Tag: iPhone Posts

Roger's Wireless And The Canadian iPhone

Technology

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 […]

iPhone Developer Program – Now Approved

 Journal

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.

Apple iPhone Coming To Canada

 Journal

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.

Quick Blip.Tv Test

 Journal

Good news is I’m fairly happy with the outcome, especially with the branding part of it. Plus transcoding only took about 3 or 4 minutes. I signed up for a Pro Account on a month by month basis for this upcoming weekend. It gives me priority transcoding and the ability to automatically generate iPod specific versions at the same time. The only question left is weather to shoot at 320×240 or 640×480. If I were at home, I’d just shoot 640×480, but the files end up rather large, and if I’m limited to a crappy hotel connection, might prefer speed over quality. Plus, 320×240 is basically iPod/iPhone resolution, so the conversion is easier (it’s going on 15 minutes trying to convert my 640×480 into an iPhone version). I’ll have to think about this one some more. Here’s an embed link which should (in theory) bring up an iPhone media player. […]

Apple iPhone SDK – Should You Be Afraid?

 Journal

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 […]

Come On Steve, Show Canada Some Love

 Journal

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 […]

Microsoft Extends 44 Billion Dollar Offer For Yahoo!

Technology

Wow, what can I say. That is a pretty impressive sum of money. I read this before going to bed last night on Digg, but I thought it was fake. Turns out that Microsoft has just extended a 44 billion dollar offer for Yahoo! To be honest, Google has really handed Yahoo! their hand in search. I personally don’t know anyone that uses Yahoo to do search, although I’ve been told it’s still fairly popular in Asia. I have friends over at Yahoo!, and I once showed them my web logs from my blog indicating that something like 98% of all searches originate from Google. They refused to believe they were true, but that’s how the ball rolls over here. Granted, the readers of this blog are biased towards the technical side, but I think the numbers are fairly indicative of things in North America, as I’m sure most of […]

iPhone Hacked?

 Journal

I just read an article that basically alludes to the fact that the iPhone has been hacked. While I’m all in favour of this, there seems to be some question as to whether or not it is actually legal to do so. To that end, I’m a fairly certain it could be argued that the iPhone “lock” is a form of copy protection, in which case it would fall under the DMCA, and hence be illegal to circumvent. We’ll have to see how it all plays out, but I suspect the guys are gonna be in for a few legal headaches. — Update So, the DMCA was updated last year with the following provisions: Exemptions are allowed for 1) the educational library of a university’s media studies department, in order to watch film clips in class; 2) using computer software that requires the original disks or hardware in order to […]

Apple iPhone Review

 Journal

Last night Jason and I stopped in briefly at the Apple store here in San Francisco, California, so that we could mess around with a new iPhone. Of course, the store was completely packed, and most people were simply there to do the exact same thing we were doing. Like most Apple stores, the one in San Francisco is currently sold out of iPhones. After waiting only a few short minutes, I picked up an iPhone and started messing around with it. Right away, I liked how small and comfortable it felt in my hand. The user interface is pretty revolutionary, and it’s really intuitive how to use it. At the bottom is a MENU button that always takes you back a level or to the front menu. If you’re using Safari or something and want to see more information, you can zoom by putting two fingers together on the […]