Friday Morning Maybe, Possibly, News

There's a huge ruckus on the internet surrounding this whole carrier IQ thing. The Verge has a great summary of the whole kerfuffle (iOS also includes carrier IQ with a few conditions, no Nokia device has ever included carrier IQ, Google's flagship Nexus series does not include carrier IQ), but the bottom line is that it isn't about Android versus iOS, it's about the carriers.

Marco Arment publishes his bi-monthly review of iOS device and OS version stats from Instapaper. IOS 5 adoption is rising, he says, but it's also far too early to require it for any app (as it's only 49 days old).

Touch Arcade says the upcoming iOS game SummitX Snowboarding has great graphics and cool controls, just making it across the line with one pun in the heading.

Apple may have killed off the numpad on the standard wireless keyboard, but the humble arrow keys live on to fight another day, squished as they are against the shift and option keys. Macworld give us six unexpected uses for these oft-neglected keys.

A slow news week means I'm looking at a few of the crazier Apple patents, like these ones that detail a patent for a way to control remote drones via an iOS device, a patent for an iPad-robot that has interacts with the cloud, and a patent for an accessory that allows you to slot in your iPad for a touch-screen guitar.

A slow news week means I'm reading ridiculous "news" pieces about how Siri is apparently "pro-life" due to the personal assistant's failure to locate birth control services in many areas. Chris Rawson from TUAW brings us back to ground level.

A slow news week means I'm finding pieces on obscure gadget blogs about a cat, an eMac shell, an Arduino, and some fancy programming to create one pretty cool cat. It's called the eSleeper, and it's probably the most relevant Apple-related thing I've seen all week.

Apparently we live in a world where I can not only join a queue online, but I can also join a queue to have a FaceTime call with a dog who receives treats every time a call is made — but only between normal working hours, and only once per hour. Awesome doesn't even begin to describe this.

Microsoft has released a HTML5-based demo of Windows Phone 7, which means you can try a Windows Phone without actually having to own one. 9 to 5 Mac has all the details, but be aware the demo is pretty limited — as that's all it's meant to be.

Apparently unlicensed merchandise is a problem in China, which is leading Rovio to open (perhaps multiple) official Angry Birds stores to help fight against unlicensed Angry Birds-branded goods. Apparently the store will generate over $100 million in revenue, too.