New Designs: Apple's Media Player and Nintendo DSi

Designing tech devices are never easy. There are some that at first I thought was bad but was good when i tried them on, and there are those who look really good but fell apart when I tried using them. Form follows function they say and let's hope that the new Apple media player and Nintendo DSi screens enlargements work.

New Apple media Player?

Apple has always been considered as design masters by the tech world. Their works have been copied or emulated in some way by their competitors but they are still considered as the standard to beat. However, with the discovered Apple Patent, we have to say that this design really bugs the heck out of me.

The Baltimore Sun today found an Apple Patent on a device that would integrate a media player into a wireless headset. While only shown in one of the images, the display does show up in some of the diagrams and in the application itself. (marked "214" below)

Yes folks, that's an iShuffle with an earpiece sticking out of its back. From my point of view it's going to look like one of those Bluetooth earphones with speakers built in them. But wait there's more!

Will this design work? I personally have troubles with earphones as they have a tendency to slip off from time to time (and usually at the most inopportune time). Good luck with that Apple...

Nintendo DSi gets larger screens!

Since we're talking about designs, Nintendo's DSi will have another makeover with larger screens!

"Don’t look to the DSi LL expecting any special, new features. It’s essentially a DSi, only slightly bigger due to the inclusion of two 4.2 inch screens, as opposed to the two 3.25 inch screens built into a normal DSi, it is bigger. It also comes with more styluses than a typical DSi - it comes with the standard stylus that fits into the DSi and a larger stylus that looks exactly like a ball point pen."

This is the Nintendo DS for adults or kids with really big hands. Is the bigger screens enough for people to replace their Nintendo DSi/Lite/Phat? We'll see after the Holidays.

Source for Apple's Patents News
Source for Nintendo DSi's New Screens

Palm's Lack of Good Games is Showing

Image by PatrickMoorhead via Flickr

Despite some security issues, the Palm Pre is a magnificent mobile phone. It's almost gone toe to toe with its main rival, Apple's iPhone 3GS. However, it does lack one feature that their rivals have: good games.

Should they be bothered with the lack of games in their phone? Both phones may not have been originally marketed for gamers, but let's admit it: a lot of gadget lovers are gamers as well! It may not beat the Nintendo DS nor the PSP, but if people get stuck in traffic or in a commuter train, some would wish for a game to whittle away their time rather than listen to some mp3s.

We're familiar with a lot of games for the iPhone 3GS, but none yet coming from Palm Pre. As far as we know only emulator hackers and homebrew heroes have tried using the Pre, but none yet coming from big time gaming companies or even from Palm itself.

It's nice to know that Palm Pre's really serious about putting games into their phones by posting a "webOS™ and Game Development" article on their site. However with the phone's WebOS, 3D games will surely be out of the picture. Instead, they are promoting "puzzles, word games, card and board games, innovative social games, and the list goes on – even simple arcade games." The question here, is how can they beat the iPhone's games with such?

Hopefully with Palm Central's list of Homebrew games for the Pre, it should urge the company and some developers out there to try using Palm's newest baby as a "somewhat" platform for gaming.

Source