iPhone celebs
From Coolspotters, a new site that tracks celebrity use of brands and fashion, here’s a list of celebs that use an iPhone, including Heidi Klum, Karl Rove, Paris Hilton, and, er, Steve Jobs. (via mike davidson)
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kottke.org posts about iPhone
Parallels on iPhone follies
An Australian news channel used my fake Parallels-on-an-iPhone graphic on a recent newscast. Hee. (thx, amos)
The iPhone Mega
EXCLUSIVE!! From a mole deep inside the company comes word and vision of a new iPhone from Apple, the iPhone Mega:
In a rare comment regarding a leaked product, Steve Jobs noted that “the easy portability of the iPhone was an issue for some people; we saw a market opportunity there”.
This a bit old but the dude
This a bit old but the dude that runs the stylish cameron i/o site (who is coincidentially named Cameron) built a trumpet-like bell for the iPhone out of a used toilet paper tube.
I wanted to listen to my music in the shower but the iPhone’s speaker would get lost in the noise from the shower. So I directed the iPhone’s audio straight towards me. Worked pretty well. Just ask my neighbors.
A video stream of yesterday’s iPhone SDK
A video stream of yesterday’s iPhone SDK presentation.
Update: Jason at SVN speculates on the implications of yesterday’s announcements.
Good notes from today’s Apple event at
Good notes from today’s Apple event at which they announced the developer’s kit for the iPhone. VC John Doerr also announced the iFund, a $100 million fund that will give money to companies wanting to develop applications for the iPhone. (via df)
A video and accompanying text from Edward
A video and accompanying text from Edward Tufte on Interface Design and the iPhone.
Update: Christopher Fahey posted a thoughtful critique of Tufte’s iPhone thoughts.
Gmail released a new mobile version. It
Gmail released a new mobile version. It is bulky, slow to load, and pretty yet irritating on the iPhone. I couldn’t be less happy about it, and had a fit in midtown last night trying to get my email. I suppose, like all new things, I will grow accustomed to it.
The JobsNote is going on right now&
The JobsNote is going on right now—ooh, shiny new Apple things. So far they’ve announced a movie rental program for your iPhone but there is still no cut and paste?
Wired has a longish article about how
Wired has a longish article about how the iPhone came about. I wish this story had more direct quotes and explicit references…it’s hard to read it and not take the whole thing with a huge grain of salt.
David Lynch does an iPhone commercial, not really. (via andre)
David Lynch does an iPhone commercial, not really. (via andre)
Flickr: Camera Finder: Apple: iPhone
At long last, Apple is listed as one of the available brands of camera in the flickr Camera Finder.
This means that you can search for shots taken not only with iPhone, but with the three models of Apple’s original camera line, the QuickTake (codenamed Venus, Mars, and Neptune). Currently, there are no viewable uploaded photos taken with the QuickTake 100 or 150, but there are some from the QuickTake 200.
It’s also nice to see that Merlin’s tree.cx pic made it to the top of the iPhone-taken ‘interesting’ list. (via highindustrial)
Update: A potential reason for the iPhone’s relatively paltry numbers is that when you email photos from the phone, it strips the exif data out which means those photos aren’t counted. I imagine many more people email photos to Flickr from the iPhone than upload them from their computers.
The design of the iPhone is such
The design of the iPhone is such that all other mobile phones, including those released after the iPhone, look not only old but antiquated and even defective. IMO.
Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution loves his
Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution loves his iPhone and “can no longer imagine not having one” but has yet to make a phone call with it.
Tobias Wong has made a slick all-black
Tobias Wong has made a slick all-black iPhone called the ccPhone. It comes preloaded with videos, photos, music, and the company address book of Citizen:Citizen, the company selling it. Available as a limited edition of 50, each phone is $2000. Another of Wong’s projects that I really like is the Tiffany diamond solitaire engagement ring with the diamond turned upside down so the point sticks out (possibly for slashing attackers). A nice play on the marital security that an engagement ring offers the wearer. (via core77)
1984 all over again?
Google recently announced that a bunch of companies (aka the Open Handset Alliance) were getting together to make cell phones that run on an open platform called Android. That was a couple of days ago so maybe someone else has already made the imperfect comparison between this and Mac vs. PC circa 1984, but if not:
Or perhaps Steven Frank has it right:
A 34-company committee couldn’t create a successful ham sandwich, much less a mobile application suite.
Two bits (bites? har har) of Apple
Two bits (bites? har har) of Apple news:
1. Steve Jobs has announced that an SDK will be available for the iPhone and iPod touch in February. No more hacking your phone to put applications on it.
2. You can now preorder OS X 10.5 (Leopard) at Amazon for $109…that’s $20 off the retail price. The offer comes with a pre-order price guarantee; if the price drops before it ships, you get it for the lower price.
A feature I would like on my
A feature I would like on my iPhone: every single call gets recorded (at a low bitrate to conserve storage space) and stored on the phone for a short period of time. Playback works like the visual voicemail feature.
Update: I’ve gotten a couple of emails from people saying that this feature is illegal. Which is true in some states (California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington). My feeling is that the recording of voice communication is a legacy thing that should go away. If you write me a letter, send me an email, IM me a note, or send a SMS, I get to keep a copy of your correspondence. Why the different standard for a phone call? I believe this difference will eventually go away…after all, it’s trivial to record a Skype call.
I’m loving the new 1.1.1 update to the
I’m loving the new 1.1.1 update to the iPhone. Best new features for me: the double-tap of the Home button to go to your address book favorites (first suggested by Steven Johnson shortly after the phone’s introduction) and more alert ringtone choices for when a new text message comes in. I still wish I could set that alert volume independently from the main ringtone volume, but this is a good start…I’ll be able to hear my texts coming in again.
Now you can buy a house modeled
Now you can buy a house modeled after one of Martha Stewart’s three houses. People love these houses so much that sales are bucking the downturn in new home sales. Says a representative for the company building the homes: “It’s our version of the iPhone. It illustrates the power of something different with a brand tied to it.”
Apple may have announced their ringtone strategy
Apple may have announced their ringtone strategy for the iPhone (30-second ringtones cost $1.98 to make and you must purchase songs through the iTunes Music Store), but Ambrosia Software’s iToner utility lets you make ringtones from any mp3 or acc audio file with a simple drag/drop, all for $15 (free 30-day trial). iToner seems like the clear winner here.
Update: The just-released new version of iTunes (7.4) makes iToner ringtones invisible to the iPhone. Ambrosia is working on an iToner update. (thx, jim)
Apple is holding a special event today
Apple is holding a special event today at 10am PT to announce a new product. Or something. No one knows exactly what but it seems to have something to do with music. Popular guesses include a 3G iPhone, a different iPod nano, a touchscreen iPod, and the availability of the Beatles entire musical catalog on iTunes. MacWorld, Engadget, MacObserver, and ArsTechnica (among others) will have live coverage.
Update: Jobs announced 99-cent ringtones, new colors for iPod shuffle, new form factor for iPod nano (fat vs. thin), renamed the iPod to iPod classic, introduced new iPod touch (basically the iPhone without the phone), new mobile iTunes Music Store that will work on iPod touch and the iPhone, odd partnership with Starbucks…click to buy currently playing songs in the store and free wifi for iTMS purchases (how about free wifi, period?), and the 8GB iPhone now costs $399. !!!!! I guess Apple’s plan on that was 1) gouge all the early adopters, and then 2) reduce the price to sell iPhones like crazy.
Nice video of how a copy and
Nice video of how a copy and paste feature might work on the iPhone. There was a lengthy discussion about how to implement this on kottke.org last month.
iPhone, Wiimote, or newborn baby: which has the best built-in accelerometer?
In the Kottke/Hourihan household, much of the past 4 weeks has been spent determining which has the most sensitive built-in accelerometer: an iPhone, a Nintendo Wiimote, or our newborn son.
The iPhone was eliminated fairly quickly…the portrait-to-landscape flip is easy to circumvent if you do it slow enough or at an odd angle. The Wiimote might be the winner; it registers small, slow movements with ease, as when executing a drop shot in tennis or tapping in a putt in golf.
Newborns, however, are born with something called the Moro reflex. When infants feel themselves fall backwards, they startle and throw their arms out to the sides, as illustrated in this video. Even fast asleep they will do this, often waking up in the process. So while the Wiimote’s accelerometer may be more sensitive, the psychological pressure exerted on the parent while lowering a sleeping baby slowly and smoothly enough so as not to wake them with the Moro reflex and thereby squandering 40 minutes of walking-the-baby-to-sleep time is beyond intense and so much greater than any stress one might feel serving for the match in tennis or getting that final strike in bowling.
In the battle of Steve Jobs (CEO
In the battle of Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) vs. Steve Jobs (former CEO of Pixar and current Disney Board member), Steve Jobs (Apple) was the clear winner. Apple sold an estimated 500,000 iPhones this weekend — grossing somewhere between $250 million and $300 million — while Pixar’s Ratatouille grossed $47.2 million.
Update: Some more interesting iPhone statistics, including Apple’s stock price increase since the iPhone was announced ($32 billion increase in market cap) and that iPhone was mentioned in 1.25% of all blogs posts over the weekend. (thx, thor)
Update: Apple’s stock price went down this morning in heavy trading. I guess Wall Street wasn’t so over the moon for the iPhone?
New iPhone features
John Gruber remarked on the lack of a clipboard on the iPhone and I found myself missing that feature this afternoon. Steven Johnson suggested a double-click of the Home button as a shortcut to the phone favorites screen to shorten initiation times for frequent calls. Both of these observations beg the question: how are new capabilities going to get added to the iPhone? A bunch of you are either interaction/interface designers or otherwise clever folks…how would you add a feature like a clipboard to the iPhone?
Here’s where interaction on the iPhone stands right now. Pressing, holding, flipping physical buttons (home, power, silent, volume). Tapping buttons on the screen to active them. Tapping the screen to zoom in/out. Tap the screen with two fingers to zoom with Google Maps. Pinch and expand on screen to zoom in/out. Swipe screen to scroll up/down and side to side. Swipe screen to flip album covers in iPod mode. Touch and hold screen to bring up magnifying loupe and drag to move cursor. Flip unit to reorient screen from portrait to landscape and vice versa. Swipe message to delete. Swipe screen to unlock. There are probably more that I’m forgetting.
How do you add to that while keeping the interface intuitive, uncluttered (both the physical device and onscreen), and usable? Add a button to the device? Add buttons onscreen…a menu button perhaps? Double and triple pressing of physical buttons? New touchscreen gestures? Physical gestures like shaking the entire phone to left or right? Voice activated features? A combination of some/all of those?
Cupertino, we have a problem
My iPhone bubble abruptly popped this evening when I tried my Shure E3c earphones (the best pair of earphones I’ve ever owned and far superior to the Apple earbuds) with the iPhone and they didn’t work. The ones that came with the iPhone work fine. On their site, Apple says:
iPhone has a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack, so it is compatible with most portable stereo headphones. Some stereo headphones may require an adapter (sold separately) to ensure proper fit.
The earbuds from a v3 iPod didn’t work either. The E3c plug is 3.5 mm and the earphones are about 2 years old. Is anyone else having problems with their earphones? I don’t understand why this is even an issue. Very irritating.
Update: Others are having similar problems with headphones not fitting. Looks like it’s the plastic sheath around the plug that’s the problem. (thx, sean)
Update: I cut away a bit of the E3c’s sheath with my trusty Exacto knife and it now fits in the jack. I’d love to know the reason for recessing that plug so much…besides pure aethetics of course; it just seems like too much of a trade-off.
According to Apple’s iPhone stock checker, every
According to Apple’s iPhone stock checker, every single Apple Store in the country currently has iPhones available.
Update: That page only updates once a day at 9pm for the next day’s stock. So when it says there are iPhones in stock at 3pm, that’s not necessarily the case. (thx, jeremy) At around 11:30 am ET today, Jake Dobkin reported “plenty of stock, no wait to purchase”.
John Gruber’s initial assessment of the iPhone,
John Gruber’s initial assessment of the iPhone, a lot more thorough than mine.
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