I have been sitting here watching in disbelief over the past few days, feeling somewhat embarrassed about my profession at large.  Much of the tech media that has been tripping over themselves to treat Dan Lyons’ satirical movement to bring AT&T’s network to its knees as something akin to the Boston Tea Party — a defining moment that affects real change.

It’s been called by some as a “grassroots movement.” Another says that this, and I quote, “should be big lesson to any company about how social media is changing customer relations.” Others are lashing out at Lyons himself, calling him irresponsible for using his blog for exactly what it is, a satirical look into the world of Apple. To say the amount of bloviating on this topic has been astounding would be an understatement.

Earth to the media: Dan Lyons is a satirist, not Che Guevara!

Lets be clear here: there is absolutely no evidence that “Chokehold” will be anything more than a blip on AT&T’s daily graphs of data traffic. All of the hype surrounding the event has been manufactured by the tech media itself — and unfortunately, by some who have a large readership and lots of influence — and not by Lyons himself. If anything, I believe Mr. Lyons has been unfairly attacked and criticized for something that we have all essentially foisted upon him.

Remember that Facebook group we talked about in our initial coverage? It’s only up to 3,800 members — way smaller than other protest groups which have effected real change. If we are going to gauge participation by social media, we should look to Twitter too. A cursory look shows a lot of discussion, but its exactly that — talk. Call me skeptical, but its very hard to get an actual effective protest together. People are just too lazy these days, frankly.

If this is even in the least bit successful, we shouldn’t thank its creator. Rather, we should blame the tech media for making a huge deal out of a joke. Have we become so desperate for news that we’re practically manufacturing an event?

No, I’m not denying AT&T’s network sucks. In a lot of the country it does. But its not that bad that its going to bring hordes of people to the point of streaming their hearts out at 12 noon pacific tomorrow in some wild attempt at sabotage wireless data style. It’s just not going to happen. It’s time that the tech media takes a step back, and turns the hype machine off. Our readers deserve more than this.

It started out as a joke for Dan Lyons, known to us all as “Fake Steve Jobs,” but it has now taken on a life of its own. Operation Chokehold was supposed to be a fake protest that would attempt to take down AT&T’s network by overloading it, according to a post on Lyon’s site. It was meant to look as if it was real, but Lyons apparently was saying it in jest.

His fans apparently want to make it real, however. A Facebook group has been created urging people to do what Lyons suggested — run a data intensive application on the 3G network for a full hour on Friday at Noon PST — and currently sports about 1,600-plus members. The media is having a field day with it (heck look at us, we’re even covering it), and AT&T is peeved.

Check out this statement from the company to Apple web log Cult of Mac if you think they’re just blowing this off:

“We understand that fakesteve.net is primarily a satirical forum, but there is nothing amusing about advocating that customers attempt to deliberately degrade service on a network that provides critical communications services for more than 80 million customers. We know that the vast majority of customers will see this action for what it is: an irresponsible and pointless scheme to draw attention to a blog.”

Maybe AT&T needs to take a bit of a pill — why give this publicity as I doubt this will amount to anything — but who knows with the way their 3G network runs. I guess if this does happen, we’ll find out if that report from Mr. Turner on AT&T’s network issues we blogged about in October was actually true, no?

Blogger and Technologizer contributor Dave Zatz really takes it to Lyons though (and I’m paraphrasing):

It’s a spiteful and selfish act …. spearheading a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against one of the largest US communications networks may also attract the sort of attention he’ll be less pleased with … (Dan Lyons) is a professional journalist. And this is a call to action in the real world, not the ‘fake’ one.”

Not sure that I would go to that extent. While it was stupid, I would not call it spiteful or selfish. Lyons just didn’t think this one through before releasing it to the masses. As much as we can make jokes out of AT&T’s shoddy 3G service, for some its actually enough that all they would need is a call to action to vent their frustrations through something like this. In any case, I HIGHLY DOUBT it would be able to get to the level where it would actually do any damage. It ain’t the 1960′s — we’re too lazy to protest these days.

Recording video on your iPhone is no longer a luxury of just the folks with jailbroken phones or an iPhone 3GS. Apple has approved two separate apps this week in the App Store — Camcorder and iVideoCamera — both retailing for 99 cents. Unfortunately, there are memory considerations with these older models, so don’t expect much. Regardless, its a nice addition.

Camcorder (which is only available for a limited time at the 99 cent price) allows for the recording of videos at a 320×426 resolution. But don’t think of doing anything with these videos: currently Camcorder only allows for the recording and playback of the videos from within the application itself and nothing else. You can get to the videos somehow through peering through your iTunes data backups, but that takes some knowledge and patience.

Another downside according to TUAW are meager audio recording and a frame rate that is described as “slow.” Then again, how many cell phone videos have you seen that looked like they were shot with a Mini DV cam, so I do digress.

The second app, iVideoCamera, allows for more functionality on what you can do with your videos, however it comes with the tradeoff of even poorer recording quality and time constraints (160×213 resolution, 3 frames per second, and one minute maximum recordings). The ability is there though to save videos to the camera roll or share them to Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. The company behind the application, Laan Labs, says improvements to frame rate and longer recording times will be coming in a future update.

I haven’t seen anything on whether recorded videos in the camera roll then become available to send as MMS. If anybody has tried this, I think our readers (and myself) would want to hear about it. Occasionally, I’ve gotten the urge to send a video to somebody, but since I only have a iPhone 3G that’s not possible at the moment directly through the phone.

Apple’s cooking up something related to video games, and needs a jack of all trades game designer to get the job done.

Apple appears candid in the job ad. The company wants someone to work on “interactive multimedia experiences” (read: video games) on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The right person must be a “passionate gamer” with three years of industry experience, at least one shipped AAA title and knowledge of a few programming languages, among other skills.

Normally, I wouldn’t care much about job openings at Apple, but this particular posting has me wondering, “Why?” Apple only sells four in-house apps on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and just one of them, Texas Hold’em, is a game. My understanding is that the App Store is primarily a hardware seller for Apple, and with so many third-party games available, it just doesn’t seem worthwhile for Apple to compete.

The Apple Blog’s Liam Cassidy, however, has an intriguing suggestion: Apple’s really looking for someone to develop in-house games for the still rumored Apple tablet. That’ll give the company something to show on stage if and when the large touch screen device is revealed.

In a way, it makes perfect sense. Apple’s tablet is shrouded in secrecy, so imagine the risk of handing off early development to a third-party publisher. All it takes is one well-connected game journalist to blow the story wide open. It might not even come to that — look at how New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller may have slipped up by referring to the “impending Apple slate” during an internal speech. Better to keep development under wraps in Cupertino.

Still, there’s a big hole in I can’t reconcile: If Apple’s only looking for someone to create demo fodder, isn’t this more of a temp job than a full-time position? Indeed, I can’t think of any reason for the existence of this position that doesn’t have at least one good counter-argument. Even the idea of Apple developing a gaming console seems far-fetched and silly.

Whatever the job is, I have a feeling the new hire will be signing a thick NDA upon arrival.

Supposedly fed up with “the tide of fake App Store reviews,” iPhone game developer G5 entertainment wants your honest opinion, and plans to get it by giving away free games.

For its latest release, Judgment Day War, G5 is looking for reviews in exchange for a chance to win one of its earlier games. Before submitting your review to the App Store, you send it to reviews@g5e.com, along with your App Store user name, and the developer picks the 50 reviews that it deems most “interesting.”

I’ll note that the press release skillfully avoids defining what an “interesting” review might entail, lest that definition be interpreted as “thumbs up.” It doesn’t say whether overly negative reviews and enthusiastically positive ones will be judged equally, but there isn’t any encouragement to stay fair and balanced either.

Fake App Store reviews aren’t unheard of. In August, MobileCrunch ran an exposé on Reverb Communications, whose staff was caught writing positive reviews of clients’ games (Reverb insisted that the reviews were written on the staffers’ own time, based on their own experiences, and said that if Reverb didn’t like the games to begin with, “we wouldn’t take them on as clients.”) Other instances abound, as reported by BusinessWeek.

Are G5′s tactics as sleazy as the rest? Not quite, because the developer isn’t soliciting positive opinions and directly compensating for them, but something about it still stinks. If G5 really wants to contribute to an App Store that’s free of fraudulent reviews, it can do its part by butting out.

A new game called Eliminate Pro surfaced in the iPhone’s App Store yesterday, and it finally delivers everything the iPhone’s OS 3.0 update and faster 3GS model were supposed to provide.

Eliminate Pro is a free-to-play first-person shooter. The plot is minimal — you’re a test subject at a weapons development company — and the play is basic, pitting you against a few other players in simple deathmatch arenas. You need at least an iPhone 3G to play, but you get better map rendering on the iPhone 3GS. Graphically speaking, the game has a solid presentation and looks a bit like Quake 2 in terms of detail.

But what’s most interesting about Eliminate Pro is the business model, made possible with OS 3.0. There aren’t any ads, and it never costs you anything to play, but if you want to gain experience points and in-game currency for buying and upgrading gear, you’ll need “energy.” You only get enough energy for roughly a half dozen rounds, after which you’ll either need to buy more with real money or wait for about four real-world hours. A basic unit of energy costs $1 and lasts you for another half dozen rounds or so, though you can buy the stuff in increments of $10 or even $40.

So this is the iPhone’s new free app with in-game purchases model, but does it work? Sort of. I’m happy to keep the game on my iPhone, but I’m not tempted to buy more energy. The cost to keep earning experience and credits is simply too high — games go fast, so you could easily burn through $10 in a day — and there’s no option to pay once for all-you-can-play. The controls also need more customization, as I couldn’t quite get comfortable enough to achieve the lightning-quick response needed to feel like I’m playing a legitimate first-person shooter.

But for now, this is as good as it gets on the iPhone (disregarding Doom Classic and Wolfenstein 3D, which get special classic status). Eliminate Pro uses a business model that’s in line with the iPhone’s dirt-cheap economy, and it’s perfectly serviceable for a few minutes of fun. It may not be a great game, but it’s a good snapshot of where iPhone gaming stands right now.

Speculation over the causes of AT&T’s network issues moved back to the forefront this week when a researcher speculated that the way the carrier had configured its network was the cause of its troubles. In other words, it ain’t the iPhone’s fault.

The research and idea was first presented by Brough Turner, a 25-year veteran of the communications industry. Turner’s work was republished by several media outlets (including us), and again put AT&T in the now familiar position of damage control.

Well, the carrier is none too happy about having to defend itself again. “The AT&T wireless network is designed and engineered to deliver the highest possible levels of capacity and performance. Our standing as the nation’s fastest 3G network is validated by multiple third-party testing organizations on the basis of millions of drive tests annually,” the carrier said in a statement to Technologizer.

What about Turner’s accusations of configuration issues? AT&T says there is no basis in fact for his research. “We believe that recent online speculation regarding AT&T wireless network configuration settings is without foundation. Allegations in these posts regarding packet loss network settings are incorrect,” spokesperson Seth Bloom said.

Back to the drawing board for those trying to figure out what’s going on with the “nation’s fastest 3G network” I guess.

Apple’s iPhone continues it’s march toward market dominance, a survey released by ChangeWave Research on Tuesday indicates. From June to September, Apple’s share of the market jumped from 25 to 30 percent, while competitors RIM and Palm basically stayed unchanged over the same period.

RIM’s share fell 1 percent to 40 percent, while Palm’s share remained unchanged at 7 percent. It’s clear from these figures that the Pre has done little to fix the company’s woes, adding weight to the calls of “failure” from some industry watchers.

(It could also be due to the fact that the lady on those commercials is just creepy looking, but I do digress.)

The news gets even better for Apple: Over the next 90 days, 36 percent of those surveyed said they plan to purchase an iPhone in that period, compared with 27 percent for RIM and 8 percent for Palm. In other words, the iPhone’s share isn’t done growing yet.

Part of this success may also have a lot to do with customer satisfaction: Apple completely kills the competition here. 74 percent report being satisfied with their devices, with the next closest, RIM, coming in at 43 percent. You have to go to sixth spot to find Palm, with only a third satisfied — behind competiors LG, Sanyo, and HTC.

Good news for game developers and people who hate “Lite” iPhone apps: Apple is now allowing purchases directly from within free apps. This feature was previously allowed only for paid apps.

Certainly the decision will affect anyone who develops a “Lite” app that has less features than the paid version, as it’ll let them combine both into a single download. But my mind jumps straight to gaming, which could see a rush of apps with paid microtransactions to unlock extra content or features.

Consider, for example, an MMORPG. Apple’s decision will allow developers to adopt a free-to-play model, charging players for extra items or abilities. Some games, such as Mafia Wars, were already doing this by having players purchase entirely new app for their upgrades, with their stats preserved. But the new solution is much more elegant, as it allows people to keep playing with minimal interruption, and without scrapping the app they already have.

That makes me wonder, what will the economy of iPhone microtransactions look like? If buying small bits of content is going to be a lot easier, I’d expect there to be a lot more of it, except for one snag: The iPhone economy is already dirt-cheap. The majority of iPhone apps are free, and the average price of a paid game, according to a recent study, is $2.50. People aren’t exactly throwing around fistfulls of money on the App Store, so even a handful of $1 microtransactions in a single game could be a tough sell.

I doubt that transactions for less than $1 would be allowed, but I think the cleverest free-to-play game developers will find a way to break it down. Perhaps they could sell credits, $1 at a time, that let you download a handful of in-game items. However they work it out, microtransactions will have to get extremely micro to thrive in the App Store.

As the iPhone and iPod Touch look more like portable gaming platforms, I haven’t tired of watching Sony and Nintendo flail. They’re like two incumbent political parties having identity crises in the face of a new competitor who’s hogging the spotlight.

The latest round of this partisan bickering comes from Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, who in an interview with the Washington Post argued that the Nintendo DS does things the iPod Touch does not. As proof, he pointed to the DS’s two screens, Nintendo’s franchise titles such as Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Bros and innovative games like the recent Scribblenauts, which lets players type out virtually any PG-13 noun and have the object literally appear on the screen.

“All of these experiences are very unique and very different and what you cannot find on their App Store,” Fils-Aime said.

It’s a weak argument. Half the games Fils-Aime mentions use the DS’s second screen to provide superfluous information, and there’s nothing in Apple’s technology that precludes a title like Scribblenauts. But the major problem here is Fils-Aime’s “our console is different” mentality.

Guess what? Every console is unique in some way. Check out Dan Terdiman’s CNet article today on a new breed of iPhone games that integrate your phone and contacts. That’s unique. Or just visit the App Store and pick up a free chess app, a free tower defense game and the entirety of Wolfenstein 3D for $2. That user experience is unique.

The real question is whether one console’s unique experience is better than the competition’s. I’ll concede that Nintendo has powerful franchises in Mario and Zelda, et al, but that doesn’t make up for how Apple is capturing the casual gaming market that Nintendo covets. Nintendo needs to find a solution to that problem, and Fils-Aime needs better talking points.

Expanding unlimited calling to off-network phone numbers is one of the wireless industry’s newest ways to attract customers. Alltel was one of the first major carriers with its My Circle (which now has been rolled over to Verizon Wireless with the merger, called “Friends & Family”), then T-Mobile followed with myFaves. Sprint’s also doing something with “Any Mobile, Anytime” on select plans.

Now AT&T is getting into the game with a service called A-List. Like its competitors, the gist is the same: customers add their five most frequently called numbers. These are then treated like mobile-to-mobile calls, which are typically unlimited.

I will give kudos though. AT&T does not mess with the rest of the plan when you use the service. Neither your normal mobile to mobile or rollover minutes will be affected.

There is a catch. Like Verizon Wireless, you must have a $59.99/mo. or greater voice plan in order to use the service. This is somewhat troubling to me, as a large segment of AT&T’s growing iPhone population is from the get go excluded from the service.

Almost all of my iPhone-equipped friends are on the $39.99 monthly voice plan. The reasoning for this is simple: on top of that, a $39.99 $30 monthly data plan is required, already pushing the bill to nearly $70 a month. Add the fact most of us are texters, so we’re already now pushing that bill to near $90 a month even before taxes and fees, or any other service we might be inclined to add.

If we’d bump up to the next plan, there’s a good chance our monthly wireless bill would exceed $110, which in most cases is just too much to justify for. But through AT&T’s policies, none of us would qualify for A-List.

This seems rotten to me. I’m willing to place money on the fact that the average iPhone users bill is probably on the order of 50% or so higher than that of a non iPhone user. Look at AT&T’s ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) for the second quarter: $60. That is already about $10 below the base cost of owning an iPhone, without texting or anything else added.

Yes, iPhone users put a strain on the AT&T network. But at the same time, they are the basis of the company’s bottom line. The least the company could do here was include its “A-List” customers in on the deal.

Hopefully, the carrier reconsiders the requirements and allows for iPhone users who are already paying a lot every month to benefit from this new feature.

Update: I had the data plan cost wrong here, as well as T-Mobile putting back M2M with myFaves now (it wasn’t at first) so I’ve tweaked our math and wording here. Thanks to commenters for catching this.

I will eat my words, somewhat at least. After launching MMS for the iPhone on Friday, it appears AT&T has managed to launch the functionality without much of a problem after all. Yes, there were some hiccups and glitches, but nothing widespread from what we can gather.

My own personal experience with MMS has been positive. Friday was bumpy from time to time, including one or two messages that seemed to take minutes to send. But none of them failed, and to my knowledge every one of them made it to their destination. I could complain about Apple’s implementation of MMS, but hey that isn’t AT&T’s fault.

I’ve received some reports from my Twitter followers (shameless plug: @edoswald) which reported some problems early on:

User @CanonThom:

“An MMS message sent to a non-updated iPhone disappears. Sent to a non-iPhone but still AT&T seems to work. Non MMS texts work fine”

User @walter_theman:

“my signal is fading in and out, mms will send on occations and others get the red !”

AT&T’s Facebook page is also abuzz with some problem reports, but nothing that seems overly serious, here’s a roundup of the most common issues:

- Problems with receiving MMS from Verizon
- Problems sending MMS to Verizon (I have received/sent fine here)
- Intermittent failure to receive or send MMS
- Slowness in sending (I’ve seen this)

In the interest of fairness, AT&T contacted us shortly after my initial post asking to be able to respond. I have been in contact, however I haven’t received any official response as of yet. When it comes I’ll be sure to update this post.

I’ve also asked for some idea on the added strain on the network, which was apparently one of AT&T’s chief concerns when MMS was first announced for the iPhone earlier this summer.

Are you having problems at all? Have they been resolved? Let us know in the comments.

Man, we’re getting so close to having Apple as a real contender in the handheld game console wars, I can feel it.

As Gamespot points out, Apple’s music-themed event marked the first time that the company publicly argued why the iPhone and iPod Touch are better gaming options than Sony’s PSP and the Nintendo DS. Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, went so far as to say those other two consoles are “not a lot of fun.”

Now, we can debate ad nauseum the merits of iPhone and iPod Touch gaming vs. the PSP and the DS. We can argue which device is the most successful, has the best games or has the greatest chance of survival. But that’s boring. What’s really great about the console wars is all the bickering and spin that goes along with it. In that regard, Apple showed that it’s ready to play hardball.

At yesterday’s event, one of Apple’s slides touted a catalog of 21,178 “Games & Entertainment Titles,” compared to 3,680 DS games and 607 PSP titles. Of course, it’s totally bogus for Apple to include “Entertainment” in the mix, as we’re strictly comparing gaming devices here. A quick check of Apptism shows 14,657 games on file.

If Apple’s still ahead, why fudge the stats? Because that’s what you do in the console wars. I’m reminded of when Sony argued last January that it’s a better value than the Xbox 360, assuming that you bought the basic Xbox 360 Arcade, then purchased the most expensive hard drive available and threw in an optional Wi-Fi adapter. Sure, the argument is valid, but the math is fuzzy.

And then, there’s all the trash talk. Back in February, I looked on with delight at the way Microsoft and Sony were sniping at each other. Yesterday, Schiller argued that “once you play a game on the iPod touch, you think ‘hey, [the DS and PSP] aren’t so cool any more…’” Burn!

Sony and Nintendo haven’t fired back yet (in fact, Sony’s been unbelievably timid on the matter), but if Apple keeps up this rhetoric, it’s only a matter of time until the sparks fly. I can’t wait to watch.

It’s not full-fledged multitasking, but Loopt will be the first third-party app to send out information even when you’re not actively using it.

The location services program, which tells friends where you are and finds nearby points of interest, has announced an “Always-On” service that continues to update your whereabouts in the background. Here’s the catch: Loopt itself is free, but Always-On will cost an extra $4 per month on your AT&T bill.

Business Insider’s Dan Frommer writes that Loopt struck a deal with AT&T, allowing the iPhone to beam out its location even though Loopt itself is not actually running. As Daring Fireball’s John Gruber writes, this is a server-to-server system, not an app that functions in the background.

The implications of the deal depend on what’s happening behind the scenes. If AT&T is simply providing a workaround for apps that want to send out information in the background, all this means is that other apps — more location services, mostly — could strike similar deals, as long as the app itself doesn’t need to function at the same time.

But let’s just speculate that AT&T has some sway over the iPhone’s inability to multitask. After all, any application that constantly sends and receives information equates to more strain on AT&T’s already inadequate network, so maybe the no backgrounding rule was a way to cut down on traffic. If that’s the case, we might eventually start seeing real multitasking, on the condition that iPhone users pay an additional charge when there’s a data exchange involved.

Given the uproar that would occur if customers started getting nickled and dimed on more monthly charges, I’m inclined to think deals like the one between Loopt and AT&T will be few and far between. But as much as it would irk me, I’d pay a little extra every month to listen to Slacker Radio while playing games or surfing the ‘net.

Remember in March, when Sony Senior Marketing Vice President Peter Dille dismissed the iPhone? “The iPhone games and apps are largely diversionary, whereas we’re a gaming company and we make games for people who want to carry a gaming device and play a game that offers a satisfying 20+ hours of gameplay,” he said in an interview with GameDaily.

I’d love to hear what Dille thinks now that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is coming to the iPhone. The game, originally released for Nintendo DS in March, was announced for Sony’s PSP in June and will arrive on October 20. The iPhone version is scheduled for release some time this fall, 1UP reports.

This is the inverse of Sony’s recent announcement of PSP Minis, a set of small-scale, inexpensive games targeted at the upcoming PSP Go. While that move represented an attack on the iPhone’s cheap gaming marketplace (though Sony wouldn’t admit it), GTA’s migration to the iPhone is a counter-assault on the PSP’s 20-hour experience.

The announcement partly suggests that game developers and publishers are getting confident in the iPhone as a serious gaming platform. More importantly, if the iPhone version of GTA proves equal to its PSP and Nintendo DS counterparts, it opens the door for more ports of dedicated handheld console games.

I’m not simply talking about a paring down of big franchise games, such as Assassin’s Creed and Metal Gear Solid, because that’s already happening. What I’m wondering is, how long will it be before the same handheld video game is simultaneously announced and released for Nintendo DS, PSP and iPhone?

And if that happens, how long will it be before Sony finally acknowledges that there’s a third enemy in its midst?

Sony continues to insist that it’s not competing with the iPhone on gaming, even though the opposite is increasingly becoming true.

Tucked into Sony’s impressively newsworthy GamesCom press conference yesterday was an announcement for “PSP Minis,” a line of low-price, small-scale video games aimed at the upcoming PSP Go handheld. The list of planned games, including Air Hockey, Bowling and Pac-Man Championship Edition, sound a lot like what you’d find in the iPhone’s App Store.

This is a major about-face for Sony. In March, the company’s marketing VP Peter Dille derided the iPhone as a “separate business” that hosts “largely diversionary” games. He further explained that Sony is a gaming company that makes handheld games with 20-hour experiences. I guess Sony realized there’s also room for cheap and simple.

Still, the company won’t admit that it’s taking Apple on with PSP Minis. Here’s Gamasutra’s Leigh Alexander on follow-up with Playstation Network operations director Eric Lempel, who says Sony isn’t after Apple’s market share.

“It’s totally different,” Lempel told Gamasutra. “… It’s not open to users; these are professional developers, it’s not like what you’re seeing on that other platform.”

Someone needs to remind Sony’s handlers that “competition” doesn’t mean “approaching the market in the exact same way, warts and all.” This should be an opportunity for Sony to say “Yes, we are competing with Apple for handheld gamers’ money, and here’s how we’re going to take it.” Instead, Lempel seems unwilling to confront the truth head-on.