Apple

Apple Store is Down, I May Be To Blame

By admin#IM, Wednesday, Oct 3, 2007 a 7:31 pm

Store.apple.com is down right now, which usually means one of tow things. Either Apple's IT staff is performing maintenance on their servers, or new products are about to be posted. Nope, neither is the case. The real reason; I bought a second iPhone today, and that brought the online store to its knees. Yes, that's it. Take that, Apple. Fortunately the store went down after my iPhone shipped.

Now to track my package and bring Fedex down as well.

[update:] It's back up and it appears to be nothing more than a maintenance update. I noticed the site was having issues throughout the day, shortly after I placed my order.

Read

Unzipped Flies: iPhone Rivals Tout Openness, Less Control Freakery

By admin#IM, Wednesday, Oct 3, 2007 a 6:06 pm

Apple's closest rivals in the wireless handset business are taking full advantage of the company's platform dictatorship, extolling the openness of their own software to application development. Highlighting a strategy of use me, abuse me, do what you want to me approach to software design, Microsoft and Symbian are quick to point out that their platforms aren't surrounded by high voltage fences and men in guard towers with sniper rifles.

Earlier this week Nokia updated its homepage with a new message taunting Apple... "We believe the best devices have no limits. That's why we've left the Nokia NSeries open. Open to applications. Open to Widgets. Open to anything.". Yeah, open to anything except touchscreens and intuitively designed software, right Nokia? Guess you forgot to include that part.

Woman Sues Apple for 1 Million Dollars Over "Unfair" iPhone Price Cut, Repeal of Nerd Tax

By admin#IM, Wednesday, Oct 3, 2007 a 12:55 pm

Who can put a price on pain and suffering? Your attorney can, of course... to the total sum of a cool 1 Million dollars. Dongmei Li of Queens, New York (I didn't know people living in Queens could afford iPhones) claims that Apple's dramatic iPhone price cut is a flagrant violation of consumer price discrimination laws. Her suit alleges that the price cut hurts early adopters by deflating the iPhone's resale value. I call that the price of early adoption, but apparently it is grounds for litigation. Who knew?

So let me get this straight... if I walk into Wal-Mart and buy a head of lettuce, which then subsequently drops in price by 20 cents after I leave the store, I can then sue Wal-Mart for damages? Hot damn! I'm going to start watching for those falling prices and little yellow smiley faces.

Apple iPhone on Intel?

By Mike Overbo, Wednesday, Oct 3, 2007 a 10:19 am

figure 1: a mockup of a device on Intel's Moorestown chip

The Apple iPhone is currently based off the ARM processor platform, but they are reportedly considering a switch to Intel in 2009. Some sites are expanding that news as justification for no 3rd party development, but I don't buy it. And why not? Because a web widget -- the simplest form of native 3rd party development -- can be written in processor-agnostic fashion. Indeed, most of them would.

Class Action Lawsuit vs. Apple

By Mike Overbo, Monday, Oct 1, 2007 a 11:13 am

There's a class action lawsuit brewing over the price cut and the discontinuance of the 4GB iPhone. I have no idea if this class action lawsuit has merit or not, but it looks like Dongmei Lee want to be a millionaire:

'For those claims which the Court is still likely to take into account, Li is requesting compensatory damages in the amount of $1 million, punitive damages in the amount to be determined at trial, and a court order that she is entitled to "threefold her damages, the costs involved in maintaining this action, and attorney's fees."'

Dongmei Lee's class-action lawsuit doesn't address the bricking of iPhones with the recent update, so maybe iPhoneClassActionLawsuitVille will be a two-horse town sooner rather than later.

Apple Posts Interface Guidelines

By Mike Overbo, Monday, Oct 1, 2007 a 10:53 am

Apple has posted their Human Interface Guidelines (HIG, PDF link) for programming for the iPhone. What this means is that they've completed the rules and guidelines for how they expect you, the iPhone user, to interact with applications on the device. It also means that now that they have interface guidelines, they can begin focusing on building the software they need for native third party applications and not web applications. Yes, I said it; worst of all, I believe it. Even worse, I think this is the big news of the weekend, even more than bricked iPhones. You'll have to brave the cut for why.

Firmware Update Bricks Even New iPhones, Disables Pacemakers

By admin#IM, Friday, Sep 28, 2007 a 9:58 am

Well well well. Look who's firmware update is spreading mass murder among unboxed iPhones. Reports are coming in from everywhere, and everyone but my Aunt Helen, that FW 1.1.1 is bricking factory fresh iPhones upon updating. So, even customers with iPhones that still have that new car smell are in the same sack of onions that we naughty unlockers are stuck in. Hmm. I'm going out on a limb and say that Apple rolled this update out a bit prematurely.

And They Weren't Kidding: Update 1.1.1 Bricked My iPhone (Activation Loop)

By admin#IM, Thursday, Sep 27, 2007 a 4:22 pm

Hold my calls for the rest of the day; I'll be laying under my desk in a fetal position. After reading early successful reports of unlocked iPhones updating without issue, I assumed the coast was clear. Assumed being the operative word. Upon downloading today's firmware update, which weighs in at a whopping 153MB by the way, iPhone fails to recognize my SIM card...and is now effectively rendered useless. Ahahahaha!!!! maniacal laugh

Doing a bit of sleuthing I discovered the potential root of this problem. The IMEI number displayed onscreen does not match that found on the back of my iPhone. So apparently whatever issue is to blame it has to do with baseband settings reconfigured by anySIM. Ok, iPhone Dev Team. I'm counting on you jokers to work out a solution.

Breaking: Apple Rolls Out Firmware Update 1.1.1, And I Can't Have it!!!

By admin#IM, Thursday, Sep 27, 2007 a 2:19 pm

Oh the humanity. Here I am docking my iPhone, when suddenly this box appears in iTunes, beckoning me to install some new firmware update, just released. But can I install this update? No. And why? Because his Jobsness has seen fit to brick my iPhone should I install said update. GRRRRR!!!!!!

iPhone Brews Up Anger With Sun Over Java Support

By admin#IM, Thursday, Sep 27, 2007 a 10:18 am

Oh Steve, when will you learn? Your tight fisted control over iPhone's software platform continues to effuse dissent among users. Now even your very own partners are lining up outside your door with torches and pitchforks. This time you've managed to piss off the folks at Sun Microsystems for excluding Java support in iPhone.