WWDC 2009 Scheduled for May… or June?

In 2008, Apple’s WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) heralded our first look at the iPhone 3G, iPhone OS 2.0, Mobile Me, and the App Store. In 2007 it was… WebApps. Okay, scaling, we get it. But that means 2009 should be gangbusters, right? iPhone hardware rev 2,1? iPhone OS 3.0? And… only Jobs knows for sure, but we’re sure it will warrant at least a couple Booms! (Where by “sure” we mean “hope”).

First things last, however, we need a date, and so far we have two possible candidates according to Apple Insider: May 16-22 or June 6-12.

If it’s May, Steve Jobs will not have returned yet from his leave of absence and Macworld Final Keynoter Phil Schiller will likely take center stage. June… could be great timing for a triumphant return. Apple has historically held the event as late as August, but June seems the favorite. Of course, we’re also hoping for a pre-WWDC sneak beta peek this month (on the 24th?!) so developers have the time to adapt any changes Apple may be planning to hardware or OS.

Anyone placing any bets on when — and more importantly — what we’ll be seeing?

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

WWDC 2009 Scheduled for May… or June?

App Store Devs: Renew Your Contacts… When Apple’s Good and Ready to Let Ya!

Almost a year ago, Apple held their iPhone SDK Roadmap Event and unleashed the App Store concept on the world. Developers signed up for iTunes Connect contracts, and now their first year is almost up and they need to renew.

One problem: Apple doesn’t yet have a renewal process in place.

Wha-wha-wha-what? Erica Sadun over at Ars Technica (following an article in Apple Insider) looked into it and found the right side of the Apple didn’t seem to know from the left:

When we explained that we were looking both to renew ADC memberships and to update iTunes Connect contracts, the representative instructed us to send a query to devcontracts@apple.com. [...] We did in fact contact the iTunes Connect e-mail address, who wrote back to us saying, “Please refer to the Contact Us links at the bottom of iTunes Connect. devprograms should be able to assist you.” Apparently 1 Infinite Loop does not just refer to a corporate street address.

Yikes! Hopefully — for the sake of developers and those of us who want to continue seeing apps in the App Store — Apple will sort this right quick.

Any developers manage to get a better answer from Apple?

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

App Store Devs: Renew Your Contacts… When Apple’s Good and Ready to Let Ya!

App Store facing competition from jailbreak app sales?

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, Jailbreak/pwnage

While we're pondering the consequences of RIM announcing that programs in the Blackberry "App World" must be at least $2.99US, there are alternatives to the iTunes App Store emerging from the jailbreak side of the iPhone world. The Wall Street Journal reports that Cydia is making the transition from package repository to a full app store. There are also plans for an adult-only app store and a new jailbreak service.

The big question at the moment is how will Apple take this? Apple filed a complaint with the US Copyright Office last month claiming that jailbreaking is illegal. They're not going to take firing a direct salvo at the App Store itself lightly. There is competition for the iTunes Music Store, but Apple could argue that the homegrown app stores infringe on its copyright by using modified versions of its software.

It's not a huge shock that App Store competition is popping up; the only surprise is that it took this long to happen. After all, developers are frustrated that excellent programs such as Podcaster are passed up in favor of the latest, greatest novelty app -- then to make matters worse, those same features turned up in an official iPhone update.

While there are a lot of really terrible apps out there that have no place on the App Store -- I won't even begin to tell you about one adult app pitched to TUAW, we do want to remain a mostly family-friendly site -- there are a lot of good software that get turned down because of Apple's stringent developer's agreement. These developers want an avenue to distribute their programs, and homegrown app stores are one answer.

Cydia's Jay Freeman told the WSJ that he has lined up a lawyer in case Apple comes knocking at the door. He may also want to get in touch with the team that represents Psystar ... just in case.

[via Engadget]

App Store facing competition from jailbreak app sales? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

App Store facing competition from jailbreak app sales? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cydia opens unauthorized iPhone app store

Cydia, the maker of a popular software installer for jailbroken iPhones, has announced plans to open an iPhone application store. And they're not alone.

WWDC Scheduled for Second Week of June?

David Zeiler of The Baltimore Sun points out that the event schedule for the Moscone Center in San Francisco is listing a "Corporate Meeting" running from June 6th through June 12th in Moscone West and speculates that this event is Apple's Worldwide ...

Review: Kindle for iPhone

Ben Boychuk reviews Amazon’s Kindle application for the iPhone.

Have iPhone Safari Crashes Reduced Significantly After Upgrading to iPhone Firmware 2.2.1?

Review: TextTwist Turbo

You would think that fans of the online game TextTwist would enjoy a mobile version. But Lex Friedman discovers that TextTwist Turbo falls well short of the Web version because of too much superfluous eye candy and frustrating interface decisions.

iPhone beats Windows Mobile to 25,000 applications

With the App Store playing host to more than 25,000 third party applications, the iPhone has edged past Windows Mobile’s developer community.

Review: Public radio apps for iPhone

Public Radio Tuner and MPR Radio provide a similar experience, though each offer their own spin. Public Radio Tuner is a study in breadth, streaming hundreds of stations. MPR is focused on all the streams from one station.

Cydia Developer Starting App Store For Jailbroken iPhone Apps

The developer of Cydia, Jay Freeman, wants to take his creation to the next level. Freeman wants to turn the jailbroken app manager into a direct competitor of Apple’s official App Store. For anyone not familiar with Cydia, what it does is act as a jailbroken application gateway. Every single jailbroken application out there is found via Cydia.

Currently, there are paid apps within Cydia but they require the use of Paypal and unlocking keys. Those are all set up by the developers of the apps themselves. Having an organized jailbreak apps “app store” would be ideal but it could also give Apple the nudge to really start going after the jailbreaking community. It wasn’t long ago Apple claimed jailbreaking to be illegal.

According to Gizmodo, Freeman has already hired a lawyer. And TiPb thinks its for good reason… Now we all wait for a official response from Apple…

[Ed: We might have already seen the game plan in Apple vs. Psystar and the "John Doe" filings which may target the Hackintosh community -- Rene).

[Via Gizmodo]

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

Cydia Developer Starting App Store For Jailbroken iPhone Apps

Palm investor McNamee says early adopters will flock to Pre

In an interview, Elevation Partners' Roger McNamee says that early adopters will ditch their iPhones for the Palm Pre when the smartphone arrives later this year.

Ghost Buddy puts you in the graveyard

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Interested in a supernatural gaming experience? Ghost Buddy [App Store link] puts you in the middle of a graveyard at night to try and help some good ghosts and capture the baddies. The US$0.99 game has a unique form of game play. You use your iPhone/iPod touch like a virtual ghost viewer. As you move the phone up, down, left and right your view changes, so you get a 360 degree view of the foggy and spooky graveyard. You can move freely, even look straight down, or up above toward the sky. The good ghosts are white, and you have to return them to their graves. The bad ghosts are red, and you must defend against them.

The graphics are quite good, and if you wear headphones, the 3-D sound is compelling and atmospheric. You also hear a low bass beating heart (it may be your own) as you explore the graveyard. You can control the levels of the game (number of ghosts) and also increase or decrease the fog. If you have 'hints' turned on, red arrows point to the ghosts so you can turn in the correct direction.

The drawback to the game is the control scheme. You are supposed to tap near the bottom of the screen to capture, or defend yourself from a ghost. There are no icons, you just have to refer to the built in instructions to tell you where to tap. It isn't always clear when you have caught a ghost, although there appears to be a special sound that likely marks the event.

Ghost Buddy is an interesting concept, and I'd like to see the developer make the controls more obvious, as well as apply his unique method of viewing the playing field to some other games.

For $0.99, you have more than a ghost of a chance of enjoying the game.

Ghost Buddy puts you in the graveyard originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ghost Buddy puts you in the graveyard originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sponsored Post: SmoothTalker Charging Holder/Cradle with Antenna Connection for iPhone 3G

Sponsored Post: SmoothTalker Charging Holder/Cradle with Antenna Connection for iPhone 3G

Smoothtalker holders are iPhone 3G specific and keeps your battery charged. These are not universal holders that have spring loaded phone grippers or require fidgeting to fit the cellular phone in the holder.

Smoothtalker phone holders and cradles provide a secure and convenient place to place the phone while driving and allow use with any bluetooth or wired headset or bluetooth hands free kit. Smoothtalker car phone holders are compatible with Motorola hands free kits and headsets, Parrot hands free kits and headsets, and all other makes of bluetooth headset or car kit for use with any cell phone or smartphone.

This cradle is designed to conveniently plug directly into any cigarette lighter power source and allows the convenience of mounting in a convenient location away from the power source.This holder has an external antenna connector with an FME male end.

SmoothTalker Charging Holder/Cradle with Antenna Connection for iPhone 3G is available via TiPb’s iPhone Store.

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

Sponsored Post: SmoothTalker Charging Holder/Cradle with Antenna Connection for iPhone 3G

Cydia developer planning independent iPhone App Store, others planning jailbreak service, adult app store

Looks like the jailbroken iPhone app scene is about to get seriously interesting -- not only is Cydia is going from package repository to full-fledged app store, a new jailbreaking service called Rock Your Phone is set to launch, and there's a planned adults-only app store. Details are light on the others, but the Cydia Store will offer developers a distribution alternative to Apple's official App Store unencumbered by that pesky SDK agreement and approval process -- are you ready for commercial fart apps with direct hardware access? Of course, users will have to jailbreak their phones for the Cydia Store or any of its wares to run, and that's slightly controversial at the moment, given Apple's opposition to the EFF's proposal to exempt jailbreaking from the DMCA. It's up in the air how the legal situation will play out, but honestly, we can't say we're surprised that devs locked out of Apple's store are finding ways to compete -- the iPhone app market is entirely too lucrative to ignore. We'll see how Apple responds when the Cydia Store and these others go live; we can't help but feel the winning move would be to relax the SDK restrictions and get all these devs playing on the same team.

[Via iLounge]

Filed under: Cellphones

Cydia developer planning independent iPhone App Store, others planning jailbreak service, adult app store originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shortcovers a Kindle/E-Book Competitor for Canadians?

Our best frenemy forever, CrackBerry.com’s Kevin sent us word that Canadians currently excluded from all the Amazon Kindle E-Book app goodness may just have an alternative. Seems Chapters/Indigo (think Barnes and Nobles with maple syrup, eh?) is getting into the game, and onto the devices, with a new service called Shortcovers.

While Kevin was sickened by the prominence of the iPhone in the above video, we thought it was fantastic. (And if the fugly look of the BlackBerry app compared to the hot sexay of the iPhone version is any indication of how this whole BlackBerry App World vs. iPhone App Store sitch will work out for RIM…)

Any of our readers to the north going to check it out?

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

Shortcovers a Kindle/E-Book Competitor for Canadians?

CE-Oh no he didn’t! Part LIX: Elevation’s McNamee predicts death to iPhone on June 29

Roger McNamee, founding partner of the Palm-rescuing investment firm Elevation Partners, has had some interesting things to say about what to expect from the Pre. Now, though, he's really out done himself with what he has to say about the iPhone. In an interview with Bloomberg, McNamee (aka "Chubby Wombat Moonalice" when playing bass) predicted that the Pre will bring the downfall of Apple's wunder-handset, saying:

June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later. Think about it -- if you bought the first iPhone, you bought it because you wanted the coolest product on the market. Your two-year contract has just expired. Look around. Tell me what they're going to buy.

We don't know the future, but we can sure tell you what we're not buying right now. And besides, we don't know too many early adopter types that could resist the siren call of 3G halfway through their existing iPhone contract, thereby re-upping their contract for another few millenia. That should be plenty enough time for Apple to whip up something new... or at least for Roger to get a haircut.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Filed under: Cellphones

CE-Oh no he didn't! Part LIX: Elevation's McNamee predicts death to iPhone on June 29 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CEOh-Snap Daily Double! Palm’s McNamee Hurts iPhone but Hearts Mac

No sooner did we report the outlandish statement from Palm backer Elevation Partners head-geek Roger McNamee that come June, every iPhone 2G owner would ditch the platform and AT&T to become Pre-verts on Sprint, than our sibling site PreCentral.net went and updated.

Seems McNamee thinks iPhone Mobile Safari ain’t all that, compared to the Pre (even though the Pre uses Apple’s open-source WebKit foundation — which we know comes from KHTML/Konquerer…):

“Our product is just going to run rings around them on the web. If you want to go the web, it’s going to be a million time faster, well, not a million times, several times faster and that’s a huge deal for most people.”

Apparently, however, his hurt turns to heart for Apple’s Mac platform:

I’ve been an apple fan for years and I would never use any other kind of computer!

Bulletin: Some may just feel the same about the iPhone, b’okay Roger? See the whole crash-and-burn on video at Bloomberg…

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

CEOh-Snap Daily Double! Palm’s McNamee Hurts iPhone but Hearts Mac

Snow Leopard Build 10A286 Seeded to Developers

Apple has seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, termed Build 10A286, to developers. World of Apple republishes the seed notes, which highlight three significant changes in the new build: a new QuickTime user interface, Cocoa-based Finde...

New Tap Tap Revenge slammed with network issues

Filed under: Gaming, Software, iPhone, iPod touch

Tapulous unveiled the latest version of its megapopular iPhone music game franchise, Tap Tap Revenge 2 (link opens iTunes), a few days ago. While it has become the top free app in the App Store, the program is plagued with several issues due its massive popularity.

An update posted on the App Store yesterday lets users know that Tapulous is experiencing network problems that are leading to issues with music downloads and online play -- in addition to the app itself crashing. Tapulous has promised a resolution to the network issues as soon as possible, and there should be an update to Tap Tap Revenge 2 over the next few days.

Tap Tap Revenge 2 features more than 150 free tracks and three ways to play with friends -- Challenge mode, Two Player Split-Screen and Online Play. You can also progress through Career mode and share your results with that as well.

Tap Tap Revenge 2 improves on an already fantastic game, and retains the same free price as the original. However, you may want to wait a couple days for the network problems to be resolved in order to take full advantage of the update. You can check out Tapulous' blog to see the progress on these issues.

Thanks to all who submitted this!

New Tap Tap Revenge slammed with network issues originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

New Tap Tap Revenge slammed with network issues originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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