Let's play Foursquare!

It goes without saying that a majority of people that use social networks online love to let people know what they're doing, how they are, among other things. We like it when people pay attention to us, and it's becoming easier by the day to let people know what's going on in your life. This is one of the main reasons why social media is the monster that it is.

Lately I've seen enough people starting to use Foursquare that I took a look into it myself. For those of you who don't know what Foursquare is about, it's a web/mobile application that allows users to connect with friends (as usual) and "check in", updating your Foursquare with your current location. The more you use Foursquare, the more the application rewards you through awards such as becoming the "mayor" of some venues, among other little tidbits. Foursquare started off small in 2009, and by March of this year it's managed to gather up 500,000 users, all pinging the site, letting them know where they are.

The good that comes from Foursquare, is that like with other social networks, businesses are getting involved. The company has several commercial partnerships with companies like Bravo and The New York Times to name a couple. With these partnerships, users of Foursquare have access to specials, badges, and tips for nearby locations. People using Foursquare can leave tips about the locations that you're around, telling you insider info on where to check out that may be relevant to your interests, or what you may want to avoid ordering when you go out to eat. Foursquare is also open to its users developing new apps for it. There are plenty of things like games, ways to talk to singles, and music check ins, just to name a few.

The dark side to Foursquare, is pretty much the same darkside to social networking. Having your face, real name, and birthdate all in the same place isn't ever going to be a safe bet. Foursquare has connectivity to other social networking sites, and depending on who you have as part of your network, it can take cyber-stalking and easily turn it into real stalking, if you're checking in all the time, and essentially laying out a trail of breadcrumbs to where you've been. That being said, you can avoid such things with responsible use of the internet. Though it is something to be careful with as far as use of the app goes, Foursquare can definitely grow into something more, and I'm interested in keeping an eye on it's development as it becomes more and more popular.

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Evolution Championship Series 2010: Aftermath

As many of you may have known, I spent the last three days immersed in great fighting game competition. Evolution Championship Series 2010 held up to every promise that it was going to be a great event to watch, and aside from a few hiccups here and there the people at Level Up provided quite the stream. It seems that with each passing year, EVO just keeps outdoing itself.

The event was such a huge milestone for not just the fighting game community, but gaming as a whole. The massive amount of growth from the peak of last year's EVO to this year's blew my mind. Last year the list of sponsors was quite impressive. The support came companies like Capcom, Bandai-Namco, and Sony for example. Companies showing support to the fans of their games for putting such a large event together built completely on volunteer work, built for the gamers, by the gamers. It was the first year that the event was streamed live on the internet for all to see, rather than have the fans that couldn't make the trip out to vegas have to wait to buy a DVD, or look to YouTube to see the level of play, to see the magic that happened over the weekend. Due to this fact people got to have a first look at Tekken 6 before it made it's way to the shelves, to see the game that had largely been missed out on in action.

From yesteryear, to this past weekend, we saw many upgrades. The event was held in the ballroom of Caesar's Palace, one of the most well-known hotels on the strip. Last year's collaboration with IGN.com was one-upped by the collaboration with G4. Adam Sessler was present to co-host alongside Seth Killian to provide commentary on not only the top 8 competition, but also the world's first look at Marvel vs. Capcom 3 since it was revealed at E3. Madcats stepped up from just revealing the second round of its famed Tournament Edition arcade sticks, to giving away several "gold edition" models to the top competitors of Super Street Fighter 4, and also a few lucky winners that were attending the tournament, or watching the stream.

If you mist out, there's no reason to worry too much, as G4 isn't done with EVO yet. There will be a special on G4 covering the history of EVO airing July 20th, so if you're still interested in getting into a bit of this action, and the already avilable footage on YouTube isn't enough for you, then definitely tune in and check the show out.

Now the reason why I say that this was a huge milestone for gaming in general, rather than just for the fighting game community, is that it's clear and obvious through the Evolution Championship Series proves that if the community gets behind their games enough, that other people will get involved. Streaming game sessions is becoming a popular thing, and I'm sure that hardcore fans of other huge multiplayer games are more than likely interested in seeing the best players of the game do their thing. We already have huge followings on sites like MLG, so I see no reason not to believe that something just as huge as EVO can be started for other games. I urge you gamers of the world that are truly passionate about what you do to get behind your passion and support it in any way and every way that you can.

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Hey readers, just wanted to slide a quick update in while I lose my mind over the Evolution Champion Series 2010 stream. (http://stickam.com/evo2k)

Just wanted to call to your attention, that if you haven't been checking the dequeue link at the end of every post, that you should start. It's not always a link to me on a social networking site, often times it's s link to some extended reading on the subject matter.

That being said, join me in watching the stream, and watch what professional fighting game play looks like.

Best Buy "turns a 180".

Just the other day I touched on the issues that Brian Maupin was having with Best Buy in the wake of his (hilarious) video about the average iPhone consumer. After the video got viral, Best Buy got upset over...something, and suspended him, with firing him completely in mind. Now just a couple days later, Best Buy's reaction to the video is just as viral as the video itself, and suddenly a few days later the company seems to have "pulled a 180" and Maupin is clear to come on back to work.

“I don’t know if it’s because the media got involved or maybe because they took a step back and saw that it was just a funny thing not intended to be mean,” -Maupin

“We have completed our investigation into the videos created and posted by Brian Maupin, the aspiring filmmaker and Best Buy employee. This is an important situation for us because it involved balancing our social media guidelines with a commitment to creating a supportive environment for our employees. It's important to note that our investigation involved three videos that were posted in late June because they were openly disparaging of our employees, our customers and our vendor partners. Our investigation is over, and these videos are no longer on the web. Contrary to rumors, Brian has not been fired and is scheduled to return to his job at Best Buy this Friday.” -Best Buy

I've had my own share of experiences with corporations. None that ever gotten me such notariety, or nearly lost me my job like this particular case, but it's clear and obvious that corporations can and will throw the little guy under the bus in order to keep themselves safe, or save money, and this case is exactly the same. Keep in mind that if Best Buy hadn't gone out of their way to persecute Maupin, then practically no one would have known that he worked at Best Buy at all. On top of that, Best Buy suddenly claiming that the issue was centered around the other videos that he'd taken down, videos that weren't viral at all, is classic cover-your-ass strategy. I find it hard to believe that they would have known about the videos that got removed at all with out this "investigation" that they've done.

Maupin says he's not sure that he's going to return to work. Can you blame the guy? If I'd gone through this sort of thing I'd want to leave Best Buy behind, too.

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Unveiling YouTube Leanback.

Just throwing this out there, I know I'm not the only person that noticed the blurred out Apple logo, and then MacBook Pro clear as day not even 10 seconds later. What exactly was the point of blurring out the Apple logo, YouTube?

All tom foolery aside, YouTube Leanback is apparently the next evolution of YouTube. I remember saying a long time ago, back when YouTube was fairly new that it is the new television, and YouTube Leanback's new take on watching videos is just the next step in the evolution. Cutting out some of the middleman does seem a bit appealing, but at the same time, it's YouTube dude. We already have playlists, and it's not exactly hard to watch what you want to.

The application of YouTube Leanback lies moreso in apps. I can see this being useful due to its compatibility with home theater PCs, and Google TV. There's not too much utility in a dumbed down YouTube if you're using your desktop/laptop, most of the time it would be more useful to track down videos or playlists with precision. But with watching videos on your television, the idea of seamless video after video with easy navigation to get past what you don't want to watch can be appealing.

I wonder what will happen to Cable TV? With Hulu Plus, Netflix, and now this, I wonder if people are going to even bother with paying for digital cable service anymore. Time will tell what new technology will come around the corner to put the final nail in the coffin.

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More words of wisdom from Bobby Kotick.

Be forewarned gamers, for Bobby Kotick really wants to find more ways to slide his hands into your wallets. The CEO of Activision-Blizzard is in the news yet again, making some more claims that rub a lot of people the wrong way. This time he stirs up controversy by expressing how he really feels about Microsoft's online business model.

"We’ve heard that 60 per cent of [Microsoft’s] subscribers are principally on Live because of Call of Duty."

Okay, Kotick slow your roll right there captain. I'm not entirely sure where he's getting his figures from. I will admit that there are a lot of Call of Duty heads out there, it's one of the best selling games on XBOX; that much is undeniable. But to pretend like 60 percent of XBOX live subcribers are paying $50 USD a year because of Call of Duty is laughable. Oh XBOX live, where were you before Modern Warfare? Oh right, it was doing just fine.

"We don’t really participate financially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on Live, but it’s not our network."

Nevermind the fact that you're putting out map packs with a chunk of old content, and buggy new content and still slapping a $15 USD on them. Nevermind the fact that your other console franchises like Guitar Hero, and Tony Hawk come with the cost of an arm and a leg due to the fact that you need to pay for the game-specific controller to play the game. Nevermind the fact that you have World of Warcraft, where you have millions of users shelling out $15 USD a month in order to continue playing the game. Yes, the regulations that Microsoft places on game developers in regards to downloadable content can be dissapointing at times, and often times they'd rather charge you money for some things that should pretty much be free, but the answer to this is absolutely not letting a different corporation come in and nickel-and-dime the gamers. If anybody should be complaining about XBL's income stream, its the gamers, not the CEO of one of the biggest developers in the business.

""Mr Kotick sees an opportunity to break the consoles’ “walled gardens with new gamer-friendly PCs, designed to be plugged into the television."

Gamer friendly PCs, designed to be plugged into the television huh? Oh, you mean CONSOLES, right? I mean, a console is essentially a gamer-friendly PC that's designed to be plugged into the television. The thing that keeps consoles from being as advanced as PCs is that you can buy a PC and change the insides to make them stronger all you want to. Consoles aren't optimized so that you can upgrade the hardware inside. That being said, a good bet for the next step in consoles should be hardware that's readily upgradeable. As much as I'd love to see that link between console and PC gamers, I would hate to see such a good thing exploited by greedy people who seem to just want to charge you a monthly fee to play Call of Duty. This is what's wrong with the industry today.

"Mr Kotick is excited by Microsoft’s motion-sensing controller. XBOX Kinect dispenses with the hand-held joystick in favour of a camera and microphone. He hopes Kinect will help revive the peripherals market along the lines of Activision’s Guitar Hero and DJ Hero."

Right after calling consoles "walled gardens" he goes on to talk about how excited he is about finding a way to make you pay a lot of money to play with the Kinect. Way to make it clear and obvious that all you care about is greenbacks, Kotick. For someone who just said not to long ago that PC is responsible for about 70 percent of Activision-Blizzard's income, Kotick sure does seem interested in finding some way to exploit the console gamers, seeing as how he doesn't feel like he's getting a "fair share" out of Microsoft's XBOX live profits. This is another scenario between developers and Microsoft that could afford to see some change, but again, letting someone else in to nickel-and-dime the gamers is not the answer.

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Haywire!

Happy belated 4th of July, readers! Hopefully all of your festivities went off without a hitch, as naturally with every year, some people get a little too happy with their fireworks. Yesterday, among all the celebration, I saw a lot of news about the internet practically going haywire. Apparently hackers have been having a field day right under our noses and giving a lot of us even more reason to be paranoid about just what we put out there. So naturally, some good wholesome fun would have been a good change of pace for those of us who were on the bad end of a financial attack, or some well placed trolling.

Good old YouTube was the victim of some severe trolling. Naturally most of the news is laying the blame squarely on 4chan. I've also heard some sparce mention of ebaumsworld as well, though it was 4chan that's practically declared cultural war on Justin Bieber, and most of the YouTube shenanigans were Bieber-related. What seems to have happened is a net-savvy user happened upon a vulnerability in the comment system. The bug allowed users to bypass the HTML restrictions in place on the comment box. Now letting a prankster that's decent at HTML practically run wild on YouTube is like opening Pandora's box, especially when it's anon getting involved. People were logging on expecting to see what they intended to see and things were happening ranging from popups, to shock site redirects. To alleviate the situation Google temporarily disabled comments until they could isolate and fix the bug. In the meantime, I'm sure 4chan is cooking up their next plot to "shake the foundation of the internet." Gotta love these crazy kids.

There's been a lot of drama surrounding Apple lately as well and with this recent bit of news, it's only looking worse. When YouTube got hacked, it was all fun and games. When the AppStore gets hacked, it's time for users to get worried. A rouge developer found an exploit that blows the door to your iTunes account wide open for the commencement of a field day. What was first thought to just be the entity known as "Thuat Nguyen", turns out to be several people practically farming money out of accounts worldwide. People have been reporting having lost anywhere between $100 to over $1,000 on apps that they didn't buy. This isn't only harming the consumer, as these apps in question are shooting to the top of the charts, taking the limelight away from developers that deserve to be recognized. Apple's response to the problem thus far? "Change your password." For something that seems to have been happening for a month, there needs to be more action taken out. I personally removed my credit card from my iTunes account, and do not plan on making any more purchases until a little something more has been done to safeguard my information. In the meantime, all one can do is stay educated on the situation. One thing is for sure, Apple's got a LOT of face-saving to do in the wake of all this.

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It prints MONEY, man.

Yesterday I linked to a YouTube video that pretty much completely bashed the average iPhone consumer for being for all intents and purposes a zombie when it comes to their smartphone shopping. After a good sunset and sunrise all of a sudden a man is in the process of losing his job over his little jab at the apple-heads out there.

Apparently the creator of the video is (was?) an employee of Best Buy. This fact would have been a mystery to us if his employers didn't decide to get spooked about some sort of backlash from Apple and decide to suspend the person who passed out over a million laughs on YouTube. I've heard of people losing scholarships, relationships, and jobs over Facebook and the like, but I haven't seen jobs lost over a viral video since the Domino's pizza fiasco from a while back.

To this I say, REALLY Best Buy? At least with the Domino's incident there were clear violations of health code, in this case there is no real reason to fire this man. He's practically losing his job for expressing his opinion. I reiterate, without Best Buy having gone through this suspension (and possible firing) process, for the most part NO ONE would have known the video's creator worked there. It's not as though Apple hasn't already been bashed into the dirt for years, this is just another piece that was done that can go on top of the huge pile of anti-Apple that has been piling up for YEARS. One thing is for certain. We need to lay down some ground rules for the seperation of work and internet before this continues to grow out of hand.

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credit for the original version of the photo above goes to user bdjsb7 @ Flickr.

Make up your mind, Apple.

Is it just me, or does Apple seem to be in complete denial with the issues that are surrounding the iPhone 4? At first, there was the "buy one of our $30 bumpers!" Other than the fact that you shouldn't have to shell out another $30 on a device that you've already spent at least $200 on, you can achieve the same result with a dollar and some know-how. Then we have Steve Jobs himself coming out and saying "you're holding it wrong." Gee, I'm sorry I'm holding my iPhone like a cellphone, excuse me for thinking that that would be a good idea. Now, Apple is recognizing this issue and blames it all on some incorrectly coded software, and a coming update should fix this.

Now as the current owner of an iPhone 3Gs this "update" makes me a little nervous. The claim to fame here is that the current software displays the incorrect amount of bars, and that your signal could very well be 2 bars lower than what the display tells you. Apparently this has been a problem since the first gen iPhone, and the software update will be added to the 3Gs and 3G as well. Personally I haven't had any issues of this sort with my current iPhone, and I'm hoping this update won't result in an attempt to fix what isn't broken.

It's already been proven that the way you hold your phone can cause issues with your reception with more than just the iPhone 4, but with many of the smartphones on the market. So why is it that Apple is so headstrong about not admitting that this is a common hardware issue, and why are they attempting to use software to alleviate the issue? This matter is quickly becoming more and more frustrating. It would be a lot less so if the way things were being handled were a lot less comparable to how BP is acting about the oil spill...

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credit for the above image goes to user "Yutaka Tsutano" @ Flickr

Formspring Facelift.

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As far as the little things we do with our boredom go, compared to other timekilers, Formspring is just a kid. It hasn't been around that long. Not that Formspring or it's rapidly-growing userbase care all that much.

Not too long ago Formspring was just people trading questions for answers, with a little Facebook/Twitter connectivity mixed in. Once it caught on, the site became more streamlined for use, and mobile friendly.

The latest facelifts extend the connectivity to MySpace and Wordpress, and also now allow you to tradeoff the anonymity of your questions to ask one question to your friends en masse. Nifty stuff here.

Formspring is taking off FAST, and I don't see it going away anytime soon. The more people that hop on and ask questions the more people will take notice. Similar features are already popping up on the social websites we're used to. At this rate it won't be long at all before Formspring changes it's face yet again.

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A Sonic game that you can actually look foward to.

So Sonic the Hedgehog's birthday passed by the other day, which willed me to coast through the XBLA version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Hey, what better birthday gift can I give one of my favorite characters of all time other than handing his arch-enemy a good solid ass kicking? Especially in one of the best games the "Blue Blur" has ever starred in. That birthday party was good for everyone except Robotnik. He just so happened to have a very bad day that day.

Now all fandom aside, that run through Sonic 2 brought up memories of internet buzz that I'd seen awhile back. So I took a run through the Sonic Retro forums to see if the work they were up to was still going strong. Their work on making a HD version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 started back in 2008. Now I've crawled many an online community dedicated to making huge projects like this one happen, and many times I've seen something that could have been amazing scrapped due to drama. The last time I'd checked on this project I thought that was the fate of this one. To my surprise, that was quite far from the truth.

Development of the game has had its hurdles, but still seems to be going quite strong. I'm very excited to see this game flesh out. I've played other games made by this community and judging from work like Sonic Megamix, I can safely say that these guys can come together to put out something great. And judging from some recent artwork of the progress, I think it's pretty safe to say that once the alpha goes around, the outcry to see this game finished will just get stronger.

If you're feeling inspired to contribute, I urge you to get involved, and help out where you can. If enough people get behind this project and start submitting quality work, the ball can really get rolling, and the gamers can be playing this sooner, rather than later.

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You sure that's Wonder Woman, dude?

Okay, DC. Pat yourselves on the back here because this is a HUGE step in the WRONG direction. This blogpost, along with issue #600 of Wonder Woman came around yesterday, and it seems as though they're trying to take the Wonder Woman we're used to in a different direction. While I am all for reboots when they're necessary, I can't say that I like to see reboots take the direction like this one is taking.

"Suppose someone went back in time and changed one thing, and it changed your life to the point that you had little or no memory of what life had been like before the change happened. What would you do to get it back? Should you get it back? Who did it? And maybe more important…why did they do it?"

Congrats Wonder Woman fans, this looks like your run-of-the-mill amnesia arc. From reading the blogpost about what's to come, it seems as though this storyline coming up is as bland as her new design. And taking the time to eyeball the comments left on the post, the general consensus seems to be in agreement, that this is a huge mistake.

Is there a reason to try to bring closure to offhand comments like "how does she fight in that thing without all her parts falling out?", or "where does she carry anything in that outfit?" I'd say there's not. That's like trying to find out why Superman's costume doesen't bag at the knees. Moral of the story is, don't go trying to fix what's not broken.

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Thanks Hulu Plus, I missed Ally McBeal.

Most of us techies are pretty much already used to using Hulu to keep up on our favorite TV shows. Now Hulu is offering a way to make keeping up much much easier. For about $10 dollars a month, Hulu is offering the "Hulu Plus" service, offering more content and the ability to stream from several devices. At this time, the only ready devices are certain models of Samsung brand TVs and Blu-Ray players, the iPad, and the iPhone. Soon to follow the TV/Blu-Ray treatment are Sony and Vizio. Also Hulu Plus is set to come to the PS3 and the XBOX360.

My first thought was that Hulu may be offering up some competition to Netflix. After looking over the current list of currently avilable content, the lack of movies made me think otherwise. What this does change in my eyes however, is the way people watch TV. Personally there's only a few shows that I even bother to follow. If it's not on [adult swim], then chances are I don't go out of my way to keep up. Now being able to start a stream on my PC, and be able to pick up watching where I left off from my iPhone while I'm out and about, and end the day with the last of what I haven't seen on my XBOX sounds pretty amazing to me, and if this picks up well enough, it's cable that should be worried.

Sure there are a lot of cable consumers that actually watch a majority of their channels that they pay for, but if Hulu can manage to pick up enough momentum to offer a majority of subscribers all the shows that they care about following for for only $10 a month, versus something more along the lines of $60-$80 for a basic package. I'm interested in seeing what else will be affected by the convenience of being able to watch every episode of Arrested Development from wherever I am. Time will tell.

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When I found out that I could update from my phone, images and all, I nearly lost it. So this quickie is a test post to see just what this email my blog thing can do.

If you want to stay updated on when new posts come, but you don't have a Blogger account to be able to follow me, the best way to keep up is to follow me on Twitter. There's a full post to come after the break.

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Google Me! Seriously, Google Me!

"Ok, umm huge rumor: Google to launch facebook competitior very soon "Google Me", very credible source."

All it took was Digg's founder, Kevin Rose, to slide one tweet on Twitter. One simple tweet, and over a million followers got that bit of gold on their timelines. In between Saturday night, and this afternoon, the Google Me rumor spread all over the internet. And curiously enough, the tweet in question has disappeared. (from Twitter.) Rose has a history of spreading rumors that turn out to be true after the initial leak. He's also a very well connected individual, so this "very credible source" may very well be speaking the truth, and Google could be taking yet another stab at getting into social media.

Thus far Google hasn't commented on all the speculation, so there's no real confirmation there, but if you've poked around at the assortment of things you can do with a Google account, they already offer all of the core features of a social networking site. If Google Me just ends up being an essential combination of these current things, with some new flair added on, they could have something on their hands. Whether or not Facebook should be worried about this can't be said as of yet, but it definitely is worth noting the fact that if having a Google account linked Google Me to things like Gmail, Buzz, or Orkut, saving current users the time and effort to create a profile and add things to it, it could start out with around 200 million users.

Keep in mind that 200 million is only around half the monster user base that Facebook already boasts. On top of that Facebook is showing incredible momentum, having had time to grow from something that just linked Harvard students together, into linking people together internationally. Since privacy has been a huge concern for a very long time, it's also worth noting that Google has already gone through it's own privacy shitstorm, and lot of people aren't quite ready to give Google another shot with their information.

That being said, if Google can really pull it together this time, and launch Google Me (should Google Me even exist) smoothly, and offer a privacy policy that the users of the internet can cope with, then there may actually soon be some real competition for Facebook. All we can do in the meantime is speculate, and wait for a Google rep to come out and say something official, so we can have something more tangible than a deleted tweet.

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Hold on there, Slim.

Okay to quote the description of the video found on the youtube page:

"Apparently even with the new Xbox 360 "slim" , disc scratch errors are still present. I wonder if M$ fixed rrod or E-74, and many other hardware failures associated with the Xbox 360? Remember disc scratch errors doesn't occurs on Wii, PS3,laptops,dvd/blu-ray players or even 10 years old portable cd players. Even with the new redesign, errors/problems from older models are still present, so there is no need to upgrade to the Xbox Valhalla 360 250gb , and fanboys please stop defending M$."

Now, while I have been hearing on the grapevine that some of the guts of the new XBOX360 slim are the same as the flawed original XBOX360, can you REALLY blame the system for the disc scratch in the video above? Does anyone with common sense pick up and waggle around a console when it's powered on and the disc is moving? Get angry at "M$" when your XBOX360 eats your disc when it was sitting still, not when some jackass comes up and practically shakes your system while the game is still in it.

The Social Media Monster.

The trendy thing to do as of late has been to openly hate sites like Facebook and Twitter on other niche areas of the web, mostly having to do with privacy issues, most of which could honestly be avoided through responsible use of the internet. The fact of the matter is, the majority of people love to use these sites, and will check them SEVERAL times a day. There once was a time where you had to look something up on yellow pages. This evolved into looking places up online on Google. What we're seeing here is the next evolution in that process.

Do you like Miracle Whip? Like Miracle Whip on Facebook. Do you shop at Old Navy? Follow Old Navy on Twitter. With the rate that new people are joining up with these sites, and the amount of time spent on said sites on a daily basis, businesses are starting to have a presence in social media on the internet. Ways to profit from social media can be found all over the place, and businesses both big and small are starting to make the leap on this bandwagon, BIG TIME. With Twitter and the like being just a cellphone app away, its not hard for a business to have some presence on the internet, and grow at a rapid pace simply because it's so easy to remind you that they're there all the time.

Social Media is not the enemy. It's a tool whose usefulness increases by the day. The more and more time and energy people pump into it, the more powerful it becomes. Keep your eyes on the prize, it won't be long until you can start asking the Burger King questions on Formspring.

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credit for the image above goes to user "Boris Veldhuijizen Van Zaten" at Flickr

Yes, we are still talking about iPhone vs Android.

With yesterday's release of Apple's iPhone 4, the massive debate over which is better, iPhone or Android continues to be the rage of the internet, as users of the smartphones pit their egos against one another in heated combat. Trying to throw out a "who is better once and for all" is practically impossible, no matter how many facts that you lay out on the table, the hardcore fans will refuse to be swayed, and the ego battle continues. If you have already chosen a side in this "war", then this article is not for you. I'm talking to the people who are coming into the money to buy a smartphone, and are looking for something nice to put into their pockets, so they can call their friends, and take pictures of themselves in the bathroom mirror.

First of all the most important thing that you need to keep in mind when you go shopping for cellphones is forget what everyone says, thinks, and or feels, the only thing that matters right now is what you like and what looks good to you. It's YOUR money. For all I know, you might like the latest Blackberry model. In which case you can go ahead and stop reading this, and go buy your Blackberry and be happy. Second of all you need to figure out just what it is that you want in your smartphone. What kind of user will you be? Do you like to burn time playing games? Are you buying a smartphone because you want to look cool because your phone can do everything from make fart noises to check the stock market? Or do you do business to the point where you seriously cannot slide by with a Motorola RAZR anymore? (Yes, people do in fact still have those.) With what you want in a phone in mind, we can compare Android versus iPhone on a few key points.

-Battery Life-

How long your phone is going to last while it's in use is probably the most important thing to ponder on when you're shopping for a phone. There are plenty of different Android phones to choose from. When it comes to battery life, most of them fail to hold up to the iPhone. One of the complaints I hear about the iPhone in fact, is how the battery (supposedly) doesen't have the best lifespan in the world. Fun fact: Smartphones are practically computers when it comes to the possibilities that they have. Using the various apps will put a good drain on your battery life. It's going to cost you much more battery to e-stalk that hot chick on facebook than to make a quick phone call or send a few text messages. Use your common sense here. While the iPhone does have a leg up on the battery life, it's not as though iPhones are going to last hours longer than an Android, they last longer in most cases, but the extra time you get isn't so much that it's worth writing home about.


-Applications-

Okay for all of you hardcore iPhone fans that are ready to stand on top of your chair and proclaim absolute victory in this field, you need to first realize that the iPhone had a 2 year headstart, and that quantity does not equal quality. Yes there are WAY more apps avilable for iPhone than Android. However a good majority of the stuff you can add to your phone from the app store is complete crap. When it comes down to apps that are actually USEFUL it doesn't matter which you choose. If there was something major that was left out of the App Store/Android Market, and it's something that you already know about, chances are you've already made your decision on which you think is "better", and you probably should already be on your way to buying that new phone. There is one notable thing that I can think of that iPhone would have over Android. If you're into gaming, and you have an interest in gaming on your mobile device, the selection of games that the iPhone offers is better than that of the Android, but I'd say that this won't last forever, and it's a niche-within-a-niche because not every gamer wants to play games on their mobile. Again, whether iPhone or Droid is better depends on the user.


-service providers-

This time there's no way I can hand it to anything but Android. Android phones are avilable in several different models over several different service providers. iPhones dont have different models really, they have the new iPhone that's better than the last iPhone that came our. Now unless you jailbreak your iPhone, you can't have any service provider that is not At&t. Keep in mind also that a lot of people aren't too happy with what At&t has decided to do with their data plans. Unless you are already with At&t, and already have a data plan, there's no way to pay for unlimited data anymore. On top of that At&t is charging an extra monthly fee to use tethering. Mind you, not everyone needs to use all that much data a month, and even less people NEED to use tethering. At the same time, this alone is enough to make people turn away from the iPhone to buy a droid.


-operating system-

Out of box, this one easily also goes to Android, and is one of the main huge arguments against the iPhone that I see people throwing around when debating "who is better". Android's OS is pretty much fully customizable, due to it being open source. The iPhone OS, while is rather easy to learn and use, is very limited when it comes to customizing your phone. With the new OS, the most customization you get is your background and what apps you put on it. Sweet. However, if you are bold enough to jailbreak your iPhone, you can put whatever you want on it, even go so far as to be able to run the Android OS on the iPhone. Most would argue that you shouldn't have to jump through hoops like voiding your warranty in order to do what you want to your phone. I can agree with that whole-heartedly, it is quite silly to have to go so far to mess with options that should be quite easy to change. At the same time, it's quite silly to ignore the possibilites that arise when you DO jump through those hoops.


-conclusion-

Long story short, If I had to say that one type of smartphone was better than the other, I'd have to say that by a small margin, Android is better, due to the fact that on a few key things like design and customization, Android offers you more choices. Happy shopping, consumer!


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To put it short, you are going to spend quite a bit of time in your life waiting your turn. It could be for anything under the sun. You might need to grab some cash from an ATM. You might need to wait for awhile before you see the doctor. You wait in a line every time you visit the grocery to fill your fridge. Hell, there are even times where you have to wait to visit the latrine.

If you are reading this, it's because you fit into a niche. You enjoy tinkering with gadgets. You probably have been called nerd on more than one occasion. You'd probably rather be playing a video game, or the latest episode of your favorite anime, than give half a care about that playoff game. Yes these are generalizations, because we the nerds and geeks of the world come from all walks of life, and we all have our different side hobbies.

The aim of this blog is to give you readers an objective view on some of the goings on in the world of technology, while also giving you entertaining things to distract your brains with. If you have to spend a lot of the downtime in your life waiting in line for something, you may as well know ahead of time just what it is that you're getting yourself into when you join the single file.

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