Rogers iPhone teaser now up
I was just checking out the rogers website via Apple’s Canadian site, and they appear to have an iPhone teaser up.
Now the only thing I can possibly think of that would be really big is the iPhone. The new iPhone also officially comes out on July 11th. I still want to know what the data rates will be. I feel like I’m still waiting for the big announcement.
The iPhone will also be available through Fido, but considering that Fido is owned by Rogers, I don’t expect to see much of a difference in price.
Apple WWDC keynote
Well the keynote is over, it focused almost entirely on the iPhone. Canada was mentioned in the list of countries soon to be graced by iPhones, and the Globe and Mail mentions it may be in stores as soon as July 11th. As a Canadian, right now I am sold on the iPhone, all I want to know is what the data plans are, that is the bottom line, the deal or no deal, come on Rogers, the people want to know.
The new iPhone really focuses on new apps, and lots of them. Apple is also aiming for business users, so there is functionality around email and calendar syncing. They also showed off a number of games and other cool apps. It is G3 as rumoured, there is a black and a white one, and it will be a lot cheaper than the first iPhone. $199 USD for the 8 gig and $299 USD for the 16 gig. The .mac service is now called MobileMe, has a free trial and will cost $99 a year.
The Apple iPhone website is now updated with the new iPhone, there’s also a new iPhone ad.
Death of the Middle Click?
Okay, lately more and more I’ve been noticing that my middle click doesn’t work. Why do so many website developers and designers insist on breaking basic usability? Why on earth would you ever want to annoy your users and take away an expected browser behaviour?
Bad usability – how to notice it on your site
It’s often easy to get carried away with criticizing what’s wrong with a website, because what’s wrong manifests itself in our personal user experience of that site. In order to understand good usability you have to train yourself to recognize it. When you’re at a great site, you usually don’t think “wow this is a really good user experience”, you just enjoy the site. When it’s a bad experience however you usually end up getting frustrated. Both these types experiences are valuable learning tools.
WWDC, iPhone mania, and other smartphones
The web is abuzz about the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday and the new iPhone. Rumours have been zipping around and range from the size of the new iphone to the colours that might be available.
Duke Nukem Forever video?
A video is online called The Jace Hall Show claiming to have video footage of Duke Nukem Forever. Okay, stop laughing for a minute, it looks like it really is some footage of some video game. There is an interview with the developers George Broussard and Scott Miller of 3D Realms and blurry footage of “the game”, it’s quite funny, so check it out. Could it be possible that after 12 years of development they might actually have something? Still not holding my breath.
GTA IV episode coming in early 2009
Kotaku has news of a whole new episode coming out for the Xbox360 version of GTA IV in early 2009. This will be add-on will be in the form of a DLC package. or I still haven’t even completed 50% of this game yet, but this is great news that there is more to come. If episode 1 is popular there may be more. Half-Life has also taken this approach in the past with Half-Life 2, episode 1, episode 2, and an episode 3 that is yet unreleased.
GTA IV is one of the most popular games of the year with over 8.5 million sold as of May 31, and 6 million copies sold in it’s first week racking in $500 million in net sales. GTA IV offers one of the most compelling single player experiences on the Xbox 360 to date, and the muliplayer is pretty fun too.
The HTC Touch Pro – Wow, I want it!
I talked about the HTC Touch Diamond last month. I’ve also mentioned how I like the real tactile feedback of a physical keypad. Something the HTC Touch Diamond and iPhone lack. Well fear no more, the HTC Touch Pro has a full QWERTY keyboard.
This phone looks fantastic, I can’t wait to see it. The only real downside is windows Mobile, but with HTC on board with the Open Handset Alliance, one can assume we will see Google’s Android on these phones in the near future. More detailed info can be found at infoSync World or on the Official HTC Touch Pro website.
With so many great Smartphones coming out it’s hard to wait for the perfect one, but the HTC Dream has been demoed and this one is rumoured to have touch screen and full screen QWERTY running Android for release later this year. Gizmodo has more on the HTC Dream Android phone. Maybe I need to wait just a little bit longer, but with the release of the iPhone in Canada just around the corner it’s going to be tough.
Read my related post about android Give me Android, Give me “commitment to openness” – Google gets it!
Adobe Acrobat.com launched
Adobe launched acrobat.com the other day. It’s completely flash based which is a bit of a bummer. I would have liked to see a standards compliant AJAX solution like so many of Google’s applications. The site is still pretty slick, and it will allow people to create documents and collaborate online. There is chat and web cam support too. I can’t see myself using this, I’ll stick with Google Docs for now, but I signed up anyway just to check it out.
The interface is really slick, something that a lot of Google apps are not. You can find more details about it on the official blog post Welcome to Acrobat.com.
Acrobat.com is a suite of online services hosted by Adobe that you can use to create documents together and share them with others. It helps people get document work done faster, without email attachments or version confusion, and it makes your documents look great so that you and your work look great, too.
Some of the comments mention the pressure coming down on Microsoft right now, both from Google and Adobe. There really are alternatives to MS Office now, and that’s always a good thing.
Give me Android, Give me “commitment to openness” – Google gets it!
I’ve been following Google’s Android platform on and off for awhile now, but lately the buzz is starting to pick up. For those not in the know, Android is Google’s new software platform for mobile phones.
Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.
