GMail will now sort your email for you based on what it thinks is most important. Similar to its existing spam filter, GMail will learn, and can be trained to learn what is most important to you based on the emails you read, reply to, or mark as important.
At Netflix, the vacation policy is audaciously simple and simply audacious. Salaried employees can take as much time off as they'd like, whenever they want to take it. Nobody – not employees themselves, not managers – tracks vacation days.
They also don't keep track of how many hours per week you work. This works in Silicon Valley where geeks are passionate about their jobs, I don't think it would work in other industries.
A new lighter, faster Kindle will now only cost you $139 for the Wi-Fi version. How soon before Barnes & Noble's $149 Nook drops again in price?
Coinciding with the availability of Safari 5.0.1 which officially enables extensions.
This is big news.
To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app's behavior.
Seems like a good way to get a lot more would-be developers creating apps for Android. I'd be interested to see some of the more sophisticated apps that get created using App Inventor.
Hulu Plus is just as rumored, you get access to the full seasons of shows, for a monthly fee of $9.99. It's available as invite-only currently, and supports the web, all iOS devices, select Samsung TVs, and will soon support PS3 and Xbox 360.
Apple today announced that it has sold over 1.7 million of its iPhone 4 through Saturday, June 26, just three days after its launch on June 24.
Now that the iPhone 4 is in the hands of thousands of people, there has been one quickly discovered, and widely reported flaw. Holding the iPhone 4 improperly can cause signal degradation and dropped calls. The response from Steve Jobs himself when asked about any resolution to this issue has been "just avoid holding it that way." And while it has now been shown that the same antenna issue can be reproduced on many other cellphones, this should not be the response from Apple. The iPhone 4 has its antenna on the outer perimeter of the device, and people are going to continue to hold the phone in the wrong way, even Steve Jobs. Apple should be doing something proactive about the situation, rather than treating this as a non-issue.
Unlike most cellphones, the new iPhone 4 has a metal band that wraps around its side. This metal band acts as the iPhone's WiFi, and 3G antennas. By holding the iPhone 4 in your left hand, in such a way that your skin makes contact with both antennas (separated by a small notch), it can cause interference and signal loss. It's hard to judge the amount of people who experience this problem, whether it's a vocal minority, or a widespread problem that affects all new iPhones. But the fact that Apple is aware of it and acknowledges that the problem does exist, is enough. That they are unwilling to do anything about it, should be concerning.
Remember when the Nintendo Wii came out? Long lines and short availability for this revolutionary new console, which was aptly codenamed 'Revolution'. Shortly after, there were numerous reports and Youtube videos of people losing control of their Wii Remotes, and smashing their TVs. Rather than tell its customers "don't swing it that hard" or "get a better grip on it", Nintendo instead replaced the straps on all Wii Remotes for free and began packaging them with new Wii consoles within a month of its initial release. About a year later, Nintendo started offering a Wii Remote Jacket, a simple silicone case that offered a better grip and protection. Again, Nintendo offered these for free to its customers, and began packaging them with new Wii consoles.
One solution to the iPhone 4's antenna issue, has been the iPhone Bumpers which conveniently cover the metal band wrapping around the iPhone. Apple offers these for $29 to its customers, but I think they should be giving these to every iPhone 4 buyer for free. Any bad publicity that may have plagued the Wii Remote strap (during and after its replacement), is long gone, and the Wii continues to be the number one selling console, with Sony and Microsoft playing catch up. Apple could easily hand out their $29 Bumper for free, to the no doubt millions of people who will purchase an iPhone 4.
The metal band around the iPhone 4, was touted by Steve Jobs at WWDC, to provide improved reception, to much applause. A video was also shown, detailing the lengths that Apple went to manufacture this steel band. It's unfortunate to see that for some people, it will actually decrease cell reception on the already universally panned AT&T network, and that Apple sees this as a non-issue.
Covers everything that is new, in depth, across seven pages.
A really good writeup on what HTML5 really means for developers.
From afar, the Droid X looks like the EVO 4G, but up close the differences are obvious. Its slightly longer and wider…
People who have actually used the EVO 4G will tell you that it feels almost too big in your hand, the Droid X will be even larger.
Apple has released its first "store" app that allows you to purchase non-digital goods. The Apple Store app allows you to make Genius Bar appointments with your local Apple Retail Store, read customer reviews, and of course, shop the full selection of Apple products.
Faster processor, faster graphics, HDMI port, brand new unibody design, removable bottom panel, SD card slot, integrated power supply, and now supports up to 8GB of memory. On the downside, the base price has increased by $100 to $699.
Radio Shack, along with Best Buy and your favorite Apple store, will all be selling the iPhone 4 at launch. Radio Shack however will also take your old iPhone and give you up to $200 for an iPhone 3GS, and $100 for an iPhone 3G.
According to Gazelle, the iPhone 3GS counts for 65% of all iPhone trade-ins.
MacRumors has heard from several sources that Apple is planning to launch a new iOS application tomorrow that will offer customers access to the company's online store and iPhone pre-ordering, as well as the ability to book Genius Bar appointments at brick-and-mortar retail stores.
The only store missing from the iPhone, so this rumor makes a lot of sense.
Gina Trapani on Apple's marketing methods, in contrast to Droid marketing.
Safari 5 has only been out for a day, and includes a new extensions capability. Apple has promised to feature an Extension Gallery later this year, but until then, you can get your hands on extensions today.
Apple continues to put its weight on HTML5 in a big way, showcasing demos of what can be done with HTML5.
Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with tiny Global Equities Research, contends that 7 minutes of the June 7 keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been blocked off for a presentation by Microsoft to talk about Visual Studio 2010, the company’s suite of development tools. Chowdhry says the new version of VS will allow developers to write native applications for the iPhone, iPad and Mac OS. And here’s the kicker: he thinks Microsoft’s presentation could be given by none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
I just can't take this seriously. What would be in it for Microsoft?
Google considers Chrome for Mac and Linux stable enough to remove the beta tag.
After purchasing Tweetie, Twitter has now rebranded the app and released it as the official Twitter app for the iPhone. Looks and behaves just like Tweetie, with the added functionality of signing up for a Twitter account directly in the app, something other Twitter app developers cannot do.
Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS) is a lower cost Amazon S3 option that is aimed at content that can easily be recreated, rather than for permanent storage.
S3:
If you store 10,000 objects with us, on average we may lose one of them every 10 million years or so.
S3 RRS:
If you store 10,000 objects with us, on average we may lose one of them every year.
Starting today, we are making Google Wave openly available to everyone as part of Google Labs. You no longer need an invitation to wave -- simply visit wave.google.com and sign right in.