Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Everything went haywire this week.  From Twitter and GMail going down to some crazy concepts floating around the tubes to more economic woes.  As we careen toward insanity, let me point out the road signs as we go along.  Here are the stops we’ll make today:

• iPhone news seems to make itself
• A far better answer to GMail’s outage
• LG goes both ways
• Netflix love catching on everywhere
• Steve Ballmer, I didn’t give you enough respect

Who is steering iPhone news?

Is anyone else astounded by the iPhone’s grip on our news?  Look at techmeme.com at any given moment and you’ll find a preponderance of stories about the Apple device.  Is that nuts?  Is it crazy that a year and half after introducing the phone, as late as yesterday in Panera people are coming up to me asking me about the iPhone?  Haven’t we had enough?

Apparently not.  With the Pre just a few months away, we’ve got something new to think about: will it be better?  Heck, I’d be happy if something just actually came close.  Appletell’s Jake Gaerke says the iPhone has nothing to worry from the Pre and I disagree.  The Pre’s got the stuff and it is the only “iPhone Killer” I’ve seen.  And I’ve been looking.  Read Jake’s diary entry er, love note, er treatise on Apple need not life a finger then read my piece poking fun of Jake and pointing out that the Pre is something to be reckoned with.  You tell me who is on crack.

GMail goes down ‘cause it is ugly?

Our mighty editor Iyaz nominated me for outing a far more interesting - if not fanciful- explanation for GMail’s outage this week for a a couple of hours.  Sure I said it should be blamed on an ugly color scheme created by one user but in Google’s cowardice they blamed some hapless code monkey.  I like my story far better than the official line.  Good thing there is no drug testing here….

LG sports a strap on

I’ve tried to stay away from this story.  The concept hurts my small brain as I just don’t get it.  Question: where is your bluetooth earpiece right now?  If you are like me, your answer is, “I’ve no frickin’ idea.”  I lose everything.

Now LG and Verizon want me to lose a keyboard for their new Versa phone, as reported by our Shawn Ingram.  The phone looks like your average dumb touchscreen phone but can be detached from the keyboard wallet type case.  The phone has on onscreen keyboard for when you desire a thin offering but for those times when it is ok to be fat (not phat), plug it into the wallet.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.  I can’t imagine someone saying, “this is awesome.”  I dunno, maybe I am not part of their demographic on this, but it just seems like extra fluff.  I liked the idea of dropping a small phone into something like this idea.  I’d still lose all that stuff too though.  Fun fact: that link has the distinction of being the only post that comes up in Gadgetell search if you type pterodactyl.  Sweet.

Netflix: too awesome for its britches?

Iyaz pointed out you can’t get away from Netflix, be it the NY Times or RottenTomatoes or the awesome Now Playing iPhone app.  They are working overtime on embedding themselves in everything.  And it is working.

I am totally hooked on instant watching via my TiVo HD.  This month, I’ve watched more movies instantly than via mail.  That is a good thing for Netflix (less overhead) and now Vince Pane tells us they plan to capitalize on it by offering streaming only plans.  Fantastic idea! 

Originally, I was worried Netflix was giving too much away by offering the instant view for free.  After all, I’d pay something additional for the service on top of my DVDs through the mail.  They’ve carefully built a fire, thoughtfully laid out the kindling, and now they are moving into thowing some logs on with the stream-only plan.  Good for them.

Now just add more movies and on-screen navigation vs. only going through movies I’ve already added to my instant queue and this thing comes off the rails.  Can you root too hard for this company?  I think I am in love.

Señor Ballmer, good call.

This week, Jodie told us about Mr. Ballmer talking about seeing Google as a threat on netbooks.  Smart move.  If Android is a their sneaky way to creep into computing devices, then well played Google.  It makes some sense and being free, has some power behind it.

I’ve been saying for a while, Microsoft should have jumped in front of this netbook craze with a new brand of OS specifically for the platform rather than just merely agreeing to extend XP’s life.  Mentioning Android by name in public is an interesting move.  Ballmer mentioned Apple as a player too, but Apple’s said, “we are just watching” for some time now and may have missed the peak in these tiny offerings.

Perhaps Microsoft is off the rock.  What’s that? Windows Mobile 6.5 still isn’t here? Oh, nevermind.

See you next week, crack heads.