Weekly wrapup, 3-7 March 2008

by Steve O'Hear

March 8th, 2008 | Posted in last100 weekly wrapup | No Comments

Here’s a summary of the week’s digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.

Top digital lifestyle news

The major news this week was the unveiling of Apple’s Software Developer Kit (SDK) for the iPhone and iPod touch. At a special event in Cupertino, Steve Jobs and co. explained how third-party software development would work on the iPhone/iPod touch, and demoed some example applications – games, instant messaging, sales, medical – all of which, it was claimed, had been produced in under two weeks. Jobs also announced enterprise features for the iPhone, including push email. Dan Langendorf delves into the details, noting “on paper at least, Apple is satisfying nearly every major wish expressed by developers, consumers, corporate users, and IT folks with the imminent release of the iPhone 2.0 software platform.”

One thing missing from the SDK announcement was the addition of Adobe Flash support for the iPhone/iPod touch. Just days before, Jobs told shareholders that the desktop version of Flash runs too slow on the iPhone, and that the mobile version of Flash – Flash Lite – isn’t good enough.

In a post titled ‘Look mum, no DRM: BBC launches iPlayer on iPhone and iPod touch‘, we reported that the BBC has rolled out a Beta of its UK-only TV catch-up service designed specifically for Apple’s mobile platform. The iPhone/iPod touch-friendly version utilizes H.264 video streaming (optimized for use over WiFi not the iPhone’s slower EDGE connection) and, as we first speculated, doesn’t appear to employ DRM.

In other mobile-related news, Nokia announced plans to put Silverlight – Microsoft’s so-called “Flash-killer” – onto its S60 Symbian OS-powered smartphones, as well as Series 40 devices and its range of Linux-based Internet tablets.

On the digital audio front, 7digital announced that it has trumped Apple to become the first European download store to offer the Warner Music catalog DRM-free; NIN continues to experiment with alternative distribution models; and following successful tests, two major audiobook publishers are ditching DRM.

That’s a wrap for the week. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

last100 is edited by Steve O'Hear. Aside from founding last100, Steve is co-founder and CEO of Beepl and a freelance journalist who has written for numerous publications, including TechCrunch, The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb and Macworld, and also wrote and directed the Silicon Valley documentary, In Search of the Valley. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.