And Daring Fireball’s John Gruber makes a parenthetical remark that I find intriguing:

(And, as I’ve said before, I think the “Windows” brand hurts them here. Windows Phone 7 doesn’t sound like a new platform. It sounds like an old one. They should have called it Metro 1.0.)

Windows Phone’s market failure to date surely stems from a confluence of obstacles rather than one overriding issue. But there’s no denying that “Windows Phone 7″ and “Windows Phone 7.5″ are willfully mundane monikers for operating systems that aren’t the least bit mundane. They suggest business as usual, when what Microsoft actually did–rather bravely–was to start from scratch.

(Microsoft’s rebranding of Windows Mobile as Windows Phone may have had some significance in the company’s own mind, but it was way too subtle to matter to the masses, or even to people who care about this stuff; to this day, I keep accidentally typing “Windows Mobile” when I mean “Windows Phone.”)

Normally, I’m wary about companies ditching well-known brands; it’s far easier to stretch perceptions than to start over. (That’s why, when I was editor of PC World, I never would have advocated for changing its name to something with a more 21st-century feel.) In this case, though, it’s worth wondering: Would more people take a look at Windows Phone if it were called Metro, or at least something without “Windows” in it?

We’ll never know. And we don’t know whether Microsoft seriously considered such an option, or did any market research on it. After the ill-fated journey known as Zune–not to mention the Kin meltdown–it may have been wary about creating all-new brands. And it may still think that Windows users the world over are at least slightly more likely to consider Windows Phone because of its name.

But I’m inclined to think that a new name would have made sense. It would have made a statement; it would have made the new software sound more like an iPhone-level big deal rather than an incremental update aimed at Windows Mobile users. It wouldn’t have had a meaningful effect on market share all by itself, but it would have gotten things off to a better start.

Of course, Microsoft being Microsoft, it’s not out of the question that it might change Windows Phone’s name yet. But there’s no way to rewrite history and get the big-bang effect that would have resulted from an all-new Microsoft mobile OS with an all-new name.

Footnote: As far as I know, Microsoft hasn’t stated that Windows 8 will ship under the name Windows 8; it’s still a code name. It would be utterly stunning if that radical upgrade shipped with a name that didn’t have the word “Windows” in it. Unthinkable, really, giving how important it is that Microsoft convince painfully conservative corporate customers to give Windows 8 a try. Even so, it’s fun to toy with the notion: What if Windows 8 wasn’t called Windows?

“This news underscores the need for Congress to act swiftly to protect the location information and private, sensitive information of consumers”, he says. “Right now, Carrier IQ has a lot of questions to answer”.
Since the story came to a head over the past week, several companies have come forth to clarify their position on Carrier IQ. Verizon has denied the use completely in any of its smart devices, while Sprint and AT&T both admitted to use of the software.
 
“In-line with our privacy policy, we solely use CIQ software data to improve wireless network and service performance”, AT&T spokesperson Mark Seigel says, calling it a network management tool. Sprint echoed AT&T’s position, calling the software an “integral part” of its network management.
 
The biggest question remains as to what exactly Carrier IQ is doing. While the researcher — Trevor Eckhart — makes claims of keylogging, at no time does he actually prove what is being sent. This is crucial to the entire story. If this software is just sending behavior, it’s no different from the data many of us agree to opt-in to for those “customer experience” surveys. If its actually sending content, that’s completely different.
 
Here’s the thing, as John Graham-Cumming puts it:  “What isn’t delved into is what the application does with the information. Without that it’s not possible to tell if there’s something really scary going on or not”.  And that’s very important, because if we don’t know this, it sounds a lot like Chicken Little.
 
[UPDATE: A Carrier IQ executive gave All Things D's John Paczkowski more information on what the software captures and transmits--and says it doesn't involve any personally-identifiable information. Just data on issues such as dropped calls.]

Apple has released iOS 5.0.1, its first update to iOS 5. It fixes a few things–most notably the bug(s) that left some users finding their batteries draining at an unnaturally rapid clip. See the screen shot above for other issues it addresses.

I haven’t installed it yet, since the battery glitch didn’t seem to affect my devices (and, last time I checked, I wasn’t Australian.) But I’m intrigued by the fact that it’s the first iOS update that most folks will get that’s installable over-the-air, with no need to download it to a computer first. (Until iOS 5 came along, over-the-air updates were a nifty feature that Android users had and iOS ones didn’t.) If you’ve snagged the update–either wirelessly or with a computer as middleman–let us know how it went.

I’m not engaging in AT&T-bashing here (you can find plenty of that elsewhere on the Web). I just like competition. I think that happy Verizon and Sprint customers shouldn’t have to dump their carrier to get iPhones. I’m hopeful that multiple carriers would mean lower prices for both the handset and the services associated with it. I believe that AT&T would have the greatest possible incentive to fix some of its network problems faster if its goal was to be the best iPhone carrier rather than the only iPhone carrier.

Unfortunately, consumers don’t get a say in the negotiations between AT&T and Apple. The wheeling and dealing will presumably boil down to whether AT&T is willing to wave enough money in Apple’s face to prevent it from striking deals with other carriers. If it does, the iPhone will remain an AT&T exclusive. But I hope that Apple asks for a boatload of money, and that AT&T blinks. And I’m curious to know just how hard it would be for Apple to have an iPhone ready that would run on the Verizon and/or Sprint networks.

Quick summary: The Pre has tons of features in common with the iPhone, but it also has a formidable list of items the iPhone lacks, including a real keyboard, copy and paste, tethering, and a camera with 50% more megapixels. After the jump, a T-Grid comparison.

This T-Grid is a work in progress, subject to expansion and revision:

The phones	Palm Pre	Apple iPhone 3G
Platform	Palm’s webOS	Apple’s iPhone OS
Availability	“First half of 2009″	Now
U.S. carrier	Sprint	AT&T
Price	TBD; 8GB model only	$199 for 8GB model or $299 for 16GB model with two-year contract
Data plan	TBD, but it’ll qualify for Sprint’s $99.99 “Simply Everything” plan	$30 a month for unlimited data; $5 a month extra for 200 text messages
Locked?	It’ll be Sprint-only	Yup, to AT&T
Colors	Black	Black (8GB and 16GB); white (16GB only)
Size and weight	3.96” by 2.34” by 0.67”; 4.76 oz.	4.5″ by 2.4″by 0.48″; 4.7 oz.
Screen size and resolution	3.1″; 480 by 320	3.5″; 480 by 320
Input	Multi-touch touchscreen and slide-out physical keyboard	Multi-touch touchscreen with on-screen keyboard
Connector	Micro USB	iPod Dock Connector
Accelerometer	Yes	Yes
Headphone jack	Standard 3.5mm	Standard 3.5mm
Bluetooth	Stereo	Monaural
Voice dialing	Not sure No	Third-party apps
Voice recording	Not sure No	Third-party apps
MMS	Yes	No
Camera	3 megapixels; LED flash; not sure if it does video	2 megapixels; no flash; no digital zoom; no video
Voice	CDMA	Quad-band GSM
Data	EVDO Rev. A	HSDPA
Use as tethered modem?	Yes! Via Bluetooth.	AT&T says it’s coming soon
Wi-Fi and GPS	Got ‘em both	Got ‘em both
Battery	I haven’t seen any claims about battery life yet; removable	5 hours talk time; 300 hours standby; not removable
Copy and paste?	Absolutely	Tragically, no
Web browser	Webkit-based browser	WebKit-based Safari
Web searching	Yes, including Google and Wikipedia, at least	Yes, via Google or Yahoo
E-Mail	IMAP, POP	MobileMe, GMail, Yahoo Mail, AOL; other services supported through IMAP
Calendar	Yes, hopefully with to-do list	Yes, but no to-do list
Microsoft Exchange support	Yes	Yes
Instant messaging	Yes–multiple networks supported	Only through third-party apps
Office Apps	Not sure on details, but it looks like DataViz may be providing Documents to Go for it	Microsoft Office-compatible viewers, but no editing
Maps	Yes	Yes
Turn-by-turn navigation	Not sure but I’d guess not, at least as a standard feature	No, but may be coming from third party developer(s)
Music	Music player and Amazon music downloads; supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV	iPod player and iTunes Store; supports MP3, AAC (with or without Fairplay), WAV, Apple Lossless, AIFF, VBR formats
Video	Video player; supports MPEG-4, H.263, and H.264 formats	iPod player, YouTube; movies through iTunes Store; supports H.264 and MPEG4 formats
Photos	Yes	Yes
Wireless synching	Not sure on all the details, but it features ambitious integration, such as putting Facebook portrait photos into your contact list	Yes, through MobileMe
Desktop synching	Not sure on details	Yes, through iTunes
Application store	Palm says there will be one	Yes, the iTunes App Store