The iphone has revolutionized mobile phone technology not only in the United States but also in the world. Now with the 3G available in 57 countries and coming soon to 23 countries, the iphone is increasingly becoming a mobile phone of international acclaim.  The benefits and advantages of the phone are available for your reading pleasure on the Apple website.

But the iphone is more than just a phone. It is a tool for effectively and efficiently managing the complex demands that span every facet of our hectic lives. It’s a way of life. That’s right, a culture – the iculture.

At ArcStone, we have embraced the iculture and bask in its glory on a daily basis. Almost half of the employees have iphones and they constantly rave about them.

Nick Longtin, a connoisseur of Indian cuisine once commented, “I love Tandori chicken. I bet you can even Tandori a shoe and it would taste great.” The idea Mr. Longtin is espousing here is that anything (edible or not) preceded by Tandori gives it major credibility. This same analogy carries over to the letter “i.” Placing i in front of mundane words like phone and culture give these words a whole new meaning. To illustrate this concept, let’s delve deeper into the linguistic significance of the letter i.

I  is the ninth letter of the greek alphabet, called iota. As we all know, the word iota in modern English is a noun meaning the smallest amount or part imaginable. It stands to reason that the idea behind the iphone was to enable users to achieve maximum efficiency with the smallest amount of effort.  It is no surprise that then that it combines three products in one: a phone, an ipod and a breakthrough internet device.

In the fast paced society and culture we live in, where time is of the essence, we expect everything microwaved and ready for consumption or use with minimal effort. The iphone helps to achieve this delicate balance between speed and accuracy which results in huge time savings.

The next time you hear the words iphone, iway or iculture remember that it’s an invitation to live life by design and not from crisis to crisis.

Ready for the new iPhone 3G to be released tomorrow? Maybe your happy with your current iphone, or you will be delaying your purchase to avoid the long lines and shoulder rubbing that will inevitably occur at every apple store. For those with the willpower to wait, you can indeed add a spark of new life to your current iPhone with some new apps.

The new iPhone Applications are now available and they can be acquired from the comfort of your lazyboy.

* The new iPhone 2.0 software is supposed to be out later today

Well, it’s June 9th. We can expect the announcement 10 am PST (noon here in Minnesota). Will the new iPhone go on sale today? Tomorrow? This week?

Will it be cheaper than ever?

Will I buy it in white, black, or red?

Will it be thinner, sleeker, more beveled?

Will it have solar panels?

Will Twitter crack under the strain of the anticipation and excitement?

You can check WWDC 2008 live blogging coverage over at CNET for news as it comes in…

Gizmodo had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Microsoft himself (Bill Gates) at the CES trade show. In this clip Bill discusses the strengths, weaknesses, and general differences between Microsoft and Apple.

Raving fanboys of either company may be taken slightly off guard by the clip. Bill gives props to both his own company and bitter rival Apple.

In truth, both companies are responsible for some amazing products, and any true nerd knows this, including Mr. Gates.

Millions of people have iPods, and the majority of them use iTunes to manage their music. As I have mentioned before, iTunes lacks some truly useful features, many of which users are pining for.

One major feature absent is the ability to copy music from an iPod to iTunes. This, no doubtingly, was left out of the feature set to keep users from sharing their entire music collection with everyone they know, and to keep Apple from being sued into oblivion.

Unfortunately, there are many legitimate uses for being able to copy music back and forth freely. Fear not gentle readers, because third party developers have come to the rescue.

I personally use Senuti, which has an interface almost identical to iTunes, except file syncing works in reverse (from iPod to iTunes). Senuti is Mac only, but there are many other options, and many are cross platform.

Enjoy your newfound freedom, but use it wisely.

A new format war is upon us. I speak of course of the HD video war. In one corner is the storage heavyweight Blue-ray, and in the other the slightly familiar HD-DVD. To the naked eye both look identical, shiny and round, just like a regular DVD. But beneath the surface of each lie different technologies, and a whole lot of politics.

Before consumers were in this mess it was DVD Vs DIVX. We all know how that panned out. Even before the optical disc wars Betamax and VHS were slugging it out over which format would dominate tape. However, this time it’s different. This time there is a third contender, and it’s not a format at all, it’s a delivery method.

With the advent of affordable high speed Internet, content can be delivered right to the consumer, cutting out the need for optical discs entirely. Apple, Amazon, TiVo, and others have launched services where users can purchase and download content online. No trips to the store, no discs to get scratched, no problem.

I believe when the dust settles on this war neither Blue-ray or HD-DVD will be standing. Hopefully, when a victor does emerge, there will be something decent to watch.

Many have suggested, and I agree, the iPhone is bad for web developers. Travel back in time with me to 1997. Microsoft releases a relatively competitive browser, for free, that can render standards based websites well.

With the help of Microsoft’s excellent marketing, the new browser quickly became a hot platform to develop for. However, some features developers were utilizing were specific to IE, and broke compatibility with other browsers.

Today a similar situation is brewing with Safari 3 and the iPhone. Although the iPhone is supposed to render standard sites well, many iPhone-only sites are popping up.

Thus, the suffering of web developers everywhere continues…

It’s now official, Apple will be releasing a SDK (software development kit) for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It will be dropping in February, I assume to coincide with Valentines day, as this announcement amounts to a love letter from Steve to Apple fanboys everywhere.

There has already been some interesting software developed without Apple’s blessing or official SDK. However, with the support of Apple, developers will no doubt produce better applications, and be able to access some of the iPhone’s advanced hardware. Also, users needn’t fear turning their phone into a $400 paper weight just so they can play Tetris.

Not every Mom and Pop shop will get their wares into the phone though. In order to keep out the wrong element, Apple is planning on implementing digital signatures for third party software. Although this is standard practice in the handset industry, I am curious to see Apple’s spin on it.

So, full of anxiety but pumped about iTunes on the iPhone, I ran the iPhone update 1.1.1. I was anxious because I had hacked my phone to allow me to install third party applications. It worked fine, but it removed all my previously installed stuff.

I’m not going to hack it again. I realized, as it was reloading (and I was nervously waiting) that I didn’t use hardly any of the crap I had installed. Yeah, some of the stuff is neat in premise… but just not as useful as I had hoped. Peer to peer GPS? It’s nice, but it doesn’t work. Etch a sketch? Also very cool… but after the “oohh that’s neat” feeling of drawing on an iPhone with your finger, it loses its luster too. Even “useful” apps like terminal and Python saw no use. The things I use on the iPhone are the things that Apple sold me. Safari, Mail, Phone, iPod. That’s what I use. That’s why I have an iPhone. I wish there were more things I could do with it–REAL GPS for instance would be cool, but won’t happen. Document editing, though, would be even better.

I’m just happy not to own a new iBrick.

Over the weekend, I did a couple of things with big enterprisey companies which have big enterprisey applications for consumers to, er, use. I purchased a computer from the online Dell outlet, sought support from Microsoft, slogged through insurance forms on State Farm’s site, and, oh right–paid my iPhone bill. Warning: I rarely sound so whiny as when I’m criticizing the interfaces of companies who should know better. (more…)