It's an amazing year to be a tech nut...
So, the obvious elephant in the room is: what are Apple doing? There's all sorts of mad rumours around (gaze ye upon the SIM tray and Home button, for instance), specs aplenty (liquidmetal alloy casing! Quad core quad graphics chip faster than new iPad chip! 12MP camera on the back and 2MP front! 4.2" screen, edge to edge on the casing! No physical Home button! Reshaped physical Home button!), and a lot of mock images (gallery here). The biggest thing is, not a single bit of it isn't from a "reliable source". So is it all true? Well, were all the iPad 3 rumours?
Of course, we now know, kind of, what RIM is doing with the Blackberry. The answer is: beginning to look a lot like iPhone. Software-wise, the OS is attempting to appease the app-hungry (or maybe, just those who won't pay 3 times more than what iOS users do) by continuing to allow for a little bit of Android compatibility, go touch-friendly without wholly eliminating keyboard-equipped handsets, improve the camera (video), and some other changes that are just too boring for me to break out - so here's an article covering some.
Android, though, has already played its cards, with Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0. But, what's next? Well, likely Jelly Bean. You see, Android has alphabetic updates: Astro (1.0), Bender (1.1), Cupcake (1.5), Donut (1.6), Eclair (2.0 and 2.1), Froyo (2.2), Gingerbread (2.3), Honeycomb (3.0) and Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0). You will note the first two don't fit the theme - they are droids, but copyright infringements too. So, the original naming pattern was TV and film droids, but they had to change it to avoid litigation. Shame really, as it would've made 8.0 possibly be Marvin the Paranoid Android, and that would have made for interesting software...
Anyway, with Android it's less "what are Google doing?" and more "what do the licensees having coming next?" Well, Samsung already showed off the Galaxy S3 last week, and it's, um, another Galaxy. With a few software tweaks that are, shall we say, Apple-esque, like a voice-controlled assistant that totally is not Siri, as this image clearly shows. The other manufacturers are a bit more of a mystery, with HTC currently concentrating on its V, X and S series handsets and announcing the Droid Incredible 4G LTE (what a lovely short name!) today at CTIA. Expect to see lots of new handsets in the coming weeks, though, as this one of many trade shows wraps up in the US.
But what about Windows Phone? Uh... yeah, it's a very slow market. There's the Lumia 900, which looks nice, and the Samsung Focus 2. And, uh... yeah. Pretty quiet. Then again, isn't it always? I mean, back when I owned my lovely little SPV E100, it was a device I loved to bits - and pretty much only me, as it was, shall we say, not exactly a million seller, and even by the time of my TyTn II it was a very, very niche OS. And now, you get phones like the Titan, which continue the trend...
This will very much be an interesting field this year. It started early with the new iPad, which is certainly a name for a device. This review covers the main points, but the big news is naturally the far improved screen and the faster chip. It's my main tech crush, and I really want one. Of course, though, there's the little nagging rumour - that by the end of the year, there'll be a simple range refresh, making all the processing quad core, and adding a new, smaller iPad, designed to fit between the rumoured 4" iPhone 5 and the new iPad's 9.7" display at around 7".
Of course, there's a lot to come in Android tablets this year too, what with the Google Nexus tablet waiting in the wings for release. This is supposedly their official entry way into Android tablets, with a good hardware spec to be coupled with an aggressively low price. And, of course, the Kindle Fire is supposed to be getting a new version(s), this time with the plan to leave the US and go global. With good hardware (quad core, Tegra 3, the usual) and reasonable pricing (ie, lower than iPad, and about £200/$200 for a 7"), the gap between iPad and Android tablets for market share (currently ~70% iOS for the total market, and ~50% Kindle Fire for the Android market) could get a lot closer.
But that doesn't mean they will get a bigger market share, just closer between the two - as this year, of course, is the year we get Windows 8 tablets. Not until late in the year, if hardware vendors are to be believed, but they are coming. I fully expect Microsoft will be pushing this hard, alongside the refreshed desktop OS, as being slow to the party is not exactly unusual for them, but not being there at all's unheard of. Plus, they do love a bit of a toe-to-toe with Apple, and they'll want to show that iOS is beatable.
It seems like only yesterday that I was reading about Apple making a HDTV. Oh, yeah, it was. Of course, it'll be a late to market device, as LG plans to have its Google interface-enabled TVs out within the next 2 months, and Sony and Vizio have similar plans. So, even the humble TV is getting more interesting. And, of course, there's that whole "4K resolution" thing right round the corner, doubling what it means to be HD. Of course, what everyone really wants is this giant monster TV, but that's a little bit more "dream on".
Of late, Windows 8's imminent release has been catching my eye, and for some rather interesting reasons: not what Microsoft is putting in, but what it's taken out. We heard last month that Windows Media Player is now a separate software entity, and now it's been announced that DVD playback is no longer a thing. Why is Microsoft doing this? Well, personally, I can think of a very simple reason: Microsoft wants to end the piracy that has plagued its OS market since forever, and has seen the easy way to do it: strip it down and make it cheap. If they can make the OS price around the same as, say, a game, then surely the nasty-bad pirates will just cough up, right? I want to encourage this line of thought, and such I'll say that this could finally be the decider.
And finally: consoles. Well, the Wii U is this year, and everyone's watching for E3 next month to reveal all. Here's the thing, though: I don't expect to learn much from E3. A release date, likely, and a launch line-up, but no more than that to be honest. Oh, maybe some more on this digital distribution plan of theirs, and hopefully some more on their rival to Live and PSN. We still don't know if it is on par or a little behind the current systems (360 and PS3), but thatnks to that controller I fully expect it to be upwards of £250 when they finally announce of it, and likely closer to £300.
And that, I think, is why Microsoft has let the next Xbox slip back a year: they know full well now is not the time to try put out a new expensive bit of tech, and it can wait a year for a hopefully better climate. It's probably watched the Vita, a very lovely piece of kit to be sure, launch and languish in the sales charts, and thought long and hard about what that means. I mean, look at Nintendo and their 3DS price cut, probably the only reason the damn thing manages decent sales. And Sony already made their position on a PS4 quite clear: we don't have the money, PS3 is doing fine, please stop talking about our massive money haemorrhage.
Still, people love to talk rumoured hardware specs, and so we have this, and this, and this for good measure. I especially love the quote that the new Xbox has "a ridiculous amount of power for a games machine - too much power, even." The interesting bit, though, is at the end: developers are totally ready to show off what their next generation games look like at E3, platform holders be damned. Now that could be interesting. It makes sense, too: if Microsoft really did push back the new Xbox a year, then development of titles is surely pretty far along, and I can't imagine developers wanting to wait another year before showing just because of some cold feet.
So, I'd say that's a pretty interesting ton of stuff, all waiting for eventual release relatively soon. Can't wait!
