Linked List: June 17, 2009

Healthcare CEOs and Rescission 

U.S. health insurance executives are simply evil bastards:

The sister of an Illinois man who died of lymphoma said his policy was rescinded for the failure to report a possible aneurysm and gallstones that his physician noted in his chart but did not discuss with him. […] Late in the hearing, [Bart] Stupak, the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show “intentional fraud”.

The answer from all three executives: “No.”

In other words, even if you pay your premiums for years, if you ever fall seriously ill, they will do their best to find a way to cancel your insurance.

Glenn Fleishman on ‘Find My iPhone’ 

Great write-up on an impressive new feature. Glenn only alludes to the other way this feature can be used, though: for tracking the location of iPhone/iPod-toting children and spouses. If you turn this feature on, anyone with access to your MobileMe password can locate your iPhone.

Jesse David Hollington: Secrets and Features of iPhone OS 3.0 

One last “what’s new” mega guide.

Dan Moren’s iPhone OS 3.0 Review for Macworld 

Another good rundown at what’s new, including the best description I’ve seen regarding the improvements to Calendar and iTunes syncing.

Andy Ihnatko’s iPhone 3GS Review 

Andy Ihnatko:

Everything feels faster. Safari on the iPhone 3GS seems as interactive as a desktop browser. At times, pages were being rendered so quickly over WiFi that I had to double-check to make sure that the usual time-suckers (JavaScript and plugins) hadn’t been turned off, and that I wasn’t using some sort of cut-down mobile site.

But the speed enhances the entire user experience. PDFs attached to emails render and display much more quickly. Individual apps that do lots of math — like my photo-editing apps — are more interactive and responsive. Gaming has been kicked up a notch; intensive 3D games are elevated from “Wow, that’s a great frame rate for a phone!” to simply “Wow.”

See also: Andy’s iPhone OS 3.0 review and his list of top 10 new features.

Footage From Yesterday’s ‘Fire David Letterman’ Rally 

Lots of Leno fans in there.

Rene Ritchie’s iPhone OS 3.0 Software Walkthrough 

If you want a detailed look at everything that’s new in iPhone OS 3.0, this is pretty good. If you want more, iSmashPhone has another good rundown of new features.

AT&T Relaxes 3GS Upgrade Eligibility 

AT&T:

We’re now pleased to offer our iPhone 3G customers who are upgrade eligible in July, August or September 2009 our best upgrade pricing, beginning Thursday, June 18.

If you’re one of the many customers who will benefit from this change, please note that our upgrade eligibility tools will reflect this change on Thursday, June 18.

I’m still confused, though. I bought the original iPhone on day one, then got a 3G last summer. My “eligibility” date for the lowest 3GS pricing, according to AT&T, is January 2010. As far as I can tell from this announcement, nothing will change for me. This is not a complaint about the price, as I understand that subsidized pricing is really a loan. I’m just saying I don’t understand just what AT&T is announcing here.

Andy Ihnatko’s Flickr Set of Photos From the 3GS Camera 

Vastly improved optical quality over the old camera, but I think the real win is the software touch interface for setting the focus and exposure point. The quality here is high enough that I’m wondering whether I’ll ever buy another point-and-shoot camera — an iPhone for the pocket and an SLR kit for quality seem like the way to go.

Update: Check out the detailed metadata on the pictures — even includes compass direction.

Fever 

New web-based feed reader from Shaun Inman. It’s gorgeous, of course, and the interaction design is quite different than that of any other feed reader I’ve seen. But what most interests me is the business model — like Inman’s Mint, Fever is not a hosted service but rather a PHP/MySQL app you install and run on your own server, with a one-time fee of $30. The model is like that of desktop software.

Reaction to Letterman’s Apology to Palin 

As usual, The Onion has its finger on the pulse of the nation.

(If you haven’t been watching Letterman lately, you should. The show feels rejuvenated. The recurring “Lyle the Intern” bit has an insouciant Chris-Elliott-from-the-’80s feel to it.)

MLB.com Streams Live Baseball Games to the iPhone 

This is going to be huge. I wish this would have been available last week at WWDC.

iPhone OS 3.0 Release Day 

In the meantime, you can watch the guided tour again.

Update: Oops, it only says June 18 when “/sg/” is in the URL, for Singapore. Still says June 17 on the U.S. site.

Update 2: It’s out.

iPhone 3GS Hardware Features 

Paul Thurrott:

Amazingly, several software features Apple showed off yesterday will arbitrarily not be made available to other iPhone users. These include Voice Control and Compass. What??

The compass app is based on a hardware magnetometer, and my somewhat-informed understanding of Voice Control is that it uses new digital signal processing hardware. Thurrott didn’t complain about it, but the same goes for shooting video, by the way: video is a hardware feature of the 3GS camera, they’re not just snapping 30 frames per second from a still camera and using the CPU to stitch them together into video files.

Trailer for ‘It Might Get Loud’ 

Rock.

Oh, TUAW 

Cory Bohon writes:

One of the most awaited features, push notifications, requires a constant data connection. While the iPhone 3G can handle data and voice simultaneously when using a 3G/HSDPA connection, on EDGE (the cellular data service that the original iPhone uses) you are unable to take calls and maintain a persistent data connection. As a result, if you turn on the push notification service, you may be unable to receive voice calls.

This is utter nonsense. If push required a “constant data connection” your battery would run down like water through a sieve. The whole point of creating this system is so iPhones won’t need a constant data connection. I’m aware of no reason why original iPhone users should expect voice calling problems with push notifications.

I love how they decorated the story with a “3.0 FAIL” icon.

Update: Good apology here.