Joe Wilcox

We've given so much attention to iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S II that Windows Phone looks mightily neglected. It is, and that needs to be remedied. If S2's 4.3-inch screen size, Super AMOLED Plus display, thinness and 8-megapixel camera appeal to you -- but not Android -- Samsung Focus S may be for you. The Focus S and Galaxy S2 share much in common. Call them fraternal twins or near-identical cousins, but these two handsets are kin.

I apologize. In the rush to cover AT&T's new LTE phones, which went on sale yesterday, we overlooked Samsung Focus Flash and Focus S; they also debuted November 6. Like the Galaxy S II skyrocket, where we asked "Will you buy?", the same question comes for the two Windows Phone 7.5 Focus models that went on sale yesterday. Will you buy one, or have you already? Please answer in comments or email joe at betanews dot com.

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My problem is all the rumor and misinformation spread about Apple and apologists who treat the world's most valuable tech company like it's some rebel force. Apple is no longer a puny upstart fighting "The Man". Apple is the "Establishment". I'm aghast with apologist bloggers and so-called journalists, not the company the two Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, founded.

This post responds to a question posed over the weekend by one of BetaNews' most loathed commenters, Bay_Area_CA_Male, who I threatened to ban last week because so many other readers complain about his comments. He responded to my email promising to tone things down and also asking: "Why do you hate Apple so much? Or is it a 'get the most hits thing?'" I don't hate Apple, and I stand behind everything I write about the company (there's no hit whoring here, just provocative writing and compelling headlines). Can the Apple rumor-mongering rabble say the same? For clarification, while I here answer Bay_Area_CA_Male's question, catalyst for writing is one of several Macworld UK headlines in my RSS feeds this morning: "iPhone 5 'already built, waiting for LTE chipset'".

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Not me, likely, and I'm surprised by the answer.

Today, AT&T flipped the 4G LTE service switch in four additional markets and launched its first supporting smartphones -- HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyocket. Last week, I asked "Who will buy them?" I'm less surprised by your responses than my own.

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That's my response to the question "Does the Siri outage reveal its success?" posed by Darrell Etherington at GigaOM today. Etherington's post will be one of many Apple apologies that you'll read, following Siri's collapse yesterday. There are conflicting reports about timing, but five to six hours is fairly consistent.

I expect the typical fanboy comments to this post -- like those yesterday to my "Why can't Apple get iPhone's design right?" -- accusing of linkbaiting and being an Apple hater. Not so. In the Apple crowd, no one can hear you scream because they're all shouting you down.

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Microsoft's "It's a great time to be a family" marketing campaign keeps getting better. This ranks as one of my favorite high-tech promotionals in a decade and accomplishes something Microsoft has never successfully done in a mass-marketing campaign -- clearly show the benefits of multiple products working together. I spotted two more videos late today.

Before Microsoft launched the "I'm a PC" campaign three years ago, I recommended firing then new ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky, after the Chairman Bill Gates and Comedian Jerry Seinfeld commercials aired. But I was wrong to make the recommendation. The agency has produced for Microsoft a string of creative hits, of which the family campaign is just the most recent.

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For a company praised for such great design, Apple sure seems troubled getting out an iPhone that works right. Death Grip -- and its signal stifling capability -- marred iPhone 4 from Day One. Consumer Reports still won't recommend the handset, even after giving it a high rating. Successor 4S comes along and, uh-oh, suffers from heap, big battery-life problems. The story is everywhere -- even Apple apologist blogs report it. Perhaps the company should invest more resources in functional design than appearance.

Maybe Apple simply is out of its depth. The company has received generous praise for launching a smartphone from scratch and dramatically changing -- arguably pushing ahead -- the entire mobile market with it. Apple deserves kudos for its accomplishment. But the company also is a newcomer to a market where depth-of-engineering is necessary to get products right. The smartphone category is also one where form shouldn't supplant function.

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The US smartphone market has become so consistent -- Android gains, iPhone is stagnant -- that Nielsen has started revealing other interesting trends, as it did today. First, for the fanboys: Android share among US subscribers 13 or older was 43 percent at the end of third quarter, up from 39 percent at the end of June. Meanwhile, iPhone is top-selling smartphone, but iOS share is stuck at 28 percent, following a trend fairly consistent since mid 2010.

Each fan group has some number to wave around: Android as top-selling smartphone OS (and continually gaining) and iPhone leading handset in its class. To fan the fanboy fires, I should point out that iOS could finally get some pick up from new US iPhone carriers C Spire Wireless and Sprint. However, some of the hottest Android phones either shipped or will ship this quarter, including 4G LTE packing Motorola Droid Razr and Galaxy Nexus on Verizon and HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket on AT&T. iPhone 4S lacks LTE.

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I'm feeling kind of cranky today and having bad flashbacks to the 1990s, when the honking PC bought one day seemed oh-so last year weeks later. On October 2, I bought the Galaxy S II from AT&T. Problem: On November 6, the carrier will launch its first two LTE phones -- and service in four new markets -- the HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. I so want the Skyrocket. It's an investment for the future, because of LTE. But AT&T probably won't let me have it, because the new S2 releases a couple days outside the 30-day return period for the older model. Not hopeful, I will nevertheless try.

What about you? Would you buy either phone, and would the main reason be LTE -- that is, if an AT&T subscriber? Verizon's LTE rollout already is farther along and reaches many more people, and the carrier offers six LTE phones (seven with the forthcoming Droid Razr) and two tablets. Have you bought a Verizon LTE phone, with faster data being a reason? Please answer in comments below.

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Do I have your attention now?

Google Chrome's assault on Internet Explorer continued a pace in October, according to browser usage share data that Net Applications released today. Chrome gained share for the 12th consecutive month. Since November 2010, IE share fell 7.72 points, while Chrome gained 8.05. Want to guess from where Google's browser is taking usage share? Hint: It's not Firefox.

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November 4 is the one-year anniversary of Kinect, which rapidly is evolving into more than a game controller and a huge present and future success for Microsoft. The technology also represents the company's profound push into natural user interfaces. Apple's Siri has buzz now, but it's from Redmond, Wash., not Cupertino, Calif., that the most inventive NUIs are coming -- and most likely will dramatically affect your life and anyone within your sphere of six degrees of separation.

But that's a future I'll expand on in a few paragraphs. For now, the present. Do you Kinect? If so, I'd like your story, whether it's about the technology for gaming or something else. Please share your story here or send email to joe at betanews dot com. I'll collect some stories here and post others separately, depending on writers' preferences.

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I'm a big fan of Kinect and Microsoft using the body as the command line. The most natural user interface is you. But selling the long-term benefits, beyond gaming, is tricky. Leading into the controller's November 4 first-year anniversary, Microsoft promotes the "Kinect Effect". It's brilliant, and forward-looking, marketing that shows Kinect's huge potential outside gaming.

I've praised Kinect before, for example: regarding a viral video where a toddler dances inside Microsoft Store and debut of Kinect Fun Labs.

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Happy Halloween!

It's fun time at Microsoft's expense, being trick-or-treat today and Day of the Dead tomorrow. To celebrate, I've got 10 scary things about Microsoft to ponder. I encourage you to add to the list in comments. It's all meant to be light-hearted, so keep that spirit when adding to the list.

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Research in Motion is using a little clothing retailer incentive to motivate businesses to buy BlackBerry PlayBook. But if you don't want any, would you buy three? For a limited time, RIM and its retail partners are offering a buy 2-get-1-free special. If that's not enough incentive, they're throwing in free accessories, too, like leather sleeve and HDMI cable. The deal is available through December 31.

RIM sold 500,000 PlayBooks during the launch quarter but only 200,000 the one following. It's safe to assume there's lots of inventory in the channel, and a deal like this is one way to clear the stock rooms. But how good is it really, and is it enough to push you to PlayBook? The latter question is for you to answer in comments. I've got the first here.

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Virtualization is one of the hottest IT topics today. Everyone's talking about it, but few are really doing it -- and there's a big gulf between enterprise and small business adoption, even though many of the benefits are the same. Small business is one of my favorite technology segments, because of its diversity, unique needs, large size, yet small IT footprint. When working as an analyst during the mid-Noughties I launched JupiterResearch's SMB practice. I've been remiss by not writing more about small business tech at BetaNews.

There is much confusion about what is a small business -- how official statisticians and high-tech vendors segment sizes. Small businesses account for 97 percent of employee firms, according to US government agencies. But that segmentation counts firms with fewer than 500 employees as small business -- large by my measure -- and ignores the enormous number of operations with non-payroll employees. This segment is often overlooked by high-tech vendors, many of which count them as consumers. By the US Census Bureau's reckoning, there are nearly 27.3 million small businesses, but only 5.9 million have payrolls and 3.62 million employ fewer than five people. So there are 21.4 million businesses employing less than 5 people -- that's 78 percent of them.

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In the rush to cover Nokia World and new Windows Phones, I missed something kind of ground quaking yesterday. Microsoft is promoting Firefox with Bing. The default search engine, which users can change, is Google on standard Firefox. Now they can get the browser with Bing as default. Did hell freeze over and I miss the tweet?

Firefox exists today because of Google. People can rabble on about the importance of open-source and raise Firefox as the poster application for the movement's success. Software development isn't free, and running an organization and marketing products require capital. Firefox launched 7 years ago next month, and Google not only has powered search but provided through the bundled service the cash that keeps the organization running. Why on earth, or any planet, then would Mozilla jeopardize that relationship?

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