AT&T CEO Confirms iPhone Tethering Coming “Soon”

MobileCrunch reveals that during an interview at the Web 2.0 Summit, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega confirmed that AT&T would be offering an official tethering option for the iPhone "soon".

Tethering is the process by which you all...

J.D. Power ranks Apple’s iPhone highest in new study

J.D. Power and Associates ranked Apple’s iPhone highest in overall customer satisfaction among business wireless smartphone users.

The Four Pillars of PIM — TiPb of the Iceberg

Recently our friends at sister site TreoCentral pointed us to this snippet: Apple was seriously interested in purchasing Palm back in 1997.  This is interesting for all sorts of reasons, but chief amongst them for me is this: Had the deal gone through, we might have seen the iPhone not only come to market earlier, but possibly seen it prevent other smartphone manufacturers (like RIM) from being able to compete.  It’s an interesting ‘what could have been’ scenario: just as Apple was killing off their Newton line, it would pick up the Palm Pilot and add functionality to it at presumably a more rapid pace than Palm did.

It’s also notable that even back in 1997, the powers-that-be in Apple recognized that they would need to transition from a strictly-computer company to a consumer products company:

A perhaps little known fact: in the Summer of 1997, Steve Jobs called Eric Benhamou, 3Com’s CEO (the company owned Palm). “Give me the Palm and come and join my Board of Directors. Only Apple can make Palm a true consumer brand.” Nothing happened. Apple’s foray into the product segment had to wait ten more years.

Of course, neither Apple nor Palm were in a position to really get things moving quickly at that time.  Palm would have to wait until their first (of many) convoluted ownership shakeups sorted itself out and Apple itself was still in the midst of redefining itself for the Steve Jobs era. The parallels between Palm now and Apple then are also fun to think about — both in dire need of a turnaround, both written off by much of the industry, and both have/had Jon Rubenstein playing a key role in revitalizing hardware.

I could go on and on playing “What If?” but instead there’s something else that this little snippet brings to mind: Palm got something right with the original Palm Pilot way back in 1997 and I really wish Apple would take a closer look at that 1997 tech.

Read on to find out what Palm got right way back in the mid to late 90s.

Pitting the PalmPilot against the Newton was (and is) an interesting exercise. The Newton clearly had aims to become the next major computing platform (the iPhone has similar aims and better chances), it was powerful, networked, and generally ambitious. The PalmPilot: it had aims to replace your organizer and that’s about it. It was a simpler device because Palm recognized that it would need to be pocketable and (relatively) inexpensive.

Back then, at least, the PalmPilot won out — and one lesson that Apple clearly took from that was the simplicity and pocketability trump power in handheld devices. That’s not to say that the iPhone isn’t powerful (it is), but Apple has taken a strategy of unveiling that power bit-by-bit as they’re ready to do so. First and foremost, Apple focused on nailing down the core functionality and a consistent UI.

The PalmPilot was a compelling device for many many people for several years (and continues to be some a smaller group). In the form the the PalmOS Treo and the Central, the PalmOS continues to be a useful, though simple, OS for millions. What about the PalmOS was so compelling then and remains compelling now. I could point to a few things, but for most I think it was simply the ability to create and sync the “Four Pillars of PIM.”

The what now? The Four Pillars of PIM are the 4 applications that were given separate buttons on the original PalmPilot. They were the essential core things you would want to do with a pocket organizer. You’d want to be able to enter data both on your computer and on the device itself and have that data seamlessly sync. The Four Pillars of PIM:

• Calendar
• Contacts
• Memos
• ToDo

On all of these applications on the PalmOS, you can create new entries incredibly quickly and you can enter your data on the desktop and sync it over. You can probably tell where I’m going with this, but I’ll come out and say it anyway: the iPhone only gets 2 of the four. Contacts and Calendar sync seamlessly (and now wirelessly!), but Notes on the iPhone lives in its own little world and ToDo/Tasks is nowhere to be seen.

Now, I understand that both of these gaps can be filled with 3rd party applications on the iPhone, but those apps require you to sign up for some 3rd party’s website and then further find ways to sync or access your data there. What should happen is that these last two Pillars should sync over — either through iTunes, Exchange, or MobileMe. Exchange, you might note, fully supports syncing both ToDo and Memos. It does so with Windows Mobile, in fact, just fine.

What’s especially frustrating is that there have been signs that we’d see support for these features. Over a year ago we reported on a warning error that popped up in Mail’s Notes feature. Here, take a gander for yourself:

“Rich text notes may not be editable on iPhone and other devices.” If you are using a Mac with 10.5, you can go create that error yourself right now.

What’s more, when Apple updated OS X’s Mail.app client back then they not only added notes but they also integrated ToDos. Whereas previously they had only lived in the Calendar Application, now they were in Mail. In short, Apple seemed to be setting up Mail.app to have similar functionality to Microsoft’s Exchange email client. The implication was that they’d be able to sync all four Pillars of PIM on both platforms. The reality is that something is keeping Apple from finishing off these features that they clearly have started.

I wish I could say I knew what’s stopping them. I suspect that Apple’s more concerned with other issues (like getting push notifications worked out) that they believe are more important than Notes and ToDo.

I’m happy that in addition to the Four Pillars of PIM our devices now have other, equally essential features like Push Email, SMS, Web browsing, and Telephony (the Four Pillars of COM, if you will). I’m equally happy that syncing PIM information is moving to wireless push instead of tethering and manually syncing. All this pleases me and overall we’re obviously much much better off now than we were a decade ago. Still…

People used to talk about the “Zen of Palm.” It was 1 part minimizing taps, 1 part removing features that weren’t necessary, 1 part speed, 1 part intuitive UI, and, well, a lot more. Nowadays people refer to “iPhone-Likeness” in a very similar way. But part of the “Zen of Palm” is that they recognized what the four most important organizer functions were and made those functions seamless, easy, and immediate. Having to sort though 3rd party apps, pick one, then try to re-work your current set of notes and ToDos to fit with some new system is definitely not “iPhone-Like.” It’s janky, and Apple needs to fix it ASAP.

In other words, yes, I’m already looking forward to iPhone OS 2.3.

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One last bit: the PalmPilot also had a feature that’s sorely lacking on the iPhone and, in fact, on most non-PalmOS devices: decent device-wide search capabilities. One field that searched through the databases of every core app and many 3rd party apps. If the PalmPilot was able to do this, you’d like to think the iPhone could.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

The Four Pillars of PIM — TiPb of the Iceberg

Homemade iPhone robot is more than meets the eye

One inventive Japanese iPhone user has created a robot-iPhone hybrid that's remote controllable and can record video.

Pyrus, another iPhone word game from the creator of Lexitron

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Odds and ends, iPhone

I've mentioned here before how big a fan I am of Lexitron -- it's just the perfect kind of pick-up-and-play game I enjoy having on my iPhone, and the art deco look and feel of it is an added bonus. Now, digicide has come up with a new game called Pyrus, and it looks pretty good as well. Just like Lexitron, you're still focused on making words, but this time, you just need to come up with one word per set, and the app uses multitouch in choosing each letter of whatever word you make. It's an interesting idea, and once again digicide's app is oozing with style, this time in an Egyptian theme (I love the music notes that play when you hit a letter). The app is in the store now for just $1.99, which is probably a bargain for how much time you'll spend messing around with this while waiting in line or for the bus or train somewhere.

If I could improve on these games at all, I'd almost like a few more letter options (Bookworm is pretty much the perfect word game, and while digicide obviously can't and shouldn't rip them off, something with a few more letters to choose from would seem fun). I'd also like to see a goal that's a little more involving than just racing against the clock -- maybe building up a power meter that unlocks certain letter choices or cheats, or even multiplayer against an AI or human, if digicide can pull it off. But for sheer pick-up-and-play wordcrafting fun, these games are already great. Very nice job on both, definitely two iPhone games to check out if you haven't yet.

Pyrus, another iPhone word game from the creator of Lexitron originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Pyrus, another iPhone word game from the creator of Lexitron originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First Look: Fake Calls for iPhone

Filed under: Humor, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store

Have you ever been on a blind date that you really wanted to get out of? How about participating in the world's most boring meeting or wanting to get away from the in-laws?

iPhone owners now have a great tool available for making that quick exit, and it's called Fake Calls. From iPhone startup Magic Tap, Fake Calls sells in the App Store (click opens iTunes) for just US$0.99. In order to make it appear that you have just received a phone call from someone important, you can change the wallpaper for the Caller ID, set the phone to ring or vibrate, and customize the caller number or name. You set a time for the fake call (i.e., 15 minutes into that really dull date), and at that predefined time the fake call comes in. Voila! Instant excuse!

Since you're not really being called, no airtime charges apply. Magic Tap is also planning on donating 10 percent of earnings from Fake Calls to several charities -- could it be to assuage their guilt over an app that helps you to lie?

Considering how creative Fake Calls is, it will be fascinating to see what their Magic Tap's next iPhone app will do.

First Look: Fake Calls for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

First Look: Fake Calls for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone 2.2: Podcast Downloads Enabled + App Store Tweaks

We’ve heard about podcast downloads being added to iPhone OS 2.2 before, but now Macrumors (via Shimanke.com — check out their screenshots) has more details how the process will work. In response to Chad’s fears of overwhelming AT&T’s fragile 3G network (aka “rabbit ears”), it looks like cell downloads will be limited to podcasts under 10MB, the same limitation currently imposed on App Store purchases over 3G. Both audio and video podcasts will be available for download, however, and on WiFi there’s no limitation.

Could TV Shows and even Movies be next? And with Exchange, MobileMe, and other sync services storming the “clouds”, what does this mean for the days of USB tethering to your Mac or PC?

Meanwhile, the App Store looks to have a cosmetic makeover, with categories now sporting the icons of some of their most popular Apps (i.e., Social Networking shows the Facebook icon).

Lastly, still no sign of Push Notification, which Macrumors hears via the whisper-net is still having “major issues”. After the disastrous MobileMe rollout, could Apple be waiting to get it right the first time?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone 2.2: Podcast Downloads Enabled + App Store Tweaks

Apple Activates Podcast Downloads in 2.2 Firmware

German blog Schimanke.com publishes new screenshots from the iPhone 2.2 firmware that reveal that Apple has activated iTunes and App Store features that will make their debut in the next iPhone update. Prior to this past week, these new feat...

Apple’s Fiscal 2008 Results Show Significant Year-Over-Year Growth

On Wednesday, Apple released its annual 10-K reports which detailed revenue and spending for fiscal 2008. eWeek has kindly organized the information into a number of charts, including this one showing Apple's revenue growth over 2007:

...