Apple’s holding a press conference to talk about the iPhone 4, presumably to address the ever-worsening signal strength PR mess. I think it’s been blown out of all proportion, but that’s partly Apple’s fault:

Instead of putting their hands up and saying “hey, it’s possible to bridge the antennas at one particular point and that can make the signal drop, but that’s the price you pay for the BEST RECEPTION ON AN IPHONE EVER!” they’ve said that the reason for disappearing bars is “both simple and surprising”.

Presumably it’s simple as in “let’s make something up! Simple!” and surprising as in “we’ll be surprised if anyone believes this”. In Apple PR land an issue that can be fixed with nail polish, a rubber band or a different grip can also be fixed with… software!

Microsoft is “hardcore” about Windows Slates, consumer-focused tablet computers. Me:

The danger here is that Microsoft approaches Windows slate devices from the wrong direction. If Microsoft asks “how can we stuff Windows into an iPad-style device?” rather than “how can we make the most awesome tablet computer ever made, a machine so mind-meltingly incredible that Steve Jobs fills his pants when he sees it?” then all we’ll end up with is a bunch of slightly smaller tablet PCs.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Windows 7, and I quite like tablet PCs. But I like the iPad much, much more. It’s an amazing device, and that’s largely because Apple hasn’t just sawed the keyboard off a MacBook Pro and jumped around the place shouting “and that’s magic!” like a demented Paul Daniels.

It’s easy to mock Apple – and I do – but the App Store’s had an enormous effect on software. So when I say app-y birthday, I mean it.

Being able to pick up apps for a few quid here, a few pence there encourages us to experiment, to forget our favourites when something brighter and better comes along – and that in turn means developers are constantly under pressure to raise their game, to create even better applications. Software hasn’t been this exciting since the online shareware explosion of the nineties.

Or at least, don’t do it if you like using your phone. It’s not just me: we asked Techradar readers for their experiences and it seems that the iPhone 3G and the initial release of iOS 4.0 go together like strawberries and Beelzebub.

Maybe all those new goodies in the OS – the folders, the spell checker, the new APIs – are too ambitious for the 3G, or maybe there’s a leaky app somewhere causing chaos, but 3Gs seem to be encountering problems that aren’t affecting the 3GS.

Of the three 3Gs I personally know of, all three have been slowed down dramatically by the OS upgrade.

You know it makes sense.

The public coffers are empty, and that means we need to make sacrifices. The school leaving age will be reduced to six. Hospitals will no longer treat you unless you’re spurting blood or other fluids. Benefits will be slashed, the unemployed will be forced to eat one another and Wales will be sold to the highest bidder.

So does Britain look like an outtake from The Road, with people chewing on babies and mugging one another for half-chewed Mars bars? Nope. We’re all queuing outside Apple stores, and Vodafone stores, and Orange stores, and Carphone Warehouses.

Last night Apple’s market capitalisation exceeded Microsoft’s for the first time since 1989. I think it’s interesting, not because Apple’s damaging Microsoft but because of the picture the numbers paint.

Since the return of Steve Jobs, Apple has transformed itself, especially since its invention of the iPod: almost overnight, Apple went from being a computer company to a digital music company. The iPod business has probably peaked, but Apple doesn’t mind: it’s changed again to a mobile phone company, and if that business starts to wane then it may turn out to be an iPad company, or a something-else company.

Microsoft, on the other hand, hasn’t really changed at all.

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/apple-beats-microsoft-not-so-fast-fanboys-692510

Me, you know where:

Parents of young children can spot an insincere apology from miles away.

“Sorry,” your tot mumbles, after you find the dog half-shaved and your Xbox full of jam.

“Sorry for what?” you’ll say. “Sorry for shaving the dog and putting jam in your Xbox,” he’ll say, looking at the floor. But he’s lying. He’s only sorry that he didn’t get away with it.

Facebook’s much-reported apology in the Washington Post is a bit like that. “Sorry,” says Mark Zuckerberg. “Sorry for what?” the internet asks.

“Sorry for invading your privacy and making things confusing and stuff,” Zuckerberg says. “Can I have an ice cream now?”

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/why-you-shouldn-t-trust-facebook-s-apology-691803#ixzz0owXMawMm

There’s been a lot of discussion about Gizmodo’s big iPhone scoop, where an iPhone prototype was apparently left in a bar. The person who found it then went round the gadget sites, selling it to Gizmodo for $5,000 (says the New York Times).

Gawker Media (Gizmodo’s parent company) has made a smart financial investment here: apparently the story has already had 20 million-plus page views. But the whole thing stinks.

Gawker says it didn’t know the iPhone was stolen. That seems awfully far-fetched to me: you don’t pay five grand for something you suspect will be a cheap Chinese knock-off: you pay because you’re pretty sure it’s an iPhone. And if it’s an iPhone, you can be absolutely certain you’re not being offered it with Apple’s express permission. Whether it was lost in a bar or obtained through more underhanded means, Gawker knew that the person who was flogging it wasn’t the rightful owner.

There’s no public interest justification for what Gawker has done. It hasn’t exposed price fixing, or exploding hardware, or child labour, or anything else that we have a reasonable right to know about. Everybody wants to know what’s in the next iPhone, but nobody has the *right* to know.  It’s the tech industry equivalent of paying someone to go through Kerry Katona’s bins or hack into public figures’ voicemail.

Gawker is unrepentant. Of course it is. It got the scoop, it got the hits, and if the poor sod who allegedly lost the phone in the first place gets the sack they’ll get more hits from that. If Apple sues, they’ll get even more hits – and probably more whistleblowers – from the legal tussles, which could go on for months or even years. From Gawker’s perspective, the whole thing is the most epic win possible.

From here, though, it looks like chequebook journalism at its most tawdry. Paying for stolen property and exposing trade secrets to make a bit more ad revenue isn’t the sort of behaviour that makes people go “when I grow up, I want to be a journalist” – and more importantly, it’s going to make Apple’s (and others’) control freakery even worse, possibly with unintended consequences: remember last year’s suicide when a Chinese worker lost an iPhone prototype?

And of course, it exposes some of us as hypocrites. I might not like it, but that didn’t stop me reading it – and every click is a vote in favour of more bad behaviour.

Me, writing about the Digital Economy Bill debacle: