MediaFile

Why I won’t be getting an iPhone 5

Thousands of people will be “the first” to get the new iPhone 5 today. I won’t be among them. I’ve had every model of Apple’s revolutionary handset since it was first unveiled five years ago — upgrading even if my phone contract hadn’t expired yet — and, like the first-time parent of a toddler in a public place, am in a state of panic the moment I don’t know where my iPhone 4S is.

But I am skipping this upgrade. And while Apple is already setting sales records (again) with this launch, I’m seeing this milestone as the beginning of the end of the smartphone as the dominant mobile device in our daily lives.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not abandoning the iPhone, or any smartphone — at least not yet. I’m not even saying my iPhone 4S will be my last Apple handset, or that the smartphone won’t endure, even if only as a commoditized device.

Mine isn’t so much iPhone fatigue as it is ennui. And through the haze of that boredom there’s the gallop of a new horseman.

The iPhone has become such an appendage it is easy to forget that much — if not most — of the iPhone euphoria is because of the software, which also gets a (free) upgrade today and is compatible with iPhones made for the last three years. The 4S is plenty fast, takes a great picture, has a nice display and was the apple of Apple’s eye one short year ago. It introduced Siri (improvements in part of that free upgrade), arguably now the last real innovation for the iPhone and the first really important one since the retina display.

The bigger screen on the iPhone 5 is nice enough (check out any one of a number of Android phones already on the market to see if 4 inches diagonally is that much wicked better than 3.5 inches). It might as well be 4G LTE-compatible, even if that data speed standard is still spotty, even in the densely populated areas it is targeted for.

But regardless of whether the iPhone’s upgrades were drastic or marginal, the early-adopter instinct to upgrade to the newest device every year no longer applies. There’s an abundance of powerful phones already out there now, and it’s tablets — not phones — that are really innovating.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not abandoning the iPhone, or any smartphone — at least not yet. But the early-adopter instinct to upgrade to the newest device every year no longer applies. With viable 7-inch tablets starting to appear, this marks the beginning of the end of the smartphone’s dominance over our hearts and minds. Join Discussion

As Apple’s Passbook hits the scene, Tello tries to end coupon envy

iPhone users get the closest thing Apple has made to a digital wallet on Wednesday with the release of iOS 6’s new Passbook app, which stores electronic coupons, loyalty cards and tickets.

But where will all those nifty new digital coupons come from?

For coffee shops, corner pizzerias and other small businesses that don’t have in-house engineers to create their own Passbook coupons, a new service launching Wednesday aims to make it easy.

PassTools is a Web-based service that lets businesses quickly create Passbook coupons with a few clicks. The service, which costs $99 a month for up to 1,000 Passbook coupons or tickets, is the latest product from Tello, a Silicon Valley start-up that has until now focused on an online customer-feedback service for businesses.

“This is just another tool in the arsenal for businesses to get feedback,” said Tello co-founder Joe Beninato, noting that coupons and reward cards can provide an ideal channel for businesses to solicit information on customer satisfaction.

Since Apple first discussed Passbook in June, Tello has raced to build the PassTools product, working closely with the iPhone maker, said Beninato. In the coming weeks,  Tello will release additional features aimed at larger businesses, such as airlines offering boarding passes, he said.

And with more than 2 million Passbook-enabled iPhone 5’s pre-ordered in the first 24 hours of availability, there will be no shortage of consumers checking their phones for coupons.

For coffee shops, corner pizzerias and other small businesses that don’t have in-house engineers to create their own Passbook coupons, a new service launching Wednesday aims to make it easy. Join Discussion

The new iPhone is a people’s evolution

Revolutions can be exciting, but sometimes evolution can be even more powerful. With the curtain drawn back today on what exactly the new iPhone will do (and will be called), Apple is entering a period of consolidating its lead. Its next trick is to outflank smartphone competitors as deftly as it has in the tablet wars.

The news on iPhone 5 Day began with some some telling iPad statistics: The tablet’s market share has grown from 62% to 68% year-over-year through June, despite strong (relatively speaking) competition from Amazon’s Kindle Fire. And the iPad accounts for a borderline inconceivable 91% of all web surfing with tablets.

Why did CEO Tim Cook drop these little tidbits before the main event? To force the audience, as only the great magicians can, to look “over there” at the shiny stats instead of “over here,” where the devices generating those stats aren’t much changed. And to telegraph his master plan.

All told the newest things about the iPhone 5 aren’t really new. It will sport a four-inch screen, catching up to the standard of most other top-end smartphones. It will access the world’s fastest 4G LTE data networks. The camera gets an upgrade. There will be three mics, the better to allow Siri to give you questionable advice. As I tweeted during the presentation: “Tall, thin, dark and handsome. What’s not to like?”

All fine and dandy, but not worth champagne sabering and a balloon drop.

But there’s the rub. Since Apple disrupted the smartphone business with the original iPhone five years ago, it has maintained a significant market share advantage. But it has also seen the competition mushroom and … flatter the company with imitation (sometimes illegally). Most smartphones look astonishingly like the iPhone, and nothing did before the iPhone.

Revolutions can be exciting, but sometimes evolution can be even more powerful. With the curtain drawn back today on what exactly the new iPhone will do, Apple is entering a period of consolidating its lead. Its next trick is to outflank smartphone competitors as deftly as it has in the tablet wars. Join Discussion

Twist – a new app for the punctuality-challenged

The minds of Silicon Valley have yet to find the cure for tardiness, but they have figured out a way to make being late less rude.

A new app call Twist notifies friends and colleagues when you’re running late, calculating the estimated time of arrival to your destination on-the-fly and zipping off text messages to the people waiting for you.

The free app, available on Wednesday for iOS devices, can be used for trips by car, bike, foot and public transportation in most major U.S. cities. In development for the past year, the app’s algorithms crunch through various data streams, such as the average speed you travel and real-time traffic patterns, to calculate ETAs that co-founder Mike Belshe says are 98 percent accurate.

Belshe, a former Google employee who was a founding member of the Chrome group, teamed-up to create Twist with Bill Lee, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who has backed Tesla and Posterous.

“A lot of guys are just focused on ‘where,’” said Lee, referring to the spate of location apps that have flooded the App Store in recent years. “We’re the first to focus on ‘when.’”

The San Francisco-based company has $6 million in funding from backers including Bridgescale Partners, Jeff Skoll, the first president of eBay, Eric Hahn, the former chief technology officer of Netscape, as well as Lee and Belshe.

Besides making life easier for the serially late, Twist is touting its safety aspect:  no need to risk an accident while driving so that you can text your friends to let them know you’re going to be late. The company even commissioned a survey by Harris Interactive that found that 24 percent of Americans admit to having sent a text or email while driving to notify someone that they were on their way.

A new app call Twist notifies friends and colleagues when you’re running late, calculating the estimated time of arrival to your destination on-the-fly and zipping off text messages to the people waiting for you. Join Discussion

Can’t find a socket to charge your phone? IDT’s got a solution.

(Updates with cost details)

Ted Tewksbury wants to get rid your iPhone cable.

The chief executive of San Jose, California-based Integrated Device Technology is pushing a set of microchips he hopes will eventually render “contactless charging” — charging your smartphone by simply placing it on a specific spot — commonplace and eventually make phone-charging cables a thing of the past.

On a recent visit to IDT’s offices, Tewksbury showed me the chips he’s just started selling. They’re IDT”s twist on existing technology, using inductive coupling, which has yet to reach critical mass.

The idea is, instead of plugging your smartphone into the wall when its battery runs low, you toss it onto a wireless charging surface that could be built into your desk, a cup holder in your car, or even the armrest of an airplane seat. And there it would juice up.

If Tewksbury has his way, that sort of inbuilt design will become de rigeur in cars, homes, airports and elsewhere, so people may not even notice when their devices are charging. Competing ”wireless” charging products on the market now require the user to tote around a charging pad that itself must be plugged into a socket, making them less-than-truly mobile and defeating the purpose of going “wireless”.

IDT hopes to grab a slice of a small but potentially sizeable market for wireless smartphone charging chips that he reckons could reach $800 million by 2014. 

The chief executive of San Jose, California-based Integrated Device Technology is selling a set of microchips he hopes will grab a major stake in a potentially sizeable market for wireless smartphone charging chips. Join Discussion

Content everywhere? More like content nowhere

Will Big Media and Big Tech companies ever stop punishing their biggest fans?

Like many people, I woke up yesterday and reached for my iPad for my morning hit of news, entertainment and information, so I could start my day. (And like many, I’m embarrassed to admit it.) Padding to the front door to get a newspaper still sounds more respectable, but my iPad gives me a far more current, rich and satisfying media experience than a still-warm printed Times could ever produce.

Except, lately, it doesn’t. Yesterday morning, I saw the exciting news that Bill Simmons, ESPN’s most popular, profane and controversial writer, had secured an interview with President Obama. Simmons published his interview in podcast, text and video form on Grantland, a longform sports journalism website he founded last year under the ESPN umbrella. I clicked over to the story from my Twitter feed and saw three YouTube excerpts of Simmons with Obama. And that’s all I saw. When I hit play on the videos, I discovered ESPN had set them to be “unavailable” on mobile devices.

Moving on, I tried to read a New York Post headline that also found its way into my Twitter feed. But when I tapped in, the Post webpage that loaded was not the story I wanted to read. Instead it was a notice, which I took as an admonition, that to read New York Post content on an iPad, I would have to download the app, which retails for $1.99.

I want to make it clear that I’m not against paying for content. But what I’ve just described aren’t paywalls, where publications warn users that they won’t be able to consume content for free.

The situations I’m describing are blanket denials of content because of a choice I made about which device to use. With these tactics, media companies aren’t creating content paywalls, they’re creating content ghettos. Big Media, set my content free! Stop messing with the user experience to deny readers their content simply because you can detect what platform they’re on. And stop punishing users who are investing in the latest devices to consume your output. In other words, grant my hyper-advanced iOS device or my friend’s fancy new Android phone just as much access to the Web as my mother’s four-year-old Windows XP PC. Which one of us do you think wants to watch Simmons talk crossover dribbles with the Commander-in-Chief?

Will Big Media and Big Tech companies ever stop punishing their biggest fans? Join Discussion

Tech wrap: Apple earnings lay waste to expectations

Apple’s fiscal first-quarter results blew past Wall Street expectations, fueled by robust holiday sales of its iPhones and iPads. Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones and 15.43 million iPad tablets, outpacing already heightened expectations for a strong holiday season. Sales of iPhones and iPads more than doubled from a year ago. Revenue leapt 73 percent to $46.33 billion, handily beating the average Wall Street analyst estimate of $38.91 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Apple reported a net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 a share. Analysts had expected Apple to earn $10.16 per share.

“This is all about innovation, you have to out-innovate and delight the customer. Apple is the only company that knows how to do that. The guidance is phenomenal,” said Trip Chowdry at Global Equities Research.

Yahoo’s net revenue and profit fell slightly in the fourth quarter, the struggling Internet company’s last quarter before new Chief Executive Scott Thompson took the reins. Yahoo said it earned $296 million in net income in the three months ended Dec. 31, or 24 cents a share, compared with $312 million, or 24 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Yahoo, which fired former CEO Carol Bartz in September and appointed Thompson in January, projected that its net revenue in the first quarter would range between $1.025 billion and $1.105 billion.

A Dutch appeals court dismissed Apple’s appeal to have Samsung tablets banned in the Netherlands, confirming a Dutch lower court’s ruling. Apple and Samsung have been suing one another as the two technology giants jostle for the top spot in the booming smartphone and tablet markets.

Verizon may miss analyst expectations for 2012 earnings after posting disappointing fourth quarter results as it was hurt by hefty subsidies for the Apple’s iPhone. The company reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $2.02 billion, or 71 cents per share, compared with a profit of $2.64 billion, or 93 cents a share, a year earlier.

About one in five workers around the globe, particularly employees in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, telecommute frequently and nearly 10 percent work from home every day, according to a new Ipsos/Reuters poll. Telecommuting is particularly popular in India where more than half of workers were most likely to be toiling from home, followed by 34 percent in Indonesia, 30 percent in Mexico and slightly less in Argentina, South Africa and Turkey. But the job option is the least popular in Hungary, Germany, Sweden, France, Italy and Canada, where less than 10 percent of people work from home.  Despite the obvious benefits of telecommuting, 62 percent of people said they found it socially isolating and half thought that the daily lack of face-to-face contact could harm their chances of a promotion.

Your daily dose of technology news and views. Join Discussion

Tech wrap: Yahoo to cut Asian stake

Yahoo is considering a plan to unload most of its prized Asian assets in a complex deal valued at roughly $17 billion, sources familiar with the matter said.

The former Internet powerhouse’s increasing difficulty in competing with heavyweights such as Google and Facebook have forced it to explore proposals to revamp its business.

Weakening economies and falling prices of rival smartphones are hurting sales of Apple iPhones across Europe, data from research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech showed on Thursday.

The October roll-out of Apple’s iPhone 4S boosted its position in Britain and United States, but the new phones failed to excite interest in continental Europe, where Apple’s share of the fast-growing smartphone market slipped.

Staying with Apple, a German court rejected the company’s claims that Samsung Electronics’ reworked tablet PC still looks like a copycat version of the iPad, in a preliminary assessment.

Apple is fighting several rival makers of smartphones and tablet PCs in courts worldwide over intellectual property.

Bloomberg reports that Funny Or Die, the comedy website founded by Will Ferrell, is pointing the way for Web-based entertainment companies by combining the scrappiness of an Internet startup with A-list talent that attracts viewers.

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And the Grammy goes to — Steve Jobs!

First it was a bronze statue in Hungary. Now it’s a Grammy.

The accolades for the technology icon who died Oct 5 are still pouring in.

While Jobs is not a musician, his influence on the music industry — good or bad — cannot be denied. And for this, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences is giving the co-founder of Apple Inc a Grammy at an invitation-only ceremony on Feb 11.

A formal acknowledgment of his Grammy — part of the 2012 Special Merit Award — will be made during the regular 54th annual Grammy Awards, to be held on Feb 12 at LA’s Staples Center.

“As former CEO and co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs helped create products and technology that transformed the way we consume music, TV, movies, and books,” the academy said in a statement.  ”A creative visionary, Jobs’ innovations such as the iPod and its counterpart, the online iTunes store, revolutionized the industry and how music was distributed and purchased.”

In 2002, Apple was a recipient of a technical Grammy award for contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field.

Honored alongside Jobs were other industry luminaries including musician and composer Dave Bartholomew, and recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder.

First it was a bronze statue in Hungary. Now it's a Grammy. The accolades for the technology icon who died on Oct. 5 are still pouring in. Join Discussion

Tech wrap: D.Telekom may be forced to play with Sprint

Deutsche Telekom may be forced into a tie-up of its sub-scale U.S. wireless unit with Sprint Nextel after a $39 billion deal with AT&T collapsed.

AT&T said on Monday it had dropped its bid for T-Mobile USA, bowing to fierce regulatory opposition and leaving both companies scrambling for alternatives.

The collapse of AT&T’s deal to buy D.Telekom’s U.S. wireless unit may be welcome news for network equipment makers, as money earmarked for the merger will be freed up for investments.

Research In Motion’s woes continued as sales in the United States fell for a fifth straight quarter in Q3 even as the BlackBerry maker’s overall revenue jumped by $1 billion from a year earlier, a regulatory filing released on Tuesday showed.

Financial advisers in the U.S. are seeing fewer benefits from their use of social media, a survey by Aite Group showed on Tuesday.

“Social media has been over-hyped and the benefits just aren’t there for a lot of advisers,” said Aite senior analyst Ron Shevlin in an interview.

Electronic Arts invested more money and firepower into “Star Wars: The Old Republic” than it has on any game in its 30-year history. Starting today, the company will find out if the bet pays off.

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