iPhone Envy Brings Out Innovation

报告 of sellouts of Palm's new Pre smartphone were reported at various locations around the U.S. 在周六, al虽然 the retail stock appears to have been a bit lower than Apple's record-breaking sales days for its first two versions of the iPhone.

Palm made waves for its multi-touch ability as well as its direct emulation of an iPod in iTunes, something that 研究 In Motion (RIM) and others have only accomplished via XML rather than directly emulating an iPod.

While searching for details of the Pre's iPod emulation, I came across Jon Lech Johansen's 博客 on the topic, which clearly shows the code change from USB Drive mode to Media Sync mode. u盘模式, the "Product Identification" line shows the device as "Pre" but in the Media Sync mode, it shows the "Product Identification" as "iPod" and uses "com_apple_driver_iPodSBC" as its primary driver when in Media Sync mode.

Of perhaps greater interest to 流媒体 readers, 虽然, is Johansen's bigger announcement of his 双推 软件. 更多的 well known by his "DVD Jon" moniker for the release of CSS codes for commercial video DVDs a few years ago, Johansen set up a company called 双推 last year, working on a heretofore unknown 软件 product.

Under the tag line "The Cure for iPhone Envy" Johansen promises that the 双推 application will offer an iTunes library on almost any mobile device, offering a free download of the application at www.双推.com/cure.

Initially intended to launch via an advertising campaign today, 双推 used a cleverly-chosen location outside the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station just below Apple's flagship San Francisco store.

"We were going to launch our new ad campaign on Monday morning," Johansen said on his 博客 on Friday, "but the ad company jumped the gun and it already went up today. As soon as I heard I headed over to get some pictures." One of those shots is shown below.


双推 launched in a big way, with an ad outside the BART station below Apple's flagship San Francisco store. BART officials removed the ad over the weekend, but it should be up again by Tuesday.

BART officials removed the advertisement over the weekend, but Johansen expects it to be back in place by Tuesday.

双推 in some ways follows the Pre's lead, allowing many mobile devices to access an application that extracts the iTunes music and video libraries, 包括播放列表, as well as any images on the computer. 用于视频文件, 双推 then performs a behind-the-scenes transcode, 更改帧大小, 帧率和视频编解码器.

The files can also be shared with others, as the files are also uploaded to 双推's social media site, and then a link to the streaming file is sent via email to any chosen email address. If the person the file is shared with is also a 双推 social media member, the shared file can be added to their desktop application and then placed on the mobile device synced with the 双推 application.

Johansen's application comes at a time when Apple's iPhone dominates new smartphone sales, filling a gap for those who have a music- or video-player equippped mobile device that isn't an iPhone or a Pre. 双推 claims to support BlackBerry, Sony PSP, G1 and Android phones, Windows Mobile 5.0/6.0 platform phones, Motorola and even audio files for the Amazon Kindle.

Apple is expected to release its iPhone version 3.今天的0软件 World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), however, and the company may also announce additional versions of the iPhone. WWDC主题演讲将于下午1点开始.m. 东部时间. As WWDC is traditionally a time for Apple to provide strategic roadmap 信息 to its growing developer base, 流媒体 will cover pertinent breaking news from the conference throughout the week.