Tag Archives: iPhone

May 06 2013
Video Games

Nintendo wants smartphone games on Wii U

Via  The Japan Times:

Nintendo is trying to modify its game consoles so customers can use smartphone applications on them as it searches for a way to return to profitability, company sources said.

The game console and software maker has offered professional-use conversion software to application developers so they can produce smartphone games that can be played on Wii U…

There’s a problem with that, something I noticed when I reviewed the Wii U last year: Nintendo cheaped out on the console’s GamePad, giving it a resistive screen (smartphone screens are capacitive) that does not have multi-touch. So if smartphone apps do make it to the Wii U, don’t expect them to offer the same type of game play as an iPhone app.

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Apr 25 2013
Advertising, Apple

Apple’s latest TV ad

This is the best commercial Apple has done since the Yeah Yeah Yeahs-soundtracked “What is iPad” ad. Interesting timing with HTC’s just-launched and Samsung’s impending flagship phone making waves.

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Feb 08 2013
Android, Music

Bjork Kickstarter campaign cancelled; Android and Windows Phone users AWOL

Via The Telegraph:

The Icelandic singer refers to Biophilia as an “app box” – a 10-song album, with each song having a representation as a distinct music-making app.

The campaign aimed to raise £375,000 in 30 days to develop the acclaimed iPhone app for other operating systems.

After 10 days the campaign had raised just over £15,000.

Android owners are too cheap, and Windows Phone users are too non-existent. There was no chance this was going to get funded. It’s too bad though – Bjork is awesome.

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Feb 07 2013
Apple

The Apple iWatch

Bruce Tognazzini, founder of Apple’s Human Interface Group and 14-year employee of the company, on what an iWatch would be like – via his blog, askTog:

The iWatch will have a few functions it performs entirely on its own, chief among them being telling you the time.  It’s chief role will be that of office manager, facilitating and coordinating your use of your other iDevices and the Internet by gathering data, delivering messages, storing and forwarding, coordinating tasks, and carrying out functions that extend the capabilities of your other devices. The iPhone or other primary device will be the executive in charge, making the decisions, setting the strategy, and apportioning tasks. The watch will have the least energy resources available, so the watch will be used sparingly.  Still, as time goes on, more uses will be found for it, and it will receive increasing amounts of traffic.

Check out his entire vision for an iWatch. It’ll make you want a product that doesn’t exist.

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Feb 05 2013
Apple

Why I jailbreak

Christopher Breen writing at Macworld:

Yet when I saw that evasi0n was in the wild, I didn’t hesitate to jailbreak my iPhone and iPad. Why?I’m now too old for the leather jacket and hipster language that would define me as a rebel. And I don’t hold any truck with those who think they’re sticking it to The Man by skirting a device’s protections. I jailbreak to gain features that make my iPhone and iPad more useful. Specifically, I jailbreak to add a couple of forbidden apps.

Jailbreaking has brought many terrific things to iOS, and that’s why I fully support it. There’s even a good case that jailbreaking has brought more change to iOS than competition from other platforms.

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Jan 09 2013
Apple

The mobile device taking over the world – And Apple doesn’t make it

Christopher Mims writing at Quartz:

One category of mobile device will blow away all others in the pace of its growth, expanding 70% in each of the next three years and yielding a $135 billion market by the end of 2015. Vendors will move 142 million units of this device in 2013 and up to 402 million by 2015, project analysts at Barclays. That’s more than three times the number of iPhones sold in 2012.

And, oh yeah, Apple doesn’t make one of these.

An eye-opener. Asia is going to push Apple into the Phablet market.

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Dec 13 2012
Apple, Samsung

Samsung’s Chief Strategy Officer uses Macs, iPhone, and iPad at home

Samsung’s Young Sohn, in an interview with MIT Technology Review:

I use a Mac, actually, at home. I’ve always used Mac, an iPhone, and an iPad. I also have the Galaxy.

At work I’m using Samsung devices; Apple at home, mainly because all of my systems and files are done that way. That’s sticky, you know?

There are two types of Samsung customers (When it comes to smartphones, not washing machines): Those that are geeks/hackers/tinkerers and who want great hardware to go with the messy but tweakable Android OS, and those that just walk into the mobile store and want the free phone.

Sohn, highly educated and wealthy, doesn’t fit into either of those two categories. Of course he’s going to use Apple products at home. Doesn’t surprise me he was at Intel before, either.

That’s not just a problem for Samsung, it’s also a problem for companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. Even if they make their own phones, beg their employees to use them, at the end of the day, these employees have great salaries and want products that work. So they choose Apple products.

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Oct 18 2012
Google

The new Chromebook is just $249

Via the Google Chrome Blog:

Even with its compact design, it’s packed with performance—it boots up in less than 10 seconds and resumes instantly. High-resolution videos (in 1080p) are beautiful to watch and when using the touchpad, you’ll notice smooth scrolling due to a hardware-accelerated user interface. And as you‘d expect from a Chromebook, it’s easy to share with others. Everyone—mom, dad, grandparents, tech lovers, tech haters—can have separate accounts where all of their stuff is kept safe. Finally, if you’re an active Google user of products like Gmail, Drive, Search, Maps, YouTube, Play or Google+ Hangouts, everything just works seamlessly.

The new Chromebook will sell for just $249. At that price, there is almost no risk in trying it out. It may not be a PC or a Mac, but at such a low price, who cares? This price will have a good number of MacBook Air and Ultrabook shoppers considering their options.

It also runs on a Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Processor, an ARM-based dual-core CPU. As I’ve mentioned before, I believe Apple will start using its own chips in Macs, based on the blazing-fast performance of the A6 chip they are using in the iPhone 5. If the new Chromebook can provide a high level of performance with this Samsung chip, my prediction will turn out true sooner than later.

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Oct 18 2012
Lies, Retail

Yelp will shame businesses that juke their ratings

Via The New York Times:

Like every Web site that depends on consumer critiques, Yelp has a problem with companies trying to manipulate their results. So it set up a sting operation to catch them. The first eight businesses — including a moving company, two repair shops and a concern that organizes treasure hunts — will find themselves exposed on Thursday.

Yelp is a crucial point in their development. The switch by Apple from Google’s Maps has placed Yelp reviews front and centre, and the company needs to take this opportunity seriously. Cracking down of false reviews will bolster Yelp’s reputation, and coupled with their new place on the iPhone, could make them the de facto choice for online reviews.

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Oct 09 2012
Smartphones

The death of SMS

The iPhone is heralding the death of SMS. Via Forbes:

From October 2011 through August 2012, the average SMS volume of 400 Finnish iPhone users randomly selected for the survey declined by 14%. From the November peak of 111 text-messages, the volume dropped to 89 text-messages in August 2012. It’s worth noting that December was not the peak month despite the Nordic tradition of sending a flood of text-messages to friends on Christmas Eve and New Year. It seems that this tradition is already fading among iPhone users who are switching to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.

It’s not just the SMS that is dying thanks to the iPhone, the regular phone call is getting replaced by VOIP apps and FaceTime. How long until we’re just buying monthly buckets of data instead of plans for voice, SMS, and mobile internet?

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Sep 26 2012
Apple

Google Maps for iOS, eventually

Via The New York Times Bits blog:

One reason that it will take Google some time to build the iPhone app: it expected the app with Google’s maps to remain on the iPhone for some time, based on the contract between the two companies, and was caught off guard when Apple decided to build a new application to replace the old one.

Ditching Google Maps earlier than expected was the smartest move Apple could make. Now the vast majority of users will spend the next few months using Apple’s maps before Google can counter on iOS.

Apple’s Maps app isn’t perfect, but it isn’t the horror it has been made out to be. It needs to get better outside of major cities, and needs to add public transit routes as soon as possible. Perhaps Apple could speed up the latter by buying a company that specializes in public transit apps.

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Sep 25 2012
Apple

Want an iPhone 5 dock? Make one for $1

Casey Neistat wanted an iPhone 5 dock. So he made one:

Neistat is the smart NYC filmmaker who previously railed on tickets for not riding in bike lanes, among other short films.

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Sep 25 2012
Apple, Smartphones

Apple’s iPhone 3GS highlights the problem with competitors’ smartphones

AppleInsider has an excellent and comprehensive look at how Apple has supported iPhone 3GS owners by including them in the latest iOS6 update:

Three years and three months later, and despite being discontinued from Apple’s iPhone lineup, the iPhone 3GS is still supported by the newly released iOS 6, making it officially the longest supported smartphone capable of running a modern OS.

This is in stark contrast to rival smartphones introduced alongside it just over three years ago: the entire range of Windows Mobile 6.x devices, Palm’s webOS Pre and Pixi, RIM’s Blackberry 5.x lineup and all hardware running Google’s Android 2.0 Eclair are not just unsupported today by those platforms’ latest releases, but were in all cases not even supported through the first two years’ contract life of those devices. That situation isn’t changing either, with Google, Microsoft and RIM’s platforms all gearing up to provide their new releases exclusively on new devices.

If you buy a Nokia Lumia today, you won’t get an update to the Windows Phone 8 operating system coming this fall. But if you bought an iPhone 3GS in July 2009? You have latest iOS 6. That’s an extreme example, but as AppleInsider points out, the situation isn’t that much better with Android phones.

With that kind of customer support, it’s amazing that competitors mock how loyal Apple users are in their ads.

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Sep 24 2012
Android, Apple

Biggest Difference Between iOS and Android

Knowlton Thomas writing at Techvibes.com:

One day after iOS 6 launched, 15% of users had updated their software, according to a report from Chitika. 48 hours in, Audiobooks reported that nearly 30% of users had updated their iPhone’s operating system to iOS 6.

Let’s compare that to Android. A day after Google released Jelly Bean, or 4.1, about 0.1% of users were running the system. Two months in, that number had climbed to only 1.2%.

Ice Cream Sandwich, or 4.0, is a year old. It’s still on less than 17% of Android devices. Most Android users are still stuck on some version in the 2.0-range, which debuted in October 2009—yes, three years ago.

There’s nothing wrong with buying an Android phone. But chances are an Android phone’s best day is the day it is bought, likely never seeing a major update to its features or anything resembling post-purchase customer service. Ask iPhone 4 owners, with a phone now two years old, if they appreciate how Apple has kept them up-to-date since buying their phone. iPhone 3GS owners can say the same about a phone that’s three years old.

On Android, that just doesn’t happen.

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Sep 11 2012
Apple, Google

Google’s new YouTube app for iPhone launches, just in time for iOS 6

With its time as a default app on the iPhone’s homepage running out, Google has launched its new YouTube app for iOS. Via Forbes:

More to the point for Google, this means it can now earn some serious coin from mobile visitors. That’s crucial as mobile devices become the default way people are reaching content on the Web. Google says a quarter of YouTube views, more than a billion a day, are from mobile devices.

There’s no iPad app yet, which seems like a serious shortcoming. Google says it will have one in “coming months,” but obviously sooner would be better, especially with the iPad Mini due out by next month.

It is unbelievable that a company like Google, with all the resources in the world, doesn’t have an iPad app ready to go for the impending iOS 6.

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Sep 04 2012
Apple

The new iPhone: Apple announces September 12 announcement

Via Ars Technica:

Apple has officially sent out invitations for a media event at 10am Pacific Time on September 12, taking place in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Unlike past invitations, this one contains virtually no clues as to what will be introduced…

Head over to Ars to see the invitation.

 

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Aug 31 2012
Apple

Apple’s new 4″ iPhone

MacRumors has posted this video of what the next iPhone could look like in action:

Check out MacRumors for the full details.

And with that – Happy Labour Day Weekend!

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Aug 15 2012
Retail, Video Games

GameStop reinventing itself with used Apple products

Via the San Francisco Chronicle:

In an effort to avoid the fate of Blockbuster, Circuit City and others in the remainder bin of failed retailers, GameStop has embarked on a daring, if inglorious, strategy: refashioning itself from a console-game purveyor into a repairer and reseller of Apple gadgets, betting that its retail visibility will prove an advantage.

With the world of game cartridges slipping away, GameStop is making the right decision by focusing on Apple’s phones, tablets and the iPod touch. If they do it right, they could become the best place to get cheap(er) Apple products, and their retail stores’ size and distribution footprint are a big advantage in reaching that goal.

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Aug 13 2012
Apple

Not even the Department of Justice can crack the iPhone

Via MIT’s Technology Review:

Enter the iPhone. Apple’s security architecture is so sturdy, and so tightly woven into its hardware and software, that it is both easy for consumers to use encryption on their phones and very difficult for someone else to steal the encrypted information.

An iPhone with an alpha-numeric password is pretty much impenetrable. No wonder corporations are finding it so easy to dump the BlackBerry. Of course, the concern here is that it’s also equally secure for criminals.

Also another reason nobody’s buying RIM. There’s nothing worth buying. Even in device security, RIM’s so-called “advantage,” there’s a competitor that’s better at it.

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Aug 03 2012
Microsoft

Microsoft’s Metro branding gone after “partner” complains

Via The Verge:

Microsoft is killing off the use of its Metro design name to describe a tiled interface in Windows Phone and Windows 8. We brought you news of the change earlier today, but a tipster has provided an internal memo sent to Microsoft employees confirming the move. In it, Microsoft reveals that “discussions with an important European partner” led to the decision to “discontinue the use” of the Metro branding for Windows 8 and other Microsoft products — one that employees must adhere to immediately.

This is what sets Microsoft apart from Apple. The willingness to change things based on what one “important” partner has to say about it. Remember the Linksys iPhone? Apple just decided to use the iPhone name, even though Cisco owned the trademark. Just over a month after it was announced, Apple had an agreement with Cisco over the iPhone brand. Microsoft has talked about Metro style for years, and now one of its few brands that had a positive buzz is dead. What a shame.

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