Tag: Mobile Tech

Fake Steve Jobs Speaks on the Fail Whale That is AT&T

Fake Steve JobsI hate to keep picking on AT&T — actually, I don’t — but I found this excellent blog post by Fake Steve Jobs talking about a recent call between Apple and AT&T regarding the iPhone. His Fakeness wrote:

And when I say that “we” have a hit on our hands, I’m really giving you way too much credit, because let’s be honest, the success of iPhone has nothing to do with you. In fact, iPhone is a smash hit in spite of your network, not because of it. That’s how good we are here at Apple — we’re so good that even you and your team of Bell System frigtards can’t stop us. You know what it’s like being your business partner? It’s like trying to swim the English Channel with a boat anchor tied to my legs. And yes, in case you’re not following me, in that analogy, you, my friend, are the f&*(&*g boat anchor.

That’s just awesome stuff.

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AT&T Sucks in San Francisco, After it Promised to Stop Sucking

AT and T FailYesterday I wrote about AT&T president and CEO of mobility and consumer markets Ralph de la Vega vowing that the company would stop sucking in New York City and San Francisco. Perhaps he meant starting next week…. AT&T suffered a major outage in downtown SF today. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler wrote:

This afternoon I started getting an abnormal number of messages from friends over email, IM, and Twitter because they apparently couldn’t text or call me. I tried to use my phone, and sure enough, no dice.

Calls are working sporadically, but the AT&T data network in San Francisco seems to be completely borked right now.

Siegler later reported a customer receiving the following 411 from the company:

Just got off the phone with AT&T — data + SMS in San Francisco is down. It will take 24 to 48 hours (!!!) to fix.

Apparently the problems are (mostly) fine now, but the timing of this latest AT&T failure is hilarious, to which I say, “Ha!”

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AT&T Knows it Sucks in NYC and SF, Vows to Stop Sucking

NYC Skyline

AT&T president & CEO of mobility and consumer markets Ralph de la Vega knows that the company’s mobile service in urban areas is pathetic. He recently acknowledged that the company’s service in New York City and San Francisco is lacking and vowed to improve it. BoyGeniusReport has…er…reported:

AT&T’s very own Ralph de la Vega says that Manhattan and San Francisco’s Financial District “are performing at levels below our standards.” In our own experiences, it seems much worse than that, but we’re happy to finally hear it being acknowledged and addressed. He also says that these issues are going to get fixed. “In both of those markets, I am very confident that you’re going to see significant progress.” Thanks for finally coming out and openly saying it, AT&T, instead of hiding behind figures like “our network covers 97% of the population.”

I remember attending a Giants game at AT&T Park with a friend armed with an iPhone. I found it hilarious that she dropped four calls over nine innings. AT&T can’t even provide decent coverage in its own ballpark! While I’d love to use my iPhone as something other than a glorified iPod Touch, I can’t deal with AT&T’s shoddy service in cities. I’m interested to see if it can improve its network in 2010…or if Verizon and T-Mobile get the iPhone, as many analysts have claimed.

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Apple Tablet with 10.1-inch Display Coming in March for $1,000?

Apple Tablet 2

Ah, the old Apple tablet rumors…. The latest one comes from BoyGeniusReport, which claims that a financial analyst has pegged the product for a March 2010 release:

According to Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner, Apple is almost ready to give its Chinese manufacturing partners the green light to begin mass production of the oft-rumored tablet that is believed to feature a 10.1? Multi-Touch capacitive display. If all goes well, Reiner believes that the tablet will be available as early as March provided Apple is able to stockpile enough units in order to minimize any potential shortages. So how many units are we talking? Based on an average retail price of $1,000, Reiner predicts Apple could sell as many as 1.5 million tablets in the first quarter.

Whenever Apple decides to unveil its tablet, you can be sure that millions of people will be in line to snatch one up. I want to know if you’re considering dropping $1,000 for an XXL iPod. It seems so expensive to me, but Apple has an unmatched way of getting people to fall in love with its products, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this expensive tablet was a huge success.

(The image above is just a mock up, FYI.)

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3G4 Brings N64 Emulation to the iPhone

NWorksDev has a Nintendo 64 emulator in the works for the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3G. The company claims that the product is being coded by a 14-year old. Those of you that want some N64 action but thought this mobile N64 gaming system was too bulky might want to look into this app. Engadget reported:

Compatible with the iPhone 3GS and the iPod Touch 3G, this bad boy appears to be rendering down the graphics (as one would expect) but all in all it seems to be running pretty smoothly. Of course, this is a work in progress: the developer (who claims to be 14 years old) says that he has to overcome duplicate button registers, delayed presses, and some crashing — and he has yet to implement the L, R, and Z keys.

I’m still floored that this program is being developed by a 14-year old. I’m pretty sure my biggest accomplishment at 14 was winning some dinky tennis tournament. Making an N64 emulator for iPhone is a much greater feat. Anyway, I’d totally be down for some N64 action on my iPhone. Mario Tennis 4 life!!!

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Google Goggles Android App Lets You Search with Photos

Google has introduced a new Android application called Google Goggles. No, they’re not Google’s version of the dreaded “beer goggles”, but rather a way you can search by taking a photo. Here’s a snippet from Google’s blog:

In a nutshell, Goggles lets users search for objects using images rather than words. Simply take a picture with your phone’s camera, and if we recognize the item, Goggles returns relevant search results. Right now Goggles identifies landmarks, works of art, and products (among other things), and in all cases its ability to “see further” is rooted in powerful computing, pervasive connectivity, and the cloud.

That’s pretty frickin’ cool. I’m sure the app is a bit limited at this time, but I’m also sure that it will become more useful with each passing month. Being able to snap a photo of a product or a place with a mobile phone and getting more information on it via search is just amazingly powerful. Hopefully Google will extend Goggle to other platforms…or someone will finally make the Android phone of my dreams. Either way, I’m anxious to try this product out!

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AT&T Releases iPhone App to Gather Data on its Crap Service

AT&T’s overpriced and mediocre (in many metropolitan areas) service is a joke. Adding a new punchline to the joke is the Mark the Spot iPhone application, which uses the iPhone’s GPS to notify AT&T of dropped calls, failed calls, no coverage, data failure, and poor voice quality.

ATT Mark the Spot

Hopefully AT&T will use the collected data to make its network suck less.

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Phoenix Wright Heading to iPhone

Phoenix Wright slider

Capcom Japan announced the development of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for iPhone. Capcom Mobile (Los Angeles) will hopefully be bringing the game to North America. Here’s a blurb from Capcom’s blog:

Capcom Japan just announced the development of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for the iPhone and though details are scarce (there is no release date yet, for example), our stateside Capcom Mobile branch in LA is looking into how to bring it over for North American fans.

The game will be using iPhone specific controls and is sure to guarantee strange looks from people when you use your iPhone in public to point and yell “OBJECTION!”

I’m a big fan of this series and would absolutely buy it for my (unactivated so I don’t have to deal with AT&T’s garbage) iPhone. How about you?

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AT&T and Verizon Kiss and Make Up

Phoenix Wright slider

The legal dispute between AT&T and Verizon over the latter’s television commercials has been dropped. According to Gizmodo, AT&T has dropped the lawsuit. Here are the legal scribblings:

IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED by and between Plaintiff/Counterclaim Defendant Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless (“Verizon Wireless”) and Defendant/Counterclaim Plaintiff AT&T Mobility LLC (“AT&T”) that pursuant to Rule 41(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: (a) Verizon Wireless’s claims against AT&T in the above- captioned action are hereby dismissed without prejudice, and (b) AT&T’s counterclaims against Verizon Wireless in the above-captioned action are hereby dismissed without prejudice.

*sigh* What a stupid waste of money. In my silly dreams, I’m begging AT&T to hit my donation button instead of spending money on its next stupid lawsuit…or maybe it can use some money to make its network not suck.

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Michael Arrington’s CrunchPad Dies Over Legal Squabbles

CrunchPad

CrunchPad, an exciting Internet tablet being developed by TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington (among others), was supposed to be unveiled before the end of the year. Instead, the project has died due to a curious legal skirmish. According to Arrington, Fusion Garage (TechCrunch’s partner) CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan nuked the project through a strange series of emails. He wrote:

Bizarrely, we were being notified that we were no longer involved with the project. Our project. Chandra said that based on pressure from his shareholders he had decided to move forward and sell the device directly through Fusion Garage, without our involvement.

Err, what? This is the equivalent of Foxconn, who build the iPhone, notifiying Apple a couple of days before launch that they’d be moving ahead and selling the iPhone directly without any involvement from Apple.

That’s pretty nuts. Fairly, Arrington admitted that this is his side of the story and Fusion Garage will surely spin it another way. Arrington wanted the CrunchPad to be, “a tablet computer that I could use to consume the Internet while sitting on a couch.” I’m totally down with that. I use my iPhone to check on my site, post some tweets, and read Facebook during television commercials. I wish I could do all of that stuff on a device with a larger screen. It’s sad that a cool and possibly revolutionary product will miss the market due to shareholder greed.

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