Tag: Apple & All Things Mac Posts

Most of us have been waiting patiently for Rogers to finally release their data rates for the iPhone 3G that is coming to Canada on July 11th. The good news is that the wait is finally over — Rogers just released full information about their plans. Unfortunately, Rogers completely missed the boat on this one. They had the chance to bring Canada to the forefront of the wireless world, but instead felt compelled to keep us locked up in our draconian past. There are no unlimited data rates for the new plans, and anything approaching 1GB will cost you $100 or more per month (plus, I’m sure, the 9/11 fee and the system access fee, bringing your bill to $120 or more). To be honest, it’s exactly what I expected, but I can’t honestly say I didn’t dare to hope that things might be better. On my recent trip down […]

Dave summed up the sentiment behind this post with one of his recent Flickr photos: While most of Canada is ecstatic for the release of the iPhone in Canada, one company seems rather mute about the whole event. Ironically, that company is Rogers, the only company that has the technology to actually bring the iPhone to Canada. As Dave pointed out, the Apple website has been updated to reflect all the available information regarding the iPhone in Canada. Roger’s unfortunate marketing campaign involves what exactly? A simple teaser, like we’ve all been living in a cave and have absolutely no idea what’s coming out next month. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m fairly certain Roger’s data plan will be overpriced, which is why I suspect they are holding out as long as possible before revealing it to Canadians.

I missed the boat on the first round of Canadian iPhone action last year mainly because I was (quite stupidly) locked into a crazy Bell Mobility contract. The current consensus of the rumour mill is that Apple is gearing up to announce the 3G version of the iPhone on June 9th, which would hopefully put that model into Canadian stores sometime in the near future. I have been patiently awaiting it’s arrival so I can call up Bell and tell them where they can shove my phone and my crappy contract. The only problem is that Roger’s has been completely silent on what type of plan will be available for the Canadian iPhone here in Vancouver. As most people know, the data rates in Canada are fairly atrocious. I want to point out a graph that Boris did last year that highlighted just some of the craziness: And while data […]

I’ve seen a few rumour sites suggest that Apple is preparing to seed developers with an early 10.6 release of their operating system. You can read about it here. If true, it sounds like it’s more of a maintenance/stability release, which makes me really wonder why they would name it a 10.6 instead of a 10.5.4. And to be honest, I’d be really disappointed if they were to release 10.6 as a real, full fledged (i.e. you have to pay more money) update to the operating system, considering Leopard isn’t that old and that it’s far from stable as it is. It’s obviously just a rumour, so I’m not going to worry too much about it, but I’m starting to question some of Apple’s business practices of late.

Apple announced the official iPhone developer program a while ago. Unfortunately at the time they also indicated it would only be open to people in the United States at first. I decided to just sign up for it at the time anyways, assuming they would open up to Canada at some point as well. Turns out they did. I got my official email last night saying I was accepted, so today I went and paid my $99 and can now develop iPhone applications (if I want to). So, maybe I’ll mess around with XCode on my vacation for an afternoon and see if I can make anything cool.

It’s official — Roger’s has made what they call a public statement regarding just that: TORONTO, April 29 /CNW/ – Ted Rogers, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rogers Communications Inc. today issued the following statement: We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned. Not very informative, but I guess it dispels the myth that it’s not coming. Although, most people thought it would get here eventually. I also read that Rogers is testing out a $20 unlimited data plan as well, which would make sense.

The official home for the theme will be over on BraveNewCode, so add a link and keep track if you’re interested.

Going through Google reader tonight, I’ve encountered a lot of shared articles about the Apple iPhone SDK. And for the most part, every one of the articles praises the SDK and Apple’s approach with it. Photo by John Biehler But in pure Office Space style, I’m going to have to go ahead and, you know, sort of disagree with you all. In particular, I’m going to outline a few points from one specific article and give my take as a cross platform application developer who actually *has* developed software from scratch on the Mac using both Carbon and Cocoa. First point: Overall, it is deeply impressive how many things Apple got right. We still need to see more details on terms and conditions, and a lot will depend on Apple’s execution, but here are the problems they appear to have solved: –Mobile applications are hard for users to find and […]

Yesterday Apple released their long-waited for SDK for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. What this means is that if you’re interested in developing applications for the iPhone, you can simply download the SDK and get cracking. That is, unless you live in Canada. That’s right, Steve Jobs has limited real development to people with valid US addresses. And even then, it’s an application process that costs a minimum of $99 to be a part of. I realize Canada is a really small demographic compared to the United States, but we’re not *that* small, and there really are some bright people up here. I had a friend download the SDK last night, and sure enough, until you get approved you can’t digitally sign any of your applications, which ultimately means you can’t install them on any real devices. I’m reminded of my Apple TV sitting in the other room which […]

This morning I had the pleasure of swinging by MacStation in Yaletown on my way to work and picking up a brand new MacPro computer for work. I could sit here and quote technical specs until the cows came home, but I’ll just say that this sucker completely rocks. It basically has two of everything: Two CPUs, each of which has four 2.8 GHz cores A dual-head video card capable of doing 1080p video on each port Two network cards, so in theory you could put one on a private network and one on a public one I’ve spent the last year sort of bouncing between multiple machines. In fact, looking back over the last year I’d say I did about 50% of my time developing on mobile platforms, 25% on Windows, and maybe 25% on Mac. To that end, I basically had three full development machines on or near […]