May 2008: Monthly Archive

Ah, .Mac, the poor abandoned stepchild in Apple’s 360 degrees of spherical integration. It’s the online service Google, Yahoo, and even Microsoft Live kick sand at on the playground.

Sure, Back-to-my-Mac can rock, and syncing can be oh-so-sweet, but c’mon, what have you done for us lately?

Could be a lot, if rumors pan out. We’ve already brought you word on possible iPhone 2.0 .Mac “push” mail, and even reports of a total revamp. Now it seems the revamp may be more of a full on renovation, including a brand spanking new name!

[Dmitry Chestnykh, the CEO at Coding Robots] went through the iCal Localizable.strings file in the recently released 10.5.3 update and found a number of changes. In particular, he found a lot of evidence that the .Mac brand name is going to be replaced. Apple is apparently using a placeholder %@ which will be dynamically replaced by the new name, whatever that is, when it’s released.

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24 hours. 7 days a week. 365 1/4 days a year.

That’s how often the Apple Store on 5th Avenue in New York City is open. Don’t know which one I’m talking about? The big glass cube on the most expensive street in the world! This flagship store is perhaps the brightest jewel in Apple Retail, often hosting performances from the likes of Maroon 5 & Linkin Park and becoming a new landmark for tourists to visit in the city that never sleeps. It’s open all day, everyday.

Well, if you don’t count today.

The Apple Store on 5th Ave. is closed from Thursday, May 29 3:00 p.m. to Friday, May 30 9:00 a.m. Apple Store Employees have been telling customers that a commercial is being filmed and reports are floating around saying its a 3G iPhone commercial. Remember, Apple doesn’t close this store for any old reason, the only times it has been closed before: the original iPhone launch and the release of Leopard. Hmm..

What do you think?

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Short and pro-forma sweet:

Hutchison Telecommunications Limited said Thursday that it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Hong Kong and Macau later this year.

Updated list:

Launched: Austria (T-Mobile), France (Orange), Germany (T-Mobile), Ireland (O2), UK (O2), USA (AT&T)

Announced: Africa (Orange), Argentina (America Movil), Australia (Vodafone / SingTel), Austria (Orange), Belgium (Orange), Brazil (America Movil), Canada (Rogers), Chile (America Movil), Columbia (America Movil), the Czech Republic (Vodafone), Denmark (TeliaSonera), Dominican Republic (America Movil/ Orange), Ecuador (America Movil), Egypt (Vodafone / Orange), El Salvador (America Movil), Estonia (TeliaSonera), Finland (TeliaSonera), Greece (Vodafone), Guatamala (America Movil), Honduras (America Movil), Hong Kong SAR (Hutchison) India (Vodafone / SingTel), Italy (Vodafone / Telecom Italia), Jamaica (America Movil), Jordan (Orange), Latvia (TeliaSonera), Lithuania (TeliaSonera), Macao (Hutchison), Mexico (America Movil), New Zealand (Vodafone), Nicaragua (America Movil), Norway (TeliaSonera), Paraguay (America Movil), Peru (America Movil), Philippines (SingTel), Poland (Orange), Portugal (Vodafone / Orange), Puerto Rico (America Movil), Romania (Orange), Singapore (SingTel), Slovakia (Orange), South Africa (Vodafone), Switzerland (Swisscom / Orange), Turkey (Vodafone), Uruguay (America Movil)

Rumored: Netherlands (?),

Note: Extent of America Movil and Orange Africa deployment not yet fully detailed.

Of course, Hong Kong and Macao are nice and all, but there’s still Taiwan and the giant sleeping dragon itself, China to go.

When will they, Japan, and Antarctica drop?

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If you hadn’t noticed, TiPb’s theme of the week is currently “Fixing the iPhone”. Rene offered you an extremely thoughtful and well-researched look into what the iPhone can learn from the competition. I reviewed a native app that added a much needed ‘Today’ Screen. And I’m back again giving you 10 Things Apple Should Fix in the iPhone. We don’t always crack jokes about Crackberry and mock iClones here do we?

Okay, to provide a quick disclaimer for this list: Understand that I’m completely ignoring the issues that are ‘mainstream problems’ with the iPhone. I’m not going to go off on the lack of a physical keyboard. I’m not worrying about 3G & GPS. Copy & Paste is a well-known pitfall of the iPhone. Natively saving images, likewise. Removable Battery? Recessed headphone jack? Push E-Mail? MMS? (Wow, that’s a lot)

As big a concern those previously mentioned issues are—many of them will likely become a moot point once the 3G iPhone comes out (Now somebody go tell Sprint that). This list suggests minor tweaks and fixes in the iPhone that may have been swept under the rug or just plain old forgotten. But fear not, I will happily remind Apple of the iPhone’s shortcomings and offer a solution on how to fix them. As great as the iPhone is, it isn’t without its faults.

[Comment on this Wait-a-Thon post to qualify to win a $100 iTunes Gift Card]

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How many times has Elizabeth Taylor been married?  Where was Planet of the Apes filmed?  Is Harrison Ford really turning 66 this year?  Indy is a senior citizen??  These are the kinds of questions (and more) that can be answered using the Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com).  If there is something you want to know about your favorite actor, movie, director, character, etc., the IMDb is a great place to find it.  Now, courtesy of Nolan Brown, we have Mobile IMDb for the iPhone and this week’s Tip!  Please read on! Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Dell has gone done and opened his mouth about Apple again:

“Yeah, I could take [Steve Jobs in a fight].”

He’s gone done and done it before, of course:

“What would I do [with Apple]? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

And we all know how well that’s worked out. Any reason to think this time will be different? Let’s check out the tale of the tape:

Ego: Both are crushing. However, Jobs’ company is called Apple, not Jobs. Edge: Dell.

Build: Jobs is Vegan thin. Dell is big as Texas beef. Edge: Dell.

Reach: Dell once made profits based on Walmart-style supply-chain “management” and low labour costs. Jobs continues to make profits based on unparalleled technological design and innovation. Edge: Jobs.

Record: APPL: $187.01, DELL: $21.69. Edge: Jobs.

Judges?

Dude, you’re getting Vulcan nerve pinched by Mac.

(tip’o the hat to Dieter for the inspiration)

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Way back in March at the iPhone SDK Roadmap Event, Steve Jobs brought a little company up on stage called Kleiner Perkins and, more importantly, he brought out Kleiner Perkin’s wallet and waved a nice, crisp $100,000,000 dollar bill in developers’ faces: the iFund.

Well, it’s been a while but it looks like some developers are finally getting a taste of all that green!

First out the gate is Pelago, developers of Whrll, which mashes up map data with — you guessed it! — social network-style location based data from you, your friends, and your network:

Say you’re lost in Las Vegas and need a restaurant recommendation. With iPhone in hand, you can scan the locations of nearby restaurants, just Italian restaurants, or just those recommended by foodie friends.

Everyone (including us!) is saying location-based services could be the next big gold mine for companies like Google, and every start-up and their venture capitalist want to stake a claim and strike it rich.

Apple seems to think so too. Pelago has reportedly set up shop near Infinite Loop, is working with Apple to become a featured app, and has their fingers crossed for more.

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Sorry PC Users. And non-iPhone users. And we’re not sorry for you having to think about an upgrade to Vista or Windows Mobile 6.1 either. No, we’re sorry because Google loves us iPhone users more than you. Google has an iPhone Fixation. The newest evidence? The latest and greatest update to the Mac OS, 10.5.3, just came out today and it has a new feature: syncing of contacts with Google. Gmail already works better with the iPhone than it does with any other mail app, now it works better with the iPhone when plugged into a Mac, too.

Odd that it would only work if you have an iPhone, though, innit? If you’re not “one of us” (Google! Goggle!), you can still sync your contacts up with Yahoo, who still is also the only way to get Push email pre-iPhone-2.0.

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Update: Ars Technica chimes in with a hack for your forlorn non-iPhone-owning Mac Users. For my part, I very much want to apply 10.5.3 but I have a policy of waiting at least a week before installing it. Crazy? …Or crazy like a fox?

Apple has just dropped the sixth (6th!) update to their iPhone SDK and 2.0 beta firmware. Pre-req is Apple’s almost simultaneously dropped OS X Leopard update, 10.5.3, so developers are forewarned to get that first before beginning the SDK install.

No word yet on what new treasures may be hiding in this version, but if past betas are any indication, there’ll no doubt be something hidden in them there strings

According to TUAW, however, Apple is now carding. Yup, they’re checking Application IDs at the door, so make sure you’re registered before you try to install apps on a test iPhone.

Head on over to Apple’s iPhone DevCenter to get yours now!

A New Version of the iPhone SDK is Now Available Sixth beta version just posted.

Via

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the first ever live demo of Google’s new Android platform… and it’s on the iPhone!

[Er... That's the HTC Dream.]

What? Sigh. Okay.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s a proof of concept. Maybe it’s because of the Diamond. Maybe it’s just a hormone thing. But does all the innovation have to lead back to Cupertino these days? Does it?

So, another week, another iClone, and more specifically another HTC iClone. (At least they’re giving RIM a run for their Bold, Thunder, Storm money for the official iClone volume title…)

Still, it’s nice to see Android. As I mentioned in the Top 5 Things the iPhone Could Learn From the Competition, the cloud looks to be the future, and Google currently owns the cloud. Never mind their CEO is on Apple’s board of directors (he reportedly recuses himself from iPhone discussions to avoid a conflict of interest), the industry needs the drive Google can provide, even if they wrap it up in a horribly derivative package for now.

Check out the video after after the break!

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