Tag Archives | Apple. iPhone

Phone.com Launches Advanced Calling Features for Android Phones and iPhones

Posted by Jacqueline Emigh on June 10, 2010 at 6:00 am

Today is the official launch date for a pair of mobile software applications from Phone.com aimed at giving users of Android handsets, iPhones and other smartphones sophisticated telephone and VOiP calling features that might otherwise coat a boatload of money.

Already downloadable from Google’s Android Market, the new Phone.com Mobile Office provides users of cellular voice networks with features such as free (or relatively cheap) international calling, call histories, the ability to block calls from both unwanted and unidentified numbers, multiple call routing options, “professional” voices for messages, background music during hold times, and integration of voice calls with faxes and SMS text messages in a single mailbox.

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Mac Forever?

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 8, 2010 at 10:30 pm

“When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed…PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around. They’re still going to have a lot of value. But they’re going to be used by one out of x people…this transformation is going to make some people uneasy.“–Steve Jobs, at the Wall Street Journal’s D8 conference last week

“Flash was created during the PC era…”–Steve Jobs, in “Thoughts on Flash”

“Maybe next year we will focus primarily on the Mac. Just the normal cycle of things. No hidden meaning here.”–Steve Jobs, reassuring a developer who was concerned about the iPhone-centric WWDC 2010

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Rating Your Apple WWDC 2010 Predictions

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 7, 2010 at 9:26 pm

Another Apple WWDC keynote has come and gone. (Here’s a transcript of our live coverage.) As usual, I cleverly avoided making any predictions of my own–if you don’t predict, you can’t be wrong–and instead invited you to participate in a survey which formed the basis of collective Technologizer predictions.

Hundreds of you took the bait. And you were right a lot more often than you were wrong–including on one point where I felt positive you’d be proven incorrect this morning.

After the jump, your predictions and today’s upshot.

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My Initial iPhone 4 Questions (Lots of Them!)

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 7, 2010 at 4:17 pm

Apple holds the most carefully-choreographed product launches on the planet–but boy, did the gremlins in charge of messing up tech demos have fun with this one. The fact that much of the reality that Steve Jobs planned to distort was revealed a few weeks ahead of time was only the beginning. The presentation itself was interrupted by the same type of crippling Internet-access glitches I’m accustomed to witnessing at other industry events–such as last month’s Google I|O–but which Apple has seemed immune to until now.  (I always assumed it had a top-secret method for pumping a wired T1 connection directly into an iPhone.)

Given the circumstances, today’s WWDC 2010 keynote was…not bad. Nearly all the major news had slipped out via Gizmodo or other sources, but it was still worthwhile to actually see the dang phone–especially its super-high-resolution display–and hear Apple confirm every apparent fact about it. There were some medium-sizes surprises, such as the built-in version of iMovie and the gyroscope. And until today, all we knew about the app known as FaceTime was that the front-facing camera was a sure tipoff that it existed in some form.

As usual, I came out of the event with as many questions as answers, which I’m taking as a sign that today’s unveiling was more than an unavoidable formality. After the break, some of the items that are on my mind.

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I Suddenly Qualify for a Subsidized iPhone!

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 7, 2010 at 2:52 am

A few weeks ago, MobileCrunch blogged that some of its readers’ AT&T upgrade eligibility had shifted to June, a shift that would allow them to buy a theoretical iPhone that might conceivably be released this month at the lowest subsidized price. When I mentioned that, AT&T told me it was nothing out of the ordinary.

Now AppleInsider is saying that folks are noticing they’re eligible for a new iPhone with subsidy. And this time, one of those people is me. A few days ago, my AT&T account said I could get the full discount in November. Now–boom!–I’m entitled to it right now, assuming I’m willing to extend my contract and pay an $18 fee.

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Tomorrow's Apple News Today: Your WWDC Predictions

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 6, 2010 at 9:47 am

Twenty-four hours from now, I’ll be standing in the hallway outside the Moscone West auditorium in San Francisco, a half hour from the Steve Jobs WWDC keynote which I’ll liveblog at technologizer.com/wwdc2010. A couple of hours after that, we’ll know all the Apple news there is to know.

So here’s our traditional final jag of predictions: Yours, in the form of results from our survey.

As usual, I’m aggregating your collective wisdom into group predictions. On questions for which you were allowed multiple answers, it’s a prediction if the majority of you guessed that something will happen. On ones for which you were allowed only one answer, it’s a prediction if a plurality of you expect something.

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Name That iPhone

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 6, 2010 at 9:00 am

I’m compiling the results of our Apple WWDC predictosurvey and will reveal ’em soon. But it just dawned on me that I should have asked you to guess what the name of the new iPhone–assuming there is one–will be.

So here’s a special election–could you please participate?

Thanks very much…

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The Physics of a Good Touchscreen Game

Posted by David Worthington on June 4, 2010 at 1:04 am

I don’t play many games on my iPhone, but occasionally come across one that proves compelling. A game called Toy Physics is my latest fixation. It drew me in, and is a great example of a multi-touch platform being put to its best use.

Toy Physics involves drawing flat or sloping lines to halt, accelerate, or slow falling toys. The objective is to steer the toys into moving bins. Varying objects make the toys’ fall less predictable, requiring the player to devise a different strategy to pass each level. It would not have been possible to really enjoy the game without the iPhone’s touch screen interface; it was a natural fit. The game is available for just a dollar.

Other iPhone games just don’t fit with the interface, and are better played on the desktop. (I stopped playing SimCity on my iPhone after the first play). Games should take advantage of the hardware, not simply be ports of the same old thing on a smaller scale. Perhaps Apple has a point in rejecting applications that weren’t designed with the iPhone in mind.

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Let Developers Choose Their Tools, Apple

Posted by Kevin Miller on June 3, 2010 at 8:59 am

(A note from Harry: Here’s a “letter to the editor” from Kevin Miller, CEO of Scotland-based RunRev. His company makes a HyperCard-like development platform; one of its investors is Mike Markkula, who funded the creation of the Apple II and later served as Apple’s CEO.)

In recent weeks, there has been much speculation about the impact and overall effect that Apple’s decision to change the rules regarding its iPhone SDK has had on the software developer community. Given the growing debate, I feel I need to outline our thoughts and observations on the matter.

Apple’s move prevents developers from using a range of software development tools, among them RunRev. We believe that Apple would benefit greatly from an iPhone/iPad only development tool that is more productive than Objective-C, JavaScript, or C++ and honors the HyperCard legacy still present on today’s Mac platform. Although we’ve made our case directly to Steve Jobs, including offering a native solution that performs perfectly and supports 100% of the device APIs, he rejected the proposal and made it clear that he has no interest in allowing revMobile on the iPhone or iPad. It seems, however, that this ban is on a case by case basis, as games developed on the Unity gaming platform are still being accepted and sold in the App Store. In this case what’s good for the goose, doesn’t necessarily apply to the gander.

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