Microsoft has rolled out its popular MSN app to the USA and Canada. It was originally launched at the end of January as a UK only release. The MSN app brings you all of the latest news, sports, entertainment and much more form the Microsoft network in a beautiful magazine style layout on your iPad.

MSN is now available on your iPad – easily swipe to find your favorite news, sports entertainment, autos and money articles & videos in one place. Easily share what you find with your friends on Facebook,Twitter or e-mail a link to the article. Of course you can view articles, photos and videos in either portrait or landscape modes with MSN for iPad. Need to dig deeper on something you just read? We’ve built Bing right into the top of the app for easy searching.

Free – Download Now

In an update to his LinkedIn profile, Microsoft Marketing Manager for Xbox UK, Robin Burrowes, let the world know that he’s been hired by Apple to push iPhone and iPad gaming even further.

Burrowes tenure at Microsoft saw him work on Xbox for roughly seven years, where he was most recently responsible for all product, business and marketing management of Xbox LIVE in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. For Apple, he’s the latest in a series of high-profile British gaming recruits, following the hire of Nintendo’s public relation’s chief Robert Saunders last year, as well as Nick Grange — who also at one point ran public relations for Xbox, as well as for gaming heavyweights Activision and Electronics Arts.

Microsoft came out of nowhere with the Xbox to take a significant share of the console gaming market, especially when it comes to hardcore gamers and multiplayer gaming with services like Xbox Live. Apple has seen enormous success in the mobile gaming sector after creating the App Store for iOS 2 and the iPhone 3G in 2008. Now they, along with Google’s Android platform, have overtaken the likes of Sony and Nintendo when it comes to U.S. portable game software by revenue.

With Apple’s last count of 550,000 apps in the App Store, and around 20% of those being games, it’s not hard to see why Apple considers it important enough to hire a key gaming manager like Burrowes.

iPhones and iPads are increasingly this generations’ portable gaming platforms of choice.

Source: Robin Burrowes via 148apps.biz via AppleInsider

Microsoft is planning to bring more Xbox Live gaming to Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, as well as Google’s Android platform.

“While the Xbox Live experiences and games always work best on the Windows platform, we understand that some Xbox fans may be using other types of devices. To satisfy that need, we are working to extend a few of our Xbox experiences and titles to other platforms.”

All of Microsoft’s current XBox efforts have done well on iOS and Microsoft isn’t exactly a company to leave to money on the table or avoid recognition, it’s another avenue for both of those things if Microsoft puts the effort into it. No mention was made of when we could expect to see these efforts put into to place but if we had to wager a guess, we’d bet it’s not all that far off.

Given that Microsoft’s Windows Phone is still — as some would say — ‘ramping up’, it only seems logical that Microsoft would target iOS and Android users as well, especially considering the market share Apple and Google have in the mobile space.

Microsoft has already made a small foray on iOS with the release of My XBox Live and Kinectimals, but who knows what could be next. Halo, anyone?

• Source: Forbes

He and I always enjoyed talking. He would throw some things out, you know, some stimulating things. We’d talk about the other companies that have come along. We talked about our families and how lucky we’d both been in terms of the women we married. It was great relaxed conversation.

Gates also commented on how Steve Jobs’ death impacted him.

Well, it’s very strange to have somebody who’s so vibrant and made such a huge difference and been … kind of a constant presence, to have him die. It makes you feel like, ‘Wow, we’re getting old.’ I hope I still have quite a bit of time for the focus I have now, which is the philanthropic work. And there’s drugs we’re investing in now that won’t be out for 15 years — malaria eradication, I need a couple of decades here to fulfill that opportunity. But, you know, it reminds you that you gotta pick important stuff, because you only have a limited time.

Indeed.



Source: ABC News

Microsoft has launched another app for the iPad, this time it is MSN UK. MSN UK is brings all the latest news, sport and entertainment from the UK right to your iPad.

The MSN experience is now enhanced on iPad – easily swipe to find your favourite news, sport and entertainment articles and videos. Excited about something you read on MSN for iPad? Just tap and share with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

• Reading articles on MSN for iPad feels natural, no matter how you hold your iPad – in either portrait or landscape modes. We’ve added popular photo galleries, slideshows and videos to add depth to what you’re browsing. You can even download stories to your iPad for when you’re not connected to a network later. Need to dig deeper on something you just read? We’ve built Bing right into the top of the app for easy searching.
• Popular photo galleries and slideshows
• Quick access to Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger
• View in portrait and landscape modes, whatever is easier for you
• Send feedback to the MSN team – let us know what you think

If the iPad’s Auto-Lock is set to 2 or 5 minutes, the downloading of an issue of MSN for offline viewing may be interrupted when the iPad locks the screen. You may see the dialog box showing that the download is in progress, but the background downloading of the issue may have stopped. Tap Cancel to close the dialog box. You may need to close and restart the app to resume the offline download.

• App Store link

OnLive, better known for its online gaming service has just announced that it will be launching a cloud based Windows 7 experience for iPad users. The OnLive Desktop app will give users access to a Windows desktop experience without the need for any VNC or remote desktop connections. It is all stored in the cloud and accessible from your iPad or a desktop machine.

OnLive has just re-imagined what’s possible on iPad with the OnLive Desktop app, available Thursday in the iTunes App Store. Launching a brand-new chapter for OnLive (and everyone), OnLive Desktop gives users instant access to a seamless Windows desktop experience, with full-featured Microsoft Office applications and 2 GB of free cloud storage for secure file access anywhere. Need to edit a Word doc with redlines and comments? No problem. Need to give some oomph to that PowerPoint deck for your meeting? Go for it: present animations and slide transitions, edit diagrams and embed videos. Desperate for a pivot table in Excel? Pivot away … Anything you can do on your office desktop, you will be able to do on your iPad—at home, in your hotel, anywhere.

OnLive also plan on offering some more advanced versions of the app too. OnLive Desktop Pro will offer up to 50GB of storage, priority access to apps, full-featured cloud-accelerated browsing and additional PC applications for a subscription of $9.99 a month. OnLive Enterprise will allow complete customization for business and organizations and OnLive collaborative services will offer thousands of users to simultaneously view, control and discuss a shared desktop via voice chat.

Source: OnLive

In speaking to the New York Times recently, the man running the show for the Windows Phone software team, Joe Belifore noted how Apple’s iPhone prompted Windows Phone redesign and shaped the future of Microsoft’s mobile operating system.

“Apple created a sea change in the industry in terms of the kinds of things they did that were unique and highly appealing to consumers,” Joe Belfiore told The New York Times. “We wanted to respond with something that would be competitive, but not the same.”

It really isn’t any secret that Apple’s launch of the iPhone disrupted the mobile industry in many ways, but even today — 5 years after the official unveiling — we’re still finding out just how much of an impact it had. Microsoft at the time was considering their options for what to do with exhausted Windows Mobile platform. With their mobile future now at risk, it was decided in December of 2008 to go ahead and scrap Windows Mobile and start fresh.

That meant assembling a new team of engineers, developers and more importantly — someone to lead them all into the next generation of mobile OS’ for Microsoft. That led Terry Myerson, mobile engineering chief to hire Joe Belfiore who had recently been working on the Microsoft Zune projects. Borrowing ideas from the Zune projects, the Metro UI as we now know it was born and early Windows Phone devices were rolled out, providing something many would say was ideas never saw from Microsoft before.

Whether you like Apple and the iPhone or not, their influence on every other modern smartphone really is undeniable.

Source: NYTimes

Rene, Seth, and Jon Fingas of Electronista talk iPhone 4S 2 months later, Galaxy Nexus competition, Nokia hipsters, iOS 5.1 beta 2, PhotoStream, fake iPhone strings, Netflix, Microsoft apps, newnew Twitter, UI, and more. This is iPhone Live!

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Hosts

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Credits

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Microsoft has released their SkyDrive app for the iPhone and iPod touch, giving users access to their free cloud storage service and allowing 25 gigabytes worth of space for storing files, photos and other media types.

SkyDrive from Microsoft is the place to store your files so you can access them from virtually any device. With SkyDrive for the iPhone, you can now easily access, manage and share files on the go. You can also upload photos or videos from your iPhone to SkyDrive.

• Access all of your SkyDrive content including files shared with you
• View recently used documents
• Upload photos or videos from your phone
• Share a link to any file using email
• Create folders. Delete files or folders

New to SkyDrive? If you use Hotmail, Messenger or Xbox LIVE, you already have a SkyDrive account. If not, sign up for a new account at SkyDrive.com and then easily upload files from your PC or Mac to access them on your phone.

The app is available now for the iPhone and iPod touch for free in the App Store.

• App Store Link

Microsoft has released an iPad version of their note-taking application OneNote. Now you can capture all your thoughts and to-tos on the go and keep them in sync with OneNote on your desktop.

Microsoft OneNote for iPad is a note-taking app for capturing all of your ideas and to-dos on the go, brought to you by Microsoft Office.

Create searchable notes with text, pictures and bullets. Make and manage to-do lists with checkboxes. Then keep your notes in sync using free Microsoft SkyDrive® online storage to access, edit and manage them from virtually anywhere, from your PC or almost any web browser. Access your notes online at http://skydrive.com.

Microsoft OneNote for iPad is available for free.

[App Store link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

With typical cat-like speed and agility, rumor has it Microsoft’s Office team might finally be ready to pounce on something iOS — namely the iPad. Quoth The Daily:

According to sources, the tech giant is actively working on adapting its popular software suite for Apple’s tablet. [...] It’s assumed that both of these would work with Office 365 as well as mobile versions, such as Windows Phone’s Office Hub. Because it would be compatible with these full suites rather than as stand-alone apps, the pricing will most likely be significantly lower than existing Office products. In fact, it’s likely the cost will be around the $10 price point that Apple has established for its Pages, Numbers and Keynote products.

No word yet on timeline. Would Microsoft really launch Office for iPad before giving Windows 8 Metro slates a chance to compete using Office exclusivity as a draw? Maybe. They did license away ActiveSync after all.

Source: The Daily

In an interview with Forbes, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie poopoos Apple’s Siri intelligent virtual assistant, saying it’s nothing Microsoft’s TellMe hasn’t been doing since the introduction of Windows Phone 7 over a year ago.

You can take these Windows Phones now and you can just pick them up and you can say text Eric and it’ll ask you what you want to say and it transcribes it. And say send. You can query anything through Bing by just saying the words. All that is already there.

It’s amazing how decades later, Microsoft still doesn’t get it. A feature isn’t just a feature isn’t just a feature. It’s more than the sum of its technology and design. Android had great voice control going back to the Nexus One. But Siri isn’t voice control. Siri is context and relationships and Siri is absolutely personality. That Apple programmed Siri to feel like a Pixar character is what made it engaging and what got the internet to flood itself with screenshots showing hundreds of funny, witty, strange, and engaging Siri moments. It isn’t that Siri can transcribe a text message to Eric, it’s how it does it and how you feel doing it.

Windows Mobile and other had touchscreens for years before Apple debuted the iPhone. Then and now, it wasn’t about the spec but the experience.

Source: Forbes

The Microsoft Office team has put out a video showing a vision of the future where edge-to-edge, interactive, multitouch and gesture-based panels are everywhere. We’ve seen things like this before in movies like Minority Report and Iron Man, and even ye old Bill Gates CES Keynotes of yore. Apple would never produce a video like this — they want to surprise us with “magical” technology shipping in weeks and month. That’s why it’s great we have more players in the market than just Apple. You have to make the future, you can’t dream it. But you can help inform and inspire it.

Now all that remains to be seen is whether most of those screens end up having Apple, Microsoft, or Google logos on the back of them…

Source: OfficeVideos via WinRumors via @stroughtonsmith

What a difference a week makes. Last we heard Samsung sounded like they had only just begun to fight, now they’ve signed an agreement to cross-license and pay Microsoft a fee for every Android device they’ve sold, but according to the Wall Street Journal, they’ve also offered an olive branch to Apple as well.

It wasn’t clear what benefit Apple would gain from any agreement, as details of the proposed deal were not discussed in full in front of the court. But Apple’s attorney, Stephen Burley, conceded there was some potential benefit from an agreement on the matter. “(Samsung’s) inconvenience would be diminished and we would be comforted” by such a deal, he said.

Microsoft’s benefit was easier: money.

“Microsoft and Samsung see the opportunity for dramatic growth in Windows Phone and we’re investing to make that a reality,” said Andy Lees, president, Windows Phone Division, Microsoft. “Microsoft believes in a model where all our partners can grow and profit based on our platform.”

“Through the cross-licensing of our respective patent portfolios, Samsung and Microsoft can continue to bring the latest innovations to the mobile industry,” said Dr. Won-Pyo Hong, executive vice president of global product strategy at Samsung’s mobile communication division. “We are pleased to build upon our long history of working together to open a new chapter of collaboration beginning with our Windows Phone “Mango” launch this fall.”

Apple doesn’t want money from Android ODMs, however. They don’t want to make Android more expensive. They want to stop Samsung from “copying” them in order to make it less usable — they want what they consider to be Apple patented technology taken out.

Google called the Microsoft deal “extortion”, if Samsung does come to terms agreeable to Apple, what would Google call that?

Hopefully “done”. Overly violating and overly litigating patents are too extremes I for one have had about enough of. Restoring some respect and balance to the equation might just allow everyone involved to stop investing in lawyers and start re-investing on the innovation that brought us iOS, Gingerbread, and Mango.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Microsoft, TechCrunch

Like Apple with iOS for iPhone and iPad, Microsoft appears to have no intention of supporting Adobe Flash or other web plugins in the upcoming IE 10 for Metro in Windows 8 tablets.

Running Metro style IE plug-in free improves battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers. Plug-ins were important early on in the web’s history. But the web has come a long way since then with HTML5. Providing compatibility with legacy plug-in technologies would detract from, rather than improve, the consumer experience of browsing in the Metro style UI.

Will there be the same level of outrage-mongering by then, or will it have become as accepted as RealMedia-free video, ActiveX-free websites, and floppy-less PCs?

[Building Windows 8 via Daring Fireball]

Microsoft General Council, Brad Smith tweeted out a response today to Google’s open letter on an alleged anti-Android patent conspiracy, basically calling shenanigans on their whole patent conspiracy act:

Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no.

Which makes very little sense, given how angry Google reportedly was about not winning the bidding (regardless of the silly way they went about it), and their interest in having the DoJ investigate Microsoft, Apple, et. al on anti-competiveness grounds.

Jon Fingas at Electronista hypothesizes that:

His remarks if accurate imply that the bidding group, which named itself Rockstar BidCo and also included companies like RIM and Sony, is primarily intended as a defensive mechanism to prevent lawsuits from patent trolls and other, usually smaller firms from suing anyone involved in the coalition. Many have presumed that the group was united with the aim of further suing Google and slowing down the adoption of Android.

UPDATE: Frank X. Shaw, from Microsoft Communications has posted a copy of the email to Brad Smith of Microsoft from Kent Walker, Google’s General Counsel. Along with this sharply worded tweet:

Free advice for David Drummond – next time check with Kent Walker before you blog. http://t.co/PfKle9H

[@BradSmi via Electronista, @xfshaw via WPCentral]

Speaking with IndustryGamers, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello puts the previous Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony-led console market into post-iPad perspective:

Consoles used to be 80% of the industry as recently as 2000. Consoles today are 40% of the game industry, so what do we really have?

We have a new hardware platform and we’re putting out software every 90 days. Our fastest growing platform is the iPad right now and that didn’t exist 18 months ago.

So consoles are down by half, and iPad has come out of basically nowhere to become the hottest thing in gaming? Hard core gamers would argue you can’t play Call of Duty or World Of Warcraft on an iPad, just like hard core geeks would argue you can’t run Xcode/Visual Studio and otherwise use an iPad as a “real computer”.

That’s true. It just turns out the hard core base is much smaller than the mainstream, and Apple — and Angry Birds and a host of other, casual titles — is democratizing the gaming platform just as much as the computer.

And iOS 5 AirPlay mirroring, where you can play your iPad games on the big screen via Apple TV, hasn’t even launched yet.

[IndustryGame]

Microsoft has updated its popular OneNote application for the iPhone and iPod touch but more importantly, it is now available outside the US App Store. From today, OneNote will be available in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Microsoft OneNote Mobile is an easy-to-use note-taking application for capturing all of your ideas and to-dos on the go, brought to you by Microsoft Office. With OneNote Mobile, create searchable notes with text, pictures, bullets, and checkboxes. Then keep your notes in sync using free Windows Live SkyDrive cloud storage to access, edit and manage them from virtually anywhere, from your PC or almost any web browser.

• Search – find text in notebooks, sections and pages
• Pin recent notes – keep your favorite notes at the top of the Recently Viewed list
• Sync shared notebooks – if others have shared their notebooks with you on Windows Live SkyDrive, you can now sync them with your device and work on them together; just turn them on in the OneNote for iPhone Notebook Settings
• Choose the notebooks that sync to your phone and appear on the Home screen – you’ll find this useful when you have SkyDrive notebooks that you don’t want to sync or view from your phone
• Set image size for photos you insert – choose smaller image sizes for faster syncing or larger sizes for higher fidelity images
• A new color scheme that gives the app a lighter look and feel

[Free – iTunes link]

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Rene and Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents discuss Apple vs. Samsung, HTC, and Motorola, Microsoft licensing fees for Android, Nortel auction, Oracle vs. Google, and Lodsys vs. iOS developers. This is a special edition of iPhone Live!

Background

• FOSS Patents blog
• Editorial: How long can Google and Android afford to remain silent on patents?
• iPhone Live 151 – The Lodsys Letters

Hosts

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPhone accessory store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

Bing for iPad has just received an update and added in a few new features. Bing is Microsoft’s alternative search engine) or decision engine as Microsoft likes to call it). The new features, especially the “lasso” for text selection, looks intriguing.

This new version introduces several user experience updates and a patented gesture based way to make searching easier with *lasso*. Simply lasso a word or phrase with your finger to do a search instead of copying and pasting into the search box. Search the way it was meant for the iPad.

I have never actually tried Bing myself but I would like to after seeing it in the video, which you can see after the break. Unfortunately Microsoft, for whatever crazy reason, hasn’t made it available outside the United States…

[Free – iTunes link]

Clayton Miller’s Interuserface takes a look at the iconic shapes behind today’s biggest mobile companies, and while Apple, iPhone, and iPad are obviously roundrects (rounded rectangles), their competition is just as geometrically aligned:

Microsoft’s Metro UI owns the square. Apple has a corner on the roundrect, from the Springboard launcher to the iPhone hardware itself. Nokia, despite its late entry with MeeGo’s Harmattan UI, found the squircle unclaimed and ran with it beautifully. Palm has used the circle from the early days of PalmOS, and in WebOS, HP continues the tradition with care (one might even note that both Palm and HP structure their wordmarks around the circle).

Zune, obviously, couldn’t hold the squircle, and neither Bada nor RIM could take the square or roundrect as their own. Interestingly, Google’s Android has no iconic hold on any simple shape (nor do Facebook or Amazon for that matter, who have elected to stick with letters).

[Interuserface via WPCentral]

According to Reuters, a consortium of tech companies, including Apple, BlackBerry maker RIM, Microsoft, EMC, Sony, and Ericsson have won the auction to acquire Nortel’s mammoth $4.5 billion dollar mobile patent portfolio. How much of that will come from Apple is currently unknown, though RIM is on the line for $770 million and Ericsson, $340 million. The companies are expected to pool the patents and use them both to protect against patent lawsuits and, of course, launch lawsuits of their own.

The patents cover “wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, Internet and semiconductor technologies”, with the LTE 4G patents expected to become extremely valuable as networks and devices are upgraded to that standard.

If you noticed one major mobile company conspicuous by their absence, you’re not alone. Google appears not to have been part of the winning bid, which is perplexing since, as a new entrant in mobile, they have one of the weakest existing patent portfolios.

“Google lost an unprecedented opportunity to acquire a major bargaining chip that would strengthen it at the mobile industry’s intellectual property negotiating table.”

“I’m afraid it won’t get a similar opportunity in quantitative and qualitative terms any time soon.”

Android manufacturers are already paying Microsoft licensing fees for Android, and are being sued by Apple. Android developers are being sued by Lodsys and while Apple has filed to intervene in the iOS-related lawsuits, Google is still missing in action.

What that means going forward is hard to say, but manufacturer and developer confidence is part of the currency of any platform and it needs to be invested in and protected.

[Reuters]

Despite rumors that Google and Facebook were sniffing around, The Wall Street Journal is now claiming that Microsoft is about to break open the Redmond money bin and fork over $7 billion $8.5 billion for Skype. It could be announced as soon as tomorrow.

A deal represents Microsoft’s most aggressive move yet to play in the increasingly-converged worlds of communication, information and entertainment. Skype connects more than 663 million users around the world via Internet-based telephony and video, making it a key technology platform for a new generation of Web-savvy consumers. During 2010, those users made 207 billion minutes of voice and voice video calls over Skype.

Obviously, Skype is a hugely popular app not just on desktops but on mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Would Microsoft keep it free and freely available across platform? Would they try to build it into Windows and Windows Phone? Would they simply not be able to support it and just let it wither and die the way so many great technologies do once acquired by a gigantic corporation?

UPDATE: Kara Swisher of Boom Town says the deal is confirmed. [AllThingsD]

UPDATE 2: The deal is confirmed now as well as the amount $8.5 billion in cash. Microsoft PR Skype PR

“Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world.”

Skype will become a new business division within Microsoft, and Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the Microsoft Skype Division, reporting directly to Ballmer.

“Microsoft and Skype share the vision of bringing software innovation and products to our customers,” said Tony Bates. “Together, we will be able to accelerate Skype’s plans to extend our global community and introduce new ways for everyone to communicate and collaborate,” Bates said.

“Tony Bates has a great track record as a leader and will strengthen the Microsoft management team. I’m looking forward to Skype’s talented global workforce bringing its insights, ideas and experience to Microsoft,” Ballmer said.

Will we have to stop saying “let’s all jump on Skype” and start saying “let’s all jump on Microsoft P2P VoIP client for Windows Live Communications 7 Home and Student Edition”?

Microsoft has released Bing for iPad in the US App Store. Based on their search knowledge engine of the same name, it aims to do more than a web app alone could achieve:

Experience search that is truly designed for the iPad. Bing for iPad is here.

Bing is a decision engine that’s been designed to work beautifully with your iPad. Bing for iPad brings you closer to what you’re looking for by delivering a visually rich, touch-enabled way to search and browse news, movies, Bing homepage images, local businesses, popular searches and much more.

• Swipe through our touch enabled movie listings, news articles, trending topics, local businesses and other rich, immersive search results.
• Stay current with the latest news, traffic, weather, stock quotes, movies and popular searches from the main screen.
• Bing Local and Map integration to help you find the places you are looking for from directions with real-time tracking to immersive road, traffic, aerial and “bird’s eye” views.
• Follow the latest news and trending topics with beautifully iPad optimized results with rich images and magazine inspired layouts.
• Tell Bing what you are searching for with voice activated search.
• Wonderful touch friendly, grid view of image searches, with source site details and full page preview.
• Easily navigate between Bing results and websites as Bing frames the site to make it easy to return the search or to launch a new one.

Except of course for iPad users outside the US, where Bing.com remains accessible but where, for some reason, Microsoft thinks Bing apps should not be. If anyone in the US tries it out, let us know how it works for you. If anyone outside the US knows of a good reasons it’s not available, please enlighten us!

[Free - iTunes link]

Andy Lark, global head of marketing for Dell — and we assume the dude who used to tell dudes they were getting Dells, dude? — decided to talk a little Apple and iPad 2 at CIO Australia. We’d make fun of what he said but unfortunately he beat us to it:

“Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island. It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.”

“An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1500 or $1600; that’s double of what you’re paying,” he claimed. “That’s not feasible.”

Wait, what?! Not to get all Macalope on the dude, but let me break out my abacus app and double check that. In Australian dollars, iPad 16GB is $579, BT keyboard is $99, mouse is $0 (no mice for iPad, genius), smart cover is $45… carry the yellow bead… and thats $723. If we bump iPad 2 to the highest end and wrap it it leather, it’s still only $1127.

Easy to see where Lark went wrong. I’ve owned cheap plastic Dells. They cracked and broke and burnt out so much faster than Apple hardware he probably thinks you’ll have to replace your iPad two or three times a year just like he does his hackintoshed Mini. Not so good Lark. (And if one does have a problem the Apple Store will typically swap it out, no need to stay on hold for 97 hours with what simply has to be a robotic customer service center drone on Lost Island that still can’t pass the Turing test. Dude.)

UPDATE: Looks like Microsoft global research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie got a peak at the same talking points, telling the Committee for Economic Development of Australia that he wasn’t sure iPads would remain with us or not.

Whatever could Dell and Microsoft be afraid of, besides not having anything competitive to offer?

[CIO, thanks to Lark for the chance to snark!]

ZDNET reports that Microsoft has announced that System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012 will provide remote management for ActiveSync devices… like iPhone and iPad. The successor to Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager (MSCMDM, an acronym that, if spoken out loud, no doubt sends a Superman villain back to the 5th dimension…), it makes you wonder why Microsoft would be expanding to support devices other than their own Windows Phone? Mary Jo Foley answers:

My first thought when I heard that SCCM 2012 will enable management of iPads is that Microsoft may be undercutting its own argument that Windows-based slates and tablets are inherently better because IT managers can’t manage iPads as easily and well as they can Windows-based PCs and devices. If Microsoft makes enterprise management of iPads a key selling point, won’t the company be removing one of the advantages it claims for Windows slates?

Because different Microsoft teams have different masters — and different views of what’s needed to drive their respective businesses — one Microsoft product team may end up doing something that another team may not love. Example: The Bing team is continuing to roll out all kinds of mobile browser enhancements for iPhones and Android phones that Windows Phone 7 users won’t get until the end of this year. Another: The Office team has ported OneNote to the iPhone and may end up moving other Office apps to the iOS platform — a decision that may not be popular with the Windows team, which would prefer Office to remain a crown jewel for Windows users.

Do you manage iOS device in your enterprise? Will this functionality be of use to you?

[ZDNET]

Following the epically brutal “our platform is burning” memo, Nokia announced today it’s going to start using Windows phone in an effort to better compete with — and disrupt if they can — incredibly successful upstarts like Apple’s iPhone, iOS, and iTunes App Store ecosystem. Nokia makes great hardware and Windows Phone is about as elegant a piece of software as Microsoft has ever written. That’s a powerful combination — if they can execute (and that’s a big if).

Video after the break and for complete coverage see our sibling sites:

• WPCentral on Microsoft/Nokia alliance
• Nokia Experts on Nokia/Microsoft alliance

Then come back and let us know what you think, is the new Nokia Windows Phone going to be greater competition than the sum of its parts?

Microsoft has started it’s war against Apple’s iPad, handing their reseller partners material to show their customers pointing to why the iPad is not the solution they should be using for their enterprise needs. Distributed starting around December of last year, the material lists reasons why people should either move away from the iPad for enterprise needs or why they should not go towards the iPad in the first place.

Absent from the anti-iPad materials seems to be information on what Microsoft plans to utilize on their own future tablets to combat the 7.3 million iPads sold in Q1 2011. Given past demos of Windows 7 tablets, most notably the HP Slate tablet, were far from touch friendly, and Steve Ballmer keeps insisting the touch-optimized Windows Phone 7 platform is staying put, that leaves Windows 8 on the table… when it gets ARM optimized in 2 years…

Meanwhile Apple is citing an unprecedented enterprise adoption rate with over 80% of Fortune 100 companies piloting or actively deploying iPad already. Microsoft is right to be worried but are these PowerPoint slides enough or do they have to field an actual device to compete with Apple?

[ ZDNet ]

Microsoft has released OneNote, which is its first Microsoft Office application for iOS devices. OneNote is a note-taking application, which is very popular with Windows tablet users. With OneNote you can create and view notes and also sync them across multiple platforms and devices. Created notes can contain text, pictures, bullets and checkboxes. To use the application, you will need a Windows Live ID.

OneNote is compatible with the iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 4.2 or higher. It can also be used with the iPad however it is not a universal binary so will not be the greatest experience. The app is free for a limited time only and currently only available in the US App Store.

With many other fully featured note taking apps already available for iOS, do you see any advantage to using OneNote compared to something like Evernote? Either way could lead to Microsoft releasing iOS versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint?

[iTunes Link]

Microsoft does not want Apple to gain a trademark for the term “App Store” and is currently fighting to be able to use the term for its own mobile application store. They have recently asked the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to refuse the trademark on the term “App Store” for Apple because they claim it is too generic of a name and they feel Apple doesn’t have the right to lay claim to the term.

Any secondary meaning or fame Apple has in ‘App Store’ is de facto secondary meaning that cannot convert the generic term ‘app store’ into a protectable trademark. Apple cannot block competitors from using a generic name. ‘App store’ is generic and therefore in the public domain and free for all competitors to use.

Microsoft is also pointing out that the media commonly refers to application stores across all mobile platforms as “App Stores” and they even go as far as stating that Steve Jobs himself has used the term as a generic form when referring to the Android “App Store.”

Apple stands by the fact that when people think of and refer to “App Store” it is in reference to Apple’s App Store and is not being used as a generic term.

The vastly predominant usage of the expression ‘app store’ in trade press is as a reference to Apple’s extraordinarily well-known APP STORE mark and the services rendered by Apple thereunder.

As of now Microsoft and others will have to stick with their current application store names until the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office makes their final ruling. It doesn’t seem to make sense for Microsoft to want to rename their current application store nor would it seem worth it for Google to rename it’s store but when it comes to competition and technology you never know. What are your thoughts on this matter? Do you think Apple has a right to what Microsoft refers to as a generic term or should it be available for anyone to use?

[ TechFlash ]

Despite hundreds of thousands of iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps in the App Store, there are still some huge gaps, and major apps missing from the big players, including Apple themselves, Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and BlackBerry maker RIM. Some of the best known software on the market simply isn’t available for iOS. We’re hoping that changes in 2011, and after the break are the apps we’re hoping help make the change!

Apple: Files

I wrote at length about the need for a Finder app and amended it to a Files app in 2010 and now, at the beginning of 2011, it still tops my list for new iPhone and iPad apps I want from Apple. The reason is simple: document access on iOS as it currently stands is a nightmare. Apple’s own iDisk and third parties like DropBox and Box.net offer functionality that really should be native and as off-line as it is on. Again, the Photo app is the model. It preserves the sandbox by providing a central repository for files, and allows them to easily be opened via the Picker in any other app. What Photos does or images and video, Files should do for documents (and both should do via Safari so we can upload to the web, just saying…). Apple, make it happen.

Also want:

• iWork for iPhone. We have it for iPad, we’ve seen it teased for iPhone, it can’t possibly not be released in 2011.
• iPhoto for iOS. Create albums, move photos between them, do basic editing like crop and red-eye removal, and sync selected photos. We got iMovie for iPhone (and hopefully for iPad 2 soon), give us iPhoto.

Adobe: Flash Player

For years people have been angry at Apple for the lack of Flash support. And that’s ridiculous. It’s entirely Adobe’s fault for coasting on shoddy code for the last five years and only delivering a workable mobile Flash, in beta, near the end of 2010. But deliver it they have. It’s not great; I’ve disabled it on my Nexus One, but Adobe is working on it fearfully hard, and Google and Palm and RIM have chosen to support it (and in so doing slowed the switch to HTML 5. Jerks.), so it’ll get good enough. I don’t think Apple would allow a Flash plugin like on other devices — it’s a security risk and a user experience hit — but a Flash Player? Apple could work with Adobe to create a Flash app much like the YouTube app. A single app that, if it detects Flash video anywhere else on the device, especially Safari, it can take the handoff and play it in its own little, highly optimized, hopefully hardware accelerated, Flash-cookie-free sandbox. (Much how the QuickTime player handles H.264 video). It’s not 2007 anymore, and 2011 isn’t Flash free, so it’s time to bite the bullet on this one.

Also want:

• Creative Suite Viewer That I can view AutoCad docs on my iPhone and iPad and not Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign is a disgrace. Get on that, Adobe!

Google: Gmail

I don’t want to come off as greedy, since my mind is still blown by getting Google Voice and Google Latitude in 2010, but in 2011 I really, truly would like a native Gmail app that can handle things like attaching pictures and video (and Files.app, right Apple?). In a perfect world Google would have made Gmail more compatible with other mail systems, seamlessly handling labels as folders and stars as flags. In a perfect world, Apple would actually handle things like stars/flags in the built-in Mail app. But keeping with the pragmatic theme of this post, and acknowledging how annoying separate email apps are on Android, I’d still like a native Gmail app for iPhone and iPad. If it gets decent push notifications built in, like the Google Mobile app, I won’t even have to worry about iOS not having a “set default mail client” setting.

Also want:

• Google Navigation When Android got this for free we heard rumors iPhone would be getting it as well. Then not. Then again. Then not again. Google, just do it.

(If you could somehow get Apple to add those newfangled vector graphics to the Google-powered, built-in Maps app, we’d appreciate that as well).

Microsoft: Office

Documents to Go is great. QuickOffice is grand. Even Google Docs is usable over the web. But Microsoft, baby (can I call you baby?) none of those are Office. Sure, Office is a beast of a suite, as frustrating as it is fantastic, but it’s the standard and it belongs on iPhone and iPad. You’ve built it for Windows Mobile. You’ve built it for Windows Phone. You’ve even built it for Mac and are working on it for Nokia. You know how to do Apple and you know how to do mobile, so it’s time to do Mobile Apple. Sure you lose a differentiator for your own OS, but you had no problem doing that for Exchange, did you? Microsoft, stop teasing us and make 2011 the year of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for iPhone and iPad. Okay?

Also want:

• Outlook ActiveSync is okay but for hard core Exchange users a native Outlook app is every bit as important as a native Gmail app is to Googlers. Let’s get that sync’ed.
• Zune Pass Apple hasn’t done subscription music yet but they have sold a gazillion iOS devices. Get those users on Zune Pass before iTunes.com launches.

RIM: BlackBerry Connect

CrackBerry Kevin already laid out why, in a post Kik-world, RIM would be better off owning the cross-platform instant messaging space than sitting on the sidelines while some third-party service breaks the crack off from the berry, so I’ll just echo his sentiments here. BlackBerry Connect used to bring BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) to other devices; it could do the same again. Do I expect to see Big Mike bound across a WWDC stage any time soon? No, but Apple did announce a Microsoft ActiveSync license at the iOS 2 event in 2008, so announcing a BlackBerry Connect license in 2011 wouldn’t be unprecedented.

Also want:

• BrickBreaker. Kidding! Give me BBM and I’m good.

Your picks?

Those the top 5 big name apps I’d like to see come to iPhone and iPad in 2011. What are yours? (Besides Facebook for iPad, of course!)

Cult of Mac says PrimeSense, the company whose technology is behind Microsoft’s new Xbox Kinect, originally tried to sell it to Apple. What went wrong and why didn’t Apple get it? Yup, secrecy and control!

Apple has a history of interface innovation, of course, and had recently introduced the iPhone with its paradigm-shifting multitouch UI. PrimeSense’s system went one step further: It was multitouch that you didn’t even have to touch. Apple seemed like a natural fit.

Yet the initial meetings hadn’t gone so well. Obsessed with secrecy, Apple had already asked [PrimeSense CEO Inon Beracha] to sign a stack of crippling legal agreements and NDAs.

He shook his head. Why didn’t he want to do a deal with Apple? No need. The technology was hot. He could sell it to anyone.

I just got an Xbox Kinect and have been testing it out. The setup was a bit long and the only game I’ve tried so far is Kinect Adventure. (Farbod says Kinect Sports is better). We’re standing about 7-feet away and it works well enough for a single player but has issues with 2 players. We lose the second player a lot. I’m going to try lowering the lights and seeing if we can increase the distance.

Contrast this with using the original iPhone’s multitouch, which in my experience and in published tests is still not matched by other phones, and it’s easy to see Apple did a great job and really polished the experience before they released it.

What would an Apple Kinect-style controller have looked like and how would it have performed? We’ll never know now, but we can speculate in the comments! Minority Report iPhone anyone?

(Note: Image above is not really Steve Ballmer using a Kinect, but it’s funny to pretend.)

[Cult of Mac]

Apple earned more revenue this quarter than their ancient frenemy, Microsoft. Roughly $20 billion to $16 billion, or $4 billion more. Not too long ago they passed Microsoft in market cap as well, another impressive sounding, if not terribly meaningful measure. Microsoft still leads in profit due to their software-centric business being much higher margin than Apple’s hardware-heavy mix. But that too could and just might change as well.

Apple, thanks to the Apple II, got off to an impressive lead in the early days of command line personal computing. But things changed. Apple squandered the Mac’s first mover advantage and Microsoft and Windows ended up ruling the graphical user interface world. Now things are changing again. And that’s where it gets interesting.

60% of Apple’s profits come from products they’ve only released in the last three years, notably iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Almost everything Apple has planned and launched recently has been an incredible success, either profitable in their own right (like hardware) or deliberately run at just above break-even to support those profitable products (like iTunes and the App Store). And they’re still experimenting with new revenue models like iAds in the mobile advertising space.

By contrast, almost all of Microsoft’s profits came from products that have been around a generation, famously Windows and Office. Very little Microsoft has done recently has been a financial success for the company. Even the popular Xbox platform, billion dollar warranty extensions aside, has been a drop in the bucket compared to Windows and Office. Zune HD, a delightfully integrated media player was ultimately ignored and while Windows Phone 7 may bring licensing and Bing-driven advertising revenue, it remains to be seen if it can grab the mindshare Zune never could.

Apple still makes money from Macs but the world is rapidly going mobile and computing is rapidly going mainstream, and with iOS and devices like the iPad, Apple is already a dominant player and has a good shot at remaining a dominant player in the next great phase of computing.

Microsoft doesn’t really make money yet from mobile or internet services (they actually lose an almost incomprehensible amount overall). While they have some time left to turn that around — and to their credit they’re turning faster and better than most people imagined — right now they’re racing to keep up with Apple (and Google) in mobile.

Melinda Gates has once again re-affirmed that no Apple product, no iPod, iPhone, or iPad, is welcome in her and husband Bill Gates’ house. Last time she said she wouldn’t mind an iPhone, of course, but this time she stuck to sterner stuff:

Do you own an iPod, which is made by Apple?

No, I have a Zune.

What if one of your children says, “Mom, I have to have an iPod?”

I have gotten that argument — “You may have a Zune.”

Do you have an iPad?

Of course not.

Is it true that Bill works on an Apple laptop?

False. Nothing crosses the threshold of our doorstep.

Isn’t there room in this world for both Apple and Microsoft?

Microsoft certainly makes products for the Macintosh. Go talk to Bill.

And fair enough. How many Microsoft products do you think make it into Steve Jobs’ house?

[NYT Magazine via Fortune]

You’re Microsoft and today you’re launching the brand new Windows Phone 7 platform and what better game to showcase that launch but iOS hit Angry Birds… unless of course the developer, Rovio, isn’t making Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7 and didn’t give Microsoft permission to use it. Whoops.

Whether or not Angry Birds will make it to Windows Phone 7 down the road is debatable, but a lot of developers have been contacted and asked to make apps for the Windows Phone 7 marketplace.  In some cases, they’ve even been offered cash incentives. Hit the jump to see the letter some developers have been receiving from Microsoft asking them to develop for Windows phone 7.

And for complete Windows Phone 7 launch coverage, check out our newly renamed sibling site, WPCentral.

[WMExperts, via 9to5mac]

Exclusive, limited Time Offer from Microsoft to Help You Develop Application on the Windows Phone 7 Platform

Dear Beacon Hill Apps,

Beacon Hill Apps mobile applications have been identified as some of the key applications Microsoft would like to offer on the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace is the official site for developers to market their mobile applications to a broad range of Windows Phone 7 users.  The Marketplace provides end users with an easy way, to discover, purchase and download mobile applications, games and other content with confidence and payment convenience.

Microsoft is offering an exclusive and limited time opportunity for you to join, publish and distribute your applications on Windows Phone 7 Marketplace while receiving several benefits. The benefits for registering on the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace by December 31st, 2010 during this offer include:

• Rebate of US$99 dollars on the application registration (after having at least one compatible application included on the marketplace by December 31, 2010)

• Application name reservation on the Marketplace

• Technical & application submission support
• Local events to assist with your development efforts
• One free copy of Windows 7
• To apply for this offer please email me back with your contact information or call me at the number below to help you complete the marketplace registration and reserve your application names.  See additional helpful resources below.

Should you have any questions about this email feel free to call me or send an email to v-mafl@microsoft.com. N(3) is a third party vendor hired by Microsoft to assist and make mobile application developers aware of an exclusive offer.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer snuck into Adobe to talk with their CEO, Shantanu Narayen, about how they could team up, cartoon villain-style, to take on the growing mobile power of Apple and one Steven P. Jobs. the NYT Bits blog says:

The meeting, which lasted more than an hour, covered a number of topics, but one of the main thrusts of the discussion was Apple and its control of the mobile phone market and how the two companies could team up in the battle against Apple. A possible acquisition of Adobe by Microsoft were among the options.

One person familiar with the discussion said the two companies had talked about the blockade that Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, had placed on Adobe’s Flash software for its hand-held devices and whether a partnership by Adobe and Microsoft could fend off Apple, which continues to grow at juggernaut speeds.

Crazier things have happened in tech, so let us know what you think. Would Microdobe (Adobesoft?) pose a larger threat to Apple than either currently does alone? Could we see an Flash Phone 7? CS5 Office Suite? And how will previous Adobe best-fremeny Google feel about being left to third wheel this little Legion of Doom?

[NYT Bits Blog]

With the Launch of iAd by Apple many companies are choosing to advertise with them instead of Google or Microsoft. Businessweek.com reported that Apple may control as much as 21% of the market by the end of the year. Google will drop to 21% from last year’s holding of 27% and Microsoft, who was only just getting into ads, will drop to just 7% from last year’s 10%.

Not bad for Apple, who wasn’t even in the mobile advertising market until they bought Quattro Wireless and announced iAd back at WWDC 2010.

Unilever, whose first iAd made its debut in July, is “extremely happy” with the results of its ad campaigns, Rob Master, the company’s North American media director, says in an interview. More than 20 percent of people who click on Unilever iAds—which feature video and an interactive game—check out the ad a second time, he says.

Natalie Kerris, a spokesperson at Apple, reports that since June the number of brands that use Apple’s iAd has doubled. This trend isn’t just affecting Google and Microsoft either as both Nokia and Yahoo ad services are suffering as well.

Have you seen iAds in your apps? Are you any more likely to check out the products showcased in an iAd compared to a Google AdMob ad, or an ad from another network? Is Apple really offering a better experience for both advertisers and end users? Let us know your thoughts.

This is an official entry by Slyfi in TiPb’s next top blogger contest. Think you have what it takes to join Team TiPb? Bring it!

[Business Week via Fortune]

According to noted Windows pundit, Paul Thurrott, Microsoft is indeed prepping some iPad apps:

Shhh…. It’s true: Microsoft is working on iPad apps.

Whether that’s Sea Dragon or Bing or MS Messenger, or something wonderful like Office is unknown, of course.

[@thurrott]

Microsoft held a mock funeral today for the iPhone as part of their Windows Phone 7 release to master (RTM) celebration. Followed — we $#!t you not — by a Thriller dance.

It would have been more accurate had they been carrying a Kin.

[Trioculus via WMExperts, Engadget]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, under whose watch Office, Windows, and Server profits have soared while mobile has stumbled and faltered, was bombastically candid when addressing Apple’s 3.3 million strong iPad install base:

“they’ve sold certainly more than I’d like them to have sold.”

In response, Microsoft is hard at work on a Windows-based alternative (which is curious given Bill Gates’ almost singular drive to popularize Tablet PC over much of the last decade):

“They’ll be shipping as soon as they are ready,” Ballmer said, offering few details on the products, which he said will come from partners, not Microsoft itself. “It is job one urgency. No one is sleeping at the switch.”

So Microsoft won’t be making their own tablet the way they made their own Zune music player or Xbox gaming console, nor will they be using the panoramic Windows Phone 7, set for release this fall:

“We have got to make things happen,” he said. “We’re in the process of doing that as we speak. We’re working with our hardware partners. We’re tuning Windows 7.”

Apple of course didn’t try to put Mac OS X on the iPad, they went with iOS. HP has gone out and bought Palm webOS, and Google is readying both Android and Chrome OS, and even RIM is showing signs of life. There were tons of Windows-based tablets being touted at CES 2010 back in January, but none have really appeared on the market yet and while Microsoft’s Courier project was interesting but they KIN’ed it pre-launch. 3 months and as many million sales later and iPad pretty much still has the category it created to itself. It needs competition (from more than just the Kindle).

Hey, maybe if they call it WinPad?

[CNET, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

So on one hand the hype surrounding iPhone 4 antenna issues has risen to the level of a David Letterman top 10 list and Top Gear joke (see videos after the break), and on the other it’s got Microsoft COO Kevin Turner calling it Apple’s Vista (which is a bizarre slam on Microsoft’s own product):

It’s beyond the looking glass. What is Apple going to do? What should they do?

[CrunchGear x2, Computerworld]

The App Store already plays host to several mobile apps that allow users to view and edit documents and spreadsheets, but how about an official MS Office app for iOS that you can natively edit and view all MS Office formats in? Hints persist that it may be coming.  We’ll have to call this one a rumor for now, but considering Bing is already available for the iPhone, it’s plausible.  Apple and Microsoft seem to be playing nice lately, so we won’t rule it out.

It seems a job posting for Microsoft may indicate this is the case.  The following is an excerpt from the posting:

“In addition to the current Windows Mobile 6.5 and upcoming WM7 clients, with the recently announced alliance between Microsoft and Nokia we are working to bring Office Mobile to hundreds of millions of Nokia smartphone owners, followed by other leading Smartphone platforms.”

iOS is definitely a leading smartphone platform, but there’s also others, so we’ll just have to wait and see on this one. What do you guys think?

[WMPowerUser via WMExperts]

iPhone 4 with its 960×640 retina display, easy-peasy FaceTime video calling, high quality 5 megapixel, back-illuminated camera that shoots 720p 30fps video, and the silky smoothness of iOS 4 convincing you to switch from Microsoft’s Windows Phone (Windows Mobile) to Apple’s newest handset? Worried about moving over your personal data like contacts, finding apps, getting used to the differences? Wondering where to get help?

Deep breath. We’re here to help. Just hit the jump link for everything you need to know (more properly, everything the TiPb iPhone Forums have taught us) about switching from Windows Phone to iPhone 4 and iOS 4.

(And yes, we’ve done Android, webOSBlackBerry switcher guides as well).

Windows Phone to iPhone – the paradigm shift

Sincerely, we don’t think many people switched from iPhone to Windows Phone (and won’t until Windows Phone 7 ships), though some of you may have had Windows for work, and many of you, old-school power warriors all, may have been Windows Phone users for years, eschewing the iPhone until its functionality caught up with its form. It’s all good. We’re back to the future now — iPhone 4 and iOS 4. This is about getting you up to speed and ready to go.

Moving over contacts, calendars, and email

If you’re heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, you probably use Exchange — especially for business. Good news, iOS 4 can handle multiple ActiveSync accounts, including Exchange proper and Google Sync’s implementation. Just tap the Settings icon on the Home Screen, tap Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, choose Exchange, and enter your credentials. If you’re more casual and personal about your Microsoft Mail and Hotmail/Live Mail is how you roll, ActiveSync support is coming for that as well (and some users seem to have it working already).

If ActiveSync isn’t to your fancy, you can tap Other and set up pretty much any POP3 or IMAP account you have in your collection, and MobileMe, Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail, and anything else you can think of.

You can also load up any webmail account you like in the Safari web browser.

And you can access all of it in the new iOS 4 unified inbox and threaded email client. It’s not the “best of breed” Exchange experience like Windows Mobile, and it’s not WinMo Outlook, but it gets the job done.

What about customization, file system access?

Um… with iOS 4 you can change your wallpaper, both lock screen and home screen? Seriously though, the iPhone isn’t about tinkering and customizing (except for Jailbreak, see below). It’s not about working hard to make the phone the way you like it. It’s about not having to work hard and the phone just working. Apple controls the experience, which will drive you control freaks crazy, but there’s no such thing as a perfect phone so every advantage is matched by an equal and opposite disadvantage (and each of those varies by user).

Same deal with diving into the bowels of the file system. There isn’t one — at least not a user-facing one. You’re supposed to spend your time using the phone and apps, not fiddling with directories and hierarchies.

With iOS 4 Apple is struggling towards file utility — you can open documents from email, online storage, or synced via iTunes, but it’s not where it needs to be yet.

Again, think 80/20 rule. For most people not seeing how the sausage made is a huge plus. For former Windows Mobile tweaking junkies, it will be frustrating at first.

Hopefully the modern UI, great web browser, and amazing apps will distract you long enough to get past the DTs.

Finding other apps (and games)

Windows Mobile had apps since before there was an iPhone. Fair point. But what Apple lacked in early deployment they’ve more than made up for with modern adoption. Make fun of fart apps all you want, but there’s like a hundred of them. There’s like a hundred of every app type and that means there’s a huge chance that there’s 5 or so amazing apps of just the type you want.

The power of the ecosystem, whether it’s apps or accessories, is something you’re just going to have to experience.

And there’s even Bing (iTunes link) and Windows Live Messenger (iTunes link) to help make you feel at home. (Or at least in a familiar home that’s been recently redecorated with a really slick user experience…)

When it comes to apps of all kinds, TiPb reviews several a week and we’ve got a whole iPhone Apps and Games Forum ready to help you out as well.

Root meet Jailbreak

Windows Mobile, especially HTC devices, seem so easy to root and cook ROMs for that, hey, even Phil and Malatesta can do it. (I couldn’t).

If you want to get into the root jail of your iPhone, you need to break it — hence, Jailbreak. That’s also the only way to side load apps outside the iTunes app store — via the Jailbreak app store, Cydia (or Rock). Now, if you don’t understand what any of this means, just skip along to the next section, we’ll be there waiting. If you’re a diehard themer and patcher, you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled to our Jailbreak coverage, and more importantly — our Jailbreak Help Forum, and Jailbreak Apps, Games, and Themes Forum.

No. More. Keyboard. Or. Stylus.

No front facing QWERTY like the Treo Pro. No side slider like the Touch Pro. No “Pro” appended physical hardware keyboards of any kind. Apple hates buttons and keyboards are nothing if not homes for dozens of buttons.

We kid. Apple prefers the flexibility of a virtual keyboard, and they do flexible keyboards better than anyone in the business. Seriously. Multitouch capacitive interface of any kind on glass can be a transformative experience.

Apple likes their keys virtual so they go away when you don’t need them (without creaking, oreo’ing, popping batteries, or coming to the rescue when virtual keyboards just won’t do). On the plus side, if you’re multilingual or international, the iPhone keyboard can easily be switched to any alphabet, script, stroke, or pictographic symbol you want to use. It can also become optimized for numbers, games, or pretty much anything you (technically, a developer) can think of.

Best of all, if you really miss your physical keyboard, with iOS 4, you can tether up a Bluetooth one and knock email — and yourself — out.

As for the stylus and resistive screen, well you can get a stylus if you really want to (cold weather users especially), but resistive screens have gone the way of the dodo. (Nature selected them for extinction, not Apple). And yes, you can input Chinese just fine with a stubby finger on iOS, thank you. (There’s a built in input method for that).

Okay, about iTunes

iTunes doesn’t run as well on Windows as it does on Mac and with an iPhone you’re stuck with iTunes for OS updates, and for local sync if that’s the way you want to go.

Performance is a pain point for many, no doubt. Functionally however, it keeps getting better. It does so much now, we’re actually a little surprised it’s still called iTunes and not iSync or iStuff.

Buh-bye platform, hello product

Which brings us to the nut of it — Microsoft is all about platforms, Apple all up in products. It’s a huge difference. Most users appreciate the flexibility of platforms but just want their products to ship on time and work. You can, ideally, do anything with a platform and that’s a blessing and a curse. With a product, again ideally, it does what it does well.

For every one of the frustrations you’ll face in leaving Windows Phone and coming to iPhone you’ll experience one or more moments of — don’t laugh — childlike wonder. iOS is a modern mobile operating system with the best user experience in the business. Apple worked on it for years while every other player in the game slept on the sidelines and it shows.

It won’t do everything your old Windows Phone did, but what it does it will do incredibly well and while Microsoft is just now readying version 1.0 of their new Windows Phone 7 platform, Apple is only 8 or so months away from releasing their iOS 5 product in beta.

More Windows Phone to iPhone help and information

If you haven’t already, check out our complete iOS 4 feature walkthrough. There’s an incredible amount of stuff in iOS 4 and you can save yourself some serious time cribbing off of us.

If you need help, or have a story to share, check out TiPb’s iPhone forum.

And if we forgot anything or just plain got something wrong, let us know and we’ll add it or fix it.

Multiple sources are claiming Apple is either going to replace Google as default search with Microsoft’s Bing in iPhone OS 4, or at least integrate Bing into the search picture.

Look, it’s just over a week until WWDC 2010 and the rumors are just going to get crazier, okay? Apple and Google have been on increasingly shaky ground as of late, with some silly comments by Google during their I/O event probably not helping matters. Whether or not this proves to be true, or any of the parties chooses to comment or dispel the rumor like Microsoft did the Visual Studio for iPhone/iPad/Mac rumor from a couple days ago, we’ll just have to wait and see.

And hey, Bing powers Yahoo! which is already a search option, so if that becomes Bing in name as well, and even if it’s default, it’s hard to see Apple eliminating Google as a user-assignable option anyway, so for diehard Googlers it will just be one annoying settings switch away.

Real, fake, really fake, let us know what you think!

[BusinessWeek, TechCrunch. Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Among large tech and communication companies, Apple looks to spend relatively little money — and percentage of revenue — lobbying Washington compared to say AT&T, Microsoft, Google, or Amazon.

That could mean they’d rather spend money on products than pet politicos, or that despite Adobe’s supposed complaint to the DoJ and FTC, Apple’s not too worried about government intervention in any of their businesses at the moment.

Comcast and Google on the other hand…

[Business Insider]

H.264, the video codec Apple supports for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad playback, and for the HTML5 video tag in Safari, and now Microsoft is supporting it as well, which means its 66% share will likely go up. Add to that Steve Jobs think the competing, Firefox-supported license-free alternative, OGG Theora, will face patent infringement claims, and it’s looking like we have a web video standards winner.

As anyone who read Steve Jobs’ thoughts on Flash knows, he made a strong case for H.264 video and his hopes/belief it would render the need for Flash’s FLV container, and especially its older, software-bound H.263 codec obsolete. TechCrunch contacted Encoding.com and found out it might just be already. According to the graph above, and given YouTube’s 40% market share alone, it looks like H.264 is up around 66% and growing.

That’s bad news for Adobe, and for OGG Theora whose competing standard is implemented alongside H.264 in Google’s Chrome browser, and exclusively in Mozilla’s Firefox. Worse news is that Microsoft has announced they’re going exclusive for Internet Explorer 9, and like Apple they’re doing it with H.264.

Mozilla backs Theora as a matter of policy, since even though H.264 is free for non-commerical end-users for years to come, it’s owned by a consortium who could theoretically seek a license in the future. Theora is theoretically license-free in perpetuity — but companies like Apple believe that’s also theoretical and only ever one lawsuit away from changing.

Steve Jobs, sending from his iPad again, says exactly that:

All video codecs are covered by patents. A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open source” codecs now. Unfortunately juste because something is open scourse, it doesn’t mean or guarantee that i doesn’t infringe on others patents. An open standard is different from being royalty free or open source.

So Apple is paying for H.264 and not risking getting sued for Theora later, and they’re banking on H.264 uptake to be so fast and far, Flash won’t be needed for video playback. At 66% we’re getting close to that point. At 75-80% we’ll be at it. H.264 will be the standard and all of Apple’s devices and platforms will already support it — and support it well.

Now H.264 becoming the standard doesn’t mean it’s the best choice or even the right one, just like DVD, Blu-Ray, USB, MP3, etc. might not be the best or right choices for their standards, but at a certain point all the major browsers and platforms have to get behind something that’s good enough so that when users hit the web or load a video, it just plays.

Firefox should add H.264 support as well. It’s time to check that box off and start arguing about the next one. 3D or a smell plugin or something…

[TechCrunch, fsfe.org via Microsoft blogs, 9to5Mac]

It seems Microsoft is almost ready to release their popular IM client, Windows Live Messenger for the iPhone and iPod touch. The app is said to arrive this June and will contain photo sharing, chat, and a social stream – which looks to include a Facebook stream and possibly a Twitter stream as well.

Their second major app following Bing, if the software giant is finally warming up the the iPhone platform perhaps Microsoft will get the ball rolling on Office in the not so distant future.

Screen shots after the break!

[Neowin]

Apple has sued HTC for patent infringement with Android almost certainly being the target, now it turns out Microsoft believes Android also infringes on their patents and HTC has just paid up.

That means the free-as-in-Google smartphone OS isn’t free anymore — it’s just Microsoft who’s getting the money for it, and from the maker of the Nexus One, Desire, Legend, and Droid Incredible no less. That hurts Android.

How the deal affects HTC’s position in the Apple patent infringement case, however, is unclear. If HTC can point to a licensed Microsoft patent for technology Apple claims HTC is infringing upon then that no doubt helps HTC and hurts Apple and the iPhone.

With Windows Phone 7 series fast approaching, it looks like Microsoft took the opportunity to get more than a little Sun Tzu on their smartphone rivals last night.

Now lets see how Google — and Apple — respond.

[CNET via Android Central]

In this post are two Kins. We will link to them now. Microsoft’s new two Kins. “Social phones” sure to wow.

Project Pink (no not that one) but with a name that’s all new. Two phones Microsoft’s calling Kin One and Kin Two.

These Kins won’t have App Stores, they’re for tweens and for fun. All Facebook and Twitter for tweens on the run.

They will have media and browsers (yes it’s IE). They’ll even hook to Macs. (Drive-mode USB).

So add to Xbox and Zune, Windows and Azune, two Kins for the cloud (and branding? No matter!)

Neither TiPb nor I have much more to say. Windows Phone 7, after all, was just yesterday.

But at least Google and Microsoft still aren’t making phones. Who’s next not to make one we wonder… Nintendo? Amazon?

Microsoft has released a new version of Bing [Free - iTunes link] for the iPhone and iPod touch. Florian Voss chronicled on their blog, includes:

Bookmarks and improved web browsing: you can now bookmark maps, directions, web sites, businesses, search terms, even the weather report, and get to the bookmarks right from the Bing home page.

Sharing: you can share interesting results with your friends using e-mail.

Copy and paste URLs: you told us and we listened! We now support copying and pasting URLs.

Parental control on search settings: we helped make search safer by letting you set a SafeSearch level and create a passcode so it can’t be changed. This is a benefit for parents who want to make sure the kids are only going to safe sites on their devices.

Search history and private search: you can now view and edit your search history. You can also search the web without saving your history on the device using private search.

Explicit location setting: let your iPhone find you or set a specific location so you can search near there (super useful when you’re going to travel to another city and want to find things around there).

Tighter integration of contacts in directions: Bing now autosuggests contacts from your address book when you enter start and end locations in directions.

Support for 1st generation iPod touch devices: we now support all versions of iPod touch.

While Google and Apple continue to squabble, and speculation remains that Bing might become the next default search engine for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, it’s nice to see Microsoft continue to invest in — and improve –the App Store app.

Note: Sadly, it appears to be US only still. For the biggest software company in the world, ignoring most of the world is… disappointing. Let’s share the Bing, shall we?

Video from Macworld 2010 of TiPb talking with Florian Voss about Bing for iPhone re-embedded after the break!

[Thanks to our good buddy Phil for the tip!]

Today at MIX10 Microsoft told our sibling site WMExperts that there would be no cut, copy, and paste in Windows Phone 7 Series, which follows on the news of an Apple iPhone-style closed app market and lack of 3rd party multitasking. When the original iPhone 2G debuted in 2007 without cut, copy, and paste, multitasking, and most importantly a third-party app platform, it led certain editors-in-chief who shall remain nameless (though not pictured-less) wondered — and not unjustifiably — if the iPhone could be considered a smartphone?

iPhone 2.0 brought the 3rd party apps. iPhone 3.0 brought cut, copy, paste and a host of other “missing” features. iPhone 4.0 may even bring multitasking. Regardless, we thought the iPhone 2G certainly was a smartphone then, and now, and certainly think the same about Windows Phone 7 Series, and Palm webOS when it debuted lacking certain features. It takes an incredible amount of effort to launch a new mobile OS and no company, not Apple, not Google, not even Microsoft have unlimited time, talent, and resources to nail everything in version 1.0. Our question remains, to get cut, copy, and paste (or whatever feature you think is missing), what other feature would you give up? Notifications? The new user experience? There’s an opportunity cost to everything.

Of course, when Apple launched iPhone 1.0 it wasn’t leaving behind a large existing user base accustomed to many of those now missing features the way Microsoft is with Windows Phone 7 Series. So, yeah, it’ll be interesting to see if they can grab enough new users to make up for all the ones they’re gone to lose. Because, if all those Windows 6.x users are suddenly faced with something new and different, it may not be too far a stretch to go for a different platform entirely. Including an iPhone. Which has cut, copy, and paste and may just have multitasking by then. So to them, to you, potential iPhone switchers:

Welcome! How you doing?

I had the chance to talk to Microsoft’s Loke Uei about Windows Phone 7 Series at GDC last week and he was cagey and super-secretive about the version running on his pre-production unit. He did, however, promise more would be revealed at MIX 10 this week in Las Vegas. Well, our very own editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn, is at the show right now to seek it out. He’ll be covering the keynote live at 9am PT, 12pm ET over at WMExperts.com.

What might be interesting to TiPb readers is the approach Microsoft is taking — it looks to be one of the first truly different post-iPhone smartphone concepts that’s not really app-centric but rather aggregation centric. They haven’t sold me on the UI yet, but the flow between “experiences” looks stellar, as does the logical way in which information is grouped and made available. It’s going after consumers, which is the heart of the iPhone market.

Will Apple have to up their game for iPhone 4.0 in face of what the competition is (finally!) bringing to market in 2010?

Much to the chagrin of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Devices and Entertainment honcho Robbie Bach, the Wall Street Journal reports that even publicly stomping on employee iPhones hasn’t stamped them out:

Nearly 10,000 iPhone users were accessing the Microsoft employee email system last year, say two people who heard the estimates from senior Microsoft executives. That figure equals about 10% of the company’s global work force.

Outside of specific development units like Bing for iPhone, while using an iPhone at Microsoft isn’t forbidden, it’s discouraged. Microsoft will only re-emburse expenses for Windows Phone-based devices. Likewise, several executives have spoken out against using iPhones, including Ballmer who quipped that his father worked at Ford and so his family always drove Ford.

While a few use the openly, others hide them in generic cases — or make sure not to answer them if they’re in a room with Ballmer. (Or use them if they’re a member of the Gates family!)

Apple employees, of course, are not thought to be using Windows Mobile devices in any perceptible quantity. Could Windows Phone 7 Series change that…?

According to the gadget website T3, Microsoft Senior Product Manager Mike Tedesco recently let it be known that the Seattle based company is currently toying with the possibility of creating a version of their Office suite for Apple’s iPad.

“Yeah, it’s something that we’re looking at,” said Microsoft’s Mike Tedesco, who is the Senior Product Manager for WindowsBU. “Obviously the announcement (of the iPad) is really fresh and there’s nothing to announce or nothing that I can talk to you about today. We’ve had tablet technology forever and both Windows 7 and Windows Vista automatically detect that and you can be running your Office on there.”

This is great news as it is has the ability to attract a huge sector of business users to the iPad. Perhaps this is just a sign of things to come between Apple and Microsoft. We first heard the rumor of the two companies trying to oust Google by making Bing the default search engine on iPhone. Now we learn Microsoft is interested in Office on iPad and what’s next, Office on iPhone?

[Via MacRumors via T3]

Former Microsoft CEO, Bill Gates, and Windows Vista honcho, Bill Allchin, had an email exchange back in 2003 when Apple launched iTunes and were rather candid about how well Steve Jobs put it together, and how badly Microsoft was caught off guard.

Gates says Microsoft was caught “flat footed”. He also praises Jobs and doubts the subscription model Microsoft now uses for the Zune HD:

Steve Jobs ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.

[...] With the subscription who can promise you that the cool new stuff you want (or old stuff) will be there?

Allchin was much briefer:

1. How did they get the music companies to go along?

2. We were smoked.

Gizmodo, via Groklaw have the full emails online. The question now becomes, is Apple still catching the competition flat-footed, or is Apple the one who now needs to be careful, lest they be smoked?

[Image via WikiMedia Commons]

Prior to Steve Jobs laying into Google and Adobe, Google, Nokia, Microsoft, and Nintendo got their shots in on Apple and the iPad, and here’s what they had to say:

• Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “You might want to tell me the difference between a large phone and a tablet.” [via Business Insider]

Someone might want to tell him people are making Android tablets, or is he still using BlackBerry?

• Nokia social point-main Mark Squires: In a post titled, “A fruit confused”, he takes issue with Apple calling itself the world’s largest mobile devices business (measured by revenue). [via Nokia Conversations]

Fair enough, considering there are lies, damn lies, and statistics, but the title of the post… really?

• Microsoft director of product management in the developer platform, Brandon Watson: “developers of applications for the iPhone OS–which the iPad uses–are not making money. Developing applications for the iPhone and iPad is expensive, he said, because iPhone OS uses the Objective C language rather than Microsoft’s more pervasive .NET platform. And Apple’s control over the platform has alienated some people that make software for its products, he said.” [via Technologizer]

Cue Windows Mobile millionaire dev and their 140,000 runtimes in 5… 4… 3… 2…

• Nintendo President Satoru Iwata: ‘It was a bigger iPod Touch. I question whether those features would be enough to get people to buy new machines.” [via NYT]

Never mind his own company just released a bigger version of their own, the Nintendo DSi LL… He’s missing the same point many others are likewise missing. The iPad isn’t just a big iPod touch. The iPad is a big iPod touch. That’s its killer feature.

And yes, we’ll be saving all these comments, and any others we come across, and looking back at them one year post-iPad launch to see if it works out any better for the competition than it did when the iPhone was mocked in 2007…

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in!]

Jim Goldman of CNBC claims to have a source that is giving up some goods on the whole Apple and Microsoft teaming up against Google fiasco story:

• Microsoft wants part of the iPhone pie as the Bing app is currently bringing more web traffic than all of their Verizon deals put together.
• Microsoft is willing to pay Apple more than Google.
• Apple simply needs the search API from Bing, nothing more. (They will roll their own UI).
• Lastly, “Jobs hates Eric“

Ouch, that last one stings. How long will it be until we see Apple create their own search engine? Anyone taking bets?

[Via Yahoo, thanks to The Reptile for the tip!]

Business Insider is reporting that, given Google’s new rise to smartphone rival, Apple is now in talks with previous-generation frenemy Microsoft to replace the iPhone’s default search engine with Bing.

“Apple and Google know the other is their primary enemy,” says one of the people, who’s familiar with Apple’s thinking. “Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle.” Apple is also working on ways to manage ad placement on its mobile devices, a move that would encroach on Google’s ad-serving business, the person says.

The iPhone is a monster on the mobile internet, and default search engine status is worth monstrous amounts of cash to those who get to serve ads along with the results. But let’s slow down a moment here…

First, they’re basing this on the usual anonymous sources which could be right, wrong, or trying to manipulate the Apple/Google/Microsoft situation by “leaking” this. Hey, we’ve seen that happen when Apple negotiates with carriers. Second, Business Week further states the deal could still fly apart, or could take a long time to be reached. Third, right now Google is the default search engine on the iPhone but users can still switch to Yahoo!, so if Bing gets added to that list, even if it becomes the default, presumably users could still switch to Google (or Yahoo!… or is that already Bing?). And then there’s the nu-cu-lar option:

The person familiar with Apple’s thinking says Apple has a “skunk works” looking at a search offering of its own, and believes that “if Apple does do a search deal with Microsoft, it’s about buying itself time.” Given the importance of search and its tie to mobile advertising—and the iPhone maker’s desire to slow Google—”Apple isn’t going to outsource the future.”

Likely why they wanted to buy AdMob and ended up buying Quattro Wireless, and why Steve Jobs wants to get involved with mobile advertising.

What would happen to other Google-powered service apps like Maps isn’t discussed (though Apple has bought PlaceBase for map data layering). However, this just further shows what TiPb has been saying for a while now — Apple believes the UI is the application for the user, and controlling the UI means they can swap out the pipes in the background (swap out Google Search, swap in Bing Search) without much problem (as long as the new pipe produces good, visually non-jarring results). When a huge competitor like Google tries to control the interface, like with a Google Voice app, then Apple has a problem because they can’t swap Google out with Microsoft Voice (or whatever), but a user can ditch the iPhone hardware for an Android device and be perfectly familiar with that UI front end.

Microsoft and Ford were showing off the third version of Ford Sync at CES, and Casey and Phil from Android Central and I jumped in and got a demo. The good news is that it works great. It plays your music, makes your phone calls, and alert the authorities in case of accident, and more…

The bad news is the “and more” doesn’t apply to iPhone and iPod touch owners since Apple hasn’t properly implemented all the Bluetooth control protocols. Also, SMS to voice isn’t implemented for the iPhone, and I’m guessing that has to do with the current SDK as well.

Still, the system looks slick and solid, supports multiple phones and music players, and lets you focus on your driving rather than fiddling with your devices. As more places make hands-free mandatory, it’s also going to be increasingly important.

I saw Microsoft’s massive booth at CES and a giant Bing sign so, optimistically, I went on over to talk with them while our friends from WMExperts hit up the devices. The Bing folks were great, but had no specific knowledge about Bing for iPhone other than there was an app and it did stuff but was kinda beta outside the US. Fair enough. So I headed over to the main reception and asked if there was anyone there from the Microsoft iPhone team. And that’s when it got funny. “What iPhone team?”

Eventually they sent me over to the Windows Phone counter, who just laughed at me and got annoyed that I was sent there.

Why am I posting this? Microsoft is one of, if not still the, biggest software maker in the world. Whether they offer a competing mobile platform or not, there are probably approaching 70 million iPhones on the market, and Microsoft provides Exchange ActiveSync, and apps like SeaDragon (okay, Microsoft Labs, but still), and Bing (which they’d like to be a big deal). That there was no one from Microsoft’s iPhone team at Macworld last year was silly but understandable. That there’s no one here at CES 2010 this year — or at least if there is, they’re not at all discoverable — is just dumb.

If you’re not going to do integrated offerings, if you’re going to be the “network nervous system” that services everyone, if you’re going to offer software and services for other popular platforms — show up and evangelize them. If you want to compete against Google and be taken seriously, if you’re going to be in the game — have some players show up.

UPDATE: According to WMExperts liveblog, it was a Tablet PC by HP running Windows 7 and called — wait for it — the HP Slate. Yes, named after Apple’s latest tablet name rumor. Looks chunky, and its using a desktop OS. Okay.

ORIGINAL: So the rumor is Steve is about to introduce a new tablet device — no, not Steve Jobs of Apple, but his nemesis Steve Ballmer of Microsoft — and he’s rumored to be doing it tonight at CES!

Our sibling site, WMExperts, has the details and Dieter and Phil will be there live covering Ballmer’s keynote at 9:30pm ET, 6:30pm PT, 2:30am GT (tomorrow morning, yeah?)

Will it be the crazy courier concept we saw before? More Tablet PC tomfoolery? Surface-to-go? And if Apple is unicorns, is this the pegasus?

And does this have any effect on Apple’s rumored iTablet show on Jan. 27? Or does Apple just ignore what everyone else is doing, as usual, and show up with what they got?

PCWorld, ReadWrite Enterprise, and 9to5mac all have interesting “what-if” articles up that describes a mirror universe where Apple and Microsoft unite to fight off the advances of an all-powerful Google.

Admittedly a lot has happened over the last year or so: Google entering the smartphone space with Android and the desktop with Chrome OS, the strained relations over Google Voice, the shattered directorate as Google CEO Eric Schmidt left the Apple Board while Arthur Levinson stayed on Apple and left Google.

PC World thinks Apple’s device could make up for the long delays in Windows Mobile 7 while Microsoft could provide the equally long-missing enterprise credibility for the iPhone.

9to5mac, for their part, points out that Microsoft’s Bing could also supply many of the search and mapping related features the iPhone currently relies on Google for.

Could their enemy’s enemy be their friends, even when Apple and Microsoft have had such a longstanding, classic rivalry of their own? And in this mirror universe, is it Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer, or Eric Schmidt who wears the goatee of evil?

Paul Thurrott over at the Windows Supersite Blog posted this up in reference to Microsoft’s apparent strategy so far when it comes to Windows Mobile and Zune.

Funny.

Steve Jobs likes to quote hockey legend Wayne Gretzsky’s famous line — don’t skate to where the puck is, skate to where it will be. Let’s just hope they remember that, and this comic, and really bring it next year with iPhone 4.0 and the 4th generation iPhone, now that Android 2.x and webOS are on the ice.

Microsoft has just made Bing [Free - iTunes app] their second iPhone and iPod touch app (no, Office wasn’t first — that’s still MIA — the amazing image-zooming Seadragon was), and it’s fairly impressive. It takes a lot of the services Google powers throughout the iPhone and the Google Mobile app and collects them all in one place — internet text string search, image, movies, a business directory, news, and maps and directions. You can also do Voice Search though without the accelerometer and proximity sensor tricks that make’s Google’s version so Star Trek.

The Bing app is great looking as well, with large photo backgrounds a la Bing website (and yes, you can tap the rounded square overlays to get factoids). Text string searches are pretty much on par with Google, sometimes returning more sensible results in more logical orders, sometimes not. A simple image search for “theiphoneblog bing”, however, returned no results from the Bing app, and exactly what I was looking for in Google. (see below). Likewise, Voice Search tended to crash the app when it went into “thinking” mode. The business and other directory-style information is great, as usual with Bing.

If you’re interested in comparing Microsoft’s own Windows Mobile version, our buddy Phil from WMExperts has you covered. If you’re wondering why Microsoft made Bing for the iPhone, despite Steve Ballmer cracking wise about the iPhone and the internet, Apple’s platform enjoys a huge share of the mobile browsing space and Bing wants those eyeballs as much as the just-as-competitive-now Google.

Screenshots after the break!

[Bing via Thurrott]

ZDnet is reporting that Microsoft has plans to port their Zune software over to other platforms… and that means rumors of Zune on iPhone.

“Zune is a music and video service from Microsoft. Period, Our next step is mobile phones, but we haven’t talked about a timeline for when that will happen.”

Just more proof that Microsoft is treating the Zune platform as software rather than hardware. Now, we don’t know about any of you, but we are highly doubtful you will ever see Zune content on any iPod or iPhone. But for all of you who are Mac owners and Zune faithful, this may be a good sign of things to come as sometime in the near future you may be able to sync your Zune with your Mac.

Then again how many of you actually own a Zune?

[Via ZDnet]

Microsoft today takes the wrappers off their latest generation of mobile software and services, and our good friend George Ponder from sibling site WMExpert.com gives us the details in his complete Windows Mobile 6.5 review. The pre-amble sums things up well from an iPhone point of view:

For some, the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 may very well be a non-event. But it marks the beginning of a journey for Windows Mobile and a new approach to mobile computing with the Windows Phone.

Rumor has it even Microsoft doesn’t believe WinMo 6.5 is competitive with the iPhone — that’s be next year’s Windows Mobile 7, which even Steve Ballmer thinks is way late to the party. It’s a refresh of a refresh of a refresh. But it does show which direction Microsoft is going, and how the “one OS, multiple handset vendors” strategy is shaping up or them.

Along with Windows Mobile 6.5, Microsoft is also launching Windows Marketplace for Mobile (think App Store) and the previously-in-beta My Phone online service (think Mobile Me, with backups, and also now with “Find my iPhone” er… “Find my Windows Phone” features!).

WMExperts will be live-blogging all the Windows Mobile 6.5 festivities starting at 10am EDT, so head on over there if you want to join in the fun.

Rumor has it Microsoft is on the verge of axing the Pink Project. Come on, you remember those Pure Turtle phones we’ve been hearing about for months? The ones built by the former Danger/Sidekick team that might run Zune software and compete for the hearts and minds of tweens (TM PalmCast) everywhere? Yeah, those. Axed. Finished. Ballmered.

Seems like since their dear leader Andy Rubin left to father Android for Google, things have been on something of a downward spiral:

Amongst remaining employees, dissent is high. Much of the team uses iPhones around the office, or their old Sidekick handsets. Employees “hate the product” internally, many feeling that the division exists only to “challenge [the Windows Mobile 7 team] and upset them into competing.” Our source outright indicated that they felt the product was never intended to ship.

Malatesta from WMExperts.com is hearing conflicting stories, so take the above with a FUD-sized grain of salt. Still, even if Pink isn’t dead, given what’s left of the Danger team, the designs we’ve seen leaked so far, and the fact that Windows Mobile needs all the help it can get right now, maybe it ought to be?

[MobileCrunch via WMExperts]

While TiPb is still waiting for an iPhone 3.1.1 bug-fix update, not to mention iPhone 3.2 betas to start dropping, it looks like the competition is getting their OS on this week:

• Palm webOS 1.2 didn’t re-enable the iTunes hack (kudos Palm!) but did bring some nifty new features including Amazon MP3 downloads over 3G, the foundations for paid apps in the App Catalog, improved cut and paste, and much more.
• Android 1.6 Donut is expected to hit now’ish as well. A new Android Market is coming with it, but not multi-touch — at least not yet.
• BlackBerry OS 5.0 still doesn’t seem to be official, but is leaking out all over the place (would that Apple had such porous pipes!). It’ll make your Berry more Berry, though it doesn’t seem to integrate a real browser yet, despite what the commercials say…
• Windows Mobile 6.5 might be on 30 Windows Phones by 2010, though even Ballmer is finally admitting Windows Mobile 7 should have been out this year. Bottom-line, it’s a skin-job, and even though it looks hawt’er than a old style centurion, it’s still a machine on the inside.

What does that mean for the iPhone? Even if RIM looks locked in stasis, Palm and Microsoft appear to have up-hill battles re-gaining their traction, and Android is still slowly ramping up, Apple can’t afford to coast. A new OS from RIM, a Palm-style rebirth from Microsoft, and webOS and Android gaining marketshare are all possibilities. Many of these updates have interesting new features that hopefully Apple is looking at and working their own magic on.

So, let’s get on with the 3.2… and 4.0. March is only 6 months away, after all, and Apple needs something else to wow Smartphone buyers with at the next SDK event…

Some feel there’s got to be more to this Microsoft Pink platform, Turtle and Pure phone concept than meets the eye. We’re wondering if, like Newman on Seinfeld, there’s actually less?

Could it really just be a Microsoft Sidekick running Zune HD software?

On the face, we’d say that’s crazy. Microsoft already has Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows Mobile 7, and the Zune HD on the market, would they really fragment their offering further by releasing an Instinct-class consumer phone?

Anyone else, never. Microsoft, absolutely.

In their defense, they’ve said Windows 7 will be their iPhone killa, while Windows 6.5 targets Android. These bad boys? We’re honestly not sure…

However, going this route does mean they likely won’t stab their WinMo hardware partners where it hurts, the way they did their MP3 player partners when they abandoned PlaysForSure and released the Zune…

[Gizmodo via WMExperts]

While everyone is waiting on Apple to unveil their universally rumored iTablet/iPad device next year, Gizmodo has just scored the scoop on what Microsoft just might be planning to counter it — the “Courier” tablet.

Decidedly un-Apple in it’s approach, with dual booklet screens, pen and touch input, and feel that’s all organized chaos, it’s also strikingly different to Microsoft’s previous Tablet PC efforts (which were largely tweaked versions of XP and then Vista). Here’s why:

Until recently, it was a skunkworks project deep inside Microsoft, only known to the few engineers and executives working on it—Microsoft’s brightest, like Entertainment & Devices tech chief and user-experience wizard J. Allard, who’s spearheading the project. Currently, Courier appears to be at a stage where Microsoft is developing the user experience and showing design concepts to outside agencies.

Head on over to Gizmodo to see a video of the concept in action (not iPhone friendly, sorry). Then come back here, tell us what you like and don’t like, and let us know how you think Apple’s take on the tablet will differ.

Now this is something from Microsoft that we’re really excited about — Office Web Apps that take the traditional second pillar of Microsoft’s business and launch it up into the iPhone Safari browser-compatible cloud.

We’d prefer a native Microsoft Office for iPhone at this point, of course, but a free (ad supported, though hopefully not with 15-30 sec. un-skippable commercials…) version online? That’s a great “good enough for now”.

Microsoft has just begun showing off the tech preview, though Techcrunch says the mobile version is still in its infancy:

We mentioned in our original post in July that the ability to use products across the OS, browser, and mobile device is a key part of Microsoft’s strategy. We actually demo’d the Sharepoint-based version of PowerPoint on an iPhone and it was disarmingly sleek. While this functionality has already been established for Sharepoint, the SkyDrive-based apps are still being developed to work on mobile browsers. Microsoft says it will be done by the time the product launches next year.

With Google‘s Web Apps really raising the bar (and bringing the competitive pressure), it’s not surprising to see Microsoft pushing back. And, hey, maybe Apple could get in the game and start doing something more interesting with iWork.com as well…

As Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was taking the stage for a private company meeting at Seattle’s Safeco Field, he saw an employee about to snap his picture with… an iPhone. So, Ballmer decided to snap instead. TechFlash (via Engadget) reports he grabbed the iPhone from the hapless employee, began making “funny comments”, put the iPhone on the floor and pretended to stamp on it, and then continued on, only to remind the employee he hadn’t forgotten about him later.

Maybe Ballmer should just forbid iPhones at Microsoft the way Bill Gates forbids them at home? Or, you know, get Windows Mobile back in order and make a phone so good no one at Microsoft would want to use anything else?

Of course, if it had been an Apple event, and Steve Jobs had caught one of his employees rocking an Windows Mobile device, no doubt Jobs eyes would have glowed and Omega Beams would have shot out and fried the poor soul on the spot.

(Yeah, we know Apple Store employees all use Windows CE devices to process credit card transactions, shhhh!).

Learn that Name for the iPhone, coming soon to the iTunes App Store for $2.99, beat out 14 other apps and walked away with top honour at the Startup Weekend’s 54-hour coding marathon. Oh, and did we mention the event was sponsored by Microsoft, held on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, and was the only app NOT built on Microsoft’s platform.

Said organizer Clint Nelson upon naming the top vote getter:

“Awkward.”

Yeah, that’ll do it.

Could Apple eventually gain monopoly status in one or more businesses, and become as “evil” (or worse) as Microsoft was when regulators went after them in the 1990s? Windows pundit Paul Thurrott thinks so, and thinks it’s time to act now before it’s too late.

Now, Thurrott is an interesting dichotomy, well-balanced on his Windows Weekly podcast yet Dvorak‘ian in link-baiting on his blog. He’s pro Microsoft all the way, but has still been unable to find anything as compelling as the iPhone or iPod in their respective spaces. So, assuming we’re dealing with the more even handed podcasting and iPhone-using Thurrott, and we’re not just biting his baited link, his argument here is this:

until very recently, Apple was the underdog, and they’ve been the underdog for almost their entire existence. This creates a certain mindset, and under Steve Jobs especially, it’s created a very aggressive competitive spirit. This aggressiveness is fine when you are literally the underdog, just as was the case with Microsoft early in its career and it was trying to wrest the PC industry from IBM, Lotus, WordPerfect, and other tech dinosaurs. But once you have a dominant market position, that aggressive behavior–so important for an up-and-comer–isn’t just bad, it’s illegal. It’s just hard to turn it off when it’s been part of the corporate psyche for so long.

His answer?

With this obvious comparison of two very similarly belligerent companies–Microsoft of the mid-1990s and Apple of today–in mind, I think the time has come to rein Apple in. To examine Apple’s exclusive relationships with wireless carriers. To force it to open up iTunes to competing players, and its iPhone and iPod devices to competing software and services. If we don’t do this now, it will only be more difficult in the future. All you have to do is look at Microsoft’s never-ending antitrust saga–which has now stretched on for 15 years, involved regulatory bodies on three continents, and gone on far longer than its actual bad behavior–to see why it’s time.

The problem?

Apple is not yet a monopoly in any real business. They may own the Mac and the iPhone outright, but those are tiny blips in the big PC space and the increasingly vast smartphone space. Apple likely will never be a smartphone monopoly, and artificially defining a “consumer smartphone” is like defining a “Redmond MP3 player” space and pondering Zune regulation.

Speaking of MP3 players, in that space Apple could arguably be approaching monopoly status, though the market according to Apple themselves is now fading (hence their development of the iPhone). Even if Apple does mathematically hold an effective MP3 monopoly at some point, that’s not illegal. Abusing such a monopoly would be, for example forcing Best Buy not to carry Zune’s if they want iPods.

Otherwise, much as I (and Thurrott himself) find the notion of the EU’s constant browser bashing of Microsoft ridiculous given the advances of Firefox and WebKit (Safari and Chrome), the idea of forcing open what’s essentially content management software like iTunes is equally silly. (Note: Not letting iTunes run on Windows is a specious parallel, iTunes is an app, not a platform). What’s next, PS3 isn’t getting a fair shake so we have to force Nintendo to allow PS3 games and license Mario? Sigh.

As to movies and TV shows, if Big Media would drop their consumer-hostile DRM schemes, then just like MP3 both Apple and Microsoft (and others) could sell unlocked movies and TV Shows that users could play on or move between any device. That’s not an Apple problem, it’s a Hollywood problem, and consumers should channel that rage appropriately (especially towards legislators who are heavily funded and lobbied by Hollywood to “protect” their content from us evil customers).

Personally, I never left Microsoft because I thought they were “evil” (IE6 aside, of course), I left because I found better device(s) to suit my needs from another company (while Microsoft was being punished by the DOJ and EU, fancy that). If that happens again with Apple, I’ll likely move again.

Maybe to Android. Oh, wait, Google is a monopoly in search and online advertising, and is slowly ensconcing themselves on every device and harvesting my data for… what? Maybe they’re evil and should be stopped right now as well?

Slope, meet slippery.

UPDATE: XNA Game Studio is the Zune SDK? B’okay…

Has Microsoft been approaching successful iPhone developers, offering “a bucket of money” for them to port their popular apps over to the new Zune HD platform? That’s what Daring Fireball is hearing:

I got an email from the developer of an iPhone Twitter client. He was contacted by Microsoft a few months ago, with an offer to port his app to the Zune in exchange for “a bucket of money”. He turned them down, but assumes, as I do, that Microsoft reached out to the developers of multiple popular iPhone apps.

There’s no way of knowing how many iPhone devs have gone “Zune for pay” at this point, but it’s a smart move by Microsoft, since they’re trying to compete directly with the iPod touch and apps are a huge part of the iPod touch’s appeal.

The iPod touch, however, has had a public SDK and apps since version OS 2.0 was announced and subsequently released over a year ago. Apple’s platform therefore has a huge lead and Microsoft is again left more competitive with previous years’ offerings. In any event, here’s hoping Microsoft does release a public Zune HD SDK of their own at some point — and that they finally, finally, decide to share a consistent platform between Zune and Windows Mobile 7…

According to sibling site WMExperts, Microsoft has released a developers guide for porting iPhone apps to — shock and horror — Windows Mobile.

Can’t blame them, though, 65,000 apps via a unified, on-device store, fart apps and rejected apps aside, is a huge competitive gap to make up, especially when your previous generation was stuck in a Windows 95-style user experience.

Selfishly, we hope the competition helps force out those fart apps and get those rejected apps back into Apple’s iTunes App Store where they belong…

Yahoo! and Microsoft have just announced a 10-year search deal where Microsoft’s newly re-branded Bing service will take over web searches for the venerable Yahoo! For its part, Yahoo! will get 88% of ad-based search revenue for 5 years and the ability to sell ads to some Microsoft search sites as well and limited access to user data.

Um, okay. Is that a good deal? Even if it doesn’t face any regulatory or approval problems, the deal won’t close until next year and then will take up to a couple of years to get up and running.

So, impact on the iPhone and iPhone users in the short term is likely nothing. Although, like Jacob’s nemesis on Lost, it could mean Microsoft has finally found a loophole to get their Bing search service onto the iPhone…

Currently the iPhone offers too search options via Settings > Safari: Google and Yahoo. Will Apple be switching that to Google and Bing?

Either Microsoft thinks it’s still April 1, or they really are going to open Microsoft Stores right next door to Apple Stores. Gizmodo provides the quote:

And stay tuned, because we’re going to have some retail stores opened up that are opened up right next door to Apple stores this fall. Stay tuned, just stay tuned.

Tuned to what, Comedy Central? We’ve made fun of this before — and rightly so — but it seems Microsoft is again entering a business just because Apple or Google are in it. And is that really sound strategy in anything outside a Hollywood parody? (Starring Will Farrel, ‘natch).

Sony Style Stores haven’t hit the mark yet, and Microsoft Stores selling shrink-wrap Windows 7 with free Songsmith classes…? Sigh. Apple needs competition. Good, focused competition that builds successful core business on top of successful core business.

We don’t see Google Stores opening up next door, do we? Microsoft, if you’re going to clone something, clone the focus. Please.

Was Apple’s just released App Store announcement — and Steve Jobs’ remark about how difficult it will be for others to catch up — conveniently timed to preempt Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference where, according to our sibling site WMExperts, details of Windows Marketplace for Mobiles are emerging?

1.5 billion downloads, 100,000 developers, and 65,000 apps is a good old Jobsian gut punch to knock the wind of out any Microsoft news about WinMo 6.0 support, Windows Marketplace Business Center, and whatever else comes out from the folks up in Redmond.

It also combines in a very tidy roshambo to Verizon’s recent revelation that, according to Engadget Mobile, BlackBerry App World or Windows Marketplace won’t be built into devices on that carrier(?!)… and we won’t go much further on that bone-headed, short-sighted, anti-openness news since our cursing would get Parental Control level 17+ slapped on this post…

Despite frequent, repeated denials from Microsoft that they aren’t making a Zune Phone to pit against Apple’s iPhone juggernaut, our sibling site WMExperts keeps compiling evidence that Microsoft might be doing just that.

The latest is that Pink (as it’s code-named) has an ad agency, will be based on Windows Mobile 7 but have it’s own proprietary UI layer, should be available next year-ish, and provide Zune, My Phone, and Windows Marketplace for Mobiles functionality.

So have Microsoft’s previous denials been based on crossed fingers and the “truthiness” of actually making a Zune HD Phone? Or as TiPb has been predicting, an Xbox Phone?

Let’s face it, Microsoft would be negligent and borderline daft not to integrate the technologies and leverage the brand of Xbox.

Oh, wait…

In a write up nonchalantly titled “Lies, damn lies, statistics, and Apple…“, our good friend Phil Nickinson over at sister-site WMExperts rightly points out that Apple gave Windows Mobile a full on shunning during the WWDC 2009 keynote:

Windows Mobile isn’t even mentioned. Sure, Microsoft hasn’t yet launched its dedicated app store, Windows Marketplace for Mobile. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t stores from which to buy apps – ahem, here’s one – and it’s an insult to all of the developers of the 20,000 Windows Mobile applications available.

Windows 7 did get a mention (and a ribbing, as usual, from OS X head Bertrand Serlet), but in the smartphone space…?

Nothing.

That might seem callous from Apple’s part — but here’s the worse problem for Microsoft: Windows Mobile was missing from a lot of post-WWDC analyst and media commentary as well.

Apple still owns significant smartphone mind-share and the Palm Pre has captured the attention of the blogsphere and, since RIM is holding fast, that’s coming at the expense of Microsoft (and maybe Android, which was last year’s next big thing).

Realistically, with so many platforms now, when someone writes “Apple iPhone and…” “BlackBerry and…” and now “Palm Pre and…” there’s only room for so many others in the sentence, and those places are becoming increasingly competitive.

With Windows Mobile 7 pushed out until 2010, and 6.5 not in consumer hands yet either, and with iPhone 3G S about to hit, things might not be changing any time soon either…

So, two and a half years ago Microsoft released what was basically their version of the 2005 video iPod. Now, some two years after Apple released the iPod touch, WMExperts (via Engagdet and CNET) tells us Microsoft has confirmed… the Zune HD, a wide screen, capacitive, solid-state media player.

At 272×480, it’s not quite as wide as the iPhone’s 320×480, much less the high-end Windows Mobile handsets like the Touch HD’s 480×800. But like we said, it is capacitive (which is strangely still unsupported by WinPho) and what pixels it has are OLED, which will hopefully motivate Apple to give the next generation iPhone the same treatment.

Other features include HD radio support and something nobody can believe they didn’t do from the outset: integrate it with the Xbox product line.

We’re still left wondering, however, is this really a business Microsoft needs to be in? Wouldn’t Zune resources have been better used to get Windows Mobile 7 out last year instead of next when it could be, you know, competitive?!

Microsoft produces Windows, the operating system of choice for most iPhone users, and Exchange ActiveSync, the push data system Apple (and Google!) have licensed for business users. They also make Sync, the integration system found in Ford cars, which has just gotten an update.

TWICE (via CNET) lists all sorts of interesting info on the update, but the really interesting part is what’s revealed about future updates, including support for Pandora streaming internet radio, and… the iPhone:

“We’ll be able to link you to your Internet in the car. If you brought an iPhone into the vehicle, you could interact with that through voice. You could then read your email by voice,” said Joe Berry, Ford business and product development director for Sync, referring to a future version of Sync.

Good news for Ford owners… eventually.

(Thanks to the Reptile for the tip!)

Okay, if you buy an empty iPod Classic, have never owned a CD or bought a piece of music in your life, and are determine to immediately fill that 120GBs to the brim, then $30K iTunes will cost you.

However, if you’ve already got a sizable CD collection, or music collection of any kind — even your own compositions — or want to carry around class lectures or other forms of audio or — hey — video maybe, well, it can cost much, much less. Maybe even less than the $15 a month Microsoft would rather you cough up to them for a ZunePass subscription.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the subscription model. I don’t think it can hold a candle to the iPhone and iPod touches coup de grace — online streaming music for (pretty much) free — but for some users subscription is the way to go. (Especially now in the DRM-free world where Microsoft shutting down PlaysForSure didn’t threaten to destroy large and dearly-paid for music collections, right Microsoft?). What I am against is bland, ultimately not compelling advertising. Ars Technica lays it out:

As of November 2008, the Zune Pass allows its users to keep any 10 songs per month. In other words, if you wanted 30,000 songs for keeps, just like the iTunes Store, you would have to wait 250 years. The cost would be a whopping $45,000, however. In other words, it’s only really worth it if you’re OK with the fact that you have to keep paying the monthly fee to keep access to the songs that you don’t yet own. Otherwise, iTunes (or any other à la carte model) is the way to go.

And again, the iPhone and iPod touch (for which Microsoft has no competitive offering since they keep denying the ZunePhone and Zune HD is still vaporware) can do better, cheaper with free internet radio apps.

Unless you want an extra $15+ bill tacked onto your monthly services overhead?

(Thanks Matt for the tip!)

We love many things about the iPhone. Most things even. One of the few things we’re not so chuffed about is the weird, wacky restrictions Apple places on App Store apps, and the sometimes haphazard way in which those restrictions are applied.

So, one edge we thought the other platforms might have would be the relative openness of their competing app stores. Turns out maybe not so much. How so? Our buddy Phil Nickinson over on WMExperts spent his weekend scouring through Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace for Mobile restrictions, and at first blush they appear at least as crazy as Apple’s:

• No VOIP apps using a carrier’s data. (Will WiFi be OK?)
• No apps that replace or modify the default dialer, SMS or MMS apps.
• No apps with an OTA download of over 10MB. (Not sure if that’s the app itself, or downloading within the app for, say, a podcatcher or the dreaded torrent downloader.)
• No apps that change the default browser, search client, or media player on the device. (Does that mean no Opera or Skyfire, which let you choose to set them as the default browser? No Kinoma Play, Core Player or the like for multimedia?)

So pr0n’s no problem, but don’t go trying to replace the rendering farce which is IE6? Of course, Microsoft mitigates this by allowing apps from multiple sources, not just their on store, but then again, they’re apparently going to allow the carriers to get their grubby hooks in branded stores to. Sigh.

With great freedom comes great responsibility, people. Never forget your Spider-Man…

MVC (via MacRumors) is claiming that Microsoft’s head of Xbox Business Insights and Strategy, Richard Teversham, is leaving to join Apple.

With the unbelievable success of iPhone and iPod touch gaming, could Apple finally be taking the space seriously? Or could this be part of some bigger move, one involving those chipset buyouts, licenses, and hires we recapped earlier? Could Apple be working on…

… A Pippin Take 2?

Yeah, more likely iPhone, maybe iTablet, maybe even Mac gaming, but that next gen hardware power might just give the consoles a run for their money anyway…

Personally, I still think Microsoft’s only hope at this point is an XboxPhone, but what do I know, I don’t run the largest, richest, most talent-laden software company in the world… that runs itself, and everything it produces, into the ground due to paralyzing politics and committee. So, excuse me if I’m nonplussed by the rumors of a new Zune HD, which while not an iPhone clone, or even an iPod classic or nano clone, looks to be positioned exactly opposite the iPod touch. A strategy which has proven so successful for Microsoft thus far…

Dear Steve Ballmer: Please, scorch the earth, start from scratch. Stop worrying so much about Apple and Google and start investing in Microsoft. Start making wonderful experiences for customers all your own. Build an integrated ecosystem from the ground up where Server, Windows, Xbox Windows Phone, and Zune all share a single unified brand and delightful cross-compatibility. Take a lesson from Palm. Spend your years in the desert if you have to, but at least walk in a single, considered direction.

Kthxbai

[Via Engadget]

We seen both mobile players, QuickOffice and Docs2Go announce upcoming Word and Excel editing suites for the iPhone, but rumors of the king of the desktop doc jungle, Microsoft itself, entering the space remain just that: rumors. For now. TechCrunch has the latest:

I’m here at the Web 2.0 Expo keynote, where Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division, hinted that we may be seeing Microsoft Office make its way to the iPhone some time soon. After his interviewer Tim O’Reilly caught him on the comment, Elop backtracked a bit, stating “not yet, keep watching”. But it’s clear that an iPhone version of Office is on his mind.

So, do we need Big Redmond to give us Office for iPhone, or are the already-announced mobile players enough? Could they provide something no one else outside of Microsoft ever could? Like… Clippy for iPhone?!

UPDATED: Daring Fireball nails it. Closed or open, the smartphone industry was stagnating before the iPhone…

ORIGINAL: Steve Ballmer is the gift that just keeps on grief’ing! Proven wrong about the iPhone already, both the Microsoft CEO and his counterpart at Nokia, Olli-Pekka Kallasvu both decided to take fairly transparent jabs at Apple, who once again didn’t even bother to attend the show. CNet (via MacRumors) has the gory details.

Said Kallasvu (taking a break from iCloning the iPhone App Store):

Apple’s vertically integrated model, where its hardware and software are tightly controlled by the company, further fragmented the market. And he added that what is truly needed is more openness in developing applications.

Said Ballmer, (who’s been getting his own fair share of grief this week over WinPho 6.5):

“I agree that no single company can create all the hardware and software. Openness is central because it’s the foundation of choice.”

One disgruntled European expressed displeasure at all the iPhone talk, asking why it deserved attention when it had only a tiny sub-percentage of the market.

Responded AT&T Mobility chief Ralph de la Vega:

“Because the other 99.5 percent of the industry is trying to copy the iPhone.”

It wasn’t all hugs and kisses from AT&T, though, even with the iPhone providing life support to their bottom line. Jabbed de la Vega:

“The iPhone is a great success, but it would be even better if the applications were interoperable,”

Um, yeah, because then people might actually want to buy those other, less innovative, non-iPhone you have stockpiled in your warehouse?

Yep, they’re not just iClone’ing phones anymore. The App Store is on everyone‘s must rip list, and what else? It rhymes with iPhone and works a lot like MobileMe…

According to WMExperts, it’s Microsoft’s new My Phone (née SkyBox).

Okay, so the name re-un-de-breaks Microsoft’s usually mind-boggling branding — we’re guessing it harkens back to My Computer and My Documents of yore — and including not only PIM data but text messages, photos, videos, and device backup, is something we’d really like to see in the next version of MobileMe.

Our own editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn, will be live and on location in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, so we expect he’ll send back all the details, but with everyone at Microsoft already using Exchange (heck, even Apple licenses it!) we have to wonder where My Phone fits in, what if any similar features ActiveSync might get as a result, and why it is exactly Microsoft insists on producing so many products with more overlap than a hair weave?

Sure, Microsoft’s online Live/Mesh/Azure strategy is just a tad less complicated than n-dimensional string theory, but it looks like when the next version of Office (14) ships with it’s GoogleDocs/Zoho competing Office Web, it will include support for not only Mac OS X… but for the iPhone’s MobileSafari browser as well!

According to Macworld, neither release date nor price point are known, but it should be a companion to Office 14 which is slated for 2009(-ish?)

This. Is. iPhone JEOPARDY!… Judges Round!

Way back on March 14 we covered some of the bold, bodacious pontifications the CEOh-no’s of Microsoft, RIM, and Palm had made about the iPhone. Quick-on-the-buzzer as always, it’s time once again to go back to our judges and see how they did!

“Why We’re Not Worried about the iPhone” for 100

Ed Colligan:

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

Daily Double-Talk

Steve Ballmer:

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”

Final Jeopardy!

“Mike Lazaridis”:

“Talk — all I’m [hearing] is talk about [the iPhone's chances in Enterprise]. I think it’s important that we put this thing in perspective.” [...] “Apple’s design-centric approach [will] ultimately limit its appeal by sacrificing needed enterprise functionality. I think over-focus on one blinds you to the value of the other.” [...] “Apple’s approach produced devices that inevitably sacrificed advanced features for aesthetics.”

And to top it all off:

THERE’S a reason that R.I.M. is averse to the iPhone’s glass pad. “I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it,” says Mike Lazaridis, R.I.M.’s co-chief executive and technological visionary. “It’s hard to type on a piece of glass.”

Judges?

10 Million iPhones sold in 2008, almost 7 million in Q4 alone. More units of a single SKU moved than all RIM SKUs combined, and more than (we think!) WinMob licenses as well. 200,000,000 App Store downloads, 5500 Apps available, and now being copied by Microsoft, Google, and RIM. Form factor and touch-centricity copied by both Microsoft-OEMs and RIM (who’s also introducing a no-keyboard Blackberry Storm!). And Palm? Er… Anyone heard from Palm lately?

And the Winner Is!

None of the players today.

For the Pundit Round, be sure to check out Daring Fireball’s awesome set of links, and MacDailyNew’s Compendium of iPhone Naysayers.

Microsoft’s Xbox King, Lord of Zune, and Master of All Things Windows Mobile (i.e. basically in charge of everything but the revenue generating OS and Office franchises… ouch!) decided to comment on the huge iPhone numbers Apple released last Tuesday. Marc Flores over at BGR reports (via BusinessWeek):

“Apple had a big launch of a new product, and they launched at scale in a lot of new countries with a lot of new [wireless] operators. This quarter, RIMM is having its big launch, and at some point we’ll have our big launch. We’ll have to see where things normalize”

Now, we don’t necessarily disagree that there was pent-up demand for a 3G iPhone in existing markets, and introduction of many new markets, along with the honeymoon period many new gadgets from a player of Apple’s caliber enjoys, but…

How about we get some good news round Microsoft Entertainment and Mobile Way, rather than Xbox write-offs, Zune lack-tion, and continued Windows Mobile 7 push backs, before we spend our expensive executive time stepping to Apple, b’okay?

Although Microsoft themselves haven’t deigned to design applications for the iPhone directly (yet!), that doesn’t mean their various subsidiaries and hangers-on aren’t eyeing the platform. We already told you about the first zany Microsoft-tech to hit the iPhone, the Olympic-version of the Zumobi tiled-content application. Now Gizmodo brings word of another Microsoft-related company coming to the iPhone: TellMe.

TellMe is a more direct Microsoft subsidiary than Zumobi and it’s essentially a voice recognition company whose technology is already used by Microsoft in various applications (notably for mobile users, on their excellent Live Search app for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian devices). They also have a stand-alone BlackBerry app that enables localized search. The basic premise is that you talk at your phone, your voice gets transmitted to the TellMe servers for very quick and very intelligent voice recognition and parsing, and finally those servers send your phone the information you asked for. All in all, it’s a pretty sweet system ….as long as you have unlimited data.

Our hope / assumption is we’ll see some voice recognition software that will not only handle local search (and integrate with Google Maps) but will also manage to search contacts. Pretty Please?

Okay, so it’s not PC, it’s John Hodgman, the actor who plays (brilliantly) PC in the highly successful “Get a Mac” ads from Apple. But as Engadget shows, it’s definitely an iPhone he’s using.

Of course, that should come as no surprise, given Microsoft’s market share, most iPhone users are Windows-based on the PC side. Makes sense then, that their commercial avatar loves him some mobile OS X as well!

The conspiracy minded among us, however, might just find it odd that this spy pick comes our way just in time for Microsoft’s latest ill-conceived step down their $300 million advertising sink hole. Word to Redmond: I’m a PC too. Now stop embarrassing me with this “me too” nonsense, get some therapy for the Apple and Google envy (seriously, you’re like 10x their size, it’s time to act like it), and stick to making great products. The rest will really take care of itself…

Look, advertising is a mysterious thing, okay? It takes some crazy genius can figure out how to make you want things without you even realizing that’s what’s happening. Any Don Draper monologue can tell you that.

But, as Rene asked, who were the geniuses who came up with this one?

Alright: devil’s advocate time: We get it, time spent humanizing Bill Gates is time spent humanizing Microsoft; we even get the secret ‘anti-switcher’ message for hardcore Seinfeld fans who remember the Mac in his apartment. Heck: we get that Bill/Microsoft¹ is a mensch and shops at regular stores for regular people, not some overpriced, all white and chrome, well-designed… you get where we’re going with this.

So, like the Apple ads, we get some cute humor with a heart of gold — it’s as though Microsoft went ahead and took PC, admitted straight up he’s Bill Gates himself, and then ran with it. Ok, we’re a little sold that this will help people warm up Microsoft. Feeling better about Vista (or, yes, Windows Mobile²) — not so much.

Finally, and we hesitate to even mention this, but was it really necessary to make us not only watch that little derriere-shake at the end, but anticipate and wait for it? Jerry Seinfeld: you imp you.

1. Yes, Gates has retired, but he’s still the soul of the company and not a bad soul at all. Plus, can you imagine this commercial with Steve Ballmer instead of Bill? The horror. The horror.
2. Ha HA! The iPhone-related angle is finally revealed!

Friend-of-a-friend-of-a-former-Apple-employee (no names!) has just fed an awfully convenient (and admittedly unsubstantiated) rumor to the mill: MobileMe was run by Rob Schoeben, VP of Applications Marketing (including Pro Apps, iWork, and iLife) at Apple, who was a former Microsoft executive and who brought in fellow former Microsofties as well. Blogger Chuq Von Rospach intimates that Schoeben’s head may well now decorate, pike-top, Steve Jobs’ figurative wall outside 1 Infinite Loop. In more realistic terms:

Whether he was literally walked to the parking lot iwth a box of his stuff in full view of the cheering crowds of Apple employees, I don’t know – but that’s the image I get of this, based on how it was told to me. And for better or worse, I can see Steve Jobs doing something like that.

Since the term “getting Steved” is, rightly or wrongly, a near legendary tech-industry meme, it’s safe to say so can a lot of other people. But did this all really go down, and in the way suggested? And is the Microsoft connection merely being played up entirely for the benefit of the “smarts”?

Maybe.

Meanwhile, Chuq also gets into the recent 3G chipset issues, which we covered earlier today and will update with his further rumormongering…

If you’re interested in following the Olympics on your iPhone, you could do worse than the free Lenovo Summer Olympics 2008 (App store link) application.

A classy Olympics app is postworthy, sure, but what makes this app very interesting is that it’s been developed by Zumobi — note the tell-tale ‘Z’ in the screenshot, note also that, ah, Zumobi is the developer. Why is this significant? Zumobi is a company that specializes in creating a neat ’tiled content’ app for Windows Mobile. Ok, so?

Zumobi is an independent software shop whose core technology was created at Microsoft and subsequently spun-off. The company is still pretty much backed by Microsoft and there are plans to include there app ‘on deck’ for Windows Mobile someday. So while it’s not technically accurate to say we’re looking at our first Microsoft-developed application for the iPhone, it’s not crazy to point out the connection either. Add in the Lenovo and Intel sponsorship of the app and we have a very interesting 5-way relationship going on here: Apple, Zumobi, Microsoft, Lenovo, and Intel.

…And you thought the Olympics were about sports. For shame.

via tuaw

Microsoft’s most recent 10K filing with the SEC gives every indication you-know-who may be bringing them some future pain:

A competing vertically-integrated model, in which a single firm controls both the software and hardware elements of a product, has been successful with certain consumer products such as personal computers, mobile phones and digital music players

Sure, Microsoft has their Xbox and Zune end-to-end business models, the former of which has enjoyed both success and red-ring framed troubles, and the latter of which is jettisoning even its… er… more eccentric fanbase, but they’ve yet to enjoy iPod-level triumph in the space.

To put this in some perspective, we know Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, has said Apple’s tight integration is something they want to emulate going forward, but Microsoft basically invented software as the mega-business. They’ve made gatestillions of dollars on software and enjoy a monopoly level position in both PC OS and Office applications.

So, even as Apple sold a million iPhone 3Gs in a weekend, and Steve Jobs wants 1% of the global mobile market, and 10 million units shipped short term, Microsoft came close to moving 20 million software licenses for Windows Mobile in the last year, and even as Mac sales keep inching on up, Microsoft still sits so far atop that market share mountain, its basically everest.

Still, if we discount Microsoft’s endemic — and groundless — Apple (and now Google) envy, could Ballmer and co. seriously still see Apple’s 360 degree, spherically integrated business model as a threat? And if so, why?

Posted from my iPhone

Never have I seen a thousand pound gorilla play such defense:

Apple: In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience. Today, we’re changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises. We’ll do the same with phones—providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences.

Seriously, Microsoft? Seriously? You pretty much invented the software industry and helped commoditize the PC business to an extent that Windows runs on an amount of servers, desktops, laptops, and — yes — even handsets, so vast it blots out the stars, and you’re re-focusing your business model on being more like Apple?

Seriously?

Now, I love Apple. My server, desktop, laptop, and handset were all designed in Cupertino, and their market share may one day approach 10%… but that’s the thing. 10%. (Not counting iPod here because, try as it might, Zune isn’t even really in that business).

You’re the gourmet restaurant on one side of the street or you’re the dozens of McDonalds on the other. Try to build your fine+fast eatery in the middle and… you get rammed by the oncoming bus (or Gordon Ramsey, whichever gets there first).

Instead of obsessing over Apple (and Google), how about spending some time on Microsoft. Your branding is a mess (8 word product names with inconsistent and seemingly random uses of Windows and LIVE! may work for puzzle games, but not consumer interest), your SKU’s are terminally skewed, and you’re increasingly at cross-purposes between partner platforms and in-house “whole widget” approaches. Heck, you’re making Yahoo! seem focused right now.

Head on over to WMExperts for more complete coverage and analysis. And to find out if Dieter somehow works ZOMG! Zune Phone… er… zPhone… er… xPhone… er… Phone for Windows LIVE! into the post…