Gruber writes:
This is good news, but I don’t think there will be much of a practical effect — just because it’s legal doesn’t mean Apple must support it.
While he’s right about the second part of that statement, the first reads like someone with their head deep in the sand.
The practical effect of this, John, is that Apple can no longer claim that Jailbreaking is Illegal. The last legal foundation that they had to try to outlaw things like Cydia is gone; users are now in the free & clear to run whatever software they want on their iPhones, and Apple can do very little about that. The practical effect is that US citizens who were worried about the legality of the jailbreaking process, from writing bootloaders to distributing apps on Cydia, no longer have a cause for alarm.
And of course, the practical effect is that Apple can no longer cast jailbreakers as thieves who are out to steal Apple’s IP and run amok with it. Even the ruling today declares that using 99% of Apple’s firmware with only a few bytes changes is not enough to justify a DMCA charge, and not good enough reason to allow Apple to willfully continue their walled-garden approach to the iPhone. It is a direct slap in Apple’s face.
No wonder John can’t see it, he’s still stinging from the hit.
July 26th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment
The first Firefox 4.0 Beta, that is! Won’t be of any concern to those out there who run nightlies or follow the alpha builds, but this is a pretty big step forward if you’ve been on 3.x for a while.
July 7th, 2010 | Category: Mozilla | Leave a comment
Given how rock-solid the hardware was for the previous iPhones, I’m quite surprised by this, but there are widespread reports that the newly-relocated proximity sensor on the iPhone 4 is not functioning properly.
The sensor was moved to the top of the phone due to the front-facing camera taking up residence in its previous space. It appears now that the move may be causing the screen to turn back on during calls, resulting in calls being ended, put on hold/speaker, or other wackiness. Yikes.
Some users on that massive Apple support thread are even reporting turning on FaceTime by accident…with their face. Seems oddly appropriate!
July 6th, 2010 | Category: Apple | Leave a comment
Jason Bateman Booed for getting preferential treatment at an Apple store for a new iPhone.
Seriously? You’re going to boo Michael Bluth because he got an iPhone before you? C’mon, let the man have his iPhone. It’s all he has left since Arrested Development was canned.
June 25th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Say what?!
That’s how you hold a phone though, by the sides…
Yes, of course every phone attenuates antenna reception when you touch it, but I’ve never owned any phone that would drop several bars instantly upon picking it up to take a call. Not any of my uber-crappy WinMo phones, none of my clam shell/flip phones, not my HTC Incredible, none of them.
There’s a phrase for this: Defective By Design.
June 25th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Now that the iPhone 4 is shipping, people have started to notice some rather unfortunate problems with the device, from disappointingly easy-to-scratch back glass to widespread reports of yellowing displays to my personal favorite, rapidly losing reception when you hold it, due to that fancy new antenna/frame combination.
Check out the results one Gizmodo reader sent in of speed tests while holding and not holding the phone:
Reception & 3G speeds drop like a stone when you touch the iPhone 4.
Of course, the latter issue was predicted (via Google Translate) a few weeks back by Danish Professor Gert Frølund Pedersen, who noted that not only was this concept quite old, but easily demonstrable with other antenna systems.
Maybe this is the result of overworking your Chinese slave labor assemblers to the point of suicide. I mean, they have to be assembly problems, because surely Apple wouldn’t release a new, highly-anticipated product with so many flaws, right?
Oh, wait. Yeah, they would.
June 24th, 2010 | Tags: apple, first-gen products, iPhone | Category: Apple | Leave a comment
Remember when I said the iPhone’s “Retina Display” was disingenuous?
Yeah, I was right.
The human eye is a lot better than Apple is giving it credit. Good screen, sure, but it’s not better than our eyeballs.
June 9th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Mixed reactions to today’s iPhone announcement.
The Good:
- The design. This is, by far and away, one of the best looking phones on the market, and possibly the best looking phone, period. It’s far more beautiful than any previous iPhone, especially the plasticky-unbalanced 3G/S. Beautiful industrial look with more than a hint of Braun influence. Steel & Glass & Bauhaus in one. I adore it.
- The screen. Great resolution and I’m sure this will look outstanding and be very easy on the eyes. A nice jump from the existing iPhone.
- The gyroscope. A very cool addition to the phone, though I suspect this will mostly be for games/flight sims, which is an area I don’t get into on mobile devices, if I’m honest. Neat that you can capture yaw on the iPhone, I’m just not sure how it will be used outside of the entertainment realm.
The Bad:
- Facetime. Apple’s supposed revolution in video conferencing involved putting a front-facing camera on the iPhone (this has been around for years in the European & Japanese markets, even my WinMo Omnia had the capability), then they limited it to only other iPhone 4 devices, and only over WiFi. If you have to be connected to a WiFi network, then what’s the point?! This is a total flop. I realize Apple is limited here by the carriers to some point, but the places I’d want to use this aren’t in WiFi areas, not to mention people like my mom will never be using a phone like this.
- Multitasking. No significant improvement here over similar implementations in Android. In fact, I think the HTC Sense version is more elegant.
- The screen’s name. They’re calling it a Retina Display. See also Weasal Words. Sometimes Apple’s marketing is brilliant, and other times, they pull crap like this. Not to mention, it’s slightly disingenuous to say that.
- The new OS name. I might be nitpicking here (wouldn’t be the first time), but iOS? Really? I understand that you’re trying to remove “phone” from the name, as this is now applicable to the iPad, etc., but iOS is harder to pronounce, and just looks like a mashed together collection of letters. Poor choice, in my opinion. But the worst part, by far…
- Still tied to AT&T in the US. Sorry Apple, but this isn’t flying with me. You keep making your phone better, and putting it on the shittiest network in the US.
So there you have it. A couple of very cool new features, a couple of duds, and a crappy carrier with calls that drop constantly (insert bad joke about a hooker’s undergarments here). It’s not so much a revolution as it is an evolution. And frankly…that’s not good enough.
June 7th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)
After writing some Groovy code in my usual-but-featureless editor, I decided I’d install the Groovy Plugin for Eclipse.
What a fucking mistake that was.
The process should take all of a minute, point Eclipse at the proper repository, install the plugin, and get to coding. Right? Wrong.
First, I ran into the always-fun Eclipse is making me review every fucking license for every piece of software installed, only it won’t let me continue even if I approve all of them issue.
Apparently, that’s Eclipse’s way of telling you that you need to update the IDE (thanks, Google). So I check for updates first, and there’s a few, mostly my subversion add-ons and the IDE itself. I tried to install those, but kept running into update failures. A few dozen No Repository Found Containing… errors and I was ready to pull my hair out, but I opted to try Devon’s suggestion anyway.
It didn’t work.
And after spending over an hour fucking with the damned thing, it still hasn’t installed. The farthest I’ll get is the plugin going about 14% in, and then erroring out.
So you know what, I give up. I don’t have the time to deal with this right now (I’m only hurriedly writing this blog while eating lunch), I’ll have to continue with EditPlus until I have another free hour or two to figure out why this is failing every single time. You win, Eclipse, you’ve beaten me.
June 7th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment
