Gotta admit, this Nokia N96 Bruce Lee Edition is pretty cool. Bruce Lee put Kung Fu on the map, and while I’m not sure the current generation of tiny Skidoosh’ers would know him over the Panda, it hits all my nostalgia strings. (I’m sure Jeremy is waiting impatiently for the other Bruce — Campbell, that is — to show up, while Brian may, just may, be holding out for the King himself! Of course, Sam Jackson will probably be ****ing next…)
Of course, even with Saint Bruce’s way of the intercepting phone, the N96 would still eat a whole heaping, hurting, helping of Jobs Sifu’s Dim Mak — that’s the death touch fellas — were it to even try and enter that iPhone dragon’s lair.
We come to it at last. My time with the Android draws to a close. I have but my final review to write and then I ship it off to the next lucky SME editor for him or her to take their turn. Before I let it go, however, Android Casey had the brilliant idea of asking our loyal iPhone readers for questions!
Anything you want to know about the Google Android G1? Anything you want to see? Anything you’re even a tad curious about? Anything you want to see compared to the iPhone?
Let me know in the comments and not only will you get another change to win our awesome prize pack, I’ll do my darndest to get you the info you not only need, but so richly deserve.
(Also remember to head on over to our sibling sites for more chances to win a Blackberry Bold, Palm Treo Pro, WinMo HTC FUZE, and Android G1!)
Remember that rumor from MacWorld Sweden about iPhone MMS? That Telia was going to launch their own App for the iPhone? Turns out there is an MMS App launching and Telia will offer it, though it actually originates with Mobispine.
Mobispine AB (MOBS) the market leader in delivering mobile solutions to operators announced the availability of the world’s first true Multimedia Messaging (MMS) for iPhone. Mobispine is now offering a “white label” MMS service for iPhone to global operators. This new and innovative service will increase revenue per user (ARPU) and generate profits for operators.
So will there be an AT&T branded MMS App in the US? Rogers in Canada? O2 in the UK? Etc.? Will some carriers opt not to get involved? If so, do we then hate on them rather than Apple? Or should things like MMS not depend on carriers or 3rd parties, but be baked right into the OS? (Or should MMS just be left to die so Email can inherit the mobile future as well?)
UPDATE: iPhone dev extraordinaire Erica Sadun investigated over at Ars and found the following: Google is both linking to Private Frameworks and using unpublished APIs. While the latter is likened to jaywalking, the former is apparently a ban-worthy offense. Yikes. Check out her complete investigation for more. And now that it’s public, the question shifts to what if anything Apple will do about it? Cave to Google over a killer feature and betray the confidence of other developers, or yank Google’s app, alienating a huge (if guilty) partner and likely creating another furor among users?
Original post:
Is Google using private (i.e., not publicly available via the official iPhone SDK) APIs to create the silky-smooth “raise the phone and talk” activation for their new Advanced Voice Search feature in the update Google Mobile App? That’s the latest question Daring Fireball’s been looking into, and here’s what they’ve found so far:
If you use something like the command-line strings utility to examine the UIKit framework, you can see that there’s an undocumented (and therefore private to Apple) method named proximityStateChanged. And if one were to strip the FairPlay DRM from the current Google Mobile application binary — which, of course, you wouldn’t do, because you’re not supposed to strip FairPlay DRM, but I’m just saying if one were to do this — a class dump of the application binary would show that Google Mobile does in fact implement proximityStateChanged.
DF posits three possible explinations: 1) No one at Apple noticed the private API usage, 2) Apple noticed but turned a blind-eye, or 3) Apple approved the use of a private API. Citing sources, DF claims #3 to not be the case, and perhaps that’s why Google promoted the feature so heavily, and stirred up interest so high Apple would feel pressure to approve it (though we wonder if Steve Jobs’ Apple ever feels that type of pressure?)
By contrast, DF states #1 is not without precedence, while #2 would be grossly unfair to other developers, and either way, users may suffer if Apple makes changes to their private APIs (which is one of the reasons to keep them private after all).
So what do you think? Which scenario is most likely? And what would you rather, that developers (Google or not) use officially unsupported features if it means better apps but also apps that might just break when the next firmware drops?
The Storm still lacks Javascript chops (attn: RIM, see SquirelFish, Tracemonkey, V8, etc.!) so turns it off by default. The iPhone OS 2.1 browser is a tad crash prone. Fair fight? Well, let’s not forget the Berry’s is likely still itching to brawl over the most recent sales, satisfaction, and reliability figures, b’okay? But it’s the fastest fight Kevin had time for… for now.
The results?
iPhone did better when the Storm had Javascript on, but took a beating and crashed and burned twice when the Storm defaulted to Javascript off (and the iPhone still had it on).
How much of a role was played by the difference in network speed between Verizon’s EVDO rev A and AT&T’s HSDPA we don’t know, and since the Storm completely lacks WiFi, a pure browser test may forever elude us. (Early bird Walt Mossberg claims he got different results in different locations where each network had stronger or weaker signals, of course, but that the iPhone on WiFi was consistently the fastest — we’d add to that WiFi enables all sorts of additional networking features as well, like file exchange and remote control).
In either case, judging by how fast the blogerati have jumped on the Storm wagon, and how often the iPhone is coming up in the coverage, that this rivalry has only just begun!
This next thread is something right out of the National Enquirer, It involves a man, woman, and their marriage. Some people are really not the sharpest tools in the shed. Check it out, Man Cheating Via iPhone Gets Caught… yes you heard me correctly…
Next up is thread started by iPhone Nanite, lasvegasoutlaw, and he seems to be having Yahoo “Push” issues on his iPhone. Honestly, it has had issues since day one but how is Yahoo holding up for you? Let the “outlaw” know how your luck has been in the following thread - What is up with Yahoo Push?
Be sure to join our community to be able to post in theforums! It’s free and will only take a minute!
According to CNet (via Apple Insider), Apple is in talks with the remaining 3 out of the Big 4 record labels who still refuse to allow iTunes to sell DRM-free music.
Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony BMG currently provide DRM-free music to rival services like Amazon MP3 as a way to promote competition to iTunes, though the lack of availability of these services outside the US, along with iTunes continued (and growing) dominance in digital music, may be causing them to rethink that position.
EMI, of course, has been offering DRM-free music via Apple’s iTunes Plus service since it launched, and at double the bit rate (quality) of the regular music.
Hopefully we’ll soon see the day that big music decides to stop treating their customers as de facto thieves and realizes offering quality goods at fair market prizes is the only real way to stop piracy. Or am I the crazy one?
I love me some crossword puzzles. You can keep your silly Sudoku, I played enough logic games getting my philosophy major from a department that didn’t go for them crazy postmodern language games (seriously, the folks at St. Thomas love them some logic). I love having crosswords on my smartphone because it’s the perfect ‘quick game’ app: you can spend two minutes or twenty on them, there’s many new and free ones available every day, and they fend off cognitive decline in old age (Seriously, speaking of Catholics, look into the “nun study“).
Anyway, point is I want my crossword puzzle app to be awesome. So this week’s App vs. App is crosswords. Today’s contestants: 2 Across (1.2.2) by Eliza Block and Crosswords (1.13) by Stand Alone, Inc. Which one will better serve your word-puzzle fetish? Read on!
Did you ever wonder what happens to the items that were returned to a store after the box was opened? BIG SAVINGS is what happens!
TiPb iPhone Store proudly annouces the birth of it’s newest SPE sibling, Smartphone Outlet! All products sold through SmartphoneOutlet.com are Open Box products. These products were returned for one reason or another from a customer or are overstock from a manufacturer. Our opened returns go through a rigorous check to assure that our customers are getting what they pay for. All items are tested, sanitized, and repackaged for sale.
Take a browse through SmartphoneOutlet.com today for smartphone accessories at the lowest prices! You’ll want to bookmark this one and visit often - you never know what you’ll find in store at deep discount prices!
Another day, yet another chance to win ONE of FIVE shiny new Smartphones! That’s right, TiPb is giving away an iPhone 3G and for yet another chance to win, each and every day you post in our special forum thread, you get entered for another chance to win! So what are you waiting for? Go help AndroidCentral’s Casey Chan learn to re-love his iPhone!
(Psst- Our sibling sites are also giving away a Blackberry Bold, Android G1, Treo Pro, and HTC FUZE, so head on over to each and every Smartphone Experts Round Robin thread you can find!)
The iPhone Blog merged with the Phone different site in May of 2008. Both sites were founded on a premise that comes one from one of Apple's old slogans: Think different. The iPhone Blog: for people who dare to phone different.
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