their way out the door. But this is a large, all-in-one machine that takes up some serious space.

And if this all-in-one is truly meant to work without a PC, it should do a better job of letting you interact with pages, like zooming in on a document to preview before printing. In the current document preview screen, the text is too small to read. Likewise, the Google Calendar app printed a nice one-page calendar month view, but I couldn’t zoom in on the print preview to see specific appointments. This forced me to print the page to see its contents, using more ink and more paper.

Other apps are shamelessly begging users to press Print. A Toys and Crafts app made by H-P itself includes paper dolls with cut-out clothes that can be snipped and folded to stay on the doll’s form. For the doll’s face, kids are encouraged to use a photo of themselves that–surprise, surprise—they can print using their all-in-one.

Coupons.com supplies two apps—one for coupons and one for recipes. I browsed through 87 product coupons in my ZIP Code and marked those that I wanted to print using a small check-box on the touch screen. Pressing “Print” compiled three coupons on one piece of paper. Recipes from Coupons.com printed with brightly colored photos of the end result; I’m looking forward to following one for Curried Chicken Salad.

For now, the Google Maps app isn’t ready for prime time: It prints only maps, not directions. H-P says it’s planning to add directions but wouldn’t say when. And a Nickelodeon app couldn’t load on my printer. Some apps took from 10 to 30 seconds to load—precious time when you’re running out the door.

One of the smartest apps, Tabbloid, lets people assemble a personalized tabloid-style print-out of news from a variety of sources like Daily Kos for politics and FanHouse for sports. But this assembling must be done on a computer, thus negating this printer’s no-PC approach. I chose from a list of 10 topics including automotive, celebrity, politics and sports and created a printable Tabbloid that, with one click, was sent wirelessly to the corresponding app on my printer. I printed it out to read during my commute.

I liked using the Photosmart Premium All-in-One’s generous screen for touch gestures like flicking left-to-right through a carousel of icons that represent apps. An on-screen keyboard appeared when I had to type in passwords for things like my Snapfish account.

H-P says it will introduce other products with TouchSmart Web capability and access to the HP App Studio, and one hopes these products will include low-end printers rather than expensive all-in-ones. The apps on the H-P Photosmart Premium All-in-One with TouchSmart Web are user-friendly, but I’m not convinced they’ll incite people to print more things more often.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Yet Another E-Reader–With a Stylus This Time

Marisa Taylor — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:10:02 +0000

IRex Technologies threw its hat into the increasingly crowded U.S. e-reader market Wednesday with the launch of its new device, the DR800SG.

The DR800SG will cost $400 and features an 8.1-inch screen and 3G wireless connectivity with carrier Verizon (VZ). In a retro move reminiscent of the Palm (PALM) Pilot, the e-reader comes with a stylus pen to navigate the on-screen menus. The company said it will roll out a touch-screen version in the second quarter of 2010.

IRex said it will partner with electronics retailer Best Buy (BBY) to offer the device in U.S. stores in late October 2009.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Microsoft Packs The New Zune HD With Bells, Whistles And Plenty of Style

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:58:03 +0000

At long last, Microsoft has made a portable media player that you can be proud to carry around: the Zune HD.

This fourth-generation Zune (Zune.net) is ultra thin and has a stunningly vivid 3.3-inch touch screen that covers most of its surface, doing away with the old device’s touchpad. It comes in one small size rather than the older large and small versions, and has capacities of 16 and 32 gigabytes for $220 and $290, respectively.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Zune HD does a nice job of integrating and artistically displaying content about an artist, song or album whenever possible. It has an acceptable built-in browser that surfs the Web using a Wi-Fi connection, and a customizable Quickplay menu on the home screen that displays your content using tiny, stylish tiles. The corresponding Zune Marketplace finally offers movies—about 500 for renting or buying, half of which have HD resolution. And a $90 docking station works with the device to display its HD content on your HDTV.

Given all the improvements of this new Zune, it’s a shame that this makeover stopped short of revamping its commerce system, which is still too confusing. Rather than inviting newcomers to the Zune and its online store by allowing them to use real money to buy content, it is still tied to the points system made popular by Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox gaming console. In this gamer-friendly system, the cost of one song is 79 points, roughly the equivalent of a dollar, and users must buy points in buckets ranging from 400 for $5 to 5,000 for $62.50. People who are trying to watch their budgets don’t need the hassle of calculating points per purchase. And Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle e-reader and Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes Store have proved that using dollars and an uncomplicated one-click system is a successful strategy.

The way I prefer to get the most out of the Zune system is by using the Zune Pass for $15 monthly. This charge allows free continuous streaming of music from any computer’s browser as long as you log in, and includes 10 free MP3 downloads a month that are yours to keep even if you bail on using the Zune software. The Zune Pass lets you listen to Smart DJ playlists that can be built in one of three ways: using your own library; using a mix of Marketplace content and music from your library; or using only songs from the Marketplace. These also can be set to last for a certain amount of time—say for a 30-minute jog or a two-hour party.

I created several Smart DJ playlists including one using Dierks Bentley as the seed artist from which other suggestions were generated. This country singer was a good test for the Zune software because Mr. Bentley’s music blends new and old country sounds. I set the Smart DJ to produce a mix using only content from Marketplace and it returned a great list that included songs from newer group, Little Big Town, as well as older stuff like Joe Diffie’s “John Deere Green.” Any Smart DJ list can be dragged onto the Zune HD.

Apple’s iPod Touch is the Zune HD’s biggest rival and its iTunes Store has much more content in all categories compared with Zune Marketplace. But let’s put music, movies, TV shows, podcasts and music videos aside and say we’re satisfied with the amount of content offered by Zune Marketplace.

One of the iPod Touch’s best features is its ability to access Apple’s App Store, a catalog of 75,000 applications. The Zune HD only dips its pinky toe into a pool where Apple is already swimming laps: Only nine apps can be downloaded from the Zune Marketplace (all are free). They’re colorful and simple to use, but nine apps won’t be enough to compete head on with the iPod Touch.

The Zune HD uses Quickplay (shown on second player from left) to instantly display certain content.

It would be a real boon to Zune if it somehow inherited the gaming genes of Microsoft’s already-established Xbox, especially considering how Apple has heavily marketed the iPod Touch as a portable gaming system. Microsoft will only say that later this year Zune will offer apps for Twitter and Facebook as well as 3-D games like “Project Gotham Racing: Ferrari Edition.”

The only same-capacity model in the Zune HD and iPod Touch is the 32-gigabyte, which costs $290 and $299, respectively. The Zune HD is smaller than the iPod Touch so its organic light-emitting-diode touch screen is 3.3 inches compared with the Touch’s 3.5-inch screen. The Zune fits easily in any pocket and is just 0.35-inch thick. A thin horizontal button on the face of the device takes you to the home screen, and a hidden button on the left side pulls up an on-screen menu for volume and playback controls—or just tap the screen when content is playing. It doesn’t have a speaker like the iPod Touch, so you’ll always need earbuds to hear anything that’s playing.

Quickplay is one of my favorite features on the Zune HD. It uses tiny tiles to visually represent your content in four categories: currently playing; anything pinned (or labeled with a shortcut tile) to Quickplay; a history of recently opened content; and anything that’s new to the player. This includes all of your photos, videos, music, Web pages and apps. I easily pinned AllThingsD.com, a “Saturday Night Live” video and a favorite photo to the Quickplay menu. Clever animation sends this menu to the background of the home screen or swiftly pulls it into the foreground when needed.

I rented and downloaded the movie “Girl with a Pearl Earring” and opted to pay 360 points for the HD version rather than paying 240 points for the standard-definition version. A helpful on-screen explanation described the advantages of each according to where it would be played. Movie rentals last for 14 days or 24 hours after you first press play.

Listening to music on the Zune HD is a lot of fun—and even educational. Whenever the screen goes idle while playing a song, large images of the artist and album cover fill the entire screen while text—album name, artist name, song name—scrolls across these images. With one touch, I saw a list of other albums and songs by that artist, an artist biography, related artists, and pictures of the artist. This is a lot more interesting than staring at one image on the screen, and I learned a lot of new information about musicians I’ve been listening to for years.

The newly added Web browser on the Zune HD gets the job done, but has downsides. Its on-screen keyboard for entering names of Web pages has very small keys and doesn’t use predictive typing to fix your mistakes. Some Web pages rendered normally on the browser, but a couple—like Georgetown.edu—looked normal only when I turned the Zune HD horizontally.

As with other Zunes, this Zune HD has a radio receiver and now uses HD radio for finding more stations with clearer signals. If you like a song, an on-screen button tags it for buying and downloading immediately or later.

The Zune HD is a great-looking little player, and users will especially appreciate its Quickplay menu, rich collection of artist information and mesmerizing screen. If its points system was scrapped and its Zune Marketplace was filled with more content, I’d like it better.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Insert Lame "New Moto Phone CLIQs With Investors" Pun Here

John Paczkowski — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:32:32 +0000

Motorola is getting a bit of long lost love from Wall Street today, now that it has unveiled the CLIQ–the Android-powered handset with which it hopes to regain market share in the intensely competitive cellphone business. Shares in the company spiked more than seven percent after the CLIQ announcement Thursday, and today they’re up well over six percent at $8.49.

Clearly, there’s quite a bit of enthusiasm around the device and its Motoblur feature, which connects a variety of social networking services to the phone’s core functions.

Said Mark Sue, an analyst at RBC Capital: “Our initial take is favorable, and it seems that Motorola is carving out a niche in the crowded smartphone market by focusing on socially minded demographics as opposed to enterprise users or pro-sumers. We think it’s a step in the right direction.”

C.L. King analyst Lawrence Harris was similarly impressed. “Our initial impression of the CLIQ is that it is not an iPhone killer, but that it will be a contender,” he said in a research note issued today. “…Initial reviews suggest that the CLIQ’s build quality is excellent with a solid keyboard, two important selling points.”

And Tavis McCourt at Morgan Keegan said the CLIQ is a credible device–assuming Motorola (MOT) can sell enough of them. “MOTOBLUR clearly differentiates a Motorola Android-based smartphone from others on the market and provides Motorola a fighting chance at successfully turning around Mobile Devices with Android-based devices,” he noted today.

“The CLIQ appears to be a solid touch screen smartphone,” McCourt added, “but we will defer from offering a more confident opinion until we get a chance to test one and note that we expect the upcoming Motorola Android-based device for Verizon Wireless may be somewhat more impressive. We believe Motorola ultimately needs to sell about 2 million smartphones/quarter in order to become sustainably profitable in its Mobile Devices business.”

McCourt’s conclusion: “Given Motorola’s global distribution, this does not require a ‘home run’ product, but only a series of ‘solid’ products. The CLIQ appears to be a good first step in this turnaround.”