An artist's rendition of a possible Apple tablet

In a recent post over at TechCrunch.com, one of my favorite sources for tech related information, Peter Ha has stated that he learned through the grapevine that Apple will release their long rumored and hyped-up tablet computer with Verizon. Previously, we have heard that Verizon and Apple have been negotiating a CDMA iPhone to be released once AT&T’s exclusivity contract expires in 2010, so as consumers we know that the relationship between the two companies is there. In some minds, including mine, this strengthens the possibility of this rumor. Another rumor that goes right along with the tablet is that Verizon is going to subsidize the cost of the machine, preventing consumers from completely burning a hole in their pocket. Based on this new information, the Apple tablet may actually be in our future.

What is Google Wave?

With all of this talk about Google Wave annihilating today’s email dominance, you are all probably wondering what the Wave actually is. The best way to describe Google Wave is a real-time communication platform. It combines the best features of email, social networking, instant messaging, wikis, and project management in order create one of the most effective productivity tools ever thought up. Google Wave makes all of this possible within the browser, allowing it to be used on the operating system and/or web browser of your choosing. Some of the highlight features include:

1. Real-time updates
2. Ability to be embedded
3. Extensions
4. Ability to function as a wiki
5. Open source
6. Smart spelling correction
7. Drag-and-drop capability

A few of the more complex features will be discussed below:

Real-Time Updates

Real-time is one of the biggest components to the Google Wave system. When typing in a wavelet, or conversation, every character that you type appears in the other user’s inbox as you make a keystroke. This takes both email and instant messaging to a new level. As stated in Google’s IO presentation of Wave, you spend most of your time while instant messaging staring at a window that says “Johnny Appleseed is typing…”. Now, the time needed to receive, process, and reply to a message is dramatically cut, increasing the effectiveness and productivity of a simple conversation.

Embedding

Any wavelet that you create or are a part of can be embedded in a website. The embedding of wavelets is still in its early stages, but many of the same functions that can be utilized in the main Wave client can be performed via an embedded wavelet, including dragging-and-dropping. Google has already created a YouTube playlist wavelet that can be embedded and discussed on a site other than YouTube. This could mean normal, static comments are soon to be replaced with real-time commenting systems powered by the Wave.

Extensions

In the Google Wave world, an extension is considered a mini-application that can operate within an individual wave conversation. In other words, extensions serve the purpose of augmenting, or increasing, the functionality of the Google Wave platform. The two main types of extensions are gadgets and robots, each of which serve a different purpose. Gadgets are extensions that Wave users can interact with, much like those applications used on the iGoogle user pages. Gadgets are not user specific as they are in iGoogle, rather they belong to each user participating in the conversation. Robots, or Wave Bots, are automated extensions that can be added to the conversation as a participant in order to achieve a certain goal. For example, Wave Bots can modify the content of the wavelet, interact with the users, draw information from other conversations, or pull information from outside sources. Some examples of robots that have already been developed and demoed are “Debuggy”, a debugger that can be used in waves, “Stocky”, which pulls stock prices based on mentions of stock quotes in the wave, and “Tweety”, which displays tweets within a wave conversation. The best part about both types of extensions is that anyone can develop new and innovative solutions due to the fact that Google Wave is all open-source.

Spelling Correction

Some of you are going to see this section and automatically think, “Why is he writing about this? It’s nothing new to the tech scene”. That’s where you’re wrong. Spelling auto-correct has been around for a while now, and has been implemented just about anywhere that text is used, but nothing like Google Wave’s algorithm has been seen. When typing in Google Wave, the platform is smart enough to detect both spelling errors, and confusion between words. For example, Google Wave has the capability to fix words with similar spellings, like “been” and “bean”, based on the context of the sentence that the word is used in.

Drag-and-Drop

Say goodbye to the hassle of attachments and welcome to instant drag-and-dropping files, documents, and media. With Google Wave sending and receiving documents becomes a piece of cake. Files will show up almost instantly on the computers of anyone involved in the wavelet conversation.

When 3.0 was released I tried a hack that someone had said that works on O2, to make the tethering work. Unfortunately, I messed up the 3G connection in the process and wanted to put it back. I knew vaguely what I’d done wrong as you have to switch the 3G network from a contract to a pay-as-you-go one on getting your iPhone. I rang O2, who’s customer service refused to give me any help because I “wasn’t important enough to recieve any advice” (No joke he seriously told me that). I knew I’d messed up, but for no apparent reason I was being told I wasn’t important enough, to get help fixing my £400 phone that I spending £10 to £20 a month on, and come December up to £40. That’s pretty bad, right?

Now my iPhone’s sleep/wake button has always been a little more inset and squishy than my friends iPhones, which stick out and have a really nice firm press to them. This hasn’t really bothered me, it’s how the button has always been and I’m used to it. However in the last couple weeks it’s been becoming harder and harder to press and recessing itself into the iPhone casing, to the point where I can now barely use it at all. I have to use the home button to wake the device, the power cable to turn it on, the battery life expiring to turn it off, and alot of patience to wait for it to sleep before I can put it into my pocket. I took out £50 insurance on my iPhone the day I bought it and the booklet it came with stated that if I had a problem with my phone, to just pop it back to The Carphone Warehouse and they would simply get a new one, out of the box. I went into the Uxbridge branch, where I had originally bought my iPhone. Much to my surprise the member of staff said that “…this branch does not make repair requests or replace iPhones when they’re broken” and recommended that I went to an Apple store. I’m almost adamant Apple stores will completely ignore insurance branded by The Carphone Warehouse. So, I’ve spent £50 on insurance I can’t actually use, Great!

Before I had my iPhone, I had a K800i on T-Mobile. I couldn’t fault the phone or the network anywhere, they were both cheap and reliable (Which is completely the opposite of the iPhone + O2 combo). So, I’ve decided if O2 and The Carphone Warehouse do not start treating me better, I’m going to get either a HTC G1, G2 (Magic) or (what I really would like), the HTC Hero on a T-Mobile contractwhich is better value for money. The prospects of Android also scream out great dividends to me, as I’ve always been very impartial to open source. In comparison to Apples iPhone OS, which is hardlocked down, and even if you jailbreak there’s still limits.

Until about a year ago now, when a company started up and called themselves Psystar, they built ‘open’ computers that you could order running windows (like every other PC, ever), Ubuntu (which greatly pleased me, seeing a company including linux), and OS X (wasn’t pleased at this point). While I have no problem with people running OS X on PC hardware, selling it is a different matter. Many different developers have put hundreds and thousands of hours of work into getting their copies of OSx86 running really well, ready for community consumption. What Psystar did, was acquire their software, renamed it, and said that they had made it, and then sold it. I strongly dislike anyone who ever tries to sell community work. Not only is it unfair on the people who put the work in, but also it’s screaming out for Apple to take action against “Hackintosh” builders, the people who put heart and soul into their machines. Eventually, however, Psystar did get sued by Apple.

The legal proceedings where cut short by Psystar going bankrupt, something I was very much pleased about. I thought people selling OSx86 community work was a tried and failed thing. My glee was short lived when a company called Quo came out with “Hackintoshes”. They had the pure cheek to insult the people who build “Hackintoshes”, something I took very much to heart. However, Quo isn’t what we’re talking about today.

Getting to the point, Psystar is alive again. They’re are like zombies, they’re not gonna die without some shotgun rounds. They’ve come out with some new products. The Nehalem, running Open (7) being the main machine, I believe. Their new slogan, “when life gives apples, make applesauce” is extremely similar, if not identical, to things i’ve heard on forums before.

So far it’s apparently only available on Orange-UK and is apparently the only phone out for retail at the rockaing snapdragon. First hearing this, I thought it was another alternative to the iPhone version of OS X, Android or Web OS. After some quick “googling”, I found out I was wrong. It’s a mobile chipset that runs at 1Ghz, and the first mobile-phone / PMP / similar kind of device processor to hit the 1Ghz Mark. However, don’t take that as solid information, i’m not good with mobile hardware.

The full touch screen phone with a few buttons, at the bottom, looks unmistakably like the iPhone other phones on the market at this point in time. It apparently runs Windows Mobile 6.1 the latter fact of which, in my opinion, has just lost all it’s credibility as a revolutionary phone.

Overall on the hardware side, it’s a big step up from the teeny tiny ARM processors in the Pre, iPhone, etc. Any phone still running Windows is just not a breakthrough phone, and it leads me to wonder why they couldn’t have just slipped a copy of Android on there, and make it a truly worthy competitor. Maybe a future addition? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

It’s slightly obvious why Apple was adding GPU power to each of their Macs. 10.6 or Snow Leopard is coming with a feature called OpenCL or Open Computing Library. This feature allows the awesome power of a GPU to help out with the normal processing that the CPU does, making things alot faster. Many people have speculated about whether going to NVidia for this was the best idea. The 9400m and 9600GT, as example, have been rumoured to have been made cheaply, thus having issues, the main one being overheating.

I got a 2Ghz unibody MacBook, courtesy of Apple (after my white macbook fried while doing my art exam). My previous MacBook refused to boot OS X, but would boot Ubuntu fine. I tried reinstalling the disk, but wouldn’t format. I thought I’d scarred some sectors on my disk and that they would replace it, again. Then I would have my same old, arguementative fail-prone, MacBook back. To my surprise, The Genius said it was the logic board. This caused some irony, as I had been there about a bad Logicboard and saw the exact same guy. He argued it was the hard drive way back, and wierdly now I said it was the drive, and he said it was the logic board. Turns out, he was right and i’d gunned out the S-ATA controller, and the GMA and slightly cooked the Proc. Not that I cared. I saw it boot up one last time, though when I picked up the aluminum replacement they offered me. I was hardly going to say no. The 9400m is fine for me until it gets warm, then my screen freaks out and i get graphical artifacts. A friend of mine, Aaron Bareford, bought a MacBook Pro shortly after my recommendation of the unibody line. Just a week ago he had his 9600GT / 9400m fry to the point that his laptop wouldn’t boot. Which didn’t exactly impress him, as he’s one of the most hardcore ATi / AMD fans you could come across. Apple fixed it, but something has got to give at some point, how many chips can they replace before change is needed ?

Well just about as many as they’re getting apparently. According to this article from Electronista, Apple is thinking about dropping NVidia. While they could go back to GMAs, I don’t think this is the best idea for the features coming in 10.6 will benefit from a GPU, so where does this point ? ATi? I’ve used a few ATi chipsets, and my current main workhorse has an Asus V-Cool Radeon HD 3650 in it, and I must say for the age of the card, it’s fantastic in comparison to my NVidia 6800 / 7300GS, which I had previously used in my system.

So is a change to ATi a good idea? I think so. I hate having to restart my laptop every few hours to make my screen look right, and so far while it’s not been as bad as other people’s experiences, is it only a matter of time? My 7300GS burnt out while in use in my parents machine, after I retired it in favor of my 3650. Is NVidia just going down a really bad path that high class companies that Apple doesn’t want to get involved with? Post your thoughts in the comment below.

So it’s been recent news that O2 has just got the Palm Pre in the UK, Meaning O2 now has both the iPhone and one of it’s competitors signed to them. Personally as a UK citizen, I was almost certain the Palm Pre was going to get signed to Orange, as every Palm phone I remember has been primarily signed on Orange, or Vodaphone. Seeing as Vodaphone has the Blackberry line and the HTC G2 or the ‘Magic’ T-Mobile has the G1 and the main Android brand so far, and O2 has the iPhone, Orange really doesn’t have a super-phone to fight it’s corner. So is Orange saving something big to tackle that market, or is it just playing dumb for a while? Only time will tell, but for now, the Pre is being signed onto O2. Being an O2 customer myself, with my iPhone 3G, I must say the pricing is a bit of a rip off, and the network efficiency isn’t too great. I kind of miss my old network, T-Mobile, that I had on my K800i, but I guess the phone makes up for that. What are your thoughts? Post them in the comments below.

This deal will benefit consumers as it will mean that they only need a handful of cables even if they are using several handsets. It will be of benefit when switching to a new phone, as users will not have to purchase extra cables. This also means that consumers are not at the mercy of a single company when it comes to purchasing cable’s, and will consequently not have to pay extortionate prices.

However, it is unclear how the mobile phone industry shall benefit from this deal. Despite this, the deal is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, and many - including myself - welcome it with open arms.

The tool, published 3 days ago, checks each and every Apple store’s iPhone 3GS inventory and lists the availability of the phone, catagorized by color and capacity. This is definitely a very handy tool for those who have been prowling Apple stores looking for a 16GB white iPhone and cannot find them anywhere.

Apple Retail Store - iPhone availability

via Cnet.com

Monday, June 23, 2009, Steve Jobs was seen at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California, as reported by a Reuters reporter and Apple employees. It is unknown whether or not Jobs made an official return to work or just a visit before his actual return to Apple at the end of the month of June.

Steve Job’s health has been in question by the media since he took his leave of absence from Apple in January, but just last weekend the Wall Street Journal reported that Jobs had a liver transplant about two months ago in Tennessee. Despite these new allegations, Apple continued to tell reporters that Jobs “continues to look forward to returning at the end of June, and there’s nothing further to say”.

Another rumored illness that Steve Jobs was carrying a while back was a rare form of pancreatic cancer, which he previously had in 2004. No reports have confirmed this assumption, and the only information that was ever released by Apple was that he was recuperating from a hormone imbalance.

Coincidentally, Steve Jobs also recently released his first pubilc statement regarding Apple since he took his leave of absence, saying that more than one million iPhone 3GS units were sold in the first three days of availability. Congratulations to Steve Jobs and Apple, and we look forward to seeing Steve back in action.