A More Down To Earth Assessment of iCloud And What It Means for iPhone And iPod Users

iCloud is meant to put information at the tip of iOS users.  Literally.  Whether you're on the iPhone, iPod touch, or the iPad or a combination of all three plus a Mac or PC, Apple wants to make it seamless for the user to have the most updated information at their disposal.

In my previous post, I mentioned just how rosy the Techcrunch post was all clear skies.  This Engadget post kinda went the other way.

However, their conclusion is this.  Most loyal Apple fans will stick with iCloud and will find great use for it.  I agree.  I am looking forward to it with an abundance of caution.  

The bottomline is this.  Apple users, competitors, and its blog watchers are all anxiously seeking answers and trying to see it is as awesome as the WWDC keynote last Monday specified.  It will have a huge impact on iOS and Mac users.  Just about everyone who runs iOS 5 and Lion will be impacted by iCloud to one degree or another.  

iCloud competitors like Dropbox are gonna wander if they'll sink or manage to find a way to swim in this cloudy current.  It could be a good or a bad thing.  And competitors like Google, HP, RIM, and Microsoft are wonder if iCloud will having such a large pull that it'll draw away users towards Apple.  

iCloud: Don't Get Too Excited Until We See It In Action

This Techcrunch post paints really rosy picture for iCloud, setting the stage to conclude that all is lost for Apple's competitors, Google, Microsoft, and maybe even Facebook.

While I am excited by iCloud and its potential, there is just way way too many questions about it that Apple has not given us answers to.  It took an iWeb user to get out of Steve Jobs whether he needs to look elsewhere to host his personal website (yeah, iWeb is officially dead). 

So, I just have one word:  MobileMe.  

It works well enough for me but I signed on to it and dotMac for the last few years mainly because I expected more and more from Apple each and every single year.  

Until we all see iCloud work the way Apple intends it to and "it just works" for the rest of us, I'm gonna hold back on its praises.

Potential Unlocked iPhone Could Spark Another Mobile Trend

I was emailing back and forth with Dave the Mobile Sage about a rumor going around that Apple might start selling unlocked iPhones through AT&T this week.

And with phones continued to be carrier locked, it is possible that Apple's unlocked iPhone in the US could spark a rash of other mobile devices being sold unlocked.

I know that iPhones have been sold unlocked in other parts of the world for years but the US market is one of the biggest and most influential mobile market.

Suck unlocking could mean greater access to the latest and greatest mobile devices for users across markets. Right now, Apple and others stagger launches in different markets.

Take the iPad launch as an example. US users got it first but the reseller market is where the action's at whether we like it or not. And if Apple begin selling the next iPhone unlocked, totally expect a huge rush of demand for it from Asia where the markets typically trail US launches anywhere from 3 to 12 months.

And this could solve some demand problems. Take the Chinese launch of the iPhone 4 where hordes of resellers pushed out legitimate buyers. There was even word of a fight between a loyal Apple employee and unruly squatters. Maybe such problems can be solved buy unlocked iPhones.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod touch

Sour Taste Regarding Demise of iWeb

I am an iWeb user for my personal site, Greenjava, and the demise of it was confirmed last night when a user e-mailed Steve Jobs about it  When asked if he should look else where to host his website by the user, Jobs answered in his usual manner.  

Just a month ago, I took an Apple solicited survey on iLife and it directed me towards iWeb.  It was an exhaustive survey that gave me hope regarding Apple's plans for it in the future even as most blogs were already saying how it was already dead.

Keep in mind that iWeb is not Apple's first time getting into the web development market.  Remember Home Page from Claris before it became just Filemaker Inc?  Years later, iWeb was an unexpected surprise.  

And now without iWeb, that is Apple really saying?  After all, Apple fought a very public Flash war with Adobe and seemed to have won.  It's main weapon was HTML 5 and how it was better and friendlier for the Web.  

Without iWeb or any other tool, Apple leaves users without an easy mean to develop for it.  Even when faced with the reality of iWeb and hosting coming to an end, I cannot believe that Apple is simply leaving creation of a personal page on the Web to the likes of Facebook and Twitter.  

Who Will Be Next To Get The iPhone? I Am Rooting For Sprint But Hope Every Carrier Get It This Fall

We know that Apple will be adding a new carrier or two in the US soon.  The candidates are obvious and if it's both, well then the argument is pretty much settled.  We're talking about Sprint and T-Mobile.  

But what if Apple decides to go with only one?  Should it be Sprint or T-Mobile?  

Before I get into it, I want to say that I have been a happy T-Mobile subscriber for 8 years.  Had been.  Their latest moves regarding "unlimited" data reminds me of the early days of evilness that AT&T went through to quantify what "unlimited" means.  It's false advertising and obviously, no one is doing anything about it.  

So, I'm gonna say that if Apple wants to add only one more network this fall, then it should be Sprint.  And I would happy go switch over.  And I know, chances are that Apple will only support CDMA on Sprint rather than WiMax.  But that's okay.  I'm fine with that.  

However, if T-Mobile does end up getting it, I'm gonna feel bad for Sprint but I won't get too upset over it.  For now, T-Mobile is still T-Mobile and it's not AT&T…yet.

Now, what about other carriers?  Metro PCS or Virgin Mobile?  My good friend, Dave the Mobile Sage, has an Android phone running on VM's network costing him $25 a month.  Yeah, I would consider that in heart beat if I can get an iPhone with them.  The $25 plan includes true unlimited data access just like Sprint.

Supposedly, we're getting new iPhones this fall, probably September.  Again, as a mobile fan, I hope Apple spreads the iPhone love to all carriers in the US – even the second tier or regional ones.  It is time.

Apple's Messy Messaging And Video Apps

There's iChat from years go.  As it flounders, we gained Facetime last year.  Facetime was Wi-Fi only but that might change depending whether a carrier allows Facetime chat over 3G. And now, we've got iMessage coming to iOS 5 only.  And three apps don't work with each other.  

This post from The iPhone Blog summarizes the situation well.  For me, I think the best way to solve the situation is to allow iChat take over Facetime and iMessage duties on the Mac.  On the iOS side, Apple should integrate Facetime into iMessage for simplicity sake and to eliminate an extra and unnecessary icon.

More Sophisticated Voice Control Coming To iOS 5

One of the wildest rumors ahead of the WWDC last week was Apple incorporating more sophisticated voice control and a more buff Siri in iOS 5.  Well, as you know by now, we saw nothing about that from Apple.  While it was a fun rumor, it was just a rumor.  Until now.  Appleinsider is reporting a couple of screen shots showing new voice control tucked away in the developer release of iOS 5.  

It shows a important feature called "Mic on space key" which presumably means users can dictate to the iOS devices instead of typing the words out.  This evidence is important because right now, Google has put Android way ahead of Apple with much more sophisticated voice control features.  Even if the final version of iOS 5 does ship with some voice and dictation features, I don't expect anything revolutionary at this point.  

Also, we still have no evidence that Siri, which Apple bought last year, has been improved upon.  I had hoped that Siri would be a system wide integration with iOS 5.  Right now, I'd settle for even marginal upgrades.  

More at Appleinsider.