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TV on the go has been a reality for awhile. What with Verizon and Sprint offering their users streaming TV on their cell phones for more than a year. Today, though, a large third party player enters the fray: a Qualcomm subsidiary, FLO TV, has just announced that they are expanding their service nationwide. The launch date is slated to follow the DTV transition this Friday, June 12. (If you’re wondering what DTV is, you probably won’t care much for FLO TV, and you can read more about DTV here.

FLO TV will launch in 39 new markets, and offer “its service to an additional 60 million customers with a total reach of more than 100 major markets and more than 200 million potential consumers nationwide by the end of 2009.” This is great news for AT&T customers, always the last to get any sort of decent new technology on their phones (except the iPhone!). But, don’t rejoice yet – iPhone users; Apple isn’t allowing any streaming video applications on the App Store. Arrrgh. Doesn’t that make you want to break something?

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With the ever-increasing popularity of handsets like the iPhone, Pre, Curve, Storm and so on, US mobile users are clearly warming up to devices tied to unlimited data plans. In fact, many would argue that owning a smartphone without unlimited data is mind boggling. In July of 2008, Nielsen estimated that 14 percent of US wireless subscribers had unlimited data plans. Following the tremendous success of devices like the iPhone 3G and BlackBerry Storm, we’re certain this number has ballooned since Nielsen’s report. Considering there are over 275 million wireless subscribers here in the US, we’re probably looking at somewhere around 50 million unlimited data plan-toting people currently gobbling up the nation’s wireless bandwidth.

Devices by RIM, Apple and Palm take advantage of unlimited data plans and keep a data connection alive at all times. Why wouldn’t they? This active data connection allows apps to go from dormant to useful with minimal delay — when it comes to UX of course, every millisecond counts. Enter S60 devices. Because the US is pretty low on the totem pole when it comes to Nokia’s target markets, S60 handles data differently. Abroad of course, unlimited data plans are not in abundance as they are here. Data is more expensive so every kilobit counts. As such, S60 handsets leave it up to applications to initiate a new data session each time they need to communicate. Since data sessions are then closed when an app is done communicating, users save money by minimizing throughput. Abroad, this is a great cost-saving feature. In the US, it’s merely a burden.

Since BGR HQ just took on a few new Nokia handsets, we were promptly reminded of S60’s connectivity data connectivity issues. As it happens however, a Nokia rep alerted us to a solution. Buried deep within the device settings where even most S60 power users we discussed the matter with couldn’t find it, there is a simple setting that can be adjusted to keep your data connection alive. On your S60 handset go to Settings -> Connection -> Packet Data, change “When Needed” to “When Available” and then key in your Access Point. You’ll now find that your handset keeps a data connection alive and when you launch data-dependant apps, they will spring to life much faster than before. Of course battery life will be affected to some extent, but you’ll have to decide which you value more: longevity where battery life is concerned or efficiency where usage is concerned. Unfortunately, it’s a choice S60 users are currently forced to make.

Palm cleared up its leadership questions at the top today as it promoted Jon Rubinstein from executive chairman to chief executive. Meanwhile, current Palm CEO Ed Colligan is taking a job at Elevation Partners, the private equity firm that owns much of Palm.

Rubinstein is the logical choice to head Palm in the wake of the launch of the Palm Pre, the new smart phone that is pretty much flying off the shelves in Sprint stores. Colligan and Elevation’s McNamee recruited Rubinstein in 2007, who had been enjoying life on a beach in Mexico after leaving Apple.

At Palm, Rubinstein jumped at the chance to re-engineer Palm’s phone strategy from the ground up, starting with a new webOS, or phone operating system, that was built to marry the phone and the social web. Under Rubinstein’s direction, Palm’s engineers came up with a lot of the right choices. The Pre has been praised for its ability to multitask between applications, its vivid 3.1-inch touch screen and ability to marry the pictures of your friends on Facebook with their phone numbers in your address book.

It remains to be seen if Palm can make a dent in the growing Apple iPhone empire and steal business from rivals such as BlackBerry and makers of Google Android phones. The move suggests that Rubinstein’s new leadership will drive Palm forward while the company dispenses with the older history that Colligan represents. At the same time, Colligan, who spent 16 years at Palm, will still be in the picture as Palm’s largest shareholder.

Rubinstein has made some high profile appearances for Palm. He shared the stage at the Pre’s announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show and at last week’s Pre launch party in Hollywood. But he spoke on stage with McNamee at the recent AllThingsD conference.

Now Rubinstein, who was considered the father of the Apple iPod, has to pull off a smooth launch for the Pre overseas, as well as line up successor products in the pipeline such as the rumored Palm EOS.

Filed under: iTunes, Software Update, iPhone, iPod touch

iTunes 8.2 just became available in Software Update. According to the update notes, “iTunes 8.2 now supports iPhone or iPod touch with the iPhone 3.0 Software Update. iTunes 8.2 also includes many accessibility improvements and bug fixes.” The update weighs in at 79.3 MB.

QuickTime 7.6.2 and GarageBand Update 5.0.2 also became available at the same time. In keeping with Apple’s policy of full disclosure, there’s not much information for users about what’s in either of the updates, although subscribers to Apple’s security notification list got an email with a list of 10 fixed vulnerabilities in the QT update (soon to be posted at Apple’s security site and reproduced in the second half of this post).

The GarageBand update “addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and fixes a number of other minor issues [including] Improved purchasing experience for Artist Lessons in the GarageBand Lesson Store [&] Accessing installed Jam Packs in the loop browser.” The update is required if you are purchasing lessons from the Lesson Store.

The iTunes update is one more clear sign that iPhone 3.0 is just around the corner. Be sure to stay tuned to our coverage of the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference next week for all your iPhone news!

Continue reading iTunes 8.2 in Software Update, supports iPhone 3.0; QuickTime & GarageBand also patched

iTunes 8.2 in Software Update, supports iPhone 3.0; QuickTime & GarageBand also patched originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iTunes 8.2 in Software Update, supports iPhone 3.0; QuickTime & GarageBand also patched originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iTS, iTunes, iPhone

Yesterday, Megan noted a Fortune story saying that iTunes syncs flawlessly with the new Palm Pre. This, of course, got the water-cooler talk bubbling: “How did Palm pull it off? Will Apple allow this to happen?”

Turns out they already have. A tech note on Apple’s website notes the two dozen or so third-party players that iTunes (for Mac OS X, at least) is compatible with, including Rio and Creative Labs Nomad MP3 players. True, many of the models listed predate the iPod, and the tech note itself was last updated a little less than a year ago. But third-party device compatibility with iTunes isn’t without precedent.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber pointed to a story by Jon Lech Johansen that says Apple may block iTunes access to the Pre in a future update; Gruber himself said he “wouldn’t be surprised if they did.” I’m not so sure.

First, let’s look at how it works. According to Johansen, a unique USB device ID allows iTunes to recognize MP3 players (including iPods) that it’s compatible with. Johansen speculates that Palm is using one of these IDs when communicating with iTunes. If it’s an iPod’s unique ID, then it will work with iTunes for Windows, too; this is an important litmus test and we don’t know the results yet.

I can understand Apple might not cotton to a Palm Pre specifically masquerading as an iPod USB device. Given that, allowing the Pre to freely communicate with iTunes isn’t necessarily bad business sense, presuming Palm implements the functionality in a forthright manner (like other third-party MP3 players that iTunes already supports).

Why limit access to the Pre, aside from pure spite? If someone already uses iTunes, chances are they have some quantity of DRM-free iTunes Plus music on their computer. There’s no technical reason why the music shouldn’t be easily playable on the Pre. One of the upshots of removing DRM in the iTunes store is to facilitate device interoperability. Allow non-Apple devices to play iTunes music, and suddenly Apple has customers it didn’t have before.

If Apple chooses to cut off just the Pre, and Palm is following the rules, Apple is unnecessarily cutting a stream of revenue. That’s something I don’t see Apple doing lightly.

Future iTunes versions could block the Pre, but why? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 30 May 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Future iTunes versions could block the Pre, but why? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 30 May 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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