Some nice tips and lessons-learned, here. Visit site »
This September, several industry leaders in the mobile web space, including my old boss Brian Fling, will convene on Lawrence, KS, the coolest little town you’ve never heard of, for Design for Mobile 2008. Should be a great event. Visit site »
RIM’s soon-to-be-released “iPhone Killer” is pretty interesting. It features a multi touch screen with tactile feedback. Apparently, when you press an on-screen key, the screen actually depresses slightly and provides haptic feedback in the form of a buzz under your finger where you pressed on the screen. Just hearing about it, I’m not sure it’s something I’d want, but I’d love to feel it for myself. If it work well, it could be very cool. It uses WebKit for its browser. I also like how the phone does full QWERTY in landscape and RIM’s SureType in portrait — clever choice. Visit site »
According to a growing number of people on Twitter, Apple is having problems with its in-store activation process. Couple this with the botched MobileMe rollout, and this launch isn’t looking good for Apple right now. Here’s hoping they get it all resolved in short order.
The Brightkite team says their native iPhone app will be out by the end of the month. Great news, because so far, I’m not very impressed with Loopt or Whrrl. Brightkite’s iPhone web version defeats both by a long, long longshot. Visit site »
Ever since I tweeted that I have installed iPhone 2.0 and downloaded apps from the app store, I’ve gotten countless IM’s, DM’s, and e-mails asking me how. It’s been all over the Internet all morning, so it’s no secret, but Wired has now published a comprehensive, step-by-step guide that is probably the simplest to follow that I’ve seen. So, get on it. Visit site »
If you’re one of the first 1,000 people to feature a Samsung Instinct in your YouTube video, Sprint will pay for, well, about a third-tank of gas. Wow, thanks, guys.
I wonder if it would count if I featured it in a video explaining the thousand reasons why the iPhone’s UI is better than the Instinct’s? Visit site »
Short story: the Samsung Instinct on Sprint is the best “iPhone killer” made to date, and it also happens to b the cheapest (at just $129, after this week’s price reduction to compete with the iPhone 3G). Being from the Kansas City area (where Sprint is headquartered), I know a lot of people locked into Sprint contracts. While it’s still not an iPhone, the Instinct does seem like a solid buy for someone stuck on Sprint — especially at just $129.
All that having been said, I sort of suspect phones like the Nokia N95, Samsung Soul, and Garmin Nuviphone are more likely to take business away from the iPhone — even if they’re not as directly positioned to compete with it. Visit site »
Gruber walks through the “should I upgrade to the new iPhone,” dilemma, one I’m currently having, myself. He correctly points out that the only real noteworthy advantages are faster networking and GPS. He doesn’t mention the flush headphone jack, which isn’t a big deal to me personally (I’ve already gone and bought V-Moda iPhone earbuds), but may be to some audiophiles who’ve been avoiding the iPhone because they can’t use their favorite headphones with them.
For me, I think it’s going to boil down to this: Will the location-based SDK apps work with the triangulation functionality of the original iPhone, or will they require GPS? And if they do work: how well? I’m excited about the location based services more than the 3G networking, myself. If these work reasonably well on the original iPhone, then I may not have much incentive to upgrade this time around. Visit site »
Qik, which is totally rad, is now on iPhone. It looks like it’s just a demo of an unofficial app for jailbroken iPhone, but it’s probably safe to assume a more “legit” version will be coming soon. Awesome. Visit site »
I’ve been saying it all along: white rules! I never got the facination with the black MacBook, and all my iPods have been white. If I get the new iPhone (which I haven’t fully decided on, yet), it’ll be white. White FTW! Visit site »
There’s a lot of good news about the new iPhone today, but it’s not all gravy. One thing that saddens me is that you can no longer activate the iPhone using iTunes in the comfort of your own home, like you did with the first generation Jesus phone. You now have to activate in-store — a process which takes 10-15 minutes. Man, that launch day line is going to suck. Visit site »
According to Engadget, the new iPhone is slightly thicker than the old one. Now, we’re talking about .7mm, so it’s not something that is going to make a difference in real-world usage. I just think it’s interesting that it’s thicker, considering that Steve Jobs apparently said it was thinner during the keynote today, where it was introduced. Visit site »
Just how will Apple meet expectations? Using the patent application as a guide, Apple appears to be making room on the iPhone for flash memory, which means an end to Apple’s standoff with Adobe (ADBE) that’s kept iPhones from easily viewing a plethora of Internet videos. Apple has said that Adobe’s flash media player, which is on hundreds of other phones, doesn’t perform up to Apple’s standards for the iPhone.
Wow. Just, wow. Visit site »
A handful of stats, according to Nielsen Mobile, about how iPhone owners use their phones. Most interesting bit to me? 33 percent said they use their iPhone for “instant messaging” — despite the fact there is no IM client on the phone. Weird. Or wrong. Visit site »
Gizmodo has some walkthrough videos of the Sprint Instinct, the company’s “iPhone Killer.” In watching them, I definitely feel like this is probably the second-best thing to an iPhone out there, UI-wise. It doesn’t look quite as simple, elegant, and sexy as the iPhone, but it is a pretty well-done copycat. And, it does have a few features the iPhone doesn’t (3G, GPS, text-to-speech). I don’t think it’s an iPhone killer, but it’s probably the closest thing to one made thus far. I wouldn’t blame a Sprint customer for buying this guy instead of paying $200 to switch to AT&T. Visit site »
My buddy Sarah has been ranting about this for a few weeks now, and she’s finally put it on her blog. I totally agree with her: 90% of the time, a text message, e-mail, IM, or voicemail is the right form of communication. It’s not that often that you really need to talk to me on the phone. As such, Sarah wants a data-only plan from her wireless provider. Sarah and I have both been bitten in the ass by massive overage charges on SMS messages — all the while using a miniscule percentage of our voice minutes. Give us an unlimited data-only plan, and we’ll be happy to pay by-the-minute for the few voice calls we do make. Visit site »
Gruber compares web clients for Twitter on the iPhone. Personally, I think Thincloud is pretty good (and my favorite of the bunch), but it still hasn’t been enough to make me give up Twitter over SMS. Gruber says Twitter over SMS is too annoying — I disagree. I find it to be perfect. It has all the feature John wants, works well, and has the most “iPhoney” interface of all.
All that having been said, I hope (and suspect) someone will create a killer native iPhone app for release after iPhone 2.0 is out. Visit site »