From Crunchgear

He cited sales “cheaper” smartphones like the the $49 iPhone 3GS as the primary reason for the lackluster performance.

It isn’t the $49 iPhone 3GS that is killing your tablet’s, it’s the lackluster performance. The Xoom is a dog and if it wasn’t for the badge at boot that proudly boasts there is a dual-core processor inside I would have never known.

Just found out that a friend of mine, Joel, was responsible for reaching out to and making the mold used to create “The Glif”, as seen here on http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danprovost/glif-iphone-4-tripod-mount-and-stand?ref=search. He took the time to contact the Glif crew and offered to assist as he to work for Premiere Source, a company that just happens to have “extensive injection molding knowledge” and just what the Glif crew needed to get their product launched after successful funding.

Fantastic product, great story, made here in the US. Congrats to Premiere Source! Pick one up at their store – http://www.theglif.com/

Making the Glif from Glif on Vimeo.

TUAW is reporting that VLC may soon be removed from the App Store because it violates the GPL on the grounds that because the copy downloaded to your device is copy protected using a DRM then it violates the GPL.

I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think VLC on iOS is in violation of anything so long as the source is available. Just because I can’t copy the compiled program doesn’t mean it violates the GPL. It comes down to the source code itself. In a sense, a version of VLC compiled for older PPC Mac systems also violates the GPL because I can’t copy the binary from an PPC system to an Intel system or even from a Mac to a PC. Further, you’d never copy the program files from one Windows PC to another because it’s far easier to download the installer and install it. So goes with VLC on an iPod or iPhone, it’s easier to just install it from the App Store, it’s free after all.

AppleInsider is running a story about a possible iPhone 4 launch on the Verizon network in 2011. This seems to jive with a bit of information from I got from a Verizon worker on the roll out of LTE beginning sometime in the end of 2011 or beginning of 2012. In fact, towers in the Fargo ND area are being upgraded to LTE capable equipment right now. I have my doubts we’ll see a CDMA only version of the iPhone on Verizon’s network and I am betting on a simultaneous iPhone and LTE launch. iPhone being the first LTE capable phone on Verizon’s network would be big marketing win for both the iPhone and Verizon.

Since Steve Jobs came back to Apple there has been one thing Apple has done that nobody can really argue. Innovation in the PC industry. While everyone, including Apple at the time, was producing boring looking beige computers Apple decided to completely rethink how a computer can look and introduced iMac. Love it or hate it, the iMac was completely different than anything else at the time and soon other manufacturers tried to add some amount of flair to their PC lineup.

Skip a head a few years later and Apple did it again. While everyone else was basically creating incrementally different smart phones in 2007, Apple simply destroyed how everyone assumed a smart phone should look and work by bringing to market iPhone. They made it far easier, intuitive and beautiful and from that moment on, they made it so that any phone on the market that didn’t have a touch screen or had a touch screen that required the use of a stylus was simply awkward and outdated.

Apple’s most recent market disruption was none other than iPad. During the summer prior to iPad’s release the netbook craze was in full swing. Just a year later there are reports that sales on netbooks have slowed considerably and some reports even show netbooks are losing out because of iPad.

At iPads reveal in January of 2010 Steve Jobs quipped that netbooks weren’t better at anything, they were simply cheaper laptops. Many people argued that netbooks were most useful for consumption and were never really meant for creating content. Yet netbooks looked and worked just like any other ordinary PC. Apple changed this by creating something that looked and worked nothing like a PC. Note too that iPad was the first tablet device on the market. Microsoft has been trying to get consumers using tablet PCs for years but I don’t think anyone could argue they’ve been anything near the run away success that Apple has seen basically over night.

The inspiration for my post comes from Marco Arment’s recent post. He also poses the interesting question of, “How do you think the subcompact, inexpensive computer category will look in three years?”

It’s being reported in a number of places, including Engadget, that some code has been found in the most recent firmware allowing a development phone to bypass the activation routine in iTunes. Some are thinking this is in reference to the rumored CDMA (Verizon) iPhone. Evidence is also there to support that a new type or updated version of the iPad is also in the works, though that should hardly be surprising.