Apple posted O-ficial product shots of iPhones and iPads with rules on how you’re allowed to use them.

I talk lots of shit about Microsoft’s software, but they’ve been producing solid hardware products for a long time now.
This Apple/Android-compatible tablet keyboard looks interesting:

via The Verge

One of the smaller bits of Apple news from yesterday was Apple retiring the iPod Classic.
But the end of the click wheel? Not so fast.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the Wheel lives on except now it’s called the Digital Crown:

BGR: Samsung continues to explain how hard it is to make an iPhone 6 ‘killer’:

After explaining a few days ago how hard it is to make an iPhone 6 “killer” – the partially metallic Galaxy Alpha is considered Samsung’s response to the incoming 4.7-inch iPhone 6 – Samsung is back with more marketing nonsense in a second post on the company’s blog that further explains the way Samsung designed this new phone.
Just stop, Samsung. You’re just making yourself look more pathetic.
Also, the bezeled edge on the new Galaxy Alpha couldn’t look like more of an iPhone 5 ripoff.

via BGR

How awesome is the Surface 3?
All you need to know is that there are now docking stations on sale. Right now!
Because, you know, that’s what I look for in a tablet.
A fucking docking station.

Tom Hanks isn’t letting go of skeuomorphism with his new Hanx Writer iPad app. It mimics an old time-y typewriter.

Chamfered edges on the new Samsung Alpha?
Christ, Samsung. You really don’t have any shame.
At all. None.
Apple iPhone 5/5S, September 2012 (chamfered edges introduced in 2012):

Samsung Galaxy Alpha, August 2014:

Was former BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins actually right about tablets? While we laughed at Heins’ prediction last year that tablets would be dead in just a few years, there’s now some evidence to suggest that he might have been onto something. In an interview with Re/code, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly says that tablet sales at his stores have been absolutely plummeting this year while PC sales have actually experienced a rebound in the wake of Windows XP’s demise.

“Tablets boomed and now are crashing,” Joly tells Re/code. “The volume has really gone down in the last several months. But I think the laptop has something of a revival because it’s becoming more versatile. So, with the two-in-ones, you have the opportunity to have both a tablet and laptop, and that’s appealing to students in particular.”
—Brad Reed, Former BlackBerry CEO’s bold prediction might actually be coming true
The era of tablets is over? I say no fucking way. Especially for non-professionals who don’t need all the extra complexity that comes with laptops.
Only time will tell.
Update: It always helps to read the source of the information you’re reacting to.
So here’s what Walt Mossberg at Re/Code asked Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly:
You said the tablet had “crashed.” Do you believe it’s going away?

Yeah, “crashed” is a strong word. So, the tablets have been an unbelievable phenomenon. I don’t think there’s a category that ever took off so quickly and so big in the history of tech.

The issue has then been that, once you have a tablet of a certain generation, it’s not clear that you have to move on to the next generation.
This I agree with this 100%.
Last year I upgraded to an iPad 3 from an iPad 2, and despite the lower resolution screen, I was ok with my 2. I don’t want to have to upgrade my iPad every year.
My iPhone? Now that’s a different story. My iPhone is much more integral to my daily life than my iPad. I also don’t expect as much from my iPad. I use it mostly for reading, watching videos/movies and surfing the Web.

If you’ve been to big events or company parties lately, you might have taken animated-GIF shots in a PHHHOTO booth.
Well, it’s not so much a booth as it is an iPad on a tripod with a circular, photography light around it. Once you take your GIF, you can choose to have it texted to someone. The party my company had earlier this year had the GIFs on rotation and projected on the wall of the gallery we rented.
PHHHOTO is the brainchild of HYPERHYPER, an experimental design/software studio in LA & NY. One of the co-founders is actually an old friend of mine from high school and my former East Village roommate, Russell Armand.
A few days ago, HYPERHYPER released a free, PHHHOTO iPhone app and the best way to describe it is Instagram for animated GIFs. When you choose to take a picture, it takes a burst of 5 photos. From there you only have the filter options of color or black and white. Nice and simple. Like Instagram, you can follow other people and there’s also a count of the number of PHHHOTO parties you’ve been to (you can book an event at phhhoto.com/pro).
Try it out, it’s a lot of fun (I’m combustion on PHHHOTO).

Jimmy Kimmel dupes people into thinking a $20 Casio watch is Apple’s new smartwatch. Well done.
There has to be something in the LA smog that causes people to be morons.
I lived in LA for one year, so I was likely contaminated as well.

via The Verge

From BGR this morning:

One of the main features Windows 9 is expected to offer users is the return of the Start menu, which Windows users are anxiously waiting for, and Myce has obtained new screenshots showing it. Initially expected to arrive in Windows 8 Update 2 that’s said to launch on August 12, the Start menu is now said to only be ready next year, when Windows 9 “Threshold” is released.
So this is where we’ve gotten to with Microsoft rumors. Outside of the massive layoffs, the only exciting product leaks involve a nearly 19-year-old software feature—the Start Menu.
Contrast this to Apple, where everyone is expecting a new wearable device this fall, and competitors have been scrambling to launch their own versions (regardless of how half-baked they all are), a new, bigger (thinner?) iPhone is expected and everyone was blown away at the number of new software announcements at WWDC 2014 for both OS X Mavericks and iOS 8.
Maybe next decade, Microsoft.

I have to say, this is a sharp looking battery case.

BGR.com headline: Motorola explains why it made the Moto 360 so sexy
The Moto 360 is a sharp looking hardware/software combination, but I can’t get past the fact the display is not actually a circle. No, you see that sliver of black at the bottom of the display? Yeah, that’s where the display ends:

Tell me this: How does a company release a product, where the whole premise is the fact that it’s display is a circle but not actually make the display a complete circle?
That sliver of non-screen is an eyesore, like Christian Bale’s eye wart. Oh, you didn’t know about his eye wart? Now you’ll never not see it.