Haha… So basically, Apple bent over to Cingular to not include support for native apps because –as it’s well known– carriers are afraid of native app stability but mostly security problems, and now they get their full blown security hole from the browser. I can only suggest two things to ATT for that (expected) overreaction over native apps: either remove the browser from the iPhone (*tsk*), or free the damn SDK and let users have native apps instead of useless web “apps”.

The Nokia E90 arrives soon for a review at OSNews. Can’t wait to test it. The only thing that has me bummed is the lack of A2DP/AVRCP support which was removed on purpose by Nokia just so they segmentize the market. It’s just a build flag on their system which they turned off possibly just to piss me off.

On an unrelated note, I love Nelly Furtado’s song “All good things“. I found the song to be more melodic than the rest of her songs, and so I did some research as to who wrote it. Apparently, behind the song is Chris Martin from Coldplay! Should have known…

…It has a bug that prevents OSNews from rendering correctly in its cHTML version. As you can see below, Safari creates a “minimap” of the page even if it’s not needed because this design fits even on some 128×128 cellphones, let alone on iPhone’s big screen!

And when you zoom in, it does not fit the whole page in the 320×480 screen, even if in reality it would fit, and you have to finger-scroll. Nokia fixed this bug on their own copy of WebKit a few months before the release of the first Symbian S60 3.0 cellphone (I talked to them back then), while Opera Mini 4.0 which also features the minimap feature gets it right, right off the bat (I know that some Opera engineers are testing with OSNews). So basically, Safari for the iPhone has a bug with “100% width” websites.

So I had to put back the full non-mobile page of OSNews for the iPhone, while in fact it would be desirable to serve the mobile pages instead. You see, the mobile version of OSNews is pretty much feature-complete at 95% of the features of the full page — it just doesn’t have ads and such. I will try to get Apple to fix this bug, but can’t promise anything.

Many thanks to Michael from MobileBurn for the pics!

I like it. I think that it’s a really nice device and when (and if) the unlocked 3G versions starts to rolling on, it will be even more successful than it already is. I plan to buy an (if/when) unlocked one, when v2.0 comes out that might support third party apps.

Of course, there are things to be added in the next major revision of the OS, like a file picker, cut/copy/paste support, send files via bluetooth, A2DP/AVRCP/PAN/LAP (no need to have modem support for laptops, the PAN solution is cleaner), Flash, speed dial (?), UPnP, internet radio, iChat AV, sound recorder, video recording, Tasks and maybe T6 support like this one.

Funnily, there are no games included in the iPhone, not a single simple finger-friendly game. IMO, they should ship with one or two. Java games on other cellphones are very popular, which shows that people would indeed like to play games when they have nothing better to do or when they are awaiting for a bus/train. I don’t believe that Apple should port J2ME on the iPhone, because 99% of these Java games are not only not designed for touchscreens, but they won’t operate on a non-buttoned environment. I have touchscreen phones myself (from many different companies), and the vast majority of the games don’t work, and the situation would be even worse in the iPhone that has even fewer control buttons and higher resolution screen. New kinds of games will have to be designed for the iPhone — in addition to a hardware accessory that plugs on the bottom and adds the necessary buttons.

Regarding the hardware, a better headphone jack placement, removable battery, GPS, video-call camera, flashlight for the back camera, and maybe a move to a standard mini-USB connector and an FM radio would be nice too.

Regarding MMS, I don’t think that Apple will ever add the feature. You see, email is a better solution, and MMS was always seen like “mobile email”. Thing is, Apple does not want to do anything “mobile”, which would mean “crippled”. Apple will try to kill MMS — and that’s a good thing. Not only because the MMS implementations suck throughout carriers, but by eliminating it, you eliminate one more thing that a carrier can drag you down with.

Overall, I am impressed so far with the iPhone, for a v1.0 product. I will have my bar higher for v2.0 though.

Did anyone notice the Nokia 770 featured a number of times in the Fantastic Four sequel? Talk about product placement… Anyways, a review of the FF sequel I wrote is here.

And so the mobile version of YouTube was launched. Too bad that there is no feedback page for their mobile service, so here’s an open letter instead:

Dear Mobile Web Developer of YouTube,

1. Your mobile site is CSS-dependant for lots of things. This is a no-no if you want good mobile browser compatibility. I am not advocating to ditch CSS, but I do advocate to include alternatives in the code (e.g. attributes on the BODY tag for bgcolor, topmargin, link colors etc). You see, phones that don’t support CSS will pick up the HTML and phones that do will pick up the CSS by default. For example, Nokia’s S40 phones can playback your videos, but your pages look dreadful, and that would be easily avoided wtih a bit of legacy coding as a fallback.

2. The videos are resized to 192×144. While this retains the 4:3 aspect ratio of the source YouTube videos (which are in fact 320×240), the 192×144 resolution is very, very, incompatible with most phones. Not only most 176×220 phones will REFUSE to playback that video because 192 > 176 (even if they technically would be able to), but also even some QVGA higher-end phones will choke. You see, cellphones prefer to only support predefined resolutions, e.g. 128×96, 176×144, 176×132 (rare), 320×240, and that’s about it. It is easier to program a mobile video player this way and so MOST phones don’t support random resolutions, even if they adhere to 4:3.
The solution should have been this:
When a mobile user is clicking to view a video, there should be two links:
Click for 320×208 or smaller screens
Click for 320×240 or bigger screens
For the first case a 176×144 at 15fps 3GP video is served which will be slightly out of proportion (small price to pay for compatibility) and for the QVGA case a 320×240 at 15fps MP4 video is served (not 3GP). Yes, it makes the UI a bit more perplexing, but it guarantees better compatibility with most phones. Eventually users will find the right choice for them and a cookie can help the situation to never have to choose ever again. The way that Mobile YouTube is setup right now, only about 20% of the modern phones are supported (estimation). With my solution, while still not ideal, you can go up to 80%.

3. All the video thumbnail images on YouTube Mobile are either 130×97 or 122×100, and then they are resized to either 40×30 or 80×60 on the fly. Why?!? Not only you waste bytes for no good reason (images are between 3 and 4 KB each, while they could easily be 1 or 2 KB each if they had resized them properly) while we all know how slow even EDGE can be, no matter if you have an unlimited data plan or not. More over, many mobile browsers ignore the forcing of on-the-fly resizing of images and that will make things worse. Each thumbnail should have been properly resized by your engine in the two required sizes, not be resized forcefully. Let alone that forcefully resized images by browsers only use the faster “smart resize” algorithm instead of the bilinear algorithm, resulting in much lower quality.

4. Are you blocking Apple’s QuickTime?

Your friendly neighbor,
Eugenia

That’s a nice workaround for some phones –namely Samsung– that don’t allow you to use mp3 ringtones or java games when they are transfered to the phone via USB or Bluetooth instead through a WAP site (for fear of piracy). This web site let’s you upload your files and then it gives you back a unique WAP-based URL where it let’s you re-download your files with your phone. Only drawback of course, is that you need to already have an unlimited data contract with your carrier to really use that trick. And if you do, chances are that you have the money to buy a less restrictive phone anyway. So, don’t bother with artificially restrictive phones like Samsung’s ‘feature phones’.

In one word: boring.

Except the new Leopard UI stuff, everything else we already knew pretty much. Nevertheless, a good release and I will get it with a new Powerbook.

But the iPhone stuff really put me off. Jobs hinted about “running some sort of apps” on the iPhone and everyone assumed the “some sort” of apps would at least be widgets. But instead, it’s an even lower form of a widget: apps are simple web sites, run under a hidden Safari (with no UI shown), built with no SDK and with obviously not enough hooks to the underlying OS, and possibly — quite possibly– you would need to be online at all times to use these apps. This is not only underwhelming, but it’s a CHEAT. This is Apple bending to Cingular here, nothing more, nothing less. Users with a clue, also agree. Update: Well said.

And no new Macs or other hardware? This specific keynote sucked overall.

Engadget posted this. I said it a thousand times in the past, and I will say it once more: the iPhone needs this before Samsung snatches them.

On a completely unrelated note, I moved to Camino 1.5 on my Powerbook. It seems to be snappier than Safari which lately seems to be corrupted here dragging down the whole OS.

So, Palm introduced a “mobile companion” today, based on Linux, called Palm Foleo. The only similar product in the market today is Nokia’s N800. Here’s my take on it:

The Palm offering has a big 10″ screen and a hardware keyboard, but the N800 is smaller, it has a touchscreen and a real UI rather than an email/web interface and nothing else. You see, Palm’s Foleo –except few preference settings– does not have a full UI that enables third party apps or calendars or even music or video. It is simply, a web browser and an email client. Nothing else. Not even a solitaire game can’t be found in there. In the N800 instead you will find lots of different third party applications and a real UI rather than just a single front-end to email/web.

If you are JUST looking for web/email client to contemplate your phone, then the Palm Foleo is a good idea. However, it is a big device, you can’t slide it in your pocket as you can with the N800. If you are going to have a 10″ screen laptop, get a Fujitsu laptop instead which runs a full desktop OS. But then again, the Fujitsu laptop costs $1600, while the Foleo costs $600.

If you are looking at a mobile companion at a smaller form factor and with the ability to do more, other than web/email, then the N800 remains the best choice at $375. Besides, Nokia has licensed Flash and so the N800 can do YouTube, while the Foleo can’t! According to Gizmodo, the Foleo doesn’t do video at all actually.

Personally, I would be sold into a device that’s in between the N800 and Foleo. It should have a WXGA resolution (1024×600) at a 7″ touchscreen (rotatable, to look like a tablet) and a hardware keyboard like Foleo’s, but all other features should be as found in the N800. Now, that would rock because it is the best of both worlds between the two products and at the same time it would be much more “mobile” than the smallest desktop laptop available.