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Dell Announces Leaner, Cheaper Adamo - World's Thinnest Laptop

Pulkit Chandna — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:13:21 -0600

Dell has announced the second laptop under its Adamo by Dell brand, which was introduced in March this year. Its latest ultraportable, the Adamo XPS, is slimmer than its predecessor. It will not only replace its elder sibling as the world’s thinnest notebook but also become the cheapest Adamo variant when it debuts with its $1800 price tag. The Adamo XPS is 9.9mm thick and features a 13.4-inch high-definition display, Intel Core 2 Duo (1.4 Ghz) ultra-low voltage processor, 4GB memory, and a full-size keyboard.

No Adamo announcement can be complete without pitting the upcoming Dell ultraportable against Apple’s MacBook Air, a rival that also serves as a yardstick. Both our contestants weigh just over 3 lbs. While the Adamo XPS is thinner of the two and features 4GB memory compared to the Air’s 2GB, Apple’s ultraportable boasts more power and a longer battery life. Dell plans to have the Adamo XPS ready for action in time for the holidays.

Image Credit: Dell

Apple's App Store Now Crammed with More than 100,000 Apps

Paul Lilly — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:30:27 -0600

Apple has announced that its App Store now holds over 100,000 apps, highlighting the company's dominance over the also-rans. That includes Google's Android Market and its comparatively paltry 10,000 apps, although Android has had less time on the market.

"The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating."

What makes the feat even more impressive is that Apple was able to accumulate all these apps in just 16 months. There's definitely something to be said for being the first major player.

Of course, quality is just as important as quantity, and here too Apple has been making strides to improve its App Store. Features like Genius recommendations, App Store Essentials, and sub-category listings are all efforts to give quality apps their due.

Image Credit: Apple

iTunes 9 on Windows 7 is a Bit Wonky When Synced with the iPhone

Bart Salisbury — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:10:12 -0600

The relationship between things Apple and Windows 7 has hit a small snag. It appears that version 9 of iTunes, when run under the 64-bit version of Windows 7, is having problems synchronizing with iPhones. Given the popularity of iPhones, and the necessity of iTunes for keeping it populated with music, apps, and video, this could be a bit of a problem.

Postings in the Apple discussions, which go on for six pages, report pretty much the same thing--no iTunes-iPhone syncing, with iTunes reporting an error code of 0xE8000065, which like many Microsoft error codes, doesn’t reveal a great deal. In a few other cases users are told MTB USB drivers can’t be installed. As MTB drivers are needed to move media back-and-forth, this makes sense, but it’s not clear what prevents their installation.

Some users have reported turning off Apple’s Bonjour software helps, but others have reported back that either the fix didn’t work, or was only temporary. Other users say they have resolved the problem by taking the drastic step of completely restoring the iPhone, deleting the iPodDevices.xml file, turning on C-State functionality in the BIOS, removing Bonjour from the system, and closing all programs before plugging in the iPhone. Given the scope of this fix let’s hope that Apple gets the problem resolved quickly.

Image Credit: Viper12/Flickr

Has Windows 7 Already Lost to Mac OS X?

Paul Lilly — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:45:29 -0600

This one's sure to ruffle a few feathers, but according to the latest data from Net Applications, the launch of Windows 7 hasn't done anything to slow down Mac's record rise in market share.

Of course, we're only talking about a 5.27 percent of the OS market, which doesn't come anywhere close to Windows, which dominates the scene with a 92.52 percent share. Still, Mac fans will be quick to point out that Mac OS X still managed to reach a new hgh, and did so amid a heavy marketing campaign for Windows 7 accompanied by temporary deep discounts.

If you've been watching Apple's Mac vs PC ads, then you've seen Apple encouraging consumers to use the launch of Windows 7 as an excuse to switch to Mac. After all, if you're going to upgrade anyway, you might as well make the transition, Apple argues. And that's what Electronista believes is going on.

We're not so sure we agree, and while we'll concede that the numbers might not be what we were expecting, it's far too early to tell what impact Windows 7 or Mac OS X will have on the ongoing OS wars.

Apple Keeps Fighting the Bad Fight; Locks Pre Out of iTunes Again

Ryan Whitwam — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:49:53 -0500

Apple is all about controlling their products and services. So it’s no surprise that they have locked the Palm Pre out of iTunes again in the new version of the software. The 88.5 MB update, v9.0.2, added support for the new version of the Apple TV software, but for those Pre owners that didn’t investigate fully, it also broke their syncing capability.

Apple and Palm have been playing this game since the Pre came out back in June. Palm knew from the start that Apple could continue issuing updates forever, but they hoped to get some support from the wider tech community. After having their complaint to the USB Implementers Forum thrown out, Palm was also told that their practice of faking Apple’s USB ID was unacceptable.

There are numerous ways to sync music with a Palm Pre, but Palm seems only to be interested in iTunes. There’s an argument to be made for Apple here: It’s their software, and they can do what they want. Would it be nice if they let the Pre sync? Sure, but it probably isn’t going to happen. In the meantime, Palm just isn’t providing their customers with a reasonable syncing experience. Should Palm just get over it? Should Apple take the high road and stop the patch battle? Let us know in the comments.

Analysts Predict PC Makers Will Look to Expand to Smartphones

Jason Barry — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:12:10 -0500

The mobile phone market boasts worldwide sales growth of 29 percent year-over-year to reach 180 million units. Smartphones are expected to account for 37 percent of global handset sales by 2012 with forecasted revenue of $191 million by 2012. So, what does that have to do with PC’s?

Analysts think that PC makers want a piece of that huge growth action. The growth percentages mentioned above are already far above that of worldwide PC sales numbers and outside of Apple, few PC makers have been able to cash in. Although, “PC vendors will find it difficult to simply use existing supply chains and channels to expand their presence in the smart phone market,” according to Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner.

Despite the difficulties, it is inevitable that more PC manufacturers will dip their toes into the success of mobile markets even though it is a very different ocean. Acer, Asus and Toshiba have all announced smartphone launches and this trend is expected to continue.

Verizon Still Courting Apple, Wants Droid and iPhone to be BFFs

Paul Lilly — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:00:54 -0500

Make no mistake - just because Verizon's new Droid handset takes aim at competing against Apple's iPhone, Verizon would rather have the two smartphones fighting the mobile market side by side, not face to face.

"We obviously would be interested at any point in the future that they would be interested in having us as a partner," said Ivan Seidenbert, Verizon's chief executive. "This is a decision that is exclusively in Apple's court."

Obviously nailing down an iPhone contract would be a huge win for Verizon, but even more so when you consider the upcoming Motorola Droid is built on Google's Android platform. And in Verizon's favor, the wireless telco added 1.2 million wireless subscribers during the quarter, which is less than the 2 million AT&T added, but more than analysts were expecting.

Whether or not Apple opens up to Verizon remains to be seen. In the meantime, Verizon has gone on the offensive with an ad campaign targeting AT&T's comparatively sparse network coverage.

Image Credit: PCWorld.com

Apple Files Patent for OS Embedded Advertising

Jason Barry — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:32:15 -0500

Steve Jobs has submitted one of the most devious patents of all time: operating system advertising. That’s right, according to the patent, Jobs wants you looking at ads embedded right into your operating system.

To take it one-step further, the patent attorneys who filed the application did their due diligence making sure every aspect and use of the "innovation" was outlined in detail. This passage sheds a little light on just how invasive and annoying this could be:

“The operating system is configured to present one or more of the advertisements to users of the computer device. In some implementations, the operating system can disable one or more functions during the presentation of the advertisements and then enable the function(s) in response to the advertisements ending. That is, the operating system can disable some aspect of its operation to prompt the operator to pay attention to the advertisement.”

Not only are they going to put ads in front of your face, they are going to do everything in their power to make you pay attention to them. This basically says they would go as far as crippling the device while the ad is displaying. Further, in the application they talk about measures to verify user presence, such as user confirmations throughout the ad.

The application makes careful notation not to distinguish its platform so that this technology could be used on any device, i.e. “portable and desktop computers, servers, electronics, media players, game devices, mobile phones, wireless devices, email devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), embedded devices, televisions, set top boxes, etc” per the filing.

Would Apple be foolish enough to implement this?

Not an actual demonstration.