For all the plaudits that Apple rightly got for the things they did well with their announcement of the iPhone SDK and their supremely well thought out AppStore ecosystem, there’s (at least) one major brickbat which needs aiming in Cupertino’s direction.

It seems that third party iPhone applications will be forced to exit when you press that ‘Home’ button to bring up the launcher - a big mistake that will limit (again) the iPhone’s potential as a true smartphone. As a longstanding smartphone user on other platforms (S60, Windows Mobile, etc.) [Read more →]

Wow, what a day for the iPhone. In keeping with my no re-blogging policy, there are full reports on what’s been announced here, here, here and here.

Looking over my last post, I see that my thinking was constrained to just considering what mobile applications could be released. Now the SDK is out, I see that the potential is much wider. This really is Apple’s trojan horse platform. As John Doerr pointed out at the SDK launch, the iPhone is:

…in your pocket, broadband and connected, it’s personal - it knows who and where you are…

Absolutely. But there are plenty of compact devices vying for this crown: Nokia’s N-Series, SonyEricsson’s P1i, plus Blackberries, Windows Mobile devices, even GPS traffic products that are adding features. So what’s new here?

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March 5th March 6th sees an Apple media event to roll out the Software Development Kit. It’s likely that MS Exchange and Lotus Notes support and/or native apps will figure in the mix. But further questions abound:

• is it really ready for primetime?
• will developers will get access to Wifi and mobile connectivity?
• will the dock connector be addressable (leading to innovative hardware)?

Regardless of those questions - we, the users, will be getting installable applications in the near future. Hooray!

Which begs the question - what’s on your wishlist?

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OK, ok, so I promised Matt that my next post here would be more positive. But I’ll have to just get this one in under the wire first. I’ve visited several O2 and Carphone Warehouse retail shops in the UK in the last week - and ALL of them have the original iPhone firmware installed, i.e. without any of the new app improvements.

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I have another guest slot on Steve Litchfield’s Smartphones Show this week, showing off some tips to help iPhone users get a bit more out of their device, including an easy way for UK users to view MMS. They provoked some mirth from All About Symbian commenters, so go easy on a newbie in front of the camera, ok?

The Smartphones Show is available in iPhone-friendly format at http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/sshow/ss53.html

It’s now been more than a year since the Apple iPhone was launched onto the world stage, to mass acclaim, seven months since it was available to buy in the USA and three months since it’s been out in the UK. Having played with the iPhone first in August last year, I could see the huge leap forwards in terms of user accessibility and the fabulously quick and easy means of syncing and updating, and I genuinely thought that Apple could be onto a big, big success story. But has this happened?

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Every now and then something I say turns out to be correct. At the start of the month I wondered if the BBC would be bringing their programming to the iPhone, and now they are! In announcements over the last couple of days, the BBC has said in a press release that it is bringing shows to iTunes, that is will be turning on new features for the iPlayer, and enabling it to be used on the iPhone (1).

This is great news, and what we should be expecting from our public service broadcaster. As always though, the devil is in the detail, so let’s examine what this all means (and if I really was right after all).

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Although I’m running an iPhone as decreed by Jobs - locked to O2, non-jailbroken - I’ve also been trying, on and off, to get my mate’s US-bought iPhone jailbroken and unlocked for him for about 2 months now.

I took a couple of goes to jailbreak his phone, which was bought with 1.1.2 firmware just before people became aware that Apple had changed the bootloader from 3.9 to 4.6. This new bootloader stopped the most-used unlocking software - AnySIM - from working.

So, his phone remained locked, even when he bought a StealthSIM, which is effectively a hardware unlock. Its a small sliver of plastic that aligns with the SIM card, making the iPhone believe the SIM is valid. After a lot of trying, even that didn’t work. But the answer was just around the corner.

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It’s both customary and very cool for me to be able to let you know that All About iPhone is featured in this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists. You can find the latest Carnival hosted at Mobile Messaging 2.0.

My favourite post of the week? Ajit Joakar of Open Gardens has some thoughts about building a Mobile Multimedia Twitter. I’m a big fan of reading my friend’s status updates - it’s a low-impact way of keeping in touch. Now what if media organisation started video twittering as well? Lots to think about there.

The rumours started on Tuesday, and within a couple of hours the US Apple Store had gone down - a sure sign of new products. When it came back up the 16GB iPhone had been unveiled, and as with all things Apple, it has been well reported all over the web.

But what’s been missed here? Well with this launch, Apple has quietly upgraded the iPhone to be the largest-capacity music phone on the market.

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