So let’s start out with the specs of the Galaxy S3 and see how it compares with the 4S (with iOS 6 installed). So the first thing you’ll notice is the giant 4.8″ screen, with a res of 1280×720, which is an HD resolution. Next is the quad core 1.4Ghz Exynos CPU, coupled with 1GB of RAM. The device is all plastic, but weighs only 4.7oz (of 130g for the non-US people) and is 0.34″ (or 8.6mm) thin. This is compared to an 800Mhz dual core CPU, with 512MB of RAM on the 4S, weighing in at 4.9oz (140g) and is 0.37″ (9.3mm) thin. On paper, the Galaxy S3 has the 4S soundly beat on hardware, especially with that 4.8″ 1280×720 screen, vs the 3.5″ 960×640 screen of the 4S. Hardware aside, what does the S3 come packed with software wise? It comes standard with Android 4.0.4, which is Ice Cream Sandwich. It also comes with Samsung’s “skin” called TouchWiz. Now if you’ve used a Samsung Android device in the past, you’ve seen how terrible TouchWiz actually is. And while Android fanboys will probably laugh at this, I actually really liked TouchWiz, over stock ICS. While I don’t agree with their marketing team saying the inspiration comes from “nature”, it is really nice to use and look at.

As I mentioned before, the first thing you’ll notice about the S3 is the giant 4.8″ screen, and coming from the 3.5″ iPhone, it’s truly gigantic. To be honest, you can almost fit the entire iPhone inside the 4.8″ screen of the S3. I’ll say this, I actually do like the larger screen of the S3, but to a point, which I’ll get to a little later. Turning the thing on for the first time was fast and the setup screen was fairly intuitive, but not as nice as Apple’s. It quickly synced my Google account, so I had all my Gmail, Chrome bookmarks and contacts right there. Now being on the iPhone, I actually use iCloud to sync everything, including contacts. Because of this, I was missing a ton of contacts on the S3 that I had on the iPhone. That is of course no one’s fault but mine, but if you’re looking to switch, it might be one thing you’ll need to look into. I had every intention of switching to the S3 if it could win me over, so the contacts issue was very minor at that. Since Android is so customizable, I got to tinkering a bit. I set a nice live wallpaper, added some widgets and made the screen look pretty nice actually. You can actually see a screenshot of one of my homescreens here. It’s basic, but I think it looks quite good.

If you’re like me, you have all your music in iTunes, because I have a Mac (and of course an iPhone). I had heard about a few applications that could easily sync your iTunes library to the phone. So I bought a couple apps that would do this, but things weren’t exactly pleasant. Since I’m a fan of Japanese music, I have about 960 songs in that playlist, and each song has individual album art. The problem here is, is that since I can’t find Japanese music for legal download, I must rely on 3rd-party sites to get it. Because of that, the site I get the music from has the same album for every single song (Since it’s based on Top20 per week). So I have hundreds of songs that have the same album listed. This isn’t a problem with iOS and iTunes, but it’s apparently a problem with Android because Android sees that single album name and gives that album the same album art for everything. The smart thing to do is to use the embedded album art instead of just bundling one art to one album. Now I see exactly why they do it, because not everyone is going to have hundreds of singles with the same album on it…but why can’t they just use the embedded album art like iTunes/iOS does? My only solution there was, to change the album name of hundreds of tracks, to make Android happy. This would take far, far too long, and not something I should honestly have to do. I understand that probably no one will have this issue, but for someone coming from a certain thing, you’d expect it to be that way or better, not worse. I ultimately gave up on that, and instead just listened to music on the iPhone. Granted, I could have dealt with the wrong album art, but I can know what the song is just by looking at the album art. I tried multiple players, and even told DoubleTwist to use the embedded art, but it wouldn’t work. And that’s a shame, for me, as that glaring of a bug is something that would make me not want to switch.

There are many, many nice things about Android that I like. I love the idea of widgets. I love the idea of having a giant clock on the screen, with my weather right under it. I love that I can have a music widget that shows me the album art (when it’s correct!) and the ability to skip tracks. I honestly love the  4.8″ screen for browsing the web, looking at maps, emails, etc…However, I don’t like holding the 4.8″ screen in my hand. I have fairly large hands, and it was really awkward holding it with one hand. I love that the “smaller” iPhone can be held with one hand and navigate nicely with just your thumb. The S3 has some difficulty with that, a lot of it actually. Where the iPhone sits comfortably in the hand, the S3 is so wide that using your thumb to use it is so awkward. Yes, when comparing the screens, the iPhone’s looks jokingly bad, but actually using it in hand, I much prefer the 4S. Having used the new maps application on iOS6, I went into maps on Android thinking it would be far better, but sadly, I was wrong. The actually “mapping” may be better, but the look and feel of maps on Android was just subpar at best. One thing that I’ve always hated about Google Maps was that with traffic enabled, it’s very difficult to actually see the street names here. On Android, it’s no different. Being from LA, there’s always traffic issues here, and in my area, the maps on Android were just covered with red and yellow lines across the screen. I couldn’t actually see what the street name was, or any detail, it just gets lost. While traffic isn’t working 100% under the iOS6 beta, their implementation is far better looking than Android’s. I also love navigation far better on iOS than on Android. Sure, Android had it first, but Apple made it much nicer. Plus the “Siri” voice sounds far better than what Android has on theirs.

I like beautiful, elegant things, and that’s what Apple strives to make. Android, while very nice is some aspects, is just so clunky. When you’re browsing the web, it doesn’t have the “press the status bar to jump to the top of the page”. Now Samsung has added a gesture called “Tap to top”, but I honestly could not get that working at all. If it doesn’t work the first time, that’s a fail; and if it doesn’t work system wide, that’s a double fail. Also little subtle things that are missing are the rubber banding in windows. Meaning, if you’re at the top or bottom of a page and you pull up or down, the window will come with you and rubber band back up. Sure it’s silly, but it’s actually nice. One thing that annoyed me was that when using Chrome, not only did it eat battery life, but it also ate RAM like it was starved. I had two tabs open, one tab I was browsing a 75-page thread on XDA-Developers and that tab just ate RAM like crazy. While there is 1GB of RAM on the system, there’s only about 780MB for the user; or about 256MB more than the iPhone. So after finishing the 75-page thread, the system choked so hard. I pressed the home button, and it took ~5 seconds for the icons to appear. Scrolling in the window was so chuggy, I’ve never once had Safari on iOS be chuggy, even on betas. Which has me think, is quad core and 1GB of RAM actually better than the dual core, 2GB of RAM on the US models? I think I’d honestly rather have the 2GB, rather than the two extra cores. One thing I didn’t mention about the iTunes syncing, was that it didn’t sync every single song I have. So out of the 960 songs in the playlist, it transferred maybe 850 of them. Not bad, but why didn’t it sync all of them? One major thing I missed from iOS was the ability to tweet or post to Facebook straight from the notification bar. I’m sure I could get a widget for both, but with iOS, it’s right there, no additional anything.

It’s little things that make me like iOS so much, and even though the system is “locked down” I still find it better than an entirely open Android. It’s the same reason why I use a Mac instead of Windows. Sure Windows lets me do a lot of things, but day to day tasks are far worse than on OS X. And that’s what Android feels to me, Windows. There are a lot of nice things about Windows and there are a lot of nice things about Android, however there are far nicer things (imo) on the iOS/OS X side of things than Windows/Android. That’s not to say that I hate Android, or will never use it again, but right now iOS still has my heart. Things could get better once Jelly Bean gets released, but I’m not holding my breath. I’d rather not have to hack a phone just to get it useable, whereas iOS is just fantastic out of the box. I can take a picture on my iPhone and have it show up on my iPad and Mac when I get home. That’s just slick. That being said, I’m going to be giving this Galaxy S3 to my friend as an early birthday present, as he deserves it. But for me, iOS still reigns supreme in terms of usability and functionality. Ultimately, I’d love to see a 4.5″ screen on the iPhone and use that as as my GPS with the beautiful maps app, oh and I’d love to have widgets on iOS, they’re just really nice on Android.

The rMBP comes in only one size, a 15″ screen, but comes with an insane 2880×1800 resolution. To put things into perspective, the 27″ Cinema Display or iMac come in at 2560×1440. With that resolution (2880×1440), the PPI (pixels per inch) turn out to be about 220. That’s obviously not as high as the 326 of the iPhone or the 264 of the new iPad, but you use the computer further away from your eyes than the iPhone or iPad. Because of that, 220 pixels per inch look just fantastic. I also have the 2011 17″ MBP as my last computer, so comparing the lovely 17″, 1920×1200 screen will be very difficult to do. However, even though I made a lot of mods to the 17″, I’m very confident that I don’t completely miss it. First thing you’ll notice about the rMBP is that everything just looks big. This is because even though the resolution is 2880×1880, the actual screen real estate is actually one of 1440×900, but pixel doubled. So coming from the 1920×1200 screen, I was a bit miffed. All is not lost though, the rMBP allows you to “scale” to 1920×1200 and have more desktop space. The only problem with this is that Apple says this will have performance issues. The technical reason behind this is that the OS renders everything at 3840×2400 on the GPU, then downscales. Not quite sure why it does that, but I do notice “some” performance issues. This could be because of the beta of Mountain Lion I’m using (more on that in a bit), or just that the GPU is having a hard time keeping up with that high of a res. While the text and “everything” look simply amazing at “1440×900″, I really miss the screen real estate that’s allotted to me in 1920×1200. I will say that even at this scaled resolution, it still looks far better than normal 1920×1200 on my 17″.

The screen isn’t the only good thing about the rMBP. My 17″ weighs just over 8 pounds with the add-ons I’ve made to it. 8 pounds may not sound like a lot, but when you’re lugging it to and from work, it can get mighty heavy. With the rMBP it weighs just 4.46 pounds. This is a dream to have, and just double the size of the Air. The actual thickness of the MBP has shrunk about 25% too, which compared to the 17″, that’s quite a bit. The rest of it consists of Ivy Bridge CPU, 1600Mhz RAM, USB 3.0 and dual Thunderbolt ports. Now Ivy Bridge isn’t vastly faster than Sandy Bridge, but it’s what gets added under the hood that’s most appealing. USB 3.0 is a welcomed change, especially when USB 2.0 maxes out at around 30MBps. That may seem fast, but when you’re copying 100+ GB in a TimeMachine backup, it can take forever. Average speeds with USB 3.0 are around 150MBps, which as you can tell, is vastly faster. Now hardware changes aren’t the only thing that is different, Apple also tweaked the fans so they’re much quieter. After about a week using it, I can honestly say that I have yet to hear the fans. This is after watching YT videos for a good 30+ minutes. That on the 17″ would sound like a jet engine after 2-3 minutes. Another good thing, is that thermals have been incredibly reduced. With the 17″, I could barely keep it on my lap without it getting very hot. With the rMBP, I can have it on my lap, bare skin and not feel anything sort of warm. Before, I would stick to the iPad to browse the web while watching TV or the like, but now I can use this no matter what. That’s not to say that if I tax the CPU to 100%, the fans won’t go on, and it won’t heat up. But under the same circumstances on the 17″, the fans would turn on and it would heat up to insane temps. Right now, the CPU is idling at 34C, which is downright cold. The 17″ is at 56C.

Is the rMBP for everyone? Not by a long shot. People will still be miffed by the 15″ screen and the “1440×900″ resolution. However, with the scaled 1920×1200, I don’t see a problem anymore. Having used Mountain Lion (10.8) since February, I’ve grown accustomed to how well it works. I was a fan of Lion when it came out, and liked Snow Leopard, but I can honestly say that I love using Mountain Lion. It’s not the big features that win me over, it’s the little things and the things behind the scenes that make it so pleasurable to use. I won’t go into the things that have changed, or how it’s better, but I will say that I really enjoy using it. That behind said, Mountain Lion on the rMBP isn’t quite there yet. Since using it on the 17″ for so long, it’s been butter smooth in every aspect. This however, is not exactly buttery smooth. The most recent build (Developer Preview 4.1) make things a lot better, but still not quite there. Safari scrolling is a bit chuggy, as is Expose/Launchpad. I will take it to the fact that this isn’t a final version and that the rMBP is so new that they haven’t optimized it fully. I have all the confidence in the world that Apple will make Mountain Lion run like a dream on this thing. It’s due in late July, so we have a month of “waiting” before it’s released.

The rMBP isn’t cheap, but the base model is only $2,199 USD. That may sound like a lot, but look at any other model computer out there and tell me that one looks as nice, runs as nice and is cheaper. I can honestly say that there clearly isn’t one out there. For $600 more, there’s a 2.6Ghz and 512GB SSD option. However, these models only come in 8GB RAM options, with the only place to get 16GB of RAM being the online store. If you want 16GB (and I highly, highly recommend it), you’ll need to wait the 3-4 weeks for delivery. 16GB of RAM is far worth the $200 additional, especially since the RAM is soldered in. This computer is one that you will use for a years, or until Apple comes out with something far better. It’s best to spend the money and get the 512GB/16GB RAM model. Best to think ahead then be stuck with less than you wanted. If you honestly don’t see yourself using more than 8GB of RAM, or 256GB of disk space, then save the $600+tax and get the base. But if you’re like me and like to use your computer the way you want, don’t skimp out. While I don’t normally give scores out, I’d honestly say it’s a 9/10. Hell, The Verge gave it a 9/10 too!

On a side note, I’m going to be testing the international version of the Galaxy S3 and comparing it to the iPhone 4S with iOS 6 installed. It will be certainly interesting to see how it stacks up!

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used Android (I owned, and rooted a Nexus One way back when), but something just turns me off about it. All my friends at work have Android phones (or iPhones), and there isn’t a day where I hear one of them complaining that their phone app on the phone crashed and completely froze it. In the 5 years that I’ve owned an iPhone I can honestly say that I’ve never had this problem, at all. Why do people put up with this? Someone calls you, and the phone app crashes? That’s pretty terrible if you ask me. Say what you will about Apple’s walled garden, but I do know that I don’t have to worry about the phone app crashing while I’m trying to make or receive a call. I haven’t honestly come across an Android phone that just works, at all. I’ve gone into AT&T and Verizon to play with the various phones that are available, and not one of them can hold a candle to the iPhone in terms of complete user experience. If you have read any of my articles before, you can easily tell that I know way around a computer and tech in general; but there’s just something about having a device that just works exactly how it should without having to do anything at all to it. It’s not that I don’t know how, or anything like that, I just don’t want to. I’ve jailbroken my phone and it’s way too much of a hassle than I honestly want to deal with.

Don’t even get me started on fragmentation with Android. Ok, please, get me started on it. This essentially means that not every phone will get the latest version of Android. Essentially, if you bought an HTC Hero awhile back, you’re not going to be getting 2.3 Gingerbread. That is, unless you root your phone and install a custom ROM. That isn’t honestly the half of fragmentation, because even brand new phones don’t come with Gingerbread. Some phones are still stuck on 2.2 Froyo. Now Froyo isn’t that old (2010 I think?), but brand new phones are still coming out with this OS. That’s like Apple including iOS 4 on the 4S…it just wouldn’t happen. So why is Google allowing this? Well, Google doesn’t really have much of a say once it’s open sources it’s OS. Once it does that, manufacturers can honestly do what they want with it. They can release any version of the OS that they want, and they can choose to keep upgrading the OS or they can choose to keep at the same versions. Sure, you have the option to upgrade your phone by rooting it and installing a custom ROM, but should we really have to? Granted, iOS 5 isn’t going to be on the iPhone 3G, but that phone is insanely slow (412Mhz processor and 128MB of RAM…I mean come on), so I don’t honestly expect the latest OS to run on it. Another problem with fragmentation is that developers have to develop for all these hundreds of Android devices on the market. Since each and every Android device has different specs, the dev has to compensate for this and include support for every possible device that’s out there. This can not only take more dev time, but also more money.

I don’t honestly get why manufacturers don’t care more about quality, as they simply care about quantity. One thing that going to Apple has shown me, is that quality matters. Quality should be number one over everything else. Android simply just does not have quality written all over it, and that’s sad. The problem honestly lies with Google and them not taking control of the OS that they developed. I’d love to interview Andy Rubin and pick his brain about what he thinks about the lack of quality with Android. Honestly, being too open causes problems. Yes, I wish that Apple could implement certain features in iOS, but I’ll take ease of use and quality every day of the week, over being able to customize everything about my device, but have a lesser quality product. My wish would be that Android manufacturers take a look at what Apple has accomplished under Steve Jobs, and honestly see that quality does matter, and to put a bit more effort into their phones. There isn’t a day when I see a new post on Engadget about a new Android phone that’s in development. Seriously? Give it a break guys. You buy a new Android phone and two months later, it’s already outdated. Hell, I buy an iPhone and I get to keep that for a year and get a much better model next year, knowing that nothing will come out in between to obsolete this model. But this is what makes Apple Apple, and why I will always choose them over any other product. Quality means something, and it should mean more to everyone.

The 3GS looked exactly the same, but it offered a much better CPU, double the RAM (256MB), a better GPU, actual GPS, and a 3.2MP camera. With the 4, it offered a new design, a much, much better CPU, 512MB of RAM, a better GPU, 5MP camera, and an antenna that can cause problems if you hold it incorrectly. Given that the iPhone has been released every year since 2007, the time that has passed since the iPhone 4 has been about 16 months now, so people expected a much better phone given the time it’s taken to release it. Since this is the “speed” update, what’s inside? Let’s go over the differences, that we know about: A dual core A5-based CPU (same as the iPad 2), a dual core SGX 543MP2 GPU (again, same as the iPad 2), an 8MP camera with a 2.4/f aperture, 1080P video recording and video stabilization, a little better battery life, a better designed antenna, HPSA+ 14.4Mbps, Bluetooth 4.0, Siri the voice assistant, and it being a world phone (meaning the chipset supports GSM and CDMA together). So as an owner of an iPhone 4, you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? If you’ve used a 3G and upgraded to the 3GS, then yes it is worth it. The amount of upgrades included are pretty significant if you ask me. Being a current owner of the iPad 2, I can attest to the performance of it. Seeing as how the iPad 2 is a 9.7″ 1024×768 screen, both the CPU and GPU will simply scream on this device.

Probably one of the most exciting changes with the 4S is Siri (pronounced Sear-y), the voice assistant. With the 3GS, they introduced “Voice Control”, which allowed you to control certain aspects of the phone by holding the home button for three seconds and speaking a command. I honestly tried it a bit, but honestly never used it completely. Sure it’s good if you want to change a song or make a quick call, but overall it was extremely limited and didn’t really offer much. Well, in comes Siri. Siri is a technology created by Nuance, which Apple bought in 2010. They had an app on the AppStore (but has since been pulled and existing users have until the 13th to keep using it), and now it’s officially part of the 4S. What Siri offers is a vocal, digital assistant for you to use. So you can ask Siri to make an appointment for you, or remind you to buy a gift for someone, or hell, read back your text messages (and even respond to them!). The amount you can do with Siri is simply amazing. If you don’t believe me, watch the video below and see the amazing things you can do with it:

See what I mean? Being able to have an actual conversation with your phone, is pretty incredible. Not to say that this isn’t creepy at all, or that we should have conversations with our phone, but at least you can do way, way more than you could with Voice Control. Since Siri is only available on the 4S, some have said that it requires 1GB of RAM to work correctly. We don’t honestly know the actual speed of the CPU or how much RAM is actually available, but I believe that it’ll have 1GB of RAM, with the CPU clocked at 1Ghz, or 1.2Ghz. We won’t honestly know until iFixit gets ahold of it next Friday. Next Friday is when it’ll be available, with iOS 5 being available on the 13th. Once the 4S is out, I’ll be sure to put out a review and let you know how everything is. Until then, we’ll have to wait to speculate on how good it is! Oh, and pre-orders are available starting tomorrow at 12:01am PDT.

If you’ve never used WebOS before, and you enjoy pretty things, then you’re in for a treat. WebOS just oozes sex appeal. That’s not to say that iOS or Android don’t look good, but WebOS is just sexy plain and simple. Since this is the AT&T model, it comes with the 3G bands that AT&T support (850Mhz and 1900Mhz), and it also supports 14.4Mbps HSPA+. Everything else about the Pre3 is exactly the same. It sports a 1.4Ghz single-core CPU (would have loved a dual-core, but beggars can’t be choosers), 512MB of RAM (wished it would have a GB, but oh well), 3.6″ WVGA (800×400) screen, hardware keyboard which is pretty nice to use and a MicroUSB charger on the side. So the hardware seems to be pretty great, but how does the OS run? If you’ve ever used the Touchpad before, you may be turned off a little bit by the performance of the OS. I am very pleased to say that the performance of the OS is superb. Nothing ever lags, scrolling is perfect, and I can easily zip along between cards.

If I do have anything to complain about with WebOS, is the browser. Having used iOS since 2007, I’m used to the amazing Safari browser. The browser on WebOS just isn’t up to snuff, and that’s fine. It works just fine in pinches, but I honestly wouldn’t use it for extended web browsing. This is why I have a tablet if I want to do some web browsing. Speaking of the web browser, HP thought it was a good idea *not* to include an orientation lock in the OS. Why is this an issue? Well, how often have you been laying in bed, browsing on your phone? On the Pre3, if you do that, it’ll switch to landscape mode. Landscape more on a device with a hardware keyboard is not a good idea. Hopefully HP (or the homebrew developers) fix this in a patch or an update soon, as it’s next to impossible to browse in bed. Aside from that, are there any other things that annoy me? If you’re *really* big on apps, you’re going to be disappointed with the “App Catalog”. It simply just doesn’t have the apps available. Sure there’s Facebook and a few nice Twitter apps, but games or really big name apps just simply aren’t there. So if apps are your thing, and you don’t want to just use the web browser to access the web versions, WebOS simply just isn’t for you. Me? I’m not 100% big on apps, but there are a few that I wish were available, but I know they’ll never hit. Again, this is also why I have a tablet (iPad 2), so I’m not completely missing out. Are there any apps that I *must* use all the time? No. And during the time I’ve used the phone, I haven’t found myself missing very much.

Call quality on AT&T’s network has been outstanding (surprisingly enough). With the iPhone 4 that I have, it’s pretty good, but not great. With the Pre3, it’s actually really damn good. I had a few hour long conversations and never seemed to have any issues with the audio quality. Speaking of the network, since this phones supports 14.4Mbps HSPA+ (the iPhone 4 only supports 7.2Mbps), I was extremely excited to finally test this out. AT&T likes to call HSPA+ “4G”, even though we know it’s nowhere close to LTE 4G, so we’ll just call it “fauxG” instead. Using the iPhone 4, I can get an average of around 3.2Mbps, with a maximum of around 5.45Mbps. Using the Pre3 (and speedtest.net, since they don’t have a dedicated app), I got an average of 6.7Mbps, with a maximum of around 8.75Mbps. Far, far from LTE speeds, but a nice bump from the regular iPhone speeds. In real world, I’ll never honestly use these speeds (since downloading apps isn’t going to take that much time), and with a 2GB maximum for the month, who really needs these speeds. Ironically enough, since I was using my iPhone SIM in the phone, AT&T caught wind of me using a 3G SIM in a “fauxG” phone, and sent me a text saying I needed a “4G plan”. Because of this, I contacted them about it, and they said they weren’t going to change my plan, and it was simply a warning. They said I needed a 4G plan because I’d get faster speeds and “more coverage”. I don’t see how a 4G plan would give me better coverage, but oh well. Being on an unlimited plan, I wasn’t about to give that up, and just said I was using the phone to write up a review of the phone. Luckily, they let me keep the same plan and said I was fine.

For someone who hasn’t used iOS, or Android before, WebOS would be a fantastic OS to use. But if you’re someone who has used them, there’s a lot to be desired in it’s current state. Hopefully HP either sells WebOS to Amazon, or they actually decide to pick it up again, but as it is, I can’t justify using it over iOS or even Android. If you’ve read my posts before, you know how much I hate Windows Phone, so I can easily, easily recommend WebOS over Windows Phone every day of the week. Don’t get me wrong, WebOS is sexy and hell, the hardware is there, but with the lack of development happening on the main OS, there really isn’t much left life in these devices. Given that the Galaxy S II and the iPhone 5 (4S???) is just around the corner, it’s honestly too little too late for a phone that could have been amazing. Overall, I love it, but I just can’t recommend it to someone who’s never used WebOS before and want to use it as a main phone. Second phone? Sure.

Score:

8.2/10

Let’s say that you just bought an iOS device, like the iPhone and you wanted to sync everything that you previously bought but didn’t have access to your computer to sync. iCloud lets you redownload any and all of your purchased music or applications right to the device. So that means, you can instantly download that favorite song, or download that app you need to have while you’re out on the go. The idea here, is that you can access all of your previously purchased media, straight from the phone, you no longer need a computer. Another great feature of iCloud is that you can now wirelessly backup your phone directly to iCloud over WiFi. While this may not sound like the greatest feature around, it’s great if either you lose your phone or you swap it at the Apple store constantly (or you just buy a new device). You can restore from the iCloud backup, straight from the phone and get it to exactly the state you had it at when you lost it or swapped it out. Personally, I find this feature amazing, because I’ve swapped my phone out at the Apple store at least 4 times with the iPhone 4, and each time, I’ve had to wait until I got home to sync it and get it how I wanted. That’s no longer an issue.

What other amazing things does iCloud offer? Since iCloud is currently in beta (the first beta was released Monday), there’s still a lot that can be added before it’s fall release. However, it’s the potential of what could be that has me the most excited. Imagine that you’re listening to a podcast or a song on your computer and you have to leave. You want to take this podcast/song with you, but you want to pick up exactly where you left off. Right now, you can’t do that at all, without having to seek/scrub through the song or podcast. This detaches you from the experience you were having with the song or podcast, especially for podcasts since you can never scrub to the exact second you left off. What would be amazing is if iTunes can sync your location (either automatically or at request) when you pause the song or podcast, and you can instantly pick right up where you left off on your iPhone or WiFi enabled iPod Touch. This way you don’t have to find your location in a podcast, or start the 13 minute long Tool song you were listening to, all over again. One way that this sort of works, is when you purchase a song (doesn’t seem to be podcasts yet honestly) on your Mac or iPhone (I don’t own a PC so I haven’t tried), it instantly shows up on your other devices. I just bought the song from the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations E3 trailer on my Mac, and seconds later it was already on my iPhone. This I absolutely love, because that means I never have to sync with my computer just to get that song/app I downloaded.

As we mover further into the cloud (which I’m honestly loving if it continues like this) what other forms of syncing would be really great? How about syncing the current open tabs of your browser? Or syncing the exact location on the web page (instead of just starting at the top)? Or your saved games across all devices (Angry Birds or Plants vs Zombies for example)? Granted, Mozilla already did syncing of tabs with Firefox for Android, but that doesn’t mean that Apple can’t. I actually quite like the idea of syncing the location you are in a page, instead of always loading just the top. I say this, because there are certain sites I like to visit that are quite long to read, it’d be nice if I could sync where I am on the page with my iPhone or iPad and pick up exactly where I left off. I really like the idea of starting on your computer, and finishing what you’re doing while mobile, because let’s face it everyone has to go outside sometimes right? I hope one day that I can write some notes down in TextEdit on the Mac, and look at my phone or iPad and find the exact notes there waiting for me, where I can add more content, or edit what’s already there and find the changes at my Mac when I get back. How would you like your IM application to sync your conversation across all your devices? Say you’re talking to a friend on your computer and you have to go out, but you’re still talking to them via IM on your phone. Wouldn’t it be great to sync that conversation, so you can look back at it and not feel like you’ve missed anything? You’re not going to remember what you talked about 10 minutes ago, but if you synced the conversation you would be able to! The possibilities are endless.

There may be some concerns about privacy, but honestly if I post my credit card online (making purchases I mean), I’m comfortable enough to have my data synced with the cloud. Apple has said that iCloud will launch in the fall with iOS 5, meaning they have a good three months or so until it’s released to either add new features or perfect the current ones. I certainly hope they implement at least some of the features I’ve discussed here, because the more data I can sync across all devices automatically, the better. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Apple who accomplishes this, but it certainly will be the most elegant that’s for sure. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next, and I’m a proud supporter of iCloud.

That brings me to my next point, yearly games. Yearly games give you one good thing, the game you love, with less waiting time. But honestly, is a year a good enough time to make a game? The answer is no, or in very rare cases. More and more games are making the yearly cycle, but it’s getting too much now. Let’s take a look at Call of Duty for example. Initially brought out on PC, it’s spawned 7 additional games since. 7. The first two games were amazing, but with CoD2, it brought things that would stay with the franchise through all the 6 additional games. First being infinite respawns. Having played CoD, you may know what I mean. You enter an area with quite a few guys, so your first instinct is to take them out one by one. Well, in this game, as you take them out, a few seconds later, they get replaced, over and over again. The only way to fight this, is to stupidly run past the invisible line and BAM they’re all dead. You don’t have to kill a single person, just run past the line and they’re all dead. This has been like this for each additional CoD game. The second thing is the game engine. CoD used the old Quake 3 engine for it’s base, and each subsequent game has used a “modified” version of the Quake 3 engine called simply “IW Engine”. I’ll admit that Modern Warfare 2 and the original CoD look nothing a like, but at the heart, it’s the same engine. I understand engine development takes time and resources, but when you’re owned by Activision, you have the time and resources. There’s no excuse for your 2011 game, still using code from Quake 3. You can’t quite build a new engine if your game is going to come out within a year, can you? At the heart of it, CoD is the exact same game you’ve been playing since 2005, just different locations, but the gameplay is exactly the same. However, with money grubbing publishers like Activision, innovation will never happen.

Not all yearly games are bad, just look at the Assassin’s Creed series. While it does scare me a bit that AC could turn into CoD, they’ve managed to keep this amazing franchise fun and fresh with each game. With AC: Brotherhood, they brought an amazing story, fantastic gameplay and tweaked the mechanics of what sucked about the previous game. They listened to the complaints about the game, and improved upon them. How many game developers do that? However, AC is coming up on one of the previous things I mentioned, the game engine. The AC series uses the “Anvil” engine for their games, and while they still look nice, it’s been a good 4 years since it was released. If you look at AC: Brotherhood, it’s not the best looking game out there, and textures are the nicest they could be. Granted, I’m nitpicking about this, but as the series progresses, I’d rather them not use the exact same engine from 2007 for each game. I don’t want to see AC 3 using this engine. Unfortunately, some games actually have to come out yearly, like sports games. I understand the need for it, but I don’t like having to pay $60 for Madden each year, while the previous year’s one goes to waste. Do you think a kid is going to pick up Madden NFL 09 from Gamestop, instead of saving to get NFL 12? No. But sports games are also ones that fix the problems (hopefully) of the previous year, and add new features. I can’t 100% fault them for that, but I just don’t like the publisher’s money grubbing ways. There aren’t really any other games that are yearly, but with big titles like Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty being yearly, others may follow suit.

I touched on being innovative previously, but I wanted to go a bit further with it. I recently picked up inFAMOUS 2 for PlayStation 3. While they have added a good amount of new things to the game, I quickly remembered what I absolutely hated about the first game, and why I stopped playing. This is what pisses me off about games, developers playing it safe. inFAMOUS 2 is an open-world game, but unlike other open-world games, they have multiple enemies scattered throughout the world that can quickly kill you before you get to the next mission. While it would be ok if these enemies were either easy to take out, or didn’t cause you to take massive damage, this isn’t the case here. There are usually 4-5 of these enemies at one time, either shooting you with amazing accuracy, tossing grenades at your feet (ala CoD), or firing RPGs directly at your face. Maybe I’m a worse player than I used to be, or something, but on normal difficulty, 3-4 shots of a rifle should not kill you. The only way to regain health is either to wait about 30 seconds (which during a firefight, isn’t something possible), or find something electrical to suck juice from (and again, during a firefight, not always possible). So time and time again, you die. And don’t get me started on some of the missions that put 30-40+ enemies on you at once. This is exactly what frustrated me about the first game, and why I stopped playing it. This would be ok for a first game, but bringing this element back into the second game is just sloppy. A game should be fun to play, not frustrating where I want to stop playing completely. Don’t get me wrong, inFAMOUS 2 is fun to play when they bring the actual storyline into it, but these random encounters, or the side missions, are enough to make me stop playing. Developers can’t play it safe when it comes to their games. Stop taking the exact same game, adding a few new things, and calling it a new game. Fix the core problems with the first game and build an even better game. Hell, just look at Uncharted. The first game was amazing, but had quite a few problems with combat, especially with guys taking 5-6 bullets before they fell. This was fixed in Uncharted 2, and went on to be game of the year. Dead Space 2 as well, they took a fantastic game, fixed the problems with it, and made a really great second game.

Unless developers innovate, and stop playing it safe, the industry will become stale and bland. You’ll be fed the same regurgitated game you played a year ago, and still pay $60 for it. Why can’t more developers be like Naughty Dog or Sony Santa Monica, and take their games to the next level? Why do we have to put up with more of the same? Why can’t there be more games like Children of Eden, or Pikmin, games that truly innovate and pull the player in. Why can’t we have more games that are built on story and gameplay, instead of shooting and rehashed ideas? There’s too much crap in the gaming industry and if we let it continue, it’ll turn into Hollywood, 95% crap, 5% really good.

When I look at my photos on Flickr, they look nice, even with some HDR added to them. But for whatever reason, I just cannot hold a candle to some of the photos that I see on the Flickr groups out there. So what’s the real difference here? Some Photoshop magic, or are these photographers just really that damned good? Let’s take these two links for example,

My shots:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joertell/

The Sony NEX-5 Flickr group:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1379448@N25/pool/

These just look better than mine, despite the exact same camera. So now the question here is, do I man up and really learn this trade, or try to spend $1400 on a Nikon D7000 and see if my shots get better? Since I’m relatively new at this trade, I think I should honestly learn everything I can first, before “upgrading” to a better camera. Because if I spend $1400 on the D7000, the shots can honestly come out the same, despite being more expensive. What I’d really love to see, is the non-post processed shots, and see if they’re any better. But knowing most people, they aren’t going to post these. Post-processing in Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom really do make photos look better, but is it taking away from the artistic talent? Are people relying too much on these applications to make their photos pop?

One trend that seems to be mighty popular recently is HDR. HDR, or High Dynamic Range essentially draws more light into the picture, making things glow. Similar to what you saw in Half Life 2 with HDR support. There’s one website that I recently came across that is purely HDR photos: http://stuckincustoms.com. Spend 5 minutes looking at these photos and you’ll see exactly what I mean. This is all post processed using an application called Photomatix and Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture. Now, these photos can look insanely beautiful (like on his site), or they can just look nice (like some on mine). You really need to know how to fine tune the settings here. Despite his quick free tutorial, I’ve had quite a few really nice looking pictures from Photomatix. Now what I really want to test is, if I should HDR it before, or after I post-process the image. I’ve noticed that shadows can become overly bright using HDR, but I haven’t quite figured out how to emulate the results he’s getting (without paying a good amount of money for his tutorials).

So what does a guy to do? Spend money on a better camera, or spend money learning how to get better? I think I really want to spend money on how to get better. The better camera can always come later. Photography is something that I really want to make a hobby of mine, possibly taking it into a profession one day. How I just need to get better! What are your thoughts? What camera/software are you using?

The movie that started this whole “3D craze” was Avatar. Avatar was actually shot in full 3D, which means James Cameron actually used a real 3D camera to shoot what he needed. And to be honest, the results were very stunning. Having been my first “true” 3D movie, I was blown away. It wasn’t so much “pop out at you”, but more of depth of field. Meaning things truly felt as if they were on a 3D plain, instead of just being static on the screen. I mean, we all remember the 3D Captain Eo at Disneyland as a kid, where it actually popped out at us. But this 3D is far from that, it’s more to show distance in the background, and to show that the actors are actually walking around in a 3D environment. This worked perfect, and watching the 2D Blu-ray of Avatar, paled in comparison. But you may have seen other 3D attached to various movies, like Alice in Wonderland or Harry Potter. This 3D is done post production, and is all done with computers. These films were not shot with a real 3D camera, but done by a studio who just does these after-market 3D transformations. These are the films you need to watch out for, because as we know humans make mistakes and it just looks poor. Since 3D cameras are in the rarity now, there aren’t too many films that are actually shot in 3D right now.

3D has really picked up some steam as of late, especially in Hollywood, but why is that? Have you seen the ticket prices for these “3D” movies? Hollywood thinks it’s ok to charge an additional $5-10 just to see the movie. If it’s IMAX *and* 3D, it’s close to a $25 movie, you might as well just wait for the dang Blu-ray to come out. But since people still go to see these movies, Hollywood keeps pushing them out. I mean, do we really need to see Harry Potter or the Smurfs in 3D? No. The movies that actually were filmed with a 3D camera are few and far between, so do your research before you go to see your next 3D movie. It’s a shame that Hollywood marks up the price of these films just because it’s “3D”. Since there are fewer people going to see movies in theaters, Hollywood needed to make it’s money somehow; so they charge more for a “3D” movie. Not very fair if you ask me.

So let’s get back on track to the “TV” aspect of this. Every major manufacturer now makes a 3D TV, even Vizio does. But again, is it really worth getting one? Since the technology is so new, I’m inclined to really say no. Why? For a few reasons honestly. Not only is it so expensive, but it requires a set of glasses per person. Let’s say you like to have a movie night with either your family or some friends; well you’d need to get glasses for each of them if you’re going to watch a 3D movie. These glasses aren’t cheap either, so expect to pay a pretty penny for each. The average 3D TV comes with a “starter” pack of one pair of glasses. Yet the average family consists of 2-3 people. The cheapest pair of glasses I could find on Amazon was $128 for the “stereoscopic” 3D glasses. That’s well over $300 just for one family, even more if you actually have a movie night with friends or the rest of your family. The cheapest LCD 3D TV I could find on Amazon was close to $1,400. That’s not the worst price for a 46″ TV, but I wouldn’t expect stellar picture quality out of it either.  Oh and I forgot to mention, you also need a 3D Blu-ray player too. If you’re using a receiver, you’ll need a receiver that supports HDMI 1.4 for those 3D images. So let’s take a tally here: 3D TV, 3D Blu-ray player, 3D-capable receiver and 3D glasses. All for the low, low price of half a years pay. :\

Now  I know what you’re going to say, new technology is always expensive. Well, given the gigantic push that Hollywood has given 3D, you’re in the minority if you don’t have one. I’d like to call bollocks to that. I’m sorry, but I do not need and/or want a 3D TV right now. There’s nothing to watch, 3D movies are incredibly limited, 3D broadcast TV is so limited it’s not even funny, it’s insanely expensive, and unless your movie is Avatar, you’re not getting the full 3D experience. I hope 3D goes the way of HD-DUD and just dies. It’s consumer unfriendly, and serves no real purpose in the CE (Consumer Electronics) world. If you really know me, you’ll know that I’ll have a 3D TV soon enough, just because. But I digress, this is not something I will buy until there’s an actual use for it. Sure there are some games that have 3D, and some movies, and some broadcast TV, but it’s not mainstream yet. No buy from me. I’ve even convinced a friend of mine not to buy a 3D TV, based on these merits. It’s just not a smart buy right now, unless you’re super rich.

While technically the PS3 has more horsepower under it’s hood on paper, it fails to excel in actuality. There are a number of reasons for this. The major one being, most if not all developers use the 360 as their base code and port down to the PS3. Porting to a system that isn’t 1:1 is going to introduce bugs. These bugs can range from crashes, washed out colors, graphics not looking as good, less detail than the 360 version,  frame rate issues, z-fighting, etc. Now it’s been widely documented that the 360 version of games have always looked and performed better than the PS3 version, but few people rarely admit it, especially Sony. Don’t get me wrong, the PS3 is very, very nice at exclusive games, like God of War 3 or Uncharted 2; but those are few and far between. I’ve had an ongoing argument with a friend of mine about this, and I’ve defended the PS3 into the ground. “This is the real reason why the PS3 versions are worse”, but I’ve realized something, it doesn’t matter what the reason is, it matters in the actual product. The 360 version is just better. Another one of my friends kept telling me to get the 360 version of Fallout: New Vegas, but I was going to get the PS3 version (naturally). I ended up not getting the game, because my roommate got it instead. But this all changed when Call of Duty: Black Cops (sic) came out. He suggested (again) that I get the 360 version. Ok, fine, I bought it. From the very first scene, it was clear that the 360 version was the best one. My point was even proven after a Kotaku article showed both side by side. The 360 had all the detail, but the PS3 version was washed out and was missing detail all around. Shame.

Since the 360 Slim (360 S to be exact) came out, I’ve wanted it due to the smaller size and less power being used, but I’ve had a hard time justifying getting it. Well, given my new revelation, I decided that I should just plop down the $300 (+tax!) and get the new one. What was I going to do with the old 360? A friend of mine’s 360 was having a hard time reading discs, so I decided to give him mine. Since there were a few new games that I really wanted to play, I saw I had quite a few games that I was no longer playing. While I hate dealing with them, Gamestop was going to give me way more money than if I were to trade back to Amazon or Best Buy. So I traded in 21 games and got $275 for em. For which I bought Halo: Reach, Fallout: New Vegas and Fable 3; along with the new Silver controller. As one of my friends says, when I go one side, I go for broke. That’s not to say that I’ll stop using the PS3, but I won’t be using it for multi-platform games anymore. I’ll still use it for Blu-ray and exclusive games.

It does make me wonder though, with all the press out there that the PS3 versions are inferior, why doesn’t Sony do something about this? With all the money Microsoft throws around to make the 360 so great, why isn’t Sony doing it? What about their QA process? Are they just ok with an inferior product? Or do they not have as strict of an approval process? Whatever it is, it’s just sad. If Sony hopes to win this console race (and let’s face it, the Wii doesn’t count because no one plays theirs), they’re going to have to do a much better job with their games and throw down some of their bazillions of dollars and do something about it.