Gartner Declares iPhone Ready for Business, Promises More Obvious Predictions
Analysts are like Tarot card readers with MBAs, making speculative predictions based on little more than the direction of the wind and bird migration patterns. They follow a similar marketing practice too - the first reading is free, but the second will cost you, and cost you. The brain trust at Gartner Research, a firm […]
Stack
Stack allows you to create a launcher on your iPhone similar to the new Stacks in OS X Leopard. Available via Installer | Discuss | Developer’s Site
Flickr Find: Grand Theft Auto hides Apple and iPhone parody
Filed under: Gaming, Humor, Cult of Mac, Flickr Find, iPhone
What do the authors of Grand Theft Auto IV think about Apple users? Tossers. (Warning: definition link NSFW). They’ve embedded a brilliant Apple parody into one of the Internet cafe computers in the game.
Among other points, they take down Apple (called “Fruit”) for being overpriced minimalism. A white shiny unit, superficially similar to the “i” sits next to a near-cinema display and readers are encouraged to “Think Fruit” and live in the Fruit Cocoon.
And if that’s not enough, the site advertises a new banana-shaped iFruit phone. Its sales points made me laugh out loud: No buttons, no reception, no storage capacity, all Ego!
Kudos to GTAIV and thanks to Dylan Unutmaz for sending in the links.
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RIM Engineers Call Touchscreen Blackberry “Apple Killer”
A New York Times story about the iPhone’s assault on Blackberry-maker RIM has a couple of interesting bits in it, notably that RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis isn’t a fan of touchscreens (”I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it”) but RIM’s hard at work on the long-rumored touchscreen Blackberry anyway, which RIM engineers have privately dubbed “the A.K.—for ‘Apple Killer.’”
Obviously fighting words, but they still make us more eager than ever to see their efforts on the touchscreen front—especially given how much RIM’s CEO dislikes touchscreen keyboards. Can they make a touchscreen phone that’ll satisfy hardcore Crackberry addicts weaned on a physical keyboard and swipe some of the iPhone’s cachet at the same time?
The other morsel is that one of their major strategies is to stick close to carriers, rather than the odd frenemy relationship Apple and Google have with them, even if it winds up killing RIM. Its other CEO, Jim Balsillie, says that “It may be a better strategy to fight the carrier. We may be wrong. The carrier may get disintermediated, in which case we fade with them.” Guess he’s not of the “better to burn out” philosophy—though a hot new Blackberry wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for RIM right now. [NYT]
Alleged 3G iPhone Looks Like Le Fake, Le Merde
Some frogsters* with no track record are claiming that this piece of scratched plastic—which in the photo looks like a cheapo LG cellphone clone wannabe—is the new iPhone 3G. Although it matches the rumored all-black and specs, we don’t believe it’s the real thing. The reason: these photos have been up since 12:04AM Central European Time and it’s now 4:04PM. That’s 16 hours up with no Cease and Desist order—and Apple Europe is as aggressive with leaks as Cupertino. In any case, check its back and tell us what you think after the jump.
Whatever it is, the back looks as bad as the front (including the deformed Apple logo), at least in these photos. We have a hard time imagining that anything like this could come out of Monssieur Jonathan Ive’s brain. Or better said, we have a hard time envisioning us buying what looks like a soulless piece of machinery, even while the true soul of the iPhone is its operating system.
We will see if we get a cease and desist email—now that Cupertino is waking up—but for now, remember our first rule of rumors: never, ever trust them. [iPhon—Thanks Jean Paul]
* Yes, frogsters. You see, this is completely unrelated to the fake iPhone, but I’m in Madrid, Spain, and today is the 200th Anniversary of the uprising against the French occupational forces in Madrid, which started the revolution that kicked Napoleonic troops out of the country. So today it’s frogsters, or the Spanish equivalent, gabachos. (And for the record, I love France.)
xriPhone
xriPhone is a native application for the Apple iPhone.It allows you to enter an i-name and perform the following functions with a single tap: Retrieve the i-name’s XRD. Retrieve the i-name’s XRDS. Launch Safari to access the i-name’s default service. Available via Installer | Developer’s Site
Gartner Declares iPhone Ready for Business, Promises More Obvious Predictions
Analysts are like Tarot card readers with MBAs, making speculative predictions based on little more than the direction of the wind and bird migration patterns. They follow a similar marketing practice too - the first reading is free, but the second will cost you, and cost you. The brain trust at Gartner Research, a firm […]
Department of Defense Unhappy With Apple Chip Company Purchase
P.A. Semi, the chip design company Apple picked up for a song, is best known for its super-efficient PWRficient processor, a PowerPC variant. One of the big customers for the CPU is the Department of Defense, which makes use of it in programs in every major branch of the military, and they’re not thrilled by the possibility of Apple ending production of the chips.
Ten defense systems, to the tune of $100 million in products over the next four years, use P.A. Semi’s PWRficient processor. On Monday, P.A. Semi told its customers they were being acquired and couldn’t guarantee chip supplies anymore. (Brings us back to the problem of obsolete tech in the military.)
It’s possible the licensing issues could get worked out to maintain supply “on an end-of-life basis” but in that same statement, P.A. noted that their buyer (Apple) wasn’t interested in their products or roadmap, just their IP and engineering skills. Which means Apple has no interest in anything their currently making or about to make, despite Blam’s reasonable assumption that was the case. So it’s all about their design chops, or they really are just a bargaining chip. [EETimes via GigaOM]
501 Darts
Cannot get to the pub to play? No worries mate, MyNuMo has bought the classic 501 darts game to the iPhone. Players start with 501 points and throw three darts at a time to get to zero before their opponent beats them to it. 501 Darts features MyNuMos new “press to play” sports game system […]
New Version of Pwnage Arrives as Apple Tightens Security
We told you that the new Pwnage—the iPhone Dev Team tool to automatically hack legal Apple firmwares to free iPhone by making them fully customizable, open and unlocked—version was imminent and here it is. Gizmodo got early access to the software and it works great. But there is bad news brewing up: Apple is gearing up to battle the hackers big time.
Apart from the previous unlocking and jailbreaking, the new version has three main features:
• Easily customizable images for start and restore screens.
• You can use packages to customize your firmware and install software right away, on one single update.
• You can now pwn iPhone 1.2.0 beta 3.
We also got confirmation of what we already hinted last week: Apple is preparing up to battle the hackers, with more and more code running signed and secured inside the iPhone. This will make things more difficult for the iPhone Dev Team.
How much more difficult? Would this be a real challenge to the iPhone Dev Team’s current dominance in the hacking war? According to them, it may be. But it just makes things more interesting and fun, which is exactly what we wanted to hear.
Get your update now. [iPhone Dev Team via Pwnage in Gizmodo]
We’ve all seen the iPhone ads. As my wife says, “I get it! The iPhone is for sale! I GET IT!“
Like I said, we’ve all seen them.
None are identical, but most have something in common. Namely, that peculiar ringtone. We call it peculiar because it isn’t actually included with the iPhone. Luckily, most of us have it installed on our computers already.
As LifeClever points out, those with iLife ‘08 installed can find the ringtone in
Converting it to a ringtone is simple. First, drag a copy to your desktop. Launch GarageBand and import the clip. Next, click the Cycle Region button and drag the yellow indicator to the end of the clip.
Finally, select “Send ringtone to iTunes” from the “Share” menu and you’re all set. If that seems like too much work for you, just download the file as a ringtone here. Incidentally, there are a lot more sound files in Loops directories that would make good ringtones as well.
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WildEyes!
WildEyes is a native iPhone app which lets you view many types of files (HTML, PDF, DOC, XLS, TXT) on your iPhone using Safari. You browse the iPhone via WildEyes!, and press any icon/file to launch it in Safari. Available via the MMi Installer/Cydia Source | Developer’s Site
