iPhone
No more screen protectors from Apple
Mar 17th
It’s surprising, but we see several possible explanations to the banning of screen protectors for the iPhone, iPod and Mac. You’ll still be able to buy them from the manufacturer, other chains or local companies, but it looks like the ban from Apple retail and online stores will happen by May.
In communications with vendors that have been ongoing for “some time now,” according to one company, Apple has said that it will remove both film-only solutions from its stores, as well as any case or other accessory that includes film protection as part of its package, such as cases that include film screen protectors. According to sources, the ban will impact all forms of screen film, including completely clear film, anti-glare film, and mirrored film, regardless of whether the purpose of the film is protective, decorative, or both.
So, what’s getting the axe? It looks like every screen protector for the iPhone, iPod, and potentially the iPad. This appears to include laptop protectors like Marware’s Protection Pack but we’re still left to wonder how far this ban will go?
Several sites have guessed that it’s related to the high return rate of the screen protectors mostly due to user error. When I worked at the Genius bar, all of the Genii refused to install the protectors because of the rare occurrence that we’d mess one up. It’s impossible to take it off and do it again. So, if you suck at it, the store eats that product. I’ll back this explanation: the return rates on the screen protectors were off the chart compared to every other product in the store… maybe Apple doesn’t want to deal with it any more. It could have been costing them more money than they made off of the products.
Others speculate that is has something to do with Apple’s superiority complex. They don’t want customers to think they have to buy a screen protector in order to keep their devices scratch-free. I don’t really buy into this explanation because that means every Apple product doesn’t need any protection and will last forever right out of the box. Yeah… right. I repair several iPhone screens a day because my customers rarely realize how fragile it truly is. Buy a case for your iPhone, your iPod touch, your future iPad, and even your laptop. The extra protection provided by a Speck product will definitely help your laptop stay nicer, longer. However, it won’t make it drop proof — so don’t go overboard.
Over-confidence is our last possible scenario. Cases make people feel secure… people who use cases or screen protectors are far more likely to haphazardly care for their devices. While we realize it’s unlikely, we think Apple may be pulling these products to avoid the “I had a screen protector” argument. Most of us know that this argument is completely moronic, but you’d be surprised at the number of people who blame Apple for faulty products when they “took the necessary precautions.” Yes, it does seem stupid… but you’d be surprised how unintelligent people can be when it comes to caring for their devices.
Our condolences to the manufacturing companies; this will probably be a huge hit on the sales of their products.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, hope you like our festive coloring.
iPhone: so good, Microsoft employees can’t resist
Mar 17th
Yeah, you read that right: approximately 10,000 Microsoft employees are using iPhones. We’re not too surprised by this information. People know what good phone software truly is… and that’s not Windows Phone. Even with the upcoming Windows Phone 7, we may see a lot of people scrambling for their hidden iPhones after its release.
Nothing is final yet, but it looks like Microsoft has decided to kill multitasking from the Windows Phone 7 release… they’ve also taken copy and paste. Maybe we’re missing something here, but wasn’t Microsoft very vocal about the lack of these two features? Windows Phone 6 has both multitasking and copy and paste. So what’s up with the disappearing act?
If the new Microsoft mobile OS does ship without those features, it’ll make a pretty big argument for an iPhone. Considering the rumor that iPhone OS 4.0 will have multitasking (the 3GS hardware is more than capable of it), it seems like a very strange move for Microsoft to chop such crucial features from their new OS. The 10% of Microsoft employees hiding their iPhones will surely increase; maybe Steve Ballmer would swallow his pride and go to an Apple Store?
We’ll never say that the iPhone is the perfect mobile device, but it’s pretty close. We can’t wait for iPhone OS 4.0 to come out… and we really hope that it lives up to our expectations. However, here we are close to the end of March, and there’s still no talk of a 4.0 beta. Is Apple closing the door on developers for the time being? Could we still see an official release this summer? With the amount of people in the developer program, information leaks out very easily; we’ve even obtained access to betas just to see what’s new. Would Apple limit the beta to a select few developers? We hope not, but still wouldn’t put it past them. Let’s forget about OS 3.2 and just move straight to 4… sound good, Apple?
2011: the year of LTE
Feb 28th
Several news sources have recently reported that AT&T has finally signed the papers authorizing Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson to get cracking on the infrastructure necessary for the transition to LTE (4G). That’s not very big news… but it could be tremendous for those of us who have had continuous issues with the AT&T network since the introduction of the iPhone. We’re still very adamant that any network would have terrible service with the massive amount of extra data iPhone users eat through on a daily basis, but 4G could be awesome.
Don’t get too excited yet, the 4G rollout will take quite some time. They’ll be doing trial runs later this year, much like Sprint’s Chicago introduction: most people won’t have access to the 4G network during the trials and possibly far into 2011… and even that could be limited depending on your market. Cocoa Touch Apps is based near downtown Denver, so we’d expect to see the 4G network here sooner rather than later — especially since we have a major Alcatel-Lucent office 20 minutes from here.
We also need to realize that the introduction of 4G doesn’t mean awesome service: 4G phones will theoretically have the ability to rollback to 3G or even EDGE if service sucks in your location. Considering the fact that it’s taken AT&T 3 or 4 years to get their 3G network reliable (in most cities), we’re not holding our breath on the 4G network quite yet. The 140-300Mbps transfer rates look pretty stellar, but we’re all waiting to see what we can realistically expect from the service. Considering the best download speed offered by Comcast — in the Denver area — is somewhere around 18Mbps, we’d really be surprised if our phones started offering us better browsing speeds than our desktops.
Hopefully we’ll see a smoother transition to 4G after the 3G debacle. We’re pretty sure that the 140-300Mbps speeds will last us a little longer than the 7.2Mbps we’re supposedly getting on 3G. Wouldn’t it make sense to throw a great majority of your effort at a standard that will offer us a substantially better lifetime than it’s predecessor? We thought so.
Apple’s dictatorship has lasted long enough
Feb 24th
By now, almost everyone is familiar with the fact that Apple “allows” us certain privileges with the iPhone OS. Be warned: this is an editorial piece that will most likely anger some and affirm others.
Apple has become drunk with power… so drunk, in fact, that they honestly believe their users will put up with anything they do. What will it take for all of the Apple fanboys to get pissed off, or are we forever pathetically committed to a company that thinks it can control our every move? I’m surprised that we haven’t hit the point of revolution already.
Take for example this past week’s removal of boob apps from the App Store: the totals for app removal are well over 5,000 at this point. Anything that references boobs, or has any sort of “sexual” content within the app has been removed from the store. Apple essentially decided to remove anything that could possibly turn us on. How can they really determine what turns us on? Even after this removal, we can still find applications with half naked men washing cars — this definitely doesn’t turn us on but could still be considered offensive material in some circles. They supposedly received so many complaints about the content in the store that they commenced operation “App Store Boob War.” In this war, we’ve run into a lot of civilian casualties, but somehow we’ve missed the all-important, ever-offending targets. Someone explain why an innocent clothing company’s app can be removed for showing swimsuit apparel but the Playboy and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit apps still remain in the store unscathed by the barrage of policy changes?
Phil Schiller, exercising his usual damage control, tried to explain that “well-established” applications have remained in the App Store because… they’re well established. This tells us it’s okay for big brother Apple to approve applications with tremendous capital and political pull but the small guys get screwed. Anyone else see issues with that? That doesn’t show us the freedom we’ve come to expect from a capitalist country where the small guy can make it big. No, that’s a dictatorship. We might as well be living in China where the government thinks it’s okay to filter our ability to access online content. Isn’t that what Apple has done here?
Let’s go back a few months: Apple has consistently denied companies access to the App Store because of possible conflicts with their current or future offerings. To name just a few, Google Voice and other applications of the sort were denied access because Apple believed it would cause customer confusion. VoIP applications were initially barred from using AT&T’s 3G network. Sure, one could argue that the 3G restriction had more to do with AT&T than Apple, but Apple is the one who’s ultimately doing the banning. Back even further, Podcaster was an application that wanted to give us better control over our podcasts: it was denied access for duplicating a functionality that didn’t even exist in the iPhone OS at that point. Apple wanted to offer a service like it in the future, so they killed it and all of the effort the developer put into the application. What’s to prevent them from claiming duplication of our great ideas if there’s never been any previous documentation? They have the last say; we have nothing.
What about the Jailbreak community? The general argument for Jailbreak is this: people want to get more out of their devices so they Jailbreak it in order to do with it as they please. Shouldn’t we be able to do that without modifying the stock software? Shouldn’t we be able to use the hardware we purchase on any carrier by default? Even if we spend the extra money to buy an iPhone out-right, we still have to unlock it for use with T-Mobile in the U.S… other countries have it a little easier. The unlock process is never an easy task: we’re always playing cat and mouse to keep our devices running the latest software and remain unlocked.
Apple also tries to stupid-proof all of their devices. By doing so, they lock down features and innovation that could easily result in the next big advancement of the iPhone OS. Themes are a pretty big request among the Jailbreak community as well as tethering (for AT&T customers), stronger parental controls and easier access to information with apps like IntelliScreen. IntelliScreen and better parental controls could easily make their way into the next version of iPhone software, but theming is probably another stupid-proof restriction that Apple hasn’t implemented because they don’t know how. That’s what we ran into with copy and paste; they spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make it work with an “Apple” interface. Even now, we find ourselves trying to copy things that won’t copy: partially developer issues but there’s definitely not a global copy and paste interface for the iPhone quite yet.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg… we could seriously go on for another 1,000 words re-hashing the idiosyncrasies of the iPhone OS, but we’ll stop and move on to some possible solutions.
Apple cannot and should not restrict iPhone content. Period. They need to loosen the developer handcuffs a bit and realize that there will eventually be porn on the iPhone whether they like it or not. They just need to figure out a way to implement it without causing problems for the conservative audience. We’ve already suggested that they create a separate adult store for those applications, but it seems like we’ve just been spitting in the wind. We can have R-rated boob movies in the iTunes Store but we can’t use the word “boob” in an application. We can download explicit tracks that call women hoes and bitches (I mean no offense) in the music store but if someone curses in your social app, you could be banned. We can watch sex on TV with our iPhones but we can’t show women in bikinis. Whatever happened to checks and balances. Our government has to have them, what about companies that take dictatorship a little too far?
We realize that AT&T and Apple are undergoing investigations with the FCC due to the interesting drama surrounding Google Voice… but they can only do so much. They won’t ban carrier exclusivity, they won’t force Apple to be more accepting with apps and they definitely won’t get porn on the iPhone. So what’s the point? It seems like we keep getting back to porn, but that’s not our main point: we want the iPhone OS to be an open platform. A platform that fosters innovation instead of hindering it.
Part of that hindrance is the lack of structure within the App Store approval process. Developers are afraid to be innovative because they never know what will happen when they press the submit button after completing their application. Even if they’ve read the SDK with a militant eye, their app could be denied for any reason… it’s usually followed with a vague description for repair and resubmittal. The next reviewer could claim more faults that were never expressed in the first review and their app could be stuck in limbo for weeks if not months. Why would any self-respecting developer put themselves through that kind of shame? Because Apple is extremely popular and, in many aspects, worth the risk if you have something that will sell. It’s that attitude that has made Apple into this dictator, and it’s the haphazardness that has turned many developers away from the platform. There needs to be a pre-approval process for developers: it wouldn’t be too difficult to implement and it may prove to bring more developers to the platform who are willing to be innovative.
Control isn’t everything; Apple seems to be bending over for AT&T. After what is almost a year, we still don’t have access to tethering in the U.S. with AT&T’s 3G network. We finally have some breakthroughs with the introduction of video streaming and VoIP over 3G, but that’s not enough and has not always been the case. Strong-arm Apple needs to get off the ground and go to bat for its customers against AT&T. They’re obviously not living up to the agreement that Apple theoretically put in place before signing contracts… or maybe Apple was too desperate to get a partner (at the time) that they didn’t include specific articles like tethering in the contract. We can’t really comment on the 3G data here — we’re firm believers that any network would have issues handling the iPhone traffic, even Verizon. Either way, carrier exclusivity is NOT the way to go if you want to keep your customers happy.
Okay, step off the soap box… We also have to realize that Apple is only in its third revision of the OS. Realistically, there weren’t that many changes from 2.0 to 3.0 either. Other mobile operating systems like Windows Mobile, Palm OS and Blackberry OS have had years to perfect their devices and figure out all of the issues that Apple encountered within the last couple years. Does that mean Apple should deny us the customer experience we’re looking for? No, but you could attribute the lack of “awesome” to their inexperience and tremendously quick growth.
When the iPhone came out almost 3 years ago, it appeared to be the best phone on the market and forced many other developers to improve their operating systems… and they did. They’ve answered Apple’s challenge and have come up with better user interfaces, some that put Apple’s non-multitasking, page-sliding OS to shame. All the while, Apple’s user interface has remained largely unchanged since its initial launch back in 2007. Yes, we have native applications; yes, there’s a search function; yes, there are countless other features that improved the user experience, but those “new features” have been available on other devices for years. So when does Apple stop playing catch up with the other devices? When does the real innovation start? When will the current restrictions be removed?
Right now, it’s looking like hell will freeze over and pigs will fly before Apple’s dictatorship is overthrown.
You’ll probably have to pay for mobile Hulu
Feb 23rd
We reported earlier last week that Hulu will be making it’s way to the iPad (iPhone and iPod touch will likely follow suit). Since that possibility was leaked, more information has come through the grapevine… and it’s not going to make you happy.
It appears that the three owning studios — ABC, NBC, and FOX — have been trying to figure out a way to make more money from Hulu besides the already annoying ads. This will probably result in a premium model that will give us access to more content. Currently, shows available on Hulu contain the latest three episodes (on average). That’s always been our biggest issue with Hulu: we can’t watch anything older than a few weeks. Even the networks’ online players tend to limit shows to the current season. Anyone else want to watch old seasons of Big Bang Theory?
So what does this premium model look like? It’s been suggested that paid users will have access to content on three devices: a computer, a TV and a mobile device. That seems like a pretty big step backwards to us. Just this last year, Apple gave us a great music sharing tool with iTunes Home Sharing. It lets us copy all of our content between computers on our home network. Granted this is still limited to Apple’s 5-computer model and requires you to sign into an iTunes Store account BUT there’s no limit for mobile devices. So, what makes Hulu think we should be limited to three devices?
Step back from the question for a sec… we don’t actually own any content with Hulu. We would be paying them for streamed content we can get from countless other sources — sources that would allow us to own it. Buy a season DVD, buy individual shows on iTunes, get a season pass on iTunes, there’s also the nefarious world of illegal acquisitions (we’re not recommending that one) — all of those options give us content that we own. Most of us already pay for cable or satellite and most of those companies won’t offer us internet packages without a TV option. So, what’s driving us to subscribe to another paid TV application that still restricts our access?
Sounds like a bad deal to us.
Plants vs. Zombies shuffles to the iPhone
Feb 19th
CTA RATING: 
PopCap finally has brought its most recent popular title to the iPhone: Plants vs. Zombies. It’s not your mother’s tower defense strategy game; it’s a completely new variant of the style, which sends waves of zombies to your door — they want to eat your brains. Defend your home by placing 49 different plants. The game also boasts 29 different zombies. From pole vaulters to Michael Jackson, they can come at you fast or slow, so be ready. This game is probably one of the best iPhone ports we’ve seen and definitely matches the quality of other PopCap titles.
How does Cocoa Touch change the gameplay? To us, it seems easier. There’s no precise clicking as your finger is doing all the work. We’ve found ourselves tapping randomly at the screen in order to pick up all of the sun that comes our way. However, placing the plants can be somewhat difficult at times: we’re constantly putting the wrong plants in the wrong spot, but that’s probably because our fingers are somewhat large (they’re not huge and fat, just big).
Anyway, we’ve played both versions — iPhone and Desktop — and we’re excited to have it available in our pocket at any time. We’re thankful for that but still a little miffed that it’s not the full version. We can spend $2.99 for a pretty good port or pay $19.99 and buy the desktop version. At this point, we don’t see the survival mode, puzzles or the mini-games that we’ve come to love on the desktop version. Maybe they’ll appear in an update in the future, but we don’t see any way to enable them at this point. We’d seriously pay more to get that extra gameplay, as this could get old very quickly. Hopefully we’ll see them take advantage of the in-app purchases… or just give it to us for free. 
The gameplay is great but the extras appear to be missing, so we’ll give it an 8 out of 10. Definitely worth the 3 bucks.
Full picture gallery after the break.
Apple ups the app size for 3G downloads
Feb 19th
In a somewhat surprising move, Apple actually increased the 3G download size to 20MB from the previous 10MB.
If you were out and about trying to download applications on your iPhone, you were only allowed to download it if the app size was 10MB or smaller. That size was increased to 20MB today. It appears that it’s not world-wide. Some countries are still reporting the 10MB cap, but thank goodness U.S. AT&T customers are good… otherwise we might see some serious uproar.
This is great news for those of us who are away from Wi-Fi a lot. We tend to do most of our app updating and downloading while we’re waiting for stuff to happen. Waiting in line at the grocery store, check for app updates. Waiting for the guy at Starbucks to detail his no-whip venti double mocha triple espresso slim (whatever), browse the top downloads. This applies to iTunes content as well: download the latest music video while you’re in the bathroom at the movie theater. Apple is obviously working with wireless providers to make our experiences better.
This also comes at an important time before the iPad launch. Keeping an iPhone application under 10MB isn’t necessarily an easy task. Now imagine doing that with nearly triple the screen resolution. In order to make things pretty, you’re going to bump up the graphics, thus increasing the app size. It’s still going to be difficult to keep feature-rich apps under 20MB for the iPad.
Before you worry, we’re not concerned about the increased size blowing up the data networks… most people don’t pay as much attention to app updates as they should. I sometimes check my wife’s phone and she has 15-20 app updates that she’s never done. Me: umm… why? Her: it takes too long. This change won’t necessarily speed up the process but, updates or new installs, this will make a lot of people a bit happier with AT&T (and Apple).
Hulu making videos available to Cocoa Touch
Feb 17th
We already have a YouTube app that makes our lack of Flash a little less painful, but many of us are getting a lot of video content from Hulu lately. We don’t rely on it to serve up all of our videos — we find ourselves navigating the TV networks’ websites on a semi-frequent basis — but having the option to play shows directly from Hulu would definitely be nice.
The fine folks over at TechCrunch have supposedly spoken with people deep in the business who claim that Hulu is already working on a non-Flash version of their website for the iPad… but it should easily work with the iPhone and iPod touch too. We see no reason to believe that this compatibility upgrade would be limited to a large screen. In fact, we’re seriously doubting the fact that this is an iPad-inspired move at all.
Hulu’s CEO specifically said that they’re “big believers” in the mobile industry and they’re not pushing out updates for a single device. It’s a smart move, especially since all of their video is already encoded in H.264. The only Flash on the site is the actual player and ads… but we’re not really worried about converting the ads. If they can wrap the player in something besides Flash, their site would be compatible with nearly every mobile device with a full browser. This would be a great move for Flash independence as other sites would be forced to do the same with their content in order to compete. We’re not saying that this is the end of Flash-based video; it’s the beginning of the mobile video revolution.
In the end, we’d really love to see a dedicated app with a great user interface, but website access would make us extremely happy. Not everything needs an app in the App Store.
The true cost of iPhone search
Feb 17th
Over the last week, many news sources have picked up on the rumored amount Google is sending Apple each year for the lone spot as the iPhone search provider. Over $100 Million a year seems to be the going rate for that privilege, but people are beginning to question that partnership, some even suggesting that Apple is working on a deal with Microsoft’s new service, Bing.
Google recently rebuked those claims by stating that their relationship with Apple is a valuable partnership. Vic Gundotra, Google’s head of mobile engineering, believes they have no reason to assume the current partnership will end any time soon. No reason? How about the fact that Google built a mobile phone OS that competes with the iPhone? Maybe the Chrome browser and OS they’re working on would also complicate the relationship? What about Apple’s recent purchase of ad firm Quattro Wireless? Still no? Then what about Apple’s purchase of Placebase… a Google Maps competitor?
As things progress, Google and Apple are beginning to butt heads… often. The two companies appear to be tackling milestones from opposite ends of the spectrum: Apple started with hardware and their OS, Google started with search, and both are going mobile. Some analysts have predicted that Apple is working on a new search engine to compete with Google. Really? An over-saturated market with a clear winner… yeah, that’s a good investment.
This deal doesn’t seem very secure based on the dollar amount. In fact, the Apple-Google partnership gets worse with every new deal. The first iPhone maps deal took approximately 2 weeks… when Apple added GPS, that deal took 6 months and was a riveting tale of back-and-forth. It wouldn’t surprise us if Apple moved elsewhere for search just to speed along the political process.
It looks like TUAW shares our good taste in pictures.
SlingPlayer Mobile finally 3G-approved!
Feb 16th
For the SlingBox users in the audience, there’s a new reason to rejoice: SlingPlayer Mobile is available over 3G without modifications or other hacks. This will be of little value for those using this and running a Jailbroken device. With the help of a Jailbreak app, SlingPlayer users have been able to stream their content from their SlingBoxes to their iPhones for a while now. Instead of fighting this battle, it looks like AT&T has finally given in to the fact that users want to stream media.
This obviously isn’t a great solution for all as most people probably don’t own a SlingBox. Instead, this opens new doors for other applications to make their way through the Apple (and AT&T) approval process. What does this say about AT&T? No, the network probably isn’t better at handling the extra content that these users will be streaming, but it does mean that they’re allowing video streaming to the iPhone. This could be due to the on-going FCC investigations of the US wireless carriers… it’s about time. Apps like SlingBox and Skype should never be limited on the network we’re paying to use.
More limitations equal fewer innovations. Maybe Father Apple will take heed of that statement at some point?
