Analysis
Latest
The Loop's Jim Dalrymple takes on WWDC 2013 expectations
When he's not hanging around with rock stars (like Guns 'n Roses guitarist Slash, at left above) or controlling the Northern Hemisphere's supply of Heineken, Jim Dalrymple (right) is talking about Apple and those other things at The Loop. Jim's been an industry insider for quite some time, so when he talks, smart people tend to listen. Today Jim did all of us in the Apple blogosphere a favor by outlining what he feels are reasonable expectations for what we'll hear and see during the WWDC 2013 keynote. Some of the highlights from his prognostications include: "The important thing to remember about WWDC is that it is a developer conference. It's not a place where Apple is going to show off the newest iPhone or iPad," followed by the admonition to bloggers that, "If you are going to write an article that Apple will release the new iPhone or iPad at WWDC, don't do it." "...Don't expect an iPhone or iPad at WWDC," followed by the brilliant footnote comment "If you write a story after WWDC stating that since there was no iPhone or iPad, the keynote was a bust, you are just stupid." "For me, the Mac products fit well with a Tim Cook keynote at WWDC. That's all I really expect from Apple in the way of hardware at the conference." Regarding the rumored "flat design" of iOS 7: "Personally, I don't think that Apple will take it as far as what some might think. The way I envision iOS 7 is more of a modernization of the look and feel of the operating system. Kind of like what Apple did with OS X over the years." There's quite a bit more on The Loop, so head on over to read Jim's post. And dude, I owe you a Heineken or two for writing most of this post for me.
IDC: Tablets to outsell notebooks in 2013, all PCs in 2015
Well, that certainly didn't take long. The modern tablet, introduced by Apple with the first iPad in 2010, is completely changing the market for computing devices. IDC today released projections showing that tablet shipments will beat those of notebook computers this year, and that by 2015 more tablets will be sold than all types of PCs combined. That's not the only interesting information included in the IDC report: the company also notes that tablets with screens less than eight inches in size have already overtaken sales of devices with larger screens like the 9.7-inch iPad. IDC shows slight growth in sales of the smaller tablets into 2017, with devices with screens larger than the original iPad expected to pull in 6 percent of sales by that year. [via MacRumors]
Reality Absorption Field: iPod's trail of tears, part 1
The recent celebration of iTunes tenth anniversary provided an opportunity to remember that it debuted before the iPod and was initially positioned as a way to get Macs to play well with the CD burners that had come to the iMac as well as to early MP3 players from rivals. Before and (mostly) after the iPod, it's surprising to see not only how many different companies sought success in the portable media player category, but the diversity and depth of their approaches. While some achieved a degree of success and implemented a few things that were ahead of Apple, none came close to matching Apple's success. This column will focus on how PC companies approached the portable media player market while the next Reality Absorption Field will look at how competitors from other industries fared. Dell and Gateway Prior to the arrival of Microsoft's Zune, Dell was probably the most serious PC company in the media player space. Putting its own spin on Creative's internals, it released a few hard disk models of its DJ (Digital Jukebox), tapping out at 30 GB. It also released a microdrive line to compete with the iPad mini and finally the DJ Ditty line of flash players to compete with the first-generation "pack of gum" iPod shuffle . Dell even created a networked audio player based on the Rio receiver, a brand descendant from Diamond Multimedia's breakthrough iPod predecessor. The former stock market darling is now taking itself private. Just as Gateway's PC line sought to keep pace with Dell's, so did its media player line roughly mirror Dell's interest with entries in the hard disk and flash categories. Gateway also had a networked audio player, a rebadged version of the excellent Turtle Beach Audiotron. None of these products ever competed effectively, though, and Dell's failure to take on Apple beyond the PC set a precedent for the company's struggles in other categories such as smartphones and tablets where Apple has excelled. Compaq and Intel Compaq and Intel both dipped their giant corporate toes in the MP3 player market and their one-hit wonder efforts were actually not too shabby. Both were early flash memory-driven efforts, Intel's Pocket Concert and Compaq-s iPAQ PA-1 (and its nearly identical follow-on, the PA-2). Intel sold a dock that allowed its blue-and-silver music player to work with matched speakers and Compaq's player -- while hardly a looker -- had a clip years before the first iPod shuffle integrated one. Intel retreated from the consumer device market while Compaq was acquired by HP. HP HP had what was perhaps the most unique reaction to the iPod. After holding back from the market after what was allegedly a poorly received prototype based on a partnership with Napster 2.0, it decided to try to join 'em if it couldn't beat 'em. HP iPods were identical to Apple's in nearly every respect except for the branding, which Apple also worked its way into since they were called Apple iPod+HP. HP tried to differentiate by coming out with a line of printable "tattoos" that could be affixed to the front of the devices, but in mid-2005 the strange relationship dissolved a year and a half after it began. Microsoft Microsoft tried to compete with the iPod in three main ways. The first of these was the launch of Playsforsure, a horrifically named digital rights management service that was to ensure compatibility between various music stores and music players. It drew support from many of the player makers, including Dell, SanDisk, iRiver, Samsung and others as well as subscription music services such as Napster and Rhapsody. The effort ultimately fizzled, though, and Apple worked to get even its digital rights management software removed from iTunes music. Microsoft also tried licensing its software to power portable media players with a focus on video for devices called Portable Media Centers, a way to take TV shows and other media recorded Windows Media Center on the road via sideloading. Creative, iRiver, Philips, Samsung and Toshiba all hopped on that bus before it broke down. Frustrated by the failure of these efforts and true to Steve Jobs' prediction, Microsoft jumped in itself with Zune. The first version, with its "double shot" coating and bulky, optionally brown exterior coating Toshiba's Gigabeat player internals, was unimpressive, but Microsoft made improvementst, adding the excelle "sqircle" touchpad that gave the click wheel a run for its money and introducing the sleek "full-touch" Zune HD, all with proprietary iPod-like connectors. But the iPod touch inheriting the iPhone's avalanche of apps was the final nail in the coffin for the Zune device. And in fairness to Microsoft, the MP3 player market was already starting to move past its peak anyway. Microsoft kept the now curiously named Zune software around a while longer, but ultimately replaced it and the service to which it served as a conduit to Xbox Music. The confusing branding continues as much of what it serves today is Windows Phone devices. The Portable Media Centers and Zune had at least one important legacy for Microsoft, though. They iterated what would become known as the panoramic Modern, nee Metro, touch user interface that Microsoft now uses on smartphones and PCs. Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.
Blood Pact: WoL, 'locks, and damage done
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill wants to coin WoL'lock, but isn't sure if she should. Last week, I started off with some basics of World of Logs (WoL) regarding warlocks. I started to write a column to go spec by spec, but later I realized that might become a game of find and replace with the different buffs or DoTs important to each spec. So instead, this week is another general World of Logs lesson with a little more specific caster DPS focus with warlock flavor. We'll just build up to the nitty gritty spells next week.
Reality Absorption Field: Making the top choice
Among Apple competitors, it's become fashionable to pay the company a backhanded compliment regarding iOS. Yes, the patter typically goes, Apple created a breakthrough platform back in 2007. However, the paradigm has now shifted to... something. In the case of BlackBerry, that something is a smooth means of swiping in and out of all your communications at a glance without interrupting whatever else you're doing. In the case of Windows Phone (and for the new Facebook Home user interface layer atop Android), that something is seeing all the updated information around the people in your life. Now, you don't have to be marketing a rival operating system to Apple's to make the case that updates from your personal connections should bubble up to the top of the interface. But there is also the case that business news should be at the top of that interface. Or information about where you currently are. Or your favorite games. Or, as a former colleague put it, everything related to Gilligan's Island if that is someone's preference (it wasn't hers). The idea that communications should be the main feature of a phone is a quaint assumption these days. Apple showed its indifference if not disdain for this concept clearly when it designed the iPhone. Unlike previous phones and even many previous smartphones, there were no physical call or end buttons. And phone calling was just another app. Indeed, today a host of alternatives such as Skype, Tango, Fring and perhaps others waiting in the wings that one can use as their main dialer if they so choose. And of course, a host of voice alternatives -- messaging, video chat, -- now exist that were unimaginable when the phone was in its infancy. A victim of its own success, iOS has given rise to an app sprawl that is difficult to manage once one acquires several pages of apps. But with the exception of not being able to delete those that come from Apple, apps are all given equal opportunity to be presented in the topmost layer of the user interface that Apple allows with the dock providing a favorable position to four of them on the iPhone (six on the iPad). Android widgets and Live Tiles provide different tradeoffs in taking that functionality to a higher user interface layer. Unlike the recently announced Facebook Home, they provide for multiple items to share the spotlight, not an environment that revolves around a single social network. That may work for HTC, but won't for Apple or other mobile OS vendors. Of course, phones will probably always be used to communicate. Then again, just as voice has lost monopoly of the phone, the phone has lost its monopoly on long-distance, real-time communications. These days, tablets and PCs and even TVs in some circumstances can be used to reach out. By allowing users to choose the functionality that's most important to them, they can best manage when to have the exchanges they want, when to avoid the ones they don't, and how to improve efficiencies to eliminate the ones that don't need to happen in the first place. Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.
The beauty of classic WoW's Molten Core
Back in the days of WoW's original release, Molten Core was, in many ways, the raid. It wasn't the only raid, and it certainly wasn't the only raid that left a lasting impression on the consciousness of WoW players. Nonetheless, if you were raiding in classic WoW, you started with Molten Core, and that experience inevitably shaped the way raiding has been perceived ever since. What was it exactly about Molten Core? Was it the sprawling, maze-like dungeon (which didn't have a map at the time)? Was it the memorable boss fights and quotes? Was it the iconic gear drops? Was it dealing with the reality of trying to organize 40 players into their different roles and individual responsibilities? I'd say all of the above, to an extent. The first time you do anything new, be it visiting a city or raiding in a video game, there is a certain significance to the occasion that can never truly be replicated. As the first big raid most classic WoW players experienced, Molten Core has had a special place in our collective hearts for a long time now. Let's take a trip down memory lane with a look at some of the unique and fun aspects of Molten Core, many of which I miss but honestly would not want to have to deal with again.
Reality Absorption Field: Apple's best product revision
Have you heard the news? There's this pretty successful Apple product -- starts with an "iP," ends with a "d" and has a vowel in the middle. And its average prices have dropped. Apple is (cue ominous music) doomed (cue evil cackle). Doomed, I say, repeating myself loudly so as to be heard above the sound effects. That product is called the iPod. For now, let's confine its definition to the dedicated media players, not the iPhone-without-a-radio that will likely live on for quite a while. The iPod has proved remarkably tenacious and dominant since its introduction in 2001, smashing competitive products and leaving only a handful of cheap players such as the SanDisk Sansa Fuse in its wake. You don't hear too much about it these days, especially beyond the annual product revision. Incredibly, the iPod classic, despite not being revised in years, remains on sale, and the Shuffle seems to have settled into a pretty familiar form factor. The nano went back to a big screen last year and incorporated a home button as well as Bluetooth (finally). While Apple's seeking to keep the product fresh, though, the market for standalone media players continues to decline. The iPod may still be refreshed for many years to come, but it is sliding away from view -- and that is a good thing for Apple. The iPod was unveiled in 2001 as the first major new product category from Apple since the doomed Newton. While the iMac had been a promising harbinger of how things would improve in the post-Amelio Apple, the iPod really started the virtuous chain going that resulted in the juggernaut built over the past decade. Apple's franchise in digital music and iTunes helped beget the iPhone and app sales, and the iPhone, of course, helped beget the iPad. The iPod's slow decline has come against a backdrop of Apple showing transition from one product arc to the next. It has helped to prove that the product Apple has been best at revising is Apple itself. What's next? A television? A watch? The iBed? When? Cynics have a point that it will be difficult to top the smartphone opportunity, but that is a constraint that Apple's competitors face as well. And so, returning to the idea that the iPad mini is reducing Apple's tablet margins in exchange for volume when it must compete with $200 (or sub-$200 in the case of the new HP Slate 7) smaller Android tablets, those concerns were voiced about the iPod as well. And that was when market share didn't have the broader implications of furthering an operating system to attract, retain and expand the developer opportunity. Despite cheaper competition, Apple maintained its dominance in media players. However, it also moved on to other categories and other opportunities. Perhaps some of the skeptics will as well. Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.
Close analysis of Destiny trailers reveals possible third-person camera and Pike vehicle
It's hard to say that you're really a fan of Destiny at the moment; the game is currently just an announcement and a concept, albeit one that has several people excited. How excited are they? However excited you need to be to very closely examine the PlayStation 4 announcement trailer and spot a pair interesting details that require incredibly good vision and careful observation. Now that these things have been spotted, a new video has been released that highlights the items. The first observation is someone playing the game in what appears to be a third-person view, which would imply that the game as a whole can be played in first-person or third-person as you desire. The second is what appears to be a flying vehicle, quite possibly the Pike vehicle that was previously announced. Jump on past the break to see a video showing off the highlighted moments, albeit in zoomed-in grainyvision.
What Starfish can learn from its failed Macworld appearance
If you haven't read it yet, please check out Lex Friedman's account on Macworld's site of his attempts to view the Starfish smartwatch prototype. Lex does an amazing job summarizing how the company stumbled and stumbled again in its attempts to show the Mac community its competitor to the Pebble smart watch. TUAW got lucky. It was by pure chance that I happened to return to the booth just as the working prototype was being passed from hand to hand. After about five minutes, the prototype was handed to me. Tale of a failed watch Midway through our Friday afternoon coverage of the show, TUAW editor-in-chief Victor Agreda forwarded the team a tweet from Panic Inc. co-founder Cabel Sasser that talked about the watch. "An AirPlay mirroring... watch? But... how would it.. and how do you.. can someone at Macworld report from Booth 214?!" Sasser tweeted. I was in-between stories, so I scooped up my camera and headed to the show floor. Starfish was on the far side of the exhibit space. A few booths were clustered near the tables where people grabbed a hurried bite to eat or rested their aching feet. It was easy to miss Starfish's booth at first. There were no products, no people clustered around the table like at the Square Jellyfish booth a couple steps away. Two women sat at the table doing what we all do when we're bored -- messing with their phones. I asked one of the booth attendants if I could see a demo. There was a delay, and the prototypes aren't here yet, one told me. I could come back tomorrow. I asked them a few more questions about the watch, but they didn't know much about it. Saturday morning, I returned to find no one at all at the Starfish booth. I shot a few photos of the empty table and headed off in search of a better story, namely the monkey across the room. A couple of hours later, I swung by the booth with TUAW colleague Randy Nelson shortly before 12:30 p.m. to find that the prototype had arrived, along with several watch bands with empty spaces where the device should be. The man at the table, who was not CEO Jason Buzi, admitted that neither he nor Buzi had ever used the prototype, and that he wasn't even quite sure of what it did. He told me to come back in 30 minutes to an hour. During that wait, I did some research. I found the Pocketables story from November 2012 with the initial ad in the November-December issue of iPhone Life. I found SlashGear's post about the plan to debut the watch at Macworld/iWorld 2013, and I checked out Starfish's Facebook page. About 30 minutes later, Kelly Guimont sought us out. She and Rod Roddenberry had gone by the Starfish booth after my initial report that the prototype had arrived. They approached the booth to ask some questions. The man covering the booth told them that he would be right back -- and then he walked off, leaving the booth (and empty watchbands) unattended. Kelly wasn't impressed. I decided to check the booth one more time. There was the usual throng of people wanting to check out a new product. And there was the watch, looking nothing like the magazine mockup. I made sure to capture a video for posterity. When it was passed to me, I held it, not quite sure what to do with it. I pressed a few buttons, tapped the screen, and nothing happened. I gave it to Buzi and asked for a demonstration. You could tell he wasn't used to this sort of attention, and he admitted on Facebook that it was a stressful experience because he didn't have a product to show. But neither he nor his friend were as combative toward me as his friend (the one who spoke with me earlier) later was when speaking with Macworld's reporters. I returned to the media room and showed the raw footage to Victor. "That's not an AirPlay watch," he said as soon as the first frames flickered on his MacBook Air. His guess? Buzi was obtaining a watch from China and trying to re-sell it here for a profit, and that's why he knew so little about his own prototype. Friedman's subsequent interview with Buzi confirmed Victor's suspicions. What can be learned from this? One of the main reasons that the Pebble smartwatch was funded successfully was because of how prepared they were at the beginning of the process. While production delays caused the watch to be delivered months after it was funded, they had working prototypes on hand before beginning the publicity process. Disclaimer: I have successfully run one Kickstarter in the past, and I'm in the middle of conducting a second one. Starfish has a long road to go if they want to succeed at funding any sort of Kickstarter, and to start with, they have to earn the trust of their potential backers. As one Macworld commenter pointed out, thanks to the catastrophic Macworld/iWorld experience, they're pretty much doomed from the start. As Friedman said, it's odd that this sort of vaporware doesn't show up more often at expos (though I am still waiting for that TARDIS iPhone dock from CES 2011). What could Starfish have done differently? Hold off on advertising. They shouldn't have run any ads or reserved a Macworld spot until a working prototype was in hand. They should have known exactly where they were going with the watch before spending thousands of dollars on magazine ads and an expo booth. That's money that could have gone into research. Choose the friends helping you wisely. Whoever is helping to pitch the product -- from booth sitters to best friends -- needs to know just as much about it as the CEO, and given the circumstances that's not much of a bar. Supply them cheat sheets. We heard answers ranging from "the Kickstarter has been conducted" to that it was coming later (the latter being the right answer). Teach them how to interact with people asking the rough questions. The friend trying to help Buzi who got aggressive with the Macworld reporting staff wasn't doing him any favors. The entire point of the expo was for reporters to come and ask those questions. Make face time for yourself. A CEO launching a product should spend as much time as possible at the booth, even if the product isn't there. Have your laptop out, show people schematics and discuss the product with them. These are your potential backers, and you owe it to them to be as open as possible about the project. Also, show enthusiasm about your product. Be excited about it, be into it, and convey that to people. Yes, it's extremely hard when you're not used to doing that. But that passion about your own work will go a long way toward convincing people to back you. Use prior experience you have to show that this isn't just vaporware. When I launched our first Kickstarter, I had never published a print book. But, I did have 10 years of newspaper experience as a reporter and designer. My partner and co-creator had two books published in Canada. Between us, we had a 14-month archive of comic pages online. Having that content available, along with our combined experience, helped both Kickstarter projects to be successful. Be realistic about your project. As we know with Pebble and Nifty MiniDrive, there could be massive production delays. Components might be faulty, and other factors might cause you to adjust your schedule. Be open about them with potential backers. Perusing the Pebble and NiftyDrive update schedules on their Kickstarters will help you get a good idea as to what can go wrong. Even smaller products can have this happen. With my current Kickstarter, our printer suddenly bailed on us. I had to rearrange for the book to be printed elsewhere very fast. If all else fails, bail out of the expo. Yes, you'll be out a few thousand dollars, but it could have also saved face for Starfish in the end. A straightforward "our prototype didn't arrive on time, and we didn't want to show people a product we didn't have" will go a long way toward earning good will. It means you're acting in good faith and not trying to scam folks. Things could turn around for Starfish, they could be successfully funded, and we could see Starfish watches alongside Pebble at some point in 2014. Or, they're not funded. Or, they could turn out like Code Hero developers and potentially face a class-action lawsuit, and that's something I don't want to see happen to anyone.
What is the meaning of gear?
The forums are a constant source of interest. I was browsing their pages this morning, and came across this gem, not the writing of the blue, but a quotation from elsewhere. Draztal Quote: Looking at people with epic gear should be a motivator to get yourself into raiding, and if you don't have the time for it, then to bad for you. Get over it. You can't control people's motivations. For many players out there, gear is not the objective, just the mean to an end (defeating more difficult foes). source This got me thinking about what gear means, simply because my attitude to it was so different to that of the person Draztal is quoting. I love things that generate different opinions within WoW, and it seemed fairly likely that this was one of those things. The person who originally wrote this is quite feasibly someone who sets great store in the importance of raiding, probably at a high level, such as heroic raiding, and sees gear as a trophy which he or she has won from their exploits. It's a token of remembrance, almost, something to show the world that you have achieved great things. There are plenty of elements of WoW that cater to this view, such as achievements that award titles for long-gone feats of strength, or mounts, anything that says "I was there. I did this."
Reality Absorption Field: Forms without Apple function
The last Reality Absorption Field discussed how CES is relevant to Apple -- mostly through major standards milestones -- even though the company doesn't attend the annual confabulation. But CES can also be seen as a mirror that is held up to the world of device makers, even those that don't attend CES. In that vein, there were a number of significant new computing form factors shown in the desert. And while their having any impact on the computing world outside of Apple is far from a sure bet, it's still worth considering their relevance to the company. NVIDIA Project Shield gaming handheld Perhaps the most significant surprise at CES, Project Shield represents the first end-user gaming hardware from chip-maker and Mac graphics supplier (but ARM architecture competitor) NVIDIA. It's an Xbox-like controller with a flip-up lid that includes a 5" "retina-quality" display. Like Kickstarter projects OUYA and GameStick, it runs Android and can connec to a big-screen TV, but Project Shield will be the first Android device to include a Tegra 4, the company's state of the art system-on-a-chip offering. If all that weren't enough, the handheld can reach across a home network to access and remotely play games on specially-equipped PCs running Valve's Steam service. Any possible connection between Apple and the TV seems to draw a lot of attention these days especially as Apple has enabled Bluetooth on Apple TV, but it's difficult to see an iOS version of something like Project Shield even without the far-out remote PC gaming features. Apple has built a strong case for buttonless games in iOS, and the iPhone or iPod touch serves the role of a controller in which the games resided and could be sent up to TV via AirPlay. Lenovo Horizon Table PC Remember Microsoft Surface? Not the iPad competitor Microsoft rolled out last year but the big honking table computer it rolled out around the same time as the iPhone? Well, it's still around -- sort of -- as the Samsung SUR40. And it's still pretty expensive. The Lenovo Horizon PC seeks to bring the Surface experience to a broader experience by embedding it within a 27" all-in-one PC that lays flat for table games. Alas, since its a Windows PC, Lenovo has had to create its own app store filled with apps that are optimized for such a form factor. Now, if you scoff at the idea of a 13" Android tablet like the kind Toshiba tried, it's kind of crazy to consider a 27" iPad. And yet, the Horizon takes the kind of casual gaming people enjoy on the iPad and turns it into an engaging multiplayer experience by having people sit around it. Best of all, flip open the stand, and it turns into an all-in-one PC much like the iMac. This is a tough one to see Apple doing for a host of reasons, but it is an interesting extension of the iPad concept from a single user model to a multiple user model. Pebble Smartwatch The Pebble watch, which in part soared to record Kickstarter funding heights based on its compatibility with iOS, was well-known before CES, but the developers took advantage of the trade show to announce that the product would finally be shipping and it has. Like other entrants in the smartwatch space, such as the Cookoo and MetaWatch Strata, the Pebble gleans connected information and from your smartphone and offers basic controls for tasks such as playing music. The chance of Apple coming out with a smartwatch are still probably pretty slim, but relatively high compared to a gaming controller or table computer. While Apple changed course from the wrist-friendly direction in which it was taking the iPod nano over the course of two generations of that product, that might have just been clearing the deck for what could be a bona fide wrist companion. Such a device might even be capable of running true widgets that could be accessible via the iPhone, iPad or even Mac, imbuing new life into the Dashboard feature. We know that Apple remains focused on mobility, and the smartwatch space could certainly use the kind of design panache, focus on long battery life, and thinness for which the company is known. Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.
Reality Absorption Field: What happens in Vegas
A few years ago, a senior Apple executive was once told that, even though Apple did not exhibit at the annual Las Vegas spectacle that is the International Consumer Electronics Show, its presence seemed to linger in the arid air and in the clouded minds of many attendees. "We love that," he replied. But cashing in on the media attention around CES is but one reason that the the tech show from which Apple abstains has relevance to it. At this year's CES, for example, there were several trends that had relevance to Apple's business both from a cooperative and competitive perspective: Displays The main attraction in the CES circus is almost always television, historically the largest consumer electronics category. The show has long hosted advances in TV sets and their AV peripherals. Following in the footsteps of HD and 3D, 4K dominated the announcements of major consumer electronics companies at the 2013 show. Even with Apple's television set still a rumor, the heightened resolution represents an answer form HDTV manufacturers who have seen Apple boast that the iPad's Retina display contains more pixels than their living room behemoths (even though a 4K TV currently costs about 40 times what an iPad costs). Radios But it's not all a competitive story. The availability of TVs that can accommodate the iPad's Retina Display could add value to future versions of AirPlay. Of course, that would be helped by a bigger wireless pipe between the iDevice and the TV, and new Wi-Fi standards were on display at CES. 802.11ac -- the 5 GHz-only successor to 802.11n -- products are slated to be certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance with this year. And right before the show, the Wi-Fi Alliance noted that it had merged with the WiGig Alliance; the combined work on short-range sharing in the 60 GHz range which should facilitate the sharing of multigigabit video in the same room, again providing more options. Alas, the Alliance is also again providing more options for future Apple TV products. On the other hand, the alliance is also gearing up to throw its weight behind Miracast, the AirPlay competitor that is already supported by some smartphones. Chips Speaking of competition, the number and kinds of products that compete with Apple's that are shown at CES varies. Following the release of the iPad, there were scores of tablets shown by exhibitors, nearly all of which flopped in the marketplace. With the exception of Lenovo, though, almost all major PC vendors shy from the hallways of the Las Vegas Convention Center. And with Microsoft now leaving CES, that left Intel to carry the PC banner. The giant chipmaker employed some marketing mojo regarding the evolution of higher-efficiency chips that will benefit all of its hardware partners, including Apple, of course. Intel also continues to work toward expanding its role in tablets and smartphones, but it will face competition from ARM-based rivals, including Nvidia's Tegra 4. The new processor includes an impressive 72 graphics cores that should keep Apple on its toes as it evolves beyond today's A6. ---- Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research and blogs at Techspressive. Opinions expressed in Reality Absorption Field are his own.
Point-Counterpoint: The 'cheap iPhone'
The "Apple will make a low-cost iPhone" rumor is turning into one of the leading tech industry memes of 2013. Just like the "Apple will make an HDTV" and "Apple will introduce a streaming music service" rumors, the "low-cost iPhone" rumor isn't exactly new; there have been rumors of an "iPhone nano" for close to five years now. The question no one seems to be asking is this: does it even make good sense for Apple to make a low-cost iPhone? Fellow TUAW writer Richard Gaywood and I batted that question around; our point/counterpoint follows. Chris Rawson: The low-cost iPhone is the only way to save Apple. Otherwise, it's DOOMED. I know this because more than one analyst said so. This is the dumbest rumor so far this year, and that's saying something. There's already a low-cost iPhone; it's called the iPhone 4. In the next product cycle, it'll be the iPhone 4S. Duh. Richard Gaywood: Hmmm. While it's certainly true that the iPhone 4 is free on contract, in the rest of the world pre-pay is far more common than it is in the US. Here in the UK, for example, I enjoy a choice of at least five mobile operators in the UK that offer competitive pre-pay iPhone tariffs. Pre-pay is more than 80% of the entire Italian mobile market, and it's typically 25-50% in most European markets. And so on, and so forth. So let's consider Apple's pre-pay offering. A contract-free 8 GB iPhone 4 is £319 -- far more expensive than a Nexus 4 (£239 from Google, admittedly with vexing supply issues that are, remarkably, worse than trying to get an new iPhone in the first week after launch). The Nexus 4, of course, is probably more fairly compared to the iPhone 5 than the ageing iPhone 4; Apple's most advanced handset costs £529 for a 16 GB model. The Nexus's lack of LTE is less of an issue here in Europe, where LTE coverage is lagging behind the aggressive rollouts in US cities. (For another comparison point, the best-of-breed Samsung Galaxy S3 is showing on Amazon right now for around £399.) This "the iPhone is already free, can't get any cheaper" meme is US-centric nonsense. Consider this graph posted on Twitter by telco analyst Benedict Evans, which breaks down handset sales by OS and price point. Android owns the $100-200 and the $200-300 brackets, markets that Apple simply doesn't compete in. That's Apple's economic motivation for a cheaper iPhone. Now, often, people say Apple doesn't want this cheaper end of the market -- although I'm not sure I'd characterise that $200-300 bracket as particularly cheap, myself. That's not necessarily the wrong call. But right now, it is conceding huge numbers of sales to Android. And didn't Jobs once say something about a mistake when Apple went for profit and should have gone for market share...? Indeed, Tim Cook said at the iPhone 4S launch that "The iPhone has 5% share of the worldwide market of handsets. I could have shown the bigger smartphone numbers. But we believe over time all handsets become smartphones." Cook chose to couch market share in terms of all phones, not just the thin sliver of the market -- "smartphones above $300" -- where Apple competes today. CR: As someone living in New Zealand and shelling out over a thousand bucks for an off-contract iPhone every other year, I'll agree with you wholeheartedly on that "free iPhone 4" thing being US-centric bullhonkey. As for whether it makes sense for Apple to address the pre-paid market at all, much less at the low handset retail numbers people are wildly throwing around? Let's pretend it's Opposites Day. Of course, it makes perfect sense that Apple will produce a cut-rate iPhone just to beef up its market share numbers. If there's one thing Apple's famous for, it's producing cheap, crippled crap in the name of increasing market share. RG: Because the iPad nano and Shuffle were such disasters? To use with my iPhone 5, I have a pay-monthly contract (i.e. I can leave any time I want, with no lock-in, but I don't have to faff with top-ups; it's billed from my account). I pay £25/mo, and that's relatively expensive. I get 2000 minutes for outgoing mobile and landline calls, 5000 minutes for outgoing calls to other users of my network, and 5000 SMSs. Plus unlimited -- truly unlimited -- data. I've wracked up 10 GB in a month before now (mostly Netflix streaming in hotel rooms). But of course, my off-net iPhone 5 that I needed for that cost more than twice as much as a Nexus 4 would have... Hence the entirely reasonable conclusion that the iPhone is expensive. The Nexus 4 is a very close match, in most of the ways I care about, for the iPhone 5. And there are plenty of other high spec Android handsets around that cost more than the Nexus but a lot less than the iPhone, too. Then there's the other bit. Look at the graph I posted earlier. Look at the Nokia Feature and Samsung Feature lines; the hundreds of millions of sales in the developing world. Over time, many of these people are going to naturally migrate to smartphones, but they are going to do it without paying very much more. At the moment, Android is getting cheaper and cheaper, and gobbling up more and more of the market. Apple have frozen themselves out. Is that wise? I don't know, but I don't think it's an open-and-shut case that it is the right decision. CR: All these arguments for why Apple "must" introduce a low-cost iPhone strike me as very similar to the pre-iPad discussions for why Apple simply had to build and ship a netbook. And yet I read an article the other day (can't find the link, rare moment of Google Fu letting me down) that said low-cost netbooks have likely caused a market crash in the average sale price (ASP) of Windows-based PCs-possibly permanently. ASP for PCs is down near US$450, according to that article. ASP for Macs is around $1499. It doesn't take a math genius to notice the disparity. Android handsets are gobbling up market share, true... and yet the only Android handset maker who's turning an appreciable profit is Samsung. And while I don't have the figures in front of me, I'd be willing to bet its most profitable phones aren't the cheap crap flooding the prepaid market, but the flagship lines that it advertises so heavily. People see how much money Apple makes and how many devices it sells, and they assume it's a standard consumer electronics company. It's not. It's still very much a luxury brand, and if they drift away from that they do so at their own peril. If they sell a $200 pre-paid iPhone, that creates the illusion that a smartphone "should" only cost $200, the same way netbooks created the illusion that a PC "should" only cost a few hundred bucks. And then boom, crash, there goes the neighbourhood, and Apple's profits along with it. RG: I'm not arguing that Apple "must" make a cheaper iPhone; that way lies madness. I'm making the case that perhaps it would behoove Apple to do so, nothing more; and I am doing so because the main reason for it to do so is being disregarded by a lot of American bloggers due to an artefact of how the US cellular market works. There's a stronger case in favour of Apple doing this than many people are seeing. Doesn't mean Apple will. Doesn't mean Apple should. Look at it this way. As the aforementioned Benedict Evans explains here, Apple will soon approach -- if it hasn't already -- saturation in the premium smartphone market. It's already selling a bit more than 50% of all the phones in the small sliver of the market it completes in. Which is more likely: that Apple will choose to push into new market segments, or that Apple will just rest on its laurels and accept stagnation? And whilst I accept your arguments that Apple would be unwise to destroy its margins in the name of market share, the iPod market is clearly a demonstration that it can manage both. Profit margins on all the various iPods are certainly healthy, and yet Apple has managed to own practically the entire market of portable music players. That's not an easy trick to pull off, certainly -- it helps that Apple almost created the market, whereas smartphones are subject to far more intense competition -- but still, it shows there's hope that Apple could both have its market share cake and eat its tortuously constructed metaphor for profit. Also (he adds, cheekily), isn't this an action reply of your arguments against the iPad mini? CR: The iPod comparison is an interesting one, particularly in light of the fact that the iPod touch is Apple's best-selling iPod... accounting for more than half of all sales, by itself. I'd wager the iPod shuffle is pretty insignificant overall, which just leaves the iPod nano. So how does Apple make an iPhone nano? Do they put out a plastic thingy with a non-Retina screen? Well, they already had one of those for a few years -- the iPhone 3GS -- and they discontinued it. Not much enthusiasm apparent there. So (and this may be the margaritas I had with dinner talking), how about a smaller iPhone, with a smaller screen, that just runs Apple's core applications and nothing from the App Store? That solves the problem of not wanting to force developers to target yet another screen size, but even though that's all we had to go on for that first year the iPhone was out, can you even imagine using an iPhone that couldn't run third-party apps? I certainly couldn't. And imagine the derision from the Android camp if Apple did that. The only thing I can see making sense is if Apple does something similar to what it did with the iPad mini: make a product that costs (slightly) less without also making it suck. In retrospect it was kind of obvious how to do that with the iPad mini; it's less obvious how to do that with the iPhone. My arguments against the iPad mini were made in the light of people predicting it would have an entry cost of $199 and seeing how craptastic competing tablets in that size/price range are. Since its entry cost is $329 instead and it's arguably superior to the full-size iPad in some ways, it alleviates pretty much all of the problems I saw with it undercutting Apple's profits and "commoditising" the iPad. With Bloomberg and others saying this "low cost iPhone" will cost $99 or $149 (ridiculous), the same argument does indeed apply. If Apple instead introduces a "low cost" device in the neighbourhood of $249-299 for the base level handset, and it does the same thing it did with the iPad mini -- in other words, it doesn't compromise on build quality or performance in the name of hitting a price point -- then fine, it starts to make slightly more sense for them to go ahead and build/sell it. The iPhone is already Apple's biggest moneymaker by far, though. I don't really see the need to mess with success. Meanwhile, Schiller has openly denied this "cheap iPhone" rumor... unless he hasn't. Reuters is making me dizzy. Hey, here's a crazy thought: What if the "low-cost iPhone" is really just a souped-up iPod touch with data-only 3G? Call it the "iPad nano" or something. RG: Well, I think the idea of an iPod touch with 3G is silly, which we touched on in a previous debate. The point I was making all along is that "there's a stronger case for Apple to do a cheaper iPhone than many people are giving credit to." That's divorced from the idea that Apple should chase that market (the best rebuttal being "this is the cheap end of the market that Apple doesn't want anyway"), so I think my points still stand. CR: Agreed, and honestly, if Apple can find a way to make the iPhone less expensive without also making it terrible, I'll be first in line. I know I'm tired of shelling out NZ$1349 every couple of years when I want to buy a handset off-contract. What's your take? Is Apple about to throw a cheaper iPhone out there? Let us know in the comments.
Learn all about the MMO market with this nifty infographic
Knowing is half the battle, folks. Sometimes the process of going from not knowing to knowing can be boring and slow -- but not this time, thanks to the magic of infographics! The intelligent folks over at Newzoo have compiled a relatively brief infographic about the state of the MMO market, from the fact that there are 400,000,000 MMO players world-wide (of whom about 180,000,000 are strictly free-to-play patrons) to the fact that 30% of Australia's paying players are female. Last year, the market was split nearly 50/50 between free-to-play and pay-to-play games, but has since switched to a 53% to 47% advantage for free-to-play. Check out the full infographic after the break to feast your eyes and your brain, or head over to an interview with Newzoo's CEO to absorb knowledge the old-fashioned way.
The Phantom Pain speculation round-up: Metal Gear?!
The biggest surprise to come from last night's Spike TV Video Game Awards was undoubtedly the announcement of The Phantom Pain, a seemingly new IP from a completely unknown Swedish development house called Moby Dick Studio. The debut trailer showed a hospital under attack from an ominously obscured figure, and ended on a macro shot of an amputee that bore a striking resemblance to Solid Snake of Metal Gear Solid fame.Wait, Solid Snake? Metal Gear?! But, how could that be possible in a new franchise from a new developer that isn't Konami or Kojima Productions? Hey actually, now that we think about it, why is a brand-new studio getting to premiere a teaser for its first-ever game at an event generally reserved for AAA titles from global publishers?Perhaps there's more to this than meets the eye. Let's take an in-depth, spoiler filled look at what evidence there is so far, and why all signs point to this being a new entry in the Metal Gear mythos.
Reality Absorption Field: A slow rise to the Surface
After all the teasing and secrecy and controversy around its launch, the recent announcement by Steve Ballmer that Surface with Windows RT (the only chip-defined flavor of Microsoft's debut branded tablet that's currently shipping) was off to a "modest" start might have seemed like a shocking admission of failure. Did consumers not appreciate its VaporMg exterior? The crisp, car door-inspired snap of its kickstand concealing an SD slot? Its USB port? Extended range Wi-Fi? Angled rear camera? Elaborate choreography-inspiring click? Of course, some consumers have appreciated these points of differentiation, but Windows RT has now become the fourth tablet operating system to get off to a slow start versus the iPad (joining webOS on the short-lived Touchpad, Playbook OS on the sputtering Playbook, and Android). Google's Android OS has has been the only one to make significant gains on Apple's tablets, primarily by employing the familiar tactic of undercutting on price. In the case of products such as the Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7, all profit margin on the razor (hardware) has been sacrificed in the name of trying to use the device to build up sales of blades (content). Ballmer was quick to divert attention away from the slow start out of the gate while also risking further turning off potential customers from the current offering by heralding the arrival of the Surface with Windows 8 Pro. That Intel-based version of Microsoft's tablet will embody the tradeoffs that sent Microsoft looking to support ARM processors in the first place -- among them, a thicker frame and shorter battery life. However, Microsoft believes that Intel-based tablets can leverage their backward compatibility with Win32 applications and PC industry momentum to help build the base for tablet-optimized apps, one of the shortcomings not only of Surface or other Windows RT devices, but of all the tablets that have failed against the iPad. The ideal situation for Microsoft and (other) PC hardware makers would be to extend the tablet or at least minimize its cannibalization of primary PCs -- similar to what the netbook did in the Windows market (albeit more profitably) and what the iPad has done in the Mac market. Of course, in Apple's case, that's easier to pull off because of what had been the $500 entry price difference between the first iPad and lowest-price MacBook (and what is now the $670 delta between the iPad mini and the baseline MacBook Air). Paradoxically, though, despite all the tablet hardware support in Windows 8 and Microsoft itself investing heavily in slow-selling hardware, it's an understatement to say that Microsoft doesn't care about the tablet market. Hence its lack of cognitive dissonance in describing Surface as both a tablet and a PC. It doesn't want to believe that a distinct tablet market exists, and if it does, it wants to make sure that it doesn't continue. That appears to be the only way to stop the iPad, or at least the potential of iPads to grow into a more credible threat to PCs. And so, in contrast to the sales pop that occurs when Apple introduces a new iPad, sales of Windows-based tablets, hybrids and convertibles will follow the more mellifluous mature sales cycle of PCs. It's a slow-growth replacement market, but one that ultimately results in hundreds of millions of devices with baseline capabilities. To Microsoft, the touchscreen of the 2010s is the sound card of the 1990s, slowly but surely penetrating the installed base until it's taken for granted. For Microsoft, there really is no "PC-Plus" scenario. It is the "PC" scenario, the "Plus" a grudging nod to a form factor. As that scenario plays out over the coming years, though, Apple will have a great opportunity to build on its momentum. To seize it, it will need to start thinking more about iPads used in scenarios where iPhones are not. The key to that won't be adding SD cards, kickstands, keyboards and other geegaws to its tablet, but by making the software ever more powerful and capable to create Microsoft's worst nightmare.
Reality Absorption Field: Sizing up the iPad mini
Welcome to Reality Absorption Field, a new bimonthly column where veteran industry analyst and occasional TUAW TalkCast contributor Ross Rubin will discuss industry developments and how they relate to Apple. On October 23rd, following presentation of slimmed-down Macs and a beefed-up iPad, Apple introduced the long-anticipated iPad mini. With its 7.9" diagonal screen, the smaller iPad doesn't seem dramatically smaller than its bigger brother. Indeed, it's screen is a bit more than 80 percent as large as that of the iPad 2, with which it shares the same screen resolution. And at $329 (up to double that stuffed with 64 GB of flash memory and LTE), it's also a bit more than 80 percent of the iPad 2's starting price. At $329, the iPad mini starts at $130 more than the 16 GB Kindle Fire HD or ASUS-built Google Nexus 7. The displays on these 7" devices are about 70 percent of the size of the iPad 2's display, but they cost only half of what the iPad 2 costs. Perhaps in part to justify the price premium, Apple played up both the hardware and software differences between the iPad mini and the Google Nexus 7 at the iPad mini's introduction. On the hardware side, Apple highlighted the iPad mini's lighter weight and premium materials versus the plastic competition. On the software front, Apple showed off the impact of the larger display of the iPad mini on Web content. Apple, which promotes the importance of pixel counts on its Retina displays, ignored raw pixel counts versus the Nexus 7, which has more than a million pixels as opposed to the iPad mini's 786,432 pixels. But taking into account Chrome's tabs and Android's ever-present soft-buttons as well as the iPad mini's 4:3 aspect ratio, the diminutive iPad was able to show more of a Web page's length in landscape mode. The other card Apple (again) played was the optimization of iPad apps as opposed to scaled smartphone apps. One issue, though, is that many of the companies that Apple has highlighted in these comparisons, particularly Yelp and Twitter, compete at least partially with Google and may be less inclined to optimize for a platform it controls. There's no definitive answer as to whether the iPad mini is too expensive as buyers have different budgets. It's certainly more expensive than smaller competitors, but is made of more expensive materials that Apple regularly claims are more valued by recyclers. Also, if one is looking for a tablet close to the iPad mini's size that can access LTE networks, the Nexus 7 is out although one could look to the Galaxy Tab 7.7 or the Droid Xyboard 8.2, Those tablets and the iPad mini round out the 8" class of tablets from major vendors, (although Archos also has an offering there). They give up some portability while creating a larger canvas for apps and movies. The initial reception appears to be very warm. While Apple did not break out iPad mini sales, it noted that, in the first weekend of availability it sold three million iPads, a notable bump from its usual run rate. Most of that was probably due to the iPad mini, which opens up the iPad to less affluent buyers. The fourth-generation iPad, while mostly a dramatic spec bump in terms of processor speed, surely contributed a bump as well as "new" goes a long way with consumers. Apple certainly would have sold even more iPad minis had it launched them at $299. However, it seems likely that Apple, which has brought retina displays to two MacBooks, iPhone, iPod touch and flagship iPad, will eventually bring it to the iPad mini and may want to leave some margin for the more expensive display. Until then, though, the tradeoff between the iPad mini and certain Android tablets such as the Nexus 7 and Barnes & Noble Nook HD, is one of screen size for resolution. Of course, what you can do on those pixels also matters, and the iPad mini has a broad selection of optimized apps. But with its size and especially price so far removed from the likes of the Nexus 7 and Kindle HD, the real question for most buyers who value the iPad experience likely won't be between the Nexus 7 and the iPad mini, but between the iPad mini and its favorable competitive position against the iPad 2. Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at@rossrubin. Views expressed in Reality Absorption Field are his own.
Does it matter if the iPad mini cannibalizes iPad sales?
On October 23rd, Apple introduced its fourth-generation iPad, the iPad mini and a slew of Mac refreshes. Somewhat lost in the reaction to those launches and refreshes was what I think is the most interesting story of all: the iPad 2, and how competitive it has been in this market. Today, a bit of the iPad 2 story is hitting the news as analysts discuss whether the iPad 2 and the iPad mini are cannibalizing iPad sales. I think there's a bigger discussion to be had that goes beyond basic cannibalization. I hope you'll have patience with me as I try to draw together a number of different strands. The iPad 2 is an amazing device. It is, in many ways, the little tablet that could. It offers a complete tablet experience at a very affordable price. In discussing the iPad mini price point, Phil Schiller stated, "The most affordable product we've made so far was $399 and people were choosing that over those devices." [emphasis mine] Consumers were saying that they wanted Apple, that they wanted iPad and that they were willing to forego premium features like the Retina display, upgraded cameras, LTE connectivity and better processors to purchase that experience. It's often taken for granted that Apple doesn't cater to value buyers, but I think that it does. From the Mac mini to the iPod shuffle, Apple has had a place for frugal buyers -- offering great value at lower price points. If you're thinking about comparing specs, as Amazon did quite pointedly, you're missing the mark. Yes, I could buy "more computer" for the same price I just spent on my new Mac mini, but buying Apple is about not compromising the quality of your computing experience. Hardware specs are just that: bloodless specifications that say precious little about your actual day-to-day experience. There's a reason Apple keeps earning those "satisfied consumer" awards. Buying Apple is about retaining customers for life -- not someone who buys Asus one year and Kleeborp the next. With Apple, you hook consumers on the experience, the ecosystem and the consistency. That's why I think positioning another member of the tablet family around/below the current iPad 2 price point is much smarter than people are giving Apple credit for. In a tough economy, Apple is filling all the seats in its stadium, not just the ones near the field. Metaphorically speaking, it's about how much each seat costs. Concert tickets are typically offered at many price points. And yet stadiums still sell out. The notion that someone will merely buy an iPad 2 or iPad mini once, then never buy an Apple product again, denies about 30 years of buying pattern data and the Apple halo effect. While analysists discuss exactly how much the mini is going to cannibalize premium iPad sales, Apple can take a longer view. Bringing customers into the Apple ecosystem, regardless of which level they arrive on, helps lock them into long-term profits that derive from secondary services like App Store, iTunes and iCloud -- not to mention future hardware sales. Apple is making money on each iPad sale, while Amazon loses money on each Kindle Fire HD. Plus, the iPad doesn't feel like a commerce portal the way the Fire does. Consumers are buying a full tablet experience, not a front end to a mall. These are lifestyle purchases. An iPad 2 or iPad mini customer is making an investment in doing things, having fun and accomplishing tasks on their device, not just floating on an upward cycle of durable goods sales. In today's Washington Post, analyst Sameer Sing points out that documents sourced from the Apple/Samsung patent case indicate that "iPad 2 cannibalized approximately 60 percent of third-generation iPad sales, i.e. for every 5 million iPad 2 buyers, Apple lost 3 million third-generation." This cannibalization would presumably extend from the iPad 2 to the iPad mini over time. Do the mini and the iPad 2 primarly cannibalize sales or create them? Perhaps there's a third option: instead, they could be building a new class of Apple customer. In a depressed economy, many consumers aren't looking to buy premium. The iPad mini and the iPad 2 offer an attractive lifestyle-purchase option compared to the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. As Steve Jobs once said, you make good stuff and people will buy it. The mini and the iPad 2 bring that good stuff within the purchasing radius of many more potential customers.
New Mac mini tear down and benchmarks from Mac Mini Vault
The Mac Mini Vault has already grabbed a new Mac mini and taken it apart. You can read through the site's teardown and analysis right now. The short version is that much of the mini's design is the same. As you can see above, with the new version on the left and the 2011 version on the right. But because of the upgraded processor and memory, the new version is much faster than the last one, with nearly an extra thousand score on Geekbench tests. Mac Mini Vault (one of a few businesses offering Mac mini co-location) has a few more tests coming later on this week, including benchmarking on a few different operating systems running on the new mini, as well as a look at the new Mac mini server model that Apple has added to the lineup. It's great to see the mini getting some love, as it's an affordable and powerful way to run Apple's excellent hardware and OS in all kinds of different ways.
Google knows what you did this summer, shares it with the world
What we wouldn't give to have access to Google's treasure trove of human wonderings. Every day millions of folk tell the search giant exactly what they are thinking about, without even realizing it. It's not all take take take, though, as Mountain View has just released some data letting us all know what we and our (geographical) neighbors did this summer. By compiling popular search terms used in Google Maps between May and September, we can see that, while Canadians and the Spanish were looking for the beach, Britons were more partial to a game of Squash, or a trip around Trafalgar Square. Back home, Death Valley, Redwood and Yosemite National Parks were earning the most interest, while Paintball was the top activity -- but we're hoping the two are unrelated. Want to see how the Dutch like to unwind, or how Indians like to cool off? Jump on the tour bus source link to find out more.
