(Credit:
Phandroid)
Oh, you knew someone was going to do this. So let's just get it over with. And though some might think of this as a battle between the Droid and the iPhone for the nation's morality, let's be open-source about it: someone's trying to make a lot of money from cell phone porn.
A company with the obtusely childlike name MiKandi has launched a mobile app store that will exclusively cater to adults whose brain food consists of content that reflects their age. Yes, the sort of stuff some prefer to refer to as porn.
MiKandi's publicity material naturally avoids this term, referring to the more PC phrase "adult only." However, there is a little kink in its offering. According to Android fanperson site, Phandroid, the MiKandi Market apps only work with Android phones and not with Apple's more morally minded handsets.
Cupertino steadfastly sticks to its policy of refusing to allow apps filled purely with adult content, though some might dispute whether its definition of "adult" isn't occasionally a little idiosyncratic.
Not for a moment would one suggest that Verizon or Motorola or the deities at Google are necessarily in favor of porn apps. However, MiKandi is attempting to take advantage of the fact that the Android system is more open than the iPhone's.
So while the Android Market itself doesn't offer porn, nothing on your Droid phone prevents you from using MiKandi's services. The wise people at Phandroid do, however, offer stern warnings about MiKandi's workings.
Despite attempting to use MiKandi's services, purely for scientific purposes, Phandroid failed to actually secure access to any mature content. Remember, children, this sort of thing will always be a somewhat risky business.
In its attempt to redress the imbalance created by the latest Verizon ads, AT&T has hurriedly cobbled together not just one Luke Wilson ad, but several.
Curiously, one ad features precisely the same strategy as that of the latest iPhone advertising: reminding those who might still be on the fence, on the phone, or even on the lam that you can't simultaneously enjoy voice and Web surfing on the Verizon 3G network--and hence on the Motorola Droid.
So here we have Luke Wilson, still looking a little peaky and dressed in a difficult brown. Behind Luke, we have a man trying to use two phones (by implication, Verizon phones) to perform a task the iPhone will manage alone.
Some might find it entertaining that as his friend attempts to download something on one of his Verizon phones, he complains that it's all going rather slowly. Others might find this both true and funny.
AT&T hasn't merely paid Wilson a little more than 3G to make this comparison. Someone, somewhere, has, perhaps even wisely, said, "We need a map to counter Verizon's map."
So the writers hit upon the idea of a two-part extravaganza (this already aired during Tuesday's "Dancing with the Stars" finale), in which Wilson produces postcards from all the different American towns that really do--no, really--have AT&T 3G coverage.
Wilson says his job is to set the record straight, with respect to Verizon's vicious besmirching of the AT&T network. He tries his best. He tells us that AT&T covers 97 percent of all Americans--yes, 300 million people.
The AT&T map also seems far more filled-in and far more colorful than it appears in Verizon spots, though one suspects that local word of mouth might be rather stronger, in this instance, than national advertising. If you live in Spokane, Wash., for example, and you know someone there who has spotty 3G service on a particular network, that is far more powerful an influencer than any number of Wilson's postcards or Verizon's barbs.
It's enlightening, however, to discover that Wilson once dated someone in Tulsa, Okla., and it didn't work out. Did she catch him simultaneously calling and Web surfing? Perhaps we will never know.
It seems that Apple doesn't respect Verizon's Droid phone quite as much as it does Microsoft's PCs. But two new ad spots, launching Monday evening, come as close as Apple has done thus far to directly attack the allegedly do-it-all robotphone.
The Droid, you see, went after Apple in its teaser campaign with some telling remarks and the hearty claim that Droid does what the iPhone doesn't. Then Verizon decided it would be fun to knock both the iPhone and AT&T's spotty 3G coverage with its "Misfit Toys" concept.
AT&T has already replied by hustling a hastily-dressed Luke Wilson into directing a few resentful pins at Verizon's effigy. However these new ads, while entirely in keeping with the iPhone tone and style, end with a line that expressly assaults the doings of Droid--or rather, its alleged non-doings.
Both ads focus on the iPhone's ability to allow you to use voice and data capabilities simultaneously over the AT&T network. By asking gently at the end of each spot "Can your phone and your network do that?" Apple is bursting what it sees as the inflated stealth bombing that accompanied the launch of the Droid.
Apple iPhone Ad - Did You See My Email? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.
Apple iPhone Ad - What Time's The Movie? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.
These ads don't mention the Droid or Verizon by name. But the fact that Apple has decided to address its rivals, however obliquely, suggests that one can look forward to more accusations, more bickering, and more attempted one-upmanship.
'Tis the season of goodwill, after all.
I have nothing against smoking, save for the difficult odor that emanates from every part, breath, and piece of clothing belonging to a smoker. I could no more live with a smoker than I could live with a third ear perched off the end of my nose.
However, I am embalmed in a curious sympathy after reading a report from The Consumerist concerning two Mac users whose AppleCare warranties appear to have been voided due to the presence of cigarette smoke in their homes.
One, named Derek, recounts the tale of his overheating black MacBook. He took it into the Apple store in Jordan Creek, West Des Moines.
He told The Consumerist: "Today, April, 28, 2008, the Apple store called and informed me that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, that has voided the warranty and they refuse to work on the machine, due to 'health risks of secondhand smoke.'"
He continued: "Nowhere in your AppleCare terms of service can I find anything mentioning being used in a smoking environment as voiding the warranty."
Derek's resulting appeal to the office of Steve Jobs bore him no joy, so he resorted to blowing some compressed air at the machine, leading it to restart its wondrous functions.
Then along came Ruth, who took her son's iMac to an authorized repair center. After five days, they apparently told her they couldn't work on it because it was contaminated with cigarette smoke and was therefore a bio-hazard.
... Read moreWhen you've lost the first round in your case against Verizon's persistent and persuasive mockery, who do you turn to?
Luke Wilson, that's who. After all, he starred in "Legally Blonde" and, well, "Jackass Number Two."
Actually, Wilson is lovable. Truly lovable. Perhaps if he'd dressed down a little and Justin Long had suffered an interminable hiatus hernia, Wilson might have got the part of Mac, the Microsoft Mocker.
Instead, he has the slightly more difficult task of persuading the folks who adored him in "Old School" that AT&T's 3G will serve them well on the 3.10 to Yuma.
The creators didn't give him much of a script, as I suspect they wrote it a couple of lattes and a shot of bourbon before this opus was filmed in what looks like the empty space above Victoria's Secret in Santa Monica, Calif.
Luke is forced to stand before a board and prove that AT&T has the fastest 3G network, lets you talk and surf at the same time, and offers you more apps that feature people making strange noises, half-clothed women, and animals that smile when you touch the screen. (Disclosure: slight exaggeration)
Sadly, it all looks a little analog. Luke looks as if he'd prefer to be surfing, as he really doesn't have the tools to make you believe what he's being paid to say.
His hair looks as if it's been hurriedly greased with Czech lard and his face offers a certain hemorrhoidal mien as it offers a little jape at the end of the spot. Yes, a jape about Verizon beginning with "V" and AT&T not beginning with "V." That rumbling you can hear is the collective guffaw from Verizon Central.
Verizon is hurting AT&T with its clinical, delighted unpleasantness. And I fear that before "Legally Blonde 2: AT&T's Revenge" can possibly be effective, the iPhone carrier needs to dramatize its argument rather better than the gospel according to Luke.
I often wake up with a tune playing in my head. I don't know why it's that particular tune, and sometimes I waterboard myself for hours trying to find the reason for this apparently random madness.
This morning, for example, it was that Spanish Lullaby song that Madonna numbed us with some time around the last century. (I never said it was only good songs that blared in my internal jukebox.)
So why might one's mind have been invaded by "La Isla Bonita?" Was it because this time last year I was in Spain, sipping sangria with some dubious Europeans? Was it because last night I saw a trailer of a new film directed by Madonna's last husband? Was it because I hadn't had enough sleep?
All this thinking is painful and useless, but it has brought me to an idea for Apple: it's time the company took the apparent randomness of the iPod Shuffle and made it mean something.
Might I propose that Apple creates an iPod that, whenever worn on your person, can immediately discern your mood? Please imagine that this new iPod, let's call it the iPod Shrink, is a tiny little thing that has within it even tinier sensors that monitor your heart rate, your blood pressure, your digestive calm, even your sweat level.
On the basis of this entirely factual information, the iPod Shrink would then select the precise piece of music that would match your mood. It's important to consider just what is meant by "match your mood."
Perhaps you, the moody consumer, might have the ability to ask the iPod Shrink to enhance your mood or to counteract it.
If you ask for counteraction and the machine sees that you're miserable, the iPod Shrink would bypass "My Immortal" by Evanescence, "Creep" by Radiohead or anything by James Blunt and go straight to "I Feel Good" by James Brown or the utterly classic Manilow rendition of "Copacabana." For enhancement, it would do the reverse.
If it detected anger, it could soothe you with some Bebel Gilberto or stoke your fires with some Sex Pistols. If it detected concern, it might offer the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris." Or, alternatively, something from Disturbed's fine little album "The Sickness."
Perhaps the greatest surprise for you, the iPod Shrink owner, would be to discover what mood you are actually in. After all, your little device would be more familiar with the true scientific nature of your innards than would you. So your own self-knowledge would surely be enhanced by such a wickedly wily machine.
This could be a very big seller. It would certainly make me look more kindly on the self-absorbed, frustrated, preening, angst-ridden waddlers in the gym.
I want to be a force for good. Doesn't everyone?
Which is why I was delighted to be moved by the words of Microsoft's Bill Gates during a CNBC TV special in which he and Warren Buffett discussed the meaning of life. Or something similar.
Asked by an audience member what he thought of Steve Jobs and Apple, Gates began with an insouciant smile.
Then he tossed garlands of roses and pearls of praise at the Apple co-founder.
He said: "He's done a fantastic job."
Which was charming in itself. But he continued to describe how Jobs saved Apple: "He brought in a team, he brought in inspiration about great products and design that's made Apple back into being an incredible force in doing good things."
So, from now on, everyone who happens to be a fanperson of either brand should seek out one of his or her supposed mortal enemies, hold hands with them and see if, together, they cannot try to be a force for good things too.
The thing about the finest of soap operas is that they must create conflict in order to inspire truly dramatic love.
This is why I was rendered temporarily cynical by a Verizon print ad in a recent edition of Sports Illustrated. The ad was for the Droid. The words were directed at the sensitive regions of the iPhone. But the sentiment seemed to refer to a slightly larger picture.
In case you have not seen this particular work of art, it is headlined "This is a world of 'Nope', Nuh-Uh' and 'Sorry, Charlie.'" The first line gives a clue that perhaps this is not just another anti-iPhone ad. "A world of smiling denial," it begins.
But the next line offers a shudder with every consonant: "Petty tyrannies have made their way into our cell phones."
Smiling denials. Petty tyrannies. Are they talking about a competing cell phone or perhaps a certain individual at the competing company?
(Credit:
Chris Matyszczyk)
This is not the rather charming exile of the iPhone to the Island of Misfit Toys. This isn't even the rather teenage assertion of the iPhone's alleged "semi-functional, giggling-brat-vanity".
This print ad strains to mask its truly adult feelings and fails in quite a spectacularly positive way with the phrase: "these arrogant little devices."
Alrighty, now. The use of the word "arrogant" makes this a deeply personal work that might have been inspired, well, by whom? By someone who might have been personally involved in Verizon's negotiations to secure Apple's iPhone, perhaps?
The hearty phraseology of the Droid campaign is admirable, in the way that the Ultimate Fighting Championship can, I am told, sometimes be admirable.
However, one wonders whether Verizon's confidence in its wireless coverage is making the company feel far more assured in its ability to soon offer the iPhone as well as BlackBerry and Droid products.
Is Verizon suggesting that Apple needs Verizon's coverage just as much as Verizon needs the iPhone's cachet? Is it suggesting that the alleged smiling denials, arrogance, and petty tyrannies cannot prevent a slightly altered world order?
The upliftingly personal nature of this ad might just portend a new, big love between Apple and Verizon in just a couple of episodes. A 4G Verizon iPhone? There won't be a dry eye in the house.
Corporations can be heinous places. All day, people wander around, playing politics like so many Lindsay Lohans in "Mean Girls."
So today, one wonders just what machinations are being endured by Simon Aldous, the Microsoft Partner Group manager who was Wednesday quoted by PCR as suggesting that Windows 7 was rather inspired by the simplicity of the Mac OS. Indeed, Aldous declared that Microsoft's new operating system was designed to "create a Mac look."
In what appears to be a somewhat hurriedly written post on the Windows Team blog titled, "How we really designed the look and feel of Windows 7," Microsoft showed that perhaps some of its underwear is currently a little twisted.
The post read: "An inaccurate quote has been floating around the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was 'borrowed' from Mac OS X."
This would suggest that Aldous was, in fact, misquoted.
However, the post, written by Brandon LeBlanc, continued, "Unfortunately, this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed."
"I'm Steve Jobs, and Windows 7 was my idea?"
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)Some would therefore now conclude that he was quoted accurately, but he didn't quite get his facts right. This is entirely possible, though one might wonder why he would have made comments with a ring of such endearing honesty.
However, perhaps the most interesting aspect of this Windows Team post is a comment left by someone with the handle "i-dont-do-tat".
This commenter wrote: "I know Simon Aldous, having worked in the same U.K. subsidiary as him for a few years. He's a good guy who, for me, is telling it like it is. He's paying testament to the common view that a Mac is cool and a great template to copy."
As many in the world of business will tell you, copying happens all the time. The competition is scrutinized religiously, and the best articles of faith are taken and sometimes even improved. This happens in every product category.
The "i-dont-do-tat" poster concluded that perhaps honesty might not be such a bad thing: "Denying this to your customers just makes you look stupid because the very look and feel of Windows 7 is desperately trying to look like a Mac OS--just admit it."
Oh, of course one mightn't expect honesty in the mass-market arena. It is a very dangerous place in which to say anything at all. Equally, though, in a tech world interview, perhaps a little nod toward the opposition is not such a bad thing. It might even lull it into a little complacent smugness.
One can only hope that Simon Aldous had a good breakfast Thursday and that he hasn't endured any untoward communications. Unless it's a job offer from Apple, of course, which he should accept only if the company gives him a better deal and appears to come from nicer people.
That's how the corporate world works, you see. Like high school, it's all temporary, so you have to make the most of it while you can.
Sometimes you take a wrong turning in life and, Wednesday, a slight concussion led my eyes to fall upon the pages of PCR.
It is a little more intelligent than my normal reading matter, but I am very grateful for its interview with Simon Aldous, Microsoft's partner group manager.
He was quoted, for example, as saying: "One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it's very graphical and easy to use."
You're waiting for the punchline, right? You know, the one about how he was kidding.
Wait away because he continued: "What we've tried to do with Windows 7--whether it's traditional format or in a touch format--is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics."
I know that such words might cause some entrenched foot soldiers in both of the fanchildren camps to hoot, hiss, sigh and reach for the nearest farming implement.
However, isn't it rather charming to hear someone admit that a competitor's product isn't overly expensive or overly pretentious, but that it has something about it that is good and that real people who buy real products actually appreciate?
