Apple defends AT&T, says partner will fix iPhone problems
Apple Inc. executives yesterday again stuck up for their exclusive U.S. iPhone partner, AT&T Inc., and said that they approved the carrier's solutions to long-running problems handling iPhone traffic. During Apple's quarterly earnings conference call with Wall Street analysts on Monday, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray & Co. asked about AT&T's troubles. "AT&T has had a lot of bad press here recently, and obviously that impacts your brand," Munster said. "Can you remind us what the benefits and the virtues of sticking with a single carrier in the U.S. are?" Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, repeated what the company has said before: "AT&T is a great partner."
He also downplayed the "bad press" that Munster alluded to. "I think it is important to remember that they have more mobile broadband usage than any other carrier in the world," said Cook. "In the vast majority of locations, we think that iPhone customers are having a great experience from the research that we have done."
But many iPhone owners would disagree. They've complained about AT&T's network since Apple unveiled its smartphone in June 2007, and they ramped up their sniping after the July 2008 release of the iPhone 3G, the first model to use AT&T's faster data network. A dozen lawsuits from consumers tired of their iPhone 3G devices constantly dropping calls or having trouble connecting to AT&T's network are still pending, although they were consolidated by a federal judge last summer.
Apple's Cook admitted that AT&T service isn't trouble-free, but he said the carrier is on the case. "AT&T has acknowledged that they are having some issues in a few cities, and they have very detailed plans to address these," Cook said yesterday. "We have personally reviewed these plans, and we have very high confidence that they will make significant progress toward fixing them." AT&T has conceded that its network has suffered performance problems in Manhattan and parts of San Francisco, but it has promised to address the situation. "You'll see this is going to be fixed. We'll do a lot better," Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, said during a December 2009 financial conference.
There's an app for that. AT&T has taken other steps to address its service problems. Among other things, it released an iPhone application that lets customers submit complaints of poor reception directly from their smartphones.
Many analysts believe that AT&T's exclusive contract to offer service for the iPhone will end this June, three years after the debut of the original model. Even so, Apple has continued to defend AT&T when it came under attack by Verizon, the rival most often mentioned as the likely addition to the list of carriers allowed to sell the iPhone. Apple television advertisements last November, for example, stuck up for AT&T as Verizon belittled the carrier's 3G coverage in a still-running campaign.
AT&T relies heavily on the iPhone to boost its subscriber numbers, according to Brian Marshall, an analyst at BroadPoint AmTech. Marshall estimates that the iPhone is responsible for over 90% of AT&T's net additions to its customer rolls. "The iPhone is by far the single most important driver of the postpaid subscriber addition market in the U.S. today," Marshall said in a research note recently released to clients. Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones in the quarter that ended Dec. 31. That's a 100% jump over the number sold during the same quarter a year earlier and almost 1.4 million more units than the previous quarterly record of 7.4 million, which was set in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, 2009.
Via ComputerWorld |
Skype Fixes Bugs in Upgraded iPhone Application
Skype has released the latest version of its application for the iPhone, adding new features and fixing a couple of annoying bugs that hung up calls. Earlier versions of Skype would hang up a VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) call made over Wi-Fi when a user received a SMS (Short Message Service) or the low-battery notification.
A new feature in the 1.3 version allows the iPhone to be held in landscape mode and used for instant messages. Skype has also added a call-quality indicator. The feature checks available bandwidth during a call. When a user presses a green button, a pop-up window will show a message such as "No bandwidth problems. Skype call quality should be excellent." The feature is already in the 4.2 desktop version of the application for the Windows OS.
In other Skype news, the company says it has a 3G version of its VOIP application for the iPhone ready to go if the Apple allows it to go into their App store. Since Skype released its iPhone application in March 2009, calls can only be made using a Wi-Fi connection even though 3G data connections -- which run over the cellular network -- are sufficient for VOIP calls. Carriers have been concerned that Skype on the iPhone could take away from call revenue and negatively impact the integrity of their networks, but they appear to be changing their minds. In the U.S., AT&T told Apple in October that it could enable 3rd-party VOIP applications for the iPhone. Many carriers already allow VOIP applications such as Skype over 3G on operating systems such as Windows Mobile.
Skype is keen to release its 3G application as soon as possible but needs Apple's OK to put it in the App Store, said Peter Parkes, a Skype spokesman. "Apple doesn't make any guarantees about when apps will become available for download, but we'll submit a 3G-enabled version to the App Store as soon as we hear of any changes," Parkes said.
Via PCWorld by Jeremy Kirk |
Give me Google Nexus over Apple iPhone any day
I stare lovingly at it. I caress it. I admire its sleek, clean lines and subtle curves. It feels good in my hands. I am so enchanted with my new love that I miss my stop. I start with a jolt and even I feel a tad foolish at the raptures that my new Google Nexus One has awoken in me. There's no doubt that it is a great phone. Its ARM 'Snapdragon' processor makes everything really fast. The 5 megapixel camera takes great pictures. The screen background has 'live' 3D wallpaper - in my case it looks like a shimmering lake which ripples every time I touch the screen. Everything is intuitive and I have not need to refer to the manual once.
But the fact that it is a good phone does not explain my unconditional love for it. I knew I was going to love this phone, not just because it’s made by Google, but because it was not made by Apple. I wanted to make a statement about 'my tribe'. I wanted to make clear where my loyalties lie. I want it to be clear that I do not belong to the church of Apple - by carrying this phone it's clear that I'm not one of those iBores, or Appletards.
Clearly, given the buzz surrounding the Nexus One, I am not alone in having fallen under its spell. This phone should not be positioned as an 'iPhone killer', but more as the birth of a new emergent tribe. A tribe that, still largely the developer community, ascribes to different values. We all know what the Apple tribe stands for: They value creativity.
Owning Apple products is a rite of passage for the white urban middle class media-type. Carrying an iPhone affirms your membership of this tribe. Far from "thinking different", Apple's platforms are becoming an increasingly controlled, closed and proprietary. This top-down control is strictly enforced by Apple's benevolent patriarchy. Any app developer who violates Apple's reams of rules will find themselves banished from the tribe. Cast out into the wilderness. Excluded from Apple’s own Garden of Eden.
At first glance the Google tribe looks like a chaotic muddle compared to Apple's strict command-control. Members can contribute almost anything they like to the App-store (currently much smaller than the Apple one). This tribe puts openness and collaboration at its heart.
It's very much a matriarchical tribe where control is devolved. The individual users and developers seem more empowered and excited about this new platform called Android, with Gartner predicting that its market share will exceed Apple's by 2012. So why do I not own an iPhone? I have to admit, begrudgingly, that it is a beautiful product that delivers a lot of value to those who use and eulogise it. But it has become a statement of conformity. The 'default' among the middle class. Google for me is a small act of rebellion. A tribe that feels like it has a people movement behind it. A tribe I am excited to belong to. Or could it be that I am just as bad as the 'i-Bores' by becoming a 'Goo-Bore'?!
Via TimesOnline
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The most expensive iPhone App
 In August 2008, Apple approved an application in the App Store called I Am Rich. The app did nothing beyond show a picture of a red gem. So why was it notable? Because it cost $999.99. Oh, please notice that, it is not the most expensive app now! Though Apple pulled it relatively quickly, there was some concern that we'd start to see a rush of bogus applications and/or huge prices in the App Store. Luckily, that didn't happen and app prices have remained low. But now we have the return of a $999.99 app. But there's a big difference with this app; BarMax CA actually does something. And to the people it's aimed towards, it's likely to be very useful. And quite possibly worth the $1,000 price tag.
 BarMax CA is an application to help law students preparing for the bar exam. The reason the price is justified is because the company that is synonymous with this type of test prep, BarBri, typically offers it for $3,000 to $4,000. BarMax CA believes it can get away with the lower price because it's just an app, there is no in-class element. Also, there has been some questions about BarBri's pricing structure and anti-competitive behavior, which has been the subject of multiple class action lawsuits (hardly surprising when you're selling these packages to future lawyers). BarBri also offers an iPhone application, and it's free, but you need to enroll in their program to access it otherwise it's useless.
So what do you get for your $1,000 BarMax CA app? It's actually a lot. The app is over 1 gigabyte in size, which is the largest application I've ever seen. It includes thousands of pages of materials as well as hundreds of hours of audio lectures. It's all the information you could ever want for the two-month course. And again, it can be done all on your iPhone. That said, if you do want some more tangible paperwork for certain sections, BarMax will send you that electronically as well.
The bar exam consists of three main parts: Multiple choice, essays, and a performance test. There is also an ethics exam you have to take. As you can probably tell by the name, BarMax CA is meant for the California bar exam. But by the end of 2010, the company expects to have apps available for New York, and the five other most popular states for the exam as well. There will also be a multi-state version since much of the test (the multiple choice part, for example) doesn't vary state to state. Each of these apps would cost the same $999.99 but there is also a plan to make an app with just the multiple choice part for $500.
Mike Ghaffary came up with the idea when he himself was preparing for the bar exam. He could not believe BarBri charged the $4,000 to send him an iPod with audio notes on it, and that there was no real competition in the space. So he got in touch with some successful iPhone app developers in Los Angeles, as well as some fellow Harvard Law graduates to create the app. Ghaffary, who is the director of business development at TrialPay by day, is serving as an advisor now to the team.
How this app sells will be interesting to say the least. Ghaffary confirmed that it is the most expensive app in the App Store, surpassing a home security app that sells for $899. Many iPhone developers have complained about a race to the bottom for app prices, but a few have tried to sell more expensive applications, such as Wolfram Alpha. But that $50 app doesn't really give you anything you can't get on its website, it just dresses the data up to look nicer on the iPhone. BarMax CA, again, is attempting to save law students thousands of dollars. It's a good experiment, if nothing else. Ghaffary notes that while Apple was extra careful in checking BarExam CA out due to the high price, they had no problems getting it approved, and Apple generally seemed pleased with the idea.
Via the Washington Post by MG Siegler
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Avatar Games on iPhone
The much awaited and fascinated film Avatar by the most eminent director James Cameron hits the screen with the launch of Avatar games on iPhone. Avatar game is the computer version of the film.
Avatar Game was developed by Gameloft and it gives the experience of dive deep into the mysterious, fascinating world of the planet Pandora as a member of the Na´vi tribe or human trooper.
You can travel different locations from Murky mines and military bases to picturesque, waterfalls,and jungle terrain, with beautiful planet. Avatar Game comes with 16 different levels of gaming.
This game can be purchased at the Appstore for $9.99. But no demo version is released yet
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iPod touch app downloads top iPhone over Christmas
 It is reported that the application downloads via iPod touch devices eclipsed iPhone downloads by 172 percent on Christmas Day 2009, according to data compiled by mobile application analytics provider Flurry. Total iPod Touch download volumes grew by nearly 1,000 percent on Dec. 25 compared to the average of all previous Fridays during the month-- Flurry speculates that in addition to new iPod touch 3G models received as gifts, iTunes gift cards also drove downloads across earlier generation iPod touch devices.
In addition, iPod touch download volumes topped iPhone downloads by 104 percent on Dec. 26. Cumulative App Store downloads increased by 51 percent in December 2009 compared to November totals, Flurry reports. In early December, Flurry reported the iPod touch accounts for about 40 percent of all iPhone OS-based devices sold worldwide--moreover, the firm contends that the portable media player may boast even greater long-term strategic value than its smartphone sibling, because it's building a loyal consumer base among teens and pre-teens representing the next generation of iPhone users.
"When today's young iPod touch users age by five years, they will already have iTunes accounts, saved personal contacts to their iPod touch devices, purchased hundreds of apps and songs, and mastered the iPhone OS user interface," Flurry notes. "This translates into loyalty and switching costs, allowing Apple to seamlessly 'graduate' young users from the iPod touch to the iPhone." As of June 2009, the iPhone accounted for 57 percent of application user sessions tracked by Flurry--the iPod touch represented 31 percent, and Android devices were responsible for 10 percent. As of late November, total user sessions increased across all three devices, with the iPhone accounting for just 50 percent of sessions on average--the iPod touch's share of user sessions grew to 35 percent, followed by Android at 14 percent.
Via Fierce Developer by Jason Ankeny
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Apple Resolved iPhone Trademark Conflict in China
The company that owned the trademark "i-phone" in China yielded it to Apple because of the high similarity of I"i-phone" and "iPhone". The latter one is the famous smartphone product of Apple Inc., and the former looks like the latter one very much. The Web site of China's trademark office shows, removing what could have become a legal roadblock for the similarly named iPhone there.
Hanwang Technology, a Chinese maker of e-readers and other character devices, applied for the i-phone trademark for mobile phones in China in 2004, when it also launched a handset by that name which is no longer sold. But the record for that trademark, which several months ago showed Hanwang as the applicant, now lists Apple's name instead, and it displays a new note saying the trademark was transferred.
Local carrier China Unicom started offering the iPhone late last year. Before the phone launched, a local lawyer had said Hanwang's trademark and the similarity between the terms "i-phone" and "iPhone" would have made it illegal for Apple to sell the iPhone in China. An official at Hanwang, also known as Hanvon, said Monday that the company had reached an agreement with Apple over the trademark but declined to give details, saying Apple worried reports of the deal could affect its brand.
China Unicom last month said it had sold 100,000 iPhones. The iPhones sold in China are stripped of Wi-Fi to comply with local regulations, which has driven some users to buy versions of the smartphone offered outside China instead. Those iPhones are brought into China informally from other regions and widely sold at electronics bazaars.
Via PCWorld
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BMW Launches a free M Power App for iPhone
Now more and more car makers and accessory companies have been all over promoting their brands via the iPhone, and some aftermarket makers have even found ways to enhance the driving experience, just like Viper's SmartStart remote start app. They always release the new free apps for smartphones and want to own more customers by the help of these apps.
A few days ago, BMW which is the famous Bavarian automaker launched the M Power iPhone app which is the second free application for iPhone. However, unlike its previous offering, this app is actually sort of useful.
The M Power app measures vehicle acceleration using the built-in accelerometer of your iPhone or iPod Touch. It will measure speed, forward and lateral acceleration, speed over distance, and acceleration to a specific speed, like, for instance, 60 mph. After securing the iPhone via a windshield mount or just tossing it in a cup holder, the app will measure 0-60 mph times other user-customizable speeds in mph or kph. The app will also measure forward and lateral G-forces for users who want to take a spin on a skidpad. Users can also unlock different skins on BMW's Web site to customize the look and feel of the app.
Although branded with the BMW M badge, the M Power app will work for any car that you can fit an iPhone into. Unlike my favorite paid iPhone accelerometer-based speed computer, Dynolicious, BMW's app doesn't look like it will calculate your vehicle's horsepower or torque. But at the low cost of "free," the M Power app is a hard bargain to turn down.
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Impact of 'iSlate' Could Rival iPhone
Maybe you don't need a crystal ball, seer stone, scrying pool or any other spooky stuff to guess what one of the most talked-about design projects of 2010 will be. The tech blogs have been buzzing about it for months. It's the iSlate, iTablet, iProd, Magic Slate, or whatever else Apple finally decides to call its new tablet computer.
We've been here before: three years ago, to be exact. The drill was the same. Months of frenzied blogging culminated in ecstatic cheers on Jan. 9, 2007, when Apple's co-founder, Steve Jobs, brandished a prototype iPhone before an adoring audience of Apple nuts at a convention in San Francisco.
What's happened since? Not only has Apple sold tens of millions of iPhones, it has pulled off a stunningly successful exercise in design democracy whereby thousands of D.I.Y. designers have developed applications, or programs, for them. Some 100,000 "apps" have been invented, and more than two billion downloaded from Apple's App Store. What's almost more impressive is that Apple has achieved this despite its own history — and instincts — as the consummate corporate control freak.
Steve Jobs is expected to show off the iSlate in San Francisco later this month. If the bloggers are right, it will hit the stores in March. At the risk of party-pooping, we should note that not every new Apple product has been a hit. Remember the Newton PDA? Or the G4 Cube computer? But if the iSlate is another of the company's successes, it promises to have as much impact as the iPhone, if not more.
It's that tantalizing possibility of "more" that puts it on the top of the design agenda for 2010. There are other contenders, despite the recession. The automotive industry will discover whether its investment in electric cars has paid off when the Nissan LEAF and other zero-emissions vehicles go on sale. Vitra, the Swiss furniture group, will experiment with new ways of designing the home in the VitraHaus, a model modern house built by the architects Herzog & de Meuron at Vitra's headquarters in Weil am Rhein, Germany. And a proposal to help consumers monitor their environmental impact by introducing a global system of identifying the carbon and water footprints of products and their packaging is to be discussed at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, later this month.
Even so, the iSlate is particularly interesting, not only because of that promise of "more," but because it sums up so much of what's happening in design now.
The iSlate would probably be successful simply by dint of being Apple's first tablet computer. Ever since the non-profit organization One Laptop Per Child showed how cute a small version of the laptop could be when it unveiled the first prototype of its XO machine in 2005, tablet computers have been one of the fastest growing areas of the computer market. That wasn't OLPC's intention. Fuseproject, the San Francisco design group that develops its hardware, reduced the computer's size in the hope of making it cheap enough for developing countries to buy for their schools. Spawning a profitable new product category for the I.T. industry wasn't part of the idealistic agenda.
Accidental though it was, consumers have leapt at the chance to buy computers that are not only smaller than laptops, but lighter and cheaper too. Apple may be a late entrant to the market, but there is no reason to believe that its designers won't be able to replicate their past success at battling against the laws of physics to produce a tablet that's sleeker, lighter and generally hotter than anyone else's, so much so that people will be willing to pay more for it.
The outcome of that battle will be even more important when it comes to the "more" element of the iSlate. Like many new digital devices, it will combine several products in one. An extreme example is the iPhone. It fulfills the functions of dozens of products including a watch, diary, alarm clock, barometer, satellite navigation system, Internet browser, dictionary, DVD player and MP3 player as well as a phone, and that's before we come on to those 100,000 apps. The iSlate will do lots of that stuff too, as well as basic computing. Critically it will also act as an electronic reader, like Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader.
Many people like their e-readers (not least because they save them from having to haul around books, newspapers and magazines) but I have yet to meet anyone who loves them. That's the key. If a really great e-reader appeared, the market would explode. The e-reader is waiting for a killer product, just as the MP3 player was before Apple's iPod. Apple didn't invent the MP3 player, it made such a sexy one that many more people wanted to buy it. That's what it is promising to do again.
If it comes through, demand for electronic books, newspapers and magazines should soar. This will create an exciting design challenge for their publishers to develop seductive ways of presenting their content on e-readers. In theory, e-newspapers could combine the convenience of the printed product with the dynamism of their Web sites. And e-magazines should be more visually compelling with higher resolution images than their Web versions. As well as helping publishers to tackle the thorny problem of how to make money from the Internet, it could enable them to create dazzling new e-media.
That's why an important element of the iSlate will be another contemporary design essential — a great service design concept. For the iPod, that's the iTunes music store, and for the iPhone, the App Store. The iSlate's equivalent will be a fun, simple system with which we can download e-content.
There is, of course, another increasingly important area of design where Apple has fared less well — sustainability. Will it do better with the iSlate? Hopefully we will find out soon.
Via The New York Times by Alice Rawsthorn
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