Category — Journal

Prince McLean, AppleInsider

Google’s Android offers a free software alternative to smartphone makers hoping to catch up to the iPhone. This article is the second in a series examining how Android stacks up in comparison to the iPhone as a smartphone software platform, looking particularly at the business model of each and how this affects users.

Articles in this series:
Inside Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone OS as core platforms
Inside Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone OS as business models
Inside Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone OS as advancing technology
Inside Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone OS as software markets
.
[Read more →]

Prince McLean, AppleInsider

A new report citing sources in the Taiwan handset supply chain says Apple has contracted to produce a UMTS/CDMA hybrid iPhone due in the third quarter of next year that will enable the company to sell a single global handset to all carriers, and specifically to Verizon Wireless in the US.

Report: Apple to launch Verizon iPhone in Q3 2010
.
[Read more →]

Prince McLean, AppleInsider

A new batch of smartphones based upon Google’s Android platform have started to arrive, finally fleshing out what users can really expect of the platform. This article is the first in a series examining how Android stacks up in comparison to the iPhone as a smartphone software platform.

Articles in this series:
Inside Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone OS as core platforms
Inside Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone OS as business models
Inside Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone OS as advancing technology
Inside Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone OS as software markets
.
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger

Remember when Microsoft paid Jerry Seinfeld $10 million to lend some credibility to Bill Gates as a regular person? That was a decade after Seinfeld went off the air, after a decade of seasons that regularly featured Macs in the background. Clearly, Seinfeld as a character was not a Windows user. This explains why Microsoft went after “Family Guy” …the company is not a quick study, and clearly doesn’t watch these shows.

Daniel Eran Dilger

Lance Ulanoff, the man who in 2003 wrote that an obscure flaw in Mac OS X Jaguar made it “just as vulnerable as Microsoft Windows” during a year that businesses suffered $55 billion in virus-related losses due to their use of Windows, who in 2006 wrote a diatribe reviling bloggers so masterfully link-baiting that John Dvorak ‘bowed in awe,’ and who served as the canary in the coal mine last year in warning us all about the dangers of DRM-free music (which he called the “road to ruin”), is now serving as one of the few Windows Enthusiasts ready and willing to advocate for Microsoft’s beleaguered Windows Mobile platform.
.
[Read more →]

John Gruber’s Daring Fireball blog got hot over TUAW linking to a partner site (Engadget) rather than the original source of a story, calling out the attribution failure as “crummy.” After drawing attention to the issue, he noted in an update that TUAW had fixed the link to make it “slightly more clear” who the original source was.

However, Gruber doesn’t like to link to my articles, so when he couldn’t resist but draw attention to the original piece I wrote up on Microsoft’s Danger fiasco, he posted a link to what was very obviously a linkjacked version on another site, which itself noted that it was not the original source of the story, stated the original source, but then failed to actually link to the original work.

When contacted to correct the attribution, Gruber refused to update his link.

Isn’t this the guy who assigns a “Jackass of the Week?”

Daniel Eran Dilger

Despite Apple’s investments in developing its own custom ARM microchips in place of using Intel’s Atom mobile processors, the company has reached out to Intel as a partner to drive the adoption of the new Light Peak specification for optical cabling. A look at Apple’s historical use of ports explains why it is doing this.

Why Apple is betting on Light Peak with Intel: a love story
.
[Read more →]

Gene Steinberg of the Tech Night Owl invited me to talk about Zune HD, Flip video and the iPod nano’s camcorder. You can tune into the live stream Thursday September 17 at 6 PM PST, or listen to podcast episodes via iTunes, and subscribe to the Tech Night Owl RSS feed at:

The Tech Night Owl LIVE with Gene Steinberg

Recent episodes:

August 27, 2009 Windows 7 and Snow Leopard
July 30, 2009, Windows 7, netbooks, and the Apple tablet.
July 9, 2009, Mozilla and Opera fight to make Ogg Theora the official codec of HTML 5.
June 18, 2009, Microsoft Enthusiasts
May 21, 2009, talking about Windows 7
March 19, 2009, talking about the iPhone 3.0 SDK
February 26, 2009, covering the Apple stockholder meeting
January 8, 2009, covering Apple’s last Macworld Expo

Earlier episodes I’ve participated on:

Oct 16 08
Oct 2 08
July 31 08
June 12 08
May 1 08
Mar 20 08
Jan 31 08
Jan 3 08
Nov 8 07
Sep 20 07
Aug 9 07
Jun 14 07
Apr 26 07
Mar 1 07
Jan 11 07

Daniel Eran Dilger

IDG and other tech news outfits have stooped to yellow journalism in printing the sensationalized tantrums of Galen Gruman, an uninformed Exchange user. At issue is the iPhone 3.1 firmware, which respects a policy setting of Exchange Server 2007 that blocks devices that don’t support hardware encryption.

.
[Read more →]

Prince McLean, AppleInsider

Just when you thought Microsoft had given up on the Zune as a product and had retreated to referring to it as a nebulous cloud of conceptual features, the company comes out with a new device supporting a mobile-optimized OLED screen, a wildly powerful yet super efficient new multi-core Tegra graphics processor and support for high definition radio. The problem is that none of those things are actually true.

From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD
.
[Read more →]

Gene Steinberg of the Tech Night Owl invited me to talk about Snow Leopard and Windows 7. You can tune into the live stream Thursday August 27 at 6 PM PST, or listen to podcast episodes via iTunes, and subscribe to the Tech Night Owl RSS feed at:

The Tech Night Owl LIVE with Gene Steinberg

Recent episodes:

July 30, 2009, Windows 7, netbooks, and the Apple tablet.
July 9, 2009, Mozilla and Opera fight to make Ogg Theora the official codec of HTML 5.
June 18, 2009, Microsoft Enthusiasts
May 21, 2009, talking about Windows 7
March 19, 2009, talking about the iPhone 3.0 SDK
February 26, 2009, covering the Apple stockholder meeting
January 8, 2009, covering Apple’s last Macworld Expo

Earlier episodes I’ve participated on:

Oct 16 08
Oct 2 08
July 31 08
June 12 08
May 1 08
Mar 20 08
Jan 31 08
Jan 3 08
Nov 8 07
Sep 20 07
Aug 9 07
Jun 14 07
Apr 26 07
Mar 1 07
Jan 11 07

Daniel Eran Dilger

If you’re thinking that Microsoft’s reported plan–to pit Windows Mobile 6.5 against Android and then wait for another year to issue Windows Mobile 7 as its “iPhone killer”–sounds inane, wait till you hear what the company intends to do to its current mobile partners. It’s a brutal strategy that promises to radically change both the smartphone and PC landscape.

.
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger

Windows Enthusiasts like to paint me as biased against the Zune because I didn’t get a free gift basket from Microsoft and then turn around with a CNET-style gushing review of the me-too player that manages to consistently slink a year or two behind Apple. But what does one of Microsoft’s own developers think of the device? Here’s an independent report from a person deep inside the Zune maker.
.
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger

Being a CEO doesn’t necessarily mean you have a basic grasp of logic. Jason Calcacanis proved this point while trying to make a rambling critique of Apple in his personal blog, oddly republished by the Silicon Alley Insider. Calcacanis demands that Apple be stripped of its technology so that less capable and innovative companies can benefit from it instead.

To make this moralist assault on free markets more palatable, he wraps up the whole thing with emotionalist language about openness and evil. At the core however, his rant reflects the new low in moron journalism that is eating up America like a swiftly spreading flesh eating bacteria.
.
[Read more →]

Prince McLean, AppleInsider

Citing an unnamed source described as “an industry executive familiar with Netflix’s plans,” an industry trade journal is claiming that Netflix will soon offer its Watch Instantly streaming video service on the iPhone, iPod touch and the Nintendo Wii.

Report: Netflix streaming video headed to iPhone, Wii
.
[Read more →]