Tag Archives | Apple

Samsung’s Boneheaded PR Mistake

Posted by Ed Oswald on October 18, 2011 at 2:32 pm

File this one under “So Stupid You Can’t Believe It’s True.” With all the legal hubbub between Apple and Samsung at the moment, you would think both companies would be walking on eggshells. But one of them apparently isn’t paying attention. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber was tipped on Monday that promotional materials for the upcoming Galaxy Player include a very interesting screenshot.

Nestled within the list of features is a section on the Galaxy Player’s Google capabilities. The screenshot is not of the Android OS Google app, though: instead, it is a shot of the Maps app in iOS. Yes, really.

Some enterprising investigative reporting has tracked down the image to female-centric technology blog BlogHer, in a 2008 post about “game changing” iOS apps. How the PR department didn’t notice this when lifting the image is beyond me. Doesn’t Google Image Search tell you where it comes from?

The errant screenshot sat on Samsung’s own website for an unknown amount of time here, but has since been removed. See the image after the jump, you have to see this to believe it!

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The iPhone 5: Jobs’ Last Product?

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 16, 2011 at 9:40 am

Brooke Crothers of Cnet is reporting that analyst Ashok Kumar says that the iPhone 5 that some people thought Apple would announce this month–the thinner one with a bigger screen–is real, and will be announced at Apple’s WWDC conference next year. He also says that it’ll be an LTEC device and that he expects it to be a blockbuster based on the fact that it will be the last major product to bear Steve Jobs’ personal imprint.

Kumar has, um, a spotty track record when it comes to rumors. Sometimes they pan out; quite often they don’t. But there’s nothing inherently implausible about this one, and it’s presumably true that we haven’t yet seen the last Apple stuff that Steve Jobs worked on.

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The iPhone 4, Only More So

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 15, 2011 at 5:25 pm

Over at Techland, I’ve reviewed the iPhone 4S. Executive summary: It’s not the one right phone for everybody, but I do think it’s the single best smartphone on the market, in part because of the features it offers, but just as much because Apple’s level of polish and efficiency beats Android so handily, and because the App Store is such a huge asset.

As the 4S’s very name tells you, it’s not a big advance on the 4. But the faster processor is noticeable and welcome, the camera is much better, and Siri is both useful and fascinating.

One question I touched on in the review but want to write about at greater length soon: Is the 4S’s small screen compared to Android and Windows phone handsets a pro, a con, or something else? I’m still figuring out my take on that, and am curious what you think.

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AT&T iPhone Activation: Messy Once Again

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 14, 2011 at 11:01 am

The iLine outside the Stonetown Galleria for the iPhone 4 this morning was practically pleasant: Cheery Apple Store employees provided advice, coffee, and bottled water while we waited for 8am to come. But once my wife and I got into the store, we ran into trouble–namely AT&T activation glitches that prevented her from paying for her iPhone 4S and taking it home. In fact, it’s 11am now and she’s apparently still waiting. (I had to leave eventually.) And she’s not alone.

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Hey, Let’s Start Planning iOS 6

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 13, 2011 at 9:17 pm

In a strange way, there’s something exciting about the fact that mobile operating systems such as iOS and Android are relatively immature, and still lacking some features that people really want. If nothing else, it certainly allows their makers to release upgrades that are a big deal, since there’s no lack of worthwhile stuff to add. (With Windows and OS X, there are far fewer obvious holes; a cynic, in fact, might contend that those OSes would benefit from having fewer features.)

I’m enjoying iOS 5 on both both my iPhone 4 and iPad 2. But as I use it, I’m also reflecting on the missing features I still crave. (One example: More serious font support, such as the ability to add my own typefaces.) And over on Twitter, I asked my pals for their iOS 6 wish lists, and got lots of nifty nominations–most of which sounded like things that Apple might plausibly add, and only a few of which were (coughcoughFlash) painfully obvious.

After the jump, a few dozen of them–thanks to all who participated in this brainstorming exercise.

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Woz Speaks

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 13, 2011 at 9:03 am

Dan Lyons of Newsweek has a good, unedited interview with Steve Wozniak:

I took a year off from college to earn money for tuition. I was working as a programmer and I told the company that I knew how to design minicomputers. This exec said “If you can design one, we’ll get you the parts.” So I designed a very simple computer, and they got me the chips. I was working on it with a friend, Bill Fernandez. We were in his garage building this thing. Bill said “You should meet this guy Steve Jobs, he’s at our high school and he knows about this digital stuff. And he’s played some pranks too.” So Steve came over. We talked about what pranks we had done. Then we started talking about music. I was turned on to Dylan, reading the words and analyzing them. We agreed Dylan was more important than the Beatles because he had words that meant things. He was serious. He was not just about enjoyment. We started going to Dylan concerts together. We would go through music stores looking for Dylan bootlegs. We found some pamphlets with Dylan interviews, and then we drove down to Santa Cruz to meet the guy who wrote the pamphlets. He showed us some rare pictures of Dylan and we listened to some rare music of Dylan.

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iOS 5 is Great. Don’t Rush to Get It!

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 12, 2011 at 11:48 pm

One of the top two or three advantages that the iPhone has over Android handsets has nothing to do with new handsets. It’s the fact that when a new iPhone is imminent, owners of old iPhones can upgrade to the new version of iOS as soon as they like. Lack of fragmentation is a wonderful thing.

Apple released iOS 5 on Wednesday. It’s excellent–and Dan Moren’s Macworld review is an excellent summary of what’s new and worthwhile. If you have a recent iPhone and/or an iPad, get it–the new notification features alone are a huge deal, and they’re just the beginning. But taking your time about the upgrade is a perfectly rational strategy.

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iPhones: Always Evolutionary

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 12, 2011 at 6:00 am

“…really just a minor improvement…”

“Trust me, Apple won’t maintain its lead in the market if it continues making iterative updates.”

“But one thing didn’t happen today: We weren’t blown away. We weren’t surprised. We didn’t jump up and down, screaming. We don’t even know if we’ll rush right out and get one.”

Boy, people really aren’t all that giddy over the iPhone 4S, are they? It’s not like the old days, when every iPhone upgrade prompted hooting, stomping, and cheering by throngs of grateful Apple fans. Apple should be worried. Very worried.

Except: Those quotes above aren’t about the iPhone 4S. They’re about the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4, and you can read the stories they came from here, here, and here, respectively.

I dug those sound bites up as I thought about some of the initial commentary that declared the iPhone 4S to be a snooze compared to earlier upgrades. I had a nagging suspicion that a fair number of people always say that about new iPhones. And in fact, they always do.

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