Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
Just one week after I had pretty much written off the tablet space in favor of my new infatuation with smart watches, the tablet market slapped me upside my head with a week of announcements that has me yet again re-thinking my thinking process.
(Though I should have realized my mistake on thinking the smart watch segment was set to surge when HTC jumped into the space so quickly.)
First, Nokia (remember Nokia?) came out with a power-packed tablet device featuring Microsoft’s Windows RT operating system and embedded LTE connectivity. This announcement was strategically placed just hours before and on the other side of the world from Apple’s long-anticipated unveiling of its latest iPad iterations, which included sharper screens (oooohhhh) and lighter weight (aaaahhh).
Both of these device announcements were then followed by an announcement from T-Mobile US that it would add tablets to its device financing model and offer up a small sliver of free data to customers either purchasing or bringing tablet devices to the carrier’s network. This initiative was part two of its “Un-carrier 3.0” initiative, or was that part three of “Un-carrier 2.0?” Whatever, it was something new from an initiative that was recently announced.
Like I said, a boatload of tablet news was packed into just your average week in October, and enough to show that indeed either the tablet market is set for another round of growth, or it’s in its dying throws and this week was just the market’s last grasp for consumer attention. With the way my prognostication skills have deteriorated, I would probably now have to think it’s the former.
However, while tablets were the belle of the ball this week, it can’t go unsaid that tablet makers committed a major faux-pas in announcing these new devices. That transgression against all that is good and pure was references to tablet users using those devices to take photos.
Now, I know that many tablets have cameras embedded on their backsides so users can indeed take pictures with these devices, but to actually do so in public is a reprehensible offense whose punishment can never be too severe. This is not so much an issue when a tablet user is alone, as in nowhere near any other person, animal or inanimate object. But it is a huge, huge, huge issue when done in any sort of group setting where said device makes a much better door than a window.
I think at this point we have all seen some knucklehead somewhere taking a photo or shooting a video using their tablet device in a public setting. Do these people really not have a smartphone they can be taking poor-quality pictures with?
I have the same feeling when I see people relying on their smartphones to capture priceless moments, but the use of smartphones as a “real” camera is unfortunately a horse that has left the barn.
I am now feely willing to admit that perhaps tablets are here to stay, but that does not mean we should not do all we can to make sure that tablets do not become cameras. Come on people, we are better than that.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–While on the tablet tip, one has to give some props to Apple for tapping into the “Breaking Bad” hysteria in having lead actor Bryan Cranston do the voice-over for the latest iPad commercials.
Though it should not come as a surprise that such a melodic vocal range could come from someone so talented.
–I continue to be a sucker for cool device names and this week had that sucker-ness tempted by AT&T Mobility announcing the soon-to-be-available Samsung Ativ S Neo smartphone. While the actual device in no way has any appeal to me, that name is Super Duper S Awesome!
Just look at it. It has that “Ativ” that has no single way to be pronounced, thus having everyone that is referencing that device saying a different word and thus causing some hilarious confusion.
Then, there is that “S” there that would seem to indicate that the device is a better version of the plain “Ativ” model, which is in fact not a smartphone at all, but a laptop, so there’s that.
And finally we get to the “Neo,” which I can only assume is a reference to the Academy Award winning performance by thespian Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix.”
That is a lot going on in one device name.
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