Mobile Gaming, The Next Wii on iPad_2?
What’s so different between an Apple iPad tablet and its successor the iPad 2? Lots of things, starting with the new and slicker design, that’s attracting the eyes in the first place, nope? Then the new set of more performant applications and also the neat accessories, which usually keep company to any kind of Apple device.
But there’s a seemingly serious gap between the processor powering the iPad and the new A5 processor which “reveals something quite different – an unprecedented leap in mobile games-playing power that could conceivably herald the arrival of a new home games console. This is a hardware design that is about so much more than just a revised form factor and a bunch of cameras. With iPad 2, Apple is laying the groundwork for the future of its gaming business.”
Under normal circumstances, aka. what a gamer is used to, the tablet, as a device, won’t replace the game console any time soon. Fair enough. Yet from a market perspective, there’s a majority of lite gamers, or casual gamers, out there, killing their time in waiting rooms or escaping the sound of commuting trains. And these people are a dominant market mass, not to be treated lightly.
The essential step has been achieved since the iPad 2 comes equipped with potent hardware, suitable to run a host of popular games. The juice is there so the developers can write new games, or rewrite old ones, for the iPad 2.
How to produce controls, like physical buttons, stick, mouse, similar to the gaming console? Not necessarily to approach this aspect with the “been there done that” concept. After all, it’s not what Apple did. How about docking the iPad to something groovy on the table, hooked to power, video and audio, put all needed controllers under bluetooth so you can travel and play the games you want, without the need of docking the iPad.
This might be the post-Wii mobile gaming console, by Apple, which console, the iPad, is at the same time a pretty good web browser, with Facebook, Gmail, Gmaps, a media player, etc. Clearly more capable than a Wii, and more versatile, the gaming tablet of the morrow.
Droidwalls and User Experience
Tracking your mobile device, and tracking you for that matter, is of great importance for the service providers. Location-tracking –although well and active on old mobile phones– became more of a nuisance with the recent discovery of Apple storing iPhone location data. The paranoia of no-more privacy is old news, and will remain what it is. Most users disregard this aspect of mobile connectivity, either ignoring it or not giving a second thought about it. But for the minority of users, interested in taking more control over their own mobile devices, here are two apps to install and use like the well known Firewall from Windows, just better.
Number one, “DroidWall – Android Firewall is a front-end application for the powerful iptables Linux firewall. It allows you to restrict which applications are permitted to access your data networks (2G/3G and/or Wi-Fi). This is the perfect solution if you don’t have an unlimited data plan, or just wants to see your battery lasting longer.”
And number two is as well a “free software, dubbed WhisperMonitor, is a dynamic firewall and real-time connection monitor designed to restrict how sometimes-unruly Android apps handle user data. It monitors all outbound connection attempts by applications and the operating system, and asks users to permit or block any URLs and port numbers that are accessed. The software also allows users to set firewall rules for individual applications, and provides a connection history for installed software.”
The major problem with both mobile security apps above relates rather to user experience. It is not a point and click operation but requires some initial thinking before whitelisting, or blacklisting, an application’s access to the network, 2G/3G and/or Wi-Fi. The user is called to take decisions capable to make or break the functionality, by allowing or disallowing connectivity, of the Droid. The downside of it is a less frantic user experience traded for more control and stability. Again, old news, like anything security related.
Think Global, Act Local: Asymmetrical Friendships by Twitter
Actually it’s more of a “following” than “friendshipping,” so to say. The social networks sometimes lie to themselves, and to you. Well, have you really expected not to? Take Facebook and the imperious goal of connecting with thousands and thousands of new “friends.” The misconception:
“Your friends are equally important
Your friends are arranged into discrete groups
You can manage hundreds of friends
Friendship is reciprocal and equal”
The reality:
“British developer Tom Hume recently went to hear a talk by the anthropologist Robin Dunbar — who famously posited that most humans can only handle around 150 social relationships — discuss his views on our ultramodern ways of staying in touch.”
So then is all this social networking a hoax? Yes and no. Yes, it’s a hoax when you’re an individual believing that you can friend with your neighbors, or former classmates, in an equal manner like with anyone on planet Earth; real life works a bit differently than virtual communications; even if you manage to win some excellent friendships from other continents, this doesn’t mean “anyone, anywhere.”
And no, there’s no hoax hidden in the ads of social networking when you take it one step further, to the marketing arena. You own a business, or work for a web business, and naturally you have to promote services and products, for the business. At this point, social media turns from weird to wonderful. You don’t need expensive local teams nor expensive TV ads to extend the reach of your product or service. Besides brilliant ideas, that come for free, you will be good with Facebook and Twitter flanking your business blogs and web stores.
“The asymmetrical and casual nature of social networks is allowing humans to engage in what Robin Dunbar has termed “social grooming” with increasingly larger groups — without investing increasingly larger amounts of time. The value of these communications improvements is so great that going forward, I expect significant increases in human and capital investments in this space.”
http://gigaom.com/2009/08/23/dunbars-number-and-the-future-of-communications/
Thinking global and acting local, this should be the best recipe for a successful business on the social web.
Android Tablets, Not Yet, But Coming!
While Android smartphones sells surge, drastically cutting the market share of Apple’s iPhone, on the tablet mobile market the reality looks completely different. One would say that Droid phones surge while Android tables tank. Here some digits, then few causes and perspectives.
“Sony once again announced its Android tablets this week, joining pretty much every major PC maker in announcing — but not actually shipping — Android tablets based on the Google Android “Honeycomb” 3.0 OS. The same week, yet another investor analyst reported that sales of the first Honeycomb tablet, the respectable Motorola Mobility Xoom, may have sold as few as 25,000 units. (Motorola Mobility says it shipped 250,000, but that means how many it sent to stores, not how many they sold.) Compare this number to 2.5 million sold in a shorter period for the iPad 2, which Apple could not make enough of and, thus, sold fewer than expected. One particularly vulturish investment analyst even suggested Motorola start suing other Android makers over patents to make money, rather than rely on the sales of Android tablets themselves.”
http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/the-android-conundrum-why-tablets-tank-smartphones-surge-165
Why is the iPad (and the iPad 2) the winning product on the mobile tablet computing scene, now?
Because iPads are different devices, they are not a big version of a smartphone, nor are they a keyboardless laptop. You would use an iPad for tasks other than those commonly performed by smartphones and laptops.
Because an Android tablet is more like a keyboardless notebook and the tech savvy users will prefer a real laptop to perform their computing tasks instead.
Because the most excellent apps for gaming and entertaining are running only on iOS, so on the iPad, and this makes it sexy to all the people, even to those without “computing needs.” The iPad tablet is more of an entertainment gadget. Let not mention the cool factor that everyone and his grandma has to sport an iPad. The geeky Google guys are still a minority when it’s about investing in an expensive device that’s not intricate at all. Fandroids want to be more in control of their data and operations, and they know how (or at least get the picture). Apple fanboys want to be on top of the trend, and they don’t care so much about who tracks them, how and why.
And this assertion brings us to another point: is this all about a war between Apple and Google? Maybe, if you’re a market analyst. But if you think technical, then you notice that the iPhone and Android smartphones address distinct markets, different mindsets. The Droid phone can replace the old mobile, and does this on a large-scale. It’s a natural necessity to replace old phones with new ones, and the new ones, at hand, doing the job, run on Android. While the iPhone is tagged, like anything Apple, more with the “I want it!” than with the “I have to…” tag. This is why Droid smartphones surge and threaten iPhones at the moment, while the iPad is comfortably far ahead of the Android tablets. The iPad is a toy for everyone with fingers while an Android tablet will muscle too much of the brain to bother with it. And this social factor marks the market. This may reverse only once Google will come up with a dead simple to use interface, similar to that of the iPad, with support and upgrades for years and keep (or even lower) the already affordable prices. Because when the buyer has to choose from two almost identical products, then the price calls the game.
