Archive for July, 2008

It’s not everyday that the Associated Press picks up investment property on the news front. Which makes this latest investment all that much more interesting. The Associated Press has gone in with other investment firms to pump $3 million in to the mobile news startup Verve Wireless.

Verve specializes in getting traditional newspapers online and mobilized, and it’s clear, following the AP’s Mobile News Network iPhone application, that the Associated Press is all about news in the mobile space. The AP uses Verve’s technology to push news articles to their Mobile News Network.

There’s no doubt that news is increasingly moving from traditional print media to the online and mobile arenas, and this latest move from the AP should help solidify their position in the news business. Investing millions in mobilized news is print media’s last bastion of hope. The rest of us will just have to make do with our blog investments….

[Via: NYT]

Even in Apple’s home-base of the good ‘ole U-S-of-A, Apple has had trouble keeping up with enormous iPhone 3G demand. With more than 1 million iPhone 3G units already out in circulation, it’s not hard to see why the rookie handset manufacturer is struggling to keep their Apple Stores stocked with iPhone 3G’s. In response to the demand, Apple has even adopted new Apple Store operating hours.

The lack of iPhone 3G stock has spurred a new breed of Apple fans - the iPhone 3G hunters.

They’re a dedicated bunch, those iPhone 3G hunters. They’ll keep checking Apple’s iPhone availability webpage every few minutes, while calling their local Apple Store to inquire about iPhone 3G stock, every few minutes.

But, the rest of the iPhone 3G-fiends out there will just have to keep waiting for new shipments to arrive. So, how do you know when you should head down to your nearest Apple Store (or maybe the Apple store a few hours drive away, if needed)? Simple. Hit up TopMuffin’s new iPhone 3G availability resource. They’ve put together a comprehensive iPhone 3G stock tracker, complete with 15-minute updates on iPhone 3G 8Gb and 16GB units as well a neat little statistic that shows what percentages of stores have various iPhone 3G’s in stock.

Find the iPhone 3G availability tracker here.

iPhone 3G availability tracker

[Via: TUAW]

iPhone 3G hopefuls still running around to find an iPhone 3G still chillin’ on an Apple Store shelf will be happy to hear that Apple has decided to kick off their business-day a bit earlier to help accommodate iPhone 3G hunters.

Apple has announced that Apple Stores that normally open at 10AM will now open their doors at 8AM. The stores have also taken-on new employees to handle the rush of iPhone 3G hopefuls looking to get the second-generation Apple handset in their pockets.

“To accommodate demand for iPhone 3G, all Apple Retail Stores will now open at 8:00 a.m. every day but Sunday,” Apple says. “We’re also adding staff to help you get up and running as quickly as possible.”

Looks like Apple’s starting to adapt to the frenzied demand. Better late than never.

Apple

Let's say you and your family decided to jump on Apple's bandwagon and now you're all geared up with Apple hardware. Now you're all getting along with all your Macs and iPhones doing their thing, like one big happy family. It's all fun and games around the house. All fun and games, that is, until you actually want to have some fun with iPhone games.

Apple will gladly take your money as you purchase multiple copies of Super Monkey Ball or Texas Hold 'Em Poker for each member of your family. It can get expensive buying multiple copies of the same software for every member of your family. And, Apple would love the business.

But, if you're a bit more iTunes savvy, like Melvin Rivera, you'll be sharing a single iPhone application purchase throughout the household (or among friends, just don't tell Apple, shhh!). Melvin has put together a handy little tutorial to get all your iPhone applications and games shared on multiple iPhones.

You see, the Fairplay DRM that Apple uses to protect its iPhone applications from piracy allows you to authorize up to five computers to share your iTunes purchases. So, you should be able to share that single copy of Super Monkey Ball with up to four other people. Here's a quick rundown of Melvin's tutorial:

1. Use your computer's iTunes account to buy whatever iPhone application you want (we're going to use Super Monkey Ball for demonstration purposes)
2. Download the application to iTunes and sync to your iPhone or iPhone 3G
3. Get to your family member's, or friend's, computer and log in to their iTunes application with your credentials
4. Log out and back in
5. Find Super Monkey Ball and click "Buy"
6. Re-download Super Monkey Ball
7. Log out of your iTunes account
8. Log back in with your family member's iTunes account
9. Sync the iPhone

That's it! You should now have Super Monkey Ball on two different iPhones.

Head on over to allforces.com to get the full, pictorial-aided tutorial on how to share iPhone applications with multiple iPhones.

[Via: allforces]

Apple's iPhone advertisements are fun to watch. They exude the company's philosophy of sleek, minimalist design with emphasis on user experience and functionality. To that end, their iPhone ads are a good way to pass the time.

Apple has posted a few new iPhone 3G advertisements on their website, but we're not going to make you go to Apple's webpage to view them. Hit the iPhone 3G ads below.

Everyone

Unslow

Work Friendly

Apple iPhone 3G

The iPhone 3G has already launched in the UK, simultaneously with dozens of other countries around the world, but that doesn't mean the iPhone 3G rumors are going to stop anytime soon. The latest bit of hearsay to come out of the United Kingdom hints at O2's iPhone exclusivity period being almost expired. That means the UK is ripe for a second iPhone 3G carrier to come in and offer O2 some competition for iPhone customers.

Word on the street is that the exclusivity agreement between O2 and Apple is set to come to an end by Christmas.  Further, they claim that Orange will be allowed to offer their UK customers iPhones from October onwards - citing Apple's possible discontent with O2's iPhone launch debacle.

Orange already offers the iPhone in France, Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Africa. So, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine Apple giving Orange the go-ahead to offer more iPhone options to Brits wary of locking themselves in to an O2 contract.

Of course, adding a bit more salt to this particular rumor might be a wise move.

[Via: WorldOfApple]

The recently released iPhone 2.1 firmware beta has, like many beta firmwares before it, been a rewarding source of potentially upcoming iPhone features and functionality. Previous iPhone firmware betas have led to the speculation, and eventual implementation, of iPhone features like the iPhone iTunes remote, geo-tagging photos, and character-recognition, just to name a few.

With the new iPhone 2.0 OS beta, iPhone developers have uncovered yet another morsel of hope for enhanced GPS functionality. Following on Joswiak's announcement that Apple is working to bring turn-by-turn GPS navigation to the iPhone, which contradicted David Pogue's assertion that the iPhone's GPS hardware wasn't up to such a task, the iPhone 2.1 beta has shown an updated Core Location library that is capable of tracking the iPhone's direction and velocity of movement.

Additionally, it seems that Apple is starting to build-out their highly-anticipated background push notification service. The nascent development of the background notification confirms Apple's intent to roll-out a push-data delivery system that would allow native iPhone applications to receive alerts, messages, and other data in while inactive. Rather than run multiple applications in a true multi-tasking environment, Apple's push background data will deliver similar multi-tasking performance in a more streamlined and efficient solution. The ability to deliver data to dormant applications allows the iPhone to reduce power-consumption, as well as allowing the iPhone to run faster, by not having to allot processing resources to unused applications.

The new Core Location code is suspected to be the first step in enabling turn-by-turn GPS navigation on the iPhone 3G. Location data like direction and speed-tracking are essential to enhanced GPS features, and building such features in to the latest iPhone 2.1 firmware beta is likely Apple's preparation for releasing turn-by-turn GPS functionality. And, the prospect of having the push background notification service up and running in the near-term is indeed exciting.

[Via: GearLive]

While the iPhone enthusiasts throughout the blogosphere were busy lamenting Apple's failure to deliver a working, system-wide copy-and-paste feature in the iPhone 2.0 OS, it seems Apple was busy building their copy/paste framework in to new iPhone 2.1 OS and iPhone 2.1 SDK.

Apple just last night released their newest iPhone OS revision, iPhone 2.1 OS, to iPhone developers. The seed of the new iPhone firmware was accompanied by the iPhone 2.1 SDK - and that's where the fun begins.

In a discovery that has again renewed our hope for true cut-n-paste functionality on our iPhone, an iPhone developer found references to cut/paste features in iPhone 2.1 SDK frameworks. Specifically, the references were found in the "Localizable.strings" file located in the "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/WebKit.framework."

Interestingly, the cut/paste references in the iPhone framework were found alongside references to Spotlight search, text-to-speech, file uploads, and Finder. It's not yet clear if Apple intentionally built the framework to support the much-needed cut-and-paste functionality, or if the references in the iPhone code were just carried over from Apple's desktop Webkit implementation.

Is Apple working to push out cut/paste functionality in the near future? Was Greg Joswiak misleading when he announced that turn-by-turn GPS navigation was a higher priority than cut-n-paste? Why can't both features be high priorities for Apple? We're rooting for Apple to get busy in releasing both enhanced GPS features as well as cut/paste in the next iPhone OS iteration.

[Via: TUAW]

IVYSKIN has announced that it will release the touch-thru case for the iPhone 3G on July 28th. If you're not aware what IVYSKIN's case is all about, you should know it's a hard screen shell that sits over the iPhone 3G, while still enabling you to navigate the iPhone's screen.

Surface Xylo Wave (SXW) technology passes ultrasonic waves that pass over the touch screen panel and transfer them to the iPhone's screen without any interferences. When the panel is touched, a portion of the wave is absorbed. This change in the ultrasonic waves registers the position of the touch event and sends this information to the iPhone's screen for processing.

IVYSKIN's iPhone 3G XyloT3 case costs $34.99 and you can get more information on their website.

Our favorite blogging platform, Wordpress, just launched the their mobile-blogging iPhone application the other day through the AppStore to our merriment. And, to keep things moving along in iPhone development circles, the Wordpress team has posted their iPhone Wordpress application's source-code through SVN.

Rather than keep the application, and its development, locked down and subject to Wordpress's own time-table, the Wordpress team has opened the doors to anyone interested in fixing bugs, coding new features, and just making Wordpress for iPhone that much better. With a little luck, the development community will be able to roll-out the single-most attractive feature that could be developed for the Wordpress iPhone application - cut-and-paste functionality.

We're looking forward to Wordpress 1.1 and beyond. And, with the open-source community behind them, we're sure to be blogging from the road like it was our job or something.

Wordpress

Of course it has. In this day and age where just about anything you can imagine is posted for sale on eBay, it's not that surprising to see an fully unlocked iPhone 3G. Following on the unlocked iPhone 3G offer from Hong Kong retailer Alibaba, a slightly higher-priced unlocked iPhone 3G is available from eBay.

We've heard of SIM-based hardware unlock solutions, but pricing and availability details at the time were slime to none. Then the Pwnage Tool 2.0 was released by the iPhone Dev Team, only to be missing an iPhone 3G unlocking tool. And, then we saw the video demonstration of an iPhone 3G getting jiggy with non-official GSM networks. But, again, we're left the dark as to how and when mere mortals could get their hands on an iPhone 3G unlocking solution.

Does the seller of this unlocked iPhone 3G have an inside line on the latest hardware- or software-based unlocking solution? Are they re-selling unlocked iPhones from Europe? We can't say for sure, but we're definitely not going to be putting our own money on the line to see if this particular iPhone can lock on to a T-Mobile cell-tower in our area. Excuse us if we don't rush to put in a bid for an unlocked iPhone 3G with a "Buy It Now" price of almost $1,500.

But, if anyone out there has the wherewithal and curiousness to find out just how legit this unlocked iPhone 3G offer really is, give the eBay auction a once-over and hit the "Buy" button. Oh, and let us know if the offer turns out to be legit.

[Via: CellphoneSignal]

For many, being locked in to a lengthy contract with AT&T (or whatever your local iPhone carrier happens to be) is enough to steer them away from picking up Cupertino's latest Apple handset. In the US, the iPhone 3G is only offered on AT&T and requires a two-year contract with an unlimited iPhone 3G data plan. Of course, there's no getting around the in-store activation process, so unlocking an iPhone 3G will prove to be more an exercise in breaking the rules than true network portability.

Following on hardware SIM-unlock solutions and various retailers hocking allegedly unlocked iPhone 3G's for hundreds more than their retail value, a video has been uncovered, showing what looks to be the first live-demonstration of a software-based SIM unlock solution. Could this video be proof that the iPhone Dev Team's SIM unlocking software is almost ready to go public?

As you might recall, the iPhone Dev Team's Pwnage Tool 2.0 conspicuously launched without any support for iPhone 3G unlocking, with the promise of a working software-based SIM-unlock tool further down the road. We can only hope that this video is a sign that the Dev Team's hard work and dedication is getting prepped for its iPhone 3G unlocking-debut.

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

Sure, when I gripe about my MobileMe experience and suggest that people hold-off on adopting Apple's new "push data" service, few listen (or cared). But, when Walt Mossberg goes on record as saying that MobileMe isn't yet ready for prime-time, the world listens (and probably cares). Such is life in the blogosphere.

Am I bitter? Perhaps. Am I wrong about MobileMe essentially marring what could have been a fantastic dual-product launch from Apple? Apparently not.

Service blunders have had MobileMe sputtering along with unreliable email delivery, laggy web-based interface, ridiculous billing errors, and misleading push data features. But, the sad truth is that the root of the problem lies in Apple's insistence on forcing their MobileMe customer to play only within their designated MobileMe sandbox.

MobileMe email can only be sent to and from the @me.com email address that comes bundled with the service. Changes to Calendar and Contacts data on your computer don't immediately push to your other devices (like that iPhone 3G in your pocket). Add to that MobileMe's awkward PC-syncing issues, and you've got a recipe for a disappointing experience.

Don't get me wrong. MobileMe has incredible potential. But, until Apple can figure out how to deliver a push-data service that actually works while putting more emphasis on the user and less on controlling the experience, MobileMe will continue to flounder.

Sidenote: Apple might believe that their successful philosophy of controlling the user experience on hardware like the iPhone can carry over in to web-based services. But, it should be more and more obvious to Cupertino that a locked-down service doesn't affect the same experience as a locked-down device.

[Via: AllThingsD]

If you're the type to abide by the rules and let Apple decide which applications you can and cannot run on your iPhone, then you'll be just fine running third-party applications from the AppStore that don't run in the background. Sure, they might offer you a saved-state feature that launches the application in to the same state you left it in, but without any active processes in the background, these official iPhone applications aren't exactly multi-tasking friendly.

On the other hand, if you're of the rules-were-meant-to-be-broken camp, there's yet another reason to jailbreak that iPhone or iPhone 3G of yours. Admittedly, with the AppStore offering so many free applications that we've gone blurry-eyed trying to download and play with them all, there's less demand for free jailbreak applications. But, what the new Pwnage Tool 2.0.1 and Winpwn jailbreak solutions offer are true multi-tasking applications from "rogue" third-party developers.

Apple has forced iPhone developers' hands in keeping their applications restricted to running one at a time. While official Apple iPhone applications, like Mail and Safari, have no problem multi-tasking, third-party AppStore applications are left in the dark. That's where jailbreak applications come in.

Since jailbreak application developers aren't restricted by the same iPhone SDK restrictions, they can develop their applications to take full advantage of all the iPhone's resources. That means third-party jailbreak applications can run in the background and allow true multi-tasking support alongside Apple's own iPhone applications.

And, developers are updating their jailbreak applications to run with the new iPhone 2.0 OS. Says prolific iPhone developer Jonathan Zdziarski:

"This means that it doesn’t matter what kind of desktop OS you run, you can still build great iPhone apps. Some changes have been made to the private API headers from v1.x to make them code-compatible with 2.0. This means most of your 1.x applications will rebuild for 2.0 with very few, if any, changes. Saurik has also provided a signing tool to sign your applications (ldid -S /path/to/binary). You’ll need to do this only once to make your application run."

I can see legit iPhone application developers going to the "dark-side" of iPhone development to create versions of their applications that can run in the background. We're not likely to hear much from these types of developers, as they'd want to stay in Apple's good graces and remain in the AppStore. But, I wouldn't be surprised to see applications similar to those offered in the AppStore popping up in jailbreak-land. Legit AppStore monger by day, rogue jailbreak developer by night.

So, you want third-party applications that can multi-task with the best of 'em? Well, what are you waiting for? Go jailbreak that iPhone 3G or updated iPhone now!

[Via: iPhone Atlas]

Can't bear the thought of letting your GPS-toting, 3G-capable iPhone 3G keep living the straight-and-narrow life of official iPhone applications? Worry not, dear iPhone 3G jailbreaker. Pwnage Tool 2.0.1 was released to make your iPhone 3G jailbreak aspirations a simple few-click process. What, you don't have a Mac, you say?  Good news!

The Windows-version of the Pwnage Tool 2.0 has been launched to bring all the hearty goodness of iPhone 3G jailbreaking to a Windows machine near you. The Winpwn 2.0 jailbreaking tool will have you activated and jailbroken in no time. Just hit up the Winpwn 2.0 download and jailbreak that iPhone 3G from your Windows-based computer. The process is similar to the Mac-based Pwnage Tool 2.0.1 jailbreak.

Winpwn 2.0 download [mirror]

[Via: Winpwn]