Development

Here’s something you didn’t know: The iPhone sucks. It sucks because it is too slow and the reason it is too slow is because of the ARM processor powering the thing. All this from two Intel executives.  Shane Wall (VP mobility group) said “Any sort of application that requires any horse power at all and the iPhone struggles” Which was backed up by Pankaj Kedia (Directory of ecosystems) who added “The shortcomings of the iPhone have come from ARM” The two were happy to extend their criticisms to any phone powered by an ARM chip.

Clearly, Intel thinks ARM is a worthless, market throttling chip. Fair enough since the company competes against ARM but yI didn’t see any Intel powered phone with super speedy web browsing on Intel’s website. Maybe they are worried about ARM coming up with an Intel competitor on people chucking their laptops to go all iPhone all the time. Besides, I’ve never seen a better web browsing implementation of a mobile device. Whatever the reason Intel is already running away from the comments calling the swipes “inappropriate” 

Perhaps the Intel guys have a point.… more...

While there is a lot of hubbub about Apple banning apps from the App store and developers refusing to develop for the platform those high profile things don’t really have the effect on the development community the SDK (Software Development Kit) does. Developers like the easier or more familiar development kit to minimize relearning. So who is winning the war of SDK that goes on mostly behind the scenes? InfoWorld tries to answer that question. If you read the article you have to feel kind of sorry for Microsoft, the choice is presented as either A or B with option C (Windows mobile) completely excluded.

James Stoup has an excellent piece up over at our sister site Apple Matters extolling the virtues of the App store. Heck, he likes it so much he’d like to see it as part of OS X. But it isn’t all blue skies and cotton tailed bunnies hopping through the meadows, James notes that Google’s android store is on the horizon and that it will likely provide some real competition for the App store.

Check it out!

Many other phones have it. Phones that have been around for a couple of year with much less technology than the iPhone has. Some examples? Take a look here to see all types of phones that can record video. Phones with silly names like, Glyde, Glimmer, Pearl and Rumor (yes, really).

But our beloved iPhone, which has a camera built-in, a desktop world-class operating system…basically everything you can imagine you’d need to record video does not. Why? I honestly cannot think of a good reason why. Unlike other missing technologies like Flash, Video doesn’t present any threat (that I can think of) to Apple or AT&T? So come on, Apple, pony up, and let us record Video on all those gigs on our iPhone.

Ah, there is nothing more exciting than the yellow Post-it! The Apple store is down!!!! Will there be a flurry of new gadgets? What will Papa Steve bring us this time?

As time counts down to the WWDC Keynote many Apple fans are waiting anxiously for the arrival of firmware 2.0 and the announcement of a 3G iPhone. The Post-it almost confirms something new is coming. WWDC starts at 10AM PST. That is only about 2 hours from now! Are you ready?

Keep updated by coming back to iPhonematters during the keynote. We will be covering news as it breaks.

The Black app. Is it a viral campaign for attention? Maybe, but if all goes well it will be a great social tool for iPhone users all around. It is said that when iPhone 2.0 is released so will one of the first social networking applications for the phone, but… this is merely speculation. “The first iPhone social consumer network.” Any ideas as to what this means? Regardless, the app will be launching on June 5th from Epic Apps,  so it seems as if it may be a while before we get any more significant information. Keep an eye out, but until then, be satisfied with looking at the site.

One of the main gripes of the iPhone when first introduced was the lack of a physical keyboard which allowed for tactile feedback. This was very difficult to implement considering the iPhone utilized a touch screen which manipulated the keyboard, any sort of feedback was eliminated altogether. Malcolm Hall and Eve Hoggan, students at the University of Glasgow overcame this limitation and implemented a Haptic keyboard system.

Although the concept exists, the prototype is less than ideal due to the few bugs found that killed the demo experience. However, it is a big first step in the right direction despite this being a prototype. The concept is demonstrated in a text editor but cannot be enabled for other Apps such as Mail, Notes or even Safari.

For the daring, the Haptic demo can be downloaded here.

Via: TUAW

Earlier we reported about iJailbreak being able to Jailbreak and unlock iPhones (Mac compatible) running 1.1.2/1.1.3 with Bootloader 4.6 which used Zibree’s utility to do the dirty work. While Zibree had created the ulity and compatible for Windows only, ModMyiFone created another Mac/Windows version of the App with a GUI frontend.

The App does everything Zibree’s utility and will unlock/jailbreak your iPhone running 1.1.2/1.1.3 with Bootloader 4.6. Bootloader 3.9 support is available and can be Jailbroken but unlocking must be done with AnySIM or other method of choice.

Via: ModMyiFone

Rumors continue to trickle in about the iPhone’s imminent SDK but the outlook does not look good.

Erica Sadun reports that the SDK should ship on schedule for late February but be in crippled form and the full package won’t be out until April. A Simulator will be made readily available.

It wouldn’t be surprising if there were delays, Google has dedicated more time than Apple to developing their SDK and mobile OS. Apple jumped up to get a SDK out when the announced October.

Via: TUAW

Apple’s user base was shocked when Steve Jobs so nonchalantly proclaimed the Internet would be the iPhone’s only means of using any 3rd party Software when in reality it was comparing a toddler’s bike to a Corvette. But when the community spoke up and had their wishes fulfilled, all that was left to do was wait until February but now we might need to wait some more.

The upside if you can call it that, Apple will be giving developers a simulator to make Application creation that much easier. While it’s practically a requirement, it could be used as a valid reason to delay the SDK if rumors coming Erica Sadun’s way are true.

Nothing has been confirmed but Apple’s word has been February for the SDK release and they’ve often waited until the very end to ship out what they announced. It wouldn’t be surprising if there was a slight delay, they’ve already pushed back the AppleTV update probably to focus more on the iPhone’s SDK.

Via: Ars Technica: Infinite Loop