Month: October 2011

Facing East @Downtown Bellevue

Clean and nice modern Taiwanese Restaurant…
And nice ice shaving! (팥빙수)
2011.10

Alcatel OT 606A: Sparq

One of the worst of the worst device I have ever played…
Simple answer to this device…. if you want to make cheap devices, just build a simple one focused on making calls and don’t try to load this and that on it…(I.e. email client, facebook etc) nothing worked smoothly…
2011.10

Tears for LG: LG Makes Latest myTouch Devices

Recently there was a news on LG from the front page of company’s intranet site…

Saying, LG will deliver 2 myTouch devices -company franchise models- in this holiday.

Strangely enough my company, which is obvious no 4, runs a model of “franchise” devices – meaning service provider dictates every things on device design and “OEM” delivers..

don’t know how much the service provider can dictate as much in smartphone era as it used to do in past, but this was the way htc grew its US business and smartphone business without its brand… And I heard there has been increasing tensions from htc that they will not do this type of business any more without their brand..

As a little shareholder of LGE…this is such a sad news.. maybe LG can get some volumes? But in this way? The more sad piece is all the comments from employees saying “This is a horrible move for franchise device!” Relating all the bad experiences with LG devices..-.-

It’s tough days in Youido?
2011.10

iPhone 4S?

Sorry Apple but looks like you are running out of gas for innovation..

* Dual-core A5 chip: Dual core is already a standard on high end smartphones…
* Camera and optics: Sorry again…standard
* iOS5 and iCloud: Android is there and cloud is already available thru various applications
* Siri: ……and “There is a app for that” as well…

So other than the fact what it does as “Baseband chip” work both on GSM and CDMA, I don’t see anything hot in here.. (But if someone is already with GSM, what does having CDMA mean?)

Is this signaling Apple is running out of gas for innovation or something “quantum jump” is awaiting? (in junction with all the patent affairs….) or is this following the classic path of Apple II vs. IBM compatibles?.. These folks should have at least upgrade their look and feels (i.e. display size)

Sorry, I don’t feel anything special with iPhone, and feel happy around Samsung and HTC smartphones I have been using…and sad news for people who were holding their decisions with expectation of something big from this version and Sprint who put its future of its business with this iPhone release…

2011.10

Kindle Fire

Wow this has been the hottest news on this week. Interestingly enough, Amazon introduced its tablet as “Kindle Fire” 
and the most amazing thing is Amazon is starting its Tablet journey with their famous “Day 1 South” approach. Starting in red and collect back. First I thought this as a new Android based Tablet, and scratched my head to think what is the difference between this and 7 inch Galaxy Tab…
However, after some thoughts…I believe this is the most fearful approach ….not just because of its low price…bur rather because of these facts
* Amazon has almost full line up in cloud service and its related contents: eBooks, Videos, Music, Android applications, etc…
* Amazon’s buying power or negotiation power with contents providers or publishers are incredible. 
and most of all….
* Amazon has extremely loyal customers who pay $79 per year as Prime members- who does everything with Amazon because you paid $79 to company.
I guess this will raise tons of contents sales as Amazon said, and even increase in Prime subscription (Already Video stream is free for Prime customers..)
So, Netflix and even Google gotta be fearful of this….and I believe if this is successful, this will change the game to “access to contents” business as Apple already did a bit..