May 31, 2007 | 2 Comments
Perhaps the only real news from Steve Jobs’ appearance at the D conference: the iPhone will be open after all.
Q: All indications appear that the iPhone is closed, we’d love to develop apps…
This is an important tradeoff between security and openness. We want both. We’re working through a way… we’ll find a way to let 3rd parties write apps and still preserve security on the iPhone. But until we find that way we can’t compromise the security of the phone.
I’ve used 3rd party apps… the more you add, the more your phone crashes. No one’s perfect, and we’d sure like our phone not to crash once a day. If you can just be a little more patient with us I think everyone can get what they want.
(via Engadget)
Thanks to Andreas and Hampus at VisionMobile for including the xPhone in the latest Carnival of the Mobilists.
UPDATE: Aaaargh. He didn’t mean an SDK. He didn’t even mean widgets, as Matthew suggested in the comments. He meant that we are all free to host web sites. I can’t believe how many journalists dutifully reported this as an opening up of the platform. At launch, the iPhone will be the most locked-down device on the US market.
Posted by: Jason
Categories: Mobile Market
May 25, 2007 | 7 Comments
It’s not complicated, it’s not expensive, and there’s an obvious market for it. So why doesn’t the xPhone exist?
Imagine a mobile phone that worked across every network in the US: a phone that allowed you to make a call from anywhere in America, so long as you could get a signal from at least one carrier. Let’s call it the xPhone.
It’s not hard to build an xPhone. Most new handsets support multiple wireless standards and frequency bands: 2G and 3G versions of GSM or CDMA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio, soon TV. Now that the old analog and TDMA networks have been decommissioned, to deliver the widest possible voice coverage the xPhone would only need to support the GSM and CDMA bands, and maybe iDEN. It would be quite cheap.
Who would buy the xPhone? Anyone who cares about coverage above all else. That means salespeople and executives and truck drivers and other people who travel a lot on business, but more importantly it means first responders: doctors, firefighters, law enforcement. The xPhone could save lives.
(more…)
Posted by: Jason
Categories: ThisIsBroken, Mobile Market
May 22, 2007 | Be the first to comment
Earlier this month, Sprint threatened Mobile GMaps over its use of restricted network-assisted GPS functionality. Mobile GMaps ran into trouble by working around these restrictions to offer an automatic positioning feature. While Sprint simply acted to enforce its policy, the result is unfortunate for everyone - Sprint included - since restricting the capabilities of applications just causes consumer demand to go unmet.
Under its current policy, Sprint must have a business relationship with a vendor before it can release applications that use the network’s GPS services. Sprint has otherwise generally been open to third-party applications without such requirements, but obtaining a subscriber’s location comes with some legitimate concerns. Two examples, which trouble nearly all carriers, are how to protect individual privacy and how to price location services. These can be addressed, however, and still allow for more open policies. Restricting access to network features does not benefit consumer or carrier, and often winds up being futile.
(more…)
Posted by: Mike
Categories: ThisIsBroken, Mobile Market
May 22, 2007 | 1 Comment
Michael Mace has written an insightful post about Nokia’s ambitions to become a mobile computing company. We’ve heard a lot about this too. When asked about the iPhone at a recent presentation we attended, a representative of Nokia said that if a computer company can rethink the phone, a phone company can re-invent the computer.
For other interesting articles about mobile, see this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists.
Posted by: Jason
Categories: Mobile Market
May 20, 2007 | 5 Comments
One of the categories for posts on this blog is ThisIsBroken, a tip-o-the-hat to Mark Hurst’s blog of the same name.
Here are a few examples:
When an operator shut downs an old network, customers sometimes have to buy a new phone. But if your ‘operator’ is OnStar, you have to buy a new car.
Don’t want to subscribe to our long-distance service? Don’t want to pay extra for long-distance calls one at a time? Don’t even know anybody outside your area? Fine, we’ll charge you for not making long-distance calls at all.
And finally, don’t try to get out of a mobile phone contract by pretending that you are dead. Unless you’re on T-Mobile.
Posted by: Jason
Categories: ThisIsBroken
May 17, 2007 | 6 Comments
When Motorola announced their 2007 device collection this week, some people were disappointed. Three of the phones debuted in February at 3GSM and the fourth is yet another version of the Razr. In the year of the iPhone, the Prada phone, the Nokia N95, and even the Helio Ocean, Motorola looks weak.
But in one very important respect, Motorola is ahead of all these competitors. Every phone in their 2007 collection is based on an open development platform: Symbian, Windows Mobile, or Motorola’s new home-brew version of Linux, which they call Linux/Java. The iPhone, the Prada phone, and the Helio Ocean are all closed devices. (more…)
Posted by: Jason
Categories: Technology, Mobile Market
May 16, 2007 | 7 Comments
In fanciful moments I like to think of a running program as a little spaceship following a trajectory through the computer’s “state space”–the space of possible values of each of its memory locations. This is a big space (2 to the power of the number of bits of memory in the machine) so easy to get lost in. The problem of writing a correct program is how to keep the spaceship on course.
If the ship is on course it’s easy to move it in the right direction. If it’s gotten off course, we have to figure out where it is and make some correction to get it back on course. If we don’t realize it’s gotten off course we’ll move it in what we think is the right direction, and probably make things worse. If we get too far off course we might not be able to recover at all. We’re better off staying on course in the first place.
(more…)
Posted by: Jake
Categories: Technology, Programming, ocaml
May 7, 2007 | Be the first to comment
Last week was abuzz with discussion of RIA. I credit Hinkmond Wong’s post about porting F3 to Java ME with starting it, but most would point to Silverlight. Discussion predominantly revolved around desktop browsers and web downloads, although this video demonstrating Silverlight for Windows Mobile looks great. But really, either or both can be extremely significant in mobile. I hope it’s as more than just another RIA platform though. Rather than restrict them to a constrained environment, I’d like to be able to embed them in downloaded applications that can extend the functionality of each in order to take advantage of features native to the phone.
Stepping back briefly, Silverlight is Microsoft’s cross-browser plugin for delivering .NET Web applications. F3 is a Java scripting language created with the goal to make GUI programming easier, with nice features over something like JavaScript: static typing, type inference, and the ability to import and call any Java class.
The competition for RIA in mobile will be stiff. However, the ability to embed and extend these technologies in applications is largely untapped, even though it could provide a unique solution to a fundamental problem in mobile development: when you can’t easily update your installed code, it’s hard to provide dynamic functionality and features. The Orbit project will embed OpenLazlo into Java ME, but it’s not clear that applications will be able to extend its functionality. Silverlight and F3 are each equally poised to provide this if they:
- Allow the installed application and embedded code to interact.
- Allow the runtime to be extended (e.g. platform invoke or JNI).
- Provide a user-controlled security policy as opposed to requiring a complicated signing process, or worse, a more restrictive sandbox.
Both companies have unique advantages supporting their solution. Sun has the nearly ubiquitous distribution of Java ME on mobile handsets, however today that is in the form of MIDP/CLDC, whereas F3 (and Orbit) require CDC. Microsoft owns a mobile operating system which could allow for tighter integration, although Silverlight on the desktop is a subset of the .NET runtime (but so is the .NET compact framework).
We saw some of Microsoft’s cards last week, but not many in terms of mobile. With Sun, we’ve seen activity on F3, PhoneME Advanced, and the acquisition of SavaJe IP, so we can hope they are heading in this direction. To be sure, neither company solely dictate the functionality of phones, but with JavaOne this week, hopefully Sun will provide some leadership.
Posted by: Mike
Categories: Technology, Programming
May 6, 2007 | 1 Comment
Jason’s post about the FCC’s “four freedoms” calls to mind the distinction between “open-source software” and “free software” (free as in speech) . While the term “open-source” focuses on what you get (the source), the words “free software” draw attention to your freedoms: to use, study, and modify the software without restriction. These freedoms are in the same spirit as the FCC’s freedoms, and are similarly contested in this era of walled gardens and locked-down platforms.
Free software may mean different things to you, depending on who you are. If you’re a hobbyist or run a small business you might like that it generally comes at no cost. Or you might be idealistic about intellectual property and feel (with Jefferson) that “he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me”. Maybe you see a business opportunity in supporting the ferment of activity around free software.
But if you’re a programmer, the importance of using free software instead of proprietary software is that it makes it much easier to do your job. Programming is reasoning about code, and the whole point of keeping software proprietary is to prevent you from reasoning about what goes on inside it.
(more…)
Posted by: Jake
Categories: Technology, Programming
May 3, 2007 | 1 Comment
Carriers like to tell Congress and the FCC that the wireless market is so fiercely competitive that consumers are perfectly served and no regulatory changes are necessary - apart from changes that the carriers want, of course. Most people in the tech community disagree, but recoil at the idea of going to Washington and engaging in a political process that looks like the opposite of entrepreneurship. The telcos smile at our idealism, hire more lawyers than engineers, and roll all over us.
I went to see FCC Chairman Kevin Martin speak at a meeting of the Churchill Club in Mountain View this morning. In conversation with George Anders from the WSJ, he spoke about the 700 MHz auction, how consumers will be affected by the end of analog broadcasts, leveling the playing field for set-top boxes in the cable industry, the proposed merger between Sirius and XM, sex and violence in the media, E911, and the Skype petition. That tells you how much impact the FCC has on the technology industry. (more…)
Posted by: Jason
Categories: ThisIsBroken, Mobile Market
Next Page »
