We’ve received multiple reports from readers that their free iPhone 4 Bumper cases are already in the mail, despite initial delivery dates in August or September.
I just got an email from Apple saying my own free Bumper case is winging its way to San Francisco. It is due to be delivered August 3, according to the tracking data. Apple initially said the free case would be delivered in September.
Good work Apple: Underpromise and overdeliver.
Back in the day the entertainment industry tried to stop consumers from videotaping TV shows to watch at a later time. But the courts and Congress said taping TV shows is a non-infringing use of copyrighted works: it is “fair use.”
Now, the Copyright Office has determined that Apple locking the iPhone to prevent it running unapproved apps is an unfair restriction on consumers’ fair use rights.
Consumers should be allowed to jailbreak their iPhones and install whatever applications they like: not just those approved by Apple. Unlocking your iPhone to install non-approved apps is a legal exemption to the DMCA, the Copyright Office has just ruled.
To reach this conclusion, the Copyright Office applied the four famous “fair use factors” to the case:
Two months ago, Apple passed Microsoft as the most-valuable tech company. Soon, it may pass its rival in terms of revenues. Microsoft makes about $61.5 billion a year: Apple is on track to make $60 billion.
Question is: As Apple gets bigger and bigger, is it in danger of becoming the new Microsoft? Did you prefer the old, underdog Apple?
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This is a guest column by Dan Burcaw, founder and CEO of Double Encore, which develops apps for iPhone (and now iPad). Dan is extremely passionate about why developers should work on iPhone apps instead of Android. Here he explains why Android developers don’t make money, and why Android apps will always be secondary to iPhone/iPad apps.
A few years ago, apps were novelties – a cute idea. Now there are over 250,000 of those cute ideas in the App Store alone – and the Android Market is catching up quickly.
Apps are like the Wild Wild West – and from a developer’s perspective, there’s definitely a shoot-out coming. Google vs. Apple. iPhone and iPad vs. Android. Who should you code for, and why? For that matter, as a consumer, which phone and apps should you choose?
On one hand, you’ve got Apple with the newly released iPad and iPhone – a well-established if tightly controlled platform. On the other, there’s the Shiny New Android platform, with its open-ended promise of apps and plenty of freedom – freedom of handset, freedom of carriers. It sounds like a developer’s paradise … which is in fact how Google markets it. But I predict that a year from now, developers and consumers alike are going to find the Android platform really disappointing.
If one thing was crystal clear from Steve Jobs’ remarks during today’s iPhone 4 Antenna Press Conference, it was that he blamed the tech press for “overblowing” the iPhone 4’s reception issues, and was downright contemptuous of tech journalists as a whole.
“I guess it’s just human nature that when you see someone get successful you want to tear it down…” Steve Jobs said at one point. “Sometimes I feel that in the search for eyeballs, [journalists] don’t care about what they leave in their wake.”
Fielding a question from Engadget about a recent New York Times report, Jobs further attacked tech writers. “Go talk to the Times, because you guys talk to yourselves a lot. They’re just making this stuff up.”
Even Steve’s parting shot was aimed at the credibility of the tech journalists. “Thanks for coming. I wish we could have done this [had the press conference] in the first 48 hours, but then you wouldn’t have had anything to write about.”
I’m certainly not here to defend the press against Jobs’ accusations of sensationalism. He may be right: the iPhone 4 Antenna Issue is the Amy Winehouse of tech right now. On the sensationalism of the press, I’d argue that the job of the journalist is not to report the status quo, but to report the exceptional. Over the past three weeks, the iPhone 4’s antenna issues have been an exceptional problem, and so we’ve covered it extensively.
But you know what else is exceptional? Apple and its products. And what Jobs has conveniently forgotten is that ever since he returned to Apple back in 1997, the tech press has collectively been the tireless advocate of both, and written about Apple’s excellence as the rule — not the exception — with every year that has passed.
Steve Jobs’ press conference this morning tried to address two problems: reception and perception.
He failed on both counts.
“Big” changes rumored for Apple’s approach to customer service at the retail level are bound to impress legions of the company’s newest consumers while raising the enmity of long-time customers and customer service employees alike.
New guidelines for handling on-site service requests and repair jobs at Apple’s retail stores are coming down the pike, according to a report Wednesday, as well as to communiques rumored to have recently hit Apple’s internal Retail News Network.
The gist of the company line is that walk-in customer service issues will soon be addressed in tandem with those presented by customers already holding scheduled Genius Bar appointments, and that as many repairs as can be done so will be queued for overnight turnaround — all without the hiring of additional staff to meet what is clearly growing retail traffic and demand for service interactions.
Not only will retail staff be expected to possess Genius-level understanding of the product line, they will also exhibit model habits of efficiency and productivity, according to the company’s plan.
A couple of weeks ago, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration released an iPhone, a move that it promises will provide 24/7 information about the most efficient ways to zip through airport security.
For what it’s meant to do, it seems fine, though I have to say there’s something deeply unsettling about the TSA asking for my GPS location. You can check wait times at various airports, for example.
But the app has a secret value as a source of unintentional humor in the form of the “Can I bring?” tab, a very well-intentioned program that allows you to enter any object and see if it’s safe to carry onto a plane or check it in baggage.
For example, let’s say I’m uncertain if it’s legal to carry on the bomb that my son and I made in the garage. I simply type in “bomb”, and the TSA tells me to keep it at home. Crisis averted!
I spent awhile (much longer than I would like to admit) testing various household goods and weapons on the TSA to see what’s acceptable to carry on. I learned two things: 1. It’s safe to carry on a cane, and 2. The TSA could really use a bigger dictionary. I present my gallery of reasonable questions and the TSA’s often baffling responses.
It’s now been three weeks since iOS 4 went public, and I honestly can’t imagine going back to my past iPhone existence. Folders alone have simplified my life so much that I can’t remember how I ever dealt with seven screens of apps instead of two. Without a doubt, it provides a dramatically superior user experience to iPhone OS 3.1.2 on the 3GS (your mileage may vary on the 3G), as I noted in a review last month.
But that doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. You see, a flaw that wasn’t evident during the beta phase of iOS 4 has become abundantly clear as the majority of my apps have been upgraded for multitasking: keeping background apps in memory for fast app demolishes iPhone 3GS battery life. For all of Steve’s promises to deliver multitasking without battery problems, I now have to charge my iPhone by 8 p.m. to keep it functional through the evening, which I never did before. Without changing my behavior in the slightest — nor even using more advanced multitasking like background third-party audio and VoIP, my phone now needs its charger around at all times.
And, unfortunately, it’s just the tip of the iceberg for the issues found on any 3GS running iOS 4 as it’s meant to be.
This is a guest commentary by Bryan J. Ball, a stand up comedian and long-time Apple fanboy.
My relationship with Steve used to be such a happy one. He would create beautiful bits of electronic amazement and I would buy them, show them off and feel generally superior to my non-Apple friends and family. That’s still mostly true but I’m starting to have my doubts.
My life is pretty Apple-centric. I have an iMac, an iPad, all manner of iPods and I was literally first in line to get an iPhone 4. I’ve been pretty happy with everything I’ve had so far. My area has excellent AT&T coverage so I’m not even plagued by the death grip reception issue on my iPhone.
Yes… I’ve been called a fanboy on more than one occasion. I used to categorically deny this but after watching Steve Jobs’ behavior and listening to myself defend it over the last couple of weeks, I’m starting to wonder.
Apple’s antennagate issue has been in the news for weeks now. It’s the dominant story about the iPhone 4. This is why PR experts have compared Apple to Toyota. Not because the two problems are equivalent — they aren’t — but because the media equates Prius with dodgy brake pedals, and the iPhone 4 with dodgy reception issues. Note: No one said it’s a Prius-style problem; they said it’s a Prius-style PR problem.
Globe-trotting IT executive Steve Shantz wrote a short post comparing the battery life of his Windows 7-running Dell XT2 tablet with that of his colleague’s 3G iPad.
Flying from Chicago to Singapore on business, Steve’s Dell battery gives out on him after just 2.5 hours of work. There are many more hours to go. His iPad-toting colleague, meanwhile, lands in Hong Kong and still has plenty of juice left.
Again, in the conference the two of them attend, Steve is left running around looking for power points, while his friend happily cruises through the day without them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the long-term future of the iPod line. Long the key driver of Apple’s revenue growth, since the launch of the iPhone, it has slipped into the background. Now, the conventional wisdom goes, Apple is going to run out the life of the scrollwheeled wonder until the entire line goes touch with the introduction of a nano-sized iOS device. The iPhone, in three short years, will have eaten the iPod entirely. For all the talk of Dell or Microsoft or Samsung or Sony developing an iPod-killer, Apple did the job better than anyone else could.
But here’s the thing: since the release of the iPhone 4, I’m convinced that Apple sees a lot more life in at least part of the iPod line. It’s simple, really. The new iPhone was made of fragile-seeming glass in order that the all-brushed-aluminum iPod line would look that much more durable. Where does this matter? With sports and with kids.
The honeymoon is officially over. With the release of iPhone 4 over two weeks ago, Apple has been hit by everything except the kitchen sink. From the 3G iPad privacy concerns to the most recent App Store hack, Apple has been in full damage control mode. This makes it the perfect time to add insult to injury. Read my 5 suggestions on how to improve iOS 4 after the break.
When my grandchildren ask me what news I remember most vividly, my answer won’t have anything to do with wars, tsunamis or alien invasions — I’ll tell them about the day Apple admitted they made…a mistake.
Fine, that may be somewhat hyperbolic; but I don’t recall Apple ever kneeling in the past about anything, let alone about what amounts to their killer product — and even managing to look sheepish in the process. Of course, there’s good reason for that lack of kneeling; keeping one’s mouth shut makes perfect sense for any entity, as an admission of guilt is a fatal move in the arena of liability — and in Apple’s case here, may leave it vulnerable to all sorts of nasty lawsuits.
Here’s my iPhone 3G. It’s a bit scratched and a bit cracked, but it still works just fine. At least, it did until I upgraded to iOS4.
The update turned my reliable friend into a pain in the backside. Simple things, like swiping between springboards or calling up the virtual keyboard, suddenly took an age.
In short: iOS4 on a 3G was painful.
I’m not the first to notice this, of course. You can find discussion threads about it all over the net, and a post by m’colleague Adam Rosen from earlier this week.
Quite a few kind Cult readers responded to that post with their own suggestions and comments, and I’ve been trying some of those in the last couple of days.
It’s only been about three weeks since Safari 5 was released, and with it support for Safari extensions.
Since then I’ve been exploring all the delights posted at the Safari Extensions Tumblr and finding some really great stuff, and lots of ideas.
We’ve received some comments from iPhone 3GS users that their battery life after the iOS 4 update has declined. This can in most cases be attributed to poorly written apps or apps that don’t support the multitasking feature introduced in iOS 4. Are you experiencing this problem? Have you identified an app or some other reason for the decline in battery life on your iPhone 3GS? Tells us all about it in the comments.
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The category of computing represented by the iPad has gone by many names: tablets, slates, oversized iPod touches. But not one of them has really stuck. Partially, it’s because we haven’t had a hit until this year. Unsurprisingly, people are now calling them iPads, and the competitors “iPad-killers”. That’s because people are far more attracted to a product success than they are to a form-factor or technical specifications. It’s worth remembering that virtually no one ever talked about the emerging class of graphical user interface computers in the 1980s. They talked about Macs, and then they talked about Windows. No one is particularly happy with the name “tablet” because it doesn’t actually capture anything interesting about the device except for its size and shape.
My colleague and collaborator from Jump, Conrad Wai, has an interesting hypothesis about what might stick as a name: “kneetop.” Conrad notes at Something Ventured that every computer ever used by consumers has ultimately been defined by where you use it, from the desktop to the oft-ill-advised “laptop.” Heck, even “mobile phones”. And that might need to happen here for the tablet category to take off.
Desktop, laptop, and mobile all speak to where you use it. But what about tablet? That’s a form factor — and we don’t call a laptop a “hinged screen with keyboard.” The tablet doesn’t yet have a context of use baked in. What’s the use scenario? Where are you going to use it? How are you going to position it relative to your body? Until we resolve these questions, tablets, pads, slates — whatever — will just be a cool technology. It’s something app developers and would-be iPad slayers should keep in mind as they develop their products.
…
To be honest, I think things will turn out a bit differently. My take is that “tablets” as a term will hang around, but that they’ll usher in the era of “casual computing.” Put another way, to be successful, tablets will have to be a transition point when we stop thinking about “using a computer” when we grab one. To me, that’s what people have in mind when they talk of having several tablets just lying around.
So what say you, iPad owners? Is it all about resting it on your knees while you browse? Or do you have a better name?
User Interface Watch: Apple’s march towards hands free, thought controlled computing continued this past week with the widely misunderstood iPhone 4 “Death Grip” episode. Perceived and quickly lambasted as a design flaw, Apple is stategically taking high levels of flak as they quietly persue their true longterm goal.
[Tags: ANALYSIS, HUMOR, SATIRE]
Steve Jobs has always been a minimalist, be it product design, the breadth of his wardrobe, or succinct email replies. This minimalism also applies to the ways in which we interact with our computers.
Early computers required both hands and all fingers to operate, utlilizing bulky keyboards. This mimicked the way humans had conveyed information since the invention of the typewriter, but was clearly just a technology to be milked for all it was worth, then cast aside.
In certain corners of the Internet, it has become received wisdom that the iPhone will appear on Verizon any time now. Timelines are speculated upon. AT&T’s rampant incompetence is cited. And then Apple announces another must-have product that only works on AT&T’s network in the U.S.
So, in case you’re wondering, the iPhone 4 isn’t coming to Verizon in September. It’s not going to T-Mobile (in spite of what some misinformed analysts think, it’s still not 3G-compatible) or Sprint, either.
This is understandably frustrating, as every U.S. iPhone user has, at one time or another, experienced complete AT&T meltdown — full bars but no connectivity, battery life dropping at more than a percentage per minute, and dropped calls every few steps. But the sad fact is, AT&T was and is the only credible partner for Apple to work with on the iPhone and the iPad. And the reason for that has very little to do with the United States and everything to do with the rest of the world. They’re stuck together until everyone goes 4G.
Over at Gizmodo, they’re making a big stink about Apple’s decision to ban two graphic novel adaptations of famous literary works from the App Store for obscenity— namely, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.
Now Apple’s reversed the ban on these two graphic novels… but in the process of doing so, have ironically made themselves look far more hypocritical in their App Store censorship policies than if they’d stuck to their original decision.
If Safari 5’s new Reader feature sounds familiar, that’s because it’s not a new idea.
The Readability bookmarklet has been doing a very similar thing for a year or so now, and of course works in many different browsers, not just Safari. Incidentally, Readability’s developers are delighted about Reader.
We’re 100% chugging the Kool-Aid on the iPhone 4 upgrade. What an amazing package:
We’ll be upgrading for sure, especially thanks to AT&T’s new upgrade plan.
What do you guys think?
