Aaron Long: 2010: A year in review, June

Monday, January 3, 2011

2010: A year in review, June

iPhone 4, vuvuzelas, the Kinect and, well, more iPhone 4
2010: A year in review, June. Gaming, Tablets, Phones, Home Cinema, Sky, iPhone 4, Kinect, Xbox 360 S, E32010, Computex 2010, World Cup 2010, 0

Creeping up on us like a Pantomime villain, 2011 promises a whole lot of tech fun and gadgetry sequels. The list of expected products and digital tomfoolery even reads like a Saturday afternoon's football results: iPad 2, iPhone 5; Android 3, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2; the match between Toshiba Folio and Google Wave has been postponed due to lack of interest.

However, before we start to look that far ahead, and drool over the tasty?morsels?on their way, Pocket-lint is casting its mighty eye back on the amazing year that both we and the consumer electronics industry have had. And this time, our focus is on June 2010. Or, as many tech-heads like to call it, iPhone 4vember... Probably.

Yep, the month was almost entirely dominated by the launch of the iPhone 4 - that and the start of the World Cup - and even though the Apple device wasn't to be launched until the end (24 June), eager fanboys and flamers alike we're lapping up any gossip, tittle tattle and rumours they could get their hands on.

However, before the madness kicked off a pace, something else in the foot-related department caught the Linters' eyes (see what we did there?)... Customised tech-tagged Nike sneakers. Designer Daniel Reese takes a pair of Nikes and turns them into works of art, with many of his daubings featuring gadget, games or even web-friendly iconography. He then sells them on for around ?180 - not bad for a one-of-kind pair of top class trainers. And we featured a few of his best. We were especially fond of the Twitter and Pac-Man flavours.

The beginning of June also saw Sky add Anytime Plus to its HD service in an effort to catch-up with, er, catch-up TV rivals such as Virgin Media and BT Vision, and Taiwan's Computex show gave us tantalising glimpses of the MSI Wind Pad, Acer's Kindle-a-like, and a whole lot of stuff that has yet to make an appearance in the UK.

But then, on 7 June, Steve Jobs took to the stage at WWDC 2010 (Worldwide Developer's Conference) and everything changed... The iPhone 4 was unveiled to the World for the first time (if you discount Gizmodo's leaked bar-stool version). Some gasped, some groaned, but all were fascinated.

Of course, it wasn't even coming out yet, but the floodgates opened for news stories on the new device from every possible angle. How much were the price plans going to be? What were the data limits going to be? And, most importantly, what will the queues be like on launch day?

The answers came thick and fast, with Orange the first out of the blocks with its pricing structure, the rest followed with their competitive packages, and we sent our own Paul Lamkin down to the Apple Store on 24 June - at hideous-o'clock, it must be said - to talk to queuing punters. In addition, we decided to queue for ourselves, at a normal high-street branch of O2, with disappointing results.

Nonetheless, Apple sold a mighty amount of handsets in the last week of June and beyond, even with the reports of screen and antenna issues. Although, Antennagate wasn't to kick off big style until July...

In the meantime, the World Cup had started, and, apart from England's?risible?performances in the early stages, the big talking point was the din created by the crowds' vuvuzelas - plastic horns that emit the most irritating of tones. Their incessant cacophony during the televised matches even provoked Pocket-lint to seek a tech solution to the problem, one that was welcome by many. It didn't stop YouTube actually adding a vuvuzela button to its video clients though, the fool.

And the E3 videogames convention saw the Microsoft Kinect (n?e Project Natal) unveiled in public for the very first time, along with the Xbox 360 S, two piece of gaming kit that have won Pocket-lint Gadget Awards since.

There was also the first chance to get up close to the Nintendo 3DS, the world's first 3D handheld games console, even though it isn't expected to hit stores until 2011. And PlayStation's Move wowed Pocket-lint editor Stuart Miles, when he waved one around in LA.

So, that's the highlights of a packed month for the Lint and the tech industry in general. Plenty more happened, but it'd take you an entire month to go through everything.

Instead, for a closer look at these events and the rest of June, take a look at our weekly round-ups from the month or head straight to the archive itself, and relive one of our busiest times of the year.

Aaron Long

Monday, January 3, 2011

2010: A year in review, June

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