Category: iPhone
This week's hottest iPhone stories: developers, applications, scams, Flash, iTunes, delays, European threat, Greenpeace
Just a week after we discovered the iPhone’s US launch date, Steve Jobs delivered his keynote address at Apple’s World Wide Developers’ Conference.
Developers who had been eagerly waiting to see what kind of opportunities they’d get to put their applications on the iPhone found out: there’s no Software Development Kit – just use Safari and Web 2.0 technologies.
Unsurprisingly, that annoyed some people, but not everyone. It certainly hasn’t stopped some iPhone applications appearing two weeks before the iPhone does. Whether they’re useful though…
It must be a trick or a scam, surely? Pure Mobile (who also have a presence in the UK) has been offering an unlocked iPhone – though there’s precious little other detail. Quite how they’re going to get hold of one, unlock it, and offer it to punters is rather bemusing. Maybe they need a call from the Better Business Bureau?
Apple's Bluetooth iPhone headset gets FCC approval… Now how about a Bluetooth iPod?
One of the (few) things about the iPhone that hasn’t received blanket press coverage is its proposed Bluetooth headset, for full wireless music and calls. Well, the headset has just been approved by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
European iPhone launch at risk from arrogance – but whose? Apple's or the mobile operators
We already know that the iPhone won’t be legitimately found in Europe until at least the last quarter of 2007, but recent reports suggest that we could be waiting a lot longer than that.
While it may not have been the most popular choice, we were at least hoping that Apple were close to a pan-European deal.
Off the record, though, some mobile operators are saying that they’ll never stock the iPhone, thanks to Apple being “unbelievably arrogant” and “making demands that ‘simply cannot be justified no matter how hot the product is'”.
We’re led to believe that Steve Jobs talked tough to get his way with AT&T, and that Verizon refused to bow to the pressure.
Is the same true in Europe, or is the differing nature of European operators making it harder for Apple to get its own way? Is it possible that the operators are the arrogant ones, unhappy at being asked to agree to a new business model (who wants to share revenue, eh?)
What are the options?
Why bloggers and journalists are always banging on about the iPhone
Stuart Dredge writes…
If a new mobile phone can play music, then it must be an iPhone rival. Why? Well, because we say so. That’s ‘we’ as in bloggers and journalists, of course. To someone reading Tech Digest, other gadget blogs, or even mainstream newspapers, it must seem like every new phone gets slapped with the iPhone comparison.
iTweetr: the first Twitter app for iPhone
Steve Jobs didn’t stop to mention micro-blogging in his keynote at this week’s Apple WWDC conference. But he did reveal that Web 2.0 developers will be able to create applications for the iPhone, which should ensure Twitter makes it onto Apple’s phone sooner rather than later.
Apple could face iPhone shortages for 1-2 months after launch
When a doctor from the Supply Chain Management Institute says a new gadget is likely to suffer shortages, you tend to believe him. So Dr Simon Croom’s warning that Apple is likely to suffer serious supply issues in its first couple of months on sale shouldn’t be disregarded.
Omnifone reveals more MusicStation details, but is it really an iPhone-killer?
Cast your mind back a few months, and you might remember our interview with Omnifone, which was planning to steal Apple’s mobile music thunder with its own service, called MusicStation.
Apple iPhone application development: can't do right by some
Andy Merrett writes…
Thanks to the amount of hype and spin surrounding the iPhone, it seems that, when it comes to third party applications, Apple can’t do right by some people.
Apple were criticised right from the start when it looked as if they wouldn’t offer any kind of third-party application support for the iPhone.
Now that their initial solution has been unveiled – Web 2.0 and AJAX – they’re being slated again. Pick a derogatory word about Apple’s solution and it’s probably been used against them.
It seems few people stop to consider that this is Apple’s first-generation iPhone. As with the first Apple TV, the first iPod, the first Mac, the first iMac, or the first MacBook Pro, it will have first-generation functionality.
Everyone knows that future generations of the iPhone will feature more functionality. Take a look at the evolution of the iPod, now imagine what an iPhone could look like in five years’ time.
iPhone opens up to developers via current web standards: No complicated SDK needed
Andy Merrett writes…
Developers have been waiting for some time to find out exactly if and how they can create applications for the iPhone – and yesterday Steve Jobs told them.
At his opening Keynote speech to the World Wide Developers’ Conference, he made it clear that the iPhone would handle applications, and they’d all run using Web 2.0 and AJAX technologies via the updated version of the Safari web browser.
I’ve already written that developers may now take notice of Safari because of the iPhone, and this effectively seals the deal.
WWDC 2007: Get set for iPhone Web 2.0 applications
Is iPhone a closed platform as far as developing applications goes? Not any more. The last announcement at today’s Apple WWDC show concerned Apple’s upcoming handset, and the way it’ll run Web 2.0 apps built to look and behave just like the ones on the iPhone itself.
