3G iPhone lands in the Netherlands

Yesterday I was riding on my bicycle when passing this T-Mobile advertisement for the 3G iPhone. I must say that I was surprised to find out that we actually get it on 11 July (tomorrow), just like 21 other countries. To be honest I didn’t even knew that it was coming to the Netherlands, I always follow the iPhone launches on the iPhone Blog but the Netherlands remained unknown until now.

So the second gen iPhone is solely available on the T-Mobile network, and there is no unlocked version (as opposed to Belgium, where the law requires it). The contracts do seem to have decent plans, but I have yet to see how expensive the complete package will be.

Funnily, very few people Dutch seem to be aware about the iPhone. The people who do know it often don’t know that the 3G version is heading our way. On the Dutch websites, it is the complete opposite situation. A lot of major sites are preparing or alrady having an iPhone-optimized site. There is a nice site for streaming Dutch radio channels, and even our TV guide has made an optimized site in the Mac OS X Mobile style.

On the Dutch iPod Touch Blog, somebody has installed iTunes version 7.7 today to check out the AppStore. He stated that there are 500 applications available at the moment, with 25% being free. But he also writes to not get high hopes about the freeware, in terms of functionality and usefulness. Of the remaining paid programs, 90% will cost less than $9,99. This makes the potential of this already great concept even bigger. It will be easy, fast and (in most cases) cheap to install new stuff on your iPhone/iPod Touch. Simply brilliant.

 I just downloaded the 7.7 update, to be able to acces the AppStore. However, I couldn’t access it by the easy way by clicking on the iTunes Store. I had to follow a link on the Dutch iPod Touch Blog to get to the store instead. I had an interesting browse through the apps, I’m more glad then ever that I have the iPod Touch… I read in my feeds that the 2.0 firmware update for the first iPhone is also already online, but the paid update for the iTouch isn’t. Never mind, I can wait a day…

I feel drawn towards the iPhone more and more. Fortunately (for my wallet, that is), I have already a contract running until February. At that time, the Blogosphere will probably be filled with rumors about the third iPhone. So if I will go for the iPhone, I will wait for that one. Of course you can never predict what will happen, especially not with me, jumping back and forth with thoughts and devices. I hope to get my eager hands one some fine applications as soon as possible, maybe even to write reviews about them. Let’s see what happens.

New PocketMac products

Tim from PocketMac sends me frequent updates about new software products, and they have released a few in a short period. Unfortunately, I can never test and review their products as I don’t own a Mac. However, I might consider buying one when it’s time to ditch my current laptop. But that will take another year or two I’m afraid. I would sure be glad to dump Vista, the resources-eating, need-to-install-drivers-for-everything crappy operating system that failed to be a worthy follow-up to XP.

Now that I have complained again about the big ‘V’, it’s time to get back to the new software. The first application is one that I have received a notification about earlier on but I simply hadn’t got the time to put it up my blog.

PocketMac AudioExtractor

“PocketMac AudioExtractor goes to work every time you open a YouTube video in your Safari web browser. Within a fraction of the time it takes to play the clip, PocketMac AudioExtractor grabs the audio and converts into an iTunes-compatible format. It then copies that file into a special playlist within iTunes. And you’re all set! You can then…

…sync the audio the next time you hook up your iPod…

And then you can hear the audio from your favorite clips when you’re running, in your car or any place you plug in your iPod.”

PocketMac AudioExtractor works with a lot of sites (eight to be precise), and I really like the functionality. In fact, as I’m not able to use the software, I searched for similar software for Windows. I found a number of (free) applications, but none of them are as convienient as AudioExtractor.

PocketMac MacThemes for BlackBerry

“If you’ve ever wished that your BlackBerry could look like your Mac, we have great news for you…  …we’ve crafted a new tool so that you can give your BlackBerry the look and feel of a Mac — all the icons and images you love. The PocketMac MacTheme™ for BlackBerry is available right now and will work on almost all of the BlackBerry handhelds available today. Here’s how to choose the right one for your device…“

Having Crackberry.com in my feeds, I get the impression that BlackBerry users love themes. So I’d understand that the people with both a Mac and a Crackberry would love to turn their little handset in a mini-Mac with MacThemes…

PocketMac RingtoneStudio for iPhone

“If you’re like most iPhone users, you’re addicted to it. The web browsing. The music. Everything. But there’s one thing that’s been missing……the ability to personalize your phone with your own ringtones simply and fast!

That’s where PocketMac® RingtoneStudio^TM for iPhone comes in.

It’s the first tool to allow you to easily create ringtones from practically any multimedia file — from QuickTime movies to unprotected music files of all types.

What’s even better, there’s no crazy iPhone hacking required. Your iPhone doesn’t even have to be connected when you’re creating your ringtones.”

I happen to know that Mac-owner are already able to create custom ringtones with the application Garageband. This RingtoneStudio is a nice addition if you want to rip sounds from movies or songs.

That were the new applications for the happy Mac/BlackBerry/iPhone owner among us, stay tuned for more ‘PDA Thoughts’ about their products. By the way, did you notice that PocketMac likes to play with capitals like Apple does?

The future of Digital Rights Management

One of the lectures I attended was about the future of Digital Right Management. The lecture was given by Jan van der Meer, ‘Director Standardization’ at Philips and also president of the DRM workgroup within the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). This is somebody who has been involved with the standardization of audio and video compression within MPEG. Right. So this was somebody who knew what he was talking about.

I sure was interested what he had to say about the future of DRM, especially since you might know that I have raved about Apple and what I saw as their walled garden. My protest about Apple aside (as I wasn’t right on a few things), I hate DRM restrictions and everybody who makes them or puts them on their content. As with a lot of things in the (mobile) market, there isn’t an easy answer to it. In a world of piracy, it is logic that creators want to protect their content. But DRM is far from perfect, let alone secure. From my point of view, content restrictions are annoying for its users but not even a small threat for hackers. Since the restrictions are meant for the latter, DRM is more of a problem then a solution.

But let’s get back to the lecture. First, he explained a lot about the history of both DRM and the Open Mobile Alliance. Second, Jan van der Meer explained how the process of securing the content works. He focused on encryption with mobile devices like phones. Very interesting, it’s always nice to find out how something works. But as the title of this post has already revealed, his last (and for me most important) part was about what the future of DRM will be.

 

The future

 

Before you get high hopes: don’t. There is no answer to the question of how the future of content restriction will look like. He did stated the obvious by saying that the DRM technology has come a long way since its start, and that nowadays advanced DRM technology is available. According to Jan, it’s way ahead of the current market’s requirements. He states that there is no major market need for sophisticated DRM features. Err, right. A personal thought of me is, that if this technology will continue to improve in the future, might it become less cumbersome to its users? At least it is a hard needed improvement.

Since Jan van der Meer had nothing else to tell about the digital rights future that was interesting, I asked him why he thought that DRM would stay, since a number of content selling companies offer DRM-free stuff. I got a pretty standard answer, but it is fair enough. I quote: “The music industry will always need some kind of content protection. It will be a less positive experience for the customers, but otherwise the music industry will die.” I bet you saw that one coming… :) As I said before, I am very unhappy with DRM messing up the user experience, but it is still needed.