iPhone

Overheard - eBooks reaching the tipping point

Like the move from silent pictures to ‘talkies’, the transition to electronic publishing will prove fatal to laggards. Those aggressively pursuing and developing e-books will rise to take control of the publishing industry. Mike Elgan, Here comes the e-book revolution

Mike Elgan’s done a good job breaking down the reasons why eBooks are about to reach the tipping point. This week’s announcement of the Kindle app for the iPhone was just one more ingredient in the perfect storm.

Overheard - Kindle is a platform, not a device

Amazon’s expansion of Kindle to the iPhone makes me wonder if we’ll soon see Kindle as not just a device, but as a full-fledged publishing platform. Nick Mediati, Amazon Brings Kindle to iPhone

Back in 2007, there was a lot of speculation about Apple going head-to-head with Amazon by creating their own “Safari Pad” reader to compete with Kindle.   How very smart of them to PARTNER with Amazon instead. I think Nick Mediati has hit on something important — especially after seeing how very easy Amazon has made it to publish on Kindle. Kindle is a platform, not a device.

My prediction? Short stories will become popular again. Teachers will publish third grader’s stories on Amazon so Mom and Dan can download and send to Grandma.  Nicole Lee compared the reading experience on both devices.  Check it out.

This is just one more reason why Apple is so smart. You see, the key to the iPhone’s popularity is not just its “cool” factor — it’s how well it plays with others.  And that’s a lesson that Apple is using to win the browser wars.

Industry watchers Net Applications recently reported that Safari owns 67 percent or the market share for  mobile browsing.

With the recent release of Safari 4,  Apple is finally making some progress drawing the PC desktop crowd away from IE and Firefox. How are they doing it?  By promising them speed. The official press release states that Safari 4 “executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than IE 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3.  Safari quickly loads HTML web pages three times faster than IE 7 and almost three times faster than Firefox 3.”

Overheard - Improving iPhone reception in your house

AT&T may be working to improve its cellular network reception by building a femtocell, an in-home cell base station, directly into its fiber-optic U-Verse service’s modem. Glenn Fleishman, AT&T might insert femtocell into fiber modem

Don’t tell my husband, but I’m about to write something…err…negative about his beloved iPhone. You see, in the house, it’s a brick. A lovely, sleek brick, but it’s still a brick. If he wants to make a call when it’s minus 10 degrees, he either has to put on his coat and go out on the deck or use an AT&T calling card.

When he first realized the iPhone wasn’t an indoor phone, he wanted to pick up VoIP from our cable company, but really — how can you justify the cost of iPhone service AND VoIP when our local phone company only charges $7.98 a month for local service? I couldn’t.

Bless you AT&T. A femtocell for ALL our AT&T cell phones is just what we need.

Overheard: iPhone and the Enterprise

The various iterations of the iPhone Configuration Utility could be successfully used in smaller, depot-style support environments, but the tools as currently structured lack the security and remote reach for large deployments to use effectively. Andrew Garcia, Apple’s iPhone Configuration Utility Disappoints

Overheard: The iPhone — death by monthly payments

We have had nearly 24 hours to jump out Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field and put common sense behind the announcements made yesterday – especially the company’s iPhone 3G. Christian Zibreg, WWDC 2008: Will the iPhone 3G kill the iPhone?

Christian Zibreg thinks the money iPhone users shell out to AT&T each month is the deal killer. It is for my family.
Just as I was posting this, Verizon called and offered my whole family free phone upgrades and extra minutes. Coincidence? LOL!