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TC Gadgets Weekly Webcast: The iPad Mini, CES, And A Coffeemaker

This week the lads and I talk about the iPad Mini, our huge booth at CES, and my new favorite coffeemaker. We also discuss how much it’s going to cost us to interview 50 Cent at CES this year, which is pretty darn wild.

Want to hear this in audio form? I’ve extracted the audio from the video webcast and saved it to a downloadable MP3 podcast that you can subscribe to via RSS or iTunes. Hopefully you enjoy this version as well.

OkCandidate Snags OkCupid’s Approach, Tells You Who To Vote For

While I wouldn’t expect it to fly with its current name for very long, check out this project that came out of NYT’s recent Open Hack Day (where it walked away as runner-up).

Called OkCandidate, it’s OkCupid… for voters. Instead of finding you the best romantic candidate to date and make beautiful love babies with, it tries to determine which presidential candidate is most compatible with your beliefs.

Like OkCupid, OkCandidate begins with a series of questions. You drop in some details about your political beliefs, acknowledge which answers you find acceptable, and mark how important you find that particular issue. In the end, OkCandidate ranks each candidate on a 0-100 scale.

To be clear: at this point, I couldn’t recommend anyone actually use this to pick their candidate. Given that it was built in ~12 hours for a hack day, it has its fair share of limitations that could be cleared up with a bit more effort. For example: it’s completely opaque as to how it’s forming its compatibility ratings and from where it’s pulling its information, so the ratings at the end lack reason or explanation. It’s also curiously missing information/ratings regarding incumbent president Barack Obama , so its ratings are currently limited to the Republican candidates.

So why write about it? Because I really like the concept, and hope the team (or someone else) builds it into something wonderful. Everyone gets a vote — but not everybody bothers to be informed. Maybe it’s because they’re too busy; maybe it’s because they’re intimidated by the mountain of information they’d need to pore over. A tool like this (albeit one with a bit more transparency and explanation behind ratings) would, at the very least, help people take the first step towards narrowing down a pick.

If something like this exists, drop a comment and let us know. I’ve done my fair share of searching, but my Google-Fu fails to turn up anything well-made and intended for use with the upcoming election.

Your Nexus S Could Taste Ice Cream Sandwich As Early As Today

Nexus S owners rejoice! While your Galaxy Nexus-toting friends have been rubbing a bit of Ice Cream Sandwich in your face, the year-old Nexus S will soon get its own taste of Android 4.0. According to the Android Google+ account, the rollout to Nexus S users will begin today and will continue through “the coming month.”

Ah, but there’s a bit of a catch — from what I can tell, the update is only meant for users of the bog-standard GSM Nexus and not the slightly more flashy 4G model. Sorry Sprint folks, you’ll just have to wait a little longer for your chance to shine.

Or will you?

If waiting’s not really your thing (it certainly isn’t mine), there’s no shortage of custom ROMs to flash that will get you running Android 4.0 as fast as you can say “rooted.” Sure, it’ll take a little more effort than wailing on the “Check for updates” option on your device’s Settings screen, but for some it’ll beating waiting for who-knows how long.

Google has even offered up a list of tips for Gingerbread users who finally get to update. If you haven’t gotten a chance to play with ICS yet (or if you’re waiting for your update to install), take a look — things have changed just enough so you’ll have to reset your Android-oriented muscle memory.

Sprint “Disabling Use” Of Carrier IQ On Affected Devices

Just a day after Minnesota Senator Al Franken published reports on how carriers and device vendors use Carrier IQ, Sprint seems to be taking steps to distance themselves the mobile monitoring company. According to MobileBurn, Sprint has confirmed that they will be disabling their use of Carrier IQ software on affected devices.

They’ve got a lot of them too: in response to an inquiry from Senator Franken, Sprint recently revealed that 26 million Sprint devices have made it into customers’ hands with Carrier IQ on-board.

For now, it seems as though Sprint simply won’t be “tasking” devices for diagnostic data, and that the software will remain on those devices. That may change soon though: a report from Geek.com indicates that HTC and Sprint’s other hardware partners have been asked to push out over-the-air software updates that don’t include Carrier IQ. Sprint representatives offer no comment.

The one thing Sprint doesn’t make mention of is what the next step is. If this turns out to be the end of the two companies’ long-term relationship, then it stands to reason that Sprint will no longer be asking hardware partners to integrate Carrier IQ’s software going forward. That is, at least, until they can figure out another way to get that much-needed diagnostic information.

Now that a major carrier has discontinued their use of Carrier IQ (at least for now), an important question comes to mind: what does this mean for Sprint’s network? The two companies have worked together since 2006, and I doubt that their relationship would have continued for so long unless it actually resulted in improvements for the network and for customer satisfaction.

Sprint’s email mentioned “evaluating options regarding this diagnostic software as well as Sprint’s diagnostic needs,” which to me speaks to the importance they place on maintaining their network. I can’t help but wonder if we’ll see how valuable Carrier IQ’s data is to carriers if/when the two companies part ways.

Gillmor Gang Live 12.16.11 (TCTV)

The Gillmor Gang – Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor – are recording live today at 1pm PT.

Recording is concluded. The show will be available 10am Saturday morning Pacific time.

T-Mobile’s White Samsung Galaxy S II Is Going For $99 This Weekend Only

The Samsung Galaxy S II is a very special phone. Even though it’s been on the market for quite some time now, it’s still one of the more beastly competitors on Android-flavored shelves.

Of course, it’s always had the price tag to prove it, going for between $230 and $250 just about everywhere. But T-Mobile has a pretty sweet deal going on a white Samsung Galaxy S II for this weekend only, and it could save you up to $130.

The white Galaxy S II hasn’t been available for that long, so if the new new thing is all that matters to you then fear not. The deal is only available online, so don’t go traipsing into a T-Mobile asking for your $99 Samsung Galaxy S II. After a $50 mail-in rebate and a signature on the dotted line of a two-year contract, T-Mobile is slashing $130 off one of the most popular phones of the year.

I have yet to see such a great deal on the GS II, so if you’re into white phones and are ready to sign your soul over to T-Mobile (possibly, again), head over to T-Mo’s web site and get the ball rolling.

[via Unwired View]

Nerds Rule, Help TechCrunch Beat Maxim In A Turntable.fm Battle For Charity Now

“I’m a nerd, and I’m here today to stand up for the rights of other nerds.” Right now, TechCrunch is in a charity Turntable.fm DJ battle vs. Maxim magazine. Help me win it for the nerds, and the kids. Go to the MaxCrunch Turntable.fm room and click the “Awesome” button while DJ TechCrunch plays to help us win. Money raised by this Tech The Halls event benefits One Laptop Per Child, and helps ensure the next generation of nerds and entrepreneurs has access to technology.

Update: Victory for nerds and laptop-needing kids alike. The battle just ended, and the final score was TechCrunch 249, Maxim 119. Thanks to everyone who helped us raise money for this great cause.

Update 2: You helped TechCrunch win the whole event, and donated enough to buy the kids their laptops! Big thanks to everyone who listened and all the publications that participated. You can still donate to One Laptop Per Child here.

Tech The Halls is trying to raise $10,000 for One Laptop Per Child and give 50 kids their own laptop, and you can donate here. Your money goes a long way, as their rugged laptops are designed to last, and they help children get engaged in their own education.

I’ll be spinning some sweet rock, dance, and hip hop songs to liven up your Friday afternoon. If there’s a song you want to hear, write in the chat of the Turntable.fm and I’ll try to play it.

Let’s do this. Go to the Turntable.fm room, click “Awesome” whenever DJ TechCrunch spins, and lets get these kids some laptops.

[Image credit: Noozhawk]

Goodbye, Heather

Heather Harde, the business brains behind TechCrunch, will be stepping down at the end of the year as general manager of AOL’s technology properties (including TechCrunch, Engadget, Joystiq, and TUAW). AOL GM Jay Kirsch, who oversees Autos, Finance, and Industry on the business side, will be adding Tech to his responsibilities. Editorially, TechCrunch will remain independent under me. (Editorial and business groups are separate at AOL).

Heather became TechCrunch’s CEO almost five years ago, working out of a spare bedroom in founder Michael Arrington’s house, and built it into the profitable media and conference business we have today with a staff of more than 50 people. AOL Tech is one of the fastest growing businesses inside AOL.

If I had to choose one word to describe Heather it would be “tireless.” She is a tireless leader, a tireless strategist, a tireless negotiator, a tireless organizer, a tireless sales person, and a tireless champion of TechCrunch in general. Somehow, on the side, she managed to create entirely new products like CrunchBase. Michael often said that hiring Heather was the best business decision he ever made. After he parted ways with AOL (and TechCrunch) last September, Heather stayed on to help steady the ship and set it on a new course.

I am truly sorry to see her go. She is an amazing business partner and a rare talent. Just one example: Last year, when Heather was negotiating the final deal terms with AOL to purchase TechCrunch, she ran the conference during the day without a hiccup, and then literally stayed up all night to get the deal done in time for it to be announced on stage the next day.

Thank you, Heather. We can’t wait to see what you do next.

Mark Your Calendars—In 2012, TechCrunch Will Bring The Crunchies, Disrupt, And More Events

We are gearing up for 2012 and getting ready to bring you some major events you will want to put on your calendars. Our dates are already locked in for the Crunchies, Disrupt NYC and SF, and our annual summer bash at August Capital. International events are also in the works.

The Crunchies—January 31

TechCrunch will kick off 2012 with The Crunchies along with our partners GigaOm and VentureBeat on Tuesday, January 31, 2012. The tech party to start the year will move to Davies Symphony Hall this year for both the awards ceremony and the famous after party. Nominations for the entrepreneurial spirited categories are in and being tabulated. Voting begins in early January. Make your voice heard and vote for your favorites.The next ticket batch release will occur before the holidays. Look for announcements to come on TechCrunch.

Disrupt NYC—May 19-23

TechCrunch Disrupt will return to New York in 2012 with the pizza-and-caffeine-fueled Hackathon on May 19 – 20, 2012. The TechCrunch Disrupt New York conference will follow on May 21 – 23, 2012 where our fun loving friends at Shaker will pass the Disrupt Cup to the newest Startup Battlefield winner. Last year, Ashton Kutcher and Paul Graham shared their investment strategies with Charlie Rose, Keith Rabois shared why Square will be more profitable than PayPal, and GetAround battled it out with 30 other excellent companies to take home the Disrupt Cup.

Summer Party—August 3

Each year we all break out our summer dresses and button-downs and head south to Sand Hill Road for the August Capital party. This past summer we held our Mobile First CrunchUp before the afternoon sun beckoned and you can expect more community building and fun in 2012. August 3rd is the date for 2012′s soirée.

Disrupt SF—September 8-12

In September, TechCrunch Disrupt will return to San Francisco with the Hackathon taking place on September 8 – 9, 2012 and the conference on September 10 – 12, 2012. As previous Startup Battlefield companies can attest, nowhere else can you launch your company where you are offered the audience, investors and media spotlight as when you launch at TechCrunch Disrupt. This past Disrupt in San Francisco brought us Reid Hoffman and Vinod Khosola giving us their insights as well as Dustin Moskovitz sharing his perspective about the founder’s mystique and what’s wrong with Google while Eric Ries, Scott Cook and the Lean Startup movement made their case. 2012 promises to keep our participants and readers on their toes.

In 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt went global with the introduction of an emerging international market conference in Beijing, China. The two day event kicked off with a bang with TechCrunch’s Sarah Lacy interviewing Pony Ma in his first live interview with an international reporter. The conference continued with great interviews with Lei Jun, Steve Chen, Niklas Zennström and more. While it was our first Startup Battlefield presented outside the U.S., it certainly wasn’t our first Battlefield of international launches. In the end, OrderWithMe was the clear winner, capturing the spirit of tech between Silicon Valley and China and took home the Disrupt Cup and $50,000 check.

We’re looking for another city outside of the U.S. to join Beijing in the ranks of TechCrunch Disrupt’s global presence. Where would you like to see TechCrunch Disrupt next?

Mark your calendars and save the dates. If you’d like to become a foundational part of the TechCrunch Disrupt experience and learn about sponsorship opportunities, please contact Jeanne Logozzo.

January 31, 2012 – The 5th Annual Crunchies Awards
May 19-23, 2012 – New York Disrupt Hackathon and Conference
August 3, 2012 – Crunchup and August Capital Summer Party
September 8-12, 2012 – San Francisco Disrupt Hackathon and Conference

Stay tuned for more event announcements to come!

Keen On… Walter Isaacson: Was Steve Jobs a Tyrant? (TCTV)

At the heart of the enigma of Steve Jobs lies a riddle about authority. On the one hand, Jobs was an intrinsically anti-authoritarian figure whose life was a litany of rebellions against every kind of convention. On the other hand, however, Jobs often seemed to run Apple like a personal fiefdom, shaping products and strategy according to his own whims and instincts.

So, I asked Jobs’ biographer, Walter Isaacson when he came into the TechCrunchTV studio earlier this week, was Steve Jobs a tyrannical leader?

Isaacson, whose best-selling biography explores this riddle in some detail, told me that Steve was “more collaborative than he is given credit for.” Like other authoritarian personalities, Isaacson explained, the best way to bring out Steve’s democratic instincts was to scream at him. When you resisted him, Issacson told me, you got promoted. And if you didn’t, perhaps he implied, you got fired.

This is the penultimate excerpt of my interview with Isaacson. On Monday, he talks about where he sees Apple going in a post Steve Jobs future. Yesterday, he talked to me about Jobs’ historic significance.

GrubWithUs Now Wants To Plan YOUR Group Meals (And Do All The Legwork)

You’re hungry. You’re feeling social. But you’re also feeling laaaaazy, and planning a big group meal can be so much work that you end up hating everyone at the table by the end of it.

GrubWithUs, a startup best known for organizing buy-in dinners with overarching themes (TechCrunch fans!) or at least one particularly interesting person at the table, is playing with the idea of building dinners for the most interesting person of all: you. You punch in a few details, and GrubWithUs does pretty much all of the leg work — but there’s a catch!

The new service (which just went live in Chicago first, with a national rollout planned) is aptly dubbed “Create-A-Meal”. You start out by telling it which city you’re looking to grub in, how many grubbers there will be, how much dough the group is willing to cough up per head, and GrubWithUs takes it from there. They find a restaurant, negotiate a menu, and send out the invites. They’ll even handle the check-splitting (read: the part that makes you hate your friends) beforehand.

The catch: Much like Priceline or Hotwire’s hotel search, you don’t know what the restaurant will be until the deal is sealed. GrubWithUs says they’re “committed to only working with the top restaurants in the city”, though, so you probably don’t have to worry that your mystery meal will end up being Taco Bell’s $10 Grande Box. GrubWithUs says they’ll gladly work around dietary restrictions — so if you’ve got a friend who only eats cardboard, toast, and fish killed on Fridays, be sure to let them know.

Until now, there was no way for anyone outside of GrubWithUs to build meals. Any meals listed on the site were organized by their sales team in coordination with local restaurants.

Meals are private by default, though you can open them up to the public (and listed on GrubWithUs) if you’re looking to break bread with some new pals.

You can find the new Create-Your-Own page here. Note that while the page seems to load regardless of what city you’re in, the company says the feature is Chicago-only for the time being.

An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Galaxy Nexus

You have to hand it to Google. They know that I prefer Apple products and have been generally critical of many Google moves in the past couple of years. And yet, they’re unafraid to give me their newest products to test out. To be honest, I’m not sure Apple would do the same. But I think this is a smart move on Google’s part. On one hand, they may get a negative review but they know that many will discount the negativity coming from me. On the flip side, if it’s positive: gravy train time.

Thus: my thoughts on the Galaxy Nexus. But before I begin…

Rather than do a full-on review — you’ve probably already seen plenty of those — and given that I now write an Apple-centric column for TechCrunch, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to continue my “An iPhone Lover’s Take…” series. For some background, here are my previous stories from the same angle on the Nexus One, the HTC EVO 4G, the Nexus S, a Windows Phone, and even the iPhone 4.

My colleague Jason Kincaid took a similar approach for a post a few weeks back, but did it from a slightly different angle — call it: An Original iPhone Lover Who Learned To Love Android Until Switching Back To The iPhone… Reviews The Galaxy Nexus. Oddly, he just had just switched back to the iPhone after years of Android use — but he says the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich in particular may get him to switch back yet again. Meanwhile, GigaOm’s Darrell Etherington also looked at the Galaxy Nexus from an iPhone user’s perspective and ultimately decided the iPhone 4S was still the device for him. So I’m here to break the tie.

I’ve been using an iPhone since the day the first one launched in 2007. It is without question my favorite and most-used gadget of all time. Over that same span, I’ve tried about a dozen different Android devices ranging from the G1 to the Nexus S — the results have been decidedly mixed. I pretty much hated the G1, generally liked the Nexus One, thought the EVO 4G was more or less crap, and basically enjoyed the Nexus S. But none, in my mind, could touch the iPhone.

So what about the Galaxy Nexus?

I was given the device shortly before I took off for Europe a couple weeks ago. Given that it’s unlocked and I got a 3G SIM, I’ve been using it a lot — just as much as I’ve used any of the other Android devices listed above. For a few nights, it has been my primary device when I’ve been out and about. Unfortunately, I have not been able to test any sort of 4G network with it, so consider all of this a Galaxy Nexus 3G review.

First and foremost, the Galaxy Nexus is way too big. The 4.65-inch screen is nice when I’m sitting on my couch, but out and about it feels like I’m Zack Morris holding his Gordon Gekko phone. I’d consider myself to have average sized hands for an adult male, and the screen is so large that it killed several one-handed operations for me (especially since many Android apps use a top nav system). I’ll admit that for some apps, like Gmail, having a screen larger than the iPhone’s 3.5-inch variety is very nice. But 4.3-inch may be better. This is just too big.

While the screen is too big, I am happy that Google has finally decided to get rid of hardware menu buttons and go all-in on the screen. Previous Android hardware was always made worse by the decision to include fixed nav buttons along the button. With Ice Cream Sandwich, all these buttons can now be software-based. There isn’t even a home hardware button like the iPhone has anymore — it’s all software.

I like this. The iPhone home button wears down over time and it makes noise when you click it. (Of course, the Galaxy Nexus still has a wake/power button of the right side.) I hope Apple does something more inventive with the button if they choose to keep it in future iPhone hardware iterations. Perhaps a multi-touch top on the button that allows you to swipe between open iOS apps would make the continuation of the physical button worth it.

I also like the inclusion of an indicator light on the Galaxy Nexus. Both the Galaxy Nexus and iPhone have options to vibrate or give you audio cues to alert you to new messages, but if the phone isn’t on me, I often miss those. The light allows you to see if you have new message waiting without having to turn the screen on. This is one of the few things BlackBerry got right that Apple for whatever reason hasn’t bothered to mimic.

The rest of the Galaxy Nexus hardware leaves something to be desired. The iPhone feels like a completely and thoughtfully designed object. By comparison, the Galaxy Nexus still feels rather cheap and plastic-y. It’s not awful, but you’d think Samsung could do better at this point. Some people will like having the option to remove to the back to get at the battery, but the method for doing so remains a joke. You essentially have to rip it off. I feel like I’m peeling a nail away from a finger every time I do it — it’s that unpleasant.

The battery life itself on the device is very good. I felt like the Galaxy Nexus was lasting at least as long as the iPhone 4S on a fully charged battery, perhaps even a bit longer if some cases. Again, I didn’t try it on a 4G network, which is known to drain battery quicker. (I also haven’t had the battery discharge issues that some iPhone 4S users have been reporting since the launch.) But fear not, this is not the EVO with its temper-melting 30-minute battery.

The camera on the Galaxy Nexus is definitely worse than the iPhone 4S, both in megapixels (8 vs. 5), and in image quality. But the iPhone 4S is also a ridiculously good camera. The Galaxy Nexus is still a fine point-and-shoot replacement, in my opinion. The camera seems better than any other Android device I’ve used. One nit is that while there is a method to go right into the camera from the lock screen (just like iOS 5 has), it’s too slow if the camera isn’t previously running. You’ll hit the camera button and watch as the Android main screen loads and then the camera apps loads. This feels like more of a macro than a feature.

And let’s talk about Ice Cream Sandwich. The artist also known as Android 4.0 is very solid. There is no question that the software is much improved over previous iterations in terms of speed, but mainly usability. I really like things like the multi-task tray and some of the new widgets.

Unfortunately, the system still lacks much of the fine polish that iOS users enjoy. The majority of Android users will probably think such criticism is bullshit, but that has always been the case. I imagine it’s probably hard for a Mercedes owner to describe to a Honda owner how attention to detail makes their driving experience better when both machines get them from point A to point B. As a Honda owner myself, I’m not sure I would buy it — I’d have to experience it to understand it, I imagine. And most Android lovers are not going to spend enough time with iOS to fully appreciate the differences.

Still, if the Android team ever wants to convert (or at least convince) most iOS users, they still have quite a bit of work to do here. Then again, they probably don’t (or shouldn’t) care too much about converting iOS users over to Android. All the non-smartphone users out there remain the much bigger prize to go after (for both Google and Apple).

Other things that will sound like nits but drove me crazy with ICS included the constant focusing on text fields only to have to click again to get the keyboard to pop up. If I’m in a text field, I clearly want to type something. Why should I have to click again? This doesn’t always happen, but it happens a lot — particularly in third-party apps.

Another: why is there a separate app for Messaging and Google+ Messenger? Apple baked iMessage into their SMS app, why didn’t Google? If they’re worried about anti-competitive concerns, why would they bundle all the Google+ stuff into ICS to begin with? Similarly, why do Gmail and Email continue to be two separate apps? And why on Earth is the web browser not Chrome yet!?

The new People app social unification is nice — I love the big pictures. But my god Google needs help with their duplication/merging detection. One of my friends has four separate entries — one for his phone number, one for his Gmail/Google+, one for Twitter, and one for another email. Several others had three different entries. Most had at least two. Also, Google provides an option to link your Facebook account in Accounts & sync, but it does nothing. I’m sure this is due to the Google/Facebook fracas, but why include something in your OS that is completely broken?

Ice Cream Sandwich’s voice command functionality is a joke compared to Siri — but that may be changing soon, we’ll see.

In his write-up, Jason noted that iOS is still far behind Android when it comes to notifications, I have to disagree. I find Android’s notification tray to be far less useful than it is on iOS. For example, if I get three new emails, with Android, I just see that I have three new emails all grouped together. With iOS I can see at least some of the context. Same with Tweets. The size of the alerts in this tray also isn’t uniform in Android, so Facebook alerts seem more important with their huge logo.

I do like the ability to “clear all” in Android’s notification tray though. The iOS micro clear button remains a joke that badly needs to be fixed.

When it comes to web browsers, arguably the most important feature on any of these devices, there is no question that iOS still has a big edge here. I’ve seen arguments on both sides for why one is faster than the other — most recently, data today favors iOS — but just doing a simple use case test, mobile Safari kicks the ass of Google’s don’t-call-it-Chrome mobile web browser across the board. Some pages still refuse to render correctly on Android’s browser. And the ones that do cannot seem to get the simplest feature right: double-tap to zoom. You do it on Android and there’s a good chance you could end up looking at the middle of a random paragraph.

You’ll also still see a bit of lag in ICS when you do seemingly simple things like this. It’s still not as smooth as it should be. For the most part, ICS fixes many of Android’s performance issues, but there are plenty of times that you’ll still see stutters here and there.

And then there are the apps.

To be fair to Google, Ice Cream Sandwich is currently only on the Galaxy Nexus and it still hasn’t even officially launched in the U.S. But there’s a lot of work to do here. One app that I had on my Nexus S constantly crashes now on the Galaxy Nexus. And rather than quietly closing in the background, I get a nice big Windows-style pop-up that it has stopped running. Many other apps look fairly bad on the larger screen simply because they’re not optimized for it — again, something a wider release of ICS will hopefully fix.

The main problem I have with Android apps on the Galaxy Nexus/ICS remains the ones that are also available on iOS. When the apps exist on both platforms, it’s easy to compare them and the iOS version almost always wins — and often by a landslide. Take the latest version of Twitter, for example. It was just updated to run on both. On iOS it’s smooth, on ICS, there is noticeable stutter when scrolling. It’s much worse on Facebook Messenger and Facebook itself — no big deal, only the biggest app on both platforms.

The reason for the app differences between the two platforms remains a hot topic of debate. Again, all I know is what I see: app to app, iOS still easily beats Android in most cases. One counter-example, which I talked about on stage at LeWeb last week, is SoundTracking. I actually think their app is better on Android. But that has less to do with performance, and more to do with the fact that it can access hooks that iOS doesn’t offer, like background Spotify integration. Android developers should focus more on these benefits of Android and less on making their apps exact ports of their iOS ones. Something always seems to get lost in translation — often badly lost.

Now it just sounds like I’m focusing on the negative. It’s important to emphasize the fact that the Galaxy Nexus is without a doubt the best phone I’ve ever used that’s not an iPhone. And there is no question that it does certain things better than an iPhone — namely all of the Google apps and any third-party background/OS integration beyond Twitter, which is now baked into iOS 5. Google has also managed to just about match Apple in app quantity. This is all good — competition is good.

The next step that Google needs to take (or to help third party developers take) involves around app quality. Put simply: they need to create better tools for developers to use in order to take advantage of the strengths ICS offers. This won’t happen in 6 months, but it can happen if Google works at it.

After that, it’s the intangibles where iOS holds the huge advantage. And just like in sports, it’s not clear how well you can “teach” those. At some point, Google may simply have to acknowledge that iOS looks and feels better than Android because Apple’s entire fabric is woven with design, tight integration, and attention to detail. Google’s strengths are elsewhere; they should embrace that.

Google has done some very nice work here. Both the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich are a new pinnacle of the Android platform. But in the end, it still comes down to something very simple: which device do I want to use day-to-day? Which phone do I reach for when I’m not doing a review? It’s still the iPhone. Without question.

Keep at it, Google.

Flipboard Adds 1 Million Users Its First Week On The iPhone

Only one week after Flipboard’s highly anticipated launch on the iPhone (and iPod Touch), the company is announcing it has added 1 million users to its service and has tripled its engagement. According to the company, that means it now has over 5 million users in total using the app across the iOS platform.

Before last week’s release, Flipboard had registered 650 million flips per month on the iPad. Now it’s trending towards 2 billion flips per month.

“Flips,” for those who don’t get the Flipboard lingo, refers to swiping within the app in order to turn the page.

The magazine-like experience provided by Flipboard has long been one of the most popular iPad applications, having previously been named Apple’s iPad App of the Year for 2010 and Time Magazine’s Top 50 Inventions. In fact, the iPhone launch was so hot, that Flipboard actually went down for hours.

New in the iPhone version is a feature called “Cover Stories,” which is based on the relevance-matching technology Flipboard acquired with Ellerdale in 2010. This uses reader interactions like tweets, retweets and likes alongside manual curation to surface a personalized set of top stories.

Despite its many accolades, not everyone loves the Flipboard way of reading. Our own John Biggs notoriously gave the app a “Die” in “Fly or Die,” but he might just be in the minority.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas Card, Song Included

Aren’t Christmas eCards lame? It’s not just me, right? The annual holiday greeting efforts from those in my family who think they have figured out the digital world by renouncing handwritten letters are not just cheesy, they usually get lost in my spam folder, too.

Turns out ThingLink has a nice little alternative to that. The image tagging startup introduced its Interactive Holiday Cards Maker today. It’s a free service you can use to create personal christmas cards.

The Top Political Stories On Facebook In 2011 Were Sensationalized, Polarized And Mostly Mainstream

Facebook has released a list of the most popular US political news stories among its users over the past year. It’s a pretty depressing read if you’re idealistic like me, and wish that more people would listen to the other side more often because we’re all a bunch of dumb humans, anyway. But yeah, the story topics, which were led by Occupy Wall Street and Osama Bin Laden’s death, often took purposefully sensationalistic angles that catered to people with strong, preset opinions.

It could still be that the 155 million US Facebook users out there were having meaningful, reasonable conversations about the articles on their walls and news feeds. Let us hope.

Zooming out from the content, the most striking thing about the list is that it’s almost entirely mainstream media articles getting shared the most, which is like what we saw in the overall top articles list that Facebook had released last month. However disruptive blogs may be, they (we) still haven’t taken over. That is, except for The Huffington Post, which managed to lead all others with ten of the top 40 headlines through its usual formula of left-leaning linkbait.

After that, CNN had seven of the top headlines, MSNBC had six, and Fox had five. The New York Times didn’t even show up (directly, although it did indirectly via a reblog). The Wall Street Journal managed to squeak in at the end with a story at the end. The list is calculated by Facebook using the number of Likes and shares each article received.

The top story on the list is perhaps the best example of a smaller, outside-the-mainstream news source getting widely picked up by Facebook users. The article itself is a ranty response from a member of liberal site Daily Kos to a young conservative who had voiced his disagreement with Occupy Wall Street. The conservative had posted a photo of himself holding a note about how hard he worked, how he didn’t have health insurance, how he wasn’t complaining about it, etc. The Kos response was a personalized version of the progressive canon, that explained how he shouldn’t have to work so hard and stuff. I doubt the young conservative changed his mind as a result….

The next two posts are funny for how little original content they include. The first is the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, which reposted a New York Times data visualization of deficit increases under Bush versus Obama, and added a few lines of commentary about the dramatic effect of the Bush tax cuts. The second isn’t even an article, it’s just a Fox News reader poll that simply asks “Should U.S. Get Involved in Syria?” then provides a few multiple choice answers.

Okay, going through the rest of the list is too painful… “Michelle Obama Dances ‘The Dougie’ & ‘The Running Man’” offers the Huffington Post at the number six spot… “Should the American flag be banned in America?” Fox News rhetorically asks down at number 32… I’m done talking about this. If you want a better source for news than your Facebook friends, I suggest you check out Techmeme’s political aggregator, Memeorandum. Now go have fun looking through all the links yourselves. (And don’t forget to share this article on Facebook so we can try to make the list next year.)

1. Daily Kos: Open Letter to that 53% Guy

2. Washington Post: Obama’s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph

3. FOX News: Should U.S. Get Involved in Syria?

4. CNN: Osama bin Laden, the face of terror, killed in Pakistan

5. Salon: “USA! USA!” is the wrong response

6. Huffington Post: Michelle Obama Dances ‘The Dougie’ & ‘The Running Man’

7. Huffington Post: Obama’s Birth Certificate Through The Eyes Of A Birther

8. CNN: Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don’t get it

9. Huffington Post: Sarah Palin’s PAC Puts Gun Sights On Democrats She’s Targeting In 2010

10: MSNBC: Anti-gay marriage group fakes support with doctored photos

11. Huffington Post: Conservative Pie: Republicans Introduce Legislation Redefining Pi

12.Huffington Post: Westboro To Picket Funerals Of Arizona Shooting Victims