That's right, another Apple blog.
An excellent piece of insight by Gedeon Maheux (the guy behind the Iconfactory) in regards to how Apple’s App Store approval process could become less of a waiting game of disappointment for rejected apps by taking a look at a company that sells pizza.
OS X Snow Leopard Install Process Changes Described?
Verdict: True - To me, this just makes plain and simple sense. The last time I used Rosetta was for Office for Mac 2004 when I first got a Mac. It was a very useful feature during the times of the Power PC to Intel chip transition and made the whole situation (which was very beneficial to the Mac) less of a pain in the neck. OS 10.6 can’t even run on a Power PC machine, so why would Apple force you to install a service to emulate software for a machine Apple themselves does not support anymore?
The rest of what the rumour describes is the typical style Apple’s ‘isn’t really much of feature, but we’ll make it into one because it’s actually more convenient for the user (and is another thing we can show off to them)’ - A complete reinstall used to take much longer than just popping in your old OS X disk and letting it do it’s magic, there was then the many hours after downloading updates for it. It’s just one of those things Apple didn’t necessarily need to change, but is easy enough for them to do that I believe it to be true.
Apple shoots commercial for Unreleased Product?
Verdict: True - When has Apple ever made a product without an ad to go with it at the point of it’s initial release? New iPods? New ads. New iMac? New ad etc. It’s just what they do. The reason why people are getting giddy over this news is that the commercial could, just, might, possibly, there’s a chance (get my point?) that it is advertising the infamous Apple Tablet which, if it does exist, will also hold the spirit of Jesus Christ himself as well as a 32GB SSD drive.
To me, these are most definitely, ads for the new iPods coming out in September for the holiday season. No Apple Tablet to be seen anywhere in sight.
5 Million iPhone Units to Be Sold In China Next Month?
Verdict: Probably True - However, this deal could all fall apart moments before it is meant to be rolled out as is the case China’s volatile markets and dictated control. It will be interesting to see if the Chinese variant of the iPhone will be allowed to function the same way as it does everywhere else, not to mention how the App Store may be threatened by the government for materials it does not want to see on the device.
First Screenshots of iTunes Emerge?
Verdict: False - The screenshot, to me, is fake. Last.fm will never exist now iTunes Genius is around, the icons used for all of iTunes ‘social features’ look like they were from a free set downloaded from the web and Apple would never allow a logo of any company on there app without putting there own little spin on it. Example: The Google services found in iWeb ‘09. But most obviously to me is the badly cut and paste job of the ‘About’ window, with no shadow underneath it as well as the upper left corner of the box. That one white pixel comes from a rectangular selection box around a rounded window.
Disclaimer: These rumours are sourced from various places around the web within the week this piece is published. I do not hold the belief that the information released by these websites is what they believe to be the truth, and nor do I believe that because I disagree with what is posted, should the website involved not have the right to post it. Most of the websites I link to I am big fans of as, they treat the Apple rumour with an equal bias between fact and fiction, providing the service for me and you to make our own jugdements on what we believe to be true and what we don’t.
Every week I’m going to post links to well publicised Apple rumours and tell you whether or not I believe them to be true or false, giving reasons why.
Rumours in general tend to be perceived to be true to early and eagerly by the people that hear/read them. The problem with this in regards to Apple is that it could potentially lead to a disaster. If people’s expectations, influenced by the ‘rumour mill’, are not met by Apple people could eventually become disappointed and disinterested in the products Apple actually release, more focussed on the vapourware described on the internet by the media, which have a high chance of not being true.
This being said a rumour has to start from somewhere so at the same time I state my previous point, I do not believe that people should not write anything off immediately without thinking about it in the eye’s of a very calculating business such as Apple’s. Which is why I think this feature is worth doing.
Spotify is the iTunes Killer
I got an invite to Spotify when it was still in private beta in November last year. First impressions were that it lacked a big enough music database to make it more appealing than my iTunes Library (which currently stands at 29.77 GB in size).
Moving on 9 months later, and it is thriving with potential. The advertisement model Spotify uses for free users has lost the annoying tendencies it had last year where anything and everything would pop up in the window, focussing on the thing Spotify is trying to promote - music. I still have in my head the annoying voice of the Xbox 360 ads. I think it’s safe to say that prospects for the service are looking very promising indeed.
But the reason why I am writing about this on an Apple blog is because of the potential iPhone application Spotify have developed. You heard, there is a chance Spotify will make it’s way on to an iPhone near you. But equally, it might not. With Apple’s recent shenanigans in regards to App Store approvals, I find it hard to believe that they would approve an application which would negate the need for iTunes on your computer at home.
This is video preview:
“A quick demo of our iPhone app, which err.. should be in the App Store shortly.. we think. Maybe..” - Even the Spotify guys know that they are treading on egg shells with it.
Realistically, I can’t believe that anything will happen with the iPhone Spotify app, except of more contempt from the App Store liberals and reports from Apple news blogs which kind of have to at least confirm the news that I dread. I really want to have this app. The desktop client has finally won me over good and proper, and I know the iPhone app will be able to do the same.
So it was confirmed that AT&T were the ones to blame for the Google Voice rejection on the App Store. I’m not surprised by this fact at all to be brutally honest. AT&T don’t want to lose money do they? If Apple were to accept an app on the iPhone which allowed free SMS and cheaper long-distance calls than the actual carrier of the device it ran on, it’s easy to see why AT&T wouldn’t be happy.
But I think it’s too easy to blame AT&T for the entirety of the whole mess. It’s not AT&T who are the ones physically pulling already approved applications off the store, that have been sitting there happily for almost five months. I find it extremely odd that nearing the time Google is officially releasing a Google Voice client, all of a sudden AT&T have decided that it doesn’t like Google Voice being on the iPhone - officially or not. Sure AT&T may not like the thought of it’s existence, but it hadn’t made any action to stop ‘GV Mobile’ or ‘Voice Central’ as soon as they were trying to be approved to the App Store as they apparently have when Google submitted their own client.
At the end of the day, Apple are ultimately the ones controlling what goes on the iPhone and what does not. When you take a few steps back and look at the overall picture of the smart-phone world, Google are one main competitor with Apple when you include both it’s Google Voice services and the Android platform. If the client Google wanted to release on the iPhone really did take off, there could be some severe consequences left for Apple to deal with.
Google Voice would potentially mess up the iPhone’s business model, not just the carrier’s (AT&T, O2 etc.) whose contracts subsidise the price of the device so people can afford to actually buy it. In the U.K, if you want the iPhone on O2’s Pay & Go service (meaning no monthly contract) the 32GB iPhone 3GS will cost you a whopping £538.30. That is a cringe-worthy price to pay for a phone (which could lead me on to another topic completely on how Apple rips Britain off). With the cheapest Pay Monthly service on O2 (priced at £29.38) the same phone costs £274.23. Yes, it’s still expensive and yes, you are paying a total of £803.07 for the phone and the 18 month contract. From this little investigation you can see that anyone in the U.K who has this phone is well and truly mad, but at least this way O2 has subsidised the price of the iPhone to nearly half of what it apparently ‘should’ cost. If Google Voice meant that O2 and AT&T started to lose money they wouldn’t be able to subsidise the iPhone like they do. Ergo - No one would be able to afford an iPhone.
To me, while it seems very easy and convenient to blame AT&T for the whole charade, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple were in full support of this decision and ‘in the interest of fairness’ took down the unofficial Google Voice clients to make sure nothing could be done to make Google’s service competitive. Maybe it was AT&T who pointed Apple’s attention to it, or maybe it was the other way round. What I believe is that both parties signed the treaty to get Google Voice off of the iPhone.
