No doubt a genius, but perhaps also Woz-centric (think eccentric but with technology founding stripes), cell phone inventor Martin Cooper always likes to have the latest and greatest mobile device on the planet. Ish, according C-SPAN:
> Right now I’m using the Droid, because I want to get some experience with the Android operating system, and I, so far have some favorable results.
He also likes to Tweet from it — he’s @MartyMobile if you want to follow along. In his defense, however, he did have an iPhone. He gave it to his grandson. Lucky kid!
While I’m busy editing all the GDC 2010 gaming video we just shot, we’re putting up our second to last look at Macworld 2010. Here Rene and Leanna talk with Alexander Ostroysky, Customer Care at Shape Services about Business Card Reader for iPhone, IM+, and their other apps.
Watch along after the break, and let us know what you think!
9to5Mac continues its tradition of tearing through new iPhone 3.2 SDK for iPad betas, this time digging into beta 4 and finding:
In the gestures folder, you’ll see two new types of commands (3Tap.plist and LongPress.plist) that are certainly not implemented in the current 3.1 iPhone SDK.
No idea what these mean yet, but if you were Apple, what would you use the triple tap and long press for? (Aside from morse code!)
The delightful Twitter client Birdfeed has been bought, updated, and rebranded by Brizzly and is now available as Brizzly for iPhone… for free! [iTunes link]
If you’re looking for a great Twitter client, give Brizzly a try. (Note: per comment below, you do need a brizzly.com account to use it which might not appeal to some.)
Apologies everyone but there won’t be a TiPb Live! tonight due to me being at GDC 2010, Chad being sick, and Mickey being horribly disappointed in the both of us.
We’ll try to make it up to you with some more great GDC coverage, however. I’ve shot tons of video for TiPb Apps and will be posting it up in the feed asap. If you’re hungry for instant content, I’m posting notes over on Twitter. Otherwise hang tight, we’ll have a round up later this week.
(Also did some moonlighting for PreCentral.net and WMExperts, so if you want to see what the competition is up to with webOS and Windows Phone 7 Series, check that out).
Riverturn has entered into the Google Voice for iPhone arena with it’s latest offering VoiceCentral Black Swan. Google Voice and iPhone have a long history together and it has not been pretty, until now that is.
Black Swan is an application you can get outside of the App Store and you do not need to have a jailbroken device. It is not a web app like the official Google solution but rather a feature rich “weblication” that enables you to view and manage your Google Voice data just like you would with a native iPhone application. As you can see by the following features, no stone as been left unturned with this app:
Native iPhone look and feel.
Sync your Google Voice data.
Automatic and immediate updates.
Offline access to Google Voice data.
Listen to Google Voice messages and read transcriptions.
Swipe to delete calls, voicemails, or SMS conversations.
Google Contacts import.
Call using Google Voice or iPhone.
Simply visit the Black Swan web site directly from your iPhone to download. You will have a choice to select between two versions – free (ad-supported) or premium. The premium version will run you $6.00 a year and for that you will also get zero ads, the ability to import contact photos, favorites, ability to search your inbox, and a do not disturb option.
This is hands down the best current solution for those of you who use Google Voice on your iPhones. Be sure to check out the demo of Black Swan in action and let us know how it works for you in the comments below!
The Aquapac case is a waterproof case for your iPhone and iPod [$24.95 Store Link] for anyone who wants to the beach, pool, fishing, or take their device anywhere near the dangers of water. What the Acquapac misses out in looks it makes up for in sheer usability. Watch us put it to the test, after the break!
Specifications
The Aquapac has some pretty big shoes to fill in comparison to my handy dandy ziplock! (Yes, I’ve been using a ziplock as my “case” of choice in the bathtub until now!). Here are some of the things the Aquapac is supposed to be able to do:
Guaranteed 100% waterproof to 15 feet.
Salt-water and UV resistant.
Protects iPhone from sand, dust and dirt.
Can make phone calls through Aquapac (sound quality is slightly reduced).
Aquapac will float with iPhone in it.
The sealing system on the Aquapac is a patented design that has been used since 1996, so it has been well tested. It also meets with the international waterproofing standards set by the British Standards Institution. Being around so long, I knew that this product had been well tested and probably gone through a few adaptations.
Also, the Aquapac is large enough to be used with other items besides your iPhone, such as; other phones, cameras, your wallet, even small video cameras.
Functionality
So we put the Aquapac to the test. We doused it, drowned it, took pictures underwater with it and tried to make a regular phone call, all to see if the Aquapac is able to really protect our precious iPhones.
I was worried that the iPhone would not be touch sensitive with the Aquapac on but I was able to turn the iPhone on and do all other regular functions. I even placed a call on the Aquapac to see if I would still be able to hear the person I was calling. I was happily surprised that not only could I hear the other person but that the person I was calling could not tell that there was a Aquapac over the iPhone.
For the water test, I was a bit tentative to try it out first on my precious iPhone, so I used my husband’s old Treo (Sorry TreoCentral!). It protected the Treo perfectly, so I took a deep breath and tried it out with my iPhone.
What is really important to remember is that the clamp itself usually retains some water around or near it. So when you open the case it is really important that you shake or wipe off any excess water and then open the case with the clamp facing down. When I open the case I first clean off the outside of the case and my hands, if wet. Then I clean the clamp facing down and then slide out the iPhone.
Conclusion
I feel that this is the perfect gift for anyone who loves their iPhone and iPod — and takes in anywhere near water. If you ever go to the pool, beach, hike, have children, go to water or amusement parks, then I would recommend the Aquapac. If you have children, then I would recommend the Aquapac. It lived up to all of its hype and more so. I just don’t know how I made do with ziplock bags before it (yes I know I am a bit dorky, watch the video for yet more proof!)
GigaOm is reporting that, contrary to speculation that Steve Jobs wanted to return us to a more analog time when we bought new albums and sank back for ours drinking in every liner note and detail, iTunes LP was actually the record labels’ idea:
I’m told by an industry source who preferred to remain anonymous that iTunes LP wasn’t Apple’s idea in the first place. Rather, it’s the result of the same renegotiations between Apple and the major record labels that yielded DRM-free songs and flexible pricing early last year, a concession by Cupertino to make a gesture in favor of album sales as consumers increasingly show a preference for digital singles.
It’s further said that Apple subsidized the first batch of iTunes LPs, whose production costs were an unbelievable $60,000. The more recent release of developer tools is seen as reducing that cost, and rumors persist of an iDVD-like replacement application from Apple that would work to make iTunes LP and iTunes Extra.
Either way, enthusiasm among artists and Apple itself seems to be low, though just over double the amount of iTunes LPs are available now than were at launch. GigaOm suggests artists are also interested in the App Store as a way to provide extra content to consumers, which might split focus for iTunes LP.
In terms of pushing the format forward, it’s now supported by Apple TV (stuttering though it may be), but there’s been no sign of support for the 75 million iPhone and iPod touch devices on the market. It will be supported by the iPad, however, though Apple hasn’t been pushing iTunes LP as a selling point so far.
Have you bought an iTunes LP? Are you interested in the format going forward?
Live from GDC 2010 Rene talks to Tezuka-san, Street Fighter IV [$9.99 - iTunes link] iPhone producer for Capcom (via translator) about making Street Fighter for the iPhone and iPod touch, getting the controls right, and whether or not we might see Street Fighter for the iPad.
Tezuka-san points out how Capcom decided to make the controls very customizable, allowing users to choose whether they want the button low down, in the middle, or high up, and set the level of transparency. This means you can hold the iPhone or iPod touch anyway you like and set up the controls just the way you like.
I had a chance to play it just before release and while I got my butt kicked in multiplayer, the game looked gorgeous and handled very well. I could pull off what few moves I remembered from my childhood in the arcade, and I could resort to button (er… screen) mashing when all else failed. (Yes, just like my childhood in the arcade.)
For the iPad, they’re going to sit down and figure out how the controls work and what the experience is like on that screen with that form factor. If it makes sense, they’ll do it. If not, there are other Capcom games that certainly might. It’s all about the quality of the end product for them.
Verizon is looking to turn no-iPad 3G lemons in iPad Wi-Fi + MiFi lemonade by craftily counter-programming the official AT&T data plans with their own potent portable internet and router combo, says Engadget.
You’ll save $130 off the price of the iPad 3G, but a 5GB Verizon MiFi plan will run you $60 vs. “unlimited” AT&T data for $30. Then again, you can use the MiFi for more than one device (and more than one at a time).
So, is Verizon’s plan a good one? Would you consider iPad Wi-Fi + Verizon MiFi on April 3rd rather than iPad 3G on AT&T in late April?
Another week, another chance to win a great accessory from the TiPb store, and at the same time enter to win our big iPad give-away!
This week it’s a Griffin PowerJolt Battery for iPhone [$34.95 - TiPb store link]. You plug it into your car, you charge your iPhone with it, and if you need to know more check out Jeremy’s excellent review.
Tweet this: Hey, @TiPb is giving away an iPad (and more!) http://bit.ly/9bygNY
There is no step 4!
You need a US shipping address to enter, and while you’re free to tweet (and re-tweet!) as often as you like, we’ll only count 1 tweet per day. We’ll choose one tweeter at random to get the PowerJolt.
The give-away starts now and ends Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 12pm PT.
iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch developers: get yourself over to Apple’s developer center, as iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 4 is ready for you to download, a mere two weeks after Beta three was unleashed for your coding pleasure. As MacRumors and Engadget note, it’s too early to say what magical new capabilities are to be found here – but don’t let that stop you.
“Starting in January, Apple launched a series of C-Level discussions with tier-1 handset makers to underscore its growing displeasure at seeing its iPhone-related IP [intellectual property] infringed. The lawsuit filed against HTC thus appears to be Apple’s way of putting a public, lawyered-up exclamation point on a series of blunt conversations that have been occurring behind closed doors.
“Our checks also suggest that these warning shots are meaningfully disrupting the development roadmaps for would-be iPhone killers. Rival software and hardware teams are going back to the drawing board to look for work-arounds. Lawyers are redoubling efforts to gauge potential defensive and offensive responses. And strategy teams are working to chart OS strategies that are better hedged.”
What changed?
“Top-tier handset makers continued to avoid implementing multi-touch, but Apple could safely assume that they were hanging back to gauge Apple’s response to Motorola and HTC. If there wasn’t one, the OEMs would likely read the silence as a green light, especially after Google also moved to enable multi-touch on its Nexus One phone.
It was likely in order to counter that perception that Apple began reaching out to handset OEMs in January and explaining in no uncertain terms that it was now ready to do battle–and not just on multi-touch. It was ready to press its case along a number of axes that had made the iPhone experience unique, from the interpretation of touch gestures, to object-oriented OS design, to the nuts and bolts of how hardware elements were built and configured.”
He believes it’s working, and might end up driving people away from Android and… towards Windows Phone.
Spring is in the air and March is a perfect time for all you sports fans out there to get your daily fix with the release of CBS Sports March Madness [iTunes Link - $9.99] and MLB.com At Bat 2010 [iTunes Link - $14.99].
For the full list of features to both of these great sport applications, follow us after the break!
CBS Sports NCAA March Madness is a great buy for anyone who can not get enough of their collage hoops. Not only does it provide you with live streaming video of 63 games over EDGE/3G and Wi-Fi but it also provides all of the following great features.
Video highlights on demand from every game
LIVE STREAMING OF THE SELECTION SUNDAY SHOW ON MARCH 14
Westwood One Radio coverage starting on March 16
Real time graphical bracket with updates on game match-ups, regions, and scores
Exclusive CBSSports.com Edge Matchup game previews, including team-by-team analysis and matchup comparisons
Alerts for favorite teams, as well as upsets, buzzer beaters, overtimes, and more
Breaking tournament news coverage
Box scores, recaps, and team stats
Access to CBSSports.com tournament brackets (requires sign-in with CBSSports.com ID/password)
Log into your Facebook and Twitter accounts to comment on games and talk trash to your friends
MLB.com At Bat 2010 is more of the same great baseball application from the 2009 season so you can still listen to the audio of every game in the regular season and postseason live, get scores and highlights, get push notifications, live streaming video (blackout restrictions apply), etc… They’ve even went ahead and added some brand new features for 2010.
Spring Training statistics and LIVE audio
LIVE video with MLB.TV beginning mid-March
Breaking news, schedules and interactive rosters and player stats for every team
Additional enhancements to come during 2010 season, including a suite of ‘At The Ballpark’ advantages in At Bat 2010, from customized, proprietary content to fan-experience tools and more
If you pick these up, let us know what missing features you’d like to see included (if any) in the comments below!
The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) petitioned NASA (an iPhone developer – iTunes link) under the Freedom of Information Act to provide them with a copy of Apple’s iPhone SDK License Agreement, and have gone through and provided both a link to the agreement (an older version, provided at the time of the request) and some analysis of what it contains.
For those not familiar with the document, it contains the legal terms a developer must agree to before they can develop for the iPhone platform. Since the EFF and Apple have been duking it out over Jailbreaking for a while now — the EFF wants Jailbreaking to be made an official exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and Apple has opposed that move — the EFF thinks the SDK agreement is particularly interesting at the moment.
The major points brought out and up by the EFF include:
One rule of the SDK license agreement is you can’t talk about the SDK license agreement. Despite it not being “Apple confidential information” developers are contractually prohibited from discussing it in public.
Apps developed using the SDK can only be released through the iTunes App Store. So if Apple rejects you for any reason, according to their own guidelines or just on whim, you can’t release via Jailbreak or on a competing platform (if any were compatible).
No reverse engineering or helping others reverse engineer, even where such actions have legal precedent as exceptions to copyright.
No hacking or helping hack any Apple products. That means no Jailbreaking the iPhone, no putting Boxee on your AppleTV, no loading Linux on your iPod Classic.
Kill switch is informed in the agreement. Apple can revoke your certificate at any time. (Though they’ve yet to ever do this).
If Apple messes up and owes a developer damages, those damages will never exceed $50, so good luck suing for millions over your rejected Sexy App or RSS Template.
The EFF is none to pleased at the one-sided, gate-kept, stifling terms of the SDK Licensing agreement and good for them. And good for us as well. The way we look at it we need the opposing forces of Apple Legal and the EFF always pushing for more on both sides. Apple’s going to want to protect themselves as much as possible and the EFF is going to want to show us every way they’re doing it so if we don’t like it, we can voice our concerns as well.
We’ve used the analogy of restaurants before. The iPhone is Apple’s boutique, haut-cuisine eatery. They set the menu. You can’t go there, demand a burger, and then throw a fit when they tell you they don’t serve it. (Well you can, but you’d be nuts — Apple’s not in the business of serving burgers). Instead of Gordon Ramsey you get Steve Jobs crafting your dining experience, and if you go there, that’s what you should expect — to trade control for ease of use (as opposed to Google where you trade privacy for free service). However, the EFF making sure the ingredients are what we’re told they are, and that the kitchen is kept clean and compliant with local ordinances — that’s good for us, and ultimate it’s good for Apple.
Check out the EFF article, take a look at the agreement, and let us know what you think.
Phone OS 4.0 will include lots of new features, just like you would expect to see from Apple. However, It doesn’t make sense for Apple to unify the two operating systems for 4.0 with the timeline they are working with.
Rather, I expect Apple to release OS 4.1 in September or October. It will not only address issues with the 4.0 release, but also unify the operating systems.
iPhone 4.0 would presumably hit with the 4th generation iPhone (not to be confused with an iPhone 4G for LTE which is likely 2012). For the last two years, new iPhone software has been released as beta at SDK preview events in March while new iPhone hardware has been debuted at WWDC in June. New iPod touch hardware has followed in September, typically with updated software.
If Apple sticks to this pattern, the above does indeed make sense as getting as many users — iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch alike — on the same version of the OS is better for Apple, better for developers, and better for users.
For us, we’ll take it one step at a time and wait for that iPhone 4.0 sneak preview…
Live from Macworld 2010, Rene and Leanna talk to Sean Lindo, Marketing Manager for Box.net about their iPhone app [Free - iTunes link], integration into QuickOffice, and the power of the cloud.
Watch along after the break and let us know your thoughts!
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber suggests that bigger, iPad versions of the built-in iPhone Stocks, Calculator, Weather, Clock and Voice Memo were scrapped by Steve Jobs:
It’s not that Apple couldn’t just create bigger versions of these apps and have them run on the iPad. It wasn’t a technical problem, it was a design problem. There were, internally to Apple (of course), versions of these apps (or at least some of them) with upscaled iPad-sized graphics, but otherwise the same UI and layout as the iPhone versions. Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who.
Gruber was responding to theories that these apps would instead be offered as App Store downloads, or could be part of some secret widget dashboard implementation. In other words, that it’s a design issue, not a technical issue.
However, new UI that would make the iPad an amazing bedside clock (how’s that for a Lock Screen), or show Stocks with a variety of graphs and related news and data, or weather for several days and cities at once, certainly seems possible for Apple’s UI wizards. Perhaps they simply lacked time to re-do the apps for the already extended April 3 release date?
Perhaps they’ll appear on the iPad in some re-imagined form this summer with OS 4.0, but when the iPad ships next month, there won’t be versions of these apps. At least that’s the story I’ve heard from a few well-informed little birdies.
Speaking of which, any little birdies hear anything about an iPhone 4.0 sneak preview event yet? Or is everyone just focused on getting the iPad out right now?
I already mentioned I’m on my way to GDC 2010 to cover the iPhone panel, and that iPhone gaming is getting big, so it’s interesting to see CNET reenforce just how big it’s getting:
strikingly absent among those 18 [Mobile Gaming] panels are any that deal with game development specifically for the iPhone. And why? Because for the first time, the GDC advisory board decided that Apple’s smartphone is an important enough platform to warrant its own summit. And it filled quickly.
Simon Jeffrey, vice president of social applications for leading iPhone game developer Ngmoco says:
“The iPhone is now recognized as a leading platform that’s independent from the mobile. People are specifically naming the iPhone as a threat to their businesses. Nintendo said the iPhone is taking customers away from [its popular] DS handhelds.”
The cost of entry is lower than Microsoft or Nintendo, and it’s getting more and more popular while still maintaining its cool factor.
While Android and Windows Phone 7 Series will bring the competition (and perhaps Palm as well), right now the iPhone is riding high on its head start.
The commercial showed Sen. Edward Kennedy’s “True Compass: A Memoir” for $14.99, the novel “I, Alex Cross” by James Patterson for $12.99, and “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Journey to Change the World… One Child at a Time” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin for $7.99.
For comparison, “True Compass” currently sells for $19.25 for the Amazon Kindle, “I, Alex Cross” costs $9.99, and “Three Cups of Tea” costs $7.19.
Whether or not that was final, or merely mocked up pricing for the commercial, remains to be seen.
TUAW also notes a New York Times button at the bottom, presumably to access a special New York Times Bestsellers section of the iBooks Store.
Lastly, 9to5Mac notes the My Documents button at the top left of of the Pages iWork touch app (good for PC users?). And — gasp! — another smudge that’s likely still not a camera.
So, did the iPad commercial do it’s job and make anyone more interested in picking up a magical, revolutionary new piece of gear on April 3?
Whether you are a fan of the Castle Defender genre or Zombies, you are sure to love the soon to be released ZombieSmash! for iPhone and iPod touch.
In similar fashion to the very popular Plants vs Zombies, ZombieSmash! adds a few new tricks to Castle Defender games with the addition of some fancy ragdoll physics and excessive amounts of cartoon gore. Look for ZombieSmash! to drop in the App Store sometime this month for $1.99.
It seems like Palm’s new webOS PDK (plug-in development kit) can be used to port over iPhone games in a matter of days — or even hours. Given how fast some iPhone games have turned up on the Palm Pre we’ve kind of suspect there was a little something something going on behind the screen, and our sibling site PreCentral.net confirmed it by way of Digital Daily’s pre-GDC coverage.
As just mentioned, I’ll be at GDC to have a look at what they’re doing. If it’s really just that easy to get your iPhone games onto webOS, then Palm has once again made their platform as frictionless as possible for developers (on top of the web technology SDK and Classic PalmOS emulation). Smart.
Windows Phone 7 Series looks to be packing Xbox Live gaming muscle, so they likely won’t go the same route as Palm… but could Android and BlackBerry? And if developers can keep making great iPhone games and get webOS (and maybe others) as a bonus, is that ultimately better for iPhone gamers, or does it weaken the uniqueness of the platform? If it does, will there eventually be “exclusives” like there are on Xbox and Playstation, or will Apple do more first-party games like the console makers — especially Nintendo — do?
Tuesday and Wednesday TiPb is going to be at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) San Francisco 2010 to find out what’s new and notable in the world of iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad gaming. Scuttlebutt is, if you think gaming is big on the iPhone OS now… get ready for it to explode in 2010.
We’ll do our best to meet with all your favorite game companies, from the huge houses to the best and brightest indies.
If you’re in the area, stop by and say hello. If you’re a developer with a great new iPhone OS game to show off, ping us [news at tipb dot com] so we can meet up. If you’re joining us from a far, keep your browsers locked right here on TiPb for all the video action, and follow along for live updates and behind the scenes banter with @reneritchie on the Twitter.
Rene talks to Marc Edwards of Bjango about Consume [$0.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone. Consume lets you track your cell phone and broadband usage, packages (like new Apple Store deliveries!), club cards, and more.
And Bjango’s giving away ten (10) promo codes to TiPb readers! Just drop a comment below and tell us what you’d like to see in an iPad version of Consume. We’ll pick 10 of you at random (so make sure you leave a valid email address so we can contact you).
Note: Promo Codes are only valid in the US App Store (Apple’s rule, not ours), and they expire, so if you get one, use it asap!
