Hasta La Gadget!

Chelsea Kate Isaacs is conflicted. “I hate Apple, but I don’t hate Apple,” so told a reporter during Microsoft’s recent Windows Phone 7 launch in New York City. Where, precisely, does the whole hating Apple part come from? Well, if Isaacs’s name doesn’t ring any bells, her recent run in with Apple CEO Steve Jobs just might.

Last month the journalism student made news after a testy e-mail dialog with the exec hit the blogs. Isaacs sent an e-mail Jobs an e-mail asking why his company’s PR team wasn’t more responsive to student queries,

Mr. Jobs, I humbly ask why Apple is so wonderfully attentive to the needs of students, whether it be with the latest, greatest invention or the company’s helpful customer service line, and yet, ironically, the Media Relations Department fails to answer any of my questions which are, as I have repeatedly told them, essential to my academic performance.

Jobs responded to the question in typically curt fashion,

Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry.

The conversation just kind of devolved from there, with the turtlenecked executive finally responding, “Please leave us alone.”

Isaacs, meanwhile, won a Microsoft-sponsored contest. The company sent her to the aforementioned New York event, where she told press, “I wouldn’t be comfortable giving [Apple] a dime. If that’s the way you treat consumers, that’s not right.”

She did promise to cover both Apple and Microsoft objectively, however, but we know which OS she’ll be using to file her stories in the future.

A Verizon iPhone? Not quite. Not yet. At the very least, however, this surprising bit of news seems to mark the fact that, if there were any issues between Apple and Verizon in the past (Verizon famously was said to have fatefully opted not to carrying the iPhone before launch) that’s all water under the bridge now.

Apple has added yet another store to the ever-growing list of stores that stock the iPad. Verizon Wireless is joining Apple Stores, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and Sam’s Club in stocking the massively popular consumer tablet.

The companies issued a joint statement on the seeming odd matching. Apple’s COO Tim Cook seemed pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing (really? You couldn’t get a sentence-long quote from Steve Jobs about how utterly exciting and amazing the whole thing is?),

We’re thrilled to be working with Verizon Wireless to get iPad into the hands of even more customers this holiday season. iPad allows users to connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before, and together with Verizon Wireless we’re offering an easy way to stay connected wherever you go.

Verizon’s own COO John Stratton, meanwhile, called the match “the perfect pairing for holiday travels.” Just like a pine tree and spray-on snow, right John?

What’s perhaps most interesting about the pairing is the fact that the iPad will be bundled with the Verizon Mi-Fi. The package comes in three pricing tiers–$629.99 for the iPad Wi-Fi 16GB and the MiFi, $729.99 for the iPad Wi-Fi 32GB and the MiFi, and $829.99 for the iPad Wi-Fi 64GB and the MiFi.

There’s no 3G AT&T version, naturally.

Now’s a pretty good time to be a lawyer representing a major smartphone manufacturer. The patent applications and lawsuits are flying fast and furiously between companies, and it certainly doesn’t seem as though it’s going to stop any time soon.

Check out the latest patent awarded to Apple. Here’s one that certainly has the potential to stir things up in the industry. In 2006, the company filed for a patent on pinch-to-zoom for multi-touch screens–a nearly ubiquitous feature in today’s touchscreen smartphones.

So, what does the awarding of patent #7,812,826 mean for, say Android or Palm? Well, it’s not great, of course, but it’s not as concrete as Apple owning pinch-to-zoom outright. Engadget’s Nilay Patel, as usual, has a pretty good breakdown of the what this whole thing means,

Apple doesn’t have a patent on “pinch-to-zoom” generally, but rather pinching to zoom, and then pinching to zoom again within some fixed period of time. How long that period lasts is totally up in the air, but it has to be defined somewhere — this patent doesn’t really apply unless there’s a clock running and a second gesture takes place.

That said, this could be a sign of bigger patents to come.

According to Danish political blog politiken.dk, all 179 members of the Danish Parliament and an unknown number of additional staffers got 16GB iPhone 3GS phones as their government-issue mobile device. The iPhone had previously been banned from the floor of Parliament after one staffer was busted updating her Facebook status 59 times during a floor debate that ran long.

Even so, like any company or organization that wants their employees to be in constant contact, the Danish Parliament did a review of available smartphones for its staff. They decided that the iPhone was the best device for their needs, and bought tons of them.

Whether the Danish Parliament will prohibit use of those shiny new iPhones during floor debates remains to be seen, and how they’re going to keep members of Parliament from downloading apps and games on the government’s dime is also unknown. One thing a number of Danish news sources noted that we can’t help but wonder about also: why did the Danes go with the iPhone 3GS over the iPhone 4? Maybe they were worried about the iPhone 4’s antenna, or heard rumors about the cracks in the glass?

[via TUAW]

If you’ve been training with the help of Adidas’s MiCoach, now there’s an armband just for you. Griffin Technology and Adidas have partnered to create the MiCoach Sport Armband, which they promise is “ultra-lightweight.” It’s available in two versions, one for the iPhone and iPhone touch, and one for other smartphones. Made of performance nylon, it wraps around your upper bicep. It’s sweat-proof, and the touch-through cover protects your device while it’s in use.

The armband includes an inline pocket to hold a house or locker key, and there’s an openingfor your headphones. Both versions of the armband go for $29.99. So what does this sport armband have to do with Adidas’s fitness software? Well, it’s got the branding right there, printed on the case. Isn’t that enough?