IMAP is great, it's one of the mail reasons I've been using one of AOL's free email services, AIM for several years - free IMAP support.

If you're not familiar with what IMAP is, it's a setup where you keep your email on the main server, you don't download and delete from the server like POP. Gmail was accessed via a web browser, which is stored on the server like IMAP. But with IMAP protocol you can use the email client of your choice, say Mail[.App] or the iPhone two name a couple...

Great stuff. The news is currently breaking everywhere, but this is big for a lot of people so I'm posting it here.

From EngadgetMobile:

It's absolutely no secret that Google has a few humble fans of their email service, whose prayers have finally been answered. G's giving its users free -- yes, free -- IMAP access to their inboxes; great for desktop users, sure, but the people most likely to benefit from this development are those on mobile email clients (especially those unable to use the Java Gmail app). Hell, Google knows it and even whipped up an iPhone setup page to help Apple users get the real Gmail experience (instead of that crap out of box implementation someone so wrongly thought we'd be satisfied with). How do you get IMAP enabled? Well, if you don't see it in your Gmail options, log out and back in again. Still don't see it? Wait. Wait, and check the blogs, friend.

Third Party Applications on the iPhone

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

If you bought your iPhone before August 22, you may be eligible for an instant $100 electronic credit toward the purchase of products at the Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. See the terms and conditions below for more details.

Full details available here.

Rogue Amoeba has come out with a free utility to make your own iPhone ring tones.

I'm of the opinion that it would be an overall better idea to use your shiny new iPhone with AT&T, but hey I'm not the one deciding for everybody am I.

If you've decided that a hacked iPhone to work outside the World AT&T is just your cup'of'tea then you'll be pleased to know that a new GUI unlocking tool is now available from the iPhone Dev Team. If you must have, a quick search should yield satisfying results.

Well now they've gone and done it, open source iPhone unlocking.

More details here on Engadget.

Steve is clearly aiming for some good karma here.

Open iPhone Letter from his Steveness here.

September 2007 Keynote Address: Everybody has seen all the news on todays Apple Event going over the refreshed iPod line and the new killer $399 price on the 8GB iPhone.

Huge stuff. Not just the new iPod's but the pricing on the Nano blew me away, significantly cheaper than before. I think Apple is keeping the heat on the competition. Sure we can nitpick, where is FM tuning on iPods (no, really, where is it?), where is the ability to record to your iPod using a high quality microphone or other low level source, etc. But in general, these are really impressive devices at very reasonable prices.

I am not, however, interested in upgrading my trusty iPod RED Nano 4GB that I got for Christmas last year, still love it, and plan to continue using it for the the foreseen future. The new Nano is cool and all, but my Nano suits my needs very well.

DAMN, $399 for the 8GB iPhone which was previously selling very well at $599, that's going to tempt a lot of people who were on the fence. And it has already pissed off a lot of people who paid $599 for the same phone. Come on Apple, the least you can do is credit those people with $200 in their iTunes account.

Check it all out, Apple has now posted a decent resolution video of todays event (480x270).

One of the great features of Apple's iPhone is that it has Safari and can display any webpage. Nonetheless, optimized pages for the iPhone are a good thing and the newest update to RapidWeaver contains iPhone themes. I haven't had time to check it out myself yet, but it sounds interesting.

This is great, an iPhone taken apart already, hats off to Think Secret for this gallery.

Click here for the full gallery of photos.

For those of you who can't get enough iPhone news, I've had my fill. But I do think these two tidbits are worthy.

1) There have long been rumors that the Edge Network was going to be improved for the iPhone, now there is a little more to that end. Mac Rumors has a story on it here, and how the speeds just may be much improved in time for the iPhone introduction later today.

2) There are some really nice high resolution screenshots of the iPhone interface just posted over at ThinkSecret - check them out here.

1) I installed the VMware Fusion 4.1 beta today. I've never used Parallels or VMware previously. I did try Q which is a freeware alternative, but they don't have virtualization working on it yet so it's much slower, probably more like VirtualPC was.

VMWare installed very easily, and installing Windows 2000 Pro on it went smooth as silk. I installed a Virus program and a few utilities, all seemed to go well. Although after I adjusted it to use more of my system memory, it seems to really slow down my entire system - yeah I know that may happen, but here's the odd thing. After I closed out of VMware my system was still really sluggish. I didn't have time to go back and retest, it could have been NeoOffice or something else that was the culprit. As I get more time to play with it, I'll post my experiences.

2) It has been a very long time since the last update, so the new Plaxo for Mac which came out today was a much welcomed update. Plaxo is fantastic. Consider it one more reason why you don't need to pay the .Mac tax.

3) I may have to shoot somebody if the iPhone fever doesn't end. The iPhone is either going to be the most successful new [electronic] product ever released, or the biggest letdown in history. I certainly hope it is a huge success, however it goes, we'll know soon enough.

I'm a user and big fan of the guys over at PotionFactory. Andy Kim from PF has written his thoughts after watching the 20 minute long iPhone demo. I couldn't say it better, so I'm going to instead just show you what he said. Head over to PotionFactory to check out VoiceMail and their other goodies like Tangerine.

June 22, 2007 - 3:41pm by Andy Kim
I haven't had any real interest in getting an iPhone, but after watching the iPhone Guided Tour, I am pretty much sold. The amount of polish that went into this thing is just amazing. The animation effects are done in good taste and result in a certain fluidity that is mesmerizing (am I too much of a UI geek?). I did worry a little that Core Animation will make a lot of developers put in unnecessary and cheesy animation effects into their apps, but now I can at least hope that they will follow the example set by iPhone; I know I will be. I mean, I can almost forgive Apple for not having the secret feature in Leopard now.
My self-imposed rule about not buying first generation hardware (Apple or otherwise, even cars) will have to be broken this time.
As a developer and user interface designer—after having watched the video 2 times—what impressed me the most were the new gestures revealed to us for the first time:
Flick right to delete
Instead of having to get into the edit mode just to delete an email, you can flick to the right with your finger on a row to reveal the delete button for the row. It's not something that's immediately obvious or discoverable, but it is ingenious nonetheless and analogous to dragging icons off the dock. It turns a 3 tap process into a "flick and tap". Yes, saving a tap is very important. I can see this being or becoming the standard delete gesture in the iPhone.
Tap with two fingers to zoom out
I only saw this in the Google Maps section, but I hope that it's used everywhere. It's better than the double tap for two reasons: 1) there is no confusion about zooming-in or zomming-out: The two finger tap will always zoom-out and 2) you save a tap. I'm wondering if there is a three finger tap that will zoom out two levels at once.
Now, the thing that I care about the most is whether I can accept these gestures in my own web application. The flick gesture might be possible with some pain, but I doubt that the two finger tap will be.
Apple, if you are reading, give us the SDK!

I was over on Yahoo Apple/Macintosh News today. I couldn't help but notice that there were a LOT of iPhone articles, so I took count. 18 of the 30 stories on the main page were in fact about the iPhone. Wow. It stuns me at how much hype the iPhone is getting.

I certainly hope that the iPhone is worthy of all the attention that it is receiving (before average users even get to lay a finger on one...)

But there will be no iPhone for me for quite some time. The Cell Phone Soup Nazi has told me, No iPhone for you! when I recently got two new Motorola Razr's for my wife and I. I committed to a 2 year commitment to get the phones really cheap. I'm not so concerned about this. The iPhone is bigger than I'd like in a cell phone, but more importantly it's far more expensive than I'm willing to pay for a cell phone - even an iPhone.

Maybe in two years when my commitment is up the iPhone or its newer variants will be in the sub $300 range. That might interest me more.

John Dvorak is saying that the time has come to short Apple's stock (bet that it's going to drop) because the iPhone's keyboard is bad. So bad that 20% of people who buy an iPhone will return it because they hate the virtual keyboard.

Time will tell, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

"The keyboard is a disaster, and people are going to return the phone in droves. I'm guessing 20% will go back."

Read the full blog post here.

I had expected an announcement at some time for a Video iPod, and a separate announcement for an iPhone which would resemble something more like an iPhone Nano - much more basic in function than the iPhone which Apple introduced at the 2007 MacWorld Expo.

In a few words, the iPhone completely blew me away. It is an amazing unit that in many respects makes the current competing units look pretty barbaric by comparison. But I don't think that the iPhone is the end all either. Outlined below are some of my Pro's and Con's on the upcoming device.

PRO's:

* The iPhone is an amazing unit.
* Fluid design and integration of functions
* Beautiful design and display.
* Very well thought out features.
* Spectacular execution of features.
* Volume slider on the side is a great idea, I wish my Nano had one.
* Answer/disconnect switch built into the headphones is a great idea, I wish my Nano had this for Play/Pause.


CON's

* This unit is aimed at the very high end consumer market which has a limited audience. I think they may come out with an 'iPhone Nano' type device at a later time which would be smaller, with less features at a lower price point which would make it more accessible to a larger market. The iPhone can wow them and then the iPod Nano can close the deal for those of use who cringe at the thought of paying $600 for a phone, even if it is an iPhone.
* The lack of support for Exchange and Notes serves, a la Blackberry, pretty much excludes the iPhone from serious consideration by Corporate America.
* The lack of support for a Word and Excel viewer also pretty much excludes the iPhone from serious consideration by Corporate America.
* No voice recognition! I can't believe nobody else seems to be talking about this. While the implementation of the virtual keyboard looks pretty good to me, I would much rather talk to an iPhone if in a situation where that wouldn't be disruptive. Rather than scrolling down a list of music just say "Stone Temple Pilots", or say "Call John Smith" instead of poking around to find that contact. Similarly, for emails, SMS's, etc. Wouldn't it be much easier and faster to say your message rather than hunt and peck it out on a non-tactile keyboard? Who knows, maybe this will happen and it just wasn't ready for the demo but I would consider it essential for this device if it were to win me as a buyer.
* No user replaceble battery. Boo, this just isn't good.
* No user installed applications, ouch. This slams not only the users, but the Mac Developer community. Bad move and I hope Apple gives serious consideration to opening it up.



It is going to be interesting to see how the iPhone plays out in hands on reviews in the months to come, and whether or not Apple releases other phones to accompany the iPhone.

-MacSeven


Tell us what YOU think.
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