Bandwagons seem to be increasingly popular. The latest surrounds the fact that Apple is intentionally slowing Web applications to make native applications from the App Store more appealing.
Only it’s not a fact.
First we had suggestions that Apple were slowing HTML5 in mobile Safari.
Citing a conversation with Apple, one developer told us earlier this week that the company did not intend to add all of Safari’s optimizations to the embedded web viewer. “Apple is basically using subtle defects to make web apps appear to be low quality – even when they claim HTML5 is a fully supported platform,” the developer said.
2010 has arrived, and with it comes the unleashing of the iPhone on new mobile networks. End users will be happy, for a while, until they experience the knock-on effect of skyrocketing data traffic. Mobile networks are being swamped. Unlike the networks in places like Japan (where real 3G has been around for a while), many western mobile infrastructures are still working through their transition to 3G (or even 4G) and are trying to make do with solutions developed in the pre-iPhone era. Back in March of last year we saw reports of AT&T being sued because of the poor iPhone experience on their network. The innovative device led to an unanticipated massive growth in mobile data usage. More recently, [click title to read more…]
I figured the new Apple iPhone 3GS would be a hot device, but I didn’t figure it could be hot enough to explode. More battery trouble for Apple, it would seem.
Strange how I’m looking at the iPhone a lot these days. In the past I restricted my mobile browsing to sites that were designed for mobile, as the experience of browsing non-mobile sites was terrible. The iPhone made the experience somewhat more bearable, although page sizes and layouts can still be a problem, together with incompatible embedded resources (e.g. Flash). Speed for the iPhone can also be a problem, but the introduction of the iPhone 3G seems to have addressed much of that, assuming you have good network coverage from your carrier.
But the improvements in the iPhone 3G connectivity seem to have been offset by lowering of the build quality. It seems that the plastic case that replaced the [click title to read more…]
The most interesting thing you’ll find in the iPhone package is not the iPhone (at least not after the novelty has worn off). What is interesting is the iTunes service that accompanies it. Apple releases regular iPhone software updates and the only way to get these updates (officially) is via iTunes.
So, every iPhone user becomes a customer of their chosen carrier and a customer of Apple. In terms of presence, Apple has the lion’s share. Every time you start iTunes (on your Mac/PC/iPhone) you are brought up to date with Apple’s latest offerings, and as you probably have a commercial relationship with Apple it’s now easier than ever to purchase whatever is on offer.