Interesting concept video for using iTunes, rather than the iPhone itself, to manage home screen icons and layout. Single icon, multi-icon selection, icon and space lock and unlock, whole screen moving, sort by name, sort by last usage, etc. are all visualized and it makes a rather compelling case.
Would you rather (or additionally) handle icon/app management via iTunes? As we move to more wireless/over-the-air syncing and operations, do we want to have more reasons to stick with the tether, or could a MobileMe-like service include it?
Also, while it looks solid on 2 screen, what if you’re rocking 9 screens, will it scale?
Engdget Mobile scored an interview with Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility. Our favorite carrier CEO (for recently telling Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Nokia’s CEO, and Euro-haters that “99.5 percent of the industry is trying to copy the iPhone”), shot from the hip on a wide range of issues, including AT&T outages, reports of iPhone reception problems, the success of the App Store, and the competitive landscape now that Google and Palm are (back) in the game.
Perhaps the best news for iPhone users on AT&T? He anticipates future firmware updates will continue to increase reception and reliability:
They’re continuously looking for, and we communicate with Apple and say, you know, if we tweak this it would work better, so they’ve been very good about working with us and making sure that as we look at things to do the drop calls there, they’re going to implement it.
Strangely, no word on dropping data rates or throwing in tethering gratis…
Our pal Casey over at Android Central, launching off the latest ruminations of GigaOm Malik, on the relative advantages and disadvantages of open source vs. proprietary software models, as straw-man’d into the current tech darlings from Google and Apple: the Android and the iPhone, says:
We can’t deny that the iPhone is wildly successful in spite of (or because of?) their closed, proprietary nature. It’s essentially the dilemma that iPhone users have been trying to find the balance to–the iPhone’s closed nature creates a clean, seamless and synergetic user experience but it often comes at the expense of the freedom of choice. You have to trust Apple enough to play nice and take a leap of faith with the direction of the iPhone.
And the GigaOm-ster sums up:
The reality is that openness is just an attribute -– it’s not an outcome, and customers buy outcomes. They want the entire solution and they want it to work predictability. Only a tiny minority actually cares about how or why it works. It’s little wonder, then, that the two device families that have won the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of consumers, developers and service providers alike (i.e., BlackBerry and iPhone) are the most deeply integrated from a hardware, software and service layer perspective.
Our take? Depends on your baggage. Are you coming at it as a philosophically determined developer or tech pundit who wants to tinker, toggle, and/or get all Stallman/Jobs on it? Or are you the mom of such an individual, someone who thinks FOSS is what you use to clean between your teeth and OS X must be on late night cable for pre-verts? They just want the most basic real-world functionality to work (i.e. make calls, show off baby pics, and play the latest episode of Murder She Wrote (heh)).
Personally, I’ll take the best of both, thank you very much. Let them continue to propel each other ever-forward to the benefit of consumers like us. (And like the Androids, bless their trackball+touchscreen+keyboarded little central robotic cores!)
There is a new email promo floating around from Best Buy (got mine last night). Their Reward Zone and Premier Silver members are being offered a pretty enticing discount when purchasing new a iPhone 3G. Here’s how it works: Reward Zone members purchasing a new iPhone 3G will be lucky enough to have $50 knocked off the regular price while Premier Silver members get a even more generous $100 off of a new iPhone 3G.
Keep in mind this offer is only good until Saturday February 28th and you must sign your life away to AT&T for two years. So, if you are out shopping for a brand spanking new iPhone 3G and you’ve been a Reward Zone member before February 21st… head on over to Best Buy!
Every week I will be bringing you what I think are the week’s biggest stories and articles. Let’s get started, after the break! Read the rest of this entry »
ubiqkom.org (via Engadget Mobile) has posted a video of an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard hooked up and running alongside an iPhone. We’ve seen homebrew keyboard connectivity before, of course, but this is such a nicely packaged, Apple-centric solution is makes us dream again about what could have been — and still could be if Apple gets its Bluetooth profiles sorted out.
Of course, we’d also expect a built in dock, and maybe a more portable keyboard in general, wouldn’t we?
Rene and Chad fill in for Dieter and Mike this week, covering Mobile World Congress, the latest with Google and GPS, more MobileMe, Jailbreaking illegal, and the rest of the news. Listen in!
This week we’ll be bringing you more of the same, of course. Be sure you are paying special attention to CrackBerry.com, as this will be a HUGE week for CrackBerry Nation. This coming Thursday, February 26th, the site officially turns 2 years old!! And when CrackBerry.com turns another year older, it doesn’t mean a day of celebrating, it means a week birthday festivities! Whether you’re a BlackBerry owner or not you’ll want to stay glued to the site for great contests, deals and giveaways each and every day. If you’re not a daily visitor but want to follow the action, you can always subscribe to the CrackBerry RSS feeds or follow the site on Twitter at @crackberry.
Speaking of giveaways, time is running out for your chances to win a Nokia N85 or E71 at Nokia Experts, so be sure to head over and learn how to enter this week.
Google recently announced their Latitude service, which lets you and your friends share your location, and while they’ve made it available to some platforms, the iPhone version hasn’t surfaced yet… Or has it?
A tipster has sent us a photo of what looks to be Latitude integrated into the iPhone Map App. Now, we know that Apple, not Google created the Map app. Based on Google’s back-end data, to be sure, but Apple made the interface. So, if Latitude is coming by way of Maps, Apple is going to have to be the one who releases it — and that means it won’t be until another firmware update (2.3 at the earliest, 3.0 at the outside).
However, last we heard Google was going to release it themselves, as part of their awesome (yet controversial) Google Mobile App. If that’s the case, unless they’re planning a massive redesign that happens to look just like the Maps app, then we’re not sure what we’re really looking at up there.
What do you think? Real? Real fake?
And either way, would Latitude be better combined with Maps than with Google Mobile?
The great folks at Redwind Software have been gracious enough to provide TiPb readers with a fun Oscar day give-away. Know your trivia? Prove it right here and you’ll win promo codes (US only, sorry!) for BOTH their Movie Challenge AND their Movie Challenge: Oscars® Special.
UPDATED: We’ve opened it up with a new way to win, check it our here!
That’s right, 1 give-away, 2 games, 10 winners. And all you have to do to win is… answer some trivia questions!
We’ll post 1 set of questions at a time (10 sets total), and the first forum member to answer the set will win 1 copy of BOTH games. Then we’ll post the next question, until we’ve posted all 10, all 10 have been answered, and we have our 10 winners.
Ready for the first set of questions?
1a: What actor was cast as Marty McFly in “Back To The Future”, and even filmed for a few weeks, before ultimately being replaced by Michael J. Fox?
1b: For which movie did Steven Spielberg win his first Best Director Oscar®?
