Archive for the ‘Comms’ Category

It's official: iPhone 2.0 is 3G, supports GPS, integrates with MobileMe, and is $$$ cheaper

by Daniel Langendorf

June 9th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | Comments1 Comment

3G iphoneLet’s make it official.

Apple introduced iPhone 2.0 today at the World Wide Developers Conference.

Yes, it supports 3G and faster data networks.

Yes, it supports GPS.

Yes, it has a few cosmetic changes and is thinner.

Yes, it carries a (dramatically) lower price: $199 for the 8 GB iPhone, $299 for the 16 GB model.

No, it’s not immediately available, but you can get it in 22 countries starting July 11.

As far as some of the other rumors floating around . . .

Microsoft Exchange and full enterprise support is enabled out of the box.

“Exchange for the rest of us” will be available through MobileMe and Me.com, the re-branding of .Mac.

Third-party applications and the App Store will be available in early July.

No, there does not appear to be an improved camera or video recording (including video chat) of any kind. There’s no Flash support. Or external storage slots. And still no cut and paste! What gives?

Anyway, a tour through today’s keynote.

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Sifting through iPhone 2.0 wish lists, predictions, prognostications, forecasts, prophesies

by Daniel Langendorf

June 5th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

wwdcBy now, everybody in the known universe has offered up their iPhone 2.0 predictions, prognostications, forecasts, and prophesies. We even think that NASA’s Phoenix Lander may have found an iPhone wish list on Mars, but we’re not sure.

As you can imagine, iPhone 2.0 speculation has reached a fever pitch again — just like iPhone 1.0 did last June — with ideas ranging from the obvious “duh” to “out there”, just like Mars.

For our own amusement, and yours, we’ve sifted through wish lists and predictions to come up with what we think will happen, what may happen, and what’s still to come for iPhone hardware, features, and applications.

You’ll be able to judge the pundits on Monday, after Steve Jobs delivers the keynote speech at the Worldwide Developers Conference. Until then, if you see something missing, add it to the comments. Because there is one thing we’ve learned: Everybody has a special feature or application they’d like to see on the new iPhone, and we can’t predict ’em all.

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Google demos Android again; it's full of promise, but we're still waiting for the real deal

by Daniel Langendorf

May 29th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | Comments2 Comments

android ioGoogle demonstrated its Android operating system again, this time at the I/O conference in San Francisco. And, well, it’s still full of promise, just in case you were wondering.

As you would expect from the company that brings you search and Google Maps, Android handles information delivery, location and navigation extremely well — or so we think. There’s still no actual Android phones to play with.

The coolest feature shown was a “compass” tool that automatically roams with the phone while a user looks at photos of a city map.

But the rest of what was shown was, well, underwhelming or just plain expected.

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Location-based services like Whrrl on iPhone to usher in Internet of people, places, and things

by Daniel Langendorf

May 27th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | Comments4 Comments

kocb logoGet ready for the Internet of people, places, and things. Thanks to the iPhone and Android, it’s just around the corner — no pun intended.

BusinessWeek reports that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture capital firm behind the iPhone funding program iFund, have chosen two companies as its top picks to date — Whrrl from Pelago and Home Security 2.0 from iControl Networks.

Kleiner Perkins, a big fan of location-based services, has extended an offer to one other startup and are “seriously considering” 10 others, whatever that means.

whrrlWhrrl combines the mapping capabilities of the iPhone with the ability to find information on your friends, where you’ve been, where anybody has been — in essence, connecting people, places, and things. Whrrl currently works on the BlackBerry Pearl and Curve.

iControl’s application isn’t as sexy as Whrrl — it is home automation after all — but it gives users the ability to communicate to the places and things important in their lives, namely their homes or businesses and what’s in them like door locks, air conditioners, lights, and so on.

Add these programs to the applications being developed as part of the Android Developers Challenge (Bread Crumbz, LifeAware, Beetaun) and you can see a locations, locations, locations trend forming. In Wired lingo, it would be:

  • plain old voice communications: “expired”
  • mobile Internet surfing: “tired”
  • using mobile devices to interact with people, places, and things: “wired”

“There’s going to be a ‘what’s going on around me right now’ button,” Kleiner Perkins partner Matt Murphy told BusinessWeek. “You’re always one button away from that immediate context.”

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Forrester sees picture frames, clock radios, remote controls, and house calls in Apple's future

by Daniel Langendorf

May 22nd, 2008 | Posted in Audio, Comms, Mobile, Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

forresterThis is why the analysts make the big bucks. Predictions. Forecasts. Gazing into crystal balls to come up with . . .

  • Digital picture frames.
  • A clock radio.
  • A remote control.
  • A media server that’s not called a “server.”
  • House calls.

This is Apple’s future, according to Forrester analysts J.P. Gownder and James McQuivey [via Wall Street Journal].

Gownder and McQuivey predict that Apple, who brought us the OS X operating system, elegant computer products, the iPod line of digital music players, the iTunes store, and the iPhone in the past eight years, next will come up with products and services that will connect computers to content throughout the digital home by 2013 [Wired].

Forrester thinks that, judging by Apple’s performance under CEO guru Steve Jobs, the company is set for radical change over the next five years.

But a wall-mountable digital picture frame — even if it looked like a MacBook Air display? A clock radio that pipes music across a home network? An “AppleSound” universal remote control with a touch-sensitive screen? A media storage something-or-other that’s not a “server” because the word “server” scares the average person? And house-call technical assistance from mobile “Genius Bar” workers?

This is a joke, right?

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AT&T says its 3G network is nearing completion; we're not so sure

by Daniel Langendorf

May 22nd, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

AT&T says that its rollout of a speedier 3G mobile network is nearing completion in the U.S.

Bull.

AT&T says all it needs to do is add six more markets by the end of June and deployment of High Speed Uplink Packet Access technology — faster access to data networks for mobile phones, for those who could care less about tech speak — will reach more than 280 markets.

So? Will you get 3G speeds where you live or work?

A few miles away from me, in Southlake, Texas, there’s an Apple Store where bunches of people will wait in line, probably in near 100 degree heat, to secure the highly anticipated iPhone 2.0. If they live in the affluent Dallas and Fort Worth suburbs of Southlake or Colleyville or the more modest ‘burbs of Grapevine, Keller, the Mid Cities, Justin, Lewisville — the list goes on — the new iPhone may not receive 3G coverage.

And this is according to AT&T’s own coverage viewer list, which you can review here.

Click on a neighboring city and drill down by zip code, and AT&T’s coverage viewer shows 3G is in every nook and cranny whether a specific city or suburb is listed or not.

Which is it?

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Finding streaming content for iPhone, iPod touch: There's a lot available

by Daniel Langendorf

May 21st, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | Comments9 Comments

I just got finished organizing a Home Screen on my iPhone with a whole new subject area — streaming content. It’s one that, until now, I have completely ignored because I didn’t think it was for me.

I was wrong.

Having FlyTunes, AccuRadio, Revision 3, and others on a Home Screen opens up even more possibility for the iPhone (or iPod touch). What if I want to catch up with “Tekzilla” or “The GigaOm Show” and I’ve not downloaded them via iTunes, or I’m not sitting in front of my computer or the AppleTV?

Easy. Tap the Revision 3 icon on the iPhone, tap All Shows, and scroll through a listing of programs. I expect this to come in handy when I’m out and about with the wife and kid and they’re trying on clothes for three hours.

Om Malik to the rescue.

So like a kid with a new toy, I surveyed streaming content for the iPhone and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I assembled the following list based on stuff I like, so if you have other favorites, please let us know in the comments.

I have a few spaces left on this Home Screen.

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Mobile OS wars heat up as Verizon joins LiMo Foundation, a Google-Android rival

by Daniel Langendorf

May 14th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | Comments1 Comment

VerizonHere’s an interesting jab at Google and its mobile operating system Android: Verizon, the No. 2 U.S. carrier, is joining the LiMo Foundation because it has software and phones available, Google does not.

LiMo FoundationThe LiMo Foundation, representing Linux Mobile, is the lesser known of the mobile operating systems. There’s Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, supplying many makers of smart phones; Symbian, supplier mostly to Nokia; Qualcomm, supplier mostly to Verizon; upstart Google, and Apple. Then there’s Linux Mobile, slowly creeping along by adding devices mostly in Europe and Asia.

The LiMo (Linux Mobile) Foundation is a consortium of companies well vested in the mobile industry: Motorola, Samsung, LG Electronics, Vodaphone, NTT DoCoMo, and many others. Verizon is the first U.S. carrier to join the LiMo initiative, which now has 40 members worldwide.

The idea behind LiMo is to build a standardized, Linux-based mobile platform, which members can customize to meet their needs. For the most part, Linux Mobile is a competitor to Android, which is not yet available on any handsets. Linux Mobile is showing up on phones from Motorola, NEC, Panasonic, Samsung, and LG.

Kyle Malady, vice president of network for Verizon, said in a conference call today that he expects Verizon to sell both regular devices and smart phones using mobile Linux next year.

“We expect that Linux Mobile will rapidly become our preferred operating system,” Malady said to The Associated Press [via The New York Times] . “As the development community looks at how best to bring new applications to the marketplace, they should check out LiMo and Linux Mobile first.”

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Through its own mobile client, Skype is now available on about 50 cellphones

by Daniel Langendorf

April 25th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | Comments1 Comment

For the first time Skype is offering its own mobile client to make phone calls over its popular VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) service.

The Skype client is an open beta (available here) and is expected to work with about 50 handsets from Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. Other phones may work if they support Java, the language the client is based on.

It will not work on the iPhone.

“This product is part of our goal to be on as many platforms as possible,” said Wilhelm Lundborg, product manager for Skype Business (via InfoWorld).

All features — chat, group chat, presence, SkypeIn, Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls — work in the U.K., Brazil, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Poland, and Estonia. Elsewhere, the data features and incoming Skype calls work, but the client does not allow outbound calls.

The client allows you to connect a cellphone to your Skype account. It uses cellphone minutes, but adds all your Skype contacts and gives you a mobile presence.

A “Skypephone” has been available by the U.K. carrier 3 since November.

Video: Sony's Mylo 2 Personal Communicator

by Steve O'Hear

April 9th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

The folks over at Akihabara recently got their hands on Sony’s new Mylo 2 Personal Communicator (see our previous coverage).

The device resembles a small WiFi tablet, not dissimilar to Nokia’s N810, and features a 3.5 inch WVGA display, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 1.3 megapixel camera, Skype support, and 1GB of on-board storage, as well as a Memory Stick Duo/PRO Duo card slot. Applications include Web browsing, media playback, Instant Messaging and VoIP. Akihabara’s major complaint is poor video playback, which is restricted to 320 x 240, despite the device having a generously sized 800 x 480 screen.

Akihabara’s video demo after the jump…

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