Well, it's still February now, but it looks as though the SDK may not officially make it out the door until next month, suggesting that rumors of a delay were on the money. Apple's now sending out invitations to the press for a special event to announce the iPhone's Software Development Kit, next week on March 6th.
The shindig, which takes place on Apple Campus at Building 4's Town Hall begins at 10AM Pacific, with registration starting at 9AM. The invitation reads:
Please joins us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features.We're guessing that the "enterprise features" in question have little to do with J.J. Abrams's forthcoming Star Trek movie—more's the pity. Perhaps Exchange support? In any case, we know that even though the iPhone doesn't have a big business presence, those who do have seem to like it. Let the countdowns officially begin.
I'm not usually a huge fan of holster cases; there's something about them that makes me feel a little too corporate. I also worry from time to time—perhaps irrationally—about the phone falling out of the holster and being dashed into a million pieces. Still, I can understand the appeal of not having to constantly fish your iPhone out of your pocket. Contour Design's $30 iSee for iPhone does what it can to alleviate my second concern by pairing a belt holster with a transparent plastic case.
The iSee comes in two sections that you snap together around the iPhone. The back section reaches down only to where the black antenna portion of the iPhone begins; that part is protected by a wrap-around section of the front part of the case that creates a little cradle for you to slide the bottom of your iPhone into. Snap on the back half and you've got full coverage for your phone. The case gives you complete access to the iPhone's touchscreen, Home button, and earpiece on the front; the headphone jack and Sleep/Wake switch on top; volume controls and Ring/Silent switch on the side; microphone, speaker, and dock-connector port on the bottom; and camera on the back. There are also two small dimples in the sides of the case that help it snap securely into the included belt holder. One nice touch: the back of the case features three non-stick rubber feet that keep your iPhone from sliding around when you put it down on a table or counter.
Although the iSee's plastic feels a little flimsy when you don't have the phone in it, the construction is actually pretty solid: I dropped the whole shebang on the floor a couple times—by accident of course—and had no damage to either iPhone or case. I was also a little worried about the belt holster, which is just a plastic frame into which you snap the iPhone, but those worries proved unfounded; the iPhone feels very secure when you insert it into the holster and only extremely violent shaking dislodges it. Although the iPhone's screen is left uncovered by the case, the case is thick enough that the screen ends up slightly recessed, which helps offset potential damage. Also, you can put your iSee-encased iPhone in the holster with the screen facing inwards for all-over protection.
From an accessibility standpoint, my only complaint is minor: the opening for the iPhone's dock-connector port is a little narrow, so while Apple's standard dock cable fits fine, larger accessories that rely on the dock-connector port may not. On the other hand, like the screen, the iPhone's other controls end up slightly recessed, which I found actually helped prevent accidental button-pushing.
The iSee does add a little bulk to the iPhone, but not considerably more than similar cases. It may not be the most attractive case of its type on the market, but it's hardly the ugliest either. All in all, while it may not provide the most robust protection on the market, the iSee is a good case that should keep your iPhone safe and sound.
Back when I was a freshman, we were lucky if our rooms had cable TV hookups and, er, running water. Nowadays, forking over tens of thousands of dollars a year not only gets you an education, but also—in the case of the almost 5,000 student Abilene Christian University—your own iPhone or iPod touch.
The program aims to make technology a pervasive part of the students' every day life, by allowing them to receiving homework assignments, check their meal and account balances, and participate in in-class surveys on the devices. The university's technology professionals have already created over fifteen different web apps handling those and other tasks. To show off their vision, they've also created a movie called Connected which imagines what a day in the life of a, well, connected university might look like.
The university's CIO, Kevin Roberts was invited to Cupertino to demo Abilene's program for Apple execs as well as higher education reps from the likes of Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Duke. This isn't the first program of its kind—Duke University has in the past handed out iPods to incoming classes—but it is the first to make use of the iPhone and iPod touch's network capabilities.
Heck, I was happy just to have Ethernet back in my college days. I can imagine a number of high school seniors reevaluating their enrollment decisions right about now...
As you may have read over at our lovely parent site (or seen as you plugged your iPhone into iTunes), firmware update 1.1.4 is on its way down the tubes. I've already upgraded my phone to the latest available software, so I can take full advantage of its brand new...er...bug fixes.
Seriously, that's all Apple is giving us. "Bug fixes." 162MB worth of bug fixes, to be sure, but I've already been through all the apps, and nothing major has jumped out at me. The most logical theory seems to be that Apple is setting the stage for the iPhone Software Development Kit, which is still as far we know due out sometime this week, making sure that the iPhone's software is as secure and stable as possible before unleashing hordes of anxious developers upon the platform.
Have you upgraded? Run into any bugs that 1.1.4 mysterious fixes? Let us known in the comments below.
Want to save a little battery life while listening to your favorite video podcast on your iPhone? Or maybe you just want to cue it up to listen to when you're at the gym working out, but don't need to watch the video. An anonymous tipster over at our sister site, Mac OS X Hints, points out that if you access a video podcast through the Podcast section of the iPhone's iPod application, you'll get just the audio—if you want to watch the video as well, you have to access it through the Video section.
The same, I happened to notice, is true of music videos. You can get to them through the music listings, like Artist, Album, or Song, but you'll just get a video still when you listen to them. In order to get the full video effect, you'll have to go through the Video tab.
Are you the type who set your Countdown Dashboard widget to February as soon as Apple promised that this would be the month it rolled out a Software Development Kit for the iPhone? If so, you may want to start thinking of March as the new February... at least if BusinessWeek's Arik Hesseldahl is on the money.
A post on BusinessWeek's Byte of the Apple blog late Friday raised the possibility that February will come and go with no new developments on the iPhone SDK front:
I'm hearing from one source that its going to be late. I'm not yet hearing any reasons why, and it's sounding like the official release date could slide by anywhere from one to three weeks.
Apple had no comment, and as yet there's no word on any events related to an SDK release next week. However I'm also hearing that the situation is fluid, and a lot of last-minute decisions are close to being made about what precisely will or will not be disclosed next week, if anything. There are, apparently, a lot of moving parts to something this complex.
We could have confirmation or denial of this report in as little as 24 hours. Remember that Apple tends to be a busy little beaver on Tuesdays, with releases such as Xsan 2, a revamped iPod shuffle lineup, an update to Aperture, the Apple TV, Take Two software update, and higher capacities for the iPhone and iPod touch appearing on earlier Tuesdays this month. So if Apple has an SDK ready to drop, chances are good that it will appear tomorrow.
And if it doesn't? Well, February doesn't come to a close until Friday.
Would it be a big deal if Apple misses its self-imposed February ship date for the SDK? I'm guessing my colleague Rob Griffiths would say no -- over at the Mothership, he's written a piece lauding the number of iPhone apps that are available right now without any SDKs to guide the way for developers.
I made a fascinating discovery today, one which will undoubtedly land me an interview spot on CNN and a stint on all the major morning talk shows: drop your 8GB iPhone into a glass of water -- entirely submerged -- and watch it be magically replaced by a brand-new 16GB model.
All you need is a water-damaged iPhone, some serious frustration, and a wad of cash when you walk into the Apple Store. My notorious ADD-inspired (perhaps subconsciously-percipitated) clumsiness somehow resulted in me dropping my precious iPhone -- the same one I stomped on and beat to death with the magnificent OtterBox Armor -- into a full glass of ice water. All the phone could do after that was turn on and off...and on and off, and on and off...by itself...non-stop. It was almost as if the top on/off button was continually triggering its functions -- even when the button wasn't actually pressed.
I went to the iPod Bar at the store, and they told me I could get a replacement for about $250. All of a sudden, my mind was seized by vent-expelled polycarbonate-scented pheromones designed to relax the mind and make customers easily influenced by the nuclear-powered Reality Distortion Field generator built into every Apple Store. Within minutes, I was handing my credit card to the cashier, robotically paying for a new 16GB iPhone.
Apparently they've upgraded those RDF machines since the last time I was there. Damn.
Of course, when I mentioned to the Genius that I had dropped it in water, his first response was: "...the toilet, right?" No, no. A glass of water. Apparently toilet droppings are quite common (snicker). A friend of mine had a similar issue: Two days after purchasing his iPhone he dropped it right into the toilet -- not gonna ask -- and killed it. He hook it to the Apple Store, confessed truthfully to the mishap, and blammo: they gave him a new one on the spot.
As with all Apple products, support experiences vary -- and when you're getting support at the store, it all depends on the Genius who's helping you. They have crazy discretion. Sound off in the comments: have you dropped your iPhone into a cup, a puddle, or toilet? How'd you deal with it?
To all those who said the iPhone couldn't possibly succeed in the world of business, I proffer this one interesting statistic: according to the folks at ChangeWave Research, Apple led the pack in business customer satisfaction among smart phone manufacturers, topping the likes of RIM, Palm, and Motorola.
A healthy 59% of iPhone business users proclaimed themselves "very satisfied" with their purchase, followed by Blackberry manufacturer RIM, who rang in at 47% (not bad, by any means, but an 8% drop from the last time ChangeWave conducted the survey). Of course, Apple still has a relatively small market share among business users, which ChangeWave pegs at a meager 5% next to RIM's dominating 73%, but 11% of customers polled said that they would buy an iPhone, again, next to a healthy 77% for RIM.
Business users have traditionally not been a strong market for Apple, but it's at least positive to see that those who have gone the iPhone route enjoy it.
