Apple’s Newest Snow Leopard (10A314) Shows Steady Improvements

Apple seeded developers with the latest build (10A314) of Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) today. The latest beta version of Snow Leopard is said to be more stable than previous builds. Specifically, QuickTime X is said to have made significant strides...

iPhone OS 3.0 beta 2 gets the jailbreak treatment

The jailbreakers have managed to keep their speed record intact. Just one day after Apple releases an update to the iPhone OS 3.0 beta, QuickPwn updates its wares to support the new firmware. According to the related writeup, it should work with all iPhone / iPod touch models. After going through the jailbreaking process, you'll need to open icy and follow a few more steps to finish the job. As usual, download at your own risk, and for now, crack is for Windows users only.

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

iPhone OS 3.0 beta 2 gets the jailbreak treatment originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone Skype confirmed: WiFi VoIP from Tuesday

After last week's rumors, Skype's iPhone client has been confirmed.  The VoIP software, which will be released on Tuesday March 31st, will be a free download and allow users to make free Skype-to-Skype calls over WiFi networks.  Alternatively, calls to landlines will cost 2.1 cents per minute. What won't be possible is ...

Tapinoma SAS EasyContact Review

Have you ever needed a quick and easy way to transfer your contact information from your iPhone to another iPhone user? Well, EasyContact might just be the app you're looking for.Not only does EasyContact send your contact information to iPhone and iTouch devices, it can send your information (business ...

TiPb Give Away: TNA Wrestling for iPhone

The fine folks over at Longtail Studios have been gracious enough to offer up a couple (2) promo codes for TiPb readers eager to get their submission holds on the hot new iPhone game, TNA Wrestling [iTunes Link]:

Get ready to experience Total Nonstop Action anytime, anywhere! Once players create their own custom wrestler, they can jump into the ring against 15 TNA greats, including AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe and Sting, and compete in eight different match types such as Tag Team, Iron Man, Gauntlet and Lumberjack. The goal is to make it from unsigned rookie to TNA World Champion, while unlocking new moves, forging ring alliances, creating rivalries and making decisions outside of the ring that will affect what goes on inside of it.

If you can’t wait, by all means go grab it now. If you’re happy to hold on and take your chances, well.. Cue the entrance music and run, don’t walk, down the aisle to the hexagonal ring that is the TiPb App Forum and try to pin it down for the 3 count!

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

TiPb Give Away: TNA Wrestling for iPhone

CTIAttack of the iClones: Palm Pre Apps Walkthrough Video

Dieter managed to score an awesome video walkthrough of the Palm Pre’s app launching functionality and a look at some of the apps themselves. We’ve joked about how the Palm Pre, supervised by the guy who helped build the iPhone, developed by engineers who helped program the iPhone, felt more like a branch of the iPhone sometimes than a linear descendant of PalmOS.

Turns out we were wrong. To be joking. You swipe horizontally to switch Home Screens, just like the iPhone (though you can scroll down vertically as well to jam more apps on each screen). You hold your finger down and then move to reposition apps, just like the iPhone (though they don’t do the jiggle dance). They even seem to be a little bit laggy and slow to launch at times, just like iPhone 2.0 was! (Though these are widgets, not native apps, so that’s really more of a concern at this point).

Also announced today was something that sounds an awful lot like Push Notification Services for the Pre.

Palm, I love ya. I had PDA’s going back to the Visor, smartphones going back to the 600. You left me, I didn’t leave you, remember? So now I found a new phone, and seriously, dressing up just like it isn’t the way to win me back. You gotta be yourself, the new you not a new version of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I really dig your Synergy, that touchstone charger, and that awesome alert system. Gold. But Apple didn’t make that first big iPhone splash by holding up something that worked like a BlackBerry or a Treo. They didn’t show off a Nokia-style experience. They made something new and instantly iconic. Copying the iPhone’s UI and interactions to this degree isn’t recognizing that Apple nailed the multi-touch paradigm for all time. It’s not surrendering the default behavior. It’s just copying Apple’s experience when you should be creating the next generation Palm experience.

Maybe you should have stuck with Palm leadership, engineers, and innovation?

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

CTIAttack of the iClones: Palm Pre Apps Walkthrough Video

If it is an App - it needs to be iPhone

On Thursday night a panel discussion about the business of mobile applications came to one conclusion. Those at Smule, Pandora, Nokia and BlueRun Ventures admitted - it is all about the iPhone. From the ease of use to the accessibility of the iPhone App Store, unified hardware and software package, the ...

iPhone Live! — No Fooling! Tonight 8pm EDT/5pm PDT

iPhone Live! hits the nets again tonight (Wednesday, April 1) at 8pm EDT/5pm PDT.

Pre-show will start about 10 min. before if you want to drop by early. With iPhone 3.0 Beta 2 being released yesterday, more next gen iPhone rumors coming every day, and WWDC now officially dated, we’ll definitely have lots to talk about (maybe over that new Skype app!).

Have any specific questions? Anything you really want us to talk about? As always, we’ll take your chat questions live on the show, or leave them for us any time in the comments below, or send them to @theiphoneblog on Twitter.

Join in via http://www.tipb.com/live

Chat with you soon!

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

iPhone Live! — No Fooling! Tonight 8pm EDT/5pm PDT

App Store Anarchy - Pirated iPhone Applications

First we had Crackulous, and now as is the case with any sort of media today, piracy is running rampant. It is something that is bound to happen no matter how many ways are created to prevent it. DVD’s, CD’s, Satellite TV, Video Games, and now iPhone applications. According to Wired.com nearly 20% of all the App Store apps have been pirated and are now available. One torrent file of 5.4 gigabytes worth of apps, 808 cracked apps to be exact, was recently floating around on the web. It’s all out there to grab… but it doesn’t make it right and no we won’t tell you where.

Wired.com interviewed a creator of one of these pirated app web sites:

“We want people to think of these as trial apps since Apple doesn’t allow trials of apps before purchase,” said “Omar,” one of the creators of the site, who refused to disclose his real name to Wired.com. “It’s Apple’s fault for not putting up a trials system.”

Has “Omar” ever really been on the App Store lately? There are lite versions all over the App Store and that rests in the developers hands whether or not they want to make that available, but certainly that is not Apple’s fault. Right? Either way, this is getting out of control just a bit, I mean you have pirates pirating other pirates now!

So who really is to blame for this piracy gone crazy in the App Store? Apple? Developers? Let us know where you stand on this one!

[Via Wired.com]

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

App Store Anarchy - Pirated iPhone Applications

Wired dives into App Store piracy

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone, App Store, Jailbreak/pwnage

App Store piracy is a growing concern for more and more developers, thanks to tools like Crackulous and various BitTorrent trackers. Although developers are fighting back, this is a problem that really isn't going away.

So how widespread is App Store piracy? Earlier this week, Wired's Brian X. Chen spoke with a number of developers and analysts about the issue, and right now, it looks like piracy is still relatively self-contained. According to Medialets, a mobile analytics and advertising company, approximately 5,000 of the 25,000 paid apps in the App Store have been cracked. The company also reports that some programs have as high as a 100-1 pirate-pay ratio -- dramatic, but not necessarily catastrophic.

It isn't all doom and gloom, however. As the Wired piece points out, some developers see the level of piracy as completely inconsequential. Others, like BeeJive have had to fight back against cracking, but have also used it as an indicator that the price of an app needs to decrease.

I take issue with Chen's citation of a 2008 Business Software Alliance study that claimed that the economic impact of software piracy is in the tens of billions of dollars each year. While software piracy undoubtedly has an economic impact, the figures that the BSA claims are just insane. Each pirated copy of a piece of software does not necessarily equal a lost sale and while software piracy, in any form, is certainly bad for the overall software ecosystem, distorting the truth doesn't help the situation.

Our own Michael Rose talked about App Store piracy with the CEO from Medialets on TechVi this morning and the conversation is pretty interesting.



Of course, the crackers may end up bringing themselves down, which is kind of cute.

[hat-tip Apple 2.0]

Wired dives into App Store piracy originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wired dives into App Store piracy originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HearPlanet for iPhone now lets you see

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

HearPlanet Premium [App Store link] is a new and enhanced version of the free iPhone app HearPlanet. The premium version is U.S. $5.99.

HearPlanet Premium gets your location from GPS, or you can enter any location manually. It then provides quite a bit of text information, generally sourced from Wikipedia. HearPlanet can tell you what is around you, like tourist locations, museums, geological features, and read the descriptions out loud, or you can read them yourself without the audio. The app has worldwide coverage.

We took a look at the original HearPlanet and found much to like. Apparently, we weren't alone, as 300,000 copies of the travel app have been downloaded. One of the most requested features from users was maps, and now HearPlanet contains detailed maps of many locations. The maps are sourced from the Open Streets Map project, and are quite attractive to look at. Other similar apps can link you to Google Maps, but they throw you out of the program. HearPlanet Premium has everything in one place.

When you find locations, there are often thumbnail images that go with an entry, but you can't enlarge them. One of my suggestions for the free app was the inclusion of phone numbers, pretty important in a travel guide, but since the source of much of the information is Wikipedia, there still aren't many phone numbers that I could locate. The developer says there are phone numbers, and as data sources are added the amount will increase.

The maps allow you to zoom and pan, giving you a good idea of what is around you. You can reference the maps while the program is speaking, and the ability to look around while learning about a location is very nice. HearPlanet premium is a nice upgrade from the free version, which is still available at the app store. If you want the addition of maps, HearPlanet Premium is the way to go.

HearPlanet and HearPlanet Premium both run on the iPhone or iPod touch. Of course the touch does not have GPS, but it can usually derive your location via Skyhook's WiFi capability.

Check out a few screen shots in the gallery below:

HearPlanet for iPhone now lets you see originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

HearPlanet for iPhone now lets you see originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire for iPhone

The iPhone version of this TV game show would be enjoyable, if not for a show-stopping bug.

Review: Tic-A-Tac Poker for iPhone

Tic-A-Tac Poker combines tic-tac-toe with poker hand combinations to create a unique casual gaming experience.

Snow Leopard in September, Xserve in June, Mac Pro Speed Boost, and More?

HardMac posted a collection of rumors they've received. They don't seem particularly confident about the information but do provides some believable tidbits:

- Snow Leopard will not be ready before September. Significant amounts of w...

iPhone SDK Agreement Prohibits Developers Jailbreaking, Assisting in Jailbreaking

Ars Technica is reporting, and posting the relevant legal language to back up, that the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement now contains language that says:

registered developers can no longer jailbreak their own phones or assist others in jailbreaking their phones, including (but not limited to) working on projects such as QuickPwn or PwnageTool. Developers are also forbidden from using the iPhone OS, SDK, or other developer tools to develop applications for distribution in any way other than the App Store or Ad Hoc distribution—which of course rules out distribution via Cydia, free or otherwise.

Of course, this won’t prevent iPhone Dev Team from working on future jailbreak-related projects, but Ars rightly points out it may make legit iPhone developers hesitate in helping them out. From Apple’s point of view, this is understandable (they want control of their platform and revenue stream), but from the point of view of certain types of developers and technology enthusiasts, it’s untenable.

However, it remains to be seen what, if anything, Apple can or — more importantly — would do when it comes to enforcing this agreement.

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

iPhone SDK Agreement Prohibits Developers Jailbreaking, Assisting in Jailbreaking

Opinion: Withdrawing from the addictive iPhone

IDG News Service's Stephen Lawson was using his iPhone constantly. So he decided to give it a rest.

CTIA: QuickOffice Brings Word + Excel Editing to iPhone

Dieter’s on the floor at CTIA, and we’re hoping he’ll bring back a closer look, but in the meantime the fine folks at QuickOffice have just let us know that their new iPhone app, QuickOffice for iPhone will be available in the next few weeks, and will cost $19.99.

Quickoffice for iPhone has an intuitive user interface and supports comprehensive functionality including cut, copy and paste, font formatting, content selection and bullets within Word documents. Users can also leverage a wider keyboard to edit and create documents in landscape mode. Excel functionality includes extensive mathematical and statistical formulas.

Other useful features include file sharing capabilities via Wi-Fi desktop connectivity and access to one’s MobileMe iDisk account. Editing is done with maintaining perfect data integrity, in addition to ‘auto-save’ to ensure none of your work is lost on-the-go.

We’re guessing “next few weeks” means they’ll be using a custom-made cut/copy paste implementation under iPhone 2.x, which means we’re also guess there’ll be a new version come iPhone 3.0 launch this “summer”.

There have been other apps offering Excel editing in the paste, but Word editing is new for the iPhone (unless DocsToGo gets there first). Is it enough to get you over your document hurdle, or are there any power users still hungering for more?

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

CTIA: QuickOffice Brings Word + Excel Editing to iPhone

Apple Seeds 2nd Beta of iPhone Firmware 3.0: Includes Push Notifications, Allows 11 Home Screens, Fixes Sluggishness

iPhone 3.0: Receive Video MMS

BGR, prompted by a forum post on MacRumors, has tested out some iPhone 3.0 functionality and…:

We’re happy to report that you can receive and play videos over MMS just fine

Sure to be a hit with the MMS lovers, though also likely to once again inflame the “no-video-recording-on-iPhone” frustraterati!

[Thanks to Gabriel for the tip!]

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

iPhone 3.0: Receive Video MMS

Good offers iPhone management for enterprise use

More enterprise management support for companywide usage of Apple Inc.'s iPhone was announced Wednesday by Good Technology.