Another week, another beta version of the iPhone SDK. I haven’t seen this many sequels since the Rocky franchise. So, what does Beta IV bring to the table (sadly, not an appearance by Dolph Lundgren)?
Most importantly, the iPhone Simulator (the app you can run on your Mac that makes it look like you’re running on an iPhone) now supports Open GL ES, allowing the Simulator to run 3D graphics that are the same as the iPhone’s. That’s good news especially for those designing games. New iPhone OS templates are also included.
The second major addition is Code Signing, which is now being enforced on iPhones and iPod touches. That means that unless you have a valid certificate issued by Apple as part of the developer program, your apps will no longer run on the iPhone or iPod touch—they will, however, still work in the iPhone Simulator on your Mac. Code Signing is a big part of the touted security of the iPhone OS; I wonder what effect it will have on the future of jailbreak apps if digital signatures are required for all applications. I suppose we’ll see in June.
The Times of London has seen the future, and it may not include a touchscreen.
In the midst of an article on how Apple's European partners overestimated the demand for first-generation iPhones and will likely take a bath on clearing out inventory for the rumored 3G iPhone that's in the works, the Times' Jonathan Richards reports on what form that future iPhone might take.
Industry sources told Times Online that the device will have a "radically different" appearance to the current device, which has a 4.5 inch screen and slick, aluminium backing. Among the possibilities are flip version, which would enable the screen to be larger, and a sliding model with a regular qwerty keyboard -- as opposed to a touchscreen one.
In fact, the Times goes on to say, we may wind up with multiple iPhone models -- one that looks like the current version for users who basically want an iPod with a phone attached, one with a keyboard for people who want a communication tool, and a third model with a larger screen for people who demand a laptop replacement. Which raises the question as to whether we're even talking about an iPhone anymore or some new, still-theoretical mobile device from Cupertino.
The Dallas Morning News -- from which I snagged the Times link -- thinks this is a bad idea. Victor Godinez writes in the paper's Technology Blog:
The reason the iPhone has become such an iconic device -- at least to us naive hicks in the U.S. -- is that it dumped all the clunky, conventional cell phone features.
Unfounded speculation or keen insight into the iPhone's future? We'll find out for certain later this year, I guess, when the 3G iPhone will reportedly debut.
Apple releases its quarterly earnings today in a ceremony the investment community has quickly embraced as Count the iPhones Day. You may recall that during Apple's first-quarter earnings announcement in January, the company announced that it had sold 2.3 million phones during the three-month period, bringing total iPhone sales to 4 million since the June 2007 launch. Those figures wound up setting the Internet abuzz in a merry game of Where Are the Missing iPhones, with the explanation ultimately being the most likely one.
Expect more of the same today, only hopefully without so much speculation and guesswork. Apple will report how many iPhones it sold between the start of January and the end of March. Analysts will quickly calculate how many iPhones the company has sold to date and whether that total puts Apple on pace to meet its 10-million-iPhones-sold goal by year's end. And analysts will pester Apple executives Peter Oppenheimer and Tim Cook for more details about the iPhone's reported expansion into Italy and the possibility of it reaching China, while Oppenheimer and Cook deftly avoid saying anything beyond re-iterating Apple's previously state roll-out plans for the iPhone.
It's more fun than I'm making it sound, actually. If you'd like to follow along at home, Macworld will have live coverage of Apple's second-quarter earnings announcement later today. In the meantime, you can whet your appetite for iPhone-themed facts and figures by gazing at AT&T's quarterly results. The telecom giant -- and iPhone partner -- saw its profit rise 22 percent, thanks in part to iPhone sales.
If reports in the Rome daily newspaper La Repubblica are true -- and I've never known a Rome news daily to mislead me, not ever -- than the iPhone should be making its Italian debut. That would add Italy to the ranks of the U.K., Germany, France, Ireland, and -- one of these days -- Austria.
But that's not the big story here. I mean, the iPhone coming to another country? Pfffft -- it's been done.
No, the eyebrow-raising details are to be found elsewhere in the La Repubblica report. The newspaper says that Telecom Italia's deal to distribute the iPhone is of the nonexclusive variety, meaning other carriers could also offer the iPhone. That would make Apple's arrangement in Italy different from its deals in... let me just double-check here... everywhere.
Should you be feeling the slightest twinge of envy at the freedom allegedly to be enjoyed by Italian iPhone consumers, realize that non-exclusivity will come with an apparent price. La Repubblica reports that the iPhone will be sold at a higher price in Italy than in other markets to compensate for the lack of revenue sharing.
But even that's not the entire story. The newspaper also says the agreement calls for the distribution of iPhones compatible with 3G networks. Again, this would be quite the change from the iPhones currently available in other markets.
You can read what I assume to be the original La Repubblica story here. However, if your fluency in Italian is as non-existent as mine, perhaps you'd be more comfortable with the wire story we reprinted at Macworld. It has all the details, including this nugget about the 3G aspect:
The deal reflects Italy's lead in 3G penetration and mobile Internet navigation, with Telecom Italia having more than double the number of 3G users than the principal mobile phone operators in France, Britain and Spain, the paper said.
We suspect that this will only ramp up speculation about the 3G iPhone's imminent arrival by just a scosch.
Doug, a fellow resident of the greater Boston metropolitan area, wrote in to ask about the state of voice memos on the iPhone. You’ve long been able to buy an add-on for your iPod that attaches to the dock-connector port and lets you record messages that are then transferred to iTunes. But Doug was concerned that the iPhone doesn’t support seem to support these features.
Yes, there is no native support for recording on the iPhone, but there are some workarounds if this is a must have piece of functionality for you. Which way you go depends very much on whether you’re interested in jailbreaking your phone.
If you don’t mind going through the extra process of jailbreaking (which these days is really as simple as downloading an application and hitting a button), then you can use the Installer.app to download Erica Sadun’s Voice Notes application. Voice Notes is pretty simple: it lets you record using the iPhone built-in mic and play back with the iPhone’s speaker. However, it won’t let you sync your voice memos with iTunes, like the iPod accessories do—instead, you can choose to email the memos. You can also import your voicemail into Voice Notes, which can be quite useful if you want to access them on a computer.
On the other hand, if jailbreaking isn’t your cup of tea, then you might consider the free service Reqall. Once you’ve set up an account, all you do is dial a number on your phone to leave a message—Reqall will then transcribe your message into text, and allow you to retrieve it on the web, via IM, or on your phone. Plus, they’ve got a snazzy iPhone-specific web-based interface.
There’s always the chance that Apple will add this functionality to the iPhone, or that a third-party might make an app in June, but if you don’t want to wait in the meantime, then perhaps one of these solutions will tide you over until then.
I consume what an expert might call “way too much media,” but even I only have so much time. More often than not, I need to keep a list—a queue if you will—of all the books, movies, TV shows, music, video games, etc. that I want to check out. Sure, I could just keep a note in the iPhone Notes app, but sometimes typing the information in is just an exercise in frustration.
Besides, a picture = 1K words, right? Snapping a shot is easy, but it still means that you have to take the time to do the heavy lifting later. That’s where ViPR comes in. Designed by Evolution Robotics Inc., ViPR is a visual pattern recognition system: you can take a picture of an object like a book or movie, email it to the ViPR server, and have it send you back information about it, including links to iTunes (for music), YouTube (for video), and the web. The software even seems to be able to do its job if you take sloppy off-angle pictures, like me, snap an upside down shot, or have your hand covering part of the object.
The company’s also developing a native iPhone application, which they say is due out in June. I’m hoping for some robust list features so I can really keep track of all my extensive media habits. Hit the jump below for a demo video.
[via Gizmodo]
Continue reading "Picture this: ViPR recognizes books, music, DVDs"
I find mapping one of the iPhone’s most indispensable features, if for no other reason than I rarely have any idea exactly where I am at any given time. While Google’s Maps application is the most prominent way to get that information, it’s not the only one. Microsoft’s newest version of Live Maps is finally Safari-compatible on both the Mac and the iPhone.
I’ve been a diehard Google Maps user for some time, but I decided to give Live Maps a quick try just to see what I’d been missing out on. On the Mac side, I admit it’s got some nice features (I dig the Bird’s Eye view), and even though it told me that I actually lived in the house next door (I never knew!), it’s mapping features seem pretty good. The much-touted 3D view does not currently work on Safari, though.
On the iPhone, it’s a different matter. This isn’t entirely Microsoft’s fault: it’s hard to compete with the native implementation of Google’s maps. But we know it’s possible to have a good web app experience on the iPhone, and Microsoft doesn’t really seem interested in doing that at all.
Take, for example, the zooming controls, which are on the left side of the map. Like most maps, when you hit the “Zoom In” control, it zooms on the center. The problem is that the map isn’t sized for the iPhone’s screen, and it’s only really usable in landscape orientation. Even then, you need to get the map to a size where it’s both a) easily visible and b) the controls are large enough that you can tap them precisely. That’s already asking me to do a lot more finagling than I should have to.
And with no pinch-zooming and swiping to move the map around, it’s impossible for MS to compete with the simplicity of Google’s Maps application. Perhaps when App Store opens, Microsoft will be able to build a better Map widget, as it were, but until then, things are looking in Google’s direction.
[via Infinite Loop]
And in the UK today, much rejoicing. As predicted, mobile provider O2 announced that they will be dropping the price of the 8GB iPhone to £169 until June 1st—that’s £100 less than it originally retailed for when it was released in November of last year. The 16GB model, meanwhile, is still available for the original £329.
In Germany, T-Mobile sharply dropped the price of the 8GB iPhone earlier this month, adding heft to the rumors that a new model of iPhone is imminent. With O2’s deal running until June 1st, and the related supply shortages we’ve been hearing about, it seems logical that we’ll see some sort of refresh of the iPhone line in June—which, come to think about it, is right on time with a certain tech pundit’s (later-retracted) prediction. Iiiiiinteresting. Then again, maybe that’s just the timeframe for a 32GB iPhone. You never know with these jokers.
