Update: Huzzah and hooray! Chat away!
All of our sister sites have put up the word so we may as well too — our forums have crashed just a tiny bit but we’re working hard to bring them back up. In the meantime, I’ll note that the amount of iPhone news to be had here at CES amounts to precisely bupkiss, and I’ve been looking. Like the Mac Pro announcement, I think this bodes well for iPhone news at Macworld next week!
Apple has just announced new updates to the Mac Pro and Xserve lines. Both have received significant processor upgrades. Why is this good news for iPhone fans - well Apple is making some of the announcements many predicted for Macworld now. There’s only one reason they would do that, and it’s not that Apple likes to keep things spicy. No, it’s that they’ll need to make room for other product announcements. Since both the Mac Pro and the Xserve are “pro” machines, one assumes that the announcements at Macworld will be for consumers.
While the big news is obviously going to be at MacWorld next week, this week we’re at the Consumer Electronics Show. There probably won’t be a ton of iPhone news, so you might only see sporadic updates in the next few days. After that, though BAM.
In the spirit of quietness, go check out Whisper app for your iPhone (if you’re the jailbreaking sort). You whisper a secret into the iPhone and it get uploaded to a server anonymously. You can then listen to the secrets of others. Think of it as PostSecret for the iPhone. 
Whisper is part of the iApp-A-Day challenge (successful, btw). Here’s how to install it.
Sramana Mitra has an interesting post up comparing Apple to Palm. Actually, she’s been on a tear lately when it comes to Palm and how they’ve dropped the corporate management ball. She scored a comprehensive interview with former Palm Executive Eric Benhamou, which reads very nicely but is also a clear example of how the problems Palm has now are the direct result of their earlier problems. Basically they followed the exact opposite trajectory that Apple did in nearly the same time period (basically).
Anyway, back to the intersection of the two companies. Mitra writes:
Rubinstein and Jobs could not agree on the iPhone’s strategy wrt the Keyboard. This tells me that Rubinstein has a separate but perhaps also compelling vision on how the keyboard needs to be incorporated into smartphones. I can’t wait to see what that vision entails!
John Rubinstein (Palm) vs. Steve Jobs (iPhone) - Sramana Mitra on Strategy
It’s surely not the case (one assumes) that Rubenstein left Apple over the keyboard issue (though that would be hilarious); but it is interesting that the guy who ran the iPod division, the podfather himself, was pro-physical-keyboard for the iPhone. Now, of course, he’s hard at work over at Palm, they who basically specialize in keyboard + touchscreen smartphones.
One wonders what other ideas Rubenstein had that didn’t make the cut on the iPhone. If “Podfather” Rubenstein’s input was 86′d on the iPhone, then one assumes that it was all Ive and Jobs, just like everybody’s always said.
The Macworld Expo is coming in a little over a week and I’m wondering what it will bring for iPhone users. Macworld will obviously be focusing primarily on, er, Macs, but I’m expecting that there will be iPhone news too. Expecting it enough that, yes, Phone different will be there reporting on the events!
In any case, there’s a thread up in our forums started by rener asking about what’s coming and it seems like a fun thing to think about on a Friday. I won’t touch the Mac rumors (except to say I want the subnotebook), but here’s my shot at what I expect iPhone-wise:
You?
The Pacific Rim Leather Jacket is a simple flip-lid style case for the iPhone. It has a clean, elegant look, but is it clean and elegant to use? Read on for our review.
Big ups to hrmpf.com for remembering a certain Apple patent: “Portable Electronic Device with Interface Reconfiguration Mode.” Basically it shows a portable device clearly letting you know you’re in “reconfiguration” mode by way of jiggly icons. While I personally don’t much like the jigglies, I will admit that, as rener and archie say, it does make it unmistakable that you’re in the “move stuff around” mode.
So either Gear Live somehow managed to snag a leaked version of 1.1.3 or they’ve perpetrated perhaps the greatest “gotcha” in recent memory. Probably the former, as it’s looking more and more like 1.1.3 is the real deal. So what’s coming (and what’s likely to get a mention at MacWorld) is pretty neat:
Of course, there are some things that we figured would be easy adds that a missing - namely Stereo Bluetooth support. Still and all, it looks like a decent enough upgrade and it’s clearly a step towards getting the iPhone ready for that upcoming SDK. As for when the rest of us will get to take this 1.1.3 step, that’s still shrouded in mystery.
*Edit: not triangulation, but ‘tagging.’ See comment by Archie (and septimus, in a minute). Thanks!
  
|
News Tips Subscribe to our Store Newsletter: |
|||
|
|
||||
|
The iPhone Blog merged with the Phone different site in May of 2008. Both sites were founded on a premise that comes one from one of Apple's old slogans: Think different. The iPhone Blog: for people who dare to phone different.
