AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

In the days leading up to the iPad announcement, speculations were hot and sweaty about what the iPad can do and who Apple will partner with for the iPad's 3G data needs. Well, I'll be honest. I want to see an iPhone on Verizon's supposedly wireless network for two reasons. First, I'm a believe in Apple's mobile devices and strategy. No, 100% but close. Second, I want to know once and for all just what the impact of the weight of tens of millions of iPhone users on VW's vast 3G network. But alas, that will not come to pass. In fact, I still firmly believe T-Mobile will see some Apple love before anyone else. That being said, AllThingD has a good post about why VW will not see an iPhone for a while and probably not until the next generation LTE network has sufficiently covered a majority of the US market. Here's why: Money, money, money.  ATT is will to play. ATT's network might be more robust in the coming year.  And with 3G improvements in...

This is the first of many speculations and analysis regarding the iPad on my part. Mostly speculation because while the Apple media event to officially, and I say "officially" only because we've known about it in one capacity or another for months), to the world, we still don't know a whole lot about it. But it's interesting that many folks have indicated that it supports simplified Chinese while not traditional Chinese writing. Why is this significant? Simplified Chinese is the official written language used by China while pretty much Chinese everywhere else still use Traditional Chinese. And with 1.3 billion Chinese in China, it means more folks uses it. So, is Apple's omission of support for Traditional Chinese a signal that Jobs and company will be pushing the iPad hard into the Chinese market? We'll see where the iPad goes from here but don't be surprised if Apple will use the iPad as a Trojan Horse, to create a halo effect for other Ap...

This is as much as a confirmation we're gonna get about the iTablet.  Rumors no more.  We'll know the features and the iTablet's implications to the mobile computing world tomorrow.

I think we ought to have a moratorium on any and all rumors (speculations are okay) 24 hours before any major Apple event. Nah, I couldn't stand the silence. But there is one rumor that I would like to move into the speculation category just so that I can talk about it here. As you know, Apple will be holding a special media event on the Wednesday morning, January 27th, at 10am PST to introduce their "latest creation" (I wonder what might be). But many folks believe there will be other announcements as well. According to one analyst, the Wall Street kind (hissss), from Oppenheimer, Apple will be making the iPhone available to the four major wirless providers in the United States, plus one that I previously didn't consider if not only because it just doesn't seem plausible. This particular Wall Street "analyst" believes that the following networks will be seeing the iPhone running on their networks in 2010: ATT - we already know them well.  App...

Have you had an iPhone damaged beyond repair?  Well, I certainly feel for you. I was informed via e-mail last night that my friend's iPhone 3G suffered some water damage.  It was quite unfortunate to hear this since earlier in the week, she had to go into the Apple store and pay for a new battery replacement. I've often dropped my 2G iPhone here and there.  And here.  And There.  Had babies drooled on it.  I've even had it flung out of my hand a few times. I'm happy to say that Apple really built a solid device.  But when it comes to water, it's pretty much over. I've recommended my friend to wait out the water.  Let's it dry up a bit and see if things improve.  I've spilled coffee over my keyboard before.  But a few days later when the liquid dried up, it was working again. I'm not sure this will be the case with the iPhone since it's an infinitely more complicated device than a Dell keyboard at work. Suffice to say, it is t...

There is certainly no shortage of rumors and speculations going on about Apple's January 27th event and what Apple will unveiling.  Well, you want more proof that the iTablet is coming? Amazon, according to TechCrunch, is introducing a new royalty scheme where publishers and writers can earn more. Why now?  Couldn't Amazon simply have done this to begin with and spread the wealth a bit when they released the Kindle?  Well, no.  At the time there was no competition.  At least, not the kind of competition Amazon is likely to get soon in the form of an Apple tablet. Yes, this is proof that the tablet is coming.  After all, isn't the split between Apple and developers for the App Store also 70% to the developers and Apple gets to keep 30%? What's also interesting is that Amazon is still trying to control the price with this new scheme. At the same time, Apple has been holding meetings with publishers.  Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall of...

There's talk that on the 27th, Apple will unveill more than just iTablet. Whatever happens that day, we are potentially looking at what also comes next for the iPhone platform. After the iPod Touch came out, Apple stated that there could be other devices from Apple based on this modified OS X. So, we come to iPhone 4.0. One of the features some users are hoping for is the ability to run apps in the background. As an Android device owner, I have to say that the ability to have whatever music or podcast stream in the background is something I like to see on the iPod Touch or the iPhone. How can Apple make this work? More at Onxo Mobile Devices .

Will we ever see the iPhone Nano or another iPhone with a different design from the current one? The iPhone is still at the top of the mobile field of devices.  Droid and Nexus One might be good, even excellent, devices, but when it comes to the package as a whole, Apple is still way ahead of the pack. Still, public perception is important.  Because of the plethora of hardware developers support Windows Mobile and Android, you will get a pretty good selection of phones to pick from.  You still get: sliders,  ones with keyboards  ones with keyboards in a clam-shell  ones like the iPhone like Nexus One And then there are devices with forms somewhere in between. With the current iPhone design, Apple will satisfy a majority of the market but still a large segment that insists on the clam shape or having a physical keyboard will It's conceivable that Apple will never come out with an iPhone with physical keyboards as patent fights in the past have g...

I was writing a really long post today on the iPhone. It was about McDonald's free Wi-Fi and how it can be very important in helping the fast food joint maintain its lead over competitors. I was about to post it and then a call came in. I answered the call, chatted with the caller, and hung up. I went back to the app and guess what? I lost everything. Here are a couple of things that I like to see Apple require from all of its app developers: During the initiation of the call, the hitting of the home button, or any activity that takes the user away from the app in use, the app will go into a sleep mode or saved mode.  This will make sure any unsaved data is still in the memory somewhere and easily retrievable. After a call, I like to see the iPhone take the user back to the original app unless the home button is pressed. I'm not a developer so I don't know if these protocols are already available to the programmer.  And it is, it ought to be a requirement.  If...

The iPhone 3GS has been out on the market for about seven months now and it's still going strong.  When Apple report its first quarter earning, I'm expecting more than 10 million units sold.  This number is on the higher end of what the clueless analysts on Wall Street are expecting.  A couple are expecting to see 11 million but I think that's high unlikely. As for Macbooks, I think we'll be surprised by the number of Macs Apple will sell. But that's all in the past.  It's 14 or 15 days into the new year.  What can we expect for the rest of the year.  We know Apple will be holding a special event on January 27th, the last Wednesday of the month.  The good bet is that Apple will be unveiling a new mobile devices that, I, along with the rest of the tech blog world, think is the fabled iTablet (or iSlate). What's more certain is that there will be thirteen or so more days of insane rumors about it until the 27th. There are a lot of rumors about th...

Google may close up shop and leave the Chinese search market after a string of cyberattacks. Also, Google, my favorite tech giant at this moment, will cease censoring its search engine. It will enter into discussions with Beijing on "the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all". This is huge news.  This is how you do it, Yahoo, Microsoft, the West!  Very Very proud of Google! More at  Yahoo News ,  CNBC ,  Gizmodo ,  LA Times ,  CNet News .

Over at CES, Dell just unveiled their own slate (I think this will be 2010's most overused word). It's a 7" iPod Touch lookalike except it runs Android. So, let me ask you this. Would you be interested in a 5-7" iPod Touch that you can use as a tablet? Personally, I would be very very interested. Perhaps, this is what some of the rumors is about as far as Apple tablets are concerned. There have been talk about 7" all the way up to 11". I am hoping that Apple will come out with a few models that will satisfy a wider range of customers. For anything around 7", I think customers would be satisfied with the 7" Touch to be running the regular iPhone OS. However, for the 10-11" model, I like to something more spectacular. More on Dell's slate at Gizmodo .

This is my reply to Dave The Mobile Warrior about the excitement building up to the 27th, which is Apple's event that will supposedly unleash the iTablet-iSlate upon the world: Hey, This is the future-Paul. I have pre-preordered this baby. :-) This is the future Paul with the itablet/islate. Let the now-Paul know he's going to be very satified. He is also very happy for future-Dave who listened to the Jan 27th-Paul about preorderig as well. Sent from my iPhone (from a not too distant future)