It’s late, and I’ll write more when I’ve played with it more, but one of the apps I’ve dreamed of for a long time finally came out - WordPress for iPhone! 
iphone.wordpress.org
Tag Archive for 'iphone'
Hey, remember TinyPodcast? No? Well, Brian Jarvis and I (Josh Bancroft), two guys who happen to work at Intel, started doing a weekly podcast way back in 2004. Basically, the two of us geeked out about the latest mobile devices, cool software, and technology news and rumors, and recorded it. It was moderately popular, and some people actually complained when it tapered off…
Well, we’re back! And we’re under the Bit Stories banner now. I work for Intel Software Network, and I’ve had the idea and intention for a while now of doing a show there like Brian and I used to do. Now we’re actually doing it.
If you haven’t listened before, this isn’t some professionally produced, slick, marketing message controlled by our corporate overlords. We’re just a couple of geeks who love gadgets, phones, computers, the web, and software, talking about whatever’s new and cool. We try to make the audio sound good, but it’s always going to be a little rough around the edges, and we’re OK with that. Sound like something you’d be interested in? Come have a listen.
In this show, we talk about the following, in no particular order:
- The iPhone 3G announcement - its features, whether Brian is finally going to cave in and get one, how AT&T is raising prices on the plans just because they can, how we can’t wait to see what comes out of the App Store, and everything else we can think of. We’re a little obsessed.
- Netbooks vs. regular laptops vs. Tablet PCs (with the tangent typing vs handwriting discussion).
- Where we want to take the show - we don’t have grand plans - we pretty much have always played this by ear, but we’d love to hear any ideas or suggestions (or complaints!) you have, so we can keep it interesting.
- And a whole lot more I can’t remember right now!
The show is about 38 minutes long (we try to stick to the magic 40 minute length), and weighs about 35MB (it’s a 128kbps MP3). You can download the file directly, listen using the streaming player in this post, or (BEST OPTION!!1!) subscribe to the Bit Stories podcast feed in your favorite podcast aggregator (like iTunes). If you subscribe to the feed, you’ll get each show delivered automatically as it becomes available - probably once a week or so, with the occasional bonus video or audio segment thrown in for fun. Plus, we’ll love you forever if you subscribe.
Are you thrilled that the show is back? Mad that we changed something? Think we suck for being gone so long? Just want to say hi? Post a comment, and let us know! Seriously. We crave the validation that your feedback brings. You have no idea how fragile our self esteem really is… 
I’m pretty much counting on Twitter being down (or rather, turning into a smoking crater where their servers used to be) during this morning’s Steve Job’s keynote at WWDC. So I’ll be liveblogging it here. I’m not at WWDC, but will be following via various online tools, and geeking out with fellow Macheads at Intel while it’s going on. This post is mostly going to be my observations and opinions on the news, rather than actually breaking the news, so if you want to follow along as “live” as you can, check out ArsTechnica’s live coverage, MacRumorsLive’s autoupdating page, and Engadget’s live coverage. Twitter and Summize also have a page set up to track the news, but like I said, my money’s on Twitter getting obliterated (it’s already flaky this morning).
The world is about to change. New iPhone. The iPhone App Store. And then what? New devices? OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” (here’s my prediction on what that one really means). I can’t wait! This is better than Christmas!
I’m in the new JF1 “living room” area at Intel, where they have a few tables set up under a 65″ plasma TV. I’m hooked up to it, using it as my external monitor, getting ready to scour the interwebs for each new tidbit as it makes its way from the mouth of Steve. I’ve got my Mountain Dew and some Pop Tarts. I’m ready. Let’s do this thing!
Steve’s on stage now. We’re getting the best updates from the Ars IRC channel (#wwdc on irc.arstechnica.com). Steve’s talking about the enterprise features of the iPhone 2.0 software - calendar and contact sync, remote wipe, etc. Stuff we already knew. Now he’s bringing suits out on stage, from other companies. Stuff we hadn’t heard already - capability of viewing office documents, SharePoint access, VPN and two factor authentication (as in SecurID/SoftID). Cool…
Now talking about the iPhone SDK and how many similarities it has with the “real” OS X kernel and code. APIs are the same, line for line. Location-based services, 3D positional audio, how easy it is to develop for it and debug it, etc. Showing a new demo app, “Nearby Friends”, which sounds really cool. I’ll have to go back and watch the video of this, showing how easy it is to build an application, live. Talking about how much developers love coding for this platform. Yay, look how awesome we are!
Now comes the game demos. First up, Sega, talking about Super Monkey Ball. I have a love/hate relationship with that game on other platforms. The “party” parts of the games are really fun, but the “roll the monkey in a marble across this platform surrounded by a bottomless abyss on all sides” are freaking FRUSTRATING. In the keynote, they’re saying the demo looks awesome. Full “tilt” control using the accelerometer. Will be available “at the launch of the app store” for $9.99. Not a bad price - people were speculating that iPhone apps would be a lot more expensive - $20 to $40.
Now demoing an eBay app, which sounds technically cool, but honestly isn’t very interesting to me because I don’t use eBay. Now they’re talking about an app called “Loopt” (”connecting people on the go”), which Ars is excited about, but I’ve never heard of. Sounds like “friends on a map, showing you what they’re doing”. I’m not to keen on the idea of these kinds of apps, but I guess I’d have to see a GOOD one in action to really decide.
BTW, thanks to Brent, Matt, Tod, and Jerry, who are sitting around the table, correcting my mistakes and typos as I write this. Matt’s trying to listen to a live audio stream, which is sort of working, but it’s more delayed than the Ars IRC feed (which is AWESOME! FAR better than any other way I’ve done this before. Thanks Ars! )
Showing a Typepad blog authoring app, that’s going to be free at the app store launch. Yawn. Show me a generic XML-RPC compatible editor (I can has MarsEdit for iPhone please?) or something that’ll work with WordPress and I’ll be interested. I’m sure that will come soon enough. And an AP “see local news and photos based on your location” app. Sounds kind of dumb - how much news do you know of that has specific location information, more than just “Dateline: this city”? Meh.
Next up a game developer showed off a couple of games that look cool (kind of hard to get a sense of them when I’m reading text descriptions in an IRC channel - I’m sure we’ll see lots about the games soon enough). And an indie dev who works in the insurance industry made a really cool virtual musical instrument app called “Band” that he developed in 8 months in his spare time. And now talking about Major League Baseball. Woo! Not.
Now showing off a bunch of medical reference/learning applications. Talking about med students and K-12 education. I love the idea, but how many K-12 students do you know that have iPhones (or would be allowed to have iPhones by their school’s policies)? Still, very cool ideas, and it’s great that these applications are coming, and relatively easy to develop.
Enough with the 3rd party app demos. I want to know what Apple has to show us today!
OK, now Forstall’s talking about the lack of a good chat platform, and how to receive notifications from your apps while they’re not running. He says the WRONG solution is background processes, because they sap battery life and performance. (And now he’s showing how Windows Mobile does this, and making fun of it! ) “We have come up with a far better solution.” A push notification service to all developers. When your app is running, you’re connected to a server. When you quit, the connection dies. Apple maintains a persistent IP connection to the iPhone, and 3rd parties can push notifications through that server to the phone (badges, sounds, alerts, etc.). Alerts can include buttons to automatically launch your app (so it doesn’t have to stay running the background), and the phone only has to maintain one server connection (presumably to Apple) to make this works. Works over wifi and cellular. Coming in September. I have to admit, this seems like a really clever solution to a really tough problem. We’ll see how it works out in real life!
Steve’s back on stage, and talking about new iPhone 2.0 software features. Contact search, iWork (create and edit iWork docs - cool!), bulk delete and move in email, save images from emails, new calculator, explicit content filters, and new language support for Japanese and Chinese character input - draw them with your finger. That’s a welcome feature for a lot of people, I’m sure. The 2.0 software update will come in early July, will be free for iPhones, and $9.95 for iPod Touch owners (gouged again!).
Now on to talking about the app store. Wireless download and install, automatic updates, devs set prices and keep 70% of revenues. “We FairPlay apps” - FairPlay is iTunes’ DRM for music, so that means that apps will be locked (and presumably, cracked shortly thereafter - FairPlay has a reputation of being pretty breakable). If your app is larger than 10MB, you can only install over wifi. Enterprise apps can be deployed on the intranet, downloaded to your computer, then synced and installed via iTunes. Sounds like a good solution for corporate apps.
Now for something completely different: Mobile Me, new mobile service. Worst kept secret in the industry - this is basically .Mac done right - “Exchange for the rest of us”. Works on Mac, PC (woo!), and iPhone (double woo!). Push your contacts, email, calendar, and files into the cloud, and keep them in sync across all devices. But I do this already with Google - Gmail, Reader, Docs, Calendar. Will be interesting to see how this compares. Or maybe MobileMe will just be powered by Google. The site is me.com. Going into a demo now - I’ll check this out myself later, see if it’s worth it. It’s a cool idea, regardless. $99/year, 20GB of storage, and there’s a 60 day free trial. Expensive for what you get. I’ll probably pass. “Available with iPhone 2.0 in early July”. So, does that mean no iPhone until early July?
OK, now he’s talking about the new iPhone. “Next challenges.” 3G, enterprise, 3rd party apps, more countries, more affordable. iPhone 3G introduced today (big surprise!). Even thinner. The back looks plastic, black. Solid metal buttons. Same display and camera. Flush headphone jack (yay - no more adapters!). Improved audio. Feels “even better” in your hand.
3G = faster data downloads. Email attachments and downloads. Doing a video demo speed comparison between EDGE and 3G. 3G is faster. Duh. Comparing to other 3G phones. It’s faster. Of course it is. Tell us something new! Show us pictures! Their claiming “great battery life”, which was one of the big concerns with previous 3G chipsets (which were also too big).
Talking about location services now, and “GPS”. The question is, does it have REAL GPS (satellite-based, not tower based)? From the demos (tracking a drive down Lombard street), it looks to be the real thing. Or at least, good enough to pass for it (smooth tracking, etc.).
More countries - they’re aiming for 12 countries for the 3G launch, with a stretch goal of 25 70 (!) countries over the next several months. Hear that sound? It’s the bottom dropping out of the international iPhone resale grey market.
More affordable. It started at $599, sells now for $399. 3G 8GB iPhone is $199. Yow! Nice! 16GB is $299. And “something special” - a white one, 16GB. Same price. Saying launch in 22 countries on July 11. I wonder if the U.S. is one of those countries? Showing a new iPhone commercial. Twice.
Jobs has left the stage. No “one more thing”. Nothing on Snot Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 (though they said there will be a session after lunch to talk about it, that’s under NDA). Bummer! I still held out hope for a new hardware class of device, Atom powered. Oh well - there’s always MacWorld 2009 in Januuary!
This was fun. Ultimately, there’s no real new hardware. We all knew about the new iPhone and its features ahead of time. Kind of bummed that it won’t go on sale for a month, but that gives me more time to save up my pennies.
Looks like the rumored Apple site that lists webapps you can use on your iPhone or iPod Touch has launched:
I find it amusing that the site itself, when viewed on my iPhone, is not “optimized” for iPhone viewing. That is, you have to scroll around and navigate the page just like a “full size” web page. Which works really, really well on the iPhone, so it’s not a big deal, but still, I chuckled.
As far as what apps are listed, of course the “big” ones like Facebook and Digg are included. I also discovered the iPhone versions of Fandango (for movie listings and tickets - we needed this one!) and WeatherBug.
These two are quite useful, and nicely done, and I hadn’t heard of them before. Besides that, I found the rest of the apps to be, well, boring and derivative. I guess I’m jaded. But I’m honestly disappointed that this is the best that Apple could do to harness the creativity and genius of people out there who WANT to write great apps for a great device.
You’ll also find links to Apple’s documentation on iPhone web app development linked from the page, and you can submit your own web app for consideration/inclusion in the directory. And there’s an RSS feed to subscribe and receive updates when new apps are added, though I’m getting a “page not found” error for the feed right now. Guess no web site launch is perfect.
I guess this is as close to a software development kit as we’re going to get. *sigh* Anyway, go check it out if you have an iPhone or an iPod touch, and bookmark any that you find useful!
My iPhone is now an iBrick. Here’s how it happened, what I learned, how it felt, and what you might be able to learn from the whole thing. I’ll write up the details of that story in a separate post. This one is for background.
I am a HUGE iPhone fan. I camped out on release day to be number one in line. I’ve used the heck out of my iPhone every single day since I got it. I’ve taught other people how great they are, answered countless questions about it, and generally been a huge fan.
I have had many, many mobile devices, and understand that since the operating system for most devices resides in flash ROM, and isn’t meant to be readily modified, you can’t expect the device manufacturer to help you fix problems you run into with a modified device. This hasn’t prevented lively developer communities from springing up around popular devices - like XDA-Developers, etc. - to help power users get even more functionality and fun from their devices.
Soon after the iPhone was launched on June 29, 2007, such a developer community popped up around it. Even though Apple made it very clear that they didn’t intend to support iPhone developers at all. “Make web applications. That’s good enough.” was the edict from Cupertino. Most people I know, from real developers to regular old users were miffed that Apple wasn’t releasing a Software Development Kit (SDK) to make applications for the iPhone. So the development community took matters into its own hands.
It ranged from people like Joe Hewitt (of Firebug and now Facebook fame - he’s the guy that wrote Facebook’s iPhone UI, which has been featured in Steve Jobs keynotes) engineering and releasing tools like iUI to make better web applications to the dedicated hackers who figured out how to get your own applications to install and run on the iPhone. Following best practices from the Linux world, they gave people how were willing to “jailbreak” their iPhone the ability to run Nullriver’s AppTapp Installer.app - a package manager that opened the door to browse and install dozens of iPhone applications.
There was an uneasy stalemate between Apple and the iPhone developers. Apple openly admitted that they weren’t going to support these 3rd party developers, but they weren’t going to try to stop them, either. On September 11, 2007, Gearlog published this quote from an interview with Greg Joswiak, VP of Hardware Product Marketing at Apple:
I asked him about independent, native software development for the iPhone. He said Apple doesn’t oppose native application development, which was new to me. Rather, Apple takes a neutral stance - they’re not going to stop anyone from writing apps, and they’re not going to maliciously design software updates to break the native apps, but they’re not going to care if their software updates accidentally break the native apps either.
In other words, iPhone “hacking” would follow the same path as other mobile devices, like Windows Mobile, iPods, etc. No one expected Apple to help customers make 3rd party applications work. Everyone knew that the most you could expect from Apple was a complete wipe and restore back to factory new settings. In fact, when iPhone updates 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 were released, this is exactly what happened. If you had “jailbroken” your iPhone and installed 3rd party apps, the device was wiped and restored to Apple’s known good “clean” state. No more than two weeks later, Apple radically reversed its position on this issue.
Then came the seemingly similar activity of “unlocking” iPhones to work on cellular carriers other than AT&T. The iPhone is a unique device in that it’s extraordinarily locked down, meant only to work if you have a valid account with AT&T. Without active AT&T service, you couldn’t use any of the other features of the iPhone. No wifi web browsing, no iPod media playback, nothing. So the people outside of AT&T service area (the whole world outside the United States), and people who couldn’t or didn’t want to switch to AT&T could never have an iPhone, under Apple and AT&Ts rules. Many people felt this was unfair and dictatorial, and It’s interesting to note that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires U.S. cell phone carriers to SIM unlock customers’ phones upon request, for overseas travel, or any other reason.
So the development community set to work on a “SIM unlock” for the iPhone, which modified the radio/baseband part of the iPhone firmware to allow it to use ANY SIM card from ANY carrier. The unlocking apps were released. The world rejoiced. And no one expected Apple to support iPhones that weren’t on the AT&T network. Just like installing 3rd party applications, the most you could expect Apple to do would be to wipe and restore your iPhone to its original state.
An application called anySIM was the first free version of these unlocking apps. It was made available through the popular and simple Installer.app package system (it was pulled a few hours later). During the time it was available, I downloaded it. I didn’t need or want to unlock my iPhone - I’m happy with AT&T’s service (we have two lines of service in our family), and I didn’t even have a non-AT&T SIM card that I could use to test and see if the unlock worked. But I’m a geek and an enthusiast and a blogger, so I ran the unlock software, if only to document the process, just like all the other 3rd party software installations I had done.
And that’s where all the trouble started…
(Click here to read the next part of the saga: I admit it - I ran anySIM to unlock my iPhone (a photo story))
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