Mossberg, Pogue, Baig review the iPhone 3G
While most people are waiting in line for their soon-to-be new friend, pal and everyday communications device, the world’s top tech reviewers have already been playing with the long awaited device. Below is a summary of their findings along with links to their full reviews of the iPhone 3G.
Walt Mossberg (Wall Street Journal)
- Pros: Faster cell network data speeds, GPS
- Cons: Weaker battery life due to 3G/GPS
- Bottom Line: If you don’t already have an iPhone and can live with the weaker battery life, then you should go ahead and buy; otherwise wait out for the 2.0 firmware update (hmm… I think I’ve heard this advice somewhere else)
- Pros: You can talk and access 3G data network simultaneously, cheaper, improved audio quality
- Cons: 3G isn’t wide-spread, AT&T pricing,
- Bottom Line: “iPhone 3G is a nice upgrade,” 2.0 firmware update will make your original iPhone in most ways similar to the iPhone 3G
- Pros: Faster data network, cheaper, GPS, Visual Voicemail
- Cons: Slow EDGE speeds when not in 3G area, no video, no memory expansion
- Bottom Line: “The Sequel, is worth the wait,” he also shows a side-by-side comparison between EDGE and 3G speeds
As an interesting note: David Pogue says that the iPhone’s GPS antenna is too small to provide you with turn-by-turn directions in Google Maps — this is something that Apple has failed to note until now.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Complete My Album is selling music
I was just as much a naysayer as Dave was when the service first came out (and for the record, I haven’t used it all either), but apparently there are lots of people who do use Apple’s “Complete My Album” service in iTunes — the NYT says that it has become a prime selling tool, especially for bands and labels that pre-release singles from their album in a digital format. A whopping 52% of Lil Wayne’s latest album sales on iTunes were sold through the “Complete My Album” feature. That means half the people who bought the album on iTunes had previously purchased one of the singles, and clicked through that way to buy the rest of their music.
And though neither Dave or I use “Complete My Album,” that’s a good sign for consumers, and a nice wake up call for the record industry — the days of playing a song on the radio to up album sales are over. Digital releases are what sells music, and though “Complete My Album” currently only works on music previously purchased in the iTunes store, Apple could very easily extend that to all music in iTunes — if you like a song that you’ve downloaded as a free single from the artist’s website, it’s just as easy to find music of theirs to buy in iTunes the same way.
We’re done with a world where radio airplay determines what sells at the record store. These days, consumers are the ones who tell record makers what they want to buy — it’s already in their iTunes playlists.
[Source: Nytimes]
Popularity: 10% [?]
Times Reader coming to the Mac
I live in Philadelphia, but I’m a native New Yorker, and for my money there is no better newspaper on the planet than the New York Times. The Times has really embraced the new realities that the digital age has foisted upon the newspaper business by trying a number of new things (running a great website included).
Sadly, it seemed that the Gray Lady was ignoring Mac users when it first released the Times Reader. The Times Reader, for those who don’t know, is a dedicated application which displays the last seven days of the New York Times. It has many of the benefits that one gets from reading nytimes.com (changeable fonts, searchable content, ease of printing) with the added benefit of not requiring an internet connection. The Times Reader syncs content on your computer, and lets you take it anywhere.
Luckily for me (and I am betting there are some other New York Times fans out there) the Times will be launching the Times Reader Beta for Mac at some point this month. The Times Reader for the Mac is a native Cocoa application powered by Webkit and Silverlight (yes, you’ll have to install Microsoft’s Silverlight to use this app). This is not the same as the RSS reader called Times which Mat posted about last week.
This is a beta, and so there are some features that the PC version has that aren’t in the Mac version:
- Resizeable windows: yep, the Times Reader on the Mac only has 4 preset window sizes at the moment.
- Copy and paste of text: this is a pretty big feature that I hope they sort out sooner rather than later.
It isn’t all bad though, the Mac version supports search across all seven days of content while the PC version only searches the current day’s edition.
During the beta the Times Reader for Mac will be free to use, but once the beta is over it’ll revert back to being free only for New York Times subscribers (though you can subscribe just to the Reader service for $14.95 a month). Check out the blog post for more images of the app.
As soon as I get a chance to look at the Times Reader for Mac beta I’ll post an in depth review.
Popularity: 3% [?]
