The title this is under is: This is possibly the coolest thing I've seen one man and an iPhone do, and while I don't understand the french it's being done in, damn, that is pretty awesome.
Seems that Opera has created Opera Mini for iPhone.
[...] plans to reveal Opera Mini for iPhone in an exclusive press and partner preview during the 2010 Mobile World Congress [...]While Opera Mini for iPhone is not publicly available, visitors without a press pass will not leave Opera's stand disappointed. Opera will unveil a host of other Opera-powered devices at its exhibit.
Sadly I'm not going to be anywhere near MWC, but it'll be interesting to see a few things:
TUAW points to The iPhone app showdown in which someone cleared everything off their home screen, and apps back on there only if it was deemed used enough.
Gizmodo has rumors of the Facebook 3.1 iPhone App Bringing Push Notifications and Contact Sync. Hope that's true, last thing I'd heard the only Facebook iPhone app developer quite in protest of the Apple not accepting google voice debacle...
Great collection of 21 iPhone Puzzle Games to Kill Time With. I downloaded 3 or 4 of them.
Update: Fixed link.
AppCubby has released their excellent Gas Cubby in a free, ad-supported version in the form of Gas Cubby by FRAM. I got the trio of AppCubby apps and am pretty happy. I dislike the ad-supported versions of software, but I have to say that Gas Cubby is a great iPhone app and hopefully this does App Cubby well.
Title basically says it all. Video in the link shows some gameplay... pretty damn awesome!
Cool article on what Apple is doing to improve mobile Safari apps better.
FYI I'm not associated with Appigo in any way. Just gotta pimp out the recent update to their iPhone TODO app. The 3.2 update adds a bunch of nice features and while there are many other todo lists on the iPhone, for some reason I'm drawn to this one. Not completely because it's the only one I've got either :) However, other apps like Things or Omnifocus seem to require fairly expensive desktop software to go with it to get the "full" experience.
There are a couple of downsides to TODO though.
Again, no association, just showing some love for an app I use.
9-5Mac has a good demo of the new Dragon Dictation for iPhone a free app for the iPhone that seems to have good results for voice recognition.
The only thing to keep in mind here is that sometimes when checking for updates to apps sometimes you'll get notification that there is an app with an update, but when you click 'view updates' there aren't any. If this is the case, it's probably a non-local app has gotten notification of an update, but your check in the local iTunes store doesn't find any. Just log into your other iTunes account and hit the 'check for updates' button again.
If you're familiar with the excellent CameraBag iPhone App, you'll be happy to know that it's now available as a desktop app for Mac and Windows. There's a 15 day trial (no saving, images are watermarked) or you can purchase the app for $19 USD.
In the world of "who would really do that", the idea of Attaching SLR lenses to an iPhone is pretty high up there. But when you know people attaching SLR lenses to normal video cameras, this isn't that far away. Pointless, but still a nifty little hack.
Navigon owners will be happy to hear that they have submitted a significant update to the app store. Most exciting is the google map search integration, allowing you to search with familiar google maps syntax "ie: library abbotsford bc" or "esso gas near 1st and main vancouver bc" (I assume anyway) instead of going through the slightly clunky address entry system they have now.
Andy Ihnatko has a great set of images comparing Droid Camera vs. iPhone with surprising results. Remember of course that more megapixels doesn't mean a better image all the time.
The big issue with getting a jailbroken/unlocked iPhone recently is that all the carrier unlocks weren't working for phones with firmware 3.1 on it, as that updated the baseband firmware to such a state that the normal unlock (different than the Jailbreak) couldn't unlock it. Well, turns out today is a sn0wday, with the jailbrak and unlock combined in once nice package. Link has details, also check out http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com for the announcement and features.
Yay freedom!
Learn And Explore for the iPhone from Nikon, has become available in the US app store. Nice little app for my Nikon shooting friends.
TUAW has links for the Updated iPhone 3G, 3GS pricing and availability for Canada just announced from Telus and Bell. Rogers will be responding as well soon.
The TomTom car mount is now available at US Apple store for $120. A bit pricey, but as we've seen in previous posts it gives you full GPS for the full phone, not just the TomTom app. That said, you can get a low end dedicated GPS unit for under $100, so $120 for the kit, plus $90-100 for the GPS software from Navigon or TomTom (though there are a couple of good GPS apps for $20-30) might be a bit pricey. Still, looking forward to seeing some reviews of this.
Jamie has dumped his Palm Pre and has gotten an iPhone.... sounds like it just wasn't working out. I'm actually a bit sad about this, as much as I love the iPhone, I also know that for it and the smartphone market in general to flourish, there has to be competition. Not that JWZ indicates that the Palm is dead, but a high profile techie giving the thumbs down to Palm gives a certain indication...
He does have a list of irritating bugs, but says that the biggest reason he went to the iPhone is "it just fucking works", which IIRC, is the battle cry of Apple fanboys.
It's in German, but if you were wondering if your non-3G first generation iPhone or iPod Touch would work with the TomTom car kit, wonder no longer. Looks like it works in apps other than just the TomTom application itself, confirming (maybe) my theory that it hooks into the GPS functions of the iPhone, enabling high quality GPS for devices that don't have one.
AT&T Removes All Remaining Doubt: No Tethering This Year .
Dear iPhone users who have AT&T as a provider. I'm sorry, that sucks.
Tweetie 2.0 for iPhone has arrived, and while it's not a free upgrade for 1.x users (it's $2.99), it is a complete rewrite that we had some details on a week or so ago. Maddox has put up a quick look at what he likes and doesn't like and I agree on most points. The UI is fairly intuitive, smooth and silky, and some things (the nearby view and new way of reloading) are awesome. I have no problem dropping the cost of a mocha on this. Hit the main site for a feature list and pictures of all the new features.
Photoshop has finally omes to the iPhone.... kinda. Note that the app you search for in the store (if you don't just click on this link) is 'photoshop.com', not photoshop, and that's because it's fairly closely tied with the online service at photoshop.com. It's also missing some nice-to-have features that other apps (such as photogene, which is, as an aside, on sale this weekend) have.
Still it's free and have some good features to have without being over complicated. I'm looking forward to trying it out and seeing how it is.
As an aside, here's a test image in my Photoshop.com account. It's basically a bit of a vibrancy pump, a bit of soft focus filter, and a tweak here and there:
Wow, it really does suck to be in the US and have an iPhone lately. Lifehacker has the details on AT&T maybe putting in data caps for iPhone users.
Looks like it's official, Bell and Telus to offer iPhone 3GS in Canada. Wonder if this'll make the Canadian cell carriers get a bit more competitive in pricing and services and move us out the dark ages in terms of data and text message plans.
The original article has links to the actual (and not overly verbose) announcements.
A very cool concept video of iPhone Expose. Anyone who has an iPhone with a lot of apps will cheer for this to be added.
Looks like Adobe's "Full Flash" 10.1 is coming to everyone but iPhone. Adobe says it's due to the closed platform that Apple has. I'm of two minds. On one hand, screw you apple for not wanting this from the start and not facilitating Adobe in every way possible, on the other, I don't remember a time in the last year I've wanted / needed to run flash while browsing on the iPhone.
Ping! is an instant messenger for the iPhone, free, no registration, ads or international costs. Push notification also means you get messages even in other apps. I'm sure there's a catch, but I haven't found it yet, other than some of the UI being a bit clunky.
TUAW has some info and links for version 2 of Tweetie, a popular iPhone twitter client.
AT&T Activates MMS Functionality for U.S. iPhone Users. Welcome to the world of MMS my American friends. Course, up here in Canada we've had this since the original iPhone OS 3.0 release. I've used the functionality exactly twice, once to see if it worked and the second when I received an MMS of what looked like someone's butt from a friend testing to see if their MMS worked. Hope ya'll use it more than I do.
Great photographer Chase Jarvis collaborated on a hoity-toitily named new iPhone app called Best Camera. Coincidentally enough, he also has a new iPhone photo-only book called The Best Camera coming out.
The iPhone app that's battling TomTom is getting Live Traffic, slated for announcement tomorrow. Sadly not free, it's an in-app purchase for $19 for a month and then $25 afterwards (no monthly fees). I think it's probably a good purchase a) if it works well (duh) and b) if you're in a big city. I have a feeling that the Fraser Valley outside of Vancouver, where I live, won't get the same benefit as say, San Fransisco or New York would get. Still, nice to see upgrades coming to give value add to the services, even if it's not free.
Dammit! I thought about this exact idea about 4 months ago, thinking that users submitting traffic map data would be a cool way to give real time traffic routing. Course, having no skills at iPhone/Android programming was a downside at the time :) Anyway, I encourage checking out the app that I might have written: Waze.
Integrated iPod control, text-to-speech, auto-day/night mode, and other stuff is what the Navigon GPS app updated with their 1.4G update.
So it's all over and it was.... pretty good, but not spectacular. Ars has a nice wrapup. Basically nothing really new, like a tablet, but:
So not a huge amount to get excited about, but a nice update to the entire lineup. Explore around Apple.com to see more details and goodness. Also pretty much every tech blog will have a similar update.
WTF? AT&T doesn't have MMS and Tethering for iPhone yet? Seriously? But we have in Canada? What is this bizarro world of which you speak!?!?!
Pretty fascinating look at the design evolution of the Convertbot Tap Tap Tap Convert iPhone app.
If you have been keeping up with the GPS market for the iPhone, you know that there are two or three main contenders. Gizmodo has a good wrapup of TeleNav vs. Navigon vs. TomTom to figure out "the best" (or at least, the best for right now.
No matter which app you're using, the GPS runs constantly and the screen generally stays on, which means utter battery drainage: You will need to keep your iPhone plugged into the car's lighter jack. You will also need a dashboard mount, which range from $10 to $30.
The Facebook blog has some info on Why You'll Love Facebook's New iPhone App. Still waiting for it to come out though :)
Not really official, found via @navigon_ on twitter, but the navigon photostream over on flickr has some interesting looking updates for version 1.2. From the looks of it you'll get proper iPod control from within the app (yay!) with a very cool 'peel away' interface for it, location sharing (great for stalkers), text to speech for street names (yay), automatic night mode (yay), and lane information in a small display.
Gotta say that these are some pretty nice things, and while they should have been in there from the start, they weren't absolutely critical, and make a nice point release update. Course, I'll have to nuke a bunch of music from my iPhone, then update, and then re-load it as I keep it pretty chock full....
No ETA on the update though. Also they only said these updates were on the European version, but I'd assume the changes will be the same across all versions. There are some more stuff on the navigon site about this too.
Update: A little birdie told me that the 1.2 update for North America and friends are already submitted to the app store.
John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has a nice editorial on The Android Opportunity, and what Google can do to bring the Android brand up and over the top.
Start by copying what Apple has done right. Release one new phone per year, every year. Split that one phone into separate models by storage size, keeping all other specs the same. Apple has shown you can make a lot of money by charging an extra $100 for less than $100 worth of flash memory.
It's interesting if you think that 2 years ago the iPhone didn't even exist, hell, the market hardly existed before that. Yes, I know there were smart phones, but they didn't have the mindshare (IMHO) that Apple has created in that time. And then in that time it's become a juggernaut, had a falter from some of the bureaucracy / BS at Apple, and other phones are making a play for it's market share, all in that short time.
Well, it only took a few months, and now the TomTom for iPhone app us out. It'll cost you $99 and it's a 1.2G download. No word on the accompanying car kit yet.
Update: Looks like the holder will do some hooking-in-GPS magic and will work with 3rd party apps, so you'll be able to buy the Navigon, iGo, etc and have it get the enhanced GPS from the TomTom car kit. Of course, to me this also means that the car kit will probably cost big $$, and when you can get a brand new TomTom GPS for $149CND..... Looks like they're either pricing themselves out of the market or relying on the fact that people will pay for the convenience of having everything on the iPhone :)
Also this means that iPod Touch users will be able to use it, which brings in a whole new level of interesting....
TomTom for iPhone has appeared in the New Zealand iTunes app store. Probably because NZ is in the future and it's Monday there already. In theory (theeeeeooooory) the TomTom app is having a Monday release and will appear in local app stores as Monday appears for the region.
That said, the app looks good. It's about $83 USD, so about the same as the Navigon, and a 1.2G download, so about the same there too. A quick look at the features shows it's pretty much the same as well, with a slightly different look and so on.
The big issue here is that a) this price is only for the app, not the magic holder system that was demoed and b) you can (apparently) get a TomTom standalone unit for that price. So unless the TomTom holding arm is cheap, I think they might have priced themselves out of the market a bit. Course, to do the same with the Navigon (or any other GPS unit for that matter) you still need to pay $40-150 on a holding system.
Guess we'll see what happens on Monday!
Tom's Hardware scored an interview with the author of the iPhone SMS hack, where he explains what the issue was and how he exploited it.
Someone set up a nice little video comparing the Navigon MobileNavigator for iPhone and the Tomtom GO 720T.
Of course there's still now actual news regarding the TomTom iPhone app, but if you assume that the iPhone version will have similar mapping, routing, and display features as their hardware devices, it's a decent look.
Another bunch of the 30 Best Free iPhone 3G Photo & Video Applications shared over by Fozbaca.
Now this is interesting... Waze basically employs crowd sourcing to get traffic updates and navigation tips.
I actually envisioned something like this, letting users submit traffic information from their GPS coordinates, when I was thinking about doing some iPhone programming. We'll see if Waze has completed my vision!
If you haven't heard about the NinjaWords kafuffle, here's the readers digest notes. It's a dictionary app that Apple rejected from the iPhone app store because it contained dirty words (the 7 dirty words apparently are in the standard english dictionary). Daring Fireball got a letter from Phil Schiller and has put up his response. An excerpt that seems to be part of the root of the rejection:
The issue that the App Store reviewers did find with the Ninjawords application is that it provided access to other more vulgar terms than those found in traditional and common dictionaries, words that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable.
[...]
It is certainly arguable whether Wiktionary's English dictionary content should be rated 17+. I personally disagree with that. But what I -- and, judging from reaction around the web yesterday, many others -- found outrageous was the idea that Apple insisted that Ninjawords both filter its dictionary and still carry the 17+ rating.That is not the case, and that is good.
For those wanting some more options in the iPhone GPS department, a new player has come in with the iGO My way™ 2009 app, priced at $79 and coming in a North America and two European version (west and east). The app looks really good actually, with 3D buildings showing up on the 3rd person view map. This may or may not be another contender in the Navigon (here for real), TomTom (I want the stand but there's no official word on release dates) and AT&T (ugh, monthly fees) and G-Map (sketchy reviews). YouTube video of the app in operation is here.
Competition is good however!
Good article called Yeah, There's an App for That which goes over a bunch of iPhone photography apps ranging from adding effects to editing. Posting here so I don't have to keep clicking the 'keep unread' checkbox in my RSS Reader,
I'm not sure if this is real or not, but I did find some info on the much touted, and then ignored/clamped up, TomTom iPhone car kit. The article puts it at about $200 USD. A bit pricey, maybe, we'll see if this is even real.
Not all from Apple is wine and roses. Check out this dialog between the developers of a Google Voice app and Apple in There's No App for That. What I've discovered with Apple is when things work, they were very well and life is good and you feel like you're dancing on candy rainbows. But if things go badly, they go very, frustratingly, hair-ripping-out, mindblowingly badly, and, as you can see from the exchange in the link, this holds true for the App store process. For every "write a fart app and make $7k a day" there's something like this...