The event is booked for 10am Pacific time on the 27th, which WolframAlpha incorrectly tells me is 6am NZDT on the 28th (it’s actually 7am NZDT). I’ll be tracking it live, and doing my damndest to get my hands on a review version of whatever is announced.

Of course I will laugh my head off when it turns out to just be multi-coloured iPhones or something like that.

]]> http://www.ben.geek.nz/2010/01/apple-event-official-27th-january/feed/ 3 http://www.ben.geek.nz/2010/01/kiwi-apple-reseller-confirms-march-tablet-release/ http://www.ben.geek.nz/2010/01/kiwi-apple-reseller-confirms-march-tablet-release/#comments Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:56:10 +0000 Ben http://www.ben.geek.nz/?p=4644 It’s all a bit third-party, but we have a tweet from a fellow New Zealander who states that a local Apple reseller has “confirmed” a March release date for an Apple tablet:

A apple reseller in new Zealand has confimed a march realise date for the tablet !!!!!!!! More info in a weeks time to follow

We only have a couple of Apple resellers in New Zealand, with MagnumMac being the most visible.

The cynic in me says this is just a local employee parotting what has already been speculated by the Wall St Journal. Why would a Kiwi reseller have any more information than any other resellers worldwide? The alternative view is that someone has royally screwed up by breaking a non-disclosure agreement. Let’s run with the latter explanation, it’s much more exciting.

CES

As is customary, you’ll want to follow the big USA tech blogs for your CES coverage. There’s no way I’m ever going to keep up, unless I developed some method to automatically post press releases from my email to this blog. I would caution you that the majority of CES coverage is a torpid melange of pointless incremental product updates and banal releases. Exhibit A: Sony have announced no less than twelve compact digital cameras. Perhaps some consumer expert at Sony has decided to target the buried-by-cameras fetishist market segment in 2010?

There is one small shining light out of CES 2010: the Parrot Ardrone. Just watch this video:

Apple iTablet

Either Apple is about to pull off the biggest jape in consumer electronics history, or they’re announcing a tablet-like computer on or about the 27th or January. Stay tuned.

Google Nexus One

In an utterly different style to Apple, Google’s Nexus One phone was leaked far and wide when they gave one to every Google staffer back in December. This week they officially announced the phone’s release in the USA, with hints at an imminent European release. Don’t hold your breath for a New Zealand release, but there’s nothing stopping you getting a mate to buy one in the USA then using it on Vodafone’s network.

Free applications from the Android Market have been available since at least day one of the HTC Magic release in New Zealand. Apparently local currency conversion has stopped paid applications up until now.

Today, our dedicated Android forum member, Rob, has just posted a note saying that paid apps quietly appeared last night. I guess the currency issue has been resolved. You can check out some of the top-selling paid applications on the Anroid Market here.

Skeletor

Overall, if you were expecting something huge from Apple’s “Only Rock and Roll” event, you’re going to be disappointed. The biggest shock was FM radio in the new iPod Nano. Even the video camera in the device had been widely telegraphed, and the lack of video in the iPod Touch is something of a disappointment.

So rounding it all up:

• iTunes 9 with improved Genius (including Genius for Apps) and finally App organisation (you can arrange which screens apps will appear on before syncing to your iPhone or iPod Touch).
• iTunes LPs – single download (note: not this single-file format we’ve been hearing about), including photos, video, liner notes, lyrics.
• iPod Touch 8GB gets a price drop to NZ$349, and we get speedier 32GB and 64GB models for $519 and $699. Bear in mind you won’t get OpenGL|ES 2.0 on the $199 model, so we’ll see some game compatibility issues cropping up there I think.
• More games – notably Madden from EA and Assassin’s Creed.
• iPod Classic gets a capacity bump to 160GB for NZ$429
• iPod Shuffle gets colours at the standard $99 price, and a new “special edition” 4GB model for $129.
• iPod Nano is the biggest change-up, with video camera (640×480 resolution, so there’s no way it’s competing with the Flip-type HD cameras), and FM Radio (!). NZ$259 for the 8GB, and $318 for the 16GB models.

And that’s it. No tablet. No Apple LCD TV. Just an incremental bump in iPod lineup. All of which are available as of now from the NZ Apple Store with 24hr delivery.

And I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, but Steve Jobs was back, and looking anorexic. The guy is sick. More power to him, and I’ve known other people who have opted to “die with their boots on” rather than go out with a whimper.

Yet usability is not astroscience.

I wouldn’t call myself a usability professional, but I’m happy to take on the mantle of usability expert. As should you. In my mind, all users are usability experts, and have a duty to speak out against poor usability and product design. After all, what is usability if not the ability for casual consumers to get the most from a product? And who better to decide the success of that product’s design than the casual user?

Instead, we’ve fallen into a lazy, disinterested mode of consumption. We put up with crap design and poor usability in exchange for ubiquity and “innovative consumer-driven synergistic marketing opportunities” – products and designs foisted on us because we fall into some definition of a particular market segment. It’s an extension of what Paul Lukas calls inconspicuous consumption:

It’s about deconstructing the details of consumer culture — details that are either so weird or obscure that we’d never see them, or so ubiquitous that we’ve essentially stopped seeing them. This can mean anything from a bizarre canned good, like sauerkraut juice, to a beautifully designed light-industrial object that we’ve always taken for granted, like the Brannock Device (that gizmo they use to measure your shoe size).

In the same way, we’ve stopped caring about the way our products are designed. We assume that modern shampoo bottles have to be aerodynamic, and that electronic volume controls have to be buttons. We take it as given that registration is required on many websites, and that every software package must have a hundreds of different “options” in the preferences pane.

Sure, it’s not entirely our own fault as consumers. The modern marketing industry exists largely to induce us to buy products that we don’t need. This in turn has created the fallacy of visual product “design” over function.

Wait! Before the cadre of designers come down on me like a ton of 2B pencils, let me be clear: pure aesthetic design is glorious. I love the whimsy and art of items that have no physical purpose other than to look good. What I do hold quarrel with are products that have a design completely at odds with their function. These bulbous, pointless packages exist purely because of supermarkets. Yes, supermarkets. Stay with me here. The competition for sales of consumer goods in supermarkets (and other super-stores) is intense. Manufacturers will pay for the privilege of having their products at eye level. So if you can have a bright green, globular hair gel bottle that attracts the eye of a consumer, you will. Who cares if half the product is inaccessible unless one has serpentine digits?

But we do have crap products largely because we accept them. It’s only the abject failures or truly dangerous products like the Ford Pinto that get “outed” for poor usability (if you can call the lack of being burnt alive as positive usability). Some would argue that we bring this upon ourselves with our demand for $49 DVD players and disposable cell phones. I don’t buy it. The effort required to put excellent design into a cheap product will be returned tenfold when that product becomes a runaway success due to its cheap price and brilliant usability.

So I say stand up for yourself Mr Consumer! Don’t be scared to speak out if you find a product difficult or just counter-intuitive. Don’t be scared to offend designers or usability professionals. In some cases even the best designer hasn’t quite understood exactly how you use that particular product, and they’d love to hear from you. You understand when a volume dial is better than a button – without knowing the intricacies of how a rotary encoder works. And you shouldn’t have to find a way to lodge your shampoo bottle upside-down between the soap dish and shower head, when everyone in the developed world knows that at some stage, every shampoo bottle will be stood on its head.

Usability. It’s just not that hard kids.

The first device out of the block will be from Navman. I’ve had, just politely, mixed experience with Navman, but have been told that the new batch is greatly improved.

I’m really interested to know if the system will use the NZTA’s new occupancy sensors. If you’re observant (like me), you’ll have noticed inductance loops buried every km or so all over Auckland’s motorways. Look carefully next time: they look like a grid of cuts in the road, and are often connected to a little junction box sitting on top of the median barrier. These sensors will give awesome, granular info on every part of the motorway system. Unfortunately I’m guessing they’re not ready to go yet.

If you’re a codemonkey, you might be interested to know that NZTA plans to create an open API for the sensor information once it is up and running. Data mashups ahoy!

The App Store is amazing because Apple treat their developers like lepers. I’ve experienced the process of submitting an app first-hand, and completely concur with PolarBearFarm that the experience is appalling.

I’ve also long since given up any benefit of the doubt regarding their banning of selected apps. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s banned because it’s not an Apple duck. It’s not because Apple is trying to shield the world from the horrors of ducks. It’s flat out anti-competitive.

Yet they keep saying non-Apple ducks are dangerous. Apple keep saying that people mustn’t be allowed full access to their device because they’ll blow up cell towers or some other madness. This is such total, unadulterated birdshit. It makes me angry. People have been walking around for years with mallards on their Windows Mobile phones and geese on Symbian. I don’t see AT&T or Vodafone constantly rebuilding cell towers on the molten wrecks of previous ones.

But lo! What is this: Apple seem to be doing quite well at completely knackering their own devices by allowing nefarious code to run.

Glass houses. Put your stones down Apple, then come out and play.

• Reviewing the new Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 kit.
• Reviewing the Arduino starter kit from Mindkits.co.nz
• Giving away an LG HFB-500 Bluetooth hands-free kit
• Noisy and fast gadgets for Fathers’ day.
• A new daughter.
• …and more.

On the personal front, I’m speaking at the PRiNZ Northern networking event tonight, and attending Vodafone’s mid-winter christmas dinner on Friday. It’s a hard life!

Also, a quick plug for my wonderful employers, who are trucking along having yet another incredible year.

There is a suggestion that small changes to the profile (ipcc) file will fix the issue. Check back for updates.