With the release of  iOS 4.2, orientation locking became software-activated across iOS devices using the multitasking interface. The physical hardware switch on the side became a mute button, same as on the iPhone. Apparently, this resulted in a negative reaction strong enough to elicit a response from Steve Jobs, who said the change was permanent in an e-mail to one customer. Somewhat surprisingly then, under Settings in iOS 4.3 there’s now an option to use the slide switch to either mute sound or lock rotation. It’s nice to see Apple correct a mistake, especially after Steve Jobs declares it a feature.

From MacRumors, a new feature coming in iOS 4.3 is reported to be “Find My Friends.” Named similarly to “Find My iPhone,” “Find My Friends” is strongly reminiscent of a service like Google Latitude. That service shows the location of selected contacts on a map in proximity to the device owner. Unfortunately, “Find My Friends” appears to be linked to MobileMe (which isn’t yet free), which could severely limit its benefit, and that would be a big mistake. Hopefully, like “Find My iPhone,” Apple will ultimately open up this feature to everyone.

Finally, Engadget first reported that within the developer build of iOS 4.3 there are several new device identifiers: iPad2,1; iPad2,2; iPad2,3; iPhone4,1; and iPhone4,2. The first generation iPad is “iPad1,1″ and “iPhone 3,1″ refers to the iPhone 4, so the new numbers indicated next-generation devices. New models of iPads and iPhones are a given this year, and the best guess for these multiple identifiers would be Wi-Fi, GSM and CDMA versions of the same devices.

As interesting as these new features and devices are, the biggest change may not be in iOS 4.3 itself, but in how Apple approaches its mobile OS updates. Since iOS 4.1 we’ve seen major changes and feature additions, including AirPrint, AirPlay and Game Center; hardly what one expects in a point release. It appears Apple is moving away from seminal yearly releases and instead adding major features and improvements regularly. If so, Apple fans have Google to thank for increasing the competitive pressure in the handheld computing market.

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Verizon announced the iPhone’s ability to act as a personal hotspot Jan. 11, but yesterday’s release of the iOS 4.3 beta confirmed that the feature will eventually make its way out to all iPhones, minus legacy devices — carriers willing. With the hotspot enabled, you can share your data connection with multiple Wi-Fi devices, including the iPad, something which wasn’t possible through wired USB or Bluetooth tethering.

I realized immediately that not only do I no longer need a MiFi, as Kevin pointed out yesterday, but I no longer even need the 3G in my Wi-Fi + 3G iPad. I use the iPad’s cellular data connection sparingly as it is, and I’ve never run into a situation where I had my iPad but not my iPhone while on a trip or out and about. And not renewing my iPad data contract will save me at least $30 every month with my provider here in Canada.

Canadian providers don’t charge extra for tethering services, unlike in the U.S. But even when you are charged extra to enable personal hotspot features, which is a better proposition? An extra $30 for a shared connection that you can use with any device, including notebook computers or the iPod touch, or roughly the same amount of money for a whole other data plan locked to a single gadget?

AT&T may only be “evaluating” the feature at the moment, but eventually it’ll have to give in, just as it did with tethering, and I’m willing to bet it won’t take the company as long this time around. In fact, once Verizon announces its own pricing scheme for iPhone hotspots, or, failing that, once AT&T begins hemorrhaging customers and freeing up bandwidth on its data network, we’ll see the feature on both carriers.

Once personal hotspot capabilities make it out to all iPhones, the question quickly becomes: Why have a 3G-enabled iPad at all? Buying the Wi-Fi-only model will save you $130, which can be spent on the next model up in terms of storage capacity, while still saving $30.

Apple could still make the 3G iPad desirable to consumers by allowing it to act as a personal hotspot, but the iOS 4.3 beta shows no indication that Apple intends to go back on its current “no tethering policy” for the device. Even if the iPad were to gain hotspot abilities (which it might to keep feature parity with Android tablets), it still wouldn’t hold as much appeal as the iPhone, or any Android device with the same feature, since it’s far less portable and unlikely to be carried by most people during the course of a normal day.

My next iPad will be Wi-Fi only, provided Apple continues to offer a non-3G option in its next generation tablet. As Stacey foresaw more than a year ago, consumers will only need (and likely have budget for) one cellular network-connected device that can share to a variety of Wi-Fi hangers-on, and all indications point to that device being the iPhone for those operating in Apple’s mobile ecosystem, not the iPad.

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Coverage

The singular issue for iPhone users contemplating switching from AT&T to Verizon is network coverage and reliability. Survey after survey has shown AT&T lagging behind Verizon, most recently from Consumer Reports (via PC World). AT&T customers, half of them iPhone owners, rated AT&T as the worst in value and service. AT&T scored a dismal 60 out of 100, down six points from last year, and was rated worst in voice and data service, as well as customer support. Verizon was rated the second best carrier overall. As for coverage, the 3G maps don’t lie; Verizon wins.

Cost

Buying a new phone and terminating a contract is always expensive, but in switching from AT&T to Verizon there are a few caveats. Verizon iPhones start at $199, but that amount is easily recovered through the sale of a used AT&T iPhone on eBay. Regarding termination fees, for those who purchased an AT&T smartphone after June 1 2010, the early termination fee is $325, prorated at $10 per month of ownership. Those who bought phones before then pay $175, minus prorating, so iPhone 4 owners pay nearly twice as much as iPhone 3GS owners. However, in both cases there is, in my opinion, a hidden “fee” relating to network coverage.

As an AT&T customer, I don’t need to look at surveys or maps about coverage and reliability. All I need to do is try to make a phone call from home. Without an AT&T 3G MicroCell, I wouldn’t be able to. I had to pay $150 for that device, and there are additional fees for those wanting calling plans with it. In this case, coverage factors into switching cost, too.

Features

Features are really secondary to cost and coverage, but there are a few to consider. The biggest “loss” to switchers will be a lack of simultaneous voice and data. The question is how many people really use that. Unlike Dave, I can’t remember the last time I needed data access on a call. Likewise, not many people will probably use a Verizon iPhone with tethering capability for up to five devices, but for those who will, at least it’s there.

Button placement has shifted slightly on the Verizon iPhone, which may require the purchase of new accessories, especially cases, though the antenna redesign may make these less necessary. For data hogs, the Verizon iPhone could offer an unlimited data plan for $30 (unless they introduce iPhone-specific data pricing), just $5 more than the 2GB capped plan from AT&T. That would probably the best single Verizon-specific feature for prospective switchers besides coverage.

Within Reach

There’s always the choice to wait until June or July to switch and get the next generation of iPhone, too. If I were already on Verizon, that’s what I would do. However, for many suffering with AT&T, the question isn’t about hardware, but about putting up with the inferior coverage and reliability of AT&T’s network. That there’s an answer for that as of Feb. 10, and one that still represents the latest and greatest in smartphone tech that Apple has to offer, will be hard to pass up.

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So it must be exciting for executives in Mountain View to see pictures like this one: a huge gaggle of people queuing excitedly for the new M9 handset from Chinese manufacturer Meizu. It’s the kind of image we usually associate with Apple launches and major console game releases.

So what secret sauce does the M9 have that’s causing such excitement? Well, it’s got lots of good features at a competitive price: just $409 for a 16GB SIM-free model. But the real selling point seems to be one that Google would be less pleased to trumpet: It’s unashamedly borrowing from the iPhone.

Despite the Android underpinnings, Meizu’s notorious for finding more than a little inspiration from Apple products, including interface elements that would seem eerily familiar to iPhone users. The similarities were even more obvious on its previous model, the M8, which was so closely modeled on the iPhone 3G many users would find it hard to tell the difference at a glance.

All this is a result of China’s huge “shanzhai” industry of pirated goods. Shanzhai companies, which specialize in mimicking elements seen on more expensive rivals, have an approach to manufacturing and design that’s both controversial and fascinating. I’ve been interested in the phenomenon for some time, and even spent a few weeks in China last summer exploring it for a piece on shanzhai in the UK edition of Wired magazine.

You can buy shanzhai handsets all over the developing world, but among Western consumers, they have a pretty poor reputation. They’re seen as unremarkable, derivative low-cost imitations. But is that a fair description? In some cases, yes, but Meizu proves it’s not always accurate.

There’s another element to remember: It’s not as if China has some special stranglehold on copycats. Some of the people I met in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen argued that American and European companies were joking if they thought the piracy of ideas was purely a Chinese phenomenon. Just witness the plethora of lawsuits flying around the mobile industry in the Western world to see that.

Some go even further. One Chinese handset designer pointed out to me privately that these Western iPhone competitors weren’t only slow to market, but also poorly executed in an often-spectacular way. Take, for example, the much-derided BlackBerry Storm, which hit the market nearly 18 months after the iPhone but was slammed by reviewers.

Real shanzhai manufacturers, with their deep expertise and extremely rapid production cycles, would be embarrassed to ship a product that took so long and performed so badly. The market just wouldn’t bear their failures.

In some ways, it should be no surprise that companies like Meizu are creating a significant following inside China. If you’re the average urban Chinese smartphone buyer, the M9 has some obvious advantages over the iPhone. For a start, it’s more affordable, at around half the cost of the Apple equivalent. It also has more localized functions, and it’s being very aggressively marketed by a local company that knows which buttons to press.

Whether or not you agree with the way shanzhai companies build their business, it’s clear they can create good products that feed demand — and perhaps, given time, they may even be able graduate into genuine contenders. Manufacturers such as Huawei, MediaTek and ZTE have all made products that seem unoriginal but have turned into raging successes regardless.

So could it be that Android’s worldwide success could end up relying on high-quality iPhone clones? It would certainly seem ironic, but it doesn’t seem impossible.

Image courtesy of BBS.meizu.com

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The estimates made by Trefis are based on the gross profit margins for the mobile phone divisions of each company. They don’t take into account research and development or promotional costs that went into developing the handsets sold by each company. It’s entirely possible that Apple spends more on iPhone R&D than the other two phone makers spend on their devices, but it’s unlikely the discrepancy would be considerable enough to make much difference to the final picture.

How does Apple manage to stay so far ahead of the competition in terms of profit margins? According to the report, it hinges on how much more Apple can charge for its products, compared to the competition. Trefis estimates the average price paid for an iPhone to be around $606, while Motorola handsets only command around $214 on average, and BlackBerry devices take in roughly $305 per unit.

While market share gets a lot of attention when it comes to the smartphone industry, Apple’s commanding lead in terms of gross profits is a much better indicator of success from an investment perspective. Apple’s growth over the past few years is impressive, but what’s even more impressive is that even as it reaches a broader audience, it’s still able to ask consumers to pay more for its products than they would for the competition.

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Apple’s plans for expanding its picture book selection includes adding over 100 such titles to the iBookstore sometime today. The NYT cites Apple itself as the source of the information, and publisher Simon & Schuster confirms its titles will be among those available. Children’s books, photography books and cookbooks make up the bulk of the new selections.

Specific titles include the Olivia series of children’s books; In the National Parks, a photo book by Ansel Adams; and Beginnings by Anne Geddes (you know, the babies-as-other-things woman). Some titles are exclusive to Apple, and some have unique features –like uninterrupted, two-page layouts — that no other e-book store will be able to offer.

The iBookstore has been around since April 2010, so why are these books only coming now to the platform? Apparently, converting picture-rich titles to e-book format isn’t easy. Authors of illustrated books are more picky about what the finished product looks like, and creating a faithful representation that satisfies everyone involved has been difficult for publishers.

In other iBookstore news,  the Canadian government granted Apple the right to operate iBookstore Canada yesterday. The Canadian Heritage and Official Languages ministry has to review and approve new businesses that could potentially have an impact on Canadian culture. Amazon went through the same process very recently when it wanted to expand its operations north of the border. Apple successfully assured the government that it would use iBookstore Canada to promote Canadian authors, publishers and content.

Until now, the iBookstore was available to Canadian users, without Canadian works. Now, if you happen to have access to a Canadian iTunes account, you’ll notice that the iBookstore landing page is virtually flooded with all things great white north.

Apple’s presence in the e-book market is much stronger as a hardware-maker than as a seller of content. Many authors note that they don’t have nearly as many sales through iBooks as they do through Amazon’s Kindle store, and even through the much less popular Barnes & Noble and Sony e-book marketplaces. Broader content libraries will help Apple be more competitive, especially if that content emphasizes Apple’s device advantage. Apple needs to stand out in an increasingly crowded e-book storefront market, and being the best at picture books is one way to do that.

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Well, I have a few modest suggestions. And in the spirit of the holiday season, I’m offering this wish list (along with the one I already compiled for iOS 5) to Santa in the hope that he can put in a good word with Steve Jobs. You never know; it might work.

Advanced Capacitive Touchscreen

This is something I forget about in the summer months, but now that snow is falling, I resent having to take my gloves off to use my iPhone. (Have you ever tried answering your iPhone with the tip of your nose? Far from dignified…) Certain exotic gloves are available that make it possible to use a capacitive touchscreen while keeping one’s digits warm, but they’re often expensive or gimmicky. It might sound too good to be true, but a report last month on Patently Apple suggested just such a technology might be on its way.

Thinner, Lighter, Stronger

Forget glass. Yeah, it looks great but I don’t care if it is made from the same stuff used in helicopter windscreens. Can liquid metal provide us with a super thin, super-strong chassis? Failing that, I don’t mind a carbon fibre composite (which is likely a better material than metal anyway, since it won’t interfere with the iPhone’s many radios.)

Capacitive Charging

This one’s a long shot. The trouble with capacitive charging is that it’s molasses-slow and expensive to implement. But there’s still something alluring about the concept of simply resting my phone on a minimal Apple-branded surface and watching it get charged. A liquid-metal body (see above) would, by the way, make this much easier to implement.

More Sensors! More!

Adding temperature, pressure, humidity and EMF sensors might sound insane, but imagine the apps that would appear to exploit such tech! Incidentally, with a metal chassis, a future iPhone might feasibly contain a heart-rate sensor of the kind commonly found in treadmills and workout equipment. A heart rate monitor in Nike+ would be a great addition to that service… as would a pedometer. Bottom line here – the more sensors we can get in the iPhone, the more versatile it will become.

Impossibly Long-Lived Battery

This is a tough one. See, it’s hard to ask for all these new sensors and next-generation capacitive touch screens and still say I want a longer-lasting, high-performance battery. But still, I’m asking for it anyway. This is a wish list after all. And even if delivering a “miracle battery” means breaking the very laws of physics, well, I’m sure Apple can do it.

Automatic Owner Recognition

If you use your iPhone for every little thing, you probably use the passcode lock to keep your personal data safe. For the curious, the current four digit passcode software lock offers 1,048,576 possible combinations. That’s probably good-enough for most people already accustomed to having to memorize PINs for their credit and debit cards, but I’d like to see this taken much further. A combination of facial recognition, bioelectrical impedance analysis and voice print identification could make an iPhone far more secure than it is today. It would certainly help sell to government customers after the WikiLeaks fiasco.

Multicore Processors

The just-released Infinity Blade is an impressive achievement on the iPhones 3GS and 4, given that they use single-core processors. Imagine what might be possible with dual or quad-core processors in a future device.

Touch Sensitive Bezel

There’s a (sort of) joke shared amongst the Apple faithful that if Steve Jobs could do-away with the iPhone’s single button, he would. Well, he can. In fact, should. The Home button’s functionality could be replaced with capacitive gesture input built into the iPhone’s bottom-bezel which could remain large, but nowhere near as large as it must be to accommodate the hardware button. What’s more, gestures could be added (or edited) at any time to allow for even more functionality, like instant access to the device’s camera.

High Definition Sound

Forget that tinny, crackling mono voice that you hear when you use the iPhone as an actual phone. HD voice calls are amazing and, a bit like HD TV, must be experienced to be believed. This isn’t entirely an iPhone-only thing though – carriers must provide support for wideband audio (as it is more properly known), and precious few have shown much interest in doing so. In the UK, for instance, only one carrier has launched HD voice support, and that was just a few months ago. Good luck convincing AT&T that it should be a priority.

So there you have it: my ten wishes for the iPhone 5. The list surely goes on. I’d love to know what you most want in next year’s inevitable hardware update; share your ideas in the comments below.

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We are hearing that (Verizon) does not want iPhone, the hottest selling smartphone, available on T-Mobile USA and/or Sprint and may be willing to pay for exclusivity to itself and AT&T. For these reasons, (Verizon) could be more willing to give in to Apple’s terms.

According to Wu, Apple’s success with the iPhone, which sold 14.1 million last quarter, is what is giving the Mac maker the leverage to negotiate favorable terms with Verizon. It doesn’t hurt that the shine has also reportedly gone off of the Android apple at the company, and that it also doesn’t have very high hopes for the future of BlackBerry, Wu said in his note.

If Wu is correct and Verizon negotiates such a deal, T-Mobile and Sprint will have to wait longer still to get on board the iPhone train. Though AT&T gains a competitor in selling Apple’s smartphone, it only gets one, and Verizon picks up the tab for making sure it only has to fight this battle on a single front. No word on how long the new deal could keep the iPhone out of the hands of T-Mobile and Sprint.

The U.S. remains one of the only major markets in which the iPhone still retains its exclusivity, besides China. In Canada and in some countries in Europe, the iPhone is available through every major carrier selling wireless network service. I won’t guess what AT&T originally paid for its U.S. exclusivity, or what Verizon is willing to fork over to keep the field somewhat limited. The price tag for keeping the competitor pool closed probably isn’t anywhere near what AT&T originally paid, since T-Mobile and Sprint together represent fewer subscribers than either AT&T or Verizon alone.

Of course, Apple is keeping silent on all things related to future products, and Verizon had no comment when contacted. What do you think? Are AT&T and Verizon enough, or would you rather just see Apple open things up to everyone the way it’s done elsewhere in the world?

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The deal, which RadioShack made us aware of via email, only lasts until next Saturday, Dec. 11, so you don’t have much time to make up your mind, but it’s not a bad deal even considering that the iPhone is already halfway through its upgrade cycle. Because it’s so much easier than writing it out, here’s what The Shack is offering in convenient table form:

There are, as you might expect, a few caveats. Phones obviously have to be purchased on a new two-year contract with AT&T, and that means you have to either be a new customer or eligible for upgrade pricing. For the trade-in to apply, your old phone has to be in pretty much pristine working and cosmetic condition. You can see if your old iPhone qualifies either at your nearest RadioShack store, or using the company’s online appraisal tool.

Speaking of that trade-in, you’re probably better off trying to sell your old device on eBay or craigslist first. That $125 discount on the 3GS could translate into around $300 in your pocket if you sell the device second-hand yourself, which would make the iPhone 4 basically free (barring applicable taxes) with the automatic $50 discount.

A $50 discount may not seem like much when you’re spending nearly $300 anyways, but it’s likely the steepest price cut you’ll see on the iPhone 4 this holiday. If you’d rather not wait for the iPhone 5, and you’re eligible for upgrade, it’s not going to get much better than this.

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DataMan tracks all data usage (Wi-Fi and 3G) and calculates how much you can use per day and per week to stay within your data plan. It also informs you, via push notifications, whether your current usage is within or beyond your daily and weekly budget. DataMan can even run in the background and geotag data usage. You can then see exactly when and where you use the most data on a map.

I learned the value of a tool like DataMan last month when my wife somehow switched off Wi-Fi on her iPhone (which only has a 200mb plan). Suddenly, she’d used 90 percent of her data plan with most of the billing period to go. With DataMan, we wouldn’t have been caught by surprise.

I now set the app to alert me on heavy usage days. I don’t worry that I’ll hit my 2GB limit, but I still appreciate the ability to know where the data is going and where I was when I used it. Being able to see the pinpoints on a map, connected by time of usage, allows me to literally track where I was going throughout the day. Between battery drain concerns, though, and the big-brother feel of the geo-location, some users may wish to disable this feature — something that’s now possible in version 3.

DataMan could come in handy for developers looking to study usage trends on test devices. For those who’ve mysteriously exceeded their data allowances and been dinged by AT&T, the $1.99 price of DataMan is well worth knowing exactly how and why. 

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Of particular note are the stress tests run on the iPhone 4 and the HTC Desire, two popular smartphones selling at a brisk pace. The videos recorded of the tests are embedded below for your viewing pleasure. I won’t spoil the fun, but am impressed how well the iPhone 4 did on the drop tests. Satisfy your inner klutz with the two stress tests, and visit their site to see a few more.

Image credit: Flickr user kozumel

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Mitek Systems

Taking a photo of a paper invoice is straightforward; the challenge is correctly interpreting the pertinent information in the bill to provide the correct information to the bank for payment. Invoices vary in layout and content, and Mitek’s system is able to interpret the picture taken of the bill and correctly determining the information needed by the bank’s e-pay system for payment. The app presents the interpreted information to the customer for verification and authorizes the bank to pay the bill by tapping the Pay button. The interpreted information is stored by the application to aid in the processing of future bills to the same payee.

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I downloaded Tango for Android on my EVO 4G and was surprised to see how easy it is to get going with the app. I’ve used Qik and Fring on the EVO, but both were difficult to get set up and the quality of the video in calls wasn’t the best. As soon as I fired up Tango, it scanned my contacts on the phone and determined that two of them had already installed Tango on their phones.

I clicked on the entry for my buddy Hubert Nguyen of Ubergizmo, and even though jet-lagged from his Japan trip, Hubert was sporting enough to do a test call. In no time, we were catching up since the last time we met in Orlando, and the quality of the video was very good. The utility I use to take screen captures requires a good shake of my EVO to snap the image, so the minor distortion you see in the image above is due to shaking the phone to capture the screen. The video quality in the call was excellent, and it was just like being there with Hubert. We were both impressed with how well it worked, and based on the test, Tango is a good video calling solution on both Android and the iPhone 4.

Tango calls can be made over 4G, 3G and Wi-Fi. I was using the HTC EVO 4G on Wi-Fi for this call and Hubert was on an iPhone 4, also on Wi-Fi.

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This isn’t because Microsoft is somehow smarter than Apple, but rather because the underlying dynamics of the technology industry have fundamentally changed. In brief, the technology world is increasingly embracing “write” communities, as Jono Bacon calls them, not simply “read” communities. Open source may have kickstarted this trend, but open APIs and open data are taking it to new heights.

Read communities aren’t characterized by a dearth of developers, but rather by what those developers can do on a given platform. After all, few can claim to sing to developers as eloquently as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer does, but there’s a (big) difference between talking to developers and letting them talk back. In your code. On your platform.

As noted, it’s telling that the shelf life of Apple’s dominance is much shorter than Microsoft’s decades-long dominance. Microsoft, after all, never had to deal with competing write communities, as Apple does with Google Android. Major developers like Facebook find Android more flexible: It allows them to write into and draw from the platform the capabilities they need.

Hence Apple, once the no-brainer first choice for developers despite its heavy hand on the development process, is increasingly losing out to the more free-spirited Android, which analysts see claiming over 50 percent of the smartphone market in just a few short years. Apple has responded by loosening its grip on iOS application developers, but it may be too little, too late.

Android isn’t perfect, of course, and still suffers from a worsening fragmentation problem. But its comparatively open nature makes it an inviting alternative to the closed iOS development. As but one example, try to get meaningful analytics data out of the iPhone. If you’re Apple, you can do that. If you’re anyone else, particularly Flurry, you’re out of luck.

Apple giveth, and Apple taketh away.

Contrast that with Google Android, which has an open-source logging/analytics tool developers can use called Logcat. Android is open source, which prevents Google from exercising control over how developers collect analytics data on Android devices. While one can make an argument that it’s good to have potentially sensitive analytics information guarded well by a responsible party like Apple, given Apple’s record of somewhat arbitrary and heavy-handed control over its platform, I’d vote for freedom on this one.

This isn’t just an Apple vs. Google story, either. It’s just one example of how innovation happens generally, no matter the industry. As Steven Johnson points out in The Wall Street Journal:

[I]deas are works of bricolage. They are, almost inevitably, networks of other ideas. We take the ideas we’ve inherited or stumbled across, and we jigger them together into some new shape. We like to think of our ideas as a $40,000 incubator, shipped direct from the factory, but in reality they’ve been cobbled together with spare parts that happened to be sitting in the garage.

The problem, as Johnson goes on to highlight, is that governments have largely pursued innovation in the past 100 years by doing the exact opposite of what is actually required to foster such innovation. The same is equally true of individual corporations like Apple or Microsoft:

[I]ntellectual property, trade secrets, proprietary technology, [and] top-secret R&D labs…share a founding assumption: that in the long run, innovation will increase if you put restrictions on the spread of new ideas, because those restrictions will allow the creators to collect large financial rewards from their inventions. And those rewards will then attract other innovators to follow in their path.

The problem with these closed environments is that they make it more difficult to explore the adjacent possible, because they reduce the overall network of minds that can potentially engage with a problem, and they reduce the unplanned collisions between ideas originating in different fields. This is why a growing number of large organizations—businesses, nonprofits, schools, government agencies—have begun experimenting with more open models of idea exchange.

It’s this sort of open exchange of ideas and code that leads to economic historian Eckhard Höffner to conclude that Germany closed the gap on England’s industrial revolution in a short span of time due to the wide-open nature of the country’s publishing market in the mid-1800s. Weak copyright law enforcement sent innovation into overdrive in Germany, while a comparative monopoly on publishing in England stymied that country’s early industrial lead.

Eventually, Germany followed England’s lead, and innovation slowed there, too, but ramped up in the United States, where “borrowing” the works of Dickens and other great European authors, not to mention technological inventions, was standard operating procedure. European creators didn’t like the Yankee “thieves,” but loose IP protection led to greater adoption of their works, industrial and cultural progress, and the authors still managed to get paid.

Since then, the industrialized West, including the United States, has increasingly clamped down on intellectual property in the interest of fostering it, but with the opposite effect. As numerous studies attest, patents and other intellectual property tools have slowed innovation, not accelerated it. Industrial innovation has accordingly moved to areas like Brazil and China where IP protection is light.

This isn’t just a matter for economists, but also for business strategists. It’s possible, for example, that Oracle’s integrated approach to product development will prove successful, but likely not over the long term. Such an all-consuming, go-it-alone approach breeds powerful enemies, including within one’s own customer base. It certainly creates distrust within the developer ecosystem.

Oracle may profess not to care, but competitors like Microsoft increasingly recognize that they must care. Software developer Dave Newman declares that “The .Net community operates in a non-collaborative vacuum,” and then announces he’s abandoning .Net. Microsoft can’t afford to lose too many Dave Newmans.

Neither can Oracle.

In today’s market, companies need community. They need adoption of their APIs. No company is smart enough to come up with all innovation on its own, so the best companies will create read/write platforms through which third-party developers have the flexibility and distribution to reach customers.

Open source is an essential part of this, but isn’t sufficient of itself to crown any particular vendor or technology king. Linux is rapidly taking over in the mobile market, but has yet to make a dent on the general consumer desktop. But the fact that open source isn’t sufficient of itself to decide a winner is no reason that platform vendors, specifically, and technology vendors, generally, shouldn’t be making the most of open source to enhance their attractiveness to third-party developers.

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Google Docs is the cloud-based system that offers word processing, spreadsheet and presentation capabilities, and brings collaboration features to teams through the ability to co-edit documents in real-time. Mobile users haven’t been able to take advantage of these collaboration aspects, as mobile versions of Google Docs have been limited to only viewing documents, forcing Android and iPad owners to rely on third-party solutions to edit the documents. The statement from Google today indicates that editing of Google Docs will be coming to Android and the iPad in “the next few weeks”, including the collaboration feature desktop users have enjoyed for some time. Let’s hope this is a full implementation of the Google Docs editing features, and not a limited subset for mobile platforms, as it’s released in the past.

The new login procedure will augment the standard Google Apps login process with a second step that prompts the user to enter a code generated by Google on the user’s smartphone. This advanced login process is aimed at combatting phishing scams and the compromising of passwords, according to Google. WebWorkerDaily has details of the technology behind the new login process.

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