Curious about when the next iPhone will come out? You can pretty much pick your month and find someone who says it’ll come out then–there’s probably somebody somewhere confidently reporting that a reliable source is saying the phone will come out in March, 2037. But All Things D’s John Paczkowski isn’t a guy who trades in rumors that are flimsy or just plain flim-flams. So when he says that the iPhone 5 will come out in October, I pay attention, at least.
Tag Archives | Smartphones
Uber Rides Into Seattle
Back in April I told you about Uber–the luxury transportation service that got its start in San Francisco–appearing in New York City. Well, the company is expanding again, this time into Seattle. As in the Big Apple, test cars are limited, and they’re not ready for prime time just yet. In other words, be a little patient.
Here’s how it works: your reservation for a car is placed through Uber’s iPhone app. You’ll then receive a text message when the Uber is expected to arrive, and when it is about to arrive at your location. No money exchanges hands because the payment (with tip included) is done via credit card stored with Uber. Fast and easy.
I can tell you from personal experience during CE Week back in June that the service is nice. In addition to the text, I received calls from the driver confirming my location on his way there, as well as also letting me know he was there in case I might have missed the text message. Pretty good customer service!
I was happy to share the ride with Mrs. McCracken herself (aka Marie Domingo) and we were both impressed with the ride. Yes, it’s more expensive than a cab. But sometimes you’ve got to step it up, you know?
The company is staying pretty tight lipped about its future expansion plans, but it’s obviously taking its time in expanding. If I could make a suggestion, I’d love to see Ubers in Philadelphia (hint, hint).
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Kobo to Apple: We’re Building Our Own HTML5 E-Bookstore
Apple’s new App Store policies–the ones I worried about when they were announced months ago–have kicked in. From now on, app makers who sell content such as books and music have two ways of making it available. They can use Apple’s In-App Purchase system to sell content within the app (giving Apple a 30 percent commission). Or they can sell it directly to consumers through their own venues, such as Web-based stores–but can include no mentions or links relating to that fact in the iOS app itself.
Many third-party developers are choosing one route or the other without any public fuss. Canadian e-book purveyor Kobo is being a tad more prickly. It’s updated its iOS app with a new version that meets the new rules–it lets you read books you’ve purchased, but provides no way to buy them or register for a Kobo account, nor any explanation of how to do so. But it’s also announcing plans to build an HTML5 e-reading app which will work in the iOS browser–and which it’ll control itself, with no requirement that it follow Apple’s rules. And the company’s chief iOS architect is detailing the Byzantine approval process which the Kobo app had to go through before Apple would finally approve it. (The essentially similar Borders app wasn’t forced to jump through as many hoops, a reminder of the biggest problem with App Store rules: they’re sometimes applied in an inconsistent, apparently arbitrary fashion.)
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Goodbye, BlackBerry
Back in May, I said that RIM’s biggest challenge was releasing new BlackBerry models that would please Lance Ulanoff, editor of PCMag.com and long-time BlackBerry user. Too late! Lance, who’s about to leave his PCMag gig, says he’s bought his last BlackBerry.
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That’s a Start: AT&T’s 2011 Android Phones Will Get Gingerbread
AT&T is now trying to do right by Android by upgrading all 2011 phones to Android 2.3, also known as Gingerbread.
The upgrades start today with Motorola’s Atrix 4G, followed by HTC’s Inspire 4G in a few weeks. Also on the update list are LG’s Phoenix, Pantech’s Crossover and Samsung’s Infuse 4G. The Samsung Captivate, which launched last year, will get the update as well.
Gingerbread is the latest version of Google’s Android OS for smartphones, and includes improvements to the software’s keyboard, text selection and power management. A minor update for Gingerbread phones with front-facing cameras also added native video chat through Google Talk.
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Google+ App Hits the iPhone
Google+ had an Android app from day one, but the iPhone version was temporarily stuck in Apple approval limbo. Now it’s on the App Store. (I haven’t tried it yet, but am looking forward to it–I’m not that crazy about the mobile browser-based version of the service.)
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iPhone 5 Rumors: Cut. It. Out.
PCMag.com’s Sascha Segan has a simple plea: “Stop the iPhone 5 Rumor Insanity.”
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Android Uncertainty: Apple Wins a Round Against HTC
On Friday, Apple won a round in its court battle against Taiwanese phone maker HTC, when an International Trade Commission judge ruled that HTC’s Android handsets violate two Apple patents. HTC is appealing the judgement.
My two favorite tech/law bloggers are FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller and This is My Next’s Nilay Patel. Mueller thinks this court decision could be a big deal:
I have looked at those patents before and they appear to be very fundamental. They are very likely to be infringed by code that is at the core of Android. It’s telling that those two patents are also at issue between Apple and Motorola (and the ‘263 patent was also used by Apple against Nokia). A while after Apple started suing HTC, Motorola filed a declaratory judgment action against a dozen Apple patents including those two. Apple then counterclaimed by asking the court to determine that those patents are valid and infringed by Motorola. So the relevance of this goes way beyond HTC!
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Dragon Go! Voice Search for iPhone is Surprisingly Intelligent
The other day I received a package, or I should say what in hindsight seems a waste of one: a large box, inside which lay a jumbo-sized cardboard egg, from within which I plucked a tiny rectangular piece of colored paper slightly larger than a business card. On the card, a picture of an iPhone, a greenish tongue of flame, and the words “Introducing…. Dragon Go!”
This is apparently someone’s savvy marketing idea to get my attention (or squander cardboard), perhaps hoping to conjure some latent connection to the dragon eggs featured in HBO’s recently completed (and as of today, multi-Emmy-nominated) first season of Game of Thrones. Intentional or no, I’m making my way through the HBO series now, and here I am, writing about Dragon Go!. Mission accomplished, outsourced PR person!
Dragon, as many of you may know, is the call sign for a suite of speech-recognition tools, the forerunner of which, DragonDictate, was released in the early 1980s for DOS. It’s since been recognized as perhaps the most accurate of the consumer-grade speech recognition utilities (at one point, employed as a computer systems engineer, I provided tech support to a quadriplegic who used Dragon Naturally Speaking—as it was called by 1997—to run his entire home office).
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Inside RIM
It’s always sensible to be skeptical when you read news reports based on anonymous sources. But BGR’s story on the troubles at BlackBerry maker RIM–which has juicy tidbits like the statement that founder Mike Lazaridis once said there’d never be a BlackBerry with a camera or a music player–is a fascinating read.