Is the new iPhone 4S a phone anymore?

The quick answer is no, it's a mini iPad2. We use our 'phones' for everything BUT phone calls, so this is no surprise. As a loyal Apple fan from way back in the dark days of the 1990s, I don't believe the iPhone has lost it's 'cool' factor. HTC, Samsung and all the others including Microsoft have tried and failed miserably in competing with the iPhone.

The reason is the same as the reason Macs are better than the rest: the tight integration of the OS and the hardware. No one else has done this except for Blackberry, but they were stuck with an antiquated OS and failed. The new iPhone4S does everything you want a portable device to do, and then some. With the iPhone and iPad, I expect that some casual computer users may very well abandon their desktop PCs and their overweight laptops.

There just isn't any one else out there giving Apple reason to worry, and that includes Amazon with their new tablet. As this country continues to go through a tough economy, we can take pride in the fact that an American company shows the kind of leadership we wish our politicians had.

Will Amazon Take a Bite Out of Apple?

Last week's announcements from Amazon absolutely rocked the tablet world. But it wasn't because they introduced 2 new e-readers, or because they dropped the prices of their other e-reader, or even the release of their new Kindle Fire tablet.

The reason Amazon's announcement was so huge is that the 7" Kindle Fire will retail for just $199.

This led to a firestorm (pun intended) of activity as companies like HTC and Blackberry slashed the prices of their 7" tablets, the Flyer and Playbook respectively, by hundreds of dollars. Other companies like Samsung and Toshiba, who have similarly-sized tablets set to debut before the end of the year, are rumored to be adjusting their prices as well because of what Amazon did.

So, even though not one Kindle Fire has been shipped yet, it has already shaken the Android tablet market to its core...and rightfully so. We haven't seen any Android tablet claim that mythic "iPad killer" title, mostly due to the fact that none of the premium tablets undercut the iPad on price.

The Kindle Fire takes a different approach. Instead of trying to beat the iPad on local storage size or unique design, Amazon made a physically different device (7" versus the iPad's 10") with a different purpose (heavy cloud streaming versus heavy app usage) aimed at a different consumer (casual media consumption versus heavy media consumption and mobile computing).

While it's a different strategy, Amazon is going with the basically the same approach as Apple when it comes to tablets. Both Apple and Amazon have spent years building up services like iTunes and Amazon Cloud Services before releasing their tablets.

This means that while existing Android tablets continue to deal with a fledgling OS in Honeycomb, Amazon will have an extensive media library at its disposal.

More importantly, while those other tablets continue to appeal to more technically-inclined people who don't want to be "stuck" in the Apple world, Amazon will appeal to those who like the ecosystem approach that has made Apple successful.

The end result is that Amazon, regardless of intent, may have put itself in line to go head-to-head with Tim Cook and company.

Video Post: Amazon Sets the Tablet Market on Fire

Amazon just unveiled its 7" tablet device called the Kindle Fire. Steve walks us through why this tablet might be a "hot" ticket item by the year's end.

Share Mobile Videos with Klip

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Alain Rossman has another hit on his hands. In the mid '90s, he predicted that people would eventually use their phones for e-mail. As chairman of Vudu, he developed and commercialized a TV set-top box that streamed HD movies over the internet, which sold to Wal-Mart in 2010.

The latest hit from Rossman's Palo Alto-based firm is called Klip, which just released an iPhone app designed for organizing, searching and sharing video. The app is interesting, and offers one of the best user experiences out there. A swipe of your finger enables you to preview the video thumbnails. A shake of your iPhone enables you to fast-forward. It's easy to record footage from Klip, add video from another app, trim, and share via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or email. Klip also enables you to geotag the video and add hashtags.

For those who need a quick and easy way to shorten and upload videos for blogs or news stories, Klip is sure to please. Klip is available free of charge at the app store.

YouTube Takes a Bite of Something "Delicious"

Youtube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are interested in more than just viral video sensations. They are now the proud owners of the social bookmarking site, Delicious.com. However, they certainly have made a few changes, and by that I mean rebuilt the entire site from scratch. The rebooted Delicious is still focused on bookmarking and sharing among Delicious users, but with a whole new look. "The result is a new homepage, interface and back-end architecture designed to make Delicious easier to use," the team behind the new Delicious said in a blog post.

Other site renovations include the addition of "stacks," which is a user-created list of links which can be centered on any topic a user chooses. Stacks are easily created and customizable, and published only to the public when a user wants them to be. "Our goal with stacks is to add more value to all the links being collected by the Delicious community," the team said. "Each new stack presents an opportunity to introduce the rest of the world to cool Web content they haven't seen before."

So, can the masterminds behind Youtube bring back some flavor to Delicious? Or will the popularity of linking directly via social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) cause it to fall like a souffle in a loud and already-crowded room?