Articles by Dieter Bohn
We already mentioned that Klausner is suing Apple over Visual Voicemail, to the tune of $360 million. Turns out there were plenty of other folks in on that suit – AT&T, Comcast, the list goes on. Well drop one off that list, SimulScribe. SimulScribe is basically the super-voicemail system for the non-iPhone set: offering both transcribed voicemails and something exactly like the iPhone’s Visual Voicemail (SimulSays). Well they’ve dropped out of the case and settled with Klausner.
That basically leaves Apple as the biggest name not to settle – but Apple is also the most litigiously bull-headed corporation around. So expect a fun fight, but don’t expect your Visual Voicemail to go away. Apple may not want to be forced into licensing agreement, but they definitely don’t want to take our features away more. After all, Apple gave in to the very same company over the Newton way back in the day.
SimulScribe, LLC., a co-defendant with Apple, Inc.(APPL:NASDAQ) in the patent infringement lawsuit recently filed by Klausner Technologies, has settled the litigation and has licensed the Klausner Technologies visual voicemail patents. – Press Release
One of the most interesting stories at Macworld hasn’t gotten a lot of attention in the larger press – namely that Google was around at Macworld a lot more than most people realize. It’s not just that they have a medium-sized booth featuring both their Mac products and new iPhone-compatible web offerings. No, the real story about Google at Macworld is that it’s very clear that Google has the iPhone on their collective mind in a big, big way.
Google’s services will continue to be great on the iPhone even after their Android OS hits the market. Read on to find out why!
Here’s some good 1.1.3 news, two pieces of it. Piece one is that 1.1.3 looks to be pretty comprehensive in how much of the firmware is re-written. Which is to say that it seems to overwrite some of the nasty bits that could have been corrupted with a bad AnySIM unlock. If you have an iPhone that’s inoperative, it’s worth a shot to apply the 1.1.3 patch. Sure, you’ll be stuck back on AT&T again, but at least the thing will be functional:
To upgrade, we put the phone in recovery mode, then connected to iTunes and restored/ upgraded. After the phone had finished upgrading, it would not work with our already valid ATT sim, so we had to activate the phone using iTunes. This is where we ran into some trouble, because after activating the iPhone under our existing account, the phone still did not show any signal and would not activate to our account. We restarted the phone and just like magic, were taken directly to the home screen. – Confirmed: Bricked iPhones Rise From the Grave With Firmware 1.1.3
The other news is that 1.1.3 has already been jailbroken (well, it was a hardware jailbreak first, then this software-jailbreak). Either way, people looking to get native apps back on their 1.1.3 iPhones will need to wait a bit longer for public consumption — or just wait for the SDK to finally be official in very short order.
Oh – one last piece of 1.1.3 news, you’re no longer stuck with it if you prefer the older version, but the downgrade isn’t the easiest thing on earth.
Voodoo doll courtesy ^Vanessa^
One of the biggest gripes about the iPhone is that its speaker isn’t nearly loud enough for many people. This problem was exacerbated early on because the iPhone’s alerts were originally too quiet to begin with. Apple themselves have fixed this problem by allowing you to change, say, the SMS alert volume. There’s also rumblings that Apple has quietly introduced louder speaker on iPhones manufactured more recently.
But if you’re one of those crazy early adopters, not only are you stuck with less money in your pocket (because of that unprecedented price drop), you’re also stuck with a quiet iPhone in your pocket as well. What to do? well, according to skorpiond at modmyifone,
I grabbed a needle and sticked it into every single tiny hold on the bottom left corner of the iPhone. I think it was dirty in there or something because now this *** is EXACTLY how I wanted it since day one… LOUD!!! I really hope I didn’t mess up the speaker though.*
…So basically you engage in some warranty-voiding dangerfun with your iPhone — presumably popping the protective cover over the speaker. Anybody brave enough to try this? We at Phone different already absolutely destroyed our first iPhone in the Video takeapart, so we’re a little gunshy about voiding more warranties.
via engadget mobile
Besides Google (much more on that tomorrow, stay tuned!), there weren’t a lot of “iPhone Web Apps” booths. Actually, none that I can remember. What there are a ton of at Macworld are accessories booths. Clearly the accessory market for the iPhone is ramping up quickly and may even near iPod accessory market status sometime soon.
…But it’s not there yet. Case in point, I saw probably a dozen different iPod speaker docks — all of which were “compatible” with the iPhone in flight mode only. Apple is requiring (and rightfully so, I suppose) that accessory makers submit their accessories for their seal of approval, iPhone-wise, so that the dreaded GSM-interference issue is taken care of. I personally wish Apple had managed to handle that on the device rather than forcing companies trying to interact with the Dock connector to re-make their products, but c’est la vie.
Otherwise, the thing to see, iPhone-wise, is cases. There are more skin cases here than you could shake a stick at, but there are some other gems as well. After the break, our three favorite cases at Macworld 2008.
Well there have been a few more pieces of news tricking out about 1.1.3. Top of the list has to be the fact that it kills EDGE data for GoPhone users. When Christopher wrote in and said he’s been without data for 48 hours and counting my iPhone wailed a bit for him. There’s other oddities too, like SMS messages appearing out of order. It appears that I spoke too quickly when I said that Apple had the best ROM update method EVARS over at WMExperts.
But 1.1.3 also has some good surprises – the max number of SMS messages an iPhone can hold has been lifted from a crazy-low 1000 to around 75,000. That might be enough. You can also finally manually manage your music and movies for finer-tuned control of what goes on your iPhone. Of course, there are also all the previously discussed benefits.
In the mixed category – 1.1.3 switches Gmail over to IMAP access automatically. This is good news for most – IMAP is clearly superior to POP. But the change happens without telling user that deleting Gmail email on the iPhone acts is going to be a little different now. On POP, “Delete = Archive,” so you could use delete to clear our your inbox Willy-Nilly. On IMAP, “Delete = Delete,” so use a little caution.
The iPhone FAQ is reporting that the issue we’ve seen with the earlier leaked 1.1.3 ROM update holds with the official ROM update. To wit: if you decide to downgrade your iPhone back to 1.1.2 (or even earlier), you’re phone will think that your SIM is invalid no matter what. You’ll quasi-brick your iPhone. I say “quasi” because it does seem you can safely upgrade to 1.1.3 again.
Anyway, the advice that Phone different has given you again and again still holds true: if you’ve done anything non-standard to your iPhone, stay the heck away from new updates until the hackers have had a chance to put it through its paces. Then again, the new location feature is super sweet, sweet enough that even if you do love Lights Out, it’s probably worth it to upgrade. After all, the SDK is getting released next month.
Macally just announced the FlexTune, which is one of the very few iPod docks available right now that is also fully compatible with the iPhone. That’s to say, it doesn’t suggest you go into Flight Mode to protect the speakers from GSM interference. Otherwise it’s a fairly standard set of iPod speakers – charges and is compatible with all iPods, medium-to-medium-low quality sound and volume, has a line-in on the back.
The FlexTune’s trick is that its speakers slide out – meaning you can mount the iPhone vertically or horizontally. It’s a little wonky to slide the speakers out and insert the iPhone, but not too bad. That wonkiness might be that Macally had a pre-production unit on the show floor — the real deal will be available in February for the fairly low price of $59.99
The new 1.1.3 update to the iPhone’s software is pretty incredible. As we just mentioned in the Liveblog of the Steve Jobs Keynote, there are several new features that were announced:
- Maps with Location
- Webclips on your homescreen
- Customization of your homescreen
- …and more, including lyrics, support for iTunes movie rentals, and the ability to SMS multiple people at once.
We got the jump on the iPod Touches on the show floor to get a firsthand look at the new features. After the break, our hands-on video with the new iPhone software (as seen on the iPod Touch).
We grabbed a quick look at the ultrathin MacBook Air, just released during Steve Jobs’ 2008 Macworld Keynote. The MacBook Air is a pretty sweet little guy – it’s ridiculously thin yet full-powered. Our only regret is that it has only 1(!) USB port. Oh, and the little fact that you can’t replace the battery. Isn’t that kind of a must for a laptop? We smell an accessory opportunity.
Otherwise – the hotness, even at $1799. A quick video of the gigantic crowd fondling the device above.
But you’ll also want to check out our full (as in REALLY big!) high-res gallery of the MacBook Air. Go Go!
