Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 98 of 168)

Study shows $600 as critical price point for Apple tablet

Apple Tablet.Mac addicts are almost proud to spend hundreds of extra dollars when it comes to buying a computer, but an Apple tablet might not just be for Mac nerds. The general expectation is that Apple’s tablet will be like the iPhone or an iPod, bridging the gap between the diehards and the average consumer. With the average consumer, though, price becomes more important, and as a recent study by Retrevo suggests, $600 might be the break point.

According to Retrevo, 68% of Mac users would be willing to spend over that $600 point on Apple’s tablet. In fact, 41% are willing to break $800 for the device. That hangs in line with what we know about Mac users’ spending habits. PC folks, on the other hand, aren’t so easy to persuade. Granted, there are still armies of them willing to pay premium dollar for the Apple brand, but not nearly as many by percentage.

From the survey results, it looks like 36% of PC users would consider spending over $600. Strangely enough, only 16% would spend in the $600-$800 range, while 20% were willing to break the $800 mark. Still, that leaves a huge base of people dreaming sub-$600, a price that I just can’t imagine we’ll see.

Swine flu app puts panic in your hands

HMS Mobile Swine Flu app.It’s hard to say just how I feel about the new app from Harvard Medical School, called the Swine Flu Center. On the one hand, it’s certainly important to keep the public educated about H1N1. As a national emergency level virus, people should know what they’re up against. Are outbreak maps on our phone the best way to do that? Maybe not.

The new application is part of Harvard Medical School’s mobile initiative to get people educated about current medical issues. At $1.99 it’s pretty cheap, and certainly has a lot to offer. The app has videos, diagnostic tips, prevention tips, and an interactive symptom checker.

As with any interactive medical tool, make sure you’re talking to a physician before making rash decisions. These are guidelines, people, guidelines. Let’s not freak out.

Source: TechCrunch

Get TiVo on your PC for $69.99

Nero LiquidTV.PC DVR systems can be a pain to setup, and often require several trips back to Best Buy or your electronics store of choice for the components you forgot or didn’t know you’d need (you do have a tuner, right?). The Nero LiquidTV serves up everything you need to make your PC into a DVR system worthy of living room status.

For $69.99 you get a tuner, a USB IR receiver, TiVo software, a TiVo remote, and a one-year subscription to the service. That last part is really the one letdown for the package. After a year you’ll be paying $99.99 to continue your service. If you don’t need cable and just want to pull down your PBS for recording, Nero’s system comes with a radio tuner. It doesn’t have a great antenna, but I’m sure you could find a way to fix that little problem.

As for the software, it’s essentially just what you’d find in a TiVo set-top box. You don’t get any of the extras, like photo viewing or a music player. It does what you need, but again, the yearly subscription fee kinda sucks.

Twitter removes deleted tweets

Twitter bird.Since its beginning, Twitter has tried to make it clear that your tweets are your property. You make them, you control who can see them. Problem was, the micro-blogging site couldn’t make good on that promise until recently, when it finally figured out how to keep deleted tweets out of search results.

Up until the end of this week, users could type your name into the search box and get every tweet, even those you deleted. If there was something you didn’t mean to post or wanted to correct, that little bit of info was there too. Thankfully, Biz Stone & Co. fixed that little problem. Now that problematic material is gone. Permanently.

Now all you have to worry about are the scores of sites cropping up to index tweets. Depending how those sites gather and store info, your deleted material may be a little more public than you’d hope. Yeah, drunk tweeting is still probably a terrible idea.

Droid isn’t just for Verizon

Droids for AT&T.The most recent info on Motorola’s Droid suggests that the phone isn’t just for Verizon. In fact, it looks like there’s a GSM model that would work on AT&T’s 3G network, as well as Canada’s Rogers.

So it looks like the new name for the “Droid” is now “Sholes,” at least pre-release. That’s the name buried deep in the FCC docs that also show the AT&T 3G bandwidths. To me the big advantage of the phone would be that it’s a nice piece of hardware for anything other than AT&T. If I was going with AT&T, I think I’d still stick to the iPhone. Android still has some catching up to do in the app department for me to genuinely consider a switch. Although there is that Google Voice thing…

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