Apple Matters

Just a reminder that Apple’s iTunes and iPod event is today. If you haven’t already, enter our sister site, Apple Matter’s contest to win a Speck CandyShell case for you iPhone.

Stay tuned for coverage.

Bakari Chavanu over at our sister site Apple Matters has an excellent review/tutorial on the Kindle app for the iPhone. From the article:

First off, if you have used a few other iPhone app ebook readers like Stanza or eReader, you’ll find Kindle for iPhone lacking by comparison. But the Kindle for iPhone basic interface won’t keep you from using the app. All your downloaded chapters and books can be browsed by Recent view, Title, or Author. You can also delete or archive books and chapters on the Home page. You can change the font size of books, but other than that there’s no other options for changing the application’s interface. 

Read Bakari’s entire post, filled with info, over at Apple Matters.

OVer at our sister site Apple Matters resident buffoon Chris Seibold has a piece up opining that the darkest days are ahead for Microsoft. The reason? Windows Mobile. From the article:

If Windows Mobile doesn’t dominate Microsoft could be in some serious trouble. Recall that the rail industry biggest failure was seeing themselves as railroad companies instead of delivery companies. When Fed Ex and UPS came along the rail companies didn’t see them as competition even thought that is exactly what they were. So the rail companies are (pun coming) still (pun almost here) chugging along but they aren’t the market forces they could’ve been. Microsoft is at that moment right now. Either the company has to get a laser sharp focus on Windows Mobile or risk becoming like the rail companies as consumer realize they don’t really need the stand alone computer, they can do all they need with a smartphone. When that happens, Linux finally wins.

Will the smartphone be the end of Microsoft? Can Microsoft regain control with a Microsoft phone? Or will all efforts prove to be too little too late?

At our sister site Apple Matters, Chris Howard has an interesting piece up on the fate of the iPhone. Specifically Chris is wondering if the iPhone’s lack of features will doom the device. After hearing the doom sayers wondering where some particular feature Chris concludes they have it wrong.  From the article:

Looking at more recent history, we can look at the iPod. Didn’t you just get so sick of the stories predicting its inevitable doom because it didn’t have features, such as FM radio? And every time a new media player came out that had any of those feature it was touted as an iPod killer. And yet they all failed and the iPod is still the marketshare and mindshare leader by a street. Clearly it’s not all about features.

He’s got that right! Check out the full piece.

If there’s a smarter person than Chris Seibold that wouldn’t come as a surprise. If ther’s a denser individual than Chris that would make the front page of Digg. You could imagine the headline: Science proves man more stupid than Chris Seibold. Then somehow it would show up on YouTube and the comments would reveal that while no one is quite as cerebrally challenged as Chris there is actually a race to prove that someone is.

Sorry for the Chris Seibold rant, I just hate that so much. Anyway Chris has an article posted at out sister site Apple Matters that argues that Apple is neglecting the MAc because the iPhone and iPod are growing while the Mac isn’t. Bad news if you’re a Mac but nice if you want Apple to invest all the companies most precious resources in making the iPhone the best it can be. Read the whole article, it even has a graph!

This kind of stuff happens every so often. I’ll post something short and some feature writer will take the concept and run. All without giving me the credit I so richly deserve for pointing it out in the first place. Today’s outrage? The post about David Chartier’s look back at the iPhone was basically stolen and reworded. The cretin responsible? Chris Seibold at Apple Matters.

Here’s what stooge did. After reading my post Chris decided to argue that David wasn’t necessarily wrong but that he was missing the larger picture. The larger picture being that Apple isn’t out to sell iPhones to smartphones user, Apple is out to sell iPhones to everyone else. If that is the kind of thing that appeals to you read What the Technophiles Don’t Get about the iPhone at Apple Matters.

James Stoup has a way of cutting through the static surrounding issues and getting to the heart of the matter. The issue James is taking on at Apple Matters? App Store suckiness. The opening paragraph sets up the rest of the article:

I find it ironic in the extreme that Apple, a company whose foundation is built on the idea of selling high quality products, would create a store whose very design kills high quality products.

If you’ve been following the controversy about cheap apps in the App Store you know the problem: How can a company invest in producing an app that will sell for more than a few bucks when that app has to compete against apps that cost .99?

James has a novel solution: set a minimum price for apps and make that minimum $4.99. As a consumer it probably sounds like crazy talk, as a developer it likely sounds like nirvana. As an iPhone user user you’ll be better off if you read the article at Apple Matters.

So you’re wondering what is coming at MacWorld? In one of my columns at Apple Matters I took a wild guess that it would be an oversized iPhone with a USB port to accommodate dongles for your carrier of choice. For me it was all about the internet everywhere.

Hadley Stern thinks differently, well he’s down with the oversized iPhone deal but he has a much better reasoning for his thought that something along these lines will show up at MacWorld. In fact Hadley lists five reasons. Perhaps the best is that Steve gets to say he invented but the other four (economy, atom chip, extending the reach of iTunes, iPhone) are solid as well.

Here’s the interesting thing, a concept like that has been going around Apple longer than the iPhone. The supposed genesis of the iPhone was a Safari Pad that an employee showed to Steve. When Steve saw it he didn’t think “A tablet to browse the web!” He thought “frickin’ iPhone!” and this the ball started… more...

Hadley Stern is miffed. He’s taking a look at what Apple has done in the past and with the iPhone and seen the copycats. What, exactly, is a Blackberry Storm if not a direct rip off of the iPhone? And you know RIM won’t give Apple a kiss after that screwjob so why not some cash?

Hadley’s not exactly that upfront about it but that is the take away message. All the companies coming out with touchscreen phones are really coming out with iPhone knockoffs and that doesn’t seem fair to the company who went through all the hard work of getting everything right in the first place. Read the entire article Should Other Companies Pay Apple at our sister site Apple Matters.

Chris Howard isn’t afraid to bash Apple when something is screwed up. But he’s also not above praising the company when something exceeds his expectations. Right now Chris Howard is very pleased with the iPhone. IF you’re wondering why it is a sordid tale of servers being overwhelmed, bandwidth caps and iTunes locking up. You can read the whole story at out sister site: Apple Matters. But a link isn’t enough, I mean the energy expended clicking a link… Too much to ask! Here’s an excerpt:

Now lazy programmers would have simply restored the last known OS, but Apple obviously weren’t lazy, and coded to detect the new OS waiting and used it. Well done, Apple.

Of course, there were no apps on my iPhone (besides the Apple ones), so I was still a bit nervous. But then a sync kicked off and it indicated it was installing my apps. I think at this point I stopped holding my breath.

Well it isn’t all sunshine and flowers. Chris, like the rest of the iPhone world is wondering where copy and paste is. Keep… more...