The iPhone OS and the rest...

Every once in a while I come across a discussion about smartphones. There is a fellow saying that he prefers Nokia model A while another is arguing that Blackberry model B is much better. Every time I run across this scenario, my thoughts are the same: "these fellows haven't got it yet".

For me, an extra feature here, or an extra button there, doesn't come close to having a real, live hand-sized computer in the shape of a phone. That is what an iPhone is.

Now, Google is going in the right direction in trying to build a mobile platform with Android, but by not making the phones themselves, they fall into the same pit as Microsoft with Windows Mobile. They loose control of the end-user experience. Nokia, in this respect, is much better positioned now that it controls both development of the software platform and the hardware.

With the iPhone OS, a specialized version of the same OS X that runs on the Macs, Apple has scored a hit as few have in the techonolgy industry in the past. There can be little doubt that the iPhone OS running now in million of iPhones and iPod Touches in the world, have established a thriving user, software and accessories ecosystem.

The speed with which developers rushed to build iPhone applications is telling of the fascination these nifty little devices exert on people. I have been a user of handheld devices in the past. For many years you wouldn't catch me going out without my faithful Dell Axim, which succeded two Palm handhelds. Today, I use an iPod to do all the things I used to do with my Windows Mobile device, in a much easier, faster and more elegant way, and to do a whole lot more.

The technological lead that Apple has over all its competitors isn't just associated with having a great hardware device. Quite the contrary! The technology that distances the iPhone from all its competitors is the iPhone OS and all that it inherits directly from OS X.

Skype is now the largest international carrier

I have always been a strong proponent for the use of Skype. I use it just about everyday to talk or chat with friends from the most distant corners of the planet and was quite pleased when I read the news, yesterday, that Skype is now the largest international carrier in the world.

In 2008, Skype carried 33 Billion minutes of international calls, being thus responsible for about 8% of the international voice traffic. That is a huge quantity of voice traffic.

The funniest thing to me is that still an enourmous quantity of people still don't use Skype in their day to day activities. Still, it seems that word-of-mouth advertising is driving the company ahead, as I now know personally a large number of people who, despite not being computer savvy, have become frequent skypers.

I was just talking to a friend, making a call to his mobile phone through Skype, while connected through a 3G connection and the connection not only was perfect, but the call costs less than using my mobile phone. It seems that interesting times are still ahead for Skype and its users...

iPhone OS 3.0, a natural evolution to maturity

Last night, I had an interesting conversation with an old friend of mine about the iPhone. He had mentioned to me that he was interested in getting one, but from the way he commented on it, it seemed clear that he wasn't up to speed with what an iPhone can do. I reffered him to the iPhone OS 3.0 presentation video on iTunes and suggested that he watch it, that way he could make up his mind if this was the kind of thing that he thought he would be getting into it.

As it turns out, he really wasn't up to speed with what an iPhone or iPod Touch can do and was totally blown away by what he saw. I can simpathyze with that, as it truly is pretty impressive, but all-in-all I consider most of the new iPhone features to be the natural evolution of what was already there.

That does not, in any way, diminish the merrits of Apple's product development team, quite the contrary. Most of those features that, in hindsite, seem like the obvious evolution of the capabilities in the existing version, could have been implemented by other companies, but they weren't. Apple has been consistent in delivering on a vision of simplicity and power and the iPhone OS 3.0 seems to fit just fine into this pattern.

All the powerful new features that such inApp purchasing and peer-to-peer connectivity over bluetooth seem almost trivial for the users to interact with and present a clear and consistent interface, regardless of the application that is in use. The iPhone OS is quickly maturing intoa fine platform for running all kinds of applications and we are likely to see its use get a big boost when version 3.0 of the software is out, and that is not even considering what new hardware Apple might have planned for release this year.

Amazon makes smart move with Kindle for the iPhone

Amazon is definitely playing it smart in releasing Kindle for the iPhone. From what information I've been able to get it seems that the first implementation of the software is still a bit "plain", but this is a huge step forward.

Lets look at how this is good for readers first. Read the full article here...