All posts by Tim Anderson

Review: Audéo Perfect Fit earphones

Audéo Perfect Fit earphones are designed to replace the set you got bundled with your smartphone or music player. The earphone set includes a microphone and a standard multi-function button, so that on an iPhone or many other phones you can answer or decline calls, pause and resume music, or skip to the next track.

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There are a few unusual features. One is the shape of the earbuds, which have a distinctive “leg”. In order to fit them you first attach one of a range of silicone or foam ear tips. Then you place them in your ear with the legs pointing up and forward, and the cable draped over the back of the ears. It sounds fiddly, but it is easy enough in practice, and gets you a secure and comfortable fit.

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The supplied manual does an excellent job of explaining fitting. There is also an optional ear guide which adds a shaped cable clip that hooks over your ears. This was not supplied with my review package, the PFE 02x, but does come with the more expensive PFE 12x or can be purchased separately. I found the fit was fine even without the clip.

The extra accessories, including the audio filters described below, are a point of confusion, as the manual in the PFE 02x lists them under “Package contents” even though they are not supplied. No doubt some customers complain that parts are missing; I would have done the same, except that I checked the product web site and external packaging which correctly shows that the only accessories in the PFE 02x pack are the silicone ear tips.

The next special feature is that each earbud is fitted with a passive audio filter, which can be changed according to preference. The PFE 02x comes with a single green filter, which you can see in the picture above, while the PFE 12x comes with gray and black filters and fitting tool.

The colours are significant. The black filters are said to amplify bass and high frequencies (what audiophiles call boom and tizz). The gray filters are meant to emphasize mid-range frequencies, while green are described as offering “perfect bass”.

According to Audeo:

In-house studies have shown that, when headphones exactly reproduce the response curve of the unobstructed ear, most people hear the sound as being very aggressive.

The response curve of Audéo PFE in-ear earphones is a compromise between a frequency range that compensates for the curve of the unobstructed ear and one that emphasizes bass and high-frequency sounds. This is what most people prefer.

In order to cover the widest possible range of user preferences we offer three audio filters.

Unfortunately the only filter I have tried is the green one supplied with the PFE 02x. However I am a little doubtful about the above explanation. The goal of hi-fi reproduction is neutrality, so that you hear whatever the musicians and engineers who created the sound intended. I appreciate though that when it comes to earbuds used on the move in all sorts of noisy environments, it does not makes sense to be purist about such things. Further, it is not realistic to expect earbuds to deliver the kind of bass you can get from full-range loudspeakers or even from high quality over-the-ear headphones, and indeed this is not the case with the Audéo. Still, what you care about is not the theory but the sound. How is it?

I carried out extensive listening tests with the Audéo earphones, comparing them to a high quality Shure earbuds as well as to a standard Apple set. My first observation is that the Audéo earphones do fit more snugly and securely than either of the others I tried, when fitted correctly, and that this close fit goes a long way towards obtaining a better and more consistent sound.

Second, I soon identified a certain character to the Audéo sound. In comparison to the Shure, the Perfect Fit earphones are slightly softer and less bright. On some music this was a good thing. I played My Jamaican Guy by Grace Jones, which has a funky beat and bright percussion. On the Shure the track was a little harsh, whereas the Audéo tamed the brightness while still letting you hear every detail. With Love over Gold by Dire Straits though, which is already a mellow track, I preferred the Shure which delivered beautiful clarity and separation, whereas the Audéo (while still sounding good) was less crisp. Daniel Barenboim playing solo piano sounded delightful though with slightly rolled off treble.

I did feel that both the Audéo and the Shure improved substantially on the Apple-supplied earphones, as they should considering their price, though even the bundled earphones are not that bad.

The strength of the Perfect Fit earphones is that they never sound bright or harsh; I found them consistently smooth and enjoyable. The sound is also clean and well extended, considering that they are earbuds. Isolation from external sounds is excellent, which is important if you are a frequent traveller.

The weakness is that they do in my opinion slightly soften and recess the sound.

That said, it may be that the other filters give the earphones a different character, and if you have the pack with a choice of filters it would be worth trying the variations to see which you prefer.

I may have been imagining it, but I felt that the earphones sounded particularly good with Apple’s iPhone.

Conclusion: a good choice, especially if you like a slightly mellow and polite presentation. If possible I recommend that you get the more expensive packs that include a case as well as alternative filters and the optional ear clips.

   

Kingston Wi-Drive: portable storage expansion for iPad and iPhone

Kingston has announced availability of the Wi-Drive. This product addresses an annoying limitation of the Apple iPhone and iPad: no USB port for external storage devices.

The Wi-Drive overcomes this by connecting wirelessly. It offers 16GB or 32GB of solid-state storage, with USB for charging and for access to the files from a PC or Mac. When you are on the go, you can put the Wi-Drive into your pocket. A free app on the iPhone, iPad or iTouch lets you access the files. The use of a network bridging means you can still access the internet. Battery life is said to be up to 4 hours, so I hope you can switch it off when not needed. You can also share the drive with up to three other users.

Example prices are £89.99 for the 16GB or £124.98 for the 32GB version.

It is a clever solution. That said, I have a couple of reservations. One is that the price is high compared to a simple USB device of the same capacity. That is not unreasonable given the extra technology needed, but it means it will only sell to users who really need it.

And do you need it? If you are on the internet, you could use a file synchronization service like Dropbox, or Apple’s own iDisk or forthcoming iCloud, to extend storage instead.

A second problem is that iOS does not expose its file system to the user. This means that external storage is less convenient on iOS than on other systems. Want to save a Pages document from iOS to the Wi-Drive? You probably cannot do so directly; there is no way to save direction to Dropbox either.

The Wi-Drive only exists because of Apple’s desire to control and supposedly simplify the operating system. It is a workaround, but not a perfect one, although that is not the fault of Kingston.

That said, I have not yet tried a Wi-Drive; I hope to bring you a proper review in due course.

An iOS security tip: tap and hold links in emails to preview links

Today I was using an iPad and received a fake email designed to look as if it were from Facebook. It was a good imitation of the Facebook style.

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In particular, the links for sign in look OK.

Outlook on Windows displays the actual link when you hover the mouse pointer over the link. As you can see, in this case it is nothing to do with Facebook:

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How do you do this on iOS? There is no mouse hover (though it could be down with a proximity sensor) but if you tap and hold on the link, iOS pops up a dialog revealing the scam:

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Worth mentioning as tapping and holding a link to inspect it is not obvious and some users may not be aware of this feature.

The iPad is still worse than Outlook for email security. Outlook does not download images by default. Downloading the image tells the spammer that you have opened the message:

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The iPad mail client downloads all images.

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In mitigation, most malware on web sites will not run on iOS. However you could still give away your password or other information if you are tricked by a deceptive web page or fake login.

Hiding links is a feature built into HTML. The designers of HTML figured out that we would rather see a friendly plain English link than a long URL. Unfortunately this feature, and related ones like the ability to make an image a link, play into the hands of the scammers and it is necessary to look at the real link before you follow it.

A better solution would be authenticated email, so that fake Facebook emails would be detected before they are displayed. Unfortunately we are still a long way from using authenticated emails as the norm.

Amazon.com offers U2 band members for sale

The last throes of physical media for music has spawned the appearance of fabulously expensive box sets which include a little bit of what fans want – like rare concerts, outtakes or new surround mixes – and a lot of what they probably will look at once and put away for ever, like paper memorabilia, badges and trinkets. In many cases vinyl records are included. It is all in the box, so if you want that little something, you have to get the lot, even if you do not have a turntable.

An example is David Bowie’s Station to Station box set, currently £96.92 at Amazon’s UK site, which has badges, vinyl, cards and a fan club certificate, and is also the only official source for a 5.1 mix of Bowie’s classic album on DVD.

Another is the Who’s Live at Leeds 40th Anniversary Special Edition, which includes vinyl album and single, poster and book, along with the only release on CD of the Who’s 1970 performance at Hull. Originally released at around £80, it sold out and now commands high prices on the collector’s market.

Now it is U2’s turn, and the band or its label seem determined to out-do the others in both unnecessary packaging and extravagant price. The Achtung Baby 20th Anniversary Über Deluxe Box Set, due in October, is £329.99 in the UK or $588.57 on Amazon’s US site. You get a magnetic puzzle box, 6 CDs, four DVDs, 5 vinyl singles, 16 prints, a book, a magazine, badges, a sticker sheet, and a pair of sunglasses.

However, it seems someone at Amazon has a sense of humour. Check the last words of the editorial description:

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Curiously those words do not appear in the UK description.

Monitor your home when away: Jabbakam IP camera service reviewed

About to head off for your summer break? What may happen back home is always a concern; but if you want a bit more piece of mind, how about a live webcam view of what is going on in places you care about?

Of course you can easily purchase a security camera kit from your favourite electronic hobbyist store, but it is not a complete solution. Recording video to a hard drive is all very well, but what if the thief takes a hammer to it or even nabs it? Further, returning home to find two-week old footage of a break-in is of limited use compared to a live alert.

In other words, you need not only a camera but also a service. This used to be expensive, but does not need to be in the internet era. What about a cheap camera that sends images to a web site, enabling you to log in from anywhere and check what is going on? And how about an email or SMS alert triggered by motion detection?

This is exactly what Jabbakam does. The basic kit costs £59.95 and £5.95 per month, for which you get an IP camera and 14 days of video footage stored online. You can also use your own camera if you have a suitable one; the main requirement is that it supports motion detection, enabling the alerting feature, and reducing the number of images that need to be sent to the web service. More expensive subscriptions store video for longer; £13.95 per month gets you 90 days. SMS alerts cost extra.

Developed by a company based in Guernsey, the product is not so much the camera, but rather the web application and service. The camera itself is a simple but well-made affair, with a wall-mountable bracket and a swivel joint that lets you angle it. You can also adjust focus by twisting the lens.

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Under the webcam are ports for wired Ethernet and power.

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Given that the serial number starts YCAM I have a hunch it may be made for Jabbakam by Y-cam.

The camera must be wired to your broadband router. If you are on a business network you may have firewall issues; I tried on my own network and found it did not work behind the firewall, but have not investigated in detail.

So how about the service? I signed into Jabbakam and found that set-up was pretty much IJW (It Just Works). The camera was detected and I could view live images. Video is a slightly generous term, since each image is one second apart, and the quality is not fantastic, but gives you a good idea of what is happening. You can add additional cameras if you want fuller coverage of your home or workplace.

I also set up email alerting. This seems to work well. When the camera detects movement you get an email with a still image attached. Click the link in the email, and you can view the video. There is also an iPhone app that shows recent images. Advanced settings let you schedule alerts, for example to avoid having them active when you yourself are moving around.

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Jabbakam is not just intended for security. The web service also has the concept of networks, which enable you to share your camera with others. The number is small at the moment, but I did see one called Birdboxes of Jabbakam which I guess is for ornithology enthusiasts.

There was one aspect of Jabbakam that I found troubling. A mash-up with Google Maps lets you see where cameras of other users are installed, and clicking on a camera gives you the name and address of the user and a link to send a private message:

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I discovered that this information sharing is on by default:

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This surprised me, as I would have thought that a typical Jabbakam user would be sensitive about sharing these details.

Finally, I should mention that Jabbakam has a RESTful API for developers, though the documentation is incomplete at the moment and the application showcase is empty. Apparently this is being worked on, so watch the space if you are interested.

A good buy? On the plus side, Jabbakam seems to me nicely done, easy to set up, and delivers what is claimed: remote video monitoring of any indoor location. The alert service is particularly useful, though this only works if the camera is pointing somewhere that should normally be motion-free. For example, pointing the camera at a car parked on the street outside your home might seem a good idea, except that the alert would go off every time someone walked by. I should also observe that the supplied camera only works indoors, so it would need to be at a window.

There are questions of course about the effectiveness of CCTV security. Blurry pictures of hooded figures may not do you much good in terms of identifying the villains, though the alert service could be an advantage.

What are the social implications if large numbers of people choose to stick surveillance cameras all over their homes? I am not sure, but it is a question worth reflecting on.

That said, for someone on holiday who would like the ability to check that everything is in order at home, this seems to me a neat and smart solution.

Same price: four eMachine ER1401 or one Apple Mac Mini

This machine at ebuyer.com caught my eye:

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For your £130 you get AMD Athlon Dual Core K325, 2GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce 9200, HDMI out, and Linpus 9.5 Linux. The ER1401 also include wifi, 2 USB ports, S/P DIF digital out, headphone out, wired ethernet, and VGA for a standard computer display.

I probably would not have noticed it, except that I have just purchased a Mac Mini:

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The Mac has plenty to offer over the ER1401 of course. There is not only the slick new OS X Lion OS, but also a Thunderbolt port, Bluetooth, 4 USB ports, twice as much hard drive space, memory upgradeable to 8GB rather than 4GB, FireWire 800 port, and an SDXC card slot.

Linux is free, but if you decided to put Windows 7 on your ER1401 the cost would climb a bit.

Still, it happens that the Mac mini, Apple’s cheapest Mac, is just over four times the price of the ER1401. If you just need a small computer to do some task like playing BBC iPlayer on your TV, or running Squeezebox server, the eMachine model wins the value prize.

Apple’s RAM upgrade prices are extortionate. Save money by buying elsewhere.

Last week I purchased a Mac Mini from the Apple online store.

The Mini comes with a minimum of 2GB RAM, but you can upgrade at purchase. 8GB of RAM adds £240 to the price, 20% VAT included.

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That struck me as expensive, so I purchased an 8GB Kit from Crucial, 2 x 4GB SODIMMs, DDR3-1333 PC3-10600, from Crucial. It cost me £55.19 including VAT though I should have waited: the price today is £49.19.

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If you purchase the upgrade from Apple, you just get 8GB. If you purchase the upgrade elsewhere, you end up with two spare 1GB sticks that you might be able to use or sell for a few pennies.

Upgrading the RAM on a Mac Mini used to be somewhat challenging, involving a putty knife, a certain amount of stress, and likely a few marks on your case. Now it is just a matter of twisting a cover on the underside and takes a couple of minutes.

The ex-VAT price is £200 from Apple versus £40.99 from a third-party. That can be expressed as a 487% mark-up. Of course we need to allow for the skilled engineering work in twisting off the cover and testing the RAM; or maybe Apple does this at the factory and has a pile of pre-configured machines; but then again I am sure Apple gets a better price on its volume RAM purchases than the rest of us can manage.

I would not blame anyone for going the safe route and ordering their upgrade from Apple, so as to be sure it is the correct part, correctly fitted. But Apple is taxing these customers heavily. The Mini is no longer good value with the official upgrade.

One thing in Apple’s favour though. I imagine it could have put some little chip into its official RAM that prevented standard parts from working. At least it has not done that.

Review: Hands On with the HP TouchPad

When I saw HP’s TouchPad on display at the Mobile World Congress last February I thought it looked good and wanted to have a closer look. I have been doing so for the last couple of days. The TouchPad is a 9.7” tablet similar in size to Apple’s iPad and iPad 2. It comes with 16 or 32GB of storage, 1024x 768 display, wi-fi, Bluetooth, dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.2Ghz processor, and front-facing camera. Battery life is up to around 9 hours. The TouchPad runs WebOS, the operating system acquired with Palm, and which seems to form the basis of HP’s mobile device strategy.

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Since a large part of HP’s business comes from selling and servicing Windows servers and PCs, it would make sense for the TouchPad to have excellent support for Microsoft’s platform. Then again, why is it running WebOS and not Windows? There are several reasons. First, Microsoft refuses to allow the Windows Phone 7 OS to be used in a tablet form factor, and the first tablet-friendly Windows OS will be Windows 8 which is not yet available. Second, HP has been down the Windows Mobile track before, and seen Apple takeover the market.

HP has good reason therefore to take a non-Microsoft approach to mobile. However, you can see in the TouchPad the downside of that decision. Exchange support is good, but SharePoint support non-existent. The TouchPad makes a terrible client for Office 365. There is no sign of Microsoft Lync or even MSN Messenger in its messaging account options:

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Why does this matter? Well, in the end the question is why you, or anyone, is going to buy an HP TouchPad rather than one of its competitors. There is a gap in the market for an business-focused tablet with strong support for Microsoft’s platform, and I wondered if HP, with its strength in that market, might fill it with the TouchPad. In this respect it is a disappointment. It is behind Apple’s iPad, which lets me open and save documents from SharePoint via WebDAV, and edit them in Pages or Numbers; and even the iPad is weak in this area.

Look and feel

I hate making constant comparisons with Apple’s device, but it is hard to avoid because it sets the standard at this price level. With its rounded corners and glossy black finish, the TouchPad is OK but feels inelegant and chunky in comparison to the iPad 2. For example, both the iPad and the TouchPad have a single recessed button that acts as a kind of home key. On the iPad it is a round button that fits your finger nicely; on the TouchPad it is rectangular and slightly sharp-edged, and therefore less pleasant to operate. A tiny detail, but one that when combined with others makes the TouchPad feel less well designed.

More seriously, the touch screen seems less responsive than that on the iPad. This may be as much to do with software as hardware, but sometimes taps seem to get lost. I also had difficulty with the screen rotating at the wrong moment; this can be a problem on the iPad too but seems worse on the TouchPad, though you can lock the screen if it gets too annoying. Sometimes the screen flickers slightly; this may be to do with power management but it is unpleasant.

On the plus side, WebOS has a card-based interface that works well. Each app shows as a card when not full screen, and you can flick between cards to select a running app, or flick the card up to close it.

Another plus is the Touchstone accessory which does wireless charging; a great feature though this was not included in the review sample.

Setup

Setting up the TouchPad was straightforward, though I saw more of the spinning wait circle than I would have liked. You are required to set up a WebOS account, but there is no requirement to enter credit card details until the point where you actually want to buy an app. I did twice get the message “we are unable to create an account for you. Please try again in a few minutes or contact HP for help,” but third time was lucky.

My next step was to connect to Exchange. The TouchPad absolutely refused my first attempt because it did not trust my self-signed certificate. By contrast, most devices merely throw up a warning and then let you continue. I fixed this by going to Settings – Device Info, which has a Certificate Manager in its drop-down menu. I copied the certificate to the TouchPad over USB and then installed it.

Exchange worked OK after that, though the mail client is sluggish. I do not know if it is related, but soon after setting up Exchange I got a “Memory critical, too many cards” message and the TouchPad pretty much died, though it revived after a restart.

I also added accounts for DropBox and for Box.net, both of which offer cloud storage and synchronisation.

Finally, I added some music. I installed the beta of HP Play, which is a music player and library manager. Once installed, you can drag music to the HP TouchPad when connected over USB.

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This worked; but with hindsight I was nearly as well off copying MP3 files directly using Windows Explorer. The main benefit of HP Play is drag-and-drop playlist management. You can also set up auto-synchronisation, but I turned this off as I prefer to select what goes on the device manually.

Sound quality on the TouchPad is decent even using the internal speakers. Here is one way in which the TouchPad improves on Apple’s iPad, though the difference disappears if you use external speakers or headphones. Formats supported are DRM-free MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, QCELP, and WAV. No FLAC which is a shame.

The printed user guide for the TouchPad is just a few pages, but there is a detailed manual you can download – recommended for TouchPad owners.

Apps

A selection of apps comes supplied with the TouchPad.

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I am interested in Quickoffice, which lets you view a wide selection of document formats, but sorry to find that all documents are read-only. Adobe Reader is also installed. Printing is supported, as you would expect from HP, but my network printer is a Canon and does not work with the TouchPad.

The web browser is based on WebKit and includes Adobe Flash 10.3 but not Oracle Java. The Youtube “app” just links to the Youtube web site – what is the point of that? BBC iPlayer work nicely

Maps is Bing Maps and looks good, with options for Satellite and Bird’s Eye views as well as “Show traffic” which is meant to indicate which roads are busy but did not seem to work for me. You can also get turn by turn directions.

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You can install new apps by going to the Downloads screen and tapping HP App Catalog.

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The selection of apps is weak though, especially in comparison to iPad or Android. HP needs to attract more developers to WebOS; but they will only come if HP can make a success of the devices.

Amazon Kindle is meant to work on the TouchPad but is nowhere to be seen, although it is referenced in the user guide. Apparently it has appeared for US users.

Conclusions

My immediate impression of the HP Touchpad is that it is promising but not yet good enough to win much market share, especially given that the price is similar to that of the iPad. At the time of writing, the TouchPad costs around £400 for the 16GB version, as does Apple’s iPad 2.

That said, there are a few reasons why you might want one of these:

  • Printing to HP printers
  • USB Drive support when attached to a PC or Mac
  • Adobe Flash
  • Multi-tasking with WebOS card interface
  • Wireless charging
  • Integration with HP Pre 3 smartphone
  • Above average sound quality

None of these strike me as a must-have, but there will be scenarios where they tilt the balance in favour of the TouchPad.

The problem with the TouchPad is that it is insufficiently distinctive from Apple’s offering, but its usability and performance is in most respects less good.

The promise is there; but can HP get enough momentum behind the platform to attract a stronger set of third-party apps, as well as fine-tuning the performance and design?

I am doubtful. HP, like RIM, is going to have difficulty maintaining its own mobile platform. In the end it may have to either join the Android crowd, or mend its relationship with Microsoft.

Thanks to Dabs.com for supplying the review loan.

Nokia results: demonstrating the Osborne effect?

Here’s Wikipedia:

The Osborne effect is a term referring to the unintended consequence of the announcement of a future product ahead of its availability and its impact upon the sales of the current product.

The reference is to Osborne Computer Corporation, a pioneer of early personal computers, which announced the next generation of its range long before it was available. Sales of the current model immediately dived, and the company went bankrupt.

In February this year, Nokia announced that it was abandoning its Linux-based MeeGo smartphone OS, then in development, and that Symbian would be reserved for low-end phones. Its future smartphone strategy will be based on Windows Phone.

Now here come the results:

The challenges we are facing during our strategic transformation manifested in a greater than expected way in Q2 2011.

says the release, which report an 11% decline in sales quarter-on-quarter and an operating loss:

In the period from January to June 2011, net financial expense was EUR 74 million (EUR 141 million). Loss before tax was EUR 141 million (profit before tax EUR 632 million). Loss was EUR 261 million (profit EUR 279 million), based on a loss of EUR 24 million (profit of EUR 576 million) attributable to equity holders of the parent and a loss of EUR 237 million (loss of EUR 297 million) attributable to non-controlling interests. Earnings per share was EUR -0.01 (basic) and EUR -0.01 (diluted), compared with EUR 0.16 (basic) and EUR 0.16 (diluted) in January-June 2010.

Would these results have been better, if Nokia had not bet its business on Microsoft’s mobile OS back in February? My guess is that they would. Nokia in effect announced the obsolescence of all its current Smartphone range. Smart device sales are down 32% year on year.

Still, even the Osborne effect does not account for the decline in its sales of feature phones, down 20% year on year and 25% quarter on quarter. This is what Nokia says:

The year-on-year and sequential declines in our Mobile Phones volumes were driven by distributors and operators purchasing fewer of our mobile phones during the second quarter 2011 as they reduced their inventories of those devices which were slightly above normal levels at the end of the first quarter 2011. In addition, our lack of Dual SIM phones, a growing part of the market, until late in the second quarter 2011 adversely impacted our Mobile Phones volumes during that quarter. Mobile Phones volumes were also adversely affected by continued pressure from a variety of price aggressive competitors.

Despite the grim figures though, it is too early to pronounce the failure of CEO Stephen Elop’s strategy. After all, no Nokia Windows Phones are yet on sale. The company must be hoping to hang on until it has a decent range of Windows Phones, and for Microsoft to grow its mobile market share dramatically above what it is currently.

Should Nokia have chosen Android rather than Windows Phone? Android’s extraordinary growth suggests that it should; yet there are signs of significant copyright and patent trouble for Android, and by attaching to Android Nokia would have been a me-too behind more established vendors such as Samsung, HTC, and nearly everyone else.

Should Nokia have persevered with MeeGo and Symbian? Although early MeeGo devices are winning praise, I doubt that the OS would have challenged Android and iOS; but that is open to speculation.

The problem for Nokia is that if it was going to make a radical platform shift, some degree of Osborne effect was inevitable. Adopting Windows Phone could not have been done in secret.

That said, perhaps the company could have been smarter. Rather than laying all its cards on the table, could it have announced a Windows Phone strategy alongside MeeGo and Symbian, adopting a more gradual approach to avoid shocking the market?

It is also worth noting that Nokia’s problems started long before the arrival of the new CEO. What we are seeing now is the playing out of old mistakes, not just the impact of what may be new ones.

However you spin it though, the new Nokia is a lesser thing than the Nokia of old, which commanded rather than followed the mobile market.

Apple’s new Mac Mini ditches DVD drive, promotes App Store

Apple is now selling a new range of Mac Mini computers with Intel Core i5 or i7 processors and a Thunderbolt port.

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There is also an HDMI port for connection to an entertainment system, FireWire 800, 4 old-style USB 2.0 ports – not USB 3.0, presumably to focus on Thunderbolt – and an SDXC card slot.

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There is one thing missing, though, which is the DVD drive. Want to rip CDs, play a DVD, or install an application from optical media? Here’s what Apple says:

With the Mac App Store, getting the apps you want on your Mac has never been easier. No more boxes, no more discs, no more time-consuming installation. Click once to download and install any app on your Mac. But if an app you need isn’t available from the Mac App Store, you can use DVD or CD Sharing. This convenient feature of OS X lets you wirelessly “borrow” the optical drive of a nearby Mac or PC. So you can install applications from a DVD or CD and have full access to an optical drive without having to carry one around.

Of course you can also purchase an external optical drive, though hanging a device like that off the Mini so spoils the attraction of its small size.

By omitting the optical drive, Apple is also promoting its App Store over shrinkwrap software. This is good for usability, and means the user will get the latest version of the application rather than having to update immediately, as is often the case with shrinkwrap installs.

A side-effect though is that more transactions are subject to Apple’s cut of the sale price. Third-party resellers are hammered. Further, Apple gets to approve what software appears in the store.

The desktop Mac is unlikely ever to be locked down like the iOS devices; though it would not surprise me if some future Mac Mini actually does run iOS rather than OS X. Nevertheless, you can see how well this plays into the overall strategy.