iOS Devices

Even if Apple never lets a Flash plugin within 50 yards of an iPhone, you may yet be able to enjoy the richness of those blinking banner ads. Gordon (Get it?  Like Flash Gordon?) is an open source Flash runtime written in pure JavaScript.  For simple Flash animations, web developers must only slip in a bit of code into the website to allow non-Flash enabled devices like the iPhone.  The Javascript pulls the relevant animations.

This only works with simple animations and is still quite resource heavy on the iPhone. 

As PCWorld points out,

As a JRE extension it runs natively inside the iPhone’s Safari browser, however it will only work on sites that have specifically incorporated the Gordon code. Reports indicate that a static image presented in flash will peg an iPhone at 100% CPU, so it’s not quite ready for browsing YouTube via Safari just yet. It does support the full feature-set of Flash, including interactivity and animation, but full-Flash sites may not be viable on mobile devices for some time.

Take a look at some of the demos – they work on the iPhone as well.  Interestingly, running the demos on my MacBook Pro, I saw less CPU usage with the Javascript version than I saw with the Flash version.

It might make sense for Adobe to incorporate this type of system so that developers can get their animations to work on all web-enabled devices.  The downside is of course that fewer people will need Flash on their computers – which flies in the face of everything they stand for.

So is Gordon, as iPhone processors get faster and faster, the long term solution to Flash on the iPhone?

Update: The iPhoneBlog is saying they got the same email and they spoke to the developer who said it was a mistake.

Rick Broida, writer of the Cheapskate blog over at CNET, has some slightly off topic news for us today.  Seems he’s been in contact with a “prominant application developer” who has gotten the iPhone 4.0 SDK and has actually updated their application to run with it.

“Just wanted to give you a heads up that we’ve submitted an updated app for the new iPhone OS 4.0 software.”

There has been some speculation that the iPhone 4.0 OS (or any updates to 3.x) has been held up because the code has numerous references to the tablet.  It would make sense, then, that if there is a tablet released later this month, Apple would be free to release at least a beta of the 4.0 iPhone software, to give developers a head start in getting their code ready for the update.

All of this excitement is reportedly only 12 days away.  Yet we haven’t heard a peep from Apple.  This certainly will be interesting.

We know one thing: 2010 is the year of the tablet.  So much so that even mobile phones are creeping into the tablet territory.  Take, for instance the just-revealled Archos phone.  It has a 4.3-inch, 480×845 pixel resolution screen.  That’s pretty similar to the Nexus One and a bit smaller than the HTC HD2 phone. 

Yet, this is a tablet.  The marketing folks are on board.  In 2010, everything will be a tablet, even the phones.  

I’d heard about this a few days ago but I finally had a chance to check it out this evening. Google’s new mobile location based search is a pretty big deal. I was on the road looking for a coffee shop to do some work at in an area I wasn’t familiar with.

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Businessweek’s cover story this week is the Google-Apple rivalry, which takes place mostly in the mobile space (but also elsewhere).   You’ll recall that Apple bought Ad firm Quattro after Google snapped up rival Admob before Apple could make an offer.  That, according to Businessweek, was just the beginning.  Apple has hired a mergers and acquisitions guy Adrian Perica from Goldman Sachs and is preparing to do some buying.  Interestingly if Apple previously wanted to acquire a firm, they would do it “ad hoc”.  

In the past, there was no organized M&A effort, say three former executives at the company. Instead, business chiefs were supposed to keep an eye out for deals and go to Jobs if they thought there was a beneficial one to be made. After getting Jobs’ O.K., the champion of the idea would pull together a team to make an overture, negotiate terms, and work through the administrative details.

Apple’s bidding process for companies is now a much smoother process as evidenced by the Lala and Quattro purchases.

BW’s Peter Burrows says that Apple’s got a plan that he’s gathered from sources “inside and outside the company”.  It stands to reason that Apple, with its focus on apps and developers, can integrate advertising into the iPhone SDK, rather than have Google scoop up all of the ads on popular free apps.

http://bizweektv.pb.feedroom.com/businessweek/bizweektv/pboneclip/player.swf?site=bizweektv&skin=pboneclip&SiteName=bizweektv&fr_story=57c756cc9dbab5c7d7f483841ecbfa765b434907&stories=&AutoPlay=false&mute=false&setvolume=.5&tilenumber=&tilemargin=&videoratio=&detailsheight=&env=&SendEMailURL=http%3A%2F%2F%25SiteID%25.feedroom.com/custom/playerbuilder/feedroom/sendMail.jsp

or, listen to the BW podcast here.

Vodafone (49% owner of Verizon) is now selling iPhones in the UK as of today and they’ve announced that they’ve already activated 50,000 of them.

I have to say that, for whatever reason, I’ve never had better reception on my iPhone than I had with Vodafone in the UK.  Browsing was always super fast and there was never any interference or dropped calls.  That might be because Vodafone is generally seen as having the best network in the UK.  

It stands to reason, then, that a Verizon iPhone would do pretty well.  Just sayin’

Long story short: Yesterday Gawker issued a bounty on information on the Apple tablet.  Today, Apple’s famously heavy handed lawyers issued a cease and desist (and send us anything you get) order.  

The legality question is: Is anything that Gawker gets a violation of contract or theft of Apple’s trade secrets?  Certainly most of what they are asking for would seem that way.

But perhaps there is some gray area: Their $50,000 prize is for a picture of Steve Jobs with a tablet.  If you were at a restaurant and the guy next to you was Steve Jobs and he was showing off the tablet to Al Gore, and you snapped a picture, would it be against the law to sell it?

In any case, Gawker is getting what they wanted in the first place with this contest: Publicity and pageviews.  So it doesn’t really matter if they end up with a tablet or not.  

They got Apple to come out and react to the contest which means that there probably is a product of some sort on its way out of Cupertino soon…if you hadn’t already heard.

FWIW, the contest is still going on.  Letter pasted below:

Apple has introduced a new MobileMe-related App for the iPhone and iPod touch, dubbed Gallery (App Store -Free).

This lets MobileMe users access their image galleries, including those that are password protected and also hidden albums, lets users view friends

This isn’t rocket science, but surprisingly, it does work.  Need your iPhone’s speaker to be a little louder?  Drop it into a nice big funnel-top pint glass.  The echo chamber effect will pump a few more decibels out of the iPhone speaker and you can still read what’s on your display as well.  Great for conference calls or sharing music at a quiet pub.

via Unplgged via TUAW

TUAW adds the tip of putting your iPhone in a ziplock bag when in messy cooking situations but that felt a bit on the obvious side.

Just in case anyone out there still believes publishers aren

Vodafone began offering the iPhone to its UK customers today, and seems off to a strong start – it despatched 50,000 units to customers pre-ordering the device today.

Vodafone joins Orange, O2 and Tesco Mobile in offering Apple

Bloomberg has a weird one today from Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Chan who lays out the following features for iPhone 4G:

Apple Inc.