Category: Mobile (Page 43 of 65)

      Jobs Wanted A Secret Ban On Cross Hiring With Palm

      August 20, 2009 /

      Steve Jobs looking a little naughty.A couple years back, just after the launch of the iPhone, Steve Jobs was looking for any way to keep his product development team from leaving for greener pastures, including some methods that may have been illegal.

      According to Bloomberg, Jobs sent an email to then Palm CEO Ed Colligan, proposing a deal in which the two companies wouldn’t hire one another’s employees. At the time, Colligan claimed Jobs and Apple had already poached 2% of Palm’s workforce to get the iPhone off the ground. Colligan was, as you might imagine, none too happy to consider a deal between his company and Apple. In an email to Jobs regarding the proposal, Colligan had this to say: “Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other’s employees, regardless of the individual’s desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal.”

      This should definitely be of interest to the Department of Justice, which has been investigating hiring collusion among tech companies for some time. Unfortunately, this probably won’t turn into good things for consumers, just a bunch of behind the scenes wrist-slapping that won’t make much of a difference.

      Apple, Mobile, News

      Palm Still Lagging Miserably Behind

      August 18, 2009 /

      Palm Pre fail.So the Mojo SDK is out, meaning Palm should be ramping up to start some serious competition with the iPhone, right? Wrong. In fact, they’re just starting an ecommerce program that will allow developers to charge consumers for the applications they (the consumers) download. The program will launch in beta in mid-September.

      I tried to be skeptical when I heard critics heralding the death of Palm. I knew things weren’t great for the company, and I’ve written a few posts expressing my general discontent with how they’ve handled the launch of what could be a really great phone. With every new decision/announcement I think, “now they’ll get it right,” or, “they must have learned by now,” but they clearly haven’t. I realize the infrastructure to support a phone on the scale of the Pre costs a lot of money and takes a lot of people. But Palm could have thrown a lot more effort into understanding the post-iPhone market and positioning their device accordingly. Hell, just getting people an early SDK would have been nice. Embracing the homebrew scene would have been nice. All of the things consumers did to try to make the phone a success would have been nice.

      Instead, Palm remained tight-lipped on progress regarding the SDK release and slowly leaked out details and new features to try to excite developers. It was a promising phone at launch, but assuming developers would wait for months to get a chance to enter a fresh app ecosystem was just crazy. Now we’re 3 months past launch, the phone isn’t selling particularly well (not well enough to save the company for certain) and Palm is starting a beta ecommerce program.

      The only good news in this little mess is that they’ve decided to get the program to the public while it’s still in beta instead of waiting until December or so for a full release. It’s still too little, way too late, but at least we can look at the glass 1/8 full instead of 7/8 empty.

      Apps, Mobile, News

      TomTom Available For The iPhone

      August 17, 2009 /

      TomTom on the iPhone.If you’re having trouble getting around town and need turn by turn guidance, you can finally turn to TomTom, one of the biggest names in the industry, on your iPhone. The navigation company has finally released the app they debuted with the iPhone 3GS.

      The app is one of the more expensive in the App Store, and certainly at the high end of the navigation price range, at $100. That does not include the car kit, which adds a speaker, an audio output jack to integrate with your car stereo, and a microphone for using the phone while your TomTom is active.

      I think the real dealbreaker with this app is going to be how it handles phone features. Unfortunately, the iPhone doesn’t allow multitasking, so your TomTom will close when you receive a phone call. That could suck really, really hard if it can’t reposition via GPS quickly enough. On the other hand, if it works well, it could be a pretty sweet deal for those of you in the market for some GPS help.

      Apps, iPhone, Mobile, News

      Headphone Review: Maximo iMetal iP-HS5

      August 13, 2009 /

      The Maximo iMetal iP-HS5.Maximo, who you may recall from my recent review of their iM-590 earbuds, has just released a new earbud product targeted at the smartphone users among you: the iP-HS5. The headphones are of similar make to the iM-590 but Maximo has added an in-line microphone and control button that works with most smartphones on the market today. As with the iM-590, the iP-HS5 produce quality sound and ship with enough accessories to make the headphones a positive experience.

      Appearance/Build Quality
      I’m going to say “as with the iM-590” a lot in this post, so just get used to it. The products are very similar, and for a lot of good reasons. The packaging is smart as ever, with everything well organized for the consumer to see. Open it up and you’re greeted with all the accessories you’ll need to use the iP-HS5 with the smartphone of your choice.

      The headphones ship with a 3.5mm jack installed, but include two 2.5mm adapters for various smartphone wiring configurations. This ensures the product will work with whatever phone you happen to have. For iPhone users, no adapter is required. You also get a 4-foot extension cable, four sets of earbuds, a shirt clip, a carrying case, and a detachable lanyard.

      Maximo has again employed their knit cabling, which I’m still not sure I’m a fan of. While it has its benefits, the sound produced if anything rubs along the surface is pretty tough on my ears. Attaching the shirt clip, at the recommendation of a Maximo rep, did improve things significantly.

      The included lanyard is also a bit of a puzzler for me. While I understand you might not always want noise reducing earbuds in your ears, wearing them around your neck seems similarly out of the question. The included carrying case can be worn on your belt if you really need a place to store the headphones. For someone like me, the extra use I get from the lanyard isn’t worth the frustration that comes with having so much extra cord. Continue reading »

      Audio, Mobile, Reviews

      Is AT&T iPhone SMS Finally Nigh?

      August 11, 2009 /

      MMS running on AT&T.And if so, how nigh? Apparently one of the CNet iPhones managed to pick up AT&T Carrier 5.0, which enables MMS controls in your SMS interface. There’s still no way to send the pictures, but it’s definitely interesting to see the controls reappear.

      You may remember the control’s first appearance on the OS 3.0 developer build. All retail builds have had the controls disabled. When running OS 3.0.1 with Carrier 5.0, though, the controls reappear, making everyone wonder how soon MMS is coming. AT&T only has until September to make good on their “end of summer” promise for MMS capabilities. It’s also worth mentioning that 3.0.1 broke the hacked tethering we’d been enjoying. Could it be we’ll see both features sometime soon? I certainly hope so. I’m tired of seeing “I sent you a multimedia message” on AT&T’s flagship phone, especially since their message viewing sites rarely work as intended.

      Apps, iPhone, Mobile

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