When DirectTV started teasing an iPhone app about a year ago our interests were certainly piqued -- and then disappointed when it was revealed it would only allow remote scheduling. When the Android version came along we got our hopes up again for remote streaming of content, but again got them dashed again. Now Rogers is doing the disappointing, launching the charmingly titled "Remote PVR Access from your Bell Smartphone" in Canada just before the Olympics on February 12, though it's unclear right now which smartphones will be covered. It too allows remote scheduling of content and, sadly, not remote viewing. Some day we'll get our wish -- some day.
Cash weighing you down? Credit limit too high? Luxury phone specialist Mobiado might just have the answer with its latest creation, the 712ZAF candybar. Billed as the successor to the Luminoso, the Vancouver-based company's latest execution of conspicuous consumption features a 2.2-inch QVGA display, AGPS, two-mic dynamic noise reduction, a 5 megapixel camera with flash, and quadband EDGE plus UMTS 900 / 1900 / 2100 (Mobiado has always had a bad habit of simply calling out "WCDMA" without specifying UMTS or HSPA, but on that tiny display, it really doesn't matter too much). The aluminum frame is surrounded with a ceramic coat in your choice of six colors; no word on price or availability, but we'll venture a guess that breaking open your piggy bank isn't going to cover it.
We know the FCC's already gotten a gander at this thing, but the general public... well, that's another story altogether. Daily Mobile has a bunch of shots of what it claims to be Sammy's upcoming S5620 Monte, a silly name from a company that certainly hasn't shied away from funny branding in the past (one quick look at the Corby or Rant should be able to verify that for you). Anyhow, we're told to expect a TouchWiz-powered feature phone here with a 3-inch display, HSDPA, and a 3.5mm headphone jack which you can clearly see in some of the pictures. A quick look at the FCC filing also reveals WiFi, though the lack of WCDMA testing indicates that we won't have 850 or 1900MHz 3G support -- in other words, North Americans are out of luck as usual. If we had to guess, this one might get the covers pulled off at MWC next month.
The iPad-prompted Amazon/publisher fallout continues, with John Sargent – CEO of Macmillan, whose books and ebooks promptly disappeared from Amazon’s store in the aftermath of the Apple tablet announcement – confirming that the online retailer modified their catalog in response to a demand to renegotiate pricing structures. In a post on the PublishersMarket blog (and a paid advert that ran this weekend in the print magazine), Sargent explains that he put his new pricing structure – which would see ebooks sold with flexible pricing, and retailers taking a set 30-percent commission – to Amazon the day after the iPad’s launch, only to find that in apparent retaliation they swiftly pulled all print and electronic copies from the store before the CEO even had time to get back to his New York office.
“This past Thursday I met with Amazon in Seattle. I gave them our proposal for new terms of sale for e books under the agency model which will become effective in early March. In addition, I told them they could stay with their old terms of sale, but that this would involve extensive and deep windowing of titles. By the time I arrived back in New York late yesterday afternoon they informed me that they were taking all our books off the Kindle site, and off Amazon.” John Sargent, CEO, Macmillan
Rather than the cross-bookshelf $9.99 bestseller price Amazon currently charges for ebooks, Macmillan would like to see titles individually priced and ranging from $5.99 to $14.99. Digital versions would in most cases go on sale at the same time as the physical copy, and pricing could be tweaked over time. Sargent reckons both publishers and Amazon would make more money from this scheme than the current model, but concurs that the retailer disagrees and does so strongly: “the action they chose to take last night clearly defines the importance they attribute to their view.”
As we suggested yesterday, this also better puts into context Steve Jobs’ widely misrepresented quote from last Wednesday, in the aftermath of the iPad launch. Jobs told Walt Mossberg that pricing for Kindle and iBooks titles “would be the same”, interpreted by many as a sign that the iPad would see cheaper ebooks than initially announced, but now indicating that Apple had a potentially significant part in the dynamic price-structure plans Macmillan approached Amazon with.
Meanwhile, for an author’s-eye view of the situation, science-fiction writer Charles Stross has explained “this whole mess” on his blog. Those books of Stross’ sold in the US through Macmillan subsidiary Tor are among those yanked from Amazon’s virtual shelves, and he also suggests that the DRM issue and the publisher/wholesaler/bookseller price-share issue are two very different battles at the moment. For people who have already in effect locked down their ebook libraries on Amazon’s platform – or who are considering buying into the Apple iBooks platform – however, we’d say that’s not quite the case. Still, as the comments to our first post about this suggest, e-publishing is filled with some strong opinions.
Now that Blyk's free-service-for-ads model has officially bitten the dust, we're starting to see new ideas come out of the woodwork from the Dutch company that might (or might not) stand a better chance of striking a survivable balance of value and profitability. Orange UK has announced that it'll be launching Orange Shots as of February 1, a program for advertisers that lets them target subscribers of its Monkey prepaid service in very specific ways. Sound familiar? Yeah, that was pretty much what Blyk had been doing all along -- difference being that they're no longer trading access to that targeted group for free minutes and texts. As far as we can tell, Orange is simply offering its subscribers the hope of getting special offers from advertisers, meaning its margins are probably going to be a lot higher here than Blyk's ever were before -- assuming Monkey customers agree to sign up, of course. For now, it's purely opt-in; let's hope it stays that way.
American carriers have had Wireless Priority Service in place for several years now, giving government officials and first responders improved access to potentially overloaded networks in the event of an emergency or high-density gathering -- but historically, that service has been restricted to American soil. With the Winter Olympics coming right up in Vancouver, AT&T figured it'd have quite a few G-Men strolling north of the border, so it has worked with Rogers this month to roll out priority access for devices roaming in Canada that are already authorized for the service. In a nutshell, that means VIPs strolling around the luge circuit will be able to get through (and stay through) if the crush of humanity gets too much for the poor, overworked cells to handle. And no, you can't sign up for it, so don't even ask.
A certain UK bank operates a delightfully dorky advertising campaign whose slogan is "we give you extra." Well, in the case of mobile software communities, that's exactly the case. From jailbroken iPhones to PS One-emulating HD2s to multitouch-enabled browsing on the Nexus One, the one group of people we know we can truly rely on are other geeks. So let's salute those heroes once more, in recognition of the VisualBoyAdvance -- a webOS-based emulator for Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games. The former two categories are said to play smooth as you like, whereas the Advance stuff suffers from slight slowdown at present. We've only seen it playing on a Pre, but there should be no reason why your Pixi wouldn't be allowed in on this party. A quick video demo awaits after the break, and the source link has all the installation details you'll need.
If you live your life one oil rig, one Siberian gas field, or one Antarctic base at a time, odds are you're precisely the target demographic for Inmarsat's new handset being rolled out later this year. Oddly, despite the company's decades-long history of providing satellite phone service, the IsatPhone Pro is apparently the first model "purpose-built for its network" with awesome features like Bluetooth, text messaging, email support, and GPS capability that can be injected into outgoing text messages (you know, for when you finally strike oil somewhere in the Mariana Trench). Anyhow, the company has announced that the first calls have now been successfully made using the handset on the way to retail availability this June -- but if you have to ask for a price (either for the phone or a per-minute rate), odds are it's not for you.
As if you needed any more evidence of the tech supremacy of your Nokia N900 or N810, here's Firefox making its official mobile debut on the most righteous Maemo OS. Available for download right now, version 1.0 will come with a pretty sweet feature named Weave Sync, which harmonizes your bookmarks, tabs, history and passwords across devices, making for a seamless transition between your desktop computer and your mobile one. We reckon we could get used to that. Alas, Flash support is still somewhat shaky, and does not come enabled by default, though you're free to flip the switch and ride the lightning as it were. We're sure Mozilla will appreciate any crash reports you might want to throw its way as well. So come on already, download the darn thing and let us know if it improves on the already spectacular browsing experience of the N900.
Well, it's a bit earlier than the invitation to the big launch event suggested, but it looks like Virgin Mobile Canada is now officially part of the HSPA+ club, and it's now also selling a couple of new phones you might be interested in. Naturally, the network will give you coverage in line with the Bell network that Virgin is piggybacking on (encompassing 93% of Canadians), and you can expect the same download speeds of up to 21.6 megabits per second and upload speeds up to 5.76 -- in "ideal conditions," of course. As expected, the carrier is now also offering a number of new phones that take advantage of the network, not the least of which include the iPhone 3G and 3GS (in all the usual varieties), and the BlackBerry Bold 9700. Hit up the link below to check out the complete lineup, and Virgin's new smartphone plan offerings, which start at $50 per month
When DirectTV started teasing an iPhone app about a year ago our interests were certainly piqued -- and then disappointed when it was revealed it would only allow remote scheduling. When the Android version came along we got our hopes up again for remote streaming of content, but again got them dashed again. Now Rogers is doing the disappointing, launching the charmingly titled "Remote PVR Access from your Bell Smartphone" in Canada just before the Olympics on February 12, though it's unclear right now which smartphones will be covered. It too allows remote scheduling of content and, sadly, not remote viewing. Some day we'll get our wish -- some day.
