AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

I don't have a network of secret Apple devotees who feed me information but I do want to put one issue to rest now. This one of the issues going around now is iPhone tethering. According to Apple, tethering is build into iPhone 3.0 but it's up to individual wireless providers make the service available. Here in the US, there have much anticipation since the brief appearance of Netshare last year. Since then, tethering requires some jailbreaking and tinkering. The news of tethering was not presented during the preview and it was only offered up by Apple execs during the Q and A session. So, what does it mean in the summer when the iPhone 3.0 is finally available? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that when the new iPhones, service plans, and iPhone 3.0 are launched, tethering from ATT will be available as well. It may require a separate tethering plan. Tethering may also be available in some countries. So you can bet that in June or July, Apple will make a big dea...

Wow...a whole lot of nothing but there still was a "wow" factor. Well, first. A lot of the features we expect a modern mobile platform should have. Cut and paste. Some sort of background processes. File transfer (wireless or otherwise). Took a while for us to get them (officially, we still don't have access to them). But that never came with the original iPhone. Nor did they come with iPhone 3G. So today's presentation of the iPhone 3.0 is really a lot of catching up. At the same time, we were shown today of the potential of the iPhone platform because of Apple's unique perspective on mobile computing, attention to details, and design. For example, the new video player can distinguish between bandwidth connection to allow the content provider to deliver the best media for the user. It's personal touch and attention that has made iPhone and the iPod Touch so unique as a platform. Instead of creating a mobile platform from a smartphone, Apple has cr...

We are less than 48 hours away from Apple's planned event to preview iPhone 3.0 to the media and bloggers at large. So, what are we expecting? Honestly, there is no way to know with certainty. There are tons of rumors on the Internet and I'll let you sort those out yourselves. And anyone out there claiming to know what's going on is pulling a Jim Cramer . What you're likely to read about iPhone 3.0, usually more than 12 hours out, are rumors and, likely, wish lists of what people to see in iPhone 3.0. Here's the problem. I want everything that I can imagine in iPhone 3.0. Everyone wants that. Every blogger, every iPhone user, and every Apple fan. But that's not going to happen. One reason is a lot of features take time to develop, test, and deploy. Two, Apple isn't going to give us features unless it's critical to the success of the iPhone. And even with the complaints about certain lack of features (voice dialing and cut/paste quickly times to...

In the last week, we saw some major moves by big companies getting into the iPhone app business. Obviously, I'm talking about CBS's TV.com app and the just released Kindle for iPhone app. Slow but surely, folks in the upper echelon of the corporate realm are beginning to realize that mobility, fortunately for us the iPhone, is how people will get their information, video, and other forms of entertainment. So, what does the future hold? A month down the line? Six months? A year from now? Frankly, both of these apps surprise me. Not the apps themselves but the fact that Apple allowed them to be released into the wild just blew me away. First, the TV.com app. CBS, by offering albeit limited quantities of full episodes of videos to be stream free to iPhone and iPod Touch users, therefore, potentially bypassing the iTunes stores for some of its offerings was "okayed" by Apple's store sentries. Recall not long ago, the biggest news was that Apple was rejecting ap...

No one knows if Steve will be back as CEO of the company. I don't know either and I frankly don't are so long as he's still around to make the big decisions. And here's why I think Steve will be around for a long time to come. According to Information Week, a source familiar with Apple's government sales plan said Jobs and certain Apple executives were granted security clearance by the federal government. Why provide Steve Jobs clearance if he isn't coming back to Apple? You don't just grant security clearance like it's some kind of knighthood. And let's assuming for a sec that Apple is treating the NSA and the military like they treat the rest of us, basically, telling them Steve's health is a personal matter. I have to assume that for the folks fighting and trying to keep America safe, they would have some intel on the status of Steve's welfare before giving him security clearance. Finding out about Jobs' medical situation isn...

If you have bought a Mac in recent years, you'll notice OmniOutliner that comes with the Mac. The Omni Group has gone a step further today and made a few applications free for Mac users. This is a recession busting sort of thing but its greatly appreciated as far as I'm concerned. OmniWeb - I like the session saving feature. But I'll go with what I've already got on my desktop. OmniDictionary - not bad. I will be downloading this one. OmniDiskSweeper - always need more memory and space. OmniDazzle - I'll be passing on this one. I don't need more "dazzle" even though my Macbook can handle it. OmniObjectMeter - it's a good application for developers who are looking to optimize their applications. Not for everyone. I've downloaded OmniDictionary and OmniDiskSweeper. I've got Safari, Firefox, and, more recently, Flock. OmniWeb has come neat features but given the unqiue session saving is a good feature but it's not one that I nee...

Apple released Safari 4 beta here .   I'll be back later for some previews/reviews.