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Editor's Letter: The social smartphone
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. There's a good chance 2011's HTC Status, with its portrait QWERTY layout and dedicated Facebook button, never found its way into your social network. That last attempt at the mythical Facebook phone failed to garner much praise, but if social networks gave up so easily, well, we'd all still be using MySpace. HTC and Facebook are at it again, this week launching the $99 First, exclusively on AT&T in the US. Yes, it's a name every commenter could love (or hate). Yes, it's a name every commenter could love (or hate), a title cheekily reminiscent of the HTC One. This, though, is a rather different device, aiming more toward the mid-range and relying on some serious social integration to make it stand out. It's the first phone running the Facebook Home interface, which will be available on many devices starting on April 12th. It delivers a far more comprehensive Facebook experience than the previous apps have managed, and intriguingly Zuckerberg himself said that Home is "the next version of Facebook." The end of the web? Stay tuned.
Editor's Letter: A not-so simple choice
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. At a rather vitriolic (and frequently profane) presentation given to a small group of frequently bemused journalists (myself included), T-Mobile CEO John Legere laid out the company's reinvention. In the interest of keeping things PG I won't repeat the colorful language, but Legere accused the other major carriers of being not only confusing, but also misleading -- ignoring the fact that his own company has, for years, enacted the very same policies. No more. It's time for the UnCarrier to step up. But, it's important to note that you'll be paying full price, or near to it, for your smartphone. First is a series of contract-free Simple Choice plans, which are similar to those the company offered before. It's $50 for "unlimited talk + text + web" -- though the data use is indeed limited to 500MB. Stepping up to truly unlimited everything is $20 more, which is a fair bit cheaper than the biggest plans from competing carriers. But, it's important to note that you'll be paying full price, or near to it, for your smartphone.
Editors Letter: Who cares for the UNcarrier?
It seems like a year ago already, but it's been only a few days since we wrapped up our inaugural Engadget Expand event. If you weren't able to join us in person, you missed a seriously good time. Attendees got to take a ride in a Tesla Model S, perform surgery using a da Vinci robotic surgery system and cruise around the show floor on the San Francisco Special edition of the electric ZBoard, which made its debut at the show.
Editor's Letter: The familiar 4
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. Another week, another mega Android smartphone release! This time it's Samsung's eagerly awaited Galaxy S 4. Yes, we've lost the Roman numerals, as their marketing certainly hinted, but otherwise, not a lot has changed. In fact, even we experts, trained in the art of cellphone identification, are going to have a hard time telling the difference between this new Galaxy S and its predecessor from a distance.%Gallery-182135%
Editor's Letter: Expand gets expanded
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. Another week gone by and another week closer to the unveiling of the next Android superphone: the Samsung Galaxy S IV. We're days away from the event where it will debut to the world and, somewhat predictably, we're starting to see some leaks of bits and pieces about the phone's functionality -- though nothing as concrete as showing the thing itself just yet.
Editors Letter: Sir Galaxy the Fourth
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. After watching some of the life get sucked out of many of our favorite consumer electronics shows with major companies choosing to do their own thing in boutique events in fabulous cities around the world, we had our concerns about the 2013 iteration of Mobile World Congress. The HTC One got a showy New York City launch the week before the event and we already knew that Samsung was holding the Galaxy S IV until later. What's left to see in MWC, then? As it turns out, a heck of a lot.
Editor's Letter: PlayStation next
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. We're not even through February yet, but already we're looking at a time where there are three major product unveilings in a single week! If anyone was wondering whether 2013 would see the private event trend continue, rest assured that we'll be jetting all over the damned place even more this year than we did the last. Not that we're complaining, mind you, especially when the events are prefaced by the kind of excitement that Sony built up ahead of its PlayStation 4 unveiling in New York City on Wednesday night. As an unapologetic console gaming fiend, I was certainly looking forward to what Sony had to show. While I can't say that when the lights came up I was totally fulfilled -- the event was something of a big tease -- I did leave feeling generally enthused that Sony is actually making gaming a priority. I had serious concerns the PS4 would be more of a holistic media consumption device, gaming existing as just one of many, many facets. Indeed that may yet prove to be true, but for now the story was all about game developers and the cool stuff they're doing with the system. For that I am thankful.
Editor's Letter: Welcome back, gentlemen
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. It's been a very, very good week for Engadget. On Wednesday, Aol announced it had purchased gdgt and, while we generally don't pay much heed to the acquisitional whims of our parent company, this one we're very, very excited about -- and you should be too. Gdgt is the creation of Engadget founder Peter Rojas and former editor-in-chief (and current editor emeritus) Ryan Block. They founded gdgt as a product-focused site in 2008 and, over the ensuing years, transformed it into a comprehensive database of the world's gadgetry, all that backed by an active community of people brought together by an innate love for the hottest in tech.
Editor's Letter: When the rubber hits the road
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. The time for talk and for analysis has come to a close. The BlackBerry company's first phone hit the market in earnest and now we wait and see how the market reacts. According to BlackBerry itself, initial indications are just fine. While the company followed in the footsteps of Amazon and Microsoft and refused to give solid numbers (probably wisely), it did say that sales for the Canadian release were 50 percent stronger than any of the company's previous launches there. In the UK things looked even better, with sales 300 percent greater than any previous BlackBerry release.
Editor's Letter: BlackBerry takes over
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. A new drinking game was invented this week by our editor Mark Hearn: every time you say "RIM" instead of "BlackBerry" you take a shot. As I don't drink myself, I'll take a pass on this particular pastime, but there were certainly plenty of opportunities to get tipsy this week, with the former Research in Motion finally rebranding itself as a corporate entity to BlackBerry. That was just one of the many announcements CEO Thorsten Heins made this week -- and just one of the announcements I wish the company had made years ago.
Editor's Letter: Winners and losers
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. Earnings season comes but four times a year -- give or take -- and it's upon us again. It's in these mid-season times that we look back on three month's worth of corporate performance and see whose executive strategies are up to snuff and whose, perhaps, need a little retooling. In the former, happy list we can include Google, whose Q4 2012 earnings added up to $14.42 billion in revenues -- excluding Motorola Home, which would have added another $800 million to the tally. Total profit is a healthy $2.89 billion. We can also happily throw Netflix in the winners group, with its Q4 earnings showing 2 million new US subscribers (for a global total of 33 million) and $8 million profit on $945 million in revenue.
Editor's Letter: When graphing gets friendly
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. We've escaped Las Vegas. While a few of us were stricken by the CES Death Flu, and poor Danny Mak was rather more literally struck by a car whilst crossing Paradise Road, we got out of Sin City not much the worse for wear. Tired, sure, but alive -- and that's good, because we had to jump right into the fray again with big news out of the Zuckerberg camp this week. At a private event in San Francisco, Mark Z himself introduced the world to something new from Facebook. No, it isn't the dedicated Facebook Phone people have been talking about since long before HTC inserted a little blue button with an 'f' on it into the Status. Instead, we got the new Facebook Graph Search, something those with profiles on the service probably didn't know they wanted -- and, frankly, may not actually want.
Editor's Letter: Winding Down
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. And just like that, we're through. It feels like just yesterday I was sitting down to write the introduction to a CES column for our first special issue of Distro from the show floor, and now, well, it's over. The show was different this year, but not necessarily in the way we expected. While the show felt smaller in a lot of ways, in many others it was even bigger. Some big companies like Microsoft and RIM opted to have minimal or no presence on the show floor, so we thought that would shrink the overall content at CES. Oh no, dear readers, if anything it had quite the opposite effect. Those big voids that were created were filled by dozens of smaller companies, crowd-funded and fresh-thinking, lobbing plenty of innovative products our way. Some were crap, but lots and lots were awesome and mind-blowing in their simplicity and genius.
Editor's Letter: CES ahoy
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. It's very nearly time, dear readers. CES is just a few days away. By the time you read this I'll be boots on the ground in Las Vegas, with nearly the entire Engadget team filtering in to Sin City through the weekend. The days ahead of the show will see us setting up our base of operations, the usual vinyl-wrapped double-wide trailer parked just outside of the Las Vegas Convention Center, from which we can dash to anywhere on the show floor and return quickly, getting the news up and into your browser within minutes. In addition, like last year, we'll have a stage right on the show floor from which we'll be doing live interviews and demonstrations of the just-announced products, and if last year is any indication, we'll have some announcements being made right on the stage, too. And don't miss our video podcast from the show floor every night at 8PM PT. It should be an incredible week and, if that weren't enough, I'm headed straight to Detroit afterward for the North American International Auto Show to dig for some news on techy autos. Nothing like back-to-back show floor insanity.
Editor's Letter: Looking back
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. The year of 2012 is drawing to a close and what a 12 months it has been. Google unleashed not one but two amazing Nexus tablets upon the world, plus another great Nexus smartphone. Apple released the thinner and lighter iPhone 5 that its fans have been waiting for and surprised by shipping a thinner and lighter iPad that iOS fans didn't know they wanted -- but have been loving anyway. Microsoft pulled off near-simultaneous launches of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 and RIM ... well, RIM gave us something to look forward to in 2013.
Editor's Letter: Get ready to Expand
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. This turned into a surprisingly busy week in news, and I'm proud to say we made a little of our own this week with the announcement of Expand. The brainchild of our very own Darren Murph, this is something we've been working on for roughly a year now and, with the pieces falling into place, it's finally time to tell you all about it. The concept is pretty simple. It's a gadget event not unlike the best in the world (your CESes, your MWCs) but with one crucial difference: this one's for you.
Editor's Letter: Homecoming
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. Another week is over, dear readers, and it's been an eventful one for me. I spent a few days in Detroit, wrapping up some testing for the AOL Autos Technology of the Year award, to be given out at CES in just over a month. This means I got a little seat time in some spectacular autos like the Audi S7 and Chrysler 300C SRT8, sampling some amazing new infotainment and safety technologies - and some terrible ones, too. Which stood out? You'll have to wait for the CES awards ceremony to find out. Otherwise, it was a reasonably quiet week in news, but some of the biggest stories came just as we're heading to press. Apple CEO Tim Cook, in an interview with NBC's Brian Williams, gave a little clarity to the mystery of the "Assembled in USA" iMacs. He confirmed this isn't just an anomaly, that Apple is planning on bringing assembly of one of its "existing Mac lines" to the States. Which line, exactly, remains to be seen, but the iMac would be a logical choice, since it's already being run in limited numbers in the US. The Mac Pro also makes sense, a low-volume machine that features (relatively) simple construction.
Editor's Letter: A littler Wii takes off to the Great White North
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news. Starting this week you can enjoy them on the site as well. The biggest shopping holidays of the year are over, which means it's time to go back to paying full retail for gadgets -- or whatever Amazon is charging, anyway. Sales on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday were way up over last year; Friday shot 26 percent over 2011, crossing the $1 billion mark for the first time. Cyber Monday sales, meanwhile, climbed an estimated 17 percent for a total of $1.46 billion. With online sales so strong, the days of getting up at 4AM to stand in a chilly line outside of Best Buy may be behind us, replaced by hitting up bestbuy.com as soon as you get to your cubicle in the morning. I'm okay with that.
