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I thought that the iTunes 8 problem only affected Vista users with an HP printer?

Paul,

Well, it does have 3 new features.

Surprisingly, no mention of "Shake to Shuffle".

Some iPhone user should let us know whether it was just considered less important than "up to two repetitions of text message alerts" or whether one of the "keynote level" improvements of Nano 4G and Touch 2G was left out of iPhone 2.1...

Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls

Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display

You know I hope this fixes the drop calls also but it's funny that they mention the signal strength display. A few years back I was with cingular (now att) and I was having problems with reception and lost calls. So I got tired and walked in to a store and they updated my phone's firmware. The phone now seem to give me less drop calls but I notice that  the signal strength display was just being more accurate.

So it was not that I was getting less drop calls it was that the phone would show real time signal so I new where it was going to drop the calls. I tested standing at locations where I had drop calls in the pass and the signal strength was not excitent. After I realize this I just change networks. I'm now with sprint and It works great where I need it here in San Diego.

The one I'm actually curious about is the oddly phrased "Significantly better battery life for most users"

You have to wonder whether that means "Significantly worse battery life for the other users" because they changed the optimization trade-offs or whether it's just something like "we changed the default backlight levels" and "most users" means those who don't know how to change it back.

@mikegalos

Surprisingly, no mention of "Shake to Shuffle".

It's funny that I have not seen anyone say Apple stoled Microsoft idea for windows mobile 7.

www.engadget.com/.../is-this-windows-mobile-7

Shake is one of the features mention in the leaked info a while back.

DarkSages

There's no way to know right now even who Apple stole it from if they got it from that article (or, really the one that article references) since nobody has ever confirmed whether that the article was accurate, a total fabrication or somewhere in between.

Now, whether Cupertino will have their photocopiers warmed up in time for the demos at Microsoft's Professional Developer's Conference in October is a different question.

Sony ericsson phones have had that shake option for a while now...

Mike: AFAIK, the touch 2 gen does not have shake to shuffle. Is just a new nano thing.

Ocean: My Vista laptop has no issues at all with iTunes 8... I don't have an HP printer, though.

Another thing, the 2.1 update only touches the baseband (modem firmware) for 3G phones. 1st gen iPhones don't get any "call improvements"

Mike I love how you think Apple is always copying Microsoft when history has noted it's been the other way around.  Here let me help ya out:

Widgets - OS X had them first, MS copied the idea from Apple

Aero - Clearly inspired by OS X

Windows Calendar - A direct iCal ripoff.

I could  go on but wont bother.  Before you call me an iCabal, I actually sold my only mac last year in favor of Windows Vista since I do feel it's more superior than OS X atm.

I think that there is a Sansa Shake that shuffles when you shake it.

Several iPhone users report improvement of problems after the firmware update. Still the 5 of us did not experience them except mine with a few free apps crashing on occasion, then working fine after tapping on them again. I still like it moe than my Treo.

@adamb1000 -

"Widgets - OS X had them first, MS copied the idea from Apple " - Of course, Yahoo! had them before either one in Konfabulator.

"Aero - Clearly inspired by OS X" - Hard to say...this was just athe next evolutionary step in the desktop UI.

"Windows Calendar - A direct iCal ripoff." - Come on...its a Gregorian Calendar for chrissakes. They've been in use since the 1500s.

These are old and tired arguments that make you look foolish. Now, expect Mike to lambast you much worse than I am...

--tayme

Tayme I think dashboard or whatever the OS X widgets are called was inspired by both Konfabulator and objectdock or whatever it 's called these days.  

tayme

Nah. I don't need to bother. You did a perfectly good job of pointing out the basic fallacy.

I would add that the disadvantage of letting your partners know where you are going in future releases is that your competitors see your innovations, do a quick knock-off and get their clone out while you're still doing beta tests. And their fans will think they were the innovators.

Of course, if you are secretive about your product futures and don't take the time needed to do broad beta tests of your products then you are more immune to that at the cost of your partners and your customers.

@adamb1000 - Then why say that MS copied it from Apple? If anything, they copied it from Konfabulator.

--tayme

Apple isn't totally secretive.  If you looked at iLounge the day of the event, there were already companies hawking new cases and other accessories for the new iPod nano.  

Apple had to have shared the design with them for that to take place.

A little example complete with Paul's preview of Windows Sidebar from 11/13/2002:

Microsoft Research Sideshow - Summer 2000

Microsoft "Longhorn Sidebar" - M2 released 9/2002 (See Paul's preview at www.winsupersite.com/.../longhorn_alpha.asp )

Konfabulator - released 2/2003

Apple OS X 10.4 Dashboard - released 4/2005

Windows Vista - public beta 5/2006

Windows Vista - released 11/2006

From a personal note, my main computer back in 2001 when I was a Microsoft employee was using MSR Sideshow running on a Windows XP internal "dogfood" build.

The "Apple Sucks" crowd is out in full force today. Impressive. Someone is liable to get hurt at the bottom of that pile.

Anyone with 1/2 a brain stem can enumerate the mistakes made by Apple in the last several months. Got it. The sun will come up tomorrow.

No argument on that score from this corner. I would argue that Apple is a helluva company with an amazing story (back from the dead, thanks somewhat to Gates) and not deserving of the utter contempt it receives here.

My primary machine is a Mac, so I must be an elitist nut, blinded to reality by the pronouncements of the evil leader of the iCabal cult, Steve Jobs. Not quite.

Also use Office each and every day, and would be lost without it. A terrific application.

Grown-ups can use and appreciate the products of both, yes both companies.

@LC21 - "Grown-ups can use and appreciate the products of both, yes both companies. "

Bravo!!! That is what I have been trying to get across to BOTH sides of this argument.

--tayme

Feels snappier! ;)

This certainly makes you feel warm & fuzzy. Wih Nokia it was "take it to your nearest service center and they'll update the firmware for you! Make sure to back everything up because the phone will be formatted and reset to factory defaults! You can use your old phone until you get it back - a few days!" And even after that the damned Symbian OS has been more unstable than iPhone OS (which hasn't exactly felt like a rock). But it is still admittedly very much WIP with no copy & paste and no sms forwarding.

"The "Apple Sucks" crowd is out in full force today. Impressive. Someone is liable to get hurt at the bottom of that pile."

Shut up! They're so much better than iCabal, because... Because... Well... Anyway: They're different, because... Ummmm. Forget it.

MIke, that;s a great point about secrecy and innovation vs adequate testing. I see now some logic. Still if they anounce the beta, then they get credit for the innovation first, so I still think that good testing is best, which agrees with what you've been saying all along.

DRWAM

That so many people think that Microsoft copied Windows Sidebar from Apple's Dashboard unfortunately shows the assumption that showing something in beta gets you credit, while logically reasonable doesn't match the world.

Note that even the correction, well meaning as it was, said that both Microsoft and Apple copied their gadgets from Konfabulator (which shipped two years after Microsoft Sidebar started being shown)

It's almost as silly as the time I saw somebody claim that not only did Microsoft steal Windows from Apple, but so did Xerox. (That was during the "Look and Feel" lawsuit where Apple tried to claim that Windows 3.0 should be pulled from the market for looking too much like Mac System 6 and Xerox came in to say that both Mac and Windows were properly legal uses of Xerox designs)

@Mike - Do you know whne Yahoo! or whoever began development on Konfabulator?

--tayme

tayme

As far as I know, work started on Konfabulator sometime in 2002 by a 2 person startup which formed to create the product.

Their initial release was in 2003 and they were acquired by Yahoo! in 2005.

tayme

Just to add to the confusion, JJ Cadiz, Anoop Gupta, Gavin Jancke and Gina Danielle Venolia of Microsoft Reseach published a 10 page paper on Sideshow in September 2001

It's available at research.microsoft.com/.../view.aspx

And a followup paper by the MSR Sidebar team was published by the ACM in August 2002 and is available at research.microsoft.com/.../view.aspx

There's certainly no question that the concept as MSR envisioned it predates anybody's products.

I also have Sprint and I've never had a dropped call in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. However, my brother who does have AT&T still gets dropped calls. I did when I was using Cingular back in 2005. Since my Sprint switch, my service has been stellar and I've even been promoted up to a Sprint Premier customer.

As for this widgets, gadgets debate... you can go earlier back in Windows history to see the true roots. While Microsoft actually started the sidebar development back in 2002, you can look back to Windows 98 to see the root idea.

There was a sidebar like add on called the Channel Bar, that let you access websites. It was part of the Active Desktop. It had links to CNN, AOL, the Microsoft Network, Disney Channel, MSNBC, etc. To me, that is the root idea for the modern sidebar.

So to be fair, Microsoft had the idea way back and just expanded it to mini applications sidebar in 2002. As the Apple vs Microsoft ruling states, Apple doesn't have a cartblanche monoopoly on the OS or its parts. All cars have air conditioning in them, nobody tries to sue all the automakers for the puttnig in air conditioning.

Besides Windows 3.0 was nothing like Mac System 6 at all. I've logged thousands of hours in Mac System 6. Everything in Windows 3 was done in a windows screen. There was no master control menu at the top of any version of Windows. There was no trash can on the desktop until Windows 95. Through file managers and program menu did Windows allow things to happen. It was very silly and thats why Apple lost. Also Sculley signed the contracts giving Microsoft legal rights.

@Mike

"A little example complete with Paul's preview of Windows Sidebar from 11/13/2002:

Microsoft Research Sideshow - Summer 2000

Microsoft "Longhorn Sidebar" - M2 released 9/2002 (See Paul's preview at www.winsupersite.com/.../longhorn_alpha.asp )

Konfabulator - released 2/2003

Apple OS X 10.4 Dashboard - released 4/2005

Windows Vista - public beta 5/2006

Windows Vista - released 11/2006"

Uh-huh. Apple Desk Accessories----1984. Just a wee bit earlier. And, spare me the BS, that they "aren't the same". Small, transient, special purpose apps that remain open. It passes the Duck test.

Work started in 2002....when did the idea start? In other words...was the idea discussed and picked up by multiple other people to begin working in it?

--tayme

chuckb

The same? You're actually saying Calc is the same as Sidebar gadgets? You could just as easily say "I can open Word and leave it open in a small window so that's the same"

tayme

I don't know of any work in what we'd now call Sidebar or Dashboard or Yahoo! Gadgets prior to the MSR work in 2000. Of course, other people (like chuckb) think everything ever invented is derived from whatever they like no matter how tenuous the connection.

The iPhone 2.0 was a very VERY buggy release compared with the iPhone 1.0.  No doubt about it.  This update has brought some much needed snappy to my contacts, which I'm very happy about.  We'll have to see how the battery and call dropping improves (if it does at all).  

I must say that I've had very frustrating call dropping experiences with this iPhone but they have largely sorted themselves out.  2.0.2 did improve my call dropping, which was markedly worse with my iPhone 3G than my first gen iPhone.  It still does happen but it's hard to know why.  We'll see how this does.

So, the conclusion is pretty clear.  The iPhone 2.0 is now officially out of beta.  I will say that the buggy iPhone was still on-balance a better device than anything that's come before it... but that doesn't excuse this piss-poor release on it's failure points.  Contacts was slow as hell, which is a crucial interface for a phone and one that my treo handled great.  But the iphone is a complex device and many things have worked really well since the release of 2.0.  Browsing is great and faster than ever.  The multitasking with music playing and call making was generally really good.  The Appstore has generally been excellent.  

This thing is without question a revolutionary device.  But phone and contacts problems in 2.0 were hair pulling too.  So it's been a mixed bag, but only in comparison to the previous iPhone.  Even the buggy iPhone 2.0.0 still pwns my treo.  The fact that the iPhone makes a beep when a call is lost is in and of itself worth the change.  No more walking down broadway talking to nobody for 3 minutes because I don't know the call got dropped.  Yeah, and that was on Verizon.

On the plain-language honesty front, Jobs was very straight with everyone on stage that the iPhone 2.0 launch was buggy and that they were working to fix in with this release.  It appears they've done it (so far).  He clearly wasn't happy about it and made no effort to hide that dissatisfaction.

@Mike - I would tend to agree with Chuck that Apple's Apple Desk Accessories could have been the original idea that evolved into what we now call Sidebar/Dashboard/Yahoo! Widgets.

Check out these screenshots for Wikipedia(I hate using it, but it does have a good collection of screenshots.

Desktop Accessories - en.wikipedia.org/.../Image:DA_Mac_1.png

Mac OS X Dashboard - en.wikipedia.org/.../Image:Leopard_Dashboard_BIG.png

Vista Sidebar - en.wikipedia.org/.../Image:VistaSB.jpg

Here is a little cartoon from the konfabulator site(Yahoo! Widgets) with thier version of the history of the product. Make sure that you click through the entire show. Looks like he is saying that he "Thought" of the idea in 1998 and worked to get developers from 1999 - 2001.

www.konfabulator.com/.../partOne.html

Maybe this is a case where ones person's "facts" are different than anothers, huh? Of course, you protected yourself pretty well using language such as " I don't know of any" and "As far as I know".

--tayme

You all take this stuff WAY too seriously.

Especially you Mike.

Just sayin'.

John, now I can't hang up on my wife and blame the iPhone:)

Actually, I never had any dropped calls. But contacts were a little slow. I want to get home to update it. T minus 20 minutes to go, and counting!

tayme

I saw the quote on early Konfabulator but at the time he was thinking of a general purpose way of skinning apps and not what they ended up building.

I still can't see how an app like calculator is the same as what we're talking about. Every GUI since Smalltalk-72 at Xerox has had applets. The Xerox Star had a clock icon that contained a working clock before Lisa or Macintosh or Windows were even in development. That's not the same thing (and I'd also say that about IE4 and Win98's deskbar which was closer)

As for the pictures, I will say that Apple missed a key point about docking gadgets that's a key part of the MSR white paper and both Konfabulator and SideShow. But I'll count them anyway. :-)

But, again, no matter how you interpret it (short of everything important ever invented was present in Finder 1.0 and anything not present in Finder 1.0 isn't important) there's no question that Microsoft was there well before Apple.

@Mike, tayme:

TANDY DeskMate FTW!!!

Waethorn

So you were the person who used DeskMate. Knew there had to be one.

@Mike:

First mainstream computer with a DAC.  It also had the same 3-voice (+noise channel) PC speaker that the PCjr had.

Sierra games had the best sound on those systems....until they went to the SCI interpreter that is....

Oooh....oooh....

A little piece of history, brought back to life:

http://agdinteractive.com/

I can hardly contain myself!

@Mike - But these Widgets/Gadgets/whatever are simply applets, right...so this is another case of evolution of an existing technology that doesn't qualify as innovation. I know, I know...you are gonna have some sort of argument against that statement...but I still remember the discussion that a few of us had offline regarding innovation and one person's stubbornness regarding definitions there, too. You can't twist everything to fit your own mold...well, you can...but you lose credibility that way. Kinda like Al Franken.

--tayme

@RTE - Its a hobby...I like debate, and always have.

--tayme

Loaded the 2.1 updated. Everything works fine.. actually, better than before with regards to 3G in my house.

Also, the YouTube videos are adapted to your Internet speed. Wireless looks perfect.. 3G almost as clear as wireless (probably could be as good if I wasn't in my basement) and Edge the quality is lower but it does play. This is a big difference from before where YouTube vids wouldn't ever load over Edge.

beaker,me too. It took under 15 min to DL, backup, install and activate, all with one click. Works great. Contacts are found briskly. Me likey!

Wae, I saw a special about StarTrek TNG when it started in 1986 or 87 and one of the special effects guy said that the graphic stuff displayed was created on his 'handy dandy Tandy'.

Mike, I'm getting the idea that these younger guys don't seem to understand the humor of our generation.

@DOC - Trust me...I am probably older than you are...

--tayme

DRWAM

Just say you're being ironic. Since they don't know what it means but always nod knowingly, you're covered.

Wae

DeskMate was software so it didn't have a DAC. I suspect you mean the Tandy 1000 which came with DeskMate or possibly one of the later IBM compatible Tandys?

Tayme

If Sidebar/Dashboard is nothing more than Applets (and I disagree) then they're a Xerox invention.

If they're more than that, then they're a Microsoft Research invention.

In neither case are they an Apple invention.

And you still haven't shown where Al Franken was wrong (as opposed to saying things you don't like in a way you don't like)

Look guys, "shake to shuffle" is just a gimmick!

Just take a step back and look at these posts. Do you want to discuss 2.1 ...... or just continue with your "my dad is OLDER than your dad" ... 'debate'?

When you get older, you tend to SHAKE more.

I think this quote tends to apply to both Apple & MS:

>>“Fundamentally, their thinking shows that they are a software company at heart,” said one veteran manufacturing executive. “They put something out and figure they can fix it with the next patch or come up with a bug fix.”

--

this kind of problem — where technology fails and no one knows what to do about it — can happen to any company.<<

venturebeat.com/.../xbox-360-defects-an-inside-history-of-microsofts-video-game-console-woes

"When you get older, you tend to SHAKE more."

Hahaha. What was that all about?

If I was to use an ipod with "shake to shuffle" whilst riding a mountainbike, for example, would it constantly shuffle my music? Or can the feature be turned off?

@Mike - Then Xerox it is....

Oh, and for Al Franken's lies...here are about 52 or so - http://www.frankenlies.com/

--tayme

Gorath, the feature can be turned off. Also, it works only if the main screen is on.

tayme

A page that says that saying "Bush lied us into war" is a lie not because other people lied, too, clearly isn't exactly playing with an understanding of difficult words like "Bush lied"

@Mike

"The same? You're actually saying Calc is the same as Sidebar gadgets? You could just as easily say "I can open Word and leave it open in a small window so that's the same"

No, that would be Quicklook. I'm sure Microsoft thought of that first too!

no chuck

There's no difference between opening any app and leaving it open and opening calculator and leaving it open. And you say Mac Calculator is the same as a Dashboard gadget. So, by your standards, Word is a gadget, so is Outlook, so is Excel, so is Photoshop

@Mike - Do you need e to send you links to all 52 of the lies that are outlined, or did you click past the first page at all? Come on, Mike...you are hilarious...totally unable to control yourself...Always needing to get the last word in...

One example that itself is full of lies, that Franken even admitted to on CNN - www.frankenlies.com/.../zahncnn.htm

Have a good weekend...and read all of Fanken's lies...not just the front page.

--tayme

To anyone in the Western Gulf of Mexico and espcially the Galveston/Houston metro area, as we say in the music business, break a leg. Lots of us are hoping you guys do better through Ike than has been feared.

I was disappointed that the shake/shuffle function did not get included in the ipod touch.

I also don't think it is such a bad thing to copy good features that other's may have created.  Creating a good copy is a lot harder than most believe.

Thankfully after a less than impressive start, Windows 95 leap frogged the previously superior Mac OS.  

Thankfully Windows added UAC support even though UNIX and OS X had things similarly years in advance.

Firefox was not the first at much of anything but Firefox has created the current best browsing experience in my opinion.

Here is my wishlist of things that MS would copy:  I wish Windows would add h.264 support and podcast functionality to Window Media Player.  I wish windows would add native ISO burn capability.  

I wish the Mac would have its firewall on by default like Windows.  I wish Jobs would add a second mouse button to his laptops.

Anyone worried that Jon Gruber is an iCabalist should read his latest rant:  daringfireball.net/.../app_store_exclusion

To all

I hope you had a happy Programmer's Day

(Celebrated on the 2^8th day of the year)

Today starts the remainder which cannot be represented in a byte...

Take that as you will.

Here's an idea. Why doesn't everyone who hates the content on this site visit roughlydrafted.com and comment over there instead. That dude is so obsessed with Paul and MS that you'll get ample opportunities to bash both. Everybody is happy that way. :-)

One more irrelevant comment.

I was wrong about the Nano. I actually like it better than the 2nd gen form factor. The shake and bake feature may be useless, but, hey, at least it's a feature, no? I bought my mom a Sandisk Sansa player a couple of years ago because she needed the recording feature. I will probably give her a Nano now.

That said, I think electric blue is an amazing color.

Another OT post:

You are insulting women (Sarah Palin in particular) by referring to the new electric blue Zune as 'lipstick on a pig'. I think they're both gorgeous.

Also, I thought Paul would link to this:

www.istartedsomething.com/.../applications-coming-soon-to-a-mesh-near-you

Paul was right. This is becoming bigger than MobileMe. Interesting!