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>> What's cracking? I'm Brian Tong and welcome to the Apple Byte. You know we're giving you all the good and bad inside the world of Apple, so let's get to the stories. What killer feature would make you pull the trigger on an Apple netbook? Well, the "Financial Times" is reporting that the major music labels are working with Apple to develop interactive albums that revolutionize how we listen and interact with albums on Apple's new Tablet device. Now, the music industry is hoping it will rekindle album sales, but I hope they're working on something better than that because an album where I turn pages and click on links to video clips and music is not gonna make me drop 800 bucks on Apple's latest shiny new toy. Come on, I could see it now. Get exclusive footage to learn Souljah Boy's newest dance routine with your album purchase only the Apple Tablet? No, thank you.
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All right, guy, in iPhone OS 3.1 news, beta three has been released with a couple new features. It looks like copy and pasting of video clips directly into an email or MMS will be coming. And you'll also be able to track your data usage when you're tethering. Both are welcome, but I want my ability to cancel text messages as they're sending back, the feature they did have. Are you guys listening over there, Apple? Because you know, the Apple Byter nation has been known to harm small animals. Look out.
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Now, in a story that makes me jealous, Rogers Wireless recently announced it's currently rolling out its 21 megabits per second, HSPA plus network across Canada. That's about six times as fast as AT&T's network in the US because you know, we're hanging in there with the 3.6 megabits per second network, but, you know, they will be doubling it to 7.2 by the end of the year, the same 7.2 megabits that Rogers hit last year. Now, I got to admit it, when I was young and very ignorant, I used to rip on Canadians for being wannabe Americans, but I would like to publicly apologize and proclaim my desire to be a wannabe Canadian. Fellows, the music.
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[ Canadian National Anthem ]
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Okay, you guys get the idea, but if any of you know of any dual citizenship opportunities, call me.
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All right. Let's check out our iPhone app of the week, brought to you by our friends from Download.com.
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This week's app is the MobileMe iDisk app from Apple. Now, for all those MobileMe users, this is a feature that might actually make the membership worth it to you. So check it out. Your iDisk is a storage space on the Internet where you can place any files. The iDisk app allows you to access them from your phone. They can be music files, pictures, word documents, PDFs, PowerPoint files, and even video files. But there's a disclaimer that some of your content may not show if it's over 20 megs, but if you check this out, this 60-minute story on LeBron James is over 50 megs, and I played it just fine, while I was only able to hear some audio on some of my larger files. So, what's also nice about it is that next to every file, you have the ability to click on this icon, and then instantly send an email to a friend and share the file and give them access to it. So check it out. It's totally free, and it's our app of the week.
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Now, you guys probably want more apps, like, maybe the Google voice app on your iPhone. Well, you're not gonna get it, and it's this week's bad Apple.
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Here's the story. Google Voice is a voice over IP service that allows a single number to receive all your calls, and it also has SMS, voicemail, and overall, just reduces the cost of making your calls. Now, Apple has been pulling third-party apps that use Google Voice, and even rejected the Google Voice app from Google themselves. This is just another situation where the carrier doesn't want apps to bog down their network than it already is. And if an app is offering services the carrier has, and is doing that at a cheaper price, you know it's gonna get pulled. Now, I'm not surprised by this. They have to control their network bandwidth, and we saw how they handled SlingPlayer, Podcaster, and the Quick Video Streaming app, but this just stinks for us. And hey, guys, they are still getting the Bad Apple.
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All right, friends. That's gonna do it for this week's show. Send me your emails to the Apple Byte at CNET.com. I'll get to as many as I can. I'm Brian Tong. Thanks for watching and come back next time for another bite of the Apple.
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