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Symbian CEO pitches middle ground between iPhone, Android

Q&A For a man staring down Microsoft, Google, and Apple, Symbian's Nigel Clifford doesn't have the deer-in-the-headlights look as much as you might expect.

Perhaps because, at the moment, those three juggernauts are staring up at Symbian. Clifford, CEO of the company since 2005, has a dominant share of the market for smartphone operating systems and a strong backer in Nokia, the world's largest handset maker.

Still, Symbian is sitting on top of the market at a time when it appears destined for change. Apple's entry into the market has galvanized the American consumer, … Read more

Analyst: Apple on track to sell 45 million iPhones next year

For Apple to sell 45 million iPhones next year, it would have to quadruple its sales from 2008.

Yes, that's more than a bit optimistic. The analyst who originally made that sales prediction for Apple back before the phone was even launched is at it again, though, on Monday explaining how he thinks it could happen.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster insists--despite consensus that his prediction is entirely overeager--that Apple will do so by introducing a 3G version of the iPhone in the second or third quarter of this year, as well as a lower-price version of the … Read more

Working the security drama queens.

Unless you're too busy doing the rickrolling that's so popular with the kids these days, you probably saw that a MacBook Air got hacked at CanSecWest last week.

In a repeat of last year's "PWN 2 Own" contest, organizers this time offered three different laptops running three different operating systems.

David Maynor says:

I hope this puts to rest the myth that OSX is more secure but I am sure the zealots will have a million reasons why this is a fixed or rigged contest.

Well, the Macalope for one has already acceded to his … Read more

Ubuntu Linux: Unhackable. The Mac? Safari proves its Achilles Heel

A recent contest pitted Mac OS X, Windows Vista, and Ubuntu Linux against each other in terms of security. It took all of two days to hack the Mac (via a web browser exploit). Ubuntu Linux? Three days into the contest, it still hadn't been hacked.

It's very possible that the Mac was the first targeted because everyone wanted the prize: A spiffy new MacBook Air. But that's not the point. Using Firefox may well have resolved the problem, rather than sticking with Apple's Safari browser.

No, the point is that no one could hack Linux.… Read more

Apple's brand up, Microsoft's brand down

A group of international marketers cites Apple and Google as two of the top-four brands that they "can't live without." Microsoft? "Microsoft is the top brand they wanted to argue with and also the top name they wanted to rebrand."

In a separate survey of 12,000 US business people, Microsoft's "brand power" dropped from number one in 1996 to number 59 in 2008. That precipitous drop doesn't bode well, obviously:

...[A] decline in and of itself is not indicative that a company is losing its mindshare or reputation among customers. … Read more

Apple, Google vie for hearts (and wallets) of developers

For the last four months, Howard Chau has been developing a mobile application that's designed to alert people to their next calendar appointment, factoring in data like the person's physical location and traffic conditions en route to a meeting.

In the next two weeks, Chau plans to submit the GPS-based application, called Mappily, to Google in the hopes of winning its Android Developer Challenge, a developer contest with $10 million in total prize money. Because Chau only stands to win tens of thousands of dollars in the first round of the challenge, the money would just be gravy.… Read more

Five things I love/hate about the iPhone

I've had my iPhone for a week now and am amazed by how much it has changed the way I use a mobile device. My Blackberry was all work: I used it for email and to read stories on Arsenal. (Yes, that counts as work these days.) The iPhone is much different. There is so much to do with it. I find that I use it far more, but for less drudgery and more fun.

A bit like how I use my Mac.

I thought I'd compile a list of the five best things about the iPhone, and the five worst. It's not a perfect device by any means. It's interesting to see that some of the iPhone's greatest strengths pave the way for its greatest weaknesses.

But first, the good:

The typing on the iPhone is lightning fast. I never would have guessed this, but it's true. I was pretty fast on my Blackberry 8700 and then 8800, but I'm at least 25 percent faster on the iPhone. I worried about the lack of tactile feedback, but the iPhone gives visual feedback (the key you're about to hit enlarges to meet your finger) which is arguably superior. In addition, it's very, very smart about correcting misspellings. Often I'll keep typing, even when I know I made a mistake, because I know the iPhone's software will correct my mistake for me. It usually does.… Read more

Apple rumors run wild, slow news day confirmed

When it comes to writing about Apple, deciding what you should and should not cover can be tricky.

You can take the machine gun approach: Anything said, written, rumored, or signaled via smoke should be dutifully blogged with a hint of snark and just enough insight to make readers think, "Heeeeeeey, that fella must know the inside dope." This, unfortunately, is what most of the tech press (mea culpa: sometimes including CNET) following Apple does these days. If you don't give readers their Apple fix, the other guys will.

Then there's the high-end approach: you have … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 691: The Babies Have Wi-Fi

In the future, we will love the cockroaches, because they bring the Wi-Fi. Sadly, autonomous deathbots will make life unliveable, and that's assuming the Large Hadron Collider hasn't turned us all into strangelets. In happier news, the music industry is floating a plan to tax everyone who uses the Internet so they can prop up the decaying corpse of their business plan! What a fun day. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 691

The music industry's new extortion scheme http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/27/the-music-industrys-new-extortion-scheme/ http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9905404-7.html

U.S. students, … Read more