Articles by Rene Ritchie
No, that’s not spring in the air, that’s the rumor frenzy ramp-up to Apple’s June World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), and here’s the aptly titled MacRumors with a mother load:
A MacRumors reader ran across a very unusual .Mac web page yesterday and was kind enough to forward it on. The page contained promotional images for Apple products [...] including teasers for iTunes 8, a 32GB iPhone [in Australia!], and a WWDC launch date (June 10th).
Turns out, not so much. The images came courtesy of one of MacRumors own forum members (though MacRumors continues to maintain they were associated with a legit @apple.com account).
In general, a 32GB iPhone, at least for the current generation product, would require a 32GB NAND chip for the single slot (due to the cell radio and other components, unlike the iPod Touch which boasts 2 NAND slots, the iPhone only has room for 1 — hence iPod Touch always offering twice the memory). If true, it may explain the price cuts on the 8GB models. iTunes 8 would only require some boosted features (App Store support?) and Apple’s marketing desire to bump the rev a full number. Australia rumors have been building for a long time now, of course.
Also included were the first MacBook and MacBookPro case revs, going to aluminum and iMac-style black on aluminum respectively. (Both of which have also seen rampant rumor ramp ups — say that ten times fast!)
Apple Insider (via Digitimes, via Economic Daily News) brings word that United Microelectronics Corporation has nailed the contract to produce the Infineon powered 3G basebands for the next generation iPhone:
The newspaper maintains that UMC will use a 65 nanometer plant to produce the chip, which (though mistakenly written as PMB878) is known to be the PMB8878 — an integrated circuit which provides cellular data on HSDPA networks up to 7.2Mbps and is the source of the hidden SGOLD3 reference in the latest beta of Apple’s iPhone 2.0 firmware.
Infineon’s EDGE (2.5G) chip powering the current generation iPhone, along with the aforementioned SGOLD3 string, starts to give this rumor a little weight. What do you think?
Apple sent out an email yesterday to developers formalizing the 2008 Design Awards set to take place at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) this June. And this year, continuing their dual bridge/landmark theme, Apple has opened the awards up to the iPhone!
iPhone categories include:
- iPhone Developer Showcase, for native apps built using the iPhone SDK, feature-complete, ready to run on an iPhone, iPod Touch, or the Sim. (Apple may pick multiple winners in this category.)
- Best iPhone Web Application, for specifically MobileSafari based Web 2.0 apps. (No word addendum on multi-picks here.)
And to the victorious will go quite the swag bag:
Winners in the iPhone and Mac OS X Leopard categories will receive two 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops, two 30-inch Apple Cinema Displays, one 16GB iPod touch, one 8GB iPhone, an ADC Premier Membership, reimbursement for one WWDC 2008 E-ticket including airfare and accommodations, and one 2009 ADC Macworld Expo Exclusive Marketing Package.
Awesome. Now all I need is a Matrix-style coding implant and a way to go back in time!
What about you? How’s your Cocoa Touch or Web App coming? Ready for WWDC glory? Or just ready to enjoy the awesome apps that (hopefully!) come out right thereafter?
Your plane’s landing in the middle of nowhere. Scratch that. WAY past the middle of nowhere — that little state on the other coast you’ve never been to, where the people have funny accents and McDonald’s has menu items you’ve never seen before.
The pilot flips off the seatbelt light, you whip out your iPhone to make a quick call, and before the bars come up you’re greeted with a screen that lists off all the local service providers complete with up-to-the-minute rate information. You flick-scroll to the cheapest one, tap to select, the bars pop up, the network springs to life, and you start your call.
What? Your iPhone doesn’t do that? You don’t get to pick your service provider? You don’t get to choose just-in-time data rates? You’re stuck with AT&T 24/7?!
Yeah. That’s because you’re in the real world, not the world of what might-have-been. Not the world Apple could have created had they gone ahead with a little patent just recently brought to public attention…
NBC done gone lost their rainbow peacock’d minds? Maybe, if Gizmodo is properly quoting their Chief Digital Officer, George Kliavkoff:
“We’d love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience. We’d love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes.” [They want more money per show to] “reflect the full value of the product.” [And for iTunes to block you from loading pirated content onto your iPod.] “If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy [sic] measures. We are financially harmed every day by piracy. It results in us not being able to invest as much money in the next generation of film and TV products.”
Huhbuwhat?!
NBC is currently turning down $1.99 per 22-44 minutes of The Office or Battlestar Galactica. 2 bucks for content previously aired on FREE television, which can be easily, legally (and much to their chagrin and previously failed efforts to block it) taped or PVR’d. They’re turning down that EXTRA money because they want MORE of it, and they want iTunes to prevent you from, say, shifting that FREE content from your PVR or media center to your iPhone without paying MORE of that EXTRA money?!
Dare I suggest the only reason the pirates exist is because of Big Media’s greed and short sightedness. The minute they charge fair prices for fair use, given the low barrier of entry and elegance of use of iTunes’ interface, the piracy disappears for everyone but zealots. (Never mind the marketing value of downloads alone — The Office being a prime example.)
Apple really can’t pull the trigger on their DVR patent fast enough.
What do you think?
Following on a veritable flood of previous “OMG 3G!!11″ news and rumors, it now looks confirmed that O2 in the UK has knocked 100 quid off the price of an 8G current generation (2.5G) iPhone 8GB.
The discount is being referred to as a special promotion that will run through June 1, but following the T-Mobile discount promotion, and the apparent urgency for 3G in data-spoiled Europe, the rumor mill is running full bore again.
WWDC? What do you think?
Mega-blog Engadget handed — er… posted — out their 2007 Readers and Editors Choice Awards this week, and Steve Jobs’ revolutionary little mobile phone was the big winner with a grand total of 6 Engadget’ies, including the 4 biggest!
- Readers’ Gadget of the Year
- Editors’ Gadget of the Year
- Readers’ Most Anticipated Gadget for 2008 (iPhone 3G)
- Editors’ Most Anticipated Gadget for 2008 (iPhone 3G)
- Readers’ Smartphone of the Year
- Editors’ Smartphone of the Year
Apple also took home honors for desktop (iMac), laptop (MacBook Pro), MP3 player (iPod Touch), and peripheral (keyboard).
Congrats!
Avast ye scurvy 2.0 firmware — prepare to be pwned! Erica Sadun of TUAW tells us the cartoon Jobs’ing, Russian slang’ing, custom firmware making, iTunes loading unlock solution has hit version 1.1:
The new tool allows you to add custom packages, logos and fixes EDGE settings under 1.1.4. Either pop over to iPhone-dev.org or choose PwnageTool > Check for Updates (Command-U) directly from the app.
But don’t raise the Jolly Roger too soon, rumors are also circulating that Cap’n Jobs is coming about hard, cannon’s loaded, and may just be upping the ante soon in the great unloack cat’n'mouse game.
Will Apple be able to hang the rascally pirates from the highest yard arm? Are the pirates too far ahead at this point? And how ironic is it that Jobs and co. once styled themselves as the pirates? What do you think?
No sooner are we done asking you if ActiveSync is an “Open” Apple Trojan Horse like Roughly Drafted Magazine suggests then Business Week comes along and wonders aloud if the iPhone is spear-heading an all out assault on Microsoft’s workplace dominance.
Willingness to modernize, smaller and more adaptable kernel, rapid to-market ability, and Sun Tzu-like battle strategy are only some of the points Gary Morgenthaler touches on:
Surprisingly, it’s the 4.8-ounce iPhone that will sweep Apple decisively back into the enterprise. Even without any enterprise applications, the iPhone has seduced business users with the prospect of easy listening (iTunes), easy surfing (Safari), and easy compatability with a Mac computer. And with the impending business push, the device will soon provide corporate e-mail access and perform serious computing tasks such as setting calendars, checking inventory, figuring prices, and taking orders on the spot.
Now the article seems more than a little optimistic to me; the level of entrenchment Microsoft enjoys will not easily be moved much less displaced, but Apple is definitely gaining momentum and, most importantly, mindshare. Even if the MacBook Air, mentioned in the article at 3 pounds, has many similar Windows-based competitors, the author either doesn’t know, doesn’t care, or is deliberately ignoring them, and any which way you slice that, it shows how well and how deeply Apple is planting its seeds.
[T]he battle ahead seems clear: It’s Apple’s seamlessly integrated software strategy, minimally sized and maximally efficient, competing against Microsoft’s strategy of multiple incompatible, bloated, and fragmented operating systems. It’s Apple’s growing customer acceptance vs. Microsoft’s rising customer pain. By failing to modernize its operating system in a timely way, Microsoft has left its flank wide open for an all-out assault from a once-vanquished rival.
What do you think?
Have you ever been surfing the real internet on your iPhone, discovered and amazing picture, and wished you could save it to your photo album?
Well, now you can.
Here’s how: Touch the image you want to save, hold your finger there for a very long time, and — boom! — iPhone will ask you if you want to Save Photo, Go To URL, or Cancel.
It’s that easy.
For more information, visit Gizmodo’s anonymous tipsters who just love them some digging around in Apple’s iPhone 2.0 Beta 3 software.
