Summer is winding down and school is back in session. Where has the summer gone? In this episode we talk about new developments with Web OS, the latest Apple press conference and craig gives his hands-on review of the new BlackBerry Torch. Finally, we talk about how the new HD phone calls are rolling out in the UK and plead with our US carriers for a wide and quick adoption.
You can download the show or simply subscribe in iTunes.
By now you’ve probably heard of the purported deal between BlackBerry and the Saudi Arabia government requiring a method to access messages traveling through the BlackBerry network in that country. Details of the deal are still sketchy, but it seems to be enough to keep the government ban on BlackBerry services from happening. While many are happy the ban has been avoided, others, including myself, are worried about the long term implications of this decision.
BlackBerry has made security its’ primary selling point for many years and has done quite well as a result. With clients including many of the Fortune 500 companies and government’s the world over, you have to know that this is something it’s clients take seriously too. The real question here is, “What kind of security risk will these companies have to face as a result of this agreement?”
As I’ve said, the details of the agreement are somewhat sketchy, and from what I understand of the BlackBerry infrastructure, I have to think that this agreement isn’t as far-reaching as it might seem. Reports don’t seem to focus on email messages, but instead on the BlackBerry Messenger service.
Email messages are encrypted end-to-end so that only the server inside the company data center and the handheld have keys to decrypt it. BlackBerry Messenger however does not do this. By necessity, it can’t! In order to route messages to another user’s device, it must be decrypted in the middle and routed to the other user.
Assuming this is true, the security implications aren’t as great as people might think. BlackBerry Messenger was always an add-on product and isn’t the main reason people buy a BlackBerry. Furthermore, it was never promised to be secure. However, the precedence being set is not good. It’s obvious that soon, every nation will be demanding similar treatment. Not only can this apply to BlackBerry, but this example can be applied to nearly every software product that allows encrypted communication, including Skype and hundreds of other products.
But this is also the Achilles heel of the deal. Now that it’s clear that BlackBerry Messenger isn’t secure, it won’t be long before the masses change habits and start using another product that is secure. If that one gets popular enough that the government decides to strong-arm a similar deal, the people will just change again. The bottom line here is that this is just another step in the eternal cat-and-mouse game they have been playing since the start of time. The real victim here is the BlackBerry Messenger platform.
iPhone 4 - FaceTime
You’ve experienced the hype, you’ve seen the long lines outside Apple and AT&T stores, but is the iPhone 4 worth it? Lets take a look.
Retina Display
The Retina display on the new iPhone 4 really is all its cracked up to be. If you use an iPhone 3GS, a current model BlackBerry, or other Smartphone like an Android or Palm webOS phone, you will be struck by this display’s super sharp picture. At 960 pixels by 640 pixels, packed into a 3.5” (measured diagonally) area it delivers amazing images, graphics, and video. The resolution is the highest on any Smartphone right now but it’s also the size of each pixel. The Retina display’s pixels are 78 microns (0.07 millimeters) in size.
1GHz CPU
The iPhone 4 has a 1GHz A4 processor. There isn’t much to say about it other than its fast and make the iPhone very snappy.
Generally speaking a human body is a capacitor. That means at certain point, it can potentially generate 15,000 V. That’s why when humidity is low, the chances of a static discharge remains high. Have you experience making a spark when you touch some metal or even your family members? You’re exactly discharging a potential energy to another body.
In the world of telecommunications including mobile communications, ESD (Electro Static Discharge) issue is very important. ESD could kill a half a million dollars worth of circuit packs in a heart beat. A wrist wrap, foot-straps or an anti-static floor is required when handling sensitive electronics.
This includes the need to shield the sensitive electronics of a mobile phone. Insulation has to be placed between the user and the cell phone in order to ensure the isolation of a potentially hazardous energy from damaging the highly sensitive electronics inside a cell phone. I can go deeper on the actual molecular or even on electron level effect of an unwanted electronic charge but that would be too nerdy. Bottom line is that it could potentially disarray the logical states of the circuits thus throwing off the circuits into a crazy state damaging the programming codes encoded inside.
All the tech blog sites lit up last night as word started making it around that Microsoft had killed off the Kin line mere weeks after announcing and releasing the social networking device through Verizon. At the time it was announced, I stated that it might be too radical and that Microsoft was taking risks targeting the fickle and fad oriented teen/tween markets.
Sometime later, I had read there were rumors that only five hundred devices have been sold as blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes sought to find someone who actually bought one. Do you know anyone who has purchased one? I can’t say I’ve ever seen one even being used in a crowd. I can only assume that this was not far from the truth because the announcement to kill the line seemed to be a surprise to even the Kin team. Looks like Microsoft may have goofed on this, but they apparently understand the famous words of Kenny Rogers. “You gotta know when you hold ‘em. You gotta know when to fold ‘em.”
Bloggers all over the blog-0-sphere have been speculating about why the product failed to take off, when it seemed to be a good idea at the time. I think this one is mostly about execution and pricing. The cloud services required to use the device were pricey to say the least. Teens and Tweens don’t have their own paycheck, so it’s pretty clear that moms and dads everywhere said no to those extra charges on the cell phone bill. The bottom line is that the Kin was never meant to be a smart-phone, but the data pricing tied to it was the same as a smart-phone. If you are going to pay the same data price, you might as well get a real feature-rich smart-phone.
It seems that some of the Kin features will be available for the Windows Phone 7 line though as the entire Kin product team has been folded into the Windows Phone 7 team. Will this help or hurt Windows Phone 7?
Now that the iPhone 4 has finally started making its way into the hands of Apple cultists, er, fans everywhere, you can hardly find a news story talking about anything else. Every day it seems like there is another news article about how Wall Street analysts are practically fainting over the stock prospects of AAPL. Even the failures of the ‘unexpected demand’ when pre-ordering, and subsequent reports of canceled pre-orders hasn’t tarnished Apple’s image at all. Fans are still lining up in droves at the Apple Stores.
One tradition that never gets old is somehow destroying a brand new device once it’s available. This time Engadget did it in the name of science to test out that new harder-than-plastic glass screen. Don’t worry, it will still break.
Something that is very interesting and possibly a big design flaw are reports that using the phone in your left hand is causing calls to be dropped! The iPhone4 is using a new design for the antennas which are built into the exterior of device. Both antennas are there and are separated by small plastic spacers to keep them from touching. Apparently some users are reporting that when you hold the phone with your left hand so that your palm is touching both the WiFi and Cellular antennas, it can cause calls to be dropped. Ruh Roh, Ruggy! Details are sketchy, but if this is happening to you, you might want to invest in a nice rubberized sleeve and cover up that oh-so-stylish chrome trim.
This photo rocks. Credits to Engadget.
The coming of new smartphones is riding the heat of the summer sun. Craig, Bill and I are all together on this another episode of Mobile Computing Authority podcast. Aside from the nice discussion of cruising, we’re doing our usual take on the new iPhone 4 and it’s iOS 4.0. We’ve also talked about the current state of affairs of BlackBerry with regards to the new releases of BlackBerry Pearl3G and BlackBerry Bold 9650. Plus Craig’s nice picks for Father’s day. You can download the show or simply subscribe in iTunes.
One of the more convincing sales pitches of Mr Jobs when Apple launched the iPad is that the iPad will run almost all of your iPhone Apps. I guess this is true, especially if you love Atari’s Asteroid game of the 80s. The resolution is almost similar. That’s how bad the resolution of most of your iPhone app when rendered on the iPad. Case in point, the Facebook app. For almost 3 months now, I still prefer using safari and Atomic Web to open Facebook on the iPad. Facebook when magnified on the iPad looks like a face mugged by a book or a defaced book.
Well, guess what iPhone fanboys? iPhone 4 can fix that problem right away. Or maybe not too soon yet. Today, the number of iPad apps crossed the 10,000 mark. But the real benchmark is not the iPad apps but the ability of app developers to maximize the display real estate of the new iPhone 4. With iPhone 4’s 960×640 (326ppi), it can almost fill iPad’s 1024×768 (132ppi). That mean’s your iPhone 4’s apps can run and be looking good on the iPad without pixelitis (a disease associated with your display when apps are bloated from a low resolution to a high resolution).
As for your weekly dose of the good news – bad news tandem, it is reported that the iPhone 4 will support iPad’s VGA video output cable for delivering 1024×768 resolution. Bad news is – not through HDMI. That means, that 720p HD video that you will shoot when Spain plays the USA in the finals of World Cup 2010 (Hey, nothing with dreaming, right?) could not be played on a projector straight from your iPhone 4. What a bummer 
!
I just watched some live blogs from different sources at the very recently (like a few hours ago) concluded WWDC 2010. Steve Jobs, the marketing genius of Apple has just announced the new iPhone 4 to the world. It will be release in the US, France, Germany, UK and Japan on June 15, 2010.
Okay, here’s the gist and my take on what’s new on Apple’s latest gadget:
- Netflix, iBook, iMovie being released. Apps have no freedom, they will run on any iPhone hardware (I hope so!). For the iMovie editing app, I’m just wondering how much time you’re gonna spend editing your whole European trip on your iPhone?
- 24% thinner. Ok, you got me on this, I have smaller hands. But if this is the only reason why I’m buying a new phone, I’d rather contact Luke Skywalker because he got a pretty nifty hand customized for him the last time I checked.
We don’t seem to say much about the HTC EVO here, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t paying attention either. There is a lot of buzz about this handheld, and more importantly, the 4G WiMAX network that is being offered by Sprint. I like Sprint a lot, in spite of the fact that they seem to have been doing the ‘toilet bowl spiral’ for some time. I’ve said before though that WiMAX could not only be a lifeline, but also a springboard that could launch the company from the brink of bankruptcy into a much better position if it is done right. The HTC EVO certainly seems like a step in the right direction! But is it enough?
The launch of the HTC EVO has turned out to be Sprint’s biggest launch ever; a designation previously held by the Palm Pre. Let’s hope that the EVO doesn’t follow in the Pre’s tracks! There is no reason that I can see to think that might happen though. HTC is the established industry leader for smartphone manufactures currently and, compared to Palm’s dubious future at the time of the Pre’s release, HTC’s rock solid position and future probably has a lot to do with the high demand! Of course 4G doesn’t hurt either!
So now the horse is on the track and Sprint is back in the race. Time will tell whether they will be able to make up ground and get back into the wireless carrier race. The big question is whether the 4G network will be able to handle the strain of all these new users and whether the capacity is there. AT&T often gets beat up over network capacity by their iPhone and iPad users. It won’t be hard for Sprint to become everyone’s favorite whipping boy if they can’t keep the bytes flowing quickly.