June 11. 10 a.m. The anticipation is over. The WWDC Keynote is about to begin. Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. cofounder and CEO, takes the stage to deliver a speech that no one expected… and no one will soon forget.

You see, while all of the buzz about the iPhone has swirled through the internet and the blogosphere since MacWorld 2007, Steve Jobs has been crafting the moment that WWDC early birds are about to witness. Sure it will start with the usual state of Apple Inc., and how iTunes has delivered X amount of movies and music to happy customers around the globe, and maybe some upgrades to processor speeds in the MacBook and Mac Pro lines. But there is a piece to Steve’s puzzle that will blow the crowd away. There always is. It’s what Steve does best. But no one saw this coming. No one could have imagined this.

If you Google the word iPhone, it returns about 16,900,000 English pages over the past 6 months. Ars Technica has over 150 articles that mention the iPhone since Macworld 2007. A Digg Search for iPhone reveals 477 pages of stories that mention the iPhone dating back to 2004, when Engadget started talking about the Motorola/Apple partnership, which ended up being a Motorola phone (Cingular) that synced with iTunes, but not the actual iPhone from Apple.

Where is all this going? With all of the stories about the iPhone, there is still something that doesn’t add up. Why would Apple close the phone from developers? Apple has always been a big proponent of developers extending their software. Developers have always been able to come up with creative solutions to run on Apple systems. Sometimes the products were so good Apple just had to own them. So closing the iPhone just does not make sense. I believe there is still one more thing…

Apple Developers to Write Software for the iPhone
There was a reason that Apple would not partner with Verizon (other than the fact that Verizon wanted to put their V-Cast crap on the iPhone and ruin it). I think Apple had bigger plans, and Cingular/AT&T were willing to step up and be only a service partner, and leave Apple to the hardware and software. Apple does want the iPhone to be closed to telcos, but I believe Apple wants to give developers the opportunity to write software for the iPhone, and that Steve Jobs will announce this during the keynote as one of the final items.

Apple Ready to Spend Lots of Cash
If Apple really wants to be as serious a player in the telco market as they are in the mp3 player market, what is to stop Apple from bidding on the upcoming FCC auction for frequency spectrum? After all, owning the deed to that spectrum could put Apple in a better position than Verizon and AT&T. From Wired.com:

For the same reasons, a broadband wireless network operating in the UHF range would be far more powerful than the municipal Wi-Fi and WiMax networks now being built by Google, EarthLink and other companies. Such a network would be cheaper to build as well. Because radio waves in the UHF band travel much farther than the high-frequency signals used for Wi-Fi and WiMax, a single tower could cover as much as 10 times the area.

And because this will be the last auction of unused spectrum for the foreseeable future, it represents the final opportunity to create an alternative to the major carriers. The FCC grants auction winners a license to use spectrum for a number of years, but as these licenses are almost invariably renewed at no additional cost, they are effectively deeds of ownership for the winning bidders. No surprise, then, that the fight has already gotten intense. Read article…

Apple could change the entire face of wireless access in the United States by purchasing the spectrum. They could even lease some of the spectrum back to others — Google, Skype, Vonage, aetc. — and make a decent chunk of change by undercutting the prices that AT&T and Verizon are charging for going through their access gates. An announcement of this magnitude would send Steve Ballmer into a chair-throwing frenzy. Apple’s success doesn’t come from playing the game. It comes from changing the game.

I believe this is Steve’s One More Thing moment of his career. Does Steve Jobs have the huevos to pull something this large off? Buy some AAPL stock, a ticket to the WWDC and get there early if you want a seat.

Update (From AllThingsD 2007):

Q: All indications appear that the iPhone is closed, we’d love to develop apps…

This is an important tradeoff between security and openness. We want both. We’re working through a way… we’ll find a way to let 3rd parties write apps and still preserve security on the iPhone. But until we find that way we can’t compromise the security of the phone.

I’ve used 3rd party apps… the more you add, the more your phone crashes. No one’s perfect, and we’d sure like our phone not to crash once a day. If you can just be a little more patient with us I think everyone can get what they want.

See what I mean? Steve is letting developers know that 3rd party apps development is coming to the iPhone.

Is there a feud between G4 and Revision3? How about letting fans in on Olivia Munn’s recent disrespect of Kevin Rose on AOTS’s ( Attack Of The Show) In Your Pants segment?

The beautiful Anna David, a MILF, sex columnist who has written for Maxim and Playboy, sits down with the lovely Olivia Munn to field questions from fans about sex. On the show posted January 31, 2007, the first fan to ask a question is… KEVIN ROSE?!

With a rather retarded voice over, the voice asks, “Is it possible to have so much sex you lose interest?” Not only is the voice obviously not Kevin Rose, but the sound does not sync at all with the video clip. Maybe Kevin can shed light on where he might have been that day, wearing a green sweatshirt and green cap. It appears to be an elevator, but only Kevin knows for sure.

Either way, Kevin is “Bored Silly” (words on screen during the shot), and has lost interest in sex.

The conversation between the ladies after the question leads me to believe that these two are having a lover’s quarrel. Olivia says,”Well, I don’t know who is having sex with YOU… but I am sure she has lost interest in you, personally.” So why does Olivia use the word personally?

So is there a feud between the two companies? Or maybe Kevin and Olivia hooked up and she is pissed because he stopped calling her? Or maybe there is lots of bad blood between Kevin and his former mates at G4? Digg this up to the front page, and maybe Kevin can respond.

Update: Here is the iTunes link to the show. It happens in the first minute.

technorati tags:kevin, rose, olivia, munn, anna, david, AOTS, sex, disrespect, fued, G4, Revision3

Blogged with Flock

BREAKING NEWS: San Francisco, CA.

It is with a sad heart that I report the death of Digg.com. It has jummped the shark today, and will forever be in a downward spiral toward the abyss.

Tonight, the story of Anna Nicole Smith’s departure took over the site overwhelmingly, and the story about Turkana Boy — a REAL news story — was blown out of the water.

For the amount of good that Digg.com provided for its users, there was also an element of evil at work behind the scenes. From Kevin and Alex’s recent pre-taping of old news on Diggnation, to the infamous Top Digg Users list controversy, it seems Digg.com will not be the next YouTube to be consumed by giant meadia conglomerates for large sums of money.

I will forever remember you, Digg.

Digg.com… dead at the age of three… Rest in peace.

technorati tags:satire, Digg, Digg.com, Alex, Kevin, Diggnation, Rose, Albrecht

Blogged with Flock

After purchasing a new MacBook Pro recently, I was attempting to Control-Click-Drag in a popup menu to delete a file when something strange happened: my screen acheived a zoom in. Now I know that zooming is possible by holding Option-Command and typing 8, and then using Option-Command – or + to acheive zooming in and out respectively. But I had mistakenly used two fingers on the trackpad. So not only can you scroll on a trackpad using two fingers, but you can also zoom in and out holding the Control key while doing so.

So if you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro, try the above sequence. Apple technology never ceases to amaze me. Who knows? Now if Apple can allow users to use the trackpad to scale images in iPhoto ala multi-touch on an iPhone…

Blogged with Flock

While listening to the most current Security Now (Episode #65: Why is Security So Difficult?), I was intrigued by a discussion between Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson about how some online web mail apps — such as Gmail, hotmail, etc. — have users log into the system securely, but then once you are in, the session is no longer secure while you read, transfer and compose mail.

So I tested my gmail.com account, and sure enough I can log into https://mail.google.com securely and stay secure during my session, but when I log into http://mail.google.com, my session is briefly secure during login, but not secure after login.

These days, I use Google’s own Gmail Dashboard to check my Gmail account. However when I do this, the session is not secure! For some unknown reason (probably just an oversight by the developer), Google did not make the Gmail Dashboard client secure. But do not worry. You can secure the dashboard client with a little sleuthing and all you need is a text editor that can read a javascript file.

Step 1: Open the Widget directory at ~/Library/Widgets
Find the one named Gmail.wdgt, and right click on it to Show Package Contents.

Step 2: Inside the Scripts directory, you will find a file named GmailInteraction.js
Open this in a javascript text editor, like Dashcode, TacoHTML Edit, or even TextEdit.

Step 3: At the top of the document, you will find:
// The base URL to open.
// TODO (bonneau): Internationalize URL.
Gmail.gmailUrl = “http://mail.google.com/mail”;

Simply change the http to https, and save the document. You can also close all of the Package Contents windows that you opened to unclutter the Desktop.

Step 4: Go to the Dashboard. Find your Gmail dashboard and, while holding down the Command key, click the “X” to close it. Now reload the Gmail dashboard by clicking on the “+” sign in the bottom left corner to bring up your installed dashboard apps. Find Gmail, and drag it to a location on your Dashboard. Now enter your Gmail handle and password, and go to your Inbox.

You should now be able to sustain security during your Gmail sessions. And just in time for the holidays!

UPDATE: The Google Toolbar for Firefox (and possibly others) also has this problem, however I do not have a fix for it at this time. Contact Google to ask them to secure the Gmail functionality in the Google Toolbar for Firefox.

technorati tags:Gmail, Google, Dashboard, Apple, Security, Now

Blogged with Flock

Hi all you diggNation freaks!

Using the online South Park creation tool, I whipped up Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht on the diggNation set! What beer are they drinking?!

First, I went to one of the latest video podcasts from diggNation. I stopped at frames with certain facial expressions of Alex and Kevin. Then, one by one I created the characters, background, couch (had to seem two together since it was cropped), table and laptops. I had to add a drop shadow to the characters because the bottles were blending into the background. Anyway I thought the diggNation fan base might enjoy the image. Go to the online studio and make your own South Park scenes (link to original story on digg if you want to make your own SouthPark characters). All base images created with online studio at http://www.sp-studio.de/

If you want to check out the story and comment on digg.com, click here. Not a digg user? Sign up today at digg.com

Update: The story made the front page of digg.com tonight! Also it is number one for number of hits in digg’s Design section! Thanks for all the comments and keep pushing the story so the image can appear on a diggNation podcast in the future!

ANOTHER UPDATE: The story diggNation Meets SouthPark at digg.com has made it to the diggNation 64 episode. Thanks to all of you who voted for my story!

Blogged with Flock

What you will not read here is a general news byte, rewriting Apple’s press release. What you will read here is why this has the potential to be the most revolutionary product from Apple. Ever.

On September 12, 2006, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced an upgraded iPod® line, iTunes® 7, and an upcoming product codenamed iTV, a first in Apple history since products are usually announced and then immediately available at the Apple Store online (or later that same day). The presentation shows the iTV to be self-powered, 802.11 wireless (no specification given yet), with options for composite video in or HDMI, the new standard for HDTVs. Steve Jobs goes on to explain the iTV’s purpose for playing media — stored on your Mac or PC — wirelessly. He presented a slide of the hardware diagram, showing the modem, 802.11 access point, Mac (or PC), iPod and now iTV. What he didn’t show was the software pieces of the puzzle. In my opinion, this will be the real story.

There is a bigger picture at work at Apple that’s not being discussed… yet. If your television can now play movies from your Mac or PC wirelessly via the iTV, then shouldn’t QuickTime on your Mac or PC now be able to play television programs wirelessly via the iTV? And if the device does work both ways, wouldn’t it make sense to have remote access to all of your media — movies, trailers, music, podcasts, etc.via the Front Row interface? And if Apple does eventually sell an iPhone that syncs to your Mac or PC, wouldn’t it also make sense to have an app on it that could call into your network and view your media, say an app called QuickTime Mobile?

Take a look at Slingbox™ from SlingMedia. Do you see any reason why the Apple’s iTV couldn’t have the same functionality, and more? QuickTime Player and QuickTime Remote on your Mac or PC? QuickTime Mobile on your iPhone?

The only hardware piece of the puzzle missing from Steve’s diagram is the iPhone. But the software diagram is what I look forward to seeing when this product finally makes it to market.

Blogged with Flock

Spice up your Web site with a variety of free resources from fellow designers

read more | digg story

Take the world’s best image-editing program and make it better
�with these free plug-ins that let you spruce up your images like the professionals.

read more | digg story

ON April 1, 2006, Apple will announce iTurtle, a mid-level machine between the Mac mini and the iMac. The beauty of this design is that for a reasonable price you get a small yet powerful computer, and a lovable pet. Apple will also be adding several accessories for this new line, including a remote controlled broom to clean up the pellets.

read more | digg story