Good…No Great News

Good news for business people today.  Apple announced the long awaited, and much needed, enterprise features for the iPhone.  Many of us we insistent that the iPhone was not complete, and could not truly be embraced by business users without them.  What am I referring to?

- Full Microsoft Exchange support, including push email, calendar, integration with contacts and full notes and meeting support

- Remote wiping of the iPhone

- Secure WiFi support

What is interesting to me is how Apple chose to integrate with Exchange: via ActiveSync.  Instead of just connecting directly via the Exchange MAPI protocol, like Outlook, ActiveSync, Microsoft’s sync technology is being licensed by Apple.  ActiveSync first made an appearance via the PocketPC OS, released when Microsoft chose to battle Palm in the PDA wars of the mid to late 1990’s.  Even up to the current generation of ActiveSync, it’s remained a buggy, not always stable sync platform.

I hope that Apple has had an opportunity to stablize ActiveSync, and fix the problems Microsoft never could.

IT Wish List For Apple Phone

MacWorld has an interesting opinion piece on a wish list from IT managers for features for the iPhone.   A few include full API’s for Mail, Calendar and Notes, Wireless/Bluetooth syncing, and a “LoJack” feature.

Read more.

Apple Will Open More Stores In Europe

According to MacUser, “Italy is being blessed with two spanking new Apple stores, as confirmed yesterday by Apple’s retail director Ron Johnson.”  Both stores will open in Milan.   The largest store will feature the familiar glass cube design as in New York City.  However, it will be larger.  I sense that Italian Apple shoppers will start bragging that their store is more designer than ours.  You would think Porsche’s and Italian shoes..wine…pasta…paintings…well everything would be enough.  Now they have to be even cooler than us.

At least we have the hot dog.

Source: MacUser

Today’s The Day: Apple iPhone Event

Today is the day.  Apple’s iPhone event, held at Apple’s headquarters, should reveal new iPhone enterprise features and a software roadmap.  Let’s hope a real, fairly unrestricted SDK shows up as well.

Multi-touch…patents…and everyone else

Tom Krazit has a piece on his blog, hosted by CNET, commenting on the possible impact of Apple’s patents on multitouch, and how it might affect other laptop manufacturers.  One of his premises is that Apple’s patents may lead other manufacturers to use different gestures, and thereby causing a user to use different motions for the same tasks, depending on the brand of PC.

While this could certainly be a possibility, I would hope that some sort of sanity could prevail on this one.

More Mac OS X Hints

Latest from macosxhints.com:

- Serial port access through Terminal in Leopard Server
- 10.5: Working with Windows workgroups in 10.5
- 10.5: AppleScript ‘path to me’ function changed in 10.5
- A command line crossword solving assistant
- 10.5: Share files and create sharing users in one step

Source: MacOSXHints.com

Apple Event March 6th…SDK?

According to numerous news outlets, Apple is holding a townhall meeting on Thursday, March 6th at 10 a.m. PST.  The subject matter: a software roadmap, that includes the SDK and new enterprise features.

Is 3G on that roadmap?  Real Microsoft Exchange support? Unlocking of phones?

I’m mostly interested in the “enterprise” features.  Hopefully Apple will have information on upgrades that will satisfy the road warriors, and possibly cause Blackberry users to break their addiction to their RIM phones and switch to an iPhone.

Idol + iTunes = Good Things For Apple

MacWorld has a good story on analysts opinions on the recent American Idol/Apple iTunes partnership.  In summary…it’s good for both parties.  Especially for Apple, who still has potential iPod and iTunes customers to grab, despite recent slowdowns in sales growth for the mp3 player.

Source: MacWorld

SSD Concerns…and Samsung’s Response

The Mac Observer has a story on Samsung comments to apparent concern and misinformation on SSD reliability.  The largest, must confused rumor is that a SSD essential wears out “electrically” after 100,000 writes.  For more clarification on the issue, and current price forecasting, click here.

Source: Mac OS Observer

Too Many Screws?

Apparently a group of Japanese PC manufacturers and the Nikkei Electronics Teardown Squad think the MacBook Air is so expensive because of its wasteful use of screws…yes screws.  Not only that, but the design is anything but revolutionary.

MacUser gives its take on the whole “too many screws” mystery.

Source: MacUser