While it’s clearly a publicity stunt, I’m glad to see Kogan smacking down other companies regarding cable prices:

When you buy a TV from John Lewis, Currys, or countless other high street stores, you will be offered hideously expensive accessories such as HDMI cables. These cables are sold with absolutely ridiculous markups, many multiples of the actual cost of the items.

These stores are trying to trick people into thinking they need an HDMI lead costing over £100 after buying a Full HD TV. This is simply not the case. You shouldn’t be spending more than £4 on an HDMI cable!

An HDMI cable is an HDMI cable. It’s a digital cable. You either get a picture or you don’t. Don’t get conned into buying a “fancy” HDMI cable because it will make no difference!

Amusingly, the company is now offering free cables and shipping to people who buy a TV from John Lewis or Currys; naturally, those companies are pissed off and so Kogan’s also challenging them to a blind test.

Thing is, this is a con that’s been going on for years, and it’s just become more apparent in the digital space (where cables either work or don’t); but even with analogue kit, too many people have been fooled into buying expensive cables. That’s of course mostly down to chains like Currys. Last time I attempted to buy a lead in one, I was ushered towards cables costing about 50 quid for a metre’s worth. I asked for whatever they had that was cheapest and ended up with some dickhead sales guy arguing with me that I’d “ruin my home system” if I plumped for anything other than unicorn-coated expensive-o-cables. I mentioned I’ve worked with sound engineers in the past and used to make my own cables, at which point the sales guy went a bit white and sulked off in a huff.

My advice today is pretty much as per the last sound guy I worked with: look for the cheapest cables you can get and then buy the next one up from that. As long as the connections are reasonably solid, you’ll be fine; and that goes for speaker wire, too—if you’re paying 20 quid per metre, you’re merely fooling yourself, since wiring a system with coat hangers (Consumerist) is often as good as using the most expensive wires.

A smart piece by David Barnard, Apps and the Apple TV, starkly showcases how the mouse and other abstract pointing devices are largely on borrowed time—at least for the most part. He talks about how he was using AirPlay to send video to his TV, and his toddler then concluded he could play his favourite iPad game on the same TV.

When handed the iPad, he looked down at it and launched this week’s favorite app, The Monster at the End of This Book. He looked up at the screen and was excited to see Grover on TV. Then he looked down at the book and flipped the page. Then he looked up and was again excited to see Grover on TV. Then he looked down and turned the page. After just 60 seconds the thrill was gone and he was mostly just playing with the iPad, only intermittently looking up to confirm that Grover was still on TV.

After a few minutes he exited the app and looked up to see the icons of all his favorite apps on the TV. He immediately set down the iPad, walked up to the TV, and tried launching an app by touching the TV screen. My wife and I instinctually told him not to touch the TV, but he looked back at us quite puzzled. The thing is, Luke has never used a mouse-like pointing device. Other than using the TV remote to turn the TV on and off, or turning a light switch on and off, he’s never used one object to remotely manipulate another.

Barnard doesn’t go all sensationalist by then arguing that all remote-manipulation and abstract pointing devices are doomed, but instead claims we’re in the midst of a fundamental shift that will see such things become increasingly niche. I think he’s right. And for those who think otherwise, bear in mind your world-view is coloured by your experience. If you don’t believe me, try handing a cassette Walkman to a young teenager and see how well they get on using it.

Oldish news (since I’m catching up post-hols), but good to see common sense has prevailed regarding Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs (which is the first to get the blessing of Apple’s head honcho). CNN reported a few days back that it’s now called Steve Jobs By Walter Isaacson. Simple, straightforward and to the point, just like the best of Apple’s hardware and software.

The old title, chosen by the publisher’s publicity department, was iSteve: The Book of Jobs. That sounds, at best, like a knock-off unauthorised hack job or some kind of joke that went horribly wrong, in somehow getting voted through the marketing process, rather than immediately being shot in the head.

The book itself is due out in March 2012.

Joshua Topolsky for This is my next…:

Our sources are saying that not only will there be a newly designed iPhone coming in the fall, but there is going to be a new entry into the iPad family as well. As hard as it might be to believe, the new tablet is said to sport a double resolution screen (2048 x 1536), and will be dubbed the “iPad HD.” The idea behind the product is apparently that it will be a “pro” device aimed at a higher end market — folks who work in video and photo production possibly — and will be introduced alongside something like an iPad version of Final Cut or Aperture. This product is specifically said to not be the iPad 3, rather a complimentary piece of the iPad 2 line. Think MacBook and MacBook Pro.

Sounds like bullshit to me. I’ll be amazed if the iPad doesn’t follow one of the following two patterns:

1. A full-line ‘upgrade’ to a 2048-by-1536 display.
2. An iPhone-style system, with the lowest-end model being a version of the previous tablet, but the rest of the line being the newest spec.

The alternative—having an iPad HD in a niche and high-end position—would be a dangerous move, as would signifying it’s some kind of ‘pro’ device. Right now, all iPads are relatively equal. The point is that they are everything, from a children’s colouring book to a tool for professional writers and artists. By making a single high-end iPad HD device, Apple would immediately position the rest of the entire iPad line as something not for professionals, and it would also further fragment the line. You’d also have a situation where it wouldn’t be obvious to most developers when and how to update their apps to take advantage of the new display.

My thinking: when it’s financially viable to do so (or when Apple’s hand is forced by a competitor), we’ll see the entire iPad line shift to 2048 x 1536. At the same time, the internals will get a pretty significant boost (RAM, chip speed) that Apple will entirely avoid talking about, because the display and what you can do with the device is all that’s really important.

I’m not generally a fan of The Telegraph and especially its tech section, but Shane Richmond absolutely nails it with his great piece on Twitter. His thoughts are largely summed up by the following quote:

Writing on his Telegraph blog last month, Brendan O’Neill argued that “far from being a bastion of freedom of speech, Twitter can be a remarkably conformist, elitist and intolerant arena”. It is a statement that is both self-evidently true and entirely meaningless. Twitter is a communication tool. It makes no more sense to describe it as “conformist” or “elitist” than it does to say that the telephone is conformist or elitist.

But if you’re at all into social networking and/or want to understand how and why Twitter is often misrepresented by the mainstream press, Richmond’s piece is a must-read.