Tag Archives | iPhone

Is the Palm Pre Showing Up on June 6th?

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 19, 2009 at 3:46 am

palmpreUntil now, I’ve held off–sorry for this metaphor!–regurgitating the river of rumors about the release date for Palm’s Pre phone. For one thing, I’m far more interested in whether the Pre lives up to its considerable potential than the precise day on which it will be released. (This we know: Unless Palm unexpectedly blows its deadline, the Pre will ship some time between today and June 30th.) For another thing, Pre-related rumors are so unreliable that you’d think they were about an Apple product–if they were reliable, we’d have been able to buy the phone the day after Valentine’s Day.

But I’ve got to break down and say something at some point, and Engadget is reporting that an upcoming Sprint ad sets the release date as Saturday, June 6th. InfoSync is going further, stating that ads setting the date as June 6th are already appearing on the Web. (I haven’t seen any of these myself, but if they’re out there, they clinch it.)

If the Pre shows up for sale on June 6th, it’ll make its debut forty-eight hours before the keynote at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, where chances are good-to-great that Apple will announce one or more new iPhones. Commenting on an earlier rumor that the Pre would arrive on June 7th, All Things Digital’s John Paczkowski said it would be “sheer lunacy” for Palm to release its phone with such a narrow window of glory before a new iPhone hogged the spotlight. I presume that John would deem it only slightly less nutty if the Pre showed up on the 6th. But I dunno: If there is a new iPhone at WWDC and Palm does get the Pre out the door by the end of June, the two phones are going to be competing for the world’s attention no matter what. It’s possible that being the most interesting new phone that isn’t the new iPhone would actually be healthy for the Pre’s PR campaign. And you know what? The Pre is the only upcoming phone I know of that stands a real chance of being more interesting than the new iPhone.

One way or another, I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the Pre. It makes for a sensational demo, and we won’t have to wait much longer before we learn just how it fares in the real world.

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iPhone 3.0 Draws Closer

Posted by David Worthington on May 18, 2009 at 8:01 pm

Apple’s iPhone 3.0 operating system upgrade moved step closer to its release as the company began external testing of its push notification service today, according to Cnet.

Apple asked third-party application developers to test out the AP’s iPhone news app in an e-mail. The AP app is the first third-party program to incorporate push notifications on the iPhone platform–a long-promised feature that has been restricted to Apple’s own core applications.

Apple outlined push notifications in March at its press event in March. It had previously promised to deliver the feature in September 2008, but scuttled its plans when the notifications proved difficult to implement.

As an iPhone user, I am hoping that the testing goes smoothly and does not delay the iPhone 3.0 operating system’s expected release this summer. With the wide availability of advanced software testing and performance tools, it likely will, but as my mother used to say, “The proof is in the pudding.” I look forward to hearing reports about the AP app–and other push-enabled ones to come.

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Cheaper iPhone Data Plans? Yes, Please!

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 18, 2009 at 12:06 pm

I’m not sure if there’s a guiding principle at work with the evolution of pricing for mobile-phone data plans, but if there is, it sure isn’t Moore Law–the $30 I plunk down each month for unlimited data for my iPhone is 50 percent more than what I paid a few years ago with my first smartphone, a Treo 650. But BusinessWeek has published an encouraging report that AT&T is considering lowering the cost of iPhone data or introducing a $20 plan for something less than all-you-can eat access. Not surprisingly, the folks who have snapped up iPhones to date tend to be a pretty affluent bunch, and AT&T is worried that it may be running out of propserous customers to sell new phones to.

I hope very much that the carrier does chop prices–but that it does so by simply instituting a price cut for unlimited data rather than adding a cheaper, capped option. Smartphones are pocketable PCs, and using one with anything less than all-you-can eat data is like a trip back to the era when people paid for AOL by the hour and kept a nervous eyeball on the meter at all times. You gotta think that if AT&T reduces the cost of unlimited data, it can sell more than enough additional iPhones to end up making more money than it does today at current rates. It would be a boon for AT&T, for new customers, and for those of us who would be happy to renew our contracts at a lower rate. Come to think of it, it would also benefit customers of other carriers, since cheaper iPhones would require other providers to respond with price cuts.

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Bento Comes to the iPhone

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 6, 2009 at 12:38 am

BentoWhen Apple’s FileMaker division told me that it had iPhone-related news, my first guess was that it was announcing a version of its flagship cross-platform database application for its parent company’s phone. Not quite. It released a database for the iPhone yesterday, but that database is Bento, a $4.99 mobile version of the company’s consumer and small-business database application, which until now has run only on Macs with OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Bento for the iPhone (and iPod Touch) isn’t the first database for the iPhone, but it may be the most thoroughly Apple-esque one to date. (Which makes sense.) A cover-flow like browser lets you choose from dozens of templates, like the ones you get in Bento for the Mac–everything from an equipment log to a digital media collection to expenses to notes to a record of your diet. There’s also a blank template. Once you choose a template and create a database–which Bento calls a Library–you can customize the fields and their order, then populate them with information.

On the Mac, Bento’s biggest distinguishing characteristic is its pretty, flexible layouts. On the iPhone, sensibly enough, everything’s organized into the typical iPhone list-like format. It’s less flashy but makes good use of the available real estate, and it’s easy to browse records, update old ones, and add new information.

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A Porcine Panic Button for Your iPhone

Posted by David Worthington on May 1, 2009 at 6:05 pm

An iPhone application called Swine Flu Tracker–not yet enables users to track confirmed cases of the flu, check health alerts, and to learn about about its symptoms.

When the Black Plagues struck Europe during the middle ages, communication was poor, and pestilence spread rapidly before anyone had an indication of where it might strike next.

The 1918 flu pandemic was better understood, but the public was still largely in the dark save for newspaper reports. Nearly a century later, technology has made it possible to track pandemics from your pocket.

Web 2.0 technologies are being leveraged in innovative ways to monitor the spread of the flue. It’s an intriguing exercise of modern messaging platforms, and in the event of a real emergency, people could turn to the Web to help themselves, and more importantly, help each another. But reality is that most places in the world are not in a state of emergency.

I am not going to discount the public health threat posed by the H1N1 (Swine Flu) virus, and I deeply regret that toll it has taken on human lives. When healthy young adults are killed by their own immune response, it’s an even greater tragedy.

The overall public understands that the virus could mutate – that is why governments are taking serious measures to monitor it. Mechanisms are in place throughout the world to safeguard public health. In the United States, the Centers for Disease control even has a Twitter account (@CDCFlu) where relevant information is posted.

That said, my advise is not to install this application (assuming Apple gives its okay) unless you enjoy self abuse or want to be nominated as hypochondriac of the year. Want to track where the virus has spread? Try Google Maps.

Unless you are told otherwise by the authorities, please chill out, go outside, enjoy the weekend, and remember to wash your hands. If you think you may be ill, stay away from crowds like you should any other time that you are sick. Common sense isn’t rocket science, but you may need a rocket scientist’s salary to pay for anti-anxiety medications if you install this application.

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