Best Video Of New Sony Reader So Far

He goes into details the other videos — and I’ve just about seen all of them now, so far — haven’t. Including the mysterious Contrast control!

Worth watching!

Link to his posted review.

Offhand it looks to me, based on what I’ve seen of speed, the 350 is just a shrunken 650, minus some bits (like card slots and audio playback). If this is true, Sony finally did it right and this new Pocket could keep them in the game.

The New iPod Touch Is A Heartbreak

As I stated earlier, I went to the Apple Store to catch up on some fondling as punishment.

This was my first encounter with an iPhone 4 as well as the new iPod Touch (I forgot all about the new iPod Nano and will have to do that later).

I wasn’t thrilled with the iPhone 4. It felt like a machine in my hands. The edges were hard and sharp. It lacked the smooth feel of past models. When Jobs said it felt like an old camera, he wasn’t kidding! But I think he meant that in a good way. I do not.

I wish there was someone at Apple who could overrule Jobs when it comes to iBooks. Pagecurl on the iPhone 4 is a miserable experience, introducing a delay when there shouldn’t be. If I’m going to have to wait that long to get to the next damned page, I might as well be using an eInk device to read, not a Retina Display!

And with all those extra pixels, did I miss something or is iBooks really offering only two typeface sizes?! Srsly? [Update: See Comments.]

I guess if I had owned past models of the iPhone I’d have a better reference point to judge speed. But it just didn’t overall seem like a big deal to me. I know it’s pushing MOAR pixels, but so what?

As for the iPod Touch … I’ve waited years and years and years for a model with a camera. And when Apple finally puts one in, it’s a rotten crapcam!

See samples after the break.

Sony Says: Go Away, You iOS People!

To punish myself for making a stupid stupid stupid error in a post yesterday, I stopped in the Apple Store this morning to punch myself in the eye with the Retina Display of the iPhone 4, the new iPod Touch, and to lash myself with more kitten-delayed iPad fondling.

And I discovered Sony is asleep at its own website!

Calling up the Sony Reader site with mobile Safari gives a site with information about only the prior models!

See screensnaps after the break.

Fondle: Velocity Micro Cruz Reader

Let me cut to the chase immediately: Stay the hell away from it!!

I went into Borders with the hope of fondling one of the new models of Sony Reader.

Instead, they had the Velocity Micro Cruz Reader on display, and it was as functional as it ever will be.

Fondle: Barnes & Noble Nook

I went in search of a Kindle 3 at Best Buy and wound up finally encountering a functioning Barnes & Noble Nook.

It was alive, not a demo model, and hooked up to WiFi! Wheeee!

It didn’t, you know, have any damned sample books on it, so I had to satisfy myself with tooling through the menus, playing with the touchscreen, page turn controls, and reading typo-filled descriptions of books available for purchase.

But, there was a big surprise in store for me. This Nook was running version 1.4 of the software. And, BAM!, it had a beta web browser in it!

See some pics after the break:

In Search Of … Spangler’s Rubicon Office Side Window

Oh yes, I got the picture. What kind of honorary API operative would I be without it?

I had to stand alllll the way back there for the angle.

But via the magic of 8 megapixels and cropping, I have the picture proof.