Mobile – Page 17 – ɔimoɈɒ

iPhone stuff

At some point last night, Apple’s development servers fell over and died. These servers can hold 40 000+ concurrent download streams but there were so many people downloading the new iPhone SDK that the whole server became unresponsive. After several hours of trying, I finally got a connection at 11 pm and left the SDK and iTunes videos to download overnight, which they did. At the same time, I watched the video of the introduction of the SDK and demos from AOL, Saleforce and EA. As it drew to a close, so did my eyes.

This morning I installed the SDK and started to read what teh internets was saying about the day before. There are guys from Apple on Twitter providing links and snippets of info to help people get started. And of course, teh internets have spoken.
Jason at 37signals sounds off on his vision for the iPhone.

“What we saw today was the beginning of two-decades of mobile domination by Apple. What Microsoft and Windows was to the desktop, Apple and Touch will be to mobile.”

Steve Job’s Fortune interview (which I covered here yesterday) talks about how bad it feels to not be able to capture market share even though you might have a much better product. The iPod shows that it’s possible to capture a market by crafting a good product. Apple’s history has been full of examples of how to lose a market in the past so it’s nice to see them taking the lead for once.
TUAW reports that iPlayer is actually working for the iPhone. Content is limited but I’d encourage everyone with an iPhone to give it a go.

“A limited selection of shows from the iPlayer have been made available to UK residents on their iPhones. … At the moment only the BBC-produced ‘Whistleblower’ documentary seems to be working from the iPlayer website, with content being streamed-only via the iPhone’s built-in QuickTime player “
Apple has posted the video of the SDK Roadmap here so if you have a spare hour or so, give it a go.
From the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines

Only one iPhone application can run at a time, and third-party applications never run in the background. This means that when users switch to another application, answer the phone, or check their email, the application they were using quits.

This is a serious consideration when you’re managing things like editing documents or wanting to save progress in a game. There has to be some continuation – do you ‘journal’ progress? Are there spare cycles in the CPU to do a quick save every second?
We had a bit of an emergency meeting in the wee small hours this morning over IM regarding the futures of our software development efforts and we’re going to publish that news in a few days.

ADSL down at home

SKy Broadband at home are sufficiently reliable most of the time but when the connection drops, then you know it’s just bad juju on their end. Last night the connection dropped while I was out (in fact it usually drops while I’m out) and it came back some time in the wee small hours. I … Continue reading “ADSL down at home”

I correct myself: the connection was up, as multiple reboots of the router confirmed and came up at 6300 kbps down, 384 kbps up which is pretty respectable. But the level 3 connection didn’t come up, no IP address was received from their ADSL servers so there was no traffic coming or going. I used a handy password utility on teh internets on my iPhone which takes your serial number and MAC address and provides you with the password for Sky’s broadband network, information they will flat our refuse to give you otherwise. I configured a spare Vigor router and tested. Same again. I went to bed frustrated and not a little pissed off with Sky.

6:30 am this morning everything is working.

I can’t help but think this is demand related. They hit a demand saturation point, run out of IP addresses and just start kicking people off. Very poor.

iPhone SDK. 6th March 2008

According to Macrumors, the iPhone SDK will be announced on March 6th. “Please join us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features,” Apple said in an invitation sent to reporters. Are we to assume Apple has licensed ActiveSync? Are we going to see a demo … Continue reading “iPhone SDK. 6th March 2008”

According to Macrumors, the iPhone SDK will be announced on March 6th.

“Please join us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features,” Apple said in an invitation sent to reporters.

Are we to assume Apple has licensed ActiveSync?

Are we going to see a demo of SAP’s iPhone client?

What about Sling? iChat? iPlayer? Over-the-air Calendar syncing? Push email? PDF Reader? File Manager? Skype?

mobile Learning

Abilene Christian University is investing in mobile learning. What might a university look like with a fully deployed program of converged devices like the iPhone? Connected is one possible vision. This fictional day-in-the-life account highlights some of the potential benefits in a higher education setting when every student, faculty, and staff member is “connected.” Though … Continue reading “mobile Learning”

Abilene Christian University is investing in mobile learning.

What might a university look like with a fully deployed program of converged devices like the iPhone? Connected is one possible vision. This fictional day-in-the-life account highlights some of the potential benefits in a higher education setting when every student, faculty, and staff member is “connected.” Though the applications and functions portrayed in the film are purely speculative, they’re based on needs and ideas uncovered by our research – and we’ve already been making strides to transform this vision of mobile learning (mLearning) into reality.

iPlayer on my iPhone

From TUAW: Hot on the heels of Auntie releasing a selection of videos for sale via the iTunes Store, we somehow missed yesterday’s sneaky revelation that the BBC is intending to release some form of the BBC iPlayer for iPod touch and iPhone ‘in the coming weeks.’ iPlayer is a mixed bag. For Windows users … Continue reading “iPlayer on my iPhone”

From TUAW:

Hot on the heels of Auntie releasing a selection of videos for sale via the iTunes Store, we somehow missed yesterday’s sneaky revelation that the BBC is intending to release some form of the BBC iPlayer for iPod touch and iPhone ‘in the coming weeks.’

iPlayer is a mixed bag. For Windows users you can stream Flash versions or download DRM-laden episodes of your favourite BBC content for offline viewing. For Mac users, there’s just the streaming option.

So what does this mean for iPhone/iPod touch users?

I reckon it means that they’ll do a Youtube and re-encode their iPlayer content into H.264 so that we can watch it over WiFi. I do not believe for a second that the BBC will re-encode and allow us to download content to our iPods. I’d certainly be more impressed with an iPlayer application for iPhone and would actually use it. In comparison, the Youtube player in my iPhone is seldom used because, frankly, Youtube is crap for anything other than showing people the “This is Karate” or “The Baron” sketches from Blunt.

Of course I don’t expect the BBC to do more than that but consider sitting anywhere there’s WiFi and catching up with last nights Eastenders or watching the so-far extremely compelling “Ashes to Ashes” (episode 2 expires today). This is why we pay our license fees, so we can have content on demand, over the t’internet, delivered to our desktops and handhelds.

Encyclopedia Britannica on iPhone.

Britannica Mobile – iPhone Edition In order to ensure the best experience, we’ve specifically optimized this site for the iPhone. Please visit http://i.eb.com on your iPhone or iPod Touch. If you don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch handy, you can still access plenty of great Britannica content from your desktop. Come see us at … Continue reading “Encyclopedia Britannica on iPhone.”

Britannica Mobile – iPhone Edition

In order to ensure the best experience, we’ve specifically optimized this site for the iPhone. Please visit http://i.eb.com on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

If you don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch handy, you can still access plenty of great Britannica content from your desktop. Come see us at http://www.britannica.com.

Nicely done.

Microsoft to start manufacturing phones?

Zu-ne. verb. 1. To fuck over or generally bugger up partners who believed your shite for years and invested heavily in it. (From Zune, noun, a music player released by Microsoft which is incompatible with their previous music sales efforts under the PlaysForSure brand and immediately began to undermine their own branding and hurt their … Continue reading “Microsoft to start manufacturing phones?”

Zu-ne. verb. 1. To fuck over or generally bugger up partners who believed your shite for years and invested heavily in it. (From Zune, noun, a music player released by Microsoft which is incompatible with their previous music sales efforts under the PlaysForSure brand and immediately began to undermine their own branding and hurt their partners).

If you’re currently a vendor of phone handsets using the Windows Mobile operating system, you’re about to get Zuned.

Microsoft has just acquired Danger, makers of the consumer smartphones, the Sidekick. They’re reportedly buying Sidekick to keep it out of Google’s hands as well as to line it up against Research in Motion’s Blackberry and Google’s Android, not to mention Apple’s hit iPhone (which recently garnered 23% of the smartphone market). The Sidekick, although popular, does not run Windows Mobile.

What does this mean to any manufacturer currently using Windows Mobile? Well, if Microsoft is getting into the hardware game for phones then you can expect to have a rough time. This is bad news for beleaguered handset maker, Palm and possibly even worse news for Sony-Ericsson. Palm is floundering after dividing it’s market offering Palm OS and Windows Mobile based handhelds rather than concentrating on developing a decent successor to Palm OS (and what the hell did they do with everything they got from their acquisition of Be?). But there’s more.

After Nokia started road-testing it’s new Linux-based platform in the 770/N800/N810 series of handhelds, Sony-Ericsson knew that it’s use of Symbian as an OS for their phones would leave it in the doldrums in terms of features and development speed. Their solution was the opposite of Nokia’s and they decided to license Windows Mobile.

Boo. Bad mistake.

If Microsoft starts manufacturing their own hardware running their own operating system, where does that leave everyone else who’s investing in Microsoft’s operating systems?

Exactly. Without a paddle.

Don’t believe me? Wikipedia speaks!

During its launch week, the original Zune, now Zune 30, was the second-most-sold portable media device with a 9â€‰% unit share; behind the market-leading iPodâ€™s 63â€‰%. For the first 6 months after launch, NPD Group figures show that the Zune 30 achieved approximately 10% market share in the Hard Drive based MP3 market and 3% in the overall MP3 player market.

Good for Microsoft. $100 million spent on marketing for a 3% market share in the US and 0% outside the US. But that 3% comes at a cost – that’s a few million sales for Microsoft’s previous PlaysForSure partners. Microsoft robbed their hardware partners of those sales and then proceeded to screw over anyone who opened a PlaysForSure store because it didn’t play anything from Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, or even their own MSN Music Service.

So, what’s the chance they’ll sacrifice their own hardware sales to enable licensees to make a buck?

iPhone kicking ass

From iPodNN Apple ranked third in the global hardware market during the fourth quarter of 2007, according to canalys.com, with its iPhone garnering a whopping 28 percent of the smartphone market. Apple entered the market late in the year, and has thus far shipped only one device. Go iPhone! Related posts: The Gaming Market: time … Continue reading “iPhone kicking ass”

From iPodNN

Apple ranked third in the global hardware market during the fourth quarter of 2007, according to canalys.com, with its iPhone garnering a whopping 28 percent of the smartphone market.

Apple entered the market late in the year, and has thus far shipped only one device.

Go iPhone!

iPhone sales predictions

IFrogz, among others speculates if Apple will sell 10 million phones by the end of 2008. I like iFrogz, I like the cases and whatnot they do, though I’m currently using a Capsule from SwitchEasy which is excellent. If Apple is to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of this year they will have … Continue reading “iPhone sales predictions”

If Apple is to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of this year they will have to sell 200,000 more per quarter than they did over the hottest time of the year, the Christmas season. During that time last year Apple sold 2.3 million.

In the first six months the iPhone was on sale, it sold 4 million units. That was in 2 quarters in the US and less than 1 quarter in France, Germany and the UK. Steve Jobs aimed at 10 million iPhones out there by the end of 2008. A rather optimistic claim but one that everyone has jumped on.

If Apple only do 9, 200, 000 iPhone sales, will the entire affair be a flop. Do the math. The extra 200 000 units per quarter only adds up to an extra 800 000 phones in the remaining 4 quarters. If they only did 8 million iPhones by the end of 2008, would it be a flop? Of course not. Some heads may roll but the sky will not fall and the sun will still rise.

Some people speculate shaving $50 off the price of the phone would create an instant surge. Maybe, maybe not. I seriously doubt it. The issue most people have is the contract but, as we saw yesterday, O2 have just doubled their voice minutes allowance and increased the text allowance on the iPhone contracts they offer. I now have 1200 minutes and 500 texts and unlimited data which is more than I will ever use. People on the cheapest Â£35 tariff will now enjoy 600 minutes and 500 texts which is a huge improvement (from 200 and 200 respectively). This is where the innovation will come. With 1200 free minutes, I almost can’t be bothered wondering if Skype will appear on the iPhone unless I’m calling internationally (which is so infrequent I wouldn’t care anywway).

The iPhone is also just onto AT&T’s business tariffs and will be added to O2’s business tariff soon. This is excellently timed as the SDK is to be released in a few days and some early access developers (such as SAP) already have their client software ready to go.

So chill out on the numbers. It could be 9 million, it could explode to 20 million. We don’t know. What we do know is that a lot of the bloody things will be sold in the next 11 months.

What’s missing on iPhone

A discussion on the NiMUG forums about the features missing on the iPhone sparked this post. Proper MMS support – to be honest I don’t miss this at all. Looking back on my previous tariffs I only ever sent about 1 picture a month (though my tariff allowed for 15) and I only received 1-2 … Continue reading “What’s missing on iPhone”

A discussion on the NiMUG forums about the features missing on the iPhone sparked this post.

Proper MMS support – to be honest I don’t miss this at all. Looking back on my previous tariffs I only ever sent about 1 picture a month (though my tariff allowed for 15) and I only received 1-2 a month. Since getting an iPhone in October, I’ve only received 2 MMS texts (which are accessed via O2’s web site). Is this worth getting upset over? I think not
Cut n Paste – this is much more serious. I really need some sort of text selection and cut feature to edit down the really long emails that come from the OSX-Nutters mailing list (the discussion on evolution of the mind was fascinating but almost impossible to reply to and provide proper editing. Apple is allegedly working on this but wondering about the implementation.
SMS forwarding – this doesn’t bother me at all. SMS Forwards tend to be jokes and I don’t really want to get involved in that. SMS Texts come from me and SMS Forwarding on my old phone didn’t include any attribution.
Contact Forwarding – Oh, man, this has bitten me two or three times this week. It’s really frustrating that I can’t send someone’s number or contact details via email or SMS without writing them down elsewhere and then re-entering them. Stupid Stupid Stupid.
Maps link Forwarding – again it seems obvious when a friend has asked you where something or somewhere is. i.e. I can use the location feature to find myself but I’d like to be able to email a link to Google Maps so someone else can find me. It should be part of the dropped pin feature or the slightly more obscure Maps bookmark feature.

Anything I’ve missed?