In podcast number four, we talk at length about the implications of Apple’s price cut, the $100 apple store coupon, ringtones, other news from “the Beat Goes On,” unlocking news or lack thereof, and much, much more. Plus, our usual looks to the community.
Holy smokes! Apple has put a $200 price cut on the 8 GB iPhone, and dropped the 4GB version altogether. That’s right, the 8GB iPhone is now $399. Where do I line up for my $200 check? I’m equal parts filled with rage for paying a $200 early adopter fee, and equal parts filled with glee for a $200 price cut. I’m glad that it makes the iPhone that much more accessible for everyone else. I just feel a little sore when I sit, that’s all.
I have colleagues that believe the price cut is a portent of a hardware refresh. I have a hard time believing Apple would refresh their iPhone hardware so soon after launch, but I should float the idea out as speculation. I believe a 3G version is possible, perhaps in the 1st or 2nd quarter of 2008. The part of me that hopes I’m wrong is the part of me that wants my iPhone to be new forever. Sigh
There’s an iTunes update tonight that will bring Ringtones support. For a select portion of their music catalog (about 500,000 songs altogether, or 8% of the songs available on iTunes), you can make a ringtone if you’ve already purchased the song. All in all, the song to play on the iPod and the song to play as a ringtone is $1.98. Song portion: $.99, same as always. Ringtone: $.99. I think the extra fee is for the ‘public performance’ licensing aspect of ringtones. It will be interesting to see if the iTunes update breaks iToner, iFuntastic, or the indomitable iPhoneRingtoneMaker. Let’s hope not.
The iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store will come to the iPhone in an update later this month. Look for it on a Tuesday afternoon this month, I’d bet. You will be able to purchase any music from the iTunes store and download it via wi-fi. I doubt you will be able to purchase it via EDGE. After all, it’s not the iTunes Wireless Music Store. Why not, though? It’s easier to say, and less cumbersome to type.
The iTunes Wi-Fi Music store will also be available from a bunch of Starbucks in most areas by 2009. The Starbucks in the larger top-ten cities in the US will get the update treatment first, and Starbucks figures they’ll have “most major metro areas” by late 2008. Um, I could rollout a storewide wi-fi network faster than that.
In other iPod news, Steve announced the iPod sister to the iPhone, the iPhone touch (8GB for $299 and 16GB is $399), to be available later this month. It’s slightly smaller, you’ll note from the picture above, and its application functionality has obviously not been totally disclosed. Notably missing from the iPod Touch thus far is a notes app and a maps app…. Hmmm.
The iPod, newly rechristened the iPod Classic, saw updates bringing a new, drastically thinner 80GB version ($249) and a thinner-than-the-previously-thickest 80GB version is the 160 GB version ($349).
The new iPod Nano, regarded by many as an ugly duckling, gets the full iPod treatment. It gains a video-quality screen, and is available in 4GB ($149) and 8GB ($199) versions, and it still works with the Nike+iPod sport kit. As you can see in the picture from Apple’s website above, it’s a little wee thing, absolutely tiny.
Huh. Apple’s iPod lineup looks like a steamroller right now. The Zune, Creative Zen, Sony Walkman line, et al, all look like bumpy roads waiting to be flattened this holiday season.
Apple is hosting another media event today. iPod Nanos are expected, and they look drastically different than the current nano. Not everyone is happy with the new look, but from what I can see it looks pretty functional. I think I’m withholding judgment until I’ve seen what all of their iPod lineup looks like.
Meanwhile, ThinkSecret basically guarantees touchscreen iPods. They also say the iPod nano, featured in the above Gizmodo link, will pack some seriously updated iPod software, and it will be great; it will be revolutionary. Or evolutionary. One or the other, really.
Please note that the screenshots from ThinkSecret above include albums from the Beatles that aren’t yet available in the iTunes Store.
Microsoft always seems to pop up with a little snippet of news on event days like this. I think they do this so they can play the ’sour grapes’ role of the day, now hints that making a Zune phone is ‘not unreasonable.’ This is more or less the opposite of what CEO Steve Ballmer said at the D5 conference, so I’m glad to see that they’re still talking from both sides of their mouth. They’re champs of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Emphasis on the ‘uncertainty’ part here. And now you know why they play the sour grapes role — it gets them in the news. But everyone knows somebody that can’t tell the difference between negative attention and positive attention, and it’s not like there’s surging demand for a Zune phone, though I’m sure Windows Mobile users would be happy for the extra functionality.
But back in focus, there’s no shortage of hype — read a paragraph and you can see why Apple’s stock is so volatile after announcements. Taken from Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge:
I seriously believe tomorrow is going to be different. I think it’s going to be the day when iPod die-hards, technology geeks, and mainstreamers alike are all going to be genuinely excited by what Apple is going to show. In short, if the release of the iPod mini signaled the start of Apple’s dominance of the digital music player business, and the nano and 5G signaled the end for most of its small competitors and beginning of its video initiative, tomorrow is going to be the final nail in the coffin for Microsoft, Sony, and the bigger players as well. Yes, even with their recent announcements. The only people who will be upset are those who aren’t already on the bandwagon, or the few who (sorry, NBC) jumped off early and got hit by it.
You know though, the scary thing is that he could just as well be right. John Gruber thinks so, so it must be true.
And in other news, T3 reports that a 3G version of the iPhone will be announced today. I think that’s a pipe dream; there’s no way Apple would update a flagship product 2 months after it came out for the first time. That would flat-out anger the almost-1-million purchasers of an iPhone here in the U.S.A.
Of course, any time Apple updates iTunes, it’s always possible that they will also update the iPhone, so I’ll be keeping my ear close to the news to see what they have planned. There’s plenty of speculation for iPhone Games and ringtones. And it’s not just the iPhone Ranch that’s expecting it, it’s also the New York Post.
up. It was reported that NBC wasn’t going to renew their contract, due to expire in December. I reported this in the rejected story links thread in the forums. NBC released a press statement on Saturday to say that it wasn’t the bad guy to respond to the Apple press statement on Friday that said that NBC was the bad guy. I’m starting to think that this is just business as usual when dealing with the content providers.
There’s no news from the $100 grand reward for free software blog, but I don’t really think you’ll see it. Why the artificial deadline? The big news today is the absurdity of the DMCA where it comes to unlocking. You see, in the USA, we have a right to unlock the phones. But AT&T and/or Apple has no obligation to do so. And the software that does it; that’s technically software that bypasses a security measure, etc., which means that it’s governed by the DMCA. And the DMCA pretty much screws anyone that bypasses a security measure. That’s the root issue at stake: that our telco laws here are bollocks.
At any rate, Ars Technica has probably the best writeup on it that I’ve read this morning.
They link to Ed Felten’s blog, where he states that AT&T is screwed, and that we’ll have an unlock one of these days. Ed Felten is kind of famous in some circles for work with the Govt. in the Microsoft Antitrust trial, his defeat of the SDMI audio watermarking (and the RIAA’s bizarre lawsuit that followed), and his utter defeat of Diebold / Premier Election Solutions e-voting machines on TV. He’s had some experience here, and knows what he’s talking about.
iPod Observer has a good writeup on an article at BusinessWeek that also explores the issue in depth, and BusinessWeek has a bit of their own insightful commentary as well:
“Indeed, this time, hackers may have the law on their side. Remember, decades ago, automakers built their instrument panels so that only authorized radios of their own manufacture would fit in. Eventually, U.S. courts ended that practice.”
And no one ever had trouble installing a car stereo again.
There’s another writeup on the two currently-poised-to-release-unlocking-software-but-not-really-willing-to-until-the-lawyers-say-it’s-ok groups, iPhone Unlocking / John McLaughlin, and iPhoneSimFree. It gives a good view from above if you’ve not heard about it.
MYiTablet found an interesting article at C|Net that postulates that Jobs wants the iPhone hacked and unlocked; that Apple lawyers doesn’t care — Apple’s stake after the sale is tiny:
“Isn’t it ironic that AT&T lawyers went knocking on the doors of the hackers while Apple lawyers sipped tea at home?”
I suppose that’s a rhetorical question, but NO — it’s not irony. It is insightful and interesting, though. What does Apple get for iPhone service plan revenue sharing, $12 the 1st month and $3/month per subscriber thereafter? He’s got a good point, and it’s a good article. As a side note, Don Reisinger has some crazy red lips.
figure 1: Seriously, check out the crazy red lips Don Reisinger’s got.
And finally, there’s a Slashdot discussion about it all too. I don’t have anything stupid to say that I want broadcast to the internet today, so I’ll skip it. But that option is always there.
So, yeah. Favelets and bookmarklets. In the podcast, I promised a review article about useful bookmarklets and favelets, for the iPhone. And here it is.
I’ve written a few simple bookmarklets as well; it seems a lot of the bookmarklets are designed for web editors, and not always so much for the average web user. I’m guessing that not many regular folks need to edit CSS from the iPhone, and those that do already have those bookmarklets synched over. But still, there’s a void for popular sites. It seemed that all I found were eBay, Amazon, and Google sites. So I set out to make a few of my own, and edit a few others so that they’d work on iPhone Safari (henceforth, iSafari).
If you have any requests for a custom bookmarklet, put them in the comments. It has to be said that I make no guarantees that I can make the resulting request as I’m not an expert with javascript by any means, but the worst that can happen is that I say no. Okay, that’s not the worst that can happen. The worst is that I say no VERY IMPOLITELY.
The inaugural voyage of our iPhone-centric podcast, by the same folks that gave you the #1 Palm Treo podcast, the TreoCentral Treocast.
As usual, our show notes are after the break.
Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATED: messed up Matthew Privanek’s name. Sorry Matthew!
Mobility Today has posted a list of features rumored to be coming in future software revisions of the iPhone. It’s a good list, and it includes several morsels that would be great to have. I’ll spoil the surprise to mention that Exchange support is not listed. Two key omissions are supposedly coming to the iPhone “very soon” or “before Leopard,” which is slated for October:
And also in the works but with unknown timelines:
It doesn’t look like an official list, not by a long shot, but if it’s true I will be a very happy camper. Their list is much more exhaustive, it’s well worth checking the article out.
Update 11.07.07 11:37a: Regarding this rumor, Gizmodo isn’t exactly what you’d call convinced.
And, while we’re talking about rumors, there’s a persistent one that’s starting to seem very plausible to me. I don’t think that Apple is going to re-engineer a 3G phone just for Europe and the rest of the world, leaving Americans fresh from a $500 or $600 purchase in the lurch. Nor would Apple release a 2.5G EDGE phone over there either; Europeans have become attached to their fast internet data.
So I was perusing Ars Technica’s iPhone review but mostly just wanted their chip analysis. Ars says it best:
“The IC in the lower-left is purported to be a Multimedia Engine by Infineon by several sources. However, the markings on this device do not match up with any Infineon devices as far as we could tell. This particular part is a jack-of-all trades that can decode/encode audio formats, decode H.264 video, perform EDGE modem capabilities, and interface with Bluetooth, FM radio, and other systems, as well as drive the camera and the high-resolution display. Interestingly enough, the data sheet for this device claims that it is 3G upgradable and contains a WCDMA coprocessor.” [emphasis added]
But wait, there’s more! Ars Technica isn’t the only one talking about a software update to the iPhone that turns it into a 3G phone, so is notable online analyst Robert X. Cringely:
“I think so. The question here is whether 3G is already built into the iPhones shipping now or whether it will require a new model? Given that it is coming so soon after the iPhone introduction, I can’t believe that even Steve would make us buy new phones. It is very likely that a firmware upgrade will awaken the 3G within all you iPhone owners.” [emphasis added]
Some people think that Cringely is in the same league as online writers such as Dvorak and Enderle, and they don’t mean that in a respectful way. And admittedly, Cringely does seem to delve into the improbable every so often. At the same time though, his articles build on a kernel of truth. Cringely reports that a firmware update has to be out by Christmas, and I think he’s absolutely right. Apple is going to have to do something to turn those 8/10 scores into 9/10 scores or 10/10 scores. Also, when fantastic Cringely and dependable Ars Technica both agree on something, it’s probably worth reporting.
It has to be said that if Apple were to upgrade the radio to include 3G HSDPA for fast browsing, they’d have to re-certify the iPhone with the FCC. I don’t know if we’d get a 6 month lead time on the news like with the iPhone, but we’ll be keeping an eye on those FCC tests to see if faster 3G certification is on the way.
If all of these were made into news slices, we’d have to reconfigure the page to fit everything in. So, it’s going to have to go into a roundup article instead. We’ll start with the above cartoon from Gizmodo, who apply the curious moniker of “Jesusphone” to the iPhone. I’m more prone to calling it the Mosesphone, as it’s leading me to the promised land of smartphones. If it really was the Jesusphone, all of my other smartphones would suddenly stop sucking, right?
  
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The iPhone Blog merged with the Phone different site in May of 2008. Both sites were founded on a premise that comes one from one of Apple's old slogans: Think different. The iPhone Blog: for people who dare to phone different.
