Articles by Rene Ritchie
According to AppleInsider, Near Field Communications reports that Apple has built iPhone prototypes equipped with RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification).
For those unfamiliar, RFID is either super-convenient, terrifyingly insecure, or both. In a nutshell, it broadcasts a signal that can be read from a short distance to process financial transactions (an easy-pay card), determine identity (some nations’ passports), and more futuristic concepts where devices can auto-discover and connect with each other based on their tags.
The convenient part is you could swipe your iPhone to pay for goods or services rather than carrying around cards. Your iPhone could also keep track of tagged item like keys so you can find them between your sofa cushions.
The terrifying part is when hackers and other bad guys read your financial information from a distance, or “see” what country you’re from when trying to determine targets in less friendly parts of the world. Or, just use them to track you instead of your keys.
The future is not for the timid, however, so let us know — do you want?
We’ll save you the preamble this time; suffice it to say iPhone+Twitter = peanutbutter cuppy goodness. And now Twitter is rolling out new features to either make it dark chocolatey super good, or just to give us a sugar headache, we’re not sure which (though we’re fairly sure we’ve strained the confectionary metaphor well beyond the point of painful, so moving on…)
Twitter Lists aims to help with discovery — to let more users find more interesting people to read and follow. Basically, if you follow hundreds, thousands, or more, it was nigh-impossible to keep up with a few specific ones, or to organize them in any way (sort of like iPhone apps on the home screen, don’t get us started!). With lists, you can create groups/categories and add the people you’re following to those lists. Family, friends, co-workers, fellow gadget enthusiasts or movie geeks, pretty much any system you can think of. Then, to see what that list is up to, you just go to the handy list view and voila, all their tweets, nice and separate. You can also follow other people’s lists if you find a group you really like.
We’ve set up a few already:
- TiPb Staff, for all our editors, writers, reviewers, and moderators.
- SPE Network, for TiPb sibling sites and their Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, Palm, and Windows Mobile coverage.
- SPE Site Editors, for behind-the-scenese commentary and random thoughts from those who manage the above-mentioned sites.
- SPE Everybody, for the master-list of everyone involved with Smartphone Experts.
We’ll be adding more if/when they make sense, so if you have requests, send them our way!
New-style retweets is more controversial and potentially confusing. As Twitter rolls these out, when someone you follow retweets something, you no longer see them and their retweet, but the original tweeter, (even if you don’t follow them), along with a note saying which of the people you followed retweeted it. Again, it’s supposed to help with discovery, but it’s already driven Justine Batement into curse-riddled outrage, and depending on how it’s implemented on the web and in clients, could jut be a bad of Twitter hurt. (Techcrunch posted the above screenshot of how Tweetie 2.1 will be handling them, pink corners and all).
If you’ve tried them, let us know what you think, either in the comments below, or on Twitter:
@theiphoneblog, @reneritchie (Rene), @backlon (Dieter), @iChadman (Chad), @JFSikora (Jeremy), @jamesus (James), @llofte (Leanna), @JHamilton24 (Josh), @justin_horn (Justin), @msproductions (Matt), @skeetobite (Chris).
A new, phantom menace emerges today in the iPhone world. Verizon’s massive network has opened their drop-bays, and the DROID invasion has begun. Android Central is providing Generally Grievous-level coverage, while SPE’s own Darth Tyranus, editor-in-chief Dieter Bohn deployed at 5 am to find… no line ups, but hopefully a lot of new gadgets to power his darkside.
Nokia Expert’s Matt Miller is concerned about Verizon’s pricing, as is PreCentral.net’s Keith Newman, at least compared to Sprint, though he seems happy enough with the device itself. Malatesta from WMExperts… is still nonplussed. CrackBerry Kevin of CrackBerry.com? He’s busy with the BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Curve 8530 launches. (He loves his berries. A lot.) And TiPb, well you know where to find our coverage so far.
If you get a chance to try out a DROID or DROID Eris this weekend, let us know what you think!
Join Chad and Rene for blackra1n and blacksn0w, Apple TV 3.0, Magic Mouse, more DROOOOID! talk, and all the news, apps, and your questions answered. Listen in!
AppleInsider has the goods on yet another Apple patent, this one for a “grab and go” simplified sync solution that would let iPhone users more easily and organically share bookmarks, iTunes content, Time Machine backups, business and personal documents, video game status, etc. between Macs, Apple TVs, the cloud, and other gear real and imagined:
The filing with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office suggests a scenario where a user is sitting at their desk working on a document, when they are called into an unexpected meeting. While the user may have a number of personal applications running, they would only want to bring their work-related content with them. The preferences would allow the user to “grab” only files and data related to work from the computer.
As always, just because Apple applies for a patent doesn’t mean there are immediate (or even eventual) plans to release products that offer those features. Still, we want. How about you?
A few days ago we mentioned issues users were reporting about iPhone Sync being busted on Windows 7 with Intel P55 express chipset. Microsoft said they were looking into it, but now Intel has issued a statement. CNet has the quote and the background:
“Our leading theory is a BIOS or system configuration issue, but we are still investigating,” Intel said Monday. The BIOS, or basic input/output system, is the initial code that runs when a PC is powered on. The BIOS identifies and initializes system devices such as the chipset, graphics card, and hard disk drive. Makers of PC circuit boards, aka motherboards, typically offer their own BIOS.
Again, we’re guessing users are less interested in what’s to blame, and more interested in getting things working again. So, while everyone investigates, check out the link at the top for some potential work-arounds, and let us know if you get up and running or are still having problems.
Fortune Magazine has named Steve Jobs CEO of the Decade. The Apple co-founder, Apple II, Mac, iPod, iTunes, and iPhone visionary is summed up in suitably dramatic fashion:
Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley.
Congrats Steve! Take a moment between tweaking the last few pixels on the iTablet icons and getting (what we hope is) the massive next generation iPhone HD OLED screen white balance just so, and enjoy.
And if anyone hasn’t seen it yet, get on over to iTunes and watch Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Address. He sums himself up even better than Fortune, of course.
So, you’re an iPhone user — what does that mean for your love life?
- You prefer gadget lovers to the college educated
- 1/3rd of you have dumped someone over SMS or email
- 1/3rd of you have outdated gadgets were a turn-off
- 1/5th of you have admitted to using the iPhone to get your porn-on (twice as many as BlackBerry users)
- 1/4th of you have dumped someone for using their own mobile too much.
So, iPhone users, are they painting a fair picture?
The iPhone finally went on sale in China last week, and according to Business Week, only 5000 appear to have been sold.
Scratch that. Do over. An overly expensive, Wi-Fi crippled version of the iPhone eventually went on sale in China, where over 2 million cheaper, unlocked, gray-market iPhones with functioning Wi-Fi have already been sold over the last couple years, and weren’t found to be terribly competitive.
Either way, China remains a billion-user market, and Apple needed to get a foot in the door. Sure, they likely wanted a much bigger initial foot, but when the next version of China Unicom’s iPhone, with Wi-Fi (and hopefully more competitive rates) becomes available, maybe… they’ll see some slow, steady growth in that general direction?
[Thanks Icebike for the tip!]
The 5 megapixel, dual LED flash Verizon/Motorola Droid camera beats the iPhone 3GS 3 megapixels on specs alone, right? Not according to the Chicago Sun/Times’ technology columnist, Andy Ihnatko, who put some side-by-side comparison shots up on Flickr.
Ihnatko also seems to share many of my opinions about the Droid’s dubious introduction commercial, though he writes it out ever so much better. About the camera specifically, he says:
But does the Droid actually take better pictures than the iPhone? Overall, no. Over the past few days I’ve shot lots of scenes with both phones and the iPhone consistently produced prettier images. Where software inside the Droid is easily bamboozled by uncooperative lighting, the iPhone’s camera app almost always finds a workable and attractive solution.
Droid Day in November 6th. Android Central has one in the house, and Casey’s already crowing about it, so stay tuned for more!
[Via Daring Fireball]
