WWDC 2010: iPhone 4

Wow. That could pretty much sum up Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote address for me. This was probably the best keynote from Apple, in my opinion, since the January 2007 unveiling of the original iPhone at Macworld. Steve wasn’t kidding when he said at one point, “For 2010, we’re going to take the biggest leap since the original iPhone.”

Before I delve into iPhone 4, though, it is worth mentioning that Apple gave a recap of iPad’s success, and showed off a forthcoming update to iBooks. 2 million iPads have been sold in three months. When that is averaged out, that is 1 iPad every 3 seconds. To me, that is absolutely crazy. I blows my mind. iBooks is getting an update in a couple weeks that will enable highlighting, notes, and bookmarks, as well as native PDF reading support.

Next, Apple talked about a few highlights of the App Store, detailing some upcoming additions such as Netflix for iPhone (yay!) and Farmville (barf…).

Okay, now that the small stuff is out of the way, let’s get to what you really came here to read about.

iPhone 4

Look at that beauty. And I’ll tell you what, there is a lot going on with this phone to make it that gorgeous. Let’s break it down bit by bit.

All New Design

iPhone 4 is a mere 9.3 mm thick, making it 24% thinner than the iPhone 3G/3GS. This is thanks to the main structure of the phone being harnessed in a stainless steel band, sandwiched between an aluminosilicate glass front and back casing. You’ll notice a couple seams in the stainless steel band. Well, this sectioned band acts as the phone’s antennas, one supporting 802,11n WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS, and the other supporting the 3G/EDGE GSM radio. Apparently, engineers were touting after the keynote to attendees that they found a way to transform the electromagnetic radiation given off by the radios into electric current, giving iPhone 4 the ability to boost its own reception. There is also a second microphone at the top of iPhone 4, right by the headphone jack, to provide noise suppression during phone calls. Amazing stuff. 

The back is no longer plastic. It is glass, just like the front. With my iPhone 3G, I have never worried about the glass front. It’s super durable. But, prior to my iPhone being switched out under AppleCare, the plastic back had suffered many small scratches and even developed hairline cracks around the headphone jack and dock connector, and even lost a small chunk of the plastic around the dock connector. The glass used in the iPhone 4 is different from the glass used in previous models. It is aluminosilicate glass, which makes it comparable in strength to sapphire crystal, 30 times harder than plastic. And since the glass used in previous models was virtually impossible to scratch, this new glass should make the back even more durable.

There’s a neat thing about the glass on the front of the device as well. Previous models of the iPhone suffered from a knack of getting dust between the glass and the display (my iPhone 3G went through this quagmire twice). Apple is using a new process of laminating the display to the glass, which should take care of this problem. John Gruber elaborates:

Apple had a demo area for the media after the keynote, so I got to spend some time hands-on with the iPhone 4. The resolution of the “retina display” is as impressive as Apple boasts. Text renders like high quality print. One thing that Apple didn’t mention in the keynote, though, is that the LCD pixels are much closer to the surface of the touchscreen. On existing iPhones (and iPods, and iPads), there is not a lot of distance between the glass surface and the LCD, but there is some. There’s also a very narrow amount of air between the touchscreen glass and the underlying LCD. If you’ve ever got a bit dust under your display, that dust is in the air between the glass and LCD.

It’s mentioned briefly in Apple’s promotional video about the design of the iPhone 4, but they’re using a new production process that effectively fuses the LCD and touchscreen — there is no longer any air between the two. One result of this is that the iPhone 4 should be impervious to this dust-under-the-glass issue. More importantly, though, is that it looks better. The effect is that the pixels appear to be painted on the surface of the phone; instead of looking at pixelsunder glass, it’s like looking at pixels on glass. Combined with the incredibly high pixel density, the overall effect is like “live print”.

It also improved the field of view for the display — you can view the display from an oblique angle and it looks great. Again, like print. It’s like a glossy magazine come to life.

To me, iPhone 4 looks to be solving the design problems of previous models. Check out Apple’s great video of the design.

Retina Display

Apple is moving from a 480x320 pixel display to a 960x640 pixel display. This will provide 4 pixels in the same physical space that one pixel occupied on previous models. Whereas previous iPhone models had an already impressive 163 pixels per inch, iPhone 4 has 326 pixels per inch, which provides the same quality as a page printed on a laser printer. Around 300 ppi, the human eye can no longer distinguish the individual pixels, some this display renders like print to our eyes, hence the “Retina” moniker. The display also has an 800:1 contrast ratio, which is 4 times better than before, and like the iMac and iPad, is employing In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology for greater color accuracy and an extremely wide viewing angle.

A4

I remember back in January of this year when Apple announced they were using a custom designed system on a chip, I sat back and hoped it would find its way to the next iPhone. Well, it did. iPhone 4 is powered by the same chip that runs the iPad, the Apple A4. Since the A4 uses very little energy, it is boosting the iPhone’s battery life up to 7 hours of 3G talk, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of WiFi browsing, 10 hours of video, 40 hours of music, and 300 hours of standby. That, my friends, is great for a smartphone, and amazing for one of the iPhone’s caliber.

Gyroscope

Apple pioneered, to my knowledge, the use of an accelerometer in a mobile phone. This allowed the original and subsequent iPhones to sense when you held the phone sideways, and would adjust the orientation of photos, as one example, appropriately. The accelerometer also found its way into gaming apps, being used for apps such as driving games. Now, Apple is adding a gyroscope in addition to the accelerometer, giving iPhone 4 6-axis motion sensing, pitch, roll, & yaw, and rotation about gravity. I can’t wait to see what developers do with this handy piece of hardware.

Camera, Now with Lights & Action!

The iPhone has always had a fairly small camera sensor compared to competing devices, but has always produced fairly decent shots due to its superior software. Believe me, I have a shot of my son, taken with my iPhone 3G, that looks as if I took it with my Canon EOS 40D (I admit that it was taken under a perfect storm of natural light). Apple had upgraded the camera system in the iPhone 3GS with a 3 megapixel camera, tap to focus, and even included support for standard definition video.

iPhone 4 introduces a larger lens, and bumps the camera sensor to 5 megapixels. Most competitors are including 8 or even 12 megapixel cameras in their phones. Megapixels are not the end all be all of digital photography. In fact, what really matters with any digital camera, is light sensitivity. To accomplish that, the light-capturing pixels need to be able to soak up as much light as possible. Other phones are shipping cameras with sensors the same physical size as iPhone 4’s. However, by including 8- or 12-megapixels, those light-capturing pixels are smaller, meaning they soak up less light. 

iPhone 4’s light-capturing pixels are the same physical size as those in the 3GS’s camera, but the overall sensor is larger and the lens is larger than the 3GS’s. Also, Apple is using a backside illuminated sensor in iPhone 4 to bring even more light into the camera. Overall, iPhone 4’s camera should be fairly light-sensitive even in low-light situations. But, in those low-light situations, you can employ the use of iPhone 4’s LED flash.

The camera’s software continues to have Apple’s innovative tap to focus system, and introduces a 5x digital zoom.

The camera now also records 720p HD video at 30 fps. It also introduces tap to focus video. Apple also announced that they will be shipping iMovie for iPhone for $5 on the App Store. You can record HD video, edit it with themes, music, & transitions, and export it all from your iPhone.

iOS 4

Apple announced a name change to iPhone OS 4 because it runs on iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads. It is honestly a welcome name change. This section of the keynote was basically a recap of the developer preview back in March, which you can read my coverage of. One new thing worth mentioning is the addition of Bing as a search engine to Google and Yahoo!. Google will remain the default.

iOS 4 will be shipping to customers via iTunes on June 21st. 1st generation iPhones and iPod touches will not be receiving it. iPhone 3G and second generation (2008) iPod touches get everything except Multitasking, Custom Homescreen Wallpaper, and Bluetooth Keyboard support, and iPhone 3GS and 3rd Generation (2009) iPod touches get everything.

iBooks

In addition to the PDF, notes, and highlights enhancements to iBooks on the iPad, Apple announced the addition of iBooks for iPhone. iBooks on iPhone will have the same abilities as the iPad (in fact, it will be a universal app). Apple also said it will be providing free redownloading of book purchases to all of your iOS devices,a nd will sync wirelessly sync your place, bookmarks, highlights, and notes across your devices for free.

iAds

Apple recapped and demoed iAds, its in-app advertising platform, which will be debuting in apps on July 1 in apps that developers code them into. Honestly, I don’t mind ads in free apps. I am always about supporting the developer for their work. And if ads are the way to support a developer, iAds looks to provide a nice experience, especially since you can dismiss an ad at will.

FaceTime

Finally, Apple introduced FaceTime, which utilizes a front-faced camera on iPhone 4 to do video chats (this camera can also be used for self-portraits in the camera app). FaceTime is currently restricted to being WiFi only in 2010, as Apple works with carriers to bring support for it over 3G. Another restriction, one which I am sad to see, is that FaceTime only works from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4. I hope a future software update brings video chat from iPhone 4 to iChat on the Mac.

One thing that may help in that is Apple’s pledge to make FaceTime an open standard, so apps like Skype may possibly use it. 

Apple put together a touching video to demonstrate FaceTime as it will apply to people’s lives. I know I’d love it right now as my wife is traveling for a week. 

Pricing & Availabilty

iPhone 4 will be available for preorder on June 15th, and released on June 24th. It will come in black or white (the white model is white on both the front and back, and looks reminiscent of the first iPod). Capacity is 16GB or 32GB and price is $199 and $299, respectively, with a 2 year contract, subject to eligibility. The iPhone 3GS will have an 8GB capacity and sell for $99 with the same carrier commitments. The iPhone 3G has been discontinued.

Thoughts

I am absolutely enamored with the new iPhone. As I am at the end of my current iPhone 3G contract, I will be upgrading to iPhone 4. I would have preferred to see the capacities at 32GB and 64GB, but seeing as I have 16GB right now, 32GB will be a nice step up. I’ll just have to make sure to leave a few gigabytes free for that HD video recording.

Otherwise, I am looking forward with great anticipation to the new design, the Retina display, and the improved rear camera. Also, as I’ll be receiving it on June 24th, I may use it as my camera for a wedding I am attending on June 25th, seeing as how my DSLR would be inappropriate and awkward to handle. Casually snapping some shots at a wedding and reception should be a good gauntlet to put the camera through the paces.

Look for my hands on review around that time.

WWDC 2010: Event Horizon

In typical manner before an Apple event, there are many rumors and hypotheses swirling about what our favorite fruit company may or may not say or show off on stage. Also in typical fashion I like to throw in my two cents of punditry. On Monday, June 7, Apple will kick off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco with a keynote address, where the company has been known to announce or release new products.

The Mac

Mac OS X

I really doubt we’ll hear much about the Mac this time around. One may think this would be the perfect opportunity to give a first glance at Mac OS X 10.7, but considering the session list for WWDC is centered around the iPhone and iPad, along with the Apple Design Awards excluding the Mac entirely, I don’t think there will be much news on this front. I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong.

Safari

However, there have been some rumors that Safari will see a proper Extension API added to it. My guess is this would be the chief cornerstone of a new Safari (Safari 5, perhaps?). I could also see Apple using Safari 5 to fully embrace HTML5, such as fullscreen video playback, since the company has been by far the most influential voice in adoption of HTML5.

Also, a while back the WebKit team announced WebKit2, which will bring split process tabs/windows to Safari, much like how Chrome (which is also WebKit-based) does things. The difference is Chrome does it at the application level, whereas WebKit2 will provide this as part of the framework for any WebKit-based app. I can see the next major version of Safari being based on WebKit2.

Needless to say, I would love to see the return of tabs-on-top, at least as an option. Tabs-on-top were introduced during the betas of Safari 4, but the feature was dropped for the release.

The iPad

I’m sure we’ll hear about how insanely great the iPad is selling and how satisfied customers are with it. I’m hoping Apple will also issue a bug fix release of the iPad’s iPhone OS 3.2, as there are a few glitches here and there, and there’s also a pesky issue of poor WiFi reception. I can attest to that personally, as my iPad drops WiFi in my bedroom, whereas my iPhone 3G, MacBook Pro, and my wife’s iPod touch have no problems in the same location. And the router is 20 feet away in the office.

Beyond the trumpeting of great sales and addressing bugs, I don’t see much happening with the iPad until the fall when it receives OS 4, presumably OS 4.1.

The iPhone

There is no question in my mind that the iPhone will be the main focus of attention. Between a new OS, presumably new hardware, and Apple’s habit of announcing new iPhones at WWDC several years running, this is a sure bet.

iPhone OS 4

We’ll definitely get a summary of the new features coming to the iPhone (multitasking, folders, etc) along with a release date. Also, a Gold Master build & SDK will likely be available to developers following the keynote. A decent chunk of the keynote will be devoted to rehashing the details from Apple’s event in April, complete with a few third-party demos. There may be a few additions to the OS, specific to the latest generation of iPhone hardware. We saw this with the introduction of Compass and a revamped Camera app in the iPhone 3GS. I’ll detail my thoughts of what is in store here in the next section.

The New iPhone

This will hardly be a surprise, as we’ve already seen the hardware itself thanks to Gizmodo. But you never know, Apple may have a trick or two up its sleeve. What to expect? Well, a brand new hardware design, the Apple A4 mobile processor, a larger 5 megapixel camera with LED flash on the back, an iSight camera on the front, and a 960x640 pixel display at the same physical dimensions. 

I’d love to see the next iPhone sport Apple’s custom A4 processor, as it performs beyond expectation on the iPad. The A4 has absolutely impressive performance whilst using extremely little battery power. 

The advancements to the screen would be an improvement of epic proportions. At the same physical 3.5” diagonal measurement, a 960x640 pixel resolution would increase the iPhone’s pixel density would increase from around 160 pixels per inch to around 320 pixels per inch. That pixel density would be nearly indistinguishable to the human eye from the output of a laser printer. The next iPhone will likely have one extremely crisp screen. Also, rumor has it that Apple will be employing the use of In-Plane Switching (IPS) which is currently used in the company’s iMac displays and the iPad. IPS provides the ability to have zero color distortion from nearly any angle. 

As far as cameras go, the improvements to the rear camera will be very welcome, and may even provide for 720p HD video capture, whereas the iPhone 3GS captures at 640x480. If this is true, my Kodak Zx1 will be finding a new owner.

The front camera, which I am sure Apple will dub as an iSight like cameras on Macs, will be primarily used for video conferencing and self portraits. And this is where device-specific enhancements to iPhone OS 4 come in. The two apps I can see appearing exclusively to the new iPhone are iChat and Photo Booth. iChat for text IM purposes and impromptu video chats to show Grandma what her silly grandson is up to at this moment, and Photo Booth for taking fun self-portraits of you with your family and friends. These two apps just seem like a natural fit to the front facing iSight.

We should also get a firm release date for the new iPhone hardware. Some purport that it will be available immediately, and that surely is possible, but I’ll err on doubtful.. The iPhone 3GS was released 11 days after the WWDC announcement, which was very fast, in my opinion. However, it was also two days after iPhone OS 3 was hitting existing devices. Apple is likely going to give developers some time to submit apps for iPhone OS 4 before release. That all could change, however, if Apple releases iPhone OS 4 beta 5 this week and invites developers to start submitting apps tested against that beta. This is a possibility since Apple essentially did the same with the iPad release. With the iPad, developers submitted apps built on a beta OS, untested on actual hardware, and didn’t receive a Gold Master until after the iPad itself was released. Apple may do the same with iPhone OS 4, and release the Gold Master and the next iPhone concurrently during WWDC.

Carrier Partners

Perhaps the biggest myth around this time of year for several years running is whether or not Apple’s US exclusivity with AT&T is over and done with. Many folks want the iPhone on Verizon and Sprint’s name has even come up a few times. The largest hurdle to the iPhone coming to either Verizon or Sprint is their CDMA based networks. AT&T, and all of the iPhone’s carriers worldwide, use GSM networks. This means Apple makes one iPhone, and just localizes the software according to its destination. If Apple introduces CDMA compatibility into the mix for the few countries that have CDMA then it has to either make an iPhone with a hybrid GSM/CDMA chip, or it has to make two iPhones, one GSM and one CDMA, which complicates manufacturing.

Another incentive for Apple to hold off on supporting Verizon/Sprint, is the upcoming 4G networks based on LTE. This would knock out Sprint from having an iPhone, though, as they are using WiMax for their 4G network. However, AT&T and Verizon both proclaim that they will have LTE networks in the next couple years, with some markets lighting up in 2011. This would fall more in line with Apple’s simplified manufacturing process.

I have been going back and forth on whether or not I think AT&T will lose exclusivity for weeks. I’m going to go with no. To me, evidence for AT&T keeping the iPhone to itself in the US far outweighs the alternative. I’m sure Apple would love to open the door to more customers, but the question is would Verizon bring in enough customers to warrant the cost of retooling the factory every now and then to make CDMA iPhones. 

I also suspect the iPad 3G’s sweetheart data plan was given by AT&T in exchange for more one-on-one time with their cash cow, the iPhone.

Steve Jobs

After a medical battle in 2009 that required the visionary of Apple to take a leave of absence, one that many thought he may not return from, Steve Jobs is taking the helm once again at WWDC, as he has been for all of Apple’s events since September 2009. I am sure we will also see appearances by Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall during the keynote, as has become custom. I expect we’ll see a great show, and be amazed in one fashion or another by one of the best showmen of our time. 

Examining Twitterrific's Flight Plan

Earlier today, the team at The Iconfactory filed a flight plan to its customers regarding the future of their popular Twitter client, Twitterrific. In order to cover an exhaustive amount of detail behind their thoughts for the future, the company split its ideas through the personal blogs of three of its staff, Gedeon Maheux, David Lanham, and Craig Hockenberry.

First, Gedeon’s post discusses the why and how behind the decision and gives the big picture. He focuses mainly on how the team made the mistake in the past to saying “yes” to too many feature requests. This approach led to so much feature creep that the user interface and settings became too difficult for most people to navigate. So when Steve Jobs held up the iPad for the world to see in late January, The Iconfactory decided to put Ollie on a diet and start fresh. The goal: simplify. Only include the absolute necessities for a wonderful Twitter experience. That resulted in Twitterrific for iPad. Iconfactory is beginning to think a lot like Apple, focusing on the 80% of users who just need the essentials, not everything and a bag of chips. 

David’s post then delves into the user interface changes and the decisions behind them. The goal here was to make Twitterrific fast and light, focusing on content and usability, rather than an expansive feature list. The timeline screen has been whittled down from seven buttons to four. My beloved action (looks like an asterisk) button is gone, and those actions have been separated into two main categories: actions that affect the timeline and actions that affect only you.

Settings have been moved from being within the app to Settings.app. And the team threw out many of the settings. Anything that possibly needs to be changed frequently, such as photo/video upload service, are located contextually in the explicit functions button. Judging from the below screen capture Lanham provided of Twitterrific 2’s settings versus Twitterrific 3’s settings, you can see why they started from scratch.

Finally, Craig’s post discusses how the iPad is ushering a new kind of user into a new era of computing. Twitterrific for iPad and the upcoming Twitterrific 3 for iPhone are focusing regular folks, not the Twitter power user. And for regular folks looking to read and write tweets among friends and folks that interest them less interface is more.

Craig boldly states:

“Simplicity is the name of the game in this new world order.” 

Features such as Instapaper support are there, and that particular feature is for a user who knows what Instapaper is. Enabling it is in Settings.app, and if you don’t set it up, you’ll never see anything about Instapaper in the app interface. Initially, I put off by this mentality of putting some settings in Settings.app, but the idea makes sense to me now. Especially since the only settings that end up outside the app are the “set it and forget it” settings. Everything else is in context where it is appropriate, and beyond that the interface altogether gets out of your way. We see this in the iPad now, and once again, you can see where The Iconfactory is following Apple’s footsteps, as Apple’s own apps do the best they can to get out of the way.

My Thoughts

There was a time when Twitterrific 1 for iPhone became stale and lacked features, and that time was with the advent of Tweetie. Then Twitterrific 2 came along chock full o’ features, and I have been happy with that. When the iPad version came out, I found it mildly refreshing not have such a busy interface, but I also noticed two of my favorite features were missing (text compression & marking tweets). But overall, the less is more attitude allows me to just read tweets, and easily compose.

The Iconfactory started from scratch when the iPad was announced, and I think it is paying off. It’s smart to base the iPad, iPhone, & Mac versions off the same code. It makes rolling out new features and fixing bugs easier. It simplifies. This new era of simple isn’t going to be for everyone. I can already tell you many of my iPhone-toting friends will not like this new super-simple Twitterrific for iPhone. Most of them are Twitter power users and already focus on everything-but-the-kitchen-sink apps like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and Tweetie Twitter for iPhone. Those folks will not see the value of simplicity. 

I’ll admit, I love Twitterrific, and have for nearly three years. But I’ll also say I had a moment when initially using Twitterrific for iPad that I sat back and was worried about losing some features in the next major iPhone revision. And guess what — I am. Hopefully some will return with enough user requests. Now, I do have Twitter for iPhone, (and I paid for its previous two incarnations, Tweetie 1 and 2), but that app has always been like trying to drink from a firehose for me, and I consider myself a power user at 20,830 tweets and counting. 

For the past few months I have been trying to simplify many things in my life. I even bought a lovely new simplistic desk to help myself along the way. So I can jibe with what The Iconfactory is trying to achieve, and I welcome it. Simpler is better.

I have confirmed first hand with Gedeon from The Iconfactory that Twitterrific 3 for iPhone is a paid upgrade for premium users. The premium app is going away, and the free version will be upgraded to the new app. Premium features (ad removal and multiple accounts) will be an in-app upgrade. Now, I paid $10 for Twitterrific Premium 1 on day one of the App Store, and I received version 2 for free. Version 2 was also when the price was dropped to $4. It is my understanding the premium feature unlock will remain at $4. 

I’m going to publicly state that I am fine with paying again. These folks produce some of the most beautiful apps on Apple devices. And I am a firm believer that great work should be rewarded. If you like Twitterrific 3, you should pay for it, and that’s my opinion. Future development is best encouraged with dollars. And if the price of a latté is too much for an app for you, well, there is the ad-supported part of Twitterrific, or there are other apps.

Look for Twitterrific 3 for iPhone in a few weeks, and Twitterrific 4 for Mac by June 30, the OAuth deadline for Twitter clients. 

MobileMe Opens Up a Can of Beta

This morning Apple announced changes to MobileMe’s web client for Mail at me.com. The new features aren’t live yet, but you can sign up for the beta when you log in to your MobileMe account online. 

Here’s what we know so far:

• Widescreen & compact views. When reading your mail at me.com, the new widescreen view lets you see more of each message with less scrolling. Choose compact view to hide your folders or classic view to see more of your message list.
• Rules to keep your email organized everywhere. Mail rules help you reduce inbox clutter by automatically filing messages into folders you select ahead of time. Set them up at me.com, and your rules organize your incoming email on the web and everywhere else — on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC.
• Single-click archiving. Click the Archive button and the selected message is quickly filed into the Archive folder where it’s always available for future reference.
• Formatting toolbar. You can create great-looking email messages using formatting buttons to bold or italicize text, change font color, insert images, and more. You can even create formatted web links to hide long URLs.
• Improved performance. Mail at me.com loads your inbox and messages faster. And with interface refinements such as the ability to scroll through your entire inbox without having to manually click to load the next set of messages, you’ll be able to work more efficiently.
• Increased security with SSL. With the MobileMe Mail beta, accessing your email on the web is more secure than ever. Your inbox is protected to prevent anyone from eavesdropping on your webmail. As always, you receive SSL protection when you use your MobileMe Mail account on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC.

The widescreen view will be very nice, and more iPad-like. But the two things from that list I am most excited about are server-side rules and a true Archive function. Having rules server-side will be fantastic since that will trickle down to my Mac, iPhone, & iPad. Archive will also be nice (as I already have a folder set up to mimic that). One has to wonder if Apple will update Mail on iPhone, iPad, & the Mac to have a dedicated Archive button like the web client will have. (I’m hopeful).

Apple has also compiled a small list of FAQs. I’m looking forward to taking the beta for a spin once I get my invite! What do you think? Sound off in the comments.

First Look: Square

Square. It’s a shape. It’s a fundamental part of mathematics. It’s a tool of precision used by carpenters. Soon, I think, it will become synonymous with revolutionizing how regular folks pay each other. 

Square is a small company in San Francisco that is aiming to make payment via credit or debit card simply and easy for individuals and small businesses alike. Let’s face it, if you’ve owned a business and applied for a credit card terminal, it’s an expensive process, you’re bound to monthly fees, and everything is dependent upon your personal credit score.

Square does away with all of that hassle. Most of you already have the primary part of the terminal, too. Square is an app available for iPhones, iPod touches, iPads, and Android phones. Word on the street is apps for more platforms are on the way. You simply download the app, sign up for an account, and Square ships you a tiny plastic square with a slot for swiping cards and a headphone jack to connect to your mobile device. No monthly fees, no credit checks. What does Square get out of it? 15¢ per transaction plus a small percentage (2.75% for swiped cards, 3.5% for manually entered cards). Out of a $25 transaction, you keep $24.22. And a penny of that fee goes to a charity of your choice.

How does this all work? Well, Square has made two videos, one during their testing phase, and the other which appeared today with their official launch. 

One thing I like a lot about Square is the ability to give electronic receipts, and also help track your cash flow on their website. And the ability to tag those transactions with geolocation is very cool. And Square can also track cash transactions, and issue receipts for them, free of charge. Basically, your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Android device become your register. Square can also account for tax, tips, and track the frequency of repeat customers, perfect for having a reward program (think buy 9, get the 10th free).

I received a shipment notification this morning that my Square reader is on its way. I’ll report back with a hands on after I receive it.

If you’re interested in Square, go grab the app off iTunes or the Android marketplace and sign up for an account.

Steve Jobs Shares His Thoughts on Flash

Early this morning Apple posted an open letter from its cofounder and CEO, Steve Jobs, regarding the company’s stance on Adobe’s Flash technology. Apple has come under fire from many folks over the exclusion of Flash from the iPhone OS platform over the past few years. I honestly couldn’t give Apple more praise for excluding it.

To answer the outcries of Flash sympathizers, Mr. Jobs composed a letter to let everyone know exactly why Apple hasn’t and won’t include Flash on their mobile devices. Jobs addressed six tenets of Flash’s shortcomings:

1. Openness
2. The Full Web
3. Reliability, Security, & Performance
4. Battery Life
5. Touch Interfaces
6. Development Hindrances

Jobs gives great supporting evidence of those points, and I agree with Apple’s stance. Not only is the Flash plugin a largely power hungry component, but it doesn’t scale the transition from a mouse to a touchscreen.

Along with the plugin, I completely understand why Apple recently blocked Flash CS5’s cross-platform compiler in Section 3.3.1 of the iPhone OS 4 SDK Agreement. Apple can’t have a third party become the de facto app development tool and expect to have a smooth and clean operating system of their own. Apple rarely repeats mistakes, and one of the chief mistakes Apple made with OS X was allowing third parties to make development tools. Apple told developers a couple years prior to the Intel switch to move to Apple’s own XCode tools instead of CodeWarrior. Well, when the Intel switch dropped, developers using XCode could recompile and have a working universal binary that ran on PowerPC and Intel Macs. Developers who didn’t heed Apple’s warnings had to start from scratch in XCode.

Take a guess which two high profile developers had to scramble into XCode. Microsoft and Adobe. Both companies hurriedly released crippled and/or buggy versions of their Mac applications in order to catch up.

Microsoft released a version of Office that removed key components making it largely incompatible with Windows versions of Office. This was one of the key reasons I use iWork instead of Office these days. If I have to miss out on some features, I’m at least doing it in style and without frustration. Microsoft is finally adding in the features they removed previously later this year.

Adobe ended up releasing a 32-bit version of Creative Suite for Mac while the Windows version was 64-bit. Also, I can’t vouch for the Windows side, but I know of many folks using Macs and Photoshop CS4 experience a horrid bug that crashes the app upon a Save command. It’s very counter-productive. And to prove Adobe has shortcomings on OS X as a whole, Jobs writes:

And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

It makes sense that Apple wants to control iPhone OS soup to nuts. I greatly encourage you to read Jobs’ open letter for yourself. It’s quite the read. I wonder how Adobe will respond.

I leave you with the closing paragraph from Jobs’ letter, which sums things up quite well.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

WWDC 2010 Announced for June 7-11

This morning Apple (finally) announced its dates for the Worldwide Developers Conference. It will take place June 7-11, sticking with its traditional June timeframe. Developers have been on the edge of their seats for weeks hoping to learn the dates so they could arrange travel and accommodations. And I will say, the overall reaction I saw from some developers this morning on Twitter wasn’t great. One month is not a great deal of time to properly plan a one week pilgrimage to San Francisco.

Also, if history serves us well, Apple will use WWDC to officially launch the next iPhone hardware and iPhone OS 4. In 2008, Apple announced iPhone 3G in June for release in July alongside iPhone OS 2. Similarly, in 2009, Apple used the June event to announce iPhone 3GS and iPhone OS 3’s availability for release a week or so later.

It isn’t a far stretch to mark mid-June on your calendar for a new iPhone. I know I am.

The Great iPhone Kerfuffle of 2010

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past week and a half-ish, you’ve no doubt heard about Gizmodo getting their hands on a prototype iPhone. Not just any prototype iPhone, but almost certainly the next iPhone. I’ve held off on writing about it for a couple reasons:

1. My tongue was hanging out for a long time on the floor.
2. I wanted to see how this played out for a little while.

I’m not going to waste too many pixels of typography discussing the circumstances of how Gizmodo acquired the iPhone or what the legal ramifications of all that may be, other than to say that I was genuinely disappointed for how Gizmodo outed the name of the Apple engineer who misplaced the iPhone. That was a tasteless act that had no relevancy to the overall story. All we needed to know was that an Apple engineer misplaced, not the name and face of the actual person. It disturbs me how Gizmodo can take such sociopathic glee in attaching that man’s name to this story for the rest of his career via search engine.

There, I am finished ranting and chastising.

Now, onto the meat of the story — the prototype iPhone. This was by far the biggest tech/gadget scoop I’ve ever seen. It may be the biggest tech/gadget scoop ever. It is so strange that we’ve actually seen the next iPhone before Steve Jobs has shown it to us.

Much to the dismay of iPhone case manufacturers, who last year were given a reprieve of redesigning their products due to the 3GS having the same body as the 3G, the next iPhone has a brand new design. I think it is safe to say the design of the prototype is close to what will be in customer’s hands. To quote John Gruber:

According to Gizmodo, one of the barcodes attached to the unit read “N90_DVT_GE4X_0493”. According to several sources (of mine) familiar with the project, “N90” is Apple’s codename for the fourth-generation GSM iPhone, slated for release this June or July. “DVT” stands for “design verification test”, an Apple production milestone. The DVT milestone is very late in the game; based on this, I now believe that this unit very closely, if not exactly, resembles what Apple plans to release.

So, given what Gizmodo showed us, I want to weigh in on the hardware.

I love my iPhone 3G overall, but one thing that is an overall flaw is the plastic shell. It feels cheap. My iPhone 3G doesn’t feel like it is constructed nearly as well as my wife’s iPod touch or my iPad. But more than anything, the plastic back isn’t very durable. A few days ago I had my iPhone replaced under warranty. I took it in to have the screen replaced, as I had dust built up between the glass and LCD. But the Genius pointed out that I had many stress fractures around the headphone jack and dock connector. She replaced the whole unit on that basis. Let’s face it, the iPhone should suffer from stress fractures on the only two ports, which are meant to be used often.

So that brings me to the point of the next iPhone’s case. It appears to be two pieces of glass with a band of aluminum sandwiched in between. The band of aluminum surrounds and supports the headphone and dock connectors — that’s a good thing. The really interesting part is the back of the iPhone. Gizmodo said it felt like glass, like the front. But Apple holds a patent for making a case out of ceramic. Polished ceramic would definitely have the feel of glass. It’s also very durable and completely RF transparent, which is very important for a mobile phone. To put durability into perspective, the M1 Abrams tank used by the United States military uses ceramic in its armor. Tough stuff.

Next is cameras. Yes, plural. Let’s start with the rear camera we know and love. It was noted that the lens itself is larger than what is found on the 3GS, alluding to the possibility of a 5 megapixel camera. This would be a wise move as many competing phones sport 5 megapixel cameras. There is also a little LED flash. This will probably be the only kind of “flash” to be on an iPhone. Yes, that was a dig at Adobe.

New to the next iteration of the iPhone is a front camera, presumably for video chat. I’m not exactly sure how much I would use this. The idea seems awkward to me as it requires holding the iPhone out in front of your face. We’ll see.

Lastly, Gizmodo thought the screen looked as if it had a higher pixel density. 960x640 would be a good assumption. It’s exactly double the current pixel count. If Apple couples that with the IPS technology they’ve put in the latest iMacs and the iPad, that will be a great looking screen. (IPS allows the image to remain fairly free of color distortion at extreme angles.)

And that’s about all we know or could reasonably assume from Gizmodo’s observations, as the iPhone’s software had been remotely wiped.

What else would I like to see? Well, I’d like to see the iPhone gain storage up to at least 64 GB. I’d also like to see Apple use a custom chip like their A4 chip that resides in the iPad. And if they can swing it, 512 MB of RAM would be great, especially with all the multitasking apps in the background in iPhone OS 4. (I was surprised that the iPad only has 256 MB RAM. I thought 512 MB was a shoe-in.)

Since that camera is thought to contain more resolution, I’d love it if the iPhone shoots 720p HD video instead of the current 640x480. Then I could get rid of my Kodak Zx1, which doesn’t see a great deal of use since I rarely carry it with me. I carry my iPhone with me at all times.

Overall, the physical design of the new iPhone is very appealing to me. It looks more in line with the machined aluminum bodies of the MacBook Pro, iMac, and iPad. The iPhone 3G/3GS really stick out as odd compared to many of Apple’s other products. 

I really can’t wait to get the next iPhone. After all, I bought the iPhone 3G on day one. I’m due for a new one.

The Day that Twitter Clients Stood Still

No, I’m not talking about a Twitter outage. Rather, I am talking about a huge shakeup in Twitter clients. Specifically, clients on the iPhone, iPod touch, & iPad.

This evening Twitter acquired Tweetie, and is hiring its creator, Loren Brichter, to their mobile team. Tweetie for iPhone will be renamed Twitter for iPhone, and its $2.99 pricetag will be slashed to the low price of free.

Twitter’s reasoning for the acquisition:

Careful analysis of the Twitter user experience in the iTunes AppStore revealed massive room for improvement. People are looking for an app from Twitter, and they’re not finding one. So, they get confused and give up. It’s important that we optimize for user benefit and create an awesome experience.

Twitter says in the next few weeks Tweetie Twitter for iPhone will be released in the App Store, and that Brichter will begin work on an iPad version as well. I must say I found it peculiar that Brichter didn’t have an iPad version out on the iPad’s launch day.

One has to wonder what will become of the long-promised Tweetie 2.0 for Mac? The last real news from Brichter on the matter was back in September 2009.

Even more so, one really has to wonder what will happen to all the other iPhone OS Twitter clients like TweetDeck and my personal favorite, Twitterrific. One thing is for sure — if you are a developer for an iPhone/iPad Twitter client, you probably want a drink or two about now. 

Also worth noting is that Twitter has taken down their downloads page, which featured a slew of third party apps. I wonder if the grand scheme of things is to kill off the very clients that helped propel Twitter to where it is today?

The Future, Unveiled

Apple today took the wraps off iPhone OS 4. My first reaction — what’s left for the haters to complain about? Who am I kidding, they’ll always find something.

The laundry list of improvements is staggering and downright impressive. Apple highlighted seven of over 100 new user features, and noted that developers will have over 1500 new APIs at their disposal for creating apps.

The seven “tentpole” (their word, not mine) features are:

1. Multitasking
2. Folders
3. Improved Mail
4. iBooks on iPhone & iPod touch
5. New Enterprise Features
6. Game Center
7. iAd

My thoughts on these:

Multitasking

As many folks are probably saying right now: Finally. I, for one, understood Apple’s stance in the past on multitasking, how running apps in the background would significantly drain the battery and slow responsiveness of the device. After all, the iPhone is a communication device, and what’s the point of background processing if the thing will be dead in an hour? 

As it was with copy & paste, Apple may not be the first to implement multitasking, but they are doing it better. Their idea is to multithread via seven different services available in the API.

• Background audio
• Voice over IP
• Background location
• Push notifications
• Local notifications
• Task completion
• Fast app switching

Examples: Pandora can stream it’s audio and use the pop-up screen controls normally reserved for the iPod app while the rest of the app basically falls asleep. Skype can continue a voice call or monitor for incoming calls. TomTom can continue to give directions while you switch to the iPod app. Push notifications as they are now can continue to be used. Local notifications allow for apps to post reminders or other events without using an Apple server. Task completion allows Flickr to finish uploading a picture while you move on to something else. And fast app switching essentially freezes an app while the user handles another task in another app. 

This method of using services cuts down on a lot of processing overhead while allowing the user to move on with their digital lives.

Folders

Folders allow you further organization of the home screen. Currently, with the limitation on how many home screens are available, only 180 apps can be seen on the device maximum. With folders, 180 folders can be present, containing a maximum total of 2,160 apps!

I can already tell I can consolidate my 5 home screens down to one or two, since I already use those screens as a rudimentary folder system (only two of them are chock full).

I consider this a very welcome feature.

Improved Mail

By far, this one stands out as a gigantic improvement for me personally. With the addition of Universal Inbox, I may actually put more than my MobileMe account on my phone. Apple is also adding the ability to thread conversations, which is something I have desired more than a universal inbox. There is also fast inbox switching, which I haven’t yet seen the details of how that works.

iBooks on iPhone & iPod touch

Since getting the iPad, I have really been enjoying the iBooks app. So far I’ve only gone through the included copy of Winnie-the-Pooh with my son over the past couple nights, and it has been great. Well, Apple is bringing the same reading experience to the iPhone and iPod touch, along with the iBookstore. Thankfully, purchases and the place you last left off in a book will wirelessly sync between all your iPhone OS devices. Kind of like Kindle’s WhisperSync. I’m thrilled about this.

New Enterprise Features

Now with faster warp speed! Wait, no, not that Enterprise.

Apple is beefing up security and services for business users, such as:

• Data protection
• Mobile device management
• Wireless app distrubution
• Improved Mail & Exchange Support
• SSL VPN support

 And that’s about all I care to cover on that.

Game Center

Apple is forming a social gaming network that will allow developers to have their games invite friends, matchmaking for multiplayer, leaderboards, and game achievements. Think Xbox Live for portable games.

iAd

Apple is breaking into the mobile advertising space. Why? This is what Jobs had to say on the matter:

“Developers [who create free apps] need to find a way to start making their money,” Jobs said. “A lot of developers turn to advertising - and we think these current advertisements really suck.”

His reasoning for this is the current situation of ad interaction within apps. When an ad is tapped, the user is yanked out of the app entirely and dropped into Safari. Apple is betting that if ads interact with a user within the app, more ads might get clicked. I say it’s a gamble. I personally am not an ad clicker, except on accident. That’s also why I opt for paid versions of apps over ad-supported versions.

I don’t know how much the average developer gets from ads that they place in their apps right now, but with iAd, Apple does all the work. They sell and host the ad, and the developer gets the larger slice of the revenue — 60%.

Other Features

Other features that were either mentioned or just shown on the screen :

• File & delete Mail search results
• Search SMS/MMS messages
• Web search suggestions
• Choose image size in Mail messages
• Bluetooth keyboards
• CalDav invitations
• Larger fonts for Mail, SMS & alerts
• Cell data only setting
• Spell check 
• Persistent Wi-Fi
• Gift Apps
• Birthday calendar
• Recent Web searches
• Create Playlists
• Top Hit in search
• 5x digital zoom
• Nested Playlists
• CardDav
• Tap to focus video
• Upload workouts to Nike+
• Places in Photos
• iPod Out
• Home screen wallpaper
• Search SMS/MMS messages
• Wake on wireless

Items in that list I am interested in are home screen wallpaper (loving this on my iPad), upload to Nike+ (no need to let iTunes handle it), and Birthday calendar (currently the only calendar that I have to sync via iTunes, because MobileMe doesn’t handle it). Another is nested playlists (I think that means folders in the iPod app).

Things Missing

An overhaul of the notification window system would have been nice, and so would a status summary of notifications and events on the lock screen. Also, no word on when AT&T will support tethering on the iPhone. This one is seriously beginning to bother me. It’s been over a year since tethering was announced and in two months it will have been a year since the feature has been available in the rest of the world. AT&T needs to get with the program, or Apple needs to make an iPhone for Verizon, which says it can handle the traffic. 

Final Thoughts

Apple says that OS 4 is slated for release to iPhones and iPod touches this summer, and iPads this fall. 

This is also the first OS release that won’t cover all devices. First generation iPhones and iPod touches won’t receive the update.

And like last year with the original iPhone not supporting MMS, the iPhone 3G and the second generation (late 2008) iPod touch will not have multitasking. I suspect this is because both devices have 128 MB of memory, versus 256 on the iPhone 3GS, third generation (late 2009) iPod touch, and the iPad.

I would be a little miffed since I own an iPhone 3G, but I had already planned on upgrading this summer as soon as a new model is released. 

Overall, this looks like a great step for the iPhone OS platform. People who have downloaded and installed the beta OS have said it is the most stable beta 1 release they’ve seen from Apple for iPhones. All things considered, this looks to be a maturing step for iPhone OS.

I highly encourage watching Apple’s video of the event.