As flagship smartphones continue to grow more giant each year, smartphone vendors have tried to avoid losing customers looking for smaller and more affordable smartphones with “mini” versions of their various hero phones. As it turns out, however, their efforts appear to be failing.
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Following a previous accidental mention on Tuesday of an updated iMac Mini on Apple’s website, the company has apparently spilled the proverbial beans on another upcoming product that should have been kept under wraps. French site ConsoMac has discovered a mid-2014 iMac mention on Apple’s site in a chart detailing what kind of Windows versions Apple’s iMacs support, just as was the case with the 2014 iMac mini refresh.
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I’m not normally one to weep over obsolete business models. I can’t bring myself to fret too much about the Internet strangling the life out of print newspapers, video rental stores or CD shops, largely because I’ve found that what’s replaced them (online journalism, Netflix and iTunes) offers much better value than the old way of doing things. And when the Internet eventually kills off cable TV, I will positively do a dance of joy in the streets. That said, there is one slowly dying business that I’ll confess that I sorely miss: Bookstores.
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Android L’s Material Design is not reserved only to the Android operating system or Google’s mobile apps, as the company wants to use the same design principles it formally unveiled at its I/O developers conference this year across the web. Furthermore, the company wants app developers to include the same Material Design elements in their own apps, and Google has so far showed what Material Design apps are supposed to look like. To further showcase Material Design, this time on a functional web page rather than by providing just concept images, Google has updated its Google Drive home pages (for Docs, Sheets and Slides) to Material Design.
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Those unencumbered by guilt and happy to steal movies instead of paying to see them will be glad to learn that the latest and greatest movie-pirating tool is coming soon to an iPhone and iPad near you. Hot on the heels of the release of an app called TorrenTV that uses Popcorn Time’s code to stream torrents to an Apple TV or Roku box, the team behind Popcorn Time confirmed that an Apple TV streaming feature has been added to its own app.
More interestingly, however, the team has confirmed that it will soon launch an iOS version of its popular app.
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That list of “exciting new product categories” Apple CEO Tim Cook loves teasing at every opportunity keeps getting smaller and smaller — and now it looks like one of Apple’s most interesting new products that was rumored to be slated for a 2014 debut will not launch until sometime next year.
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Apple has never been all that keen on the idea of releasing a MacBook with a touchscreen, even if it has been toying with the idea of releasing a larger “iPad Pro.” Just because Apple isn’t going to release a touchscreen MacBook, however, doesn’t mean that a bold entrepreneur on Kickstarter won’t give it a shot. A new Kickstarter projected called Modbook Pro X is trying to raise $150,000 to build a massive MacBook-tablet hybrid that even utilizes one of Steve Jobs’ most hated accessories — the stylus.
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For years, Nintendo has believed it could reject smartphone and tablet apps, yet still flourish. The reason for this delusion is familiar — it’s the toxic Last Blockbuster Syndrome that doomed the consumer electronics divisions of Motorola in 2004 and Nokia in 2007. Often at the start of a massive trend shift in consumer electronics, dominant dinosaurs get one massive hit built on a nearly obsolete paradigm, and that allows them to be lulled into a comfy trip to the grave.
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Comcast’s customer care service is a mess, as many affected customers and even former and current employees will attest, no matter what the company says in public. It all became even clearer following that customer call that was recorded by a certain tech personality, and which quickly went viral, as it revealed that Comcast is desperately trying to put a stop to service cancellations. The company took immediate action by apologizing for the incident and explaining its customer care policies publicly. Internally, the company served its employees a new memo supposed to be a reminder of its “customer interaction policy.”
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Samsung’s first metal smartphone is reportedly releasing in less than a week, but don’t get too excited — it’s not going to be as great as you hoped. SamMobile reports that the upcoming Galaxy Alpha is going to be unveiled on August 4th, or roughly a month before Samsung takes the wraps off its highly anticipated Galaxy Note 4.
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