In one sense this is nothing new; older smartphones, including those from other platforms have had voice control features for many years now. Where Siri makes it interesting is in its ability to handle natural language. Where most of the other systems rely on very simple phrases, Siri can handle longer contextual strings and a variety of voice inputs. So you could say, for example, “What’s the weather like in Melbourne”, and it’ll find a five day forecast; ask it then “what’s the time there?” and it’ll remember the context and give you AEDST time for Melbourne. It’s all rather reminiscent of Star Trek, frankly, speaking to a small computer in your pocket, although it does rely on having a net connection of some sort as some of the voice processing is done at Apple’s servers rather than in the device itself. It learns as it goes, according to Apple, so rather like products such as Nuance’s Dragon Naturally Speaking, the more you use it the better it’ll get. It’s also got a specific setting for English (Australian), and it’s highly advised that you use it; the difference in its understanding of a strine accent and a yankee one is remarkable. There’s obvious scope here for use by those with physical ability limitations where typing is difficult or impossible, but even just as a cool gimmick.

Siri does have its limitations, especially locally. Ask it for any kind of directions, and it’ll sadly inform you it can only give directions when it’s in the US. That’s not reticence on its part; the directions part of Siri’s logic relies on a couple of US-specific services that Apple’s signed up to. There are words and phrases it’ll stumble on repeatedly, and because it learns its owner’s voice, it’s markedly less effective for other users if they borrow your phone. To be fair to Apple, it does mark Siri as a “beta” (that is, still in development) product, so there’s plenty of room for improvement.

There’s arguably a bigger strike against Siri to consider, however, and it’s true for any voice controlled product. Within the context of your own home or office, talking to a computer may feel a little odd at first, but generally you’ll have access to a keyboard anyway, which adds a layer of instant precision. Out and about, and you’re going to have to talk over the general chatter and noise of the world, which means relatively loud. All of a sudden, you’re getting Siri to calculate the interest on your home loan, or noting the times of your medical appointments in public. Most of us would rather keep that stuff private. There’s no easy way around that — it’s decidedly a public perception problem rather than a technology one.

Steve Jobs passed away recently, just a day after Apple announced the latest in its highly successful line of smartphones, the iPhone 4S. But what will his legacy be? I’ve had a number of people ask me that in the days since he passed away, curious as to whether he was (as some have put it), the modern day equivalent of say, Edison, or just a very good salesperson.

The fundamental thing to realise is that while Jobs’ name appears on many of Apple’s patents, his real skill wasn’t in invention. He didn’t invent the iPhone, iPod, or even the graphical user interface upon which all consumer computing — whether you use a Mac or PC — is built upon. But Jobs was clearly a man with plenty of vision, some of it uncompromising, as to future trends. He was good at picking what folk would like to do with technology, in other words, rather than specifically fussing about the numbers, frequencies or figures underneath. As an example, the original GUI work was done by Xerox Parc, but it was Jobs who put a lot of Apple’s money behind the first consumer graphical user interface (GUI) idea in the mid-80s. Apple’s first GUI-based computer, the Apple Lisa, was a crushing failure.

Never heard of it? I’m not surprised; the Lisa sold poorly in an era that was dominated by dry command line style computing of interest only to the technically inclined. The Lisa however led to the original Macintosh, and from there the GUI really took off; Microsoft then made it considerably cheaper and more mainstream, and stole a march from Apple in the process. Apple continued to champion easy user computing, and while that’s not for everybody — many folks prefer the near infinite configurability of Android to the iPhone’s tightly locked down iOS, for example — it’s an idea that’s certainly gained Apple market share and a fair amount of income in recent years.

The same’s true in music; the iPod wasn’t the first music player — but it was the first music player that was both easy to use and really easy to look at. Jobs’ vision could often border on myopia; it’s said that he was a terrible boss to work for when things went wrong, and one that was still a lot of work to please in good times.

So what will history judge Steve Jobs on? In many ways it’s a bit too early to tell, but it’s easy to say that his particular vision of personal computing shaped the way we use technology right now. If you’re in the consumer IT market and you can’t make it easy, you probably can’t sell it, and that’s in direct response to the way Steve Jobs pushed Apple through his two tenures as CEO. Not everybody uses an Apple — and for consumer choice and variety, if nothing else, that’s a good thing — but his impact on everyone’s computing is profound.

Jobs’ time as Apple CEO was marked by a profound change in the company; when he regained control of the company having been ousted in the mid 1980s, it was in dire straits, with most observers thinking it would be a mere matter of months before Apple was no more. With a focus on industrial design and cutting back on the number and scope of Apple’s projects at the time, Jobs was able to turn the company into what it is today. In ten short years Apple’s brought industrial design in computing to the fore, be it with integrated iMacs, the ever-popular iPods (which only celebrate a decade of existence this year) or the profound shakeup of the mobile industry that was caused by the iPhone. There’s no doubting that Apple is one of the genuine power players in the IT market, and Jobs can rightly claim a lot of that credit.

But having said that, while Jobs stepping down was news, it was neither unexpected (his illnesses are a private matter, but as a company CEO his medical leaves of absence weren’t, and his successor in the CEO role, Tim Cook, had been acting in that role for much of this year anyway) and neither will it make a huge difference to Apple’s fortunes going on. That’s partly because the CEO role is the only one Jobs is stepping down from; he’s still chairman of the Apple board, a director and an employee. He might not be signing all the pay cheques any more, but undoubtedly his influence will continue to be felt. Equally, Apple’s not a company that moves particularly quickly; it’s likely that the next couple of years worth of projects, including new iPhones and iPads are already more or less set in stone.

At $31.99, Lion’s very cheap for an operating system, but that’s more a function of it being part of Apple’s overall computer strategy. It makes money from hardware rather than software, and while that may be changing with the wild success of the iTunes App store for devices like iPads and iPhones, it’s a slow change, and for now the software’s just an inducement to buy the hardware, the same way that car retailers will offer “free” air conditioning… as long as you buy a thirty thousand dollar car. That kind of price might make it seem like an automatic upgrade option compared to the hundreds of dollars a full version of Windows goes for, but there are still some catches. I’ve had some serious time with Lion now, and while there’s definitely some good stuff in this big cat, there’s also some areas where it’s all too easy to get bitten.

Apple’s main focus in Lion has been to slowly merge the kinds of experiences its customers on iOS devices have with its Mac userbase, and as such, touch gestures are now system-wide. This includes the curious decision to reverse the direction of the scroll wheel to match how your fingers move on an iPhone or iPad; Apple rather optimistically calls this “natural” scrolling, and it was amongst the first things I switched off, which thankfully isn’t too hard.

Not surprisingly, my test Lion system has been quicker than it was before, but I’m still unsure if that’s a function of it being a freshly optimised system; I could well have the same speed boost in a freshly installed copy of Windows. Some applications are definitely perkier; Mail in particular may look drab but runs well and now has search capabilities that make it a pleasure to use. I’m also getting a lot of utility out of the app resume feature, which allows you to shut down the Mac and have every window, application and file spring up as it was the next time you power the system on. Likewise, system-wide autosave is a feature that’s been a long time coming to Macs, and so far, seems to work well.

Then there are the things that don’t work so well. Any Mac users of long standing with older applications may find they work unpredictably, or in the case of any code written for PowerPC Macs, that they don’t work at all. This includes some quite high profile applications, including Microsoft Office 2004; if you’re running that particular version of Office (or any older version), you’ll need to weigh up the cost of upgrading the suite as well as Lion.

I’ve also hit a smattering of application and hardware incompatibilities, some of which will hopefully be ironed out sooner rather than later. One of my multifunction printers works for printing, but hangs trying to scan documents, for example. The solution to this, by the way, for any prospective Lion upgraders would be to check with the vendor prior to upgrading for OS X 10.7 compatible drivers. Thankfully for my purposes I can access the scanner from another system.

So does that mark Lion up as a beast that roars, or a whimpering kitty? I’d say that as a new operating system on balance it does fairly well; I’ve certainly seen the same kinds of issues on new versions of Windows when they’ve emerged, with a mix of fixes and applications left by the wayside. It’s certainly worth doing your homework with regards to applications and hardware to ensure it’s compatible before switching over, but at the asking price if those apps aren’t an issue for you, Lion’s something of a bargain.

It’s worth knowing what a Tablet can and can’t do before you plunk down your hard earned cash. They’re not exactly notebook replacements, generally being less powerful than the kind of notebook you can get for the same money. At the same time, the touch-specific interfaces they sport can be great for quick work and especially media consumption on the go or comfortably around the home. That being said, let’s take a look at the field of contenders.

Apple iPad

Price: $629-$1049 (depending on memory and 3G capability)

Why you’d want one:

Apple’s Tablet still leads the market in terms of available touch-specific applications, and if you’re already an iPhone owner, your applications can be shifted across at no charge — although some will look rather pixellated if they’ve not been iPad optimised. The 10″ screen is clear and works much better for content creation than the smaller Samsung and Telstra tablets.

Why you wouldn’t:

Apple controls all things “i” branded with an iron fist, and this means certain application categories get knocked back. There’s no direct file system access without specific hacking, and the Windows iTunes client isn’t always the most stable. Unlike the Telstra or Samsung tablets, there’s no inbuilt camera or phone functionality.

Samsung Galaxy Tab

Price: $999 or on contract

Why you’d want one:

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is smaller than the iPad with a 7″ display screen. It runs Android 2.2, giving it a wealth of applications, has internal cameras and phone capability. The Australian released model will come with Navigon’s GPS software built in, as well as e-reader capabilities and a dedicated application for the Australian newspaper.

Why you wouldn’t:

The outright price is comparatively very high, considering you could buy the 10″ iPad in almost every configuration for the cost of the Galaxy Tab. There should shortly be contract options for the Tab from most carriers, taking some of the sting out of pricing.

Telstra T-Touch Tab

Price: $299

Why you’d want one:

Telstra’s entry level tablet is priced to go, and the price is the key appeal. It’s an Android 2.1 tablet with plenty of Telstra specific applications, inbuilt camera and an excellent inbuilt mobile Foxtel client, although that will cost you extra to access. If you just want a consumption device, it’s adequate.

Why you wouldn’t:

The T-Touch Tab uses a resistive screen that’s much harder to use than the capacitive screens found on the Galaxy Tab or iPad. Any application that requires a lot of touch will bring with it a lot of frustration, marking this out as best used for passive consumption activities, and certainly one we’d suggest you try before you buy. Some users simply cannot get on with resistive screens without the use of a stylus.  Battery life is less than a quarter of the competing pads, and it’s comparatively a little heavy.

Then again, it’s debatable that Apple’s not that interested in the low-end iPod market either. Sure, they’d still like your cash, that being the basis of any successful business, and there’s still a market for entry level players. But whether the new iPods are particularly worth chasing up, especially if you’re upgrading from an existing iPod is an interesting question. Let’s look at the iPod lines as they now stand.

I’ve never quite seen the point of the iPod Shuffle. Yes, I do understand that it plays music and works with iTunes. It’s just that, iPod branding aside, it’s never done much that other flash based players without screens didn’t do much cheaper. The new Shuffle returns buttons to the face of the player, but that’s something that Apple only got rid of with the revision before the last one!

Then there’s the Nano. The new screens look kind of cute, i’ll grant you, but this is a real tradeoff of functionality. In return for the new looks-like-an-iPhone style screen display, Apple’s ripped out the camera and the ability to play back video on the Nano completely. It’s just a music player, starting at $199, which isn’t that much cheaper than the entry level Touch.

The Touch, I will admit, has had a very nice looking makeover, grabbing the screen that makes the iPhone 4 look so good along with simple cameras on both sides, giving it access to Apple’s FaceTime video calling capability and HD video recording at 720P. It’s a nice bit of kit, but it’s not Apple’s entry level any more. It’s also rather carefully priced against the iPhone 4, which it shares a lot of functionality with.

It seems pretty clear to me that the Touch is the market that Apple wants to shift consumers towards. There’s more money to be made for Apple that way, as it gets a fixed percentage of the App sales for everything that goes onto an iPod Touch, whereas it only gets a percentage of the music sales on an iPod Shuffle or Nano if you buy your music through iTunes. Rip your own CDs — a perfectly legal activity in Australia — and Apple gets nothing.

What do you think? Are the new models enough to get you to upgrade, or will that wait until your existing player dies?

It’s a neat idea in a field that doesn’t see too many genuinely interesting ideas. Putting it simply, printing is sadly boring stuff, and something that most of us don’t care about a jot up until the printer jams or runs out of ink or toner. A printer’s job is a mundane one, and one that it doesn’t get a jot of credit for. For most consumers, the choice in buying a printer often seems to come down to whatever model is the cheapest on the shop floor. Often that’s astonishingly cheap. I’ve seen plenty of last year’s model printers on shop floors for less than fifty bucks, which on first glance seems like a steal.

Often, however, it’s anything but. There’s nothing wrong with the older technology per se, but what can trap printer buyers is both the cost of the ink and the quality of the output. It shouldn’t be a huge surprise to discover that cheaper printers often have worse print quality, especially for things like photo or colour printing.  One of the more interesting figures to come out of the launch I attended was that HP estimates that the era of printers being used for Word Processing predominantly is coming to an end. I’m certain that this doesn’t mean that the humble small office laser should expect a gold watch any time soon, but at a consumer level, things are shifting towards photo and web printing. Once you move from printing characters to how much of a character Uncle Trevor is, the quality of the output becomes a lot more important.

The ink/toner question is the other big “trap” in printer pricing. Buy a cheap printer, and it’s almost certain that the replacement cost for a full set of inks will be greater than the cost of the printer itself. Most (but not all) vendors have moved beyond including half-filled “starter” ink packs with printers, but it’s not environmentally friendly to junk a working printer just to get cheaper inks with a new one. Where you can save money here is in buying the bulk ink cartridges most vendors offer. Look for inks labelled as “XL” or “High Yield” or similar. You’ll pay a bit more for the inks upfront, but when they go through twice as many pages, the cost per page drops, not to mention the number of times you have to go to the shops to get new inks.

Amazon’s Kindle is available in two varieties. There’s the smaller screen US$259 6″ (15cm) Kindle, and the larger US$489 9.7″ (25cm) Kindle DX. Both have the same feature set, so the US$230 price difference just buys you more screen real estate. I’ve listed the prices there in US dollars because that’s what Amazon will charge you for them even though you’re shipping them to Australia. As such, depending on how the currency conversion goes, the price of the Kindle may fluctuate on a daily basis.

The local iPad prices have finally been set in stone. Pricing for the WiFi-only models starts at $629 (16GB), $759 (32GB) or $879 (64GB), while the 3G and GPS equipped version costs $799 (16GB), $928 (32GB) or $1,049 (64GB). As yet, unlike the iPhone, no carrier has said they’ll sell the iPad on a phone-style contract basis, but data plans have popped up starting at $20 for a 30 day expiry period. That’ll get you 1GB of usage from Telstra and 2GB from Optus. At the time of writing, Vodafone had yet to commit pricing, but it’s not a great stretch to suggest they’ll fall somewhere in line with Telstra and Optus anyway.

In the Kindle’s favour, the cost of the device includes lifetime wireless data access for browsing and buying books from Amazon’s Kindle bookstore. Pick a title, and pretty much anywhere in Australia it’ll be sent to your Kindle for quick and easy reading. In the US, the Kindle also offers limited web browsing, and will shortly offer Twitter and Facebook compatibility, but the “International” model doesn’t offer web browsing, so it seems unlikely we’ll get Twitter or Facebook either. The Kindle uses an e-ink solution that mimics the look of real paper — to a certain extent — and uses very little power. Charge your Kindle up, and it’ll last a number of weeks.

The iPad, on the other hand, uses a more traditional LCD display, as you’d find in a notebook or netbook. This has the downside that power consumption is much higher, but it’s readable by itself without any external light source. It’s also a much more capable device, somewhat akin to — but not quite like — a notebook or netbook. It doesn’t come with free lifetime data, but then what you can do with that data is far more wide reaching.

The iPad is somewhat akin to an iPod Touch with a touch of Frankenstein to it, and as such most iPod Touch/iPhone Apps will run on it, save those that need phone or camera functionality. It’s a more complete device in that it’ll handle a lot of simple computing tasks, but only one at a time. Like the iPod Touch/iPhone, there’s no multi-tasking capability out of the box, although the promised 4.0 iPhone software update due later this year may deal with some of those woes.

The iPad’s likely to be more expensive than the Kindle for the foreseeable future, although the difference between the Kindle DX and iPad 16GB isn’t that great after currency conversion and GST are taken into consideration. The Kindle hits the eBook market quite hard and with focus, and if all you’re after is an eBook reader, it’s the one to beat in single use terms. There are plenty of competitors in the wings. The iPad’s an eBook reader, but also quite a bit more, and it’s priced somewhat accordingly.

The most obvious upcoming example of this would have to be Apple’s iPad, but here in Australia we’ll have to wait a while to properly assess how well or poorly it handles the multi-function job of ebook reader, music player, web browser and portable Street Fighter IV machine. Apple announced mid-April that the originally touted “late April” release date was going to slip to late May, because it had sold so well in the US. We’re even meant to be happy about this. The official statement from Apple reads:

“We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason—the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far.”

Yeah, whatever. Some companies are just plain weird.

The iPad isn’t the only converged device on the block, however. The most obvious tech area where converged devices play is in home modems and routers. The combination of router and modem’s something that most vendors have offered for some time, and there’s an emerging trend to add even more functionality to the router, including USB ports for sharing printers or files, VoIP compatibility and even inbuilt displays to give to an instant health check of your network and Internet connection.

Telstra’s also just taken the wraps off its latest converged device, the T-Hub. Looking rather like an iPad on steroids, it combines a DECT wireless phone and base station with a Tablet-style device that can be used for making calls, keeping up with social media contacts, texting and photo display.

It’s a neat idea, and it’s certainly capable of a lot more than a standard phone handset is, but at the same time, it encapsulates the dangers of converged devices. Yes, it’ll do a lot. But it’s limited only to Telstra customers who also have BigPond accounts. It’s limited to the applications that Telstra’s got pre-loaded onto it, and naturally Telstra applications predominate. Quite how well it’ll handle complex Web pages, such as those with forms or Flash is entirely unclear.

Finally — and this is the real catch of a converged tech device — it’s a putting all your eggs in one basket style device. If it goes awry, as tech is wont to do, then there goes your phone line. Your photo frame. Your easy Net tablet.

That’s not to say it’s a bad buy per se. It’s worth balancing the convenience of a converged device — fewer boxes to manage, a single interface to deal with — against the issues that it may introduce if things go wrong, or if you work out that there’s a feature that it doesn’t do as well as a dedicated device may have.

The iPhone and its operating system has been available for a few years now and was developed and launched by Apple, Inc. The Android operating system on the other hand was developed by Google. Google then worked closely with High Tech Computer Corporation (HTCC) to develop the actual G1 phone and it’s hardware.

When it comes to priorities in development, mobile technology continues to be given a very high priority. This is simply because people throughout the world continue to rely more and more heavily on mobile technology. Mobile phones are not just used to make phone calls but increasingly they are being used to connect to the Internet on the go. Whether people are using this to find maps and directions, or to update their status on a social networking web site, mobile phone makers are obligated to provide this technology.

The main feature of both the Android operating system (OS) and the iPhone is the ability to surf the Internet. Both of these phones come with a wide screen and with WIFI capabilities, giving users the option to browse the Internet at leisure. Browsing speeds are reasonable and provide people with great convenience.

The iPhone is highly popular. When it first came out, it offered features that were considered revolutionary for the mobile phone in so many ways. Other phone makers are beginning to catch up but generally speaking they are not there yet. The iPhone is navigated primarily through touch screen technology. Users dial numbers through touching the screen, they send text messages and operate the various applications that the iPhone contains all through screen touch.

From reviewing both the G1 and the iPhone, I would say that the Google G1 does have some advantages over the iPhone however it does not fully surpass the iPhone or its technology. Definitely the keyboard that comes with the G1 is an advantage. Although the iPhone’s touch screen keyboard is fun and new, people are still quite conditioned to using a keyboard when operating computers and I believe that using a keyboard will still be their preference over touch screen technology for some time to come.

The G1 gives its owners access to the battery so that they are free to swap a fresh battery in at will. Although this seems like a fairly basic feature it is not the case with the Apple iPhone. iPhone users have to send their phones to Apple to have their phones replaced and therefore swapping batteries in and out while on the go is not an option. At present, the Android cannot compete with the iPhone’s media player. The iPhone has simply taken the mobile media player to another level and it will take the Android some time to compete with it. Lastly, the design of the iPhone is much slimmer than that of the Android. Slim is always more ideal than bulky. Users want devices that require the least amount of space in a pocket or hand bag.