Amazon’s new Kindle comes in a smaller, darker package and they’re positioning it to compete with Apple’s iPad (which can also read Kindle books) on price ($139 for Wi-Fi $189 for 3G) and a laser-like focus on reading.

• All-New, High-Contrast E-Ink Screen – 50% better contrast than any other e-reader
• Read in Bright Sunlight – No glare
• New and Improved Fonts – New crisper, darker fonts
• New Sleek Design – 21% smaller body while keeping the same 6″ size reading area
• 17% Lighter – Only 8.5 ounces, weighs less than a paperback
• Battery Life of Up to One Month – A single charge lasts up to one month with wireless off
• Double the Storage – Up to 3,500 Books
• Built-In Wi-Fi – Shop and download books in less than 60 seconds
• 20% Faster Page Turns – Seamless reading
• Enhanced PDF Reader – With dictionary lookup, notes, and highlights
• New WebKit-Based Browser – Browse the web over Wi-Fi (experimental)

Much smarter than simply trying to re-brand it as KindlePad…

[Amazon]

Amazon’s new Kindle competes with iPad on price, focus is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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BlackBerry maker RIM has registered BlackPad.com. No, I’m not making that up.

Research In Motion has recently taken over the domain name “BlackPad.com”. Now, despite what you think of the name itself, many folks are eluding to the fact that this URL could be one of many used for the rumored upcoming BlackBerry Tablet. Now while we here would like to believe that as well, the fact is Research In Motion owns over 4,000+ registered domain names already.

Phew. But so help me if this time next year we have iPad, PalmPad, and BlackPad — someone’s getting punched in the marketing department.

[MobileCrunch via CrackBerry.com]

Blackberry maker RIM registers BlackPad.com is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Phil Nickinson, my counterpart over at sibling site Android Central has just posted his AT&T Android Captivate review and T-Mobile Android Vibrant review, the latest, greatest US GSM competition to our own iPhone 4. They’re both Galaxy S-class devices, but one of the strengths of Android is the ability for manufacturers like Samsung and carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile (and Verizon and Sprint when their versions launch) to modify and customize the hardware and software to make their devices distinct.

Ally already posted her thoughts on the AT&T Captivate vs. iPhone 4, so if you’re trying to decide between the two, or between them and the T-Mobile Vibrant, give Phil’s a read to and then come back here and let us know what you think.

Android Captivate and Vibrant get reviewed — the competition is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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HP is applying for a trademark on the term PALMPAD which shows they not only intend to compete with Apple in the tablet space, but perhaps to compete with iPad in almost the same branding terms.

No surprise there. Back when iSlate was thought to be the name for Apple’s tablet, Steve Ballmer bounded up onto the CES stage flourishing an HP Slate.

Letting Apple do the hard work of establishing consumer awareness for new product categories and then glomming onto their naming conventions — that’s smart.

webOS on a large screen device — that could be brilliant.

Of course, Apple got more than their fair share of “pad” related jokes to go with that name. Can’t imagine what HP will get with PalmPad…

Update: Now there are also rumors to suggest that PalmPad will differentiate itself from iPad with… a stylus. webOS phones have keyboards, webOS tablets have pens.

[USPTO via myHPmini via PreCentral.net]

Updated: HP applies for PALMPAD trademark, will include stylus? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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When someone starts writing it’s not unusual for them to want to be creative, to be un-boring, so when they have a character talk, that character “intimates”, “whispers”, “suggests”, “exclaims” and otherwise enjoys every imaginable bit of literary variance the author can throw at them.

More seasoned writers tend to just stick with “said”. When a character talks, it’s “said”, “said”, “said”. Over an over again. Page after page. Turtleneck after jeans. “Said”, “said”, “said”. It’s used so often it just disappears, the mechanics disappear, the author disappears, and all that’s left is the character.

Apple’s iOS has a pretty consistent user interface. It’s not perfect by any stretch, but it’s more consistent than its competitors. Occasional page curl in Maps aside, the basic ways you move around the iPhone are the same, Apple app after Apple app. (And anything that’s not tends to get hidden away so power users can “discover it” and mainstream users can live their lives never having to be bothers by its existence).

iOS is so consistent, so single minded it being consistent, that when it isn’t — especially when 3rd party apps aren’t — it causes problems. Upper left had corner is a virtual back button. Tap and you go back. Tap and you go back. Tap and you… are suddenly editing your account? That’s the type of exception that proves the rule. You’re so used to doing something, it’s so instinctive to do certain things, that when they don’t happen you notice, and you get annoyed.

Beyond the UI it applies to Apple’s platform as well. From 2007 to 2009 every iPhone and iPod touch — 6 devices not counting re-issues — not only ran pretty much the same OS but had pretty much the same specs, the same screens, the same types of chips. When newer, better technology was thrown in — GPS, 3G, faster chips, more RAM, iOS abstracted them through API like CoreLocation so they remained broadly consistent. In 2010 Apple added the iPad which admittedly muddied the consistency waters, but they made sure it could run iPhone apps either 1x or 2x in double fuzzy chunky mode. iPhone 4 quadrupled the resolution but kept the same size so old apps “just worked” with 4 pixels instead of 1 if they had to, and the new gyroscope got hooked up to the old accelerometer and CoreMotion was born.

When speaking of the iPhone and the iPad, Apple SVP of design — and again, how many hardware/software companies have an executive level designer? — said he did everything possible to get the device itself out of the user’s way. It’s just a screen. Apple’s software designers have done a little of the same. But maintaining consistency to such a a consistent degree, a significant part of the OS gets out of the user’s way as well and only the content is left.

Say what you want about the iOS home screen being a boring old app launcher, but it’s always a boring old app launcher, swipe after swipe, page after page. It’s not a card view one moment, app launcher the next, wave in between. It’s not a bank of widgets arrayed like Hong Kong street signs surrounded by empty spaces and the occasional app in between — if they’ve been liberated from the drawer.

iOS consistency is so prevalent it becomes easy to overlook, but just spend a few days with another platform and it you start to realize it almost immediately. Incredible variations in hardware and UI skins are great for varieties sake but usability takes a huge hit.

Just for fun I passed around a few non-iPhone devices to co-workers, all smart techies. It took them a while to do even basic things like turn them on, unlock them, find Wi-Fi and add the password (note: never have two buttons for Wi-Fi one on top of the other where the first one turns it on and off, they’ll hit that one every time while looking for the settings hidden in plain sight beneath it.) I watched in particularly horrible fascination as a friend of my went to Digg’s mobile site, tapped a link, and had the device activate the link below it. He repeated and it did it again. About 4 out of 5 times when he hit pretty much the same spot — a link — it would trigger the one below. And yes, only 4 out of 5 times, just to be inconsistent about the inconsistency. Finding the phone to place a call? Woz wasn’t wrong. It was comedic at times.

In stark contrast I’ve mention numerous time how I’ve given iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads to children as young as one and half and they’ve been able to unlock them and launch the apps they wanted to launch. At two and half they could use it well.

That’s the power of a fairly consistent platform running fairly consistent consistent software.

It’s what Apple has been doing for years, for decades — making software and focusing on human interface (they’ve even got guidelines). It’s why feature checklists might not be the best way to measure advances in the smartphone space (though every June Apple takes as good a jump down checklist street as anyone.)

Microsoft is reportedly laying down the consistency law for partners with the upcoming Windows Phone 7, and rumor has it Google might try to divest itself of all those Android UI skins with version 3.0.

Sure, “power users” might get bored but we complain about everything anyway. People who just want to use their device won’t even notice — they’ll be too busy using their device. Just like readers are too busy enjoying their novel and don’t give a second though to “said”, “said”, said.”

Consistency, consistency, consistency is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Come next week Verizon users still waiting for a mythical iPhone 4 all their own will get Motorola’s latest, greatest new Android offering — the Droid X — to hold them over. And Verizon users with no interest in anything Apple will have the new king of Google’s ever growing hill to play with.

The original Motorola Droid on Verizon was arguably the first smartphone to really give the iPhone 3GS a run for it’s money. However, it came out months after the iPhone 3GS when hype had abated somewhat, and it’s Droid Does list included things like multitasking, which iOS 4 now Does Too. That means while Droid X is a better, badder phone, it has a tougher challenge ahead of it as well.

If size matters, the Droid X is bigger… 4.3″ of screen but with less pixels, at a lower density, and without iPhone 4’s IPS Retina Display panel.

It’s got a bigger 8 megapixel camera on the back to iPhone 4’s 5 megapixels. But iPhone 4 has a back-illuminated sensor that isn’t as chopped up, which should mean better low-light pictures, and iOS 4 camera software while less feature-filled still seems to produce better images with just a touch of the tap-to-focus-and-balance. iPhone 4 also has a front-facing camera (and FaceTime), Droid X don’t.

3 external mics on the Droid X, including one for video camera work trump iPhone 4’s two mics. iPhone 4 does have a gyroscope, though. And yeah, Droid X has got dual antenna. Ouch. Otherwise they’re both monsters on the spec sheet.

In terms of apps Apple’s App Store still wins on sheer number, though Google’s Android Market retains bragging rights on being more open.

Droid X is only running Android 2.1 Eclair right now, though a turbo-boosting 2.2 Froyo update is on the horizon. So, a lot may come down to whether you like Droid X’s “don’t call it MotoBlur” UI, which seems quicker and cleaner than the CLIQ if not as spartan as the original Droid. iOS 4 on the other hand is iOS 4, there’s only one iPhone and one interface on the market at any time.

Strangely, that may mean the Motorola Droid X will face stiffer competition from something other than Apple’s iPhone 4. Verizon already has the HTC Droid Incredible, Sprint the HTC Evo 4G, and every carrier and their subsidiary seems poised to get a Samsung Galaxy S class-device, including Verizon with the Facinate. As we’ve mentioned before, in a world where Apple releases one major iPhone a year, and Android can drop 8 news phones in a weekend, it gives any one new Android as much competition from within as without. And that’s great for Android lovers.

So is the Droid X currently iPhone 4’s big nemesis? If you live in the US and don’t want AT&T, it’s definitely a phone to look at if you’re in the market today. If not, wait a week or more. AT&T might drop a tower in your backyard and Google might just drop 5 more Android’s on another carrier.

Great time to be a consumer!

Droid X review: Verizon and Motorola’s answer to iPhone 4? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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No starker contrast could be drawn between Apple’s iPhone 4 strategy and Google’s Android than this past week where iPhone 4 made its traditional once-a-year debut — just as Motorola showed off a new Verizon Droid X, T-Mobile Charm, AT&T Flipout, and Samsung announced the Galaxy S-class Sprint Epric 4G, Verizon Facinate, T-Mobile Vibrant, AT&T Captivate, and an as yet unbranded US cellular Galaxy S as well.

Only some of these have been officially announced, but even that number dwarfs Apple’s once-a-year iPhone release schedule. That they’re coming out around iPhone 4 launch, and iPhone 4 is a strong contender in the market right now (1.7 million in 3 days strong) is interesting. That Google and their manufacturing partners could keep up this pace in 3 months, 6 months, and when iPhone 4 is starting to show its age in 8 months is… something else.

Personally I — and most importantly my early-adapter-pained wallet — enjoy Apple’s annual cycle. I don’t know how Phil Nickinson from our sibling site Android Central survives some weeks. To always have a new phone to look forward to is exciting — and terrifying. Ask me again in January though, and I might be itching for that iPhone 5…

Do you feel you benefit as an iPhone user from Apple staying focused on that one, integrated, end-to-end handset you own for the better part of a year? Or do you think Google’s approach of hardware partners launching new devices, on different network, all the time will lead to greater innovation in the end? Focus can lead to stagnation, fragmentation to loss of direction. Maybe having both approaches in the market, pushing each other, is the best thing for all users?

Apple launches 1 iPhone a year, Android shows off 8 last week is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Apple restricting third-party advertisers from collecting personal data if they are owned by another platform vendor could be a way of preventing Google’s AdMob from competing directly on the iPhone with Apple’s iAd, but it could also be a sign that Apple, cranky after leaked iPhone prototypes and iPad analytics, is determined to take back control of user data.

Steve Jobs was nothing if not heated at the D8 conference about the leaked iPhone prototype, and perhaps even more so about in-app analytics taking user data, including device and location, and using that to reveal details about the iPad long before it was announced. Imagining Apple’s subsequent reaction to the thought of now-rival Google having early access to such detailed information not only about unreleased Apple devices, but about which devices iOS users have, at what location, and their app usage patterns probably sent a chill down their collective spines.

App Cubby’s David Barnard put together an excellent post about it earlier today:

When you use Google search and other Google products, they collect a tremendous amount of information and use that information to customize and better serve the ads that are the core of their business. Many users don’t even realize this is happening, others are comfortable with it and have some level of trust for Google’s intent in using that data.

Well, Apple doesn’t trust the benevolence of Google, developers, and other third parties involved in the iOS platform. Apple wants to control the flow of user information.

Barnard also points out Apple primarily makes their money off hardware sales, not the brokering of user information the way Google or Facebook do. He also suggests part of AdMob’s $700 million value to Google was exactly the type of data they could pull off iOS devices:

[David Barnard / App Cubby]

Apple, Google, AdMob, mobile advertising, privacy, and competition is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Phil Nickinson over at Android Central has just posted a full review of the Sprint HTC Evo 4G, which he’s billing as the baddest Android on the planet. Big screen, front facing video call camera, brand new OS in the pipeline, it’s not hard to see that this will be Sprint’s answer to the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G (unless and until they’re able to offer the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G on Sprint — just sayin’).

It’s at the top of the Android smartphone pile, for the moment. That’s not to say that phones like the HTC Incredible and Nexus One (and very possibly the Samsung Galaxy S) aren’t right up there. But the screen size, 4G data and promise of an upgrade to Android 2.2 make the Sprint Evo 4G the phone to beat, and it may well hold that title through the end of 2010.

Check out the galleries, the videos, and all the words holding them together and then come back and let us know what you think about the Sprint HTC Evo 4G — is it the right handset, on the right network, at the right time, to give the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G a run for your money?

Sprint HTC Evo 4G — here comes the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G competition is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Android 2.2 Froyo updates started going live yesterday for the unsubsidized, unlocked, once-upon-a-time sold directly by Google Nexus One, and it seems to include not only tethering but mobile hotspot (think MiFi, or mobile Wi-Fi router to share your 3G with multiple other devices), usable right now on AT&T — just about the only carrier in the world that doesn’t allow iPhone tethering.

Sure, AT&T is likely running tens of millions of iPhones and only a relative handful of Nexus Ones, but that’s not the point. Apple introduced seamless, elegant tethering in iPhone OS 3.0 in June 2009, and while it looks like US iPhone users may finally get it in iPhone OS 4 in June 2010, that’s a year after the rest of the world and now — it’s even after Android.

The iPhone is popular, we get it. AT&T’s network probably couldn’t handle that many people trying to use their “unlimited” plans on tethered devices, we have no doubt. The situations are completely different, we grant the point.

But it’s so beyond ridiculous now that it can’t — and shouldn’t — escape mention.

(We’ll also note for the record we don’t know how long this will last, as AT&T may figure out a way to block it on unlocked devices and carrier-branded devices may remove it entirely or just bolt on a surcharge).

Video after the break.

YouTube link

So with Froyo, Android Nexus One can tether on AT&T and iPhone still can’t? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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