October 2007: Monthly Archive

I’ll admit that I don’t get the point of this LG design. They basically just dropped an iPhone / LG Prada into a weird keyboard dock. The screen would be tiny, and I’m guessing a lot of folks would miss tactile feedback on a desktop or laptop-sized keyboard much more than they would on a mobile.

The Mashup that I’d want to see of the iPhone and Palm Foleo would be thus:

Flip-open screen, like the Foleo. Standard keyboard but with iPhone as the Mousepad / Trackpad. Just a little slot where it slides in, some sort of dock. That would be awesome, and it raises a lot of interesting UI possibilities.

Apple is reportedly in talks with Telstra about providing the iPhone in Australia. Sol Trujillo, Telstra CEO, confirmed that Apple and Telstra had discussed the move, but that nothing had been confirmed.

“We have been testing the iPhone as we would any device that comes into the country.”

Marketwatch claims that Apple would have to make a special 850MHz version to work on the Telstra “Next G” Network, but I’m going to call B.S. on it: the Next G network is an HSDPA network; I think it’s more likely that Apple would provide their standard EDGE iPhone before they developed a 3G iPhone specifically for Australia. And I’m guessing that any HSDPA towers that Telstra puts up will include the slower varied 2G data networks: GPRS and EDGE.

I just wanted to highlight Jennifer Chappell’s excellent article at TreoCentral. Jennifer is the editor at TreoCentral, and usually uses a Treo 680, much like I once did. She’s been taking the iPhone through its paces, and her excellent first look article is now up.

This review is more relevant than most out there, as iPhone owners were 10 times more likely to have used a Treo prior to the iPhone. I got bitten by the iPhone bug, and bitten hard. Using a Treo in the next week or so is going to be interesting.

The iPhone is a stunning piece of industrial design that screams taste and style. So what better way to modify a beautiful product than ugly it up with black spray paint and faux classic rainbow Apple logo, in a style reminiscent of the Newton. At least this guy won’t have to worry about someone stealing his iPhone. Unless he lives in the UK, of course.

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The arrival of iPhone in the UK next week may cause more than just nerdgasm among Guinness-drinking geeks. According to one industry expert, the iconic gadget may set off a “crime wave” of mobile phone thefts, as criminals go searching for the elusive new smartphone in the pockets and purses of unsuspecting toffs. Each year more than 800,000 mobile phones end up in the hands of crooks, accounting for 52% of all thefts in the UK. Nickers!

Best guard your purse strings, gov.

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The BlackBerry Curve (8310)

For the first week of Smartphone Experts’ Smartphone Round Robin, I was assigned the BlackBerry Curve 8310. As I’ve indicated in the Crackberry forums, I’ve said some nasty things about BB in the past. Some of that is going to have to be put behind me this week; this BlackBerry 8810 isn’t going to use itself.

And don’t forget - a comment on this post counts as an entry in the Round Robin Contest!

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This could be cool. Sean Heber of Spiffy Tech is going to release one 3rd party native iPhone app per day in November. Though he might have a spot of help on one or two days, for the most part it appears that he’ll have to do most of this herculean effort himself.

If you’ve hacked your iPhone or iPod Touch, look for the “App-A-Day” source.

It all depends on what the app ideas are. If the app’s purpose is to show a pumpkin on the main screen, it could suck. Even if it does suck, it’s still a herculean effort.

Engadget posted up a briefly leaked document from T-Mobile.de that indicates costs and charges for T-Mobile Germany unlimited data plans for the iPhone. There are three tiers — a 200MB tier (M), a 1GB tier (L), and a 5GB tier (XL).

They’re not as unlimited as I’d like, and it looks like they cap your data speeds at about 25% once you pass your download limit, but it’s a start — the other option is to charge you out the nose for exceeding your data limit.

I think my new favorite bit about the international iPhone is how it forces carriers (or operators or whatever) to have a conversation about what manner of data plan and minutes plan the iPhone will be paired with. That, and the promise of a fully unlocked iPhone someday. My two new favorite bits about the international iPhone….

The cost of a show was not enough for NBC Universal. No, NBC Universal wanted a cut of the hardware sales for iPods and iPhones. I really don’t get this. Would they bother Apple for a cut of computer sales? Do they get a cut of television sales? Would they bother TiVo for a cut of hardware sales? No, no, and no. I think they were just looking for publicity for their two new video sharing sites in taking their Apple spat public. I think one of them is called Whatever and maybe the other one is IDon’tCare.

Yellowpages, the Google of the analog age, is jumping on board the iPhone bandwagon. The old offline search directory has rolled out a very slick looking mobile web interface designed for Safari, offering the usual “Find me” search service for businesses, as well as maps - powered by Microsoft MapPoint (bleh).

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