Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the existence of Scary Movie 5, praying for a United 1K challenge, or dreading losing 1K status after January, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Continuing our discussion of nerd hopes and wishes for 2013, I was wondering what you wanted to see in the consumer electronics space. Are you hoping for advancements in PCs, mobile phones, tablets, or software? If so, what specifically are you having gadget dreams about?
As for me, I’m hoping to see Apple take some bold steps with iOS. Don’t get me wrong — it’s a simple and powerful operating system that is the gold standard and has certainly gotten better over the years, but many of the recent changes have been subtle. Meanwhile, the competition has been catching up and, in some cases, surpassing iOS.
Microsoft’s Windows Phone has become a boldly different alternative, mostly because it had to be in order to compete. Android has gotten exponentially better over the last two years, but that’s partially because it had so much catching up to do. As someone that uses and enjoys both Android and iOS, I see a lot of features on Android that are better than their iOS counterparts. Android apps, however, are another story. I’d love to see more Android apps have the level of polish that their iOS counterparts have.
Now it’s your turn! Fire away in the comments section (please).
Cheaper SSDs.
I’m hoping for better policies around content distribution.
I would love to upgrade my PC this year, but I think Steam Box will get the money instead. Also, I would like to see significant leaps in Linux this year to fill the void left by Win8. I am always a fan of more competition for these mega corporations.
I think Apple would be foolish to drastically change iOS unless they made it even MORE simple to use (which seems like a stretch to me, all things considered).
Apple wants to appeal to all demographics. Where we and the youth may view iOS as “bare bones” so to speak, there are the old folks who still can’t get it. I just read an article the other day saying that the Academy Awards is expecting it’s lowest voter turn out ever this year since they now put their entire voting process online… no more mailer cards for Academy members. The problem, is that most of the Academy members are old as hell and don’t understand computers (which in turn explains The Artist winning Best Picture).
Then… the Apple fans just need new hardware, slight enhancements, or maybe even just a damn color change in order to splurge for a whole new iPhone. For example, if they added a part to the next iPhone where you could throw a cartomizer on it use it as an ecig… I might buy 4 of them bitches.
Of course, they would be proprietary Apple cartomizers and flavors would only be new age sounding crap like wheatgrass, ginseng, and almond butter.
There are things Apple could add that could be simple in execution while adding more functionality. For example, I’d love to widgets on iOS. I would expect Apple’s implementation to be more elegant than Google’s. Widgets would bring more information to the top level, without adding complexity. The simple page-of-apps style can be added to without being made messy. Matias Duarte has been doing phenomenal work at making Android more elegant. Now that Jony Ive is on iOS, I expect to see some really slick changes.
Widgets, Schmidgets.
I like the notification menu much better. It’s not in your face and distracting from everything else. The thing about iOS is that everything is easy to find by default. You can hide stuff in folders if needs be and therefore organize better in a compressed space. All of that is by choice though.
My father-in-law has Android 4.04. I was trying to see what he had on it, and it just seemed cluttered to me. I’m sure there’s more customization to be had, but one advantage his phone has over iPhones (when it comes to old people) is that the screen is MASSIVE. I personally don’t want something that big taking up that much real estate in my pockets, nor do I want to hold something that big so close to my face for extended periods. I realize Bluetooth eliminates that concern, but this is the only Bluetooth device I’ve ever seen that I like:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f2c9/?srp=1
I never knew I wanted that until now! I’ll wait for it to go on clearance though
Perhaps his phone was cluttered because that’s how he organized it. My organization of my Android devices is pretty simplistic; I have a big widget on the home screen, with key apps under it while the other screens are treated in an iOS manner.
As for notifications, I couldn’t disagree with you more. I don’t find Android’s notification system (on stock Android) obtrusive at all and it’s far more useful (running 4.2.1).
Damn. I can never use those gloves because mittens (bluetooth enabled or otherwise) are a bit out of place down here where the coldest it ever gets is 67 degrees.
-M
Widgets just drain battery. Maybe I’m too old school but a simple gloss of info isn’t enough for me. I want all of the information.
Widgets bring down our collective intelligence just like spell check.
I want to have a box that beams info into my head like the riddler has in batman forever! Ok in all seriousness I’d really have a 3-D tv that doesn’t require glasses and bigger bandwidth capabilities to be able to stream more from online services.
All internet-servicing companies ever, and internet speeds. That about sums it up for me.
I wish Google Fiber would come to Los Angeles. That would make my year (as far as tech-nerd concerns go).