Chris Brennan reports on an ongoing slice of bafflement in technology. In I can’t see what you did there, he says:

Windows Phones can’t take screenshots. This in and of itself might not sound like a big thing. It is. Here’s why. I have a Windows Phone and it does lots of nice things, however, I can’t show you

In iOS, taking a screen capture isn’t the most discoverable of actions, but once you know how to do so (Home+Sleep), it’s memorable and easy enough¹. iOS also now has deep Twitter integration and the upshot of this is that it’s easy to share stills of exciting things you can do with your iOS device.

Other systems have been bewilderingly slow to understand this basic aspect of marketing, in enabling your users to more easily promote your platform. Android, as of 4.0, finally ditched its absurd method of capturing screens, instead more or less aping iOS, but Windows Phone still doesn’t provide a straightforward method to grab a screen. This leads to people taking photos of their devices or, more typically, not bothering.

Brennan:

I asked on Twitter if anyone knew why Windows Phone might not have a screenshot option. I received a reply from Peter Bright or @DrPizza if you prefer: “Their argument is that normals never need to take screenshots. That might be true in general, but it hurts geeks.”

I think it’s wrong to suggest ‘normals’ never need to take screen grabs. My father’s about the furthest person away from geekdom as you can imagine, but he often takes grabs on the Mac, as a back-up when given an online receipt, to rapidly send information to someone, or to fire over a support request to yours truly. All he needed to start doing this was the knowledge of how to take the grabs. The same is true for iOS: once someone knows the grab combo, they can easily share screens of apps and games, or their home screens.

I’m not sure why Microsoft hasn’t followed suit. It could be oversight, or perhaps, as Bright argues, the company genuinely doesn’t want people sharing grabs of its OS, or doesn’t think they want to. But Microsoft’s also the underdog in the mobile space, and with plenty of people praising the Metro UI—often saying how it’s superior to iOS and Android—it’s insane that the same people cannot easily share images of what they are seeing and using.

Microsoft isn’t the only culprit either. It’s interesting to see the differences between Matt Gemmell’s Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita reviews. The latter clearly shows the UI and provides an instant idea of how the system works; the former relies on embedded videos of the device, which look comparatively grainy and therefore do not remotely show off the system at its best.

¹ Except, perhaps, when trying to take superb action shots for Tap! magazine of a racing game while skidding round a corner at 150 mph. I might, however, be an edge case there.

An amusing post on the icon update for Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint, a superb iOS physics puzzler. The previous version had a fairly abstract take on the game itself, but now we have one of the beardy programmers staring wild-eyed at those who might buy the game. The slightly less beardy of the two says:

We’ve already seen it described as frightening, terrifying, and the scariest icon on the App Store. Oh well, that’s what happens when I try to draw ‘cute’.

In which case, I look forward to whatever horrors emerge from the Pickford Bros if they ever attempt to craft a loveable and sweet platform game.

Oh dear, International Business Times, with your latest iPhone 5 article, you really are spoiling us. Wasting no time at all, it even screws up with the headline:

New iPhone 5 Release Date: 5 Ways it Will Beat the 4S

Five ways the iPhone 5 release date will beat the 4S? What? Clearly, the article’s not off to a good start, and the publication’s confidence is so low that no-one will take personal responsibility:

By IBTimes Staff Reporter

And so it begins:

As the iPad 3 release date nears, rumors surrounding the next generation iPhone 5 have accelerated

Fuelled by articles such as yours.

A recent report in the Japanese blog Mocotakara, says that Apple will abandon its mid-year iPhone releases and instead switch to a 12-month launch model.

“Apple will abandon its previous 12-month launch model and instead switch to… a 12-month launch model.” Look, I know it’s confusing when one iPhone of all those so far released is shunted from the standard cycle, but you do know how to use more than one data point, right?

Like us on Facebook

No thanks. Oh, sorry. That was a horrible embedded social ‘advert’ and not part of your article. Do continue!

Whenever, the iPhone is unveiled it will have the upper hand on the 4S because iPhone enthusiasts won’t be distracted by the fact that the model they were expecting wasn’t released.

Yes, because people are always very rational when it comes to iOS devices and what they expect. For some reason, the iPhone 5 will have the ‘upper hand’, on the basis that it will be called the iPhone 5 and therefore won’t shock people with its name. Presumably, through MAGIC and PIXIES, everyone will also not unleash an absurd wish list, and will instead be calm and reasoned regarding features.

The latest iPhone 5 rumors point to a 1280 x70 resolution with a Quantum Dot LED curved glass edge-to-edge display.

CALM AND REASONED! And that’s a pretty narrow iPhone display. What, it’s a typo? You think I’m being mean? Tough. If you think Apple’s going to fragment its iOS devices by churning out an iPhone with an entirely new screen ratio, you deserve mean. Also: curved glass? Edge-to-edge display? CALM AND REASONED!

If the iPad 3 is released with a retina display, this will spur rumors for one on the iPhone 5.

Because the iPhone doesn’t yet have a Retina display. Well, assuming you ignore the iPhone 4S. And the iPhone 4.

A bigger 4-inch or 4.3-inch screen is also on the rumors cards,

Can someone send me a pack of these ‘rumors cards’? They sound great!

after many iPhone customers have criticized the iPhone screen for being too small.

‘Many’, in this case meaning ‘arbitrary and non-qualifiable amount that we just made up’.

The iPhone 5 will probably come with the same chip as the iPad 3, which is expected to have an A6 Chip, is.

Did write Yoda this article?

The first-generation iPad came with an A4 Chip and the iPad 2 followed with an A5 chip, which suggests the iPad 3 will follow suit and run on the A6 chip.

I can increment numbers! Woo!

An A6 chip would double the power of the A5 chip that is currently used in the iPhone 4s and the iPad 2.

As evidenced by research from [IBT SUB: PLEASE INSERT LINK HERE. IN FACT, PLEASE INSERT REST OF ARTICLE HERE, WITH YOUR USUAL LEVEL OF RESEARCH, BECAUSE I’M GOING TO BASH MY HEAD AGAINST THE DESK FOR A BIT]

 

Not an hour goes by without someone firing some stupid at the internet regarding the iPad 3, so I thought I’d smash out a quick post to help tech journalists (or journalists writing about tech—despite not really using tech—because their editor heard that this “iPad thing is probably going to be quite big, and can therefore get us page views, even though it’s not really a perfect fit for Pretty Gardens Monthly”) about the revamped device.

Here’s what we currently know for sure about the iPad 3:

• It almost certainly exists and will most likely be revealed on Wednesday.

That’s it. Anything else you care to write about is pure conjecture and you’re fuelling the rumour mill. Worse, you’re getting people’s hopes up by spreading rumours that they will then use to smack Apple with once the realisation dawns that the engineers and designers in Cupertino aren’t in fact wizards conjuring unicorns, but are instead folk simply figuring out how to make a really great tablet.

And here’s what we don’t know for sure:

• The device’s name. iPad 3? iPad HD? iPad 2S? We simply don’t know.
• The amount of storage the device will have. We simply don’t know.
• The screen the new device will have. 1024-by-768? 2048-by-1536? We simply don’t know.
• The form factor and what buttons the device will have. We simply don’t know.
• What connectivity the device will include. We simply don’t know.
• What OS the device will run and what new features it will have. We simply don’t know.
• The full model line-up and whether it will include the iPad 2 at the low-end. We simply don’t know.
• What quality cameras the device will include. We simply don’t know.

And so on.

Some of these guesses (and until we see the device unveiled, that’s what they are—guesses) are more likely than others. A ‘Retina’ display is a logical evolutionary upgrade that would bring the iPad into line with other iOS devices, in terms of the smoothness of displayed content (which is particularly great for reading, but also for games and many apps). Conversely, I think it’s staggeringly unlikely that we’ll see major changes to the device’s form factor and physical components—its dimensions, the Home button, and the bezel, for example. But the thing is we simply don’t know.

I’d have more respect for publications that simply admitted this simple fact, rather than continually churning out coverage of every tiny rumour that’s spat out by unreliable and anonymous ‘sources’, then conveniently forgetting poor track records (both of the sources and their own articles) when the next Apple device update looms.

Via Curious Rat, Huffington Post’s piece on the Sony Tablet P.

Are 2 Screens Double The Fun?

Or twice the hassle?

Two is better than one, as the old saying goes,

Depending on what you have two of. Two pay cheques that you get to keep: better! Two yummy pastries instead of one: better! Two screens on an ill-thought-out tablet: *not better sadface*

and Sony has put that old saying to the test with a tablet with two screens.

*not better sadface*

The Sony Tablet P is a dual-screen, foldable tablet that can be yours for $399

Still, that’s not a bad price-point.

with a two-year contract on AT&T

Oh.

The Tablet P’s two screens each measure about 5.5 inches — think two Samsung Galaxy Note phablets welded together at the ends

Man, there I was, thinking I was almost certainly going to buy an iPad 3 in a week or two, but “two Samsung Galaxy Note phablets welded together at the ends”? SOLD!

and the clam-shell tablet runs a special version of the Android Honeycomb operating system that allows for dual-scren-tailored applications [sic]

Which I’m sure devs are just going to flock to, because if there’s one thing devs love, it’s fragmentation and designing apps specifically for an unproven device that’s probably going to vanish from the face of the planet within a few months.

Sony says in a press release that you’ll be able to watch video on one screen and use the other as a remote control, or read email on one screen while using the other as a keyboard.

Unlike on a 10-inch iOS or Android tablet, where you could, say, watch a video full-screen and bring up controls only when you need them, or read email on half the screen while using the other half as a keyboard.

If you’re a killjoy, you can also just fold it flat and turn it into a single-screen slate.

A single-screen slate with a MASSIVE HINGE through the middle of said single screen.

The Tablet P has been available in the United Kingdom for a few months now

It has? I… well… I’ve not seen that many of them in the wild. Nor, in fact, even heard about it until today.

and it will land in America exclusively on AT&T and its 3G HSPA+ network.

Exclusive deals with a single carrier—that’s a great way to ensure a tablet is wildly successful!

[Each] screen is 5.5 inches and has a 1024 x 480 resolution. […] It also only gets up to 7 hours of battery life, according to the Sony website. That’s far less than the iPad 2 (10 hours) or the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (9 hours), though with two screens running simultaneously, you might expect this thing to be a power hog

Two screens that offer… pretty much the same resolution as the iPad and Galaxy Tab 10.1.

What the Tablet P lacks in battery life, however, it sure makes up for in its unique two-screen design. It’s not the first dual-screen tablet to hit America, however: Acer had a $1200 dual-screen 14-inch Iconia “touchbook” tablet in early 2011, but that never really caught on.

Surprise!

Sony hopes for a better fate with its Tablet P, and its employees, at least, are enthusiastic

Surprise!

One Sony spokesman told HuffPost via email that the Tablet P was “legitimately SUPER cool.”

And legitimately DEAD IN THE WATER.

[Marvel] at this two-screened wonder

Me, I’m marvelling at Sony thinking the child of a ‘phablet’ and a Nintendo DS is a sensible product to release on to the market.