February 2008 Archives

It appears that Apple took a slight detour on their way to releasing the iPhone SDK. Today major media organizations/individuals received an invitation to a media event on March 6. The AppleHound invite must have gotten lost in the mail -- personally I suspect Pakistan Telecom had something to do with it.

The invite included the following teaser "Please join us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features."

Enterprise features you say? This has got to be full Exchange support. It isn't like enterprise users have been demanding anything else. It wouldn't be surprising for this to be an add-on solution that Apple sells for $19.99+ per user.

While the iPhone does many things better than the competition, there are enhancements that would allow Apple maintain its spot at the top including updates to the Phone, Settings/General, Mail/Safari, Clock/Calculator/Notes, YouTube/Maps, Stock/Weather, Photos/Camera, and Text/Calendar applications.

It is surprising how quickly 3rd party developers have been able to create applications for the iPhone. The most amazing thing being the fact that they have done so without an official SDK, documentation, or support from Apple. With this in mind I question the speed at which Apple has enhanced their own iPhone applications. Apple developers should be able to crank out fixes and enhancements -- seeing as they likely employ the most experienced iPhone developers in the world!

Do you think Apple has put enough of a focus on the continued improvement of the iPhone? Does it seem like the firmware releases should include more fixes and features? Which software updates are you hoping for in the next release?

The Apple TV 2.0 update also known as 'Take 2' was released yesterday to many eager owners of the device.

Navigation is fast and easy. You start from a broad category like TV Shows and drill down by genres, TV network, or searching. Apple definitely understands what it takes to organize content.

The update brings with it the ability to rent movies directly from iTunes without requiring the use of a computer. Movie rental prices vary based on their age and video quality. Library titles (older movies) are $2.99 for standard definition and $3.99 for high definition. New releases (30 days after DVD release) are $3.99 for standard definition and $4.99 for high definition. These prices are decent but not as reasonable as the $1.00 Redbox new release rentals available down the street. The argument for the higher iTunes cost could be the bandwidth needed for Apple to transmit the video, though I'll bet it costs Redbox a decent amount for their rental machines and staff to distribute the discs at in each location. Apple TV wins the connivence game but misses on cost. The end result will likely be a mixed rental strategy based on selection, connivence, and access to less expensive options.

A few hours ago Apple released a major update to the Leopard operating system. Improvements have been made to stacks, Finder, Safari, and Time Machine.

Apple has done us all a favor by providing a detailed list of included updates (the iPhone team could learn a thing or two from the OS X crew in this area):

Since the iPhone was released last June there has been a lot of talk about bugs, new program features, SDK, 3G, GPS, hacks, etc. One thing that hasn't been discussed a lot is the internal storage of the iPhone. It appears that most people have been able to easily work with the 8GB model.

4GB model was history after a few short months of existence. No surprises here.

Includes just the right amount of storage for people who want take a piece of their media on the road. This is not nearly enough for power users who will fill their phones with mail, rented movies, and music.

Announced on February 5th the 16GB model has the capacity needed to turn the iPhone in to a respectable pocket computer. An extra 8GB of storage allows for more video, music, podcasts, and most importantly applications and the data they produce. Another possible feature that would make use of the extra storage is disk mode -- the ability to store and retrieve data files from your iPhone.

How much storage would you like on your iPhone and what would you do with it?