TamsIJungle

Even though Windows Mobile and iPhones are targeted at completely different markets, Redmond top brass apparently feels a permanent urge to verbally attack the multitouch boxen.

The latest statement comes via BusinessWeek, and was issued by the head of the Entertainment&devices division:

A video released by the iphone-dev team shows a Mac connected to what is described as an iPhone 3G. A few commands displaying baseband information, kernel versions and a task list loaded via a custom baseband tool:

3G Baseband Tool from iphonedev on Vimeo.

As of now, nobody really knows what this all means…

Calipers are usually used when highly precise data (tenths of a millimeter) is needed. Silverview Consulting apparently thinks that an iPhone’s screen is accurate enough:

I personally (I have a long background in electrical engineering) consider this application a gimmick at the very best. Its accuracy is way too low for any practical measuring.

Nevertheless – congratulations to Silverview for the idea…

This one is very important for all Austrian readers of Tamoggemon’s content network. Austria’s governmental carrier A1 has suffered an extensive network outage, leaving parts of Austria without voice, data and SMS service.

As Three shares A1’s network in some (rural) areas, this outage can also affect 3 handsets outside of their home 3G network. Three customers can thus try to fight back by forcing their handset into 3G only mode, while A1 users have to sit it out.

Once again: do NOT change your A1 handset’s settings. You can NOT do anything on the client side!

P.S. In case you feel like further information on Three’s network – hit this URL for a nice interview!

While the average developer has to fight around with Apple in order to get his products admitted to the iPhone store, a big fan base seems to be a very persuasive argument for the Cupertinian critters.

I have no idea why Apple allows Audi (a big car manufacturer with a cult-like following not dissimilar to Apple’s, but bigger and more violent) to abuse its application store as a mobile ad canvas for their latest vehicular offering:

Surprisingly, the game is accepted by the users – a few days ago, it managed to get into the top 10:

In the end, it looks like Apple meausres with two sets of criteria. Big companies with strong, rich and violent fan bases get to do whatever they wish, while common developers are kicked around. I will not elaborate this further as I may soon get involved into iPhone stuff heavily and head-first….but nevertheless think that this should be stated…

What do you think?

It’s this part of the month once again – AdMob has provided me with a new Metrics Report. For all these of you new to the topic: AdMob is a company that focuses on serving up ads to mobile devices. Thus, they find themselves in an unique position for gathering data about market shares – and gladly pass that data on to the press.

As usual, I have picked out the most interesting bits of info – links to the full report can be found at the links below:
Palm OS – US market share takes decisive blow
The Palm Os finally is out of the US top 20 except for the Centro. The figure on the left is from August, while the figure on the right is from September. The single big winner is the iPhone, which now has about 3.2% of market share compared to the 3.4% of the Centro:

US – carriers and manufacturers
Our next char looks at which carrier deploys wich mobile phones. One can immediately seer that Sprint is the single biggest user of Palm devices, while MetroPCS acts as a game reserve for dead or dying phone manufacturers:

OS market share analysis
When it comes to OS shares all around the world, the Palm OS still manages to take in 6%. Symbian dominates the market, Windows Mobile and RIM OS fight about the second place:

Further reading
September 2008 – PDF
August 2008 – PDF

P.S: Should the PDF links ever go down, please let us know – we have them archived!

The images above show the new color shades which are available as of this writing. The red box will be part of the so-called Product:red line-up, which donates a fixed percentage of the purchase price to charities.

P.S. I am not posting this for fringe reasons, but rather due to a simple fact. The iPod touch is the only iPod which is NOT available in a Product:Red version – this could change in the near future…

So far, most carriers (except for Hutchison/Three) have loathed and feared VoIP applications like Skype or its mobile cousin Fring. In fact, some data plans prohibited users to use VoIP programs.

However, this is now set to change – Austria’s biggest carrier A1 just announced a cooperation with Fring:

….
announced today the first ever deployment of fring’s mobile VoIP and mobile internet community application for a Tier 1 network operator.

Under the agreement, mobilkom austria will give its customers access to a dedicated version of the fring mobile client, containing fring’s entire open-platform, feature-rich suite of internet based mobile communications & community services, allowing A1 over IP users to talk, chat and interact with each other & all of their online communities, and access fun mobile web applications, using the internet connection capability of their mobile device
….
Avi Shechter, fring’s co-founder and CEO commented: “Today’s announcement by fring and its new partner, mobilkom austria, represents just the beginning of a sea change in the relationship between mobile VoIP and traditional mobile carriers.
….

I am not exactly sure myself as to why A1 chose to take this rather radical step, as the carrier traditionally is known to be the exact opposite of offensive when it comes to adopting new technologies.

This combined with the Telefonica statements (coming soon) make me think that we are looking at a significant change in the carrier landscape. Traditionally, carriers have been afraid of innovation..this policy seems to change all over the board currently.

What do you think?

Dear Readers,
the Symbian Smartphone Show is less than 48 hours away – in case anyone of you hasn’t noted yet, this is your (final) opportunity.

This tradeshow is organized by Informa for Symbian (now the Symbian Foundation), and usually is a nice mixture of ISVs, hardware developers and other interesting folks. This year, admission is free – more info can be found here!

Our sister site TamsS60 is a media partner of the show – tune in to stay on top of events!

In the beginning, developers of 3D games had to create their rendering pipeline (the system which transforms 3D objects into a 2D view which can be displayed on a screen) all by themselves.

Eventually, so-called 3D frameworks became available. 3D frameworks consist of an API, which can be called from the game code and handles display and rendering itself. Copenhagen-based Unity Corporation is the vendor of such a product – and is currently hard at work at bringing the engine over to the iPhone:

“With iPhone support, Unity is poised to become the single source for game developers who want to create best-of-breed, 3D-quality games that can be easily and quickly ported to all platforms, including consoles, devices, PC/Mac, and now, the iPhone,” said David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies. “Specifically, Unity’s support of iPhone addresses the developer’s need to create more and better mobile/portable games that support the consumers ‘on-the-go’ lifestyle.”

The program will be unveiled at the company’s Unite Developer conference, which takes place at the 22nd October in parallel to the Symbian Smartphone Show.

Further information can be found here:
http://unity3d.com/unity/features/iphone-publishing