Iphone Updates

Filed under: Retail, Cult of Mac

Apple junkies who live in Colorado Springs, CO used to have to drive about 75 miles north to Denver to visit either the Park Meadows or Aspen Grove Apple Stores. Now they finally have an Apple Store of their own at the Promenade Shops at Briargate, which opened on Saturday, September 20th.

Reader Denny noted “Firefighter Memorial Ride happened to be the same day and organized from the parking lot. At first, I thought Apple had a new market in Firefighters and Harley riders.” Denny moved to Colorado Springs just three weeks ago from Orlando, FL, where he had his pick of three Apple Stores. Denny’s Flickr slide show can be viewed here.

TUAW reader Marc mentioned that “Colorado Springs being a smaller market, the turnout wasn’t as great as for some other openings — there were about 40 people in line when I arrived about 8:30 am and another 40 or so filled out the line by the 9:00 am opening time.” They may have T-shirts available for a while at that store… Marc’s Flickr slide show is here.

Thanks to Denny, Marc, and Randy for their coverage of the event.

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Google and T-Mobile have finally taken the wraps off the first Android-based mobile phone. The T-Mobile G1 could well have the best of it all in terms of hardware, software, applications, and network deals, but let’s take a closer look and see if it’s a worthy opponent for the iPhone 3G. Please bear in mind that this has been written just a couple of hours after the official announcement, hence not all of the G1′s specifications are yet known. I’ll update when the specs become available…

The App Store is a great concept, and I’ve downloaded some classy applications for the iPhone already, but there are some fundamental flaws which stop it from being brilliant. Here’s my take on the six things that are wrong about the App Store in its present form. Whether they’ll ever be “fixed” is another matter.

1. No trial / preview versions

There’s no official way to trial a piece of software before paying for it This isn’t a problem for free applications, because all you lose by downloading something you don’t like is a little time and bandwidth, but for paid-for applications it’s an issue, and the more expensive something is, the bigger the monetary risk. Of course, you take the same kind of risk if you buy a physical off-the-shelf copy of software for your PC, but the fact that the entry-level criteria for iPhone apps — price for developers to participate in Apple’s programme, and quality of applications developed — is much lower means you’re more likely to download a dud. Some developers try to get around this “problem” by releasing a free “lite” version of their software, and a more feature-rich standard version that they charge for. However, not only does this rile a number of users (as can be seen from the reviews) but it still doesn’t offer a direct trial of the software. The only way to legitimately run applications from the App Store is via iTunes, so I don’t believe it would be technically difficult to allow software to be downloaded for a trial period, then either wiped, disabled, or charged for. Each iPhone has a unique ID and each user has a unique iTunes account log in. Why not? Perhaps both Apple and developers are worried that, by giving users free trials of software, it will become apparent that a lot of the software just isn’t up to scratch. There’s an easy solution to that… Developers should write better software, and Apple should raise the entry bar. More of that later…

Latest iPhone News: Monday 22nd September 2008

Game Development Course coming to London

The digital media college Qantm is to offer an iPhone games development course starting next February. According to the college, this is in response to employment demands. In time, the course will be rolled out to its colleges in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Amsterdam, Berlin and Munich. It costs a cool £3,950. (Via Develop Mag)…

After he learned how to use Final Cut Pro during his weekly One to One training sessions, Larry Newman created his very first movie. The other day, Newman picked up his first Emmy Award. His film, “Children’s Music Workshop: 2007 All Schools Honor Orchestra,” reports Filip Truta (softpedia.com) took the Emmy “in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Children/Youth and Music Programming.”

“Apple refreshed its iPod nano line last week,” report Jessica Flint and Hamish Robertson (vanityfair.com), “introducing nine new colors in the thinnest casing to date. Somehow they’ve also squeezed in an accelerometer, allowing you to literally shake the iPod to shuffle your songs.” Try an iPod nano and “you’ll once again be telling yourself you actually do need this new iPod.”

Filed under: Deals, App Store

Looking for some last second App Store deals? Here are some bargains that have been sent in by their developers.

SuperPong
Strictly speaking, SuperPong isn’t a “deal” so much as a “get it while you can”. The developer, Jazon Burnell has been C&D’d by Atari so if you want to buy SuperPong, you need to act quickly. SuperPong costs $2.99 until it is pulled from AppStore.

Fairway
Fairway, which normally retails for $10, will be selling for $4.99 for this weekend only. Check the price before you add it to the cart because it’s still showing up as $9.99 for me. Fairway is a golf management system. I suspect you’d have to know and love golf in order to appreciate this app. I am not a golfer.

Laser Battle
Laser Battle is on sale for $0.99 until Monday. It offers a light-saber battle game for one or two players.

Dictaphone and Note Pad
Dictaphone is a voice recording application from Polar Bear Farms. Note Pad provides a Notes replacement app. Both are on sale until September 26. Dictaphone will cost $0.99 (normally $1.99) and Note Pad $1.99 (normally $2.99) until that time.

Earthscape
Normally $4.99, Earthscape is free for a limited time. It provides a virtual globe application that allows you to “explore the Earth in 3D.”

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Filed under: Odds and ends, iTunes

Sam, an avid TUAW reader, emailed us about a recent DVD purchase he made. You may ask, “what’s so special about that?” Well, he bought a copy of Speed Racer that was supposed to contain an iTunes Digital Copy.

As you can see in the pictures he emailed us, the outside of the DVD box says it is PC/Mac compatible and works with iTunes. When he got home and opened it up, however, inside the box it says that it is “Not compatible with Apple Macintosh or iPod devices.” He even tried it to see if it would work, but alas it didn’t. Be sure to take a look at the pictures in the second half of the post, and you can get an eyeful of this strange decision that Warner Bros. made.

Do you think Sam should be able to get a refund for this mistake? We certainly do! Has this happened to you? Be sure to sound off in the comments!

Thanks for the tip and pictures, Sam!

Continue reading Speed Racer DVD Digital Copy not iTunes-friendly

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The Jabra BT2070 offers edgy hands-free design for people whowant something out-of-the ordinary. This unique headset has anintriguing design that centers around an illuminating yellow circlethat lights up for incoming calls.

Though he admits to once being “an App Store skeptic,” Cliff Edwards (businessweek.com) now heaps praise on the App Store, awarding it 4.5 stars (out of five). “After trying out Apple’s App Store for the past few weeks, I can say categorically that Apple has hit another home run. The App Store has truly unshackled the high-end cell phone.”

Pocket Pirate

Launched to promote Cravendale Milk, and coinciding with Talk Like A Pirate Day today, Pocket Pirate puts eight buttons on your iPhone’s screen, which when pressed speak a different pirate-y phrase. It’s free, and there’s a web application too.

Mobile BC

BlogCatalog has launched Mobile BC, a web-based application designed specifically for the iPhone. It allows access to the BlogCatalog social network, plus the likes of Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Multiply, MySpace, Sphinn, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and YouTube. “Any network we add to the dashboard can be added to the mobile application so bloggers can keep up with discussions, groups, communities, and other social networks on their iPod Touch or iPhone,” says Antony Berkman, president of BlogCatalog.com. “So rather than signing onto several networks, bloggers can leverage Mobile BC as their primary source, scan multiple networks, and then easily connect to other networks as needed.”…

Filed under: Gaming, Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

The folks over at Touch Arcade are doing a terrific job of keeping up with all the good-looking games on the App Store (and even some not-so-good-looking ones) but for my money, this one falls solidly into the first category.

Rock’n'Roll is an accelerometer-based puzzle/platforming game (ported from other mobile platforms). As you can see in the video above, it plays like a much more colorful version of the already-fun Spinner, as you rotate the iPhone to control the little circle and get him to fall down in the right place. There are power-ups and items to collect as you explore the little mazes, and though there’s no sound in the video, we’re told the game will have a “traditional Americana” rock soundtrack, which sounds like fun.

A few people have mentioned motion sickness, and while that’s a possibility, my guess is that it’s more from the video itself — playing Spinner has kind of the same effect, but when it’s you controlling the spinning and the image is confined to the iPhone’s screen, it’s not so bad. At any rate, we’ll find out soon whether the game is as fun as it looks — it’s due for a release later this month.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone, App Store

Macenstein posted a strange little tip earlier this week for getting Apple’s official apps off of your iPhone (I personally never use the Stocks app, and really don’t need it taking up space around the apps I do use). But his method isn’t so much a tip as an exploit — basically, Apple has a secret 10th “page” of Application icons, and Macenstein’s method is to put so many apps onto your iPhone that the official ones get squeezed off screen.

It works, though installing 144 apps on your phone might be more trouble than it’s worth. And the change isn’t even permanent — restarting or syncing the iPhone will bring the apps back on screen (provided you make room on them — you could just leave 144 apps up if you wanted, and presumably they’d stay out of the picture).

It’s too bad that Apple has never really provided a tool to organize the iPhone’s app screen quickly — stacks have long been suggested as a way to get more icons on there, but it’d be nice to even have an iTunes-based tool to get all those icons in the right places. Until then, you can always fill up all your screens and kick any icons you don’t want off of there.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone, App Store

Macenstein posted a strange little tip earlier this week for getting Apple’s official apps off of your iPhone (I personally never use the Stocks app, and really don’t need it taking up space around the apps I do use). But his method isn’t so much a tip as an exploit — basically, Apple has a secret 10th “page” of Application icons, and Macenstein’s method is to put so many apps onto your iPhone that the official ones get squeezed off screen.

It works, though installing 144 apps on your phone might be more trouble than it’s worth. And the change isn’t even permanent — restarting or syncing the iPhone will bring the apps back on screen (provided you make room on them — you could just leave 144 apps up if you wanted, and presumably they’d stay out of the picture).

It’s too bad that Apple has never really provided a tool to organize the iPhone’s app screen quickly — stacks have long been suggested as a way to get more icons on there, but it’d be nice to even have an iTunes-based tool to get all those icons in the right places. Until then, you can always fill up all your screens and kick any icons you don’t want off of there.

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Filed under: iLife, Mac 101

It’s easy to fill your iPhoto library with pictures. However, the task of finding the ones you’re after isn’t. The Events feature of iPhoto ’08 is helpful, and you can improve it with Keywords.

Think of keywords as tags. You can assign any keyword(s) to any photo, like “Suzie,” “Summer” or “Beach.” Then, simply search “Suzie” to find relevant photos, sorted by event. Here’s how to do it.

From the “View” menu, select “Keywords” (or hit Shift-Apple-K). Next, click beneath your photos to reveal the keyword text field. Enter as many comma-separated keywords as you like; previously used keywords will auto-complete.

Here’s an added bonus. You can also search by keyword via the Image Browser in Pages (see above).

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The Samung i900 Omnia is a valiant attempt at a touchscreen phone. Take a look at the adverts for the handset — it’s all about the touch. How does it stack up against the iPhone 3G? Read on to find out…

Air Hockey

At the risk of yanking the iPhone out of your opponent’s hands, Air Hockey is a neat application which simulates those great little tables in the arcades. Of course, you’re using the relatively small screen of the iPhone, but the game features large mallets, realistic sounds, and subsequent versions should feature a “Pro” 1 player mode and improved responses. £0.59.

Gesture

Create digital paintings from your photos with Gesture, which translates the iPhone’s movements into paint strokes using sampled colours from the photo. £2.99…

Latest iPhone News: Tuesday 16th September 2008

3 claims Apple was wrong to pick O2

3, the mobile operator that never has any complaints about the quality of its network (!) has suggested that Apple was wrong to select O2 as the iPhone’s exclusive network. “The iPhone is not on the right network, a handset is only as good as its operator,” said Bernie O’Beirne at 3′s recent summer ball. The network claims that O2 has the UK’s least developed 3G network, and has also questioned its pricing policy…

Flutter

The Flutter application allows the iPhone to be used to send picture messages and geo-tagged locations to any mobile phone. In other words, it’s MMS – a feature which Apple still hasn’t made available natively. Sounds like a promising app from JuiceCaster that has had a few teething problems over launch weekend.

iQualizer

iQualizer is an interesting little app which visually represents whatever the iPhone’s microphone picks up. The application claims that you can’t play music at the same time, though with most apps you just have to start the music first, then launch the app. In any case, unless you play music through the internal speakers or via a sound system, it’s not going to be much use to this app. Could provide a bit of fun. It’s £1.19.

Flutter

The Flutter application allows the iPhone to be used to send picture messages and geo-tagged locations to any mobile phone. In other words, it’s MMS – a feature which Apple still hasn’t made available natively. Sounds like a promising app from JuiceCaster that has had a few teething problems over launch weekend.

iQualizer

iQualizer is an interesting little app which visually represents whatever the iPhone’s microphone picks up. The application claims that you can’t play music at the same time, though with most apps you just have to start the music first, then launch the app. In any case, unless you play music through the internal speakers or via a sound system, it’s not going to be much use to this app. Could provide a bit of fun. It’s £1.19.

Latest iPhone News: Monday 14th September 2008

Slow Japan sales

Reports suggest that Japan is another country where the iPhone 3G isn’t selling too well. Analysts believe that demand for the phone is now a third of what it was during the initial hype, when around 200,000 iPhones were sold. Japan is home to some of the most advanced cellphones in the world, and the iPhone doesn’t have some of the capabilities of other handsets, such as mobile TV. Additionally, the report suggests (perhaps surprisingly) that Japanese consumers are wary of buying online via a mobile handset, making the App Store, though unique, difficult to push…

Apple has now released firmware version 2.1 via iTunes software update. It’s a hefty 237MB download, but of course you’re on a fast broadband connection anyway, right? Download screen says that iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including:..

Real Soccer 2009

Demoed at the “Let’s Rock” event, Gameloft’s Real Soccer 2009 is a football arcade game reminiscent of EA’s FIFA games, and featuring 198 teams with real player names, 3D graphics, 12 stadiums, accelerometer support, and virtual control pad. Available for £5.99.

Filed under: Software, Graphic Design

SmileOnMyMac has released a major update to PDFpen, their PDF editing software which we examined at a while back. PDFpen allows you to edit PDFs to fill out forms (e.g. scans of existing forms), mark-up documents, etc. The biggest new feature for version 4 is the inclusion of basic OCR functionality that will turn a scanned document into editable text. In addition there is support for new file formats including importing Microsoft Word documents.

PDFpen comes in two versions, a basic version for editing PDFs and a pro version that also allows you to create editable forms (i.e. forms that can be filled out by users with a PDF reader like Acrobat or Preview). PDFpen is $49.95 (or $99.95 for the pro version). Upgrades for to version 4 from previous version are $25. Demos for both standard and pro are available for download.

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Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

This morning I took a stroll through the free bin in the App Store and found Earthscape [App Store link here] was, for a limited time, offered as a free download (it is now back to $4.99). I would pay a couple of bucks for Earthscape, although it isn’t much more than a neat tech demo and didn’t appear to serve any practical purpose. It is neat, but not essential.

The app is like a miniature version of Google Earth, minus street maps and not quite as “3D” or functional.

For a complete walkthrough of the app and its features, check the gallery.

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Apple has announced that iPod touch and iPhone users have downloaded over 100 million applications from the App Store in the two months since its launch on 11th July. There are now over 3,000 applications available in the App Store, with nine in ten priced at $10 or less, and over 600 available for free. Apple has marked the event by getting soundbites from several application developers. “iPhone’s unique capabilities, easy SDK and the ability to reach an audience of millions via the App Store made this an easy development choice for us,” said John Pollard, Jott CEO. “To date, we’ve had hundreds of thousands of downloads of Jott for iPhone, which has been a major win for our company.”…

Steve Jobs has just announced that the iPhone’s firmware has been upgraded to version 2.1 (from 2.0.2). It’s a free upgrade, available from the iTunes store from Friday. It will offer a number of performance improvements, better battery life, less…

Steve Jobs has just announced that a new model of the iPod Touch will be available in time for Christmas, sporting the same screen size but a thinner body, and made with contoured stainless steel. It will feature a built-in…

Steve Jobs has just announced the launch of iTunes 8. It will feature a number of improvements including better accessibility, browsing of music and movies, high definition TV shows, and the Genius auto-recommendation function. Genius will combine (anonymously) the musical…

Spore Origins Electronic Arts has released Spore Origins for the iPhone and iPod Touch, so you can finally get some evolutionary goodness going on. The official blurb lists the following exclusive features: Tilt, turn and twist your way through the…

Latest iPhone News: Tuesday 9th September 2008

New iPhone firmware coming today?

Along with the rumoured updates to the iPod and iTunes, it’s possible that Apple will release an upgrade for the iPhone’s firmware, taking it up to version 2.1 from 2.0.2. A full “point one” upgrade could provide more decent fixes and feature improvements. A much better push notification service for third-party applications has been expected to arrive in September. Updates to GPS navigation would also be great, and presumably if iTunes itself upgrades to version 8, with whatever features that might bring, then the iPhone software will be updated to accommodate it. (Via Information Week)…

Filed under: Multimedia, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Following the newly updated Remote application from Apple, there’s now a new remote application (iTunes Link) that allows you to control your XBMC Media Center with the iPhone. Obviously to use it you’ll have to have a computer (or Xbox) running XBMC, which is available in versions for Xbox, Mac, Linux, and Windows. Features include:

• Play, queue and shuffle the media on XBMC
• View cover art for albums, TV Shows and movies
• View artist and album reviews and information
• ‘Standard’ remote mode. Control XBMC with standard remote buttons

I have seen reports that it will work with the Mac-only XBMC fork Plex (though perhaps without images). It basically looks like it does for XBMC what Apple’s Remote app does for the Apple TV.

XBMC is available from iTunes for $4.99.

[via Gizmodo]

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Filed under: Cult of Mac, Odds and ends, iPhone

Laughing Squid posted these yummy, adorable, and prize-winning iPhone cupcakes. The cupcakes, created by Nick and Danielle Bilton, swept the Cupcake Decorating Championship at Ignite NYC II.

I love the phone badge and the timer’s tiny details but can’t help but feel that the stocks cupcake somehow is missing a bit of white frosting. Also, the calendar date was wrong for the time of the championships, but I suspect that the judges wouldn’t notice that.

Congrats to the Biltons!

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Last week LG showed off its new LG-KC910, claiming it as the world’s first eight megapixel camera phone with a full touchscreen. How does it shape up against the iPhone 3G? Read on to find out…

Latest iPhone News: Thursday 4th September 2008

Steve Wozniak the iPhone hacker?

It isn’t much of a surprise to learn that Steve Wozniak has apparently jailbroken his iPhone 3G so that he has full access to its system. He has been photographed holding a handset displaying a cartoon image of Steve Jobs throwing his hands in the air. Allegedly…

O’Reilly’s iPhoneLive Conference

O’Reilly has announced its iPhoneLive Conference on 18th November, at the Holiday Inn San Jose in Silicon Valley, California. Subtitled “Build It, Launch It, Use It”, the one-day conference will include keynote addresses from leading experts in the mobile space. “The iPhone platform represents a major shift in mobility and provides a compelling opportunity for businesses to deliver products and services, whether native or web-based, in new and exciting ways to a global audience. iPhoneLive will bring together iPhone developers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts for a day dedicated to the emergence of the iPhone platform,” said co-chairman Ryan Zachary. “If you’re already developing products and services for the iPhone or are in the process of evaluating the platform, this is the place to be.”…

Midomi

This is the application I’ve been wanting for a while. Midomi is a free application which lets you sing, hum, or type out snippets of lyrics in order to find the title and artist of that song that’s been bugging you. It wins over Shazam because it can handle your own hummed and sung attempts as well as taking music straight from the radio. It works pretty well, though it can sometimes come up with a bewildering array of choices. Fortunately, you can play a snippet of each song that it suggests. Success will depend upon how good the tune you supply it with is, but it’s certainly worth a go…

Latest iPhone News: Wednesday 3rd September 2008

iPhone taking sales away from other smartphones

With reports suggesting that the iPhone 3G is the fastest selling phone for both AT&T in the States and O2 in the UK, it’s no surprise that sales of the device are taking away customers from other smartphones including the BlackBerry Curve, Samsung Blackjack 2, Palm Centro, and BlackBerry Pearl.

iPhone coming to Japan?

NTT DoCoMo’s VP, Hiroshi Matsui, says that the company has not given up on bringing the iPhone 3G to Japan, but is waiting for the “right conditions to sell it.”…

Latest iPhone News: Tuesday 2 September 2008

Snow Patrol Interactive Album on iPhone

Internationally renowned band Snow Patrol is working with Apple to create an official interactive album applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, prior to the release of their fifth studio album next month. The app will offer a range of artwork, pictures, lyrics, and so on. Yes, it could simply be developed as a web application, but there’s a certain cool factor about doing it specifically for the iPhone. “It will be an interactive element; a digital booklet that will take you into the videos and content,” Polydor product manager Liz Goodwin told Music Week…

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