? iPhone 2.2 Update Brings Street View, OTA Podcast Downloads (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

New IPhone 2.2: The iPhone OS 2.2 Rumor Round Up

OK, so we all knew that the iPhone 2.2 update was bringing Google Maps Street View and walking directions (about time, too). But Gizmodo says it will also include over-the-air podcast downloads. First I’ve heard of this, but a welcome feature that people like me and Dave Winer have been clamoring for from the beginning.

And it suddenly makes a lot more sense why Apple rejected the “Podcaster” app (which downloads over the air, too) for “duplicating iTunes functionality”. At the time, we scratched our heads, because the iPhone had no such capability.

Posted in: google , iphone , linky , maps , os , podcasting , podcasts , software , streetview , update

On Podcaster and App Store Rejections (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Podcaster, an iPhone app that downloads podcasts over-the-air, was rejected from the App Store this past Friday on account of it "duplicating iTunes functionality." The Mac community is justifiable upset, with at least one developer refusing to develop any more apps, and others looking to coordinate some form of organized protest. I think that many are confounding two separate issues that the Podcaster rejection raises. First, that there are App Store approval guidelines that extend being what is listed in the developer agreement, and second, that Apple has seemingly decided to not allow any third party applications to compete with their own.

The first issue is not new. I wrote about it in my post about Flickup being rejected and we've seen it many times of the past couple of months. This incident just gives us yet another item to add to our unofficial approval guidelines. That these guidelines are (1) not published provided by Apple, and (2) a result of trial and error on the part of many very frustrated developers is inexcusable and irresponsible. As both Fraser Speirs and Paul Kafasis mention, development takes time, effort and money, and without a reasonable expectation that an app will be approved makes the App Store that much more unappealing to develop for, scares away developers and undermines Apple's goal of building a long-lasting ecosystem around its mobile operating system.

The solution, of course, is simple. Apple needs to release an all-inclusive set of guidelines. Knowing what is off-limits cuts developers off from the get go instead of forcing them to develop an app and spin the roulette wheel. Developers may not be happy that they can't release an app that does X, but at least they'll know before pouring weeks into development. A scary, but entirely possible situation is that Apple hasn't released such a document because even they aren't sure exactly what's in it.

The second issue is the anti-competitive nature of this specific rejection. I don't want to spend too much time extrapolating meaning from this specific rejection, particularly the common view that this rejection indicates that Apple won't allow any application into the store that competes with *any* of its products. I don't see Apple being stupid enough to actually have an explicit non-complete policy in place, so my view is that this is simply a case of a reviewer not fully understanding Apple's (currently nonpublic) approval guidelines and I fully expect Apple to correct this mistake. Until we see more cases of this anti-competitive policy being applied, I don't think we should go running for the hills just yet.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPhone 3G, App Store, iTunes, Podcaster

Posted in: apple , applications , development , iphone , software

Permanent secure HTTPS connectivity option now available on Gmail (Gibberish is my native language (DrFaulken)) by drfaulken

Gmail has had HTTPS (secure) capabilities for a long time now, but the default protocol has always been plain HTTP. You could manually add the “s” in the URL (http://mail.google.com to https://mail.google.com), but you had to do it every time you logged in. GAlert by MassGrid Solutions (ready my review) had this functionality, but there [...] Posted in: gmail , software , technology , web applications

Best way to upload photos from an iPhone, and preserve location information (or: review of Flickup for iPhone) (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

I use Flickr to store my photos online. You can “geotag” your photos on Flickr, to show where, exactly, they were taken (on a map). I’ve geotagged most of the 4000+ photos I have on Flickr. By hand, dragging them to the correct location on the map. What a pain.

The iPhone, with the new 2.0 software, can take pictures and tag them with your current location (if you have an iPhone 3G with real GPS, this location information is usually MUCH more precise). Suddenly, the dream of being able to get photos from the iPhone to Flickr, WITHOUT having to manually geotag or othewise manipulate them, seemed to be within reach.

So close, yet so far away.

Right now, there are a few ways to get photos from an iPhone to Flickr. The easiest, I think, is to setup the “upload by email” feature on Flickr. This gives you a secret email address that, when sent a photo as an attachment, uploads the photo to Flickr for you. This is how I get iPhone photos onto Flickr 99% of the time. The downside is, the photos get sent at a much smaller size (640×480) than they were taken at (1600×1200). On top of that, all of the “EXIF” metadata (what make and model camera took the picture, what exposure settings were used, etc.) gets stripped off of the photo when it’s emailed. This includes the geotag/location information. So it arrives at Flickr shrunken and lobotomized and unaware of where it was taken. So sad.

Once the App Store launched, Flickr uploader apps started appearing in droves. AirMe seems to be a popular one, but I tested it, and it didn’t preserve the geodata, (and I think it shrunk the photos, too). So I deleted it.

I’ve been watching the development of an app called Flickup with interest. The author, Martin Gordon (@kodachrome22 on Twitter), is someone I kind of know from Ars Technica. But most importantly, the feature list of Flickup looked promising - it can upload photos and preserve the geotag/location information. It’s not free ($1.99), so I waited a little longer to try it than I would have otherwise, but try it I have, and I’m pleased (if not 100% ecstatic) with the results.

First of all, Flickup DOES preserve the geotag information of the photos it uploads (with a caveat):

This is a photo I took from within the Flickup app, and uploaded straight to Flickr. The app asked me for permission to use my location (like all location-aware iPhone apps do), which I granted, et viola! The photo appears on the map where it was taken (to the best of my iPhone’s knowledge). Click on the photo then click “map” to see it - I can’t figure out a way to direct link to a single photo on the map on Flickr.

Even better, for photos taken from within the Flickup app (as opposed to uploading saved pictures from the Photo Album), the photos go up to Flickr in their full 2 megapixel 1600×1200 glory.

If you’re looking for an app ONLY to take pictures, and send them directly to Flickr, you can stop reading here. Flickup is perfect, and does everything you’d expect it to (you can edit the title, description, and tags of the photos, etc., too).

So what are the caveats? They have to do with uploading saved pictures from the iPhone’s Photo Album.

First, when you upload a saved photo from the album, it goes as a shrunken 640×480 version. Martin says this has to do with some limitations in the iPhone’s APIs (which I believe). He also says that the API is the cause of all the other EXIF metadata being stripped from the photos (which is probably what makes this such a problem in the first place - fix your stupid APIs, Apple!) Don’t count this against Martin or Flickup.

Second, when you upload a saved picture from the album, Flickup WILL geotag it, but it appears to grab your CURRENT location (it asks), rather than use the location data stored in the photo. In other words, it will geotag the photo with the location of where it was UPLOADED, instead of where it was TAKEN. Martin acknowledges this is sub-optimal.

(A photo uploaded from my Photo Album, but geotagged at the time of upload.)

If what Martin says about the Apple APIs stripping out EXIF metadata (and again, I have no reason not to believe this is true), then there’s probably no way for Flickup (or any other photo uploader app) to preserve a photo’s ORIGINAL location information. The best we can hope for is how Flickup works - tag it with the location at the time of upload. If you take photos and upload them immediately, then there’s really no difference. But it’s super annoying that Apple comes SO CLOSE to making this work the way it should, yet falls short in the home stretch.

So, is Flickup worth the $1.99 in the App Store? If you’re a Flickr user that cares about a) uploading pictures at full size instead of 640×480, and/or actually preserving all that fancy location data that your iPhone can tack onto your photos, then yes, absolutely. Flickup is the way to go for full size geotagged Flickr uploading goodness.

There’s still room in this field for perfection. But it seems that it will depend on Apple making changes to the photo and location APIs on the iPhone, or some really clever developers figuring out ways to get around those restrictions. Guess which one I’m betting on happening first?

Posted in: apps , blog , flickr , flickup , geotagging , iphone , photos , review , software , upload

Ilium Software’s Screen Capture software for Windows Mobile review (Gibberish is my native language (DrFaulken)) by drfaulken

I try out Ilium Software's Screen Capture program. It's free, and does exactly what it was made to do: take screenshots of your Windows Mobile device. Posted in: htc touch , ilium software , review , software , technology , windows mobile

At SIGGRAPH in L.A., Watching the Future of Computing Unfold (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

I’m at the SIGGRAPH 2008 conference in Los Angeles this week. My group, Intel Software Network, has a lot of cool stuff going on this week around the recent paper that was published on the Larrabee architecture.

I just put up a post on the ISN blog, about the history of SIGGRAPH and the ACM, and then waxing a bit philosophical about Larrabee and the future of computing as we know it:

I can’t shake the feeling that the Larrabee Architecture paper that was just published by the ACM, written mostly by Intel engineers, is one of those landmark events in computing. I’m really not trying to add to the hype that’s already surrounding Larrabee. There’s enough of that already. But it really is going to be a huge leap in computing. Imagine that in a couple of years, instead of having one, or two, or maybe four cores, your computer could have a Larrabee card with 24 or 32 (I’m guessing - this number isn’t final) programmable x86 cores that can be set to any task that benefits from massive parallelism (like, say, making that 3D game you’re playing look REALLY pretty and smooth), along with 8 “bigger” traditional Nehalem (I mean, Core i7) processor cores that do the things your current single or dual core processor does. Oh, and with Hyperthreading, all of those cores can run more than one thread, which makes them appear as even more “virtual” processors to the operating and software that use them.

How in the world are operating systems, applications, and games going to have to change to deal with this massive shift to many cores and many threads?

I’ll be posting more, and helping to get some videos of the cool stuff here at SIGGRAPH posted quickly to ISN’s video site, Take Five, so keep any eye out over there for any cool stuff I come across.

It’s things like this that make me love my job!

Posted in: blog , events , graphics , intel , larrabee , losangeles , siggraph , software

Crazy Easy (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Merlin Mann on iPhone development (from the SF iPhone Dev Camp):

Think about having the courageousness to make an app that is crazy easy. Instead of making a circus that’s really fun to play in, just make something that’s easy to get in and out of quickly without hassle.

Yes! This is exactly what I'm going for with Flickup. I wanted it to be dead simple to post photos to Flickr and I think I've gotten pretty close. While I don't want to add frivolous features, there are some that are reasonable to consider - uploading to a set, security settings, etc. I struggled to fit the metadata view onto one screen and now I'm faced with the challenge of adding these new features without undermining the simplicity that I was going for in 1.0.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, App Store, Flickup, Flickr, Merlin Mann, iPhone Dev Camp

Posted in: apple , applications , development , flickr , flickup , iphone , simplicity , software , user interface

Flickup 1.0 Is Out! (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

A few hours after my post about being rejected from the App Store, Flickup was approved. If that was all there was to the story then I would have posted about it immediately. Sadly, however, it took nine days from the time Flickup was approved until the time it was actually available for sale on the App Store.

In preparing the now-defunct demo version of Flickup, I stumbled across the contracts page on iTunes Connect and realized that my Paid Applications Contract wasn't complete. I completed it on July 17th and incessantly refreshed the contracts page to see if it had been approved yet. When Flickup was finally approved hours after my last blog post, I was met with the status of "Pending Contract" and frustration returned. I would have thought that three days would have been enough time for someone to review the contract, but apparently that wasn't the case. Having given Apple some breathing room, I finally sent them an email on the 24th asking how long the process would take. Their response? Nothing.

I didn't hear anything from Apple until the contract was approval last Monday, July 28th and the status changed to "Ready For Sale." When I finally got tired of searching the App Store every few minutes to see if Flickup was listed, I sent Apple another email. Again I received no response. It wasn't until I saw a tweet from Jon that I learned that Flickup had finally been posted and that the three week ordeal was finally over.

When I first started working on Flickup I set a lifetime sales goal ("If only X number of people ever buy the app, I would be satisfied"). I'm happy to say that I reached 10% of that target in the first full day alone. Since the app went live, I've been answering support emails (already!), pushed out (well, submitted to Apple anyway) a new version with some bug fixes, and already started working on some new features.

Now go out and buy it!

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iTunes, App Store, Flickr, Flickup

Posted in: apple , applications , development , flickr , flickup , iphone , software

Rejected (Twice!) From the App Store (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

I am now a proud member of the elite group of developers who have had applications rejected from the iPhone App Store.

The application I have been working on since a few weeks after the SDK came out is Flickup, a simple Flickr uploader. When Apple announced the July 7th deadline, I pulled an all-nighter that day to finish it up and submitted the app to Apple around 6am in order to meet the 3pm deadline for inclusion in the App Store at launch. When the App Store is launched on Thursday/Friday, my app is nowhere to be found and the status remains "In Review". I sent an email on Saturday to Apple asking why Flickup was still in review and I received a non-response three days later telling me that "In Review" means my application is being reviewed by Apple. I responded immediately clarifying my inquiry and I finally received this response yesterday:

At this time, Flickup cannot be posted to the App Store because it does not allow the user to logout or change the Flickr account that they are using.

In order for your application to be reconsidered for the App Store, please resolve this issue and upload your new binary to iTunes Connect.

This is a perfectly valid critique, and an oversight on my part, but did it really take them two weeks to tell me about it? Would they have even told me had I not emailed them about my app's status? In any case, the time it took to get a decision on Flickup gave me time to fix some bugs, and of course add the required logout functionality.

As an aside, the Flickr Authentication API's Implementation Guidelines merely states, "Users must be provided with 'logout' functionality." The API documentation does not provide any way to revoke tokens and log users out. I had to resort to directing users to their revoke permissions page instead.

In the mean time, the App Store turned one week old and gripes about the review functionality sprouted everywhere, particularly with regard to the ability for people to review an app without actually having used it. This "feature" of the App Store prompted the cheapskates out there to use reviews as a medium to complain about price. Taking this to heart, I spent some time last week preparing a demo version of Flickup that would allow people to sample the app before dropping two Washingtons on the full version. I submitted the demo version on Friday and received a decision today:

Flickup Demo cannot be posted to the App Store because it is a beta or feature-limited version. Any reference to demo or beta needs to be removed from the binary and metadata. Free or "Lite" versions are acceptable, however the application must be a fully functional app and cannot reference features that are not implemented or up-sell to the full version.

In spite of the lightning fast turnaround time, I am still just as angry about this rejection than the last one since there was no prior warning (in program agreements or otherwise) that demo versions would not be allowed. It's hard to believe that Apple isn't aware that people are crying out for demos and trials; going as far as explicitly prohibiting them (while letting all other sorts of crap through) is nothing short of infuriating.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, iPhone SDK, App Store, Apple, Flickup

Posted in: apple , applications , development , flickr , flickup , iphone , software

Bit Stories 2008-07-02: Recording Screwups, Moblin.org, Linux, MIDs, and NetMeeting (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

Here’s this week’s show! Have a listen, and check out the download/subscribe links and detailed show notes below.

Click to play

This week’s show is only 30 minutes long and weighs about 28MB (it’s a 128kbps MP3). You can download the file directly, listen using the streaming player above, or (BEST OPTION!!1!) subscribe to the Bit Stories podcast feed in your favorite podcast aggregator (like iTunes). If you subscribe to the feed, you’ll get each show delivered automatically as it becomes available - probably once a week or so, with the occasional bonus video or audio segment thrown in for fun. Plus, we’ll love you forever if you subscribe!

Here are some free form notes from today’s show:

• Yet Another Audio Setup

• Embarrassing Confession: We recorded the last two shows using the built-in mic on my MacBook Pro, instead of the elaborate mixer/condenser mic that we have set up. Because I’m an idiot. The saving grace? It sounded pretty darn good!
• Have developers let the Tablet PC community down?

• Brian paved and reinstalled Windows XP on his Samsung Q1 UMPC
• Why XP instead of Vista? Not quite enough horsepower.
• Josh has done the same thing (gone back and forth between XP and Vista) on his Asus R2H UMPC
• Speaking of mobile device operating systems… Moblin.org
• What the heck IS Moblin? Is it an OS?
• Moblin is a stack of tools to help create OSes and applications for Mobile Internet Devices. It’s sponsored by Intel, and hosted by Intel Software Network
• Ubuntu Mobile Edition (UME) sneak peak is out there, if you have a Samsung Q1 Ultra
• Brian feels that he won’t be able to use a Linux-based MID because of the lack of mature ink/handwriting input support
• It’s really hard to do an ink interface well
• Will Atom-based devices ever have the horsepower to do handwriting well? Is this a hardware or a software problem?
• Do open source projects do better when there’s a common, widespread demand and need for the result (like a web browser)? Do enough people in the open source community need and/or want good ink and handwriting support to motivate them to write it? Would enough people use it and care about it to make it worth their time?
• Since Mobile Internet Devices are all about the Internet, having a good browser is going to be essential.
• Windows versus Linux on these small, pocketable internet devices.
• In general, lack of UI “polish” in Linux applications is a deterrent for non-geeks to adopt it.
• Brian’s “essential” applications on his Samsung Q1: Microsoft Office, Firefox, and Microsoft Money
• Is Firefox the exception to the “Linux applications don’t have a good interface/user experience” stereotype?
• How easy is it going to be to “install any app you want” on the upcoming Linux MIDs?
• The challenges of adapting applications to devices on smaller screen.
• UMPCScrollBar - a great little app that lets you scroll windows around the smaller UMPC screen, so you can get to the “Install” and “OK” buttons that get pushed off the bottom of the screen.
• Intel Software Network’s mobility community makes tons of resources, tools, and smart people available for people writing applications for these devices. Take advantage of us!
• Without great software, Intel products are just a bunch of really tiny hot plates.
• Have we discovered the REAL reason Intel has chosen not to deploy Windows Vista? Is it because NetMeeting is no longer there? Microsoft stopped distributing NetMeeting in 1998 - TEN YEARS AGO. But Intel lives and breathes NetMeeting - old habits die hard. (Update after the show: according to Wikipedia, Microsoft released a hotfix that allows you to download and install NetMeeting on Vista. Guess we were wrong! )

• Macs do Screen Sharing, based on VNC, but there’s NO way on a Mac to participate in a NetMeeting call, because it’s a closed, proprietary Microsoft protocol.
• Google Docs is GREAT for live collaboration.
• PowerPoint is a great presentation tool, but it is NOT a collaboration tool! It gets abused WAY too often. PowerPoint abuse starts early - Brian’s 7th grade son is already doing it!
• New recording time - Wednesday morning instead of Friday afternoon. Hope this gets the show out faster, and Josh and Brian perkier.
• Josh’s morning voice - he’s not a morning person. Brian gets up at 5:30 AM.
• Stuff we didn’t get to this week: Brian dips his toes into the world of Twitter and FriendFeed, and next week is iPhone 3G day! Come stand in line with us!

The show is picking up steam - we’re hitting our stride, and cranking them out. Many, many thanks to our listeners - we love you guys! We love connecting with people through the show, and getting to know who’s listening. But the only way we can do that is if you talk to us, so leave a comment, email us, or find some other way to say “hi”, and let us know what you think of the show!

Posted in: bitstories , blog , brianjarvis , developers , intel , joshbancroft , linux , mobile , moblin , netmeeting , podcast , software , umpc

BitStories 2008-06-13: Josh and Brian Ride Again! iPhone 3G, Netbooks, and More (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

Hey, remember TinyPodcast? No? Well, Brian Jarvis and I (Josh Bancroft), two guys who happen to work at Intel, started doing a weekly podcast way back in 2004. Basically, the two of us geeked out about the latest mobile devices, cool software, and technology news and rumors, and recorded it. It was moderately popular, and some people actually complained when it tapered off…

Well, we’re back! And we’re under the Bit Stories banner now. I work for Intel Software Network, and I’ve had the idea and intention for a while now of doing a show there like Brian and I used to do. Now we’re actually doing it.

If you haven’t listened before, this isn’t some professionally produced, slick, marketing message controlled by our corporate overlords. We’re just a couple of geeks who love gadgets, phones, computers, the web, and software, talking about whatever’s new and cool. We try to make the audio sound good, but it’s always going to be a little rough around the edges, and we’re OK with that. Sound like something you’d be interested in? Come have a listen.

Click to play

In this show, we talk about the following, in no particular order:

• The iPhone 3G announcement - its features, whether Brian is finally going to cave in and get one, how AT&T is raising prices on the plans just because they can, how we can’t wait to see what comes out of the App Store, and everything else we can think of. We’re a little obsessed.
• Netbooks vs. regular laptops vs. Tablet PCs (with the tangent typing vs handwriting discussion).
• Where we want to take the show - we don’t have grand plans - we pretty much have always played this by ear, but we’d love to hear any ideas or suggestions (or complaints!) you have, so we can keep it interesting.
• And a whole lot more I can’t remember right now!

The show is about 38 minutes long (we try to stick to the magic 40 minute length), and weighs about 35MB (it’s a 128kbps MP3). You can download the file directly, listen using the streaming player in this post, or (BEST OPTION!!1!) subscribe to the Bit Stories podcast feed in your favorite podcast aggregator (like iTunes). If you subscribe to the feed, you’ll get each show delivered automatically as it becomes available - probably once a week or so, with the occasional bonus video or audio segment thrown in for fun. Plus, we’ll love you forever if you subscribe.

Are you thrilled that the show is back? Mad that we changed something? Think we suck for being gone so long? Just want to say hi? Post a comment, and let us know! Seriously. We crave the validation that your feedback brings. You have no idea how fragile our self esteem really is…

Posted in: audio , bit stories , bitstories , brianjarvis , intel , iphone , mp3 , netbooks , podcast , software , tinypodcast

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Reading from the Intel Cookbook (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

The Apple WWDC 2008 keynote has come and gone, and my wild speculation about what Apple might say about the next version of OS X, 10.6 code named “Snow Leopard” (and affectionately christened “Snot Leopard” thanks to a typo during my WWDC liveblogging ), that it would be announced as the operating system for a “netbook” or Mobile Internet Device powered by the Intel Atom processor, didn’t come true. In fact, besides a brief reference to an after-lunch WWDC session (under NDA), Steve Jobs didn’t say much about Snow Leopard at all. Since then, a few more details have become available, and Apple has put up a page with the (limited) info:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

Much has been written about the more controversial questions - are they really not adding any new features? Are they going to drop PPC support? Is it going to be 64-bit only (and if so, what about early Intel Core Duo chips that aren’t fully 64-bit capable?). I’ll leave all that to the people who know what they’re talking about. But what strikes me as interesting is that the few fundamental technologies they HAVE discussed looks like a mirror image of the technologies Intel, and specifically, my group Intel Software Network (we’re Intel’s developer community), have been promoting and evangelizing to software developers for quite a while now.

First, I have to cling to my hope and dream that one day, Apple will release something along the lines of a “netbook”, like the Asus Eee PC or the MSI Wind. Something like the MacBook Air, but much smaller. Apple’s throwing fuel on that particular speculative fire with statements like this:

Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos.

Having recently paved and done a clean install of Mac OS X Leopard on my MacBook Pro, I can tell you that the operating system itself only takes up about 5.5 GB of hard drive space. Hard drives are growing in capacity and dropping in price at an astounding rate (did you ever dream you’d be able to pick up a terabyte of disk space for a couple hundred bucks?). So why would Apple care about reducing that 5-6 GB footprint, when drives are huge and cheap? Think SSD. Solid State Disks. Like the ones in the netbook devices. The Asus Eee PC I got to play with a while ago had a 4 GB SSD. Current models have 12 or 20GB. Fast, efficient, and no moving parts. Perfect for mobile devices. But still really expensive - you can get a 64GB SSD in a MacBook Air instead of the much slower 80GB hard drive, but it will cost you a cool $999 for the upgrade. SSDs are coming down in price, but they’re still going to be expensive in any really large sizes for a while. So, if Apple was thinking of doing a Mobile Internet Device or netbook, it makes sense to squeeze OS X down as much as they can, to make, say, an affordable 16GB SSD a viable option that won’t get hogged by just the OS.

Next, there’s the new “Grand Central” technology, that focuses on taking full advantage of multicore processors:

“Grand Central,” a new set of technologies built into Snow Leopard, brings unrivaled support for multicore systems to Mac OS X. More cores, not faster clock speeds, drive performance increases in today’s processors. Grand Central takes full advantage by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Grand Central also makes it much easier for developers to create programs that squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems.

Emphasis mine. Intel Software Network has been banging on the multicore drum for quite a while now, ever since it became clear that the future of processor performance was more and more cores working in parallel, rather than ever-increasing clock speeds. In fact, we have a whole multicore developer community (hosted by my awesome colleague, Aaron Tersteeg) dedicated to multicore programming resources, tools, learning, and access to the Intel experts who literally wrote the book on this stuff. I’m sure as Snow Leopard gets closer, you Mac developers will (hopefully) be seeing a lot more details from both Apple and Intel on how to make your apps sing on many-core processors. It’s the biggest fundamental shift in computing since, say, the x86 architecture became the standard. I can’t wait to see this gain broader acceptance and implementation.

Finally, Apple teases us with this little tidbit on the vaguely-named Open CL (Open Computing Language), apparently aimed at taking advantage of upcoming super-powerful GPUs for other computing tasks:

Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL (Open Computing Language), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU). With GPUs approaching processing speeds of a trillion operations per second, they’re capable of considerably more than just drawing pictures. OpenCL takes that power and redirects it for general-purpose computing.

They don’t name any one company’s products or technologies, but it’s well known that Nvidia and Intel are both working on many-core GPUs that support “GPGPU” - General Purpose (Computing) on the GPU. And again, my group, Intel Software Network, has a whole community (this one just freshly minted!) dedicated to what we call Visual Computing. Steve Pitzel hosts this community (Steve has more interesting stories than ANYONE I know - ask him some time!), and the super swanky page design came from our resident web development wizard, Kevin Pirkl. Intel has a little upcoming product called Larrabee that we think is going to really turn the notion of what a GPU is for on its head. Have you noticed how Nvidia has been getting very aggressive towards Intel, some might say even attacking? Yeah, it’s because of Larrabee. And knowing Apple, they’ll be right there, ready to take advantage of all of the advances in the visual computing world. Competition is a good thing.

Anyway, that’s it for today’s dose of idle speculation, and listening to me play armchair industry analyst. I have to say it feels pretty cool to work for a company (Intel) that has such influence over the world of technology. I get to see SO MANY COOL THINGS in the course of my job, I feel spoiled. And I try to share as much with you as I can - like tomorrow, I’ll be filming demos at the Research@Intel event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. From the previews I’ve seen, some of this stuff is just freaky sci-fi cool. I can’t wait to see it, shoot it, and get it out to you. As usual, I’d love to hear your thoughts, even if all you have to say is how wrong you think I am. Leave it in a comment!
Crossposted on the Intel Software Network blog

Posted in: apple , blog , graphics , intel , mac , multicore , os x , snow leopard , software

Exclusive: 23 minutes of hands-on with the Lenovo and Aigo Mobile Internet Devices (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

OK, so I’m a couple days late, and I know I’ve been teasing you with photos and video “appetizers“, but I hope the quality/content of these videos makes up for it. While I was in Shanghai, China last week for the Spring 2008 Intel Developer Forum, I stayed a few extra days to work with the Intel Software Network China team, with the hope that I might be able to score some hands-on time with some of the Mobile Internet Devices that were shown for the first time at IDF.

There are only about 20 MIDs in the world today, all prototypes, and they were pretty much all at IDF. As you can imagine, access to them is jealously guarded, and they were pretty busy being shown off, participating in photo shoots, etc. My access to them got postponed, rescheduled, and moved around a lot, until one afternoon, we got the call. “You can come play with the MIDs if you can be here by 5:30pm.” It was 5:00pm, and Welles and I jumped in a taxi right away, headed for the Intel Software group’s Mobility Enabling Lab. I didn’t have time to go back and get my “big boy” professional video gear, so these videos were shot on my pocket Aiptek Go-HD camera, secured by a GorillaPod. I think they turned out pretty well.

Big disclaimer: the Linux-based software for both the Lenovo and Aigo devices I used is NOT final - there are some features that aren’t implemented, and performance optimizations that haven’t occurred. This is NOT how they’re going to be when they’re released commercially. There are crashes, slowness, and missing features in these videos. Think of this as a preview of the foundations of the software - what it’s capable of in general. Then squint your eyes a little and imagine the final version, a little more polished, sitting happily in your pocket.

First up, here’s a 13 minute video of the Lenovo Ideapad U8 Mobile Internet Device (MID). It’s one of the more unique hardware designs, with it’s flared end, special limited edition Beijing 2008 Olympic color scheme, and hardware number pad, for T9 text entry. In the video, I take a detailed look at the hardware (Intel Atom processor, two cameras - the rear one is 2.0 megapixels, SD slot, GPS, USB ports, etc.), and spend some time poking around with the software/user interface:

You can download the high quality (640×360) MP4 version here - the file is about 153 MB. You can also embed/share the video on your own blog or site by grabbing the Show Player code from the video’s page on blip.tv or by clicking “Embed” in the show player above.

Next up is 10 minutes of video with the MID from Aigo. I cover pretty much the same aspects of this device in the video as I did with the Lenovo Ideapad - hardware (sliding QWERTY keyboard, two cameras - the rear one is 3.0 megapixels, MicroSD slot, USB ports, “Smart Key”, etc.) and software and user interface. The Aigo device looks very similar to the Gigabyte MID, which has been floating around, making appearances. So much so that I suspect they’re manufactured by the same OEM, but I didn’t get any concrete information on this, so I’m just speculating. Here’s the video:

You can download the high quality (640×360) MP4 version of this video (117 MB) here, and get the embed code to share the video on your own site/blog on the video’s page on blip.tv, or by clicking “Embed” in the show player above.

Now that you’ve seen the videos, I hope some of your questions have been answered. And, no doubt, you have new questions. I’ll do my very best to get answers for you, so post your thoughts and questions in the comments below. Thanks for being patient while I got these videos ready. I have a TON more video content that I shot at IDF, and that will be coming out as it gets processed/edited. But this is the juicy stuff, so enjoy!

Posted in: blog , devices , exclusive , handson , hardware , intel , internet , labs , linux , mid , mobile , shanghai , software , video

Lifehacker Condones Software Piracy (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

It always infuriates me when large tech blogs have seemingly innocuous posts on how to get "free" applications or violate EULAs (like CrunchGear did back when Leopard was released by telling advising readers to split a copy of the OS to get it for half off).

It happened again yesterday when Lifehacker linked to an article instructing users on how to get the apps included in the iPod touch's $20 January update for free. Whether or not you agree with Apple's decision to charge $20 for apps that came for "free" on the iPhone, stealing the apps is wrong. If you don't feel $20 is worth it, you aren't entitled to get the apps for free. It's as simple as that.

Technorati Tags: Lifehacker, software piracy, stealing, Apple, iPhone, iPod touch

Posted in: apple , iphone , ipod , piracy , software

iPhone App Gold Rush (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

With 100,000 iPhone SDK downloads, the relative simplicity of the platform and the popularity of the iPhone, there's no doubt we'll be seeing tons of iPhone applications being released as soon as the App Store goes live. But will those apps be any good?

Brent Simmons, author of NetNewsWire, thinks we'll see a ton of to-do lists and Twitter clients. He's right: Apple has failed to provide a to-do list app for iPhone OS (or Mac OS X, for that matter) and people have complained about it since June 29, 2007. Twitter is also the love du jour of techies everywhere and an iPhone app would be much better than the web interface (look no further than Iconfactory's Twitterrific on the desktop for proof). I am personally working on an app that combines the two ;-)

Brent also thinks that the money is in the Cloud. He states that standalone iPhone apps are easy and cheap enough to write and too boring to use. The most interesting apps will be those that sync to the cloud. It's the development, maintenance and scaling of the server apps that will be expensive, and that's where he sees much of the iFund money going. Time to become an expert on NSURLConnection!

I can't help but agree. One app I'm working for will tie into a web app we've written internally - the API isn't currently there, but it will be. Blossom (as we call it) won't be the most revolutionary iPhone app out there, but it is a good testing ground for client-server iPhone apps. I've got ideas for other apps too, and the thing they have in common is that they all tie back into the Cloud. The 1st iPhone "SDK" (web apps) was far from perfect, but if it did anything, it helped developers focus their attention on where it should be - the Cloud.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, iPhone SDK, Apple, iPhone OS, Cloud, cloud computing, Cocoa Touch, development, Brent Simmons, NewsGator, NetNewsWire

Posted in: apple , applications , development , internet , iphone , software

inboX yuB yaM tfosorciM (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Xobni is an Outlook add-in that basically adds search, conversations and profiles to Outlook. When I first heard about Xobni, I was really excited to try it and was ecstatic when I got an invite a few months ago (I still have a few invites left, if anyone wants one).

That said, I'm about ready to give it up. The search, while better than Outlook's default search, is still no match for anything Google or Apple offer, and almost painful to use since while in "search mode" almost a quarter of the sidebar is covered in a completely out-of-place Yahoo web search. Conversations are also nice, but limited in usefulness due to their being restricted to the sidebar. Further, since I deal with only a limited amount of people via email, the profiles lack utility (though the auto-discovery of phone numbers is nice). To top it all off, Xobni often makes Outlook unresponsive (though responsive enough to tell me that it's not responding).

I still like the product, and despite it's flaws, I'm still using it since it's features (ever so slightly) outweigh its drawbacks, and was glad to hear that Microsoft may buy Xobni. This can only be good since proper integration into Outlook would likely fix any performance issues and enhance Xobni's feature set. As a lukeworm fan, I can only hope that Xobni continues to see improvements and a Microsoft acquisition looks to be one pretty sure way of making that happen.

Technorati Tags: Xobni, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Outlook, email

Posted in: microsoft , office , outlook , plugins , productivity , software

The Anti-37signals (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

This Official Google Docs Blog post title ("We can't stop adding features!") struck me as the complete opposite of the 37signals/Getting Real philosophy.

Now granted, I'm sure the title was tongue-in-cheek and caters to the general populace's "more features = better" mentality, AND the three features they added are actually quite useful (Save to PDF, better printing options, and vector shapes), but the title just struck me so much that I wanted to comment on it. Still, I think it's worth mentioning that I hope they can stop adding features, lest Google Office become too much like Microsoft Office.

Technorati Tags: Google, Office, Microsoft, 37signals, Getting Real, feature bloat, software development

Posted in: development , google , microsoft , office , software

Leopard + Time Machine = MWSF 08 Keynote (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Note: I shamelessly stole the title and source of this post from one of John Siracusa's tweets.

Neil Pomerleau does a great job of predicting the MWSF 08 keynote that takes place a week from this Tuesday. Instead of a bulleted list of predictions, he wrote what Steve will say and how he'll probably say it, complete with photos from the event. His predictions are pretty sound, and while I'm not entirely convinced we'll see a subnotebook or tablet, the level and credibility of the rumor is at about the same as iPhone rumors were last year the weeks prior to the keynote. That said, if I had to choose, I'd pick the subnotebook. The iPhone's largest criticisms are the lack of 3G and the on-screen keyboard. People were getting along well enough before full QWERTY keyboards appeared on cell phones. I don't think Apple would offer a no-keyboard computer as it's subnotebook solution (i.e., the long-awaited 12" PowerBook replacement).

A 12" notebook that's under an inch thick with a solid state drive sounds very reasonable, but I'm pretty sure it will have a keyboard. There's simply no software support: desktop OS X is meant for pixel-precision, meaning our fat fingers would be hitting multiple targets on the screen; iPhone OS X seems too limiting to justify a most-likely >$1500 purchase; and a new in-between OS X would begin with zero software support and further fragment Apple's and third-party developers' efforts.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Macworld 2008, predictions, rumors, MacBook mini, OS X

Posted in: apple , mac , rumors , software

Hating to Love Facebook (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

The blogosphere just hates to love Facebook. It took almost three years after it's launch for people like Mr. 5000 to notice it, (although in all fairness only a year after it became open to the public) and now the second something newer and shinier comes along people to start proclaiming that Facebook is dead.

Guess what? The 99% of Facebook users who don't care that Facebook is closed as long as it's not exclusive won't switch away; I also doubt that the 1% who do care won't switch either. App developers won't suddenly leave Facebook because OpenSocial is more widely supported; at best, an OpenSocial (curiously OS for short) app will supplement an existing Facebook app. Apps follow users and the users are still (and still will be) on Facebook.

Users may be fickle in their taste, but so many of them have invested too much of themselves in Facebook (by way of routine, photos, videos, wall posts and other content) to go running for the doors even if something tremendously better came along. The lag between the introduction of a better alternative and the abandonment of the old is long enough that Facebook will have time to react; just look how long AOL stuck around despite much better alternatives in both content and connectivity. Facebook's lock-in, while fragile, is in no way as big a disadvantage as everyone makes it out to be.

If OpenSocial does take off, Facebook can adopt it without much hassle and we're pretty much back to where we are now. If it doesn't take off, then it's probably because of Facebook and Zuckerberg and the gang have nothing to worry about.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, OpenSocial, Google, blogosphere, Facebook app, social networks

Posted in: blogs , facebook , google , internet , social networks , software , web 2.0

New Twitterrific Offers Ad-Supported Free Version (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

A new version of Twitterrific, the popular Twitter client for Mac OS X, was released today. The changelog details new features and improvements.

The most glaring change, however, has to be the monetization scheme: either you pay $15 for it or you get an ad in your tweet list every hour. If there ever was a desktop application that could function as well on an ad-supported model as websites can, Twitterrific is it. The ads fit in so seamlessly and they're so not bothersome that it feels like Iconfactory could have gotten away with more ads. But I'll stop before I give them any more ideas.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, Twitterrific, The Deck, ads, ad-supported, Iconfactory, software, OS X

Posted in: advertising , announcements , mac , os x , software , twitter

iPhone SDK Announced (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

From the Apple Hot News weblog (for lack of a better term):

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February.

I knew this had to come eventually, it was just a matter of when. The timing of a February launch is a bit strange only because a demo of the SDK (Software Development Kit) at January's consumer-oriented Macworld is inevitable. What was Apple's reason for waiting so long?

We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

I don't think needing to digitally sign every app is in all parties' best interests. Developers have another hurdle to cross to get apps out there, Apple needs to expend resources validating every app, and consumers lose out due to both of these additional costs. I don't see Apple blocking out unsigned apps completely, and I don't want responsibility to be placed on users to determine the safety of an app. Instead, I think we'll see Apple restricting what APIs an application has access to based on their signed status. This could be an extension of the new Sandboxing feature in Leopard:

Sandboxing
Enjoy a higher level of protection. Sandboxing prevents hackers from hijacking applications to run their own code by making sure applications only do what they’re intended to do. It restricts an application’s file access, network access, and ability to launch other applications. Many Leopard applications — such as Bonjour, Quick Look, and the Spotlight indexer — are sandboxed so hackers can’t exploit them.

The news item is short on details, so all we can do is speculate at this point. What is certain, however, is that this is undoubtedly good news, and the first good press the iPhone has gotten in a while.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, SDK, development, open, sandbox

Posted in: apple , development , iphone , security , software

History of Software on the iPhone - A Prelude (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

My iPhone is now an iBrick. Here’s how it happened, what I learned, how it felt, and what you might be able to learn from the whole thing. I’ll write up the details of that story in a separate post. This one is for background.

I am a HUGE iPhone fan. I camped out on release day to be number one in line. I’ve used the heck out of my iPhone every single day since I got it. I’ve taught other people how great they are, answered countless questions about it, and generally been a huge fan.

I have had many, many mobile devices, and understand that since the operating system for most devices resides in flash ROM, and isn’t meant to be readily modified, you can’t expect the device manufacturer to help you fix problems you run into with a modified device. This hasn’t prevented lively developer communities from springing up around popular devices - like XDA-Developers, etc. - to help power users get even more functionality and fun from their devices.

Soon after the iPhone was launched on June 29, 2007, such a developer community popped up around it. Even though Apple made it very clear that they didn’t intend to support iPhone developers at all. “Make web applications. That’s good enough.” was the edict from Cupertino. Most people I know, from real developers to regular old users were miffed that Apple wasn’t releasing a Software Development Kit (SDK) to make applications for the iPhone. So the development community took matters into its own hands.

It ranged from people like Joe Hewitt (of Firebug and now Facebook fame - he’s the guy that wrote Facebook’s iPhone UI, which has been featured in Steve Jobs keynotes) engineering and releasing tools like iUI to make better web applications to the dedicated hackers who figured out how to get your own applications to install and run on the iPhone. Following best practices from the Linux world, they gave people how were willing to “jailbreak” their iPhone the ability to run Nullriver’s AppTapp Installer.app - a package manager that opened the door to browse and install dozens of iPhone applications.

There was an uneasy stalemate between Apple and the iPhone developers. Apple openly admitted that they weren’t going to support these 3rd party developers, but they weren’t going to try to stop them, either. On September 11, 2007, Gearlog published this quote from an interview with Greg Joswiak, VP of Hardware Product Marketing at Apple:

I asked him about independent, native software development for the iPhone. He said Apple doesn’t oppose native application development, which was new to me. Rather, Apple takes a neutral stance - they’re not going to stop anyone from writing apps, and they’re not going to maliciously design software updates to break the native apps, but they’re not going to care if their software updates accidentally break the native apps either.

In other words, iPhone “hacking” would follow the same path as other mobile devices, like Windows Mobile, iPods, etc. No one expected Apple to help customers make 3rd party applications work. Everyone knew that the most you could expect from Apple was a complete wipe and restore back to factory new settings. In fact, when iPhone updates 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 were released, this is exactly what happened. If you had “jailbroken” your iPhone and installed 3rd party apps, the device was wiped and restored to Apple’s known good “clean” state. No more than two weeks later, Apple radically reversed its position on this issue.

Then came the seemingly similar activity of “unlocking” iPhones to work on cellular carriers other than AT&T. The iPhone is a unique device in that it’s extraordinarily locked down, meant only to work if you have a valid account with AT&T. Without active AT&T service, you couldn’t use any of the other features of the iPhone. No wifi web browsing, no iPod media playback, nothing. So the people outside of AT&T service area (the whole world outside the United States), and people who couldn’t or didn’t want to switch to AT&T could never have an iPhone, under Apple and AT&Ts rules. Many people felt this was unfair and dictatorial, and It’s interesting to note that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires U.S. cell phone carriers to SIM unlock customers’ phones upon request, for overseas travel, or any other reason.

So the development community set to work on a “SIM unlock” for the iPhone, which modified the radio/baseband part of the iPhone firmware to allow it to use ANY SIM card from ANY carrier. The unlocking apps were released. The world rejoiced. And no one expected Apple to support iPhones that weren’t on the AT&T network. Just like installing 3rd party applications, the most you could expect Apple to do would be to wipe and restore your iPhone to its original state.

An application called anySIM was the first free version of these unlocking apps. It was made available through the popular and simple Installer.app package system (it was pulled a few hours later). During the time it was available, I downloaded it. I didn’t need or want to unlock my iPhone - I’m happy with AT&T’s service (we have two lines of service in our family), and I didn’t even have a non-AT&T SIM card that I could use to test and see if the unlock worked. But I’m a geek and an enthusiast and a blogger, so I ran the unlock software, if only to document the process, just like all the other 3rd party software installations I had done.

And that’s where all the trouble started…

(Click here to read the next part of the saga: I admit it - I ran anySIM to unlock my iPhone (a photo story))

Posted in: 1.1.1 , apple , at&t , blog , firmware , hacking , ibrick , iphone , itunes , sim card , software , unlock , update

iPod touch Jailbreak: A sign of things to come? (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Erica Sadun, TUAW's resident iPhone hacker/developer, reports on the difficulty of jailbreaking the new iPod touch. An iPhone update is expected sometime soon to add iTunes WiFi Store functionality, most likely a few of the UI niceties present on the iPod touch, and hopefully some long awaited applications (Tasks and iChat, I'm looking at you).

If the iPod touch's (or perhaps OS X 1.1's) ability to be jailbroken is any indication, then iPhone owners should enjoy their third-party apps while they can. Now, there may be a technical reason for the new sync scheme that prevents jailbreak, but a more likely culprit is a political reason: AT&T is upset. First, by introducing the iPod touch, Apple offers a way to bypass a cell contract for those wanting most (but not all) of the iPhone's features. Second, Apple's inability to keep the iPhone locked down for any significant amount of time (whether intentional or not) has paved the way for software unlocking, providing yet another way to get iPhone features without an AT&T contract. Depending on how large a fee (if any) Apple collects from AT&T for new iPhone contracts, Apple is largely indifferent as to whether they sell an iPod touch or an iPhone. It is unlikely that Apple would lock down the touch but not the iPhone and it's not unreasonable to conclude that our time spent sipping on Cocoa will soon come to an end.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, iPod touch, jailbreak, OS X, unlock, hack, Apple, AT&T

Posted in: apple , hacking , iphone , ipod , os x , software

The Ultimate Steal: Office 2007 - $59 for Students (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Microsoft will begin running a promotion later today aptly named "The Ultimate Steal" in which it will offer Office 2007 Ultimate for $59, less than 10% of the $679 list price. The catch is that you have to be a student (or at least have a .edu email address).

This is an excellent move by Microsoft. Students with fast university internet connections and limited income are more likely to pirate expensive software, something software vendors try to curtail by offering student discounts for their software (with the added benefit of potentially gaining life-long customers). This promotion takes that strategy to an extreme. At $59, the "too expensive" excuse flies out the window. For non-freshmen (as this was the first back-to-school season where Office 2007 was available), this is a good motivator to upgrade from Office 2003 and will most likely drive Office 2007 adoption through the roof.

Office 2007 is one of Microsoft's flagship products and perhaps the best product they've ever shipped. I've written about the new ribbon UI back when the product was in beta, and though I'm using Office 2003 at work, every time I come back to Office 2007, I realize how big the differences between the two are and how less stressful it is to use the newer version. While deciding to "upgrade" to Vista is a difficult choice to make (the quotes around "upgrade" should be quite telling), upgrading to Office 2007 is a no-brainer and I highly recommend doing so to anyone, especially at this price.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Office 2007, The Ultimate Steal, promotion, students, software

Posted in: education , microsoft , office 2007 , promotion , software

Why iPhone Web Apps And I Don't Get Along (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Let's compare how many clicks it takes to get to weather, stocks, notes, etc on the iPhone versus any web app:

Apple apps:

1. Push sleep/wake or home button
2. Slide to unlock
3. Push Home button
4. Click on app

Web app:

1. Push sleep/wake or home button
2. Slide to unlock
3. Push home button
4. Click on Safari
5. Click on Bookmarks
6. Best case: The app is in my top 5 bookmarks
7. Worst case: I have to scroll/click on a folder before clicking on the app
8. Wait for pa