Category: News (Page 64 of 130)

Palm SVP to leave, others incentivized to stay

April 16, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

Everyone knows that Palm is a sinking ship. Even Palm’s employees know it. A recent SEC filing shows us that Palm’s senior vice president of software and services, Michael Abbott, will be leaving the company some time this month. That same filing also showed some, ah, generous incentives aimed at keeping others from following suit.

Just how badly does Palm want to keep the other Senior VPs? How about a bunch of stock and a $250,000 cash bonus. If that’s not hitting the panic button I really don’t know what is. It’s probably safe to assume that Abbott was made some sort of offer to stick around, something he was willing to turn down to take all of his WebOS ingenuity elsewhere. You have to feel bad for the guy. He was an integral part of what is actually a great product (the OS, not the handsets that run the OS) but because of a serious marketing failure and some lackluster hardware Palm just never got off the ground.

Better luck at the new position, Mike.

Source: Palm

Mobile, News

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Apple bans cartoon app for satire, begs for resubmission

April 16, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

Mark Fiore may be a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, but Apple didn’t want him. That is, until the world blew up at his iPad app rejection. Fiore submitted “NewsToons,” an app full of his illustrations (and commentary, of course) about the world’s events. Because it contains material of a satiric nature and, “ridicules public figures,” Apple wouldn’t have him.

Obviously this has to change. Some of the best political commentary in the world is satire. Sorry pundits, you don’t always get it right, and you usually get it with just as much bias as any comedian or cartoonist and often a lot less honesty. I don’t know how Apple expects its media platform to succeed of even be taken seriously while ruling out what has become the common language of 21st century mankind: irony.

I checked my mail today to find a package from my mother including Hunter S. Thompson’s Kingdom of Fear. I know I’ve said before that I don’t really like ebooks, but what if I wanted to read this on the iPad. What about Vonnegut’s Man Without a Country? Are these things permissible because they’ve been published by someone other than Apple so Apple doesn’t get the lawsuit if a public figure catches wind?

Whatever the reasons, Apple’s got to change. I can understand keeping control of the software and hardware functions of the device, but controlling the content consumption through arbitrary censorship? C’mon guys, how dumb do you think we are?

Source: Nieman Lab

Apple, iPad, News

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iPad international launch delayed by a month

April 14, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

The iPad didn’t sell the whopping 700,000 units some estimated on Day One, but that didn’t stop it from moving 500,000 in the first week. That’s a nice figure for a device that is essentially pioneering an entire market sector. It’s so nice that Apple has had to delay the device’s launch overseas by an entire month. Apple is anticipating that demand will outpace supply for at least the next several weeks (bleeding into the 3G launch period for those keeping track at home).

Here’s the official word:
Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad™. We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.

Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May. We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10. We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason—the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far.

Source: Apple

Apple, iPad, News

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iPhone OS 4 is gonna be awesome…if you have a 3GS

April 13, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

The iPhone OS 4 announcement was monumental. It’s bringing the long-awaited ability to multitask along with some customization options, organization options, and new search and content management features all over the operating system. It’s a fantastic update, but not everyone will be reaping the full benefits. In fact, the majority of the iPhone user base won’t get to all those new goodies.

Apple has only approved the 3GS for a full OS 4 feature rollout. The original iPhone won’t get OS 4, period. The 3G will only get parts. Though it’s probably still worth it to make the upgrade, you’ll be missing the multi-tasking, the custom home screen backgrounds, and potentially some of the other processor intensive features. It’s not that big a surprise (though the wallpaper thing did catch me off guard) – the 3G has some trouble with the current OS – but it still sucks.

It points to a problem that has longed plagued Apple customers – the update cycle. For Apple as a company it’s worked quite well. What better way to stick it to your fanboy friends than getting the newest version of that thing they’ve been hyping to you for six months. Hell hath no fury like a fanboy bested.

Apple, iPhone, News

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How do you beat Apple lawsuits? Buy Palm!

April 11, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

According to Bloomberg, Palm is for sale, and the top candidate might not be somebody you’d expect. HTC is currently the target of an Apple lawsuit claiming 20 counts of patent infringement on iPhone IP. Buying Palm could give Google’s handset maker of choice the patents it needs to fight the Apple suit. Smart play, fellas.

HTC isn’t looking for hardware – it needs an operating system. As it stands, only Google and Apple have what is considered a modern mobile operating system (sorry, RIM, you aren’t even close). Unfortunately, HTC would probably only use the purchase to give it enough patents for a war with Apple, not because it actually thinks WebOS will go anywhere. Palm didn’t sell nearly enough handsets to keep the world interested in WebOS.

HTC wants to avoid is a costly licensing settlement with Apple that could affect profits far into the future. Spending several hundred million dollars on a dying company could be the cheap alternative it’s been looking for.