It is absolutely mind-blowing that Palm pulled this off as well as they did. This is like the Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X transition for Palm — a massive rethink of the entire platform that must succeed for the company to survive. And, on a technical level at least, they have done admirably. Whether they can compete against the marketing juggernaut that is the iPhone remains to be seen. WebOS would need to mature a bit before I personally could replace the iPhone with the Pre as my primary device. But for a 1.0, they’ve performed a minor miracle. It is a highly respectable competitor to the iPhone and other smartphones. I would rank it above Android, and miles above Windows Mobile.
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I Never Tire of These
The boys over at Rapid Repair have already gutted an iPhone 3G S. It’s built pretty much like the 3G, but this is interesting:
This phone is capable of 833MHz and 720p video.
Right now, Apple has it clocked at 600Mhz. No doubt running the processor at 833Mhz would eat through the battery, but it’s interesting that the hardware is capable of it. My guess is that at 600Mhz, the processor can’t render 720p video in reasonable time.
‘Filling the Gaps’
Time has posted a piece about a service I never knew existed:
Presto and Celery, which both launched in 2006, deliver e-mail printouts almost in real-time because they require subscribers to purchase hardware to handle incoming messages. (In addition to personal updates and interesting articles, caregivers can send reminders about doctors’ appointments or family functions.) Celery charges $13.98 a month to send and receive (color printouts of) e-mails — as well as Facebook and Twitter updates — via a fax machine, which costs $119 if you don’t already own one.
iTunes Servers Down
It happened last year, and it’s happening again this year: the iTunes servers are crumbling under the load of millions of users upgrading to 3.0.
I hate to say, but I told you so.
AT&T to Forgive Early 3G Adopters
Well, well, look at this from Engadget:
The original plan was to offer mildly subsidized prices of $399 and $499 for the 16GB and 32GB versions of the iPhone 3G S to AT&T customers who weren’t currently “upgrade eligible,” but the carrier’s having a change of heart, ostensibly in response to… you know, people wanting to pay less. The new plan is to let anyone with an upgrade date in the months of June, July, August, or September get in on the fully discounted $199 / $299 price points, which should cover a good number of existing 3G owners.
Apple Holding iPhone 3G S Shipments
For the many users who pre-ordered their iPhone 3G S, it looked like they would be getting their new phones a day before Apple’s public launch data of June 19. When I first read this, I thought “How very un-Apple to have a messy release.”
It seems I was right in my thinking. Engadget:
We’re getting a bunch of tips rolling in with updated tracking information for shipped 3G S orders folks have placed through the online Apple Store, confirming that Apple has actively coordinated with its shipper to hold on to the packages until “a future delivery date” that isn’t specified. We can only assume that’d be the 19th, but our question is this: can you just march down to your local UPS branch and try to pick it up yourself in the meantime?
More TUAW Goodness
One of the most awaited features, push notifications, requires a constant data connection. While the iPhone 3G can handle data and voice simultaneously when using a 3G/HSDPA connection, on EDGE (the cellular data service that the original iPhone uses) you are unable to take calls and maintain a persistent data connection. As a result, if you turn on the push notification service, you may be unable to receive voice calls.
A Shot at the Pre
I love when Apple goes all passive-aggressive, like in support article HT3642:
Apple designs the hardware and software to provide seamless integration of the iPhone and iPod with iTunes, the iTunes Store, and tens of thousands of apps on the App Store. Apple is aware that some third-parties claim that their digital media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players.
My Eyes are Bleeding
Gizmodo has posted 94 ideas for iPhone apps - designed in Microsoft’s Paint application.
‘What the heck is AT&T thinking?’
Jason Snell, on AT&T’s lack of support for iPhone OS 3.0’s keystone features:
From the outside, there’s just no way to know why AT&T does the things that it does. But given Apple’s attitude, the reaction from the crowd at WWDC, and the anger out on the Internet, something is obviously wrong. It makes me wonder if AT&T, as a company, is simply incapable of changing the way it does business, even if the changes might end up benefiting it in the end.
More on ‘Social Media Experts’
From Open Press Wire:
Are you tired of hearing it yet? I sure am. It seems Twitter has fostered an extreme steroid fed bacterial growth of social media experts, social media gurus and super follower magnates. Unfortunately there isn’t much of an antibiotic floating around to separate the experts from the idiots. If you weren’t aware already, most of these experts are just idiots that have found a stool to stand on and shout their garbled rehashed crap they read from TwiTips.com and rewrote it on their own “pretty” blog.
TUAW Fumbles Newton Story
The Newton is back in the spotlight, and once again, is creating waves in the Apple community.
The Newton 2010 bug has made news before, but just re-surfaced on a prominent Apple blog. Here’s TUAW:
Apple’s ill-fated and technologically advanced personal digital assistant was hot stuff in the 1990s until it was axed in February of 1998. There are still a good number of Newton MessagePad fans who not only use their devices every day, but are also working together on hardware and software updates to their units to bring them into the 21st Century.