August 2008: Monthly Archive

Microsoft’s most recent 10K filing with the SEC gives every indication you-know-who may be bringing them some future pain:

A competing vertically-integrated model, in which a single firm controls both the software and hardware elements of a product, has been successful with certain consumer products such as personal computers, mobile phones and digital music players

Sure, Microsoft has their Xbox and Zune end-to-end business models, the former of which has enjoyed both success and red-ring framed troubles, and the latter of which is jettisoning even its… er… more eccentric fanbase, but they’ve yet to enjoy iPod-level triumph in the space.

To put this in some perspective, we know Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, has said Apple’s tight integration is something they want to emulate going forward, but Microsoft basically invented software as the mega-business. They’ve made gatestillions of dollars on software and enjoy a monopoly level position in both PC OS and Office applications.

So, even as Apple sold a million iPhone 3Gs in a weekend, and Steve Jobs wants 1% of the global mobile market, and 10 million units shipped short term, Microsoft came close to moving 20 million software licenses for Windows Mobile in the last year, and even as Mac sales keep inching on up, Microsoft still sits so far atop that market share mountain, its basically everest.

Still, if we discount Microsoft’s endemic — and groundless — Apple (and now Google) envy, could Ballmer and co. seriously still see Apple’s 360 degree, spherically integrated business model as a threat? And if so, why?

Posted from my iPhone

Today’s lightning review: Epocrates Rx, available for free in the App Store. For writing the review, Libuff gets a 25% off coupon to the iPhone Blog Store. A review of a medical app from a genuine paramedic: Epic Win! Interested in getting your own coupon? Read the details on how your own Lightning Review could do just that!

Epocrates is the iPhone version of the famous drug reference software which is available on nearly all portable devices. from Palm to Blackberry to Windows Mobile and now to iPhone. This application is not for just the professional, although most of the information would be over the head of the non-medical professional types. This product is FREE, however an online registration is required, but also FREE. You can register here.

I work as a Paramedic, and as such, drug reference material is very important. We are quite often confronted with a myriad of medications which even the most experienced pharmacists have yet to hear about. Because of the ever expanding amount of medications out there, it becomes important to have dynamic drug references.

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…Just multiply! So says MacRumors, gossiping this time about a UK report that has Apple launching an iPhone Nano just in time for the holidays. But is anyone buying what the DailyMail is cooking?

Nope. Not even on coupon night. Though MacRumors does state the more sensical:

More reliable sources have indicated that Apple has been working on a smaller iPhone, but there is no expected time-frame for that product’s release.

Of course, at any time the uber-secret Apple labs are doubtlessly working on countless projects, many of which Steve Jobs is proud have never seen the light of day. iPhone Nano could be one of those too, just like it’s much bigger, equally mythical iTablet brother…

(Now watch both drop this Tuesday…)

Have you checked out our forums lately? The community is growing and the commentary is getting better and better each day. Unconvinced? I’ll bring out a thread, a post, a topic, or a comment directly from the forums and post it on TiPb’s front page every week to prove it to you. We here at TiPb love the interplay, quid pro quo, repartee with our readers, so step up your creativity and tighten up your diction, you could be next!

This week we have a tip from forum member, h22kai, on how to swap out your broken iPhone 3G for a brand, spanking new one at the Apple Store. We at TiPb have heard of more hardware issues dealing with the iPhone 3G than any other Apple product in recent memory, so if you own an iPhone 3G and are running into build quality issues, feel free to take a look at h22kai’s list!

It includes simple advice like restoring your iPhone prior to your Genius Bar appointment and more specific suggestions like removing any discount from AT&T.

Go Check out h22kai’s tip on how to swap out your broken iPhone 3G at an Apple Store!

Not evil twin to theiPhoneBlog.com 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!

This week: Bold, Bull. Bull, Bold. WinMob Can’t Count to 20, and Colligan Loves the iPhone

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Mac nerdery stalwart John Gruber over at DaringFireball has put together a very interesting essay about how iPhone Calendar syncing has evolved from firmware 1.x (1.0 – 1.4) to firmware 2.0, and how the current iTunes syncing differs in functionality from syncing via Apple’s MobileMe service.

From welcome improvements to frustrating choices, from new methods of use to evolving work-arounds, Gruber ultimately comes to the ultimate question:

Whither the “digital hub”?

While iTunes originally served as the one-stop location for all syncing and sync settings, MobileMe now works outside the iTunes universe, but does not offer the options (e.g. selecting individual rather than all calendars to sync) iTunes does, nor does the MobileMe pref pane.

Is there a way for Apple to cleanly present a unified place to manage all iPhone syncing, with a robust set of options?

My vote remains iTunes. When MobileMe is in use, keep the settings enabled, and pass the preferences along to the “cloud”. That keeps data, media, and commerce all in one place, with one interface, in a familiar context. Just “push” choices of calendars, contact groups, etc. back up to MobileMe.

Box Office is missing. No, we’re not talking about the gross from the latest Eddie Murphy “film”, we’re talking about the iPhone App. While NetShare remains in its very own little Schrodinger’s App box, some carriers’ (AT&T, Rogers, etc.) prohibition against tethering and Nullriver’s Installer.app/Cydia roots makes the drama at least somewhat fathomable. What about Box Office?

Box Office is (was?) an App that used either manually entered or CoreLocation derived positional information to show you a list of theaters and movies playing within a user-definable radius (e.g. 10 miles). Users could “favorite” certain theaters to bump them to the top, and quickly click through the RottenTomatoes or MetaCrytic reviews, movie information, etc. In other words, it was a useful piece of software in the otherwise incredibly high noise to signal ratio (i.e. CrApps to quality) the initial App Store land rush has given us.

And now it’s gone.

Yup. For the last couple days, clicking on the Box Office link returns an iTunes error saying the app is not available in (your country) store. Posting on the MacRumors forums, developer Metasyntactic, claims not to know why it was pulled either (after the jump):

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We’ve had our fair share of gripes and complaints about AT&T here at TiPb but we don’t give them enough credit for trusting Apple and letting them go wild with the iPhone. Sure, they may be out to squeeze every dollar from their customers, but few carriers would even imagine giving Apple the freedom to create the. best. gadget. ever.

Plus, AT&T is well aware of the attention and added dollars they get by having an exclusivity agreement for the iPhone, so it comes to no surprise to us that one of those old, reputable, print companies is reporting that AT&T has added another year of exclusivity (until 2010 now). If AT&T were to lose the iPhone now, it’d be a complete disaster since the iPhone is starting to entrench itself in the market.

So I guess since AT&T will never give up on the iPhone, it’s on Apple to make every customers dream come true and deliver a fully unlocked iPhone. Maybe then, carriers will begin to lower their prices and the power will come back to the consumers.

ReadVia

Update: Macrumors lets us know that, strangely enough, it’s back in the App Store. It doesn’t show up in a search, but you can download it via this iTunes/App Store link.

Update 2: …aaaand it’s gone again, at least in the US. Le Sigh.

The Interweb is abuzz about this little program that popped up on the App Store yesterday, so aptly named NetShare. The concept of the app is to essentially use your iPhone’s 3G or EDGE (god knows why) connection for your laptop. It creates a proxy and establishes a pseudo-hotspot with your iPhone’s connection leaving you free to surf the web on your laptop. It’s tethering, more or less.

How this got passed Apple and AT&T who knows. But it looks like  has already been kicked out of the App Store. Did any of the TiPb faithful get their hands on this app while it was hot? Anyone get it to work? From what TiPb has been hearing, it’s really hit or miss. Let us know.

Maybe Apple wanted the developers of NetShare to get the app right before they put it out again…wish for it and it’ll come true…wish for it and it’ll come true.

Read

Confession: I had to restore my iPhone 3G yesterday. No, I didn’t want to jump on the trend-wagon just to get a build number ending in 7. No, the buggy, sluggy transitions didn’t finally get to me. What happened? A huge chunk — fully 1/4 — of my 16GB storage was eaten up by what iTunes helpfully classified as “Other” files.

I didn’t restore immediately, of course. Since “Other” data doesn’t include music, video, or photos (which are each classified separately in iTunes), and most “other” data, like contacts, OS, settings, etc. is far too small to explain 4.3GB, I considered 3rd party apps (which Apple should really break out in their own color in iTunes as well). Maybe they weren’t being properly uninstalled and removed from the device?

First I removed all 3rd party apps via iTunes 7.7. That got me down to 4.3GB. Then I tried removing them via the home screen’s wiggly jiggly delete, just in case. Same result. Round about that time Apple released iTunes 7.7.1, and just in case this was a known — and hopefully patched — bug, I installed, rinsed, and repeated. And got not a step further.

That’s when I decided the only way to catch this data-hostage taker was to nuke the city. That’s right: full, clean re-install.

I was on the original, out-of-the-box firmware build (5A345) and iTunes restored to an incrementally later version (5A347), but it worked. Storage reclaimed. (And, as some other reports have indicated, this build in general when combined with a clean (not from backup) setup has made the more annoying sluggishness issues disappear).

Anyone else experience any mysterious “other” files taking up all their precious space? Any other/different solutions to my scorched earth approach? (Hey, I was a Windows user in a previous life, and re-install is etched into the final line of my trouble-shooting check list!)

Please let me know!