Whereas some folks watch sitcoms and talk shows, I prefer scifi and TED. Happily, enough I’ve got a wife that has similar tastes. However, she carries an iPhone and, although there was a “compatible” app, the TED experience on that 4.5-inch display, crystal clear though it is, was less than optimal let alone [...]

Barriers to entry matter. Similarly, endorsements, especially from A-list universities, make a difference, as well. Combine the two and developers have a big incentive to chose the platform that, happily enough, also pays better than the competition.

Or, put another way, not assembled here. Apple and its manufacturing partner, Foxconn, have set up shop in Brazil and the first fruits of that labor are rolling off the line and the locals are pleased as punch. The switch is on, but will any of these jobs ever come home?

When your head’s buried in the sand, it’s rather difficult to have any sort of perspective on what the competition’s up to. Alternately, if you were the person in charge of peering into the future for Microsoft, what else could you say, ‘You got me, we suck’?

When your head’s buried in the sand, it’s rather difficult to have any sort of perspective on what the competition’s up to. Then again, if you were the person in charge of peering into future for Microsoft, what else could you say, ‘You got me, we suck”?

My son’s first generation iPod touch died a couple months back. As soon as the prognosis was clear, he was very clear — “Dad, I want a new one for Christmas.” No hesitation, no hemming and hawing over alternatives because this is the cool device kids want.

The paradox of choice — in general, having more choices doesn’t make people happy. Stand in front of the toothpaste, scores and scores of largely meaningless “choices,” at an average grocery store to feel it. Some folks thrive on that and others just want to brush their teeth without wasting too many cycles.

Which US-based iPhone 4S carrier is fastest? Most reliable? Drops the fewest calls? Offers the best value? It’s easy to get sucked in by the very specific numbers generated by surveys and the those pretty, pretty colorful charts seem so convincing. However, that’s all just a setup for the iPhone 4S quote of the week, [...]

The iPhone 4S’ multifarious battery issues are on the whole solved and Apple’s promising a fix for the remainder, as well as Calendar, etc. problems that the last patch promulgated. However, the bigger piece of news is that iOS 5′s meme generating digital assistant, Siri, will gain new languages, as well as commands for wifi, [...]

When it comes to statistics, fandroids are always mired in last quarter’s data. Much like Plato’s proverbial shadow watchers, they can only bask in the reflections of glories past. Oddly, now matter how many units Android sellers sell, they’re perennially the also rans — more isn’t best, unless you are in fact the best. Truly, [...]

Once upon a time, Apple cofounder and erstwhile CEO Steve Jobs considered building his own wireless network, using unlicensed wifi spectrum, rather than pairing up with one of the existing carriers. Obviously that didn’t come about, but oh to wonder at what could have been. ITWorld was at Monday’s Law Seminars International event in Seattle [...]

Ready to suspend disbelief? As demos go, this one is both disarmingly impressive and yet, forgive my cynicism, presents a number of opportunities to beg the question, “What exactly is going here?” Whereas there’s a Rube Goldberg-esque logic string running through the concept, I’m still holding out for the punchline. By all appearances, the Project [...]

With one-in-three compatible idevices already running iOS 5 and a lot of these people complaining about batteries issues, this update couldn’t have come soon enough. Thereupon, developer testers of v5.0.1 reported that this patch does indeed fix batteries issues, but that’s only part of what Apple’s baked into this release. When I first saw that [...]

What a truly satisfying moment. For many, many months, Adobe and the Android crowd have crowed that because the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad don’t support Flash the rest of us aren’t getting the “whole internet.” That lie and its performance, battery and security implications has finally been put down, euthanized and none too soon. [...]

Call it a win-win play for the world’s best known Apple hacker? He submitted an iOS app that “behaves in a manner different from its intended use” and that can’t be bad for his cred. However, Miller says his intentions were and have always been pure, calling Cupertino’s action “rude.” Charlie Miller tweeted his removal [...]