After five years at Gizmodo, I’m moving on to play around in the ocean a bit more and figure out what my next adventure is. Thanks for reading the site—I’ve had fun creating it.P.S. Joe Brown will be taking over for me. Congratulate him warmly!
And with that short note, Lam is gone.
See you later | Gizmodo
In a new study released Wednesday by market research firm Yankee Group, 40 percent of smartphone buyers in Europe said they would buy an iPhone. (more…)
Earlier today I published and blogged about Lodsys’s motion for an extension of time to answer Apple’s motion to intervene. Lodsys’s motion, as entered yesterday, requested time until including August 27, 2011 — two more months. But Lodsys has now withdrawn the previous motion and put in a new one, which I also published on Scribd and which asks for time until including July 27, 2011 — one more month, not two.
Mueller said he thinks the court will grant the one month request. Lodsys seems about as screwed up as RIM.
Lodsys corrects its motion for extension of time: now asks for one more month, not two | Foss Patents
Apple has done away with shipping physical disks for its most recent products, but not everyone has broadband, so what do they do? (more…)
Consumers deserve to know exactly what they’re getting for their money when they sign-up for a 4G data plan,” she added. “The wireless industry has invested billions to improve service coverage, reliability and data speeds, and consumers’ demand for 4G is expected to explode. But consumers need to know the truth about the speeds they’re actually getting.
Why do I think carriers are going to lobby to have this bill killed. It’s a good idea, but I’ll bet they’ll argue there are too many variables to accurately detail speeds.
New bill would require mobile carriers to detail 4G speeds | Macworld
So all told, 58 percent of the stores BTIG called named the iPhone as their strongest selling phone and an additional 20 percent said it shared that honor with a competing device.
It is really amazing that the iPhone continues to dominate the market in so many ways. No a mention of RIM outselling anyone, which really isn’t a surprise.
What’s the Top-Selling Phone at Verizon and AT&T? | AllThingsD
Ultimately, Redner defends his position, telling readers that he never actually threatened to blacklist any reviewers – that word came up in a Wired story recounting his comments. He attempts to differentiate “blacklisting” from what he calls “a selection process,” and in the process, weakens his own argument.
This is the same guy that threatened reviewers last week with not getting review units if they post negative reviews. Unfortunately, he felt the need to explain himself.
Duke Nukem PR guy would have been better off staying quiet | ZDNet Gamification
BBC Worldwide and Starz have announced Torchwood: Web of Lies, a series of 10 three-minute “motion comic narratives” coming to iOS. The interactive comic is based on the Doctor Who spinoff series coming to Starz in July. (more…)
It just keeps getting worse for RIM, but when you rush a product to market that isn’t finished, you have to expect a backlash. (more…)
Apple has been awarded a new patent that could spell trouble for almost all of its smartphone competitors. (more…)
The company would not disclose the valuation it received in the funding round, but Chief Executive Andrew Fisher told Reuters that it was in the “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
LinkedIn, Groupon, Shazam — it has to make you wonder if the Internet bubble is back and when it will burst.
Shazam raises $32 million to expand music, TV services | Reuters
It was all too obvious that Samsung was comparing apples to bananas: Apple’s request for expedited discovery was far more justified (in terms of a need to evaluate the requested material) and far less prejudicial (as Apple only requested products of which samples were already circulating, in the case of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 including 5,000 samples handed out at a Google developer conference) than Samsung’s related motion.
Let’s go right back to Foss Patents. Looks like Apple has the upper hand for now. Funny though, Apple refers to Samsung as “the copyist.”
Samsung has to wait for iPad 3 and iPhone 5, but Apple may have to wait for a preliminary injunction | Foss Patents
The week before last, Apple filed a motion to intervene in Lodsys’s lawsuit against seven app developers. I was hoping for Apple’s intervention to be allowed very soon, but we may all have to wait. Lodsys would have had to respond to Apple’s motion by June 27, 2011 (Monday) but just asked the court for additional time — for two months, in fact. Lodsys would like to have time until including August 27, 2011.
If Lodsys is given this delay, the court should also force it to stop sending out letters to developers. The court should also give all developers the same two month delay, so they can find out if Apple will represent them or not.
Lodsys asks for two more months to answer Apple’s motion to intervene and keeps sending letters to Android developers | Foss Patents
In a nutshell, Co-Founder and CEO Jason Baptiste’s pitch to publishers is that while apps are good for some things — games, specific actions such as listening to music, etc. — for content-related purposes they aren’t ideal, for either the publisher or the user. As Baptiste puts it in one of the slides he shows to investors and partners, “apps are bull***.” To take just one example, most apps don’t take advantage of the web by using links or interactivity as much as they could, because the content is locked inside an app.
The OnSwipe that I’ve seen doesn’t beat some of the better apps that have been built.
Can OnSwipe convince media to go web instead of app? | GigaOm
Apple has released a new app to help users enjoy the iTunes Festival London 2011. (more…)
Take-Two Interactive Software CEO Strauss Zelnick raised eyebrows when he recently told Forbes that games for iOS would eventually hit $40, similar to the price that gamers pay for titles for Nintendo handhelds. Paul O’Connor of Appy Entertainment has a very different opinion.
“Prices on iOS game are compressed to free or $1 because this platform is at the center of the most competitive entertainment software market in history.”
iPad Developer Rebuts Take-Two CEO’s Pricing Comments on Tablet Games | IndustryGamers
The issues are manyfold: Firstly, customers can only buy iPhones from its authorized resellers and from carriers Aircel and Bharti airtel. Relating to this, while customer can buy unlocked iPhones from these same outlets, the price of a locked phone is similar to that of an unlocked phone. The complaint appears to allege that carriers are taking advantage of their unusual (for India’s market) exclusivity to charge unreasonable prices for Apple’s iPhones.
Apple dictates the market wherever it does business.
Apple Accused of Anticompetitive Practices in India Over iPhone | TMO
HealthTeacher on Tuesday announced that Apple Senior Product Manager John Herbold will leave Apple and join their company. (more…)
Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli-Yoel Edelstein has written Apple CEO Steve Jobs and asked that an app be removed from the App Store. (more…)
Mike Abramsky, analyst with RBC Capital Markets, revealed on Monday the results of a new proprietary survey of 1,500 respondents conducted between June 7 and 14. The poll found that 76 percent of iPhone users said they are “very” or “somewhat” likely to use Apple’s iCloud service, which would amount to 150 million users.
Honestly, that sounds low to me. iCloud does a lot and will be free — what’s bad about that?
76% of iPhone owners plan to use Apple’s iCloud, 30% interested in iTunes Match | AppleInsider
RIM co-CEO Jim Balsille publicly stated that email was not a core component that its customers wanted on the PlayBook. We all knew that was hogwash, but now the real reason has come out. (more…)
Earlier today Apple unveiled Final Cut Pro X, the newest version of its professional video software, and a hands on video has already been posted to YouTube. (more…)
Not only are they the best team in the NHL, but the Boston Bruins know how to party. The Bruins celebrated the Stanley Cup victory at Shrine nightclub at Foxwoods Casino on Saturday night and came away with a hefty bar tab. Approximately 1 million people showed up in Boston to help the team celebrate with the cup parade earlier Saturday.
When all was said and done, the Black and Gold racked up a bar tab that totaled $156,679.74, which included the now-famous $100,000.00 bottle of Ace of Spades “Midas” champagne, and a built-in tip of $24,869.80 for Danielle (the server whose name is on top of the tab above), which we imagine she had to split up with a few other servers at Shrine.
The Big, Bad Bruins $156,679.74 bar tab | Bruins Blog
Not even a week after RIM reported disappointing financial results, the company started handing out layoff notices to some workers. (more…)
Last weekend we brought you news of a newly discovered patent that could render your camera useless in some situations, like at a concert venue. With infrared sensors installed at the venue, concert goers could find their cameras disabled as the sensors talk to software installed on the iPhone. TUAW’s Mike Rose posted his thoughts on the subject this morning.
None of this, however, means that it’s prudent to stand atop the slippery slope of external device controls and say “Looks like a nice ride down.” It’s easy to think, as I did when first reading the admittedly hyperbolic language of the petition, “Look, the iPhone is not the only camera in the world; professional bootleg videographers don’t use crappy cameraphones at all, protesters have many different kinds of phones and cameras at their disposal, and as soon as this capability gets rolled out people will simply jump to another platform to work around it.”
Apple’s infrared ‘camera kill switch’ patent application hits a nerve | TUAW
In addition to releasing Final Cut Pro, Apple on Tuesday quietly updated its Time Capsule wireless router and backup system. (more…)
Apple on Tuesday unveiled the latest version of its professional video editing software, Final Cut Pro. (more…)
Apple’s mobile Safari Web browser may not have always done well against the competition, but the addition of the Nitro JavaScript engine certainly helped speed things up. According to new tests, the version of mobile Safari that will come with Apple’s iOS 5 is even faster, outdoing Internet Explorer and Android browsers.
Winrumors ran (and we confirmed – below) that the iOS 5 Beta’s Safari actually blows by the experimental IE 9 in Mango and scores a 31.iOS 5 will probably ship before Mango and it just beat it on Microsoft’s own unfair to begin with test.
iOS5 Mobile Safari smokes IE and Android browser, even on Microsoft’s tests | 9 to 5 Mac
Some people weren’t too impressed with Apple’s recently announced back to school promotion because it only offered a $100 gift card to the Mac App Store, instead of a deal on an iPod or other hardware. Best Buy hopes to fill that need by offering students $100 Best Buy gift card.
To qualify for the offer you need to be either a student, registered as a student for the fall, a teacher, or a parent of a student. If you meet one of those criteria, and you’re buying a Mac, you’re $100.00 richer today.
Best Buy matching Apple’s $100 gift card promotion | Macgasm
One of the most respected developers in the Apple community is Ken Case from the Omni Group. If you’ve wondered why some developers only make apps for Apple, Case has the answer for you. (more…)