Monday 29 September 2008

The Market Crashes!

The Nasdaq has suffered it's biggest drop since April 2000, declining by 9.1%. Getting crushed in this decline was Apple who suffered a massive 17.92% drop in share price today. This is caused by a mixture of a market losing confidence in Apple themselves and a total loss of confidence in tech stocks. In fact today has been a disaster for a number of tech stock with Yahoo dropping to $16.88 per share. When you compare this to the $33+ per share they wanted from Microsoft a few months ago you can see just how far things have dropped. Microsoft themselves have taken a 8% hit today.

This has been a disasterous day for the markets and the Nasdaq has been showing the markets the way down. I can't see this improving anytime soon. Tomorrow is going to be important. The markets cannot be allowed to collapse for a second day or the crash by the end of the week will be felt for months to come.

Sunday 28 September 2008

Huge Upcoming Month For Tech

I'm looking at the upcoming week and into October and I can't help but feel that this is going to be an extremely important month for some huge names in the industry. Lets start at the beginning of the month. According to reports Nokia could be releasing two big phones on the 1st and 2nd of October. The N96 due on October 1st is the phone i had been waiting on. So far I haven't bought an iPhone because I'm willing to wait to see what Nokia are going to do.

On October 2nd Nokia have a conference during which it is expected that they will launch their new music service. During the same conference I expect them to announce the new Nokia 5800. Now this is going to be an extremely important phone for Nok because it's their first touch screen phone. It looks excellent but with Sony producing their new Xperia running Windows Mobile, the HTC G1 running Android and obviously the Apple iPhone there is a lot of expectation hanging over this unit. I expect to see it released by the end of the month/start of November in time for Christmas.

On the console front XBox's new dashboard should be available on the 1st October hopefully. New features like the characters and new look could put off the older more hard core gamer that the XBox 360 currently has pulled in. They don't want to try to compete with the Wii when they don't have the same usability as Nintendo's baby.

The next big release is the much talked about Apple Macbook makeover and "The Brick". We have no idea what the Brick is but I'm going to make my guess now. I'm thinking along two lines. One is a phone with a keyboard. Announced now because Steve doesn't like it as much as the iPhone but still needs it out for Christmas and the brick tag is a reflection of this. My second though is that it's a base unit for the Macbook. A machine similar to the iMac except that the OS is on the Macbook. You plug the portable into the base unit and run it like an iMac with extra storage space on the unit to allow you to have smaller SSD drives on the portable. The third possibility is the eventual arrival of an Apple tablet/PDA. I doubt it's this. I think Steve's going to want this one for Macworld 2009.

Failures of the above devices and services could completely change the face of an industry that is struggling in the current environment. Apple need a big hit after the disappointing iPod announcement and if we don't see it this month we can watch the share price disappear. Nokia are in a similar boat. I've spent 3 months waiting for a decent phone to be released and I've yet to see one. Nok need to compete in the touch phone market and the N96 really needs to be more than an N95 with a new cover. If October ends with no 5800 and a disappointing N96 then Nok are going to lose their position in the market. 

Above images from: aurum3.com, symbian-freak.com and tuaw.com

XBox Live Dashboard Update Tomorrow!

I just logged into XBox Live for the first time in a while today and I've mail informing me that XBox live is going to be offline tomorrow for about 24 hours. This must be the big update that was announced at E3. The blades will soon be gone and we'll have the more modern interface. I liked the blades but I'm very excited about new interface. I'll post about the new look once i get a look at it hopefully on Tuesday.

Friday 19 September 2008

A Little Zune EU Support Please?

zune Firstly, apologies for the shortage of posts recently but I’ve been out of the country for the last three weeks. I spent the last week or so in Florida and loved every minute of it. While I was there I was taking a look in Best Buy at the MP3 players and considered replacing my old Zune with the new blue one. I was then reminded of problems I had a few months ago trying to get my current Zune repaired.

I bought the Zune 30Gb while I was in New York last summer and had no problems with it for the first few months. Then one morning I plugged it into charge and nothing happened. I tried resets and everything with no luck so I eventually decided to give Microsoft a ring. Now bare in mind that I live outside the US and the Zune isn’t supported here but also remember that you’re talking about an MP3 player with a 3% market share and a company with a base in Ireland. So I gave them a ring and after a few minutes of describing and re-describing the issue to a support rep he told me that the Zune needed fixed and I could post it from my home. However they won’t post it back. They’ll happily fix it as it’s still in warranty but I have to get a US postal address in order to get it it back. I was even willing to pay postage on it but they were having none of it. This leaves me with a $200+ paper weight!

So this brings me back to last week and Best Buy. If I had picked up the nice shiny Zune and it had failed me, again, I wasn’t going to get any help from Redmond. So why should I bother? Well I didn’t. The Zune remained on the Best Buy shelf with so many others and I walked out with a Nintendo DS instead. While I understand what “not supported” means it would be a nice gesture if Microsoft could give the supporters of their device some sort of help when they’re outside the US. After all if they had been able to help a few months ago they would’ve gained an extra sale they now don’t have.

Technorati Tags: ,,

Saturday 6 September 2008

02 are making a mistake! (Updated)

Technorati Tags: ,,,,,

3phones N96, Samsung Tocco and Samsung Omnia. Does anyone know what these three phones have in common? Well I'll tell you, 02 have dropped them all. My contract with 02 is about to expire and I've been checking with them about availability. Now I got the Tocco from Vodafone and as you can see from my review I have had issues with it and I could believe the reason 02 gave for not carrying it, the phone had too many issues. However 02 have said they won't carry the N96 because they are worried about how it will effect iPhone sales. I suspect this is the reason they are not carrying the Samsung Omnia either and I wonder if it influenced the decision to drop Tocco. It's this mistake that will mean that I'll probably be leaving 02 within the next month.

If 02 can't offer me a full range of quality handsets at this time because of iPhone why should I think that this is going to change any time soon. What about when Nokia release their first Touchscreen phone, at the moment called the Tube? I'm guessing we're not going to see it either. I don't want an iPhone. It's still not up to the standard of phone that I use and moving from N95 to iPhone feels like a downgrade. For those people who are feeling the same then I'm afraid 02 is not an option any longer.

September 9th? What's on the way?

Well Apple have confirmed that they are holding an event in San Francisco this Tuesday, September 9th. So what are we in store for at this event? Well I'm going to outline my predictions now and I'd be interested to know what you guys think.

1. New Generation of iPods. This one is pretty much a given. Since the new terms have started and the laptops for schools and universities have been bought by now this show is most likely going to introduce products for Christmas. New iPods are the most obvious new product for Christmas. Cult of Mac are even carrying the image to the left that claims to be the new Nano.

2. iPod Touch Improvements. With the iPhone getting it's improvements I have to believe that the Touch is about to get some improvements. I would

love to see the ability to tether the Touch to a phone added but that's just hopeful thinking. The best case scenario would be a new Touch that acts like an Internet tablet. Like an iPhone but without the ability to make phone calls. I can't see this hurting the iPhone because, let's face it, your phone needs to make calls but it would act as a fantastic entry level to the iPhone family. I also suspect that the current family of Touch will get a price cut.

3. iTunes 8. Kevin Rose of Digg has already talked about some of the features that he expects to be announced in iTunes 8. These include a Genius feature.

A new source comes forward w/this info:  (this is consistent w/everything I've heard)

What's new in iTunes 8
iTunes 8 includes Genius, which makes playlists from songs in your library that go great together. Genius also includes Genius sidebar, which recommends music from the iTunes Store that you don't already have.
With iTunes 8, browse your artists and albums visually with the new Grid view; download your favorite TV shows in HD quality from the iTunes Store; sync your media with iPod nano (4th generation), iPod classic (2nd generation), and iPod touch (2nd generation); and enjoy a stunning new music visualizer.