iPhone Battery Lawsuit Dismissed, Steve Won't Send Luca Brasi [Apple]

 

The Apple part of the iPhone battery class-action lawsuit has been dismissed by U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, who looked at the claims brought by Jose Trujillo and deemed them as dumbtastically stoopeed. Not exactly in those words, but I know that's exactly what he meant with his words:

Apple disclosed on the outside of the iPhone package that the "battery has limited recharge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced by Apple service provider." Under the circumstances, no reasonable jury could find that deception occurred.

However, AT&T is still a defendant in the case. Judge Kennelly denied the company's motion to compel arbitration, saying that at the time of purchase Trujillo didn't have access to the terms of service documentation. The next hearing will be on September 29. [Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ] [Tag: ]

Fabrix iPhone 3G Sleeves Are Classy, Fashionable [IPhone 3G]

We're normally pretty down on cases for cellphones and iPods since our thought is why cover up a perfectly good looking device with an—and we're generalizaing here—ugly case? Fabrix, on the other hand, has really, really good looking sleeves that we wouldn't mind shoving our iPhones and iPods into. You can see some of the collection in the gallery, but each one costs $21.90 and fits both the original iPhone or the iPhone 3G. With the price of the iPhone being slightly lower up-front, you're going to be able to buy a couple of these and swap'em out weekly. [Fabrix]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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Lightning Review: Nokia E66 Slider Smartphone [Reviews]

The Gadget: The Nokia E66, a slim but luxurious GSM slider smartphone running Symbian S60, with Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G and a 3.2MP camera, to name a few of its many features. The Price: Around $500—official price not announced yet. The Verdict: It's good, but it's not $500 good, esp without a qwerty. The E66 is the first number-pad cellphone I've used in 3 years that I wasn't afraid of. Calls on the phone are loud and clear both directions. Its thin form factor and grippy textured back make it enjoyable to hold and you can perform a decent amount of functions without sliding up the top. It has tons of features and it doesn't half-ass any of them. Like the N95, it's got a decent flash camera that takes sharp pictures and video, and has options comparable to most point-and-shoots. The Wi-Fi and 3G load fast in the browser, and GPS found my position when I was outside. (It didn't locate me inside, though, like some phones with assisted GPS.) OTA app downloading was painless and so was setting up my Gmail account. Still, I have some beefs. Symbian doesn't feel very fast. Like many S60 devices, apps and options are buried deep in menus. The phone is too quick to auto-rotate between portrait and landscape modes, a feature that seemed pointless given the cramped real estate of the E66's 2.4" screen. Also, though there are third-party browsing options available that are probably much better, Nokia's built-in S60 browser sucks, plain and simple. It loads non-optimized pages in actual size so it's hard to navigate the screen, only allows for one page to be open at a time, and sorely needs touchscreen functions provided by other modern smartphone browsers. I hate to mention it, but there's a touchscreen phone coming out in a few days on the same network that costs $300 less. This is the problem with a lot of unsubsidized phones. [Product Page]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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Gizmodo's iPhone Application Contest [Contests]

Just a reminder that our iPhone Application Contest is still going on, and we're still looking for delicious entries from you and your squad of code monkeys. One of the prizes we've got for the best entries, which will be decided later, is this Cinemizer video glasses set that lets you keep yourself entertained even when you're driving! Good times. Contest details are here.

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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Caption Contest - We Can't Wait for the New iPhone G3

"It's even faster than the old iPhone G3." Found on Time. Think you can do better? You probably can. Hit the comments and give it your best shot. [Time via BGR]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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Confirmed: If You Bought a 1st Gen iPhone After May 27th, You get a 3G iPhone Free

Do you plan on upgrading your now-obsolete iPhone on July 11th? Great—good for you big spender. Here's the skinny. AT&T informed us that anyone who bought an iPhone after May 27th will be able to swap out their handset with no additional charges for an iPhone 3G. What about everyone else? If you signed a 2-year contract with AT&T when the iPhone came out (which you pretty much had to), you'll have to sign another new 2-year contract to score a new iPhone 3G. The good news is that AT&T will allow you to overwrite your old contract with your new contract. In other words, you're just locked into another 2 years, not 3.

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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Telstra Exec's 42Mbps iPhone Claims Are All But Impossible [IPhone]

A Telstra—iPhone's carrier in Australia—senior executive, has declared that "by Xmas (the iPhone) will be capable of 42Mbps, which will make it faster than a lot of broadband offerings and the fastest iPhone on any network in the world." While Telstra's network may reach that speed in 2009, his claim seems nothing but hot air and kangaroo dung, for a long list of reasons, starting with the iPhone's alleged baseband chip—the Infineon's S-GOLD3, which tops at 7.2Mbps.There are no 14.4Mbps baseband chips commercially available in the market now—much less back when the new 3G iPhone development started
• In fact, there are no HDSPA-based mobile devices of any kind supporting more than 7.2Mbps at this point, and even those are still not common.
• Any 14.4Mbps mobile devices won't hit the market until 2009.
• 24 and 42Mbps mobile devices are, at this point, nothing but a hot fantasy that won't materialize until the next decade.The 3G baseband chip most likely to be in the iPhone 3G is the Infineon S-Gold 3.
• The iPhone beta firmware code specifically mentions the Infineon S-GOLD 3.
• There have been multiple press and analysts' reports about Infineon getting the contract for the next version, continuing its relationship with Apple—right now the iPhone uses the Infineon S-GOLD 2 as its baseband chip.The S-GOLD 3 tops at 7.2Mbps.

S-GOLD 3 Multimode - HSDPA, WCDMA, E-GPRS Baseband IC with embedded multimedia functions; launch in the market Q3 2007 HSDPA 7.2Mbps, WCDMA 384kbps class UL/DL & EDGE multislot class 12, including SAIC/DARP support

So yes, the Telstra network may support 14.4mbps devices, but most likely—and unless there were five million supersecret 42Mbps baseband chips that nobody knows about, hidden in an subaquatic lair in the Pacific—the iPhone 3G, already well into production ahead of its June 9 launch, will not support those speeds for a very long time to come.Maybe the unnamed Telstra senior executive is implying that, next Xmas, Apple will introduce an iPhone with a radically redesigned motherboard using that supersecret baseband chip that nobody knows about right now. Or maybe he's just a clown.I'll take Kangaroo dung for $500. [Channel News]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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Apple's Top Designer Explains Design [Jonathan Ive]

Most of you probably know Jonathan Ive even if you don't recognize the name—he's Apple's head of design (otherwise known as the company's Senior Vice President of Industrial Design). And he's chiefly credited for designs of the iMac, iPod and iPhone. In an interview with The Independent, he shared some of his philosophies on designing for Apple, and just how Apple "does it."

We have a very clear focus that all the development teams at Apple share, a focus around trying to make really great products. That can sound ridiculously simplistic, almost naive, but it's very unique for the product to be what consumes you completely.

Later in the piece, Ive talks about Apple's place as a cultural icon.

I'm not driven by making a cultural impact. That's just a consequence of taking a remarkably powerful technology and making it relevant. My goal is simply to try to make products that really are meaningful to people.

We could easily pull the entire interview and paste it here for you to read, but you should really hit up the original article instead. There's plenty more interesting stuff left. [The Independent via psfk]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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3G iPhone Case Shows Thicker, Curvier Backside (and Front-Facing Camera Too?)

This isn't the first time we've heard that iPhone case manufacturers have gotten an early peek at the 3G iPhone, but this rendering on XSKN's site for the EXO mask iPhone 3G is obviously a bit more detailed than the rough sketches from a couple weeks ago. It lines up with them though, as well as what we've heard earlier: It's a bit thicker, with a more pronounced curve to the back, though it's hard to tell if the headphone jack is flush now. The earpiece hole spans almost the whole width of the phone—could it be for a front-face camera? Apply the usual skepticism here, but this could be plausible, given that cases will have to be ready in time for launch, so manufacturers likely already have the specs.

 [XSKN via Mac Rumors]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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iPhone Keeps Invading the World

Orange, who already have the iPhone in France, have issued a press release announcing it'll also be on sale in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and its African markets, sometime "later this year." Swisscom has also announced they'll be selling the iPhone in Switzerland. [Orange and Pocket-Lint]


[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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New iPhone Firmware Beta Has a 3G On/Off Switch: I Wish It Was Automatic

The iPhone's recently released firmware 2.0 Beta 5 has a 3G on off switch for users. Underneath, there's a warning that 3G browsing will kill your battery faster. While that's more proof of the upgraded hardware we already expect, what I find most interesting is the manual control. It's not too late to change it, but I was hoping that Apple would approach the 3G/2G power consumption and speed tradeoffs by having an automatic toggle for 2G and 3G: It could have a smart mode that would turn 3G off to save battery for background email downloading, weather checking and standby; and then turn it on for YouTube, maps, web browsing and iTunes music store downloading. Wouldn't that make a lot of sense? P.S. Apple, you can have this idea for free in trade for some copy and paste action in the next beta.
[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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iPhone Stocks Being Replenished, Not Sold Out, Say UK Retailers

Despite the rumors of iPhones being out of stock in the UK, it's not really true—according to the retailers themselves. Reghardware has spoken to both O2 and Carphone Warehouse, and both say they're just tackling getting more 16GB iPhones for their online departments. Apple themselves have stock and O2 and Carphone Warehouse have iPhones available in their high street stores. Does this info mean they won't be getting any more 8GB versions, though? Well, we can speculate that, but we don't know. It also leaves us wondering what this news does to the iPhone 2.0 rumors.
[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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Sprint Spending $100 Million to Kick iPhone in the Nuts (iPhone Wearing Cup)

Starting May 9th, Sprint will begin a massive, $100 million marketing campaign aimed straight at the iPhone's nether regions. Stacking its 3G Instinct against the iPhone, Sprint hopes to show that EVDO and GPS make their product way better than anything coming out of Cupertino.The problem isn't that the Instinct is necessarily a bad phone, or that Sprint is a worse service than AT&T. It's that Sprint's series of commercials will cost the company $100 million to promote a message that will most probably be a moot point in one month if/when Apple announces their 3G iPhone. Here's their second commercial:

Also, in a more general suggestion to the advertisers of the world, never put a your device side by side against a competitor if the competitor has a higher screen to case ratio. We'll probably be posting the other three spots as they come in...but even if we don't, expect to see the series all over the television soon.Oh, and to put $100 million into some perspective, that's more money than it would cost to run a 2009 Super Bowl commercial every day for a month.

[via Kansas City Star]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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NBC Streaming Full Episodes of 30 Rock and the Office to iPhones (for Free, No Ads!)

Even though there's no love lost between NBC and iTunes, that doesn't mean NBC doesn't love you! At least if you've got an iPhone or iPod touch. They're streaming full episodes of 30 Rock and The Office to iPhones (and touches) in Quicktime, for free, with NO ads. They work, nicely, but the major catch is that if you exit Safari, you've gotta re-DL all over again, and the files are huge, so is this Wi-Fi only, really. This looks weird for NBC, but it's really not.They're putting their shows out online in a million different ways (you can even download 30 Rock, The Office, Conan and Leno direct to your desktop now) and more than happy to pipe 'em to you, as long as it's in a controlled sandbox of some sort. NBC Direct requires a walled-garden player install with loads of DRM, and they wanted copyright controls from Apple and Microsoft to give just two examples, not to mention Hulu. It's sorta surprising that the Quicktime feed for iPhone is unprotected, but theoretically it's restricted to two devices. You know, if they'd just relax a bit, overall, they'd be in a good place online. [Silicon Alley Insider, Thanks Peter!]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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iPhone SDK Beta 5 Now Up: Bug Fixes, Updated OS Support

Besides supporting the latest iPhone OS version, beta 5 doesn't do a whole lot else besides throwing in small tweaks to the UI, tweaks to the developers tools and some bug fixes. No big feature addition like last time, but you gotta update if you're making iPhone apps. You just gotta! There probably won't be very many more of these before the next iPhone's out.

This п¬Ѓfth beta release of the iPhone SDK includes a complete set of tools, compilers, frameworks, and documentation for creating iPhone OS applications. These tools include the Xcode IDE, and the Instruments analysis tool, among many others. With this software you can develop applications that run on iPhone and iPod touch using the included iPhone Simulator.

[Apple]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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Contest: Take Your Shot at Photoshopping the Most Ridiculous iPhone 2 Fake Ever [Contests]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the impending announcement of the next version of Apple's fancy-ass phone, the fakes are starting to roll in, and they aren't great. But if you're going to create a mediocre fake, why not just go all out? This lukewarm crap is boring. I want ridiculous fakes. I want iPhone 2 mockups that have can openers attached, or that have full QWERTY keyboards that roll out on edible slices of American cheese. So let's make this happen. Your challenge: make the most ludicrous, fake and unlikely iPhone mockups you can. The dumber the better. Send them to me at contests@gizmodo.com and I'll make a gallery of the results by the end of the week. Get cracking, people!

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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Remote Plant Watering Via iPhone

Peter set up a robotic watering can to take directions from an iPhone. When Safari's screen state goes from horizontal to vertical, it sends a status update to a webserver via javascript that sets the watering can up or down. Pretty simple but clever set up. [Maker Faire]

[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]
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iSwish: Yet another pretty iPhone clone for Windows Mobile

While Flick Software's iSwish Project certainly isn't the first attempt we've seen to emulate the iPhone interface for Windows Mobile, it's definitely one of the prettiest, most effective looking. At least if we go on the video above. But if you look closely, you'll notice a few things in this video:

1. While the demonstration shows a user zooming in and out of pictures by "pinching" the screen, our guess is that the device, which doesn't recognize multi-touch is actually just detecting the motion of one finger.


2. The program launcher interface is pretty, but at least once in the video, we're pretty sure we caught the producers stopping and restarting the video to make it look like an application actually started up more quickly.

The biggest problem with any iPhone clone for Windows Mobile is that beauty is only skin deep. The software appears to include a program launcher and support for SummerBoard themes, and maybe a program or two. But once you launch your application, you'll find that you've still got the same Windows Mobile software running under the hood. Some of it's pretty, some of it's functional, and some is anything but (Pocket Internet Explorer, anybody?)

Flick's iSwish is due out sometime in May, and should work with a variety of Windows Mobile devices, including older gizmos like the Dell Axim X50, which does not (officially) run Windows Mobile 6. So there's hope if you've got an older PDA or phone.

[Via: Engadget ]
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