Mobile World Congress 2009 took place this week in Barcelona, Spain bringing together the major players of the mobile phone industry. While Apple chose not to attend, a lot of the talk still surrounded Apple's iPhone. Here are a few notes of interest to come out of the conference.
- Apple's iPhone seemed to take center stage during a panel discussion with CEOs from Microsoft, Nokia and AT&T. They criticized Apple's closed vertical ecosystem. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, specifically, had this to say:
"I agree that no single company can create all the hardware and software," he said. "Openness is central because it's the foundation of choice."
One audience question asked why these panelists were so worried about Apple when the iPhone holds only a small percentage of mobile phone marketshare. AT&T's De la Vega summed up the answer: "Because the other 99.5 percent of the industry is trying to copy the iPhone."
- Apple's investment in supporting upcoming web standards may begin to pay off with a new breed of "offline" web applications. Google demoed a version of GMail that will still work even when Airplane mode is on. Airplane mode effectively takes the iPhone offline, but by using local storage capabilities found in HTML5, users would still be able to browse and manipulate their mail. A YouTube video shows it in action. These sort of offline web applications have been discussed as possibilities in the past given Apple's investment in web-standards. Of course, these apps would work on any HTML5-compliant browser, including Android phones.
- A company called Sygic demonstrated a full featured turn-by-turn GPS application for the iPhone and is planning on submitting it to the App Store despite SDK terms that seem to specifically prohibit such applications.
- Gizmodo took a look at the new Android G2 and liked it with the exception of the typing interface.
Tuesday November 19, 2024 12:12 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley and his colleagues recently traveled to Asia to meet with various electronics manufacturers and suppliers. In a research note this week, outlining key takeaways from the trip, the analysts said they have "confirmed" that a fourth-generation iPhone SE with an Apple-designed 5G modem is slated to launch towards the end of the first quarter next year. In line with previo...
Sunday November 17, 2024 5:18 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple released the AirTag in April 2021, so it is now three over and a half years old. While the AirTag has not received any hardware updates since then, a new version of the item tracking accessory is rumored to be in development.
Below, we recap rumors about a second-generation AirTag.
Timing
Apple is aiming to release a new AirTag in mid-2025, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman....
Sunday November 17, 2024 3:03 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
While the Logitech MX Master 3 is a terrific mouse for the Mac, reports claiming that Apple CEO Tim Cook prefers that mouse over the Magic Mouse are false.
The Wall Street Journal last month published an interview with Cook, in which he said he uses every Apple product every day. Soon after, The Verge's Wes Davis attempted to replicate using every Apple product in a single day. During that...
Tuesday November 19, 2024 10:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1, minor updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating systems that debuted earlier in September. iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1 come three weeks after the launch of iOS 18.1.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. Apple has also released iOS 17.7.2 for...
Wednesday November 20, 2024 3:42 am PST by Tim Hardwick
AT&T has begun displaying "Turbo" in the iPhone carrier label for customers subscribed to its premium network prioritization service, according to reports on Reddit. The new indicator seems to have started appearing after users updated to iOS 18.1.1, but that could be just coincidence.
Image credit: Reddit user No_Highlight7476
The Turbo feature provides enhanced network performance through ...
Monday November 18, 2024 1:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
In a research note with Hong Kong-based investment bank Haitong today, obtained by MacRumors, Apple analyst Jeff Pu said he agrees with a recent rumor claiming that the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" will be around 6mm thick.
"We agreed with the recent chatter of an 6mm thickness ultra-slim design of the iPhone 17 Slim model," he wrote.
If that measurement proves to be accurate, there would be ...
Tuesday November 19, 2024 10:52 am PST by Juli Clover
The iOS 18.1.1, iPadOS 18.1.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.1 updates that Apple released today address JavaScriptCore and WebKit vulnerabilities that Apple says have been actively exploited on some devices.
With the JavaScriptCore vulnerability, processing maliciously crafted web content could lead to arbitrary code execution. The WebKit vulnerability had the same issue with maliciously crafted...
