On Sunday, I finally chose a tablet. I had been circling what marketers would refer to as the ‘purchase funnel’ for a while, waiting for the Android market to mature (and not screw things up). After playing around with one of Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab 10.1 models for the best part of an hour – I’m thorough – I decided that this was probably the one for me. And I guess that Apple thought enough other people might reach that conclusion too, because they slapped Samsung with an injunction so hard that it put a freeze on sales across Europe. So, despite on-foot reconnaissance of the local stores, I came back empty-handed.
First world problems aside – thanks a bundle, Apple! Especially as it has transpired that their claims seem to be dubious at best. The trouble is, though, that this is just the most public execution in a series of behind-the-scenes assassinations in the tech world. It’s to do with patents, and the trolls that use them.
This is the trailer for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. It’s a digital book made especially for the iPad. The studio that made it, Moonbot, is led by an ex-Pixar animator and it shows. Check out how tactile and integrated the animation is, and the care that’s obviously been taken to experiment with different types of execution. It looks a lot like the future.
Stuff like this gets me excited for what lies ahead. The wonderful thing about digital entertainment is how it’s in a near-constant state of revolution, rather than evolution. All you have to do is sit back and wait – it’s only a matter of time until someone rolls out the next groundbreaking thing.
That’s what 9to5 Mac want to know. Well, I suppose yes. But only in strictly technical terms. Graphical obsolescence is far more than just how shiny something can be rendered. It’s about accessibility, ease of coding, and… well, popularity.
E-ink is already pretty cool technology, and it’s getting more and more sophisticated. Check out the above video, where it looks like a plastic slip treated with e-ink has been grafted on to some paper-like material. It’s pretty impressive to see how resilient the physical form has been getting.
It’s not too hard to imagine this becoming widely-used in the near future – heck, Esquire even splashed it all over their front cover over two years ago – but there remain some fairly imposing barriers. Price is one, of course, albeit more to the advertiser/publisher than the consumer. But there’s also the matter of the competing fields of LCD, and more threateningly, amoLED screens. Anyone who uses a smartphone or owns a computer monitor is already used to the feel of these options, and although e-ink’s nifty electrophoretic pigments might work better in direct sunlight, sales of the iPad and Kindle are level pegging despite Kindle’s 2.5 year headstart, suggesting that the anti-glare technology isn’t going to be enough to win on its own.
From best in show at CES, the biggest tech event in the calendar, to ‘disappointing‘ sales several months after release, the Xoom has been widely held up as a parable for the might of Apple and the inevitability of failure for all other opposition. Distressing.
