Nov 24

Rumors: iOS 4.3 Will Offer App Subscriptions as Early as December

Posted in: Apple, ipad, iPhone, Phones, steve jobs, Tablets and E-Readers, Today's Chili

iPad owners have had less than a week with iOS 4, but a software update offering news and magazine subscriptions targeted at them could arrive in less than a month.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber reports that Apple’s Steve Jobs will join News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch onstage at a December 9 event to announce Murdoch’s new forthcoming tablet newspaper, The Daily.

According to Gruber’s sources, The Daily will be an app in the App Store, but make use of new recurring subscription billing on users’ iTunes accounts, and “developers at News Corp. building the app already have preliminary documentation on the new subscription billing APIs from Apple.”

Macstories’ Federico Viticci reports further that recurring subscriptions are part of a new version of iOS — iOS 4.3 — with a scheduled release date of December 13.

According to Viticci’s sources, iOS 4.3 wasn’t intended to be released so quickly after 4.2.1, which was originally internally slated for an early November release. It’s possible that 4.2.1’s later official release might also push back the release of 4.3. But with Apple playing such a large role in The Daily, both companies may stick with mid-December announcement and releases, after all.

Subscription-based recurring billing would likely increase the number of paid magazine, newspaper, TV, video and other media applications on iTunes. Really, any application that depends on continuous content or service delivery could introduce a subscription model: online gaming, data backup, GPS, office applications and more. Many subscription-based services already have iOS apps, but have to establish accounts and recurring billing separately from iTunes.

Another technical challenge posed by subscriptions that could require an OS update is automatic background content delivery. If you’re being billed every week for a newspaper or magazine, you shouldn’t have to go through a long, complicated routine just to download a new issue.

A final open question: How much customer information will Apple and app/content makers share with each other about their subscribers? This data has value, too — as does customers’ privacy.

Image by Apple.

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Nov 23

Amazon’s Price Check Might Be Perfect Smartphone Shopping App

Posted in: amazon, ios, ipad, iPhone, Phones, Today's Chili

If you’re headed to the mall this weekend, Amazon’s new iPhone app might be an ideal companion for comparison-shopping and price checking.

As a bonus — for Amazon — the company has figured out a way to advertise its own products is everyone else’s stores, using a clever application that leverages the key features of smartphones — in particular, Apple’s latest iPhones.

Price Check for iPhone initially doesn’t seem very different from Amazon’s well-established, multiplatform “shopping cart” frontend, which has always allowed users to check prices and buy products on the go. The difference is the variety and speed of inputs you can use to find items in the store, which make the app particularly well-suited for using it while you’re standing in the aisle of a store, gazing at something you’re thinking of buying.

Here are the main ways you can use the Amazon app:

  • Say It brings up a picture of a microphone with an “I’m listening” message. Speak a product’s name into the smartphone mic, and Amazon will try to find it. The speech recognition is a little iffy, and obviously homophones give it some trouble (my search for “Kinect” brought up “Connect Four”), but it’s generally pretty good.
  • Snap It opens up your iPhone’s camera, along with a textual reminder that the service “works best in good light with a book, DVD, CD, or video game” — in short, media objects with well-established cover art that Amazon can try to match in its database (and Amazon says it’s steadily increasing the size and variety of this database). “Snap It” worked extraordinarily well with every book I tried in the decidedly poor light of my office.
  • Scan It is particularly powerful, since it can use a product’s barcode to find a unique copy: it won’t confuse hardbacks with paperbacks, or widescreen and fullscreen copies of a DVD. But it requires an autofocusing camera to get high-quality resolution on the barcode — which means iPhone 4 or 3GS. My iPhone 3G has the “Scan It” button grayed out; if I click it, I get a short, apologetic notice that my non-autofocusing camera can’t scan a barcode, at least up to the standards of Amazon’s new app.
  • Finally, you can also type in a product’s name in the “Type It” box at the top. Once you’ve found an item, you can browse specs and reviews, or share the price over email, Facebook or Twitter, or narrow the stores between Amazon and its partners (the “Prime” compatible button is quite nice.)

There’s also a handy list of “Recent Price Checks,” so you can keep track of products you’ve scanned, and a shopping cart, so you can buy products from Amazon directly. You can’t access your own wish list, which skews the app towards impulse buys or holiday shopping for other people.

When the app was first announced, I was confused; why was Amazon launching yet another shopping application for iOS? There’s the old standby Amazon.com, the Windowshop App for iPad and now PriceCheck? Did customers really need a whole page (or in iOS 4, a folder) devoted just to apps for Amazon?

Now I think I understand the strategy much better. Each Amazon application capitalizes on the unique hardware and anthropology of the device. Windowshop is a browsing catalog, suited to the full-sized screen and laid-back posture of the iPad. Even the name suggests voyeurism and fantasy. Price Check is mobile, pulling in camera, voice and autofocus to make something you can whip out of your pocket to make a snap decision while the Black Friday hordes crowd in around you.

Different devices, different scenarios, different shopping experiences — but all of them funneling you to just one store, up in the cloud. Smart. Now I wonder when and if other platforms (Android, Blackberry, etc.) will get their chance to play with similar new toys.

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Nov 22

Apple iOS 4.2 Arrives, Makes Find My iPhone Free

Posted in: ios, ipad, iPhone, ipod, Phones, Tablets and E-Readers, Today's Chili

Apple’s long-awaited universal iOS update is available today to everyone using an iPad or post-3G iPhone or iPod Touch. The big features have been well-known and the release candidate’s been out for a while, but Apple still managed to add a few surprises to the official release.

The biggest upgrade is for iPad users, who get their first crack at some of the new features first introduced for iPhone 4: application multitasking, the ability to organize apps into folders, a unified e-mail inbox, Apple’s Game Center for social gaming and AirPrint for remote printing from the iPad to selected printers.

The most hotly awaited feature is probably AirPlay, which is all-new to iOS 4.2. AirPlay allows for video and audio streaming from iOS handheld devices to new iOS-powered versions of the Apple TV set-top box. Apple TV is also getting a 4.2 firmware update; you need to update both your iOS device and Apple TV in order to get AirPlay to properly work.

One nice surprise is that Find My iPhone, which used to require a paid MobileMe subscription, is now free for any iOS 4.2 device, including iPad and iPod Touch. It will be available as a separate download from the App Store; log in with either your MobileMe or Apple ID, and you can locate your missing device on a map and have it display a message, play a sound, or even remotely lock/wipe it if it’s gone for good.

Strangely, setting up free Find My iPhone support for early iPhone/iPod Touch models can only be done indirectly. You need to update to iOS 4.2 and download the new 1.1 version of Find My iPhone (which is only compatible with iOS 4.2). For some reason, by default, the service can only be activated on current-model iOS devices: iPad, iPhone 4 and the new iPod Touch. But once the service has been activated on one of these newer devices, it can then be used on any device running iOS 4.2, even an iPhone 3G. It’s a very strange workaround, but it does work.

If you expect AirPrint to automatically work with your network’s computer, you’ll probably be disappointed. Apple scrapped drivers supporting AirPrint for any printer attached to a Mac as part of OS X’s official 10.6.5 software update. So for now, the only printers supporting AirPrint are a handful of HP devices that have the network printing software built-in. You can use AirPrint Hacktivator to reinstall the missing drivers for Mac. Other workarounds are available as well.

Stay tuned for more iOS 4.2 coverage as the updates for all of the devices roll out. Meanwhile, I’m off to see whether 4.2 might finally make my iPhone 3G workable, or if it’s iOS 3 for me forever.

Apple’s iOS 4.2 Available Today for iPad, iPhone & iPod touch [Apple Press Release]

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Nov 22

Cleaning-Spray Sanitizes Your Filthy Apple Products

Posted in: Phones, Today's Chili

I have purposely kept this post short, dear reader, for the benefits of your health. Did you know that the cellphone or tablet on which you are reading these words is filthy, a festering petri-dish of influenza bugs, viruses, yeasts and other disgusting pathogens?

According to the Sacramento Bee, the average cellphone harbors “18 times more bacteria than a flush handle in a typical men’s restroom.”

So in keeping this short, I am letting you avoid flicking your festering screen to scroll. You’re welcome.

The answer is, of course, an overpriced product. The Clens box, from Bausch and Lomb, contains an antibacterial spray, polishing cloths and “pre-moistened cleaning tissues,” which kill up to 90% of the bad guys. The box costs $20, and is curiously only recommended for Apple products. I’m sure Apple’s PR people will be ecstatic over these filthy associations.

Should you buy it? Better, surely, to wash your hands. And if the spray has the same ingredients as Bausch and Lomb’s Clens for specs, it contains just isopropyl alcohol, detergent and water. For $20.

Clens product details [Bausch and Lomb. Thanks, Stephanie!]

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Nov 20

Drop.io: Free Online Fax Service

Posted in: Phones, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on May 02, 2008 by CyberNet.

iowa state fax.jpgOne thing that I’ve looked for in the past is a way to send and receive faxes online without having to fork out some sort of fee. Personally I would have thought by now that faxes would have become extinct, but apparently they are still a critical part of how people conduct business each and every day.

But thanks to a free online fax service called Drop.io we might be able to start bridging the digital gap. It’s an interesting service that is designed to let you share media in a variety of ways. You can upload just about anything to share with people via email, over the web, or of course by faxing it.

It will let you both send and receive faxes, but if you intend on receiving a fax you’ll need to provide the other party with a specialized Drop.io cover letter to use. That way Drop.io will know who exactly the received fax is for. And there’s apparently no ads or anything printed on the faxes!

Drop.io unfortunately only works with United States phone numbers, but I don’t believe it is restricted to United States residents. That means you could live overseas and still be able to send faxes to someone in the U.S. completely free. That’s pretty sweet.

Oh, and I’m sure you’re wondering what the image has to do with the article. Well, that plaque is something I walked by nearly everyday when attending Iowa State University. Naturally when I began writing something about a fax service that was the first thing that popped into my head. ;)

Alright, here are the instructions for using Drop.io as a free online fax service:

To send a fax from your drop to a recipient:

  1. Click on ‘send as fax’ next to any document (.DOC) or PDF
  2. Enter the 10 digit fax number of the recipient (our service is US only)
  3. Your fax is sent, end of story

Note: you can only fax out documents up to 20 pages.. Certain word documents with embedded charts, or other OLE objects PDF files made with Postscript 3 will not work.

To receive a fax into your drop:

  1. Go to your drop and click ‘receive a fax’
  2. Email the cover sheet to the person sending the fax to your drop OR click ‘this coversheet’ and send the custom drop.io cover sheet to the person sending the fax
  3. The sender must put the drop.io cover-page on top of the fax.
  4. The fax will appear in your drop as a .PDF

Note: So, the basic idea, to fax a document into a drop you must use the drop’s custom ‘cover page’ – give the cover page to the fax sender and you are in good shape (email it to them, print it and send it to them, whatever you want)

Drop.io Homepage [via Lifehacker & Digital Inspiration]

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Nov 17

Dell’s mobile chief Ron Garriques is out

Posted in: mobile, motorola, Phones, streak, Today's Chili

Ron Garriques, who has been leading Dell’s mobile communications group ever since its formation a year ago, is leaving the company. Ron originally joined Dell in 2007, after a high profile career at Motorola, and has overseen a rather ambitious entry for the company into the phone industry. Now Dell is folding the communications unit into its “core operating structure,” and Garriques won’t be along for the transition. Of course, it’s not like there haven’t been some missteps and head scratchers along the way (we still don’t know if the Streak is a phone or a tablet or a phonelet or a tabset or whatever), and it’s a little hard to tell whether Ron decided to leave willingly when he heard his unit was being absorbed, or if Dell gave him a little “push.” True or not, it would be the perfect comeuppance for the man who re-dubbed the Lightning the Dell “Venue Pro.” Not that we’re bitter or anything.

Dell’s mobile chief Ron Garriques is out originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nov 17

Google Voice on iPhone. At Last

Posted in: iPhone, Phones, Today's Chili

If it seems like a lot more than a year that Google Voice has been languishing in the limbo between Google’s labs and the iTunes App Store, that’s because it is. Google’s one-phone-number-everywhere service served as the best example of Apple’s byzantine and opaque app “approval” process.

Now, Google Voice is back, and available as a free download for U.S iPhone owners. With it, you can all but replace the iPhone’s phone app, receiving push notifications for incoming texts and voicemails, read (often hilariously inaccurate) transcripts of those voicemails and make calls to contacts in the iPhone’s built-in address book. Your caller Google Voice caller ID is even shown to people you call.

This is really the last step in Google-fying your iPhone – Gmail has long been a first-class iPhone citizen, and the maps app is powered by Google.

Why use Google Voice? The service lets you assign all your phones to one number, be they mobile, home or office. Callers call this number but you choose where you answer, and you have fine-grained control over how incoming calls and texts are handled.

Calls are still routed over the regular cell network. As our own Brian Chen pointed out back in January, Google Voice isn’t VoIP: it uses the iPhone’s telephone app to place calls. Tell this to the metric-ton of commenters on the App Store who are complaining that the app won’t work on the iPod Touch.

So there we have it. Apple is finally “open”. Or at least those who like to complain that Apple is “closed” (by not supporting proprietary, inefficient and badly-coded browser plugins, say) have now lost their best weapon.

For more coverage, and a history of the Google Voice app, see this great post from our sister blog, Epicenter.

Google Voice [App Store]

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Nov 13

Google Cookies Suggest Upcoming Android Release

Posted in: Android, gingerbread, Google, os, Phones, Today's Chili

What’s that smell? According to a recent Twitpic post from Google Mobile’s official Twitter account, it’s the aroma of freshly baked gingerbread cookies, a scent which could signal the impending release of Android’s latest OS is coming sooner than we thought.

The picture shows a tray filled with the Android-logo shaped cookies, which are conspicuously decorated with holiday-themed frosting colors: green bow ties and red dot buttons. Is it merely a benign color palette choice to go with the seasonal dessert, or a clue to an OS release timed to launch during the biggest shopping days of the entire year?

Rumors of the new OS have been circulating for months, and have only escalated since Google’s late October ‘confirmation’ of Gingerbread as the release title with the addition of a giant Gingerbread man to the statuary located near the Android development building on the Google campus. It’s in line with past releases; version 2.0 brought an oversize ‘eclair,’ while 2.2 included an ample helping of ‘froyo.’

With Best Buy pulling ads from its mobile page that show Samsung’s new Nexus S appearing to run Gingerbread, and Engadget’s Thursday post showing an actual Nexus S in their hands, WIRED.com’s Tim Carmody speculates on an appearance as early as next week.

He may be right. Google’s secretive, guerrilla marketing campaign for Gingerbread is ramping up the hype, and judging from the amount of coverage it’s received, the tactics are working. We’ll see what the coming week brings with it.


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Nov 12

Leaks Suggest Next-Gen Googlephone to Hit Best Buy Next Week

Posted in: Android, galaxy, gingerbread, Google, nexus s, Phones, samsung, Today's Chili

The Nexus S — a Samsung-made, Gingerbread-powered, Google-branded smartphone — could be appearing at Best Buy as early as next week.

Here the clues so far, all of them leaked by Best Buy:

Engadget has already managed to get photos of the device, which sports big Google and Samsung logos on the back.

Rumors about a new Samsung-made Google smartphone (called the “Nexus Two“) began circulating two weeks ago. Google stopped selling its HTC-made Nexus One in July.

Apparently the search giant is back in the smartphone game again, with a new OS, a new partner and a new retail strategy.

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Nov 12

Microsoft’s Kin Isn’t ‘Returning’ to Verizon: It Didn’t Go Away

Posted in: Microsoft, Phones, Today's Chili, verizon

Some leaked literature suggests that Verizon will continue selling Microsoft’s discontinued Kin phones this year. But perhaps this isn’t as surprising as some publications have made it seem.

Spotted by PPCGeeks, the below screengrab purportedly shows Verizon’s Q4 roadmap. The Kin One and Kin Two, which were discontinued just weeks after their launch in June, sit at the bottom of the chart.

Microsoft declined to comment today. Some publications have interpreted the screengrab as evidence that the Kin is “returning” to Verizon, but in actuality Microsoft never said Verizon was abandoning the Kin in the first place.

In fact, Microsoft’s June statement clearly said Verizon would continue selling Kin phones:

Microsoft has made the decision to focus on the Windows Phone 7 launch and will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned.  Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases.  We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones.

To be clear, Microsoft did discontinue the Kin, and that means the company is not going to invest further in developing new Kin phones. That doesn’t mean it halted all sales of existing Kin units. It appears Verizon is just clearing out inventory.

When I visited Microsoft about a month ago, the designers behind the Kin project made no indication of a possible revival of the Kin. Rather, they described the Kin as an important learning experience for developing Windows Phone 7.


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