A Byte of Apple : The Lull Before the Storm?

All it took was a couple of innocuous third-party app screenshots in several patent applications Apple had filed late last year, and the next thing you know, vocal advocates of developer rights were screaming nothing short of bloody murder! If you haven’t tuned into the ‘Where To?’ furor that has erupted so far, what actually happened is this. Apple’s patent application described an integrated travel application for the iPhone, which allows you to for example feed an itinerary into your iPhone and have it send out notifications to your hotel and taxi service the moment you landed at your destination! It just so happened that in the description of the patent, there was a screen image that was pretty much a direct copy of the interface found in the third-party application ‘Where To?’. What was meant to illustrate a user interface that one might expect in such an app turned into quite something else. Instead of being treated as a tip of the hat to the developers of ‘Where To?’ for their excellent user interface, Apple has on their hands mass hysteria and blind panic that followed (in some circles, at least), with many claiming that Cupertino was trying to patent third-party application ideas and claim their IP to be its own. Things only quietened down when reps from Apple sat down with folks who developed ‘Where To?’ and discussed alternatives such as attributing the screenshot in the patent application to ‘Where To?’.

As loyal and fiercely protective developers get around a platform, Apple’s possibly learnt something out of this – reach out to your developers and keep them in the know, especially if their intellectual property figures anywhere in your documentation.

Continue reading “A Byte of Apple : The Lull Before the Storm?”

AppShopper Is Your Ideal App Store Friend

The Apple App Store has been growing to a point where you almost wonder if it’ll explode one day or if it can realistically get any larger. There are tons of cool new applications everyday, and many existing applications that drop prices every now and then. Getting up to date about those limited time offers can be very tedious if you’re interested in some apps or games but think they’re expensive now. Yes, there are actually tons of actual apps on the App Store that let you follow these offers, like BargainBin, PandoraBox, AppMiner, some of which let you create watchlists to monitor price changes. But let’s face it, do you remember to launch those apps everyday to check for changes, or do you find the badges notifications efficient? I didn’t, I wanted an email when one of my favorite apps drops its price, and I wanted a history of an app’s price to see if the developer tends to do frequent or infrequent offers on it so I can snatch it for a realistic price. That’s when I discovered AppShopper.

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Pictures and Impressions: 10 minutes with the iPhone4

Yesterday was my first day on the road again after my accident, that kept me out of everything for 4 weeks. I went to the local E-Store to buy a brand spanking new DSLR camera, and in doing so, i met a friend, who bought my “old” cam from me. What i forgot about was, that he recently bought a brand new iPhone4. Now you might wonder why i write about the jesus phone, when i usually rant against it. Well simple, i still dont like the iOS but designwise, Cupertino has hit the spot with this one. When i saw the pics on Gizmodo leaking, i wished nothing more that they’ll keep it and its not a simple prototype design. and they did. And i’m sorry Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, HTC, etc., but what you see here, is the best looking phone in recent history!

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A Byte of Apple : iPhone 4 set free

Phew! If you follow Apple as closely as I do, you’d know that they’ve been keeping us pretty busy over the past couple of weeks. If it was the iPhone 4 launch one week, it was the ‘Antennagate’ press con the next, and this past week, a slew of products and news kept the Apple-sphere agog about the latest from Cupertino.

In their signature Tuesday-morning-release style, Apple launched a number of updates to their existing product families, including an all-new 27-Inch LED Cinema Display and MacPros with upto 12 core CPU options, among others. Apple desktop users were given some trackpad love with the release of the Magic Trackpad, which gives iMac and Mac Pro users the ability to use the full set of gestures (including two-finger scroll, pinch to zoom, rotate, three and four-finger swipes) that Apple’s portable computer lines have enjoyed over the past couple of years. Oh, and they also launched a battery charger. Yep, an Apple battery charger, and guess what? It’s suddenly a rage all over the internet… jeez, a battery charger! I mean sure, it’s a nice little AA battery charger which minimizes ‘vampire draw’ by shutting off the power when the batteries are charged, and ships with six batteries which are claimed to last up to ten years. Only goes to show that just about any Apple news is big news! Continue reading “A Byte of Apple : iPhone 4 set free”

Smartphone Championship: HTC EVO 4G vs Apple iPhone 4

The Fonearena Smartphone Championship is going on very well. The first match was between the Nexus One and Apple iPhone 3GS, where Nexus One won. And now the second match results, Continue reading “Smartphone Championship: HTC EVO 4G vs Apple iPhone 4”

Droid X got hunted by Apple antennagate attack

After the death grip issue of the Apple iPhone 4 was confirmed by Apple at a press conference few days,  Apple continues to argue that the same problem occurs in other phones in the market. We saw Apple finding fault with Nokia, RIM, Samsung, and HTC only to get strong replies from these companies . The latest victim is the Motorola Droid X  ! Continue reading “Droid X got hunted by Apple antennagate attack”

Telus iPhone 3GS 16GB available for sale on BestBuy

If you live in Canada and you are a very big fan of Apple products, specially the iPhone 3GS. And you want to buy it for the lowest price available, then you can choose Best Buy. Best Buy Canada is offering the Apple iPhone 3 Continue reading “Telus iPhone 3GS 16GB available for sale on BestBuy”

A Byte of Apple : Apple pulls it off, in more ways than one!

If there was any doubt in our minds as to the outcome of the iPhone 4 ‘antennagate’ press conference, the digital Pied Piper of our generation brought his A-game to the event. And what a show he pulled off! It took a carefully crafted set of words – “We’re not perfect. Phones are not perfect. We all know that. But we want to make our users happy.” – for Steve Jobs to turn the event from a witch-hunt defense to a discourse on smartphones in general, and that they, much like the iPhone 4, have problems.

(image courtesy flickr user random_j)

In doing so, Jobs took the moral high ground about the challenge all manufacturers face with managing antenna issues, further driving home the point with videos demonstrating top smartphones suffering signal attenuation when gripped firmly. Add to this the carefully curated data around the lower rate of product returns and dropped calls the iPhone 4 had seen (compared to the 3GS). In effect, by the time he announced free bumper cases and a no-questions-asked 30-day full-refund return option, he’d turned the iPhone 4 around from being a potential buggy dud to pretty much the best smartphone around, albeit one that had an Achilles heel that was common to all smartphones! And ever so often, repeating the mantra of “keeping the users happy”, and before you know it, Apple walked out of the “antenna-gate” smelling of roses.

On cue, RIM, Nokia and HTC reacted strongly to being painted with the same wide brush, each shooting back strong missives in Apple’s direction for involving them in “Apple’s self-made debacle”. For Apple, the job is done – the iPhone 4 has come out of this (almost) squeaky clean, and the subject of antenna design decisions has been brought out so clearly into public consciousness for the first time.

And just as this was threatening to blow up, along came Apple’s Q3 earnings call earlier this week. In case you missed it, here’s the gist. The numbers look good, with a record $15.7 billion earned for the June quarter, right about when they shipped the hundred millionth iOS (iPad, iPod touch or iPhone) device. What’s important to note is that the iOS products now contribute two-thirds of Apple’s revenues, and this is in a quarter that saw 3.472 million Macs sold during the June quarter, up 33 percent year-over-year and easily outpacing the 20% growth rate PCs showed. Not surprisingly, the company is now sitting easy on $45.8 billion in cash, and with the iPad launching in nine more countries – Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, and Singapore – as you read this ( on Friday, July 23), their next quarter looks set to do no less. If anything, Apple’s going to have to watch their suppliers closely, ‘coz at the rate at which they’re going, supply just isn’t going to keep up with demand. That’s a good problem to have, in any case.

As we wrap up this week’s A Byte of Apple, we couldn’t possibly close without a mention of Flipboard – A Social Magazine App for the iPad. As the name suggests, Flipboard creates a magazine out of a user’s social content, and early user response suggest this could be the way to consume Facebook, twitter and your other social feeds while fitting into the chilling-out lifestyle of iPad media consumption.

Now, a week full of controversy and hard numbers does have its light moments too – and this week’s humor is courtesy a thief who earlier this week made off with an iPhone snatched right from a woman’s hand in the San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, not knowing that the phone was being used in a demonstration of real-time GPS tracking. Of all the phones he could have whacked, he picked this one! What are the odds!?! No prizes for guessing what happened next – he was picked up by police about ten minutes later with the help of the location tracking. Talk about being a #fail at what you do!

Smartphone Championship: Nexus One vs Apple iPhone 3GS

There is a competition between everything in this world, and always the strong one is the winner. Here at Fonearena.com, we always talk about mobile phones Continue reading “Smartphone Championship: Nexus One vs Apple iPhone 3GS”

Samsung defends the Omnia 2 against Apple’s Claims

One of the hottest topics these days is the “Apple iPhone 4 antenna issue”. When Apple launched the Apple iPhone 4, we saw that after a few days passed, people started complaining about the antenna issue. On that problem, Steve Jobs said that there is no antenna issue in the iPhone 4, they are just rumors. Continue reading “Samsung defends the Omnia 2 against Apple’s Claims”

Apple sold 9.41 million iPods , 8.4 milion iPhones , 3.27 million iPads in Q3

Another amazing quarter for Apple Inc thanks to great sales of the iPhone, iPad and Macs.The company reported a 78 percent increase in earnings . iPad sales have not had a negative impact on Mac or iPhone sales. Surprisingly iPod sales have decreased but iPod touch sales are up and Apple has close to USD 47 billion cash in the bank !

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Apple iPad hitting 9 more countries this Friday

If you live in Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand or Singapore, and you are waiting anxiously for the Apple iPad to hit your country, then your wait is about get over, because today Apple officially announced that the Apple iPad is on it’s way to the 9 countries mentioned above. Continue reading “Apple iPad hitting 9 more countries this Friday”