iPad with a Samsung

You just know it's an iPad, right?

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

The Apple-Samsung trial has been such a show that it has invaded my head in the same way as the first time I learned dwarf tossing was an entertainment in places like France and Canada.

Could anyone really have wandered into Best Buy and confused a Samsung Galaxy Tab with aniPad, as has been suggested?

While some began to pulsate at rumors that many, many people had exchanged their Galaxy Tabs for iPads at Best Buy, a study suggested that only 9 percent of people who returned a Samsung product at Best Buy did so in order to exchange it for an iPad.

Even then, that doesn't mean that they thought they'd bought an iPad in the first place. Perhaps they'd just changed their minds.

So, driving back from something very moving today, I saw a Best Buy lurking in the distance and thought I'd wander in.

I decided to be a naive customer. Regular readers will know that this isn't very hard for me.

I wandered into the store and sloped toward a large Apple logo. This was full of laptops but no iPads. A kind Best Buy operative explained that the iPads had their own little display a little further along.

Indeed, there were four or five iPads, pinned to a desk, so that I wouldn't steal them. Or, perhaps, so that I couldn't test how heavy they are. The display was so much more dominant than for any of the other tablets.

I overheard a Best Buy operative talking to a keen customer about the iPad: "Here, we call it the large iPhone," he said, which was curious. She was curious, too. She asked if she could make calls on it.

Best Buy in retreat (pictures)

1-2 of 4

Scroll LeftScroll Right

• 
• 
• 

Still, after I did a little finger-tapping on one of the screens, another blue-shirted man came over and wondered if I had questions. Did I ever. I asked if this iPad was the same as a Samsung Galaxy Tab. When you're naive, you're not going to be subtle.

Oscar -- that wasn't his name (why get him into trouble?) -- told me: "Yes."

"Really?" I replied, a little bemused. "There's no difference?"

"They do the same thing," Oscar clarified.

"But aren't they identical?" I insisted.

"Oh, no," he said. "Look, the design's slightly different."

And, indeed, to my eyes, it did seem different enough. I couldn't help going back to the words of the great English Judge Colin Birss, who dismissed Apple's plaintive puppy eyes by saying that Samsung's products are "not as cool" as Apple's.

The Galaxy Tab looked like it had employed a personal shopper but dressed in too much of a hurry. Perhaps I'm too used to seeing an iPad around the world, but there was no way I was going to confuse it with an iPad. And there is that Samsung logo on the front of the Tab, too.

"So do people come in here and confuse the two?" I asked, innocently.

"Nah," he said. "It's never happened to me or to anyone else I know here."

Still, I was not to be deterred. The trial was echoing in my ears. Perhaps he would push me onto a Galaxy Tab and tell me it was somehow the same. So I asked: "Which one should I buy?"

"That's easy," said Oscar. "The iPad."

"Why?" I asked

"It's easy to use," he said with gusto. "I bought my parents one each and they love them."

He could tell I was suspicious, so he offered me an interesting flourish: "iPads are generally for older people. For the younger people, I don't usually recommend an iPad so much. I recommend an Android."

More Technically Incorrect

• Restaurant offers cell phone bribe
• The truly useful place to store your files: DNA
• Shatner comes back from the dead for Priceline
• Saudi Arabia objects to .bible
• Fisker Karma hybrid combusts, spontaneously

He pointed toward a little Toshiba thing that looked like something that used to be made by Tandy, while I remembered a survey from last week that suggested Apple's fanboys are now predominantly over 35.

"Why would young people prefer something like that?" I wondered.

"Customization," explained Oscar.

I'm guessing Oscar was around 23. But he's a very nice 23, not surly and genuinely tried to be helpful.

That trial, though, was still bugging me. "But I heard at that trial that they're saying that the Galaxy Tab and the iPad look the same."

"Nah," he replied. "Look, they don't. In any case, they're not really fighting about the design at the trial. They're fighting about the insides."

Now that was something I didn't know.

I thanked Oscar and concluded that no reasonable, right-minded, fully-sighted human being could have meandered into this Best Buy and -- with all their faculties still functioning -- believed they had bought an iPad when they had actually bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Yes, they might have been confused while looking at ads, largely because Samsung's ads were so confusingly lifeless that if anyone looked at the product in them at all, they would surely have only given the briefest of glances.

I know that the trial will largely depend on a discussion of who said what to whom and when, of who really invented what little icon and who patented it and when and of minutiae that would bore the most hardened monk.

I know that Apple is, as always, swatting at a competitor, while trying to protect its future and nag Samsung into thinking a little, um, different. (Hey, look at that Samsung Galaxy Note thing. That's different.)

But if there really had been some massive deception perpetrated at America's Best Buys by Samsung's allegedly feline copiers, wouldn't at least Twitter have been full of wailing within a day?

Would you swap your iPhone for a Windows Phone?

(Credit: Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

It's the weekend, the time when you can wear your favorite sloppy shirts, stained shorts, and wedgie Skechers.

It's also the time that you can take a look at your iPhone or Android machine and see if you really love it anymore.

Microsoft, you see, believes your smartphones are baloneyphones. So this weekend, in all 14 Microsoft stores, it's holding a "Smoked by Windows Phone" challenge.

This is not an invitation for you to bring your favorite ham or bacon to the shop in order to have it perfectly sizzled. Instead, it's Microsoft's entertaining attempt to prove that Windows Phones are simply faster.

It works like this: if your phone is demonstrably faster, you get $1,000. Well, actually a "Hunger Games" Special Edition PC, worth $1,000.

If it isn't, you get the chance to swap your beloved gadget for a brand new Windows Phone. And you won't even have to sign a contract.

Well, not a phone contract, but Microsoft would like you to sign on the dotted line in order to appear in a future ad. (I have embedded an example of a previous challenge.)

iPhone 5 rumor roundup

After unveiling a marginally improved iPhone 4S in 2011 instead of a radically different iPhone 5, Apple has returned to its development labs to cook up (no pun intended) the next iteration of its popular phone. In 2012, we're fairly certain that the real iPhone 5 will roll out of Apple's gates and that the device should be a bigger leap forward than the 4S was.
That's why after taking some time off at the end of last year, we've resurrected CNET's iPhone 5 rumor roundup to cover the new tidbits from 2012. So join us again in watching the rumor mill churn. We'll add to it until we get the real thing, and please let us know if we've left any gossip out.
March 23, 2012
Perhaps it'll be equipped with a new dock plug
Aside from more LTE rumors (this time coming from iMore), new iPhone 5 rumors are surmising that the upcoming device will come with a new dock plug. This time, it may be smaller to make room for the device's other components.
March 21, 2012
It might get a 4.6-inch screen
For those who have been dissatisfied with the iPhone's usual 3.5-inch screen, Reuters reported that the new iPhone may get a bigger display, as a South Korean media outlet says Apple is putting in orders with suppliers for a 4.6-inch Retina Display. This may allow the company more room to update the chips inside the new iPhone, perhaps adding the A5X, for example.
February 3, 2012
It's still going to be expensive
Citigroup analysts who met with Apple CEO Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer reported that Apple did not feel the need to make cheaper phones. During the meeting, Oppenheimer suggested that the company will keep making "great products," and believed customers will still be willing to pay for them. Furthermore, the iPhone 5 is rumored to offer both LTE and TD-SCDMA, which is a 3G standard used in China.
February 3
Apple has its sights on June?
As reported by the Chinese newspaper Commercial Times, Apple may be going back to June as its go-to release month. Last time, the iPhone 4 was released in October, but rumor has it that the iPhone 5 may be coming to the Worldwide Developers Conference, which is scheduled for June 10 through the 15.

Google+ Hangouts now calling any phone

Video chatting in Hangouts is busting out of Google+.
Video calls among two or more Google+ users was the big draw when Hangouts launched, but now Google has flipped the switch the allow Google+ users to make phone calls to almost any phone number, not just within the Google+ ecosystem. That means that users will be able, for example, place a voice call from their computers and reach friends or family on their land line or cell phone.
Related stories
Google Voice puts voice mail in your ICS call log
Google Voice newbies, start here
The feature is limited to outbound calls and cannot accept incoming calls to your Google+ account. It's also currently desktop-only, and isn't compatible with Google+ on mobile apps.
Calls to phone numbers in the U.S. and Canada are free, and callers can buy credit to dial out to international lines.
To place a call, click the "Invite" button in Hangouts, then the "+telephone" link. After entering the number, hit "add." The dialer currently stores one number at a time.
The Google Voice platform powers the entire operation, though the feature bears the Google+ Hangouts name. You can similarly place calls to land lines and mobile phones using Google Voice's integration into Gmail.
Calling out with Hangouts is a third high-profile experimental feature that Google has pulled into the mainstream product, along with screen-sharing and support for Google Docs.

Google calls Murdoch's piracy allegations 'nonsense'

Murdoch, a Twitter user for only the past several weeks, used the service to fire a barrage of accusations Saturday night against President Obama and Google.

He accused the White House of being in the employ of "Silicon Valley paymasters." Murdoch claimed Google was profiting from advertisements sold against pirated materials. He also called the search company a "piracy leader." (Read more about Murdoch's Twitter tirade here).

In an e-mail sent to CNET on Sunday afternoon, Google responded to Murdoch's statements.

"This is just nonsense," wrote a Google spokeswoman. "Last year we took down 5 million infringing Web pages from our search results and invested more than $60 million in the fight against bad ads...We fight pirates and counterfeiters every day."

Murdoch's Twitter blast against the president and Google was triggered when the White House raised concerns about antipiracy legislation being debated in Congress. The Stop Online Piracy Act (House of Representatives) and Protect IP Act (Senate) are backed by numerous media companies, including News Corp.

Supporters say the legislation is needed to protect them from overseas sites that trade in pirated materials but aren't bound by U.S. copyright law.

A growing list of opponents, including much of the tech sector, argues the bills would threaten free speech, due process, and innovation without offering any protection against piracy.

Google said it thinks there are better methods to fighting piracy than those sought by copyright owners: "We believe, like many other tech companies," Google wrote in its statement, "that the best way to stop [pirates] is through targeted legislation that would require ad networks and payment processors--like ours--to cut off sites dedicated to piracy or counterfeiting."

sourse: news.cnet.com

Google evangelists release bible of good Android design

Google doesn't reject apps from the Android Market just because they're ugly.

But that doesn't mean the company doesn't care--especially now that Matias Duarte has seized the spotlight as director of Android user experience. So, absent the banhammer, Google is trying gentler persuasion to get others besides itself to care about designs that look and work well in the Ice Cream Sandwich era.

For that reason, Google has released an Android design guide for ICS, aka Android 4.0. As my colleague Kent German observes, Google's accommodating ways up to this point have led to an inconsistent user experience and varying app quality. Perhaps this guide will lead programmers down the One True Path.

Maybe programmers should know intuitively that they must present alerts with short, direct, informal prose. Or that a long press now means select an item, not trigger a menu of actions. Perhaps, but I doubt it.

If nothing else, there's an army of new programmers jumping into mobile coding who need all the help they can get.

Programmer Dion Almaer called the Android guide "much-needed help to make sure your ice cream sandwich doesn't melt all over your users."

Mission accomplished?
Duarte, in an interview in Wired, called the guide the second part of the ICS launch and said, "I can feel like it's finished. Like ICS is truly complete."

Complete? There's only one phone shipping that uses it, and Samsung's Galaxy Nexus is expensive. The design guide is helpful, but coaxing programmers to implement its tenets is another matter altogether. Even eager coders will require time to adjust to the new look.
Google doesn't want any iOS-style or Windows-style objects creeping into Android apps.

Google doesn't want any iOS-style or Windows-style objects creeping into Android apps.
(Credit: Google)

Maybe Duarte meant that Google has completely laid the Android 4.0 foundation. Because in the real world, ICS has barely begun.

Duarte has been making the rounds last year ever since Google released Android 4.0, trying to convince the world that good design is a priority for Google and that it will pay off for those in the Android world. A public-relations road show is only so helpful, though.

Ice Cream Sandwich has won praise as the best Android version to date, but ICS' success hinges on more than just the apps and underlying OS that Google has released: people spend a lot of time using third-party apps. The guide could help make Android more consistent and easier to use--and therefore more competitive with Apple's iOS.

There's plenty of vagueness in the guide: "Make the user feel safe, happy, and energized," for example, or "Android apps empower people to try new things and to use apps in inventive new ways."

But a certain amount of aspirational guidance is perfectly appropriate, and the guide has lots of more concrete advice, too, for things like when to display notifications and sizing elements with density-independent pixels (dp).
What's Android's back button supposed to do? Google explains.

What's Android's back button supposed to do? Google explains.
(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Room for improvement
I still see plenty of room for improvement. I can see people being confused whether they should look to the navigation bar and action bars to get things done. I've found the back button handy on Android, but it behaves unpredictably for me sometimes, and there's no forward button to undo your action. Now ICS introduces the up button as well as the back button, only the up button points left, not up. Perhaps Google should have gone all the way and ditched the back button altogether. Perhaps the idea of dropping the original design so completely in favor of something so iOS-like stuck in Google's craw.

Well, at least programmers have a better idea of what to do. Overall, the guide is helpful as a resource for programmers.

Perhaps just as important, it tells consumers that Google is trying to help them, too
sourse: news.cnet.com

Why Google is ditching search

Twitter and others are complaining that Google is throwing its massive 65 percent plus market share weight around and quashing smaller competitors. The reason Twitter and others are so threatened is that the pattern of shared links within Google+ provides a decent enough indicator as to what links are interesting. What's important is what's trending, and algorithms can get a sense of that with just a subset of everything that's getting shared on the Web.

The most interesting aspect of Google's move, however, is its tacit acknowledgement that its stalwart search links are largely irrelevant and might as well be replaced with social results. Google search results are essentially gamed results produced by search optimizers.

In other words, the search results that we supposedly value so highly are themselves paid placements, just like Google's keyword ads. It's just that in the case of search results, link owners have paid for SEO (search-engine optimization) to get Google's attention instead of paying for SEM (search engine marketing) to make Google give their links prominence. Either way, though, searches are mostly just producing ads by any other name.

In addition, Google's famed PageRank algorithm carries less and less weight these days, since fresh news and results inherently don't have as many inbound links as older content. (If it helps, you can think of PageRank as a kind of paleo-social search--just one that moves way too slowly for the modern Web.)
(Credit: Peter Yared/CNET)

As I've written in the past, Google well knows that its search results suck, and over the past few years, it has started to short-circuit those results by putting more and more direct "answers" at the top search pages. That, of course, makes the search results themselves less and less important.

As the screenshot to the right (click for a larger version) shows, ads and answers have started to push Google's quintessential search results below the fold into the netherworld of the Web. As it turns out, in many cases the actual "answers" to searches for airline flights or products are actually much more monetizable than ads.

At last year's D conference, Google chairman Eric Schmidt presaged the shift from links to answers, stating that "we're trying to move from answers that are link-based to answers that are algorithmically based, where we can actually compute the right answer." More and more, Google is simply going to answer your questions. Last month, it acquired predictive search company Clever Sense to accelerate this transition. New mobile search engines such as Apple's Siri also dispense with search links entirely and simply return a single answer.

So why not replace increasingly gamed and lame search links with socially curated links? The search results were increasingly irrelevant anyway.
sourse: news.cnet.com