With Macworld slowly dawning upon us, everyone is eager to know what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve. In fact, we are so eager that we traveled 2,904 miles to see it. Thats right- something is in the air. We will be providing live coverage from Macworld, starting tomorrow at about 8AM PST- but remind your fingers that the server will do all the refreshing for you- thats right, AJAX! For now, however, you can check out these pictures we obtained today, which involved getting kicked out of both Moscone Centers. Feel free to visit the AJAX app here. Photos after the jump.
Read more…

So, again, I apologize for the lack of content over the past few days. Sidney and I have been working hard to get the AJAX and SMS updaters working (and properly!) and packing. Early tomorrow afternoon, Sidney and I are flying off to SFO. You can track us and our flight here (Continental Flight 1702). We will be beginning our extensive Macworld coverage on Sunday. Again, sincere apologies for the lack of updates over these past two days! If you are going to Macworld, drop us a line — we look forward to seeing new faces!

Okay, so as we are preparing for Macworld (ie; Coding AJAX day/night and traveling) things might become a little dry around here. But rest assured, we are going to be in full force all next week, with Macworld updates galore!

Specifically, for Macworld, we will have our AJAX Live Blogging app all ready to go. Infact, you can preview it here! You simply load up the 840X640 page and watch through photos and text, Macworld unfold (both the Keynote and Expo). The coding is nearing competition, look for it being released in the coming day(s).

Also, tying into the AJAX app will be our SMS Updater. You can choose to receive messages deemed ‘Urgent’ via text message. Look out for this coming very soon as well.

Additionally, we will be posting videos of us visiting various booths, covering product introductions and hopefully some interviews. These videos should be posted throughout the day. Lastly, we will be composing a video of our travels and experiences throughout the day (similar to the Apple Store West 14th Street video coverage) at the end of each day.

So, that is about all of our plans for Macworld 2008. Remember, if there is something you think we are missing, or any requests– feel free to shout them out or send us an email! We are glad to oblige to your requests! If you are anxiously counting down the days, check out our Widget for that as well.

With the iPhone now one year old, it is come time to reflect upon it’s first year of public existence. The past year for the iPhone and, the cell phone industry has been monumental- many grounds have been broken. In fact the competitors are still trying to catch up to the very high standards Apple has set.

This coming year should be interesting and will certainly foretell the future of the iPhone, and cell phones to come. Already in the lineup is the Official SDK in February- for native third party iPhone apps. Besides AT&T service (and EDGE), an official SDK is the top complaint against the iPhone.

This coupled with other updates (16GB, 3G or price drop) as well as the expansion to Asia should prove for a very promising year for the iPhone and, Apple. Depending upon the sales of the iPhone after the price drop, the goal of 10 million iPhones sold should be obtainable by the end of this year. Happy (public) Birthday, iPhone- may this year prove even better!

For the coming days leading up to Macworld, I will be releasing a series of articles focused on specific rumors slated for Macworld 2008.

Todays article is about the rumored iPhone updates and enhancements.

On January 9th, 2007, Steve Jobs finally broke the rumors and announced the iPhone. Today, one day short of it’s first birthday, the world is wondering what the next iPhone has in store for us. There are many rumors regarding the iPhone at Macworld 2008- some predicting just a firmware update while others believe the introduction of the iPhone 2 is eminent. Somewhere in between the broad line of speculation lies the truth- we are definitely going to hear something about the iPhone next week.

The cell phone industry is extremely hard to keep on top of. From the four major carriers in the US all releasing products through a myriad of hardware companies, all running different firmware- some even Operating Systems. The iPhone has broken many of the molds of the cell phone industry but the competitors aren’t sleeping on it (like with the iPod). LG is offering arguably the closest competition to the iPhone, the LG Voyager, which is offered by Verizon Wireless.

All of this keeps extra pressure on Apple, who is already busy leading the market with the iPod and keeping the Macintosh (and it’s OS) shiny for those three percent of the world. The iPhone, while revolutionary- is now a year old, which is about mid-aged for a cellphone, and basically outdated for an iPod. While they can’t re-re invent the wheel, Apple can keep it’s consumers (and critics) happy by adding small refinements and refreshes. This can come in the form of firmware updates or hardware refreshes.

The upcoming February iPhone SDK will certainly please all, and we can begin to see the true power of the iPhone unfold as they progress. The upcoming 1.1.3 update looks promising (if the pictures are actually real). However, hardware wise- the iPhone could use 3G and a storage bump- to name a few. We should definitely see something pertaining to the iPhone at Macworld.

Read more…

Mid afternoon yesterday, Apple posted a new Get a Mac commercial entitled Referee. We have since published it on The Daily iLife podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes or watch here.

A referee is present, according to PC, to make sure that Mac doesn’t go on saying that Leopard is better and faster than Vista. When Mac defends himself saying that it was The Wall Street Journal who compared the two, PC complains, and the referee sides with Mac. Upon insulting the referee, PC gets ejected.

WebKit made big news in November after it was revealed that it would become the rendering engine in Google’s Android platform. The announcement came as a surprise to some who assumed that Google’s cozy relationship with the Mozilla foundation would lead them to select the Gecko rendering engine. WebKit however, holds the distinction of already being a well established platform for mobile devices, seeing service on a series of Nokia internet tablets and of course, on the iPhone. Not bad for a browser that was once doomed to die.

The WebKit team has had a busy December as well, adding support for the getElementsByClassName JavaScript function, beginning to add support for HTML 5, creating a new JavaScript benchmark called SunSpider and getting ready for its big Qt 4.4 and GTK debuts. WebKit is rapidly becoming a major contender in the browser wars, and is poised to replace KDE’s KHTML (which WebKit was originally based on) with the release of the KDE 4 desktop environment next year.

Ok, so the official countdown reads now reads 7 days- time to update on Macworld! Sidney and I have been working on the AJAX app and are proud to announce that the framework has been completed this weekend. It is now time to add the Javascript to make everything pretty as well as add some parts of the back end, to make it easier to post while at Macworld. This means that the Application itself should be done before weeks end (or at least, in beta)! This screenshot above is not the photoshop mockup anymore, that is an actual HTML file. We are very proud to announce this, and will certainly let you know when you can start testing it, as well as registering your phones for SMS updates.

At some point, we have all wanted to move our email accounts and mails over to another computer. Unfortunately, Mail doesn’t make it very easy to do but, it is possible. You can watch the screencast here or continue reading after the jump.
Read more…

For the coming days leading up to Macworld, I will be releasing a series of articles focused on specific rumors slated for Macworld 2008.

Todays article is about the rumored iTunes movie rental service.

Arguably the second biggest rumor lined up for Macworld this year, the iTunes Movie Rental service has been rumored to appear since full featured movies on iTunes became official. Presently, you can purchase approximately 1000 full length movies at prices ranging from $9.99~$14.99, including DRM. While this is great, the quality is nothing to write home about- nor is the price especially, versus a DVD. The DRM certainly doesn’t make the deal either.

Movies and TV Shows aren’t really comparable to music, in terms of their use. While Jobs advocates for the users owning their digital music, videos are different from music. You may watch a TV show once maybe, twice. You might watch a movie a few times more- or you might not. On the other hand, music you listen to time and time again. Currently, iTunes only allows for the outright purchase of media. I think for the future Apple is considering rentals as an option, certainly for video content.

It makes far more sense to be able to rent videos. Not only is it cheaper but, it is already a successful industry! However, the digital rental market is far from crowded. With its large content selection and huge user base, the iTunes Movie Rental Store already has potential. Rentals could allow Apple to solve the problems to a number of existing iTunes issues. First being the high prices of iTunes Movies and TV Shows! Secondly, it could allow users to get better quality movies, depending upon the technologies they use such as streaming. Finally, Apple could put a real use to the HD-ready AppleTV- watch and rent movies from your couch or even from your iPhone or iPod Touch!!

But, who knows specifically how Apple will handle it. They could have you download a the video, and have it expire (through DRM) within 24 hours (or set period of time) after its first play. Or they could stream it to you, but how would they judge the 24 hours? There is also speculation that the rentals could be for a 30 day time period. Whatever length, transferring large, potentially HD movies is tricky because everyone is on a different speed internet connection and, naturally some are faster than others. The major questions remains- which studios would first join? Many are speculating FOX, and of course, Disney. Lots of questions with little backing or answers. Macworld will tell.
Read more…