One Mobile Station: iPhone 5 was Steve Jobs’ last big Apple project

iPhone 5 was Steve Jobs’ last big Apple project

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 08:52 AM PDT

The fabled iPhone 5 — or whatever Apple ends up calling its follow-up to the iPhone 4S — may be Steve Jobs’ last hurrah, according to Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar.
As CNet reports, Kumar wrote in a research note last week that the next iPhone “was the last project that Steve Jobs was intimately involved with from concept to final design. For that reason…this product will establish the high water mark for iPhone volumes.”
He goes on to say that the iPhone 5 will have a thinner design and larger screen — a mantra we’ve heard repeated ad nauseam over the last year. Some very dedicated Apple fans ended up creating a realistic-looking mockup of the iPhone 5, based on a multitude of specs leaked online.
If true, it means that all of the iPhone 5 rumors we’ve been bombarded with weren’t exactly false, they were just a year early. Kumar also notes that the iPhone 5 is expected to include LTE 4G technology — something that wasn’t possible this year since LTE chipsets are still power hogs, and LTE networks (aside from Verizon) are still getting off the ground.
This may sound like the beginning of yet another run of iPhone 5 rumors, but there’s plenty of reason to believe that the iPhone 5 could be something new entirely. The redesigned iPhone 4 followed the iPhone 3GS, and I think Apple will have a hard time marketing a flagship smartphone next year without increasing its screen size.
CNet’s Brooke Crothers corroborates the report, citing sources who say that the iPhone 5 is indeed a “complete redesign.” The sources say that Jobs spent much of his time over the last year developing the device, and because of that he wasn’t very involved in the iPhone 4S’s release.
I have a hard time imagining that Jobs wasn’t involved in the integration of Siri in the iPhone 4S though, since it embodies his philosophy of easy-to-use technology that ends up feeling magical.
Image via MacRumors

Filed under: mobile, VentureBeat

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Week in Review: Nearly everyone goes crazy over the iPhone 4S and iOS 5

Posted: 15 Oct 2011 01:55 PM PDT

iOS 5 running on iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone

The past week included the mobile apps and devices tradeshow CTIA in San Diego (intrepidly covered by Sean Ludwig), a major slew of announcements from social games company Zynga, and an impressive quarterly earnings report from Google.
Not surprisingly, though, the most popular story on our site had to do with iOS5 — and of course the iPhone 4S, which hit the streets yesterday, was also a big topic. Check out Dean Takahashi’s coverage of the launch crowds, including the Woz himself.
Here are our most popular stories from the last week.

Most popular

iOS 5 available now, makes the iPhone feel completely new
Although you won’t get the 8-megapixel camera or the Siri virtual personal assistant built into the iPhone 4S, people with other iOS devices can get a substantial upgrade with the new OS, Devindra Hardawar points out.
Samsung’s Nexus Prime specs will satisfy the iPhone 5 hopeful
Disappointed about the lack of the iPhone 5? Check out the Nexus Prime, aka Galaxy Nexus, which sports a massive 4.65-inch curved glass screen, a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, and more. Devindra Hardawar sums it up.
Samsung, Google delay Nexus Prime, Ice Cream Sandwich
Don’t get too excited about the Nexus Prime, though. Reporting from San Diego at CTIA, Sean Ludwig delivers the news that it won’t be unveiled for awhile yet.
Modern Warfare 3 trailer prepares gamers for mass destruction
Activision Blizzard released a trailer for this amazing-looking game, which is sure to be one of the season’s major blockbuster. Dean Takahashi published stills and the video trailer itself. HP TouchPad with Android logo

HP launches investigation into mysterious Android touchpads
An unauthorized shipment of TouchPads running the Android operating system has HP scrambling for leads, and open source advocates up in arms, reports Jolie O’Dell.

Editor’s picks

Mark Pincus, a potential multibillionaire, finally takes center stage at Zynga (video)
Zynga founder Mark Pincus took the stage this past week, after being behind the scenes for a long time. Dean Takahashi reports, and brings video of the man who’s likely to become the planet’s next super-rich entrepreneur.
Tango's explosive growth for video calls fueled by rapid 2-week dev cycle (exclusive)
Cross-platform video calling startup Tango has seen remarkably rapid growth. Sean Ludwig talked to the company and got the exclusive story on how it manages to keep updating its product so quickly.
Big-name designers dissect Facebook's timeline
After talking with the people at Facebook responsible for the service’s new “Timeline” formatted profiles, Jolie O’Dell talked to some designers for their impressions about how well it works.
When Groupons are bad for small businesses
Guest contributor Rocky Agrawal brings to light one of the dark sides of Groupon’s business: Demand can sometimes overwhelm the companies that offer Groupon-based deals.
Why grown women, not just girls, need more tech role models
Jolie O’Dell shot this video with Meebo CTO and co-founder Sandy Jen, who talks about the importance of having good role models for helping women find jobs in tech.

Filed under: VentureBeat

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Cracked! Siri has been successfully ported to an iPhone 4

Posted: 15 Oct 2011 10:52 AM PDT

What many consider to be Apple‘s most exciting feature in the iPhone 4S, vocal assistant feature Siri, can in fact, be ported to the iPhone 4.
According to 9to5 Mac, developer Steven Troughton-Smith was able to port the software on his iPhone 4 after first installing the files for Siri and Springboard, which controls how the iOS home screen acts. For example, it is Springboard that allows your icons to wiggle after you’ve held one down for a certain amount of time. Once he had the files in place, he successfully began porting.
Apple has been known to hold features for its newest products. The first assumption is obviously Apple wants to make its next product appealing. It’s marketing. But at the same time, Apple doesn’t like applications to work on its products if not perfectly. In the first video below, the iPhone 4 seems to balk a little under the extra Siri weight.
But even if the hardware can just barely support a feature, Apple’s famously minimalistic view strips the feature out to prevent it from gumming up the works. As 9to5Mac points out, Apple withheld custom wall paper from iPhone 3 users when the iPhone 4 arrived, even though the mechanics could technically support custom wallpapers, if not smoothly.
The issue here was a problem connecting Siri to the iPhone 4 GPU, or graphics processing unit. But after a few hours, Troughton-Smith was able to access it and run Siri with less hiccups. The two videos below show the difference between accessing the GPU and not — it’s very choppy at first, as opposed to a nice, smooth glide through the features we see post GPU access.
Though this downside was fixed, another issue is Apple’s servers will not listen to Siri commands coming from the iPhone 4.
Siri does have all the same capabilities on the iPhone 4, however. The feature has a standard speech view as well as a text field view, which are both available after the port. See the videos of Siri running on an iPhone 4 below.