RIM Enjoys A Mirage Of Market Share Gains

If you're taken aback by the recent IDC report showing major gains for RIM in the US smartphone market, rest assured that Q3 will paint a very different picture. Most major news outlets are running with a story this morning citing the recent IDC report that shows RIM capturing over 50 percent of the US smartphone market. This report is based on Q2 sales figures. What today's news reports aren't being clear about is the fact that Apple essentially spent Q2 without a product on the market as they had completely sold out their channels ahead of the iPhone 3G launch. RIM should enjoy this temporary reprieve as the eye of the storm passes over them.

How To Put iPhone Into Recovery Mode

If you reach the point where your iPhone will no longer get past the start screen, as mine did this morning, you have a powerful option.  Put your iPhone into recovery mode.  Here's what you do:

1.  Hold down home and sleep buttons until you see the phone power down.

2.  As soon as it powers down, let go of the sleep button but continue to hold the home button for a couple of seconds.

3.  Once you have verified that it is completely powered down, hold down the home button while connecting to your computer.

After a couple of seconds, you will see the iTunes logo and USB cable appear on your phone.  iTunes will prompt you to restore the phone.  From there, you should be golden.  Hope it works out!

Just Say Shazam For World Peace

So I settled an argument today using my iPhone. Up for debate was the culprit behind a sticky sweet pop song that only Belinda Carlisle and the Cavity Creeps would be proud of. Just as things started to get heated, out pops mah iPhone with it's newfound powers of Shazam. I simply told Shazam to take a listen and within seconds we were able to finger the offender - Kelly Clarkson singing "Behind These Hazel Eyes". Boom. My iPhone is now a musical know-it-all. For free.

The Sideline Perspective

Today is the first major Apple release that didn't have me running for the Apple store. I have to say that for once, I'm totally okay with it. The iPocalypse aside, I was quite content to spend last night with my "new" iPhone. The 2.0 software + AppStore was all that I imagined it to be and more. I spent a good part of last night feeling like a kid on Christmas morning, ripping through present after present with the attention span of a gnat.

My favorite so far? It's a close tie between the new Twitter app, MIM and the lightsaber.

"Game Changing" New iPhone Game Coming

Amazing new iPhone game coming next week. This by itself is more exciting to me than the new hardware or any enhancements to the software. I mean you actually reach in and build bridges and walkways for your characters with your friggin fingers. It's called Rolando and it's developed by Handcircus.

...we had more game-changers like Apple in the world.

A post over at Small Surfaces pretty much sums up the feeling that most mobile web developers have had since the iPhone was announced in Feb. 2007.  Why bother developing for those crappy, crippled mobile browsers that nobody uses to begin with?  The PC didn't really take off until consumers were given a GUI.  Mobile web was basically ignored until consumers were given a true, desktop-class web browser in their pocket and now you're seeing crazy numbers like 25% of it's suddenly expanding mobile banking users at Bank of America are using iPhone.  The bank has said that the iPhone is forcing the bank to rapidly adapt it's mobile banking strategy to accommodate what was once a small, relatively stagnant group of customers.  Russell Beattie, the man behind Mowser: the mobile browser laments:

Now the question you might be asking is why not stick with it a little longer? Get a contract or something and tough it out since it's "only" been a year, and many companies have had to struggle for a lot longer than that before taking off. Beyond the fact that I'm irretrievably in debt, the general answer is that I don't actually believe in the "Mobile Web" anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at best, and dying at worst. I'm talking specifically about sites that are geared 100% towards mobile phones and have little to no PC web presence. Two years ago I was convinced that the mobile web would continue to evolve in the West to mimic what was happening in countries like Japan and Korea, but it hasn't happened, and now I'm sure it isn't going to.

In other words, I think anyone currently developing sites using XHTML-MP markup, no Javascript, geared towards cellular connections and two inch screens are simply wasting their time, and I'm tired of wasting my time.

Read more here.