My iPod Touch broke a couple weeks ago. It still plays music and games, but the home button broke and now I can’t get back to the home screen. I can’t believe Apple made this device with such a serious flaw. There is absolutely no way to get to the home screen without getting really creative.

I was complaining to my brother-in-law, who really likes Apple products. He asked if I had called a “Genius” yet. Nope, I haven’t. I don’t even know where an Apple store is, I’ve never been in one. I got this device at BestBuy. After going around and around with him he finally said, just throw it away and buy a new one.

After all you will get another iPod… No matter how much you complain, when you need a music player you will get an Apple product.

He was absolutely right! I don’t even know of another mp3 player on the market. Do they still make the Zune? iPod is so branded into my brain, I could complain all day long, but in the end I will get another iPod.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. To start, I hate it when he is right, and second, there has to be a way to get all the benefits of an iPod without an iPod. After all it’s just an mp3 player.

A few days ago my wife got the Samsung Vibrant, or Galaxy S, whichever you prefer to call it. It’s simply amazing. Big screen with a thin body. It’s powerful and fast. Best of all, it plays video and music to perfection. It comes loaded with Avatar. You can jump to any part of the movie and in a second it continues to play… It’s super fast.

Android has solved my problem. Why should I buy an iPod when I can get an mp3 player built into my phone. Why would anyone buy an mp3 player again? whether it’s an Android device or an iPhone, the iPod is getting absorbed by another device. Just like the PDA was absorbed years ago by the smart phone. I don’t see too many PDAs anymore. That market tanked… and so will the mp3 player market AKA the iPod market.

So, that’s bad news for Apple.

You might agree or you might not, but when I see analysts on on CNBC giving Apple targets of $350-$400 I wonder why. A couple days ago I was listening to the radio and Rob Black gave Apple a target of $1,000??? A joke right. Of course he planted his target to five years from now, but seriously let’s think about this rationally. Let’s think about this from an Android fan boy perspective.

As I mentioned earlier, you don’t have to buy an iPod any more. You can replace it with a very solid iPhone 4. I’m sure you’ll be happy with it, millions of people are. But you can also get an very good phone from any one of the major carriers, including At&t that runs on Android.

The Droid X is awesome. The EVO is awesome. The Vibrant is awesome. The iPhone is awesome. Are they iPhone killers? not really, but they are definitely iPhone competitors.

Even with the iPhone rumored to make it to Verizon and T-mobile, when you look at an iPhone and a Droid X on the same table. I’d have to give the edge to the Android phone. They are very sexy phones. Looking at the home screen with the live background and widgets looks sharp. Compare that to a home page filled with apps on the iPhone and right away you are guided away from the iPhone.

Sure the iPad is huge right now, but you know Android and WebOS tablets are right around the corner ready to take even more market share from Apple.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been waiting to get my wife an iPhone for a long, long time, but we have both had bad experiences with At&t service. I was waiting and waiting to hear any news about the iPhone going to T-mobile. I would have bought her one, and I’m sure she would be thrilled to own one. Long story short, her Blackberry broke, she now has an Android phone and I’m sure she will have one for many years to come.

In Summary

I think the iPod is on the way out, Android is Hot, and $1,000 price targets for Apple are absolutely ridiculous!

Google TV was announced today at Google I/O. Although it has been  in discussion for a while now, it really is a big deal. Unfortunately the demonstration presented was hardly awe-inspiring. Looks a lot like MythTV, Media Centers, AppleTV, etc… There is more to it, but the demonstration really focused on video only. In time we will see more of the Internet side on Smart TV’s other then more demonstrations of video on Smart TV’s

What is interesting is that Eric Schmidt knows that internet TV has been a flop in the past.

Schmidt needs Best Buy and its 180,000 “blue shirts” to sell this idea of a Web TV—which has been tried in the past and flopped—to consumers
Source: TechCrunch

The Youtube has the content, but it’s just not engaging. I have set up video feeds through my Xbox using Tversity many times only to whatch a few videos, and then I lose interest in the feeds. Don’t get me wrong, there are interesting and talented people on Youtube, but not one have truly captured me.

Much of the blame is that Youtube suffers from a poor recommendation engine and poor feed access. You can use the Google Data API to build your own, but that can be too hard for most people. With Google TV the recommendations should be much better and the ability to find content will be much better.

The second revenge – Tablet computers

Over the last decade tablet computers have flopped over and over, until now… Until Apple made the Ipad. Even though I find no use to own one right now, I can understand why they are selling so well.

The verdict is still out on whether Google will will help Internet TV get it’s revenge, or if it will continue to be a flop. Tablets on the other hand have definitely proven they are not flops anymore.

2010 –  year of the flop revenge… What else has flopped in the past that might get it’s revenge this year?

I got this information from isuppli.com via businessweek magazine.

• Aluminum Case: $35.30
• Memory: $29.50 (16GB) $118 (64GB)
• Display: $80
• Processor: $17 – Apple builds their own processors. They acquired PA semi in 2008 so they could build low power consuming processros for mobile devices.
• Battery: $17.50 – Non-removable
• Wireless: $27.10 (GPS and 3G) $8.05 (WI-FI). Totals $35.05 for the 3G models. Data Plans run $30/month from AT&T

The total cost to Apple for the base model: $187.35.

Estimates for Apple will be a gross margin of 54% or $269.95 for each iPad sold. With an estimate of 3 -4 million units sold in 2010, Apple will generate over a billion in revenue from the iPad.The large margin also gives the iPad some room to lower the price if competition gets fierce, or if they want to add additional hardware like a camera.

Whether you think the iPad is a revolutionary product  or think it was a revolutionary hype machine, you have to agree that is a lot of money for Apple.

The iPhone was estimated to sell 10 million units in 2008, but ended up selling over double that in 2008, and over 42 millions by the end of 2009. Could the iPad do the same?

Pee-wee gets an iPad

Chris Pirillo (Lockergnome) unboxes the iPad

iPad with roadrage

Gorgeous, Beautiful, Revolutionary, Gorgeous, Amazing

Of course, no video can go without a Hitler rant

Do you know of a funny iPad or Apple video… Add the link to it in the comments

Before I offer my solution, I have to give props to Nalts.

Leave it to Nalts, a youtube celebrity, to make the craziest iPad video yet… Not only is he driving with an iPad mask, which seems highly dangerous, but he also used duct tape to attached the mask to his face… I was laughing when I saw the mask, but when I saw the duct tape wrappd around his ears, it was just too funny.

Here’s my solution to this whole problem… Too bad I can’t go back in time and offer this brilliant advice to Steve Jobs and possibly de-rail the epic failure that is the iPad.

Set aside the hype of this device, which was par for any Apple product. The name iPad created an instant joke. Combine that with a sub par device and the hate blogs will go crazy.

All they had to do was name is iPlate… a computer you can eat off of.

That’s it. Simply change the name and you will dominate an entire market that has been stagnate for decades, the plate market. Mr Jobs positioned this device as a device between smartphones and laptops… to replace the netbook market. Unfortunately, it is not a good replacement for netbooks, but it’s a perfect replacement for plates.

Is iPlate a game changer… Hell yes! Restaurants would jump all over this idea. Not only can you eat off the iPlate, but you can surf the web, watch videos, tweet what you are eating. You could even use the iplate to order your food and pay your bill, of course you can’t do it at the same time because it doesn’t multi-task, and for you foodies, you can’t take a picture of your meal because there is no camera.

The iPhone was game changing. It filled a need for a much better smartphone. It’s strong enough for power users and easy enough for old ladies, although I still think the blackberry is going to stay king of executive phone use for a long time, just because of the email abilities.

The problem with the iPhone and all other Apple products is the closed system. Steve Jobs basically says “You’re in my world now!!!” and if the innovation doesn’t live up to the expectations people are going to bitch. The iPhone was awesome so people didn’t complain. The iPad is a lackluster device, topped with a restricted system, and two wrongs don’t make a right.

Unfortunately we’ve come to expect that from our smartphones. For a larger device that’s supposed to replace your netbook as a complete portable computing solution, though, this is almost unprecedented — at least from a device that’s likely to have a great deal of influence on the market and on the design of future devices. That’s bad news no matter how you spin it.
Source: Mashable

Seriously, you can’t even share files between the iPad your home computers… There might be a way around this, like uploading to the cloud.

I love you Google… Not really, but this was a big win for them and the Android OS. It’s coming on strong, because it’s open, it’s got many more carriers and phone makers, and Apple dropped the ball.

Here are just a few of the problems with the iPad

• No Multitasking – WOW, I can’t listen to music and work on a spreadsheet at the same time?
• No USB – the universal adapter.
• No GPS – Where am I, and more importantly, where are cool places to hang out in my area. Location based services are all the rage, someone should have told Apple this!
• No Camera – I heard there was going to be a camera that let you use hand gestures to control the tablet… That would have been cool.
• Not OPEN – You have to play by Apple’s rules.

Don’t even get me started on the name iPad… iSlate was cool, iPad has already been coined iTampon which trending to #1 on Twitter today… That’s bad. I can’t believe…

Nope, not going there, gotta stop…