Linked List: October 6, 2009

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

AT&T Changes Policy, Allows VoIP Over 3G for the iPhone ★

Surprising good news.

Lewis Butler in TidBITS: Mac OS X’s Hidden Single-Application Mode ★

The remnants of the purple button.

Hard to argue with Kottke on this one.

Telus and Bell to Become Second and Third iPhone Carriers in Canada ★

Those of you dreaming about the end of AT&T’s exclusivity in the U.S., keep in mind that the only other GSM carrier in the U.S. is T-Mobile. And the scope of today’s Verizon announcement suggests that they’re betting on Android.

Windows Mobile 6.5 Consensus: Yikes ★

Pretty strong consensus that Windows Mobile 6.5 is a turd. Greg Kumparak at MobileCrunch: “Windows Mobile 6.5 Review: It Still Sucks”:

Typing on this keyboard is like sewing with your feet. Even with a stylus (do not even TRY typing without the stylus. You can not.

And:

The only time you should spend in Mobile IE 6 is the time required to download another browser.

Matthew Miller at ZDNet: “Windows Mobile 6.5 disappoints; no Start customizations and stylus still required”.

Jeff Rock on Authoring iPhone Apps via Flash CS5 ★

Pretty good rundown on why serious iPhone developers aren’t going to use Flash CS5:

SDK changes. Apple moves at the rate of Apple. Keeping up with their SDK changes is vital and waiting for Adobe (or anyone other than you) to address these changes is not smart.

HIG-busting. I’ve read through the FAQ and it doesn’t look like you get access to UIKit. So you can’t use any of Apple’s excellent interface controls. So you get whatever convoluted mess of a UI the developer wants to cobble together in Flash. I’ll let you think about that for a moment.

The lack of UIKit access pretty much rules out anything other than games, I’d think. And judging by the games produced using Flash CS5 already in the store, I’m not sure it’s very good for that, either. I tried all the free ones, and have nothing good to say about any of them.

(Via David Chartier.)

John Herrman’s Windows Mobile 6.5 Review ★

John Herrman reviews the new Windows Mobile 6.5 for Gizmodo:

To put it another way, handset manufacturers have done more in the last two years to improve Windows Mobile than Microsoft has, which borders on pathetic. In the time since Windows Mobile 6.0 came out in February of 2007, Apple has released the iPhone — three times. Palm has created the Pre, with its totally new webOS. Android has come into being, and grown into something wonderful. RIM has created a touch phone and a revamped BlackBerry OS. For these companies, the world has changed.

And Microsoft? They eked out some performance enhancements and a new homescreen in 6.1, and executed a gaudy facelift for 6.5. This is what they’ve done to Windows Mobile.

The release of Windows Mobile 6.5 has been mostly overlooked, lost amid all the other mobile news this week: the Verizon/Google Android deal, Palm’s major WebOS developer announcements, and Adobe’s Flash developer tools for iPhone OS.

Microsoft’s irrelevance in today’s mobile space is nothing short of a spectacular failure. Worse than the mere fact that Windows Mobile 6.5 is a total turd is that no one is surprised, and no one cares.

Verizon and Google Announce Deal for Android Phones ★

The only top-tier phones Verizon carries are BlackBerrys. That’s going to change:

Verizon Wireless and Google plan to co-develop several Android-based devices that will be pre-loaded with innovative applications from both parties as well as third-party developers. The family of Android phones on the Verizon Wireless network will come from leading handset manufacturers.

Smart move for both. Of the three new mobile platforms — iPhone, WebOS, and Android — Android is the first to land on Verizon. The bottom line is that this is Verizon’s way of announcing that they’ve pulled their head out of their ass regarding handsets.

New Verizon TV Commercial Slags AT&T’s Network ★

John Paczkowski:

Want five times more 3G coverage? There’s a map for that.

That’s the cheeky slogan of a new Verizon ad reportedly set to debut during tonight’s “Monday Night Football” game. Riffing on the tagline from Apple’s iPhone commercials, it essentially turns widespread complaints about the quality, coverage and speed of AT&T’s network into a Verizon marketing campaign–if it wasn’t that already. “Browse the Web and download music and apps, at 3G speed, in five times more places than the nation’s number two wireless carrier,” the ad suggests. “Before you pick a phone, pick a network.”

This is a brilliant ad campaign from Verizon. The “there’s a map for that” slogan is cute, but the “Before you pick a phone, pick a network” slogan sounds like common sense and works directly to Verizon’s advantage. They’re selling their strength (the network) instead of spinning their weakness (their lineup of phones). The ad works because it’s true.

And Speaking of Apple Logo Rip-Offs ★

See, but there’s no bite out of it.

ClickToFlash Video Site Support ★

Speaking of ClickToFlash, its development team is looking for help:

ClickToFlash has support for viewing videos from YouTube using the QuickTime Player instead. We’ve heard a lot of feedback indicating that users love this feature, and that they’d love it even more if we expanded it to other video sites. […]

What do we need from you? We need help figuring out which video sites we are actually able to support in ClickToFlash.