International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) said Tuesday it was making its Lotus Notes tools, including email and calendar applications, available for Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone.
Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM said that the latest version of Notes would allow customers to access the software via the Safari browser on the iPhone.
The iPhone, which is still primarily a consumer device, has begun to attract the interest of corporate customers as a competitor to Research In Motion Ltd.’s (RIMM) BlackBerry device, since Apple launched a software developers’ kit allowing anyone to develop applications for the phone and making it easier for the phone to be connected to corporate IT systems. Network operators have begun offering corporate tariffs for the iPhone.
When Apple launched a 3G version of the iPhone in June, the company’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, said that 35% of the Fortune 500 companies had signed up to trial the phone.
Other business software companies including Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and SAP AG (SAP), offer software for the iPhone.
All the hype came to its crescendo this week as T-Mobile, Google and HTC jointly released the T-Mobile G1, the first commercially available mobile device based on the open source Linux Google Android operating system.
The touch screen G1, known to some as the HTC Dream, bears some similarity to the Apple iPhone, which saw amazing uptake with the release of its 3G model. Even the original iPhone, released 15 months ago, still garners a great deal of hype.
And while it’s uncertain whether the T-Mobile G1 and Google Android will unseat the iPhone for smart phone supremacy, the G1 is better than the iPhone, though it might not be as pretty Read more… »
Apple’s iPhone is, by all accounts, a success, and Apple may be on track to sell 5 million iPhone 3Gs this quarter. A big part of that success has come from the array of software options available from the App Store, the sole distribution point for third-party iPhone software. Though many developers are selling a lot of software, a significant number are becoming frustrated and angry due to Apple’s recent decisions regarding which apps are fit for distribution; the situation has been made worse by reports that Apple has a policy that makes the rejection letters subject to a NDA.
A major point of contention is the reasons Apple has cited in letters sent to developers whose apps were rejected. One reason is that an app has “limited functionality.” Both Pull My Finger, an app that makes fart noises, and Cool O’ Meter, an app that measures how “cool” you are, were rejected for this reason. A letter sent from Worldwide Developer Relations to Cool O’ Meter’s developers reads, in part:
We’ve reviewed your application Cool O’ Meter. We have determined that this application is of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community, and will not be published to the App Store.
If you choose to provide additional features that utilize iPhone functionality, your application can be reconsidered for the App Store after you resubmit a new binary to iTunes Connect.
This might be a good rationale, especially if it were universally applied. However, a quick search of the App Store reveals numerous apps that flip virtual coins, pop virtual shipping bubbles, or allow you to drink virtual beers. The utility of these apps to “the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community” is certainly questionable.
Apple has tweaked the way applications are reviewed and listed in the App Store over the weekend, potentially easing relationships with developers.
Applications will now be categorized by their release date by default. Prior to the change, any updated application was listed in the new category, thus boosting its sales rate even though it’s not technically new.
Additionally, the company has changed the review policy so that reviews can only come from users who have purchased or downloaded the program. This potentially stops shady developers from propping up their applications with fake reviews, as well as keep users who haven’t tried it from posting negative reviews.
The industry recently saw the latter occur when the highly-anticipated PC game Spore was flooded with bad reviews on Amazon.com because it included what many considered draconian DRM.
These moves could potentially ease a growing frustration that some developers are having with Apple regarding the App Store. Apple determines which programs get into its store, and some are criticizing the company for not being more transparent in its vetting process.
The company has also faced criticism for pulling the iPhone Podcaster app because it duplicated functionality of the desktop version of iTunes, according to the developer.
But Apple seems to be doing something right, as users of the iPhone and iPod Touch are on pace to download a billion programs sometime in 2009. While most of these apps are free, a successful sold app can make developers a lot of money — Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently said the store generated $30 million in sales for its first month.
T-Mobile’s new G1 smartphone based on Google’s Android platform has been positioned against Apple’s iPhone by the media, but that attempt to set up a dramatic showdown has fizzled as details show the two products aren’t Read more… »
The official announcement of the first Android phone was naturally cause for much discussion on the Linux blogs last week. We take a look at the issue through the eyes of developers, who see an application market unencumbered by the restrictions of Apple’s iPhone App Store.
Well, Android made its first showing last week in the form of the new G1, and as is so often the case when a brand-new product arrives, there were at least two noticeable effects. The first was a general quickening of the market’s commercial pulses, as consumers began to salivate over the iPhone contender and new latest thing. Second, of course — and our favorite part — was that tongues began wagging afresh throughout the blogosphere.
While countless articles have already chronicled the many differences and similarities between the Android G1 and the iPhone from the user’s perspective, what’s often of greater immediate concern in the FOSS community, of course, is the developer’s point of view.
And that, coincidentally, was a sore subject for those developing for the iPhone last week, as Apple Latest News about Apple began applying nondisclosure agreements to rejection letters sent to those developing for its App Store. What that meant, in other words, was that the developers in question could not reveal or discuss the reason their applications were rejected.
‘The iPhone Is Doomed’
The reaction among bloggers suggests a dark outlook indeed for the iPhone’s future with developers.
“As of today’s news, it appears that the iPhone development process is like this,” wrote Thomas Teisberg on the Linux Loop on Tuesday:
1. “Ask Apple for permission to make an application.
2. Sign a non-disclosure agreement.
3. Invest time and money into an iPhone application.
4. Ask Apple for permission to sell or give away your application.
5. If Apple says YES: start making money and hope Apple does not change their minds.
If Apple says NO: shut up and deal with it. If you say anything, Apple can sue you, further raising the wasted investment money.”
As a result, “the iPhone is now doomed,” Teisberg asserted.
Running Out of Patience
“Apple has not shot itself in the foot — they shot themselves in the leg or heart,” Teisberg added. “If Apple does not loosen up on their NDA policies soon, developers may leave the iPhone for the much more open Android platform or another more open platform.”
If that happens, “Apple has suddenly doomed a potentially promising and incredibly successful platform,” he said. “The only question that remains to be seen is how far iPhone developers are willing to be pushed? My guess: not much more.”
Others agreed with Teisberg’s evaluation.
‘A Very Stupid Thing’
“Apple has done a very stupid thing,” concurred John Bailey on the Loop. “I’ll be interested to watch the Android phones mature, and I would love to see them carve out a nice big market.”
Indeed, “the iPhone was doomed from the start, as soon as people realized what a vastly overpriced, cheaply made, poor performing product it really is!” added kb0hae. “The only reason there were any sales at all is that Apple managed (as it somehow did with the iPod) to get the iPhone to be thought of by a lot of people as some sort of status symbol.”
Because anti-Apple sentiment reached such a fever pitch last week among developers — and because that happened to coincide with Android’s arrival — we here at LinuxInsider thought it would be worth taking a closer look at the iPhone-Android rivalry from the developer’s perspective.
‘Optimistic About Android’
“I’m optimistic about Android, and the ham-fisted way that Apple’s been handling developers for the iPhone has made me even more optimistic,” Slashdot editor Timothy Lord told LinuxInsider. “Apple’s not done anything I consider evil by restricting the apps that iPhone users can download, but it shows they’re giving the iPhone the same treatment that makes me unhappy with OS X — deciding that their way is the way a certain thing will be done.”
A case in point is the “yanking” of the MailWrangler mail application, Lord noted.
“As a Java Latest News about Java developer, obviously I like Android better,” Slashdot blogger Mhall119 told LinuxInsider, “but from a general developer perspective, Android is a potential market, while the iPhone is just a potential partner.”
No developer, “whether an individual or a corporation, would want to put the availability of their product at the mercy of Apple’s own corporate interests when they have the option to sell directly to the Android market,” he asserted. “I think Apple will be forced to allow competing apps on the iPhone, though they will likely continue to restrict applications in order to maintain the iPhone brand.”
‘Terrifying’ Openness
Whether the mobile phone industry is ready for the kind of openness that will make or break Android, however, is another question, Mhall119 added.
“Up until now, they have been able to keep their networks secure and stable by limiting what uses them,” he noted. “Once they allow people to run Android apps that use their network New HP LaserJet P4014n Printer Starting at $699 after $100 instant savings. resources however they want, they are going to have to shift gears and start protecting their networks from their own users, like ISPs have been having to do for a while, and I think that prospect is still terrifying to most of these companies.”
In the end, users will likely dominate, he predicted.
The YouTube Effect
“If YouTube Latest News about YouTube and Facebook Latest News about Facebook have proven anything, it’s that user-supplied content will overwhelm corporate-supplied content by sheer volume alone,” Mhall119 said. “I suspect that Android applications will be the same, and carriers will have to come to terms with the fact that they are no longer selling their customer a product, they are merely the way those customers get to a product made by someone else. That means the carrier will lose out on that piece of the pie, and I don’t see them letting go without a fight.”
Can an open platform alone bring about such seismic change?
“The cell phone market is one of the most closed markets I’ve ever come across — telcos often demand that cell phone makers allow them to disable features to protect their own profit margins,” Montreal consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack told LinuxInsider. “I’m honestly not sure what a more open platform can change in the face of such blatantly anticonsumer behavior.”
Promising Future
Still, Android has at least the potential to bring new openness to a market known for the reverse.
“I’m not a big fan of cell phones generally, but Android-style openness — if it remains as open as people hope it to be — may change my mind on that,” Lord said. “I certainly hope that it puts an end to the foolishness of people paying dollars for ringtones, or [getting] funneled into awkward and expensive picture-sending systems just to get photos off their phone. Shouldn’t every phone already allow users to drag and drop files?”
T-Mobile Latest News about T-Mobile needs to “crow about how open the platform is,” Lord added. “It’s 2008, and I still hear people asking the questions that seemed to dog anything ‘open’ 10 or more years ago, like whether something so transparent can be safe from malicious hackers.”
A whole lot has been happening in iPhone land lately. The 3G iPhone is now available unlocked…in China. If you want to write a nasty note about an iPhone Application, you’re going to have to pay for it first. Lastly, Apple has lowered the number of iPhones it will manufacture this year, but has raised the number it thinks it will sell.
3G Unlocked iPhone
If you want an unlocked iPhone, get ready to shell out some cold, hard cash. The Apple iPhone 3G is available unlocked in China for a sum of $700 for the 8GB version and $800 for the 16GB version. The Apple Web site says that the iPhone 3G purchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier. It doesn’t specify if that means any carrier in China or any carrier in the world.
Alternately, you can buy one here at the subsidized price of $200 or $300 and unlock it yourself for free. Of course, there’s that pesky two-year contract to consider…
App Reviews
Here’s a nice little PR move. One of the great things about the iPhone Apps Store are the user reviews. They give you the real deal, not marketing lingo, so you know what you’re in store for if you choose to buy an application. Well, before this weekend, you could write a review of an application even if you hadn’t downloaded it. That is no longer the case. In order to write a review of an application, you must have downloaded it and installed it on the iPhone.
This is a good move, if you ask me. Any reviewer who writes a review even if he/she hasn’t even used the application is wasting my time.
iPhone Output
According to analysts, Apple has cut the production of 3G iPhones from 18 million units to 14 or 15 million units during the third and fourth quarter of this year. The Register reports that, “[Pacific Crest Securities] reckons Apple will sell 11m iPhones during H2 2008, up from its previous forecast of 8m. Accounting for the apparent discrepancy - increased sales yet reduced production - PCS noted that cutting back on manufacturing costs gives Apple ’sustainable pricing power’, implying the Mac maker could reduce the handset’s price over the period.”
Apple and analysts think the company will sell all of the iPhones that it makes.
The iPhone’s App Store–the simple, click/tap-to-install catalogue of add-on programs, available in both iTunes and on the iPhone and iPod touch–is one of that device’s greatest advantages compared to other smartphones. But Apple’s management of the App Store risks destroying the store’s appeal among an important group of users: those who write iPhone software.
When Apple first announced the App Store, chief executive Steve Jobs described it as a marketplace that welcomes any third-party application that wasn’t illegal, obscene or an outright bandwidth hog. But Apple’s recent conduct suggests it’s become a lot pickier about what it will consent to display in the Store, which happens to be the only easy way to add third-party software to an iPhone or iPod touch.
The most high-profile casualty of Apple’s newfound discrimination is a small program called Podcaster, which, as the name suggests, downloads podcasts over the air directly to the device. Apple rejected this application earlier this month, saying it “duplicates the functionality” of iTunes.
To compound the problem, some iPhone programmers have also begun reporting that Apple is trying to place its rejection letters under a non-disclosure agreement, a pushy move even given Apple’s obsessive secrecy. (Whether this “NDA” gag order is for real is not settled; Mac developer and blogger John Gruber suggests it may not amount to anything in practice.)
The prospect of having their work rejected from the App Store–the equivalent of a death sentence in the iPhone software market–and then being ordered not to talk about it, has infuriated some of Apple’s most creative developers.
One day, Bill Gates was standing on a street corner, watching the clouds roll by. Absentmindedly, he dropped a US$1,000 bill out of his pocket. A bystander noticed and said, “Are you going to pick that up?”
“No, why would I do that?” Gates responded gruffly, and walked away.
OK, fact or fiction?
While my version adds a little color, it’s still just a fable.
You can mix and match the details, but the essence of the myth — which I’ll define as anything grossly inaccurate yet widely regarded as true — is still there.
It’s part fantasy, part fabrication, but wholly inaccurate.
Tech myths come in all shapes and sizes: Some contain a morsel of truth, but many of them are so wildly preposterous that it’s hard to imagine anyone taking them seriously.
“A myth generally exists to explain the worldview of a group of people,” says Rob Enderle, a consumer analyst. “This means its intent is to convey an idea but not necessarily the whole truth, and given it’s conveyed largely from person to person, the initial story can change a great deal.”
At the risk of perpetuating Internet-sized myths even more, here are some of the most famous examples of myths, along with some debunking and comments from those in the know.
Bill Gates dropped a $1,000 bill and didn’t bother to pick it up
There’s really no factual evidence for this one. If it happened, there’s no way to prove it. Given the fact that the U.S. Treasury stopped producing $1,000 bills during World War II and stopped distributing them in 1969, it seems very unlikely Gates would carry one around. Yet, this and many other myths about Bill Gates — many of them related to e-mail scams — seem to become memes faster than other mean-spirited tech gossip.
Apparently, Gates is just an easy target who represents how an average guy (albeit one who is obviously very intelligent) can attain fame and fortune in the tech industry. Those who perpetuate the rumors are probably a little jealous. For its part, Microsoft told me that, officially, it doesn’t comment on Bill Gates’ personal life.
Another Gates myth is that he said “640k ought to be enough for anybody” when talking about an IBM PC’s memory in 1981.
The iPhone 3G has a kill switch that Apple can use to disable the device……….read more
The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker [...]
The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker [...]
The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker [...]
The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker [...]
The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker [...]
The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker [...]
The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker [...]
The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker [...]
The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker [...]
The T-Mobile G1 compares well in many ways to Apple’s iPhone 3G
Having been an iPhone 3G owner since July, I was prepared to not be too impressed with the
T-Mobile G1, the very first mobile phone to use Google’s Android software as its operating system.
But the G1 is a lot more exciting in person — sleeker [...]
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