The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) frequently cracks down on advertisements from consumer technology companies, asking companies to fix commercial claims that are confusing or misleading.

In 2008, the ASA requested that Apple remove or change iPhone 3G television advertisements because their claims that the device was "really fast" were exaggerated and misleading.

Continue reading →

Since Apple's iPad launch just over two days ago, frustrated users have packed Apple's iPad support forum with complaints of weak and unreliable Wi-Fi connections. The problem has even affected two Betanews staffers who got iPads on the device's launch day.

Some users have speculated that Wi-Fi issues are related to chassis shielding, antenna placement, or software problems, but there has not yet been any concrete evidence to support any of those guesses.

Continue reading →

If you believe Mid-March job postings, Microsoft is preparing to launch two new retail stores, in Denver and San Diego, bringing the count to four. That's not exactly rapid expansion, given two other stores opened in October -- Mission Viejo, Calif. and Scottsdale, Arizona. Microsoft has to move more aggressively into retail, if it's going to rebuild its brand image and establish an appealing digital lifestyle for the twenty-tens.

The company has an image problem that smart marketing and savvy retailing can repair. Yesterday, at MSNBC, Bill Briggs called Apple "fresh" and Microsoft "frumpy". The nut graph: "Microsoft, to some, appears a tad flabby in the middle -- a Chrysler Town & Country driver with a 9 p.m. bedtime. Apple, in some eyes, looks sleeker and younger -- a hipster in ragtop Beemer packed with chic friends sporting mobile toys."

Continue reading →

Apple's "Get a sneak peak into the future of iPhone OS" event, in two days, is reason enough to re-raise the thorny topic of multitasking on smartphones. Apple's iPhone OS 3.x -- on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch -- limits running background applications. Microsoft is taking a similar approach with Windows Phone 7 (Thank God, the company dropped "Series" from the name).

Here's where I whack aside the head my former analyst colleague, Michael Gartenberg -- or you can whack me (in comments) if you agree with him. Gartenberg and I are polarized on the topic of mobile multitasking. He thinks it's unnecessary, I say it's a necessity. In March 25 post "Windows Phone 7 Series imitates Apple's iPhone in the worst ways," I asserted: "People take multitasking for granted on the PC, which will make its absence more noticeable on the smartphone." I'd argue that because of applications' or features' contextual appeal, running background applications will increase in appeal over time. There are reasons why Google, Nokia or Palm operating systems allow multitasking, and seem to do so without any major hit on battery life (I've tested Android, Maemo and Symbian devices, but not WebOS).

Continue reading →

Since Rhapsody has spun off from RealNetworks and Viacom/MTV, the subscription music service has gone down in price from $14.99 to $9.99, and its first app for Android has been released.

The service has thus far proven to be extremely popular on the iPhone/iPod touch, and has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times since debuting just about eight months ago. That application lets subscribers access Rhapsody's 8 million song database for streaming over 3G or Wi-Fi connections, they can make their own playlists or listen to commercial-free Rhapsody Radio programming.

Continue reading →

In August 2008, the Federal Communications Commission issued a cease and desist order to cable company Comcast, demanding it stop throttling BitTorrent traffic. It was considered the first citation ever for the violation of net neutrality rules.

Comcast then filed suit against the FCC, contesting that the Commission overstepped its boundaries because net neutrality guidelines were not a law. They're not.

Continue reading →

As expected, Microsoft has pushed out a mandatory update to the Xbox 360 today, which adds support for USB storage devices, expanding the memory capacity of the five-year old video game console.

The update will ostensibly allow any FAT32-formatted USB storage device between 1GB-16GB in size to be used to save profiles, game saves, and downloadable content. There are, however, a number of caveats, which mean users can't just plug anything in and have it work.

Continue reading →

Do you ever get the impression your wallet is being relentlessly sucked dry? Or that consumers are being expected to pay for an ever growing list of subscription-based services that, in a less profit-mad world, would likely be free?

Apple's gotten quite enough publicity from me and my colleagues over the last little while. So while I hate to harp on the iPad yet again this week, I can't let go of the fact that this particular introduction represents yet another step toward the deepening fiscal enslavement of consumers.

Continue reading →

Qualcomm's mobile broadcast television service called FLO TV existed for about five years under different wireless carrier brand names: Sprint TV, Verizon V Cast TV, and AT&T MediaFLO TV. But the carriers didn't push it very hard, so it did not break through into the public's consciousness.

But then Qualcomm began advertising FLO TV on its own, with its own smartphone-sized pocket TVs made by HTC, and it looks like it is finally beginning to stick.

Continue reading →

Today, Apple announced modest launch-day iPad sales of 300,000 units, which include preorders. On March 26, in post "Of course media bias favors Apple," I put launch sales at about 330,000 -- based in part on over-widely reported rumors. Five days earlier, in post "Be smart, don't buy into iPad hype," I warned that bloggers, journalists and Wall Street analysts had gone bonkers over the device, losing some common sense along the way. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is among them. Over the weekend, he revised first day iPad sales to 600,000-700,000, leading to today's admission he got it wrong. Munster also lowered full year sales estimates to 4.3 million from 5.6 million. Forrester Research forecasts 3 million iPad shipments.

Modest initial sales aren't surprising, even though some Apple watchers will wonder if 300,000 units live up to the hype. As I explained on April 2, modest early sales follow the pattern of most other new-category Apple products, including Macintosh, iPhone, iPod and iTunes Store. Distribution is limited to the United States and the 3G model isn't yet available, which also mitigate early sales.

Continue reading →

As the population ages, financial institutions and other service providers will have to learn to adapt their marketing approaches to appeal to a sector that has high disposable income and substantial spending power. In some cases, they will also have physical limitations that will impede online activities, including vision loss.

Besides the fact that an aging population brings with it a growing number of people with vision loss, the business and legal case for making Web content accessible to the visually impaired is becoming increasingly strong.

Continue reading →

It was perhaps one of the most drawn-out, painful launches in Intel's long history: the introduction last February of Tukwila, the latest generation of its Itanium 64-bit processor architecture. Not everyone in the Itanium Solutions Alliance hung on for the five-year ride, with Unisys having been its most prominent drop-out last year, citing competitor HP's dominance in the field. Microsoft held on for the entire stretch; but last week, the company announced it would not lend its support to whatever the generation after Tukwila might become.

In a blog post last Friday, Windows Server Senior Technical Product Manager Dan Reger said that his company will continue to support existing Itanium architecture, including Tukwila, for another eight years. But Windows Server 2008 R2 will be the last version of the operating system to support IA-64.

Continue reading →

Third-party mobile browser Skyfire is regarded by many to be the best way to consume the Web on the go. With its support for all of the major browser plug-ins, and full server-side rendering, it can provide access to more sites than any other mobile browser, and do it quickly.

It was officially released a little less than one year ago on Windows Mobile and Symbian S60, and has seen one major update since that time. It has not, however, managed to be released on any new platforms, there has been a very early version for BlackBerry, but that has not progressed to the release stages.

Continue reading →

Now that the iPad is no longer a mystery, Apple is sparking up its magic machine to get people talking and rumoring again.

In classic fashion, Apple has sent out invitations to an event it will be holding this week, which contain only a little detail but a lot of room for speculation and excitement.

Continue reading →

In October 2008, Californian Elliot Gottfurcht was granted a patent for
"Apparatus and method of manipulating a region on a wireless device screen for viewing, zooming and scrolling internet content."

One month later he sued Apple for infringing on that patent.

Continue reading →