Twitter to the Left, Twitter to the right

Twitter is a great tool for sharing interesting stories and content I run across. Increasingly I have been posting via twitter rather than creating a full post to this blog. While this might be the lazy way out, I’ve found it very helpful to quickly get the word out and move along with my day.

Because of this, I’ve added two ways to help keep up-to-date with these posts. First take a look to the left… here you will find a section called “Some Recent Tweets”. This section displays the last 5 messages I’ve posted on Twitter, including links to relevant URLs. Rather have these in your favorite news reader? No worries, just click the RSS icon just to the left of the section title.

Rather just follow these updates via twitter, look to the right and tap the “Follow Me” tab.

Feel free to comment or send email to let me know if these features are useful to you.

Over the weekend the rumor mill was in full gear talking yet again about the iPhone coming to the Verizon network. This time the rumors are reported by Apple insider citing a Taiwanese manufacturer that is said to avoid a contract to produce a new “worldmode iPhone” that will run on both GSM and Verizon’s CDMA networks.

While it’s certainly possible that Apple might choose to go this way, especially given all the speculation and industry reports touting how much more money Apple could make by selling a Verizon based iPhone, I still have a great deal of doubt that this will be the case.

There a number of things that don’t ring true with this report. The first of the reasons I mentioned in my previous article. But more importantly, this report cites a completely different, smaller iPhone. This new “world iPhone” would have a smaller screen (2.8 inches versus the standard 3.5″ is in the current iPhone). the small screen might make it easier to carry, but unless the screen resolution is the same as the current iPhone almost all of the hundred thousand apps in the iTunes app store would have to be rewritten to work on this new model. In addition to the smaller screen Apple would need to figure out how to squeeze similar functionality into a much smaller package. This is a lot of engineering work for technology is on its last legs (CDMA).

In the end all of this work on a smaller, CDMA/GSM iPhone would be a distraction to Apple and typically Apple doesn’t do distractions. In fact Apple is widely known to have a laser focus on its products, directions and supply-chain. I believe that Apple is much more likely to be looking to grow the iPhone platform by adding larger devices and added capabilities, rather than simply adding another carrier to what is primarily a US market.

All that said rumors about Apple coming to Verizon continue to persist. I don’t know if this is just wishful thinking from all the people that dislike or have issues with AT&T, or if it’s really truth to the rumors. Time will certainly tell. Let me know what you think in the comments or via twitter.

Update: AppleInsider reports that an analyst and sources inside of Qualcomm indicate that the dual GSM/CDMA chip needed for a Verizon/world iPhone won’t be available until 2010 or even 2011. Further, the necessary software to support such a chip is nowhere in sight.

That is a consistent refrain from people when I talk to them about why they are using (insert phone name here). This is usually followed by a discussion about why they are unhappy with AT&T and my explanation about why a Verizon/T-Mobile iPhone, while technically possible, is very unlikely.

While I’ve talked about it here in passing, local tech author Glen Fleishman lays it out very well in his latest article on Tidbits.

Verizon has been much mentioned as a replacement or supplemental partner for Apple. But many folks forget that the iPhone simply can’t operate on Verizon’s network today. There is no technical reason why Apple cannot create a modified version of the iPhone that works on Verizon’s current 2G and 3G networks. – Glen Fleishman in Tidbits

This article is a good read and worth a peek for anyone interested in the subject. In addition to the points that Glen makes, I’ll add a couple of my own.

Apple Likes Simplicity

Dell and Burger King have made their business by allowing for infinite customization. Apple on the other hand is a very big fan in keeping their product line simple with few product configurations to manage. Walk into an Apple Store to buy a MacBook and you only have a couple of choices.

With this in mind, I find it hard to imagine that Apple would design, produce, distribute, test, support and sell a special version of the iPhone that would work on Verizon’s network. I believe that they are much more likely to use a threat of Verizon or T-Mobile as leverage with AT&T to get more of what Apple wants.

Verizon’s not the only game in town

As Glen points out, T-Mobile USA uses the same underlying technology (GSM) as is used by AT&T and the iPhone. The problem is that T-Mobile’s US 3G network uses frequencies not currently supported by the iPhone. It may be easier for Apple to release a version of the iPhone that supports these additional frequencies, but it is unlikely (see the simplicity argument above).

Apple Courted T-Mobile

On a final note, there is a lot of talk on the Internet about how Verizon turned Apple down for the iPhone, forcing them to go to AT&T. I don’t know if that happened, but I don’t think that is the whole, or even real story.

For many of the reasons that Glen and I laid out, I believe that Apple would have always preferred to have AT&T or T-Mobile as a partner. In fact a deal that included T-Mobile USA would have made a lot os sense and was likely very close to happening. From Apple’s standpoint a single deal with T-Mobile would have made the initial rollout in the US and Europe a much similar task.

You might remember that in the weeks and days leading up to the iPhone carrier announcement, T-Mobile USA executives began publicly praising Apple. Before this point, I don’t recall any public statements in support of Apple. At this point, I think it likely that T-Mobile believed that they were about to do a deal and had begun to lay the PR ground work of the two companies working together.

At the time Apple was asking a lot from a potential carrier partner. They were asking the carrier to give up a lot of control; to turn the customer over to Apple; to let Apple host servers in their network for visual voicemail; to turn over a lot of potential revenue, etc. They were also asking for a strong 2G network (which both AT&T and T-Mobile had) and a strong roadmap to 3G (a place where T-Mobile was weaker). In the end it may have come down to who blinked first and gave Apple what they wanted. AT&T did, leaving TMO with all worm and no Apple.

What do you think happened?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of …. Apologies to all the Dickens fans out there, but the beginning to the classic tale has a number of parallels to some people experience with configuring the iPhone to connect to UW services. It is the best of times in that it is easy to connect to the UW wifi, email (Exchange, Deskmail/IMAP, Gmail, etc) and the m.UW or OneBusAway apps. It is the worst (ok, not best) of times in that you need to configure all of this manually. Each one isn’t difficult, but you need to find the documentation and navigate through a lot of choices.

Enter the Configuration Profile

We recognize this challenge and for those of you with a sense of adventure I submit an unsupported mobile provisioning profile that will configure you for the UW Wifi and setup the common UW Exchange configuration on your iPhone or iPod touch. It also configures the UW People Directory service.

To install this on your phone, simply visit www.freshlymobile.com on your iPhone/touch (you get to see our newish iPhone optimized design) can tap here. Once installed it should ask you for your email address, Exchange username and password. The username is ‘netid/’ (without quotes) and your UW NetID. For example, if my UW NetID was davidm3, then I would enter: netid/davidm3 for the username. Once it is installed tap done and you are good to go. If you want to change any of the Exchange settings (by default it will sync your calendar, contacts and mail). You will need to visit the setting app on your iPhone, choose Mail, Contacts, Calendars adn then the UW Exchange account. I recommend you back up your iPhone BEFORE installing, so you don’t lose any data.

Let me know if this works for you and whether there are any problems. If people find this helpful, we will work to bring an official, supported version into the mix. We can also look at creating additional profiles for others uses.

Print, Cut, Fold

Web site Dessine Moi un Objet (make or draw something for me?) posts a very interesting method of making an attractive dock/stand for the iPhone and iPod touch. There is even a video to illustrate how to bring it all together. You need some heavy card stock, a printer, ruler and exacto knife.

Since Apple stopped including a dock with the iPhone, I’ve struggled with what to do about a dock. I’ve used a roto tool to modify the original dock to work with the 3GS, just used the cord and recently purchased a dock from Apple for around $30.

I haven’t tried it yet, but hope to. If you do let me know how it goes.

Thanks Lifehacker.com for the pointer.

The University of Washington’s iPhone app, m.UW has been available from the Apple store for about 10 days now.

In those 10 days, we have seen it installed (or at least downloaded) on about 3,500 iPhones or iPod touches.

This includes downloads from 25 countries, including:

• USA
• Canada
• Australia
• China
• Colombia
• Germany
• France
• Great Britain
• Hong Kong*
• Indonesia
• Israel
• Italy
• Japan
• South Korea
• New ZealandTurkey
• Pakistan
• Portugal
• Russian Federation
• Saudi Araba
• Singapore
• Turkey
• Taiwan
• South Africa
• United Arab Emirates

A Fresh Coat of Paint

For those of you using the iPhone/iPod Touch, Android or Blackberry Bold, FreshlyMobile has an updated mobile interface. I’d like to say that I spent hours toiling over a hot keyboard to bring this mobile goodness to you, but it really just took a couple of minutes, thanks to the WPtouch plugin from Bravenewcode.

At the top of the mobile screen you will find options to search, browse categories, jump to a particular section or drop me an email.

For the time being, Windows Mobile users will see the “classic” mobile page without a lot of the graphics. I hope to improve the WinMob experience in the future, but haven’t yet had the time.

So you have a RAZR or other “feature phone”, not to worry, there is more magic at work to give you a decent mobile browsing experience as well.

Let me know what you think about the new mobile look.