“It seems a shame to run down the battery of an iPhone by making phone calls. There are so many more interesting things to do with it since July, when Apple Inc. opened up the popular smartphone to outside software developers,” Hiawatha Bray reports for The Boston Globe.
MacDailyNews Note: Road warriors, you can do whatever you like with an inexpensive external iPhone battery. More info:
• Solar-powered leather case for Apple iPhone keeps your battery charged – October 02, 2008
• Macally extends Apple iPhone and iPod battery life – September 30, 2008
• mophie ‘Juice Pack for iPhone 3G’ can more than double iPhone 3G’s usage time – August 05, 2008
• Kensington’s Mini Battery Pack and Charger for iPhone and iPod now available – July 15, 2008
• PC World Test: Apple iPhone 3G battery life beats out Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, Palm 3G handsets – July 14, 2008
Bray continues, “The result is a torrent of helpful little programs, or ‘apps,’ that turn the iPhone into a powerful handheld computer. At Apple’s iTunes online App Store, there are thousands to choose from, with more turning up every day. Which are the best? Depends what you’re looking for. I favor the powerful, the practical, and the cool – programs that do useful stuff and look stylish as they do it.”
MacDailyNews Take: As opposed to those who favor the feeble, impractical, and uncool apps that have no purpose and look dumpy while doing nothing? Sheesh.
Bray continues, covering some apps he favors, and then Mr. Negative returns to deliver one last misplaced jab by describing many things that you can do with iPhone “at least until the battery runs out.” Bray writes, “But you can save lots of juice by making fewer phone calls. You’ve got better things to do, anyway.”
Full article here.
Hiawatha Bray almost never fails to damn Apple with faint praise and/or backhanded compliments. After years of reading his stuff, Bray strikes us as real Dan Lyons / Michael S. Malone type; in other words, a fat-fingered proctologist’s dream.
SteveJack, MacDailyNews, January 09, 2007, the day Apple unveiled the original iPhone:
The main thing about the ‘iPhone’ is that it’s really a pocket Mac. It has email, SMS, full-featured Web browsing, and much more. But, beyond that, it is a platform that’s just sitting there waiting for Apple to sell software for it. Just imagine games with the large multi-touch display and the built-in accelerometer! Imagine all of the other software possibilities, too. Given Apple’s history with the iPod (closed to third-party developers), today I’d have to guess that they’ll keep the iPhone under tight control, too. Maybe that will change in the future… Maybe Apple named it iPhone because of all of the free publicity and buzz that name has already garnered. Maybe they want this trojan horse to slip into the market first under the guise of being the best smartphone available and they’ll exploit its capabilities as a full-fledged platform later. Perhaps it’s easier to explain and sell as a phone first. So, yeah, it can be a phone, even the very best smartphone, but it’s so much more and holds so much promise that the name “iPhone” hardly does it justice.
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