Some thoughts:
Previously AT&T charged 30.00 a month for an 'unlimited' data plan. In reality all of these plans have/had 'soft' limits of around 5g if you read the fine print, but I'm not sure it was widely enforced.
AT&T offered tethering plans for most of it's smart phones, excluding iPhone for some reason, for around another 30.00 a month. People complained that it wasn't fair to charge you more money just to access the data you already purchased from another device. The example of your home internet was used. You pay for the pipe to your house, and you can hang as many devices on it as you want. AT&T's response was that tethering to a computer would actually increase the amount of average data you consumed on your plan and they needed to cover those costs.
AT&T promised that tethering was coming to the iPhone almost exactly 1 year ago. It still has not.
On March 31, 1998, Netscape Communications released the source code to their web browser client, hoping that they could leverage the community of open source developers to fight off Microsoft in the browser wars.
This video is an excellent documentary of that time.
In the end, Netscape disappeared after an intense battle with Microsoft, and a series of bad decisions (such as a Java based browser, the Collabra acquisition). After a few years, that source code became the basis for the Firefox browser.
If Netscape Navigator was Ben Kenobi to Internet Explorer's Darth Vader, then Firefox, Chrome and the mobile WebKit browsers are the rag-tag bunch that blew up the Death Star.
Dan Grigsby, iPhone developer, avocate and founder of the popular iPhone news site and podcast 'Mobile Orchard' has decided to call it quits. He is abandoning iPhone as a platform and discontinuing the web site and blog. Apple's increasingly dictatorial control over the platform, and more specifically the recent decision to reject apps not written in Objective-C, C++ or C have finally pushed him over the edge. He is just the latest in a series of vocal iPhone developers to jump ship. The rational for his decision has been posted as his last entry to Mobile Orchard. You can read it here.
Here are some quotes which I think really get to the heart of the issue:
"Ask permission environments crush creativity and innovation..."
"Without exception, whenever I’ve taken built an app to capitalize on one of my ideas it’s run afoul of Apple’s policies... ...Apple could decide that this violates the Ts&Cs and kick me out of the program, thereby taking away my ability to support my family."
"I’m fine with Apple curating the App Store. If they want to treat the App Store as an extension of their brand, fine. If that’s their goal, they should decimate — literally — the store, stripping out the crappy-yet-inoffensive dross. But provide unrestricted, frictionless, off-store distribution a la Android.
"I’m a principled person. Apple’s offended my principles. Consequently, I’ve decided to abandon iPhone development. I won’t work in this ask-permission environment any longer."
I think Dan is taking a brave stand. As an Iphone developer I continue to be concerned by Apple's increasingly Orwellian policies. I am still optimistic that eventually good will prevail, but I must admit that so far I don't see Apple steering away from the course they are on.
Ok, the count down is on. Time to make your predictions. Let's see who can get the closest to the actual thing. This time around I'm trying to restrict my predictions to what I think it will have rather than what I want it to have.
Here is my overly detailed prediction:
[Updated to compare with actual]
Today Google announced that cloud file storage was coming to Google Docs. After quickly reading the details, my first response (and pretty much everyone else's) was MEH. Only 1G for free with no local syncing? I'll stick with Dropbox, thank you very much. Seriously after all these many years of G-Drive rumors that was all they could come up with? But after some further though I think we may be missing the real potential here. I say 'potential' because this is only speculation, and may not be Google's intent, but hear me out.
When I switched away from Windows Mobile I left behind a lot of functionality, some built in and some via 3rd party apps. Over time Apple has managed to add some of these things to the platform, like cut and paste (duh!) and Bluetooth Stereo support. Gradually 3rd party apps have also appeared to fill in many of the cracks left by my switch. I found another one last night - Air Video.
I used to use TCPMP or BetaPlayer to stream Xvid files from my media server to my PocketPC over WIFI. I gave this up when I switched to the Apple platform. The iPhone won't play anything but mp4 and I'm not about to convert all my vids. Also the iPhone doesn't have any native support for accessing a network share. Now that problem is solved with Air Video. Air Video allows you to stream video in almost any format to the iPhone. Since the iPhone only displays mp4 the video must be converted (transcoded). Luckily Air Video will do that for you - either by queuing up the conversion or by transcoding on the fly.
To use it you need to install a server program on your Mac or PC and point it to the folders you would like to share. The server software uses Bonjour so you don't need to configure any network settings. After it is up and running the iPhone Air Video app will find the local machine automagically. They also claim some support for streaming across the internet, but I haven't tried that. You can also share iTunes playlists.
There are two versions of the app, one pay (2.99) and one free. The free version limits the number of items you can see in a folder, but otherwise behaves the same.
I downloaded the server and app and after a quick setup I was streaming anime in .mkv format to my iPhone. Initially I was not able to see the subtitles, but I found there was a beta version of the server. I installed it and the subtitles appeared.
It feels weird to agree with luddites AT&T that forcing them to maintain the land line infrastructure with ever decreasing margins is a bad idea.
These days there's far too much to read and not enough time to read it. I'll show you a couple ways to keep up with your reading using some free tools that are readily available.
Here's a typical scenario: you're reading an article on the web and find a link to something else very interesting, so you open it in a new tab to read later. You keep going on like this and by the end of the day you have 20 tabs open. And this is just one machine, many of us use multiple computers as well as smart phones. How can you keep up with all this reading? The best trick that I found so far is to be able to push this reading into any 'free' time that I have scattered throughout my day. For example, when I'm waiting in lines, or waiting for meals, or people. I can also find time during ads or previews etc. During most of this time I'm not in front of my computer however, so the old 'tab' trick just won't cut it. My other favorite 'free' time however is while driving. I currently have quite a long commute, over 45 minutes each way. If you are creative you can use both of these types of idle time to conquer you reading list.
You're gonna want a 30" monitor for maximum Vi usage.
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AnandTech has some great SSD write ups here and here.
Looks like the intel X25-M is the best choice, and you can get the 160 GB drive for $500 at amazon. That still seems a little pricey to me.
The Case Against Apple-in Five Parts
The article is pretty good, but I really got a kick out of the comments. I found this one part way down:
If Microsoft managed the Windows PC world the way Apple manages the iPhone/iPod touch world, Apple’s revenue would be less than half of what it is today. Imagine:
Steve: Hi, we’ve just submitted the Windows version of our iTunes app to the Windows app store.
Bill: Interesting. It looks like it duplicates existing functionality of the Windows OS, which includes Windows Media Player. Rejected.
Steve: What? There are similarities, yes, but iTunes provides a clean, easy to use interface for managing, purchasing, and playing music. Further, it allows Windows users to connect their iPods to their PCs and sync their music library seamlessly.
Bill: Sorry, our policy still stands. Besides, third party applications aren’t allowed direct access to music stored on a user’s PC.
Steve: But then how will we revolutionize the portable media player market and the mobile phone market, boosting our Mac market share and making billions of dollars in the process?
Bill: You won’t.
I wonder what revolutionary apps/gear/services we’ll miss out on because Apple finds them inconvenient.
-lang
There are also some good comparisons betweens Microsoft's anti-trust case for 'including' I.E. and Apple's down right 'rejection' of competing browsers like Opera mobile.
I'm enjoying the negative press Apple is getting, because hey I'm sick that way. But in the end I just want them to open things up a bit, and stop being, you know, evil.
Before you spam me, let me state that I do realize that the iPhone is not an open platform and they have the right to do what ever they want with 'their' product. I think the point being made in the market however is that consumers really want it to be open. Now I'm no business major, but I think that sometimes, just sometimes, it is a good idea to give customers what they want.
$ wget ftp://ftp.bitwizard.nl/mtr/mtr-0.75.tar.gz
$ make
$ sudo cp mtr /usr/sbin
$ sudo chmod +s /usr/sbin/mtr
$ mtr www.google.com
My traceroute [v0.75]
xxxxxxxx-macbook-pro.local (0.0.0.0) Wed Aug 5 13:19:34 2009
Keys: Help Display mode Restart statistics Order of fields quit
Packets Pings
Host Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. 192.168.0.1 0.0% 37 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.9 0.0
2. xx.xxx.xx.xx 0.0% 37 2.2 2.3 2.0 4.4 0.5
3. xxx.xxx.xx.xxx 2.7% 37 3.7 3.7 3.3 5.7 0.5
4. xx.x.xxx.xxx 11.1% 36 7.3 11.2 6.7 67.7 12.1
5. xxxxxxxxxxx.sea.eschelon.com 8.3% 36 7.0 9.0 6.8 58.7 9.0
6. xxx.xxx.xx.xx 5.6% 36 7.3 12.4 7.0 102.7 16.9
7. xxxxxxxxxx.sttlwawb.integra.net 2.8% 36 7.4 15.3 7.0 129.9 23.4
8. six.sea01.google.com 5.6% 36 7.5 14.8 7.1 89.1 18.2
...
13. xxxxxxxxxx.google.com 5.6% 36 14.8 16.4 14.4 33.7 4.4
Yes, that is some packet loss :-)
AT&T's micro cell pricing / billing is so absurd it is laughable. I guess it makes sense to count data used over your own broadband against your 3G usage cap??!!
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Tries-Fails-To-Justify-3G-CapEating-Microcell-108967