Archive for the ‘Mobile’ Category

Looking back at a week of numbers from NIN, to the iPhone, to a pop-singing prostitute

nin coverIt’s been a week full of numbers. And we’re not talking the usual investment dollars. Or a mega purchase like AOL buying Bebo for 850 million bucks. No, we’re looking at sales, estimated sales, profitability, downloads, a first-time dip in online video viewership, and future profit from allegedly sleeping with the now-former governor of New York.

So, without further adieu, and in no particular order (it is Friday after all), a look back at a week of numbers.

Nine Inch Nails earns $1.6 million in first week

Ghosts I-IV”, the latest from the industrial-rock band Nine Inch Nails, totaled just under 800,000 transactions in its first week, racking up $1.6 million in revenue for Trent Reznor — not a traditional record label. “Ghosts”, a collection of interesting sounds and electronic improvisations, is the band’s first release since Reznor declared NIN a free agent last October.

“Ghosts” transactions include all available configurations, including free and paid downloads and advance orders for physical releases of limited-edition vinyl, CDs, and a boxed set. In fact, the deluxe-edition box, priced at a whopping $300, already sold-out of its limited 2,500-copy run.

These numbers were provided by NIN, which will not release traditional sales figures to SoundScan, which tracks sales data for singles, albums, and music videos in Canada and the U.S. We’re not sure why, other than the fact NIN doesn’t have to as the music was not sold through traditional channels.

Take that music industry!

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Another DVR-like patent unearthed for Apple; this one might be game-changing

apple patentNow that the iPhone is conquering the mobile world … and the super-thin MacBook Air has made its debut … and the AppleTV has been updated into something useful … and the iPod line has been revamped for the future … and the Intel transition is long over … everybody wants to know what’s next for Apple.

An eBook device? Doubtful, but that’s thinking too small.

A Newton-like PDA? Doubtful, and PDAs are a dying product anyway.

A tablet computer? Maybe, but they’re still too niche.

An honest-to-goodness DVR/entertainment hub? Now we’re talking.

The sleuths over at the AppleInsider today dug up another Apple patent, this one dealing again with a digital video recorder-like device. With it, users can browse for television programming, tune into TV channels, record programs, playback those shows, and download and manage content purchased at the iTunes Store.

From the patent it also looks like Apple might integrate the iPhone and/or the iPods into the tightly-tightly controlled, almost choreographed user experience.

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10 mobile apps and services for sharing media

This is a guest post by Aseem Kishore, a technology enthusiast and lead blogger for Online-Tech-Tips.

In my last post on last100, titled ‘Ten mobile apps and services you should definitely check out‘, I listed ten mobile phone applications that enable you to do everything from shop to accessing your PC desktop remotely via a mobile phone.

In this post we take a look at ten more mobile phone apps — this time focusing on those that enable you to share content and various media via a cell phone. While most of these applications will work on just about any modern handset, some also have the added benefit of being optimized for the iPhone.

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Apple checks off biggest items on iPhone wish list: SDK, enterprise support, and more

iphone software roadmapLet’s run down the Wish List from Apple’s iPhone Software Roadmap shindig today at the Cupertino HQ.

The availability of an iPhone Software Developer Kit (SDK). Check.

This SDK will allow for development of third-party applications for the iPhone. Check.

Apple announces corporate, enterprise support for the iPhone. Check.

This means push email. Check.

And use of corporate calendars and contacts.

Check and check.

And IT security features for the corporate Nervous Nellies. Check.

And there’s a way of distributing applications that doesn’t rely solely on tethering the iPhone to a computer to access the iTunes Store, where apps can be purchased and downloaded. Check.

And there’s an instant message client. Check.

And games that take advantage of the iPhone’s unique physical features, including a touch screen and accelerometer. Check.

About the only thing that hasn’t been checked off the wish list is immediate availability. We’ll have to wait until late June for the final iPhone SDK and the resulting third-party applications and enterprise support.

“I am happy to admit I was completely off-base with my concerns,” Rob Griffiths wrote for Macworld after today’s iPhone Fest. “I think Apple has hit the proverbial home run here.”

The man standing at the plate and swinging the bat, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, couldn’t help but smile. “[The iPhone] is the most advanced platform out there for mobile devices,” he said. “We are years ahead of any other platform for mobile devices.”

We’ll see about that come late June, the first anniversary of the iPhone. But 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.

Now that the noise has died down, we take a look (in no particular order) at what happened today in the iPhoneosphere and its significance.

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Jobs says Flash isn't good enough for iPhone. Why announce that now?

iphone flashInteresting timing from ol’ Steve-o on the whole Flash-on-the-iPhone thing.

At Tuesday’s Apple shareholder meeting — and widely reported today (Dow Jones) — Apple deity Steve Jobs dropped the bomb that the scaled-down, cellphone-friendly version of Flash, dubbed Flash Lite, isn’t good enough for the iPhone.

To use Flash Lite, according to Steve-o, would spoil the phone’s much-ballyhooed “full web experience” brought to you by Safari Mobile. Using the desktop version of Flash isn’t an option, either, as it would run too slowly on the iPhone.

Steve-o suggested that there’s a “missing product in the middle”, a version that’s positioned between Flash Desktop and Flash Lite, but it’s a product that doesn’t exist and is unlikely to be developed by Adobe anytime soon.

What all this means is that the iPhone still cannot play Flash video or casual games, both of which are produced mostly in Flash for Web-based consumption. YouTube is the only Web-based service formatting video to a file type that Apple endorses, which explains why you can play YouTube videos on the iPhone and iPod touch.

So why didn’t Steve-o tell us this a while ago?

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Nokia to support Microsoft's "Flash-killer" Silverlight

Every cloud to have a Silverlight lining?

Nokia to support Microsoft's Nokia today 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.

Securing Nokia’s support marks a major coup for Microsoft. Having already committed to developing a version of Silverlight for all three major desktop Operating Systems (Windows, Mac OS and Linux), gaining access to Nokia’s millions of mobile users brings Microsoft one step closer to fulfilling the promise of a Rich Internet Application (RIA) framework with genuine ‘write once, run anywhere’ capabilities — the holy grail of software development.

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iPhone's future coming into focus: SDK = iPhone 1.5, 3G networks = iPhone 2.0

iphoneThe future of the iPhone is coming into focus, even if it is a bit abstract at the moment.

Reports are beginning to surface that Infineon, a German chipmaker, will provide Apple with a new chip set for the next-generation iPhone — let’s call it iPhone 2.0.

According to analysts from the investment bank UBS, iPhone 2.0 is set to launch mid-year, which means we may actually see it sometime in late summer or early Fall. The new chip set is expected to bring faster 3G network capabilities to the iPhone, a much-anticipated upgrade.

In the meantime, Apple announced the other day it will release “the iPhone software roadmap” on March 6. Many around the Web believe this will be the much-anticipated software developer kit (SDK), although there is speculation that it might be just a roadmap and that the actual SDK won’t be released until later in the Spring.

No matter when it’s released, the SDK is important because it will allow third-party developers to write specific applications for the phone, essentially giving it a “new” feeling — let’s call this one iPhone 1.5.

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Video: GPhone Android demonstration

Video: GPhone in action (Android)The BBC was recently given a guided tour of Google’s Android mobile OS – the so-called GPhone – by Google’s Director of Mobile Platforms Andy Rubin.

The Android “software stack” is currently an Alpha, meaning that the software is still in the very early stages of development, and was shown running on a prototype 3G-capable touchscreen phone developed by one of Google’s hardware partners.

Rubin started by demonstrating the GPhone’s Web browser (based on the same WebKit source code as Apple’s Safari), which, although very iPhone-like, doesn’t zoom by double-tapping or “pinching” but instead a “tap and hold” brings up an overlay menu with zoom controls.

Next up, Rubin showed off the “first person shooter” Quake, which ran with the help of a separate 3D graphic chip included in this particular GPhone reference design.

Finally, Rubin demonstrated Google Maps Street View, which gives panoramic views of locations found on Google Maps, something that isn’t currently available on any other mobile version of the software.

Video after the jump…

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Hands-on: Nokia's N810 Internet Tablet

Hands-on: Nokia’s N810 Internet TabletIntel calls it the Mobile Internet Device (MID); Nokia calls it the Internet Tablet; Apple calls it an iPod (or the “first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform“). And that’s before we factor in so-called Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPCs) based on Microsoft Windows or low-cost Linux alternatives. In 2008 it seems that there is no shortage of companies (beyond smart phone makers) wanting to put the “Internet in your pocket”.

Over the Christmas holidays I got to play with one such product: Nokia’s N810, the third device in the company’s relatively new Internet Tablet lineup. But before I get to my hands-on impressions of the N810, I want to make a few observations about the product category in general.

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iPhone steals the show at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

iphone on saleShame on you Nokia.

Shame on you Samsung.

Shame on you Motorola.

Shame on you Sony Ericsson.

Shame on all you mobile handset manufacturers.

You let Apple, a computer turned consumer electronics company, steal your show at the Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona. Except for the curiosity factor of Google’s open-source mobile operating system Android, does anybody but mobile techies and the media (Macworld roundup) even remember what new models, services, or strategies were introduced by the world’s leading handset makers?

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