Until July, I used an AT&T Tilt 3G phone, and found that performance was often disappointing. Today, I own an Apple iPhone 3G, and find that performance is often disappointing. Coincidence? Nope!
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Tag Archives | iPhone
OpenClip: It Sounded Like a Good Idea…
OpenClip, the third-party attempt to give the iPhone copy-and-paste functionality, has run into an obstacle that sounds like a showstopper: Version 2.1 of the iPhone system software, currently in the works, closes the loophole that it used to give multiple applications access to the same clipboard.
Actually, the OpenClip folks knew that this was the case around the time they readied the announcement of their project, but decided to go ahead anyway. And they’re not giving up all hope: This blog post says that Apple could still decide to enable the functionality that OpenClip needs, and points out that it will still let an application provide copying and pasting within its own walls…it just won’t be able to share data with other programs.
“The goal is to bring the usefulness of copy/paste to light,” says the blog post of the OpenClip initiative. Seems to me that that was apparent already, and has been since the Mac popularized the notion of cutting and pasting between apps back in 1984. But I still admire the gumption of anyone who’d try to add basic system-level functionality to someone else’s operating system. Especially when that someone else is Apple, who’s famous for releasing software updates that happen to disable programming tricks that other folks have devised to get around limitations in Apple software.
It’s dead certain that Apple will add copy-and-paste to the iPhone itself at some point; what’s completely up in the air is whether that point might arrive in weeks, months, or years. It’s not the number-one item on my personal iPhone wish life–that would probably be a to-do list that syncs with the one in iCal. I’ll still be happy when copy-and-paste shows up. though, if only because it’ll free up all the energy folks are spending talking about it to think about new iPhone features that go beyond the profoundly mundane…
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The iPhone 3G: It May Not Be Perfect, But at Least It’s Invulnerable
In the weeks since the iPhone 3G’s release, I’ve written a lot about it…and much of what I’ve written has involved the phone failing to live up to its considerable promise. So it’s nice to have an opportunity to write about it behaving in a way that seemed practically superhuman (superphonic?).
A few minutes ago, I was standing in my garage. I took a step and felt something under my right foot, after I’d already shifted my weight onto it. I looked down. It was my iPhone, sitting under the sole of my dress shoe. (Don’t ask how it got there–it’s not so much that it’s embarrassing as that I’m not entirely sure.)
The phone seemed to be making a crunching noise. I went into a brief spasm of horror. I thought that I’d probably broken the screen…and that, if I hadn’t, I’d be very lucky if I had a working-but-extremely-scratched-up iPhone. The screen was fine. The phone turned on without incident. I saw no deep gouges anyewhere.
I polished up the phone a polishing cloth, and darned if there’s absolutely no evidence that I’d applied 150+ pounds of pressure to it against a rough concrete floor. It looks brand new, front and back.
Now, I know there’s a large randomness factor in phone damage; if I’d stepped on it at a slightly different angle, it’s possible that it would have been toast, or would have at least gained a beauty mark or two. (My old Treo 650 ended up with such a heavy patina of scratches, nicks, scuffs, and embedded grime that I liked to think of it all as showing character.)
I’m still impressed, though. Especially considering that every iPod I’ve ever owned has acquired at least a few scratches within milliseconds of the moment I took it out of its packaging.
While we’re on the subject of iPhone torture tests–intentional or otherwise–here are a couple of videos from my PC World pals–one involving the original iPhone and one with the 3G:
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Hey Kids, Let’s Implement Cut-and-Paste on the iPhone!
Some of us just sit around tsk-tsking at Apple for its failure to get around to giving iPhones the ability to cut and paste text between applications. Proximi, the company behind the MagicPad rich text editor for the iPhone, has taken matters into its own hands. They’re spearheading OpenClip, an initiative to add iPhone cut-and-paste that works across applications. And they’re working with the developers of a bunch of applications–Cocktails, Dial Zero, Twittelator, and Ultralingua, as well as their own MagicPad–to implement it.
The OpenClip folks say they’ve figured out a way to make cut-and-paste operate in a way that works within the limitations of Apple’s iPhone SDK, which doesn’t generally allow applications to talk to each other. It’ll be fascinating to see whether every applications that would benefit from cut-and-paste hops aboard the OpenClip bandwagon–and just how long that bandwagon is a useful one. (Apple has allowed that it plans to get around to doing cut-and-paste, but nobody outside the company knows when to expect it; it could be next month or next year.)
I don’t know how easy it is for a developer to make OpenClip work, but my fear is that some developers will decide not to put the effort into adding it, hoping that official Apple cut-and-paste might show up any day. And once Apple does deliver true system-level cut-and-paste, will it coexist with OpenClip? How long will it take for apps that support OpenClip to support Apple cut-and-paste, too? Who knows? Right now, nobody does–including OpenClip, and including Apple.
One other gotcha that seems inevitable: Apple won’t support OpenClip, meaning that at least a couple of the apps that would benefit most from cut-and-paste, Safari and Notes, won’t have it. I can’t see Apple actively supporting OpenClip, but I hope that it does nothing to discourage it.
I’m a user of the iPhone WordPress app, so I’m looking forward to this even though I haven’t tried any of the other programs that have pledged support. And even though–full disclosure–I haven’t once been in a situation yet when I wanted to cut-and-paste something on my iPhone 3G. (I’m not sure if that’s evidence that it’s less essential than everyone says it is, or that I’m not an iPhone power user.)
Here’s a video of Cali Lewis (via Venturebeat) introducing OpenClip…
(Running scissors art swiped from the Running With Scissors poster)
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Apple: Superhuman or Merely Human?
Strange but true: These are either the best of times or the worst of times for Apple’s reputation–and it all depends on which developments you choose to pay attention to.
First the good news. The company’s performance in the just-released American Customer Satisfaction Index was terrific. The company scored an 85 in the study, well ahead of other computer companies such as Dell (75), HP (73), and Gateway (72). (Google, incidentally, did Apple one better, scoring an 86.)
Apple’s score represented its biggest jump ever over the previous year’s results, and the largest gulf ever between it and the rest of the PC industry. And it comes shortly after PC Magazine released the results of a reader survey that also showed Apple customers to be a more generally gruntled bunch than folks who use Windows-based PCs.
But these survey results arrive at a time when much of the news about Apple products involves them misbehaving. There’s the launch of the Mobile Me service–so glitchy that Apple says it’s still not up to the company’s own standards, and has extended three months (so far) of free service to subscribers to make amends. There’s the iPhone 3G’s ongoing issues with flaky 3G data and dropped calls, which Apple isn’t talking about much–although Steve Jobs is supposedly dashing off quick e-mails to iPhone owners saying fixes for this and other problems are in the works. Even old first generation iPod Nanos are apparently deciding to catch on fire, just to add yet another burst of news stories about problematic Apple products.
Did I mention Mike Arrington’s post over at TechCrunch today saying that Apple is “flailing badly at the edges” and recounting the woes he’s had with multiple products from the company?
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The iPod Nano is Hot, Hot, Hot!
It’s been months since I’ve seen a good story about the battery inside a gadget spontaneously bursting into flames. So today’s news of Nanos overheating (again!) manages to make the top of the T-List.
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More MobileMe For Your Money–Yup, Again
In many ways, Apple’s rollout of its MobileMe synching service has been a textbook example of how not to launch a technology service. Just ask anyone who’s grappled with its outages and glitches. But in one important respect, the company’s doing a stellar job: It’s handling a really difficult situation well.
The latest example is today’s news that current Mobile Me users will get an extra sixty days of service, on top of the free month it extended to Mobile Me early adopters and .Mac veterans a month ago. It’s an appropriate, classy step, but I’m also struck by the honesty of the language that Apple used in announcing the extension:
“The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was rockier than we had hoped. While we are making a lot of improvements, the MobileMe service is still not up to our standards. We are extending subscriptions 60-days free of charge to express appreciation for our members’ patience as we continue to improve the service.”
Admitting problems in the past tense is unusual enough in the tech biz; admitting them in the present tense, and implying that they’re ongoing in nature, is practically unheard of. I’m sure there are other examples; I just can’t think of any at the moment.
One nitpick: The MobileMe status blog is now three weeks out of date, and doesn’t mention this extension–at least not as of the time I’m blogging this.
Okay, two nitpicks: The Apple site still touts the wonders of MobileMe, which is a little odd given that it’s simultaneously describing it as not being worthy of Apple.
Okay, a meta-nitpick as well: Wouldn’t it have been cool if Apple had declared MobileMe to be in a retroactive free beta, and suspended charges altogether until the service was up to its own standards? You gotta think the goodwill such a move would generate would be more valuable than the cash generated by MobileMe subscriptions.
Of course, Apple’s handling of MobileMe will only be truly successful once the service is working to the satisfaction of folks who pay the company $70-$100 a year for it. If it’s still bumpy sixty days from now, wonder if Apple is prepared to do yet another extension?
Your thoughts?
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Introducing the T-Poll: Your Take on the iPhone 3G Launch
Last week, I asked you what you thought about the $1000 iPhone application in a silly little poll, and more than 1900 folks have chimed in to date. So consider that microsurvey to be the first T-Poll–and look for more of ’em on a reasonably regular basis. Starting with this one, in which, once again, I come back to the iPhone 3G.
It’s been a little more than a month since the iPhone 3G debuted, and an awful lot has happened. Let’s recap:
* On January July 11th, the iPhone 3G debuted at Apple Stores and AT&T retailers to long lines and a surging sea of activation glitches in the morning, although they seem to have gotten under control by the end of the day;
* Serious problems with MobileMe, however, persist–prompting a subscription extension from Apple, a blog about the glitches and Apple’s response to them, and a widely-published internal memo in which Steve Jobs said the service wasn’t up to Apple standards;
* The Netshare tethering app appeared on the App Store, then disappeared, then appeared, then disappeared;
* Apple let the $1000 app onto the App Store…briefly;
* The App Store has a hit, with iPhone users downloading tens of millions of programs, including a million bucks’ worth for for-pay ones a day;
* Some App Store apps received rave reviews, including Twitterific, Facebook, Evernote, and Apple’s own Remote;
* Users (including me!) groused about Apple’s “Twice as fast” claims about the new phone;
* Reports surfaced of iPhone 3Gs that dropped calls and delivered slow Internet connections, possibly because of a faulty chip;
* Electronics megachain Best Buy became the third seller of iPhones in the U.S;
* Despite everything, most iPhone 3G users appear to be satisfied-to-delighted–but battery life seems to be the most common source of angst;
Today’s T-Poll is a two-parter:
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iPhone 3G: Will a Software Fix Solve the Glitch?
Another day, another iPhone story at the top of the T-List. The bad news is that reports of troubles with the superphone appear persist; the good news is that fixing them may be relatively simple.
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A Brief Reverse-Chronological YouTube History of Apple
The history of Apple is so long and interesting that some amazingly weighty tomes have been written about it. But I don’t think you need to pore over hundreds of pages to get the gist of the company’s journey. Actually, more than with any other computer company, its advertising tells much of the story. And thanks to YouTube, it’s all a few clicks away, and watching it is downright addictive.
I started to put together this video timeline starting in the 1970s and working my way forward to the present day. Then I realized that it’s more fun–and much bloggier–to begin with current commercials and travel backwards in time. Join me, won’t you?