iPhone

The big news today is the rumor (wait, "news"... "rumor"... is that an oxymoron?) that Apple is in talks with the record companies (wait, do they make "records" anymore?) over subscription and so-called "comes with music" plans.

Chances are, like most of these rumors, any number of the details are wrong. Indeed, these rumors hardly ever come out of Apple so they must be coming out of the recording industry. That's why it sounds so much like recording industry porn. "Apple's gonna pay us $7,000 for every iPod … Read more

Adobe has admitted it can't bring Flash to the iPhone just because it thinks that would be a neat idea.

Comments made Tuesday by Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen were widely interpreted Wednesday morning as confirmation that Adobe and Apple have figured out a way to make Flash available on the iPhone. Unfortunately, that's not exactly what Narayen said, and the company has now also clarified that it can't simply use the iPhone software development kit to bring Flash to the iPhone unless Apple approves.

Narayen's comments weren't exactly definitive, but they were judged by several … Read more

Just like Apple launched a video iPod after Steve Jobs dismissed the idea of a portable video device, the company is now reportedly considering new business models for selling music, including subscriptions, despite Jobs' assertion that downloads make more sense.

According to a report in the Financial Times, Apple is talking with the major labels about letting consumers pay a premium for new iPods, then receive the right to download and listen to as much music as they want for a certain time period, along with the right to keep 40 to 50 songs permanently. Negotiations are apparently underway to … Read more

Apple could be embracing the clamshell aesthetic for a future iPhone.

Unwiredview.com found an Apple patent application for a "dual-sided trackpad device," which resembles the current iPhone redesigned into the clamshell format so popular with many mobile phones. The key to this design is having touch-screen capabilities on both the top and bottom of the phone when it's open.

This design goes a step further, as well, in that the closed cover of the iPhone could also have trackpad capability. PC makers have experimented with this, adding some basic buttons and capabilities to the covers of … Read more

Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software was just informed that he was denied acceptance into the initial round of iPhone developers (more reaction on his Twitter feed).

It's worth pointing out that this could just mean Apple's restricting admission to the beta program for reasons of scale, but let's hope this isn't a sign of things to come. Because these "things" would not be "good things".

UPDATE: David Chartier has more. Short story: it does appear that this is a temporary situation to keep the size of the beta program manageable. Probably … Read more

Apple has announced the dates for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, once again scheduled for San Francisco in June.

Apple developers will occupy the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco from June 9 through the 13, according to Apple. No keynote plans have been announced as of Thursday, but usually a guy named Steve gets up onstage to talk about stuff.

Three tracks are planned for this year's WWDC: Mac, IT, and iPhone, which will likely be the most closely watched technology at the conference. Apple has said it plans to release the formal versions of both the iPhone software development kit and the iPhone 2.0 software … Read more

It hasn't even been released yet, but iPhone hackers claim to have already figured out a way to jailbreak Apple's iPhone 2.0 software.

The iPhone Dev Team said yesterday (thanks, Gizmodo) it has figured out a way to hack into the iPhone's bootloader by taking advantage of the way the iPhone authorizes code that can be written to memory. After some modifications, this apparently allows any code to be written to the iPhone, such as applications that haven't been authorized by Apple, and it should work with any new software version Apple releases, according to … Read more

Despite some early problems managing the flood of developers seeking access to the iPhone software development kit, Apple reported 100,000 developers have downloaded the kit as of Sunday.

Apple formally released the iPhone SDK after an event at its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters last Thursday. The SDK will allow third-party developers to create games, business software, and other types of applications for the iPhone with Apple's official blessing.

Several would-be iPhone developers reported problems actually getting a copy of the SDK in their hands during the first day or so it became available. Over the weekend, Apple sent registered … Read more

Frasier Speirs does a nice take-down of some world-class jackassery as practiced by InformationWeek's Alexander Wolfe in his whimsically titled piece iPhone Developers Angry At Apple's Tight Control.

This one's so good (or bad) that it deserves a good piling on.

Let's go!

For example, on Sunday Phonemag reported that the SDK contains a tidbit noting that the iPhone won't run more than one app at a time, so when users switch applications, whatever is running in the background will get killed.

From Apple's standpoint, this is done to maintain decent performance. However, developers … Read more