Posted on Monday, Apr 21, 2008 by Rene Ritchie
File Under:Uncategorized;
We’ve covered the iPhone Flash saga ad nauseam here, but in an interesting post involving the technology itself, NetNewsWire developer Brent Simmons (via DaringFireball) shares some interesting error/crash logs highlighting the instability-adding benefits of Flash, and the rapid catchup of Microsoft’s copycat, Silverlight:
I’ve said it before — one of my favorite things about the iPhone is no Flash. I will now add and no SilverlightPlugin.
As a web developer who uses Flash routinely, I’ve also come to enjoy its absence on the iPhone (and the absence of like technologies, and even prehistoric kin like animated GIFs), and the amazing increase that absence give to the information over noise ratio. It’s led me closer towards “Web 2.0″-style AJaX for interactivity, and away from the proprietary, and often overkill, that is plugin technology.
What do you think?
Road warriors and those who spend an ungodly amount of time talking on their iPhone (or most any other cell phone), take notice! The Sony Ericsson HBH-PV705 Bluetooth Headset ($44.95), available now for your convenient purchase at the Phonedifferent store, may just take your breath away with it’s long-lasting battery life! You may possibly run out of things to say before the HBH-PV705 runs out of juice! Boasting an impressive talk time and standby time, you may be able to get by without a car charger (which may explain why one is not included in the package).
Keep on reading for the rest of the review!
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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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Singapore, the Netherlands, and Mexico, and Australia, watch out! Apple Insider is reporting that India has joined the fray for next iPhone launch.
A quick check of the battleground shows:
| Europe |
North Am. |
South Am |
Asia |
Africa |
Oceania |
Antarctica |
| 5 | 1 | 0 | 1? | 0 | 0 | 0 |
The rumor is sourced to Indian retail connections with an early September launch data tied in to Vodafone as the exclusive carrier. Pricing may be a steep 27,200 to 28,000 Rupees ($680 to $700) for an 8GB model. (With the beefier 16GB delayed until mid-2009 to “accommodate demand” ?!.
Without a substantial retail presence, Apple may rely on local retailer Reliance Digital to open semi-official iStores.
So the game is heating up! Will India get an early edge? Will one of the other pre-rumored countries still get there first? Or will a surprise entrant swoop in and win it all? Who’s getting the next iPhone? What do you think?
Ars Technica (via Market Watch, via Les Echos) reports that French iPhone carrier Orange may be the third European country (after Germany and the UK) to begin discounting the 8GB iPhone.
Unlike the previously mentioned Germany and UK, these price cuts are said to come on the heels of what’s considered disappointing sales for Apple’s phone debut in the land of brie and champagne.
Having moved 100,000 units in 4 months, at an averaged rate of 325 a day according to Apple Insider, Orange executives appear to be denying any disappointment, while the 3G rumor mill continues to push any discount in Europe as the clearing of stock in advance of the next generation release.
Did European execs over-order in face of the US success? Does the buzz and the high percentage of users who switched carriers just to get the coveted iPhone offset mere unit sales? Was 2.5G doomed in Europe from the start? Or are the 3G-Files right and this is just the next step towards next gen? What do you think?
Every week I will be bringing you what I think are the week’s biggest stories and articles. Here we go!
Apple already has this gig with other iPods, but is the iPhone now going to hook up too? I sure would like to hook up my iPhone to track information while I exercise.
What? More synchronization coming to the iPhone besides Microsoft’s Active Sync? It appears so, thorough 3rd party support.
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Posted on Friday, Apr 18, 2008 by Rene Ritchie
File Under:Uncategorized;
No, that’s not spring in the air, that’s the rumor frenzy ramp-up to Apple’s June World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), and here’s the aptly titled MacRumors with a mother load:
A MacRumors reader ran across a very unusual .Mac web page yesterday and was kind enough to forward it on. The page contained promotional images for Apple products [...] including teasers for iTunes 8, a 32GB iPhone [in Australia!], and a WWDC launch date (June 10th).
Turns out, not so much. The images came courtesy of one of MacRumors own forum members (though MacRumors continues to maintain they were associated with a legit @apple.com account).
In general, a 32GB iPhone, at least for the current generation product, would require a 32GB NAND chip for the single slot (due to the cell radio and other components, unlike the iPod Touch which boasts 2 NAND slots, the iPhone only has room for 1 — hence iPod Touch always offering twice the memory). If true, it may explain the price cuts on the 8GB models. iTunes 8 would only require some boosted features (App Store support?) and Apple’s marketing desire to bump the rev a full number. Australia rumors have been building for a long time now, of course.
Also included were the first MacBook and MacBookPro case revs, going to aluminum and iMac-style black on aluminum respectively. (Both of which have also seen rampant rumor ramp ups — say that ten times fast!)
Posted on Friday, Apr 18, 2008 by Rene Ritchie
File Under:Uncategorized;
Apple Insider (via Digitimes, via Economic Daily News) brings word that United Microelectronics Corporation has nailed the contract to produce the Infineon powered 3G basebands for the next generation iPhone:
The newspaper maintains that UMC will use a 65 nanometer plant to produce the chip, which (though mistakenly written as PMB878) is known to be the PMB8878 — an integrated circuit which provides cellular data on HSDPA networks up to 7.2Mbps and is the source of the hidden SGOLD3 reference in the latest beta of Apple’s iPhone 2.0 firmware.
Infineon’s EDGE (2.5G) chip powering the current generation iPhone, along with the aforementioned SGOLD3 string, starts to give this rumor a little weight. What do you think?
Maybe Safari really is the weak link for Apple. After being used to bring down a MacBook Air in the CanSecWest Contest, the good folks at Radware have discovered a vulnerability in Apple’s Safari for iPhone 1.1.4.
Per the source, “the design flaw triggers a series of memory allocation operations on the iPhone’s dynamic memory pool, which then triggers a bug in the garbage pool collector.” To get to that point however, the iPhone user must visit a site written with that particular malicious JavaScript. Potentially the flaw will crash Safari and perhaps even the iPhone altogether.
iPhone users should have little to worry about because at this point, the flaw is nothing more than an annoyance, but in the hands of a knowledgeable hacker, it could become a major issue. Hopefully, Apple will roll out one of their infamously ambiguous updates that are released for ‘maintenance and security issues’ for the iPhone and all will be well in the iPhoneiverse.
Apple sent out an email yesterday to developers formalizing the 2008 Design Awards set to take place at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) this June. And this year, continuing their dual bridge/landmark theme, Apple has opened the awards up to the iPhone!
iPhone categories include:
- iPhone Developer Showcase, for native apps built using the iPhone SDK, feature-complete, ready to run on an iPhone, iPod Touch, or the Sim. (Apple may pick multiple winners in this category.)
- Best iPhone Web Application, for specifically MobileSafari based Web 2.0 apps. (No word addendum on multi-picks here.)
And to the victorious will go quite the swag bag:
Winners in the iPhone and Mac OS X Leopard categories will receive two 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops, two 30-inch Apple Cinema Displays, one 16GB iPod touch, one 8GB iPhone, an ADC Premier Membership, reimbursement for one WWDC 2008 E-ticket including airfare and accommodations, and one 2009 ADC Macworld Expo Exclusive Marketing Package.
Awesome. Now all I need is a Matrix-style coding implant and a way to go back in time!
What about you? How’s your Cocoa Touch or Web App coming? Ready for WWDC glory? Or just ready to enjoy the awesome apps that (hopefully!) come out right thereafter?
