Consumer Reports says they cannot recommend the iPhone 4 due to its widely advertised antenna problem. They advise using a piece of duct tape to correct the issue. This isn’t the sort of publicity that Apple would prefer at this point in time I am sure especially with Android’s rising popularity.
Consumer Reports Trashes the iPhone 4
July 12th, 2010Can’t see Flash on your iPhone?
July 8th, 2010
If you think there’s no way you can see a Flash app on your iPhone you may not have heard of CloudBrowse. CloudBrowse is a cloud-based browser and online service that provides a full desktop browser for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The way it works is that you install their iPhone app which connects to a datacenter that hosts desktop machines running a standard browser. You browse the web remotely through those machines and the app streams the content back to your iPhone.
Viola! Now, you can get around Steve Jobs and check out any Flash-enabled web site using your iPhone.
The service is free for now. They will likely charge for a premium version of the service in the future. From their FAQ list is sounds like they’ve had some performance problems in the past.
Android Gains in Smartphone Market
July 8th, 2010
Google’s plan for world domination continues to gain momentum. Particularly in the smartphone market, Comscore has the latest SmartPhone market share numbers for May:
| RIM (Blackberry) | 41.7% |
| Apple | 24.4% |
| Microsoft | 13.2% |
| 13.0% | |
| Palm | 4.8% |
Google gained from last month while everyone else dropped off a bit. They may have been helped a bit by some freezing of the market that occurred as Apple rolled out the iPhone 4. So things may even out a bit more between Apple and Google in the next few months, but I think it’s clear that Google’s open approach with its Android operating system is paying dividends.
iPhones on Verizon at Long Last
June 30th, 2010According to Bloomberg, our long wait for the iPhone on Verizon’s wireless network may be over next January. I have been anticipating this for some time since I am a dedicated Verizon loyalist and absolutely refuse to switch to AT&T (I’ve seen my wife pulling her hair out with AT&T long enough while I have enjoyed nearly flawless service with Verizon).
The question now becomes whether I should opt for an Android phone now or wait another six months for the iPhone. Apple’s blocking of Flash applications and it’s restrictive licensing terms that prevent developers from using cross compilers are both bad news for the mobile phone consumer. These actions undoubtedly restrict the quality and depth of the user experience. Placing manacles on Apple developers by forcing them to write in Objective C, C, C++, or JavaScript flies in the face of common sense and can only hobble future development for the platform.
The other issue for me is the high cost of data plans with Verizon. $30 a month adds up to $360 a year for a capability that I honestly wouldn’t use that often. For 95% of my waking hours I am not more than ten feet away from a fully featured desktop or laptop computer (at home, the laptop is on the dinner table and we have two desktops upstairs). Why would I choose to check my email with a small handheld that has a dinky screen and no keyboard as opposed to a desktop or laptop computer? Obviously, I wouldn’t.
For the remaining 5% of time I’m either driving or engaging in some sort of social activity where it would be rude to become fully absorbed in playing games on my handheld. Of course, I’m not a member of the Facebook-generation where being online 100% of the time is one of life’s essentials.
So we will see. Maybe Verizon will wise up and offer folks like me a cheaper data plan at some point.
H.264 Codec Sees Rapid Rate of Adoption
May 17th, 2010
H.264 is a video codec that is part of the MPEG-4 standard and is one of two codecs that have become widely used with the HTML5 video element (the other being Ogg Theora). Apple has embraced H.264 for the iPhone and iPad as it has steered away from the use of Adobe Flash video codecs.
H.264 provides excellent video quality using much smaller video files than other technologies. Apple prefers H.264 because it helps to reduce the bandwidth requirements for users watching videos on their iPhone. It also means longer battery life and less storage required. And, best of all, it’s NOT from Adobe.
It appears that Apple’s efforts in popularizing H.264 are paying off according to the Meefedia Blog:
- 26% of all web video is now available for playback in HTML5 using the H.264 format
- Most sites that support HTML5 will detect iPad users and switch to an HTML5-compatible format
26% is a sizable increase from 10% at the beginning of 2010. If you’re Apple you’re undoubtedly happy with that adoption rate.
Adobe Flash does support H.264 but you cannot view those videos from a browser or device that does not have Flash installed.
Chrome Climbs While IE Slips
May 4th, 2010NetApplications has some new market share numbers in the browser wars:
| Internet Explorer | 59.95% |
| Firefox | 24.59% |
| Chrome | 6.73% |
| Safari | 4.72% |
| Opera | 2.3% |
| Opera Mini | 0.79% |
IE has now fallen below 60% for the first time in 10 long years since its epic battle with Netscape. The new kid on the block, Google’s Chrome, has rocketed from zero market share in 2009 to 6.73% and it is the fastest growing.
Why is Chrome doing so well? It’s extremely fast and easy-to-use. Another important aspect of Chrome’s success is security. Chrome’s sandboxing places a formidable obstacle between malware developers and your machine. It forces web applications to run inside a restricted space. Even if hackers manage to compromise the browser itself they are isolated from your machine and other tabs in your browser. Chrome’s JavaScript engine and HTML renderer live entirely inside the Chrome sandbox.
Google Docs Take a Leap Forward
April 18th, 2010Google has just released a preview of the new Google Docs. It is particularly impressive to see the work they are doing to facilitate online collaboration where multiple users can edit the same documents simultaneously. Check out this video showing the latest Google Docs:
With features like these it won’t be long before Google starts making some significant inroads into the enterprise productivity applications market. Real-time collaboration in document editing has been a long-time coming. The days of emailing documents from person-to-person allowing each one their turn at editing are soon coming to an end.
Available Soon: the Verizon iPhone
March 29th, 2010
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple may be preparing a new iPhone that works on Verizon’s wireless network. This long-anticipated move means that consumers can now have the best of both worlds: the iPhone’s slick user interface and Verizon’s extensive wireless network. This new iPhone will incorporate CDMA technology which is the standard that Verizon has been using for years.
I’m sure there are many consumers like myself who have used Verizon for
years and love to taunt our AT&T-using friends who are beleaguered by incessant dropped calls and poor voice quality. For Verizon loyalists, the iPhone has always been a bridge too far because we are simply unwilling to ditch a high quality for a poor quality one. This should turn out to be a big boost for Apple in its quest for global domination of the wireless handheld device market.
Crocodoc Raises the Bar in Online Collaboration
March 28th, 2010
I’m continually amazed by what creative people are doing on the web these days. I recently came across Crocodoc, a startup that is focused on providing a site that facilitates the online sharing and reviewing of documents. Click through to their demo to see how it works. The interface is smooth and seamless.
Just one question: how can I invest?!?