Google Squared Struggles To Make Search More Helpful

The first thing I learned from Google Squared is that I don't exist. The second, that Secobarbital is really a type of fish, not a sedative drug, as I've long understood it to be. Thirdly, I learned how hard it can be to communicate to users the best use for a new search technology. Especially when it's not ready for prime time.

What Google Squared, which the company has just placed into live beta, does best is present a list of facts, product names, tropical fish, and other grade school stuff.

Need a list of French Presidents? Google Squared will create a table--that's where the "squared" comes from--showing names, pictures, date of birth, preceded by, and succeeded by. Just don't ask it when each French President served: Google Squared doesn't know.

The Secobarbital reference was presented along with a picture and description of the Tiger Barb, a popular aquarium fish. The other columns presented included the Family and Class the fishes belong to. While Google Squared will show a confidence level for its finding--in this case "low"--the user must look for it.

As for "david coursey," Google Squared returned a list of ten people, a default number, none of whom were even named David.

Google Squared, isn't as perplexing as Wolfram Alpha, the new "computational knowledge engine" which has convinced at least one early user that it's smarter than he is. But, Google Squared is more a curiosity at this point than a useful search adjunct.

Clearly, we need new ways to present search results and Google Squared's table view is that. But, it is also a lesson in how far we have to go before search engines can do more of the thinking for us.

Google says Squared is an experiment at this point and (obviously) isn't perfect. While I won't be it for serious searches today, users recognize a need for better search results.

Sony takes wraps off PSP Go

Sony on Tuesday unveiled a sleek next-generation PSP Go handheld videogame, movie and music gadget in a direct challenge to Nintendo's freshly-launched DSi devices.

Sony Computer Entertainment president Kaz Hirai showed off a new PSP Go at a press conference in the Shrine Auditorium as a major Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) got under way nearby in Los Angeles.

"We call it the worst kept secret of E3," Hirai quipped, referring to news of Go news leaks more akin to streams.

"There will be more content that is easier to get on your PSP. It's entertainment everywhere."

Go is half the size of the original PSP and built to download and store video, pictures and games, according to Hirai. Go devices have built-in wireless Internet and Bluetooth capabilities.

"It's built for people who live a more digital lifestyle," Hirai said. "It's designed to bring all kinds of content to the PSP."

All future PSP videogame titles will be available for digital download, skipping any need to buy software on disks, according to Sony.

A new Sense Me feature analyses music stored in Go devices and then creates playlists to suit users' moods. Go gadgets will also be built with a video delivery service Sony launched last year.

Hot videogame franchises including Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil are creating new games tailored to Go devices, according to Sony.

"I think the PSP is getting really hotter," said Hideo Kojima, whose eponymous studio makes the Metal Gear Solid franchise whose protagonist is a fearsome soldier called Snake.

"And Snake is coming back on the PSP."

Go devices will be priced at $US249 ($303) respectively, in October when they are due to be released in US, Europe and Asian markets.

Nintendo reports that it has sold more than a million of its new-generation DSi handheld videogame gadgets in the US since they became available here in April.

AFP

WinCDEmu Mounts Disk Images Easily--And For Free

This CD/DVD emulator operates with complete transparency, costs nothing, and a must-download for anyone who regularly mounts images.


Sometimes I love my job. Most often it's when I, or my editor in this case, find a freeware gem like WinCDEmu. There are plenty of worthy optical disc emulators out there--Daemon Tools, AnyDVD, etc.-- and while they may offer features or emulation modes (such as mounting copy-protected discs) that WinCDEmu does not, they're not nearly as easy to use.


After installing WinCDEmu, you simply double-click any .iso, .cue, .raw, or img image file and it mounts (i.e., appears as a drive letter under Windows). At that point, the CD/DVD will autorun if Windows is set to do so--or you can browse it and extract files. Right-click on the resultant drive letter, select Eject and the disc and drive letter disappear. There's no system tray applet, nor even a Start Menu program to configure the app. That's because the program is meant to function as an integral part of Windows, and it does--quite well. There is an Add/Remove programs entry so in case it causes trouble (it didn't for me) you can ditch it.

As I said, WinCDEmu worked perfectly for me with all the image types listed above, including those for DVDs. It seemingly invoked the Windows new hardware wizard each time a new image type was mounted, but subsequent mounts of an image type did not. If I have any complaint at all about WinCDEmu, it's that I could find no way to make the mounted discs persistent through a reboot. You'll have to re-open the images each time you run Windows.

Persistence through reboots is rarely a useful feature, and I'm not losing any sleep over WinCDEmu's lack of it. As a matter of fact, WinCDEmu has received the highest form of praise I can dole out--it's made the leap from my VMs and test bed onto my main systems.

Android netbooks unveiled

Acer officially confirmed this week that it would be launching Android-powered netbooks in Q3 2009. That official launch window is still months away, but the top netbook maker on the planet was showing the machine off at Computex.


The Acer Aspire One D250 was spied at the show running Android as its operating system. Acer was fast to point out that the rig seen wasn’t the actual product but merely a test bed system. Another Android-powered machine has popped up as well.

The rig is the Compal Qualcomm-powered smartbook. Specs on the machine are unknown aside from it runs Android and you can peep a video of the machine blazing through web pages here. Asus is also has an Android netbook lurking somewhere.

Sony Ericsson Unveils PS3-compatible Cell Phone

It's not the PSP phone, but it's close. Sony Ericsson yesterday unveiled three new mobile phones including Aino, a cell phone that can sync with both your PlayStation 3 and PC. Aino also features an 8.1-megapixel camera with geotagging capability; 3G, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity; a physical keypad; and a three-inch touchscreen.
sony ainoPull From PS3

Using the Remote Play feature designed for the PSP, Aino can pull almost any content off your PS3, including music, videos, and photos. What about games, you ask? Sorry, HD video and games are not syncable, but like I said, this is not the fabled PSP phone that first hit the rumor mill in 2007; Aino is just a phone that happens to talk to your PS3.

The upside is you can use the Remote Play feature to pull files from your PS3 wherever you are in the world. Sony Ericsson didn't specify whether Remote Play will work over a 3G connection. Aino will also sync with the media files on your PC via Sony Ericsson's proprietary Media Go multimedia manager. Just drop your Aino into its charging stand and Media Go takes care of the rest via Wi-Fi. Aino users in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and the U.K. will also be able to take advantage of the PS3's TV place-shifting and DVR feature PlayTV. Sony first unveiled PlayTV in 2007, but the feature has not yet come to North American PS3 models. PlayTV lets you use your PSP or Aino to remotely watch recorded and live television over the Internet via your PS3.

Out of the box, Aino comes with a charging stand, wireless stereo headphones, and an 8GB SD card -- Aino is not compatible with Sony Memory Sticks. Aino will come in black and white, and be available in select markets this fall. Sony Ericsson did not specify when or if Aino will be coming to North America, but I'd say its arrival here is a pretty safe bet.



Other New Phones

Alongside Aino, Sony Ericsson also announced two other phones: Satio and Yari. Satio is the ultimate camera phone, including a 12.1-megapixel camera, a 3.5-inch widescreen touch display; and running the Symbian OS. Satio previously debuted as Idou at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Sony Ericsson's Yari packs a respectable 5-megapixel camera, but is designed for the gamer with a built-in accelerometer for iPhone-style gesture and motion gaming. Satio and Yari will be available this fall; U.S. release dates were not announced.sony yari

In addition to announcing three new phones, Sony Ericsson said it will release details about its own application store during next week's JavaOne conference in San Francisco.

Sony Ericsson brings mobile Java to entry-level 3G phones

One of the things that sets many basic handsets apart from their more expensive brethren is the feature set. Typically, the features that low-end handsets lack are the gaming and multimedia aspects that high-end phones are known for.

Sony Ericsson announced that it would be bringing mobile Java to its entry-level 3G phones. The addition of the mobile Java technology means that the entry-level handsets offered by the firm will be able to run games, applications and other content created by Sony Ericsson.

Sony says the move to add Java to its low-end line is in preparation for the upturn in the entry 3G segment, which it believes is a future growth area of the mobile market. It’s good to see Sony Ericsson trying to do something to turn its products around. The company recently announced it would be moving away from the M2 memory format for its mobile phones to the cheaper and more widely available SD format.

Sony Ericsson announces C901, Naite GreenHeart phones

Sony Ericsson did more than just announce its new "GreenHeart" strategy Thursday, the company also unveiled two new Earth-friendly cell phones. According to Sony Ericsson, the Naite and the C901 Cyber-shot will help it reach its goal of a 20 percent carbon footprint reduction by 2015. The handsets offer such features as recycled plastic, low-power chargers and waterborne paints. Also, by including electronic, rather than paper user manuals, Sony Ericsson said it can reduce packaging size. The company promises that the overall carbon footprint of each phone will be reduced by 15 percent.

Both the Naite and the C901 have standard candy bar designs with trim profiles. The 262,144-color displays looked sharp during brief my hands-on, and I didn't notice any immediate problems with their navigation controls and keypad buttons. That's a good sign considering Sony Ericsson doesn't have the best track record when designing user controls. On the downside, while the recent Sony Ericsson W995a has a 3.5mm headset jack, the Naite and C901 have proprietary jacks.


The C901 and Naite are quadband GSM world phones, but the C901 only supports 3G networks outside of North America. The Naite, which comes in red and silver designs, should be out by the third quarter of 2009. The C901, which will be available only in white, should go on sale during the second quarter of this year.

Features on both phones are mid-range, but are more plentiful than Motorola's Renew W233 recycled phone. As a Cyer-shot phone, the C901 centers on its camera. The 5-megapixel shooter captures still photos and video and it includes such options as auto-focus, photo geo-tagging and a Xenon flash with red eye reduction. The camera lens on the phone's rear side has a sliding cover.


The C901 also promises a music player, stereo Bluetooth, a speakerphone, messaging and POP3 e-mail, instant messaging, USB mass storage, motion gaming, PC syncing, an FM radio, a wireless Web browser and a personal organizer. And back on the green front, you can use the C901's navigation toggle to adjust the display's brightness level and save battery life. Having those controls on the toggle saves you from digging through a menu.

The Naite has a 2-megapixel camera and camcorder, a music player, a wireless Web browser, a speakerphone, messaging and POP3 e-mail, instant messaging, an FM radio, stereo Bluetooth, Google Maps, USB Mass storage, PC syncing and a personal organizer. Like the C901 the Naite also has a special Walkmate pedometer, which also tells you how much carbon emissions your steps are saving

Simplify Media Makes Your Music Library Social

You've got your music library. Your friends have their music libraries. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone could share? That's the idea behind Simplify Media, a free service that streams your friends' music to your PC--and vice-versa.

All you do is install the Simplify Media client (it's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux), set up an account, then configure the music folders you want to share. (Only DRM-free tunes will work.)

Next up: Invite some friends to share your library, and, of course, to share theirs. If you have no cool friends, that's okay: Simplify Media also lets you stream music from your own PC to another--great if you want to listen to your tunes at work or while traveling.

Speaking of travel, there's also a nifty iPhone app, Simplify Music 2, that lets you stream your songs on the run. It costs $2.99.

Because the service is based on streaming, all involved PCs must be online. In other words, you can listen to your friends' libraries only when they're using their systems. And you can listen to your own library only if you leave your home PC running.

What I find really cool about Simplify Media is the way it integrates with iTunes, Windows Media Player, or Winamp. Other than the client app, which works quietly in the background, there's no special software to install.

I've played around with several similar services over the years, and always seemed to run into some kind of firewall-related trouble. Simplify Media worked like a charm right out of the gate.

Samsung Edges out Sony Ericsson in Megapixel Race

Samsung launched on Monday the Pixon12, the company's first touchscreen phone with a 12-megapixel camera

The long-rumored phone follows in the footsteps of the Sony Ericsson Satio, which also comes equipped with a 12-megapixel camera. But the Samsung phone will be the first to hit the market when it ships in some parts of Europe by the end of June.

Sony Ericsson, on the other hand, will start shipping the Satio in the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Losing that first-to-market advantage will be frustrating for Sony Ericsson, according to a research note from CCS Insight, which said that the megapixel race appears to be slowing down.

The Pixon12 also has a Xenon flash and Touch Auto-Focus tracking, which lets the user select the focus point with the touch of a finger, after which the phone automatically follows the object. It features fast-image saving, so users should be able to take next photo within about two seconds, according to a statement from Samsung.

Both images and videos -- which the Pixon12 records with 720 by 480 resolution at 30 frames per second -- can be uploaded to social-networking sites such as Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, MySpace, Photobucket, and Friendster, Samsung said. Images are stored on a 16G byte MicroSD card.

Besides a camera it has some other fairly standard features, including a 3.1-inch display, GPS and an FM radio. Users can surf the net using HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) or Wi-Fi.

Palm Pre gets thumbs up in media reviews

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Pre smartphone from Palm Inc received mostly positive reviews and predictions it will be a tough competitor to Apple Inc's iPhone, sending Palm's shares up more than 10 percent.

The device -- due to go on sale at No. 3 U.S. mobile service Sprint Nextel Corp on June 6 -- was praised by several newspapers for its shape, how it combines touchscreen controls with a physical keyboard and its ability to run several applications all at once, unlike iPhone.

Sprint will have exclusive U.S. rights to sell the phone at least until the end of 2009. Its rivals Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc and AT&T Inc have also said they want to carry Pre.

Gripes included concerns about battery life and a thin supply of applications, which were a key to the success of today's iPhone. Some analysts have said the reviews of the phone would make a big difference to sales.

Wall Street Journal reviewer Walt Mossberg noted that Pre will meet some tough competition from a new iPhone expected to be announced next week and available in about a month.

"I consider the Pre to be potentially the strongest rival to iPhone to date, provided it attracts lots of third-party apps, which it sorely lacks at launch," Mossberg said in his review, which appeared online late on Wednesday.

He said Pre's biggest advantage over iPhone is its inclusion of a keyboard and he also talked about its "beautiful industrial design."

Mossberg described Pre's design as "much better than" the BlackBerry Storm from Research In Motion and G1, which uses Google Inc's Android system. The Android system is made by HTC Corp and sold by T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG.

New York Times reviewer David Pogue said Pre had the usual checklist of features for an advanced phone, but put it all together more effectively than rivals.

"The hard part is making it all feel simple and unified -- over all, Palm nailed it," said Pogue, who also described Pre as "more comfortable as a phone" than iPhone.

And in another dig at Apple, Pogue also said that, while the keyboard had "Thumbelina-size keys" the Pre's surface material made "it faster and less frustrating than typing on glass."

But Pogue said "iPhone is not going away" and he had some complaints about Pre he said needed to be fixed.

He described battery life as "the Pre's heartbreaker" as the device needed recharging "by late afternoon or dinner time." But unlike iPhone, Pre's battery is easy to swap out.

Pogue also said that opening certain programs can be very slow, "sometimes eight or nine seconds" and bemoaned the fact there was no progress bar or hourglass to let you know its still working."

Palm shares were up $1.25, or 10 percent, in afternoon trade on Nasdaq at $13.74. Palm's shares had already almost quadrupled since the phone was first unveiled on January 8.
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Sony Ericsson Handset Features 8.1-Megapixel Camera

sony ericsson w995aThe Sony Ericsson W995a 3G handset, announced today, is among the select few in the U.S. to offer an 8.1-megapixel digital camera. This $600 unlocked quad-band GSM/tri-band UMTS multimedia handset will come in black, silver, and red, and is now available for pre-orders; it will ship July 6. (See our Top 10 Cell Phones.)

This 4-ounce slider phone's camera includes a flash, as is becoming increasingly common. The digital camera offers standalone-camera features such as a 16X digital zoom, face detection technology, geo-tagging, autofocus, image stabilization, and video recording. You can even hold the handset horizontally like a standard digital camera. The screen has an sony ericsson w995aaccelerometer, and autorotates as needed.

The unit also has a 2.6-inch display, Bluetooth 2.0 stereo support, a Wi-Fi adapter, and a GPS receiver. As part of the Walkman line of phones, this model also has a healthy set of music-friendly features: Walkman 3.0 digital music/video player software with dedicated playback buttons; stereo FM radio with presets; Sony's Clear Bass technology for bolstering bass response; and Clear Stereo technology, for minimizing audio leakage between the right and left channels.

The W995a also comes with an 8GB Sony Memory Stick Micro for extra storage (the phone's onboard memory is negligible). The phone, previously available overseas, continues to use Memory Stick Micro, although Sony Ericsson has already announced plans to bail on the memory format.

An interesting design point: If you actually want to make calls, a standard dialpad with rectangular buttons slides down from the casing. Sony Ericsson says the unit offers up to nine hours of talk time, more than two weeks of standby time, and 20 hours of music playback per charge.

Study Shows Twitter Is a Broadcast Medium

New Harvard Business research data seems to prove something many had already figured out: Twitter is a broadcast medium, not a conversation. So how is an essentially one-way conversation considered to be a social network? Does that standard also make television and radio into social networks, too?

Across the 300,000 users studied, the median number of lifetime Tweets is one. That means half of Twitter users tweet once every 74 days. Which is also about the churn rate for new Twitter users, many of whom quickly leave the service. Seemingly after tweeting only once.

On the other hand, the top 10 percent of Twitter users are responsible for 90 percent of all tweets. If that isn't broadcasting, I don’t know what is. Twitter would be better served if maybe half of users were responsible for the same number of tweets.

Heavy-duty Twits, er, Twitter users see none of this as surprising. These folks apparently enjoy being led around by the usual cryptic 140-character messages and truncated links that are the Twitter experience. They are Twitter viewers, using service, typically through a Twitter app, to watch but not really contribute.

The study explains why people like myself, who would rather interact with people they know find Twitter fairly vapid. I really don't need to find out what some cyber celebrity is eating for lunch or thinks in funny at the moment. On the other hand, there are some news sources that have my attention, just like on TV.

That doesn't mean Twitter can't be useful and I am not going to throw the TweetDeck client I use into the trash, but the study explains how Twitter and truly interactive networks, like Facebook, are fundamentally different. Something Facebook doesn't seem to understand.

All this can change, of course, if more Twitter users were to start tweeting more often. However, the short message limitation and meaningless URLs make Twitter a challenge for new users. And a frustration for those who actually have something to say.

As long as Twitter mostly consists of people sending links with short descriptions attached, it will never be truly interactive. That's not bad thing, we should just calibrate our expectations accordingly.

What We Know, What We Expect With IPhone 3.0

As Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference nears, speculation over what's in store for the iPhone has reached an ear-splitting, glass-shattering pitch. In the wake of Apple's departure from Macworld Expo, WWDC is the last remaining annually scheduled event for the company, so expectations are high. Will Apple have some surprises up its sleeve? Or will eager fans and watchers have to "merely" be satisfied with what Apple's already announced--particularly when it comes to the next version of the operating system for its popular iPhone?

What we know

Just for the sake of a refresher course, let's review what Apple has already publicly disclosed about the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 update. During March's special event announcing the next version of the iPhone OS and its attendant software development kit (SDK), the company boasted of more than 1,000 new application programming interfaces (APIs) for developers as well as more than 100 new features for users.

Among the features plugged for average Joe iPhone-user are a number of much-anticipated improvements--a list topped by Apple's implementation of cut, copy, and paste, which will finally allow the ability to move text not just within applications, but also between applications.

Apple also showed off Multimedia Messaging (MMS), finally bringing to the iPhone a feature that most conventional cell phones have had for years. Thanks to a new Messages application that replaces the current Text app, no longer will iPhone users be restricted to sending and receiving messages of purely text: now those messages can contain images, voice recordings, and even location or contact information as well.

Speaking of voice recordings, Apple showed off a brand new application, Voice Memos, which allows users to quickly and easily use the iPhone's built-in microphone (or, in the case of the iPod touch, an attached microphone) to record audio as well as trim it and share it with others via e-mail or MMS.

Another marquee feature for the new version of the iPhone OS is search. Taking a page from its desktop OS, the iPhone now has a special Spotlight screen (to the left of the first Home screen) that allows for searching of contacts, applications, media in your iPod library, notes, emails, and calendar appointments. In addition, several individual applications will feature their own search capability, with Mail receiving the most robust support: it allows for searches of From, To, and Subject headers, as well as the ability to continue your search on supported IMAP servers for messages not yet downloaded to the iPhone.

While those were the biggest features touted for end users, Apple executives did mention several others, including adding the iPhone's landscape keyboard to text-heavy applications such as Mail and Notes as well as support for CalDAV and subscription-based calendars in the Calendar application. They also touched on improvements in the Stocks app, the addition of Notes sync, stereo Bluetooth support via the A2DP profile, additional languages, Auto-Fill for Safari, expanded Parental Controls, anti-phishing protection, support for YouTube accounts, and more.

And users won't be the only ones to see benefits from iPhone 3.0. If anything, third-party developers will have even more freedom at their disposal with those 1,000 new APIs. They'll be able to sell additional content for their applications from inside the programs themselves, write software that interacts with hardware connected via Bluetooth or the iPhone's dock-connector port, and take advantage of seamless peer-to-peer networking support that Apple has baked right in. Apple also is now allowing developers to embed Google Maps into their application or even use the iPhone's Core Location framework to provide turn-by-turn directions.

Apple also spent some time in March detailing its long-gestating push notifications system, first discussed at last year's WWDC. While third-party applications still can't run in the background, they will be able to receive information via a persistent network connection and then alert the user via a sound, pop-up notification, or icon badge.

Other APIs were given lip service during the presentation, such as access to the shake API, data detectors, access to the iPod library, and in-application e-mail. Apple also said that iPhone 3.0 would support tethering on the software side, but developments in that arena would require cooperation from its various carrier partners.

What we may know

For every piece of hard data we have about the next version of the iPhone OS, we have dozens of smaller unsubstantiated tidbits that are bandied about the Web in a furious ping-pong match of rumor and counter-rumor. Some of these rumors seem more likely than others, given the source of speculation and the evidence provided, while others have about as much substance as the idea that Apple will release seventy brand new devices next week.

The most popular rumors for to-be-announced functionality in the iPhone 3.0 seem to swirl around the subject of video. That's another category where the iPhone doesn't stack up well against the much cheaper competition. The iPhone may be second to none in video playback, but when it comes to recording video, users are left in the cold. Some speculation suggests that not only will the new iPhone software allow video-recording and basic editing features, but it will also integrate with both YouTube and Apple's own MobileMe service for sharing clips, as well as perhaps via the iPhone's new Messaging app.

And speaking of video, some speculators have pointed to potential evidence that Apple is preparing to allow downloads of video content such as TV shows and movies from the iTunes Store over the iPhone's wireless connection, as the company currently allows with songs and podcasts.

The final video-related rumor is the seemingly perennial speculation over video chat. Apple's iChat has long allowed this functionality on the desktop, and it's been a feature frequently shown off in Apple's promotional materials and presentations. Will Apple finally bring the same technology to the iPhone? If nothing else, it would seem to require a new iPhone with a front-facing camera, so don't expect the one without the other.

We've also heard Apple talk up push notifications as the solution for the lack of background applications, but much in the same way that it once talked about Web apps as the solution for third-party applications on the iPhone--and we all know how that turned out. Clearly notifications leaves something to be desired, so one piece of speculation suggests that Apple may allow limited background processing on the iPhone, though whether that would be handled through the App Store approval process, a specially "blessed" slot in the iPhone's application dock, or another method entirely is left as an exercise of imagination for the reader.

In addition, we've also seen rumors of a location service that will let you track down a missing iPhone, a potential framework for speech recognition and synthesis, and changes in the way that redownloading your apps will work (in order to discourage piracy).

What about when?

New features, real and rumored, are great, but the real money question is when we'll be able to get our own hands on iPhone 3.0? Apple's been pretty consistent about promising the update this summer, but that could be any time from next week's WWDC to early September. iPhone 2.0, for example, was discussed at WWDC in June 2008, but wasn't released until the middle of July.

This, week, however, Apple updated iTunes to version 8.2, with the release note indicating that the music library software now supports iPhone OS 3.0. But that could easily just be the company's way of getting one update out to hopefully prevent a crush of users trying to download new iTunes software and new iPhone software on the same day. (Or perhaps you've forgotten last year's simultaneous releases of the App Store, iPhone 2.0, the iPhone 3G, and MobileMe and the ensuing hassles.)

And, of course, there's the timing of new hardware to consider. If Apple does release a new iPhone, it will almost certainly ship that new model with iPhone 3.0 installed. That may very well dictate when Apple decides to release the software update for the rest of us. One thing we do know, however, is the price: the update will be free for iPhone users--unfortunately, for iPod touch owners, they'll have to shell out the usual US$10 to reap the benefits.

What does it all mean?

The iPhone 2.0 update was all about turning the iPhone from a product into a platform. It didn't bring a lot in the way of features, but it did bring support for the App Store, and that was unquestionably one of the smartest moves Apple has ever made. The resulting enthusiasm over developing for the iPhone has made mobile computing a reality at last.

So what's left for Apple with iPhone 3.0? In many ways, iPhone 3.0 is about refining the product and filling in gaps. Features like cut-and-paste, MMS, search, and the rumored video support show Apple plugging holes in functionality in order to eliminate objections that might stand in the way of potential converts who haven't been swayed thus far.

Meanwhile, the company continues to bolster its foundations to provide solid ground for third-party developers to build upon. Hopefully when the dust settles, iPhone 3.0's legacy will be of a mature, stable, featureful software update to a device that's already become a phenomenon.