Why is it writers have become obsessed with the word “killer”?

“Such-and-such gadget is a this-and-that gadget killer.”

This is a refrain I have seen endlessly since I joined the tech blogging world back in July of 2007, and it is getting tiresome.  David Coursey over at PC World is just the latest offender with his piece entitled “B&N’s Nook Is A Kindle Killer: 5 Reasons Why“.

Mr. Coursey isn’t to blame, it has become an accepted trend, but that doesn’t mean it is one that should continue.  It has actually become a joke amongst professional bloggers that every new gadget or app released is either a “killer”, somehow “pwns” an existing tool and so on.  Whatever happened to words like “supplant”?  ”Replaces”?  ”Threatens”?  How about a headline along the lines of “B&N’s Nook Threatens Kindle’s E-Reader Dominance: 5 Reasons Why”.

Guess the word “killer” just sounds more serious, but whatever.

As for the nook, will it overtake the Kindle?  Well … it could.  This isn’t too big of a surprise as the Kindle was the first big name in the space, and it had become synonymous with e-readers, so that is always hard to knock out of that top spot.  (Think how “Googling” has replaced the word “searching” and you get the idea)

The nook has several legs up on the Kindle in the way of Wi-Fi, access to over 500,000 free e-books from Google, a color browser for shopping and so on.

One of the interesting aspects to me is the LendMe feature which allows one B&N users (be it on th nook, iPhone, computer, phone etc) can lend a book to another account holder on any device for 14 days free of charge.  While I’m not sure this is a feature I would ever actually use, it is a small way of capturing the experience of reading actual books.

You can read more details on the Barnes & Noble nook on StarterTech, but I have to say I was never tempted to buy a Kindle, but I am very, very tempted by the nook.  I like the look of the device, I like the advances in the user friendliness of the device (replaceable battery!), access to free books and so on.  Will I buy one for sure?  I’m still not sure, but I’m giving it some serious thought.

However, you will never hear me refer to it as “a Kindle killer” …

Someday I may get excited about the Amazon Kindle, but it still hasn’t happened yet.

Over at StarterTech I wrote up about how the Amazon Kindle 2 Got Official on Monday, but I tried to keep my general personal opinions out of that article.  In general I just don’t get the excitement over the device, and over the weekend I recorded a video cast with Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins about “Kindle 2.0: Is It the iPod for Books Yet?“.  I have embedded it below for easy viewing, but essentially I take the line that I think the Kindle is a bit silly compared to the iPod, and in no way as an essential piece of every day life.

As I say in the video, I just don’t see the point to the Kindle. It’s a nice concept, but at $359, it’s just too expensive.  They boast about how the new Kindle 2 can carry up to 1500 books in its 2GB memory, but do you really need to carry around 1500 books with you?  Yes, the same argument can be made about an iPod, but you can use your iPod as you work, the Kindle not so much.  An iPod you can put on shuffle play, want to try reading random pages from books on the Kindle?  There is also these concepts called the library and used book stores where you can either check books out for free, or buy them incredibly cheap.

I also have the problem with the idea where they show people sitting around outside, or on subways, reading their Kindles.  iPods you can hide under your clothes you use them, you can even disguise the earbuds and no one will know you’re using it.  With a Kindle, you care holding a high end gadget in plain sight, just asking for someone to rip it from your hands or mug you for it.  Now, if you have a tattered paperback in your hands… you get the idea.  Never mind the fact you can use an iPod as you walk/run/exercise… try that with a Kindle.

I really have nothing against the device or other ebook readers, but it just isn’t for me, and I don’t quite understand the market demographic.  Amazon reportedly sold 500,000 units last year, but I would love to know the demographics of who these people were.  Besides the $359 they are laying out for a special reader, they are laying out $10 on average per book.  In this economic climate, who can afford this thing?

As Mark said in the video, the iPod solved an actual problem, the Kindle solves a problem no one realized even existed.  I’m afraid you’ll have to leave me in the unconvinced column.

When I first talked about the iPhone 3G, I mentioned as long as the phone was exclusive to AT&T, I wouldn’t be getting the device for myself.  Well, it seems things could be far, far worse… I could have to deal with Rogers in Canada.

It seems that Rogers of Canada went so overboard with their pricing, raising so much ill will that over 53,000 people have signed a petition at RuinediPhone.com stating they will not purchase an iPhone under the Rogers plan.  Unlike American contracts that run for 2 years, Canadian contracts run for 3 years, and the current contract runs $60 for 150 minutes of daytime minutes, and 400MB of monthly data transfer.  As much as I dislike AT&T, at least their $69.99 plan gives you 450 minutes with unlimited data.

So, in light of people being angry with Rogers, Apple has decided to cut supplies to the Rogers’ stores, and they have also announced that the Canadian Apple stores will not be carrying the phone, so Rogers won’t receive any contract sign ups from that venue.

I understand why Apple signs these exclusive deals, better revenue sharing for them, but do they not check out the pricing plans before they sign the contracts?  How could they let Rogers be the exclusive carrier when they are offering such horrible pricing?  This reflects poorly on Apple as well as Rogers.  And, I’m sorry, but 150 minutes for that price is just highway robbery in my opinion.

Hopefully Apple will learn some lessons from this, such as when going exclusive with a company, make sure you read what is going to happen to your customers before you sign on the dotted line.  Sorry, Candians… you got screwed.

Well, I just had my first encounter with Apple customer support, and I have to say I’m impressed.

After my hard drive failure a few weeks back, I had to put my iPod Touch apps back on the system, which I had luckily backed up.  Well, last night I had some issues with the Touch, so I did a reset, and went to sync the apps back onto it and… no luck.

I tried everything under the sun, and today I finally gave up and called them.  The first rep walked me through all the basics, staying with me on the phone the entire time.  After about 30-minutes he knew it was beyond him, and passed me up to a senior tech, Rick.  Rick spent about 15-minutes working on it before he determined he was also stumped.

This is where I got impressed.  Instead of just giving up, he said he was going to pass this up to an engineer, and that they would be calling sometime over the weekend, and if they didn’t, I was to call him directly.

What the…

All the way to an engineer?  A call back… on a weekend?

I had always heard how good their customer support is, and considering I bought this Touch used from someone else, I am even more impressed.  It may be that it can’t even be fixed due to the hard drive crash, and Rick was very blunt about that, but you can’t fault them for their effort and concern in this manner.  Major kudos to them.

First things first… it comes out July 11th, so all of you calm down.

Now, for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s all about the new iPhone… iPhone 3G. If anything was missing from the original iPhone release, it was 3G support as opposed to EDGE technology. The simplest way to explain it is that in the demo today, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, displayed a web page in 21-seconds on 3G, while in EDGE it took 59 seconds. In other words, it’s a lost faster.

This is something that really should have been around since the beginning, and I’m going to be blunt, I think the original iPhone adopters got shafted. More and more, it is looking to me like the original iPhone was more of a “beta” than an actual full release.

No 3G. Now it has it.

No enterprise support. Now it has it.

No third-party app support. Now it has it.

No GPS. Now it has it.

Only out in six countries. Now in seventy.

Yes, all products get upgraded, but these are such basic features and support in a device such as this, it almost seems iPhone 1.0 was a year early and a dollar short in retrospect. Never mind the fact the price is now $199 for 8GB and $299 for 16GB… you all enjoying that $599 you paid on release day now?

The new phone is certainly more tantalizing to me, but so long as AT&T is the sole carrier in the United States, I will not be getting one. They have lousy service, horrible customer support, and I want nothing to do with them. Mr. Jobs boasts endlessly about how many iPhones they’ve sold, but think how many more he would have sold if he had gone with multi-carrier support, or even a carrier with broader coverage than AT&T. Blech.

I will say I am very excited about the launch of MobileMe. Being a small company, exchange sever type service has always been something we would like to have, but it was never very practical. For $99 a year, having this sync our two iPod Touch devices, as well as having access from our browsers, seems like a great solution. The only thing I am curious about is if I will be able to set it up to work with our Gmail accounts; I’m not thrilled with the idea of having to start a whole new system of emails yet again.

True, we will only be able to work with this when the Touches are near Wi-Fi, but that will be fine as we are already used to that. A centralized calendar system will make our lives a heck of a lot easier though as all of us always seem to be heading in about 20 directions at once. It took a couple days just for us to get together on finding out if all three of us had a clear schedule for one day, so a centralize calendar is aces in my book!

With the news that iPhones and iPod Touches will be getting support for Office files, these devices are finally getting to the full PDA status I had hoped for when they first came out. I will finally be able to stop carrying around my Axim and just get down to my BlackBerry 8830 and the iPod Touch. One less device in my life! Woo! It looks like a good portion of my What I Want From The Apple SDK list is coming true, even the Sling Player is in development, so we are well on our way to what I had always suspected.

So, no iPhone for me still, but bring on MobileMe and the Apps!

Oh… and Snow Leopard as the next OS name… really? Um… okay, sure, why not.

Back on March 6th, Apple released their SDK (Software Developers Kit) for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  This finally allows people to create third-party applications for these devices, and come June, we’ll get the 2.0 version of the firmware to allow you to install them into your gadgets.

So, now that I finally have an iPod Touch, which I am loving to death,  and I’ve already talked about some minor changes I’d like to see, what would I like to see in the way of actual applications?  Because I know you all care about this… really… I know you do.

Spreadsheets – Not even necessarily from Microsoft, I just want the ability to open Excel spreadsheets and sync them.  Don’t even really need editing, it would be nice, but not as important as simple support.

Instant Messaging – Currently I have to use Meebo to log on to my instant messaging services, but I would kill for GTalk native support.  Other services would be nice, but since GTalk is my main IMing system now, so that’s the one I want.

PDF Support – I think this one is a long shot due to the size of most PDFs, but it would be nice.

Sling Media Support – This is very directed at the Sling Media company so I could get support for my Sling Box.  Streaming TV from my iPod Touch would be sweet.  My current PDA can do it, so I’m sure the Touch can also.

It’s a short list, but I’ve already said I would like changes to the contacts and such, and basically I am looking for it to be turned into a really nice PDA so I can finally stop carrying my Dell Axim 51v around with me.  Yes, I realize this is “an iPod”, but I have yet to put even one song on it as I am using it as an Internet device only at this point.

So, come on developers, I’m out here waiting for this stuff, don’t let me down!

Okay, a couple days of use, and I have some thoughts.

- Why no search feature in contacts?

- Can someone please come out with a keyboard you could plug it into for when you have a lot to type up?  Or how about the ability to put them into categories like “Friends”, “Work”, “Family”, etc?

- They work with Google for maps and mail… why can’t I sync my Google calendar directly?

- I can only import my bookmarks from Safari and Internet Explorer?   Sure, I worked around it, but… odd.

- I can only sync contacts with Outlook?  Not Google or Thunderbird?

It still kicks ass as a miniature Internet device, but there are a few changes I would like to see, and rumor is we may get contact search in the 2.0 firmware upgrade in June, which is also bringing third-party application support.  I’m still loving it… but it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have a few complaints!

I’ve already told you that I’m loving my recently purchased BlackBerry 8830, but now I love it even more!

This week Google launched a fuller integration between current BlackBerrys and their apps.  You just need to point your mobile browser to m.google.com/sync to download everything.  Perhaps a few of these items were available before and I just didn’t know it, but I’m loving it.

I can now update my calendar either on Google or the BlackBerry and they auto-sync with one another whenever possible.  No hookup to the computer, nothing to press, just set it once and the software will do the rest for you.  I now have my calendars constantly updated, which has always been one of my biggest complaints with PDAs.

The one that blew me away was using Google Maps.  It hooked into my phone’s GPS and automatically showed me where I was with all the usual bells-and-whistles, including the ability to fetch traffic reports.  (something you really need in my rural town…)  I’ve also got a really slick interface for my Gmail account now also.

Non-Google related, but still nice, I added TwitterBerry this week.  As I mentioned, I am using Twitter more now, I can now post updates without the short code, as well as check my Twitter feed on the go.  Yes, yes, I know most people use Twitter just for fun, but I’m actually using it for my blogging jobs, and it has led me to a couple of articles already.

It’s nice to have so much of the web in my pocket any time I need it.  Sure, I’m not going to do casual surfing this way, but overall I’m loving the expanded functionality I’m getting.

Here they come…

I’ll be covering the announcement for MAC.BLORGE.com, but I’m sure I’ll have commentary over here. I’m predicting full screen video with touchscreen, no clue on storage… I’m hoping huge.

Great googily moogily! ENOUGH WITH THE iPHONE! I DON’T CARE ANYMORE!

No more awkward television anchors trying to play with it.

No more play-by-play videos of how it works.

No more detailed shots of it from every conceivable angle.

I don’t even need to see one taken apart, because I’ve seen that too!

At the end of the day, it’s a phone! It is not the second coming… it won’t feed hungry children… it won’t cure cancer… IT’S A PHONE! It is admittedly cool, but it is still just a means of communication!

In the same speech where Steve bestowed iPhone love on all the employees, it seems he also mentioned this little ditty:

He then expanded upon OS X, and what it means for the business. There is one OS group that does Mac OS X for the Mac and the iPhone, as well as “some iPods we’re working on.” Could it be that the next major revision to the iPod video will, in fact, be a widescreen iPod similar to that of the iPhone? We’re not sure, but it definitely sounds like Steve is leaning in that direction.

*slaps his veins* I need my fix Steve… I need my fix.

Steve Jobs, (you know, the man I would consider marrying so I could get an endless supply of Apple gadgetry?) just gave every Apple employee who has been with the company more than a year an iPhone. No word yet on who’s paying for the service plans, but still… wow. And they were all the $600, 8gb versions.

I know everyone is getting caught up in iPhone hype (I’m looking at you Jo), and yes, I know how excited I was the day the details were announced, but then realities set in; it’s far from perfect. It’s using a slower data connection, the OS takes up 770mb of the fairly small memory, the data plans will kill you… it IS flawed.

Also, remember this is a gen 1 device. Think back to the gen 1 iPods… now think of the gen 5.5 iPods (and who knows what gen 6 will be), it’s like comparing night and day. So, yes, the iPhone is exciting, but I’m not sure I would run out for a gen 1.