Quick clarification to GorT’s followup regarding AT&T and Apple agreeing to block the iPhone’s integration of VoIP technology.

VoIP does not make calls over the internet; it merely uses a switched, digitized, and packetized transmission using the internet protocol (IP), meaning that call information can be routed like internet data around road blocks in any order, and then reassembled into meaningful data at the far end. It need not use the internet to do so, but is instantly compatible either way.

So what, perhaps. But this is a surprisingly bad deal for Apple and a rare lack of foresight that is simply incredible. VoIP is massive in its application, including the ability to do video calls, screen pops (imagine getting a call from an unknown number, and then on the second ring see a picture of the guy, his contact information, and his business and personal history based on info you collected years ago so you don’t have to remember the names of his kids or what he sells), the ability to change banking, personal, or business passwords using your voice, and more. This isn’t 2001-esque future crap, but stuff people are actually doing right now. The future of this is even more incredible. Oh yeah, it’s generally cheaper than any other form of commercialized voice transmission.

So basically, AT&T has tricked Apple into making two separate devices out of the iPhone: a phone, and a web browser. But not a holistic application that is both and neither, like other phones are rapidly becoming. The Czar agrees that a lot of VoIP developers are probably crotch-kicked over this revelation. For all the iPhone promised to be, it winds up being a cell phone and a tiny little Newton that surfs the web. Bad call, Apple. You let a 1950s application kill your future-oriented handheld.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.