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Well, of course they do. That’s why Forte44 has drawn up a “Top 3″ list of what we consider to be good ideas for their next steps:

1. Ditch electronic books. The iPad has boosted the current technology market’s opinion of what a tablet can do, and who will buy a successful product in this category. The iPad and a host of other presumed future and similar devices will be full-colour, vibrant and interactive media players, as well as ebook readers. This functionality means that Amazon’s current feeble black and white device and software will not stand a chance. Their Kindle has no known sales figures released; the software for the iPhone and iPod touch will doubtless be successful enough to push the app into oblivion. So, with that said, the Kindle should cease! May it be no more! On the other hand, many people will prefer paper books, and as many of these will never be ebooks in the foreseeable future, Amazon’s physical book sales should be concentrated on.
2. Focus on reducing prices. It is now possible to find Amazon’s electronics lines and many other items at much lower prices. we recently bought a model of miniature torch from them, and promptly bought another for one-third of the price from an online discount store. If they can manage it – and believe us, they have far fewer customers – why shouldn’t a giant like Amazon? We understand that Amazon can afford to lose a few customers to these smaller sites, but they could theoretically take over one day!
3. Use less marketing. This is a point that is contrary to what most publicity and marketing experts “should” say. You would think this is a point that almost crosses the thin line into the realms of folly. Ah, but no. People hate Amazon’s email marketing strategy. You can easily opt in to all their newsletters and never find the button to turn it off if you’re a busy person. Half of the emails in an inbox are now semi-junk and based on an obscure search you did a year ago. The offers are blatantly incorrect – a £69.99 printer was once offered for £29.99 or so, but the website showed full price all the time. All this should be cut down to a reasonable level.

Take heed from customers, O Amazon!

In the mean time, we look out for rumours (unreliable as they may be). Something that is very interesting in the news at the moment is the possibility of a multitasking iPhone OS 4.0. This could be very beneficial to the netbook-rivalling iPad.

Some of the few things we can possibly say at present are that a lack of multitasking is somewhat delusional, and that the speed only just makes up for it, and also that a camera of some sort and proper GPS for augmented reality would be great. We look forward to a second-generation device, or a hidden set of features. It would be typical “one more thing”…

• Over-dependence on internet use… well, this hasn’t been too much of a problem, so we were kind of wrong here, except for their over-used online customer services. The main bandwidth problem hasn’t been too great, since Google’s only sold 80,000 handsets in the first month. That’s far fewer than at some other major smartphone launches! If numbers had been greater, Google’s traffic as well as traffic for service providers could’ve been immense. That said, an unlocked phone like the Nexus One will always allow more spread-out and variable usage.
• There’s been no major issue with cloud computing, largely because the Android applications store is well-developed enough to offer the majority of people the choice they need between cloud and physical. So here, again, we weren’t exactly right or wrong.
• The main point where we were right was appalling sales. Virtually nobody is buying this thing compared to Google’s new biggest rival: the iPhone. The 3GS had huge sales of more than a million in its first weekend. The Nexus One has sold just 80,000 so far. Unfortunately, a rebadged HTC without MultiTouch and decent 3G is not going to go down well with consumers just after a recession. And that’s what we were driving at with the article.

It’s yet to be seen whether or not Google will grab a large share of the smartphone market with their offering, but in the next few months (at least) it does look doubtful, based on these statistics.

One of the best things you can do with Dropbox is use it as a kind of cloud-based memory stick. Now, to do this, here are some tips and tricks.

Firstly, download the client onto every computer you own. There is a free software package for every popular OS and it creates a cloud-connected, auto-updating folder that syncs very nicely. By doing this, file transfer is literally as simple as drag and drop. There’s also an iPhone/iPod touch/iPad client available.

Secondly, and once you’ve got used to the above, don’t forget the use-anywhere website. One of the most important website use tips in this case is don’t forget your password. It sounds hideously obvious but it can get very frustrating if a business presentation is locked away, for example. Also, make sure on Windows you select the basic uploader option on the upload window that pops up from the site. One file at a time by this method is quicker than multiples on the complex version.

Thirdly, back up files on there, preferably to a computer you use the majority of the time. Don’t ever trust the cloud too much.

Perhaps the most important advice to offer is to install this on network computers. One or two people in any large organisation will use it. Make sure each user can log in individually! If you’re not an admin, ask the IT guys to do it. The process is quite secure and if they have good anti-malware features there isn’t any reason why not.

Although this is a method that anybody could’ve thought of, and everyone should be using, there is no doubting that Apple holds the legal rights to it, and as such they are theoretically the only people who should be using it. Except for one thing: it seems that every manufacturer can implement it. As they have done this without challenge, Apple is on risky ground here, because it’s possible the patent could be taken away from them because they did not protect it.

The other point is that MultiTouch gestures have been designed so people remember them. This poses a couple of problems, should the technology be exclusive. Firstly, the other manufacturers won’t let touchable surfaces interact better with users, and, as we have seen with the Nexus One pinch-to-zoom issue, this is hugely embarrassing and annoying, and leads to an Apple monopoly. Secondly, when it becomes natural to someone, you could argue that it is behaviour and not technology. Patenting a way of doing something is quite a bit harder (for the lawyers, anyway).

So should MultiTouch be exclusive to Apple? Since they own it, yes, but because it’s so intuitive, no. Perhaps they should license it, although I hope that wouldn’t turn out to be the disaster that licensing Mac OS was. Oh, and one other thing: there is slight gesture discrepancy between platforms, and this could be removed!

You’re probably wondering where we’ve been, and to be honest we’ve been a bit lazy, but a few things cropped up as well that had to be taken care of.

Since the start of the year, there’s been the MASSIVE LAUNCH of the great Apple iPad. We look forward to reviewing the touchscreen tablet when it arrives in the UK in late spring.

There have also been Google/China and Google/Tablet developments, and some fiery Jobsian opinions. Haiti needs new IT infrastructure and there are loads of thought-control devices coming up.

We intend to bring you the best, and best of the rest. So: enjoy!

• You can tap and hold keys for special characters. Lots of people do accidentally discover this but they want to write “café” without an experiment. Now what happens if you tap the currency symbol? You can get many symbols! Wow!

• When returning from a page of apps to the home page, you can tap at the precise moment you reach the page in passing by it that contains the app you want, instead of a trek flicking back and forwards.

• It’s easy to forget the peripheral properties of the iPhone. Moreover, it can be a remote control when not in a WiFi zone. Connect it to a Mac’s ad hoc network and then use RemotePad, iTunes or Keynote remotes just as you would at home.

• If the WiFi doesn’t seem to be working properly, renewing the lease at Settings > WiFi > Network name can work. Alternatively, you can Telnet the router and issue commands that way! App Store clients are readily available.