Tag Archive for 'iphone'

Is Android a threat to the iPhone?

Ulysse Sabbag | October 8, 2010

nielsen.jpg

The blogosphere is all warmed up today because of the latest Nielsen research results. Android is the most popular operating system in the US among recent smartphone buyers.

Though RIM and iPhone OS are close, Android is on the rise.

Now, the very serious Bits blog from the New York Times posted an article stating that the iPhone has a real fight on its hands?

We must ask ourselves, is that true?

It seems that nobody noticed Apple’s policy change. It’s not called iPhone OS anymore, people, it’s called iOS and Apple doesn’t care anymore about iPhone-centric statistics. Apple is surely losing momentum. But they know things happen very fast and they know the iPhone cannot be king forever. Just like for the Mac. So they launch new products.

Please do not forget: Android is available on more than twenty (20) phones. Apple is aware of this fact.

For them, the iPad is the most important device. With billions of dollars in the tablet industry, the iPhone is starting to lose its luster. But it’s OK for Apple.

So, yes, Android is a threat to the iPhone, but right now, Apple has the innovation momentum and not the product momentum. Which is way more important.

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iPhone and the blind

Ulysse Sabbag | September 20, 2010

Moving story about a man who bought an iPhone and could feel colors and shapes again. This is what a cynical guy would call excellent PR for Apple.

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South Korea and technology: a national issue

Ulysse Sabbag | August 3, 2010

This morning I read a pretty interesting piece over there at the Economist’s technology blog: Babbage.

It explained how Koreans were, since their childhood, used to buy Samsung products and not products from non-Korean companies.

On July 17th Apple decided to leave South Korea out of the iPhone 4’s second release, explaining that it had faced a delay in receiving government approval. And so the new iPhone, a “next-month phone”, became a “next-next-month phone” (KR). South Koreans are rational consumers. They don’t deny the quality of the Galaxy S, and are well aware of iPhone 4’s reception problems; they are just not thrilled at being pushed into buying Samsung. Patriotic guilt is more likely to drive them to the imperfect iPhone 4 like a teenager with daddy issues; after the next-next-month release, it won’t take long for young South Koreans to leave Samsung at the altar.

Interesting read indeed.

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Jailbreaking your iPhone is now legal—in the U.S

Ulysse Sabbag | July 26, 2010

WASHINGTON – Owners of the iPhone will be able to legally break electronic locks on their devices in order to download software applications that haven’t been approved by Apple Inc., according to new government rules announced Monday.

A report from AP. More info here.

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Danish professor predicted iPhone 4 antenna issues on June 10th

Ulysse Sabbag | June 27, 2010

Well, Steve, man, it seems like you’ve been pwnd.

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Android’s custom UI’s problems

Ulysse Sabbag | June 8, 2010

Gizmodo’s writer Matt Buchanan gets it.

Once again, unity prevails.

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WWDC 2010, iPhone 4 and something else that changes everything

Ulysse Sabbag | June 7, 2010

NewImage.jpg

Finally, it happened, the iPhone 4 is now official and everybody’s happy—I hope. Now, the iPhone 4 is indeed a beast that beats other smartphones like Master Chief beats Covenants, yet, if you didn’t find a satisfying article about it, summing up the most important innovations, I guess MobileCrunch made a pretty good review.

One more thing… As Martin Bryant noticed, the most important thing wasn’t the iPhone 4 announcement. It was the name change from iPhone OS to iOS. This OS is now free from its iPhone name, so it can fit other devices—how awesome would an Apple watch be?

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Gizmodo’s editor-in-chief interviewed by the NYT

Ulysse Sabbag | June 6, 2010

You know, a while ago, there was this whole lost iPhone story. Now, Brian Lam wants to educate us: there’s humanity in this story. There might also be sex in it (this is a Steve Jobs’ quote, not a weird porn link). Brian Lam is Gizmodo’s editor-in-chief. This is an excerpt from his NYT interview.

There were some very contentious internal debates about writing about Gray Powell, who lost the phone. We struggled trying to decide whether to write this story. In the end, it became a story about a guy who made a very normal mistake that we’ve all done before and it added humanity to the entire story of the phone. The phone was just a thing, a simple part of the equation; it was important to show the humanity of it, too. It reminds me of an old set of keys that recently sold at an auction for over $100,000. To some people they just look like keys, but the back story is that they were the keys to a binocular case on the Titanic that a night watchman who was switching shifts forgot to hand to another watchman. They were just keys, but the fact that this simple human mistake played a pivotal role in the Titanic made it a fascinating human interest story.

[Source]

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iPhone OS is still superior than Android

Ulysse Sabbag | September 9, 2009

My iPhone 3GS is amazing. It is fully integrated into my life. With its various apps I’m constantly on top of Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and RSS feeds. It would definitely be a challenge to switch. However, I’m also a gadget geek who always wants to switch to the latest and greatest. In my opinion that’s Android right now.

While bored and curious, I walked over to my local Palo Alto T-Mobile store to try out the myTouch 3G (a.k.a. HTC Magic and Google Ion). I have also been recently motivated by the compelling concept of porting my number to Google Voice, and letting that service control the phone aspect of the cell phone. While the phone appears sleek and definitely includes a vast improvement in hardware quality over the first major Android phone, the G1, I still don’t think it compares to the iPhone (specifically the 3GS).

Scrolling

The one problem I encounter on all touch screen smartphones is that scrolling just doesn’t feel right. Apple nailed this on the first try with the iPhone. With three years to catch up, other phones do not offer a natural scrolling experience. It’s either sluggish or it takes more pressing effort than it should to initiate the scroll. The myTouch definitely has this problem and for me that is a deal-breaker.

Multi-touch

Three words. Pinch to zoom.

The iPhone has it. The myTouch doesn’t. Being forced to use (+) and (-) magnifying glass icons to zoom in and out on a website is an enormous step back from Safari on the iPhone. Perhaps someday with a software update multi-touch will appear, but for now that is a deal-breaker.

Context

There are too many menus. Yes, two is one too many. Pressing a hard “Menu” button brings up an app specific menu from the bottom of the screen. Dragging the top of the screen down reveals an entirely different phone-specific menu. I suppose over time I could adjust to additional hard buttons and a poorly discoverable pull-down. As a first-time user, however, I constantly felt confused and lost.

The truth is Android is still not ready for the masses. Bloggers and tech reviewers may rejoice each time a new Android-supported phone is announced or released, but to me it still feels unintuitive and geeky. Yes, there exists a geek who thinks Android is too geeky. Maybe the HTC Hero will be ready with additional horsepower, multi-touch, and an easier to learn interface.

via theappleblog.com

That’s why I haven’t bought a Hero. Yet, HTC, with its Sense User Interface is really awesome, really.
It integrates, more and better to your digital, Internet life than the iPhone. (for instance, People application).
But the iPhone has a better overall UI and design. That’s it, it may be as simple as that. Moreover, Android, just like Linux isn’t adapted to the public.

HTC is doing some good work with their Hero, too bad it’s slow(er than the iPhone 3GS).

Posted via web from Ulysse’s stream

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Spotify for iPhone has arrived

Ulysse Sabbag | September 7, 2009

And it's awesome, as always. 

Posted via email from Ulysse’s stream

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Duracell instant charger makes your life easy

Ulysse Sabbag | September 3, 2009
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Image Credit: Gizmodo

While I do carry a spare battery for my Palm Pre, I can’t do that with my iPhone 3GS. For $20 though, I might address that problem by picking up one of the Duracell Instant Chargers that earned rave reviews at Giz. Duracell actually has a line of three chargers that can power portable devices: the Instant, the Powerhouse and the Pocket Charger. Each stores energy during a charge cycle from an electrical outlet, or can be charged from your computer.

via jkontherun.com

Posted via web from Ulysse’s stream

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Is Google taking over the iPhone?

Ulysse Sabbag | August 22, 2009

Does Apple fear Google is taking over the iPhone home screen? asks EdibleApple.

With good reason, a lot of people think TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington is a douchebag, but he finally raises an interesting point in an otherwise scathing and elitist post about how Apple’s answer to the FCC’s inquiry over the removal of Google Voice is a bunch of BS:

Multiple sources at Google tell us that in informal discussions with Apple over the last few months Apple expressed dismay at the number of core iPhone apps that are powered by Google. Search, maps, YouTube, and other key popular apps are powered by Google. Other than the browser, Apple has little else to call its own other than the core phone, contacts and calendar features. The Google Voice App takes things one step further, by giving users an incentive to abandon their iPhone phone number and use their Google Voice phone number instead (transcription of voicemails is reason enough alone). Apple was afraid, say our sources, that Google was gaining too much power on the iPhone, and that’s why they rejected the application.

Interesting and entirely plausible.

Apple makes software to sell hardware.  From Apple’s perspective, if Google based software apps become the default standard for mobile phones, then the differences between the iPhone and Android-based competitors start to evaporate.

Michael Arrington has a point, here, what he’s saying is plausible, I mean, why not? When I first read about this Google Voice scandal, I thought that Google was going to “punish” Apple by taking back YouTube and Maps from the iPhones. Then I realized that they must have some kind of contracts that links them for a certain number of years.

But the idea of Apple being scared of Google isn’t something we must forget.

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How to disable your iPhone’s accelerometer

Ulysse Sabbag | August 22, 2009

This a great, simple hack if you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone, if you don’t, then follow this link for the instructions.

I’ve found a problem while trying to install Rotation Inhibitor. I hope it gets fixed soon.

Have you ever tried reading something on your iPhone while laying in bed? Well then you’ve certainly gotten annoyed at the accelerometer, which flips the image from portrait to landscape with the slightest turn. Reading on the iPhone while laying down is no easy task, and you’ll be distracted by constantly having to position the phone a specific way to keep it from flipping. That’s why it would be great to have the option to simply turn off the accelerometer for a while.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Jailbreak your iPhone

2. Go to Cydia.

3. Search for Boss Prefs.

4. Install it.

5. Go back to Cydia and search for Rotation Inhibitor.

6. Install it.

7. To toggle rotation on and off, simply open up Boss Prefs, and you’ll now see a Rotation option in there.

Note: There is one problem with this app: you can only lock your screen in portrait mode, not landscape. Also, it will crash springboard on iPhone 3GS

[Source]

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We want an active weather icon for the iPhone, please?

Ulysse Sabbag | August 18, 2009

It’s a simple wish, Apple. It would be very nice if you update the weather icon—with firmware 3.2 or more.

What does active mean?

It means that it should change. Tell me about one place in the world where the temperature stays at 23° C? I’m kidding, of course, but Apple can change that, it’s better for us, so they should and I hope they will.

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AppStore approval process explained

Ulysse Sabbag | August 11, 2009

flipCoin()
if (heads)
approve app
else
reject app
wait 1 week
if (pressCoverage >= lotsOf)
rejectMoreApps
else if (pressCoverage >= tooMuch)
fireBoardMember
else
rejectAppAnyway

[Source]

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