Particularly on iOS, where they have seen themselves frozen out of the App Store at times (Google Voice comes to mind), Google has pushed the idea of web apps. They can be modified without an app store or market, and the results made public with a flick of a switch. On Wednesday, a switch was flicked with regards to the mobile YouTube site (http://m.youtube.com/) and a new mobile YouTube site hit the Internet.

As you can expect, the new site is HTML5, and thus can be viewed on an iOS device, as well as on browsers on newer platforms such as Android. YouTube product manager Andrey Doronichev during a briefing Wednesday morning at YouTube's headquarters, emphasized that the idea was to bring the desktop experience, as much as possible, to mobile browsers.

Additionally, the video quality of the new mobile site, as demonstrated, was far better than the iPhone app. As Doronichev explained that the native iOS app is built by Apple, with YouTube not having anything to do with its code. He also explained that the iPhone app still uses a video streaming format that was developed for EDGE, not 3G, which also affects quality.

In fact, Doronichev pulled out two iPhones to do an Apples to Apples (pun intended) demo. he showed the native YouTube application against the new YouTube mobile site, and the quality difference was readily apparent.

As Google always says about its web apps, they can be updated much faster. Our issue with web apps such as Google Voice on the iPhone is that there are limitations with regards to such apps: they can't access native contacts, for one, so the Google Voice web app on the iPhone is more cumbersome to use.

Something like a YouTube video web app, one can see, has the much better chance of being fully formed with regards to full functionality with a desktop.

Watch a video on the new functionality. Interestingly, the video starts by using an iPhone, and then switches to a Nexus One.

AppBrain, which we've written about before, is a great place to search online for Android apps, and then select them to install to your device. In the past, however, you'd have to install the AppBrain App Market application, then "sync" your device with it. You would then see a list of apps to install manually. With the release of their Fast Web Installer, however, the apps are now pushed to your device.

This is something that's expected to come later from Google. It was shown at Google I/O; it's the ability to select an app from the Android Market and have it sent to your device OTA. However, we now don't have to wait for the feature to come in the next Android release (or whenever).


This only works with free apps, but it is really cool, once you download the app and enable its functionality. How do you get it set up?

• First, of course, you'll need an AppBrain account.
• Next, install the "AppBrain App Market" app on your phone. Once that's done, open the app, go to "Manage my apps" and click the "Sync with AppBrain" button.
• Download and install the "Fast Web Installer." Run it so you can enable its ability to install apps on your device.
• Go to AppBrain, pick a free app, and click on the Install button. You'll see an app start downloading to your device, as shown in the notification bar.

Unfortunately, uninstalling an app is not automatic. There you still need to do the sync with AppBrain and manual uninstall process.

As you might imagine, this app needs to run in the background.  Therefore, if you have a task killer that auto kills, you need to make sure the Fast Web Installer is excluded.

Need more help? Here's a demo video:

It's official: the T-Mobile Charm has been confirmed by Motorola in a press release. The device first leaked about a week and a half ago, but we also knew it would be free in an upcoming back-to-school promotion.

The Charm, which is squarish with a QWERTY keyboard (non-slide-out!), reminds folks of a BlackBerry (somewhat). Not much in the way of hardware specs has been revealed, but it seems to be a low-to-mid-range device, with Android 2.1, MotoBlur, a 2.8" screen, and a 3 megapixel camera. It definitely falls into what some might call the "cute" range, as well.

The form factor provides the first Android device with a built-in (non-slider) keyboard and a QVGA display (320 x 240 resolution). It will be interesting to see how Android apps, which have been focused on the tall, portrait displays of Android devices until now, run on this device. Click the above image to see a larger one.

Neither date nor pricing was announced, but it will be exclusive to T-Mobile, and will launch sometime this summer.

We already knew that Froyo (Android 2.2) offered some awesome performance improvements. How does it compare against the iPhone 4, Apple's lefty-hating smartphone? It blows it away.

Ars did a recent review of Froyo, and now has taken the time to compare the iPhone 4 with the Nexus One running Froyo in terms of two JavaScript benchmarks, SunSpider and V8.

As you can see above, in SunSpider (lower is better), Froyo scored 5,795.2 vs. 10,902.1, close to a 2 to 1 difference.. In V8 (higher is better), Froyo scored 287 vs. 67, a more than 4 to 1 advantage.

Granted, this tests are focused on JavaScript, and are synthetic tests to boot. What matters to most people is that both phones are capable devices (except, in the case of an iPhone 4, if you want to make a call using your left hand and no case). It also uses top of the line hardware on the Android side, the Nexus One (which is the only Android device to get Froyo so far, so there wasn't really a choice).

However, while the Nexus One running Froyo is pretty much still top of the line hardware, once the Samsung Galaxy S devices hit, with their Hummingbird CPU, might we see a still bigger difference between the two?

The phone wars will continue to be very interesting, especially with Android devices getting new hardware all the time, while the iPhone will wait a year for a refresh (except, perhaps, for a Verizon iPhone?).

A panel of crisis management experts surveyed by Cult of Mac seem to agree on one thing: an iPhone 4 recall is inevitable. That said, there's plenty of opinion on the other side of the fence.

The crisis management experts said the following:

Professor Matthew Seeger, an expert in crisis communication: “Apple will be forced to do a recall of this product. It’s critically important. The brand image is the most important thing Apple has. This is potentially devastating.”

Dr. Larry Barton, a leading expert in crisis management and author of Crisis Leadership Now: “Apple needs to put this fire out now. There has to be a military-like response to this issue. And we have not seen this kind of urgency.”

Crisis communications expert Chris Lehane who managed bad PR for the Clinton White House said that Apple rushed their response: “It’s the ‘half-loaf’ approach. Apple was under tremendous pressure to respond. They pushed out some information that wasn’t really baked." Additionally, he contrasted this iPhone 4 response to their response to complaints about the price drop of the original iPhone way back in 2007. “You acknowledge it; you address it; you deal with it. Apple must protect its brand image, its crown jewels, at all cost. Apple has enormous consumer loyalty but it depends on whether people believe it’s credible.”

On the other hand, analysts, who probably have a better "grip" (pun intended) on how consumer backlash might affect Apple's bottom line, were all in the other camp. Surveyed by Digital Daily, they said:

Citigroup analyst Richard Gardner: “We consider the probability of a recall to be very low given our view that the issue in question is not serious enough to warrant a recall. While bridging two portions of the antenna with one’s hand on the lower-left corner of the phone does cause signal degradation, it does not typically result in dropped calls unless the signal from the cell tower is already weak. Excluding this issue, overall signal reception on iPhone 4 seems at least as good, if not slightly better, than reception on the iPhone 3GS.”

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster: “We see [a recall] as a highly unlikely scenario given the issue is completely resolved with a case, which is a significantly less expensive solution for the company.” (Ah, yes, but that would involve, perhaps, giving away bumpers, which Apple has already told their CS to avoid)

Barclays Capital's Ben Reitzes: “As users, we have experienced some issues w/call drops; however, we have found drops go away after attaching a bumper accessory, which is quite useful anyway. To date, we have not seen any overwhelming evidence of iPhone 4 units being returned."

Of course, Apple stock did dip slightly on Tuesday, down around 2 percent by mid-Tuesday afternoon, ET. That is hardly a cause for alarm for Apple shareholders.

However, it's true that the incident has turned into a huge black eye for Apple, and an embarrassment for iPhone 4 users, who face the gibes of their Android-toting friends. We, personally, believe that free bumpers might silence the hordes.

Really, if Apple wanted to recall anything related to the iPhone 4, it should recall AT&T.

It is the OS that wouldn't die. It sounds like a horror movie, and for Microsoft, it probably seems like one. Microsoft announced on Monday that the "Windows XP Downgrade rights," which allows a purchaser of Windows 7 to choose to downgrade their OS to Windows XP, without paying for two copies of Windows, would continue until 2020.

In the past, Microsoft has terminated such a program a few months after the "next, next" version of Windows was introduced (in this case, 7, which was released in Oct. 2009). The problem is that 74 percent of businesses have not transitioned off of Windows XP, and many businesses want to standardize on a single operating system to simplify IT support.

The new policy, Microsoft announced in a blog post, will allow customers to downgrade to either Windows XP or Vista throughout the life cycle of Windows 7. Windows 7 Professional won't retire until 2020, which means XP will have a life that spans nearly 20 years (it was introduced in 2001).

Downgrade rights are available only for OEM copies of Windows 7 (those that are pre-installed by manufacturers or system builders). Also, despite this extension, while currently some vendors have been pre-installing the downgrade copy of Windows, that factory-install feature will expire on Oct. 22, 2010. That means that Windows users who want to downgrade a Windows 7 system to XP will be forced to do it themselves beginning on Oct. 23 of this year.

At the same time, OEMs must stop installing Windows XP Home on netbooks as of Oct. 22, 2010; finally, those netbook vendors may sell PCs with Vista pre-installed only through Oct. 22, 2011.

Despite the fact its iOS SDK policies were change in such a manner as to exclude AdMob, the mobile advertising firm that Google acquired, Apple does not seem to be enforcing that rule. Omar Hamoui, founder and CEO of Google's AdMob division, made that comment at the MobileBeat 2010 conference on Tuesday.

Hamoui said, "They haven't been enforcing (the new regulations) yet. We're very appreciative of that."

While the new iOS SDK policies didn't specifically exclude AdMob, they prohibited ad networks owned by or affiliated with "a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple" (such as Google) from collecting analytic data. Without analytic data, AdMob couldn't track who had clicked on their customer's ads, and advertisers won't buy ads if they can't determine how many people had clicked on it.

Until now, there had only been anecdotal developer evidence that Apple wasn't enforcing its new policies. It is unclear why Apple has not enforced the prohibition. It's possible the rumored FTC or ITC investigation into Apple's iAd program had something to do with it.

In terms of contingency plans, if Apple were to enforce the rule, Hamoui skirted the issue by mentioning other platforms (including, naturally, that Android OS we hear so much about, where AdMob already has a presence). Hopefully, it won't come to that.

Despite all this, Hamoui noted that he was happy to see the introduction of the iAd network. The more, the merrier, basically, he said. "The really rich pretty ads they're doing are making advertisers and agencies think about what mobile means. Anybody getting advertisers interested in mobile is a good thing. It's not at all a zero-sum game."

At the very least, though, AdMob has yet another reason to thank Apple. It's been said that the development of the iAd network after Apple acquire Quattro Wireless (an AdMob rival) was what the FTC needed in order to approve the AdMob acquisition by Google.

Crisis management experts seem to agree that an iPhone 4 recall for its "Death Grip" problem is inevitable. However, most analysts believe that the odds of an iPhone 4 recall are small. Still, one took the time to calculate just how much it would cost Apple to do so.

Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, in a research note on Tuesday, estimated that such a recall would cost Apple $1.5 billion, or 3.5 percent of its total cash on hand. Sacconaghi did call a full product recall of the iPhone 4 "highly unlikely."

Instead, as proposed by many, a more likely solution, according to Sacconaghi, would be a free rubber bumper case in the packaging. While the darn thing costs $30 to buy, Sacconaghi estimated it would cost $1 for Apple to insert one in each box. Makes you feel good about buying a case, doesn't it?

That's great, but we'd probably all get black, wouldn't we?

At any rate, Sacconaghi took Apple to task over its recent behavior. It's a laundry list of items that have driven some (not many!) away from the iPhone.

"Perhaps the bigger, longer-term concern for Apple investors is the emerging pattern of hubris that the company has displayed (you think?), which has increasingly pitted competitors (and regulators) against the company, and risks alienating customers over time. Examples of its behavior have included its limited disclosure practices (Steve Jobs' health; plans for deploying its cash balance), its attack on Adobe's Flash, its investigation into its lost iPhone prototype (which culminated in a reporter's home being searched while he was away and computers being removed), its restrictions on app development, and its ostensibly dismissive characterizations of the iPhone's antenna issues (i.e., phone needs to be held a different way; a software issue that affects the number of bars displayed). The worry is that collectively, these issues may, over time, begin to impact consumers' perceptions of Apple (no, really?), undermining its enormous prevailing commercial success."

All will be better if Apple's change to the signal level display fixes everything. our guess is if it can be fixed in software (and really, it's not just about signal level displays), it will. If not, hang on tight.