Shortcovers brings E-Books to iPhones

Shortcovers plans to launch an e-books app for iPhone in the coming days. Owned by Indigo Books & Music, the largest book retailer in Canada, Shortcovers will offer 50,000 full books as well as news, magazine articles, short stories, and blog posts. Like Kindle, Shortcovers will let you read the first ...

xGPS: Turn by turn voice navigation on jailbroken iPhone

xGPS rocks! The newest beta 1.2 of xGPS uses Google's map data and adds it's own navigation readout and a voice engine. This app has the ability to download map ahead of time and also supporting several external GPS modules so that the original iPhone and iPod Touch users ...

Is it Time for Apple to Switch From Dock Connector to USB?

The iPhone, like the iPod before it (well, at least since the 3rd-gen iPod, when Apple switched from FireWire), uses a proprietary connector called the dock for charging, syncing, video and audio-out, and multiple other functions. A broad port with 30 pins for many purposes, having a proprietary connector gives Apple a lot of flexibility, but also — through their licensing program — a lot of control over who can make peripherals and what can be done with them.

During our last edition of the iPhone Live! podcast, Dieter flat-out stated that Apple needed to dump the dock. He pointed out that countries like China and regions like the EU are, or may be, making universal connectors like USB a legal requirement. One charger, one port, to rule them all. (HTC is already replacing the 3.5mm headphone jack, folding it into mini-USB on devices like the Android G1).

The dock connector originally allowed Apple to keep FireWire compatibility and add USB when it entered the PC market. Over time, Apple has moved over to USB, and now with the iPhone 3G and later iPod’s, FireWire is gone completely and charging can only occur via USB. Since USB already provides power, provides data exchange, and technology like DisplayLink (which connects external displays via USB) show that an increasingly large range of connection types are becoming possible.

So, as technology marches on, as backwards compatibility is shed, and as standards like USB 2.0 (and in the future, USB 3.0) grow faster and more capable, is it time for Apple to dump the dock and go with the same port most everyone else is using (including Apple with the Mac)?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Is it Time for Apple to Switch From Dock Connector to USB?

Is AT&T Causing You to Consider Dumping the iPhone 3G?

There are more lawsuits about substandard iPhone 3G reception on AT&T than you can shake an accelerometer at, and as we mentioned the other day, blog-star Om Malik has just publicly broken up with his iPhone 3G due to what he considers to be lousy reception on AT&T. (He tried a BlackBerry on AT&T as well and had the same problems, so he clearly blames the network).

Are these just nuisance suits and link-bait? Does San Francisco suffer more than anywhere else? Do all networks have lousy reception for someone somewhere? Or is AT&T really the weakest link in the iPhone 3G value prop?

How’s your reception on AT&T? Is it making you re-consider being an iPhone 3G owner? And if you’re on another network, Rogers, O2, Orange, etc., do you have problems, or is it just the US?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Is AT&T Causing You to Consider Dumping the iPhone 3G?

Google Docs adds spreadsheet editing on the iPhone

Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone, iPod touch

A while back we noted that Google had optimized the Google Docs services for viewing on the iPhone (and other mobile devices). It's taken a while, but now it's been announced that some basic editing is possible from the iPhone as well.

The interface is a little clunky: you basically have to hit an edit link to adjust any given row of a spreadsheet and scroll to the right to change values for the columns, each within a separate form field. There's no easy way, for instance, to scroll down a column changing the values for each row. Nonetheless, it is now possible to make changes to a spreadsheet, as well as alter the sorting and filtering options.

Even though the implementation is imperfect, I'm happy to see mobile editing in Google Docs spreadsheets and I've already begun to make use of it. We can only hope they'll figure out how to make it a bit more streamlined in the future.

[Via jkOnTheRun & Download Squad]

Continue reading Google Docs adds spreadsheet editing on the iPhone

Google Docs adds spreadsheet editing on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 15 Feb 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Docs adds spreadsheet editing on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 15 Feb 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Around SPE for February 15, 2009

With our editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn off in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, the inmates site editors are left running Around SPE this week. So, while he’ll be breaking news and giving us some hands-on observations on all the new software and hardware on display, we’ll be keeping you covered here at home, starting with a quick recap of where we are right now:

CrackBerry.com

In the world of BlackBerry, T-Mobile customers were happy to see the official roll out of the next-generation BlackBerry Curve 8900 this week. With AT&T said to be dropping support for 2G phones, there has been some worry that this new Curve wouldn’t come to AT&T, but with the 8900 SKU now showing up on AT&T systems, it’s likely the device will launch there in the next month.

The BIG new this week comes from the CrackBerry Podcast. Kevin was in NYC on for a RIM Business Solutions Press Preview. While there, him and Craig recorded a podcast and for the first time had an employee from Research in Motion on the show. Joined by Mike Kirkup, Manager of Developer Relations, they tackle a bunch of topics from the upcoming App Store to OS 5.0 and whether or not Flash support will appear in a BlackBerry browser and more! Listen Here.

More after the break!

Android Central

This week Android Central reported that Android Market was leaving beta and finally receiving paid applications. Hopefully we’ll see even more amazing applications such as this recently announced TeleNav turn-by-turn GPS application.

We also wondered why Google would comply with Apple’s request to leave multi-touch out of the G1. Hint: It has something to do with maintaining a great relationship with Apple. Read: Google still wants to play nice with Apple to get iPhone eyes on Google AdSense.

Nokia Experts

News was a bit slow this week as everyone in the mobile space waits for big announcements from Mobile World Congress next week, including some announcements about devices and services from Nokia. We are in our third week of the the launch contest so make sure to get your entry in and look for week four’s entry task. Great input and information is coming in from the contest entries. Also, check out our SBSH Reminders giveaway for a chance to win a free registration code.

Some topics of interest this week on Nokia Experts includes the amazing Nokia Maps 3.0 beta update, Nokia 5800 firmware update, Nokia E63 availability in the US for just $279, and the announcement of the Nokia 5630 with 600 MHz processor.

PreCentral

Over at PreCentral this week, we learned that Bell Canada will be launching the Palm Pre. We heard conflicting launch dates of late Q2 or early Q3 and also the end of Q3-Q4. 

We also had more Touchstone details to emerge when Adam Kaufman, a Product Manager at Palm started answering questions on Facebook.  Plus, many people are wondering if the Palm Pre made an appearance on the TV show “Knight Rider”.  

The iPhone Blog

Is this the first glimpse of the 3rd Gen iPhone? Looks pretty much the same as the iPhone 3G, but then Apple brass re-affirmed that the iPhone market is strong, and they won’t be diluting it with an iPhone nano or keyboard slider any time soon. What with 20,000 Apps in the store, and the iPhone and the iPod touch now owning 51% of the mobile browser space… and growing, who can blame them?

Maybe jailbreakers, as the EFF asking the US government to grant it an exemption from the DMCA has Apple declaring jailbreaking illegal. (Oops, we just jailbroke live for xGPS on the last podcast!). Lastly, Google gave us Spreadsheet editing, but did Apple deny the Android multi-touch and… a 3.5mm headphone jack?!

TreoCentral

This week when Ed Colligan spoke to investors at the Thomas Weisel Partners Technology, Telecom & Internet Conference, he announced that there will be no more PalmOS devices released by Palm (excepting the Centro getting released on other carriers) as they’re focused on WebOS and Windows Mobile. He also said that not only will Palm have an app store when the Pre launches, but Palm isn’t locking down the device so you can only install apps from their app store.

We also learned this week that the Sprint Treo Pro is now targeted for a March 15th launch, and that some Sprint stores are now getting re-stocked with new Treo Pro’s with the new ROM on board. And even though the Sprint Treo Pro is delayed, it was great to hear that Palm’s stock has neared double-digits.

WMExperts

It’s been the calm before the storm over at WMExperts while we wait for Mobile World Congress to get under way, but that doesn’t mean it was a quiet week. We saw more information surface on Windows Mobile 6.5 including a new video, an updated version of Skyfire Beta released while Opera Mobile plans to go turbo. Google offered up contact and calendar sync and brought public-domain books to mobile devices. Mozilla’s Fennec mobile browser hit pre-alpha, and we got a sit-down with developer Brad Lassey. On the hardware side, new Windows Mobile devices were spotted from Garmin-Asus, Gigabyte, as well as the “Hummer” of Windows Mobile Devices from I-Mate.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Around SPE for February 15, 2009

My first iPhone application

Filed under: Developer, iPhone, App Store, SDK, iPod touch

Last month I wrote about some resources for learning Objective-C that I was using to learn how to write iPhone applications. Judging by the number of comments on that article, I thought that I should write a follow-up post about my progress and the status of my first iPhone application.

Since I had a few programming classes in college (VB, C++), the logic of loops and decision statements was not a big hurdle. By using the learning resources like screencasts and books, I was able to get a better grasp of object-oriented programming (OOP) in general, and of course the syntax specific to Obj-C. I became familiar enough with Xcode just by using it for demo programs, and I used the wealth of iPhone developer resources from Apple to use the iPhone SDK. After paying $99 to Apple to enter into the iPhone Developer program, I was then able to access the forums; they were helpful in figuring out specific things (like how to preset a UIPickerView object).

Continue reading My first iPhone application

My first iPhone application originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 15 Feb 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

My first iPhone application originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 15 Feb 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RipDev Releases Kali Anti-Piracy Service to Protect iPhone Apps from being Pirated