After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Google has finally released something new associated with GrandCentral. No, you still can’t get in on the action if you don’t already have an account and no, this is hardly huge news. It is however, hopefully a sign of things to come as Google further enhances the GrandCentral offering and maybe, just maybe, opens it up for public consumption once again. So, on to the news. Vocito, a word meaning “call” in Latin, is a small application for Mac that was released yesterday via the Google Code pages. Pronounced Voe-Kee-Toe, the app is essentially a dialer allowing users to initiate GrandCentral calls from their computers. The user enters a from number and chooses (or inputs) a destination, then Vocito initiates the call in both directions via GrandCentral. It integrates with Address Book, QuickSilver and Automator as well, which is nice. Is it useful? Maybe. Is it neat? Possibly. At the very least, it’s something new for GrandCentral and a sign that Google has not completely forgotten about the service. Vocito is free to use and can be downloaded via the read link.

[Via Google Mac Blog]

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When Apple previewed OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” at WWDC this past summer, it said the latest update to OS X would arrive in about a year. A rather long development cycle of 18 months for a relatively minor upgrade (from the user’s perspective at least) that improves multi-core processor support, enhances GPU performance, enables larger amounts of RAM and features the new QuickTime X. A recent presentation by Apple’s Director of Engineering of Unix Technologies, Jordan Hubbard, revealed that the actual ship date for Snow Leopard may be much sooner than the original target date. A single slide during Hubbard’s presentation at LISA ‘08, a technical conference for engineers and system administrators, chronicles Mac OS X development from its public beta in 2000 to its current iteration. The last line on the slide includes a projected release date of Q1 2009 for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Surprise, surprise - that is a good six or seven months earlier than expected and makes for a slightly speedier 14-month development cycle. This seemingly contradictory release date leaves us wondering whether this is an oversight, an optimistic projection that may be end up being a moving target or is Hubbard hinting at good things to come for the upcoming Macworld 2009 slated for January 5-9 in San Francisco? We are hoping for the latter but only time will tell.

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New MacBook and MacBook Pro users rejoice - Apple has issued the promised software update that supposedly resolves any trackpad issues you may have been experiencing. Text from the update:

This firmware update addresses an issue where trackpad clicks may not be recognized on MacBook (Late 2008) and MacBook Pro (Late 2008) systems.
When installation is complete, the updater application will launch automatically. Follow the instructions in the updater application to complete the update process. (If Software Update requires a restart, the updater application will launch after you log in.)

Those affected will surely know what we’re talking about here. In a nutshell, new MacBook and MacBook Pro models would have issues where the trackpad click would fail to function after a certain number of clicks. No worries though, all should now be resolved. The update will push through automatically but if you’re still waiting, hit it manually to start enjoying your sexy new trackpad error-free.

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Early adopters, prepare to be annoyed. Those of you who have been putting off picking up the sexy new aluminum MacBook, prepare to be pleasantly surprised - as long as you live near a participating Fry’s. While plenty of speculation is being tossed around with regards to Apple being aggressive with its pricing this coming Black Friday, Fry’s is apparently sick of the hubbub. Rather than wait to find out what Apple has in store for the upcoming shopping holiday, if anything, future MacBook owners can make their way down to Fry’s where the base aluminum MacBook will be on sale for $1099. $200 off the normal retail price isn’t too shabby at all. Unfortunately not all the discounted MacBooks will be new models as the ad stipulates demos and open boxes will be thrown into the mix. As long as you don’t mind knowing your new lappy has likely been manhandled by hoards of Fry’s customers before you, you’re good. It looks like the sale will only be on tomorrow, and only at brick and mortar stores. Who’s in?

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The gauntlet has been thrown down and Microsoft is making it pretty clear that they’re not going to be bullied around by Apple’s advertising tactics. In England at least. Apparently, these booths aren’t just advertisements, but they’re also interactive booths. From AppleInsider:

“It’s a friggin booth where you can record your own I’m a PC video,” he said. “This is outside the Apple Store, Bullring, Birmingham, England.” He added that a trio of Microsoft staffers will be on hand to turn patrons off from the Mac for the next three days.

Microsoft staffers will be there goal-tending! Wow, this is a pretty gutsy move. One would think this is just asking for it - how can things not get intense or even hostile? Of course, it’s perfectly legal for Microsoft to put these booths right in front of Apple stores, but talk about taking it to their house and just invading their turf - ballsy! Steve Ballmer and all his buddies aren’t holding back and are pulling all the stops. What do you guys think? Good idea, bad idea? Let us know!

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One of the biggest virtues of Netflix membership for the past year or so has been the Watch Instantly video on demand service. Providing access to thousands of titles, Watch Instantly has quickly become one of the main selling points of the company’s subscription services. Up until now, however, the videos have only been available for consumption from the comfort of a Windows-based environment. Starting today in limited trial, Netflix is offering its Watch instantly service to Mac users. The videos are being delivered courtesy of Microsoft’s Silverlight framework, and will bring Netflix’s catalog of over 12,000 titles to any Intel-based machine. Sound good? Yeah, we’re pretty excited too. Unfortunately the company is rolling it out in staggered rounds so it might be a while before this update hits your account dashboard. If you do happen to have it enabled, give it a spin and let us know what you think.

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First is was hilarious. The Mac, Justin Long, all cool and hip with his witty retorts and his, umm, jeans. The PC, John Hodgman, all dorky with his thick glasses and his ties. Oh lordy that PC, how silly he was with all of his dumb ideas and his inferior OS. After a while, Microsoft decided to respond to the commercials with a run of its own. “I’m a PC”, responding to “I’m a Mac”, highlighted the tremendous reach of the Windows OS and the millions of people in all walks of life who use Windows. Ok, super. Can we move on now? Oh no - now a fresh crop of two new Mac ads have started running, attacking Microsoft for not saying the word Vista in its commercials in the “The V Word”, and claiming that Microsoft is spending all its money on advertising as opposed to fixing Vista in “Bean Counter”. Umm, prior to Microsoft’s current ad run did any computer company advertise on TV even 10% as much as Apple? Regardless, it’s getting dirty out there folks - we haven’t seen a smear campaign like this since, well, Obama and McCain. The bottom line is that the whole thing is getting old. Sure, fanboys will still snicker at Justin Long and all of his snappy zingers but you don’t need to sell fanboys now do you Apple? You need to sell the rest of the market and stagnant ads with a dude who was funnier when he was getting pelted in the marbles with dodgeballs might not cut it anymore. So Apple, it will behoove you to know that we’re kind of over it. It was witty, it was effective and it’s time to move on. It might be best to get rolling with a new campaign before Justin Long becomes the next Aflac duck or Geico gecko - you know, so hated that people actually vow never to give those companies a single dollar as a result. Hit the jump for the other zany new “I’m a Mac” ad.

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After a nice little intro consisting of some Mac vs. PC ads and deep thoughts along the lines of Apple makes superior products and Vista was a big let down, Apple revealed its new manufacturing process and let loose the newest additions to its MacBook lines. Apple first discussed the process of building the current MacBook Pros, highlighting how difficult it is to design something that is thin and duarable when it is made out of so many parts. Yep, you know exactly where we’re going here. The MacBook Air was the beginning of Apple’s realization that rather than adding components to make the laptop case, it should start with a single piece of aluminum and remove pieces. The result is a lighter, sturdier smoother build. Apple starts with a 2.5-pound piece of aluminum (Brick) and ends up with a piece that weighs 0.25-pounds.

On to the good stuff! Apple’s new laptops will make use of the NVIDIA GeForce 9400 M GPU as we suspected. The new NVIDIA units are up to six times faster than Apple’s current GPU. The MacBook Pro will also have a second NVIDIA 9600M GT GPU that can be fired up when you need that extra graphics umph and don’t mind shedding an hour from the 5-hour battery life. Apple also unveiled its new glass trackpad with 30% more surface area and software-only buttons. They also support a variety of new gestures with up to four fingers! Remembering all those gestures should be fun. The new Pro will also be the first Pro model to have an optional SSD drive accessible under the battery. And so we have the new MacBook Pro: Unibody construction, bigger glass trackpad with software-only buttons, a backlit keyboard, a magnetic latch and a sudden motion sensor are among the highlights.

The new model will be offered in two configurations: $1999 gets you the 15.4 inch display, 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of DDR3 RAM and both graphics processor. Fork over $2499 and you’ll find yourself will a faster CPU and double the cache, 4GB RAM, twice the graphics memory and a 320GB hard drive. Sold.

Want an ultra-portable touchscreen tablet mac? Don’t look to Cupertino for this one; the closest thing you can get your hands today, for a reasonable price at least, is a Gigabyte M912x netbook running the Mac OS X 10.5.5. This is the Dell Mini OS X hack with a twist as the M912x is a touchscreen TabletPC netbook, swivel screen and all. The author provides no details on how he enabled full touchscreen support but from the video it appears to work rather well. He also added an internal 3G mod to enable 3G support and dual boots the Mac OS X with Vista. Awesome! With a starting price of $700, the M912x is a very attractive alternative to the rather pricey Modbook while we wait forever for Apple to decide to release its own tablet Mac. Happy hacking!

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Another netbook gets the Mac OS X treatment. Both the MSI Wind and the Asus Eee PC have seen a successful OS X install. Now it’s the Dell Inspiron Mini’s turn and its transformation into a Mini-Mac appears to be relatively easy. To begin,  you will need to get a hold of a slipstreamed version of OS 10.5 that has been customized for the MSI Wind. Shh, you didn’t hear it from us, but you can find it on Pirate Bay. Burn the 3.5GB .iso to DVD, boot, and install. At this point you will have an Inspiron Mini-Mac that boots into OS X without audio or Wi-Fi. Install two additional files to enable the Broadcom wireless adapter and the audio chipset, and voila, you now have a fully functional Dell Inspiron Mini 9 running OS X.  Awesome! Kudos to Dan over at UNEASYsilence who pioneered this procedure. You rock, brotherman.

[via Liliputing]

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If only we could be sure this update includes that oh-so-coveted background push notification… In any case, it’s great we’re seeing a new OS version following 2.1 so closely, that can only mean good things, people. Good things. Any devs out there that want to fill us in on what 2.2 has in store for us?

Thanks, Rick!

Could this be the rumored upgrade to the Apple MacBook Pro? It certainly looks similar to the recently leaked image from Germany, not to mention jiving with the aesthetic changes that have been all but confirmed by folks close to the project. At the same time, we have to remain skeptical of any Apple product leaks, as the fanboy community will do just about anything to stoke the flames of anticipation leading up to an inevitable product launch. Notice the dock icons on the trackpad, as well as the beveled edges on the bottom side of the notebook. Could Apple really be planning on implementing the LED-equipped glass touchpad that has been batted about for so long? Time will tell, and chances are good that this shot is a mere photoshop monkey job, but if this does turn out to resemble the new portables from Cupertino, would this be something on your Christmas wishlist?

Thanks, stagueve!

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In continuing with its new and “clever” line of advertising, Microsoft has temporarily ditched the Gates/Seinfeld ads in favor of reclaiming their image from Apple. As you can see in the image above, it doesn’t seem like they’re really doing themselves a huge favor by taking one of their very own employees and dressing him to resemble John Hodgman, who plays the PC character in Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads. We say all they’re doing is reinforcing or reminding us of that persona: boring, inadequate, and so easy to poke fun at. The character will even reiterate the line, “Hello, I’m a PC…” What’s odd is all the commotion about Seinfeld giving Microsoft a little boost and now they’re taking a detour for these ads which are said to have cameos of celebrities like Eva Longoria and Pharrell Williams. But apparently, the real stars of these ads are going to be everyday folks whose jobs and lives are aided by the use of MS Windows. What do you all think? Does it seem a little over-the-top or is this just what they need to take their image back - the caricature of PC created by Apple? One would be tempted to pat Microsoft condescendingly on the head saying, “Aww, how nice. You’re trying and it’s the effort that counts!”

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Yeah, we don’t think so either. According to some 3rd party T-Mobile retailer in Germany, the image above is a real, honest-to-goodness rendering of what the new Apple MacBook Pro’s will look like. The company claims to have some of the machines in stock already, sporting specs that link up identically to the current crop of MBPs. Seems a little fishy, right? Why Apple would release an entirely revamped line of machines without so much as a minor spec bump is beyond us, and the images look a little too similar to the rumored descriptions that have been floating around for months now. Furthermore, would T-Mobile Germany really be the ones to break the news? Yeah, we didn’t think so. Still, we suppose these could represent Apple’s next move, but something must have been lost in the translation if that’s the case. Any thoughts?

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Stop the presses and break out the Courvoisier, as we’ve just hit a major milestone in the ongoing mobile OS market share wars. For the first time, RIM and its BlackBerry OS have surpassed Windows Mobile market share during the 2nd quarter of this year. RIM clocked in with 17.4%, handily topping WM’s 12% not to mention RIM’s own 8.9% share during the same period of time last year. That’s a pretty huge step up. While the increasing popularity of the Apple iPhone is sure to ultimately have a destructive effect on both RIM and Windows Mobile market share, it’s clear that the Blackberry is far from losing its relevance in a competitive market. Now if only they could get around to releasing the Bold here in the states….

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The iPhone may be looking a little shaky with all of those cracks and dropped calls (yeah, we totally went there), but it appears that an Apple a day keeps the… buyer’s remorse away. The University of Michigan’s National Quality Research Center found that Apple was the number 1-rated in customer satisfaction on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Apple’s score of 85 was a full 11 points above the industry average, and 10 points above the score of Dell, the number 2-rated computer manufacturer. This ranking represents a historic high in the industry. Now if we could only get our hands on that MacBook Touch…

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Alright, we know what you’re thinking; Rose wasn’t all that on point last time he dished about Apple. That’s true, but he has a decent track record and some of what he talks about in this latest round of link fishing coincides with rumors that have been floating around for a while. Let’s have a quick fly by:

• New iPod nano - Rose claims that a new nano will drop before the end of next month with a completely redesigned form factor. Old stubby will go the way of the dinosaur and a tall slender new model will take its place. The new unit will also be much more rounded and will feature a widescreen display for viewing video with the device turned on its side. Pretty much in line with what’s been said before.
• New iPod Touch - A minor revision in iPod Touch styling.
• iPod Touch updated to 2.1, iPhone to follow - Supposedly the first major software revision since 2.0 was issued will be coming next month. Contrary to historical software updates, Rose claims that 2.1 will be released for the iPod Touch first and later issued to the iPhone. We’re not so sure about that one but crazier things have happened.
• iPod price drops - Supposedly the entire the nano and the Touch lines will see price cuts to line them up beneath the $199 entry point of the iPhone. Shenanigans. While this might makes sense in theory, we doubt very much that we’ll see the 16 GB and 32 GB iPod Touch models drop below the $200 price point. Let’s not forget that the iPhone models are subsidized by AT&T. AT&T buys iPhone 3Gs for a whole lot more than we do.
• iTunes 8.0 - According to Rose, we’ll see a major new iTunes revision before October with a whole bunch of new features.
• OS X 10.5.6 - A bit further down the road, Apple is allegedly gearing up for OS X 10.5.6 which will include built-in Blu-Ray support. As such, Rose contends that we should be seeing MacBook Pros ship with integrated Blu-Ray players sometime in the future.

So either Kevo has been a busy little beaver digging up all this Apple dirt, or he was drunk and bored last night.

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Everyone’s favorite iPhone dev team - err - the iPhone Dev Team, has released the Mac version of its latest conquest. That’s right people, just like we told you last week the Dev Team has made quick work of Apple’s 2.0 firmware and the latest version of its Pwnage Tool is now available to the public. Have you been feeling restricted by Apple-authorized apps? Not having the ability at this point to run authorized third-party apps in the background makes plenty of applications such as IM and music streaming apps (Last.fm, Pandora) pretty much useless. Beyond that, in some countries you might not even have access to the app store! Enter the Dev Team. Using the Pwnage Tool, you can add Installer and Cydia to complement Apple’s App Store app and enjoy the tremendous number of unauthorized apps out there alongside Apple-authorized apps with no problems. The Pwnage Tool doesn’t yet unlock the iPhone 3G however, so you’re still bound to whichever carrier you picked up your phone from. Also, the new Pwnage Tool is only available for OS X right now so Windows users will have to wait a bit longer to join in on the fun.

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If you’re in the market for an ultra-portable machine running OS X, but the Macbook Air is a bit outside of your budget, you might want to take note. The MSI Wind, one of many recently introduced low-budget UMPC machines, has been caught in the wild running a full version of OS X. According to the hardware profiler, the Wind spoofs the system into thinking it’s a Mac Pro. A few tweaks renders the Wind fully functional, essentially giving you access to a $600 Mac. Sure, you can pretty much bet that you’ll never be able to run down to your local Best Buy and swoop one of these up, but if you’re down to void your manufacturers warranty, this might be a nice little weekend project, assuming MSI decides to actually release these things…

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Considering all that Mozilla has done for us - displaced Internet Explorer by giving us what is arguably the best and most versatile web browsing experience, for free - the least we can do is help them out when they ask us for help. What is it they want us to do? Download the latest version of the Firefox browser. Yup, that’s it! Mozilla is trying to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in a 24-hour period. The official release of Firefox 3 will become available for public download at 10:00 am PST / 1:00pm EST and judging by the tremendous loyalty that Firefox users typically display and the crazy amount of buzz, the record should be theirs. We’ve been using version 3 for a while now and we have to say, it’s good stuff. Mozilla claims that Firefox 3 brings with it over 15,000 improvements; no small upgrade! Most notably in our eyes, the latest release candidate is worlds faster than Firefox 2 and gobbles much less resources. It will take about a week for the Guinness World Record judges to review Mozilla’s download logs so we should find out whether or not Mozilla successfully broke the record around this time next week. As of the time this post was written, just under 1,690,000 have pledged that they will download Firefox 3 today.

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We admit, this seems a bit unlikely, but TUAW is reporting that the next iteration of Apple’s OS X operating system could debut as early as next week. According to the site, Apple is preparing to seed developers with an early version of the new OS. 10.6 will reportedly focus “solely on security and stability”, with little to no emphasis placed on groundbreaking new features. The early seeding would apparently place 10.6 on track for a January ‘09 public launch, concurrent with Apple’s annual Macworld Expo. This will be Apple’s first Intel-only operating system, placing another nail in the PowerPC coffin.

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DISCLAIMER: The image above is not real. It is a mock up. An artist’s rendering, if you will. We repeat, it is not real.

Sorry, some readers need it spelled out as we’ve learned recently… Intel has decided to pop up and crush our dreams once again as they disavow any knowledge of the alleged Mac Tablet packing Intel’s hyped 75 nm Atom processor. Translated comment from Intel Germany as follows:

PCGH-Editor Daniel Waadt was there as well an can attest, that Schwaderer referred to the iPhone as an example for the use of the atom-processor from Intel. The Intel CEO mentioned furthermore, that the display on iPhone 2 would be bigger than on iPhone 1 (although it is already quite big). iPhone 2 is also thinner than iPhone 1.

This in response to misconstrued statements made by Intel Germany’s CEO that made it look like a 720 x 480 Mac-powered touchscreen ultra mobile packing the Intel Atom chip was in the works. Lame. We can only hope that this is a frantic cover up and everything Schwaderer reportedly said is true. Yeah, we’re not holding our breath either.

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We can’t remember the last time a company had to spend so much time proving that it was real. We recently posted about a telephone interview with Psystar president Rudy Pedraza, a man becoming webfamous for all the wrong reasons. In the interview, Pedraza insisted that Psystar was the real McCoy despite a flurry of internet chatter and a host of evidence to the contrary. The Psystar site stated clearly that boxes were shipping as of over a week ago so in theory, people should be coming forward with some support for the witch-hunted open computer manufacturer any day now. At this point however, we’ve yet to come across a single testimonial from any customers. In the meantime, the video above was posted by Psystar this past week and it depicts each of its three Open Computer models. They certainly look real, but we want to see them in the wild.

[Via MacRumors]

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File this one under "friggin awesome". In a surprise move today, the folks at fring have announced the availability of a native iPhone application that supports all of the basic fring functionality that we know and love. SIP / VoIP, check. Skype, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo! and AIM support, check. Skype Out calling, check. Of course you’ll need a jailbroken iPhone to install the app, although fring politically correctly states that you’ll need an "opened" iPhone. If you haven’t freed your iPhone yet then this announcement should leave you all out of excuses.

This special pre-release version of fring, has been developed in conjunction with the Holon Institute of Technology academic research labs in response to iPhone users urging us to let them join the growing community of fringsters in over 180 countries worldwide. During the R&D period, we’ll be listening to feedback, so we can fine tune the final version and create a truly kicking user experience for iPhone users.

As we get ready to fire it up here at BGR, we hope very much that it runs in the background. It must, right? If that is the case it will be interesting to see what fring issues post-AppStore. Perhaps they’ll maintain two versions; a good one for jailbroken handsets and a crippled one for AppStore customers. Either way, fire up your Installer and get fringing!

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It seems like a new VoIP service pops up every few minutes in this day and age. In some ways that is a good thing as it drives advancement. In other ways, it’s just annoying. Why? Member to member calls are always free but when there are thousands of services to choose from, it’s unlikely that all or even most of your contacts are on the same page when it comes to picking and sticking with a VoIP provider. With each service comes different software to download, protocol variations and different accounts to drop money into. That’s what makes C2Call interesting. C2Call is the first service of its kind in that it is 100% browser based. No software to download, no system / OS compatibility issues and no bloatware. If you have a browser that supports JavaScript such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari then you’re good to go; Windows, Mac OS and Linux are all covered. The service is currently in public beta but our tests have gone very well. Registration is free and operation is fast and simple. C2Call uses a Java widget that loads right on the homepage once you log in, and it displays your contact list. To make a call, just click on the appropriate phone icon next to each contact. One of the greatest features of the service is that you can use it with people who aren’t even registered. Simply send a call invitation from within the C2Call widget and the recipient will get a link in the invitation email and he / she can begin talking to you immediately, no registration required. Future plans include calls to landlines etc, but as-is there are infinite applications where the simplicity and functionality of C2Call will prove advantageous. Check it.

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What do you get when you hold a contest and offer up $10,000 and a free laptop to the first person to hack an OS? You get a MacBook Air hacked in two minutes flat. Yesterday was day two of the CanSecWest security conference’s PWN 2 OWN hacking contest and Charlie Miller made quick work of Apple’s super-slim notebook. Ok, so maybe Miller really took a day and two minutes, but he still landed himself a sweet prize thanks to some solid hackery. The OSes involved? Mac OS X, Windows Vista and Linux. Day one of the competition was very uneventful. The rules stipulated that on day one of the competition, contestants were only permitted to attempt attacks over the network. On day two things turned around when contests were allowed to instruct contest organizers to visit a web page or open an email. Within two minutes Miller had prepared his exploit code and instructed organizers to visit a web site. Game over. Miller had seized control of the MacBook Air and landed himself a nice prize, seemingly using a hole in Safari as contestants were only permitted to take advantage of preinstalled software. Interestingly, no contestant was able to get into the Vista or Linux boxes during all of Wednesday or Thursday. Today, the last day of the competition, hackers will be permitted to exploit thrid-party applications installed on the computers. TippingPoint’s Manager of Security Response Terri Forslof, predicts that contestants will make quick work of the systems today as a result.

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Just when you thought the little bugger was going to be relegated to the junk yard, Apple shows a little heart. According to AppleInsider, the company is getting ready to apply a series of updates to the Mac Mini line, bringing the specs up to date and saving the tiny box from extinction. Among the expected changes include:

• 45nm Intel Core 2 Duo processor starting at 2.16 Ghz
• 800 mhz Front-side bus
• Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor (identical to the chip currently found in the Macbook line)

While these upgrades certainly won’t help the Mini break any speed or performance records, they should help to keep the Mini relevant as Apple’s cheapest, entry-level machine. No word on whether the price will increase or remain the same, but we’re certainly hoping for the latter. Also no specific timeline for the release, but if yo’ve been pondering a Mac Mini purchase, we’d suggest you hold off for a little longer, as AppleInsider’s track record for this sort of thing is pretty good.

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Rich Miner, Google’s VP of Mobile, used eComm yesterday to rekindle buzz surrounding Google’s upcoming mobile OS Android. How did he attempt to accomplish this? The same way most others do these days; he talked about the iPhone. Some might say that a truly innovative product speaks for itself. Creators can discuss its capabilities, as opposed to launching attacks on competitive products, and that will be enough set the internet ablaze with interest and coverage. When you get down to the nuts and bolts of Android, Google is building another new Linux mobile OS. Its intentions according to Miner, are to create a Linux OS that eliminates the need for all others and gives developers and users alike, a single mobile platform - for both development and consumption. Call us crazy, but that sounds hauntingly familiar; much like the intentions of every Linux mobile OS that has been built to date. So what will make Android a success?

Yes, the "Google" name will likely carry it relatively far. A number of well-respected developers have also given the upcoming mobile OS high praise on a technical level which bodes well. The problem? Google partners don’t need to sell Android-equipped handsets to developers, they need to sell to consumers. Will the release version of Android be innovative enough to attract mass consumer adoption? Apple took a solid approach when developing OS X mobile. Rather than create "another mobile OS" to combat Symbian and Windows Mobile, Apple chose to attack one of the areas where the two big boys were (and are) seriously lacking; the UI. Yes, the mobile version of OS X is very elegantly coded as any non-biased programmer who has dug through the OS will tell you. On a consumer level however, people like ‘pretty things’ and OS X mobile is gorgeous. The iPhone’s UI is one of a few massive selling points that consumers have become infatuated with.

So what exactly will Android’s selling points be? Open? Wow, an open mobile OS… Revolutionary! Of course Android will be open on an OS level with no documented restrictions to date, but existing smartphone OSes allow deep integration. The differences here will likely be more apparent to developers as opposed to consumers. The UI? Just like Pam, Android is looking like a bit of a butterface according to available previews but the final product remains to be seen of course. Linux? The masses could care less about the platform itself. The Google name? Yes, that will work to a certain extent in terms of landing manufacturer partners and if Google can flood the market then its OS will sell well by default. Google will not however, land the biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world (Nokia) as a partner and that leaves them picking away at Windows Mobile business. 2008 is going to wrap up in a ball of jet fuel-propelled fire; Android, S60 Touch, 3G iPhone and so on. Simmer down Google, this will hardly be a cakewalk.

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Don’t get us wrong, we’re still huge fans of the way that Apple handled the iPhone SDK. For the most part, Apple really took the time to analyze existing platforms and the manner in which surrounding development is handled. They improved upon many areas, created a phenomenal system and incentivized developers tremendously. Now that the SDK is in the hands of the public however, it has been picked apart and some sour grapes are beginning to shake lose. Namely, this little tidbit uncovered by developer Robert Balousek:

Only one iPhone application can run at a time, and third-party applications never run in the background. This means that when users switch to another application, answer the phone, or check their email, the application they were using quits.

This, people, is remarkably bad news. The quote above is pulled from the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines document available on the SDK site. Translation: no true multitasking. Of course we know that the iPhone can multitask; just consider the apps we have now, or use Sysinfo to take a look through the running processes and you can see. Apparently however, third-party app developers will not be granted the necessary rights for their apps to make use of background processes. To further explain what this all means to the layperson, Balousek quotes: "If you are running an application such as AOL Instant Messenger on your iPhone, every time you receive a call or browse away from the application you would be signed out, you would lose any unread messages, and your conversations would end." This stipulation impacts an enormous number of potential iPhone apps and seriously stunts development. It stands to reason that Apple will eventually provide a workaround; Symbian for example, grants developers rights to restricted attributes for additional fees. In the meantime, expect to see a good amount of core smartphone functionality omitted on initial third-party app offerings.

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In case you’ve forgotten, ZodTTD is the same group that brought NES and Playstation emulation to the iPhone / iPod Touch. With snes4iphone they’ve tackled, well yeah, SNES. Looking back from Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, it’s easy to forget how great Super Nintendo was. Star Fox, Super Smash Bros, Tecmo Super Bowl, Bebe’s Kids… The list of classics goes on and on. Now thanks to ZodTTD, all 16 bits of glorious gaming fury can be enjoyed on your mobile. Gameplay is fast and smooth, portrait and landscape modes are supported as is game-state saving. There is still some work to do such as adding audio support, but it’s more than usable as is. Add the ZodTTD source in Installer.app to load it up or click through for the download. If ZodTTD can throw a little Sega Genesis into the mix, they’ve got our seal of approval for sure.

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