2009 TB Tech Annual Review
Tom on January 05, 2010
2009 has been and gone – and if the development of consumer technology is as fruitful this decade as in the last, the future is looking very exciting.
However, an important part of developing in the future – both for the consumer tech industry and indeed, for this blog – is reflecting on the past. 2009 was another interesting and engaging year on TB Tech.
The global economic crisis that rocked the industry in late 2008 continued well into 2009. This event caused a slowdown of the consumer technology industry, hence the lack of ‘really exciting’ products.
This year we expanded our focus to look at further pathways of the industry, and built upon our existing reputation as an in-depth, trustworthy and enjoyable review of premium consumer technology.
So sit back, enjoy the review of what was 2009 on TB Tech, along with our signature large, detailed and beautiful photos.
Clash of the titans
The smartphone wars intensified tenfold in 2009 as these fully integrated devices continued to capture ever more market share, sales – and more importantly mindshare – entered the mainstream category of cell phones. Our two major rivals remained the BlackBerry Bold and Curve range and the Apple iPhone 3G, which was updated mid-year with newer, much-needed features and increased speed, branded the iPhone 3GS.
Apple began to market the iPhone both to consumers and to small- to enterprise-level business, throwing the touchscreen device head-on into competition with the well-established BlackBerry. With the inclusion of more standard apps that increased the productivity of the iPhone, plus the advantage of the iPhone App Store (which broke through 100,000 applications in 2009) meant that the iPhone could finally hold its own in the corporate world. I invested in an iPhone 3GS in November.
BlackBerry, safe in the knowledge that the majority of conservative corporate types preferred the safety of an industry-standard physical keyboard and ultra-reliable performance in the pocket, continued on its course for most of 2009 with the Bold 9000 model, seen above; in late 2009, BlackBerry debuted several new variants from the Bold, Storm, and Curve model lines.
A MacBook redesign
Apple, who realised they were on to a serious winning-formula with the range of MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks in 2008, completely redesigned and expanded their range of professional-grade aluminium notebooks in 13- and 15-inch variants.
In February, we reviewed the middle-of-the-road 15-inch model, finding across-the-board improvements in terms of speed and aesthetic quality, but most notably in terms of construction and durability. The previous design of the MacBook Pro, dating back to the era of Titanium PowerBooks in 2001, was prone to breaking apart due to improperly-laid pastes. Apple eliminated this possibility by building the new range of notebooks using a unibody construction method, crafting each from a single block of aluminium.
In March, Apple incrementally upgraded the refreshed range of aluminium unibody notebooks, renaming the aluminium 13-inch MacBook a 13-inch MacBook Pro, introducing a 17-inch model, giving each size a new SD-Card slot (an Apple first), reintroducing FireWire to the 13-inch model, and scrapping removable batteries for larger, integrated models.
Netbook mania!
The general public’s thirst for netbooks grew more desperate in 2009, with the introduction of many new netbooks not only by the reputable manufacturers but from several no-name brands aiming to drive down industry price-points.
In March, we took a look at the first business-grade netbook, the Toshiba NB100. The build quality of the NB100 offered desperately-needed solidarity, but we found the NB100 severely lacking in terms of design, and usability. Not surprsingly, Toshiba updated the NB business netbook series a few months later.
HP debuted the Mini 110 series in mid-2009. HP has become the standard for design and usability in the netbook segment – most notably by offering a large, but excellent keyboard that offers a typing experience similar to that on a standard-size notebook.
In December, we took a look at the Mini 110 by Studio Tord Boontje, a special-edition Mini. Despite poor battery life afforded by the 3-cell battery, we appreciated the design and excellent build quality – but HP should be criticised for including only Windows 7 Starter Edition on their consumer netbooks going forward. Windows 7 Starter is severely limited in terms of multitasking, media access, and all-round features.
The emergence of Android
In March, TB Tech hit the airwaves in a big way with our exclusive, first-in-Asia photos of the production version of HTC’s Dream, a rework of the American T-Mobile G1 for the Optus network in Australia and Singapore. Our exclusive photos were featured on the world’s most popular tech blog – Engadget.
The HTC Dream was the first smartphone in Australasia to run Google’s open-source Android operating system. Unlike more recent HTC devices to run Android, the Dream ran a vanilla, Google-fresh version of Android, came with a simple design and a slide-up screen that revealed a competent physical keyboard.
After the introduction of the Dream, it seemed like every handset manufacturer (save Apple, of course) wanted to get on board with Android. Over 2009, we’ve seen some more competent Android phones since the original Dream debuted.
In July, we offered a first look at the HTC Magic, the touchscreen candybar style phone that replaced the Dream as HTC’s flagship Android device. The glossy white loaf of a phone felt very comfortable in the hand, but we had concerns over the build quality and general ‘squeekiness’ of the construction.
In late October, Motorola debuted the Droid / Milestone smartphone on the Verizon wireless service in the USA with version 2 of Google’s Android operating system. We offered a large exposé on the Droid at the time, calling it ‘the realisation of Android’s maturity’. Of course, we’re only at the beginning of the path that is Android. However, the Droid offers a big step towards better stability and design for the platform.
Symbian in 2009
Nokia, the old-faithful cell phone manufacturer from Finland, continued throughout 2009 to make extremely competent general phones as well as increasingly interesting smartphones. Nokia certainly knows how to design a mobile phone. Unfortunately, they continue to stick with the Symbian operating system – a choice that will be difficult to get out of. In early 2009, Nokia make a costly purchase of the company that manufacturers Symbian.
The then-latest iteration of the front-facing QWERTY E-Series debuted in early 2009 – the E71. This phone was quickly taken in by Nokia-toting professionals (especially in Europe, where Nokia has a huge majority of the business phone market).
I actually owned and used an E71 for 2009. The design was very fetching – a combination of mirrored and laser-etched aluminium, gloss, and a great matte keyboard. The durability of the E71 was second-to-none, surviving numerous drops onto stone, airport floors, chairs etc. with only a few scratches to show for this treatment.
Speed and reliability are two virtues of the Symbian interface that runs across all Nokia smartphones. Unfortunately, aesthetic merit is not present. It looks boring, and Nokia hasn’t come up with a workable formula for increasing the visual quality of the operating system that will most likely be here for the long run.
Windows Mobile: wait, it’s still here?
Microsoft’s smartphone operating system, Windows Mobile (recently renamed Windows Phone) plodded along with minimal updates in 2009. Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, touted the quality of the next version of Windows Mobile, Version 7, throughout the early part of the year. The much-anticipated Version 7 failed to materialise. Microsoft instead issued a very underwhelming update, Version 6.5 instead.
The Taiwanese corporation, HTC, who have been with Microsoft for Windows Mobile since the beginning, stayed faithful in 2009. HTC, who took the smart road investing in Android in 2008, long ago gave up on the stock Windows Mobile user interface, instead choosing once again this year to reskin their professional-grade Windows Mobile devices with proprietary skins, earlier called TouchFlo and now called Sense.
In late 2009, though, HTC shook up and massively reinvigorated the Windows Mobile market with the introduction of the frankly amazing HD2 model, which is equipped with a massive 4.3-inch capacitive multi-touch display (it’s huge – the iPhone has a 3.5-inch display). HTC have of course overlaid their own custom user interface onto Windows Mobile, and the inclusion of the new Qualcomm Snapdragon processor means there is very little of the laggy characteristic historic to Windows Mobile.
Obviously, a big improvement.
The year of the operating system
The universally-disliked Windows Vista was retired after a short three years on the market and replaced with a hugely-improved new edition of Windows, simply called ’7′. And really, this was what Windows 7 was aiming for – increased simplicity. For too long, Windows’ complex configurations and toolsets – great for power users – had baffled the home user or office worker. And while it will probably be some time until Windows 7 is introduced onto even a significant proportion of PCs, improvement is on the way for Windows users out there.
Apple released an upgrade for their line of desktop operating systems, as well, in the form of Version 10.6 of the Mac OS X suite. Coined Snow Leopard, 10.6 built upon the strong base established by Version 10.5 Leopard. By charging only US$29 (or AU$39) for the upgrade, Apple is marketing Snow Leopard simply as a number of important refinements for the already-good Leopard system. It’s not a necessary upgrade, but power users like myself will and have found it a worthwhile purchase.
Roundup
Overall, 2009 as a year in technology was weak, tied to the economy which was very fragile for the majority of the year. And because the development of better technology for us consumers requires confidence in the sector and in the financial markets, there wasn’t much of an excitement factor because of this lack of confidence. Manufacturers went back to producing safe, utilitarian products.
Thankfully, things are looking up now, for 2010. The economy is slowly returning to strength, and consumer tech players are now looking back towards more daring, exciting strategies to create more interesting home and mobile technology for us.
And you know that when big things happen in this industry, TB Tech is always here to observe, report, and reflect about the wider impact of a product, service, or event. Stay tuned, we’re in for a big ride this year.
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