PaulSpoerry.com

WOW – lame excuses for ads.  It’s no secret the Microsoft is constantly destroyed in the ad space. Apple always seems to one up them… in an attempt at hipness they teamed up with Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy to do a spot promoting Windows 7. To their credit they did NOT run these, to their discredit, they released them on YouTube.

TechCrunch is hearing some interesting talk about a true Google Phone. By true Google Phone I don’t just mean another Android device, but a phone designed end-to-end by Google to fulfill their dream of exactly what Android can be.

Of course there have been rumors like this before, but this time there are a few distinct elements that seem credible. This all comes from Michael Arrington’s sources—his article is a bit vague, but points to an outsider-made but Google-dictated device, sort of like how Microsoft’s first Zune was actually made by Toshiba. In the case of the Google Phone there are a couple options for the possible manufacturer. The obvious choice is HTC (PLEASE let it be HTC and PLEASE let it be a slider!) who’s been the major hardware manufacturer of Android devices. However, TechCrunch hears that the source of the hardware will be Korean, not Taiwanese. So we’re probably looking at either Samsung or LG.

Samsung has a long-standing relationship with Apple, supplying tons of parts for the iPhone. Apple may not smile on Samsung for helping create the “iPhone Killer” and may in fact be ramping up to make the next iteration of the iPhone so it’s more likely that LG would step up to the plate and develop this device. LG’s no stranger to Android but has been a minor player up to this point—maybe they’ve been working on this mysterious Google Phone in the meantime, which is supposedly aiming for an early 2010 release.

Via TechCrunch

Verizon is touting its Droid phone as an Apple killer. For weeks waves of buzz surrounding the Android 2.0 Droid – the iDon’t commercials, the photo leaks, the Droid Eris, the official list of specs, a massive Droid launch event in New York City, and that cool Droid advertisement with all the stealth bombers have been pouring out. The Boy Genius Report, who had Droid specs before anyone else, and the site has been exceptionally snappy with picking up gossip on all manner of smartphone is saying that Apple will launch a $99 8GB iPhone 3G S sometime in the next month.

A sub-$100 iPhone right in time for Christmas shoppers would clearly be an attempt by Apple at bombing the Droid launch parade (yes yes, I know… it’s $99 WITH a 2 year contract).

Apple needs to do something, I wouldn’t count them out just yet, but the volume of Android phones coming out this next year is astounding. Unless Apple responds with a really beefed up iPhone I would predict Android to start chomping into their market share very quickly.

Whoever does the advertising for Apple is amazing. The commercials keep getting better and better (yes yes yes, I’m still a PC guy… but these are hilarious).

Broken Promises

Teeter Tottering

Major tech pubs put out their Snow Leopard reviews last night, and they’re all predictably positive. Snow Leopard offers lots of small and subtle improvements to your Mac plus gets speed boosts out of even older hardware for an affordable $30. Here’s the rundown of reviews seen so far:

• Gizmodo: Snow Leopard Review: Lightened and Enlightened–lots of great charts here demonstrating SL’s speed increases doing various common tasks on your Mac
• The New York Times’ David Pogue: Apple’s Sleek Upgrade
• Walt Mossberg: Apple Changes Leopard’s Spots
• Macworld: Snow Leopard Review

Even though Apple suggests Mac users without Leopard buy the $169 Mac box set to get Snow Leopard, anyone can purchase the $29 Snow Leopard disc and install it. This means the Snow Leopard DVD isn’t an “upgrade” at all, it’s the full-on Mac OS X operating system for 30 bucks, $100 cheaper than Leopard was. I suspected this was the case, since it is with the developer build I’m running, but The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg confirms it’s true for the final release as well:

For owners of Intel-based Macs who are still using the older Tiger version of the Mac OS, Apple is officially making Snow Leopard available only in a “boxed set” that includes other software and costs $169. The reasoning is that these folks never paid the $129 back in 2007 to upgrade to Leopard. But here’s a tip: Apple concedes that the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade will work properly on these Tiger-equipped Macs, so you can save the extra $140.

So if you’re jumping from Tiger to Snow Leopard, you saved $129 bucks never purchasing Leopard and you can save $140 skipping the box set. Guess being a late adopter does pay off.

Check out Amazon for the $29 Snow Leopard disc.