iPhone

A couple weeks ago, I pondered if early adopters of the iPod and other MP3 players were starting to lose patience with the random shuffle function. Too much black and white, not enough gray.

Almost on cue, start-up Instinctiv came out on Thursday with its first application, an iPhone and iPod Touch application called Instinctiv Shuffle that will derandomize the random iTunes-shuffling feature.

Instinctiv Shuffle uses an algorithm similar to that developed by Pandora and other taste-tracking sites to select the perfect song to play next--like having a professional DJ sift through your collection.

There's a catch: Instinctiv Shuffle … Read more

A few tidbits about the upcoming iPhone 3G launch have trickled out this week, though unfortunately, none of them are particularly illuminating, taken individually.

Perhaps the most interesting one--if only for its lack of details--is the memo distributed to Apple Retail employees this week in FAQ-style concerning the July 11 launch of the iPhone 3G.

Employees are being instructed to answer "I don't know" to any number of pertinent questions surrounding the launch, such as how the in-store activation process will work, any upgrade offers from the original iPhone, or any planned price cuts to the iPod … Read more

One year after Apple's iPhone made its debut in a frenzy of consumer lust, much of the hubbub may have died down but the story is just getting interesting.

In just a year, the iPhone has had a clear impact on the way smartphones and mobile software in general are now designed, and has raised consumer interest--especially in the U.S.--in the concept of truly mobile access to the Internet. But Apple has struggled to find the right price for the iPhone, manage its supply chain, and limit the ability of hackers to get total control over the … Read more

We're about to see what full-blown competition for the future of the computing industry looks like when multiple players get a shot to make an impact.

The next great operating systems wars are about to be fought, as traditional computing companies collide with teams representing the mobile phone industry. Nokia's decision Tuesday to unify, then open-source, the Symbian operating system for smartphones clarifies how today's most-widely used handset operating system will evolve to match the open-source initiatives headed by Google and the LiMo Foundation and competition from companies like Microsoft, Research in Motion, and Apple.

Forget RIM … Read more

On Friday, John Gruber noticed the Macalope's point that iPhone unlocking is in danger of extinction.

Today Jason Kottke checks out eBay (if you don't remember what eBay is, ask your parents about it!) and notices iPhones are going for a premium. The ability to unlock can net you $200 over the price of an iPhone 3G.

OK, not everyone's going to get that much. But, just for fun, let's say you bought an 8 GB iPhone the day they were released for $599. Months later you got an Apple Store gift certificate for $100 when … Read more

Now, dear readers, you know why the Macalope drinks.

Todd starts by rightly dinging the horny one for failing to note that he did say Jobs did not actually go so far as to literally say iPhone purchasers were suckers, even though Todd put it in quotes. So the Macalope will agree he shouldn't have bothered making an issue of that particular point.

The rest, however, is like getting sprayed in the face with a bottle full of carbonated stupid.

1st iPhone came out and was priced for purchasers at $499. New iPhone comes out and I can buy … Read more

According to one financial analyst, AT&T is paying Apple $325 in subsidies on each iPhone 3G.

Barron's Tech Trader Daily spotted a report from Oppenheimer's Yair Reiner that claims Apple will wind up getting just as much revenue from the subsidies as it did from the revenue-sharing agreement between Apple and AT&T that was in place before the introduction of the iPhone 3G last week. Reiner notes that this figure is far more than the typical $200 subsidy most carriers pay to reduce the price of other smartphones, and it's supplemented by a $… Read more

Being an attorney with an iPhone, I've wondered about the privacy of my SMS-text messages and whether they can be withheld from prying eyes. I don't mean that dinner date across from you, but in a larger sense. Think about what we've all begun to say via text messages: Carrie Underwood got dumped this way and Detroit's mayor was brought down by his text messages, for example. Like it or not, texting has become a communication medium that is here to stay, meaning that the contents of those messages are also susceptible to legal discovery, i.… Read more

The Macalope has been putting this off for days but, as he's often said, this is the beat he chose and there's no use crying about it now.

After last week's announcement that the iPhone 3G would sell for $199 in the U.S., the pointy one realized there'd be one silly pundit who would be crowing over this as some kind of victory for his steel trap of a mind. Apple had dropped the price, as was long foretold in his dire prophecies!

Well, you can see why the brown and furry one put off … Read more