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Apple’s found itself in market cold wars with many tech companies, most notably Microsoft, Adobe and Google. But things are really heating up with smartphone maker RIM. In the last 24 hours, RIM has attacked Apple’s technical chops and software philosophy.

First, RIM’s Playbook team posted a video (see below) comparing its forthcoming tablet’s mobile browser to the iPad’s. Interestingly, the video highlighted not just the iPad’s lack of Flash (which everyone knows about), but also its slow page-loading speed, lack of pixel-by-pixel rendering fidelity and lack of support for high-quality JavaScript and HTML5 video.

The implication is clear: Steve Jobs has said that Apple isn’t putting resources behind Flash so it can focus on HTML5 and other open web standards. But the iPad’s implementation of those standards is far from perfect. RIM is now claiming that it has been able to put together a faster browser with better HTML5 performance — and, as a bonus, support for Flash — even though Apple’s had more time to get its browser right.

RIM’s HTML5 emphasis is key for its second attack on Apple, which CEO Jim Balsillie voiced at Tuesday’s Web 2.0 conference: Apple’s highly-touted app marketplace really just masks iOS’s subpar web performance.

“You dont need an app for the Web,” Balsillie said. Since many iOS apps are just frontend clients for web properties — stores, games, media companies, social networking sites — and RIM’s app strength is in documents and productivity, it’s a clear contrast.

Theres still a role for apps, but can you use your existing content? Balsillie asked web companies. Can you use your existing web assets? Do you need a set of proprietary tools to bring existing assets on to a device, or can you use known tools that you use for creating websites?

As for Apple catching up to Blackberry in the smartphone market, when asked what he would tell Jobs if he were there, Balsillie simply said, “You finally showed up.”

This isn’t the first time Balsillie has shot back at Jobs and Apple. After an October earnings call where Jobs crowed about passing RIM in quarterly smartphone sales and denigrated 7-inch tablets (a class that includes RIM’s Playbook) as overexpensive underperformers, Balsillie took to the official Blackberry blog, questioning Apple’s numbers (RIM’s fiscal quarters are slightly different from Apple’s), its software philosophy and Jobs’s treatment by the media.

“For those of us who live outside of Apples distortion field,” Balsillie wrote, “we know that 7-inch tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience.” He added, “We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple.”

It might be surprising that Balsillie taken such a hard line against Apple, considering that Android smartphones are arguably taking a bigger bite out of RIM’s core smartphone business, while Windows Phone 7 is trying to peel away customers too. But targeting Apple makes a lot of sense.

First, no company in technology is more visible than Apple and no person in technology is more recognizable than Steve Jobs. Shooting down Apple and the iPad is news, and doing it on the basis of HTML5 and web support is a strike at the heart of what Apple has staked its claim on. It’s like Pepsi beating Coke in a sip test.

Second, the iPad surprised everyone — including Apple — by its adoption rate among business users. RIM, which has traditionally been very strong in the business world, is eager to stop that trend in its tracks, before companies that were RIM-only decide to go iOS-only.

Finally, Blackberry offers a lot more smartphone models, at different price points and in different form factors, than it did when the iPhone was announced. It’s rebranding itself in the consumer market as a company that’s all about the web and communication. This week’s attacks were aimed at driving that point home.

No more of what Jobs once called “the baby web” for baby-sized smartphone screens. Email, Messenger, text entry, and the full web: that’s the space Blackberry wants to occupy in the customer’s imagination.

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It has taken more than seven years, but at last Apple has brought The Beatles to the iTunes Store. If you are one of the rare people who is both a huge fan of the group, but somehow doesn’t actually own the music, you can buy the entire back-catalog at once for $150.

Ever since Apple started selling music downloads back in April 2003, there has been speculation as to when – if – The Beatles would be available on the store. The negotiations surely werent helped by legal troubles triggered by Apple Computer when it got into the music business and trod on the toes of The Beatles’ Apple Corp.

But after such a long wait, the offering at iTunes is pretty impressive. Even if you don’t want to buy the White Album yet again, you should head over and spend the morning checking out the freebies. There are enough videos to keep you distracted from work for a chunk of the day, including TV ads, a documentary of The Beatles first U.S concert at the Washington Coliseum in 1964, and a great highlight reel.

But the real meat is the music, and The Beatles Box Set contains everything: All the studio albums, the Past Masters collection, all A and B sides plus plenty of liner notes, photos and documentaries courtesy of the iTunes LP format.

The Beatles on iTunes [Apple]

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Apple will be making an announcement Tuesday morning regarding iTunes.

Count us among the cautiously optimistic. ITunes is one of the most successful software packages in history, installed on more than 125 million computers worldwide and used for about 70% of all digital music purchases. (Exact numbers are hard to find, but it’s huge.) Its reach would seem to make iTunes a terrific platform for transforming the media landscape — if it weren’t such a bloated, hard-to-use, overloaded mess.

We don’t know what Apple will be announcing tomorrow. The Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the situation,” says it will include the long-awaited coming of the Beatles catalog to the iTunes Music Store. It could be the addition of a streaming-media subscription service to iTunes. It might be an overhaul of Apple’s abortive attempt at a social network, Ping. Or it could be something completely different.

Regardless of what Apple does announce, here’s what we’re hoping for.

Subscription Music

Already iTunes lets you rent TV shows. The company is building a billion-dollar, 500,000-square-foot data center, and has yet to do anything really interesting with LaLa, the streaming-music startup it acquired in late 2009 and shut down earlier this year. Isn’t it about time that Apple offered an all-you-can-eat subscription music service, similar to Rdio or Spotify or Rhapsody, that lets you listen to whatever you want?

It’s surprising the company hasn’t already done this (and a little bit embarrassing to us, given the number of times we’ve called for this). Still, if we were going to put our money on a bet about tomorrow’s announcement, it’d be this: The signs all point toward an imminent subscription streaming-music service. If it doesn’t happen this week, it’ll happen soon. We hope.

Make it a Cloud-Based Service

“Cloud” services are this year’s hot marketing trend, but for a good reason. Saying that a service lives “in the cloud” is shorthand for saying that it’s stored on a server somewhere out there in the internet, and don’t you trouble your pretty little head about where or how. It’s the internet equivalent of “and then a miracle occurs.”

But with an increasing amount of our lives lived through portable gadgets, cloud services meet a need: Letting us get to our stuff from wherever we are, no matter what device we’re using.

And that billion-dollar data center? Once you’re using it to deliver subscription music, why not let it deliver all of a customer’s music library?

In other words, to hell with syncing. We want our iTunes music streamed to us in real time, on our phones, tablets, notebooks, netbooks and work computers.

And there are millions of us who would pay for a service like that.

Photo: Jonathan Snyder / Wired.com

Dylan edits Wired.com’s Gadget Lab blog, and likes to write about technology, science, gadgets, and their impact on society and culture.
Follow @dylan20 and @gadgetlab on Twitter

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Something is going to happen to iTunes tomorrow, only we don’t quite know what. Apple’s front door at Apple.com has the above graphic and nothing more:

Tomorrow is Just Another Day. That You’ll Never Forget. Check back here tomorrow for an exciting announcement from iTunes.

What could it mean?

Like any Apple teaser campaign, the fun is in the guessing, so let’s try. Perhaps Apple will be adding Tomorrow’s Just Another Day by Madness to the iTunes Store? Nope. It’s there already. Or perhaps we’ll be able to rent Gone With the Wind, which ends with that same line in both movie and book versions? I doubt it.

So that leaves iOS 4.2, which seems a little dull for such a big announcement.

My guess is an iTunes streaming service. We can already rent movies, so why not pay for an all-you-can-eat music subscription service, like the amazing Spotify we already have over in Europe? Apple has its giant data center, and although it doesn’t look finished, that doesn’t mean it isn’t fully armed and operational. Or maybe, just maybe, Apple has invented a new version of iTunes that doesn’t suck.

Whatever it is, it’s not a worldwide phenomenon. The clocks in the picture show cities in three countries, the U.S, Japan and England. All of these have the same teaser, but others don’t. Spain, for instance, still has that annoying full-page MacBook Air spot.

I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

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By Derek Sivers – CD Baby

It was October 2003 andSteve Jobs was on stage for a special worldwide simulcast keynote speech about iTunes. About four minutes into the presentation, he said something that made my pounding heart sink to my burning stomach.

In May 2003, Apple invited me to their headquarters to discuss gettingCD Baby’s catalog into the iTunes Music Store.

iTunes had just launched two weeks before, with only some music from the major labels. Many of us in the music biz were not sure this idea was going to work. Especially those who had seen companies likeeMusic do this exact same model for years without big success.

I flew to Cupertino thinking I’d be meeting with one of their marketing or tech people. When I arrived, I found out that about a hundred people from small record labels and distributors had also been invited.

We all went into a little presentation room, not knowing what to expect.

Thenout comes Steve Jobs. Whoa! Wow.

He was in full persuasive presentation mode. Trying to convince all of us to give Apple our entire catalog of music. Talking about iTunes success so far, and all the reasons we should work with them.

He really made a point of saying, “We want the iTunes Music Store to have every piece of music ever recorded. Even if it’s discontinued or not selling much, we want it all.”

This washuge to me, because until 2003, independent musicians were always denied access to the big outlets. For Apple to sell all music, not just artists who had signed their rights away to a corporation, this was amazing!

Then they showed the Apple software we’d all have to use to send them each album. It required us to put the audio CD into a Mac CD-Rom drive, type in all of the album info, song titles and bio, then click [encode] for it to rip, and [upload] when done.

I raised my hand and asked if it was required that we use their software. They said yes.

I asked again, saying we had over 100,000 albums, already ripped as lossless WAV files, with all of the info carefully entered by the artist themselves, ready to send to their servers with their exact specifications. They said sorry – you need to use this software – there is no other way.

Ugh. That means we have to pull each one of those CDs off of the shelf again, stick it in a Mac, then cut-and-paste every song title into that Mac software. But so be it. If that’s what Apple needs, OK.

They said they’d be ready for us to start uploading in the next couple weeks.

I flew home that night, posted my meeting notes on my website, emailed all of my clients to announce the news, and went to sleep.

When I woke, I had furious emails and voicemails from my contact at Apple.

“What the hell are you doing? That meeting was confidential! Take those notes off your site immediately! Our legal department is furious!”

There was no mention of confidentiality at the meeting and no agreement to sign. But I removed my notes from my site immediately, to be nice. (You can see still a copy someone postedhere.)

All was well, or so I thought.

Apple emailed us the iTunes Music Store contract. We immediately signed it and returned it the same day.

I started building the system to deliver everyone’s music to iTunes.

I decided we’d have to charge $40 for this service, to cover our bandwidth and payroll costs of pulling each CD out of the warehouse, entering all the info, digitizing, uploading, and putting it back in the warehouse.

5,000 musicians signed up in advance, each paying $40. That $200,000 helped pay for the extra equipment and people needed to make this happen.

Within two weeks, we got contacted byRhapsody,Yahoo Music,Napster,eMusic, and more – each saying they wanted our entire catalog.

Yes! Awesome!

Maybe you can’t appreciate this now, but the summer of 2003 was the biggest turning point that independent music has ever had. Until that point, almost no big business would sell independent music. (That’s why I had to start CD Baby, because nobody would sell my music.)

By iTunes saying they wanted everything, then their competitors needing to keep up, we were in! Since the summer of 2003, every musician everywhere can sell all their music in almost every outlet online. Do you realize howamazing that is?

But there was one problem.

iTunes wasn’t getting back to us.

Yahoo, Rhapsody, Napster and the rest were all up and running. ButiTunes wasn’t returning our signed contract.

Was it because I posted my meeting notes?

Had I pissed-off Steve Jobs?

Nobody at Apple would say anything.It had been months.

My musicians were getting impatient and angry.

I gave optimistic apologies, but I was starting to get worried, too.

Then in October, Steve Jobs did a special worldwide simulcast keynote speech about iTunes.

People had been criticizing iTunes for having less music than the competition. They had 300,000 songs while Rhapsody and Napster had over 2 million songs. (Over 500,000 of those were from CD Baby.)

Four minutes in, he said something that made my pounding heart sink to my burning stomach:

“This number could have easily been much higher, if we wanted to let in every song. But we realize record companies do a great service. They edit! Did you know that if you and I record a song, for $40 we can pay a few of the services to get it on their site, through some intermediaries? We can be on Rhapsody and all these other guys for $40? Well we don’t want to let that stuff on our site! So we’ve had to edit it. And these are 400,000 quality songs.”

(Watch the video, here.)

Whoa! Wow.Steve Jobs just dissed me hard!

I’m the only one charging $40. That was me he’s referring to.

Shit. OK. That’s that. Steve changed his mind. No independents on iTunes. You heard the man.

I hated the position this put me in.

Ever since I started my company in 1998, I had been offering an excellent service. I could make promises and keep them, because I was in full control.

Now, for the first time,I had made a promise for something that was out of my control.

So it was time to do the right thing, no matter how much it hurt.

I decided to refund everybody’s $40, with my deepest apologies. With 5000 musicians signed up, that meant I was refunding $200,000.

Since we couldn’t promise anything, I couldn’t charge money in good conscience.

• I removed all mention of iTunes from my site.
• I removed the $40 cost to make it free.
• I changed the language to say we can’t promise anything.
• I emailed everyone to let them know what had happened.

I decided to make it a free service from that point on.

The next day, we got our signed contract back from Apple, along with upload instructions.

Unbelievable.

We asked, “Why now?”, but got no answer.

Whatever. Fucking Apple.

We started encoding and uploading immediately.

I quietly added iTunes back to the list of companies on our site.

But I never again promised a customer that I could do something beyond my full control.

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Here’s an amusing look at just how screwed up is the Apple rumor-mill. Today’s big “news” is that the iOS 4.2 update has been “delayed”. The problem? The official launch date is simply “November”, do we still have weeks to go.

The logic works like this. Initial murmurings said that iOS 4.2, the unifying release that brings multitasking to the iPad and AirPlay to all iDevices, would be delivered tomorrow. This fits, as last week Apple released the iOS 4.2 Gold Master (GM). A GM usually goes on, unchanged, to be the official release.

Now, thanks to iPad Wi-Fi connectivity problems suffered by testers (read “people who grabbed the GM off BitTorrent), the rumors say that the release will be “delayed” until next week, either Tuesday or Friday depending on the source.

And this may all be true, but there is no delay. That’s the advantage of Apple’s secrecy. If you never announce anything until it’s ready, it can never be late ( white iPhone ).

Most consumers won’t even realize there’s an update coming until it shows up in their iTunes. And for those of us who can’t wait? Well, lets just say the iOS 4.2 GM isn’t causing any problems with my iPad 3G.

iOS 4.2 on November 16th [iPhone Hellas]

Rumor: iOS4.2 Delayed At Least a Week [TUAW]

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Most of your friends are on Facebook, only the nerdiest of them are on Twitter and your professional colleagues are on LinkedIn. Stalking everybody by checking all these sites can be a colossal waste of time.

Enter the Friends app from Taptivate, who developed the beautiful Postman app I covered previously. Friends takes your contacts from different services Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (whoever’s on there anymore) and LinkedIn and shoves them all into one tidy list.

If I were to select my friend Phill from the list, for example, I’d be able to tap a tab to check his Twitter feed, a different tab to check his Facebook stream and another tab to dial his phone. Check out the video below to get a visual sense of what I mean.

Friends from Oliver Cameron on Vimeo.

Friends isn’t out yet in the App Store, but I had some hands-on time with an early build of the app. I enjoy the detail and simplicity of the design; I’m probably going to be using this app to quickly check on some people while riding the elevator or standing in line at a grocery store.

Taptivate expects to release Friends in a few weeks in the App Store. It will cost 2 bucks. Keep an eye out for this gem.

Product page [Taptivate]

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Apple’s next iOS software upgrade is supposed to introduce wireless printing to the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, but early reports suggest that the print feature won’t fully work as promised.

When Steve Jobs introduced AirPrint as a new feature in iOS 4.2, he said it would enable Apple’s mobile devices to print without needing to install drivers or additional software. He explained that AirPrint would work with printers shared on a network by a Mac or PC, or with HP printers that market themselves as AirPrint-compatible.

However, Mac app programmers told MacStories that Apple had removed references to shared printing in Apple’s developer support documentation, and one developer heard the shared-printing feature had been removed because of instability and incompatibility with some printers.

Also, Apple just released the latest Mac OS update (10.6.5), and some have reported that shared printing indeed is not supported through AirPrint.

A statement from an Apple spokeswoman also does not mention support for shared printing:

“With iOS 4.2 available this month, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users can print to directly to AirPrint compatible printers without the need to install drivers or download software. HP is bringing AirPrint to their fall lineup of ePrint printers including the Photosmart, Officejet, Officejet Pro and LaserJet Pro series.”

For now, it looks like AirPrint is only going to print with a few HP printers labeled as AirPrint-compatible, so it won’t be very useful for many customers. We’ll know for sure when iOS 4.2 officially ships presumably soon because the near-final version recently released for iOS developers.

It seemed too good to be true when Apple said that the next iOS software update would introduce simple, pain-free wireless printing. Printers, as anyone who’s ever used a computer should already know, are a royal pain in the rear, and it looks like Apple hasn’t solved the problem yet.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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The glass iPhone 4 is more likely to slip out of your hand, eat the ground and break than other phones, according to a report.

A study by third-party warranty company SquareTrade tracked 50,000 phones over one year to analyze the accident report rates of different phones (that is, how likely each one is to fall to the ground or get spilled on), as well as their non-accident malfunction rates (i.e., how likely they are to fail on their own when they’re not dropped).

The iPhone 4 had the highest accident rate of 13.8 percent, but a reported non-accident malfunction rate of 2.1 percent, according to SquareTrade. That means the iPhone 4 is the most reliable phone over a year so long as you don’t drop it.

However, the iPhone 4’s higher accident rate is nothing to sneeze at. SquareTrade notes that 90 percent of the iPhone 4’s failures were due to accidental damage. So that means if you’re more likely to drop the iPhone 4 than other phones, it’s the most fragile handset.

Motorola and HTC phones were almost as accident-prone as the iPhone 4, both with an accident rate of 12.2 percent.

Bottom line: the more glass a device has, the more likely you are to drop it, and the more likely it is to break.

“The bigger issue for consumers is the vulnerability of phones to accidental damage, especially as the market evolves more and more to include large glass displays,” SquareTrade said in its study [pdf].

For comparison, BlackBerry smartphones had a 6.7-percent accident rate but a 6.3-percent malfunction rate suggesting they’re the least reliable because they’re more likely to fail on their own even if they’re not dropped.

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With the iPad’s 9.5-inch screen, who needs an iPhone?

Indeed, after six months of using a tablet, I’m ready to ditch my smartphone for something simpler and more reliable.

The phone I want is a feature phone with a 3G connection and the ability to create a Wi-Fi hotspot for tethering my devices to it.

It should have long battery life, be able to grab and hold on to a voice signal with the tenacity of a bear trap, and be compact yet ruggedly durable.

It could even have an E Ink screen for super low battery consumption. Who cares if the screen is low resolution and has a one-second refresh rate, if all you’re using it for is looking at the occasional text message? (Thanks for the suggestion, Tim!)

The result would be a device I could use for phone conversations and basic texting. Mostly, though, it would supply internet connectivity to my other gadgets. I’d use an iPad or my laptop for e-mail, reading articles on the web, composing blog posts, Twitter, and in short everything else.

Basically I want something like the Nokia 3595 I used for years, before getting a first-gen iPhone, except with the addition of 3G data and Wi-Fi tethering.

After six months of semi-regularly using Apple’s tablet, I’m growing increasingly disenchanted with even the iPhone 4’s high-resolution “retina” display. The thing is just too small to use comfortably.

The more I read on my iPhone, the more sad and tired I get. Bending my neck to stare at a tiny, smaller-than-index-card-sized glowing screen a foot or so in front of my face makes me feel as if my world has shrunk to the size of a playing card.

With the iPad, by contrast, I feel like I’m reading a book. It’s too heavy to hold comfortably for extended periods, but I can prop it up in comfortable positions or slouch with it on my lap. I feel more a part of the world.

The iPhone has other problems, too. Don’t get me started on how often AT&T drops my calls or fails to give me a signal at all.

(And I refuse to get a 3G iPad, or pay extra for its month-to-month data service, no matter how good both are. I’m already paying for 3G data with my phone’s plan — why do I need to buy a second data plan?)

I’ve jailbroken the iPhone and am using the amazing app MyWi to give it Wi-Fi tethering capabilities, so whenever I have a signal, it can feed it to my iPad or laptop. That’s a step in the right direction.

I tried the same thing with a Nexus One awhile back, and that worked, too.

Unfortunately, the Nexus One and the iPhone, like all smartphones, are still too big and fragile. I don’t know of any feature phones that offer 3G and tethering.

Now if only I had something durable and compact, with long battery life, that did the same thing.

Is my ideal phone out there? Let me know if I’m overlooking something obvious. I’d love to be proven wrong on this one.

Photo: Jonathan Snyder / Wired.com

Follow us for real-time tech news: Dylan Tweney and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Dylan edits Wired.com’s Gadget Lab blog, and likes to write about technology, science, gadgets, and their impact on society and culture. Follow @dylan20 on Twitter

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AT&T’s Windows Phone 7 handsets drop today, but if you navigate past the company’s big splash page, you’d never know it.

That’s because like most other phone retailers, AT&T’s online store drills down by manufacturer and device type (e.g., smartphone, feature phone, tablet/computer), but not operating system. The only smartphone OS it currently separates out is Android, grouped with categories like “free,” “slider” and “refurbished.”

MoreWindowsPhone7 coverage on Gadget Lab:

• Samsung’s Windows Phone 7 Packs Intuitive, Visual Punch
• Microsoft Announces First Windows Phone 7 Handsets
• A Humbled Microsoft Prepares to Boot UpWindowsPhone7
• Microsoft Blends Zune Media, Xbox Live Into NewPhoneOS
• Microsoft’s Mobile Strategy Takes Aim at Apple, Google
• Microsoft TellsWindowsPhone7’s App Story

While tech-savvy consumers increasingly think of smartphones in terms of competing operating systems, wireless companies still think of their own relationship with their subscribers first, manufacturers second and platforms a distant third.

It’s even starker if you’re an existing customer looking to upgrade a mobile phone; an AT&T customer trying to find an Android phone has to navigate a long list of smartphones, while Apple and Blackberry’s models jump to the top.

Verizon Wireless’s online store does break phones down by operating system if you mouse over the “Phones & Devices” menu. The choices are Android, Apple iOS, Blackberry, Palm WebOS and “Windows phone” — the last something of a misnomer, since Verizon only offers older Windows Mobile devices, not the new Windows Phone 7.

This arguably benefits companies like Apple and Blackberry, who enjoy high name recognition and whose platforms are only available on their own branded devices. It also benefits particular smartphones, like Motorola’s Droid on Verizon, who are featured prominently on store websites and network advertisements.

But the balance is tipping in favor of the operating systems. With Windows Phone 7 now offering devices from multiple manufacturers on AT&T and T-Mobile, Verizon selling iOS devices like the iPad (and perhaps soon the iPhone) and Android’s share of the market growing an extraordinary rate, wireless companies will be hard-pressed not to put a device’s operating system front and center — not buried at the bottom of a tech sheet next to its Bluetooth spec and its camera’s megapixel count.

AT&T has made a big bet on its support of Windows Phone 7 — I wouldn’t be surprised if we see those menus get an upgrade soon.

Images: screenshots from AT&T Wireless Store by Tim Carmody.

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With every new Apple product there are usually some wrinkles to be ironed out, and the 11 and 13-inch MacBook Air have proven to be a little more wrinkled than most. Both models of Apple’s new slimline notebook have been suffering display issues. Now, Apple has acknowledged the problem in internal memos with instructions to help the Geniuses fix things.

The 13-inch MacBook Air suffers from “horizontal flickering” on the screen when it wakes from sleep or if you hot-plug an external display, and both the 11 and 12-inch models can experience a display that is “fading dark to light colors repeatedly after waking from sleep.”

The memos, snapped off Apple Store screens and acquired by the Boy Genius Report, say that the problems will be fixed in a future software update. Until then, if you have these troubles. save yourself a trip to the Genius Bar and fix them yourself. Apple says you should close the lid and sleep the computer for 10 seconds. This will power-cycle the screen and get things back to normal.

Apple Confirms MacBook Air bugs internally [BGR]

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Software upgrades are supposed to fix things, but sometimes they do the opposite.

Disgruntled about the effects of an operating system update on her iPhone, a customer wants to battle Apple in court with a class-action suit.

San Diego resident Bianca Wofford last week filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status, alleging that Apple committed false advertising and unfair and deceptive business practices by encouraging iPhone 3G users to download iOS 4, the latest version of Apple’s mobile OS. Wofford claims that even though the iOS upgrade promises fixes and improvements, it made her second-generation iPhone unusable.

“The true fact of the matter … is that the iOS 4 is a substantial ‘downgrade’ for earlier iPhone devices and renders many of them virtually useless iBricks,” Wofford’s lawyers wrote in thecomplaint [pdf].

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Apple’s iOS operating system has received a major upgrade once a year, and the company has disclosed that some new features do not work with older handsets because they carry less memory or slower processors. When Apple announced iOS 4, it said that multitasking would not work on the second-generation iPhone, for example, but it would be supported on newer handsets. Also, Apple said iOS 4 was not compatible with the original iPhone at all — but it was supposed to work with the more recent iPhone 3G.

However, when iOS 4 shipped in the summer, some iPhone 3G customers complained that the update caused performance to become very sluggish. Months later at Apple’s Apple TV press conference, Steve Jobs said iOS 4.1 would address performance issues on the iPhone 3G. Some tests showed that iOS 4.1 improved the iPhone 3G’s performance only slightly.

In her complaint, Wofford claims that Apple was aware that iOS 4 would cause degraded performance on older iPhones, and she accused Apple of purposely creating an incentive for customers to purchase newer iPhones.

“Apple has falsely, intentionally and repeatedly represented to owners and consumers of the iPhone 3G that its new operating system for the device, iOS4, was of a nature, quality, and a significant upgrade for the functionality of all iPhone devices, when in fact, the installation and use of the iOS4 on iPhone 3G resulted in the opposite a device with little more use than that of a paper weight,” the complaint read.

Wofford’s suit, filed in the judicial district of the county of San Diego, requires approval from a judge to gain class-action status. If it became a class-action suit and won, Apple would likely be forced to pay damages to iPhone 3G customers.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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Steve Jobs has successfully prevented Adobe Flash from getting on the iPhone for years, but a new iOS app promises to bring Flash video to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch without upsetting the CEO.

Demonstrated below, Skyfire is a web browser that automatically transcodes Flash video into HTML5 so that it can be displayed on your iDevice (instead of the blue LEGO block symbolizing a lack of Flash support).

To our knowledge, Skyfire will be the first app of its kind to offer a roundabout method for watching Flash videos, when it goes live in the App Store this week.

Apple has prohibited Flash from running on iOS devices ever since the original iPhone launched in 2007. In an open letter published April, Jobs said that Flash was the No. 1 reason Macs crash, and he didn’t wish to reduce reliability on iOS products.In the same letter, Jobs vocalized his support for HTML5, a new web standard that does not rely on plug-ins.

“New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too),” Jobs said.

The Skyfire app only transcodes Flash videos into HTML5 not games. A Skyfire spokesman said the Skyfire app was developed with oversight and feedback from Apple.

“It adheres to every guideline put forth by Apple regarding HTML5 video playback for iOS,” the spokesman said. “Skyfire will allow consumers to play millions of Flash videos on Apple devices without the technical problems for which Jobs banned Flash.”

The app was submitted late August, and it will go live in the App Store on Thursday.

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Apple has released the “Gold Master” of iOS 4.2, and it is available for developers to download today. IOS 4.2 is the unifying version of iOS that will bring the same multitasking and UI features to all iDevices. This is most significant for the iPad, which has been waiting patiently for features that it is clearly desperate for. Apple has also asked developers to submit iOS 4.2 apps to the App Store.

“Gold Master” is software talk for “finished”. Barring any horrible last-minute discoveries, the GM is the same version that would, in the days of software on CD and DVD, be duplicated and then sent to stores. Apple promised iOS 4 for the iPad in November, which we took, as always with Apple, to mean the very last days of November. Could it be that it will be here sooner?

Aside from the multitasking and the folders which the iPad needs so much, the latest OS version brings a new multitask-bar, the little panel that is revealed with a double-tap on the home button:

Here you see that you have quick-access to volume and brightness (at last!) controls, as well as the standard music controls and a screen-orientation lock toggle. To the right of the media controls is the new AirPlay button. Press this and your media, be it audio or video, will then stream to compatible gear like the Airport Express or the new AppleTV. AirPlay, as well as AirPrint, will also come to the iPhone and iPod Touch with this update.

Apple Releases iOS 4.2 Golden Master to Developers [MacRumors Forums]

iOS 4.2 iPad sneak peek [Apple]

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A new report reveals that Apple’s iPhone has become the most popular handset in the United States, while Google’s Android platform dominates as the most popular phone operating system.

Technology research firm Canalys on Monday published its report on Q3/2010 U.S. smartphone market share. The data positions Android as the leading operating system, with 9.1 million Android-powered smartphones shipped during the quarter 43.6 percent of the market.

Meanwhile, Apple shipped 9.1 million iPhones, which gives it a 26.2 percent share of the market, making iOS the No. 2 phone operating system. However, because iPhones are the only handsets running iOS, this figure also makes the iPhone the most popular piece of hardware in the phone market.

Before you Android and iPhone cheerleaders go off on each other in the comments, consider that these numbers are exactly what Apple and Google were shooting for, given their different mobile strategies. Apple, a hardware company, has achieved its goal of using an exclusive operating system to sell a lot of phones. And Google has achieved platform dominance with its more “open” strategy of offering Android to any manufacturer to use on any phone.

So while these numbers are huge, they’re not that surprising. I’m more curious about how market share numbers will look next year after new Windows Phone 7 handsets have been on shelves for a while. As I mentioned in a previous post, Microsoft’s mobile approach (i.e., sharing the OS only with manufacturers who meet quality standards) is combining the strengths of both Apple’s and Google’s mobile strategies, so it should be interesting to see how consumers react.

Photo: Dylan Tweney/Wired.com

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If all fails according to plan, “My iPhone alarm clock was buggy” could become a popular excuse for being late to work.

A number of European iPhone users this morning complained that a bug in the iPhone’s alarm clock caused their alarm to go off an hour late because the software failed to automatically adjust to daylight saving time.

Some affected iPhone customers expressed their grief on Twitter.

“Thanks so much iPhone alarm clock software fail (not updating when the clocks changed,” tweeted Aliteralgirl. “You almost made me very late for work this morning!”

“iPhone not so great,” tweeted Nellezthe. “Alarm didn’t update even though iPhone time automatically updated. Got up half an hour late! Where’s the technology?!”

Even Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel, who lives in Barcelona, reported experiencing the problem along with some additional peculiarities affecting his other iOS devices.

“My alarms were running late today and yesterday,” he said.” “Also, my 3G iPad didn’t change time itself, although my iPod Touch did.”

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This incident isn’t the first time the iPhone’s alarm clock has seen issues. Some Australians and New Zealand iPhone customers reported alarm issues on Oct. 3 during their daylight-saving change, according to MSNBC.

Engadget claims it’s discovered a fix: Set the alarm to recur every day (as opposed to just weekdays, like most users would do) or set the alarm to never repeat.

The alarm-clock bug is another embarrassing bug for the popular iPhone following a security flaw discovered last week, in which a simple button sequence allows strangers to bypass the iPhone’s passcode protection.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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It’s nearly impossible for Sony to create a Playstation or PSP phone offering the same controls and same games as either device. Instead, Sony seems to be pushing for a different kind of mobile gaming altogether, using tablets and phones as the hardware for a new casual gaming platform.

“Mobile gaming is a very important business area for us,” said Sony’s chief financial officer Masaru Kato, according to a transcription of an earnings call provided by Seeking Alpha. “We started out with the PSP that was our first mobile gaming console, but since then the market as you know has expanded into bigger arenas; gaming on mobile phones, gaming on tablets and on certain mobile devices.

“The PSP being a proprietary platform was more concentrated I’d say on the core gaming segment than the light game, but now we are addressing that market as well,” Kato added. “I can not be specific as to how we will introduce new product to address these markets, but one thing I can say is that we have those markets addressed and we will come out with products and services to capture the broader gaming market.”

A transcription by Engadget adds the following: “As for the tablet … obviously as a mobile strategy, this occupies a very important position. On one hand there is PC, and on the other hand there is joint venture with Ericsson on smartphone and for the games devices. And tablets fall somewhere in between.

“It is true Apple has led the market, but when we are to enter the market we would like to put a Sony character onto a new product – and that is the effort we are making right now. Therefore I think you can hope for a very good product to come out.”

Engadget read this mostly as a quasi-confirmation of the purported Playstation Phone photos they leaked last week — which was then denied, then not quite denied, then ignored — but I come away from the call with something quite different.

The PSP is, as Kato says, a dedicated mobile device for core gamers. It’s not a phone replacement. The PSP/Playstation’s analog sticks will never slide underneath a mobile phone’s screen without making the device incredibly thick; Sony can replace them with a touchpad, but then it’s really a derivative experience.

On the other hand, smartphones and tablets open devices up to all sorts of hardware possibilities that the current PSP doesn’t have: accelerometers and gyroscopes, 3G networking, etc.

This is the market Apple’s dominating in mobile, that Nintendo opened up on the console, and that Microsoft is trying to enter by bringing Xbox Live games to Windows Phone 7.

It’s a natural move for Sony: why make an Ericsson Android gaming smartphone that wedges the six-year-old PSP platform inside it when you can make Android gaming smartphones, feature phones and tablets that bring something new (for Sony) and competitive (with Apple and Microsoft) to the market?

If we’re getting wild with it, as long as we’re talking Android, why not bring a similar game platform as applications for Sony’s products on Google TV? Sony games without having to buy a Sony box — which might explain that giant controller.

There will always be a market for dedicated mobile gaming, which is why the PSP will continue to develop and add features and compete with Nintendo. But in mobile, the market for casual gaming is larger by orders of magnitude. Sony has all of the tools to reach that space and offer something both competitive and compelling.

PS Phone: Sony admits “new product” [Eurogamer]

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In this week’s Gadget Lab podcast, the crew fiddles around with a mildly useless iPad stylus (made by Hard Candy) before diving into more serious news about innovation-blocking cable networks, a phone you can’t have, and some upcoming tablets.

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We discuss the Logitech Revue, one of the first set-top boxes running the Google TV operating system. It’s a sweet device, but the problem is the TV networks have neutered it by blocking access to their internet TV channels. Jerks!

Also in the bad-news department, Apple has delayed the white iPhone 4 once again this time until spring 2011 and we’re fairly sure that phone is never going to ship.

Topping off the podcast with some tablet-ey goodness, Wired.com’s Priya Ganapati touches on Barnes & Noble’s next Nook e-book reader, which is basically a tablet that can only be used for reading.

Speaking of do-overs, the makers of the failed JooJoo say they’ll be back next year with a family of tablets running the Android OS.

Like the show? You can also get theGadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you dont want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out theGadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Labvideo oraudio podcast feeds

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #93

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The elusive Verizon iPhone is going to become a reality early next year, according to a chorus of mainstream publications.

Following The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Bloomberg, now Fortune claims that a Verizon iPhone is “fait accompli” (i.e., a done deal).

Repeating past rumors, Fortune says the new iPhone will be compatible with Verizon’s CDMA network. Fortune notes that globetrotters won’t be able to use the phone outside the United States: Most international networks rely on the GSM standard, so the Verizon iPhone can’t be used as a “world phone.”

Tech observers and analysts have squabbled about a Verizon iPhone for years, and the device appears to be forthcoming. Perhaps the most telling sign was when Verizon announced earlier this month that it would sell Apple’s iPads a move that reveals that Apple and Verizon are finally partners.

Photo of an AT&T-compatible iPhone 4: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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Resolution independence, or the lack of it, is one of those nagging problems most users don’t even realize have a name. But the concept is simple: user-interface elements like icons, buttons and window borders on the same OS should be the same physical size no matter what screen you’re using.

From the 1980s until just a few years ago, the gold standard for computer screen resolution was 72 dots per inch (dpi). This wasn’t an accident.

“When the Mac first came out, one of its great WYSIWYG features was that a pixel on the screen was supposed to be equal in size to a printers point: 1/72,” says Mac blogger Dr Drang. “Back then, onscreen rulers matched up quite well with physical rulers, and 12-point type on the screen looked to be the same size as 12-point type on the printed page. But those days are long gone.”

Manufacturers can fit an ever-larger number of pixels onto screens. This is generally a good thing, as it makes images sharper, clearer and more like physical objects. But it also makes anything defined by its pixel-count resolution smaller.

Operating systems, including Mac OS X, began to move away from 72dpi in the middle of this decade. “The old assumption that displays are 72dpi has been rendered obsolete by advances in display technology,” Apple said in 2006, in a developer overview of OS X 10.5 Leopard. “But it also means that interfaces that are pixel-based will shrink to the point of being unusable. The solution is to remove the 72dpi assumption that has been the norm.”

Leopard and then Snow Leopard were supposed to do away with pixel-defined resolutions, allowing developers to draw user interface elements using a scale factor. But while screen resolutions kept getting sharper, resolution independence never quite came.

That is, it never quite came for the desktop. For iOS, resolution independence is essential, mostly because the UI elements need to match our bodies. On the desktop, if icons get smaller, well, pointers and cursors get smaller too. Your fingertip is always the same size.

But even on the iPhone and iPad, resolution-independence is only partial. Yes, icons might register at the same size, but images within the application don’t. Developers who built a pixel-defined app for an older model iPhone find those apps not looking quite so sharp on the higher resolution of a retina-display iPhone 4 or blown up onto the larger screen of an iPad.

For Dr Drang, the absolute size of interface elements matters less than their variability. “On an 11-inch MacBook Air, a 72-pixel linewhich would measure 1 inch long against an onscreen ruleris just 0.53 physical inches long. On a 21.5-inch iMac, that same line is 0.70 inches long. User interface items, like buttons, menu items, and scroll bars are 30 percent bigger on the iMac than on the Air.”

Application developers are necessarily conflicted. Keeping UI tied to pixel counts saves them work rewriting their apps. On the other hand, they can’t count the physical uniformity of experience across every device. Desktop publishing and design pros also have to factor in differences in size from the screen to the page, or one screen to the next. Images and text all materialize differently.

“Microsoft has universal settings to change the size of UI elements,” Dr Drang adds. “Even X Windows allows you to set a screen dpi for fonts. Apple has nothing. With screen resolutions increasing at an accelerating pace, this has to be addressed soon.”

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Going to the airport will be slightly less miserable for MacBook Air owners: Apple’s new ultra-thin notebook need not be removed from a bag at security checkpoints.

The Transportation Security Administration told CNN that the 11-inch Air, like the iPad, can stay inside bags when passing through the checkpoint. However, the TSA hasn’t yet determined whether the 13-inch Air can stay inside a bag or must be removed.

The 11-incher gains special clearance because it’s “smaller than a standard-sized laptop,” says TSA. (Netbooks and e-book readers fall under this category as well, according to a TSA blog post on smaller gadgets.)

The 13-inch Air, however, is the same size as most notebooks, so it can’t fly through the checkpoint just yet.Still, it’s puzzling why the 13-incher would get treated differently, considering it’s got the same insides: built-in flash memory, a battery and a fan no optical drive to cram anything shady inside.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

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If you’re going broke, look for reasons to sue rich people. That seems to be the strategy behind a Taiwanese company’s threat to take legal action against Apple.

Struggling Taiwanese company Proview told Financial Times that it plans to sue Apple over infringement of the trademark “iPad.” Proview over a decade ago made an unsuccessful attempt to sell a tablet computer called I-Pad, according to FT, and the company had registered for the IPAD trademark between 2000 and 2004.

Apple does not comment on pending litigation.

Trademark feuds are common among the tech industry. Large corporations, including Apple, aggressively defend trademarks to prevent competitors from profiting off their successful brands or creating consumer confusion. For example, Apple has been battling a small startup over usage of the trademark “Pod,” and Facebook recently filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against startup Teachbook over the use of the word “book.”

In Proview’s case, however, it doesn’t have much to protect. The company admits it just needs some dough.

It is arrogant of Apple to just ignore our rights and go ahead selling the iPad in this market, and we will oppose that, said Yang Rongshan, Proviews chairman. Besides that, we are in big financial trouble and the trademarks are a valuable asset that could help us sort out part of that trouble.

Photo of customers buying Apple iPads: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com

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It’s the year of the tablets as electronics makers rush to get one of the hottest gadgets of the year into the hands of users. Acer is the latest to announce it will launch a new line of tablets.

The devices will be introduced in New York on November 23 and will be priced ranging from $300 to $700, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report.

Acer tablets will join a crowded and extremely competitive market. Since the launch of the Apple iPad in April, most major electronics makers have announced their own devices to take on the iPad. So far, Apple has sold more than 4.3 million iPads.

In June, Dell launched a 5-inch tablet called Streak, while Samsung recently debuted a 7-inch device called the Galaxy Tab. Meanwhile, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion’s tablet Playbook is expected to hit stores next year.

Separately, T-Mobile has said it will offer the Samsung Galaxy Tab for $400 (after a rebate) and with a two-year service agreement.It is similar to Sprint’s pricing for the device. Verizon has said it will sell the Galaxy Tab for $600 without a contract.

Acer might try to ink a similar deal but it will have to do more in terms of product features to stand out. Acer hasn’t said if the new tablets will be based on Windows or Android OS.

But one thing’s likely–Acer is going to find it hard to see the same kind of success in the tablet market that it has with netbooks.

Photo: Acer Aspire in slate form (arabani/Flickr)

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Apple has delayed the white model of the iPhone 4 until Spring of 2011, a release date that’s difficult to believe.

The black iPhone 4 hit stores in June, 2010, but the release of the white model was mysteriously postponed — first for a month, then to the end of the year, and now until Spring of next year.

“We’re sorry to disappoint customers waiting for the white iPhone again,” an Apple spokeswoman told Reuters, declining to explain the delay. In earlier press releases, Apple said it was facing manufacturing challenges with the white iPhone model.

The white iPhone’s long delay is strange for a company that prides meeting most of its ship dates; Apple often releases products the day Steve Jobs announces them. Also, Apple has released an iPhone upgrade each summer, so a Spring release for the iPhone 4 would be odd, since a fifth-generation iPhone would likely be due out three months later. Who would buy one then?

Apple may indeed be planning to cut its losses. Boy Genius Report, who has a solid track record with reporting scoops on cellphone news, claims receiving a tip that Apple is canceling the white iPhone altogether, and that another “delay” will be announced around March leading into the release of the iPhone 5 in June or July.

Though Apple has been mum about details explaining the delay, the departure of Mark Papermaster, Apple’s executive in charge of iPhone hardware, was a telling incident. Apple hired Papermaster in 2008 a move that his previous employer, IBM, attempted to block to prevent him from divulging secrets about its microchips. (Papermaster was a key player in developing the PowerPC chips used in previous-generation Macs.) Only two years later, in August 2010, Papermaster was gone.

Though Apple has not officially commented on whether Papermaster’s exit was a firing or a resignation, multiple anonymous sources claim he was ousted because of issues with the iPhone 4, including the antenna flaw that led to a media flurry earlier this year and the white iPhone 4’s delay.

What might the problem be with manufacturing? One lucky owner of a white iPhone 4 told blog Pocket Lint that Asian suppliers had shipped white iPhones with a white home button that didn’t match the color of the face plate one of those details that would drive Jobs crazy.

Long story short, if you’re been holding off on buying an iPhone 4 because you want a white model, don’t bother. Even if it does ship Spring, it’d probably be a bad idea to buy one because the fifth-gen iPhone would come out soon after, and you’d inevitably have buyers’ remorse. We’re pretty sure it’s delayed forever, though. For-e-ver. (See the video below for clarification.)

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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