Luckily Apple did and they are delivering it.  The majority of people are consumers of media and technology, not creators.  All the big PC makers are stuck on delivering faster and smarter computers to people who don’t need that.  Average Joe and Jane use their supped up rigs and laptops for just a few basic things, such as E-Mail, reading news, listening to music, watching movies, storing personal photos, checking Twitter, Facebook and occasionally blogging.  All this can be done with an iPad seating on your couch or in bed.  Consumers want to be comfortable while consuming media, and the iPad delivers.  Now you don’t have to go to your desk to read the news or hold a heavy, hot lump of plastic in your lap while trying to navigate the touch-pad.  To put it in really lame terms, people want to take a dump with media in their hands while smoking a fatty.

Yes, traditional computers are useful for a few who play games and create content, but trying to sell them to the rest of the people is like trying to sell a space rocket to somebody that just needs and wants a motorcycle.  This is why iPad type devices are the future, and until the rest of the industry realizes this Apple will rule the market.

Anywho it doesn””t matter now. The app is available via ModMyi repository.  If you””re downloading it, please make a small effort and donate to the developer ( Sean Kovacs).  A tremendous amount of work goes into developing apps, and pretty much anything you get on the iPhone.

gvmobile-1 ◄ Back Next ► Picture 1 of 3

Google Voice is NOT a VOIP service, you still need an actual phone plan.

GV Mobile allows users of Google Voice to:

• dial numbers via the iPhone address book or typing on the keypad
• Full SMS support (view historic, reply, send new)
• retrieve and delete recent call history
• playback and delete voicemails
• take calls from different phones other than your iPhone
• enable or disable the phones that Google Voice forwards calls to
• add or delete phones that Google Voice forwards call to.

Google Voice is currently in beta and invite only, but expect those floodgates to open soon enough when they remove the invite only restriction.

(GV Mobile is not a product of Google).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and San Francisco Law Firm Keker and Van Nest filed suit against Apple today in defense of the First Amendment rights of OdioWorks, who runs BluWiki. BluWiki is a website that allows users to build free websites with no advertisements that other people can edit.
The front page states, “Imagine a world where everyone can publish online. Without censoring, popups, or banner ads. And you wouldn’t even have to know html! Thats right, just good old-fashioned publishing.” The parent company was warned by Apple lawyers to remove discussions about making iPods and iPhones interoperate with software other than iTunes.
EFF said that the lawyers “claimed the discussions constituted copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition on circumventing copy protection measures.” Sam Odio, owner of OdioWorks stated that Apple “should not be able to censor online discussions by making baseless legal threats against services like BluWiki that host the discussions.” The EFF is an international non-profit advocacy group dedicated to preserving free speech.

The verdict in Opti Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 2:07-cv-00021, was delivered on April 23, 2009, by a jury appearing before Judge Charles “Chad” Everingham IV of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall.

Jurors in the case found that Apple infringed a patent issued to Opti in June 2002. The contested patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,405,291, covers a computer operation that enables a “snooping” function designed to help computers more easily retrieve previously accessed data.

Opti was represented by a team of attorneys from McKool Smith and Chicago-based Winston & Strawn. The McKool Smith team included Rosemary Snider, Gary Kitchen, Jason Cassady and Carol Butner. The Winston & Strawn group included Michael Brody, Taras Gracey, J. Ethan McComb, Eric Mersmann and Sarah Frey.

In the verdict, jurors found that Apple willfully infringed the contested patent. The jury also rejected Apple’s contentions that the patent should be declared invalid. The $19 million verdict amount was awarded as fair and reasonable compensation to Opti for Apple’s willful patent violation, according to the verdict form.

Even with this loss it looks like that stealing technology remains very lucrative for Apple. With a very rough estimate you can quickly realize that Apple needs to sell around 45000 iPhones to cover the expense. First quarter of 2009 Apple sold 3.79 million iPhones, and if you think about the iTouch sales also, 19 million is a drop in the bucket.

Apple can absorb any lawsuit thrown at them, so patent theft will continue as long as it is profitable. “Good job” Apple,showing everyone that with the right marketing team crime does pay.

A French competition watchdog is trying to suspend a deal between Apple and  No. 1 mobile operator Orange run by France Telecom. which will distribute the Iphone exclusively in France, an executive told a French newspaper.

Executive Director Jean-Yves Larrouturou told La Tribune that suspension of the deal with will not impact France Telecom’s end-of-year financial figures.

But he said the decision challenges the group’s investment plans, which were based on an exclusivity deal of three years with a possible two-year extension.

The Competition Council’s decision announced on Wednesday wants to allow customers to buy the Iphone with a contract from rival service providers SFR and Bouygues Telecom in time for the Christmas.

France Telecom has said it intended to appeal against the decision as it placed France in a different position than Britain, Germany and Spain, where Apple has also struck exclusivity deals.

The council said that this five-year exclusive deal with Apple was “clearly excessive” and risked “serious and immediate damage to competition on the mobile market and to consumers”.

Wasn’t this the same exclusivity distribution methods Apple was complaining about Microsoft and IBM back in the day?  It seems being a hypocrit pays big nowadays.  I’m just curious why we are not hearing about antitrust suits against Apple like it happened with Microsoft.
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