Apple today announced that it has sold over 1.7 million of its new iPhone 4 through Saturday June 26th, just three days after its debut on June 24th. “This is the most successful product launch in Apple’s history,” crowed CEO Steve Jobs. “Even so, we apologize to those customers who were turned away because we did not have enough supply.”
Many iPhone 4 users also wish that Jobs would apologize for reception problems that many users are having when they hold the phone in a fairly typical fashion. Gizmodo has even started a petition demanding that Apple give out free cases that reportedly fixes the problem.
On YouTube, you can find his iPhone 4 keynote boiled down to a length to fit your needs
Source: RonaldsThings
If you like to know what Steve Jobs is up to but don't have the time -- or the attention span -- to watch the full-length, 1 hour and 53 minute version of his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote that Apple (AAPL) posted on its website, don't despair.
Thanks to a 21-year-old Estonian with a YouTube account called RonaldsThings, you can get the gist of the presentation -- or at least the iPhone 4 portion -- in 60-seconds. Or, if you have bit more time to spare, RonaldsThings has a more leisurely version that covers the entire keynote in less than five minutes.
The two videos are available here (60 seconds) and here (4:47) and pasted below the fold.
Sixty-second version:
Four-minute-47-second version:
See also:
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
Want to get a crack at that iOS4 goodness that Steve Jobs graced us with just yesterday, but don’t have the developer account that you need? We have good news, you can get your hands dirty now thanks to the powers of the internet.
The only problem is this, you need a Mac to pull off what we are about to describe. If you do have a OS X machine, read on. Why the Mac component? iTunes 9.2 is required, and as it stands that iTunes build is Mac only. Sorry Windows users, step aside.
You do not need your UDID to execute the installation, which means that Apple should not (no promises) be able to nail you against the wall for doing what we are about to walk you through.
1. To commence, download and install iTunes 9.2 (Mac only, download links here, here, or here).
2. Now you need to download the right gold master for your device and save it on your desktop:
3. Now let’s actually install iOS4:
All Done. How cool is that?
A few warnings, this is a hack, so if something goes wrong do not come crying to us about it. If Apple gets mad at you, we warned you. Finally, have fun. The real version of iOS4 is scheduled to drop for the public on June 21st, but who wants to wait that long?
A special thanks to GumballTech for doing all the legwork.
Original title and link for this post: How to install iOS4 NOW. [Mac Only]
By Thomas E. Weber, Contributor, Daily Beast
In the annals of blown calls, it ranks somewhere between the publishers who turned down the first Harry Potter book and baseball umpire Jim Joyce’s instantly infamous perfect-game flub last week. It was the spring of 1985, and the board of Apple Computer (AAPL) decided it no longer needed the services of one Steven P. Jobs.
Fate had a doozy in store for the men—and they were all men—who dumped the famously combative Jobs.
Palm loses webOS notifications architect to Apple originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Palm loses webOS notifications architect to Apple originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Pulse is a really gorgeous-looking iPad app that aggregates news from a bunch of different sources in one place. It's essentially an RSS reader, like Google Reader or NetNewsWire, but with a nicer interface. It comes prepackaged with a mess of feeds, including the New York Times (and Fast Company).
The app has been successful; it's reached sales of 35,000 and was even mentioned by name at Steve Jobs's WWDC 2010 keynote this past Monday. It's achieved wide acclaim from sources like, well, the New York Times. Yet now the Times Company has complained about the app to Apple, who in turn was forced to pull it. What's going on here?
Let's count the ways NYT is misinformed here. First, the app uses the publicly available RSS feed, like every single other RSS reader in the history of the world. It shows the text that's viewable in the feed, and if you want to read further (some longer articles, for example), you're taken to the website in the iPad's browser. So either the NYT is getting tons of new subscribers, or tons of new readers (and thus traffic for its site), or both.
Why the NYT chose to go after Pulse and not other readers is unclear--the Times Company hasn't responded to comment. But Apple reinstated the app a few hours ago, in its original form, with the NYT feed as a default. Wired suggests Apple may have told the NYT to "shove" its rejection letter, which may be verbatim inaccurate but correct in spirit. It's a ridiculous objection, after all.
Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, can be followed on Twitter, corresponded with via email, and stalked in San Francisco (no link for that one--you'll have to do the legwork yourself).
By Spencer E. Ante, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
When Steve Jobs wrapped up his announcement of the new iPhone 4, another big Apple Inc. (AAPL) event had come and gone with no mention of Verizon Wireless.
That was a disappointment for some smartphone customers. Verizon Wireless (VZ) executives, too, are eager to get their hands on the phone and speak regularly with their counterparts at Apple.
But the country’s largest wireless carrier by subscribers is also working hard on Plan B. By loosening its grip over operations and deepening its relationships with allies such as software giant Google Inc. (GOOG) and handset makers HTC Corp. and Motorola Inc. (MOT), Verizon Wireless is finally making progress in the smartphone race.
Since announcing a deal last October to develop phones with Google, the carrier has introduced two hit Google-based devices—the Motorola Droid and the Droid Incredible by HTC—and its share of the U.S. smartphone market has risen about a percentage point, to 24.1 percent at the end of March, while AT&T’s (T) fell nearly four points to 41.9 percent, according to comScore (SCOR), which measured users over 13 years old.
“When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed…PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around. They’re still going to have a lot of value. But they’re going to be used by one out of x people…this transformation is going to make some people uneasy.“–Steve Jobs, at the Wall Street Journal’s D8 conference last week
“Flash was created during the PC era…”–Steve Jobs, in “Thoughts on Flash”
“Maybe next year we will focus primarily on the Mac. Just the normal cycle of things. No hidden meaning here.”–Steve Jobs, reassuring a developer who was concerned about the iPhone-centric WWDC 2010
I went into yesterday’s Steve Jobs keynote at Apple’s WWDC event knowing that Macs would not be in the center ring of this particular circus. But I thought that they might get some attention during the first part of Jobs’ presentation, in which he cites impressive-sounding numbers relating to a variety of Apple product lines. After all, recent Mac sales figures are…well, impressive.
In two hours of presenting, though, Jobs barely mentioned traditional computing devices. Okay, he did point out that the conference would host sessions devoted to Macs–and he asked those in the audience who had laptops to place them on the floor to prove they weren’t using MiFis that might muck up his Wi-Fi demos. But that was about it.
Yes, traditional portable and desktop computers remain a huge and growing business for Apple; no, iOS-based machines aren’t in any position to render the Mac irrelevant any time soon. And chances are high that Apple will hold one or more Mac-centric events before 2010 is out. But sitting in the WWDC audience yesterday, it wasn’t hard to envision a future Apple that (A) didn’t sell Macs and (B) was at least as successful as Apple circa 2010.
That’s a new feeling. For all of the iPod’s significance, it remained a Mac (and PC) peripheral, not an heir apparent. The iPhone and iPad, however, are devices meant to replace the types of computers we’ve used for the past few decades. That’s not speculation: Jobs is already talking about the PC era in the past tense and predicting that PCs will be outnumbered by new-wave devices. He’s getting ready for the post-Mac era.
(Me, I don’t expect devices we think of as “PCs” to vanish from the scene in the next decade or two–but I do think that they’ll come to look and work a lot more like iPads than they do like a conventional Mac or Windows box.)
All of this made me think of the last Apple platform shift. I’m counting the Mac’s 68000/PowerPC/Intel jumps and the move from Mac OS to OS X. The last truly epic shift happened a really long time ago–because it was the move from the Apple II (introduced in 1977) to the Macintosh (1984). (Come to think of it, it was also the first truly epic shift–the Apple I, Apple III, and Lisa were all blips.)
The Mac was announced in January of 1984. In April of the same year, Apple announced a new version of the II, at an event called “Apple II Forever.” The phrase became a rallying cry, not to mention a pretty silly song:
Even at the time, the idea of “Apple II Forever” had a defensive tinge and carried an implied acknowledgment that the platform, like all others, didn’t have an infinite shelf life. But the Mac and the II managed to coexist rather successfully for years. Here’s the Computer Chronicles show devoting an episode to new II variants in 1988:
The Apple II finally went away in late 1993–almost a decade after the beginning of the end.
Now, I’m not saying that the parallels here are even sort of close. The Apple II of 1984-1993 was based on archaic technology; thinking back, it’s kind of amazing it lasted as long as it did. Today’s Macs–and, for that matter, today’s best Windows PCs–are still getting better, albeit at a vastly slower pace than the iPhone. (Having been out over a few weeks, the iPad is just getting started.) And the list of things a Mac can do well that the iPad and iPhone can’t do at all is long.
But for the Mac, like the Apple II in 1984, the beginning of the end is here. Any guesses about how long this epic shift will take?
(Photo credit: Adam Jackson/Flickr)
WWDC Connection Problems Cause Demo Fail is a post from Chris Pirillo
During Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at WWDC yesterday, he experienced several technical difficulties. At one point, he attempted to open the New York Times app only to have Safari refuse. The Apple CEO remained calm and cracked jokes about this “never happening.” Some time later, it was revealed that there were more than 570 Wi-Fi base stations operating in the massive room. With every person present connecting to the Internet in some fashion, the presentation couldn’t proceed as planned.
Jobs asked everyone to close laptops and turn off phones and other devices so that they could see the demonstrations he had planned. The audience clapped their approval and some began powering down. Steve told participants that they should police each other and make sure everyone in the room complied. It’s quite clear that many kept right on blogging/tweeting/recording from all of the live feeds still running on the Internet at the time.
CNET captured this video which shows the connection failure drama in its entirety. Many jabs have been taken at Apple and Jobs for this little gaffe. I caution all of you who are jeering to think about any and every conference you have attended. Are you telling me that you have never experienced a glitch like this? It happens all of the time. No conference center (or network) can control things beautifully 100% of the time.
Steve handled the situation with humor and by keeping his cool. I’ve seen other presenters fall apart at the seams over far less.
How is it that a leading newspaper with a global reach doesn’t get it. I mean here we have the New York Times competing with all the other big brand papers to establish a foothold on the Web and yet when an iPad app uses their publicly available RSS feed they get all pissed off and have it yanked from the Apple app store.
Not only that but they sent Apple the take-down notice on the same day that the app got high praise from no other than Steve Jobs during the WWDC conference keynote speech. I am of course talking about the Pulse RSS reader app that everyone who has used it has nothing but good things to say about it.
This action of course has lead to the take-down being the hot topic of discussion in the tech blogosphere this morning with just about everyone wonder what the hell is up with the New York Times.
Kothari said that the pair plan to contact Apple in the morning and take steps to remove Times material from the feeds.
It is not immediately clear why they need to, since Pulse draws from publicly available Times RSS feeds, as do many other apps, and does no scraping.
In fact, Pulse is little more than a really well-designed RSS reader, which is what the Times said it was in its write-up. You add feeds to it and it visualizes them in a way that’s easy to get through.
Pulse takes the plain text from the NYT RSS feed and displays it. If you choose to read further, it opens the actual NYT page in a new browser window which, like every other in-app browser, uses Safari’s webkit engine to display it. The person reading it is therefore getting the exact same content as they would if reading in Safari.
Clearly the NYT doesn’t understand the purpose of RSS.
It’s not clear why the New York Times decided to target the Pulse app, however, apart from the fact that it is (or was, until it was pulled) one of the most popular paid apps on the iPad. There are dozens of applications and services that do fundamentally the same thing as the news-reading app does, by pulling in the RSS feeds of media sites such as the New York Times — and many of them are paid applications, just as Pulse is. There are also many websites, including Yahoo and Google’s customized homepages, that allow users to embed RSS feeds from other sites.
The argument being put forward by the NYT lawyers boils down to a section of their Terms of Service when it comes to the newspaper’s RSS feeds
The Pulse News Reader app makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use. Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use.
Well I hate to break the news to the NYT’s obviously overpaid legal counsel but this is how just about every RSS reader out there operates. Are they now going to start going after Google Reader or my favorite reader, FeedDemon, after all I paid for the licence to use it (or at least to remove the ad) which is no different that me buying Pulse from the App Store.
The funniest part of this whole thing – one of New York Times’ own bloggers gave Pulse high praise
Pulse is a stylish and easy-to-use news aggregator. Users select which news sources to follow and the latest articles are presented in a grid of texts and photos. Users can finger-swipe back and forth across various articles from a single news source, or up and down through up to 20 news sources.
This is definitely one case where the lawyers should have been lead back to their cage and told to shut up.
image courtesy of alphonsolabs.com
Reading http://goo.gl/ZugA
Last week, Steve Jobs promised that his iPhone and iPads would be open to outside ad networks. Yesterday Apple made good on his promise, by changing the terms of its developer agreement. But he may not have opened the door all the way.
Backstory: Apple’s original license agreement, released in April, appeared to effectively ban third-party ad networks from selling “in-app” ads on its gadgets, by crippling their ability to track user data. In the absence of any clarification from Apple, it seemed to me (and others) that Apple was set on locking up its platform from advertising competition.
But last week at the D8 conference, Jobs either changed his stance or spelled it out, depending on your persepecctive: Apple wasn’t interested in banning rivals to its iAd platform, he said — it just wanted to cripple third-party analytics companies like Flurry.
And yesterday, Apple changed its legal language to reflect Jobs’ words. Here’s the revised language for section 3.3.9 of Apple’s developer agreement, concerning the use of data collection:
3.3.9 You and Your Applications may not collect, use, or disclose to any third party, user or device data without prior user consent, and then only under the following conditions:
- The collection, use or disclosure is necessary in order to provide a service or function that is directly relevant to the use of the Application. For example, without Apple’s prior written consent,
You may not use third party analytics software in Your Application to collect and send device data to a third party for aggregation, processing, or analysis.- The collection, use or disclosure is for the purpose of serving advertising to Your Application; is provided to an independent advertising service provider whose primary business is serving
mobile ads (for example, an advertising service provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other
than Apple would not qualify as independent); and the disclosure is limited to UDID, user location data, and other data specifically designated by Apple as available for advertising purposes.
If you compare and contrast with Apple’s earlier version, you’ll see the message is clear: It’s OK to collect user data to help sell ads — though you will need to get their permission to do so.
UPDATE: One important caveat here: It appears as if Apple may still be limiting its biggest potential rival — Google’s AdMob. Note the language about only allowing “independent” ad serving companies to collect data: “For example, an advertising service provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple would not qualify as independent.”
Google (GOOG) certainly qualifies as a developer/distributor of mobile operating systems, right? The language also appears to disqualify potential rivals — if, for instance, Microsoft (MSFT) tried entering the mobile display market. I’ve asked Apple for comment, but I’m not expecting any.
Meantime, Apple’s language does appear to be good news for smaller competitors like Greystripe, Millenial Media and Medialets — though it may make them less attractive to potential acquirers
Here’s Jobs’ own words on the topic, last week at the D8 conference.
Khoi Vinh on Apple's lack of full commitment to excellent typography, despite creating oft-superior devices seemingly capable of perfection:
Steve Jobs’ vision for Apple, repeated in yesterday’s keynote address, posits that the company operates at the intersection between technology and the liberal arts. I think it’s reasonable to regard fine typography as falling within that mandate, but unfortunately, they are falling short of that promise. Building a great display for typography without building great typographic tools is a dereliction of duty.
Khoi Vinh on Apple’s lack of full commitment to excellent typography, despite creating oft-superior devices seemingly capable of perfection:
Steve Jobs’ vision for Apple, repeated in yesterday’s keynote address, posits that the company operates at the intersection between technology and the liberal arts. I think it’s reasonable to regard fine typography as falling within that mandate, but unfortunately, they are falling short of that promise. Building a great display for typography without building great typographic tools is a dereliction of duty.
Editor’s note: Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, really loves Japan. And if you are a startup founder or tech executive, he thinks you should too. He explains why in this guest post, culled from observations from his most recent visit.
Thousands of people lined up last week to buy iPads. And, if you didn’t notice them, it’s because they were in Tokyo.
I’ve been living in Japan for the past three weeks and couldn’t miss the madness around the introduction of the iPad here. I couldn’t believe the demand for this new “magical” computer. After all, this is the country that developed and built some of the world’s most popular PCs—and now the iPad, which was designed somewhere else, is revered. It’s bowed to. (Reportedly, about half of Japanese business and technology magazines are featuring the iPad on their covers.) I expect that out of the 10 million iPads sold this year, at least 500,000 to one million will be sold in Japan.
Something else amazing in Apple-mania happened last week. Apple’s market cap passed Microsoft. I suggested in a post last April, “The end of Microsoft. A door opens to a new cloud”, that this seminal event was about to happen. Steve Jobs described it as being “Surreal”. I agree. It is surreal—both unbelievable and fantastic. This is a milestone that signifies a dramatic change of computing: Windows is on the decline, and new technologies such as iPads and iPhones, Android and Google Search, and Cloud Computing are on the way up.
I have to admit, I love Japan. I love the people, the culture, the language, the architecture, the food—everything. I love walking through the temples and gardens in Kyoto. And, I love the philosophy of “Zen.” I love working in Tokyo, which runs at a frenetic charge that’s even higher than New York City.
The reason I’ve been spending so much time in Japan is because it has become salesforce.com’s second largest market. We’ve found that the Japanese love Cloud Computing because it gives them great software that is eco-friendly, equal for all businesses, and upgrade-free. When I was at Oracle, Japanese customers were always waiting for our special “J” products (the port of our English versions), or the bug fix of a “J” port. It was often a long and painful wait. Cloud Computing solves all of these problems, and Japanese customers receive new software on day one, as well as bug fixes as they happen. Instant gratification.
One of the things that captivated my attention in Japan was how utterly swept the country is with social networking—there is a Japanese Facebook Imperative underway. Japan is already one of Twitter’s largest markets, and local social vendors like Mixi are pervasive. Japanese customers have easily and rapidly adopted social networking as it is highly compatible with their community-based culture. Japan, more than any other country, is ready to accelerate social networking with mobile. The wide penetration of 3G will be an engine for this movement. In fact, Japan has the highest percentage market penetration of 3G of any country, according to InfoCom. The combination of dominant social market share and broadband wireless is a powerful catalyst for Japan’s IT industry.
In my own personal experience here, I’ve seen this willingness to embrace social communications firsthand. Over the past few weeks of demonstrating Salesforce Chatter, salesforce.com’s new enterprise social networking service, I was amazed to find that Japanese customers made unusually quick decisions to pursue it. Customers in other parts of the world (including the U.S.) have required a great deal of testing and evaluation. But in Japan there was an innate understanding of our app to be a Twitter or Mixi for the enterprise, which translated seamlessly—and drove adoption. This experience inspired me to think about what I call “Social Intelligence,” an idea I believe will launch us past business intelligence as the next major theme in enterprise computing.
In Tokyo I enjoyed dinner with one of my friends, John Hinshaw, the global CIO of Boeing. I already knew Boeing is preparing to release the Dreamliner, the most advanced airplane in the world. But, I didn’t know that 35% of the Dreamliner is manufactured in Japan. In fact, the entire all-composite wing—the first of its size and sure to set the standard for how commercial airplanes will be made—is made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Nagoya. Each 98-foot long wing is then airlifted to Washington for assembly in Boeing’s special cargo plane, “the Dreamlifter”. If you aren’t sold on Japan’s abilities for the complex yet, consider that Japan also leads the world in energy and environmental patents and it is also the global leader in energy research and development expenditure and efficiency. I can certainly understand why Boeing is also focused on Japan.
When you get an iPad, the new iPhone 4, or iPod you can’t miss seeing “designed by Apple in California”—the tagline that has generated heat from critics who get upset because the device is assembled in China. But what most people don’t recognize is that the parts are made all over the world, with some of the most important components being produced in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Take the iPod Nano. The flash memory is made by Toshiba, the Li-Ion battery is made by Sanyo and Sony, and the color LCD is made by Sharp, Toshiba, and Matsushita—making the total of the Japanese share in terms of cost 81%. The reality is the iPod is made possible by some of the most important technology in the world—and a lot of it is from Japan. Even 10% of the iPad comes from Japan (the rest is made by Taiwanese and Korean manufacturers). Japan is one of the countries doing some of the most exciting research and development in the most complex components, which is what drives the most compelling products.
While in Japan I learned that Japan’s political and technology leaders recognize that embracing new technology and developing fundamental infrastructure are at the core of this country. Anyone who has experienced the bullet train, driven on Japan’s highways, or made a cell phone call in Tokyo, knows Japan fully commits to these two tenets. Cloud Computing is viewed as a critical next step for Japan, and it is the fastest growing part of Japan’s IT industry. Japan is always focused on getting the next big thing right. (And it usually does. I think the energy around the iPad last week demonstrates that they’re ready for Cloud 2—the next transformation in computing being defined by cloud + social + iPad.
One of the greatest surprises during my trip was that then-Prime Minister Hatoyama requested a meeting with me. I spent almost an hour with him demonstrating the power of Cloud Computing in Japan. Then he had a final meeting with the Chinese President. And, then he resigned. Why would he care so much about the Cloud to spend some of his final moments in office with me? I think he realized that he needed to send a clear signal that this new technology is pivotal to the future of Japan.
Right before I left Tokyo for home I met with John Roos, the new United States Ambassador to Japan. John is the former CEO of Wilson Sonsini, and is a Bay Area native. Interestingly, he had never been to Japan before being nominated to his position. He asked me why more entrepreneurs in the U.S. weren’t focused on the amazing markets in Japan. I told him that although the Japanese IT market is the second largest in the world, it’s notoriously difficult for many Americans to navigate. I am grateful to my Japan guru, Larry Ellison, with whom I was fortunate enough to experience many trips to this country while I worked at Oracle for 13 years. If it wasn’t for that direct education, I don’t think salesforce.com would be as successful as it is here.
Japan is accessible through several non-stop flights from San Francisco every day. And while the Japanese market and Japanese customers wait for the arrival of the next great thing, most entrepreneurs, and even VC firms, focus instead on China and India. I have never understood why, as China and India represent a market that is an order of magnitude smaller than Japan when it comes to key technologies, like software. Sure, India and China are fast-growing markets, but the current buyers are in Japan. The way I see it: If you are overlooking Japan you might as well overlook the West Coast of the U.S. The Japanese city of Osaka has a bigger economy than the state of California.
As the second largest IT market outside of the US, the reality is Japan still matters. The world is changing profoundly (just look at my favorite Apple vs. Microsoft market cap chart), but there are some traditional and established entities that retain a significant influence. Entrepreneurs should take note that 85% of all enterprise software is still essentially bought in three core markets: the U.S., Japan, and the U.K. Ignoring Japan means ignoring one of the most important opportunities. And, if you need a hand in this market, come with me on my next trip. I can’t wait to get back.
The first thing to strike you about the pair of Stanford University graduate students who made the banned and then unbanned news-reading iPad app, Pulse News Reader, is how they look like an advertisement for all that is good about entrepreneurs.
Sweet-natured, slightly naive, energetic and very product focused, they’d be the last techies you’d choose to be the one who got the New York Times (NYT) in a tizzy enough to force Apple to pull it from its App Store.
BoomTown met Akshay Kothari, 23, and 22-year-old Ankit Gupta this afternoon at a hotel near the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, where Pulse was called out yesterday by name by Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs for excellence, only hours before the company had to stop offering it.
At first, the shy pair said they did not want to call attention to themselves or rail on Apple or the Times. After much convincing by me, they agreed to talk about their unusual situation on the video below, focusing on the product and its origins.
It started out simple enough, creating Pulse for the Launch Pad class at Stanford, which requires students to develop and put out a product. Both students are at Stanford’s Institute of Design and created a company called Alphonso Labs when Pulse was done.
It took them only four weeks to develop and, within weeks after it being approved to sell in the App Store, it became a red-hot paid seller for the tablet device–putting Pulse at No. 1 at times on list of paid apps.
In fact, the app was so well-regarded that the the Times wrote a rave of it last week.
The high culminated for Kothari and Gupta when Jobs named Pulse first in a list of the most promising apps for the iPad in his keynote speech at the WWDC yesterday.
Unfortunately, that was the last hurrah, since business side of the New York Times–after seeing the article about Pulse in the Times–had already fired off a letter to Apple demanding the app be taken down.
“The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use,” wrote Times lawyer Richard Samson to Apple on June 3. “Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use.”
Sources at the Times said while there are many other similar readers for online news, Pulse’s framing and use of its RSS feed for commercial gain–as well as, let’s be frank, its popularity–caused execs to make what looks like a pretty boneheaded move.
(Could they have called the pair first? Of course they could have, but did not.)
After the Times lawyer wrote Apple, though, Apple wrote Kothari and Gupta, telling them of the removal of Pulse from the App Store: “The New York Times Company believes your application named ‘Pulse News Reader’ infringes The New York Times Company’s rights.”
Today, though, the app was suddenly back up with no comment from Apple. A Times spokesperson has said this might be a mistake and that the media giant did not know what had happened.
Neither did Gupta and Kothari, who said the app on sale now is the same as the old one, although they had submitted a new version without the Times earlier today.
“It’s a mystery,” said Gupta. “Although it is sad that we were off the App Store right when people might have heard about us.”
The next step? Who knows.
One thing is certain still: Like its creators, Pulse is one sweet app and it is on sale for $3.99 on iTunes.
For now, that is.
Until the next twisty development, here’s the video of Kothari and Gupta:
