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Revisiting iPhone's app kill switch

The saga around Apple's alleged App Store kill switch gets more curious by the minute. Remember Apple's ability to nuke software remotely on the iPhone? Well, the findings and the forensic code analysis from the source of the ruckus--Jonathan Zdziarski--are being called into question Techmeme. ...

Tags: apple iphone, apple inc., app, revisiting iphone, gruber, tools & techniques, management, larry dignan

Blog posts 2008-08-08

Attack journalism: an iPhone example

Here's a comment from cnet contributor ripragged in response to a Macalope blog entry responding to an article about DRM - but entirely applicable in a different context: the essentially unanimous rejection of the iPhone by the paid IT analyst community: I'm trying...

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple Inc., Attack, Gruber, Digital Rights Management (DRM), Digital Media, Digital Music, Microsoft Windows, Desktops, Security, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Operating Systems, Software, Hardware, Paul Murphy

Blog posts 2008-01-07

Additional Resources

Do we need a 'beautiful mess' in operating systems? Yup

To make a good soup, you've got to stir the pot...Ok, sure - it turns cloudy, short-term. Just be sure to filter it or let it settle, before serving.Whereas the classic 'design-by-committee' model so often fails, its always useful to have multiple, talented teams working on similar projects, independently. With...

Tags: Operating systems, UNIX, Programming languages, Linux Distro, operating system, John Gruber, Linux, Apple Inc.

Discussion threads 2009-11-19

AT&T testing iPhone MMS in Washington (Updated 4x)

While on vacation last week I received an MMS on my iPhone (running OS 3.1 build 7C116a) while passing through Forks, Washington. I received the message from a user on Verizon Wireless on the east coast. Normally this would be a non-story, except for the fact that...

Tags: Jason D. O'Grady

Blog posts 2009-08-12

Philip Schiller: Apple's fireman (and perhaps most valuable exec)

Philip Schiller, Apple's head of worldwide product marketing, needs a new title: Firefighter. Schiller is increasingly putting out fires---notable complaints about Apple's App Store---by tuning in and responding to concerns directly. Schiller reached out to iPhone app developer Steven Frank, who was pondering an Apple iPhone boycott...

Tags: Apple Inc., Schiller, Smart Phones, E-mail, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Online Communications, Larry Dignan

Blog posts 2009-08-12

Mac users suffer Safari 4 woes

Mac users suffer Safari 4 woesNo Mac issues hereIt works well.Now on Windows, Safari is a PIG - memory, CPU, etc.Works great on my MacNo issues to report here. Nice and fast. The new UI changes here and there take a little getting used to. Overall, I'm very satisfied.RE: Mac...

Tags: Microsoft Windows, Desktops, Web browsers, Safari 4, Apple Safari, Safari 4 woe, Mac-user, Apple Macintosh

Discussion threads 2009-06-26

Semantic Technology Conference kicks off with Keynotes from Open Calais and Siri

This year's Semantic Technology Conference got fully underway this morning, with Keynote presentations from Tom Tague of Thomson Reuters' Open Calais Initiative and Tom Gruber from Siri. Despite the wider economic situation, attendance for this fifth year of the event feels a little up on last year, and there's...

Tags: Web, Advertisement, Tool, Siri, Tom Tague, Tague, Enterprise Adoption, Virtual Personal Assistant, Virtual Personal Assistant Paradigm, Podcasts, Channel Management, Productivity, Internet, Marketing, Paul Miller

Blog posts 2009-06-16

iPhone "3GS" to pack better battery

On the eve of Phil Schiller's keynote address at WWDC a couple of new details on the new iPhone have trickled out via Daring Fireball. The first is that the third-generation iPhone is code-named "iPhone 3GS." It's only a code-name so iPhone 3GS is unlikely to be...

Tags: Apple iPhone, Battery, 3G, Cellular Phones, Corporate Communications, Engineering, Wireless And Mobility, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Marketing, Jason D. O'Grady

Blog posts 2009-06-07

Apple - Evolutionary or just reinventing the wheel?

Apple - Evolutionary or just reinventing the wheel?Modal BoxesYou seem stuck on this concept.I don't own an iPhone, but I have actually taken some GUI design classes.The iPhone, as Apple has insisted rightly or wrongly from day one, is a task-at-a-time device.What is a modal message box? A task-at-a-time means...

Tags: Smart phones, Cellular phones, Handhelds, Engineering, Operating systems, Apple Inc., Apple iPhone

Discussion threads 2009-04-02

Apple - Evolutionary or just reinventing the wheel?

John Gruber posts a gushing piece on the genius of Apple's manufacturing and marketing strategy. It got me wondering as to how evolutionary Apple actually is, and if there's any other company in the consumer electronics sector that could take so long to bring basic features to a product and...

Tags: Apple Inc., John Gruber, Consumer Electronics, Marketing Research, Personal Technology, Marketing, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Blog posts 2009-04-02

Your guide to SxSW Interactive 2009

During the second week of March each year, there is a mass pilgrimage of geeks from the San Francisco bay area to the heart of Texas. Not for BBQ, not for a sun tan, but for probably the best interactive web conference in the history of the world. ...

Tags: Facebook, Barbecue, Twitter, SXSW, Scott Beale, Andrew Mager

Blog posts 2009-03-08

Get matriculated at Apple University (updated)

Apple has hired Joel Podolny, Yale's business school dean, to start "Apple University," according to the WSJ. The company declined to provide details about the university or the position. Mr. Podolny will be stepping down as dean on Nov. 1, but will stay at Yale until year end,...

Tags: Yale University, Apple Inc., Retail, Jason D. O'Grady

Blog posts 2008-10-23

Stealth Company decloaks... as Siri

Silicon Valley stealth-mode startup, Stealth Company, revealed a little more about itself overnight and rebranded as Siri. Stealth Company's website has proved vague at best over the past few months, for example tantalising with allusions to underpinning technology; "We are not building...

Tags: Software, SRI International, Siri, CALO, Tools & Techniques, Management, Paul Miller

Blog posts 2008-10-13

Apple notebooks to be fabricated from a solid "brick" of aluminum

The term “brick” was mentioned in a 9-to-5 Mac rumor piece on 10 September 2008 when their source said that the MacBook update is “all about the Brick.” 9-to-5 Mac now claims that the "brick" isn't a specific Apple product but rather a manufacturing process that uses lasers and jets...

Tags: Brick, Apple Inc., BW, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Jason D. O'Grady

Blog posts 2008-10-07

Backgrounder extension for jailbroken iPhones

In a recent piece for Daring Fireball Jon Gruber writes: background processing is the one factor that unites the four dock apps. Phone, Mail, Safari, and iPod all continue running in the background; no other apps, including those from Apple, do... ...

Tags: Apple iPhone, Application, Backgrounder Extension, Wiki, Text Messaging/SMS/MMS, Digital Music, Digital Media, Telecom & Utilities, Online Communications, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Blog posts 2008-10-07

Adobe actively developing a Flash Player iPhone

Flash Magazine reports Adobe Systems' Senior Director of Engineering Paul Betlem confirmed that Adobe is developing a Flash Player for the iPhone at the Flash On The Beach FOTB conference in Brighton, UK. The only problem is that Apple controls which apps get approved for distribution in the App...

Tags: Adobe Systems Inc., Macromedia Flash Player, Apple Inc., Games, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Blog posts 2008-10-01

Apple notebook refresh rumored to arrive October 14 (updated)

Daring Fireball's Jon Gruber posted an interest mention in his Notes and Observations piece after Apple's Let's Rock event on Tuesday. Buried at the end of his third paragraph is this little gem that predicts the date of the upcoming MacBook revision: Those of you holding out for a...

Tags: Apple MacBook, Apple Inc., Trackpad, AppleInsider, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Jason D. O'Grady

Blog posts 2008-09-11

Apple releases iPhone 2.0.1 software (updated 4x)

Apple this evening posted updated iPhone 2.0.1 software (249MB, build 5B108) via the Update feature in iTunes  (iPhone > Summary > Version). Not much information is offered beyond Apple's ridiculously lame "bug fixes" description but I'm sure that details will start to trickle out soon. ...

Tags: Software, Apple iPhone, Apple Inc., Tools & Techniques, Backups, Digital Music, Digital Media, Management, Personal Technology, Consumer Electronics, Jason D. O'Grady

Blog posts 2008-08-04

MobileMe drops subscribed calendar syncing

Jon Gruber points a piece the troubling news that you can't sync read-only iCal subscription calendars to your iPhone, as confirmed in Apple knowledgebase article TS1213. What's worse is that Apple took this feature out of their US$99 subscription service, but it's still available when you sync your iPhone (for...

Tags: Jason D. O'Grady

Blog posts 2008-08-03

Software we'll never see in the App Store

I recently published lists of my most anticipated iPhone applications and my App Store wishlist. But what about applications that we'll never see in the App Store? There are certain kinds of applications that Apple will most likely never offer in the App Store because they conflict...

Tags: 3G, Apple iPhone, Application, Business Operations, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics, Corporate Law, Digital Media, Digital Music, E-mail, GPS, jason D. O'Grady, Networking, Online Communications, Personal Technology, Scripting Languages, Software/Web Development, Telecommunications, Telephony, Web Development, Software

Blog posts 2008-06-19