Category: technology

Apple being hit from many sides

So after the surprising announcement that Spotify was accepted by Apple on to (into) the App Store. And the recent Google Voice pondering, will Apple also allow Real's Rhapsody too and even more interestingly will Netflix get a on to the App store? What kind of justification could they use against those two but not the others? Will the FCC also add to the pressure of the app store submission process?

This is why being the filter between yes and no is a very bad position to be in. Apple will get it from every single direction, not only the large players but also the smaller players. Anyone considering building a App Store modeled on the Apple Store better take note (microsoft), this is simply not sustainable. One yes to one player such as Skype/Spotify, gives others the grounds to push there application too. I mean really whats the practical difference between Spotify and Rhapsody? Maybe Napster might also want to get in to the game, heck even Microsoft Music might get involved. If Netflix do get on to the app store, why would Apple not allow a specially crafted Boxee for example? Or even better examples Hulu or BBC's iplayer?

I know I bash Apple a lot but what would you say when Netflix come calling?

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My new enlightened screensaver

Flickr photostream GLscreensaver

I was thinking the other day how I enjoyed the Digital bits photostream by Will Lion. But its not exactly the kind of thing you look at all the time, even in my RSS reader it doesn't really work. So I found the perfect place for it, as a screensaver. I looked for a Linux Flickr based Screensaver but found very little. Most of the blog posts suggest downloading the photos then using a standard Linux screensaver to display a folder of the images. The blog I was looking at suggested using a podget and a cron to pull down the photos everyday at 5am. This was ok but I didn't want to install another app when I thought Conduit could do a even better job. And I was right.

I setup Conduit to read from the Flickr RSS feed and download the pictures to a set folder, I then just told the screensaver to look in the same folder to pull in the fresh photos. All straight forward really but so effective.

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RSS on the desktop with Conky

RSS Desktop Screenshot

I've recently been playing with Conky far too much. After a lot of playing around, I got it to this state. So now I have RSS directly on my desktop, I do however wish there was a marquee mode (found), so I could build something more like one of Particls outputs or Snackr. Conky does support Lua scripting, so it seems possible but way above my head at this moment.

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Ebook reader closer to 100 pounds

I'm slightly excited about Sony's new PRS-300 ebook reader. Its out soon and goes for 199 dollars which is about 150-160 pounds. I expect after a while it will drop down closer to 100 pounds which is the ideal price for a ebook reader in my view. You don't get a lot for your money, no Bluetooth, Wifi or even a memory expansion slot. But with 440meg on board and a 5 inch display, its not going to be a bad general purpose ebook reader. I also hear Sony's play PDF's, HTML and Text files without any extra conversions.

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The Case Against Apple–in Five Parts

Jason Calacanis has wrote a extra long essay about why the love affair with Apple is over. Its a good read and hopefully adds to the mounting public pressure. The essay is broken dowin into 5 main points.

  1. Destroying MP3 player innovation through anti-competitive practices
  2. Monopolistic practices in telecommunications
  3. Draconian App Store policies that are, frankly, insulting
  4. Being a horrible hypocrite by banning other browsers on the iPhone
  5. Blocking the Google Voice Application on the iPhone

Of course I've been writing similar things for a while but its always good to hear Mac fans coming to there senses.

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The new look Kdenlive

New look Kdenlive

When I upgraded to the latest version of Kdenlive a free software non-linear editor which runs on every platform except windows. I was honestly shocked, it was clean, crisp and professional. There's little doubt that open source and free software has somewhat left user experience and interface design concerns closer to the bottom of the pile but this is radically changing. I'm hoping to show some of the new look applications which are worthy of another look and your attention, starting with the new look Kdenlive.

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How long can Apple’s reputation stay untarnished?

In one hand Apple get away with almost blue or should it be white wash murder?

Apple has scored a victory in front of the advertising watchdog, with a ruling that it is free to claim its iPhone applications store is superior to a rival service offered by Google.

The Advertising Standards Authority rejected complaints from fans of Google's G1 smartphone that a TV ad for Apple's App Store was misleading.

“Yep, there's an app for just about anything,” a voiceover in the advert said. “Only on the iPhone.”

But in the other hand they weave their new inglorious oppression upon their fans and audience. I certainly couldn't live with it and choose not to.

As has been widely reported at this point, we are very sorry to announce that Apple removed our VoiceCentral app from the App Store. This happened suddenly, swiftly and with virtually no advance notice from Apple.

Repeated emails yesterday to Apple have still been ignored at this point. We did receive a voicemail at our main office from the same Richard who called our competitor. Unfortunately it wasn’t until today that we were able to connect for our “conversation”. The word conversation really doesn’t cover it because what transpired was not informative by design and felt like theater of the absurd.

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Running Android on HTC phones

Android on Touch HD

So I'm getting more and more fed up with Windows Mobile as a operating system for my mobile phones, and finally the idea of this closed marketplace tipped me over the top. So I tried to first install Android on my HTC Touch HD and then later on my HTC Diamond. Sad to none of them have worked enough to give me a complete android operating system but I did want to point out where to go if you wanted to try it yourself. There's a lot of fluff out there and so it can be difficult to find exactly how to do it correctly.

So if you have a Orange HTC Touch HD aka HTC Blackstone you want to follow this guide to installing Android 1.0.

  1. Disable the PIN from wince

  2. Unzip to your SD card (it should create a directory named tmp):

    android_cupcake_2009-03-10.zip

  3. Unplug your phone from the USB or configure it to use “Activesync” and not “Disk Drive”.
  4. Softreset or reboot (switch off and on) your phone
  5. Run haret.exe on your phone (under /tmp/boot)

If you have a Orange Touch Diamond or HTC Raphael or O2 XDA you want to follow this link.

  1. Download this file diam-20081229.tar.gz Mirror
  2. You also need a copy of Haret.exe.
  3. Unpack diam-20081229.tar.gz to your computer (e.g. your dekstop).
  4. Create a folder on your Diamond's Internal Storage named 'tmp' and put the three files from the 'imgs' folder from the zip, along with the three files in the root of the zip (initrd…gz, default.txt and zImage) and the 'haret-0.5.2' executable into that folder
  5. Start haret from your Diamond.
  6. When nothing is happening ond screen anymore type '/init.android' (without the quotes) and press enter.
  7. Android should now boot!

Best thing about these procedures is that if it works it doesn't screw up Windows Mobile so you can still use it after a soft restart. So you might as well try it and see what happens.

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Microsoft, the word your looking for is differentiating

TechCrunch has a post about the launch date of the Windows Mobile store and all the mistakes Microsoft are making.

Microsoft is stepping into this game ridiculously late. While there are already an estimated 20,000 applications for the Windows Mobile platform out there. Marketplace will only be available to WinMo 6.5 users next Fall and to 6.0 and 6.1 users by the end of this year. Microsoft is essentially acknowledging Apple got it right with its App Store years ago and is only now trying to follow in its footsteps.

n the meantime, Google has already gone live with the Android Market, while RIM has its App World for BlackBerry, Palm has introduced its App Catalog store and Nokia recently took the wraps off its Ovi Store. Heck, even handset maker LG beat Microsoft by launching its own application store with about 1,400 apps for Windows Mobile-powered phones just yesterday.

I wonder if by the time Microsoft finally gets around to pushing Marketplace for Mobile live, people are going to have a problem looking at it as a differentiating product rather than as a late catch-up play by Redmond.

Like I mentioned ages at Microsoft's Mix09, they should not have simply copied Apple. Even the revenue share is the same! They really had the chance to do something different but oh no, we need to play it safe. They should have taken advantage of the open nature of Windows mobile phones. Bluetooth sharing could have been huge for adhoc transfering of apps. But oh no play it safe. Well I'm this close to switching over to Android now.

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