I was two days into happy iPhone 4g ownership when the unthinkable happened – my iPhone went crazy.  Up till now, I was feeling pretty good about this beauty – I had none of the yellow spotting/streaking that blogs were talking about, I wasn’t able to consistently reproduce the attenuation issues, and all the other minor problems that people were talking about had yet to make their appearance on my new Precious.  So imagine how freaked out I was when I saw this on my baby:

(I’m really sorry about the video quality – I was fully intending to take some decent video of the problem under good lighting but by the time I got home to get my car to get to my Genius Bar appointment, I had run out of time.  So the above was grabbed using my fiancee’s iPhone 4 while we were waiting at the Apple Store in Ardmore.  The lights there are like being under interrogation and the reflection off the shiny screen of the iPhone makes it incredibly difficult to capture what’s happening on the screen properly).

If you watch the above video enough, you’ll see that my screen has basically washed out – I had maybe 4 colors (if that) on the screen.  Furthermore, on the left hand side you can see vertical scrolling reminiscent of VHF reception issues on early television screens.  I had not dropped the phone and it had spent its entire two days previously either living inside my pocket (with nothing else in there) or on a flat desk surface.  You’re talking to a guy who has never dropped an electronic device and went through 2 years with his iPhone 3G having never suffered a scratch.  Suffice it to say I’m careful with my tech.  So you can imagine just how freaked out I was by this.

I have to say that I was very pleased with both AT&T and Apple’s response to this issue.  Since I’d ordered the phone from AT&T, I took it first to my local AT&T store.  The rep there was pretty impressed with the problem but they had zero spares on hand to do a swapout.  He recommended I go to the Apple Store to resolve my issue.  The Apple Store was able to give me a Genius Bar appointment the same day and they swapped out the phone without any problems.  The Apple rep was also pretty impressed by the error, having never seen anything like it before on any iPhone.  I walked out of there relieved and clutching a new Precious.  It was going to be a good day after all.  And I was able to use the Precious to do this:

If you want the full story on that, you’ll have to check out my personal blog!

Apple finally unveils iPhone 4 to the masses. Steve Jobs introduced the new iPhone on Monday, complete with an all-new, thinner design, camera flash, front-facing camera called FaceTime for video calling, a second noise-canceling microphone, multitasking, HD video recording, iMovie App for iPhone, iOS software, and a gyroscope for six-axis motion sensing.

iPhone 4

Steve Jobs says the new iPhone is beyond any consumer product that’s ever been seen, only 9.3mm thick and 24 percent thinner than the iPhone 3GS, making it the “thinnest smartphone on the planet.”

Availability
The new iPhone 4 arrives on June 24, while preorders begin on June 15. It is available in the same prices and capacities as last year’s model: $199 for 16GB, and $299 for 32GB. The iPhone 3GS will be available for $99.

Internals
The new hardware also has a larger battery that offers longer uptime, including 7 hours of talk time 3G, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, 10 hours of video, 40 hours of music, and 300 hours of standby.

Dual cameras
The iPhone 4 also includes a whole-new camera system that includes LED flash with a 5 megapixel lens that records HD video. The new rear camera will record 720p video at 30 frames per second. Users can also use built-in video editing to trim their HD clips right on the phone.

The handset’s forward facing camera can be used for video chat with the application FaceTime, allowing users to see someone using another iPhone 4 as they talk to them. Videos can also be edited using the new iMovie application, which will cost $4.99 on the App Store.

Gizmodo has it.  Check it out.

Then come back and comment on what Steve Jobs is going to do to the poor SOB who lost it in the first place.  He’s probably run off to the same island that Lost takes place on.  Or hoping, anyways.

Adobe is all up in arms about the new license terms for Apple’s iOS 4, which restricts platform developers to using only specific native tools. That pretty much cuts out all other development platforms and cross-compilers, most especially Adobe. Needless to say, Adobe is not pleased. Well you know what? I’m totally on Apple’s side in this fight. Adobe took a chance when it developed Flash, and for a while that chance worked out for them. Their small platform ended up being used for more and more on the ever expanding Internet, allowing them to grow into almost a de facto standard. That’s fine for something like the Internet, which is an open environment that was built up through the combined efforts of a lot of organizations. But the iPlatform is not the Internet. Apple has created a walled garden and they have the right to manage that garden however they like.

In Philadelphia, sections of the city have city-owned pots of land that residents can rent out for a year.  On those plots of land, folks have planted vegetable and flower gardens.  The gardens are secured by fences and locks, but each resident doesn’t get individual access to their plots – they have to share the lock code with each other because there’s only one lock.  The rules are relatively simple and the renters tend to watch out for each other because they tend to be long-time renters, paying the nominal fee every year.  Importantly, they tend to follow the rules and they act to ensure that others follow the rules.  Every so often, the rules change and some people stop renting space because of those rules.  But that frees up a plot for someone new to come in, and they come in knowing the new rules and agreeing to honor them.

What Adobe is trying to do is pay the fee to access the garden and then passing out the combination to the garden’s lock to anyone who wants to pay.  In their best case scenario, they don’t even have to pay the fee for access – they just start selling the key and let the community sort out who’s supposed to be there or not.  Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.  For good or bad, Apple’s ecosystem is THEIRS.  They didn’t set out to build something on top of an already existing platform (like Google), nor did they try to make their ecosystem the biggest in the world by making development as easy as possible to as many as possible (like Microsoft).  Apple started out with a simple idea – let’s sell music.  Maybe they had this end state in mind all the time, maybe they didn’t.  Doesn’t matter.  It’s all theirs.  And because it’s theirs, they get to make the rules, and even change those rules, whenever they want.

Note that this viewpoint is not necessarily a conflict with the fact that I am using a jailbroken iPhone.  Since I’ve bought the device and own it, I think I should be able to do whatever the heck I want with it.   To not have that right is like buying a piece of produce from the community garden but being told that I can only use it in stir fry or fruit salad.  It’s stupid to even think that that sort of thing is possible, and just because it’s tech vs. produce doesn’t make it any less so.  However, once I change the parameters of the agreement of sale, I don’t have the right to request Apple’s support to fix my problems.  To extend the produce analogy even further, that’s like my buying a bell pepper, agreeing to use it only in stir fry, then putting it in fruit salad and complaining when people don’t like it.  I know and accept the risks of jailbreaking but by that same token, Apple shouldn’t be going out of their way to stop me.  Would I like Apple to be less restrictive in terms of what they do or don’t allow in the App Store?  Absolutely.  The main reason I jailbreak is to skin my phone and to get access to two apps that Apple won’t sell.  But those are the risks I’ve accepted because I’m choosing to go around the ecosystem.

Back to the topic at hand though – Adobe vs. Apple.  Whether or not Apple is right or wrong ethically is not the issue.  Apple is doing what it feels it needs to do to protect their investment in the iOS infrastructure.  Adobe is trying to grow their produce in the Apple garden and calling foul because they got caught.  Sorry, Adobe – you didn’t pay for the garden and you don’t get to access the garden and set your rules in the garden just because you pout about unfairness.  You want to build out your Flash platform, then you go out and build your own damn garden.  Otherwise, be happy with the pervasiveness you have on the Internet and pray that you can find a workaround to making money once HTML5 begins supplanting your fancy animations.

Since the iPad has just been released, and since iPhone OS4 is being previewed this week, I figure I have as much of a right as anyone to guesstimate what Apple will release, not only this year, but next year as well. I can pundit as well as the next guy, and probably a lot better than most of the analysts who work for the research firms.

iPhone 4 (currently called iPhone HD)

• I predict that the hardware itself will probably not get an incredible form factor change. It will not have a slide out keyboard, nor will it transform into a little robot complete with rocket launcher. Apple has a great design – why mess with it? I recently took my iPhone out of its protective shell (first time in over a year) and the experience of holding the thing is just incredible, even though it’s two years old. No need to mess with great. Plus if it got any bigger, people would skip the iPad for the iPhone and Apple does not want that to be a possibility.
• I am in firm agreement with the rumors that indicate the screen will be exactly half the resolution of an iPad. Makes sense. Also makes sense that the OS will have hooks to auto-detect and auto-size apps (I believe Android has this already). Anything Apple can do to simplify development for third parties it will do. Plus it allows Apple to run a single code base for their entire iOS line. iOS – I think I’m going to trademark that.
• I would rate the chances of a Verizon enabled iPhone at 75% within the next year. I say this because Apple is starting to reach the limits of conversion. Just about everyone who wants an iPhone has switched to AT&T, and the universe of new cell users is not growing all that fast. If Apple wants to sell millions of these puppies, they’re going to have to expand the platform. Adding Verizon will immediately give Apple access to millions of new customers. The loss of AT&T subscribers is not a big deal because they’ll still be iPhone users. Maybe they don’t make as much money per sub on Verizon, but at this point it becomes more of a numbers game and making up the profits through volume. This theory is further confirmed by the fact that there were two iPhone models mentioned in the iPad’s guts.
• Front-facing camera? Maybe. Who cares? Are you really going to videoconference with this thing? I guess the market for amateur porn would skyrocket, and Chatroulette could have more interesting backgrounds. I’d rather hold out for a front facing camera on the iPad v2.
• I originally thought that it would feature a faster chip with more RAM. Required to support multitasking in iOS4 (see below). However, given that the iPad is apparently running with the same RAM as the iPhone 3GS and is performing faster, maybe all they need is a faster chip. I don’t think Apple’s going to go nuts trying to slot things into the iPhone that they can’t fit into the iPad with its much bigger size.
• The iPhone’s camera will get an upgrade, most likely to 5MP and add a flash. The motion capture rate will increase, mostly due to the faster processor. No front-facing camera, especially if that YouTube video of the supposedly new replacement screen is to be believed.

UPDATED 4/8/10 after the iPhone OS4 Release – I’ve updated the below predictions to reflect the announcements today.

iOS 4.0 (my new trademark!)

• Multitasking will be in iOS 4. It has to be for Apple to remain a credible contender. Android is barking up their heels in certain respects, and AT&T’s slow embrace of Android phones means that Android will be able to do simultaneous voice and 3G data (who the heck thought this was not a good thing for CDMA networks to be able to do? They should be hung in effigy. I didn’t even realize this wasn’t ubiquitous. And Verizon charges you more for this crapservice? Unbelievable.) I think most everyone agrees this is coming.  OK so multitasking wasn’t announced but what was announced is the next best thing, and quite honestly a heck of a lot more sensible for a mobile OS.  Most people don’t need true multitasking, and Apple again proves that they can think outside the box.  I love this implementation of multitasking, and I hope that it’s as flexible and as powerful as I think it will be.  Will it do everything the techies might want?  No, but it will do what 99% of what the rest of the people need.
• As much as possible, Apple is going to try to remove the hassles of having a single OS for three different multi-touch devices. The resolution change, the multitasking, the single inbox – all of these will make the iOS a seamless experience across the platforms.  Hard to tell, but I find it interesting that iPad won’t be getting OS4 until the fall.  My guess is that OS4 gets released with iPhone HD, and OS4.1 gets released in the fall to iPhone, iPad, and iTouch.
• Enhancements to the video management features of iPad (and probably iPhone). Why Apple thinks it’s not a good idea to have video playlists in the Video app on the iPad is beyond me, but fix it dammit. I figured out that the iPad video app is the same as the iTouch’s video app, and that the core behavior of videos on the iPad/iTouch is different than on the iPhone. This is rather annoying, especially for folks who have both an iPad and an iPhone. Consistency should be the watchword for Apple now that there are three different platforms with basically the same OS. As the iPhone’s capacity increases, the ability to store more video is going to mean that it should start to match the capabilities of the iPad/iTouch.  Can’t tell yet.  Though the mention of “create playlists” says to me that some sort of change to the media management feature is coming.
• Universal inbox and possibly multiple Exchange account support. Jobs has committed to a universal inbox, but allowing multiple Exchange connections support would allow folks to get push email from more than one source. Right now, I have three different Google Apps domains I maintain/participate in. I’d love to get all my Google Apps ID’s connected to a single inbox with push mail.  I was spot on with this.  And as far as I know, the idea of multiple Exchange boxes wasn’t really mentioned in other tech blogs so I give myself a big thumbs up here.  This will be awesome, and if they increase security, then the iPad/iPhone becomes a much more credible enterprise platform.
• Increased security. If Apple really wants to compete against RIM, they need to make the iPad/iPhone a much more secure device. I think the iPhone was hacked in under 2 minutes at the last hacker convention? That’s just sad. Say what you will about RIM but until Apple gets a credible security model and platform, they will never be taken seriously as an enterprise platform. With the iPad, they have a real chance to break into the enterprise, but not if every noob hacker can cut their teeth screwing with their neighbor’s iPad.  Still TBD, though I’m hopeful.
• New collapsible calendar view. Ok this is my own personal wish list, but why can’t Apple can’t do something like Palm’s “shrink non-allotted time” view of a day?  Can’t tell yet.  Might be saving this for iPhone HD announcement.
• Overall, my guess is that iOS 4 is a refinement rather than a radical advance. There’s just not a whole lot that it’s missing once you add in the multitasking. It won’t stop the hackers from jailbreaking the devices, but it will give a lot of people like myself a lot less reason to jailbreak.  It was a pretty big step forward overall, both fine-tuning the existing platform, while significantly expanding its capabilities.  I think iOS now resumes its place at the top of the mobile smartphone pecking order, and I’m really looking forward to iPhone HD.  I will also most likely not need to jailbreak my future iPhone, since this version has just about everything I might need.  Sure, skins aren’t there, but I can live without skins.
• Overall, I give myself a B+.  What do you guys think?

Future Apple Devices

• iPad 3.0 will have a front facing camera. It would be inefficent for Apple to put in a front and rear facing camera, and why the heck would you even try to take a picture/video with the thing? A front facing camera will allow web conferencing. I predict that in order for this to be a possibility for iPad 2.0, Apple would have to release a version customized to AT&T and Verizon because otherwise, the load on AT&T’s network will just slam them back to square one again like the early iPhone days.
• The iPhone will not get significantly smaller. Much smaller and it would require a customized screen resolution that wouldn’t play nice with the 2:1 scale iPhone HD is supposed to bring. Much larger and it becomes a miniPad and a lot less portable. (This is why I think Dell will fail utterly with their impending product whose name I totally forget with the 5″ screen, continuing Dell’s long chain of mobile failures.)
• The iPod classic is going to go away by this time 2011. SSD prices keep dropping and Apple buys in such quantity that they get incredible discounts. I could see a 128GB iTouch to top out the storage line from the current 64GB. This would make sense if Apple continues to increase the iPhone’s storage capabilities and offers up an iPhone with 64GB of storage. Quite frankly, though, I think the storage is getting way past what most people need. I’m having a ton of trouble filling my iPad now and that’s after I transferred over a ton of video content. Why would I carry around a 64GB iPhone when I have a bigger counterpart to watch videos with? Music doesn’t take up that much room for most folks unless they’re storing uncompressed files. I would top out at 64GB for the iPhone and just concentrate on keeping the prices the same or lower.
• Apple TV will be integrated into a 40″ Apple TV panel. I think they learned a lot from the 27″ iMac production process and that’s the last piece of the entertainment puzzle for Apple. I could picture a simplified iOS for a TV with just a few standard icons (or heck, they could put the whole iOS on a TV – the only issue would be mimicking touch and finger movement).

How about you guys? Think I’m crazy? Let’s hear it!

With everything being about touch screens lately it only makes sense that eventually the problem of using gloves would come up. It’s cold outside, you’re wearing gloves, your iPhone rings, and you have to take the gloves off to answer it because otherwise the screen won’t register the change in capacitance between the screen and your finger in order to execute the command you are trying to give it.
See, that’s how touch screens work. The human body is a conductor of electric current, and when you touch the screen of a capacitive touch screen device it detects the distortion of the electrostatic field (apologies to those of you who know this already, but I’ve found myself explaining it to several of my friends recently who have iPhones but know nothing about how they work).
I’ve heard there are special gloves on the market that you can use to solve this problem. But why purchase a whole new set of gloves (expensive ones probably) when yours are just dandy?
There is a solution. A really really CHEAP solution, that takes just the tiniest bit of DIY spirit.
There is a whole how-to article on Instructables.com, so I won’t go through the steps here. But the gist of it is that you sew a little conductive thread (yes, there is such a thing) into the tips of the fingers of your gloves. It completes a circuit with your flesh and blood finger, and viola! You can now use your touch screens without taking off your gloves.

Now go and check out all the other fun stuff you can do with conductive threads, you crafty DIY nerds you!

Also, if you don’t want to order a whole spool of thread, you can order just a few feet of it from here

Via Coolest Gadgets

From GigaOM comes this great graphic about the App Store economy.

When you work it out, however, if there are 28K developers making $175M, that works out to just $6.2K per developer.  Not bad, but don’t quit your day job.