iPhone SDK Beta/iTunes Connect Contracts Extended to July 11

The Situation: Developers who signed up for Apple’s iPhone SDK Beta and iTunes Connect program last year are coming up on their 1 year renewal deadline.

The Problem: Apple has no mechanism in place to handle such renewals.

The solution: Er… there is none — yet. But in the meantime, Ars Technica’s Erica Sadun reports:

Apple has now e-mailed iPhone developers to extend their memberships until July 11, 2009. A short-term solution to the problem is good, but it shows that Apple is still working out the longer-term details.

Here’s hoping them details get worked out soon rather than later.

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

iPhone SDK Beta/iTunes Connect Contracts Extended to July 11

Review: Here I Am for iPhone

With just the touch of a single button, Here I Am can e-mail your location to an address of your choosing. It’s a sweet little tool that you’ll find increasingly handy the more you use it.

Opinion: What the iPhone OS 3.0 update might really mean

PC World’s Melissa J. Perenson looks for deeper meaning in the timing of next week’s iPhone 3.0 event being held by Apple.

Apple Rolled out Minor but Important Tweaks to the iPhone App Store This Week

Review: Watchmen: Justice is Coming for iPhone

This movie tie-in tries to bring a massively multiplayer online experience to the iPhone and iPod touch. It's a promising concept, but ultimately, Watchmen: Justice is Coming falls flat because the inability to stay connected to the game makes it unplayable.

Cramer on Stewart: Was Important to Say AT&T and Verizon Disliked iPhone, Wouldn’t be Ready for Macworld

In one of the most remarkable inside-media interviews in recent memory, CNBC’s Jim Cramer sat down with the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, and was made manifest for his network and industry’s failures (according to Stewart) to properly fulfill their mandate as the 5th estate and pillar of democratic systems, and expose for their audiences the lies and deceptions that those in positions of power would perpetrate on them (and us).

What does this have to do with Apple and the iPhone, however? In one of the clips shown from 2006, Cramer specifically mentions how it is “very important” to “spread the rumor” that both AT&T and Verizon don’t like the iPhone, and that it wouldn’t be ready by Macworld.

Why? We’re not financial wizards by any stretch of the imagination, but it sounds like it was to manipulate Apple’s stock down. Given the rumors that did, and still do surround Apple, Steve Jobs, the iPhone, and technology in general, this really just affirms what most of us have likely long suspected.

US readers can catch it via the Daily Show website. Canadians can watch it on thecomedynetwrok.ca. If you have a link to other regions/locations for the video, please do drop them in the comments. And maybe we can all keep in mind just how some rumors come to be, especially as we approach iPhone OS 3.0 and hardware 2,1.

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

Cramer on Stewart: Was Important to Say AT&T and Verizon Disliked iPhone, Wouldn’t be Ready for Macworld

Payback driving game for iPhone updated to version 1.1, lite version added

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Freeware, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

We've posted about Payback before -- it's a Grand Theft Auto clone that's playable (and pretty impressive) on the iPhone. Apex Designs, the company behind the app, sent us a note that they've updated to version 1.1, and with that update come a nice round of fixes and improvements. As you can see above, the camera angle has been tweaked to take a little more advantage of the 3D engine, the minimap has been beefed up, and the display now rotates as you tilt the iPhone. Looks very nice.

And there's even better news: even if you're not willing to shell out the $5 required for the full app, there's a lite version just released to the App Store -- it lets you explore one of the eleven cities available in the full version. Payback was impressive when released, and only suffered from a few gameplay glitches, but it looks like Apex is committed to ironing those out. It has developed into an even better game than before.

Payback driving game for iPhone updated to version 1.1, lite version added originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Payback driving game for iPhone updated to version 1.1, lite version added originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday Fun Video Revenge: Apple SMASH BlackBerry Bullet!

Remember that rejected — and highly physically impossible — video a few weeks back that CrackBerry.com was preening over? The one where a BlackBerry “bullet” tore through what was obviously a fake, tranquilized, like Waterloo fabricated Apple in a bizarre attempt to make the BlackBerry Storm less… Apple pwnd?

Well, now someone has found the real video, and likely the reason RIM never launched the fake one (Oliver Stone would have found it and humiliated them, ‘natch) and we bring it to you in full embedded glory above.

APPLE SMASH? Indeed.

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

Friday Fun Video Revenge: Apple SMASH BlackBerry Bullet!

Mippin Rejected by App Store for Objectionable Video… Also Found in YouTube App

While we don’t want to turn this into the rejected-app-of-the-day column, as an end-cap to the week, and perhaps a chance to test out the theory we proposed earlier in the BargainBin post, we thought we’d pass along one last example of Apple App Store weirdness, via Mippin:

Quite early on in the process they failed us because of rude words in some of the Internet articles we were publishing. Early this week Tweetie was rejected for the same reason- they kicked up such a stink on Twitter that Apple backed down within hours and accepted it. When this happened to us though, 3 weeks ago, we bowed to their greater wisdom and implemented 2 levels of checking for our iPhone application to prevent “objectionable” content getting through. We rate all our 50,000 feeds in Mippin and prevent most if it even getting to the user, then just to be sure we check every word in the article real-time for a list of rude words and if one appears we block the display of the content from the server. We thought this was enough, but this week we got rejected because of a YouTube video - we were amazed at this. In the very amusing video “sxephil” does use one rude word, but in our minds YouTube have allowed this through - its certainly acceptable to them. What’s even worse we found the same video through Apple’s own YouTube application on the iPhone

Friday the 13th? “Duplicates functionality” coverall? Vestiges of the same Tweetie “Church Lady” reviewer? And will it get to the point where developers can cry “pocket rejection” or “incompetence” when even valid issues are raised by Apple? What do you think?

Comparative screenshots after the break…

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

Mippin Rejected by App Store for Objectionable Video… Also Found in YouTube App

Malaysia’s Maxis to launch iPhone 3G on March 20

Following  its neighbor Indonesia, Maxis Communications Bhd will be launching the iPhone 3G in Malaysia this March 20, offering various postpaid plans. Customers, who have pre-registered for iPhone 3G, will be invited to the event to collect their phones. The company's website says: Book now until 17th March (11:59) to be exclusively ...

WiFiFoFum for iPhone

Aspecto Software releases its popular Wi-Fi scanning utility, WiFiFoFum, for the iPhone (compatible with any iPhone or iPod Touch). Running on the iPhone 2.2 software update, this app scans for wireless 802.11 networks and get detailed information on each one. Daniel P. Sama wrote: While the iPhone’s built-in ability to scan for ...

Confessions of an iPhone game maker

PC World talks to Joel Rosenberg, developer of the popular casual game Blocked, for the inside scoop on what it’s like to develop apps for the iPhone.

First Look: Transactions for iPhone

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

First they wowed us with Handshake for iPhone, now the same developers are back at it again with Transactions [iTunes link] for iPhone. Transactions gives you the ability to charge a credit card from anywhere! This application is excellent for small business owners who need to process credit cards away from an office.

Transactions interfaces with PayPal and Authorize.net and allows you to easily type in a credit card number, expiration date, CCV2 code, amount, and zip code. Once you have that information, you can select a contact to automatically auto-fill the purchaser's address and phone number. You can also enter in the name, email address, and additional notes about the transaction. When all of these fields are completed, return to the main screen and tap "charge" -- the information is whisked away using 128-bit SSL encryption to the appropriate service (either PayPal or Authorize.net). If the information was correctly entered you receive a message telling you the transaction went through.

Transactions gives you the ability to easily import your PayPal and Authorize.net account information using a useful tool on their site. They send an email to your device with a special URL that inputs your account information when opened. The application allows you to view all of the transactions completed, and allows you to export them as a a CSV file that opens in Excel, Numbers, and other applications that can read comma separated files. All of the information stored within Transactions is kept safe inside of Apple's Keychain, and you can password-protect the application to enable even more security.

Transactions is now available on the iTunes App Store, and comes in two flavors: paid and free. The free version is limited to 2 credit card transactions per 12-hours, while the paid version removes this limit. If you use the free version and plan to upgrade to the paid version, you have the ability to transfer all of your settings from the free version to the paid version -- a first on the iPhone. You can visit the Transactions website for more details about this iPhone application. You may also want to note that Authorize.net or PayPal Website Payments Pro account is required, and that some fees may apply.

First Look: Transactions for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

First Look: Transactions for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BargainBin Out of “Pocket Rejection” and into App Store

Brian Kim of Proximi wrote in to tell us that BargainBin, arguably the app that coined the term “pocket rejection”, caps off one of the stranger and most memorable weeks in App Store confusion by actually getting out of the pocket and onto iPhones everywhere.

Following up on AMBER Alert’s approval, and Tweetie 1.3’s rejection and almost immediate reversal/approval, we have to wonder if the internet outcry on Twitter and blogs actually made a difference, and something changed deep inside Apple — or if this is just a cosmically coincidental, Ozymandia-worthy joke.

Heh. Maybe Apple’s just trying to get some good faith back from developers before they preview iPhone OS 3.0 and the new SDK on Tuesday…

If you’re interested in keeping track of price-dropped apps, check out BargainBin [iTunes link] and let us know how it works for you.

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

BargainBin Out of “Pocket Rejection” and into App Store

Final Cut Studio Update Due in Late April?

AppleInsider reports that Apple is planning to release an update to their Final Cut Studio professional video editing package in late April, around the time of the annual National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas.<p class="qu...

Review: JetSet Expenses for iPhone

BriteMac’s app provides business travelers with a solid solution for tracking and reporting expenses.

MyCal: custom calendars for your iPhone

Filed under: Productivity, iPhone

Here's the question: what day of the month does next Friday land on? You pull out your iPhone, turn it on, unlock it, navigate to the Calendar and switch to Month view. Got it. March 20th. Of course, being the self-proclaimed efficiency expert that you are (isn't everybody?), you quickly decide that was way too many steps for such a simple task. If you regularly need this particular type of information, you're going to have to find an easier way. You could (A) carry around a printout of the calendar for the month, or (B) check out MyCal.

MyCal is a single-purpose app from Chillix, the same developers to whom our faithful readers offered their offbeat to-do lists a while back. It allows you to pick a background -- from a wide variety of built-in images or from your own collection -- select a calendar style and set transparency levels. When you're done, it outputs a wallpaper image you can use to get a quick view of the month without even unlocking your phone. To be clear, it won't show you any appointments or tasks, just a good-looking calendar that's readily accessible. A recent update to the application fixed some issues with blurriness, and I give it two thumbs up for simplicity and usefulness. If you fit into the description in the first paragraph, you might just want to check it out. The user's guide offers a comprehensive preview, and it's available in the App Store for 99 cents (US). Chillix has built up a fairly extensive collection of iPhone apps; check out their website for some other gems.

MyCal: custom calendars for your iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MyCal: custom calendars for your iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New SpringBoard! Cut and Paste! Push Notification! Compass! More iPhone 3.0 Rumors!

Prior to Macworld 2009, Daring Fireball mused openly about how neat it would be for the iPod Shuffle to get voice functionality, and on Wednesday last it did. Now Gruber is reminding us that his “wish-list” for iPhone OS 3.0 includes:

a new home screen app (a.k.a. SpringBoard), designed from the ground up for a system where users have a few dozen or more extra apps installed. Managing dozens of apps on the iPhone today is simply a pain in the ass. Second, maybe an answer to the question of where the background notification API is — you know, the one we were told at WWDC to expect a few months ago, but which we haven’t heard a word about since. And maybe — pretty please, Mr. Forstall, with sugar on top — copy and paste.

But is this really a wish-list, or a (somewhat disingenuous?) way of passing along actual, leaked information on the new OS? MacRumors seems to think the latter, saying they have reason to believe a new SpringBoard, Push Notification (or Background Tasks), and Cut/Copy and Paste will indeed be on the iPhone OS 3.0 feature list. For good measure, they’re also tossing in magnetometer support (i.e. compass functionality like the Android G1 enjoys).

Added to yesterday’s rumors from Boy Genius about MMS and Tethering, however, and we’re afraid things are lining up just a little too much like a 3.0 panacea for iPhone’s previous OS “greatest misses”. And if that’s the case, it might be expectations — rather than notifications — that get “pushed” for next Tuesday’s iPhone OS 3.0 Sneak Peak. (We’re nothing if not fickle audiences, after all).

So, are these really inside information on what we’ll be seeing come March 17? Or are these truly more wish-lists than feature-lists?

(And are we waiting on Kevin Rose to add Mobile iChat to the 3.0 mix?)

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

New SpringBoard! Cut and Paste! Push Notification! Compass! More iPhone 3.0 Rumors!

Friday Fun Video: iPhone vs. Storm. vs. G1

Zara from M0bileChic sent in this video, comparing the Apple iPhone against the BlackBerry Storm and Google Android G1. It’s fun, it’s fair, and we can’t let the CrackBerry.com commenters get the last word in so let her — and us — know what you think.

And if you’re hungry for more smartphone vs. smartphone action, check out our last Smartphone Experts Round Robin, where we looked not only at our own iPhone 3G and the Android G1, but the BlackBerry Bold, Palm Treo Pro, and HTC Fuze.

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

Friday Fun Video: iPhone vs. Storm. vs. G1

iPhone 3.0 to Get MMS, Tethering, and Finally… Copy and Paste?

News that Apple will be hosting a media even next week about iPhone 3.0 has generated a lot of speculation about what might be coming in the new release.

BoyGeniusReport claims to have heard two possible features that would certainly m...