April 2008: Monthly Archive

The iPhone comes in 8GB and 16GB. That’s a lot of capacity fill. And where do we get content enough to fill that capacity? No, not the torrentz (JAR!) — iTunes!

5 years ago, Apple realized that if they wanted to sell iPods, they needed to give people stuff to load onto those iPods. Now, what originally began as a Mac-only 200,000 song sparkle in the eye of Steve Jobs, has grown into the cross-platform (except for Linux!), multi-billion track served (some even DRM-free!), #1 music retailer, not to mention the foundation pillar of podcasts, with nearly a gazillion free audio (including our very own Phone Different Podcast!) and video programs there for the downloading.

Happy birthday, iTunes. And here’s to many more.

(And let’s work on getting the recording industry to give us the rest of those tracks DRM-free, and on some international movie and television content, b’okay?)

Engadget (via Commercial Times) adds to the 3G rumor heap with this doozie:

Foxconn (aka, Hon Hai) — the maker of the 1st gen iPhone — is ramping up 3G iPhone assembly by “the end of May” to ship 3 million units in June. It’s expected to produce some 24-25 million units before the product reaches end of life.

June is rapidly becoming the bell of the release-prediction ball, especially with an almost certain Steve Jobs Keynote smack in the beginning of the month. If Jobs storms the stage at WWDC, 3G iPhone in hand, will 3 million units be enough to satisfy the rabid demand of early adopters, especially in Europe? And with Jobs having said he’d sell 10 million iPhone’s from launch in June 2007 to end of 2008, is 25 million pie-in-the-sky dreaming for 2009, or the sign of massive international rollout to come?

What do you think?

TUAW’s code-scouring tipster is back with rumors on what could be found in an Apple iChatMobile app, and it’s set to jibber with some Jabber:

[a] new XMPP framework has been spotten in the latest iPhone firmware. XMPP refers to the open source standard developed by the Jabber community for instant messaging. Remember back in March when Apple announced it would support native instant messaging? In a nutshell, it looks like Apple’s new iPhone-based chat will be built on Jabber/XMPP. [...] Unfortunately, we’re told that this XMPP support remains in a private framework and will not be available to 3rd party SDK developers.

How (and if) this fits in with the recently discovered Apple chat-related patent filing, and/or (double if) the AOL concept demo from the SDK event, is anyone’s guess at this point, but one thing’s for certain: it’s getting interesting in iPhone IM land!

One of the features I most want for the iPhone is the ability to use it as a Wi-Fi remote for iTunes (and related services like Front Row or the Apple TV). Sitting back, multi-touch flicking through lists of content, finding something interesting, tapping, and — boom — having it “just work” on my TV or Mac would be Jobsian perfection.

Well, if TUAW’s latest rumor pans out, Apple may be about to deliver, well… not exactly that, but something just as cool:

Apple is working on a new iPhone application called iControl. Like Apple TV and other remote controllers, it would allow the iPhone to connect wirelessly to local iTunes libraries and browse through and play media from those sources. TUAW is told that a media navigator will allow you to view videos, play podcasts, listen to music and even support shuffle playback.

As is increasingly the case, the rumor comes via deep delving into the latest firmware and discovering all sorts of interesting localization strings. Whether this means we’ll just be able to play iTunes content on the iPhone as though it were a mobile Apple TV, or if I’ll be getting my dream iTunes/Front Row/Apple TV remote control via the iPhone as well, we’ll have to wait and see.

And I really am finding it harder and harder to wait. How about you?

Not evil twin to Phone Different Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!

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Take this with a grain of salt roughly the size of a tanker truck, but Palluxo is claiming that Apple is in talks to license Immersion’s haptic feedback technology for the iPhone:

A source (Apple Inc employee), who chose to remain anonymous, told us that senior executives of the two companies have already met once on Tuesday and the next meeting has been scheduled for Friday morning. The source confirmed that the executives will continue discussions over licencing and implementation issues of iPhone haptics.

Haptic technology involves using vibrations and similar feedback to give the impression of tactile feedback (i.e., it makes pushing a button drawn with pixels feel more like pushing a real, hardware button).

While competitors have been vocal about adopting haptics, Apple has been characteristically mute on the issue, though Steve Jobs famed dislike for buttons (witness the turtleneck) may no doubt be a factor

There are, however, already some Apple patents on file which address the issue.

Personally, I’ll believe it when it’s shown off on stage at a Jobsnote. What do you think?

Remember that glossy, all black 3G iPhone that’s been out in the wild? Well turns out..not quite. According to Gizmodo, the picture that’s been making way all over the interweb has been reported to be just a case made available over in Hong Kong. Though Engadget’s sources had pointed toward an all-black exterior (with chrome buttons. ugh.) and the ‘leaked’ picture seemed to corroborate with that report, it looks like the 3G iPhone still hasn’t been seen.

I’m as much a fan of the black exterior as anybody but I just can’t imagine Apple stepping away from their famed metal/aluminum/silver. And with reports of the MacBook moving toward an aluminum casing and the iMac being re-designed with heavy usage of metal and silver, an all-black iPhone wouldn’t quite fit with the rest of the product line.

John Gruber and the Macalope have made an artful science out of reasonably, logically, and methodically skewering the most pathetic punditry and junky journalism surrounding Apple and the iPhone.

Case in point is Gruber’s recent and rather succinct dismantling of Simon Brocklehurst’s complaint that Apple chose Objective C as the language behind the SDK. And while he certainly doesn’t need my help, there are a few points I’d like to add.

First, anyone (but especially Simon) who thinks Apple just now (or even recently) decided to create an SDK for the iPhone knows little about SDKs and less about the polish and maturity easily observed in even the beta SDK Apple released at their special Roadmap event. The briefest look at actual developer blogs and tweets — including developers with substantial experience in jailbroken iPhone apps — would see the flood of remarks on the maturity of the beta SDK. Bottom line, if Apple hadn’t been planning the SDK for a long time (perhaps since the launch itself) they have a hidden supply of killer engineers capable of truly mind-boggling delivery.

Second, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that, while I don’t know anything about Brocklehurst’s background, quoting Jonathan Schwartz indicates some level of Java-centricity. By serendipitous contrast, I just this week had a conversation with a developer at work who was being brought onto a new project. Since he’d recently done a lot of C++ and PHP, he was looking for a new language with which to stretch his skills. He wanted to try Ruby or Python, wanted to see what Rails could do. Gruber’s right, good programmers can (and want to) program and can (and want to) stretch themselves to do it (even when it’s not so far a stretch). Good programers who want to make good iPhone apps won’t think twice about adding Objective C to their skill set.

Third, the iPhone/iPod halo is clearly helping Apple gain traction in their Mac market, and there’s no reason to think the iPhone SDK won’t help Apple gain traction for Objective C and Cocoa via Cocoa Touch. Apple has shown time and time again — to the point of frustration on some occasions — that it is a future thinking company. Getting a bunch of convenience-oriented programmers now by putting out a Java or C++ iPhone SDK pales to insignificance when compared to the mindshare Apple could gain by delivering a powerful, delightful Object C/Cocoa Touch development environment (and experience) to the uber-keen developers of the next generation, whose newfound skills — and more importantly, tastes — will flow right back into the Mac and future Apple products.

While Apple certainly fumbles the ball on occasion, this time they look to be smashing their way clear to a touchdown.

Sorry Simon.

Fear not Rene, it looks like a legit iPhone (not that other thing) is finally coming in all its glory to our neighbors to the north. According to their sources, The Star is reporting that an iPhone deal between Rogers and Apple is close to being done and that it may change the landscape of Canadian Telcos. We won’t even mention the fact that an iPhone in RIM’s playground would add yet another layer to an immensely entertaining battle between RIM and Apple..

Though there are still obvious obstacles such as the fact that Rogers is “not a fan of unlimited plans” and that Apple’s number one priority is such unlimited data, it seems like the clock is ticking for Rogers to make a deal. However, with a 3G version just around the corner, could you imagine the Canadian angst of knowing that their “new” iPhone is already a generation old?

What do you say Canadians (read: Rene)? Do you have faith in Rogers to pull this off? Or will you be stuck with those exorbitant data costs until who knows when?

Friday at The iPhone Blog means two things - free wallpaper and Kent isn’t wearing pants. Fortunately you only have to see the wallpaper. Behold and download after the break. Read the rest of this entry »