talkingDigital

iPhone can do anything... The Palm Pre has yet to show it's stuff.

Boy Genius Report and almost every other tech blog site are helping Apple with their big announcement that there have been over 1.5 billion iPhone apps downloaded.

Many of those are free, but a good portion of those apps are over $1. Is Palm noticing?

The Palm Pre has 30 apps available in their App Catalog. While several of those apps are labeled as trial versions, only the Classic app is actually limited to a 7 day trial.

PreCentral has reported that there are now more homebrew apps available to install through a hack than there are actual Palm-sponsored apps. Palm bet the farm on the Pre. What is keeping them from making some of that money back through their app store?

I will glady pay a few bucks for some good apps and games and I know that each of the other 300,000+ other Pre owners would do the same. maybe Palm is thinking that $300,000 won’t even scratch the surface.

I love the Pre, but it appears that my fears that Palm may pull another Palm move again may be coming true. They have a legacy of getting the best 90 percent right, but dropping the ball when it comes to giving their customers exactly what they want.

It is almost like they put so much effort into the research and development that they don’t have enough energy left for the follow-through.

App Store tops 1.5 billion downloads in first year : Boy Genius Report.

If Chrome can achieve these 10 feats, Google will not only defeat Microsoft, but Apple and Ubuntu will fall as the OS of the common man.

Chrome OS may be the OS that proves that the OS doesn't really matter

1. Instant on – Please power up in well under 30 seconds. There is no reason for an OS build around a browser to do anything less (or more).

2. 512 MB of RAM and 1Ghz processor – Give XP users a reason to skip Vista, Windows 7, etc. and give their old machine new life.

3. Make it USB bootable – Chrome OS could be a truly portable OS. Not only will your information be in the cloud, but a 2GB flash drive could turn all computers into dumb terminals. Find an computer, plug in your flash drive, POOF! your home computer is running in the motel lobby or public library.

4. Market Chrome OS as a 90 percent computer – The worst thing Google could do is  try to make Chrome OS a “do everything” OS. Don’t build it for gaming, video editing, etc. Just make it do what 90 percent of people use their computer for 100 percent of the time.

5. Function over fashion – The beauty of  the Chrome browser is its minimalism. RIM has proved to geeks and non-geeks everywhere that technology that works is better than technology that’s pretty.

6. Don’t try to put it all in the box – The world needs to learn how to download and install drivers. Ethernet drivers are the only hardware drivers that Chrome needs to support during the initial install. All other drivers could be posted in an easily searchable database. A nice side effect of this, might be a desire from companies to create more standardized drivers.

7. Off-site backup – I hate the idea of subscribing to Microsoft Office online, but I would gladly pay $10/month if I had 100 gigs of off-site backup where my entire system could be backed up regularly. Read the rest of this entry →

Like most of the world, I have spent an evening or two staying up past bedtime looking and laughing at LOLcats on icanhascheezburger.com (actually, I hate that site, bad example) or Fail blogs.

I know that many of these sites based around a simple concept make a lot of money via sponsors and their creators get paid to speak and write about their genius concept. All the while I kick myself for not thinking of the concept first.

The latest in the long history of “Why didn’t I think of that” blog ideas is AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

I love this site. Once or twice a month I sit down at 2am and wake my wife, who is asleep in the other room, with my laughing.