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The iPhone’s Secret Blindspot
“… Jobs does not understand the 21st century computer usage paradigm. In this century, people don’t send memos to each other. And that’s what email is - electronic memos. Today, people chat; they blog; they share multimedia like pictures, video, and audio; they flame each other on forums; they link with each other in intricate webs; they swap effortlessly between different electronic personae and avatars; they listen to internet radio; they vote on this that and the other; they argue on wiki discussion groups.”
Okay, two things:
- People don’t use e-mail today? Hello?! Do you have a job? Hell, a third of my day is often spent e-mailing.
- Isn’t almost everything that this guy says people do (instead of e-mail, I guess), possible on the iPhone?
Weird piece, man. Weird piece.
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iPhone shatters AT&T sales record, dwarfs RAZR
Holy crap. Apple sold over 700,000 iPhones over the weekend — more than the near-ubiquitous RAZR sold in it’s first month. That’s insane. Analysts are now predicting the iPhone will be the most successful product launch in the history of electronics. Insane, I say.
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You can now buy four iPhones per person at Apple stores
Amazing, it seems like Apple has managed to meet demand for their precious little phone.I’m really anxious to find out if this means they didn’t do as well as they expected, or if it means they actually planned really well for once.
In any case, if Apple is now letting people buy four at a time, and they’re planning on giving away 15,000+ of them to employees in July, they must have made a shitton of these things.
I’m only slightly pissed at having waited in line for 5+ hours.
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David Galbraith: Jesus Phone Crucified by ATT
Well-done.
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iPhone: pottymouth friendly
I actually celebrated this quite loudly when I discovered it last night. It sure beats trying to call Mike D. a “pussy” in an SMS and having it “corrected” to “puppy” by that God-forsaken T9.
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How far we’ve come
This picture is freaking awesome.
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Cutting Edge: AT&T EDGE Speeds on Steroids?
These reports started showing up last night, and I blew them off. But by this morning, the numbers are just too staggering to ignore. Basically, hundreds upon hundreds of people are reporting massive speed increases on EDGE in the past 48 hours, all across the country.
And, let’s not forget that we did know a month ago that AT&T; was working on improvements to EDGE to be ready for the iPhone. I just didn’t expect this kind of improvement.
Fingers crossed that it’s for real, but still not convinced.
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Pogue: Often-Asked iPhone Questions
The Times’ tech columnist answers tons of questions about the iPhone. Most of the answers, though, don’t reveal much we didn’t already know or assume. I was very dissapointed with one answer, though:
Do To Do items show up on the iPhone? No.
Bummer. On the other hand, there’s this:
VisitAre there any secret features? When the screen is off, the glossy black glass becomes a handy makeup mirror.
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iPhone Only: reader.mac.com
Looks like Apple has developed an RSS reader for iPhone at reader.mac.com. Who wants to spoof their user agent string and see if they can get into this bad boy?
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iPhone Competitor Talking Points Revealed
I really do believe the the lack of IM, MMS, Song ID, and MP3s-as-ringtone will hurt the iPhone in some circles — especially the younger demographic which loves all this stuff. That is, if the consumers are smart enough to realize this stuff is missing before they plunk down their $600. Given that all of these features are pretty much a given on even the cheapest phones, it’s likely people will just assume they’re on the iPhone, as well — and be frustrated (after* their purchase.
All could possibly be added via a simple software update, but who knows whether Apple will do that or not. None of them bother me much personally, but I know a lot of people for whom the lack of these features would be a dealbreaker.
Sprint and Verizon would do well to exploit them.
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Apple: iPhone keyboard
Apple has posted a video about how the virtual keyboard in iPhone works. After reading the reviews and seeing this, I’m convinced it works very well if you simply trust it and blast away. That’s going to be hard to get used to, especially after how much I don’t trust T9. Once I do, though, it seems I’ll be able to type pretty damn fast. Check out the video — iPhone’s keyboard definitely has some smart programming behind it to help prevent and fix your mistakes.
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USATODAY.com: Apple’s iPhone isn’t perfect, but it’s worthy of the hype
The reviews are now pouring in, and they all say the same thing: iPhone rocks, as long as you spend most of your time on WiFi, don’t miss the lack of instant messaging or MMS, and give the virtual keyboard a week or so of getting used to.
God I’m going to be pissed if I can’t get one of these bad boys on Friday.
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Walt Mossberg: The iPhone is Breakthrough Handheld Computer
Mossberg, in his video review: “The keyboard issue on the iPhone is a non-issue” He says, after five days, he was just as fast or faster than he types on the Treo he’s been using for years.
Like Pogue, he decries the pathetic speed of EDGE, and calls WiFi the iPhone’s saving grace.
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Gizmodo can’t beleive John C. Dvorak would compare iPhone to Hitler
This, from the blog that’s been calling it the Jesus Phone since the day it was announced.
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New York Times Video: The iPhone Challenge: Keep It Quiet
Pogue’s video review of the iPhone is cute and funny. If you like gadgets and you don’t subscribe to his podcast, get on it already. Good stuff.
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First iPhone Review, David Pogue: The iPhone Matches Most of Its Hype
The New York Times’ David Pogue gets his review out first, and it’s generally very positive. He notes that the network is slow as shit (duh, it’s EDGE), and that the keyboard does take some getting used to (but says that it works quite well once you learn to trust it), and it stupidly doesn’t have MMS (which, frankly, is going to be a huge dissapointment to buyers who don’t realize it’s not there, given that every cheap-ass phone on the market has it and a ton of people use it every day), but glows and glows about basically every other aspect of the device.
VisitBut even in version 1.0, the iPhone is still the most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years. It does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles. In other words, maybe all the iPhone hype isn’t hype at all. As the ball player Dizzy Dean once said, “It ain’t bragging if you done it.”
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Engadget: How does the iPhone stack up in total cost?
Bottom line: “Those worried that your iPhone will cost you a lot more in service fees than you’d pay otherwise, worry not. You’re going to pay more for the device itself, but the iPhone plans are totally fair, based on AT&T;’s current pricing scheme.”
And the numbers do bear that out. In general, the iPhone cost over two years is $200-$300 more than most other popular smartphones. So, pay more for the device, but about the same for service. In fact, family plan users will actually save a decent bit over most other plans.
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iPhone: Unlimited data starting at $60; activation exclusively through iTunes
Nice. Both of these make me very happy. Voice, SMS, rollover minutes, unlimited data, and unlimited mobile-to-mobile starting at $60 a month is definitely less than I expected. And activation through iTunes hopefully means those lines won’t be too ridiculous to wait in on Friday.
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Apple WWDC iPhone Development
Some nice notes on a WWDC session about web development for the iPhone. Nothing terribly interesting here, but it’s nice to have some of what I expected confirmed.
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New York Magazine on Steve Jobs
A Long, detailed profile of Steve Jobs’ career, focuses specifically on his “fourth act” — the iPhone — and the impact its success or failure may have on his legacy.
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Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: Historic discussion live from D 2007
Engadget has a rough transcript of the conversation. Sounds like it was really thoughtful, fun, entertaining, and respectful. Hopefully they’ll be a video or audio released sometime.
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Google Maps: Street View
Holy shit. Google wins. This is freaking awesome.
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Engadget: Is buyshifting the future of television? (part 2)
Long story short: Engadget concludes that, for all but the most couch-potato of homes, buyshifting (i.e. getting your TV from iTunes, Joost, or even on DVD) is a much better value than a typical cable plus DVR package.
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Engadget: iPhone delayed until October, Leopard delayed again until January - Engadget
I’m extremely skeptical of this report — Apple just on their conference call a week or two ago confirmed that the iPhone would ship in June. Still, Engadget isn’t wrong that often, so I thought it was worth mentioning.
If it is true, I’ll be bummed and frustrated, probably to the point of looking elsewhere for my next phone. There are too many great new phones coming out (Nokia N95, Helio Ocean, Blackberry Curve, etc.) to sit around and wait on Apple’s failed promises.
Here’s hoping this is totally false.
Update: This turns out to be totally false, thank God. Apparently someone spoofed an e-mail to Apple employees indicating the delay, appearing to be an official Apple notice to its workers.
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NY Times: Wired but not Web 2.0
Really interesting study about types of people and their likelihood to be participating in so-called “Web 2.0 activities”. The long and short of it is that while most Americans have cell phones and computers, very few are actively Web 2.0-ing.
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The Register: Nokia N95 review
As I’ve said here many times before, this is the only phone I’d consider over the iPhone (but I’m still planning on getting an iPhone). The N95 looks really great, and it’s built-in GPS, 3G, and much higher-res camera than the iPhone do make it somewhat tempting.
In the end, though, I feel like the iPhone is better suited to my needs. It obviously will play more nicely with a Mac and it’s a bit more focused on web browsing, IM, and e-mail (and less so on multimedia), which I what I anticipate using the most.
Still, the N95 is badass, and really the only other smartphone worth considering, as far as I’m concerned.
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Apple TV hacked to run XviD, other formats
That didn’t take long. For what it’s worth, I’m quite pleased with my Apple TV thus far. Works really well.
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News Corp. and NBC to take on YouTube
This is about as likely to unseat YouTube as the Zune is to unseat the iPod. That is to say, not chance in hell.
By and large, traditional media companies are losing to tech companies and web startups. Why? Basically, because they’re followers. Very few of them have the foresight to snatch up the brilliant young minds in the web world, and instead just follow the leader (in this case, YouTube). But the Internet seems to favor innovative and first-to-market products. Traditional media hasn’t released many of either.
(All that having been said, there are a few traditional media companies who get it…thank God.)
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‘Adult’ spam hits all-time low
Porn and such now accounts for only three percent of junk mail. My completely uneducated analysis is that porn, unlike drugs and financial “advice”, is something people actually seek out on their own. There’s less need to send unsolicited advertisements, because people actually want porn.
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Would Apple Mix DRM and Non-DRM Music at the iTunes Store?
Gruber has a nice article on how Apple might deal with the UI complexity of selling both DRM’d and non-DRM’d music on iTunes. He suggests a similar solution I’ve been touting — just don’t mention it by default. Some songs will be DRM protected and some won’t. People who really care about DRM (which isn’t most people) could turn on a preference to show the license or click something to get details — but most people don’t care, so don’t confuse everyone with it.
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Kevin Rose at FOWA: DIGG Adopts OpenID
Kevin Rose, speaking at the Future of Web Apps conference in London, just announced that Digg will adopt the OpenID decentralized authentication platform. Awesome news.
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AOL and OpenID: Where we are
It’s been public knowledge that AOL has been playing with OpenID for a while, but it’s nice to hear them openly talking about it now. Great move for AOL, and a huge boon for OpenID.
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Reading Between the Lines of Steve Jobs’s ‘Thoughts on Music’
Gruber provides his usual insightful commentary on Job’s DRM essay. The most interesting bit, to me, is that Nettwerk, an indie label that has some big-name artists like Avril and The Barenaked Ladies, is already selling DRM-free music on eMusic and has ben told by Apple they can’t do the same on iTunes. I hadn’t heard this, but if it’s true, it seems really contradictory on Apple’s part. If Jobs wants this essay to have some impact with the big boys, Apple should make a DRM-free deal with Nettwerk and other indie labels in order to prove they’re not bluffing.
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Microsoft & OpenID
Wow. Microsoft is officially backing OpenID. Can you say killer app? Awesome news.
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Ze Frank: Waves
Probably my favorite episode ever. Or at least the episode most relevant and personal to me.
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Steve Jobs: Thoughts on Music (and especially DRM)
Steve posts a 2000-word essay on Apple.com stating that his company would “embrace wholeheartedly” DRM-free music and would sell songs on iTunes without any DRM “in a heartbeat” if the labels would let them. Jobs also has a few good points about why licensing FairPlay isn’t as easy as it sounds. Overall, this reads as though Jobs is really frustrated with the labels and is trying to exert his influence over the public. It’ll be very interesting to see how effective it is.
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Old Skool
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Old Skool
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MacNN: Digging into the iPhone story
A nice analysis of the economics of the iPhone for Apple and Cingular, thanks to an interview with a Piper-Jaffary analyst. From their number, Apple’s goal of 10 million units actually seems reachable — whereas I didn’t really believe it was when I first heard it.
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Use your Yahoo! login as your OpenID
If ever there was a man on a mission to see a technology take off, it’s Simon Willison. His latest project lets you use your Y! username and password as an OpenID. Badass. And yes, it’s Django-powered. :)
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Jeff Croft
I’m a digital product designer and developer in Seattle, WA. I currently work with Simply Measured, and recently co-founded Lendle, a Kindle book sharing service.
Some of my past clients include Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Copious, The New York Review of Books, Django, The Lawrence Journal-World, and the University of Washington.
I’ve authored two books on web and interactive design and spoken at dozens of conferences around the world.
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