New Droid Does ad targets Apple and Steve Jobs?

There's a new Droid ad out, printed by Verizon, that appears in a Sports Illustrated issue. However, this ad goes back on the original 'iDon't' ads rather than the clever "There's a map for that" ads that they have recently been putting on air.

The ad reads:

This is a world of “nope,” “nuh-uh,” and “sorry, Charlie.”

A world of smiling denial. Petty tyrannies that have made their way into our cell phones. Into the very way we choose to speak to another human being. There are dozens of doesn’ts. Doesn’t allow customization. Doesn’t run multiple apps. Doesn’t allow you to swap out batteries. doesn’t allow open development. These arrogant little devices are barely worth more than the pocket lint they rest upon. Because now there’s a phone so smart, so strong. So subservient to its user, it refuses to include “doesn’t” in its dictionary app.

In a world of doesn’t. Droid Does.

This actually seems like it's a personal attack against Apple and Steve Jobs himself, rather than AT&T, due to the words 'petty tyrannies'. Could it be the ongoing negotiations between Apple and Verizon to get the iconic phone on the CDMA carrier?

Just a bit ironic too, since before the Droid, Verizon was a bit tyrannical themselves with their own handsets. I guess it takes one to know one, right?

What are your thoughts on the ad?

Adobe bites back at Apple

If you go to Adobe's 'getflash' page (http://www.get.adobe.com/flashplayer) you will be greeted with the image you see in this post - a snarky remark about Apple's lack of support for Flash on the iconic iPhone.

However, as I stumbled upon Cult of Mac's article, it seems that a Reddit comment points out that Flash on the iPhone would reduce the iPhone's battery life to beyond abysmal.

From Reddit:

About six months ago, a friend who was working closely along side adobe’s flash application development team told me that they received a prototype of Flash for iPhone. The prototype allowed the iPhone to have less than half an hour of battery life using flash. They then sent the prototype to apple and suggested incorporating this prototype iPhone flash into the iPhone OS in the next update.

Apparently apple sent this letter back thanking them for being interested in developing a working version of flash for the iphone but because the prototype is so processor intensive, and awful for battery life, they would not include it with their OS because it is just not good enough. They suggested using the gpu instead of the processor to render flash. Then they suggested building a seperate app for flash and web browsing because there was no way apple could endorse flash integration on the iphone in its current state.

Adobe apparently didn’t want to release the app under their name either and it never showed up in the app store.

So Adobe sucks at programming and Apple won't allow such poor code, and now Adobe is trying to point fingers at Apple?

Hmmmm...

But to be honest, I don't miss Flash at all. How about you?

Google Maps with turn-by-turn directions for Android 2.0

Google announced on Wednesday that it's popular Google Maps app will now feature free turn-by-turn directions -- but only on Android 2.0 devices.

It's been reported that while this is coming first on Android 2.0, that Google will allow Apple to use this feature in the native Google Maps application on the iPhone -- it's all in Apple's hands now, as to whether this will ever make its appearance on the iPhone or not.

With the iPhone still holding the largest marketshare of smartphones out there today, it would be silly for Google and Apple to not allow this to pass onto the iPhone.

This is just another one of those changes that is apparent due to the end of both companies' cozy relationship with each other in the past. Google is now encroaching on Apple's markets, with Chrome OS/Mac OS X, Chrome/Safari, Android/iPhone, and even an upcoming competitor to iTunes.

So we can only hope that Apple gives this turn-by-turn feature of Google Maps the green light - it would be a bad move if they don't.

Rock out on your iPhone - Rock Band available worldwide

Rock Band splash screenEA Mobile has finally released the iPhone version of their ever-popular console music game, Rock Band. The app is available in the App Store for $9.99 and contains a set list of 20 in-game tracks, as well as 10 additional songs that can be bought in bundles of 2 songs for .99 each.

The game plays well and feels like it's console counterpart, sans the plastic instruments you're normally adjusted to rocking out on. You tap on the screen for all parts -- yes, including singing. Take it as a good or bad thing, you tap as the notes come right to left, and you match the pitch of the vocals. There's also the percussion, but that's been the same from the consoles. Guitar/bass and drums require tapping at the bottom as the notes fall vertically, and if you miss any notes it's reflected in the playback of the song, with guitar squeaks and drums clanking off the rims.

When you hit glowing notes, those add to your Energy bar. When you get it at least halfway full, you can activate "Overdrive" by tilting the iPhone/iPod Touch, though this method rarely seems to work when you want it to. Not to mention you have to tilt/shake it while you need to keep hitting notes, which can be hard to accomplish without losing your streak.

You can connect with 3 others via Bluetooth to play as a band, and you can connect to Facebook (though you can't play online directly through it) to sync your current performance with your friends. You can't customize your character though, like the console versions.

Overall, a good iPhone port of the popular console music game. Current song list is a bit lacking though (at least in my opinion), but hopefully they will add more downloadable content variety in the future.

Main screenFacebook ConnectSong listDrumsGuitar / All-American Rejects

Rock Band - Soon to hit your iPhone!

What you see above is a hands-on preview of the upcoming Rock Band for iPhone, which EA has announced today. The game looks just like a mini mobile version of the console games sans plastic instruments.

It should be noted that despite the iPhone and newer iPod Touches having an external mic (or even older iPod Touches using a mic headset), there is no actual singing involved (which saves you if you are a terrible singer, or is shameful for those that can sing (or think they can). It's percussion and tapping to the lyrics, which really doesn't seem as fun as actual singing, but I guess we can live with it.

There is also a core tracklist of 20 songs for the iPhone Rock Band provided by EW.com:

30 Seconds to Mars, “Attack”
AFI, “Girl’s Not Grey”
All-American Rejects, “Move Along”
Beastie Boys, “Sabotage”
Blink-182, “All the Small Things”
Blondie, “Hanging on the Telephone”
Foo Fighters, “Learn to Fly”
Foo Fighters, “Everlong”
George Thorogood & the Destroyers, “Bad to the Bone”
Jethro Tull, “Hymn 43″
Joan Jett, “Bad Reputation”
Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Simple Man”
Motörhead, “Ace of Spades ‘08″
Pixies, “Debaser”
Presidents of the United States of America, “Ladybug”
Rise Against, “Give It All”
Silversun Pickups, “Lazy Eye”
Smashing Pumpkins, “Cherub Rock”
Steve Miller Band, “Take the Money and Run”
The Go-Go’s, “We Got the Beat”

The game will be coming to the iTunes App Store soon.