Rumors have been circulating for some time now that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey might be taking on more of a role at the company, and Monday, Dorsey confirmed he is going to head up product development at Twitter as executive chairman, while continuing in his existing role as CEO of mobile-payment startup Square. The move to give Dorsey more authority appears to be an attempt by Twitter to show it’s putting more emphasis back on the product, rather than just on making money — something the social network has been catching a lot of flak about lately. But can Dorsey help steer the company back onto the right track?

The most recent dust-up for Twitter was the response to new rules around using its API for pulling data into third-party applications. In contrast to the more open approach the company took in its early years, where developers were encouraged to create apps and services that leveraged the growing social network, the new rules seemed to clamp down on many aspects of Twitter’s ecosystem. Combined with some heavy-handed responses to Twitter app providers such as UberMedia, this struck many as showing a different — and much less attractive — side of the company.

There was also some sharp criticism from users about a recent update to Twitter’s official mobile clients, which introduced a new feature called the Quick Bar (quickly dubbed the “dick bar” after CEO Dick Costolo) — one that seemed designed primarily to push the network’s new advertising-related services. Some users said Twitter was shutting down alternatives at the same time its own apps were becoming less useful.

Angel investor and Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon said in an email that he hopes Dorsey’s return to Twitter means good things for the company:

I just think the history of tech companies shows again and again that having a great product-focused founder at the helm has always been the best thing for the company and for its customers/users. So I think it’s great to see @jack back at Twitter. As an active Twitter user who loves the product I’m really looking forward to seeing what he does next.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey

Dorsey’s return to prominence at Twitter is a reversal of fortune in many ways for the co-founder and his former boss Evan Williams. Dorsey started Twitter with several colleagues in 2006 as an experimental side project within Odeo, a media startup that was created by Williams after he sold the Blogger platform to Google. It soon became obvious that Twitter was more interesting than what Odeo was originally doing, and Williams shifted his attention to the new service — effectively forcing Dorsey out as CEO, something Dorsey compared to “being punched in the stomach” in a recent profile for Vanity Fair magazine.

Last year, Williams stepped down as CEO to devote more time to Twitter’s product development, and was replaced by former Feedburner chief executive Costolo, at which point the network started focusing a lot more on business opportunities and a lot less on developer relationships. According to a statement from Twitter today, Williams is no longer involved in day-to-day duties at the company, but continues to “have a close relationship providing strategic advice” and remains a board member. One report says the former CEO is hard at work on a new startup.

The big question for Twitter, and for Dorsey, is whether the network can push forward with its attempts to control its ecosystem and find new sources of monetization, while still maintaining the strengths that made Twitter so appealing in the first place. That’s a tough assignment for someone who already has a full-time CEO job at a different company, and the stakes for Twitter continue to rise along with its market valuation.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users Rosauro Ochoa and David Shankbone

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To err is human. But for those who predicted the iPhone would fail before its launch three years ago, hindsight makes these critics’ errors look even more spectacular. A choice collection of so-called iPhone deathwatch quotes follows, with highlights collected by CNN Money from APPL Investors:

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” Palm CEO Ed Colligan, commenting on then-rumored Apple iPhone, 16 Nov 2006

“Apple is slated to come out with a new phone… And it will largely fail.” Michael Kanellos, CNET, 7 December 2006

“The only question remaining is if, when the iPod phone fails, it will take the iPod with it.” Bill Ray, The Register, 26 December 2006

“Apple will likely have a tough time convincing application vendors to build specialized clients for the iPhone until the volumes are there, and the volumes could be limited by the lack of third-party applications – a Catch 22.” Jack Gold, J. Gold Associates, 10 January 2007

“The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks.” Matthew Lynn, Bloomberg, 15 January 2007

“Five hundred dollars? Fully subsidized, with a plan? It is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine… So, I, I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot.” Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, 17 January 2007

I am not sure how it will stand against Sprint’s Wimax (when it successfully launches) and its phones, which I am looking forward much more than over-hyped Apple iPhone.” Bhaskar Chitraju, Indews Broadcast, 18 January 2007

“iPhone may well become Apple’s next Newton.” David Haskin, Computerworld, 26 February 2007

“Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone… What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a ‘reference design’ and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures… Otherwise I’d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you’ll see.” John C. Dvorak, 28 March 2007

Let’s take a break, and a trip down memory lane, back to January 9, 2007:

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.” Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, 30 April 2007

“How do they deal with us?” Ed Zander, Motorola CEO/Chairman 10 May 2007

“Apple begins selling its revolutionary iPhone this summer and it will mark the end of the string of hits for the company.” Todd Sullivan, Seeking Alpha, 15 May 2007

“What does the iPhone offer that other cell phones do not already offer, or will offer soon? The answer is not very much… Apple’s stated goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 seems ambitious.” Laura Goldman, LSG Capital, 21 May 2007

“We Predict the iPhone will bomb. Which means that when the iPhone comes, Digg will likely be full of horror stories from the poor saps who camped out at their local AT&T store, only to find their purchase was buggier than a camp cabin.” Seth Porges, The Futurist, 7 June 2007

“The forthcoming (June 29) release of the Apple iPhone is going to be a bigger marketing flop than Ishtar and Waterworld combined. Because its designers forgot Platt’s First, Last, and Only Law of User Experience Design (“Know Thy User, for He Is Not Thee”), that product is going to crash in flames. Sell your Apple stock now, while the hype’s still hot. You heard it here first.” David S. Platt, Suckbusters!, 21 June 2007

“God himself could not design a device that could live up to all the hype that the iPhone has gotten.” Harvard computer science professor David Platt, 25 June 2007

I guess it pays to make professional-sounding predictions. Those prophesies embellished with colorful metaphors made me cringe even more. Again, to be fair, this is all about hindsight, and the smugness it confers. Also, I can’t imagine Steve Ballmer cheering Apple on anyway—nor Palm actively trying to make the Pre work with Apple’s iTunes.

See Also: The iPod Dealt With a Lot of Hate During It’s Debut

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Music service iLike, best known for third-party applications on platforms like Facebook, made its big iPhone app launch today. The company has rolled out an app for alerts about local concerts, and also launched its previously announced program for bands and artists to create custom fan applications.

Apple still has …

Originally posted at The Social

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

Apple published Thursday a support article cautioning users about jailbreaking the iPhone (as well as other Apple handheld audio devices).

Unlike the company’s recent filing to U.S. Copyright Office that suggested that jailbreaking the iPhone might pose a national threat and be the cause of AT&T’s unreliable service, the article states that “customers who have installed software that makes these modifications have encountered numerous problems in the operation of their hacked iPhone.”

This means that if you get your iPhone jailbroken, for example, you will cause yourself, not others, problems. This is such a relief for me.

The problems that Apple mentioned include:

• Device and application instability: Frequent and unexpected crashes of the device, crashes and freezes of built-in apps and third-party apps, and loss of data
• Unreliable voice and data: Dropped calls, slow or unreliable data connections, and delayed or inaccurate location data
• Disruption of services: Services such as Visual Voice mail, YouTube, Weather, Stocks as well as push-based third party applications have been disrupted or no longer work on the device
• Compromised security: Security compromises have been introduced by the modifications that could allow hackers to steal personal information, damage the device, attack the wireless network, or introduce malicious software or viruses
• Shortened battery life: The hacked software has caused an accelerated battery drain that shortens the operation of an iPhone or iPod Touch on a single battery charge
• Inability to apply future software updates: Some unauthorized modifications have caused damage to the iPhone OS that is not repairable

…

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

We all know that BlackBerry phones are touted as some of the best business devices out there. Many of the perks for corporate cogs are baked into the operating system, body design, and secure BES Exchange server. Many more come to the BlackBerry through third-party applications, many of which are …

Originally posted at The Download Blog

We just confirmed it on our own machines: iTunes 8.2.1 breaks Pre syncing. Apple warned that they may cut off the sync, and Palm said it would be a direct blow to their users. Direct Blow, she is a’here. Updated

Obviously if you’re a Pre user you should not update to the latest iTunes. Not, at least, until Palm strikes back with some kind of firmware update to enable syncing again. It’s not like 8.2.1 has all that many new features either, so you don’t really need to update. [Pre Thinking]

Update: Here’s Palm’s official statement:

Palm’s media sync works with iTunes 8.2. If Apple chooses to disable media sync in iTunes, it will be a direct blow to their users who will be deprived of a seamless synchronization experience. However, people will have options. They can stay with the iTunes version that works to sync their music on their Pre, they can transfer the music via USB, and there are other third-party applications we can consider.

Update 2: Here’s Apple’s official statement to Businessweek:

iTunes 8.2.1 is a free software update that provides a number of important bug fixes. It also disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre. As we’ve said before, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players.