Category: Tech Notes

Here are the potential names I would use for a new disc-less or all digital Xbox.

Predicted

• Xbox One S All-Digital Edition
• Xbox One E
• Xbox One D - For "Digital"
• Xbox One Digital

As far as what they are likely to call it, I think Xbox One E is certainly a possibility. One of the reasons is because that is the name they used for an updated version previously, the Xbox 360 E. As long as they still like that scheme, they could stick with it. I am aware that it has been rumored to be called Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, so that is very likely as well. I just wonder if there is a possibility of that name being more of  a behind the scenes full name, and they go with a simpler brand name at retail for customers. Probably not, but you never know.

Suggested

• Xbox One T
• Xbox One R
• Xbox One E
• Xbox One TV
• Xbox One Tiny
• Xbox One Small

I like the simplicity of using single letters for different products in a product line. Plus, Microsoft has been using that type of branding for both the Xbox One S and Xbox One X, as well as the most recent versions of the Xbox 360 S and Xbox 360 E. So it makes sense to stick with the single letter naming scheme for this version as well, instead of using a more full name like the rumored "All-Digital Edition", or the previous Arcade and Elite of the 360.

I like R better than E because it is commonly used for higher end devices and they are not yet using that letter for any Xbox One device. Using letters like A, C, E, G might typically be thought of as lower tier devices. Using letters like R, S, T, X might typically be thought of as higher tier devices. So basically, I'd go with R because it sounds cooler and is still a letter less than S and X, which are higher end devices and already in use. Or I'd go with T because it might sound even better than R, and could denote the longer name of Tiny or TV, similar to how the current S could denote the longer name of Small or Slim.

Xbox One R

There are admittedly a couple reasons not to call the device the Xbox One T, and use Xbox One R instead. First, if they want to follow one style of typical letter naming scheme, a lower letter denotes a lesser capable or more budget device. With that scheme, this new device should use a letter lower alphabetically than S. In that case, Xbox One R or Xbox One E makes more sense. However, you don't have to make lesser letters mean a lesser device. So Xbox One T is still fine to use if you think it's the best name, and T also comes one letter after S, which I think could be interesting to signify that it comes after the Xbox One S device chronologically.

Similarly, if they were to ever update the Xbox One X with a smaller design they could consider naming it the Xbox One Z, which comes shortly after X alphabetically and after the Xbox One X device chronologically. Using the letters S, T, X, and Z might be the four best letters to use when naming these products.

Second, if they do eventually release a dongle or stick Xbox device, or even an Xbox TV integrated into regular TVs, then the distinction between the names Xbox One TV and Xbox One T could be confusing in the future. However, it might also make sense going forward, because the Xbox One T could morph into the Xbox TV. People might associate that T with TV, and see that the Xbox TV is a further evolution, or even smaller and integrated version of the older Xbox One T, with similar features. The Xbox One T would be like the console box version, and the Xbox TV would be the version integrated into TVs or as a small stick or dongle.

Xbox One T

I like T better than E, and possibly even R, for multiple reasons. While it's debatable for sure, I think it might just sound better than R and be more preferable to consumers. Meaning that if you were just to pick 3 letters to use for branding that you would choose S, T, and X for your three products simply because they are the most marketable and cool sounding. S, T, and X are also in order if you don't count those weird U, V, and W letters that companies don't generally use for naming products with letters.

Another reason I might like T better than R though, is for what it "stands" for. While the name for a product with a single letter branding scheme should stand on its own and just sound good, it might not hurt if it also brings reference to certain words as well, like S does with Small, Slim, or Sleek. Using Xbox One T makes sense in this regard, even if the most important aspect is just using the best sounding letter. So I like that the T can stand for Tiny, Television, or TV, and that people might associate it with those words.

In particular, I like that the S in Xbox One S could be lengthened to the full name Small, and the T in the Xbox One T could be lengthened to the full name Tiny. And possibly the X in Xbox One X could be an acronym for "Xtra", just like XL means extra large. They could even potentially use these full names in certain places in branding or at least marketing. Salespeople could use the longer name to explain the consoles to consumers, and it could help consumers understand the main difference between the devices. "Oh, the S is the small one smaller than the original, the T is the tiny one that's good for using for TV and movies, and the X is the extra large one that's extra powerful for gaming."

However, the most important thing is having a simple name that sounds best. So that is why I think they should stick with the single letter naming, and use the name Xbox One T or Xbox One R.

Here are the prices and features I'd put in the new 2019 iPad and iPad Mini products.

Why

• Keep the existing budget iPad in the lineup for a low cost device
• Put a bit newer technology in the other entry level iPads to make them desirable
• Raise the prices a bit if needed for a bit newer technology
• Include laminated display and thinner chassis because it's important
• Price iPad and iPad Mini only slightly different, not a much cheaper Mini
• Keep the old design with Touch ID to keep costs down some still though

Prices

• iPad 9.7" - 2018 - $299 32 GB, $399 128 GB
• iPad Mini 7.9" - 2019 - $449 64 GB, $549 256 GB
• iPad 10.5" - 2019 - $499 64 GB, $599 256 GB

Features

• Same Design - Touch ID and Bezels
• Similar Display Sizes and Resolutions - 7.9" and 10.5"
• Thinner Chassis for iPad - Like Mini 4 and Pro 10.5
• Laminated Display - And Anti-Reflective
• A12 Processer
• 3 GB RAM
• Apple Pencil Gen 1
• Touch ID Gen 2
• Wifi 802.11ac
• Bluetooth 5

Android phone makers should make budget phones with 5.0" 1440x720 displays for one-handed use.

I wonder if Apple should have released an affordable, mass market $99 home speaker assistant first instead of the expensive HomePod, similar to what they did with Apple TV.

Notes

About

For an equal and consistent UX, iOS should make a long press on older devices work absolutely everywhere a 3D Touch hard press works.

I still think that the app switcher in iOS should show icons instead of screenshots, and either have a scrolling horizontal list of icons or a scrolling vertical list with icons to the left of the full app names, instead of displaying one screenshot at a time.

I wish there was a setting to automatically sync between 2 iOS devices which apps I have installed and their location on the home screens.

It sounds like Google has aquired much of HTC's hardware team and some non-exclusive IP in their latest 1+ billion deal. But I also read that HTC will likely continue on with a new phone separately, using the HTC brand name. So this might mean that Google isn't going to use the HTC name for a product, and may not have acquired the rights to the brand name. This makes sense, as they have now branded their smartphone and some other hardware products as "Pixel". Before that, they had used the "Nexus" brand name for many products.

Back in 2012, it sounded like Google did a similar but slightly different type of acquisition with Motorola. That deal was worth 12+ billion, and they acquired the hardware team and IP. But I believe they also acquired the brand name, and the entire Motorola company, in that much bigger deal. However, they haven't kept the brand name, and did not use it on many products. I believe Lenovo later bought the rights to the Moto and Motorola brand names along with some other assets in a deal with Google.

Missed Opportunity

I find it interesting that Google ended up not using the Motorola brand name, and selling the brand name to Lenovo. And with this smaller HTC deal, it sounds like they again won't be using the brand name in their large purchase of a fairly prominent hardware company's assets. Just like Moto, HTC is a hardware brand that has actually been around for a very long time, going back to Microsoft's Pocket PC mobile OS.

I wonder if Google missed an opportunity when making their decisions to buy HTC and Motorola. HTC may not be a strong enough brand name. But Motorola, and their nickname brand Moto, were and are very strong brand names. So much so, that Lenovo purchased Motorola and its name from Google. And they even decided to keep the brand name and ditched its own brand name for the Moto phones. It sounded like they originally thought they would go with "Moto by Lenovo", and even decided against that to just use Moto by itself as the brand name for Moto branded phones.

Brand Name Value

Brand names can be quite valuable. Other good brand names in the smartphone technology space that have been acquired in deals include Nokia and Palm. If you either want to use your own brand name like "Google Phone", or a brand name you come up with like "Pixel", then you make the decision that you don't want to buy a company partially for its brand name. But Google payed so much for Motorola, a brand name that was up there with Nokia and Palm, because of its history with the popular Moto Razr and other phones.

And now it looks like Google is getting serious again about upping their hardware game and getting a better team in-house. To go head to head with the iPhone like most articles say. But they have chosen not to buy an established brand name as part of the costly deal when other companies have payed a lot of money largely, or at least partially, for the brand names of Moto, Nokia, and Palm. Personally, I agree that not using HTC as their main smartphone brand is probably the best move. But it still makes me think of that big deal for Motorola as well. I just think Google might have been able to get a leg up if they had made more of a commitment to the established Moto brand by using it for the first smartphone they developed in-house.

But Android Won

Of course, it's worth noting that both the Nokia and Palm acquisitions did not turn out well. Maybe Google knew what it was doing when it decided not to go with the Moto brand name, but go with their own brand "Google Nexus". It's Android that is still going strong, while the Palm and Nokia brand names were kind of squandered by HP and Microsoft.

There are so many other factors though. I still think Microsoft and HP were wise to use the strong Nokia and Palm brand names after their equally huge deals for those companies. Microsoft's deal for Nokia was around 7 billion, and HP's deal for Palm around 1 billion. But at least they wanted to use the great smartphone brand names. Windows Mobile and Palm OS are basically dead for now and both companies resold the brand names of Nokia and Palm just as Google resold the Moto and Motorola brand names. However Google payed around 12 billion for Moto and 1 billion for HTC, but it doesn't look like they will use the brand names at all.

Tough Decision

It's a touch decison though. How far do they go with it? Would we now have a "Moto Home" and a "Moto Notebook"? Google decided they didn't want to use Motorola, and now HTC, as brands for their smartphone or other hardware devices. I'm not saying they made the wrong decision for sure. But they sure payed a hefty price, especially in the Motorola deal, to end up not using such a strong brand name. They are paying billions of dollars in these hardware deals to further their commitment to making their own Android devices with integrated hardware and software. But they may have missed an opportunity to at least start off using a solid smartphone brand name like Moto, HTC, or some other established brand, when they made these huge acquisition deals.

From a user perspective I think that any audio, music, or radio apps or websites like Play Music or Spotify should not have any video ads, only audio ads.

The website Heartya was intended to be an entertainment website for sharing picks, lists, and rankings of great music, movies, shows, and games, but it was never fully created.

I wonder if Microsoft should rename Windows 10 S in the future to just Windows 10, and Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Plus. Have Windows 10, Windows 10 Plus, and Windows 10 Pro.

For consistency, I think the iPad app folders should only have 4 apps across in landscape mode too.

At iOS 10 I still think that switching from folders with 16 apps and 4 columns to folders with 9 apps and 3 columns in iOS 7 was one of the worst UX and design decisions ever on iOS.

I like that Twitter now allows Direct Messages, but I wonder if a shorter limit would be better. I suggest limiting them to either 1000 or 1500 characters.

Apple should allow you to sync all iOS settings between two iOS devices, including the apps and their order on home screens.

Update - April 20th, 2017

We have more rumors and real analyst articles which show that my idea of the iPhone 8 having a flexible screen wrap around the sides isn't likely at all. Not surprising of course, and the first rumor to really disprove my crazy theory came just a few days after I wrote this article. For people who are interested in finding out what features will be in the "iPhone 8", don't bother reading this article. For people interested in hardware design or possible form factors for future iPhones or other mobile phones, you might still be interested in reading this. I talk about how future phones and mobile devices could have flexible screens that wrap around the side, as well as a couple of the uses this design would have.

• Apple's 'iPhone 8' to replace Touch ID home button with 'function area,' start at $1,000 - Feb 15, 2017
• Alleged 'iPhone 8' diagrams show display dimensions, sensor array - Apr 17, 2017

Original Article

First of all, to get up to speed on some of the possible rumors, here is a quick overview by AppleInsider, which they have been using in their articles about the next big redesign of the iPhone. For instance, this quick overview is included in their last rumor I read today, Apple's 'iPhone 8' again rumored to feature reinforced glass back, stainless steel frame

• Sept. 2017 launch
• Screen sized 5.1"-5.2"
• Edge-to-edge OLED
• Curved glass back, screen
• Dual-lens camera
• 10nm "A11" processor
• Wireless charging
• Touch ID, FaceTime camera, speaker embedded in screen

AppleInsider and many others have also noted various times about 5.8" OLEDs being produced for the next iPhone. And that maybe the actual size of the screen will end up being a usable 5.1" even though the OLED screens being manufactured are 5.8" in size. One possibility might be that they are getting larger sized screens produced, but they will be cut down to a lower 5.1"-5.2". Another is that with a rounded screen, extra length is added to the actual screen size, 5.8", to make the usable screen size appear over a smaller real life dimension, 5.1". A third option would be that there will eventually be two different sizes, both a 5.1-5.2" device, and later or the following year a Plus sized 5.8-5.9" device.

However, one guess that I have is for something a bit different, which I don't think has been noted or suggested in most of the rumors.

A "Screen" On Each Side Of The Phone

I wonder if the reason for the discrepancy in screen sizes to date could be because of a new "feature" for this all new design. I think the usable and visible size on the front of the screen could be about 5.1", but that the actual screen continues and wraps around each side of the iPhone. And we would be able to touch each side of the device to provide other types of input, such as scrolling up and down without touching the front of the screen.

Meaning, the "screen" we see is just 5.1", but an "invisible" screen wraps around the sides.

Likely the OLED display would wrap around just the left and right side, not the top and bottom. Even if the screen wraps around the edge, it might not mean that we see an interface or image on the sides of the device either. Meaning, the "screen" we see is just 5.1", but an "invisible" screen wraps around the sides. And we can touch the sides of the device and it can respond in different ways. Though it could also provide an image possibly, for instance in what could appear as different "buttons" on different parts of the screen side.

Oh yeah, and when I say I "think" this could happen, I might actually mean "hope". Because I think it could be a good idea to allow the sides of digital devices to be touched for input by users. I think it would be a good design, and potentially be a very useful and intuitive interface option. What I mean, is I'm just guessing here everyone. I definitely don't have an inside track to what is actually going on. I have no idea what is going on, unlike people like writer John Gruber of Daring Fireball, or Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Why Would A "Side-Screen" Be Useful?

So why would this all new design have a screen that wraps around the side? What could you do with this extra design feature? Since it could allow touch input, pretty much anything. As I mentioned, I think the most obvious use is for scrolling up and down by using your thumb on the side of the device.

You would just touch your finger along the side of the device to scroll through and select items on the screen.

Other options for the side screen could include "buttons" on the side of the device. Maybe from the front you just see skinny rectangles about a centimeter high along the edge, possibly even in different colors. And touching the side of the device clicks that "button". Having pressure sensitive force touch options using the side of the device makes sense too. Anyway, the options are numerous, and I think the most obvious use is for vertical scrolling or scrolling through options on the screen without having your finger or thumb covering the front of the screen.

By the way, I think a screen extending to the sides of a device could eventually be used in something like the Apple Watch possibly too. You could potentially remove the digital crown, a moving part. You would just touch your finger along the side of the device to scroll through and select items on the screen. So if this touchable side screen idea is something that works out, I would expect to see it in many more devices in the future by Apple and others.

What Size Will The Screen Be?

The rumors now seem to be pointing to a usable screen size of 5.1-5.2" for the iPhone 8. And that the actual screen being produced might be about 5.8". So above I've been discussing how that rumor might apply to a new iPhone with a screen that wraps around the edges. However I'll add that I think it could be possible that another option for the iPhone 8 is that it's usable size will remain at 4.7". Exactly the same size as the iPhone 6 and 7. And that those extra 0.4-0.5 inches in the 5.1" OLED panel could be used to wrap around the sides of the device.

There are a couple reasons why I wonder if the iPhone 8 will come in the smaller 4.7" screen size. First off, it seems like there was a lot more rumors about OLEDs of the larger 5.8-6.0" size much earlier, but not as much lately. It seems like the 5.1-5.2" OLED panel size has been in the rumors more lately. I wonder if those larger sizes were testing for the current 5.5" Plus iPhone. And these newer rumors of the 5.1" OLED panels are testing and production for the current 4.7" iPhone.

More importantly though, I think Apple could potentially stick with a 4.7" usable screen size for the iPhone 8 to keep the resolution the exact same as the iPhone 6 and 7, at 1334x750, with the PPI at 326.

Then in the end Apple could have decided to start producing their first OLED iPhone in only one size, the smaller 4.7" size. Reasons for this decision could include that they don't know if they can meet demand by going all in with OLED in the first year. They want to still at least introduce their new design for the iPhone 10th anniversary. And they will still have a new 7S Plus released at the same time. So basically, they may have decided to not put all their eggs in one basket by only having a new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus with the new design, OLED display, and other technology. So they could be releasing an iPhone 7S and 7S Plus, along with the iPhone 8.

More importantly though, I think Apple could potentially stick with a 4.7" usable screen size for the iPhone 8 to keep the resolution the exact same as the iPhone 6 and 7, at 1334x750, with the PPI at 326. And that the rumors of the 5.1" screens being produced will wrap around the edges of the smaller iPhone's usable 4.7" screen. Reason being, they can't make the usable screen size bigger, going from 4.7" to 5.1", without keeping their magical 326 PPI retina display.

So they'd have to use the 1920x1080 HD resolution from the 5.5" iPhone Plus or come up with a new resolution, such as 2560x1440 for a 5.1" iPhone. That is definitely a possibility, but would require another resolution form factor. So I think it's also possible that they may be happy with the current resolutions and usable screen sizes. Resulting in them keeping the one-handed 4.7" 1334x750 screen for the regular iPhone 8 in 2017, and the larger 5.5" 1920x1080 screen for the iPhone 8 Plus version in 2018, the following year.

Conclusion

So to recap, I have two possible predictions that are bit contrary to the rumors that I have been reading about for the next big iPhone redesign, the potential iPhone 8. I think that contrary to reports, the screen size of the iPhone could stay the same at a usable 4.7", even though the OLEDs produced have an actual size of 5.1-5.2". Then, the next year, an iPhone 8S Plus version could be produced with a usable screen size of 5.5", with an actual OLED panel size of 5.8-6.0".

Secondly, I wonder if that extra bit of screen panel is used to curve and wrap around the left and right sides of the device. That the side of the device will be used as a touch screen for input, effectively replacing buttons on the side and offering more options for input. This user input on the side of the device will change depending on the application. It could take the form of scrolling, to selecting elements, to clicking soft buttons, or anything else. And I think it would be a great idea and a potentially good design for mobile devices of all kinds in the future.

It seems like TechMeme used to have many more stories on products, services, and software instead of so many stories on businesses, people, and money.

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