Jason just sent me this: QR Code Engraving on an iPhone. I am curious what the QR Code encodes.

iPhone and QR Codes is a recurring meme on the web. There were some other posts where iPhone users asked for a preinstalled QR Code Reader and I think this would be a very smart move. iPhone and N95 users are early adopters, tech savvy, communicators and use the mobile web overproportionally. And Steve Jobs needs to reboost iPhone sales.

iPhone Cacheability

Via Niall

Fred Vogelstein's The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry recounts Apple's journey to the iPhone. Some bits are also more general in interest and speak for the whole mobile industry. I want to quote some of them:

For decades, wireless carriers have treated manufacturers like serfs, using access to their networks as leverage to dictate what phones will get made, how much they will cost, and what features will be available on them. Handsets were viewed largely as cheap, disposable lures, massively subsidized to snare subscribers and lock them into using the carriers' proprietary services. But the iPhone upsets that balance of power. Carriers are learning that the right phone — even a pricey one — can win customers and bring in revenue. Now, in the pursuit of an Apple-like contract, every manufacturer is racing to create a phone that consumers will love, instead of one that the carriers approve of. "The iPhone is already changing the way carriers and manufacturers behave," says Michael Olson, a securities analyst at Piper Jaffray.

[...] Jobs unveiled the ROKR in September 2005 with his characteristic aplomb, describing it as "an iPod shuffle on your phone." But Jobs likely knew he had a dud on his hands; consumers, for their part, hated it. The ROKR — which couldn't download music directly and held only 100 songs — quickly came to represent everything that was wrong with the US wireless industry, the spawn of a mess of conflicting interests for whom the consumer was an afterthought.

[...] It may appear that the carriers' nightmares have been realized, that the iPhone has given all the power to consumers, developers, and manufacturers, while turning wireless networks into dumb pipes. But by fostering more innovation, carriers' networks could get more valuable, not less.

See also:
The old model will work for the next two, three years, but then it's over
Addendum: Media vs Operators
and
0 $ Phones and René Obermann's "drop subsidy of phones and we can cut tariffs"

More photos here

LG, Sprint introduce new music phone, FUSIC (LX550)

Sprint and LG Electronics MobileComm introduce FUSIC, a trendsetting mobile phone with a progressive design and music and entertainment services delivered at broadband-like speeds via the Sprint Power Vision Network.

iPod City Guides
In Switzerland Basel, Lausanne and Geneva are covered.
Here is what you can expect from such a city guide: Basel

PSP City Guides

Sony have confirmed the launch of 'Planet PSP' (Working title) for September 2006. Planet PSP will have interactive City guides for 6 European Cities: Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, Paris, Prague and Rome. Each guide has been developed with the young city breaker and frequent traveller in mind and comes packed with information on how to experience the very best places in town - from the latest restaurants to the most underground of clubs - along with videos, audio walks, photography, maps and pre-planned itineraries to suit every sort of visit, and every type of adventurous traveller.

As written several times, the new mobiles like the PSP and iPod gaining some ground in the mobile field. It's still in the early stages though.

To introduce this new category, I wanted to start with the new spot from TWBA/Chiat/Day. Below you also find the official FAQ about all things PSP in the US.



Sony PSP
TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles: "Big Guns and Rats"
Download Quicktime Movie (.mov)

See also:
PlayStation® Portable (PSP™) FAQ

Sony has sold more than 15 million PSPs worldwide in just one year, according to the Chicago Tribune. The iPod has sold twice that number in 2005 (32 millions iPods to be precise, and 42 millions altogether till end of 2005), but it took Apple also bit longer - they debuted the first iPod in October 2001.

So, just for now two things I wanted to blog already some time ago:
PSP Fanboy Blog
and the book from O'Reilly
PSP Hacks

See also:
PSP Feedgarden
PSP-hacks (not the same as the book)
PSP World
Sample the Web (from the author of PSP Hacks)