Articles by Dieter Bohn
Null River sends word that Apple has officially responded to them (at long last) and the response is sadly what we expected:
Looks like Apple has decided they will not be allowing any tethering applications in the AppStore. As such, NetShare will not be available in the iTunes AppStore. We are seeing a lot of similar reports from various developers who’s applications were abruptly removed and banned from the AppStore without any violations of the terms of service. This is all unfortunate news for the iPhone platform end-users.
Of course, this also bodes ill for PdaNet and any other folks looking to create tethering apps. Just ain’t gonna happen, folks.
The App Store cancellation / banning / NDA / mystery is starting to approach critical mass. Dave Winer nails the real issue here: there’s no way to app developers to find out whether or not they’re going to even be allowed to sell their app via the App Store until after they’ve put all the work into creating it. Developers are all sitting “Before the Law,” hoping the gatekeeper will suddenly become reasonable and rational. For tethering apps, at least, that hope is in vain. We’re still holding out hope for Podcaster and, well, for a lot of others.
(Netshare and Winer links via Daring Fireball)
One of the big missing features on the iPhone is support for wireless bluetooth stereo, also known as A2DP. Naturally, the iPod Touch lacks the same, since it lacks a Bluetooth chip altogether. …Or does it? Yes, it does. See, as MacRumors notes, the legendary disassemblers at iFixit took on the iPod Touch 2G and found a little chip called the Broadcom BCM4325 — a chip typically used to provide WiFi or Bluetooth. There’s already a separate WiFi chip, so Bluetooth is the natural assumption.
ZOMG, right? Well, no — Engadget put the hammer down on the rumor and our childlike sense of wonder by pointing out that 1) the chip’s presence doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s actual Bluetooth support in there and 2) that what the chip probably really does is interact with Nike+ (it’s built-in, see), since Nike+ uses a “proprietary 802.11 protocol” that this Broadcom chip is almost surely able to work with.
In other words, move jog along, nothing to see here.
Seems like it’s been an eternity since the pulling of the NetShare application officially brought us into the age of Apple pulling apps from the App Store on an almost daily basis. Without NetShare, the only folks who have been able to utilize their iPhones’ 3G connection for Laptop connectivity have been the crazy ones.
For the rest of us, there’s just the teeniest, tiniest glimmer of hope, that AT&T will relent and allow official tethering.
Until then it’s a waiting game. While you wait, think a bit about folks on PalmOS and Windows Mobile, folks who can not only tether, but can tether in a special ‘proxy mode’ that’s actually quite clever. See, when you tether, your carrier can tell you’re tethering (and can therefore charge you more). What lucky users on these other platforms do is trick their networks into thinking they’re just browsing via their phone. They do this via an awesome piece of software called PdaNet.
So: PdaNet for iPhone? It’s still the waiting game:
Our latest response from Apple is that the PdaNet application will be given new “consideration”. But that was more than a week ago and it still has an “In Review” status. There is not much we can do at this point but just to wait.
Sadly, that response from June Fabrics is now three weeks old and still no sign of PdaNet in the App Store, so things don’t look so good.
Come on, Apple and AT&T, allowing us to tether our laptops to our iPhones would make an awesome “One More Thing.”
Gizmodo confirms what we feared during our meta-live-blog — the bits that receive the information from the shoe-insert are built-into the 2nd Generation iPod Touch and not any other Apple device. That’s not surprising — hardware is as hardware does.
That’s not the real bad news, though. The real bad news is that the ‘dongle’ that iPod users have been able to use for those transmissions in the past continues to be incompatible with the iPhone and the 1st Gen iPod Touch and that’s not a situation that’s likely to change.
So if you’re looking to track your run without buying new gear, it looks like you’ll be doing it the old fashioned way.
We know you love your TiPb, but sometimes you just can’t get the internet. For those times, we’re happy to welcome another player to the iPhone media fold: iPhone Life from the Smartphone Magazine. Those are the folks who up to now have published PocketPC Magazine, which sadly had to fold up the print edition (though the website lives on.).
Check out the Press Release for a bit more info, go on and sign up for a subscription, or just keep an eye out for it on the news stands in the coming months.
Of course, there’s one thing that magazines can’t do — and that’s live coverage of Apple events. We’ll be bringing you our usual “Live Meta Blog” of all the goings-on tomorrow, so be sure to check back!
What’s coming on Sept 9th? What’s going on with the 3G radio on ATT? What’s included in the Real Internet? What are you waiting for? Listen in! Read the rest of this entry »
Look, advertising is a mysterious thing, okay? It takes some crazy genius can figure out how to make you want things without you even realizing that’s what’s happening. Any Don Draper monologue can tell you that.
But, as Rene asked, who were the geniuses who came up with this one?
Alright: devil’s advocate time: We get it, time spent humanizing Bill Gates is time spent humanizing Microsoft; we even get the secret ‘anti-switcher’ message for hardcore Seinfeld fans who remember the Mac in his apartment. Heck: we get that Bill/Microsoft1 is a mensch and shops at regular stores for regular people, not some overpriced, all white and chrome, well-designed… you get where we’re going with this.
So, like the Apple ads, we get some cute humor with a heart of gold — it’s as though Microsoft went ahead and took PC, admitted straight up he’s Bill Gates himself, and then ran with it. Ok, we’re a little sold that this will help people warm up Microsoft. Feeling better about Vista (or, yes, Windows Mobile2) — not so much.
Finally, and we hesitate to even mention this, but was it really necessary to make us not only watch that little derriere-shake at the end, but anticipate and wait for it? Jerry Seinfeld: you imp you.
- Yes, Gates has retired, but he’s still the soul of the company and not a bad soul at all. Plus, can you imagine this commercial with Steve Ballmer instead of Bill? The horror. The horror.
- Ha HA! The iPhone-related angle is finally revealed!
tsopanos emails in and points us to this iPhone Hellas story. Yes, it is literally Greek to us (groan), so here’s a Google Translation.
Here’s the scoop: the Data Meter on the iPhone is very helpful for letting you know how much data you’ve used, as Rene pointed out a few weeks ago. Sadly: it’s not a “Cellular Network Data” meter proper, apparently. Tsopanos has figured out that if you play around with the Access Point Name (that’s APN to the rest of us, and no, AT&T owners won’t see that setting under General -> Network), you can get that meter to return false information on 2.0.2.
More specifically, if you ‘break’ your APN by changing or screwing around with those settings and then go back and browse any data you have cached on your browser, email, or maps, the iPhone believes all that is more data that’s been downloaded over the cellular network. What this means is that the Cellular Data Meter might actually be double-dipping when your APN is right, i.e. counting locally cached data as cellular data. We’re not sure yet as we don’t have an iPhone with editable-APN sitting around — browsing cached data while in Airplane mode doesn’t seem to register.
Yeah, it’s a esoteric bug and yeah, at least that bug errs on the side of caution by showing you potentially more data than you’ve actually downloaded. Still, something we’re hoping will get a fix.
Thanks, Tsopanos!
Engadget, BGR, and reader reports all confirm: AT&T is having a serious data outage in the east. We just received a confirmation from Derek (Hi Derek, we hope you’re not trying to read us over 3G or EDGE!) that it’s out in Washington, DC. Other folks from St. Louis to New York are getting the same. AT&T is on it, though:
Location: NorthEast ;All Markets
Elements: 2G and 3G Iphones, as well as other data devices
Start Time: 09-03-2008 07:00 Eastern
Issue / Impact: Data Customers Cannot Send or Receive To and From Mobile
Customer Symptom: Data customers may experience slowness or latency in accessing web sites or transferring of data files or making business transactions due to outage.
ETTR: TBD
Status: Open
Issue & Customer Impact: All Data applications are experience connectivity issues in the NE region. This issue is impacting GSM and UMTS Iphone customers as well as other devices. Voice services are not impacted.
So how about it — is your iPhone suddenly a very fancy looking iPod Touch that can also make the occasional call?
Thanks, Derek!
Engadget confirms it, Apple is going to be giving us the new hotness on September 9th. All signs point to new iPod Nanos, but many are hoping that we’ll see a revision of iTunes with new features, from iTunes Unlimited to something a bit more scaled back. Others (me) are hoping for the 2.1 update with background notifications and another killer app: stability.
‘Course, there’s a Magic 8-Ball vs. Analyst riding on this one, and so far the 8-Ball appears to not be holding up too well — only time will tell for sure, though.
What are you hoping for next week?
