2008: Yearly Archive

A little non-iPhone news:

A widely read piece at Wired on the origins of the iPhone is pretty much must-read. It would have been nice if the article had more named-sources, but on the other hand the entire thing rings very true. If you’re interested in how Apple negotiated the complicated carrier and technical details of the iPhone, it’s the best article on that in the past few months.

But we’re all about Macworld this weekend, so this tidbit caught our eye:

Jobs had reason to be confident. Apple’s hardware engineers had spent about a year working on touchscreen technology for a tablet PC and had convinced him that they could build a similar interface for a phone.

Oh, so Apple was already working on a tablet concept before the iPhone. If it took some work to re-engineer their tablet technology into the iPhone, methinks it would take less work to re-engineer that technology in to a tablet.

Of course, it would be even easier to integrate that technology into a massive touchpad on a thin MacBook, per MacRumors (who gets the credit for the above image).

Our forum integration is hurting just a bit right now, so comments are temporarily down. Expect ‘em back by the big day!

The internet is all abuzz over the latest Macworld rumor – AppleInsider has spotted Apple banners with the slogan “There’s something in the air.” My guess hope is something rather less revolutionary than WiMAX Apple devices or a 3G iPhone – both of which I consider very unlikely. WiMAX is just not widespread enough yet and too much of it is controlled by Sprint and Clearwire. No way Apple is going to get in bed with Sprint given their relationship with AT&T, and Clearwire is just too small.

Instead, I’m hoping for .Mac services on the iPhone. Radically improved .Mac services have been something I’ve wanted to a long time. What I’d really like: Google services integration, iWeb mobloggling from the iPhone, and access to .Mac’s online storage. Please Please.

Meanwhile, check out what our forum members think is coming at Macworld.

AppleInsider | Archives

iPhone wielding Slingbox owners will soon be able to view their favorite smutty Spice Channel content on iPhone screens, if rumors are true. A site that goes by the charming name Electric Pig (I prefer my swine without rectal power adapters thank you very much) claims to have spoken with one of the higher ups at Sling Media, who went on record as saying that a version of its popular Slingplayer for mobile devices is in development right now.

Sweet. Now I can watch all my favorite episodes of Gilligan’s island while driving down the freeway. Zoom Zoom.

ReadVia MacRumors

The writers strike is really starting to take its toll, and not just on (Benedict Arnold?) Jon Stewart’s conscience. As Infinite Loop notes, Apple has already warned Season Pass customers on iTunes that the strike will delay shows. So we all wait with bated breath for our favorites to come back and give us what we paid for – full seasons.

On a related note – one of my guilty pleasures on TV is Psych on the USA network. It’s coming back January 11th, but apparently it’s not coming to iTunes – likely because USA parent company NBC just refuses to play ball. Sadly, I just got this notice from iTunes:

Future episodes of “Psych” will not be available on the iTunes Store. We realize that you purchased a season pass and regret that we will not be able to deliver these episodes to you. I have issued a pro-rated refund in the amount of $XXX for the remaining episodes. You will see this credit in three to five business days. If Store Credit was used for this purchase, you should see the credit applied to your balance immediately. [...] I have also granted two free video credits to your account which you can use to purchase of any two TV episodes, music videos, or short films on the iTunes Store.

Bummer. Hopefully Apple will be able to score those rumored deals with movie studios and announce them at Macworld – because the paid-video content at the iTunes Store is starting to feel awfully thin.

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:

• Firmware Update 1.1.3 gets released (though doesn’t necessarily get facetime in the Stevenote)
• 1.1.3 does not, as has been rumored today, get cut & paste.
• 1.1.3 does get A2DP (“What the Heck” pick)
• Further sync features (notes and tasks!) are announced and possibly included in 1.1.3
• A new iPhone-compatible speaker-dock system
• If we get our A2DP Stereo Bluetooth What-the-heck prediction right, Apple will also release some bluetooth headphones.
• 16 gig iPhone (but not a 3G version)

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