Author: Devin Coldewey

We found it pretty ridiculous when Consumer Reports made a big deal about a pretty tame reference to playful, romantic MMSing. Really, now. Microsoft is the last thing making kids send naughty pictures to one another. But I guess Microsoft didn’t want the drama, so they’ve apologized.

They deleted the offending portion of the video, but if you’ll be so kind as to click the following YouTube thing you can still see the uncut version put up by CR.

As shocking as it was a few days ago. Which is to say, not shocking at all. But yes, the children have been saved.

[via TechFlash]

Every device maker is plagued by lookalikes mass-produced in the far east, and Apple is no exception. The fakes themselves, while always pretty terrible, often have looked mighty close to the real thing as far as hardware design. It only takes a single rogue iPhone to spawn a thousand exact replicas as far as dimensions, shape, and materials. Well, Apple’s taking steps to prevent this, though I somehow doubt they’ll prove too effective. They’ve been granted a patent covering the “ornamental design” of the iPhone and its pals — it better be a very specific design they’ve patented, since most phones are lozenge-shaped with big screens now.

The patents were filed in 2007 (for the iPod Touch) and 2009 (likely after the 3GS design was finalized and on the market). That’s not such a long wait, really. I’ve been waiting on a patent for my iPhone heart-replacement chest-dock for like five years now. I know, since before the iPhone came out! What can I say, I just think ahead!

What does this mean for you? Well, the chances of having your phone switched out for a fake by some sleight of hand at a bar is greatly reduced. Also, you’ll need to shut down that Apple knock-off sweatshop you’ve been running in the sub-basement of your office building. Yeah, you’ll just have to find some way to make do without it, I’m afraid.

[via MacStories]

I just popped into a local pub and ran smack into into a variant of the just-announced (but long-rumored) Kin 2 being tested by a Microsoft associate of mine. It’s not really major news, but I have to say that I think it looks a lot better with this red-and-white keyboard — it helps set it apart from all the other sliders out there. I don’t know, maybe it attracts dirt or something, so they went all-black.

Although I grilled the man, he had nothing to add RE secret specs and unannounced features. Curse you, Microsoft, and your corporate compartmentalization!

Here’s a little smidgen of info that escaped the announcements and hands-on today. The specs page at kin.com is a bit… non-literal, so there’s not a lot of information on what model of CPU it’s running, what amount of RAM, and so on. But we do now know that they’re Tegra-based and likely share a fair amount of hardware DNA with the Zune HD. That doesn’t mean you can expect Zune apps and games on there — but it does mean decent graphics acceleration. And it also means they know the hardware and can tune it however they like — to enhance battery life, for instance.

There’s a lot going on here, but what you’re basically looking at is a focus ring, attached to an iPhone, which sends a signal to a remote unit, which then turns the real focus ring on a DSLR that would otherwise be inaccessible. There are other tools a bit like this, but the integration of an iPhone as interface element could streamline things immensely.

Looks like you can also control aperture, zoom, and whatever else is compatible with RedRock Micro’s microRemote system, likely depending mostly on your camera make and model.

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Reports from component suppliers in Asia have RIM buying an unspecified number of 8.9″ touchscreens from supplier Hon Mai. The sources are unnamed and the original report is proving difficult to track down; the only copy of it seems to be in CrackBerry’s possession (copied below). That already places this rumor in pretty unlikely territory, but hey, you be the judge.


Add in to the mix that RIM’s Mike Lazaridis publicly stated last year that they were not developing a tablet and had no specific plans to do so, and the rumor is looking even less substantiated.

If they did buy up a few touchscreens, then what? It’d be the first indications of a large, innovative company toying around with the idea of a tablet device. Perhaps after playing with an iPad and seeing Microsoft pushing tablets hard via third parties, RIM felt they may as well see if they could whip up something internally that was of any potential utility to their users. As it stands, though, there’s no real evidence that this order actually took place, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we never hear anything more about it.

Back when the iPad came out and the SDK was being explored, Greg singled out a few iPad features that we felt would be useful on the iPhone. Unfortunately only one of them seems to have made it in OS 4.0, but it’s a handy one: Bluetooth keyboard support. You can get some quite nice keyboards for a decent price, and they’ll make long emails or blog posts much, much more comfortable.

You can grab the one from Apple if you’re a freak, or do a little shopping around and find one that does a little more.

Boom. [via Giz]

A couple new hooks in the 4.0 APIs seem to indicate a device with a built-in flash. Yes, as in a camera flash:

AVCaptureFlashMode (auto/off/on modes)
AVCaptureDevice.hasFlash

Well, that could mean either a flash on the new iPhone (likely) or an external flash available as an accessory (less likely, but still possible). Or native pairing with certain cameras? That’d be insane. It’s all speculation at this point.

The iPhone OS 4.0 event just wrapped up and the faithful are filing out of the Apple venue with a slightly shell-shocked look. What happened? Oh nothing, just multi-tasking, iAd, a huge Mail update and a bunch of other stuff. Yes, the long-awaited OS update for the iPhone has just been run down and we’ve got all the details.

Here, in handy bullet point form, are all the things you need to know about iPhone OS 4.0…

• There have been 50 million iPhones sold so far (along with 450,000 iPads)
• OS 4.0 will be going out to them this summer, but a developer preview will be available today
• Thousands of new APIs, including many “accelerate” APIs which allow developers to add hardware acceleration
• Multi-tasking is coming. They admit they are a bit late to the party. Details below:
  -double tap of home button shows running applications. Invoke at any time, it’ll pause games and so on.
  -the app-switching tray pushes up the other home icons and has a sort of metallic background.
  -it’s a bit disappointing, actually: it’s more the ability to switch quickly between “active” apps. Nice, though.
  –iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen will not get multitasking. No mention of iPad.
• There are seven background services that will be allowed, and which shouldn’t significantly affect the performance of other apps:
  –Background audio: i.e. Pandora can play in the background and popup controls can control it.
  –Background VoIP: Skype calls will continue if you need to switch apps; a “return to call” button will show, and you can also receive Skype calls on a locked phone.
  –Background location: turn-by-turn directions can continue when you leave the app. Music can run at the same time and will quiet down when directions need to be said. Very slick. Uses cell-tower-enhanced AGPS. A notification will show in the status bar if an app is transmitting your location. You can also turn off location app-by-app.
  –Push notifications: the same push notifications you know and love.
  –Local notifications: in-phone notifications for, say, pop-up alarms and such. Local app stuff.
  –Fast app switching: this is the service by which apps can store their state when you switch to and from them.
• Folders. These are basically stacks of apps. Drag one app onto another to create a folder. This will really help un-clutter some iPhone screens (makes room for people to buy more apps). Makes for a maximum of 2160 apps. Is there an app for taking it easy on app downloading?
• Homescreen wallpapers. Yes, very nice.
• Enhanced mail. Several changes here:
  –Unified inbox. Web mail, MobileMe, multiple exchange accounts – thank god. This is nice.
  –Thread organization. Handy for such a powerful inbox.
  –Attachments for third-party email. Get your Gmail attachments right in Mail now.
• iBooks: I think we all expected this. It looks just like the iPad version, though somewhat smaller, obviously. Sync bookmarks and such between devices. Comes with Winnie the Pooh!
• Better email encryption, and some sort of in-app encryption is in the works.
• SSL VPN support
• Social gaming features: challenge friends to games, compare high scores on leaderboards and so on. Matchmaking and achievements. Nice, looking forward to this on the iPad. Hot seat Civ 4 with someone I’ve never met? Why not?
• iAd: In Steve’s words, somewhat paraphrased: “Developers [of free apps] need to find a way to start making their money. A lot of developers turn to advertising – and we think these current advertisements really suck. If you look at advertisements on a phone, it’s not like on a desktop. On a desktop, its about search. On mobile, search hasnt happened. People aren’t searching on their phones. People are spending their time in apps. The average user spends over 30 minutes using apps on their phone. If we said we wanted to put an ad up every 3 minutes, that’d be 10 ads per device per day — about the same as a TV show. We’re going to soon have 100m devices. That’s a billion ad opportunities per day! “This is a pretty serious opportunity, and it’s an incredible demographic. But we want to do more than that. We want to change the quality of the advertising. We’re all familiar with interactive ads on the web. They’re interactive, but they’re not capable of delivering emotion. We have figured out how to do interactive and video content without ever taking you out of the app.”
  –Apple will sell and host the ads; the revenue will be split 60/40, with devs getting the 60. Anybody can make them, just like apps.
  –Ads are done in HTML5 (a little dig in there for Adobe)
  –Fully interactive; the Toy Story ad he showed looks like a native app, includes a game, graphical interface and everything. They can call out for showing times, current prices, and so on. It’s essentially a commercial break app.
  –Access to APIs: somewhat scarily, ads will have access to location, accelerometer, and a lot of other stuff.

That’s all! Pretty crazy update, actually. We’ll be filling out coverage throughout the day with more careful examinations of the new features.

Here’s a phrase many of you will remember, probably from the late 1990s: “Yeah, I’d get a cell phone, but I don’t want to be on, like, an electronic leash, you know?” People had land lines, pagers, car phones — the pocketable mobile phone was still a luxury and, to some, an unwanted responsibility. Over the next 10 years or so, the mobile phone gradually reached such high levels of market penetration that it’s quite difficult to find anybody without one. It is simply too practical and affordable to refrain from at this point. However, in the last few years, as smartphones and texting have become the default mode of communication for many people, the tone has changed again; the electronic leash is returning.

Why is this? It’s actually pretty simple: once a tool reaches a certain level of integration with the social and communication norms of a person, it receives the same level of cognitive consideration as, say, speech. Do you wonder whether you should end a text message with an exclamation mark, a period, or nothing at all? This is because texting and email are approaching the same level of integration with our daily lives as the speech and gestures we’ve been using for millennia. I realize one could have said this at any time over the last decade, but I’m saying it now for a specific reason.

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How cool is this? iDisplay is an app that tricks your computer into thinking you’ve got a secondary display attached, and then pushes what would be on that display onto your iPad or iPhone. That’s… brilliant.

I mean, I can think of about a billion uses for this. As many uses as I have uses for my actual computer, in fact. The problem is that there’s some latency, as it sends the display information over wi-fi, so you can’t watch video or play games on it, or really anything that requires precision timing or responsiveness. Unfortunate, but that may improve with time.

Costs $5. It’s only for OS X right now, but there’s a Windows version in development.

[via TUAW]

We know iPhone OS 4 is in the pipes, and I imagine this little nugget of information is far from the only inklings we’ll have of new iPhone features over the next few months. Despite the extraordinary length of the Apple Insider article, there’s really only one piece of new information: the iPhone will be using an Expose-like interface to let you switch between apps, though due to scaling issues it is apparently only using the apps’ icons and not current screenshots. It’ll be triggered, they say, by quickly tapping the home button twice. Not terribly exciting, but it’s good to know.

Personally, I still find Palm’s card approach the most accessible multi-tasking around. If this Expose thing works, I’m sure it’ll be convenient, but will it have the amount of power a true task manager should have, or is it just going to be quicker than hitting home once and finding the app yourself?

Yeah, it’s pretty much a meta-blogging joke about some recent unpleasantness regarding non-disclosure agreements. But if you think you might run into Walt, Josh, or Blam some time soon, you will impress them favorably if you have a game sporting their likeness. It’s actually on a game-making platform called Sketch Nation Shooter, which will be 99 cents on the ol’ iPhone come April 6. You can download WMEB and feel the power then.

Exclusive! Behind the scenes – check out the concept art.

(thanks, Ed. Very nice.)

The last time I wrote this up, it turned (predictably) into a flamewar in the comments. Look, whether you think the iPhone is the world’s most advanced device or a toy for people who can’t handle real smartphones (I take no stance), you have to admit that its touchscreen is the business. The test I cited before was kind of informal, but they’ve redone it with a robot’s help, and the results are even more pronounced.

As I said before, this is something handset makers need to get on. Accuracy and responsiveness (the robot only tests the former, but the latter almost certainly correlates in quality) are essential to making a UI effective and enjoyable. Apple’s put in the work, and it shows. Whether or not Android or Blackberry is a better platform for this or that, one thing that’s undeniable is that Apple has taken a care with the hardware-UI interface that others haven’t.

[via Apple Insider]

I use DropBox all the time. If you don’t, you should; it really is fantastic and simple. And soon it’ll have an Android app! So load up your DropBox with music, files, and movies; you’ll be able to access ‘em on the go the way those fancy-pants iPhone users do.

The team says they’ll have it “for all flavors of Android within the next couple of months.” Nice.

I’m surprised this didn’t happen earlier. You can now go into an Apple store, fork over a few Benjamins, and walk out with an iPhone, contract-free, although the device is still locked into AT&T’s network. You can only buy one a day, though, I suppose to prevent people from buying a few hundred and building a fort of out of them.

Good news for some, non-news for others. And just as a reminder: 3G 8GB, $499; 3GS 16GB, $599; 3GS 32GB, $699.

So in 2008, a company called Integra Communications filed for a “Nexus” trademark having something to do with voice and data telecommunications. Along comes Google a year later and files for “Nexus One.” Trademark office says no go. I’m not really surprised at this; it’s not really their job to determine which is the better or more popular product, but rather whether it is possible for the two trademarks to be mistaken for one another. Oh god! Will you have to scribble out the name of your phone now and write something else?

Nah. I mean, Cisco had a legitimate product out there called the iPhone for years, which was actually in use and still being sold when Apple dropped the iBombshell. They buried the hatchet, probably for an undisclosed sum, but nominally so they could “explore interoperability.” Whatever that means. So I think it likely that Google will call up Integra, say “name the next one something else and there’s a hundred thou in it for you” and in the meantime they’ll just leave the ™ off the Nexus One name.

If you’re anything like me, you consistently forget where and when you parked your car. I’ve called tow companies more than once to see if they took my car, when in fact I was simply one street off in my memory. I could probably use this little app we just got in our tip box, called 3DCoche or Car Finder AR, depending on whether you speak Spanish or not. It’s simple enough: you save your car’s position when you park, and it also notes the time — then you can pull up the camera view and see your car’s location superimposed on the image. I’m not sure how it handles elevation, and of course it won’t work in underground car parks, but if like me you’ve gotten tickets from having no presence of mind, it might be a good investment.

The free version is fully featured except that it won’t work more than 200 meters from your car. I like that – it’s a cool boot to put on your location-based app, a distance limitation. Full version costs €1.69, or about $2.30.

We knew about the pricing, but until today, we weren’t sure exactly which day the HD2 was going to hit T-Mobile. So long, ignorance! March 24th it is!

There’s more stuff going down at an HD2 event as I write this, if I’m not mistaken, and we’ll have the whole business for you shortly.

There’s a lot of white space here, so I’m going to editorialize. I know that HD2 looks sexy, but is anyone really going to buy into this OS now? We’ve got WinPho7 just….. well, lots of months away, but still.

Oh, by the way, that Samsung we saw yesterday? So not real! They just rigged it up for the demo. Why? Why the hell would you do that?