Best of Smartphone Experts, 31 Jan 2010
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Best of Smartphone Experts, 31 Jan 2010
January, 2010
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Steven Colbert Shows off iPad at the Grammy Awards!
Our caption: Steven Colbert is iPad at the Grammy Awards and so can’t you. What’s yours?
Engadget has the video up. Enjoy!
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
Steven Colbert Shows off iPad at the Grammy Awards!
Amazon Reluctantly Agrees to Higher eBook Pricing
Even before the launch of the iPad, there had been rumors that Apple was working with publishers to allow them to set their own prices for ebooks. This could result in bestselling ebooks being priced as high as $14.99 vs the current selling price of...Macmillan Books to Return to Amazon, Prices to Rise to iPad iBooks Level, Consumers to Vote with their Wallets
Both Mcmillan and Amazon have issued statements about the story linked to previously, wherein they stopped selling Macmillan e-books after the publisher wanted to raise the price for best-sellers to an agency model $12.99 to $14.99 — which Apple had already agreed to for iBooks on the iPad.
Mcmillan’s CEO, John Sargent’s comments ran as a paid advertisement in the Sunday edition of PublishersLunch and read in part:
Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.
The agency model would allow Amazon to make more money selling our books, not less. We would make less money in our dealings with Amazon under the new model. Our disagreement is not about short-term profitability but rather about the long-term viability and stability of the digital book market.
Amazon’s response can be found in full on Engadget, but contains:
We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.
So what do you think? Will the publishers be able to raise prices or will the market — or lack thereof for higher priced e-books — force them back down again?
[PublishersLunch via BoingBoing via Engadget]
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
Macmillan Books to Return to Amazon, Prices to Rise to iPad iBooks Level, Consumers to Vote with their Wallets
Apple Store Down — Could be iPad Pre-Orders, Could be Nothing…
Yes, the Apple Store is down. We have no idea if this is for iPad pre-order setup, for some other product update/refresh, or for behind-the-scenes maintenance.
If you have any ideas, let us know in the comments and we’ll update as soon as it’s back!
[Thanks to Andy for the tip!]
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
Apple Store Down — Could be iPad Pre-Orders, Could be Nothing…
Will Apple’s iPad Get Jailbroken and How Long Will it Take?
When Apple announced the iPad last week, TiPb’s email quickly filled up with readers and forum members who wondered if it would be possible to jailbreak it and, if so, how long it would take? First, it’s important to remember that, while we’re all excited, the iPad doesn’t even ship until March at the earliest, so it is pure speculation at this point. We do hope the likes of the iPhone Dev-Team and/or Geohot will try their hardest to get it accomplished and that it will only be a matter of time.
The good news is, unlike the iPhone, Apple is selling the iPad 3G carrier-unlocked, so there’ll be no need for redsn0w or blacksn0w. Just pop in a Micro-SIM and you can use it on any network you want.
The bad news is, Apple has really stepped up to the plate when it comes to combating the jailbreak. With their new iPhone Platform Security Manager and hardware changes and the patching of software exploits like the 24kpwn, which no longer works on the latest iPhone 3GS and iPod touch G3 models, there is no doubt in our minds it will take a good while.
So, to anyone looking to pick up a iPad and jailbreak it when it is released, we hope you have a good amount of patience.
We’d also like to know — presuming the iPad is jailbroken, which Jailbreak Apps do you most want to see ported over?
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
Will Apple’s iPad Get Jailbroken and How Long Will it Take?
CEOh-Snap iPad Attack Edition — Google, Nokia, Microsoft, and Nintendo on Apple’s Tablet
Prior to Steve Jobs laying into Google and Adobe, Google, Nokia, Microsoft, and Nintendo got their shots in on Apple and the iPad, and here’s what they had to say:
- Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “You might want to tell me the difference between a large phone and a tablet.” [via Business Insider]
Someone might want to tell him people are making Android tablets, or is he still using BlackBerry?
- Nokia social point-main Mark Squires: In a post titled, “A fruit confused”, he takes issue with Apple calling itself the world’s largest mobile devices business (measured by revenue). [via Nokia Conversations]
Fair enough, considering there are lies, damn lies, and statistics, but the title of the post… really?
- Microsoft director of product management in the developer platform, Brandon Watson: “developers of applications for the iPhone OS–which the iPad uses–are not making money. Developing applications for the iPhone and iPad is expensive, he said, because iPhone OS uses the Objective C language rather than Microsoft’s more pervasive .NET platform. And Apple’s control over the platform has alienated some people that make software for its products, he said.” [via Technologizer]
Cue Windows Mobile millionaire dev and their 140,000 runtimes in 5… 4… 3… 2…
- Nintendo President Satoru Iwata: ‘It was a bigger iPod Touch. I question whether those features would be enough to get people to buy new machines.” [via NYT]
Never mind his own company just released a bigger version of their own, the Nintendo DSi LL… He’s missing the same point many others are likewise missing. The iPad isn’t just a big iPod touch. The iPad is a big iPod touch. That’s its killer feature.
And yes, we’ll be saving all these comments, and any others we come across, and looking back at them one year post-iPad launch to see if it works out any better for the competition than it did when the iPhone was mocked in 2007…
[Thanks to everyone who sent these in!]
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
CEOh-Snap iPad Attack Edition — Google, Nokia, Microsoft, and Nintendo on Apple’s Tablet
Forget Flash, iPhone, iPad Don’t Support ActiveX!
I’ve mentioned a couple times already, given the recent flare-up in the discussion about iPad and iPhone not supporting Flash, that not so long ago you had a hard time using any browser other than IE6 because of another proprietary plugin — Microsoft’s ActiveX. Times change, though, and these days Firefox, Safari, and Chrome users seldom if ever come across the big red X. It’s possible Flash and its blue lego block will soon be likewise optional on major sites.
Scobleizer draws the same analogy:
Let’s go back a few years to when Firefox was just coming on the scene. Remember that? I remember that it didn’t work with a ton of websites. Things like banks, e-commerce sites, and others. Why not? Because those sites were coded specifically for the dominant Internet Explorer back then.
Some people thought Firefox was going to fail because of these broken links. Just like Adobe is trying to say that Apple’s iPad is going to fail because of its own set of broken links.
But just a few years later and have you seen a site that doesn’t work on Firefox? I haven’t.
What happened? Firefox FORCED developers to get on board with the standards-based web.
The same thing is happening now, based on my talks with developers: they are not including Flash in their future web plans any longer.
I work in web development and just did a major site redesign for an international company. It went from a lot of Flash, to no Flash. Why? Marketing wanted a site that would be more easily viewed on BlackBerrys and iPhones.
Daring Fireball drives this home:
Flash is no longer ubiquitous. There’s a big difference between “everywhere” and “almost everywhere”. Adobe’s own statistics on Flash’s market penetration claim 99 percent penetration as of last month. That’s because, according to their survey methodology, they’re only counting “PCs” — which ignores the entire sort of devices which have brought about this debate. Adobe is arguing that Flash is installed on 99 percent of all web browsers that support Flash, not 99 percent of all web browsers.
Used to be you could argue that Flash, whatever its merits, delivered content to the entire audience you cared about. That’s no longer true, and Adobe’s Flash penetration is shrinking with each iPhone OS device Apple sells.
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
Forget Flash, iPhone, iPad Don’t Support ActiveX!
CEOh-Snap: Steve Jobs Says Adobe Lazy, Flash Buggy, Google Wants to Kill iPhone, Not “Not Evil”?
According to an anonymous source in attendance at Apple’s recent, internal iPad town hall meeting at the Cupertino campus, Steve Jobs answered some employee questions by saying “Adobe is lazy” and that Google’s “don’t be evil” motto was “BS”. Wired reports:
On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.
About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.
Wired points out that, by getting around the App Store pocket veto and delivering Google Voice for iPhone via an HTML5 web app, Jobs should be careful what he wishes for. Google maps data and YouTube were shown off during the iPad launch, as was PDF support, though no Flash (despite some ad-related confusion).
More than a battle of words, however, this is a battle for control of the consumer internet experience — and the tremendous revenue that comes with it.
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
CEOh-Snap: Steve Jobs Says Adobe Lazy, Flash Buggy, Google Wants to Kill iPhone, Not “Not Evil”?
Steve Jobs at Apple Town Hall Meeting on Google, Adobe, Next iPhone, 2010 Macs and More
Steve Jobs held a town hall meeting with Apple employees late last week following the iPad launch. Wired reports on what was said at the meeting by Steve Jobs. Two of the biggest topics included Google and Adobe.On Google, Jobs conf...
Omni Group Commits to Bring Five Productivity Apps to iPad
OmniPlan for Mac OS X
In a blog post, Omni Group has committed to bringing five of their productivity apps to the iPad including OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, OmniPlan, OmniFocus, and OmniGraphSketcher.
Remember how Maci...
Apple vs. Amazon vs. Macmillian — Begun These e-Book Wars Have?
According to the NYT’s Bits blog, Amazon has pulled Macmillan e-books due to a dispute over pricing, with Amazon wanting to hold the line at $9.99 and Macmillan wanting to raise it to an Apple iPad iBooks-like $14.99.
Eerily similar to Apple and iTunes Music, where Steve Jobs resisted the music industries desire to raise prices from $0.99 a song, and finally came to an agreement for flexible pricing up to $1.29 in exchange for DRM-free 3G downloads in January 2009. Previous to the change, Amazon was able to use music industry dissatisfaction to offer DRM-free Amazon MP3 music at $0.89. The industry was willing to take the loss in an attempt to break Apple’s control, and now it looks like their hoping similar pressure and competition from Apple’s iBooks will break down Amazon.
Ironic, poetic? Here’s where it stands:
Macmillan offered Amazon the opportunity to buy Kindle editions on the same “agency” model as it will sell e-books to Apple for the iPad. Under this model, the publisher sets the consumer book price and takes 70 percent of each sale, leaving 30 percent to the retailer. Macmillan said Amazon could continue to buy e-books under its current wholesale model, paying the publisher 50 percent of the hardcover list price while pricing the e-book at any level Amazon chooses, but that Macmillan would delay those e-book editions by seven months after hardcover release. Amazon’s removal of Macmillan titles on Friday appears to be a direct reaction to that.
And here we thought when there was competition, prices were supposed to go down…
[Note: Amazon has merely stopped selling the e-books for now, they haven't remote-wiped any that were already purchased, the above graphic is entirely satirical!]
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
Apple vs. Amazon vs. Macmillian — Begun These e-Book Wars Have?
Catan: The First Island brings tabletop gaming glee to iPhone
Filed under: Gaming, Features, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review
Catan. If you've ever visited, there's a good chance you're passionate about it. First unveiled as a traditional board game in 1995, the now-classic trading and settlement game has evolved over the years to include dozens of scenarios, expansions and reworkings, from limited edition game maps to browser-based Internet versions. Naturally, the Settlers of Catan is now also available for the iPhone [iTunes link], and it's a a damn good condensed version.
First things first. This is the full, but basic, game. The original ruleset isn't condensed at all, but none of the expansions are present in the current version. While long-time board gamers might scoff at simple "vanilla Settlers," the basic game as presented in Exozet's iPhone version acts just like the tabletop big brother. You can choose to play on the fixed beginner board or a random map, you can play with three or four people (or bots), you can trade, you can go for longest road, etc. All the things that make Catan such an enduring game are here, and that's great to have in your pocket.
Read on to find out more about Catan: the First Island on the iPhone (and iPod Touch).
Continue reading Catan: The First Island brings tabletop gaming glee to iPhone
Catan: The First Island brings tabletop gaming glee to iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Catan: The First Island brings tabletop gaming glee to iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Got some time? Crush the Castle
Filed under: Gaming, Odds and ends, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review
I admit it. I am iPadded out. I am iTired. I am suffering from iBurnout. So it was with pleasure that I found a addicting little game for the iPhone and iPod touch called Crush the Castle [iTunes link]. It's a free medieval game where you use an ancient trebuchet to smash a variety of castles and the inhabitants standing nearby. Crush the Castle is physics based, so you have to swing a heavy projectile in the air and release at just the right point to flatten the castle off to the right of the trebuchet. After a few tries it gets damned addictive. You have more than a dozen castles to crush in two different kingdoms. If you do well, you get some medals. If not, you are rebuked by the king. The animation is good, the physics seem accurate, and the sounds of castles coming down and soldiers screaming adds to the fun.
At each new level, the distance to the castles from your siege machine increases, so you really have to get the release point for the projectile just right.
Crush the Castle is a port of a Flash-based game which you can play for free online. If you really get into the mild mayhem, I'd suggest you look at the US$1.99 version [iTunes link] which has 90 levels, 10 types of ammo, and an editor so you can design your own castles before you knock them down.
Both versions get great reviews from users, and I'm in agreement. It's helping me forget all the endless iDebates over the iPad and work my iAggressions out on my iPhone.
The free version is no risk, except for the time you are sure to lose. Let me know if you get hooked too. Check out more screen shots below:
Got some time? Crush the Castle originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Got some time? Crush the Castle originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apple Corrects iPad Promo Video to Show No Flash Capability
In response to confusion surrounding the iPad promotion video, Apple has replaced the video with a more accurate version.
The iPad promo video originally had mocked up scenes showing the iPad browsing the New York Times complet...
How-to: Make Your Jailbroken iPhone Look Like and iPad
Redmond Pie has a nifty tutorial up for those who want to give their Jailbroken iPhone and/or iPod touch an iPad look-and-feel (or just a hint of iPhone 3.2!). Here’s what you need:
- Winterboard
- “Simple iPad Theme”
- MakeItMine app
- Shrink app
- ProSwitcher
- NYTimes app
- Classics app
- Kindle app
Making your old device look like an unreleased new device is hallmark of the hacking community (hey, I had the marimba ringtone and iPhone theme on my Treo 680 for months!), so if you want to get your iPad on, check out Redmond Pie and the video after the break!
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
How-to: Make Your Jailbroken iPhone Look Like and iPad
