Ready, Steady, Go!

A couple of goodies from both camps

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple-getamac-security_480x376.mov

and

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html

“I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.”

A friend of mine in India has just started a new UX focused screencast.

www.revoluxions.com

Check it out. Only one episode so far. But looking good.

Just got off the phne with the people at Vondafone. Still no support for Vista on these cards.

What a HOPELESS state of affairs!

There is a nasty bot doing the rounds at the moment....

Our mailserver is being hammered by huge volumes of spam (much more than usual) and we're guessing it's this bot in action.

http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/security_response/weblog/2007/01/trojanpeacomm_building_a_peert.html

http://www.thestreet.com/newsanalysis/investing/10332670.html

Has some sobering facts on the jump in the APPL price with iPhone announcement.

So I was tagged by Tim Haines a few days ago and wrote a post and then IE lost it... and now Adam has tagged me.

So here goes again

1. I received a New Zealand Music Award back in 2003.... as a no nuts choir boy singing Handels Messiah.... despite now being a card carrying atheist... I still don't mind belting out a bit of 'Zadok the Priest......'
2. I can shear (not share Adam! I'm not sharing with you!) a sheep
3. I was a really bad boy at highschool... I had more punishments in my 7th form (last) year at school than all my p[revious years added up. Most were for 'martyring' myself to the uniform rules..... My brother and sister both went on to be head boy and head girl respectivly of the same school... I was merely head pain in the ass....
4. I have 8 bicycles and about the same number of whitewater or polo kayaks at my house.
5. I was 1st in my 3rd form class for religious studies..... Of curse by 7th form I was asked not to come to religious studies class any more....

I'm tagging..

Casey Chesnut

Bill Ryan

Rowan Simpson

Ivan Towlson

Alex James

One of my team posted in the comments... I'll reply to some of his posts.

> What do you think GOOGLE maps is, 1st party software?

No. Software provided by a multibillion dollar 3rd party developer with a seat on the Apple board. Not exactly a shining example of a rich and diverse ISV ecosystem.

The closed platform might mean that they are controlling what does go on so that the brand always has good reputation and consistency. The current state of the device suggests that 3rd party software will appear there. They've also previously shown that a closed platform works for them (although apparently gen 5 iPods have Apple sanctioned 3rd party games on them).

Yup. Don't deny their justifications. Just don't agree with them.

3G support? You've got to be kidding. Considering the availability and pricing of such networks, surely this is something that Apple would put in if it actually becomes viable.

Most US carriers have flat rate all you can eat 3G plans. At a very good price. As I said in original post this WILL change efore release.

They're also allowing the phone to preferentially transfer onto Wi-Fi networks - something which may be worth having for a business customer who spends the majority of their time in an area with such a network.

The irony here is that the Telcos and other device vendors are all saying no need to bother with WiFi as WWAN on flat rate is just as good. e.g. SPJam has no WiFi any more.

EDGE also seems to go a couple of hundred K - that is plenty for music and web-browsing.
Are there actually mobile carriers who have significant uptake on the streaming video thing? EDGE would be fine for youtube too.

There are lies, damn lies, statistics and then there are theoretical traffic speeds. As someone who has used EDGE (on my SP5 though only overseas) I can assure you it's not really up to much.

Maybe it's not the best for the technical elite, but I develop apps for WM and will be getting an iPhone ASAP because I've never come up with an app I want to develop aside from a usable replacement for mobile outlook and messaging - which I hope iPhone will deliver.

Urm... you will not be able to run it in NZ by the sounds of things.

The key feature for me will be whether I can choose the length of time to snooze a reminder for!! That's a big fuck you to the WM fellas by the way - that really pisses me off because I generally like to be reminded multiple times and determine subsequent reminders by snoozing from the first.

Windows Mobile 5 supports this.

Oh, and I don't expect to have to restart my iPhone on a regular basis because the drivers developed on the open platform for the vendor's technology are shit either!

Granted.

Tim Haines popped me a good link on MSN...

http://blog.webreakstuff.com/2007/01/iphone-love-and-hate/

In summary

1. iPhone will be carrier locked to Cingular- by the sounds of things not just a simple SIM lock either. No surprises there, but it means Rod probably can't have one even if he wants one.... Apple says it's to do with the additional GSM extensions required... I'm inclined to say its a marketing thing. Those features could surely be disabled.

2. No 3rd party support. Apple are quite clear that they will not allow third party code to run on these devices. Thus, it's another closed game for Apple. While we see all these great web 2.0 platforms with APIs that let you mash them up etc... Apple builds a non extensible iPhone. Apple LOSES! I defn. don't want one now. What a piece of shit. This sort of 'closed shop' behaviour is what everyone accuses MSFT of being. What a load of shit. I think Zune is the only REALLY closed platform MSFT has done in the last 5 years that I can think of off the top of my head.

Also links to some more posts from

Dave Winer

“This is what I was trying to say yesterday. Carrying Apple's product announcements as if they were news is probably not good for reporters and bloggers, ethically. We're making a big mistake if we accept the news about iPhone, for example, only from Apple. There are other companies already in this market. How about taking a close look at their products when Apple asks us to look at the category? When Apple boasts of patents, as if that were a feature for users (imho it's a feature that's actually against them), this begs for a closer look as well.“

and Matt Ingram which is really SCATHING