Pre wins the iClone challenge?
by Justin Horn on Apr 1st, 2009 @ 11:44 pmDieter from the iPhone blog got his hands on a Pre walk through video and the results…well aren’t that surprising to me.
You swipe horizontally to switch Home Screens, just like the iPhone (though you can scroll down vertically as well to jam more apps on each screen). You hold your finger down and then move to reposition apps, just like the iPhone (though they don’t do the jiggle dance). They even seem to be a little bit laggy and slow to launch at times, just like iPhone 2.0 was! (Though these are widgets, not native apps, so that’s really more of a concern at this point).
Also announced today was something that sounds an awful lot like Push Notification Services for the Pre.
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Apples & Oranges, iPhone, Software
iPhone 3.0 beta 2 released to developers
by Justin Horn on Mar 31st, 2009 @ 5:57 pmHaven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but hopefully this fixes the slow downs, app crashing, iPod breaking needing complete restore, etc.
What’s new in Beta 2? Updated 7:05p est
- Seems snappier
- A new placeholder link called “Store” in the settings, possibly for choosing how you want to get the new in app updates?
- MMS still doesn’t work for me with the family text plan, but now when you choose a picture it shows you the full size image before picking it to insert into the text. Before it would just freeze up for 15 seconds and appear in the text.
- Issues with apps seem to be fixed. LocalPicks wouldn’t work at all and now works fine. TWC worked, but buttons and icons looked messed up / missing and now looks normal.
What’s not?
- YouTube still doesn’t work
- MMS still not functional. I’ve heard if you are on the family text plan it should work, so this could still be a software issue. I know people that have got it working had to hack a carrier update file as well as call att.
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My iPhone 3.0 preview summary & speculation
by Justin Horn on Mar 16th, 2009 @ 8:44 pmWasn’t sure what else to write about today so thought I might as well take a stab at some iPhone 3.0 guesses. I think the best rumors about this upcoming release have come from John Gruber of Daring Fireball and Kevin Rose of Diggnation and will be referencing their predictions below.
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iPhone, Software, Speculation
iPhone 3.0, so that’s what the March event is for
by Justin Horn on Mar 12th, 2009 @ 12:27 pm
AppleInsider is reporting that the rumored March 24th event is real…well it’s actually March 17th, but the rumors were close enough for me:
Apple on Thursday announced plans to hold a special media event for journalists on its Cupertino-based campus that will offer a sneak preview of the next-generation iPhone operating system dubbed iPhone 3.0.
So this kills my hopes for a Snow Leopard annoucment, but I’m actually more excited about this so no harm done. So now the question is, will they announce a release date for the 3.0 software or just discuss it? Will they discuss the next gen iPhone release?
Here are some related polls you should check out:
when will iPhone 2.3 firmware (or next version) be released?
when will 3rd generation iPhone be released?
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iLife too easy to use?
by Justin Horn on Mar 3rd, 2009 @ 7:23 pmJust read a post on Daring Fireball discussing an article by Christopher Dawson (technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts) in which he says:
However, even iLife has its drawbacks in an educational setting. It simply hands so much to the students that they struggle with software (whether Windows, Linux, or even pro-level software on the Mac) that isn’t so brilliantly plug and play. Yes, iLife rocks in many ways, but the level of spoonfeeding it encourages actually makes me think twice about using it widely, especially at the high school level.
Grubers response to this pretty much sums up how I feel about it:
So the problem with Apple’s iLife apps is that they’re too good, and kids never learn that they need to struggle with technical issues before using software to express themselves creatively.
Even though I do agree that Dawson’s view of iLife is pretty ridiculous in the bigger sense of things, there is one tiny bit of truth I was able to pluck from it. I don’t think the kids need to suffer, but they should be exposed to both Apple programs and programs that they will encounter in the business world…which unfortunately is Microsoft. This would encourage kids to learn both, understand which is better on their own, and then take that with them into the business world. Maybe one day kids won’t have to use Microsoft programs at all, but we aren’t there yet.
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