matt's blog

Why Google Buying Motorola Doesn't Protect Android

matt — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:24:41 +0000

Google says Android is open. And for now, the mobile operating system is open-source. But for how long? With this morning's announcement that Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, Android's future may be up in the air. Read more...

2011 at the Box Office

matt — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 14:36:22 +0000

With the 2011 movie season kicking into high gear for the Summer, I thought it'd be a good time to take a look at my box office predictions. I'll check back in at the end of the year to see how I did. All estimates are for worldwide grosses.

Top Ten
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 - $1.06 billion
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - $940 million
3. Transfomers: Dark of the Moon - $820 million
4. Cars 2 - $760 million
5. Kung Fu Panda 2: The Kaboom of Doom $720 million
6. Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn $620 million
7. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 - $580 million
8. Captain America $560 million
9. Fast Five $550 million
10. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows $540 million

Honorable Mentions
11. The Hangover: Part II $470 million
12. The Muppets $460 million
13. Rio $450 million
14. Super 8 $440 million
15. X-Men: First Class $430 million

Apple Kills the iHub

matt — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:11:17 +0000

The short-lived iHub was available for $9.90 from MIC Gadget

In what is one of the quickest turnarounds for Apple's legal team, MIC Gadget's iHub was discontinued today due to reported legal pressure from the consumer electronics giant. Luckily for me, I purchased one of these as soon as I saw it, knowing it would be dead soon. Read more...

Why Amazon Prime is the Most Important Weapon Amazon Has Against Apple

matt — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:30:51 +0000

CC: Flickr/tgraham

For $80 a year, Amazon Prime subscribers receive free two-day shipping on everything they order (so long as it is eligible/fulfilled by Amazon), unlimited streaming access to 5,000 movies and TV shows on Amazon Instant Video, and possibly in the future increased CloudDrive storage, and even a discounted or free Kindle or Amazon Tablet. Yes, Amazon Tablet Read more...

Portal 2

matt — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:33:29 +0000

Portal 2 available for pre-order on Amazon.com

The sequel to one of the most popular games of 2007, Portal 2 is finally coming! After multiple delays, Valve will release Portal 2 on April 19th. If you purchase the PS3 version of the game, you will be able to sign in with your Steam account and sync your game and data to your free included copy of Portal 2 for Steam on Mac or PC. Read more...

Amazon Announces Ad-Supported Kindle

matt — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:43:06 +0000

CC: Flickr/HorsePunchKid

Amazon has announced that they will now start selling an ad-supported Kindle. No, it's not free (even if the price trend is edging towards free Kindles), and no it's not $99. Instead, the Kindle (with Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers, as Amazon calls it) will be available for $114, which is $25 off the current Kindle WiFi price.
Read more...

The 83rd Academy Awards

matt — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:35:22 +0000

CC: Flickr/Dave_B_

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released nominations early this morning for the 83rd Academy Awards (Oscars) for 2010. The winners will be announced February 27, 2011 at the Kodak Theatre. Both the nominees and my predictions are listed below. Read more...

Toy Story 3: Review

matt — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:37:00 +0000

Toy Story 3 was directed by Lee Unkrich.

This has been the film I've been looking forward to since Disney purchased Pixar. We all knew it was coming, but no one knew what to expect. There is no doubt in my mind that I can call this my favorite Pixar film yet. Sorry Wall·e, but no matter how much I love the first silent portion of the film along with the subsequent thrill ride, Toy Story 3 just tops it. From the opening sequence which makes for a terrific reintroduction to the characters we know and love, to the final emotional moments, it not only is a wonderful Pixar film, it is a fantastic film, for everyone.

Read more...

Toy Story 3

matt — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:07:28 +0000

Toy Story 3 was directed by Lee Unkrich.

I'm going to see Toy Story 3 tonight at midnight. I don't believe I've been this excited for a movie rated G since Toy Story 2.

Watch this post and my Twitter feed for my thoughts afterwards.

iPhone OS 4.0

matt — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:18:10 +0000

iPhone OS 4.0 is to be unveiled on April 8th.

I posted most of this on Twitter earlier, but it's worth it to put it in a more organized fashion here. In bold are predictions that I am almost certain about. Read more...

What Apple has in mind for iSlate

matt — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 06:32:44 +0000

MacBook Air is more than one of the thinnest notebooks.

When Apple introduced MacBook Air in 2008 (at the end of January in fact), most saw it as Apple's "netbook", a term they have refused to use, and rightfully so. MacBook Air is not a netbook, nor is it truly a laptop. It is a portable computing device, which Apple wanted to become the thing you take everywhere with you. Not just when you need a computer, but everywhere.

Read more...

Ten things Apple can learn from the jailbreaking community and lifestyle

matt — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 04:39:14 +0000

Jailbreaking is as simple as one click with blackra1n.

So, about two months ago now I jailbroke my iPhone again, using blackra1n. I'd previously done it in August, but ended up going back after the update, and because I didn't feel comfortable with it. But now, I'm not looking back. With the advancement of apps available to jailbroken users (be them apps on the springboard, or elsewhere in the background), they have now become an essential part of my mobile digital lifestyle. Backgrounding apps with ProSwitcher (free), or getting around to new places with xGPS (free) are things I now take for granted. And my custom theme (based on Suave)? I don't think I could stand going back to the default look of the iPhone at this point. It just feels so... archaic and tired to me now.

So thinking about it, I managed to come up with 10 things that Apple can learn from the jailbreaking community, and the accompanying "lifestyle". Whether or not anything on my list will ever happen remains to be seen, but if one thing is for sure, Apple needs to at least consider some of these to be taken seriously in the continuing race to market dominance, as their competitors in Android and even Palm's WebOS keep innovating and offering competitive features and designs to consumers.

Read more...

Apple iSlate, Magic Slate, and iGuide

matt — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:11:44 +0000

CC: Flickr/nDevilTV

After discovering the iSlate trademark (which is the leading contender for the name of the Apple Tablet), MacRumors did a bit more research and discovered similar fillings for an iGuide trademark. It looks like the fabled Apple Tablet is about to become a reality.

Read more...

Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change

matt — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:07:43 +0000

Two Weeks With Bing: Final Thoughts

matt — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:00:45 +0000

More than two weeks ago, I wrote that I was going to switch to using Bing fulltime for at least two weeks, to see how it truly compares to Google. Rather than just searching for one or two things, as many do, I chose to use Bing and only Bing for at least two weeks. I wanted to give it a proper test. And you know what? There isn't anything about it that makes me want to switch back to Google.

It's surprising, because, I've used Google for as long as I can remember, and when I first looked at Bing when it launched I (like many others) dismissed it as another attempt by Microsoft to win in the search market. But it's not just "another attempt", it's a damn good attempt that I'm confident will result in Bing being the #2 search engine with a third or more of the market within the next year. Of course, that will be a direct result of their recent deal with Yahoo!, which is currently #2, but it will end up resulting in there being a very strong competitor to Google.

Competition has been one of my reasons for wanting to try, and now use, Bing. When there's no one attacking your business, because, let's face it Yahoo! is horrible competition to the likes of Google in search, you tend to stop innovating and there is no change. In Google's case, it's not so much that they had started to ignore search, but rather nothing new was coming (at least that the public saw), until Bing was launched. Since Bing has launched Google's image search has been drastically improved as a direct result of Bing's own image search, and Google's "caffeine" project has been announced. As the two continue to try and improve and beat the other, there will only be new things for users to experience in search, and it will only become better and easier.

Read more...

#twoweekswithbing - Thoughts from Twitter

matt — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:28:14 +0000

Two Weeks With Bing

matt — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:26:36 +0000

I've been a Google fan and user for as long as I can remember at this point, but why? Up until now, no one's really had a product that could challenge Google, but recently Bing has changed that. But, I haven't really used Bing, only played with it and tested it. To really see how good something is you need to use it, and for more than a day too. That's why for the next two weeks I'm changing my default search engine to Bing and using it, and nothing else.

Of course, I don't even use Google all that much anymore, opting instead to search Twitter and FriendFeed for up to date information first. But, the idea remains the same: switch to a totally new search engine for two weeks, and see how it really compares to Google.

What will come of this? It's impossible to tell. I could decide to switch to Bing for good, or just go back to Google, or learn to use both. Only time will tell. I'll post back my thoughts after both a week, and the second week, as well as updates as I think of them on Twitter. Let's hope Bing is really amazing, we need some real competition for Google.

Review: BNO News iPhone App

matt — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:16:43 +0000

After spending a week with the recently released BNO News iPhone app ($1.99 + $0.99/month) I must say it really is the first of its kind. Sure, there is the AP Mobile app (free), but it's never actually... well, breaking news. By the time I get an update from the AP Mobile app (through push), I've already read about the story on Twitter (usually through @BreakingNews actually), or heard about it from friends elsewhere. Now, don't get me wrong; The AP Mobile app is a great app, it's just not very good when it comes to breaking news.

However, that's exactly what the BNO News app does. And not only does it like it claims, it also does it fairly well. Granted, I have had a few delays that seem to have been caused by Apple's push servers, rather than the reporting itself, since updates were usually already posted on their Twitter account. But when there aren't delays, the push notifications always beat the AP Mobile ones (when they even send any out), and even beat their updates on Twitter a few times.

Read more...

The Apple Tablet

matt — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:55:00 +0000

There's been some renewed rumors about the "Apple Tablet" today, and I thought I'd post some about it for two reasons. One, I am confident that we will see it announced in the first quarter of 2010 (possibly at CES). Additionally, I know someone who works at Apple and has heard internal talk/rumors about a "tablet" device. (Note, said person does not claim to have seen or used the device.)

Here's what's probably true:

Not called "Apple Tablet", "iTablet", "iTouch", or "iPad".
10 inch screen (and possibly 13 inch as well), same touch technology in iPhone and iPod Touch.
PA Semi chips.
Full OS X. (but with an app store?)
Release sometime after announcement in January, but before June (due to iPhone 4 release)

Here's what I've heard, but am inclined to doubt:

Available with data contract with Verizon (subsidized) or without. Subsidized price ~$300-400 and unlocked price ~$700-900.
Around 5 times as powerful as iPhone 3G S
10 hour battery life (with WiFi on)
iSight + mic for video chat

The 16 "iPhone prototypes" that resulted in a man's death after one was lost, were in fact tablet prototypes sent to Cupertino for review by Apple Executives (specifically Steve Jobs after he was away during the bulk of the current iterations development).

If any of this turns out true, awesome. If not, oh well. Purely based on what I have heard from someone at Apple, and also from other online sources (you can find what has, and hasn't been discussed previously).

Thoughts?

So, I don't really post here

matt — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:08:45 +0000

I've never really been good at maintaining a full blog (kind of like Patrick Norton), but I do Twitter. A lot. So you should probably follow me.