IceSamurai.net

http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=301

Interesting article, albeit he left out one factor in tallying up price over two years, cost of high-speed internet… figure $40/mo ($480/yr.), $50/mo. if you drop cable.  Most cable providers add $10 per/mo if you have only internet.

So if I dropped cable and went with AppleTV, internet access and a few choice shows:

• AppleTV: $299
• Internet ($50/mo): $600
• BattleStar Galactica: $35
• Grey’s Anatomy: $35
• The Unit: $35 (N/A on iTunes)
• Heroes: $43
• Crossing Jordan: $35 (N/A on iTunes)
• Lost: $35
• Daily Show: $40
• House: $35 (N/A on iTunes)
• Rescue Me: $35 (N/A on iTunes)
• Blade (the Series): $35 (N/A on iTunes)
• UFC / The Ultimate Fighter on Spike!: $45 (N/A on iTunes)
• Law & Order: $36
• Law & Order, SVU: $36

Well, iTunes doesn’t have everything on it yet, but maybe it will sometime soon, then I just may dump cable.  I most definitely will dump cable if I can get these in DVD quality (right now the recordings on iTunes are just below DVD quality).  I rarely watch live TV anyway…

Someday soon…

But there’s a few issues that need to be addressed:

• Re-downloading lost/corrupted videos
• How to get people hooked on new shows?:  Free pilot episodes.
• iTunes needs a free channel for show pilots, who says the idiots in Hollywood know what we like to watch?  E.g. Showtime dumping “Dead Like Me” (9.1/10 on imdb.com)

Pretty soon producers (the non-”for XXXXXX channel” people) will probably start going straight to Apple iTunes.

Apple claims to have patented the heck out of everything they’ve developed for the iPhone.

One interesting thing though, you know that “pinching” motion to zoom in/out on photos and maps?  I and many other people have seen it before.  A researcher at NYU, Jeff Y. Han presented work on multi-touch (fingers) enabled displays starting in 2005 at ACM UIST, and then take a look at his demo reel he prepared in January 2006…

• Frustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR) demo, from Jeff’s website  (alt.)

Although the USPTO is not known for their brilliance (it is a gov’t agency…), they do have a few moments where they shine (like the fact that they thought that software shouldn’t receive patents, the Supreme Court forced them to).  Hopefully this will be a big shiney example of Prior Art.

Last night, I watched a recorded interview that Steve Jobs had with Nightline on Tuesday night (9th).

Pretty boring interview, what was really odd was seeing so much of the top of Steve’s head.  Half the interview he had his head down as if in serious thought… Public Speaking 101 refresher course?

Anyway, in the interview he spouted on about not allowing 3rd party apps for the Apple iPhone (or maybe the new name that is circulating on the rumor-mill sites, “iTouch Mobile”).  He went off on a FUD rant with this:  “You don’t want your phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider’s network, says Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

What a load of shit.  Given that programmers have been writing apps for Palm/Symbian/WinPC for the past few years, and I have yet to have heard about a cell network going down due to said applications.  What a load of pure FUD.

I like Apple, I like my PowerBook, I like my iPod.  I like my Nokia phone that runs Symbian and the fact that I can write applications for it (go Java).  Apple keeps this crap up, I won’t upgrade.  Besides, until they correct what I’ve mentioned before, I probably wouldn’t have upgraded anyway.

Steve, leave the FUD to Bill Gates.

Steve Jobes knows Best (Ars Technica)

Well, this plain sucks, and is really stupid.  Best part about smart phones and PDAs, is the ability to develop applications to run on them.

If Apple is worried about crappy performance due to a 3rd party application, they should just create an [optional] Apple certification process that applications can go thru.  Then if someone bitches about their iPhone’s performance, they simply can ask: Do you currently have non-certified programs installed?  If the answer is yes, they simply instruct them to remove it and try it again, then if the performance is still lacking, then they can take it up.

Though, I do think that after the exclusivity agreement between Apple and Cingular runs out, this will business model will vaporize.  Although I wouldn’t be surprized if the iPhone SDK isn’t included in the freebie development kit.  Sure, they’ll include basic app support (like widgets, as it’s one of the biggest 3rd party efforts for normal OS X) for the freebie and student ($99/yr.) ADC tier, but a full blown iPhone SDK will probably only be included in the select ($500/yr.) or premium ($3,500/yr.) ADC tiers.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) article: Apple VPs confirm no 3rd party iPhone apps

Yeah, like every other Apple fanboy I was sitting there salivating and waiting for Steve Jobs to announce this puppy.

Damn smooth interface design, including the wide screen and the accelerometer and other gizmos that make this thing so great.  Still, there are a few things I’d like to see.

• [user] replaceable battery
• the camera, not sure if it has a flash, doesn’t look like it.  If not, it should make the Apple emblem the flash element
• Very cool to run on the international GSM [and maybe GPRS] standards systems.  Given that they are going to market this in Asia come 2008, where in Japan G2 systems (e.g. GSM/GPRS) are on the way out, the iPhone will undoubtedly be a G3 phone (where as of 2006 G3 phone use was at about 40%).  Also see this gizmodo article, and this is HSDPA
• An unlocked version that can run on other carriers [using the same network type]