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Nike was at CES last week to premiere its new Nike+ SportWatch GPS, a sports watch hooked up to GPS via TomTom-based technology, designed to work with the popular Nike+ system. While the idea of the watch is cool (it will track all of your runs, even if not hooked up to the GPS system right away), the interface is nowhere near as a nice as any given Apple product. It would have been better to bring the same functionality to an iPod nano app which you could then strap on to your wrist.

We did get to chat with Nike about its iPhone app, Nike+ GPS, which is consistently seen at number one in the Health and Fitness category on the App Store, and has earned over a half million downloads around the world. Nike says it plans to continue supporting the app, and a recently released version added some interesting social functionality called “Cheer Me On,” allowing Facebook friends to send you motivational messages during a run, and last week the app got versions for non-English speakers. Nike says its goal with the app is motivation — Nike+ started because it discovered that “music is motivating to athletes,” and it’s since learned that having feedback on your location while running is motivating as well.

As for what’s next with the app, Nike was tight-lipped, only saying “we’ve nailed it with what we have.” Over the five years since it’s been live, Nike+ has picked up four million members, and users have run 320 million miles so far. It looks like Nike’s plan to motivate users is working.

Nike talks iPhone, running, and its connected devices originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back in the first days of the Mac (in the days when I still had a full head of hair) a developer by the name of Jim Rea created one of the first database apps for the platform, Overvue. That application became Panorama (US$299), which is still around and has evolved through the years to remain a powerful and incredibly fast relational database for Mac.

Sometimes, though, Mac owners need a database management system that isn’t as powerful as Panorama but can handle operations that would choke Excel or Numbers. On January 6, Jim Rea’s company — ProVUE Development — released a new product into the wild via the Mac App Store. That product is called Panorama Sheets (US$39.99) and it uses a spreadsheet-like interface for all data entry, searching, sorting, and data analysis and manipulation.

The app has a feature called Total Recall that can protect your data through system crashes and power outages, and uses the same RAM-based database engine as Panorama for blinding speed in sorts and other operations. One feature that’s sure to be popular with Mac users who need to manipulate large address list databases is support for many Avery mailing labels. If a database has standard address fields (first name, last name, street address, etc…), Panorama Sheets will automatically configure the fields on a label. If a field is missing (like the ever-popular “address2” field), the app automatically slides label fields up and to the left so there are no blank areas on the mailing label.

Panorama Sheets also converts raw data into an interactive summary outline with subtotals, averages, and other calculations. Searches can be done phonetically with a “soundslike” operator, combined, and saved for future reference.

If you’re interested in trying Panorama Sheets to see if it’s right for you, ProVUE has a 15-day free trial version available for download.

Panorama Sheets for Mac: A first look originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In a brief article today, Bloomberg cites Verizon CFO Francis Shammo as saying that the iPad will be offered in a 3G version designed to work on the company’s CDMA network. No timeframe was cited for the new model.

The existing iPad 3G only works with GSM networks, so this would necessarily be a different hardware config. Verizon already sells the WiFi-only iPad bundled with a MiFi portable hotspot. Customers leaning toward the iPhone on Verizon’s network will also be able to share the phone’s 3G connection with their WiFi iPad or other devices, unlike AT&T’s setup where only a single computer can tether to the iPhone at a time.

iPad will also go Verizon for 3G, says Bloomberg originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Who remembers the great carrier wars of 2009? Yes, back before Apple and Verizon became best buddies who worked together for years to create the ideal iPhone experience for VZW customers, Verizon was aiming for the jugular with the “There’s a Map For That” and “Misfit Toys” ads poo-poohing AT&T’s network coverage. In fact, things got so tense that AT&T and Verizon sued each other over the claims in those blue and red ads.

Now that everyone’s friends again, we’ve pointed out the fact that Verizon’s version of the iPhone, like all the other phones on its CDMA network, will not support simultaneous voice and data; this despite the rumors from last summer that the carrier would roll out VoRA technology to do exactly that. More than a few readers and Twitter followers have said “Who cares? I don’t use simultaneous voice and data, and I can’t see why it matters.”

The answer to “who cares,” at least if you go back to late 2009 and the VZW/AT&T caterwauling, is Apple’s marketing team. Let’s set the Wayback Machine to this delightful iPhone ad, visible in the continuation of this post, and think about sending email while we chat and ordering flowers during a call. Yes, apparently those who cannot remember the past actually are doomed to repeat it.

Continue reading Simultaneous voice and data: there was an ad for that

Simultaneous voice and data: there was an ad for that originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that the Verizon iPhone is really, truly, officially official, some AT&T customers may consider migration. But at what cost? If you’re mid-contract, it won’t be free. Of course, the cost depends on when you signed up. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Like most smartphones, iPhones are sold with a 2-year contract here in the States, the cost of which is used, in part, as a subsidy to reduce the initial price of the phone. Those wishing to escape their ongoing contract must pay an early termination fee, which starts at a certain price and decreases monthly. AT&T’s starts $325 and drops by $10 per month.

Dislike math? Me, too. Fortunately, there’s a great Wolfram Alpha widget that works it out for you. Still, here are some quick numbers for reference. Those who received a shiny iPhone 4 for Christmas ought to keep it, as they’ll pay $315 at this point. If you stood in line last June as I did, you’ll pay around $256 to switch.

Those of you still using an iPhone 3GS can switch for just $85. Not too bad.

Is it time to switch? Hold your horses, Texas Pete. This announcement is only a few hours old. Let’s wait and see how AT&T responds. Remember, they haven’t had to compete for sales of the super-popular iPhone within the U.S. before, and many geeks are beside themselves at the thought of their Precious on Big Red. AT&T may offer incentives to stay on its network. In the meantime, your termination fee is only going to go down, and you’ll give case manufacturers time to design something that will fit your Verizon phone. Unless your local AT&T coverage is absolutely abysmal, we say exercise a little patience.

Finally, try to cover the cost. In this case, a new carrier also means a new iPhone (and probably a new case). Consider selling your current model to help offset the dollars flying from you wallet. Sell Your Mac and NextWorth are two good resources. At the very least, you might make up for that pesky termination fee. For our complete guide on how to sell your iPhone, look here.

On migrating from AT&T to Verizon originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With all the excitement over the Verizon iPhone announcement, I’m not sufficiently moved to make the break. I admit, AT&T has been sloppy and at times downright incompetent. Who can forget the massive foul up when the first iPhone came out and literally millions of customers couldn’t get AT&T servers to sign them up? It happened again with the 3G iPhone and the iPhone 4.

There’s the really nasty rate of dropped calls, lousy or inconsistent reception, and how AT&T always seemed to put endless roadblocks before developers who wanted to use the iPhone in the way it was designed. Months of delays on the SlingPlayer app, no Wi-FI tethering, and more delays delivering a 3G tethering plan that was overpriced and forced you to give up your unlimited data plan. Oh yes, AT&T dropped unlimited data so it could start enabling some of those features that might force you to go over AT&T’s newly imposed limits. Nice. The list goes on and on.

Still, I’m staying. Here are my reasons:

• Big Fee to drop my AT&T plan. Way too much. $325 for those who purchased after June 1, 2010, and $10 off of that for every month of completed contract.
• Coverage. We all know that AT&T coverage is generally worse than Verizon, but AT&T ponied up and let me have a MicroCell device for free. It solves the ‘no coverage at home’ problem, and after some initial growing pains it works well
• Competition is good. I expect AT&T to step up and compete, not because they want to, but because they have to. Maybe there will be a reinstatement of unlimited data plans. Maybe FaceTime will finally work on 3G.
• Simultaneous voice and data are huge. I often fire off an email or web link when I’m on the phone. Going to Verizon means I kiss all that goodbye.
• Speed. At least here in Arizona, I get really fast data on the iPhone. Yes, the Verizon voice network is more reliable, but in local side by side tests on the data side, my AT&T phone really is faster than a Verizon smartphone.
• New iPhones. There will likely be a new iPhone this summer. I expect it will be a lot easier to talk AT&T into an upgrade than Verizon.

Continue reading Why I’m staying with AT&T

Why I’m staying with AT&T originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon was widely lauded this morning when it announced that its new CDMA iPhone would provide built-in hotspot support. Hotspots allow users to connect to a phone and share that phone’s data service to connect to the Internet. This feature, which is also known as “tethering” provides a way to share a single data connection among several devices including phones, laptops, and so forth.

AT&T, which introduced tethering after many delays, has been charging customers a premium on top of their normal data service to tether. Based on Verizon’s other smart phone plans, the VZW tethering feature will sell for a $20 per month, as it is on Android phones, on top of its $30 per month unlimited data plan. There will be a 5GB monthly limit for mobile hot spot usage.

AT&T’s tethering is limited to recent data-rationed plans and is not an option for customers who still use AT&T’s original iPhone unlimited plan. As well, the iPad 3G’s data plans do not offer a tethering option. What’s more, you cannot tether your iPad to your iPhone’s data with AT&T as the iPad’s bluetooth tethering profile is disabled. You can, however, tether to your iPhone using a third party product called MyWi.

Continue reading Talking with MyWi’s Mario Ciabarra about VZW’s hotspot announcement

Talking with MyWi’s Mario Ciabarra about VZW’s hotspot announcement originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dig a bit deeper into Verizon’s iPhone announcement and you see something that was overlooked from this morning’s announcement — namely a white iPhone. Apple has made it perfectly clear that the Holy Grail of iPhones won’t be available until some time this spring. So, is this the real thing? Most likely not, I don’t see anyone other than Apple announcing the white iPhone, and certainly not by burying it in a subsection of Verizon’s site. Steve Jobs is most likely frothing at the mouth over this slip-up by Verizon — but as of a little while later, it’s fixed, so maybe nobody noticed.

That’s not the only error Verizon’s announcement had. There’s no mention of CDMA at all — the specs listed are GSM/EDGE. Maybe you have to roam onto AT&T to actually use the data plan. It’s pretty much last summer’s iPhone 4 announcement plopped onto a Verizon server. You’d think that with Verizon and Apple having this under wraps for the past two years, someone would have bothered coming up with a better site — or at least making sure the AT&T-specific information was changed to Verizon. Or, better yet, hire a copy editor.

[Yes, we know we made an ‘a/an’ error in this post and a typo in a headline earlier, thanks to all you clever wags for pointing them out; they are fixed now. Of course we make mistakes too — however our mistakes are not on the same scale as Verizon inadvertently advertising a color that isn’t available, on a network they don’t support. -Ed.]

Why Verizon needs a copy editor originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, it would have been more exciting if Verizon launched its version of the iPhone with an incremented version number and splashy new hardware capabilites — LTE! Super-Retina display! Downward-facing camera! — but as expected, the new beastie is essentially the same as the existing iPhone 4 model.

The primary difference is that Verizon’s iPhone 4 is a CDMA unit, not GSM. This of course means that users cannot migrate their handsets between AT&T and Verizon; they have different radios and will only work on their respective network flavor. (Worthy of note, though, the Verizon agreement is non-exclusive, so a Sprint-centric CDMA iPhone is not an impossibility.)

The CDMA phone is also far more limited for international roaming, so if you plan to travel overseas with your phone please think ahead. As Steve notes, CDMA is still not capable of simultaneous voice and data, so phone calls will interrupt your data sessions; you might consider letting the calls go to your voicemail, and using a Google Voice mailbox so you can get those messages while you’re surfing (although it’s possible Visual Voicemail will work when a data-only session is active; we’ll have to try it out and see).

Along with the different radio config comes a slightly different antenna arrangement, with another infamous air gap associated with the ‘grip of death.’ It’s not clear yet whether this will have any bearing on the phone’s connectivity, but since the working assumption is that Verizon’s network > AT&T’s network, dropped calls and dead spots are theoretically going to be less of a problem on Big Red than on Big Blue.

The new VZW phone also sports the ability to behave as a MiFi hotspot, giving WiFi connectivity at 3G speeds for up to five devices. Although this isn’t available on AT&T’s plans as an official capability, the $10 $19.99 Cydia app MyWi for jailbroken phones already enables it, so it’s reasonable to think that there’s not a hardware-specific change in play; Verizon already offers the capability on several Android phones. Be aware, though, it will chew through battery like a gopher in a cabbage patch.

That’s another reason to be happy the VZW iPhone isn’t shifting form factor at all; existing cases, battery packs and audio accessories should all continue to work unmodified. If only that were true! Laptop Mag and Slashgear both confirm that the mute switch and volume buttons have moved, meaning many (but not all) existing cases won’t fit (see here). D’oh.

Developing story: stay with TUAW today for all the Verizon iPhone news.

Verizon iPhone: Hardware is still the iPhone 4 originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that the cat’s out of the bag, here at TUAW we’re wondering how AT&T will answer to Verizon’s iPhone announcement — specifically the part where the iPhone 4 will be a mobile hotspot that supports up to 5 devices. It’s definitely an extra incentive to lure AT&T customers, already unhappy with tiered data plans and extra costs for tethering.

When the Verizon iPhone makes its debut on February 10, will you be among those in line to get it?

View Poll

TUAW Poll: Will you buy the Verizon iPhone? originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For those who are interested in the Verizon iPhone, one of the most pressing questions was whether or not the phone would be able to allow simultaneous use of data and voice. This is currently not possible on Verizon’s CDMA network, and is sure to be one of the big points in future AT&T advertising. Since the Verizon iPhone operates on the CDMA network, it will not be able to handle voice and data at the same time.

When you get a phone call while using data on a CDMA phone right now, that phone call goes directly to voice mail. that phone call interrupts the data connection. Likewise, you need to hang up voice calls before trying to bring up websites or capture other data. Want to use that built-in tethering app to send a 3G signal to five devices? Just don’t try to talk on the phone at the same time.

This will not happen if and when Verizon and Apple create an LTE-based iPhone. LTE can handle both data and voice at the same time, as it is based on the current iPhone’s GSM technology.

Verizon iPhone can’t handle data and voice simultaneously originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon announced the CDMA iPhone today and put some pressure on AT&T by offering the smartphone with a personal hotspot feature (like the MiFi, but built-in) that supports up to 5 devices. Pricing for the mobile hotspot was not announced, but select Android smartphones include this feature for an additional $20 per month. This charge is on top of the unlimited data plan which is available for $30 per month. Presumably, the mobile hotspot will be a Verizon-exclusive app or preference setting that enables this functionality. [Techcrunch showed the interface for this, it is enabled through the Settings app.]

Currently, AT&T offers the iPhone with the 2 GB DataPro and tethering plan for $45 per month. This is a one to one tethering option that lets you connect one phone to one device. The Verizon option lets you add up to five devices that are WiFi-capable. The next question is, how will AT&T respond?

Verizon confirms the iPhone with personal hotspot originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone 4 will be available through Verizon starting in February originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the (11-10)th month in the 2000+11th year, Verizon finally gets its iPhone. Maybe. (After all, they may just be having service upgrades or something boring like that.) And TUAW is there.

Greatest thing ever? Or–if this really goes down–simply another small accomplishment on the marketing behemoth that is iPhone. You tell us. Our comments are open and you’re welcome to join in the discussion.

Today, we’re meta-liveblogging the event, updating this post with info, facts, and opinion as this event rolls out. Keep refreshing the post, as we’ll regularly be updating it with newer updates towards the top.

11:33 If you enjoyed this live coverage and want to see more of the same, please pop by our feedback page and let our producers know. As always, we thank you for taking time out of your busy day to spend with TUAW. We are nothing without our readers and we appreciate every one of you!

11:32 Okay TUAWians, we’re going to wrap up the coverage now. This was short, sweet and a lovely surprise for us all.

11:31 Megs: But, I think enough people may jump ship to where it’ll ease the capacity. Erica: Hardly a win for AT&T then

11:31 RichG: I think AT&T are in a bind — I doubt they introduced those data caps lightly, IO think they really were sttuggling with network capacity

11:31 I wonder if this will impact sales of MyWi

11:30 TJ Luoma: They’re talking now about a tethering app. Will it be available to AT&T customers?

Follow the Read More jump for the rest of this transcript…

Continue reading TUAW metaliveblogs the Verizon event. Here’s hoping for iPhones

TUAW metaliveblogs the Verizon event. Here’s hoping for iPhones originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As the minutes tick by to what looks like the imminent release of the iPhone on Verizon, here’s a roundup of what could be expected during the next hour and what’s happened during the past few months:

As soon as the iPad made its Verizon debut, every announcement out of Verizon began looking like it would be the iPhone’s turn and that 2011 would be the year of the Verizon iPhone. A couple weeks before Christmas, the rumors began circulating that a 4G LTE Verizon iPhone would be introduced right after Christmas.

Apple put the freeze on employee vacations beginning the last week of this month until the third week of February while there were reports of Verizon snatching up iPhone-related domains.

Our friends over at the Wall Street Journal confirmed the rumor, and given their history on predicting such matters, we have little reason to doubt that Verizon is announcing the real deal here.

Meanwhile, AT&T is already lobbing shots at potential leapers, warning them that they too are destined for “life in the slow lane.”. In what looks like a pre-emptive move, AT&T, Apple and other retailers like Target have slashed the official price of the iPhone 3GS to $49 — plus two-year contract, of course.

All will be revealed in about 20 minutes (as of this writing). Stay tuned.

The Verizon iPhone: A rumor roundup originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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