I slip out my iPhone, check Twitter, and then shoot off a few emails. Hearing the faint whoosh of the Mail app verifying my sent mail, I slip it back into my back pocket and carry on with my day. This seems to be the habit I have with my phone, one that I'm proud to say is quasi-productive while at the same time, semi-amusing. But while meandering the halls, I'm taken aback at the rapid revision of what phones friends and strangers alike are typing away with… not iPhones.

Apple knows how to play the game – and it plays it very well. From commercials to keynotes, stores to employees, the company breaks its back to make sure the consumer feels free within its walled garden. With a relaxed atmosphere and staff, Apple draws in the teens, the adults (and apparently all of those who aspire to be hipsters), and their devices feed that feeling. But it seems like those times are drawing to an end, with Samsung's latest and greatest commercials bashing the sort of cult-like following Apple has had and showing its own phones to be… well, superior. 

I'd say the first mistake Apple made was to limit their phone to one carrier (in the red, white and blue) for the longest of time. Do you remember the original Droid launch commercials by Verizon? It was the Anti-iPhone. And it did spectacularly well. 

The next mistake was not mixing the operating system up a bit. I know, I know: if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but people get bored of the same tiny squares on a screen after three years and Android offers full customizability. 

And the last fall out would be not unveiling any game-changing software or hardware for the iPhone 4s.

Many pundits are saying the iPhone 5 will be groundbreaking, and that's going to give Apple a much needed bump up, but when it really comes down to it, if you want to stay on the top with trends, you need to break the ground each and every year, and then some. 

So will Apple stay cool in the long run? Maybe, maybe not. But let's not forget that Blackberry ruled the air for quite some time, and now look at 'em. It's a tough business, keeping cool, one that requires more than just a fancy phone or custom operating system. And don't look now… but I think I see Windows Phone pulling up pretty fast.

This guest post was written by Alexander Burger. He is a teen himself and would love to join Google+, if only Google let him. Alexander usually blogs at Phone-Fritz.com.

Smartphones have spread like wildfire in the past few years and more and more adults, children, and especially teens, have them. With Internet-capable devices in hand, teens can do more than just text or tweet… the revolution of what one has on them now has grabbed hold and is sticking pretty hard. Teens are probably the most sought-after group of consumers. Television ads, billboards and websites all trying to grab their attention… and teenagers being teenagers – they soak it all up. One day it's Sperry Topsiders [editors note: don't feel bad, I had to look that one up, too…], the next it's Nikon cameras, all based on who wears what, what shows where, and who speaks in such a way. Let's just say, if Jersey Shore moved to Connecticut, our tourist business would go through the roof.

But Google doesn't buy that. It doesn't see how you need to snatch up the socialites and get within the walls of schools and football fields. Does the G-Giant think Farmville flourished because of my mother's addiction to the game? No. Did Words with Friends get big because the scholars in our society decided to spend their time unscrambling letters to hit that triple word tile? No. Teens rule this terrain, teens decide whether you win, or lose, and if Google wants its social venture to come out golden, they have to play the game, they have to let them in.

So where does this leave our lack-luster social network, the one that Google keeps trying to back up with ideas like "Search Plus Your World?" It leaves them with questions about when they will open the gates and let the sea of younger students surge in and get a hold of all that popularity and more importantly, profitability.

Google+, to its credit, is a slick take on social, and one that could really be preferred over Facebook, but at the moment… it's a vacant wasteland collecting dust, pictures of cats, and absolutely no kind of human activity.

While Facebook has devalued the meaning of 'friend' and Google hopes you want to organize them into neat little circles, Path makes you deliberately focus on just adding people you really want to share with by restricting you to 150 friends (that's up from 50 in the original version). I hadn't really thought about Path much until version 2 launched – and even then, I mostly regarded it as a gimmick. During LeWeb, though, it became increasingly clear that the service was on to something and during the last few weeks, Path comes up in virtually every conversation around hot startups (the other being Pinterest).

Why Now?

When Path launched in 2010, many pundits heralded this as the beginning of an age of more private sharing – a logical conclusion, given that it was around this time that Facebook was pushing people to share their lives more openly. The app was a bit ahead of its time, though.

What changed? With smartphones being even more ubiquitous than ever, Path's phone-only strategy only feels natural, while it felt a bit forced in late 2010 when the app launched. Of course it helps that version 2 of the app is likely one of the best-designed app for a mobile phone, but more so than that, I think we've finally reached a turning point where users are getting tired of the old social networks and are looking for something fresh that's easy to use and where they can be themselves without having to worry about what a future boss may one day discover about them on Facebook.

Path's Niche Could Become Mainstream Soon

By focusing on sharing photos, ideas and your location, Path also ensures that everything you do share is shared deliberately and about you. There is no link sharing on the service, no resharing of posts or anything else that distracts from its main mission.

As such, Path fits neatly into the current social networking ecosystem, as Google+ and Twitter are mainly places to share links, animated GIFs and pithy quotes, Facebook remains the mainstream social network for the mainstream and Instagram is the place to share your pictures. Path is free of marketers and brands that want to become your friends. It's a liberating mix of a private Twitter feed, Instagram-like photo-sharing and Facebook-like voyeurism without the Farmville updates.

Given enough traction, though, it's not impossible to think that Path could become a very big player in the social networking world – even though (and also because) most of the activity on the service remains hidden to the public eye.

Owyang argues that there are four trends that show the end of this era (though he never fully defines what that “Golden Age” actually looked like). Let’s take a closer look at these, as I don’t think they work as signs for the end of this first era of tech blogging.

1) Corporate acquisitions stymie innovation

Owyang argues that as TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb have now been bought, the age of innovation in tech blogging is over. Nothing could be further from the truth, I would argue. The fact that these sites were acquired simply shows that some smart investors think there is money to be made in this market.

And what was the last big innovation to come out of TechCrunch or ReadWriteWeb anyway?

2) Tech blogs are experiencing major talent turnover

I’m not going into the details why ReadWriteWeb, for example, lost plenty of its writers in 2010 (including myself), but it’s obvious that lots of writers moved around last year. Again – I’m not sure how that’s a sign of how the “Golden Age of tech blogging” has passed. It simply means that writers moved to places where they could earn more money, get more benefits and better support from editors. If anything, that means the Golden Age of tech blogging for the writers themselves is still going strong, as there is clearly a market for them.

3) The audience needs have changed, they want: faster, smaller, and social

That’s not a new trend. What’s worth noting, though, is that the attention, if it really has shifted, has shifted more towards the aggregators like Techmeme. Owyang also uses Mashable as an example of a blog that has shifted its strategies in the face of these trends. I would argue that Mashable long ceased to be a tech blog.

4) As space matures, business models solidify –giving room for new disruptors

This is, of course, true in every business. Given that the cost of entry into the tech blogging world is close to zero (or $20/month for a hosting account), there has always been space for disruptors. Tech blogging isn’t an easy business, though (or an easy beat, for that matter), so we have seen relatively few people try to disrupt the business from the outside.

Oddly enough, Owyang also argues that “long gone is the scrappy new media entrepreneurs like Arrington who built a decent sized empire, cashed out, and moved on to to a traditional industry like venture capital.” This, of course, makes little sense, given that Arrington only cashed out a year ago, those at ReadWriteWeb who had equity only cashed out two or three weeks ago and that there are plenty of sites that could still cash out nicely in the future.

We’re just Getting Started

Basically then, I don’t agree that any of Owyang’s points demonstrate that the “Golden Age” of tech blogging is over. I do agree that we are at a turning point, though, but for very different reasons. I think the slow decline of ReadWriteWeb over the last year and a half, the high turnover at TechCrunch and a general sense of instability in the tech blogging world and the rising importance of the aggregators is opening up the door for disruptors large and small.

Saying "The golden age of tech blogging is over" feels a bit like saying "This party is over because these people I don't know showed up."

— Wired (@wired) December 28, 2011

In between the usual griping and grammatically challenged posts on the Facebook blog, there is a surprisingly large contingent of users who are defending the change. Sure there are the typical negative comments we have come to expect (some favorite: "Seriously, STOP CHANGING SHIT!" "This is sooo confusing," "THis stupid crap shouldn't count…… Timelines? really that reminds of history class… Just keep it as it is…. I'm sorry this change is alot of CRAP! You should have never invented it.") and calls to remove the feature, there is a surprisingly large number of users who actually like the Timeline.

As German Blogger Marcel Weiß pointed out to me earlier today, maybe the reason for this relatively positive reaction is the fact that this feature doesn't affect people's daily use of Facebook as much as the much-hated ticker, for example.

Another factor here could be the fact that it took Facebook quite a while between announcing the feature and actually rolling it out to all of its users. With close to three months in between the announcement and launch, quite a few users were obviously prepared for this shift and some were even looking forward to it. Now if Facebook only finally launched that disklike button its users are also clamoring for…

Apple’s Own Browser: Adequate but not Innovative

Apple’s own browser is perfectly adequate, but as the Google app shows, users are missing out on innovations on all levels, including interface design and faster access to modern web standards on their mobile devices.

Safari on the iPad, for example, uses the same way to handle tabs as on the desktop instead of using a design that really makes use of the iPad’s touch features.

Third-Party Browsers Can’t Compete Unless Users Can Make them the Default Choice

The Google search app shows that interesting, touch-centric browser interfaces are possible. For Google, of course, search is the central metaphor for browsing the web, but you could just replace the current search screen at the center of the app with bookmarks and links to web apps and have a great browser app.

Mozilla was late to the mobile browser game, but now it’s doing a few creative things with Firefox on Android (and lets you use plugins, for example). Opera, too, is constantly pushing the envelope with its mobile browsers. iOS users, however, are more or less cut off from all of this innovation. Sure, you can install interesting apps like Dual Browser or Atomic Browser, but chances are, you will never use them because unlike Android, you can’t switch the default browser away from Safari on iOS.

Will Apple Ever Relinquish Total Control over the OS?

Apple, of course, wants to keep total control over your iOS experience. For most apps that are alternatives to built-in iOS apps (email, streaming music, to-do lists etc.), it doesn’t really matter that other apps can’t be set as the default. For browsers, though, it’s really the only way they will ever get widespread use.

Locking the browser down made sense for Apple in the early days of iOS, when apps weren’t even on the roadmap yet. Now, however, this policy feels more like it stifles innovation than that it protects users.

Both of these announcement would have been really exciting to me two or three years ago. Today, however, they leave me absolutely cold. Why? Because I stopped buying music a long time ago in favor of using a subscription service like MOG, Rdio or Rhapsody. I know there are still many people out there who love the idea of owning music, but to me, it feels like Google Music and iTunes Match are smart solutions for a problem these subscription services solved for me in a long time ago.

Both Google and Apple are still betting on the fact that music is something people want to own – and if you subscribe to Apple’s vision, that also means you will only buy Apple products for the foreseeable future.

Don’t get me wrong. I listen to music almost all the time I’m at my computer or in the car. I love music. But unlike iTunes and Co., subscription services allow me to call up any song I want to listen to whenever I feel like it. They also allow me to listen to artists I would’ve never discovered if I just used iTunes. With iTunes or Google Music, after all, I would have to make a pretty hefty investment to listen to all the albums I listen to on MOG every month. With a subscription service, the investment remains the same no matter how much I listen.

Both Google and Apple base their services around the idea that you want to own your music. To me, music is more like subscribing to Hulu or Netflix. Sure, my music “collection” goes away when I stop subscribing or switch services – but who cares? How many of those MP3s you collected on Napster years ago do you actually listen to regularly after all?

Image credit: Flickr user lungstruck

While Samsung, Acer, Blackberry, Toshiba and all the other manufacturers weren’t able to sell any appreciable numbers of their tablets, things are finally looking up for Android tablets – though none of the current manufacturers are likely to play a major role during this year’s holiday season.

Just two years ago, it didn’t seem as if consumers would ever warm up to tablets, but Apple clearly showed that there is a lot of interest in these devices. With the backing of major brands like Amazon and B&N, the $199 Fire and $249 Nook Android tablets now stand a chance to challenge Apple’s early lead. The new tablets are, after all, significantly cheaper than Apple’s iPad 2. More importantly, though, the fact that there is already an existing software ecosystem for these new tablets out there will give shoppers the confidence that they aren’t losing much by choosing Amazon or B&N over Apple.

69% of Holiday Shoppers are Interested in Buying a Tablet this Year – And They are Considering the Small Android Tablets

According to a new study by consumer electronics review site Retrevo.com, 69% of U.S. consumers are interested in buying a tablet this holiday season (or are at least interested in learning more about them). Out of these, 44% would consider a 7” Android tablet and another 44% say they don’t know enough about Amazon’s tablet to make a decision yet. The Nook tablet was announced after this study ended, but chances are there will be similar interested in it as well.

In Retrevo’s study, slightly more respondents said they are planning to buy a Kindle Fire over the iPad (12% vs. 10%). That’s all very much within the margin of error and when it comes to making an actual purchase, these intentions often count for very little.

One interesting sidenote: a third of respondents in the Retrevo study thought the Kindle Fire was just another eReader from Amazon.

Given these numbers, I think Apple will have another great season for the iPad, but the cheaper, smaller Android tablets now stand a chance to take a major bite out of Apple’s market. Consumers who wouldn’t have considered a Samsung tablet will likely take a close look at the Fire or Nook tablets now and may just opt for these instead of paying more for an iPad.

Before the Kindle Fire, There Was No Android Tablet Market

My basic theory of the tablet market until now was always that there really wasn’t one – there was only an iPad market (I must have picked this idea up from someone, but I can’t for the life of me remember where I first heard it). The Android tablets on the market today are about as expensive as Apple’s iPad, but consumers just don’t want them at that price point. In terms of hardware, they are often comparable with the iPad, though the software still lags behind in some areas.

When you talk about tablets to mainstream users, though, all they think about is the iPad. That may be due to Apple’s brand and smart marketing, or the failure of the other manufacturers to position and price their devices in the right way. The result so far has been very clear, though: Apple can barely keep up with demand and the others couldn’t find buyers.

The Kindle Fire: Let The Android Tablet Price Wars Begin

At $199, however, the Kindle Fire could change this. I doubt it will hurt the iPad (though it may siphon off some users), but it will hurt the other Android tablet manufacturers.

The Fire is a pared-down tablet – no doubt about it. It’s small, doesn’t feature a camera, and there is no optional 3G connection either. It’s a perfectly capable tablet, though, and does the things most users want to do on their tablets: surf the web (with the fast new Silk browser, that shouldn’t be a problem), read books, read magazines and watch movies and TV shows. All of this, Amazon is giving users for a price nobody else can currently match. There may not be a camera on the Fire, but I don’t think that’s a dealbreaker for many potential buyers. It does what most consumers want to do with their tablet and at $199, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon ended up with supply issues ahead of this year’s holiday season.

What About the Nook?

As a 7” tablet from a company known mostly for selling books, the Kindle Fire also obviously competes directly with the $249 Nook Color from Barnes & Noble. The price difference here may only be $50, but I doubt B&N will sell a lot of Nooks (even if they reduce the price to $199, too) given that Amazon’s ecosystem is vastly superior to B&N’s.

Will Users Want a Basic 7” Tablet?

The tablet market outside of the iPad world is still young. It still remains to be seen whether consumers will really take to smaller tablets. I have no doubt, though, that many will look at the full-price competition from Samsung, Acer and others and buy the $199 Amazon tablet instead (and maybe a basic $79 Kindle as a stocking stuffer as well).

No matter what you think about this, though, it’s clear that the future of music is social. Facebook has partnered with everybody who is anything in this business, including Spotify, Slacker, turntable.fm, iHeartRadio, MOG, SoundCloud and Rhapsody. The one exception: Apple.

As Cult of Mac’s Mark Elgan rightly points out, Facebook – at least in the music world – “has become not just a competitor to Apple, but the Mother of All Apple Competitors.” Apple, of course, has Ping, its own music-focused social network. Ping, however, is not a huge hit and whereas Apple couldn’t even get Facebook to agree to let its users export their contacts to its own social network, though, the world’s largest social network was more than happy to work with all of these other streaming music services.

If Ping were a huge hit, this wouldn’t be a problem for Apple, but Apple’s social network is neither very social nor very active these days. Indeed, one has to wonder if Apple itself is still thinking about it much, as it hasn’t seen any major updates since its launch.

Two Trends that Could Hurt Apple: Social Music and On-Demand Streaming

Two trends are converging on Apple here that could unsettle it as the leading online music provider in the long run: social music and on-demand streaming. As on-demand services like Spotify, MOG and Rdio slowly gain traction (both with their paid and free tiers), users may just decide that they don’t want to buy music but prefer a monthly flat-fee that costs less than the price of a single album instead. Couple that with Apple losing out in social, and it’s clear that some people over in Cupertino must be starting to get worried. So far, Apple hasn’t been able (or willing) to offer a flat-fee plan and its social initiatives haven’t caught on, either.

Elgan argues that Apple needs its own social network for its music and entertainment business to succeed in the long run. Maybe that’s true, but I would think that a closer partnership with the existing networks – be that Facebook or Google+ – could help the company to get into the social music game. Users have pretty much reached the saturation level when it comes to new social networks. At this point, partnering is a smarter move than building your own, especially if social networking isn’t part of your core competencies.