iPhones and eBooks

eBooks have been around for several years now, and in many respects are seriously behind other forms of media. While music is making the painful transition from DRM to open formats other media such as films and books are still subject to restricted use. This often makes it awkward if not impossible to view these files on your mobile device of choice.

Until last year I used a Palm TX PDA running the palm eReader software. I could buy a fair range of pdb format ebooks from ereader.com, or use the free dropbook for Mac and eReader Pro for Palm to convert and read text files myself. I have a large collection of mainly SF and Fantasy paperbacks that I have read over the past 20 years, and set about finding electronic versions of them to read again. It’s an issue that always gets a lot of attention, but if you have purchased media in one format is it fair to have to buy it again in another? I don’t think it is, especially given the price of some of the eBooks currently available. I’ll get to iPhone options for ebooks a bit later after a look at eBook pricing.

iPhone updates

Apple today announced several big updates to the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms. These will be supported in firmware version 2 due for release in late June.

• Direct support for Microsoft Exchange using licensed Activesync technology. This includes push e-mail, push calendaring, push contacts and remote wipe.
• From today the iPhone SDK is available to software developers, apps will downloaded directly to the iPhone/iPod or via iTunes. Free apps will cost nothing to distribute, commercial app writers will receive 70% of the price with Apple taking the other 30%.  There is a $99 fee to join the developer program. The link at developer.apple.com/iphone/program/ is currently not working. Are hundreds of eager programmers hammering the site?
• AOL instant messenger(AIM) is coming to the iPhone/iPod
• SEGA showed a Super Monkey Ball demo that is controlled using the tilt sensor
• Several other medical/financial/entertainment companies are on board with software development already
• The iPhone update is free, iPod Touch owners will have to pay again to get access to apps that Apple take a cut of. The reason given is again the accounting method. “The way we account for the iPhone is with subscription accounting, so we take the revenue over two years. The way that we account for iPods, is more normal accounting. And so because of that, we have to charge a nominal fee, but I don’t see that changing. We’ll set it when we release the software in June. But we don’t look at this as a profit opportunity.”

1.1.4 jailbreak status

General opinion seems to be that 1.1.4 is mostly bug fixes with support for the soon to be released iPhone SDK. The usual groups are still working on their jailbreaks and advising users to not upgrade to 1.1.4 until the new versions are fully tested and safe. Ziphone and iJailbreak are both at the testing stages, and iNdependence 1.4 beta 5 has full support for the 1.1.4 iPhone firmware. I’m waiting to see what get announced at Apple’s next event on 6th March before upgrading. Just remember, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

iPhone and iPod touch wallpapers

TUAW has a short article listing some good sources of wallpapers for your iPhone and iTouch. Onlygeeks.com have a nice selection covering lots of categories so well worth a visit. 320by480.com is another site with a large collection, though some don’t look to be optimised for the lock screen. Finally Cloudbase Skylabs have some interesting themes for the lock screen, including themed lock sliders.

New iPhone wallpaper

I though I would upload a few Apple themed wallpapers for the iPhone/iPod touch this week, so here’s the first one. In the spirit of all those crappy ‘my other car’s a Ferrari’ stickers, this one’s for those suffering Mac Pro envy. I’ve also uploaded a simple template for anyone wanting to make their own, see the wallpapers page to download it.

More Free iPhone/iPod Wallpapers

I had a request for another colour and knocked up a few more, so here they are. All new wallpapers will be added to the wallpapers tab in the menu bar.

10 useful iPod/iPhone apps

Interesting page here showing some of the applications that are available for the jailbroken iPhone/iTouch. Mostly utilities to make life easier and prettier, but if this is what hackers (and that’s the original meaning) can do with no help, just think what we will be seeing when the SDK is released.

Petition for Free iPod touch apps

Petitiononline has a free iPod touch apps petition that you can sign if you disagree with Apple charging £12.99/$19.99 for the apps that iphone owners get for free. Get everyone you know to sign this one, Apple were shamed into giving $100 back when the iPhone price dropped so it can work.
Also, remember that it’s not just the five apps that are being charged for, but useful features like movable home screen icons and web shortcuts. Consider this a trial of charging for updates.
There’s very mixed opinions on the web about charging for apps given free to iPhone users. The way I see it, you buy a mac and get free updates until the next major version of the OS. This isn’t iPod Touch V2 so why are we being charged? It gets worse when you look at AppleTV V2. A major update, free to current users.
The simple reason for Apple charging for the iPod apps is because it can. The iPhone is still a growing market, so the updates are free. No company yet dominates the market AppleTV is fighting for, Apple wants to grow its market share, so updates are free.
The iPod is dominating the market and doesn’t need any excuse to sell bucketloads, there’s no incentive to increase its appeal to buyers, so updates are not free.
I expect to pay for third party apps when released, as well as Apple added value apps, but this is three widgets, mail and maps. Pretty basic stuff, isn’t it?

Sign up here

What’s so smart about smart phone’s?

My first smartphone was a Nokia 7650. Chunky, solid, poor keyboard and questionable styling, but this was the future. Lots of groundbreaking features that weren’t quite perfected but a big step forward. My dream of one device to rule them all was looking like a vague possibility. I became the department geek where I worked at the time, the only person with a camera on their phone. Believe it or not, I was in great demand. The department manager wouldn’t buy a digital camera and I had by far the easiest method of getting photo’s into a powerpoint presentation.

Unfortunately, it all seemed to go wrong after that.