Jazz's 2020 technology list

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Ipod 3.0

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Apple's Benevolent Dictator reveals iPhone and iPod Touch Had Bluetooth Features All Along

iPhone and iPod touch owners are entitled to be angry after their benevolent dictator finally decloaks advanced Bluetooth features.

In all the talk about iPhone improvements, it was easy to miss the fact Apple will enable Bluetooth in the iPod touch in the 3.0 software update. I say "enable" Bluetooth rather than "add", because the update will enable Bluetooth in existing second-generation iPod touches. In other words, it was there all along but Apple just didn't want you to use it. Now it will cost you $10 to unlock it.

The Cupertino overlords are also enabling A2DP stereo Bluetooth in both the iPhone and iPod touch. To me this just reinforces the idea that iPhone 3.0 isn't about amazing new features, but more about playing catch up and giving people the features you'd already find in other smartphones. MMS, cut and paste and even the possibility of tethering are coming with the miraculous 3.0 update. While the Apple zealots will obviously praise the Cupertino overlords for their infinite wisdom, some of us are sick of missing out of features on the whim of a benevolent dictator.

People already knew the iPod touch had a Broadcom Bluetooth 2.1+EDR chip under the bonnet, but it seemed as if it was locked down only for use with the Nike+iPod feature. Now we know that all it needs is a software tweak to bring it to life.

So, why the hell has Apple withheld Bluetooth on the iPod touch for so long? I'd say it was because Cupertino didn't want people using the iPod touch make VoIP calls over wifi using a Bluetooth headset. It wanted people to buy an iPhone instead, or wait for the iPhone in countries such as Australia which got the iPod touch before the iPhone. This is typical of Apple, which also withholds Blu-ray drives from its computers because it wants the Mac faithful to shop at the iTunes store instead.

By holding out on A2DP stereo Bluetooth for the iPhone, Apple has also hampered efforts to build all-in-one iPhone car kits for handling both music and calls. Plenty of people have cobbled together solutions using multiple devices, money that will seem wasted now iPhone/iPod accessories makers should be able to build proper all-in-one solutions around A2DP stereo Bluetooth.

With the other smartphone platforms lifting their game, will people eventually get sick of getting dicked around by Apple's benevolent dictatorship? Unfortunately, history would suggest probably not.

Monday, March 23, 2009

iPhone/iPod OS 3.0

By now you've read all that is new, special, and, of course, missing from Apple's iPhone 3.0 software and SDK announcement. Most people I spoke to after yesterday's presentation thought Apple had hit all the key notes—all but one, that is. What was missing? Multitasking.

Initially, I discounted the fact that the iPhone still can't do more than one thing at a time. Perhaps I give Apple a pass on this because my cranky old Treo has the same problem. Plus, as I wondered aloud to a couple of industry counterparts, "How many consumers really care about the ability to do multiple things at once?" Most consumers I know are an analog bunch living in digital world. They browse the web, check e-mail, upload a photo from their camera, and then go back to e-mail and mail the photo. They don't do it all at once.

Apple's lack of multitasking capabilities is no big deal. Well, except that it is.

Just hours after sitting through Apple's whiz-bang session on the iPhone 3.0, I found myself at Googleplex, meeting with Google product managers who talked about everything from Gmail and Chrome to Google Earth and Mobile. Announced earlier this year, one of the latter's newest features is Latitude. Basically, it's Google's "Where you at?" feature. Put simply, it's a double opt-in system that lets you show people where you are and lets you see where your contacts (friends, family, and acquaintances) are in real time. It makes this connection via a location API in Google Gears and uses your phone's (or your PC's) GPS, cellular triangulation or WiFi to find you.

I like the concept of this feature. I can imagine a mother using this to keep track of her globetrotting son, without impinging on his personal space. His icon simply shows up on Google Maps. The best part of all this is that Latitude just plain works: Even if you're not actively accessing the app in Google Maps, Latitude is running in the background, telling the world (the people you opt to show) exactly where you are. Of course, "exactly" is a relative term since you can define whether people can see your location within meters, only at a city level, or you can hide yourself altogether.

During yesterday's announcement, Apple mentioned how Google Maps works with the updated iPhone OS. However, when Google listed the mobile platforms that support Latitude, including Blackberry, Symbian, Android, and Windows Mobile, the iPhone was noticeably absent.

"No iPhone support?" I asked.

Steve Lee, Product Manager for Google Latitude explained, "We have an iPhone version, working on that to make it available. One thing to note about iPhone version: The magical part of Latitude, even when it's in your pocket, it can report your location…It's not typical user behavior to pull out your phone out of your pocket and check in."

Lee continued, "On all those four platforms I mentioned, they allow applications from the background and multitask and report the location; and iPhone, that's not the case, and Apple just announced their 3.0 software and it appears that's still not the case. It's unfortunate for applications like Latitude."—