iPhone boosts location-based services

A location-based service (LBS) is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices and can can be used in a variety of contexts, such as health, work, personal life, etc. Om Malik wrote an insightful article on how iPhone is boosting demand for LBS services and took Boston-based Skyhook Wireless ...

NIN Frontman Speaks Out: Apple, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, and Jailbreaking?

Well I’m sure you’ve heard about the ruckus Apple has created by rejecting the latest update to the official Nine Inch Nails application. As it turns out, there was no new content added in the update, all that was included were simple bug fixes yet Apple still rejected it. Well now some of Reznor’s fans have spoke out against Apple on his forums and he has replied with the following (emphasis ours):

Everyone - let me be clear. I love Apple products and as goofy and out-of-touch as their app approval process / policy is, I will still use them because they work 1000X better than the competition. This is not a debate, it’s a fact. The iPhone is THE most elegant, modern smartphone at this point in time and it’s perfect for what we want to do with the NIN app - except for the ludicrous approval process, and that’s what I want to draw attention to. Android is cool, but nobody has an Android phone. Blackberry is OK but the hardware is inconsistent and WinMo straight-up sucks balls. If Apple doesn’t get it together, we will most certainly make it available to the jailbreak community. I didn’t invest in this app to see it languish on the sidelines from an idiotic policy while this tour is in full swing.

Ouch, some pretty harsh words for Windows Mobile right there. Dieter is slowly deleting each and every NIN MP3 on his computer at the moment and it’s a safe bet you will not see the above quote on WMExperts anytime soon.

It will be interesting to see exactly how this unfolds the next week or so.

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

NIN Frontman Speaks Out: Apple, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, and Jailbreaking?

Flight Control 1.1: Addictive iPhone Game gets even Better

Rumor: Rogers Discounting iPhone 3G by $100?

iPhoneinCanada.ca has unconfirmed reports of Rogers discounting the iPhone 3G by $100 for qualified buyers (check the link for what qualifies as qualified).

If anyone can confirm this, let us know in the comments. Is Rogers trying to clear stock in advance of a next generation iPhone release this summer?

Ah, rumor season. Gotta love it!

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

Rumor: Rogers Discounting iPhone 3G by $100?

Nine Inch Nails App Update: REJECTED!

According to one of Trent Reznor’s latest tweets, an update to the very popular and crafty Nine Inch Nails application has been rejected by Apple.

Apple rejects the NIN iPhone update because it contains objectionable content. The objectionable content referenced is “The Downward Spiral”

For any of you not familar, The Downward Spiral was Reznor’s 1994 hit album that featured the popular song “Closer“. It’s a pretty good guess that is the song that put a halt to this update hitting the App Store. But wait one second… you can purchase this complete album including that particular song right one iTunes?!

Not much to say about this one but wow… just wow.

[Thanks to Juan for the tip!]

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

Nine Inch Nails App Update: REJECTED!

Best of SPE, 3 May 2009

Each week we break down the best of the Smartphone Experts Network for your reading pleasure. It’s possible you caught every single one of the 191 posts we published across our network this week, but we won’t hold everybody to that. Device leaks, device announcements, and site contests all await you here - so read on!

Android Central

While we’re pleased to see that the HTC Magic is becoming available in Europe, what really got us going is finally we know what’s coming from Samsung: the Android-powered Samsung I7500! Sincerely, this phone looks sweet. We’re also pretty excited to see that Motorola actually seems to be on the path to releasing Android handsets because of that Ironman device leak.

CrackBerry.com

CrackBerry.com broke out the internet’s first live photos of the BlackBerry Curve 8520, aka the Gemini! With any luck, we’ll hear much much more about the BlackBerry Curve 8520 soon. They’re also gearing up for special coverage all week long of the WES 2009 conference — the biggest BlackBerry show of the year. There were plenty of one-million member giveaways — but the main contest including two prize packs with a BlackBerry Bold included is still open, so go enter!

Nokia Experts

The big news on the Nokia front this week: the upcoming Ovi Store will not support carrier billing in the US. This may actually be a good thing — app store models tend to work better with direct credit card billing. Also, don’t miss out on Matt’s appearance on the MobileViews podcast!

PreCentral.net

Can you say Palm Eos? The leaked device is a teeny tiny webOS device rumored for both AT&T and perhaps even Sprint. Meanwhile, in all the Eos hoopla you may have missed this excellent interview with MotionApps about the Classic PalmOS Emulator. We’ve also selected the finalists for our “What Would You Do for a Palm Pre” contest, so stay tuned for some crazy videos as we get closer to the Pre Launch!

The iPhone Blog

Apple delivered iPhone 3.0 Beta 4, and the big news was on-device support for multiple iTunes App Store accounts. The bigger news was Apple hiring more and more graphics gurus, including from Microsoft’s Xbox team. Just what is Steve Jobs building in his basement?! An iPad media tablet and iPhone Lite for Verizon? Who really benefits from these rumors anyway?

Meanwhile iPhone Live! teased this weeks big announcement: TiPb’s Birthday Bash starts Thursday, and we’ll be giving away tons of accessories, app promo codes, gift certificates, and… unlocking the treasure chest for a very special grand prize! The action takes place in the TiPb Forums, so get on over there, register, and start posting NOW!

TreoCentral

Checking in over at TreoCentral, Dieter spots a mystery device in the hands of CEO Ed Colligan on Palm’s bio page for Colligan. The device looks almost but not quite like a Treo Pro, and we get the feeling that it’s maybe a prototype of the Treo Pro.  In other news, version 3.0 (a major version upgrade) of the very popular SnapperMail is now available.  Plus, Dieter and Mike deliver another great PalmCast for us to listen in on, so be sure to tune in to Episode 64 if you haven’t yet. Mike and Dieter discuss the latest Palm Pre rumors, the new Palm Pre features we’re discovered, and the Sprint Treo Pro ROM issues floating around the TreoCentral Forums. Also, we learned about the Palm Eos, possibly headed to AT&T.

WMExperts

Last week was rumor week, with an Xperia X2 mention, Verizon getting some HTC love, Microsoft Pink persisting, the Touch Pro 2 and Snap going to Telus and the TP2 showing up at the FCC with T-Mobile’s 3G band.

And if you haven’t already, be sure to enter our contest to win either an AT&T Fuze or HTC Touch Dual.

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

Best of SPE, 3 May 2009

Found Footage: iPhone file transfer with style

Filed under: Video, Open Source, Found Footage, iPhone, App Store, SDK, iPod touch

iPhone developer Emanuele Vulcano pinged us with a note today telling us about a free file transfer app for the iPhone. Since most file transfer apps are a real yawner, I was dubious...until I watched the video.

What makes Mover (click opens iTunes) so cool is the way that it does the transfer. When you want to transfer an image or a contact card to another iPhone, you just launch the app on both devices, grab the image or card, point an arrow on one screen to match up with an arrow on another iPhone screen, then flick an icon representing the data you're sending. It moves off of your screen, and onto the other iPhone's screen, and the data is saved automatically. Very cool, and very iPhone-like!

Both iPhones need to be on the same WiFi network; there's no current way to do this over Bluetooth or a cellular network connection. Emanuele has made his code open source under the BSD license, so other developers are welcome to take a look at how he did this.

Check out Mover here:

Found Footage: iPhone file transfer with style originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 03 May 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Found Footage: iPhone file transfer with style originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 03 May 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cyan’s Classic ‘Myst’ Arrives in App Store

The classic game of Myst has arrived in the App Store. Myst is a 1993 game that was originally developed for the Mac under Apple's Hypercard tool. While rather simplistic by today's standards, the game was both a critical and commercial success bec...

No Shock: iPhone leads the way in JD Power satisfaction survey

As if there would every be any question about it, the Apple iPhone and iPhone 3G have topped the latest survey conducted by JD Power & Associates. The 2009 Wireless Consumer Smartphone Satisfaction Survey shows the phone taking the lead in most areas. With a score of 791 out of 1,000, Apple excelled in all areas [...]

App Store developers threatening to sue Apple over late/non payments

While Apple keeps bragging about one billion iPhone apps sold, some developers are fed up with their outrageous payment delays. Some cases are dramatic, deeply affecting indie developer’s families in the middle of the crisis. Here are some selected quotes posted around the web on various forums and the like: “30 something year old family man [...]

App Review: Math Ref for iPhone

Math Ref Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Math Ref is what its name implies - a math reference app. It includes formulas, tips, and examples from many areas of mathematics. Math Ref has the potential to be a very helpful tool once some errors are fixed and the organization becomes more intuitive.

General

Upon launching Math Ref, you are given a list of topics (described in more detail later). Tapping on a topic will give a list of sub-topics. Choosing one of these sub-topics will provide a page of definitions, formulas, figures, and equations relevant to the chosen topic. Tapping a definition, formula, figure, or equation will usually give more information about it. Many times this information is some historical background about the topic, which I think is great. The following screenshots show the sequence of Topics > Algebra > Exponential & Logs > Special Element 1.

This brings me to my first “complaint”. The description should technically say: “It is also important to note that any nonzero number raised to the power 0 is equal to 1.” However, I’m willing to agree that I’m just being picky.

Under each topic, there is also an option to view examples. These examples are generally written very well and do a good job of describing the steps that are taken. Just as with formulas, you can tap an example to find out more about it. Here’s the screenshots of a derivative example and it’s description.

Topics and Organization

Math Ref covers the following areas of mathematics:

• Algebra - addition & multiplication, exponential & logs, formulas, quadratic equation
• Geometry - lines, shapes (2D/3D), surfaces
• Trigonometry - functions, Pythagorean & ratio identity, laws of sines & cosines, double angle identities, half angle identities, sum & difference identities, composite identities, unit circle
• Linear Algebra - definition, addition & multiplication, properties, determinant, 2D transforms, eigenvectors
• Series & Sequences - definitions, properties, sums of powers, geometric, harmonic, alternating, telescoping, power, binomial, binomial coefficients, functions, taylor, Laurent
• Differentiation - definitions, methods, table of derivatives
• Integration - definition, properties, methods, numerical
• Table of Integrals - polynomial, trigonometric, inverse trigonometric, hyperbolic trigonometric, exponential & logarithmic
• Vector Calculus - definitions, dot product, cross product, coordinate conversions, differentials, gradient, divergence, curl
• Differential Equations - linear, separable, homogeneous, inhomogeneous, exact, Bernoulli, real repeated & complex, undermined coefficients, reduction of order
• Discrete - propositions, quantifiers, gates, sets, relations, permutations & combinations, induction

The first thing I noticed when starting to use the app is that there are way too many sub-topics within each topic. For example, the various types of trigonometric identities should be grouped into a single sub-topic. Many times, a student will be using most of the identities during a single homework assignment and going back and forth between sub-topics would get annoying.

The next organization style that I don’t like is that lines are grouped under Geometry. I have not heard of a single geometry course that teaches how to find equations of lines. This is taught in algebra classes, and so lines should be in the Algebra topic.

The last thing about the layout I find disappointing is the fact that landscape mode generally doesn’t make a difference. It would be nice if landscape mode took advantage of the wider screen and increased the text size. Here’s a screenshot to show what I mean.

Errors/Confusion

I found a couple errors in MathRef and consider this terribly inexcusable. Users need to be able to trust that apps like this are actually providing them with accurate information. I’m concerned that there may be other errors that I did not notice.

• Under Discrete > Relations, you can find the definitions to surjective and injective. They are reversed! The definition they provide for surjective is actually the definition for injective. However, when you tap on surjective for more information, you are given the correct definition. The situation is similar for injective. Very confusing!
• Under Linear Algebra > Addition & Multiplication, the definition of matrix multiplication is technically correct, but incredibly vague and incomplete. When tapping for more information, it tells you that the size of the matrices are crucial, but never teaches what size matrices need to be when multiplying them. Matrix multiplication is defined by Math Ref as multiplying the columns of the first matrix with the rows of the second - but how does one multiply rows and columns and where does the answer go in the resulting matrix? All of this needs to be explained.
• Under Differentiation > Table of Derivates, the notation is confusing and simply incorrect. (d/dx) should be used instead of (dy/dx).
• Under Geometry > Shapes (2D/3D) the definitions and figures for the areas of regular polygons do not label what a is. Likely a student will remember that a represents the distance to the center, but there are two different distances with regular polygons - which one do we use?

Under Geometry > Shapes (2D/3D) the definitions and figures for the areas of regular polygons do not label what a is. Likely a student will remember that a represents the distance to the center, but there are two different distances with regular polygons - which one do we use? I have attached screenshots of the errors at the end.

Conclusion

Although my review has been primarily negative, I DO think this is a wonderful app. The things that are correct are done very well and the examples are helpful. I think after a few updates, Math Ref will be awesome. However, because of the errors and unintuitive & inefficient organization, I give Math Ref 3 out of 5 stars. (Fixing the errors alone will bring the score up to 4).

Pros

• Many examples with well written explanations
• Covers many areas of mathematics
• Lots of information

Cons

• Several errors or confusing definitions
• Landscape is generally the same format as portrait
• Some unintuitive and inefficient organization

TiPb Review Rating

Math Ref is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.

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

App Review: Math Ref for iPhone

App Review: Photogene Photo Enhancer for iPhone

(Photogene Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

Photogene is an iPhone “touch up” utlity that can be used to touch up or enhance photos you take with your iPhone.

First, what Photogene isn’t. It isn’t simply a series of filters that you can apply to photos. There are lots of apps out there that can apply a huge range of filters (oil painting, cartoon, black and white, sepia, posterize, etc). I have reviewed a couple of them. This app does have a few filters, but it is more about touching up photos (fine-tuning them, if you will) rather than simply applying a filter to make it “art”.

When you start the app, you can choose to take a new photo, edit an existing phot, or continue a previous session. This last option is particularly nice, it means the app “remembers” where you were and what you were doing. If you get interrupted, you don’t need to start over. One cool little thing is when you start the app, a “tip of the week” appears about taking photos with the iPhone. Normally I don’t like tips that appear like this, but I like it here because the tip is specific to using the iPhone camera (not just a general photography tip).

I was using a general photo of some mosquito cages when testing this app. The touch up features include a crop option, rotate option, three filters, color adjust, symbols, and frames. When you finish with your editing, you can save the photo or start over (take a new photo or edit a new photo). There is an undo button to undo the last edit, but there isn’t a complete “reset” button to undo all adjustments. I would like to see that in a future release. So let’s talk about the touch up features.

With the crop feature, you can choose to crop it with a specific ratio (3:4, 9:16, etc). The area that will be cropped appears highlighted on the picture, and you can resize it or move it around. One nice thing is that as your resizing the crop, you can see the pixel size that the new image will be - very useful. You can’t do a free-form crop however.

The rotate allows you to rotate the picture by 90% or flip the picture on an axis. If your image is at an angle, you can also do some slight angle adjustments to make it level.

The app comes with three filters - sharpen, pencil, and effect (which includes sepia, night vision, or infrared (heat vision). With sharpen and pencil, you can adjust the level of effect as well. Pencil is sort of cool, making your picture look like a pencil drawing. But as I said, this app isn’t about having 30 filters - it is mostly about touching up photos to make them as nice as possible.

Next we move onto color adjustment. Here, you can see the color histogram and either adjust it manually or automatically for the best color image. You can also adjust the exposure, contrast, saturation, color temperature, as the actual RGB levels. These are, in my opinion, the best features of this app because this is the area that really helps you touch up a picture to optimal quality.

You can add symbols like stars, word ballons (with text), arrows - about 13 symbols in all. These aren’t anything really that help the picture, but they can make a picture a little more entertaining.

Lastly, you can add a frame - ranging from a “blurred” frame that doesn’t have a distinct edge to more tradition picture frames to a stamp border or photo album “taped on the corners” frame. There are about 15 frames in all to choose from.

Working on a couple sample pictures, I was able to make some nice adjustments and really make some of the pictures shine. You are still working within the limitation of the iPhone camera, so pictures that are outdoors or in bright light are going to be the best, but you can really enhance some pictures that you might have throught were lost. The features like frames and symbols aren’t really that necessary, and I would have preferred more filters instead of having those, but they can be fun to add to some pictures.

Pros:

• Touch up iPhone pictures to make them shine

Cons:

• Some features don’t really add anything,
• no ability to completely reset a picture

All in all, this is a good, all around photo touch up tool for the iPhone. Rather than just rely on applying filters, you can make some manual adjustments to thingsl ike saturation and exposure to try to bring out the best in your pictures. Some of the effects don’t really add anything to the picture quality, but they might be fun to include in some pictures. There is no way to remove all the touchups at one, however - you have to reset each feature individually. But the color adjust can really make a picture shine. The app is $2.99, so the price is great if you use the iPhone camera a lot. Four and a half out of five stars.

TiPb Forum Review Rating

[<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=309327900&mt=8">Photogene is available for $2.99 via the iTunes App Store]

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

App Review: Photogene Photo Enhancer for iPhone