Licensing songs for commercials is a major stream of revenue for musicians these days. Moby likely wouldn’t be a household name if it weren’t for his gleeful whoring of his 1999 album Play. Inevitably, however, rampant licensing can get a little out of hand. For example, right now, The Shins are basically endorsing both the iPhone and Zune. The band’s song “Sleeping Lesson” accompanies the above the Zune ad (message: using Zune is exactly like doing acid!), while the cover of the album it comes from, Chutes Too Narrow, appears in an iPhone commercial.
Of course, this isn’t the first time a rock band has two-timed the iPhone. John Mayer, who played at MacWorld during the lunch of the device went on to endorse the BlackBerry Curve in advance. I guess a paycheck is just a paycheck, some times.
Though I still don’t have an iPhone (waiting on 3G), I’m drooling for one even more after seeing a demo of wPhone, a fantastic WordPress plug-in that allows really intuitive, full-featured blogging on the iPhone (and even some crappier ones, like my old school Blackberry). Essentially, instead of trying to render the full-bandwidth version of WP, this server-side plug-in changes the interface to optimize for iPhone or other mobile, and then uses GZip compression to enable speedy connections over EDGE and GPRS.
If all of that is gibberish, it basically means that blogging from your phone has rarely been so easy. It looks NICE.
Despite videos that claim fast iPhone typing is easy, a recent study by a usability group concludes that iPhone users make lots of typos when writing on the device. According to User Centric, iPhone text messages average 5.1 errors, or more than twice the average of mistakes made by people using full keyboard or keypad phones.
Every bit as fast, but slightly more error-prone. It’s the iPhone way.
Though anecdotal evidence suggests that the iPhone’s launch in Europe has met with less-than sizzling reception, the picture is actually nowhere near so clear.
Colleagues at Wired, for example, cite self-reports from O2 and T-Mobile of Germany that claim that the iPhone launch exceeded their expectations dramatically with sales in the “tens of thousands.” On the other hand, BusinessWeek notes with distress that it’s actually impossible to get a business contract for the iPhone in the UK at the moment — it’s only available on consumer service plans.
Jake, a Cult of Mac reader from the UK, however, seems to sum the general vibe up nicely (he practically duplicates the exact frustrated phrases my friends in the UK have):
I live in the UK and I agree that there was several stores across the country that were empty. There is one reason for this. Price. Whilst the cheapest contract in the states is $59 per month the cheapest contract here is £35 per month. Because of the exchange rate it works out that were paying $78 for the same contract as you. although this is not much more it is still quite alot for what you get. Also the price of the 8GB iPhone here is £269 and in dollars it is $566 where as you guys are paying $400.
These issues are common, of course. Everything from the Xbox to the PS3 is dramatically more expensive in the UK and Europe. However, when there are lots of phones (some of them REALLY good), it’s harder for the iPhone to make the same sort of premium play. In the UK, everyone is used to free phones with long service plans or paid-for phones with no contract. Apple’s not coming correct, especially since the iPhone has no 3G data, a nigh-unforgivable sin in ultra-connected Europe. Very interesting developments. Will Apple make a serious international foothold, or will they be as provincially North American as the BlackBerry?
The narrative is pretty simple at this point: Apple launches the iPhone, screaming crowds camp out for days in advance. Right?
Not so fast, says UK phone blog Dialaphone. Based on an informal survey of outlets for the iPhone in England on Friday, he found many, many stores where no lines existed at all. Even the Apple Stores, which were busiest, didn’t have enough people to fill up its entire security section.
I especially like this photo of the forlorn-looking shop-keeper wondering when, precisely, he would be mobbed with iPhone shoppers.
When you couple this with news that T-Mobile sold 10,000 iPhones in Germany (that’s good news? Really?), the message seems to be that Europe is less comfortable with Apple’s locked-down iPhone attitude (and dinosaur data technology) than we Americans. Any Euro readers in the audience take the plunge? Anyone holding out for the next rev?
While iPhone shoppers waiting at Apple’s Regent Street store for the iPhone launch on Friday were well behaved, women in line for a fashion launch at a New York H&M were not.
Female fashionistas at the launch of a new Robert Cavalli collection at H&M reportedly trampled each other, fought over dresses and stripped the mannequins.
As assumed, Google announced yesterday that they have no interest in entering the mobile hardware game. There is no gPhone. Instead, the company took the wraps off of the Open Handset Alliance, a 30+ company coalition featuring software companies, handset makers, network operators, and web companies that claim to be committed to a genuinely open mobile phone platform.
That platform is Android, a linux-based operating system and software stack originally developed by a start-up of the same name that Google absorbed in 2005. Basically, if you license Android, you can power a cell phone. It’s everything except the phone itself.
It’s exactly what I hoped for. T-Mobile, Samsung, HTC, Motorola and others are on board, and this time next year, there could be dozens of Android phones on the market, each set up for total openness of software and all other features. It could be the iPhone without Steve Jobs trying to control everything about it. It could be high-end, low-end, mid-end, side-end.
On the other hand, this is a year off. We’ll see the SDK next Monday. Then it will move from vaporware to reality. Can’t wait.
AppleTell grabbed this snapshot off of the Apple Canada website, which seems to announce that the iPhone is finally coming to Canada. Normally, I’d take that as a sure sign that Apple has a product announcement coming tomorrow — Apple loves Tuesdays, after all. But since the MacBook update showed up on a Thursday, I’ll shoot for the end of the week.
I love the NBC and Apple feud so much. Sometimes, the companies overtly bash each other. For every other moment, there’s fun speculation. Take for instance, the latest volley, which likely has nothing to do with the epic rumble between Jeff Zucker and Steve Jobs, but it’s fun to pretend otherwise. Here’s the set-up: NBC’s Saturday Night Live had a sketch featuring an iPhone that Gizmodo believes to have the illicit installer app that graces all jailbroken iPhones — and then, today, Apple issues iPhone firmware 1.1.2 on UK iPhones, which closes the exploit that enables the current group of jailbreaks. Coincidence? Or distant shots in a hundred-years war?
(No further word on features for 1.1.2. Best not to install for now.)
“Speaking at the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment show in San Francisco, David Ulmer, senior director of entertainment products at Motorola, says he’s convinced Apple won’t open up the iPhone anytime soon:”
Thanks to Apple’s just-announced iPhone software developers kit, VOIP will likely be coming to the iPhone, according to Alex Schaefer lead programmer of Apollo, a web-based iPhone instant messaging application.
Schaefer is just one of many Mac developers itching to develop for the iPhone. There’s more reaction from developers in this other Wired News story: Developers on iPhone SDK: OMG! ABFT!
After months of speculation, multiple jailbreaks and not a few bricked iPhones, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced today that a developer’s kit for the iPhone and iPod Touch will be sent out in February, creating a way to add function to the devices through official channels. But he’s still implying that developers will have to jump through hoops to actually get on the platform:
It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once–provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones–this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.
Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.
So it sounds truly homebrew apps will get shut out unless starting developers can prove their good intentions. By endorsing Nokia’s new way of doing things, Steve is heavily implying that Apple will stand in between developers and iPhones for our own good. I see his point — virally infected iPhones would be bad for the Apple image. On the other hand, maybe he could just make the iPhone as secure as regular OS X and block access to things like the base band and root folders? Just a thought.
Well over a month after announcing its German and British partners, Apple has finally reached a firm deal to sell the iPhone in France, pairing up with Orange from France Telecom. The device will sell for 399 Euro (almost $575), and the data plans have not yet been announced.
France has been a tough nut to crack for Apple, as the nation has rather robust unlocking laws for cell phones that would appear to run counter to the iPhone’s business model. Only time will tell.
You know how Apple thoughtfully included a cell signal, WiFi and Bluetooth-free Airplane Mode on the iPhone so that the wunder-device could be using as a media player in flight?
Well, apparently ATA didn’t get the memo. A passenger named Casey bound for Hawaii was repeatedly harassed by multiple flight attendants for “talking on his cell phone.” (He was actually trying to watch the terrible Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”) Consumerist has the sordid story:
So I ask what rule I am breaking. He tells me I am talking on my cell phone. I again explain I am not using the cell part and it is disabled. I go on to further explain that I have been on other airlines that have specific written rules that say cell phones in airplane mode are OK above 10,00 feet, so how could it be a FAA rule. And if it is, what rule ? He has no answer for that, but to now yells at me “You have to do anything I say, I am going to have you arrested”….
He ended up detained at the airport for awhile. It’s ridiculous. And, worse, it’s quite likely that the kind of people who would assume an iPhone in Airplane Mode is dangerous would confuse an iPod Touch with an iPhone. It’s a lesson to us all: Keep it out of sight, folks.
Here’s two more data points supporting the rumor that Apple will allow Dashboard Widgets to run on the iPhone. (See earlier post)
Apple Evangelist Matt Drance is due to speak at next week’s Widget Summit in San Francsico. Matt is “actively involved in helping 3rd parties develop for iPhone,” says his bio on the Summit website. (However, it’s doubtful Drance will announce anything about the iPhone on Tuesday. It looks like he’ll be talking about Widgets in Dashboard.)
And reader Andrew Mayne notes that Apple’s new webapps page uses widget-sized icons to show all the apps for the iPhone.
“Last I checked, the normal OS X (non-widget apps) didn’t have as many button shaped icons,” writes Andrew in email. “The convenient button shaping could be a coincidence… but a rather convenient one.”
I heard a rumor today that Apple is shortly going to allow third-party applications on the iPhone. They won’t be full applications, however: they’ll be Desktop Widgets.
You will soon be able to drag any Dashboard Widget into iTunes, and they’ll sync with the iPhone, the source said.
To run on the iPhone and provide interactivity, they’ll require JavaScript, which means the iPhone will shortly get a Java update. When? The source didn’t say.
But the source did say that Apple hasn’t released iPhone widgets yet because Java has proven to be a major draw on battery power. Presumably, Apple has figured out how to tackle this problem. How? Again, the source didn’t say.
In OS X, Widgets are like mini web pages that run in Dashboard instead of a web browser. According to Apple’s Developer website, they’re a mix of HTML, JavaScript and CSS.
Unfortunately, this is all I know. I promised not to reveal the source of the rumor, but they’re well-placed. This is coming from just one source, via a third-person, so I’m only 70 percent confident it’s true. When I worked at MacWeek, we’d never publish rumors as news until it had been confirmed by at least three separate sources.
However, the redoubtable Glenn Fleischman reports for TidBits that Apple is getting near to making third-party applications available for the iPhone. Glenn has no details, but suggests the release is imminent.
UPDATE: As readers kindly point out, I’m confusing Java with JavaScriot: two separate technologies that share a name. The iPhone already has JavaScript, but not Java, so nothing would need to be added for Dashboard Widgets to work. Thanks for the feedback.
The iPhone 1.1.1 firmware Apple unleashed a bit more than a week ago has wreaked havoc on anyone interested in doing more with the iPhone than its manufacturer wants them to. Unlocked phones were closed down and rendered useless. Third-party applications were deleted and prevented from re-installing. It was back to Square 1.1.1 as soon as the update dropped.
But all is not lost. According to Engadget, the hackers who first broke into the iPhone have done it again — and this time they got into the iPod Touch, too. For the time-being, third-party apps are back on the table, so fire up your NES emulators! No one has installed the Mail application on an iPod Touch that has been reported, nor Weather or the other left-out apps. I’ll let you know if I hear anything. The exploit relies on a security hole using TIFF image files that cause Mobile Safari to freak out and open a back door. This TIFF issue has been fixed elsewhere, however, so this won’t last forever. Any new firmware would probably close the loop again. Cat, mouse. Mouse, cat.
It’s remarkable how rapidly Apple is upping the sophistication of its marketing for the iPhone. The initial ads stressed the coolness of multitouch and whipping the phone around, appealing to the slavering Early Adopters who ran out to pay $600 on the first pressing. Now that the iPhone has dropped to $400, though, Apple has created a new ad campaign that focuses on the way people use it in the real world — the crazy interface barely even shows up.
The three new ads were shot against black back-drops in New York. Some enterprising blogs have already tracked down the locations of the shoots, but I’m more fascinated by the overall messages Apple is sending by letting people tell their stories. Take “Mankind,” told by Doug and shown above. In the spot, he talks about Visual Voicemail and nothing else, how it lets you see the length and sender of all messages and ignore the ones you hate. The picture he paints is rich, complaining about the guy who owes you money and leaves a four-minute message — it’s obviously a bunch of excuses, and he’s not going to pay you. Skip it!
Perhaps the most effective piece for me stars Stephano. It’s called “One Thing.” In it, he mentions that he used to carry an iPod, a camera, a regular cell phone and a cell phone for texting and e-mail. Now he has just one thing. Exactly. Apple is showing how this thing fits into people’s lives. It’s really pretty compelling.
Members of the Hackin0sh development community report that an old exploit that was used to crack the PlayStation Portable’s firmware almost two years ago could hold the key to re-opening up iPhones loaded with the 1.1.1 firmware that closed them back up.
Notes Hackint0sh reader Locked:
It looks like the dev team is up to something. I have been following them over at IRC and it looks like Mobile Safari on both the touch and the iPhone are suffering from a one year old TIFF exploit.
Basically, opening a carefully crafted TIFF image will crash mobile safari, causing a buffer overflow and allow for arbitrary code execution. This same exploit was used more than 1.5 years ago to crack the PSP firmware.
So, nothing to report, yet, but there might yet be life for third-party applications on the iPhone. As Steve Jobs himself has said, this is a game of cat and mouse, and with application development, at least, I want the mice to win…
Ladies and gentlemen, we officially have the most ridiculous response to the iPhone price cut that Steve Jobs announced last month: A woman in Queens, New York, Dongmei Li, is suing Apple for $1 million because she can’t make as much money on eBay by selling the two iPhones she owns. No, seriously.
Li’s lawyer, Jean Wang, said her client bought two 4-gigabite (sic*) models for $499 each with the idea of selling them later on eBay.
“Since they’re selling the 8-gigabite phone for $399, there’s really no market for her,” Wang said.
That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? She should totally get $1 million! Ms. Li bought two 4-gig iPhones for $1,000, hoping to sell them on eBay for, let’s say, given market rate, at most $1,500. Now, 4-gig iPhones are worth $300 or less each, or $600 combined. And as we all know, $1,500 – $600 = $1 million in lost revenue. For shame, Apple! For shame!
I will now launch my own lawsuit. I almost bought an iPhone, but I decided not to, because they’re expensive. Now the price has changed, and I haven’t been able to work ever since because of the trauma. I would like Apple to pay me $8 million for my lost salary owing to disability for the last three weeks.
*Yes, the New York Post spelled gigabyte as “gigabite.” That makes the article even more entertaining.
There seems to be a memory leak with some iPhones that quickly gobbles up the device’s storage space.
A <a href=”https://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5025646�″>discussion thread</a> on Apple’s support forums details the iPhone’s “Other” memory category growing to several gigabyte in some cases. (The “Other” category is shown in the iTunes screenshot above)
The source of the memory blob is mysterious, but one sufferer suggests that Google Maps may be causing the problem. The Google widget may be caching every map that’s loaded.
The only way to clear the growing memory blog is to wipe the device and start from scratch. One reader reports that upgrading to 1.1.1 did not free a memory blog that had grown to 1.6GB, but wiping and restoring the phone dropped it to a reasonable 14MB.
The Cooper-Hewitt National People’s Design Award will soon be d0led out to what the Internet-using public determines to be the best-designed new product or service. Interestingly, two of the top competitors at the moment are Apple’s incredibly high-tech iPhone and on the other side of it…TOMS Shoes, a company that created a philanthropic business model. They took a traditional South American shoe design, marketed it in the U.S. for a low price and gives a free pair of shoes to a needy child in South America for each pair sold.
Two radically different models of innovation through design. What’s your vote? Head here to be heard!
