Return of the Apple we know and love?

This article was originally posted Oct 20th 2007 3:00PM by Mike Schramm, from TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

I'm reposting this here to bring this to more people, as I'm afraid, as others are, that Apple is now turning into Microsoft, and Microsoft now listens to its user base more.

"For the past few months, we've seen some turbulent waters here at TUAW. I don't think I need to mention the furor that's popped up in the comments multiple times over a number of Apple's past actions. All the iPhone unlocking has stirred emotions we didn't even know you guys had. The ringtones issue made a lot of us question just what kind of company Apple was. And Apple's own developers were pretty shocked when they found out that to develop for the iPhone, they'd need to brush up on HTML and AJAX, not Cocoa. The Apple we've seen the past few months has been making plenty money, but not so much winning our hearts.

But as Macworld points out, change may finally be back in the air, and all in the past week. Apple brought DRM free music back down to normal prices, which is exactly what Jobs wanted to do when he wrote that open letter we all cheered so long ago. Apple has unlocked the iPhone-- albeit in France, and only because they had to, and they'll probably charge a lot more for it, but still, it's progress. High sales of the unlocks there will be more ammunition for getting an unlock everywhere else. And of course, we got the announcement, finally, of a coming SDK for the iPhone.

Apple isn't even close to back in the clear yet-- we may have cheaper DRM-free music, but no one but France has an unlocked iPhone, and all we have is the promise of an SDK with zero details on what that means. It's been a rough road these past few months, however, and we can only hope that Apple is listening to what their fans want, and willing to get back on track."


And here's one comment I wanted to post here, posted at 3:40PM on Oct 20th 2007 by Angelus2007:

I am not sure they are back yet. I think the lower DRM free price is more of the market than Steve Jobs being nice. If he wanted them a 99 cents to begin with why didn't he? With Amazon selling DRM free music for 89 cents how can you sell yours for 40 cents more?

Also the article said it itself, they only unlocked the iPhone because they had too. What about the $100 store credit, or raising the price for students?

It seems we are in a world where Microsoft is doing right by their customers and Apple isn't. What happened Steve? Why can't you still sell 30GB iPods for $200? Or how about firmware updates for my 5.5G iPod? If Redmond can do it why can't you? For all the bad things Microsoft has done in the past, early Zune adopters get the features in their old player, and those not wanting 80GB can get 30GB for $200. Sell me a 2GB 2G Nano for $99, I don't need video. For once Cupertino should watch what Redmond is doing instead of the other way around.

I was Apple would go back to the way it was, thinking different.

The Web in Your Palm: Browsing the Web on a Mobile Phone

It is no more than a decade and a half when the internet came to the Philippines in 1994 (according to my research) in the once glorious dial-up connection. Then there was the milestone in internet connectivity, the arrival of broadband, the most popular of which, mostly among residential subscribers, is DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), with the average downlink speed of 384 Kbps. Although this is not the fastest, and certainly much lacking as opposed to other countries' connections, to someone who just upgraded from the dial-up community, this is something sent from the heavens above.

Then came wireless web connectivity options - WiFi, WAP, GPRS, and 3G, being the most, along with WiFi, among others. WiFi was very popular with notebook owners, and 3G more with mobile handset owners, since WiFi handsets are not as available as 3G handsets. It became popular because of its promise to deliver speeds comparable to residential DSL, and up to 1.4 Mbps if the operator supports HSDPA (Globe Telecom).

But will operators in the Philippines be able to give this promise? For Smart 3G, I think they quite did it, for my mobile phone browsing. Though not supporting HSDPA yet, unlike Globe, they were quite able to deliver decent speeds. I can do decent web browsing on the go without a computer.

I use a Nokia N73, and Nokia's web browser sure is amazing! I can really view most web pages the way I view them on a computer. The browser's mini map was a great implementation! I can check my mail on the go, search for stuff to read, download music, and watch videos on YouTube Mobile (it automatically redirects here), although, recently, I can no longer download videos from YouTube Mobile. Maybe this is a network-related concern?

Anyway, the only downside to this is the small screen that can make reading a little less friendly, and the keypad. I'd much prefer a QWERTY keypad, but they come in business phones, which sport features that I would very much want to use, but also lacking in a lot of features college students like me would like, hence I incline to prefering multimedia phones, aside from the reason that business phones are expensive. LOL! :D

UP Diliman WiFi hotspots

For those UP Diliman students who happen to have WiFi devices (e.g. laptops, cellphones, PDAs, etc. with WiFi), here is a list of the WiFi hotspots in the campus. All you need is your UP Webmail account to be able to access them. :P If you have any corrections and additions, please tell me so, either via a personal message or a comment. I am very much aware that this list is not complete yet, and I am hoping to complete it with your help. Thanks to Charm, Marge, and Keith for the info!

1. Main Library
2. College of Engineering Library
3. NCPAG
4. College of Business Administration
5. School of Economics
6. EEE
7. Vinzons' Hall
8. Computer Center

Ayon! Enjoy the free connections! :P

Smart 3G

It's been quite a while since I first browsed the web on my phone using Smart 3G. It's generally fast (not expecting a lot), as expected of 3G.

But two days back, I just wanted to have a measure of it's speed in not too technical terms, so i downloaded songs from my friend's Multiply account, two of which are 4.5mb each. To my surprise, each song finished downloading in a little than two minutes, not downloading simultaneously. I think this is quite acceptable, since 3G just arrived in the Philippines last year. What do you think?