That didn’t take long, Apple anounces yesterday it’s new iPhone is ready for the shops this year and today Cisco anounces it will sue over copyright infringement. The way it appears is that Infogear had registered the name and used it for a few years. In 2000 Cisco bought infogear and became the owner of the iPhone name. Cisco claims that Apple had repeatdedly asked persmission to use the name and negotiations were opened in good faith. It now transpires that Apple went ahead and used the iPhone name anyway without any prior approval from Cisco.
Archive for January, 2007
Watching BBC 10.00 news this evening and they run a story about Apple taking on the mobile market with their new iPhone. The phone itself will come packed with typical Apple features as lsited below:
Mobile web surfing with an advanced HTML cllient and utilizing Safari, which Apple claim is the most advanced browser on a handheld device which incidently will come preloaded with Google and Yahoo and have the ability to read email while downloading via WiFi or EDGE.
Other features include a widescreen with iPod that has all the features of a smartphone including touch screen and a highly intuitive user interface and includes video.
The Apple iPhone is a revolutionary new mobile phone that allows you to make a call by simply pointing your finger at a name or number in your address book, a favorites list, or a call log. It also automatically syncs all your contacts from a PC, Mac, or Internet service. And it lets you select and listen to voicemail messages in whatever order you want — just like email. Apple iPhone
Apple iPhone comes with a large price tag and goes on sale in the USA in June of this year at a cost of $499.00 and then in the UK later on in the year. Watching Steve Jobs get excited about his new iPhone product addmittedly sparked some enthusiasm to check this out when released. Unfortunately little is know from user perspective about this phone as of yet and it’sperformance and we really only have Apple to tell us all about teh new features on their website. http://www.apple.com/iphone/
Okay, okay, I can hear the sniggers and the comments now: “He’s gone for style over functionality” Well, not quite so true though it does have an element of truth to it. Yes, I got myself a Blackberry Pearl through my O2 business package. Why I have this? Let’s look at my history for the last few years:
2 x Sony P910i’s: First one I left it on my car roof and it fell off on the highway and got crushed. The second one fell into a bucket of water when I was cleaning my car. The P910i was a bit expensive to keep doing this. Not to say I didn’t like it, on the contrary I actually enjoyed having the phone and once mastered it was a real synch to use.
Nokia N90, all gimmick and thats about it. I ended up hating this phone with a passion, ugly not responsive enough to web surfing and too much fiddling added to my frustration. Furthermore I had actually wanted a N92 but could one be found in the UK? NO!
Hermes HTC, a PPC with all the features under the moon. I didn’t like it though as there was a lot more fiddling to do when answering calls and browsing menus. Mobile phones in my opinion are supposed to be there on the click of a button and give me all the information I need fast. I don’t need to be taking the phone from my ear in the middle of a call to ensure I dont press the wrong button when I get a call waiting, this happened to me several times.
So, a quick trip down to my local O2 store to play around with some Blackberries. I had the intention of getting a Blackberry 8700 after reading Dan Appelquist posting about the admin functions. Once there in the store I changed my mind when I saw the Pearl or Blackberry 8100. I went home and got straight onto the phone with O2 and bitched about getting an early upgrade, they were only too happy to comply. I have been with O2 for a few years now and was first attracted to them by the calming effect of their brand, after all who wants to have orange splattered all over your phone, I don’t like the brand colour and found their customer service less than informed (I hear they have got much better since). O2 are like any other network provider in the UK, they provide a network and a series of very standard phones with not much thought given to the Smartphone market. And like all other network carriers in the UK they are miles behind in getting anything new. Their customer service is good and they know hwo to put up a fight when trying to upsell you or when I try and downsell them. I have stayed with them for the past few years and probably will move when something better comes up, eventually.
I digress, the reason for this posting was about the Blackberry Pearl. After speaking with O2 by phone I decided on the 8100, it’s smaller than the usual offering by Blackberry and is sleek with black and gun metal silver. The few days I have had it I have been impressed by the ease of use to grab email ‘on the go’ quick mobile web surfing, and messenging other Blackberry contacts I know, mainly colleagues. I immediately put Google Talk onto the Blackberry so I could IM my other contacts, it appears to work very well. I must admit I am not overtly impressed with the third party software offerings and I imagine there will be some good stuff coming in the future. What I really miss is the SOTI Pocket Controller Pro that allowd me on the HTC Hermes to operate my phone from the desktop, this included sending emails, MMS, SMS and all other functions including manually adding addresses. I have found nothing for the Blackberry Pearl that does the same function, though there is software that allows you to operate your PC remotely through a Blackberry, but nothing in reverse.
The Blackberry Pearl easily fits into my pocket, and has already synced nicely with my integrated Nokia Bluetooth Handsfree car kit. I have spent a good part of the day searching for something on it to complain about and so far have found nothing of any importance, only cosmetic stuff like the lack of any cool themes, or that there is not a function that allows a user to customise their own UI or home screen. I would rather add what icons I want rather than be told by Blackberry what icons they think I should have. Nevermind I am sure someone will develop a theme which has icons I can agree with.
The Blackberry 8100 is not an advanced smartphone but rather a basic smartphone, out of all the similar smartphones out there, Blackberry Pearl probably leads in style and functionality. Overall so far, not too bad… watch this space…
This time last year a strong buzz was growing about the Mobile Web and where it was headed. The buzz picked up momentum with the release of the W3C’s mobile web guidelines. For some this was it mobile web was going to be the mainstay and ‘happen right now’ Google, Yahoo, Opera and Microsoft all seemed to be vying for their own piece of Mobile Web real estate and Nokia made some grand promises with offering of newer mobile phones that supposedly worked seamlessly with the web. Networks were buzzing with programs from T-Mobile, O2 iMode offering and a few others. Web development companies started offering mobile SEO services and mobile web builds.
So what has happened? Is this the quiet before the storm or have we all fizzled out and the hype has a hit a brick wall! The mobile web buzz has not completely died but it is not as prevalent as it was a year ago. Come to think of it there doesn’t seem to be a major buzz about anything in particular relating to web technologies. Have we all suddenly found it was going too fast for us and decided to duck for cover and get on with our current projects? It certainly does seem a bit eerie.
I visited with a couple of mobile phone retailers to day to see what is new and happening on the retail front. Absolutely nothing in the UK, traditional retailers like Tesco and Carphone Warehouse are not getting the new phones in and give very little attention to smartphones, the fear of selling technology to the uninitiated worries a lot of these retailers. Because of this worry they will not spend on bringing in some of the newer and better phones to the market in the UK.
