Apple

U.S. Copyright allows for jailbreaking and unlocking

A just published update to Section 1201(a)(1) of the copyright law now allows 6 previously prohibited uses under copyright.

Among these there are 2 that related to iOS devices.

(2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset. (3) Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.

What this boils down to is you can now legally jailbreak and/or unlock an iOS device to install unauthorized applications and to SIM unlock for use on a different carrier network.

I eagerly await a reaction from Apple if they feel this warrants one.

Read more of the Statement of the Librarian of Congress

Daring Fireball Linked List: John Battelle on Apple's Banning Google From iOS App Ads

The Apple v Google fight reemerged after a change to the iOS Developer agreement this week. The change essentially locks Google's AdMob service out of the iPhone.

John Battelle had his thoughts that included these gems:

I think this is shortsighted and wrong. I also think it’s classic Apple. . . Apple won’t let anyone play in their iWorld who might pose a competitive threat.

Rather than post my less than perfect response I'll borrow from Daring Fireball's John Gruber starting with one word:

Bullshit.

And ending with:

There’s no question it’s a dick move on Apple’s part. But what’s the argument against it? That Google gets a pass for being dicks to Apple, and Apple ought to just sit there and take it?

I love when Gruber chimes in on the baseless or left-field rants from so called analysts, I hope John Battelle responds.

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iPhone 4

Here is it, what we have all been waiting for!! Just minutes ago Steve Jobs announced the iPhone 4 at WWDC. The phone is a whole new take on the form factor and the features.

Steve and the D8 conference

Steve Jobs held court on Tuesday evening as part of the All Things Digital D8 conference.

If you don't know what D is, you may have been living in a hole for the past decade. Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher spend a few days interviewing and extracting information from the tech elite like a Gitmo interrogator only wished they could.

This year Jobs returned to the stage for a 90 plus minute session.

Steve was frank and honest when it suited him, to the point of making jokes about the whole Gizmodo/iPhone debacle.

“To make a wireless product work well, you have to test it. And one of our employees was carrying one and there’s a debate about whether it was left in a bar or stolen….And the person who found it decided to sell it…and it turned out this person plugged it into his roommate’s computer and that roommate called the police. . .

This is a story that’s amazing — it’s got theft, it’s got buying stolen property, it’s got extortion, I’m sure there’s some sex in there… the whole thing is very colorful. Somebody should make a movie out of this.”

One of my favorite exchanges was regarding AT&T. I'm no fan of any mobile provider, I think they all have faults, but it is interesting to hear Jobs speak to the issues.

They’re doing pretty good in some ways and in others they could do better. We meet with them once a quarter. Remember, they deal with way more data traffic than anyone else. And they’re having trouble. But they have the fastest 3G network and they’re improving. I wish they were improving faster….I’m convinced that any other network, had you put the iPhone on it, would have had the same problems. AT&T took a big leap on us and decided they were going to trust us to do the right thing with the phone.

The next Apple TV

Engadget makes the claim that they have the scoop in the next AppleTV

A tip we've received -- which has been confirmed by a source very close to Apple -- details the outlook for the next version of the Apple TV, and it's a doozy.

The details involve the new ATV running the iPhone OS along with Apple A4 chips.

The new architecture of the device will be based directly on the iPhone 4, meaning it will get the same internals, down to that A4 CPU and a limited amount of flash storage -- 16GB to be exact -- though it will be capable of full 1080p HD (!).

The shocker according to their source is the price.

the price-point for the device will be $99.

Given that my current AppleTV has been decommissioned due to lack or real utility, I would be interested in seeing this happen.

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Duncan says Listen kids - Android VM

(James) Duncan Davidson has an insightful look at that the Android's VM means in the larger battle with Apple and the iPhone.

I will laugh at anybody who tries to say—with a serious face—that VM performance is what ensures that Android will be a better platform.

Any article that opens a paragraph like this is a winner in my book.

Listen kids, this has all happened before and it will happen again.

Read full source article

The Issue of VP8

Just 2 days ago Google announced their WebM initiative to utilize their new "open" VP8 video specification for an alternative to the "proprietary h.264. This is a new divide in the ongoing video on the web battle, one that google along with Mozilla hope to win.

Reports from the mainstream media thus far have demonstrated the strength of Google's position, superiour quality for no cost to anyone. Daniel Eran Dilger took an in-depth look at the less than ideal nature of Google's VP8 video in his AppleInsider piece.

Dilger states this fundamental misstep of the reporting so far:

Most reports on the issue have focused on Apple's membership in the MPEG coalition in order to write up a fashionably dramatic tale of conflict between Apple and Google on the issue of the VP8 codec.

Dilger's report cites a critique from Jason Garrett-Glaser of the x264 project.

Video experts such as Garrett-Glaser are reporting that VP8 is not only unfinished and incomplete, but will also run afoul of the broad range of patents covering the latest video compression and decoding technologies. In his original piece comparing VP8 to the h.264 specifications

Garrett-Glaser states:

The VP8 spec, by comparison, is imprecise, unclear, and overly short, leaving many portions of the format very vaguely explained.

The problem of patents appears to be rearing its ugly head again. VP8 is simply way too similar to H.264: a pithy, if slightly inaccurate, description of VP8 would be “H.264 Baseline Profile with a better entropy coder”.

More on Twitterrific

Earlier I posted David Lanham's take on the Twitterrific redesign process. Craig Hockenberry and Ged Maheux have also chimed in with their positions (Ged | Craig) and experiences with this process.

Ged is honest to a brutal yet compelling point, something anyone who has worked in software development has experienced. The dreaded scope or feature creep of a product.

Somewhere during Twitterrific’s evolution from the desktop to the iPhone, we forgot how to say no.

The iPad changed everything and gave an excuse to right the wrongs.

Constrained by the 60 day launch deadline, we set about to create a fresh version of Twitterrific that would be dead simple, include all of Twitter’s core features and be a joy to use.

Craig goes deep into his side of twitterrific, the development side. He ends his piece with this little gem

It’s very easy to get caught up in the excitement this new device has generated in the last month and a half, but the real thrill will be in a year’s time when people who’ve never used a computer will be telling you how much they love your app. And there will be a lot more than 300,000 of them…

I am excited to see the fruits of this change, I admit that I left the twitterrific fold when it UI became muddled, I look forward to coming back.

Flash, Android 2.2 and the Full Web

Google announced the 2.2 update to their Android Mobile OS this morning. Codenamed Froyo this update brings a major feature along with it, full support for Flash.

When Steve Jobs let loose his rant on Flash earlier this month he challenged the community on the existence of Flash on a mobile device. Not just the existence, but a stable and good existence:

We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it.

Ginny Mies of PC World had a chance to play with the new version of Android and had some experiences with the Flash player. Some were good and some were just what we feared:

I tried playing a couple of beloved Flash games that aren't optimized for mobile and was disappointed that I couldn't play some of them without a keyboard. For example, with Dino Run, I had to press the "space" bar to do a certain action, but I couldn't access the touch keyboard (the keyboard only comes up when you're in a typing field).

So games are out, but Flash is all about video and the "full Web". How does Hulu fare on Froyo?

Missing from all of this Flash action, of course, is Hulu. I was really disappointed when I tried-and ultimately failed-to watch an episode of "30 Rock" on the Nexus One. According to Adobe, Hulu does not own distribution rights for their content on mobile devices and therefore cannot stream video to smartphones.

So the device is capable of delivering the "full web" but the full web cannot deliver itself.

What this means for flash on mobile devices has yet to be seen. This is one story that will not go away

1Password integrates with Dropbox

The latest beta of 1Password from Agile Web Solutions has taken a tremendous leap forward. The new version allows users to leverage DropBox for sync and storage across devices.

In addition to various improvements and fixes, this build includes an experimental feature that creates a special "sandbox" folder in Dropbox. This folder can be accessed by Mac, Windows and (future versions of) iPhone/iPad applications.

This marries 2 of my essential applications for an even better workflow. Interesting is this from the release notes.

The sandbox folder will be required for iPhone and iPad applications because they will be using Dropbox APIs and will only be able to see the files inside the sandbox.

Moving forward the applications become tied on mobile devices.

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