Recent Comments:
AT&T looking to sell an 8GB iPhone 3GS? {The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)}
Nov 6th 2009 7:40AM The situation with the 8GB 3G is bizarrre, certainly here in the UK. While I understand it took a price cut in the US when the 3GS was announced (as you'd expect) here on O2, and even on Orange who have just released the iPhone too, it's still priced exactly as it was more than a year ago.
In October 2008 I bought my iPhone 3G 8B for £99 on a £30pm, 18mth contract from O2. If I was looking for an iPhone right now, in November 2009, I'd almost certainly end up with iPhone 3G 8GB for £99 on a £30pm, 18mth contract, because the cheapest 3GS model is still almost a hundred pounds more, and the price of the 3G hasn't budged an inch. See what's wrong with this picture?
Apple's App Store breaks 100,000 apps {Engadget}
Nov 4th 2009 12:10PM iDavey - to find apps there's full search, categorisation, charts (top selling, grossing, featured, newest, etc), there's Genius for recommendations, and that's all on the device itself - sure it could always be better and it's still evolving as the store grows, but it's not exactly impossible to find what you want.
Apple's App Store breaks 100,000 apps {Engadget}
Nov 4th 2009 12:00PM @DC MIKE, I get that you think the total figure is overused and that's fine, but why on earth would you expect anyone here to sit down and name one THOUSAND apps just for your entertainment? As others have said, it really isn't down to raw numbers, but choice - you personally may find only ten, twenty, or a hundred apps that suit you down to the ground, but they'll be a completely different hundred that the guy next to you uses, or the guy next to him - an appstore of Apple's scale can cater to every taste.
Personally I currently have 111 apps on my phone, maybe 20 of them are harmless junk, 30 of them are probably the same 30 that everyone else has, another 30 might be games and (apparently) worthless in your eyes, but that still leaves another 30 or so that are just for me - little utiliities and useful gadgets that are ideally suited to my life and my phone - and I almost certainly wouldn't find them anywhere else.
Airport Extreme Base Station, Time Capsule boast a bigger antenna {The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)}
Oct 21st 2009 6:10AM I was really hoping they'd be doing something positive to address the obvious problems with the time capsule - ie, the fact that they die from heatstroke after 18 months, making them worse than useless as a backup device.
The TC is a great idea and product in principle - until all these failure reports started coming through I was all set to get one - but it's obvious there's a problem with the design. Either the case needs a redesign to provide for better cooling, or - preferably - the PSU needs to be external to keep most of that heat out of the device. Otherwise it's just going to fail, most likely on or before the day you actually need it.
Nokia posts $834 million quarterly loss, smartphone share down to 35% {Engadget}
Oct 15th 2009 8:28AM It's well deserved - they needed to turn their smartphone business around about two years ago, and they're still just taking baby steps. The "Booklet" is just a misguided attempt to draw attention away from the core business, but even that's ended up being badly timed, and riding a wave *against* netbooks in general, let alone overpriced "premium" netbooks that seem all the more underpowered.
Get the N900 out of the door, follow it up quickly with more Maemo-based high profile devices, and start cutting the ties to Symbian - it's dead already.
Social Networking on the Rise as Bell Tolls for E-Mail {Switched.com}
Oct 14th 2009 7:26AM Possibly one of the stupidest things I ever read.
Sure, the likes of Facebook and Twitter are impacting on some of the social messaging that might once have taken place by email, but that doesn't mean email's going to go anywhere. Email still has a unique place in most people's internet experience - it's the unique identifier that you use to sign up and get notifications from most of these services for example. It's also a generic technology - unlike social networks, nobody's going to pull the plug on email if the numbers are down, because nobody can - email doesn't have shareholders, and there's no Zuckerberg figure trying to make money out of it.
More than all that, business needs email, and no business is going to trust that traffic to a social network. Facebook can't kill email any more than the phone killed the post, or indeed email killed the post or the phone for that matter - there's a place for all these things. Just try sending a package by Twitter.
Report: 12% of US households own a Mac {The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)}
Oct 6th 2009 8:05AM I just bought my first Mac (a Macbook Pro) which will be taking over completely from the two PCs (a desktop and old laptop) we have at home at the moment. The desktop will be binned, but we'll keep the laptop for emergencies since it takes up next to no space, and is still functional.
To all intents and purposes we'll be a 100% Mac household from now on, but yes, we'll still own a PC and so be contributing to that 85% (or would do if we were in the US anyway). Should Apple worry about that, or our ancient laptop living in a cupboard? I don't think so.
Apple versus Woolworths: logo smackdown {The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)}
Oct 5th 2009 10:58AM To understand why Apple are doing this, you need to understand that trademarks like this can be registered in different different *categories*, to separate different businesses. If Woolworths were genuinely "just a grocer" and genuinely only interested in applying this Apple-like logo to their food markets, then they'd make that clear in their trademark application by only applying for the trademark in those food/grocery related categories. Apple, being mostly just interested in the electronics/media segment, would almost certainly have no problem with that, since assuming Woolworths were successful in getting the trademark, they'd still not be able to slap it on any products or services that competed with Apple.
The problem is, Woolworths *aren't* just applying for this trademark to sell food and groceries. They're also applying for it in the electronics/computer-related category. IF their was no objection from Apple and Woolworths were granted that trademark, there would be nothing to stop them producing a range of computers or MP3 players with that very same trademark plastered all over them, directly competing with Apple's core business with an apple-brand of their own. Even Woolworths don't deny that's a possibility in the future, merely saying they have "no plans" at present.
If Apple didn't defend against this application, then the gates would be opened for other manufacturers to start introducing similar apple-like logos on electronics, and Apple would be able to do little to stop it, having already allowed the uniqueness of their logo to be eaten away by (apparently) competing firms in the same sector.
Vodafone enters UK iPhone war, sales to begin in 2010 {The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)}
Sep 29th 2009 6:44PM That's 3G coverage, which is woeful on every network - I'm talking about good old 2G coverage that actually lets you make or recieve a call the rest of time.
Vodafone enters UK iPhone war, sales to begin in 2010 {The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)}
Sep 29th 2009 11:48AM Jolly good news. Someone will argue with this for the sake of it, but Vodafone is easily the best network (in terms of actual coverage and network strength) in the UK overall.
