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While watching Apple's announcement today about the future of the iPhone and its SDK, I was shocked. As a person who frequently bemoans the issues and crappiness of tech, I was pleasantly surprised by how thorough and downright impressive Apple's presentation was.

From the very beginning where it spoke about the future of its enterprise integration to the end where Jobs allowed a venture capitalist to come on stage and offer a whopping $100 million to developers, the spectacle wasn't comprised of the illusions of grandeur that had marked the company's previous presentations, but showed a side of Apple that for once, conceded that it had made mistakes and was ready and willing to fix them.

And by admitting its failures and fixing them in a way that no one expected, Apple redeemed itself and has positioned its phone to become the best cell phone ever made. Of course, we can't crown it that until June.… Read more

Mac users are often left standing with the short straw when it comes to the kinds of smartphones they can sync with OS X. If you believe the hype, it almost seems as if Apple's own iPhone is the only way to go. Well, it's not. Plenty of other phones can be synced properly with iCal, Entourage, and even Apple's own Address Book, with the help of third-party software. In this tip segment, I'll focus on the BlackBerry.

RIM does offer a syncing software solution for the Mac on its Web site, called PocketMac for BlackBerry. … Read more

Want an iPhone, but have a BlackBerry? You ought to look at bPhone for BlackBerry, a theme whipped up by 25-year-old computer programmer Matthew Rogers one afternoon last September.

You'll most appreciate the iPhone-like essence of one of Rogers' three theme layouts in the start screen, though the theme does also extend into the style of the context menu. "Icon" is the most typical theme, and the one that Rogers most prefers. "Zen" drops icons into a side bar, and "Today" makes a day planner of the home screen. You can install any … Read more

SpinVox, a United Kingdom-based voice-to-text specialist that in October introduced support for "microblogging" networks such as Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce, has launched a plug-in for BlackBerry handsets.

Called SpinVox Voicemail, the service identifies the caller and converts the voice message into text or e-mail or both. (The message remains audible.)

SpinVox users then have the option to reply by e-mail, voice, or SMS text message. The monthly cost of the service is based on the number of voice-to-text conversions used: there's a 10-conversion package available for about $6, a 20-conversion package for about $10, and a 50-conversion … Read more

Mobile users who haven't made the jump to watching videos on their cell phones and smartphones may see a juicy, dangling carrot on the horizon. A paper submitted by John Barrett of Parks Associates and David Wertheimer of USC's Entertainment Technology Center (PDF), summarizes that mobile phone users will watch more videos on their phones if they can get them for free. Well, duh. Who doesn't want free?

The study found that only a fraction of users with video-capable phones take advantage of them to watch movies and TV. Many of the reasons boil down to price, … Read more

If the spare contents of your wallet dictate your dining destination, you'll want to know of this reprieve. Cellfire (hands-on review), offers coupon deals with more than 10,000 local U.S. restaurants and services, and chains. With custom-built applications for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, the RAZR, and Nokia phones, Cellfire has rounded the smartphone bases. A WAP site--www.cellfire.com--that works with iPhone and other Internet-enabled devices brings the app home.

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Article updated 2/28/08 with new information about Facebook's mobile settings.

The old adage, " 'tis better to give than to receive" should never apply to mobile software, much less to cell phone versions of social networks.

I initially thought BlackBerry's maker, RIM, was the culprit of a unilateral experience using Facebook for BlackBerry that let me push data to friends' Facebook accounts without receiving notice of any messages in return. It's since been pointed out to me that the product isn't so stingy to most, who can and do receive notice of … Read more

What do you do if you're billed as a business professional's Facebook, and a substantial portion of your more than 19 million members are jet-setting business types with fancy mobile phones and jobs that lend themselves to schmoozing? You build a mobile Web site so they can invite contacts as they meet them or identify in real life those they already have.

That was the impetus behind LinkedIn's mobile beta. (That and the fact that all the other social networks have mobile Web sites, too.) It's a good move for the social network, whose CEO, Dan … Read more

Breaking things--that's what the very bright and super curious do; they look beyond the obvious to see what's truly lurking beneath the surface. On Wednesday and Thursday, attendees at Black Hat D.C. 2008 got a window into the latest research being done on Web applications, wireless, and embedded technologies.

On Wednesday, researchers David Hulton and "Steve" showed how with about $1,000 with of equipment they can decrypt A5/1 cellular GSM traffic in less than a hour. Following that, Adam Laurie reprised his popular RFIDiots talk from last year's Black Hat briefings with … Read more