AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

These days, iPhones aren't in shortage in the sense that there are long lines.  But even now, you can walk into an Apple store and not find the model or color you want. Well, prepare for more shortage if International Business Times' report are correct.  And I have reasons to believe that they are indeed on the money with this one.  According to the report, 5 million iPhones will be bought by China Unicom.   There are numbers like value and cost attached to it but that's not that big of a deal.  What's a big deal to me is that the number seems awfully low.  It has a subscriber base of 140 million, almost twice the size of ATT. I am sure the small number is a conservative run to see how it goes.  These iPhones will have no Wi-Fi and is WCDMA, whereas existing iPhones on the market are GSM units.   Already, the unofficial number of iPhones smuggled into China for use stands around two million, I am sure these official units will be really well received by the local mobi...

Yesterday, I spoke about GPush, an iPhone app that let's the user know when he or she has new mail from the gmail account, and how it can serve to help point Google work around the lockout by Google and Apple. Then at the end, when I tried to buy it, it was not available.  I had assumed that the app may have been censored or pulled.   Well, good news.  The app isn't in the store yet.  However, the developer, Tiverias , pointed it out on their Twitter feed that they're still working on it.  Apparently, it was not quite ready yet. But hopefully, they'll get it out to us soon enough.  If you like to be kept up to date, you can follow their feed here at Twitter. Can't wait!

GPush is an incredible app.  No, I've not yet had a chance to use it yet and I don't know if I want to just yet.  It's probably because it isn't more than a notification app for Gmail. I want more.  Early, I had wondered whether push notification can be enabled somehow through Safari.  Well, that's a question for iPhone 4.0 or later.  The reason I asked about that is because Google is working on getting Google Voice to work through Safari after ATT, maybe Apple, rejected it and pulled out 3rd party apps that supported Google Voice. Google Voice alerts you via Gmail when you get a voice mail.  However, it doesn't do that for SMS yet.  I'm guess it's at the request of wireless providers looking to protect their lucrative stream of revenue. Now, maybe there is a workaround.  GPush is a good example and I'm hoping other means may be possible in the future (Growler, please do something).  According to the GPush developer, it provides notific...

Now, that Apple is likely to engage in full-blown war with Google and it's mobile weapons, Android, Chrome OS, and its excellent collection of webapps, I began to think about Latitude's rejection. Early, I examined the possible reasons for Apple rejecting Google's Voice app and Google's encroachment into the OS market.  At Onxo  (must read), I speculated that it is possible Apple has VOIP and ereading functions for the iPhone platform. Now, focusing on Latitude, I wonder if Apple is set to challenge Google Maps and other mapping selections from the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft. We had all assumed that ATT is the culprit behind GV's rejection.  But suppose it's not.  Suppose, however unlikely, it's all Apple's doing.  Latitude is just so unlikely that Apple will reject something so trivial that may not really have a huge following. So, if Apple rejected Voice because it has its own iChat alternative waiting in the wing, could Apple rejected Latitu...