The Online Magazine Focused on App Design, Branding & Marketing

It’s become a yuletide tradition. On Christmas morning, you and your family gather around the tree and unwrap the mobile devices you’ve given each other and then hunker down on the couch, activate them and then start browsing the app store, filling your present with all kind of goodies. The past few years have seen the number of device activations and app downloads skyrocket on Christmas day, but this year set a new standard. Every record wasn’t just broken — every record was completely shattered.

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How big do you want your screen to be?

It’s a question that demands your time and attention. The bigger the screen, the bigger the device. If you want a phone with a large screen, how big does it have to be before you just bite the bullet and get a tablet? The reverse also applies — do you really want an iPad Mini or do you just want a smartphone with a larger screen? Further blurring the lines here is the quiet success of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, which has sold five million units in two months.

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Today in Patent Weirdness: 

Many people have wondered when the insanity of current patent laws would reach its breaking point. Well, this may be it. A Chinese company has taken a nice long look at leaked images of the still unannounced iPhone 5 and have rushed their own smartphone into production, literally mimicking everything possible about Apple’s latest. Their devious plan? To get the “Goophone I5″ on Chinese shelves before Apple can release the iPhone 5 in the country later this year. The capper? The company has patented “their” design and will try to sue Apple over it. It’s difficult to imagine this gaining any traction in an American court of law (those leaked photos essentially confirm Apple’s ownership of the design), but what will a Chinese court say?

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(Talksauce is the Friday editorial where Tapsauce editor-in-chief Jacob Hall talks about something that’s on his mind. His brutally honest opinions don’t represent the views of Rocksauce Studios, but hopefully they’ll give you some food for thought!)

About a year and a half ago, comedian Patton Oswalt wrote an article for Wired where he declared Geek Culture dead. Naturally, the citizens of the Geek Kingdom (AKA, a significant portion of the entire internet) were none too happy with their way of life being called out in such a way and the article became a subject of debate across the online world for about a week, which, in the sped-up universe of the internet, is the equivalent of six months in the real world. However, many people who railed against the article seemed to miss Oswalt’s point, which wasn’t “Geek Culture is dumb and bad and deserves to die” but rather “Geek Culture has officially become mainstream culture.”

Although Oswalt’s piece was more directly tied to comic books, science fiction and other geek staples, the same can be applied to technology as a whole. Decades ago, computers were used — and understood — by a select few, mainly a handful of nerds. Now, they’re literally everywhere, being used by toddlers, senior citizens and everyone in-between. Loving and understanding the technology in your pocket is an everyday act of pride. Geeks were ahead of the curve on just about everything relevant in modern culture. The world is literally at our fingertips.

With that said, is all of this new technology making us all dumber?

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(Welcome to Mobile News Round-up, the weekly column where we tell you about all of the cool stuff that didn’t get is own post during the week.)

Curious which phone carrier provides the fastest service for your iPhone on a state-by-state basis? This map should sort out your inquiries. Spoiler alert: it’s probably AT&T and if it’s not AT&T, it’s Verizon. Sorry, Sprint fans…but at least you’ve got that unlimited data plan, right?

What’s the future of Google+? Are you still on it? Is anyone still on it? Does it still exist? Apparently. The reasonably new social network had its public launch on September 20th and it’s traffic spiked 1,200%, which sounds great, until you hear about the part where it then plummeted 60% in the ensuing weeks. The current traffic levels are slightly higher than they were before the big launch, but a whole lotta’ people got a taste and decided to retreat to the familiar land of Facebook. Can Google+ survive as a niche network? It’s obviously not as big as Google wanted it to be, so how long until Google attempts a reinvention or pulls the plug? Google engineers accidentally letting their negative feelings on the platform known doesn’t help.

Hey there. Yes, you. The monocle and top hat wearing billionaire who also happens to be an Apple enthusiast. Have you seen this gold plated, diamond encrusted MacBook? I think it’s right up your alley.

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For many people, the release of the first iPad in April 2010 was their first exposure to a mobile tablet. However, tablets have been around for quite some time — it just took Apple to make them appealing to the average consumer. After the jump, you can see for yourself just how long tablets have been floating around by watching a video espousing their virtues. A video that was made in 1994.

The video may be prophetic, but it’s more than a little sad: the talking heads spend much of their screen time talking about how tablets will be the “future of newspapers” and eternally revive the industry, when we all know it’s done the exact opposite. In fact, as far as this video is concerned, a tablet’s major use would be to read the newspaper; sharing content with friends and watching video would be available, but only for news-related items. Serious props are deserved for their noting that the internet will build a new community and let people watch anything they desire as many times as they wish, but it’s fascinating to note just how limited the original vision for a tablet really was. Heck, the technology on display (what an adorable little stylus!) blows my mind: it’s hard to believe that the world has changed that much in less than twenty years.

Watch the video after the jump.

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When we wrote about Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, we talked about how Google having complete and total control over the software and hardware of a future product could be beneficial not only in quality, but in how it is seen by consumers. For example, as great as some Android-powered devices are, their owners often view them as the cheap stop-gap while they pinch their pennies and save for that slick, sexy iPhone. Let’s face it: as much as hardcore tech geeks care about the inner-workings of their gadget, many people flock to the Apple store to pick up the latest iDevice (and desperately search for weeks because they sell out in an instant) because they’re cool. Those hit-and-miss Android smartphones, manufactured and designed by dozens of companies and given away like candy? Not so cool.

Which brings us to this New York Times article, which uses the power of statistics — and therefore, SCIENCE! — to prove that an overwhelming majority of the general public have no interest in any tablet that doesn’t begin with a lowercase “i” and end with a “Pad.” A ridiculous number of tablets are hitting the market in the next year and their biggest challenge won’t be proving to be a capable device, but rather convincing everyone in the world that they’re just as amazing as the iPad.

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