MacRumors

Michael Ducker, former senior editor of TreoCentral, offers his impressions of the iPhone (at phonedifferent.com) from the perspective of a long term Treo user.

He covers the typical areas which he feels the iPhone succeeded (touch interface, camera, transitions, keyboard) and areas that need improvement (dialing, stability, consistency, data entry), but does feel the iPhone is a game-changing device which suddenly turns the cellphone market from being about hardware to being about software.

That's no small task given that the main customers of cellphones (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile) haven't seemed to care much at all about software. Instead they've focused on encouraging handset makers to go ever sleeker and smaller, marketing each subsequent handset as the next sexy fashion accessory. That was great and all, but we're pretty close to an optimal size for a hold-in-your-hand handset. Where is the innovation going to happen next?

Ducker points out that the eye-catching transitions are more than just eye candy -- they provide critical user interface feedback that allows the user to follow along and not get "lost" in the device. He also points out that the elastic scrolling provides additional tactility and feedback to let the user know there is no more to scroll.

In conclusion:

Apple has a phenomenal first entrance into an incredibly competitive market, and I cannot wait to see how the other big players respond. .... Ignoring cost, the future phones that compete against Apple will have to not only have slick hardware, but will have to have an intuitive, easy to use interface, and complete solution to integrate my digital life with my real life.

Related Forum: iPhone

Walt Mossberg answers a number of common iPhone questions but also suggests that a Flash plug-in will be coming soon from Apple.

At launch, the iPhone version of the Safari browser is missing some plug-ins needed for playing common types of Web videos. The most important of these is the plug-in for Adobes Flash technology. Apple says it plans to add that plug-in through an early software update, which I am guessing will occur within the next couple of months.

Adobe's Flash plug-in is required to play Flash content which is commonly used in certain aspects of web design and web-hosted videos. Apple managed to get around this requirement with Youtube by converting Youtube content into h.264, which the iPhone supports natively.

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Hrmpf notes that Apple has applied for a patent (in March 2006) which extends the concept of Multitouch to a computer mouse.

mmouse 300

The user would be able to perform gestures such as pinching or a virtual scroll wheel on the surface of the mouse. In one embodiment, the touch-sensitive mouse would use an internal light source and a optically transmissive surface to track finger positions.

Gestures can also be used to invoke and manipulate virtual control interfaces, such as volume knobs, switches, sliders, handles, knobs, doors, and other widgets that may be created to facilitate human interaction with the computing system.

Combinations of taps or gestures could trigger different actions such as "tapping with the middle and ring fingers could open iTunes or be set in the preference panel to do any particular action."

Apple has had a number of patent applications related to multitouch technology in the past, and features multitouch technology prominently on the Apple iPhone.

diamenty 150

Arkadiusz Młynarczyk (forum name: myiphone) has created a web-based game designed for the iPhone called Diamenty.

The web based game is a clone of PopCap's Bejeweled and provides an impressive interface for an entirely web/javascript game.

He is also the author of http://sudoku.myiphone.pl/, a Suduko port also designed for the iPhone.

The game is being distributed as donation-ware.

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With the exception of the Apple Store in Tigard, OR and one in Pittsburgh, PA, Apple Retail is sold out of the iPhone nationwide for July 5th, 2007 -- according to Apple's iPhone availability tool.

While the July 4th holiday may have delayed shipments today, in-store availability has steadily been declining since the iPhone launch.

Apple's online store continues to cite 2-4 week delays in online orders, but some early iPhone orders are said to be shipping this Friday, July 6th.

Of interest, WaitingforiPhone claims they have heard that AT&T has fulfilled over 1 million iPhone activations since its launch. This remains unconfirmed, but we would expect Apple to make some sort of announcement shortly if true.

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Lunch time. I take off my embroidered toy store apron, clock out in the POS, and scamper off to Whole Foods for a quick lunch of vegetarian lentil and spinach soup and a ciabatta roll.

Eating my soup, browsing the internet on EDGE, listening to some sweet, sweet Matt the Electrician. I click into a text box on Facebook and start typing. The music cuts off, and I return to the home screen.

I think theres something wrong with my iPhone, the "best iPod ever made."

I restart the music, and begin typing again. Safari quits! I repeat this little dance a few more times until I finally give up on the internet and just listen to music and people-watch until my lunch break is over. How un-technological of me. Its 2007! There should be internet on my iPod.. err iPhone!In sitting down to write this, I plugged the supplied headphones into the iPhone, turn it on, and it immediately slows down a bit. I turn on The Beastie Boys and the music player part of the phone stutters. The iPhone also gets pretty warm if you play the music for more than about 30 minutes.

So far, Im thoroughly unimpressed with the iPhone as a music player.

At home, I turned off WiFi, and I got it to crash again and again by listening to music and trying to type in a text box. Awesome: I can re-create the problem! Time to head to the genius bar to get it fixed once and for all.

Life would be so much easier if I went to the Houston Galleria Apple Store, but I abhor it. Instead of being a store in the mall, it is the mall: rich teenaged boys with their pants sagging halfway down their butt, people uninterested in technology hogging the MacPro with 30 display to check their Facebook or Myspace pages, people turning up the display iPod speakers all the way up because that wretched rap music just wasnt quite loud enough to begin with. So, I usually drive down to First Colony Mall. It takes about a half hour, but the experience is so much more enjoyable there.

I sit at the genius bar and wait for them to call my name. While waiting I got a very helpful suggestion from Vlady, the manager and all-around best Apple-guy ever:

"Dont use EDGE! What, are you in Abilene?"

Problem solved! I can sleep again! Hooray!

The genius and I looked at it -- we couldnt get it to crash again. I sat at the bar and furiously fiddled with it, desperately tried to make it hang up, or at least slow down. It was frustrating and embarrassing. He said he put a note in the system for if I have to come in with this problem again, and that I should go home and restore the phone. Fun.

On my way out, I waited in line to pay for a 3.5mm cable small enough to fit in the iPhone, the clerk whipped out his iPhone and scratched it with a customers keys to demonstrate the magical unscratchability of the screen. A little part of me died inside until I saw how utterly perfect the screen looked. I guess I can just throw the phone into the rest of my bag along with my keys and nail clippers.

And for anyone else that has to restore their iPhone: back up any pictures you take with it before you restore. I forgot to and theyre gone. I had a picture of the delicious soup I ate! Nooo!

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TimesOnline.co.uk reports that O2 has won rights for exclusive UK rights to the iPhone.

O2 has beaten its rivals to win the exclusive UK rights to offer Apples iPhone. The tie-up, the mobile phone industrys most sought-after deal in years, marks a major coup for the 18 million-customer group. The final contract is expected to be signed imminently.
....
The deal will come as a bitter disappointment to Vodafone, which had been tipped as the front-runner for the deal.

Vodafone is reported to have been "pushing hard" to win the iPhone contract but in the end felt that the commercial terms were not viable.

Timesonline.co.uk also suggests that Orange is the front-runner in France.

Finally, FTD.de reports that iPhone will start in only these three countries this Fall: UK, France, and Germany. According to the publication, the European version of iPhone will not support 3G, despite some earlier rumors.

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MacScoop believes that the new version of Apple's iLife suite has gone "Golden Master" -- meaning it is complete and ready for distribution.

The development of the new iLife suite was actually finished a few weeks ago and nothing prevents Apple from releasing it during the summer or on early September, sources told MacScoop.

Many expected the iLife update at Macworld San Francisco 2007, but Apple made no mention or reference to it.

The last reference was from Apple's 1Q 2007 Financial Conference Call in which they suggested the iLife update was coming soon:

Q: Is iLife still a January release time schedule? A: We don't comment on unreleased products, but stay tuned

A few tidbits coming out about iPhone hacking/modification efforts. The full file listing for the iPhone has been found, and a few interesting tidbits can be gleaned from the files:

Besides AT&T and Cingular, there are logo images for T-Mobile and Vodafone in the iPhone's file system.

Default_CARRIER_ATT.png
Default_CARRIER_CINGULAR.png
Default_CARRIER_TMOBILE.png
Default_CARRIER_VODAFONE.png

Both Vodafone and T-Mobile are heavily rumored to be Apple's mobile partners in Europe/Germany. No other carrier's images are included.

Apple appears to be storing Ringtones as unprotected AACs (m4a) in a "Ringtones" directory on the iPhone:

/Library/Ringtones
/Library/Ringtones/Alarm.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Ascending.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Bark.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Bell Tower.m4a
....

This suggests that adding custom ringtones would be as easy as copying AACs into the appropriate directory. There had been rumors that Apple would be incorporating Ringtone functionality in iTunes for the iPhone.

Additional iPhone tidbits have been posted at MacRumors.com/iphone

This tip may prove useful to some. Forum user, technocoy noticed that the Safari on the iPhone intercepts a double-finger scroll differently than the usual single-touch scroll.

One issue for some web applications, including David Cann's iPhoneChat (iPhone Link) is the inability to scroll framed elements. In iPhoneiChat, this means users are unable to scroll long buddy lists with a simple finger drag. However, if you apply two fingers and scroll upward, the buddy list scrolls appropriately.

Per Ajaxian, Joe Hewitt has been trying to capture this event and has posted a small demo page which shows that you can drag an object (vertically only) with the double-finger scrolling on the iPhone.

Meanwhile, through some of the efforts involved in hacking the iPhone, there has been evidence that the iPhone may support up to three finger events. One event is named "tripleFingerGestureTriggered". All documented iPhone mutlitouch functionality to date has been limited to two discrete points.

Related Forum: iPhone

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Interested to see how your EDGE (or Wifi) network speed compares to others across the country?

iPhoneNetworkTest.com provides a simple iPhone interface to test the download speed of your iPhone.

As of this writing, the Average WiFi speed was 1146.6153 kbps and the Average EDGE speed was 212.6743 kbps. MacRumors users have been posting their speeds and locations in the comment thread.

Related Forum: iPhone

There are a number of ongoing efforts to unlock/activate or otherwise customize the iPhone. One of the (seemingly) more successful ones has managed to get a full listing of the iPhone's filesystem.

There isn't a whole lot revealed in the iPhone's file system contents, but one tidbit is that Ringtones appear to be stored as .m4a (unprotected AAC) files, suggesting that adding custom ringtones would be as simple as copying AAC files into the appropriate directory.

/Library/Ringtones
/Library/Ringtones/Alarm.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Ascending.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Bark.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Bell Tower.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Blues.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Boing.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Crickets.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Digital.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Doorbell.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Duck.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Harp.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Motorcycle.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Old Car Horn.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Old Phone.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Piano Riff.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Pinball.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Robot.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Sci-Fi.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Sonar.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Strum.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Timba.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Time Passing.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Trill.m4a
/Library/Ringtones/Xylophone.m4a

The original site has asked not to be linked, but more information can be obtained via IRC (#iphone on irc.osx86.hu)

Related Forum: iPhone

Newswireless.net claims that AT&T has activated 600,000 iPhones as of Monday night.

As a result, they believe that Apple will hit one million iPhone sales by Wednesday/Thursday.

Newswireless is the same publication that believed that the European iPhone deal was to be announced on Monday. Now, they say that the European launch announcement will likely coincide with Apple's one million iPhone sales mark.

Related Forum: iPhone

Jon Johansen (DVD Jon) has posted a method that allows users to take a new iPhone and activate it without connecting to AT&T servers or supplying any personal information.

The method allows users take an iPhone and activate it to allow iPod and Wifi functionality, but without signing up for mobile telephone service with AT&T.

This has also be accomplished by canceling AT&T service in the first few days after activation.

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Expanding on the Typing Period Quickly Tip posted by David Pogue earlier today, iPodHacks notes that the same sequence can be used for the shift to to allow you to quickly capitalize a letter without disrupting your typing.

Just touch the shift key and then slide your finger across the screen to the target letter. Your moving finger will trigger the confirmation pop-ups for the letters you're swiping over, and the letter under your finger when you lift off the screen will register (or be typed), in caps. Smooth caps!

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Apple posted Web Development guidelines for the iPhone.

Developers can create Web 2.0 applications that look and behave just like the applications built into iPhone, and provide seamless integration with iPhone applications and services including making a phone call, sending an email, and displaying a location in Google Maps. Third-party applications created using web standards can extend iPhone's capabilities without compromising its reliability or security.

The Guidelines are organized into:

Understanding User-iPhone Interaction
Use Standards and Tried-and True Design Practices
Integrate with Phone, Mail and MAps
Optimize for Page Readability
Ensure a Great Audio and Video Experience
Know What Safari Supports on iPhone
Connect With Web Developers

A few web applications have already been released for the iPhone, but development has been very much by trial and error for these early iPhone applications.

Visit our iPhone App and Development forum for iPhone application discussion and releases.

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The Washington Post translates a Rheinische Post article which reveals that the iPhone will be sold through T-Mobile in Germany and launch on November 1st, 2007.

The cost of the phone for the German market is said to be 450 euros (US $612). There has been no confirmation of rumors the European version of the iPhone may incorporate 3G technology.

Apple launched the iPhone in the U.S. last week and had planned a European launch in Q4 2007 and Asia in 2008.

Related Forum: iPhone