Journalism now fits in your pocket. With a new iPhone app coming this week, hyperlocal startup Fwix is ready to get in on the journalism-as-it-happens game. The app allows regular people to file news reports (which can include photos and videos) onto the company’s Web site, allowing for a kind of journalism that Twitter kind of allows already, but pushed even further. Are we replacing professional journalists with iPhone apps? Good question. Maybe a necessary one to ask. source
They say it might confuse users. Despite the fact that 1) It’s already being used elsewhere, 2) It’s a Google app and 3) There’s extreme criticism from end users over the app’s denial, Apple is still debating the Google Voice app. It wrote in its letter to the FCC that the app replaces “the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voice mail.” Duh. One other note: Apple apparently doesn’t discuss apps with AT&T, as was feared, but agreed not to allow VOIP apps like Skype. The FCC’s looking into that, too. source
That Google Voice thing must not have helped. Google CEO Eric Schmidt is saying “peace out” to Apple’s board, where he was increasingly seen as a weird fit. Between Google Android, Chrome OS and now the Google Voice debacle, the company has been encroaching on some of Apple’s territory. While Schmidt excused himself from discussions pertaining to products that carried “conflict of interest” baggage, there’s only so many of those discussions one can excuse yourself from before it seems weird. Wonder what Fake Steve has to say about this.source
Stern letters? Submitted. The other day, it came out that Apple had declined Google’s submission of a Google Voice app on the iPhone, saying the app duplicated functionality on the iPhone. Usually, customers get grumpy about things like this and it gets ignored, but this time the Federal Communications Commission stepped in, sending letters to Apple, Google and AT&T, asking what led to this. It’s not a formal investigation, but the pressure is definitely good for consumers. The FCC, however, is investigating the exclusive relationship between some carriers and some phone-makers. Like, you know, Apple and AT&T. source
After trying for weeks to convince Apple to fix their iPhone software, two security researchers revealed a scary method for hacking the iPhone using SMS. source
After feeling the wrath of negative PR contained in that message, Apple hurried and fixed the vulnerability, but you have to hook up to iTunes to fix it. source
Not only is this our lightest and slimmest model ever, but as any truly savvy Apple customer can clearly see, it’s also the most handsome product we’ve ever designed.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs • In an Onion parody, talking about the company’s new iPhone 3GI, which is invisible to everyone except Apple’s most loyal customers. This article came out right around the time of the invention of transparent aluminum, so you laugh now, but just wait a few years until it’s real! • source