HowWouldYouChange
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How would you change the Segway?
Believe it or not, it's been almost six years since Dean Kamen's highly-anticipated, mysterious "IT" project was revealed to be the Segway personal transporter, yet far from fundamentally revolutionizing the way we get from here to there as the pre-release hype would have had us believe, you'd be hard-pressed to spot one of these pricey gadgets anywhere outside of a few golf courses or in a certain Apple founder's garage. It's not that the idea of a personal battery-powered vehicle isn't sound, you say, it's just that the thing costs too damn much (over five grand last time we checked) -- but we can't believe that's the sole impediment to adoption. Would a significant price drop really be the only thing it took to turn a nation of car-addicted commuters into one of happy, self-stabilizing Segway riders? Or are there other core issues -- size, speed, and safety, perhaps -- that need to be addressed before the appeal of powered personal transportation reaches critical mass? As always, we love to hear your constructive suggestions and criticisms here, so please have at it...
How would you change the Sony Reader?
So we were noodling around the laptop section at Best Buy the other day, semi-shocked at the relatively frenzied activity at the big box retailer, when we happened to glance over and notice a very lonely device being ignored by the throngs of shoppers. That poor, unloved gadget was none other than the Sony Reader, which saw a fair amount of hype prior to its (perpetually-delayed) release, but now seems to have basically slipped off most people's radar. Are people buying this thing? Has it developed a following? Is there a community devoted to software and hardware hacks? We're honestly not sure, which lead us to wonder how Sony could have changed things up to make the Reader -- in general, a solid concept -- a more desirable purchase for the mass market. Since it's surprisingly format agnostic for a Sony product, we don't expect to hear too many suggestions in the compatibility department, although there will understandably be some folks seeking support for WMA, non-BBeB protected content, native DOCs, and the like. That being said, should they have loaded it up with more flash, or at least made it compatible with memory cards bigger than 4GB? Would out-of-the-box support for Mac and Linux users help? How about a non-crippled RSS reader? (Hey, at least they hooked you up with Engadget, though). Help us out here, people, what would it take to send you home with a brand new Sony Reader?
How would you change Windows Vista?
What do you get when you take a product used by hundreds of millions of people every day, add a few new features / polish up the interface, and then try to get everyone to shell out a grip of money for this delay- and bug- plagued upgrade? No, we're not talking about New Coke, although Microsoft probably could have learned a lesson from that failed experiment when it went about developing what would end up being Windows Vista, namely that consumers demand more than some glitz and fancy new packaging if they're to abandon an old, reliable friend. And besides that impressive Aero GUI -- which many PCs can't take advantage of anyway -- what is Vista really offering us that XP didn't? A crash-prone new media player? Exclusive "ultimate extras" that have so far amounted to a lame shareware game? A thousand chances a day to feel important when bequeathing "Administrator privileges" on all those demanding processes? You can probably tell by now that we're no Vista proponents, and having run the new OS exclusively for almost six months at this point, we're actually about to "make the leap" back to XP. But we're not willing to give up on Redmond just yet, and the beauty of all these service packs and "Patch Tuesdays" is that some of our suggestions could conceivably be incorporated into a product that's already hit the market. So, what does Microsoft need to do to make Vista (and its price points) more palatable (short of re-releasing it based on the WinFS file system)? Loosen up the DRM restrictions? Toss the controversial WGA? Put all possible features in a single SKU like certain other companies? Well come on, we're positive that there's no shortage of suggestions out there, so let's hear 'em!
How would you change the Apple TV?
Any time Apple enters a new product category it's obviously a fairly major development -- we're still getting bombarded with iPhone news over one month post-launch -- so now that you've had some time to play with it, it's only fair that we give the Apple TV the same vulture-like evisceration that we do any other high profile consumer electronics product. The little box seems to have received a warm welcome for the most part, with hackers quickly tearing it apart and adding all sorts of new capabilities to boot, but what we're interested in is how you'd change the device out of the box. Would you make it more or less integrated with the iTunes ecosystem? Should it be friendlier to a wider variety of codecs? Maybe open up the USB port? Okay, have at it...
How would you change iMovie '08: special emergency software edition
We know we don't normally do our How would you change feature in the middle of the week -- nor do we ever do it about software -- but since Tuesday we've been absolutely inundated with unhappy iMovie '08 customers who want back many of the the more robust features of previous versions. Chief among them, iMovie could seriously use themes, chapter markers, a timeline view, track-volume editing / fading, and the list goes on. So tell us, what would you change about it? Go nuts in comments, we hear Apple reads the site every once in a while.
How would you change the Microsoft Zune?
"Tack on a scroll wheel and call it an iPod." Alright, now that we've gotten that obvious little gem out of the way, it's time to get down to business and start our unpaid weekly focus group for major consumer electronics manufacturers, with today's victim subject being none other than Microsoft's controversial Zune. Far from the complete failure some had predicted, the Zune has actually managed to hold its own in the marketplace and even develop a small but dedicated following; however, we're not gathered here to give Redmond props on the social, so let's see what kind of suggestions we can come up with for its troubled-but-promising DAP. Bigger storage capacity? Check. Non-crippled wireless functionality? Check. Makes phone calls and plays YouTube videos and gives one a heightened sense of self-worth? Checkmate. Yup, looks like we're off to a good start here, so keep 'em comin' folks: how would you change the Zune?
How would you change the Nintendo Wii?
Since we've already sent both of the other major consoles through the wringer -- along with the two most popular handheld units -- it wouldn't really be fair if we didn't come together as a family and give Nintendo's Wii the most bitter critiquing of its young life, now would it? There's no real debating the fact that this innovative gaming platform has not only become a success in and of itself but fundamentally influenced the way we interact with our devices as well, yet it's certainly far from the perfect product, and there are a number of things we're sure you'd like to see added / changed / removed. For instance, it would pretty sweet if I could use this thing as my DVD player too. Or, why is it so dang hard to befriend someone? And of course, this being 2007 and all, where's that HD already? Bonus: While no one really complains about this much anymore, as we recall, the name "Wii" wasn't all that well received among haters and fanboys alike when it was first revealed. Since this post is all about changes, we also want to know: if you could go back in time, how would you have branded Nintendo's worldwide hit?
How would you change the iPhone?
We wanted to wait until the dust had settled a little bit and the legions of faithful got some time to adjust to their new best friend before asking the inevitable question about such a high profile device, and now feels like the right moment to end the honeymoon and really start tearing into the iPhone like the true vultures that we are. You're obviously well aware of what we think of the little bugger by now (almost all of us, in fact) and many of you have already opined on the matter in one of our innumerable posts over the past few weeks, but for the sake of future generation of robots downloading and synthesizing our archives, let's assemble these gripes together here in this one handy post.Right off the bat, we'll get the obvious candidates out of the way and save everyone some time: give us 3G, a physical keyboard, and for all that is good and right in the world, a little A2DP action so that we could actually cut the wire once and for all (well, those of you non-WinMo users, anyway). Those are just the biggies, and we know that there are a lot more out there (we're looking at you, missing MMS), so have at em...
How would you change Windows Mobile 6?
While some of you have no doubt been running Windows Mobile 6 for a few months or more already (thanks, XDA developers!), the majority of the world is just recently getting its first taste of Microsoft's latest mobile operating system from new devices like the Sprint Mogul and updates to others like the T-Mobile Dash. The critics have certainly been, um, critical of the new OS, to say the least -- "evolutionary, not revolutionary" seems to be the general consensus -- but until we're allowed to behold the glorious light that is Photon, it's the best we've got for now. Still, while WM6 has beefed up Office support and arguably improved the tethering sitch, there are a number of issues that users have been griping about for years which have curiously yet to be addressed. Where's the tabbed browsing in Pocket IE? How come we have to rely on pricey third-party apps to make a decent Today screen? And the old favorite, why can't we have the choice of "managing our own memory" and using that damn "X" button to actually close an app?These are just a few of the complaints that have been making the rounds about an OS that feels like its definitely in need of a serious refresh -- if for no other reason than to draw some of the hype away from splashy young competitors; so, what do you think: what could Redmond have done differently this time around?
How would you change the Palm Foleo?
As much as we respect and admire the man, we sure wouldn't want to be in Jeff Hawkins' shoes these days, what with the cool reaction his promised "breakthrough device" has been receiving in the media and among the army of amateur online pundits. But rather than wasting time knocking Jeff for the somewhat awkwardly-positioned Foleo, why don't we instead use our collective knowledge and preferences to help him make the F2 a product that we'd be comfortable dropping a few bucks on. For instance, what if Palm got rid of the redundant processor, OS, and radios, and simply offered consumers a dumb terminal in which to dock their Treos for under $200? Or what if they let that screen get its swivel on and added 'e-book reader' to the Foleo's list of features? And for heaven's sake, some proper video support please! Those are just our suggestions; what's yours?
How would you change the UMPC?
Let's face it: even the folks over at sites like UMPC Buzz and Only UMPC would have to admit that the much-vaunted Origami platform from Microsoft, Intel, and friends hasn't exactly taken the world by storm, and although the second round of these devices promises to offer a host of improvements (see: Q1 Ultra), there are still a number of problems that have yet to be addressed. Sure, future tech like flexible displays and 10-hour fuel cells would be great, but what could manufacturers be doing right now to make UMPCs a more attractive buy? That's the question we're posing to you, dear readers, and we'll get you started with the following suggestions: Higher resolution displays across the board (with smartphones already going VGA, we shouldn't be settling for no 800 x 600 here) Better input methods (forget styli and on-screen keyboards: we want tactile thumboards (not split, either!) and / or voice / gesture recognition) As usual, bring the prices down!
How would you change the PlayStation 3?
Remember how would you change? It's the Engadget feature where we ask you, the oh-so-demanding Engadget reader, how you would change a particular gadget, service, device, etc. Well, how would you change has been on vacation a while, but it's finally friggin back, and since everybody's got video games on the mind this week (and because our last how would you change was for, you guessed it, the original Xbox 360), we're happy to ask: how would you change the PlayStation 3? As usual, we'll get you started with a few of the more obvious changes we'd go with. Personally, we'd really like the PS3: Gain rumble Lose a few bucks off the pricetag. Tie down some additional codecs, and perhaps a decent home media streaming system. Ready, steady, go!
