All Articles in Editorial

I spent the wee hours of my Saturday morning in line for the grand opening of a new Apple Store. If you’ve never been to one, it’s an event.

The line starts early and by the time the store is almost ready to open, it snakes its way around the mall or down the street. Suddenly, the noise starts to build and build, and then Apple Store employees come racing around the corner or down the stairs, clapping and cheering and screaming. They run down the line, pumping fists and slapping hands, and it gets louder and louder. They form up in front of the store, bright colored shirts against wood, glass, and steel. Managers and specialists and concierges and geniuses all, they cheer for the crowd, and they scream for the crowd to bring that noise right back at them. Then they race away, the lights go out, the employees re-appear inside the store, and the doors open.

When line is released and it’s the crowd’s turn to run, into the store, grabbing one of the thousand free, location branded t-shirts they give away, and through the gauntlet of Apple Store employees who cheer and slap hands again, greeting every new customer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Apple is no doubt already hard at work on iPhone OS 3.2, the second minor update to the third major release of their mobile platform. Sure, we got iPhone 3.1 just over two weeks ago on Sept. 9, but looking back, we should expect to see the first beta versions of 3.2 sooner rather than later.

By way of comparison, iPhone 2.1 was released on Sept. 12, 2008. iPhone 2.2 Beta 1 was released on Sept. 25, with some tweaks to App Store and Safari’s UI. iPhone 2.1 Beta 2 dropped on Oct. 24, with Google Street View, SDK support for line-in audio, and direct podcast downloads and streaming. The final iPhone 2.2 firmware was released on Nov. 21, and both Google Street View and the ability to get podcasts on-device were great enhancements.

So, it’s not unreasonable to imagine 3.2 Beta 1 could show up before the end of the month, with a final release before the holidays.

Since we’ve already gotten direct TV and Movie downloads (over Wi-Fi), there may not be an analogous improvement to iPod and iTunes this time around. Subscribing to podcasts on device, however, where a push notification alerts you when a new episode is available and you’re on Wi-Fi to download it, is something we’d adore. iTunes LP and iTunes Extras support would also be dandy give their introduction in iTunes 9.

Likewise, Google Voice and Google Latitude having been rejected/held-for-study by the App Store, we may not get a Maps app update either (though Apple baking Latitude into the existing Maps app, Google-willing, could be a great compromise solution). We won’t hold our breath for push Gmail either (not GoogleSync, we mean built-in, doesn’t use up your only ActiveSync slot, genuine push email like MobileMe and Yahoo!)…

Enabling 720p TV-out from the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch G3 would be a great, and competitive addition, especially with a souped up dock-to-HDMI video cable to go with it.

We have our ongoing (though admittedly greatly reduced since 3.0) wish-list: better support for Bluetooth controls (AVRCP), APIs to allow apps to interact with the calendar, some form of background support for streaming audio, turn-by-turn, and other apps that cry out for it, Mobile iChat, remote backup and restore, iTunes music and video streaming, file system access for document handling, etc.

(Yes, we left out bug fixes, as we hope Apple sees those as urgent enough to address in an iPhone 3.1.1 release much, much sooner).

But what do you want to see Apple prioritize for iPhone 3.2?

Composers, writers, and publishers of the music Apple sells in the iTunes stores are petitioning the government to mandate that Apple should not only pay them their cut of the sale price (which they already get) but should also fork over a performance fee for the 30 second samples iTunes provides to help sell that music.

Now, we’re all for content creators getting a fair cut of the profits — indeed we are content creators here at TiPb editorial — but, a) asking that marketing done to help sell your music be deemed performance that requires payment, and then b) when failing to negotiate that with Apple, asking the government to mandate it?

Imagine Nike demanding a shoe store pay them to display Nike shoes on the wall. Strangely, in the reality we live, typically you pay for advertising, you don’t get paid for having your product advertised (if so, we’re going to get some TiPb signs up in Times Square and have NYC pay us a bundle).

Getting back to the fair cut of profits — creators have historically gotten shafted and we get that. But they’ve historically gotten shafted not by Apple or other online, or even brick and mortar retailers, but by Big Media (in this case the record labels). If the creators want to go after them, want to rectify the bad deals and swindles of the past, we’ll get the popcorn and spicy drink and cheer them on.

They also want performance fees for downloads, which is equally stupefying, since buying a song electronically is not analogous to Apple performing it, but to buying the CD. If Apple were to hold a live streaming concert on Apple.com, then, yes, performance fee.

Okay, maybe we’re being too one side. Maybe Apple is an easier, trendier target, and if Big Music won’t pay artists what’s fair, maybe Apple should be forced to pay unfairly. And if they are, maybe Apple should turn around and charge the artists 110% marketing/brokerage fee for putting the samples up to encourage sales…

Now excuse us, we’re off to bill Amazon for the cover art and sample pages they’re using to sell our pulp novels…

[via CNET]

Everyone, including Steve Jobs, has very reasonable sounding theories as to why the third gen iPod touch camera was removed. Rather than rehash it again, however, we thought we’d let our minds wonder into parody, and consider what might have happened in a world only slightly more cartoonish than ours…

Steve Jobs, fresh from his recent leave of absence, comes crashing back into Apple’s Cupertino campus, and after fixing the typography on the iPhone 3G S 3GS, tweaking some pixels on the Snow Leopard UI, and spending time meditating deep in the iTablet vault, he heads over to the scorched closet that used to be reserved for iPhone A2DP testing…

Read the rest of this entry »

With Apple consolidating its Apple TV offerings this morning down to a single 160GB SKU at a lower $229 price point, we’re once again split between Apple axing their “hobby” or giving it a much-needed refresh.

If Apple does axe the Apple TV, however, something would need to take its place in the living room. Could that something be the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch G3 and the still-mythic iTablet? Dock them properly to an HD TV, and could you have a solution with one heck of a built in controller?

We know the iPhone (and likely new iPod touch) can support 720p and 1080p out. We even hoped Apple would flip the switch on that feature last week in order to better position themselves competitively against the about-to-ship Zune HD. They could still flip it at some point, however, along with introducing new HDMI-based video output cables.

This would go a long way towards showing iPhone and iPod touch content on the big screen, but right now one of the Apple TV’s strengths is streaming rather than just storing and showing. You can attach an Apple TV to your HD TV and, without any local content, stream all the iTunes media you have on your Mac or Windows PC, and the potentially 2TB drives that can now attach to those (or more with RAID, Drobo, etc.)

Neither iPhone nor iPod have ethernet, and both are stuck on the older, slower 802.11g Wi-Fi standard (though the iPod touch G3 might be updatable to 802.11n).

That’s where an iTablet, presumably with much beefier internals and faster Wi-Fi (though we still doubt ethernet) comes in. Apple could position it as a dock-at-home, take it with you on-the-go solution.

Of course, whether you’d want to lock your iTablet to a TV rather than using it to surf and chat while watching TV is debatable, and could be a deal-breaker for many. Though better that than just trying to up-sell everyone to a Mac Mini…

Looking at it this way, it seems that even in an iPhone, iPod touch, and perhaps iTablet world, there’s still a place for an Apple TV in the lineup. If only for now.

More than 2 years post-iPhone launch, no news on Flash ever coming to the iPhone, yet Apple is pressing ahead with technologies like H.264 video (YouTube App’s been using it since day one), HTML 5 and CSS animation (iPhone Safari supported them first), HTTP Live Streaming, and now WebGL for hardware accelerated 3D-graphics, and TuneKit, the framework behind the new iTunes LP rich media content.

Read on to find out what they are, how they work, and why they might make plugins like Flash increasingly unnecessary…

Read the rest of this entry »

Updating to iPhone 3.1 this weekend? TiPb’s got your back!

• Complete iPhone 3.1 Software Walkthrough
• Warning for those with jailbroken or unlocked iPhones
• Need help? Having problems? Head on over to TiPb’s iPhone Forums!

We’re also going to keep track of known iPhone 3.1 issues and bugs, so if enough of us find the same problems, we’ll post on them and they’ll automagically get added to the list.

Go luck and happy updating!

Palm rejected NaNplayer from their App Catalog. That’s the first time that’s happened for their new webOS platform, but it’s something those who follow the iTunes App Store have seen happen with much more frequency.

Now, to be fair, the iTunes App Store currently sports 75,000 apps, and according to Apple’s response to the FCC, handles 8,500 submissions a week. We’re not sure the App Catalog has cracked 100 yet, so the comparison is apples to orchards at this point. We’d expect Apple to have flagged 1000x the apps Palm had. What makes for a clean break in the two case models, however, is how Palm handled the situation.

Chuq Von Rospach, developer community manager at Palm, jumped on the PreCentral.net forums and… communicated. Quickly, cleanly, and with an admirable degree of transparency.

Now, on the iPhone side we’ve seen Senior Marketing VP Phil Schiller fire off an email or two to high-profile blogs addressing their concerns about the App Store, and the aforementioned FCC response, but an actual, engaged individual whose sole focus is to work with the developer community, provide support, assuage concerns, and be a pseudo-public symbol of this intent to do better? And who says Palm is okay — nay, happy — for the app to continue life as homebrew (their version of jailbreak)

Can we have one?

Chuq, like Palm CEO Jon Rubinstien (slated to be the first guest on the new Engadget Show) and many Palm engineers and PR folks, used to work for Apple. Perhaps Palm is giving them a break from Apple’s culture of secrecy and they’re taking a liking too it. Perhaps Apple can give some current employees a break from that secrecy as well.

Right now disenchanted iPhone users are trying out Palm, Android, and even Nokia devices and not finding them up to Apple’s usability and polish snuff, but that won’t last long. Apple needs to get their App Store community perception problems fixed as fast or faster even. Better still, get developer satisfaction levels up to customer satisfaction levels.

Sure these aren’t on the general consumer radar at all. Indeed, the amount of people given Apple’s 50 million install base is almost statistically irrelevant. But as we’ve said before, these are the people who tend to influence others, and while the actual App Store problems are likely still going to take a while to crack, the perception problem is one far more easily — if uncomfortably for Apple — handled.

And it likely doesn’t even need an open letter from Steve Jobs to do it.

It’s only rock and roll, but we like it — Apple’s 2009 iPod- and iTunes-focused special music event — has a tag line and a date, this Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 10am PT, 1pm ET. TiPb will be live meta-blogging the event, and following it up with a special edition of iPhone Live! at 5pm PT, 8pm ET.

Last year’s event, “Let’s rock“, started with Steve Jobs saying the reports of his death were greatly exaggerated, and went on to announce 7,000 apps and 1 million downloads in the App Store (yeah, that’s changed by a factor of 10 or more!), 65,000,000 iTunes customers, iTunes 8 with Genius, new visualizations, HD TV Shows (and the return of NBC), and Album view, iPhone OS 2.1, the second generation “funner” iPod touch, Spore and other game demos from Phil Schiller, as well as new nanochromatic iPod nanos and down-tweaked classics, and headphones, and in-ear headphones, with remote and mic.

What, oh what, could this year possibly hold?

Read the rest of this entry »

The minute our iPhone calendars turned from August 31 to September 1, TiPb’s email box started getting many colorful variations of “Summer is over, where’s our [redacted redacted redacted... redacted!] MMS and tethering!

While Apple showed off the front-end for MMS and tethering back in March, released it along with iPhone 3.0 in June, and most of the rest of the world has been enjoying it ever since, AT&T is a notable, and increasingly infuriating exception. Late summer (and when is that exactly?), and that it will be no extra charge, is all they’ve said. And whether you personally would use MMS or not, right now you don’t even have that choice.

We’ve heard all the excuses, from AT&T’s network can barely handle the iPhone as-is, and MMS and especially tethering would bring it, crashing and burning, to its knees, to a rumor that AT&T had to manually turn on MMS for every single iPhone account on their system. We’ve also heard it may be announced as part of Apple’s September 9th event. That would be very late summer indeed.

But that’s all we’ve heard. There’s been no status update from AT&T that we can find, no attempt to keep their users in the loop, no expression of sympathy for the frustration their users are voicing (or emailing us!). AT&T is being almost Apple-esque in their lack of communications and for a company that’s in the communications business — and is charging high monthly rates to its consumers — that’s just not good enough.

Is it?