Day: 25 January 2012

Next iPhone Not In Production ⇥

Seth Weintraub of 9 to 5 Mac received information from what he calls a “reliable source at Foxconn” that the iPhone 5 is in production, based on a number of new designs being produced. Gruber denies that because it’s “too soon“. Weintraub also has some notes on a new form factor:

No teardrop-shaped devices, as rumored in the lead up to the iPhone 4S. Samples so far have been symmetrical in thickness (also longer/wider).

Gruber responded to that in the same post:

Longer and wider? Sounds like bullshit. I can see Apple putting a bigger display on a device of the same size. I can’t see them making a bigger device.

I agree that Apple probably won’t be making a physically larger phone, and I think it’s also plausible that they’ll put a four-inch display on the iPhone within a similar-sized package. But I also think it’s highly unlikely. There are so many good reasons for them to stick with the 3.5″ display.

Google is FUBAR ⇥

Sebastian Anthony:

Late yesterday, Google announced perhaps the biggest change it has ever made to its massive network of web services: Starting in March, your search and surf habits across all of Google’s products will be combined to form the mother of all behavioral profiles.

I’m not certain this is Google’s intent, but rather a convenient side-effect of placing everything under one privacy policy and one shared data collection rule. This is absolutely insane. The real kicker is that there’s almost no way to remove oneself from the enormity of what Google owns or has interest in. Even if you (like I) have disabled the keyword based ads and search history, or if you change to another search provider and another news aggregator, there isn’t a video sharing site as prolific as YouTube nor a book search as good as Google Books. Google is everywhere, and I bet nobody can fully disconnect from the company.