All Articles Tagged Media

Rumor gets reported there will be Flash on the iPhone. Rumor gets smashed. Rumor gets reported there will be unlimited music on the iPhone. Rumor gets smashed. Rinse and repeat.

What’s going on? Why aren’t we getting these stories straight?

Turns out maybe these stories weren’t meant to be gotten. Turns out maybe these stories were meant to get us.

There was a time when media really was the fourth estate, when it reported the news. In something akin to the scientific method, media observed what was going on in the grand experiment that is society, looked for pattern and flaw, then contextualized it, gave it form and flavor, and broadcast it by mule and truck and cable and fiber to those who wanted or needed to know.

Now media is entertainment and is competing with itself and other forms of entertainment for your attention and your dollar. One of the ways to compete is to get mysterious “un-named sources” to give you the highly prized “sensational headline”. And instead of digging for these sources and convincing them to come forward, the anonymous sources now trip and push past each other to get to the reporters first. Why? Because controlling the story is important. Information is power and spin is leverage.

Okay, soap-box, what does this have to do with the iPhone? Two interesting and very similar blog posts emerged recently shedding new light on both the Flash and unlimited music stories that have been all over the web lately. Let’s take a look:

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The Flash drama continues, with more twists and turns than a California highway. It looks as though iPhone may be getting native Flash support after all, if dragged kicking and screaming. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen spoke to reporters during a conference call…

“Well, you really believe that Flash is synonymous with the Internet, and frankly, anybody who wants to browse the Web and experience the Web’s glory really needs Flash support. We were very excited about the announcement from Windows Mobile–adoption of Flash on their devices–and the fact that we’ve shipped 0.5 billion devices now, non-PC devices. So we are also committed to bringing the Flash experience to the iPhone, and we will work with Apple. We’ve evaluated the SDK. We can now start to develop the Flash player ourselves, and we think it benefits our joint customers. So we want to work with Apple to bring that capability to the device.”

Do let’s pretend that Steve Jobs earlier comments were some kind of smokescreen intended to mask Apple’s true motives, while backdoor negotiations with Adobe unfolded. That makes sense, doesn’t it? No, I didn’t think so either.

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Steve Jobs might want to look in his rearview mirror, because there’s a hulking eighteen-wheeler barreling down the highway, belching thick black smoke, and crushing every vehicle in its path.

The software giant is working with long time rival Adobe to bring Flash player Lite (yes, THAT Flash player) to Windows Mobile devices, while simultaneously incorporating support for its own SilverLight technology. The move will give Microsoft a leg up over Apple, making its mobile platform more web 2.0 friendly in supporting these ubiquitous web animation and runtime environments.

Apple has valid reasons for eschewing Flash lite, so it claims, like poor performance and a not-so-much like a desktop experience. Even if valid, it’s never a checkmark in your favor when competing products support features yours does not.

Wake up, Apple. You’re in Micrsoft’s crosshairs now.

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Avi Greengart, Research Director for market research firm Current Analysis, says Adobe’s Flash player performs poorly on iPhone, in its current incarnation, proving more trouble than it’s worth.

“There is no question the iPhone delivers a compelling Web experience and there are good reasons to want Flash in there, but Flash Lite wouldn’t give you the Web experience you’re looking for.”

The jixt of this statement, as we’ve known for some time, is that Adobe’s Flash Lite player comes with a high resource overhead, taxing the processor as well as battery life. Or so Apple claims. Forces are at work behind the scenes to develop a more optimized solution to bring native Flash content to iPhone users.

Much as I sometimes lament the absence of Flash, I don’t see it as a crucial feature. So long as some method exists for scraping content from YouTube, as it does now. That said, having no Flash support is yet one more missing feature that Apple haters will use as fodder for flinging rotten fruit at the device.

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Time has declared the iPhone their Invention of the Year.

“Yes, there’s been a lot of hype written about the iPhone, and a lot of guff too. So much so that it seems weird to add more, after Danny Fanboy and Bobby McBlogger have had their day.”

Nice! In one fell swoop, they’ve insulted me and any readers. Not too shabby, and they still get the link. Anyway, they give five reasons and then justify it all in the essence of their article:

1. the iPhone is pretty
2. it’s touchy-feely
3. it will make other phones better
4. it’s not a phone, it’s a platform
5. it is but the ghost of iPhones to come

I’d add a few more reasons the iPhone was tops, but I think I’ll save it for a later article.

The cost of a show was not enough for NBC Universal. No, NBC Universal wanted a cut of the hardware sales for iPods and iPhones. I really don’t get this. Would they bother Apple for a cut of computer sales? Do they get a cut of television sales? Would they bother TiVo for a cut of hardware sales? No, no, and no. I think they were just looking for publicity for their two new video sharing sites in taking their Apple spat public. I think one of them is called Whatever and maybe the other one is IDon’tCare.

While I was gone at CTIA, there’s been a bunch of things that have happened that I didn’t get time to properly write about. So today, we’ll have a bit of an iPhone news smörgåsbord. There’s been a fair amount of news, a fair amount of not-news, and some of the things that I’ve been reading are just plain wrong.

Apple Dealing with Film-Makers Directly for iTunes
Apple has sidestepped some of the major studios for some films, opting instead to deal directly with film-makers. This could be a sign of things to come — it would be great to not have to report every major film-studio or TV channel contract tiff.

Apple iPhone Dev Center
Apple has created a web site devoted to developers that are interested in putting their programs on the iPhone. Apple is calling it the iPhone Dev Center, and it’s a repository of tips, tricks, and guidelines to follow should anyone want to make an iPhone web app. It’s also probably a list of instructions that one would have to follow to get listed as a featured application on Apple’s web app listing.

Molson Reveals iPhone on Rogers in January?
For any Canadian readers, Molson ran a contest that had an iPhone as the prize. They had a disclaimer on the iPhone prize, stating that it couldn’t be activated on the Rogers network until January. So, odds are pretty good that the iPhone will be out in Canada in January. Molson has since pulled the language for the contest, saying they have no idea when anything is coming out ever. And they never had any idea. (images below via Electronista)

Is the iPhone Running Leopard?
There’s an article at Wired that delves deeper into Jobs’ open letter about 3rd party applications on the iPhone and the connection to Leopard. One of the tidbits that Jobs talks about briefly is signing applications, and Wired has a good look into what that would mean for 3rd party iPhone apps. And, there’s some discussion whether the iPhone is based off of Leopard or not: “It’s not known for sure at this point, but all indications are that the iPhone is a Leopard-based device,” as stated by Carl Howe, analyst at Blackfriars. It clearly is. Witness the uname -a of my laptop on 10.4 vs. the uname -a of my iphone:

The important bit there is the kernel version. Apple releases the OSX frameworks to correspond with kernel versions of darwin for every version of OSX. The iPhone has been running Leopard (9.0) since it came out in June. My 10.4 laptop is running darwin 8.10.0, which corresponds to 10.4.10.

iPhone Security Faults
Meanwhile, there’s been a rash of complaints about the iPhone’s security. You may have seen headlines that compare the iPhone to Windows 95, for example. It’s of course, a loaded comparison, made for sensationalism. You could just as well compare the iPhone’s security to Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows XP if you’re logged in as an administrator (which is everybody — you can barely run Office as a limited user). But, Windows 95 gets the headline. Since the iPhone is made of UNIX, user separation is built-in, expect apps to run as something other than administrator/root/super-user when the SDK update comes out. Perhaps earlier; we can’t know as Apple isn’t commenting. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that ‘run as root’ is a good security model. It’s so bad, it’s not even a security model.

iPhone de-bricking: re-virginizer tool available
The Elite team posted a re-virginizer tool that people can use to restore the ability to upgrade. This tool locks the iPhone with the proper bits in place on the iPhone radio; some of the free iPhone unlock tools wrote stuff to the iPhone baseband radio that was invalid; this led to bricked phones when it came time to update the firmware to 1.1.1.

AT&T Upgrading Core Network
Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T, was interviewed recently and he talked about many things concerning the iPhone and AT&T’s network. Their core should make for faster downloads for anything that uses AT&T’s networks, wired or wireless. That means us: anyone using an iPhone should see a smidgen of a benefit, but the real help comes when we’re using 3G fast internet iPhones.

figures 1 and 2: On the left, Pete Blackshaw. On the right, Mike Mace.

I’m really sorry. I swore that some other article was the last thing I’d write on the price drop, but these both showed up, and I just have to highlight it.

Point: No one Cuts Prices after 2 Months

First off, Mike Mace at Mobile Opportunity has the following tidbit to say:

“no one I know in the tech industry — and I mean no one — cuts the price of a consumer tech product two months after launch unless they’re seriously worried about demand. [...] If current iPhone sales are okay, the only other reason I can think of to cut prices this soon would be if you’re worried about a competitive situation.”

Counterpoint: Oh Yes He Did

On the other side, we have Pete over at Consumer Generated Media. Pete thinks that the letter itself is a PR coup, and that the letter is going to be put in PR textbooks throughout the world.

“While Menu Foods practically hid their CEO during the pet recall issue, Mattel put their CEO, Bob Eckert, on the website video airwaves to nurture trust and confidence in the wake of the toy recall (a still-in-progress case study). Now we have Steve Jobs, who just wrote and posted the most remarkable letter in response to concerns about iPhone’s recent price decrease. He coupled an apology with a $100 Apple credit for all early-buyers of the iPhone. This is classic Defensive Branding. I predict it will be one of the most discussed, debated, and linked-to letters of the year“

Pete more or less dissects the letter sentence by sentence, picking out all sorts of PR thingies that do PR stuff. There’s a ten-point analysis of the entire letter that explains the hows and whys of the language in the letter and its effect on a consumer…

Anyway, so Mike Mace thinks that the price cut is unpossible, unfathomable, you just don’t do price cuts after two months. Pete of CGM adroitly notes that Steve just did exactly that, and explains how from the PR side. Neither gets in to why a price cut was done (Well, Mike Mace does postulate that some new Nokia smartphones could give Apple a headache, but I don’t buy that.) You’ll have to listen to our podcast for the full discussion, but Dieter and I both agree that a glove has been thrown down. Apple wants to own the smartphone industry.

There’s a great article over at the Salt Lake Tribune, titled “NBC is loser in spat with Apple.” It’s a good article, insightful in most of its points, but the title makes me feel left out. What about my suffering? I lost something too, eh? At any rate, it’s well worth the read. It appears the only language that Vince Horiuchi speaks is “money quote.”

Finally, NBC, which is in fourth place in the ratings, needs iTunes to drum up interest in its series. [...] It also doesn’t help that this deal went sour just before the start of the fall TV season, when millions will be turning to iTunes to get episodes of new shows. [...] NBC, like all the other television networks, doesn’t understand why downloadable content is going to change the face of TV. They just want to make money off it.

[via]

AdMob offers a new spin on web advertising. Rather than a generic text link, AdMob links aggregate targeted content advertisements and generate relevant results that tie into services like Google Maps, directing iPhone users to services they might wish to exploit.

Make sense? No? I don’t understand what I just said either. So just watch the video above and let the guys from AdMob explain. I need a nap.

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The ever well known, ever lovely, law blogging babe Denise Howell of Bag and Baggage poses for the camera and shows us her skinned iPhone, courtesy of DecaGirl.

You can see more photos of her with her colorful iPhone in Scoble’s Flickr gallery.

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A website called Booksoniphone.com offers a full library of copyright free books available for reading right on your iPhone, from within Safari. Once you visit the site you’ll need to create a free account profile, complete with username and password. After logging in you’ll be able to browse a fairly substantial library of works by drilling down into categories and authors to find anything that suits your fancy.

The experience isn’t thrilling, but does make for a wonderful way to pass the time when you find yourself stuck in dull situations, like office meetings, child berthings, that sort of thing.

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Thomas Robinson has started a really cool project that enables XBOX 360 owners to use their iPhone as an XBOX Media Center Remote, controlled via WiFi. A simple menu-driven interface allows you to play music, video, DVDs, photo slideshows, and more. I like!

The project is fully open source and can be downloaded free from Thomas’s website.

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An online media service called Texterity delivers mobile editions to popular print magazines right to your iPhone, via Safari. In a nutshell, what Texterity does is simply digitize each print magazine page, turning it into an image file that can then be displayed and viewed within Safari much like a photo. Just point your browser (from the iPhone) to http://iphone.texterity.com/magazines/. Tap on any magazine that you like and a fully illustrated thumbnail library appears, representing pages from the selected magazine. Using the “Pinch” gesture, allows you to zoom and drag any portion of the document, making it readable. Believe it or not this is a workable solution. I’ve tried it myself.

Unfortunately no adult content is available, sorry pervs. And what’s worse Rachael Ray’s “EveryDay” Magazine is among the top featured. Having to see RR on my TV is nauseating enough. On my iPhone the experience is even more hideous.

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Robert Scoble grabs his camera and heads to the Web 2.0 Summit Party to interview high profile attendees. He says that everyone there seemed to have an iPhone, except for himself. Come on, Robert - you know you want to join the cult. Drink from the fountain of Kool-Aid, it will make you sleepy.

My favorite quote comes from his interrogation of Robert Sears, Chief Architect of Multimedia Experiences at Nokia, about the Finnish company’s answer to the iPhone…

I proudly showed him I hadn’t yet joined the iCult, even if the rest of my family had. Whew, dodged that one. I came real close to buying an iPhone tonight before the party. Anyway Sears smiled when I asked him if Nokia had an answer to the iPhone. Ahhh, I love the smell of cell phone competition in the evening, don’t you?

LOL! Robert, Nokia has no answer to iPhone. And when such a product does see the light of day it’s going to suck donkey testicles. The challenges Nokia faces in replicating an OSX-like experience are enormous. The Symbian OS that powers Nokia Smartphones is fundamentally inferior to OSX and doesn’t even support a touch interface. They sold off their touch framework (UIQ) to Sony-Ericsson last year. Sears can smile coyly all he wants, he’s bluffing.

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