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iPhone Reloaded: Architecting an iPhone Server

It is the iPhone, the singular creation upon which Apple's Mobile Wi-Fi platform is predicated. While its primary construct, and ergo heretofore deliberate focus, has been the express realization of an unparalleled client-side experience, it remains at its core irrevocably a UNIX-based operating system and hence capable of infinitely more.

While the sublime profundity of said client-side, and thus end-user, experience continues to approach perfection, anomalous entities -- self-designated 133t hax0rs -- have also succeeded in bending, perhaps even breaking, the iPhone's default parameters with a secondary, decidedly more server-oriented goal, vis-a-vis the porting of Apache, Python, vim, curl, and more apropos this posting: lighttpd.

Witness, as excerpted from the Unofficial Apple Weblog, the initial causality of such an implementation:

Mark Hoekstra of GEEKtechnique offers real-world proof that an iPhone can, indeed, function as a web server. He put up a static page and served 411 unique visitors during the time his server was offline for maintenance. Obviously, that's not battle-testing for a busier server, and the lack of database queries certainly aided the capacity of the tiny server, but it's definitely a fun example of the capabilities of a (hacked) iPhone.

Indeed.

Endemic to certain entities within the system are the simultaneous and yet conflicting desires for increased power in ever smaller footprints, previously demonstrated in the phenomena known as "Mac Mini Server Farms".

Will any such ridiculously intriguing architectures reliant solely upon the inimitable iPhone follow?

Inevitably.

Raging Thunder on the iPhone - WOW

We’ve covered gaming on the iPhone more than a few times here at PD. And the general consensus is a combination of hope, excitement, and we-can't-freaking-wait. Well jailbreakers, you might not have to. After getting a glimpse of Raging Thunder (via TUAW), a car racing game made by Polarbit and made available through Installer.app, all I can say is...

WOW.

I gave the game a quick test drive and the graphics are impressive for any handheld, not to mention a cell phone. The screen (with help of the accelerometer) functions much like Mario Kart for the Wii meaning tilt right to turn right, tilt left for left. Gameplay is fluid and responsive and it is just mind numbing fun to be playing something so advanced on your phone.

To be sure, there are flaws and glitches but at this point it is almost to be expected. (Tip: try to avoid pressing the home button mid-race. Just, trust me). But for one of the first steps into gaming on the iPhone, Raging Thunder works better than you would ever imagine.

Is it June yet?

Review: Case-Mate Signature Series Perforated Leather Case for iPhone

The Case-Mate Signature Series Perforated Leather Case for iPhone ($34.95) is a subtlety styled, high quality leather case that offers nearly full protection for your iPhone. It provides easy access to all buttons and ports on the iPhone and is a breeze to slide in. How does the Case-Mate Case perform?

Read on for the rest of the review!

Send in the iClones: Philips Xenium x800

Another day, another iClone! This one comes courtesy of the fine folks at Philips, and Gizmodo shares the duplicative details:

PC World China is saying that the upcoming Xenium x800 will have an "e2e" screen— that's an edge-to-edge touchscreen, apparently. From the photos it looks like it's got an orientation sensor, Wi-Fi, a browser, a curved design and a bevelled metal edge. Sounds a little familiar?

It sure does. It sounds just like the Samsung Instinct, Nokia Tube, RIM (and RIM), and HTC Touch Diamond, and every other device trying to be the iPhone in imitative form rather than revolutionary spirit.

How about iCloning that?

.Mac To Be Revamped Alongside iPhone 2.0?!

Updating yesterday's story about .Mac getting the push-email treatment in iPhone 2.0, TUAW's tipsters are back with this little gem:

According to our anonymous tipster, .Mac will undergo a complete revamp that will coincide with the iPhone 2.0 launch (which everyone expects to occur at WWDC 08).

Again with the asking and receiving, eh?

Rumored highlights for the updated .Mac include full wireless (cell + wifi?) calendar, contacts, and email (an Apple Exchange anyone?) and .Mac support for -- you guessed it! -- Windows.

First El Jobso gives PC users a cool glass of iTunes and iPhone, and now a possible consumer-centric push service.

Did I mention how June can't come fast enough yet?

Review: HWpen, Native App-a-Week

Can’t wait any longer for Native Apps? Me neither. (Late) June seems too far away? I’m with you. So why wait, when you can jailbreak! Over the next couple months before 2.0 is released, I’ll give you guys a glimpse into the jailbroken world of native apps every week. Plus: let's face it, Jailbreaking isn't going anywhere. The SDK is awesome, but some people won't settle for anything less than full-on access to all the hidden bits of the iPhone.

With Apple including handwriting recognition for Chinese characters in the latest 2.0 firmware build, I think it’s a great time to see what handwriting apps are currently available for jailbroken iPhones. HWpen is an app made by the developers over at Chinese company Hanwang and it offers handwriting recognition for both Chinese and English. Is it successful? Better than the iPhone’s soft keyboard?

Read on for the rest of the review! (and remember you'll need a Jailbroken iPhone to take advantage of this native app)

NBC Redux: iTunes No, iPhone Yes

Well, NBC is still boycotting iTunes, but in a surprising move, they're back on the iPhone (and iPod Touch). How? Streaming live through the built-in to MobileSafari QuickTime player -- take that, Flash snobs! -- and without advertising!

Silicon Valley Insider has the Hulu-trumping details:

NBC is streaming full episodes of "The Office" and "30 Rock" to the iPhone in unprotected Quicktime format. Without advertising. Go figure. To get there, go to nbc.com on an iPhone (or presumably, an iPod touch). Scroll past Howie Mandel and Sam Waterston, and NBC invites you to "WATCH FULL EPISODES!" Be warned: the quality is pretty bad and our borrowed iPhone froze twice.

Now, while I do get a snazzy iPhone-optimized web page, I don't get the watch full episodes option (probably because I'm not in the US, and were I to see such US content, the world would explode), so if you get it to work, please let me know, and let me know how well!

Weekly Web App Review: Hahlo

Attack of the iClones: Sprint to Spend $100 Million on iClone Advertising!

Either Gizmodo is pulling a CES-TV-Blackout caliber gag, or Sprint has done lost their iCloning minds:

Starting May 9th, Sprint will begin a massive, $100 million marketing campaign aimed straight at the iPhone's nether regions. Stacking its 3G Instinct against the iPhone, Sprint hopes to show that EVDO and GPS make their product way better than anything coming out of Cupertino.

Wha-wha-wha-what?!

What will $100 million buy the Samsung Instinct? Ads. Ads that compare them spec-for-spec with last year's iPhone...

Daring Fireball's John Gruber sums it up well:

[I]t boggles the mind that Sprint is hanging a $100 million dollar advertising campaign on two features — GPS and EVDO networking — that the iPhone is widely-rumored to be picking up in its next-generation hardware. Worse, side-by-side, even in commercials commissioned by Sprint, the Instinct looks like crap next to an iPhone — the screen is way smaller and way less bright. What’s clear is that Sprint is run by MBA-trained executives who see everything as a general “business” problem. In their minds, the same things apply to selling phones as toothpaste. How about this idea: Take $100 million and use it to design a better phone?

What do you think?

iPhone 2.0: .Mac "Push" Email?

Ask and ye shall receive, dig deep into the code and ye shall find fresh-baked Apple-y goodness.

No sooner did Apple drop iPhone 2.0 SDK Beta 5, than the developers began scouring it for any hint of what's to come, and as usually TUAW serves up what they found:

A certain, unnamed individual sent us some pictures of the latest build of the iPhone firmware showing .Mac push e-mail. The picture shows the main Settings page with a new button: "Fetch new data." When you click the button, you are taken to a list of your mail accounts, where you can choose between either "fetch" or "push." According to Mr. Anonymous, while .Mac is offering push e-mail, you are currently not able to do contact or calendar syncing.

Check out TUAW's gallery for the pics.

Boy, Apple is pushing the features fast and furiously. We already knew about "push" via the Microsoft licensed ActiveSync, which offers full Exchange support, but complementing that with .Mac for non-Exchange users? Very nice!

(Of course, much as I love Back-to-My-Mac, iSync, iDisk, and other .Mac features, it really needs a more competitive feature-set upgrade -- Imagine Google-like offerings and capacities with Apple's ease of use and integration! -- especially for the rather steep $100 a year.)

June really can't come fast enough!

Installer.app Gets Search

I wish therefore I command? I command therefore I receive? iPod therefore ..wait..

Remember last week's review of Installer.app? One of my main complaints about the program was the lack of a search feature. Well, the folks at Nullriver sure know how to treat a blogger, because Installer.app just got an update. And it has a search feature.

The search feature is still not as integrated as I would like because it doesn’t appear on the main screen. Meaning you would still have to narrow down the category before you can activate search. A good workaround is if you click All Categories and search from there, this should allow you to search everything. Either way, it’s a huge improvement to Installer.app and goes to show how hard the Nullriver developers are working to improving the app.

iPhone Risk: Latin American Landslide!

First Canada, then 10 Vodafone-serviced countries spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, now Engadget brings word that Mexico-based America Movil has announced it will be bringing the iPhone not only to its own home town, but to potentially all the 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries/territories/protectorates it provisions!

These include Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, the United States (almost certainly off limits because of AT&T), Guatamala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Chile.

And the Phone Different Jumbotron now reads:

As with the other recent announcements, no details were provided as to when, how much, or whether or not there would be exclusivity or anything approaching special (read: reasonable) unlimited data plans. It also leaves another pressing question:

Who's next?!

Tip O' The Week: Outsmart Your Sensor

The iPhone is sensor-ific. It can sense if it's turned sideways, held up close to your face, and whether or not you are in a dark room or out in the sunlight. This week's Tip o' the Week is a simple way to exploit one of the sensors on your iPhone to save you some steps and power at the same time. Curious? Read on for the Tip!

iPhone 2.0 SDK Beta 5: Tools and Tweaks

TUAW and iPhone dev extraordinaire Erica Sadun reports that Apple has dropped the svelte-ish 1GB iPhone 2.0 SDK Beta 5 and accompanying firmware:

The fifth beta version of the iPhone SDK is now available. Log in to the iPhone Dev Center and take advantage of all the development resources available to you—a new version of the iPhone SDK, updated documentation, the latest release notes, and more.

No word yet on what secrets deep delving this latest code may reveal, but if past discoveries are any indication, literally anything is possible (except for cut and paste, of course).

Any guesses?

Most Popular Camera Phone on Flickr? The iPhone.

I use Flickr a lot, whether its perusing for great pictures or posting some of my own, Flickr is the standard on which photo-sharing websites are judged upon. And according to Flickr data (per TUAW) the iPhone, in only a years time, has become the most used phone on the popular photo-sharing website. So is the iPhone the mobile camera for which the rest of the industry is judged upon? Well, I wouldn’t go that far.

Is this good news? Of course, it goes to show how much the iPhone is used beyond the typical parameters of a phone. But it is interesting, considering the camera on the iPhone is often maligned, overlooked and bypassed. Being number one in mobile web usage makes sense because Safari on the iPhone is just that good. With a sub-par camera being number one, well that should push Apple to further develop the iPhone’s camera.

One of my biggest wishes on the next iPhone, aside from 3G and GPS, is a much more advanced camera: better resolution, auto-focus, zoom, video, geotagging, etc. If the iPhone can be number one on Flickr with the current camera, imagine what it could do with something better?

Canon Rebel XTi watch your back?

Attack of the iClones: HTC Touch Diamond - Wait-a-Thon!

[Note: This a a Wait-A-Thon post! Comment on this post -- or any post tagged "Wait-a-Thon" -- for your chance to win a $100 iTunes Gift Card!]

Usually we wait for This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude to mock review the competition (such as it is), but if they bring the hype, we'll bring the satire, special-edition style.

Samsung, Nokia (yeah, I'd forgotten about them as well...), and RIM (and RIM) have already sent in their iClones, and now it's HTCs turn to make mid-2008 look like early 2007 all over again... Ludites and gentlemen, the HTC Touch Diamond.

(At least I think it's the Diamond, they've pre-announced like 100 different Touch trademarks lately, so it could be the Pro or the Cruise or even the Cubic Zirconium for all I can tell...)

Speaking of 2007, as we all know when Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld and pulled the iPhone from his pocket, it's form factor was exactly like every other Palm, RIM, and WinMob device out there, with a tiny screen, application independent tic-tactile keyboard, always unstylish stylus, and and OS and interface straight out of 2001.

Wait, no it wasn't. El Jobso unveiled a revolutionary new device with a giant, hi-res screen, multi-touch input, and an interface the likes of which the industry had never seen before. But they (and we) have certainly seen it since -- reflected funhouse mirror-like in almost every signature device from every company released post-iPhone.

Read on!

No Vacation for AT&T, 3G iPhone Late June?

Sorry AT&T workers, I guess you’ll have to re-schedule that Hawaiian vacation. The Boy Genius Report reports that an internal memo has been making the rounds over at AT&T and it strongly discourages vacation time between June 15th and July 12th.

To quote the memo, AT&T “anticipates heavier than normal customer traffic” and an “exciting Summer Promotional Launch to enable your sales to soar”. I wonder what product fits that description: exciting, heavier than normal, soar..okay maybe I'm reading between the lines.

Does this mean that AT&T is positioning themselves for the launch of the 3G iPhone? That would be the obvious conclusion considering that AT&T had issued a similar no-vacation mandate just a year ago. For what you ask? The original iPhone.

But with no Apple “special event” currently scheduled, can we now expect the 3G announcement to be made during WWDC’s keynote (June 9th)? When is the FCC going to get their hands on this little, powerful puppy? As much as I thought the 3G iPhone wasn’t coming until fall, it looks like June will be the date.

iPhone Risk: Italy Redux + No More Exclusivity?!

No sooner did Vodafone announce it would be carrying the iPhone in 10 countries, then previously rumored Telecom Italia chimed in with a hearty "anche io!" ("Me too" for you non-Romantics)

Apple Insider quotes:

"Telecom Italia announces today that it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Italy within the year."

Mama mia, Tim Cook wasn't joking around when he said Apple wasn't tied to any particular business model, now was he?

Is this something particular to the specific Italian market? A test-case for carrier non-exclusivity? Or a sign of how business for Apple will be done from now on?

What do you think?

iPhone Risk: And Then There Were 17!

Figures. Right after I go to all the trouble of cut and pasting together an April iPhone Risk Roundup, Vodafone goes ahead and announces 10 more countries, more than doubling the amount of countries having, or set to have, the iPhone! Apple Insider goes on locations:

"Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network," the carrier said in a statement without providing further detail.

A look at our newly overpopulated score board:

Vodofone, of course, owns Verizon in the US, which is rumored to have taken a pass on Apple's iPhone, leading to the current AT&T exclusivity deal. Back with a vengeance much?

Like the Canadian detail-free announcement from Rogers, it's also likely these deals will involve the as-yet-unannounced-but-widely-expected 3G iPhone, though given the rest of the world's 3G-centricity, it certainly should. Also unknown is whether these will be the exclusive deals involving revenue sharing and pressure towards unlimited data plans Apple pioneered with the initial iPhone launch last year.

What do you think?

(PS - Apple, help a blogger out and release more of your little flag circle icons. Those things don't Photoshop themselves, b'okay?)

Thurrott'ling Apple's "Day and Date" Movie Sales

Windows pundit and out of the closet iPhone lover Paul Thurrott brings his usual brand of over-the-top Apple baiting and legitimate griping to bear on iTune's recent announcement of "day and date" movie downloads, where iTunes will offer the latest from Hollywood for sale (not rental!) the same day as DVDs are released.

Thurrott rightly points out that $15 for no-extras, unilingual, often non-captioned, DRM-laden movies is just too pricey, and even (though in a later point) that Hollywood is charging apple a whopping $16 per film, meaning Apple is taking a $1 hit on every movie they sell (as a loss leader to drive iPhone and iPod sales).

And greedy, gluttonous movie studios wonder why people are willing to go through the hassle of pirating (JAR!) content?

He also tells us rental movies don't get the "day and date" treatment, even though Hollywood grants that privilege to CinemaNow and Movielink (whom he makes sure to mention had "day-and-date" purchases before iTunes as well).

Although Apple link-bait to be sure, Thurrott does place some small blame on the movie industry. Please allow me to add massive quantities more. Like the record companies, terrified of Apple becoming the #1 seller of music (whoops! too late!), the movie industry wants to give competitors some competitive advantage, with apparently no consideration for consumers who, 70% of whom, according to US market share, have iPods, including the iPhone, and would benefit from this content being made available under the same terms (if not more fairly priced with fairer terms of use) via iTunes.

But the movie industry is afraid of Apple "ruining" their business the way Apple "ruined" music. It couldn't possibly be that the advent of the internet allowed creators to connect with consumers without the usury and distribution oligopoly of old media?

What says Thurrot?

I'd point out two things: That the ongoing migration from physical media (VHS, DVD) in the entertainment world mirrors a similar migration in software delivery, from physical media (floppy, CD, DVD) to subscription services and cloud computing. More pertinent to this story however, is the notion that anyone who is buying digital movies from iTunes (or any other service) is simply wasting their money. The future is anywhere, anytime on-demand delivery of content, delivered as subscription service. The very notion that someone needs to "own" a movie is outdated, especially when that movie is an intangible and demonstrably inflexible DRM-encoded digital file.

Fairly priced, DRM-free content, let's say new movie rentals for $2 and purchases for $4, and there would be no casual piracy (and greatly reduced piracy in general). Volume pricing, given the economy of moving around nearly-free bits via legitimate p2p within a network may not be a working business model for the movie industry, but then again, it could just make them a fortune...

At that point it becomes, like iTunes music, an impulse buy, and I know I would spend more per month on that than I do now on physical media that costs them much more to produce and distribute.

What do you think?

3G Rumors: Austria to Test 3G iPhone?

Apple Insider reports that, according to T-Mobile, the 3G iPhone is slated for immanent testing in Austria:

Specifically, a German-laguage report in derStandard.at states that officials from the carrier said a "UMTS version" of the iPhone would be made available in Austria "shortly," and that the country would be one of just a handful to serve as a "testing" ground for the next-generation device."

Why Austria and, most importantly, why UTMS and not the specific UTMS-extending protocol everyone and their Laporte bandies about in the US, HSDPA?

More controllable territory combined with more widely spread technology standard and deeper market penetration, perhaps? Or is this just T-Com talking out of their collective assumptions again?

What do you think?

iPhone 2.0: Aiya! Chinese "Handwriting" Support?

Thanks to iPhone developer, forum regular, and troll-slayer extraordinaire cmaier for passing along this gem from McRumors:

Apple has quietly included handwriting recognition for Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) into the latest iPhone Firmware 2.0 beta. When you select Chinese input, you are given the option to use handwriting recognition allowing you to draw characters on the screen with your finger. As you write the character, four possibilities appear on the right side of the screen.

Simplified characters, the official version in Mainland China, is the key to one massive market. Traditional characters, used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, regaining popularity in the South of China, and adapted to form parts of the Japanese and some South East Asian regional/cultural groups, is key to a second.

(Not to mention what implications, if any, this has for on-again/off-again China Mobile discussions...)

Having studied Chinese for a few years, and not having found any handset character recognition I've been particularly fond of yet, I'm likewise eager to see what Apple can bring to the table.

What do you think?

iPhone at Work, the Business Case - Wait-a-Thon

A strange thing happens around the corporate office when I whip out my iPhone and check email, place a call, or browse Safari. There is first silence, then Also Sprach Zarathustra (theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey) slowly builds to a crescendo and my office colleagues gather like early man around the mysterious black monolith.

You see, like most offices across the land, we use mostly Blackberries. Now, I'm not sayin' that these BB toters are Neanderthal, pre-man or apes; I mean, they have to have opposable thumbs to work the keyboard, right? I'm merely pointing out that my iPhone is the ONLY iPhone on the premises and somehow I get my work done and keep track of my schedule, contacts and email, just like everyone else. Read on to see if your iPhone can survive in a hostile work environment!

Google Apps Prettied Up for iPhone

Here at Smartphone Experts we use gmail for our main email and also use Google Apps Premier for our documents. Looks like we can add to the list of things that the iPhone excels at, business-wise: Google Apps. That list, by the way, is coming up shortly as a Wait-a-Thon post.

Meanwhile, if you, like us, use Google for business, your iPhone is now a great tool for that business:

Google has produced a new, generalized iPhone interface for its Google Apps suite of web applications. [...] To access the new interface, people should visit "http://www.google.com/m/a/your-domain.com" in Safari, where "your-domain.com" is replaced with a user's actual account domain. The new interface is currently only available for the English-language version of the Apps website. - [ipodnn]

Google's iPhone fixation continues apace. With any luck at at all, the release of the iPhone 2.0 software will mean that iPhone users will be able to catch up with Windows Mobile users and be able to install and use Google Gears, Google's offline app platform.

Update: Oh yeah, per the Google Blog, their stuff is now available in 33 countries and Google News' iPhone interface is now sweetness too.

Cringely: Apple to Buy Adobe, Gruber: Cringely's Nuts

Like a moth to a flame or a Blackberry addict to email, I am drawn once again into the train wreck that is Flash on the iPhone. This time it's courtesy one Robert X. Cringely, and it's a brain bender!

Cringely says:

It seems obvious to me, however, that there is only one real reason why [rumors circulating the National Association of Broadcasters show suggested] Apple would sell off its professional applications [like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Shake, and Aperture] and that’s to avoid antitrust problems when/if Apple buys Adobe Systems as I predicted at the beginning of the year.

Gruber responds:

I Think Cringely Is Off His Meds Again

Daring Fireball's John Gruber goes on to say that while Apple may (or may not) sell off its Pro Apps, it would only do so to downsize and maintain focus, something buying Adobe would pretty much be the opposite of.

Personally, I think Apple stands to benefit immensely one day from controlling the media pipe end-to-end, and part of that control is the high end content creation tools, the Pro Apps. That's Apple end game, the media hub and all its satellites. And if you want that, you don't go selling off your launch vehicles.

What do you think?

AT&T discontinues free Wi-Fi for iPhone users?

According to reports submitted to MacRumors, users are no longer able to access free Wi-Fi at Starbucks and Barnes & Nobles Locations.

I am sure this is due to a “beta” phase for AT&T to test connectivity. Once wind got out that people are accessing it, they stopped. The fact that AT&T is even doing this is really cool; it adds value to the AT&T proposition for their mobile service.

Will AT&T Extend the Wi-Fi “courtesy” officially? Perhaps AT&T will offer customers Wi-Fi for use on laptops? Who knows, we are still waiting for an official AT&T press release describing their future Wi-Fi plans.

I think anyone will agree that whatever AT&T is doing, it will be better than T-Mobile’s offerings.

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, May 3rd Edition

Not evil twin to Phone Different Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple's current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place -- best not to linger...). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!

Gizmodo Smash... er... Doubt Puny 3G iPhone Pics Leak!

Real? Fake? Really fake? We don't know yet, but Gizmodo is joining the growing crowd of logo distorted, cheesy-photoshop artifact'ed, no way this thing got within 100 miles (how far is Redmond again?) of Jonathan Ive, doubters.

While the accessory makers may have struck them some gold on the specs-side, it's looking increasingly like our French compatriots were either duped, or helped consipire up some duping. Merde indeed:

Some frogsters* with no track record are claiming that this piece of scratched plastic—which in the photo looks like a cheapo LG cellphone clone wannabe—is the new iPhone 3G. Although it matches the rumored all-black and specs, we don't believe it's the real thing. The reason: these photos have been up since 12:04AM Central European Time and it's now 4:04PM. That's 16 hours up with no Cease and Desist order—and Apple Europe is as aggressive with leaks as Cupertino. In any case, check its back and tell us what you think after the jump.

What do you think?

Adobe to Make Flash More Open, Apple to Care?

Confession: I'm suffering from extreme PFSD (Posting about Flash Stress Disorder). All this "will it" "won't it" "please don't let it" blog-pong has me cowering beneath my laptop. But I believe in facing my fears, real and absurd, so let's see what Ars Technica has to report:

Adobe has announced a new initiative called Open Screen, which aims to make the company's Flash multimedia technology ubiquitous on mobile and embedded devices. Adobe plans to eliminate the licensing fees required to distribute its own Flash player and AIR runtime implementations on mobile devices and will also remove licensing restrictions on the specifications for the FLV and SWF formats so that developers can create fully-compatible independent Flash player implementations.

FLV is big. Previously, 3rd parties had fairly open access to the rendered SWF format, but not the source FLV (in Flash, you build in FLV and export "movies" in SWF). Now, while Adobe won't be opening up the source to their own Flash kit, they will be removing restrictions against competitive (video player, plugin, etc.) implementations. In other words, Adobe isn't giving away the keys to the Flash kingdom, but they're letting developers build a little village just outside the gates.

"Open as in Microsoft" more than "open as in GNU/Linux" to be sure, but this does take steps to remove one of the greatest criticism levied against Flash on the web: proprietary technology lock-in. (Which is unlike HTML, CSS, and AJaX -- open, standards based technologies, that no one company could suddenly demand huge payments for, roll-in unwanted "features" like DRM, or simply choose to shut down one day, leaving developers stranded).

This is no doubt Adobe's motivation for their increasing openness. They want to drive even more developer adoption towards their Flex and Air platforms, stave off competition from Microsoft's Silverlight technology (which, ironically, has been trying to compete with Flash by offering up unprecedented openness -- from Microsoft!), and keep pace with HTML5's video tag and CSS-based animation.

But what does this all mean for Flash on the iPhone?

A more open, accessible license may let Apple build their own implementation, one they're more comfortable with, and one that fills that missing middle slot between Flash Lite and Flash (desktop) that Steve Jobs feigned interest in.

Or it may just let Adobe or some 3rd party unleash another Flashenstein Monster a la Sony Ericsson.

Personally, I'll be stockpiling torches and pitchforks (soon as I can stop cowering, that is). What do you think?

Phone Different Week in Review May 2, 2008

Phone Different Week in Review May 2, 2008

Every week I will be bringing you what I think are the week’s biggest stories and articles. Here we go!

It feels so good…

Is Apple adding some sort of haptic feedback to the iPhone? How would they do it. What is haptic feedback anyway?

You Control, iControl…

Could Apple be working on an app for the iPhone that would enable it to control an Apple TV and iTunes? It sounds to good to be true!

3G Rumor Smashers: Gruber on $200 iPhones

While the interwebs stroke themselves into a furor over rumors that AT&T might just subsidize the iPhone 3G down to $200, Daring Fireball's John Gruber once again asks that he be allowed to retort:

So says one report, using one anonymous source, from Scott Moritz, a “reporter” with an appalling track record regarding Apple and the iPhone. The same Scott Moritz who reported in July last year that Apple had cut back its production order on iPhones based on a “trading note” from Miller Tabak, a note which, it ends up, didn’t actually exist. And, as we know now, Apple went on to sell more iPhones than expected in 2007, not fewer.

Speculation ensues as to whether or not the AT&T exclusivity extends only to the current iPhone, and not the so-called iPhone 3G, and whether or not AT&T may want to take a price hit to keep Apple close. Gruber, however, quickly points out:

This comes so close to uncovering the obvious and glaring problem with a $200 AT&T iPhone subsidy, but, alas, Hesseldahl and his keen economic mind walk right past it. The problem is this: why would Apple allow AT&T to sell iPhones for half the price of what iPhones cost in Apple’s own stores (including this one)?

What do you think?

In Ur SDK: Java Jonathan Special Edition

Engadget Mobile, still magenta and proud, just sat down for a chat with Sun Microsystems CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, and naturally, primarily, the topic turned the baby leopard in the room, the iPhone:

So I'm curious, what kind of phone do you carry?

As of yesterday, an iPhone.

Butofcourse. Any guess as to the first thing Schwartz wants to do with it? No, not watch a day-and-date movie. No, not browse the real internet. No, not Google locate Scott McNealy spirit (what, to obscure?). He wants:

...the Java platform

Sigh. While Java does run on almost every other phone but Apple's Cocoa powered platform, enabling everything from the Blackberry OS, to the carrier crapplets everyone loves to hate, does the iPhone really need double-layered SDK? And doesn't Apple's iPhone SDK user license agreement specifically forbid the old code-within-a-code play?

Quoth the Schwartz:

Well I think the only difficulty will be what Apple presents through its EULA. But I think that I think EULA is a bit of an oxymoron to me. They're end users, they have the freedom to choose what they'd like to do, so I think we are going to leave it up to users to decide how they want to use the technology

Apple, of course, does use the Java-based WebObjects for it's Apple and iTunes stores, so my guess isn't that they're adverse to it in theory, they just want to use it where it makes sense -- web and server based applications that benefit from code portability more than performance. They're just not keen to have it on their phone, where it may only make the kind of sense that doesn't.

Personally, I love it whenever needlessly Java-based apps spin up for interpretation, downgrading both performance and my sanity. Any programmer who cares about the device, performance, and power will almost certainly WANT to write as close to the metal as possible, at that will mean porting to Cocoa Touch.

What do you think?

3G iPhone Photo?

Check out this Translated version of http://www.iphon.fr/ [via Engadget] - it looks very close to the iPhone 3G dimensions we told you about yesterday. The shots are anonymous, unverified, etc etc. They could be face, but they sure don't look it based on the fact that we can see evidence of real use (scratches) and based on the general un-photoshopped-appearance of the images.

It's certainly still iPhone-esque, but to my eyes looks a little more like a generic smartphone than I'd prefer. What do you think? Legit? Good-looking?

Top 10 Reasons the iPhone is Incomparable - Wait-a-Thon!

[Ed: We're bringing back the Wait-a-Thon and making it regular again. Sorry we dropped it off there for awhile, folks. With all those 3G and iPhone 2.0 rumors flying about these past couple of weeks, it almost felt like the release was already here. In the meantime, comment on any post tagged "Wait-a-Thon" for your chance to win a $100 iTunes Gift Card!]

This is not a response to Crackberry.com's excellent article, Top 10 Reasons Why the iPhone Is NO BlackBerry. Quite frankly, the iPhone doesn't need a response; it's the rest of industry that's so desperately trying to find one to the iPhone.

I don't know about you, but it's getting more than a little tiring hearing everyone compare themselves to -- and constantly try to rip-off -- the iPhone. I can't surf a website or cruise the main without some claw-handed Crackberry addict, neck-bearded Palm artifact, or frazzle-haired WinMob frustrati glaring and frothing with barely-contained envy at the perfectly balanced, seamlessly integrated, lustfully convergent iPhone held ever-so casually in my grip.

They know the iPhone is beyond cool. Sure, they cling to their once innovative, formerly revolutionary (at least in the case of Palm and RIM) devices, the ones overwhelming nostalgia or massive business infrastructure investment won't let them slam to the ground and stomp into the call-dropping, web-mangling, constantly crashing oblivion they so richly deserve.

So the comparisons to the iPhone just won't stop, despite the fact that the iPhone is pretty much incomparable. Don't believe me? I've got ten reasons to back me up. And these aren't minor feature gripes or personal peccadilloes. In proper Apple fashion, these are just 10 simple little words...

More Details Emerge on 3G iPhone Casing

We've seen accessory makers spill the beans on upcoming products before. In the Treo space, an accessory maker went so far as to put their demo unit on a convention show floor. There was also the "fatty nano" rumor that seems ludicrous right up until the moment that Apple released precisely what the accessory maker had leaked. Things on the iPhone side are, of course, quite a bit more hush-hush, so apparently what these accessory makers have is just some rough dimensions, according to iLounge:

Companies overseas have already started working on products for this one, which is basically the same size as the current iPhone, but has slightly different curves, coloration, and materials.

We also get confirmation of the tip-top "Black and basically the same" rumor. The glossy black plastic is apparently quite a bit fancier than what you're imagining, and toss in a very slight taper across the back as well. A few slight adjustments to the location of the various sensors on the iPhone and the story looks pretty complete and pretty legit.

Oh, yeah, looks like color options besides black might be thrown into this heady mix of iPhone 3G stew as well. MMmmmmm ....HSDPA.