For some iPhone owners, the only way it’d have an impact on their fitness levels is if they had to chase after a mugger who’s just nicked it. However, others are more sporty - and it’s they who’ll be celebrating the news that Nike plans to release its Nike+ fitness tracker application for iPhone and iPod Touch.
It’s already available for iPod as part of a partnership between Nike and Apple - it’s basically a gizmo that slots into your iPod and tracks how far you’ve run using an accelerometer, so you can analyse it when you get home. Like an extra-smart iPedometer, in other words.
Anyway, Stuff.tv has been at Nike HQ and confirms that the app will come out for iPhone and iPod Touch later this year. They reckon it’ll use the Wi-Fi in both devices to allow data to be uploaded to users’ training logs on the fly when you get home, rather than waiting till you’ve synched with your PC.
Ok time for the gPhone rumour du jour. According to yet another tipster, Samsung is going to build two Android based devices both of which will bear the Google brand as opposed to its own.
Apparently there will be a higher end model released first this autumn followed by a lower spec device which it is claimed will cost less than $100. The source also claims that the device won’t look dissimilar to the Blackberry Pearl but will have a flip out screen.
Sounds like a bit of a design contradiction to us and considering the frequency of similar claims that have been made over the last year, it is hard to take these supposedly leaked facts seriously. What you can bet on is that Google will look to an experienced third party to craft a branded handset at some stage, whether or not that third party will be Samsung remains to be seen.
(Via engadget mobile)
Yesterday we looked at Techfaith’s Bono phone. Today’s model from the Chinese business model design company is the Cynthia 850.
As with the Bono, it’s a Qualcomm device running Windows Mobile. It’s less sophisticated in terms of network capability however being only triple band GSM.
In my opinion though, despite looking similar, it’s a more stylish and streamlined device than the Bono with a 2.8 inch touchscreen. Significantly it’s also one of the growing number of dual SIM Chinese devices - one for work, more for personal use - and has a 2MP camera. Memory is 256MB plus a MicroSD card slot.
Standby time is 150 hours and talk time is 4 hours.
Poziomica is the Polish word for ’spirit level’ - and that is exactly what is on offer here. Yes, some crazed Polish software developers have written an app for Nokia S60 handsets that transforms the phone into a useful DIY tool.
It’s not super-accurate as you need to calibrate it first by laying it on a surface that you know is flat (if the calibration surface is even a little bit out then all your measurements will be distorted by the same amount) but it does work and is small enough to be one of those apps you keep on your phone ‘just in case’.
The app needs a phone with an accelerometer (e.g. the Nokia N95 or N82) and as the ‘py’ prefix might tip you off also requires Python version 1.4.1 (available at the above link).
Google has just released the software development kit (SDK) for Android and it’s already apparent that the SDK’s very heavily influenced by Apple.
Developers can now use the open-source SDK to start creating programs in time for the first Android phones next year. Google claims the SDK will tap into most features we’ll see on handsets like 3G access, music/video and controls (i.e. touchscreen and keypad).
So where does the Apple link come in? The platform for Android’s web browser is the same as for Apple’s Safari (as seen on computers and the iPhone).
And that’s not all: other areas of the OS also resemble existing Apple operating systems – including the need to tap and finger-drag to scroll round pages. There’s also a Mac OSX-style dock and a Cover Flow-style interface for pop-up notices (as seen on the iPhone).
Before you start screaming that Android devices will just be iPhones in another guise, bear in mind that none of the manufacturers who signed up to the Open Handset Alliance are obliged to use any/all of the Android features listed above.
One thing’s for sure – Apple’s iPhone is already proving itself to be one of the most influential developments in mobile for a long time.
[Via Apple Insider]
A 124-page PDF guide to the workings of the iPhone is now available straight off the Apple website. We’ve just skim read it looking for a world exclusive revelation, but unfortunately it’s as boring as any other User Guide. Of course, true geeks never read the manual. Unless they can’t buy the product, in which case they put their feet up with it and crack open a beer.
[Via AppleInsider]
The lab rats at ifixit have taken their new iPhone to pieces to reveal superior engineering to the iPod. The techies suggest that:
One has to imagine that Apple was extra-paranoid about reliability on this phone. They’ve certainly learned their lessons from the iPod.
Besides pronouncing the iPhone battery ‘huge’, there’s no surprises inside the case for mere mortals, but if you like techno porn you might click through to see the iPhone getting undressed. (Note, this link goes to the site’s ‘live stream’, as no permalink is available, and so might die in the next few days).
Don’t get too excited though, as the bust-up drew the line at the intimate details of the logic board, with the boffins admitting, “We haven’t yet found a way to pry the two sections apart without damaging the logic board, so it’s virtually impossible to tell you what’s in there.” The teases!
…
“The US should do what the Japanese do: track every foreigner’s mobile. If he does anything freaky jump on him.
“But Mr. Feldspar, suppose this international criminal doesn’t carry a mobile?” demanded representative Chuck Kingston (R-Alabama). It would have been rude to point out the obvious. So I didn’t. But look, just between you and me: Anybody without a mobile is not any kind of danger to society. He’s a pitiful derelict. Because he’s got no phone. Duh.
He also has no email, voicemail, pager, chat client or gaming platform. And probably no maps, guidebooks, web browser, video player, or radio. No transit tickets, payment system, biometric ID, environmental safety sensor, or Breathalyzer. No alarm clock, camera, laser scanner, navigator, pedometer, flashlight, remote control, or hidef projector. No house key, office key, car key… Are you still with me? If you don’t have a mobile, the modern world is a seething jungle crisscrossed by electric fences crowned with barbed wired. A guy without a mobile is beyond derelict. He’s a nonperson.” …
Bruce Sterling, Dispatches from the Hyperlocal Future (2017), Wired, July 2007, pp162-3
For the past few days the mobile entertainment industry has been swanning about Monte Carlo, enjoying its annual Mobile Entertainment Forum tradeshow MEM 2007.
Hopefully all this hobnobbing will result in some better mobile music, video and services for us poor punters in the next year, but last night the industry concentrated more on the best of the past 12 months, and doled out its Meffys Awards. Think the Oscars, with less fancy dresses and more fulsome address books.
Here’s a list of all the winners, as well as the vanquished nominees:
Continue reading ‘Mobile Entertainment Awards winners 2007′
Big Brother is watching you, at least if you’re a phone operator. What’s more, it seems Endemol – the company that brought us the defining humans-as-lab-rats reality TV show – isn’t happy with what it sees.
According to news site Unstrung, reporting from Monte Carlo where Endemol’s CEO Peter Bazalgette was speaking at a mobile industry event, two years ago he thought mobile phones were “the perfect place to put content”. But not any more:
Continue reading ‘Big Brother creator slams operators over mobile content’
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