Condemned to owning the latest iPhone

Readers of my Antipodes blog will have no doubt gathered that I’ve been living for the last two decades in a context (mountainous slopes, etc) that is potentially dangerous, and I increase the risk of accidents by doing potentially dangerous things such as wandering around on the slopes and working on various building projects (carport, firewood shelter, wood stove for heating). For these reasons, I’ve always known that I should carry with me, at all times, a portable phone. In many ways, this is a somewhat peculiar necessity, because I’ve lost, almost totally, my former (Parisian) habit of talking with friends on the phone. The underlying problem, here in Choranche, is that my circle of friends has been reduced drastically, and that I no longer have any personal or professional contacts that necessitate the use of a mobile phone. To put it frankly, the last time that my life style might have derived benefits from the presence of a mobile phone, this gadget hadn’t even been invented yet!

Another factor that plays a role in my lack of enthusiasm for mobile phones is my writing activities, which extend from this humble blog through to more in-depth preoccupations. See, for example, my previous blog post, entitled My first publication. As far as I’m concerned, these writing activities necessitate a fully-fledged iMac computer… although I imagine that certain bloggers do in fact succeed in blogging from an iPad or an iPhone.

My Internet connection is with Orange, who also take care of my satellite TV. This company has just suggested that I should integrate my mobile connection into a global contract with them. Cost-wise, I can do no better. And, since I’ve been using an iPhone 4S, they immediately suggested that I trade it in for an iPhone 5C. So, I find myself condemned (as it were) to owning the latest iPhone. Poor me!

Apple and the others

Apple's latest publicity in the personal computing domain, directed aggressively against Microsoft's Vista system, is a little like firing upon an ambulance... but few of us Mac enthusiasts feel sorry for Bill Gates and his failing universe.

In the iPhone domain, Apple's ads have been delightfully naive, invoking nice reassuring individuals such as an airline pilot equipped with his ever-present friendly iPhone.

This kind of publicity can be easily spoofed. I love this specimen about a friendly guy whose favorite pastime is punching cops and then running like hell. In a memorable line that deserves to go down in cellphone ad history, he explains: "Finding an escape route after a random act of violence can be tricky." Thankfully, he owns an iPhone!

In a neighboring domain, Google has just announced its much-awaited Android system, with $10 million of prize money offered to ingenious software developers. I'm going to try to jump onto this bandwagon, in ways that I'm already indicating to interested friends.

With or without the web?

These days, there are two major approaches to using computers. For a long time, it was a matter of switching on your personal machine and running a software tool such as Word or Excel, for example. More recently, the Internet has provided a more powerful means of exploiting computing resources, which consists basically of getting connected to countless remote machines whose geographical whereabouts are not only unknown but irrelevant. Ideal examples of this new approach to using computers are provided by the Google behemoth, but less spectacular web-based computing services make it possible to make purchases of books or even groceries from your living room.

In the case of Apple's iPhone, we are at present on the borderline between these two approaches. Up until now, if a developer wanted to extend the possibilities of this device from a computing viewpoint, the only possibility consisted of working through the Safari web browser. This wasn't a very convenient solution, because you can't even access Flash websites on the iPhone. A few days ago, Steve Jobs decided to turn the situation upside-down by announcing a forthcoming software development kit that will enable developers to work with the iPhone as if it were more-or-less a normal Macintosh computer.

Some observers see this as an indication that the web-based approach has been a failure in the case of the iPhone. Be that as it may, developers will be happy to envisage the iPhone as what it really is: a genuine Macintosh of kinds. Nobody likes castrated computers.

Awards

In an otherwise banal and factual news dispatch taken up by the UK Telegraph, the verb "award" is somewhat surprising:

Apple is expected to award a German iPhone distribution deal to Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and a French deal to France Telecom's Orange later this week.

It's a little like Apple is henceforth giving out prizes to the best students in the class, where the "class" is neither more nor less than the global European telecom infrastructure.

Asked to respond to allegations that he might have disturbed European mobile networks by playing them off against each other before choosing partners, Steve Jobs said: "It's kind of like getting married. We dated a few people but didn't get married to them. I guess there are a few upset girlfriends out there." Funnily, that's the same metaphor I used in my previous article.

Another iPhoney display of Antipodes

I'm impatient to discover whether or not Antipodes will be readable, in reality, on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Readers may have noticed that, in yesterday's article concerning the restoration of the façade at Gamone, I employed the same display technique that I used in my son's photo website [display]. Unfortunately, as I pointed out in my earlier iPhoney article [display], it will not be possible to exploit this Flash-based display technique on the iPhone or the iPod Touch.

iPhoney gadget

For people like me who don't yet have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, a software gadget called iPhoney makes it possible to see what such-and-such a website would look like on the real device. I now know, for example, that this is what my Antipodes blog would look like when displayed on an iPhone or an iPod Touch:

I'm disappointed, of course, to discover that Flash stuff simply doesn't get displayed at all on these devices. In any case, it's rather senseless to display graphic websites on such a small screen.

Unlocked Apple iPhone

Hey, this is my 400th post to the Antipodes blog!

Ever since its arrival on the US market at the end of June, Apple's iPhone has been associated with a unique phone company: AT&T. Consequently, it has been out of the question for a visitor to purchase an iPhone in the USA and bring it back home to, say, France or Australia. And, as I said in my recent article entitled Apple's iPhone will be Orange in France [display], it appears that France's Orange phone company has been chosen to play the role of the unique iPhone supporter here in France.

Needless to say, over the last two months, the challenge of unlocking the iPhone has preoccupied hackers day and night. A young guy became a celebrity, a few days ago, by announcing that he had succeeded in unlocking his iPhone by means of a hardware approach: that's to say, involving the use of a soldering iron. But, as somebody said, nobody likes the idea of a solution that consists basically of brutally "wreckifying" your precious little gadget in order to unlock it.

The following high-tech website [click the banner] has just revealed that a purely software approach to unlocking the iPhone now exists:

Naturally, people are wondering how Apple and companies such as AT&T and Orange are going to react to this news. A little common-sense reasoning makes it clear that Apple is unlikely to grieve about this unlocking possibility. It was nice for the computer manufacturer to have established juicy exclusive-licensing contracts with the world's great phone companies in order to launch their device, but we should not forget that Apple's main business consists of selling elegant electronic machines... such as the iMac, the iPod and now the iPhone. So, the concept of an unlocked iPhone (unlocked, not by Apple, but by third-party hackers) is obviously great for business, because it will increase the demand for iPhones. So, AT&T and Orange might complain bitterly about the unlocking hack, but I wouldn't be surprised if Apple were to refrain regally from making any comment whatsoever about this news.

Apple's iPhone will be Orange in France

There has not yet been any official announcement on this question, but it is becoming increasingly probable that Apple's iPhone will be handled in France by the national operator Orange, subsidiary of France Telecom.

I take this opportunity of pointing out, once again, that Orange happens to be the French ISP [Internet service provider] that has been blacklisted for over a year now [quasi-systematic refusal to deliver French emails from Orange] by the Internet idiots at BigPond in Australia.

Countdown iPhone minus one

Unless you're living like a Neanderthal in a limestone cave at the foot of the cliffs in a remote place such as Choranche, you're aware of two front-page media items: first, Paris Hilton is out of jail (for the moment), and second, Apple's iPhone is coming (at least to US customers) tomorrow, Friday. The excitement generated by these two events means that poor old Gordon Brown has chosen a difficult week (in reality, the poor bugger didn't choose anything; the choosing was done for him by friends) to hit the headlines with stories about his ascension to the top job in the UK. Fortunately, neither the Kiwis nor the Swiss can win the five required America's Cup match races until a forthcoming day in the AiP (after the iPhone) era: at some time between AiP 2 (next Sunday) and AiP 5 (next Wednesday). So, there's no danger of that victory interfering with AiP 0 (tomorrow). There's also little likelihood that George W Bush will be choosing one of the early AiP days to announce a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, because he wouldn't want to be forced to share his limelight with Steve Jobs. So, apart from the coming-out of the iPhone, I think we can safely say that nothing important is likely to happen in the universe in the next few days. On the other hand, we are indeed likely to see TV footage of the glamorous ex-jailbird using her new iPhone to talk to her boyfriend about the respective hardships and joys of life as an inmate. Meanwhile, I strongly recommend Apple's excellent guided tour of the functionality of the future beast, which you can see by clicking on the following banner: