Articles by Dieter Bohn
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)
You?
The Pacific Rim Leather Jacket is a simple flip-lid style case for the iPhone. It has a clean, elegant look, but is it clean and elegant to use? Read on for our review.
Big ups to hrmpf.com for remembering a certain Apple patent: “Portable Electronic Device with Interface Reconfiguration Mode.” Basically it shows a portable device clearly letting you know you’re in “reconfiguration” mode by way of jiggly icons. While I personally don’t much like the jigglies, I will admit that, as rener and archie say, it does make it unmistakable that you’re in the “move stuff around” mode.
So either Gear Live somehow managed to snag a leaked version of 1.1.3 or they’ve perpetrated perhaps the greatest “gotcha” in recent memory. Probably the former, as it’s looking more and more like 1.1.3 is the real deal. So what’s coming (and what’s likely to get a mention at MacWorld) is pretty neat:
- Ability to add bookmarks to the SpringBoard (homescreen)
- Ability to rearrange programs via the nausea-inducing “jiggle mode”
- Ability to (finally!) send SMSs to multiple people
- Google Maps gains the neat
tower-triangulationTower Tagging* location trick, plus a hybrid satellite/map directions
Of course, there are some things that we figured would be easy adds that a missing – namely Stereo Bluetooth support. Still and all, it looks like a decent enough upgrade and it’s clearly a step towards getting the iPhone ready for that upcoming SDK. As for when the rest of us will get to take this 1.1.3 step, that’s still shrouded in mystery.
*Edit: not triangulation, but ‘tagging.’ See comment by Archie (and septimus, in a minute). Thanks!
Here comes the synergy. Buying songs off the iTunes WiFi store while you’re at Starbucks is great and all – but it turns out that most people don’t go to Starbucks so they can freely surf iTunes’ selections. Instead, Apple has figured out that people go to Starbucks to buy coffee and coffee-flavored beverages (let’s face it, calling that mocha-double-frappa-whozit “coffee” is an insult to coffee and whozits). To that end, Apple has cagily filed a patent to allow you to order your coffee without having to actually talk to a human. Forbes describes it best:
Customers might tap a button to order their favorite drink, say a double-shot mocha, as they stroll up to the nearest coffee shop. When the drink is ready go to, the device–such as an iPhone–would chime or blink to let the thirsty one know it’s time to scoop up the order at the counter.
…In other news, Forbes is now reporting on Apple patents like a common rumor site. It’s almost like they have a guy on staff who’s obsessed with Apple.
