Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” vs. Apple ads – The Numbers

The numbers explain it all. Way to go Mircrosoft,  $300 million dollars and what do you have to show for it?

-Aryeh

Creative – Mr. W

This is a little creepy but watch until the end.

The Motorola Aura Costs How Much?

Motorola seems to be attempting to get back in the game, but just like last time, they are doing it all wrong. Motorola released the new Motorola Aura (at least last time, they had a pretty cool name, I mean, Aura?) handset, I think you should sit down for this.

Before I tell you what is so special about this phone, let me tell you what is not. The specs! The phone is 18 mm thick (just for reference, the original Razr was 14mm), it does not have 3G or Wifi, and the camera is a boring 2 megapixels.

So then someone please tell me why the heck this phone costs, (are you sitting down?), a whopping (I’m telling you, you’re gonna want to sit down for this one) $2000?  OK so it is supposed to be one of those stylish looking phones, I get it, but at least the  Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte has 3G and a decent 3.2 megapixel camera.

Well, at least they did a good job with the design, right? Wrong! This phone is, in my opinion, one of the ugliest phones I have ever seen. Is it just me? Even in the below video, in which they are attempting to show off the beauty of the phone (I think that’s what they are doing, I need to brush up on my Russian), opening and closing the phone seems painfully difficult.

I don’t know about you, but Motorola making $2,000 phones when they have not made a good $50 phone in months, just does not sit well with me. Someone needs to talk some sense into whoever is making the decisions over there in the Motorola house, otherwise, at this rate, when I buy my son his first cellphone (he is now 4, I figure he has a few more months), he will never have heard of Motorola.

In Motorola’s defense, they have not given up. I have to admit that with phones like this, this, and this, I would’ve given up long ago.

-Hillel

Palm Launches a New Platform – Who Cares?

The details about the new platform are not so exciting at all. Palm is dragging far behind the iPhone’s software and now with Android, their release will likely cost them millions in loses. We have already seen their phones running on Windows Mobile, so why all of a sudden do they need to release their own OS? I think their market share is dwindling and they soon will be out of business.

What do you think?

-Aryeh

Mobile Gmail 2.0: More Like 1.05

Google released a new version of their Mobile Gmail client for all Java phones as well as Blackberry devices.  The new client brings offline email so you can read and compose your emails when you have no access to the Web. It also supports multiple account access and a few new shortcuts to access its menu.

I have used this app many times and as convenient as it was to have Gmail on my phone, it always struck me as a little primitive. After reading about the enhancements of the second generation Mobile Gmail, my opinion has not changed. In the 3 years since the original app came out, all Google could come up with is offline access? Didn’t Outlook do that like 10 years ago? OK, granted Outlook is on a PC and this is on a cellphone, but still, I expected much greater enhancements, like maybe the ability to have it run in the background and notify you of new mail.

Maybe Google should stop spending money on fighter jets (yes, Google bought a fighter jet) and pay their developers more money to actually make useful products.

-Hillel