Posts tagged iPad
The Unnecessary Public Show-Off Fanboy
Jul 12th
Everyone has heard the old saying “No one likes a show-off.” I however completely disagree with that. Different people are attracted to different things. Some people are attracted to wealth and power. To draw the attention of this crowd, people show-off their wealth and power with a brand new Ferrari. Others are attracted to athletic and competitive individuals. In order draw their attention, people will show-off their talents in sporting and competition events. While others are attracted to those who live a simplistic hippie life style. This can be shown-off by driving a hybrid and eating granola. The point is that showing-off is necessary for human advancement and procreation. If no one felt the need to impress others, we would still be in the dark ages. (You can’t tell me the Wright brothers didn’t have fame on their minds when they started building their first plane.)
With that said there is a line between jackassness and showing-off. Taking your Ferrari on an African Safari through starving villages would be a jackass thing to do. So would completely skunking a team of crippled kids at basketball. In fact, both these ideas are flat out stupid. Your assets are so unevenly matched with the “competitions” that it voids any real comparison. Also on top of that your audience is wrong. Very few if anyone would be impressed with your accomplishments. Those who are impressed with nice cars or athletic ability are not anywhere near either one of these activities.
This brings me to the unnecessary public show-off Fanboy. We have all seen these Fanboys. They are the ones that bring their MacBook Air’s to the bar or bring their Amazon Kindle DX to a Barnes & Noble to sit and read. (You can’t read any Barnes & Noble books on the Kindle.) The ultimate unnecessary public show-off Fanboy is the person who brings their personal iPad to work to replace their company purchased laptop.
I completely agree that taking your laptop, e-reader, or tablet to a coffee shop or library is completely acceptable. Coffee shops and libraries are designed to improve the experience of using these devices. I will even go as far as bringing your new gadgets to work for 1 day to show your work friends also does not make you a Fanboy. I think you should be proud but not too proud of your new gadgets. If you don’t have some pride in what you bought it means you just wasted your money.
Let’s get back to the Unnecessary Public Show-Off Fanboy. Why is someone who unnecessarily publicly shows-off their gadgets defined as a Fanboy? The answer to that is because people who publicly show-off their gadgets in an unnecessary way are doing it for one of two ways. First, they want people to notice that they are one of the 20 million unique users who own that particular gadget. They want to make the point that their gadget is so awesome it even works in the competitions lair. If they are really lucky, someone will strike up a conversation with them and maybe even get into a long debate about who’s gadget is better. One of the best ways to do this is like the example the Kindle in a non-Amazon bookstore. (Which to my knowledge is any bookstore.) The second reason they are doing this for is because they are so completely in awe of their device that they believe everyone everywhere needs to be in the same state of awareness of their gadget. The best way to accomplish this is through subtle but forceful showings of the device to a population of people who are not used to seeing such a beautiful and sleek looking gadget. Such as bringing a high end laptop to the bar where everyone will ogle over it. Both reasons are classic Fanboy ideals. Fanboys know that their gadget is in every way better than the competition and everyone needs to know the truth about it so that they too will realize that they need to go out and buy one for themselves.
Not only are these points Fanboyish but both of these points also cross the line into stupid and jackassness. What point is there to make about the competition by bringing your gadget into a place where your device’s weakness are enhanced and your experience enhancement is absolutely zero? Unless you have the Barnes & Noble Nook you should not be reading any e-reader in any Barnes & Noble bookstore. Do you read better at Barnes & Noble? Does the in-store Starbucks sell better coffee than the 6 other starbucks that are within a 2 min walking distance? No! You just look like an idiot! As far as the Fanboy’s Macbook Air that is taking up bar space next to me, I care about it as much as the crippled child who just got his ass handed to him cares about someone’s basketball skills.
I understand that this post comes across as attacking Fanboys but understand that is not my intentions. There is nothing wrong with being a Fanboy. In fact our economy relies on them. I am just telling you to not be a Fanboy who is also a jackass and an idiot.
Notion Ink Adam to cost roughly $300.00
Jun 27th
Rohan Shravan from Notion Ink has posted an update on their blog about the Adam coming to market. Though the release date has still not been set or where it will be released first, he did hint at a few interesting points. First he mentioned that there will probably be 2 versions. 1 with a standard LCD Screen and 1 with the Dual PQ Screen (Pixel QI). The PQ screen of course being the higher end model. The PQ screen is not only a full color High Definition 1080p screen but it also can switch to a black and white ePaper mode which views similar to your e-reader but with a much faster refresh rate. It can either do this automatically or with the flip of a switch. (Pixel Qi vs iPad)
The next thing he hinted at was the price. Now he didn’t give an exact number but he did give a projections. “if we are doing well, we are talking about at least a business of 100k devices a month. That will amount to at least $350 million dollar of revenues in the first year itself” so what he is saying is if they sell 1.2 million devices in the first year they will have 350 million dollars of revenue. Simple math equates to roughly $300.00 per device.
If this device does make it to market this will surely give the iPad a run for its money. Check out the video links below and tell me what you think. Will this make the iPad outdated? (I hate the term iXXXX killer because the idea is stupid… there will always be people buying iCrap)
The Geek Tablet
Jun 13th
Here is a concept/dream tablet that someone rendered as a geek tablet… looks pretty good…
my question though is that if this is his “dream” tablet, why the eff does he have a cable going from the tablet to the remote?!? Wouldn’t you want a remote to be wireless? I remember back in the 80s when my parents had a wired remote control for their TV… the 80′s!!! IMO he needs to get a little more creative if he still dreams about cables!
What makes a fanboy a fanboy?
Jun 13th
I enjoy reading articles about the different gadgets and geek trinkets that are available these days. I don’t read them because I am so much interested in the articles but more so that I am interested in the amazingly funny and interesting comments people write about them. Such as this article from dailytech.com in which “MartyLK” felt he needed to explain how those who don’t like Apple will eventually one day end up committing suicide.
One thing that I have noticed more and more over the past few years is the use of the term “fanboy.” Such as, “I hate all you stupid effing “Google fanboys!” More often than not the term “fanboy” is used by people who use it as a cheap way to insult another commenter. Such as:
- Commenter 1: “The Apple iPhone is better than the Motorola Razr because the iPhone has a compass, accelerometers, and plays my mp3s very easily.”
- Commenter 2: “Commenter 1, you are such an Apple fanboy!”
I also find other posts that the term “fanboy” is used correctly. For example:
- Commenter 1: “The Blackberry Storm is so much better than EVERY other phone out on the market. RIM says that the touch screen is more sensitive and acurate than the iPhone!”
- Commenter 2: “Commenter 1, you are such a Blackberry fanboy!”
So what really makes a fanboy a fanboy I ask? Well I put together a working list of things that I believe make up a fanboy.
- You buy or wish to buy everything a specific manufacture puts out without actually doing real research comparing their product to other competitors. (Only reading the manufactures sales pitch does not constitute as research.)
- You adjust your “needs” or “wants” to fit a specific device.
- You defend a manufactures short coming with only the excuses the manufacture feeds you.
- You deep down know that you will never actually consider another manufactures product when you need to upgrade or replace your current devices.
With all of this said I do want to make it clear that just because you are partial towards a company’s product line such as Apple, Google, or Microsoft does not make you a fanboy. I believe you can be partial towards a company but still respect the competition if they are worthy of respect. I believe that there are companies that maintain “the best” at what they do and it would be stupid to go away from them. Just remember, fanboy goes both ways. The next time you are about to tell someone they are a fanboy, ask yourself, are they the fanboy for praising a device or are you just a fanboy of the competitor?
Dropbox
Jun 12th
Dropbox offers people a free way to store 2GBs of information and up to 100GBs to paying customers. Users have the ability to sync files across multiple platforms and they will automatically update.
All of the features can be found here. You will also get an email similar to this:
There are also apps for Android, iPhone, and iPad. According to the site, there will be a Blackberry app soon.
Dropbox is another way for us to get to the clouds.