time
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5583881/how-a-small-studio-pulled-off-a-major-3+d-film-using-energy+saving-technology
Traditionally, only the mammoth Hollywood studios could afford to work with 3D—it’s too expensive to build the necessary, air-conditioned 24 hours a day, server farms. The company behind Despicable Me decided to try something new, and cut the AC.
Illumination Entertainment, the company behind Despicable Me, decided to try something new. Instead of using air-conditioned server farms to render images, the company asked IBM to built a customized server farm using the iDataPlex system, a processing system that cuts down on energy use by 40% compared to traditional server farms.
The iDataPlex has two key advantages: a flexible configuration that doubles the amount of systems that can run in a single IBM rack and the ability to run an ambient temperature room (no costly air-conditioning required). The system has been on the market for over a year, but Illumination is the first studio to use it for animated film.
This doesn’t mean that any scrappy studio with a dream can now produce a high-end 3-D animated film. Illumination used a 330-person team of artists, producers, and support staff to produce 142 terabytes of data. And the rendering farm, which processed up to 500,000 frames per week, was built in conjunction with Mac Guff Ligne, a French digital production studio.
But the iDataPlex gives Illumination a leg up in the graphics rendering process. Illumination Entertainment’s server farm, for example, is the size of four parking spots. That’s half the amount of space the company initially allotted to the farm. “Oftentimes a small studio like Illumination really wants to put their energy behind creating as compelling of content as possible,” explains Steve Canepa, Vice President, Media & Entertainment Industry at IBM. “By minimizing the technological issues associated with building and managing the [rendering] environment, we allow studios to reduce the amount of time, energy, and resources necessary to create an underlying technological platform.”
It’s a compelling idea for studios—even major ones—that want to cut costs and look environmentally conscious at the same time. IBM is already working with a number of other studios to implement similar solutions. Canepa concedes that studios could build similar systems by purchasing off-the-shelf racks and processors, but the iDataPlex’s unique configuration of servers packs a lot of processing power into a small space—and that’s not easy to replicate. Don’t expect these rigs to be appearing in suburban garages anytime soon.
Fast Company empowers innovators to challenge convention and create the future of business.
Tags: ability, air-conditioning, ambient, ambient temperature, amount, amp, animated film, canepa, company, configuration, conjunction, content, day, Despicable, Don, dream, energy, energy use, entertainment, entertainment industry, example, farm, Film, film illumination, flexible configuration, french digital, Hollywood, hollywood studios, IBM, iDataPlex, Illumination, industry, leg, Ligne, Mac Guff, mac guff ligne, market, mdash, Media, Oftentimes, parking, person, person team, President, process, processing, processing system, production, rack, Room, server, server farm, server farms, size, something, Source, space, staff, Steve Canepa, studio, support, support staff, system, team, technological issues, temperature, temperature room, terabytes, time, traditional server, use, using energy, vice, Week, year
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5582559/osmos-for-ipad-ambient-gaming-tailor+made-for-the-tablet
When the iPad was unveiled and I started to imagine the types of games a 9″ touch screen might engender, I envisioned gorgeous, intuitive and, above all, immersive experiences. Osmos for iPad is one of the best I’ve found yet.
The game, which is adapted from a well-regarded PC version and costs $5 in the App Store, puts you in control of a tiny blue organism, a mote, which you direct around the screen, growing in size as you absorb the smaller blobs around you. Of course, all sorts of challenges, including bigger motes trying to absorb you, complicate that mission.
But what’s really special about Osmos is the experience of controlling that game play. Tapping behind your mote scoots him around the screen, predictably, but at any time you can pinch to zoom in or out, allowing you to navigate a tight passage or survey the level at a distance. Additionally, you can swipe with one finger to alter time—drag left and all the motes slow to a crawl, drag right and they shoot around like bouncy balls. Different speeds and levels of zoom have situations in which they’re uniquely useful, and these elegant controls are the perfect complement to the game’s polished visuals.
Osmos teaches you these gestures in early levels, but after that there’s little instruction. You’re given a basic goal and left to your own devices to go about achieving it. Depending on your style, the game play can be rambunctious or meditative, and often it’s both in the course of one level.
There’s not a huge variation in the game play, admittedly, and it’s so engrossing that I imagine most players will zip through the Odyssey track pretty quickly (there’s an arcade mode that lets you play levels one at a time, too). But in some ways this simplicity is the game’s biggest asset, because it allows for a remarkable cohesiveness between all of its elements, from game play and visual style down to the soundtrack and menus. It’s not only a “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” type thing; here, the whole is so dazzlingly packaged that you don’t really think of the “parts” as parts at all.
For me, Osmos on the iPad is an experience first and a game second, and it uses the iPad to achieve game play that would be impossible—or, at least, not nearly as compelling—on any other platform. At its best, the iPad isn’t just an app machine or a gaming device but a portal into some other environment all together, and I hope that developers will follow Osmos’ lead and strive not just to adapt familiar gaming experiences to the tablet but to create new ones for it entirely. [iTunes]
Tags: all sorts, app, arcade, arcade mode, asset, blobs, bouncy, bouncy balls, cohesiveness, complement, control, course, crawl, device, distance, engender, environment, experience, finger, game, game play, gaming, gestures, goal, instruction, iPad, level, machine, mdash, mission, mode, mote, motes, Odyssey, organism, Osmos, passage, Platform, play, Portal, right, screen, simplicity, size, soundtrack, Source, store, style, sum, swipe, Tapping, thing, time, Touch, touch screen, track, type, types of games, variation, version, visual style, visuals, whole
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/02/google-acquires-ita-for-700m-dives-headfirst-into-airline-tick/

Look out, Kayak / Bing Travel — you both are about to have your respective worlds rocked. While Google has managed to stay on top (or close to the top) when it comes to almost everything search related, the company has curiously allowed smaller niche brands to handle the travel side. Even amongst the hardcore Googlers, avid flyers typically head to a place like Kayak to weigh their options, while vacation planners either do likewise or turn to Bing Travel. In a few months time, we suspect some of that traffic will be diverted back to El Goog. The company has just announced plans to acquire Cambridge-based ITA Software for a cool $700 million, which will put one of the world’s most sophisticated QPX software tools for organizing flight information into the hands of the planet’s most dangerous search ally. According to Google, the pickup will allow consumers to search and buy airline tickets with less hassle and frustration, though it’s quick to point out that it has “no plans to sell airline tickets [directly] to consumers.” For the travel junkies in attendance, there’s a high probability that you won’t find any better news coming your way today than this.
[Thanks, Matthew]
Continue reading Google acquires ITA for $700m, dives headfirst into airline ticket search
Google acquires ITA for $700m, dives headfirst into airline ticket search originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: airline, airline ticket, airline tickets, ally, attendance, Bing Travel, blog, Cambridge, Cambridge-based, company, Continue, cool, dives, EDT, Engadget, everything, flight, flight information, flyers, Fri, frustration, Gadling, Goog, google, Googlers, hardcore, hassle, headfirst, information, ITA, ita software, Jul, Kayak, Matthew, nbsp, news, niche, official, Permalink, pickup, place, planet, probability, QPX, reading, search, searchGoogle, side, software, software tools, Source, tick, ticket, ticket search, time, today, traffic, travel, travel junkies, use, vacation, vacation planners, way, World
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5576453/youtube-gets-it-will-allow-ad-skipping
There’s nothing worse than watching a 30-second ad to watch some 30-second clip of something the world inevitably finds funnier than you do. Google/YouTube are acknowledging this phenomenon of the consumer psyche and will introduce an ad-skip button this year.
The idea is as simple as this: If an advertiser’s commercial isn’t captivating enough to watch in its own right, it’ll be skipped by viewers. If viewers don’t watch the ad, Google doesn’t charge the advertiser.
Now I know what you’re thinking: Why would anyone watch an ad voluntarily? See exhibit A, the lead video in which the god of the infomercial, Ron Popeil, does his thing. The only way that 9-minute clip could be more captivating is to put ANOTHER 9-minute Ron Popeil clip in front of it.
This skippable ad model will inevitably lead to better ads—at least in terms of catering the online attention span—and, for those of us* with the libidinal fortitude to turn a blind eye on GoDaddy-esque BOOBIES BOOBIES BOOBIES teasers, a lot more free time. [WSJ via Fast Company]
* OK, maybe I don’t skip every such commercial. But I only** watch them to be educated enough to write about them on Giz.
** This is a flat-out fabrication***.
*** What sort of monster have I become?
Tags: advertiser, ANOTHER, Anyone, attention, attention span, blind eye, BOOBIES, button, Clip, commercial, company, consumer, esque, exhibit, eye, fabrication, Fast, fortitude, free time, front, funnier, Giz, God, GoDaddy-esque, google, idea, infomercial, libidinal, lot, mdash, minute, model, monster, nothing, online, phenomenon, psyche, right, Ron Popeil, something, sort, Source, span, thing, time, video, Watch, way, World, WSJ, year, YouTube
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/24/symbian-3-reviewed-in-exquisite-and-ruthless-detail-by-eldar-mur/

No folks, those mythical N8 review units still aren’t on our doorsteps, but we can offer you the next best thing: a thorough (we mean thorough) overview of the Symbian^3 environment that will be front and center on Nokia’s next great phone. Eldar Murtazin of mobile-review reports on everything from the sophisticated handling of contacts and caller ID pictures, through the noticeable speed improvements, past the limited utility of online widgets that display only two lines at a time, beyond the “weak spot” web browser, and all the way to Symbian’s unhealthy habit of “clinging to continuity.” It’s an enlightening read, which pulls no punches with its conclusion: Symbian^3 is an evolutionary step up from S60 5th edition, which brings nothing new to the market and offers no comparative advantages. Strong words from Eldar, paricularly when he doesn’t disclose what build of the OS he’s using; his rationale, however, is that his analysis relates to overarching design decisions and ignores software bugs and version-specific foibles. Make of that what you will.
[Thanks, scotsboyuk]
Symbian^3 reviewed in exquisite and ruthless detail by Eldar Murtazin originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: analysis, browser, caller, caller id, Center, comparative advantages, conclusion, continuity, design, design decisions, detail, display, doorsteps, Edition, EDT, Eldar, email, Engadget, environment, everything, evolutionary step, foibles, front, habit, handling, Jun, market, Murtazin, nbsp, Nokia, nothing, online, overview, Permalink, phone, punches, rationale, Read, review, scotsboyuk, software, software bugs, Source, speed, speed improvements, Spot, step, Symbian, thing, Thu, time, unhealthy habit, use, utility, way, weak spot, Web, web browser, widgets
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5561454/sony-lcd-3dtv-gets-disappointing-first-look
Gary Merson at HD Guru has seen Sony’s new KDL-55HX800 LCD 3DTV live and in person. His first take? Even a slight tilt of the head makes you see double and lose the 3D effect. Uh oh.
Merson found a whole range of things to be troubled about in his time with the Sony: double-vision, color shift, relatively shallow depth. But the main issue—as Mark reported at this year’s CES—is that LCD and OLED screens just aren’t up to 3D. At least not in the way that plasma displays clearly are.
It’s also worth mentioning that the HX800 Merson viewed is actually the lowest end 3D model Sony offers, and in fact is technically a “3D-ready” set, meaning that it uses a separate sync transmitter instead of the integrated 3D functionality of the LX900 series. We won’t know how big, if any, a difference that makes until we’re able to compare the two side by side. But for now, the early returns suggest that plasma’s still the early king of 3D technology. [HD Guru]
Tags: 3d effect, 3d technology, 3dtv, CES, color, color shift, D. At, depth, difference, double vision, DTV, early returns, effect, end, fact, functionality, Gary Merson, guru, hd, head, issue, KDL, King, LCD, Mark, mdash, model, OLED, oled screens, person, plasma, plasma displays, range, ready set, series, shallow depth, shift, side, sony, sony lcd, Source, sync, take, technology, tilt, time, tmpPost, transmitter, way, year
Source: http://lifehacker.com/5559357/iphone-vs-android-showdown-which-phone-is-best-for-power-users
The newest iPhone comes out in two weeks; the Android OS continues to deploy on better and better hardware; and both operating systems roll out exciting new features and innovations with each release. So which deserves your hard-earned cash?
A Starting Point
You can evaluate iPhone and Android devices from countless angles,[1] so rather than pretend that we’ve got the One True Comparison, it only seems appropriate to highlight that we’re not necessarily your average user. For more specifics on how we judge these devices, read this footnote.
For our purposes, we’re measuring each phone OS against 20 features we care about most, declaring a winner (or a tie) for each category, and adding it all up. The extent to which our measurements match up with what you most care about may vary, but we suspect that many of you share similar values when it comes to your smartphone.
Note: The table below indicates the device we think “wins” each category. A happy Android means we think Android is better in that category; an Apple means iPhone outperforms Android; categories with both an Android and Apple are ties.
![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] iPhone vs. Android Showdown: Which Phone Is Best for Power Users?](http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/17/2010/06/500x_iPhone-versus-Android.jpg)
Artwork by Adam Dachis
Below, we’ve broken down the categories above and explained whey we chose the winners as we did.
Ease of Use; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
Android has come a long way in a short time, but from an ease-of-use perspective, the iPhone wins out. You can pick up any iPhone and quickly, easily understand what’s going on. It’s got one main button on the front of the device, and everything you do consists of tapping app icons from the home screen. Android devices have several buttons on the front of the device that perform a variety of functions, and once you unlock the screen (and depending on which Android device you have), you’re confronted with many different possible home screens and ways of doing things from those home screens.
Openness; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
We really like that the Android operating system open source, but what’s more important to most end users is openness in terms of what you can run on these devices. The operating systems themselves are clearly important, but one thing’s abundantly clear: the applications make the phone. And while Google has yet to get in hot water for rejecting apps based on anti-competitive fear or censorship, Apple’s has. A lot.
Battery Life; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
Apple has taken battery life extremely seriously in their careful development of the iPhone, and it’s shown. While Android devices get a kitchen-sink’s worth of features that you may consider to be a fair tradeoff for battery life, there’s little question that the iPhone’s battery life outlasts that of most Android devices. Battery performance definitely varies from Android handset to Android handset (the recently released EVO is taking big hits for its poor battery performance), but the iPhone’s battery performance—particularly the new iPhone’s performance—generally outlasts Android’s.
Multitasking; Tie
![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
It’s a big deal that the iPhone is finally getting some multitasking support in iOS4, and while it’s still not as true of multitasking as Android users enjoy, the tradeoff in terms off battery life improvements is important enough that, overall, we’d consider multitasking to be a wash.
Software Keyboard; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
If you talk to anyone who’s used both the iPhone and Android with some frequency, the general consensus is that the iPhone’s software keyboard is a good deal better than Android’s default keyboard. That’s unfortunate for Android users, but the consolation is that you can install any custom keyboard as your default keyboard on Android, and we’ve seen some solid keyboard alternatives. Still, the advantage, if only by virtue of being better out of the box, goes to the iPhone.
System-Wide Search; Tie
![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
Apple’s implementation of Spotlight on the iPhone searches contacts, media, email, applications, notes, and calendar. Android searches most of that (but notably not email), but also integrates with auto-suggest web searches; it also lets other applications plug into it, so the more supported apps you install, the more robust the universal search becomes.
Notification system; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
This may seem like a silly thing to care too much about, but the iPhone’s modal notification system is particularly user un-friendly, especially for a device as friendly as the iPhone. You have to act on a notification, and you can only see one notification at a time before the next one dismisses the previous one entirely. Android’s brilliant pull-down window shade notification tray, on the other hand, is a beautiful thing that could make any iPhone owner jealous.
Voice-to-Text; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
Nearly every text field on an Android device can be filled with a few words from your mouth, and it works surprisingly well. You can respond to emails by voice, send long text messages by voice while you’re walking around Target, respond to your editor’s IMs while you’re at a graduation ceremony, and so on, as long as you’re comfortable talking to your phone (it is a phone, so you should be). Apart from voice-to-text in third party apps, iOS doesn’t support voice-to-text at all.
Syncing; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
iPhones can be incredible standalone devices, but they’re surprisingly old-fashioned when it comes to syncing, requiring users to plug into their computers and connect to iTunes to do all sorts of syncing and activating that could be more conveniently done wirelessly. Android phones support pretty great over-the-air syncing with your Google account, so much so that if you were to lose your previous Android phone, simply entering your Google account into a new one can get you up and running with a usable phone in a jiffy.
Non-Google Sync; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
Android’s great at syncing seamlessly with Google’s servers, but it’s not so keen on syncing with other popular sources of data—like, say, Outlook, Address Book, or iTunes. If you’re a heavy user of any of those applications, the iPhone is the easiest option.
Tethering; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
The cost of tethering on Android devices varies depending on the provider, but so far the Android tethering situation is better off than what AT&T is offering on the iPhone. In the States, AT&T will charge you $20/month just for the privilege of tethering your iPhone’s data connection to a computer—despite the fact that you’re already paying for a metered data plan. The situation isn’t necessarily much better across the Android-sphere (Sprint is also planning to charge for tethering on the EVO, for example), but currently most Android carriers are sticking with “unlimited” plans, versus AT&T/iPhone’s 2GB limit. It’s still a close race on this point, but Android edges ahead with the ability to turn your handset into a Wi-Fi hotspot that can deliver wireless to you and seven of your closest friends.
Release and Update Consistency; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
These days, your mobile OS is just as important (if not more) than mobile hardware, and Apple has set the consumer expectation to expect that their device will receive new feature updates even if it isn’t the latest phone. To that end, it’s extremely easy to keep track of what’s going on in the iPhone ecosystem. Apple releases one new phone a year, and one major update each year. When an update rolls out, every phone receives the update at the same time (unless it’s particularly old; the original iPhone won’t upgrade to iOS4, for example). In contrast, Android runs on a lot of different devices, and when Google pushes out a new update, there’s no telling when or if it’s going to make its way to your phone. In the future Google is planning to change to yearly Android updates similar to iPhone OS updates, which will likely help this situation, but in the meantime, it’s a source of frustration for Android users.
Apps; Tie
![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
A lot of people may disagree on this assessment, given that Apple’s App Store has around four times the number of applications the Android Market does, but there’s also a lot of crap in the App Store, and at this point, most popular, mission-critical applications have been developed for both the iPhone and Android. What’s more, some potentially very popular applications end up locked out of the App Store for, if we’re being generous, arbitrary reasons. At the end of the day, it may be a big deal that your must-have application X is missing from the Android Market/App Store, and those may end up to be dealbreakers for you, but overall we’d call them pretty even.
Web browsing; Tie
![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
The iPhone’s Mobile Safari browser, while not without its faults, is a very nice, very usable mobile browser. Android’s browser, while not as smooth an operator as Safari, supports (or can support) Flash. The extent to which that matters to you may vary, but it’s big enough that we’re considering it a tie.
Gaming; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
We’re frugal productivity nerds at Lifehacker, so we don’t really care all that much about gaming. And while the number of solid gaming options available in the Android Market continue to grow, it’s still not on par with what’s available for the iPhone.
Music Player; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
Android may do a lot of things well, but one arena where its users regularly voice complaint is with its default media player. Where the iPhone comes with a very solid iPod app, most Android users quickly go looking for alternative players. Google is hyping over-the-internet streaming of all your music from your desktop computer eventually, but until we see something great there, the iPhone still wins out.
Free Turn-by-Turn Navigation; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
After the Google Voice debacle from last year, it’s looking less and less likely that Google will ever develop another new app for the iPhone. Unfortunately, that means that extremely cool applications like Google Maps Navigation, Google’s free turn-by-turn GPS application, will never make it to the iPhone, and so far there isn’t anything as good for the iPhone that’s also free. The iPhone does have its share of solid for-a-price GPS utilities in the App Store (and some decent inexpensive-to-free options), but Maps Navigation is built into Android and outshines the iPhone’s free alternatives.
Integration with Google Apps; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
If you rely on Google tools like Gmail, Google Contacts, Google Calendar, and the like, Android just does it better. The iPhone’s still no slouch, and can sync over-the-air with Contacts, Calendar, and even does Gmail push for instant new message notifications, but if you’re a serious Google or even just Gmail user, the iPhone doesn’t stack up to Android.
Google Voice; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
It may seem absurd to make this a separate point of comparison from Google Apps, but Voice is a very phone-centric app with potentially huge influence over how you use your phone. Apple had the option to approve a Google Voice app for the iPhone and completely blew it. And since we really love Google Voice, it only makes Android look that much more attractive.
Customizable; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
You may be able to add a wallpaper to your iPhone desktop when iOS4 rolls out, but beyond that, there’s not much you can do to tweak your iPhone to exactly how you like it—without jailbreaking, that is. In comparison, Android devices are Mr. Potato Heads of customizability.
Overall Score: Android: 13; iPhone: 11 ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
Clearly our scorecard is extremely subjective, so take this evaluation with a grain of salt, and consider how important the features we listed (and maybe those we didn’t list) are to you and come up with your own assessment. If your priorities are similar to ours, you’re likely looking at an Android for your next purchase. Frankly, it feels a little like a draw overall. (My ideal would be Android running on the iPhone 4, which is actually possible, eventually.)
In fact, in our recent poll on the subject, 66 percent of Lifehacker readers said they prefer Android; 30 percent prefer the iPhone, and 4 percent preferred neither. Whichever end of the spectrum you fall on, we’d love to hear more about what’s driving your decision in the comments.
Why just Android and iPhone? The iPhone and Android operating systems are not the only mobile OSes on the block, but they’re what we’re focusing on in this post. It’s cool if you’re really into Windows Mobile/Phone 7 or webOS. For the purpose of this post, we’re focusing on what we consider to be the most popular options among our readers. [
go back up]
How we judge: We consider ourselves power users who care about things like openness, user control, and customizability; we also care about ease of use, high quality design, and quality hardware. For better or worse (usually worse), these qualities often end up at odds with one another in the current smartphone market, but they make up the measuring stick against which we’re evaluating these devices.
It’s also probably worth noting that, Android OS and hardware aside, we’re big fans of several of Google’s services, and so some of those play an important role in some of the categories above. It may not seem fair to Apple and the iPhone to do so, but in most instances (like Google Voice), Apple had the opportunity to accept Google-focused applications to the App Store.
Finally, the state of Android devices can be somewhat confusing because they’re released by different carriers and on lots of different hardware. We tried to strike a balance between acknowledging faults on some of the worst incarnations of Android hardware while also keeping in mind the best. To the extent that older iPhones aren’t up to snuff compared to the new iPhone, we’ve done the same thing in discussing the iPhone. [go back up]
Adam Pash is the editor of Lifehacker; you can read more of his stuff here at Lifehacker and follow him on Twitter.
Tags: account, amp, android, angles, app, apple, application, Artwork, browser, computer, device, email, end, example, extent, field, footnote, gaming, google, hand, home screens, innovations, iOS, iPhone, lot, market, mdash, measurements, modal, mouth, music, navigation, new features, Notification, number, openness, operating systems, owner, perspective, phone, player, point, power users, Safari, search, shade, short time, situation, specifics, store, system, text, thing, Tie, ties, time, tmpPost, tray, true comparison, update, user, voice, Voice-to, Web, window, Winner, year
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5556346/iphone-os-triples-androids-market-share-for-now
Nielsen’s new “iPhone vs. Android” report offers up the latest numbers in the big mobile battle: Both platforms have loyal users, but Apple’s still on top by a long shot.
They don’t come as much of a surprise, but with all the talk of Android’s surging popularity and explosive app growth, Nielsen’s numbers do serve as a reminder that Apple still has a comfortable lead. Versus Android, that is—nationally, the iPhone’s still in second place, with a 28% market share compared to RIM’s 35% (Android has 9%; Windows Mobile has 19%).
But it will be interesting to see how things shake out over the course of the year. With the new iPhone dropping in a matter of weeks, prospective smart phone buyers (23% of U.S. mobile customers now have them) will be faced with the choice of hopping on the Apple wagon or exploring the multitude of Android options. As Matt noted in his Froyo review, Android is as polished as it’s ever been and is likely to improve even more in coming months. And while it’s hard to top the iPhone hype machine, reception to early versions of iPhone OS 4 hasn’t exactly been rapturous.

Another Nielsen graph shows that both platforms enjoy loyal users—80% of iPhone users want another iPhone; 70% of Android users want another Android phone—with Android’s group slightly more curious about the iPhone than the other way around. But in my experience, it seems like things are trending to the opposite. With Android’s app offerings increasingly matching up with the iPhone’s, I’m seeing more and more people considering Android a viable option for themselves, as well as one they can recommend to others.
Though still on top, Blackberry’s loyalty is only 47%, and as current Bold owner, I’m definitely of the 53% that’s planning on jumping ship when it comes time to buy my next phone. I’m just not sure what ship I want to jump into. [Nielsen via CNET]
Tags: android, app, apple, battle, BlackBerry, Bold, choice, CNet, course, experience, Froyo, graph, Group, growth, hype, hype machine, iPhone, lead, loyal users, loyalty, machine, market, market share, matt, matter, mdash, Mobile, mobile customers, multitude, Nielsen, offerings, opposite, option, owner, phone, place, planning, platforms, popularity, reception, reminder, report, review, RIM, share, ship, shot, smart phone, Source, surprise, talk, time, tmpPost, U.S., Versus, viable option, wagon, way, Windows, windows mobile, year
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/27/atandt-40-percent-of-iphones-are-enterprise-android-built-with/

It isn’t just Verizon’s Lowell McAdam with fascinating commentary at this Barclays Capital tech conference going down in New York this week. Ron Spears, who leads up AT&T’s Business Solutions division, had some notable things to say about enterprise mobility — specifically, the iPhone’s role in taking businesses to the road, a magic trick typically associated almost exclusively with BlackBerry over the past ten years. Basically, Spears says that he’s seeing extraordinary uptake on the business side with the iPhone since 2008 and the introduction of the platform’s first enterprise-focused features; in fact, he claims that “four out of every 10 sales” are to enterprise users these days and that it has all but caught up to BlackBerry for the kind of modern, tight, full-featured security that your average IT department needs. On a related note, Spears says that he hasn’t “seen the Android platform yet in the enterprise space,” but that he figures it’ll evolve over time to become “hard to ignore” to the enterprise segment. Of course, considering that AT&T has virtually no presence in the Android market at the moment, we’re not surprised that he’d take a lukewarm tack — so here’s hoping that changes fast. Follow the break for more highlights of Spears’ comments.
Continue reading AT&T: 40 percent of iPhone sales are enterprise, Android ‘built with a very specific focus to consumers’
AT&T: 40 percent of iPhon! e sales are enterprise, Android ‘built with a very specific focus to consumers’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 17:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/22/entelligence-is-android-fragmented-or-is-this-the-new-rate-of-i/
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he’ll explore where our industry is and where it’s going — on both micro and macro levels — with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.

A few weeks ago I sat down with the father of Android, Andy Rubin. Andy’s a super smart person, having done stints at Apple, General Magic, WebTV and Danger before starting the Android project. We talked about a lot of things, and we particularly spent time discussing Android fragmentation. I’ve written in the past about my concern that the Android platform is fragmenting much like desktop Linux has over the years, and the potential for the platform to turn into a patchwork of devices and vendor specific modifications that bear little relationship with each other. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my conversation with Andy, and I’ve rewritten this column more than a few times as a result.
Today, there are at least five different versions of Android on the market. Many of them are highly customized to allow for new features and device differentiation, but that same customization also makes it harder for vendors to update them to the latest versions. New releases and versions of Android are often outdated by newer versions in the span of just a few weeks. For example, the Nexus One when released was capable of running apps like Google Earth that devices such as the Droid could not, because it ran Android 2.0, not 2.1.Tablet vendors complain their Android offerings lack features such as Android Market because Google forbids them to install the marketplace app, forcing them to create proprietary alternatives. It would appear Android is indeed fragmenting — but perhaps there are other forces at work.
When I spoke with Andy, he pointed out there are several classical symptoms of platform fragmentation. First, older APIs no longer work and break in new releases. Second, multiple application marketplaces offer different applications that lack uniformity across platforms. Both of these are true when you look at desktop Linux. Neither are true of Android.
Continue reading Entelligence: Is Android fragmented or is this the new rate of innovation?
Entelligence: Is Android fragmented or is this the new rate of innovation? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 May 2010 20:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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40 percent of iPhone sales are enterprise, Android ‘built with a very specific focus to consumers’
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/27/atandt-40-percent-of-iphones-are-enterprise-android-built-with/
It isn’t just Verizon’s Lowell McAdam with fascinating commentary at this Barclays Capital tech conference going down in New York this week. Ron Spears, who leads up AT&T’s Business Solutions division, had some notable things to say about enterprise mobility — specifically, the iPhone’s role in taking businesses to the road, a magic trick typically associated almost exclusively with BlackBerry over the past ten years. Basically, Spears says that he’s seeing extraordinary uptake on the business side with the iPhone since 2008 and the introduction of the platform’s first enterprise-focused features; in fact, he claims that “four out of every 10 sales” are to enterprise users these days and that it has all but caught up to BlackBerry for the kind of modern, tight, full-featured security that your average IT department needs. On a related note, Spears says that he hasn’t “seen the Android platform yet in the enterprise space,” but that he figures it’ll evolve over time to become “hard to ignore” to the enterprise segment. Of course, considering that AT&T has virtually no presence in the Android market at the moment, we’re not surprised that he’d take a lukewarm tack — so here’s hoping that changes fast. Follow the break for more highlights of Spears’ comments.
Continue reading AT&T: 40 percent of iPhone sales are enterprise, Android ‘built with a very specific focus to consumers’
AT&T: 40 percent of iPhon! e sales are enterprise, Android ‘built with a very specific focus to consumers’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 17:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
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