TiPb Birthday Bash: BeeJiveIM Green Screen Challenge!

Entering this contest counts as an entry in TiPb’s Birthday Bash grand-prize draw for an Unlocked ColorWare iPhone 3G!

Help! Rene was typing out an URGENT instant message using iPhone uber-IM client, BeeJiveIM ($15.99 - iTunes link):

Stay connected to all your instant messaging buddies anywhere you go! BeejiveIM keeps you in touch with your friends on AIM®/MobileMe®, MSN®/Windows Live®, Yahoo!®, GoogleTalk®, Facebook, MySpace, ICQ® and Jabber… all at the same time, all on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

But here’s the thing — Rene was too late. Something crazy happened, he lost his grip on his trusty iPhone 3G, and now he’s scrambling to get it back. This is where the help comes in. Actually, the where is the help. This is our:

• BeeJiveIM Green Screen Challenge!

We’ve provided the image (a PNG file) but we need YOU to provide the background. (Specifically, take the image and add a background to it in Photoshop or the image editor of your choice!) Show us where Rene is — where he lost his grip on his iPhone while desperately trying to finish his IM. The more creative, the better. The funnier, the better. The more spectacular, the better. You get the idea — and if we choose your entry, you get one of five (5) free copies of BeeJiveIM.

So head on over to our TiPb Birthday Bash: BeeJiveIM Green Screen Challenge! thread and show us just what in the world (or other worlds?) is happening to poor Rene!

• US iTunes Account required to redeem promo codes
• Contest begins now and ends Wednesday, May 13, 12pm EDT
• Inappropriate entries will be disqualified at the sole discretion of the moderators.

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

TiPb Birthday Bash: BeeJiveIM Green Screen Challenge!

Best of SPE, 10 May 2009

Each week we bring you the best of SPE. This week, The iPhone Blog brings you a gigantic Birthday Bash Contest with a grand prize of a Factory Unlocked iPhone 3G done up, Colorware-style. Crackberry.com had the WES 2009 Conference covered six ways from Sunday, too. Meanwhile, Nokia Experts stood out as the single best place to find out all there is know about the just-released Nokia E71x. There’s much more, so read on!

Android Central

We’re pretty excited that Android 1.5 is getting pushed out to T-Mobile G1s this week and took a look at the official tour. Rumors of Android-powered netbooks persist but aren’t quite enough to take our eyes off this sexy update to the G1.

CrackBerry.com

If you’ve missed our stupendous WES 2009 coverage, we have you covered right here. The big news of the conference was clearly the BES 5.0 announcement, but the fact that the BlackBerry Curve 8900 is coming to AT&T is nothing to sniff at either. Not enough? How about the BlackBerry Onyx in the wild and confirmation that a Storm 2 is in the works?

Nokia Experts

A big big week at Nokia Experts! The Nokia E71x is out on AT&T and, well, there’s some bad news to impart: AT&T locked it down pretty tight. The hardware is as good as ever, though. Fortunately for everybody, Nokia Experts is on the case with Tips for improving your Nokia E71x experience, walkthroughs for installing RoadSync 4, Nokia Maps, and Nokia Email, recommended E71x accessories, and a look at AT&T Navigator. On top of all that, a full review of MyPhone 2.1 shows you how to iPhonify your Nokia 5800 and the 8-hour-talk-time Nokia E52 was released.

PreCentral.net

As the rumors zero in on June 7th as the most likely launch date of the Pre, we saw somebody (likely Palm) release some sort of Pre hostage spoof and internal Sprint training videos surface. We learned that the Pre is heading to Canada and also Australia too. Meanwhile Best Buy continues to be a rich vein of Pre rumors as Palm Pre Accessories and Cases appeared on their systems.

The iPhone Blog

TiPb Birthday Bash! That’s right, to celebrate our first anniversary, we’re giving away an UNLOCKED ColorWare iPhone 3G all decked out in your choice of custom finishes. We’re also giving away a bunch of accessories like battery packs, earphones, Bluetooth headsets, and cases, iTunes gift cards, and a whole ton of apps. Contests end Tuesday, so go enter now and win, win, WIN!

Oh, yeah, and Apple released iPhone 3.0 Beta 5, with confirmation of a digital compass for the next generation iPhone hardware, age-based parental controls for the App Store, email podcast links from iPod app, and MMS and Tethering now locked out on AT&T?! We’ve updated our now-even-more massive iPhone 3.0 Walkthrough with all that and more, check it out!

TreoCentral

Our Treo Forums have been active with talk about one of the perennial problems with Treos: ROMs. In this case, there are a lot of Sprint Treo Pros out in the wild featuring pre-release 1.03 ROMs instead of the official 1.04. We covered the topic and issued a buyer-beware to let you know that you shouldn’t buy Sprint Treo Pros with the older ROM. Fortunately, if you’re stuck on a 1.03 Sprint Treo Pro, these instructions in our forums should be enough for a Sprint employee to upgrade your phone.

WMExperts

A relatively random smattering of news last week. Thw Windows Marketplace for Mobile has opened to developers, and we learned what apps won’t be allowed. We got leaked launch dates for the T-Mobile Dash 3G and Touch Pro 2. We found the Palm Treo Pro for $249 at Best Buy (with contract). We learned that Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor isn’t a fan of WinMo. Sony Ericsson’s CEO called the Xperia X1 “an experiment,” and we reviewed the voice-controlled BlueAnt V1 and HTC Touch Dual.

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

Best of SPE, 10 May 2009

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone to be Approved Soon?

Chimera allows iPhone users to add effects and filters to images

Chimera is a photo application that allows you to add filters to either previously existing photos in your Camera Roll or take a fresh photo and apply these filters right away. In all there are about 11 different filters (12 if you count the “NONE” filter as an option). These filters include; Quantize, Airbrush, Edges, Inverse, [...]

One Developer’s Approach to Piracy: Work with the Pirates

The creator of iCombat weighed in with his thoughts on newly-popular piracy of iPhone apps with an interesting conclusion: It’s not worth the trouble to police the pirates, and they might even prove helpful. iCombat, a take on Combat for Atari, suffered from a huge ratio of pirates to legitimate users: Nearly 5:1 for the app’s [...]

TiPb Birthday Bash: Crosswords for iPhone Give Away

What goes better with coffee on a lazy Sunday morning than crossword puzzles? Yup, crossword puzzles on your iPhone! And thanks to the kind folks at Stand Alone, we have four (4) promo codes for Crossword ($9.99 - iTunes link) to pass on to you!

Download and play crossword puzzles right on your iPhone or iPod touch. Each day many newspapers provide their crossword puzzles online; with one tap you can download and solve them, get hints, view clues, and track how quickly you’re improving!

Want a copy? Just drop us a comment below telling us your favorite daily crossword puzzle (New York Times? Wall Street Journal? Something else?).

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

TiPb Birthday Bash: Crosswords for iPhone Give Away

TiPb Birthday Bash: Barista Coffee App Give Away

It’s Sunday morning. It’s mothers day. It’s also a great time to curl up with gourmet coffee. To help us help you out, the finely brewed folks at BaristaApp have given us five (5) promo codes for Barista ($2.99 - iTunes link):

Barista is your personal tutor in the art of making brilliant espresso at home. It will help you get the most out of your espresso machine by:

• Providing step-by-step guidelines on crafting some of the most common espresso beverages
• Detailing a range of tips and techniques such as selecting, storing and grinding coffee beans, tamping and extracting single and double shots, texturing milk, pouring latte art and more
• Explaining espresso-related terms and identifying your espresso equipment and its uses

Featuring beautiful graphics, Barista takes you one big step closer to that perfect espresso.

Want yours served up piping hot? Just drop a comment below telling us what type of coffee you’ll be drinking today.

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

TiPb Birthday Bash: Barista Coffee App Give Away

Should Apple Enable DVD Ripping in iTunes?

iTunes can rip a CD and make the tracks rapidly available for you to listen to on your iPhone (or iPod) or stream around your house via other computers, or AppleTV/Airtunes and a variety of third party products.

ZDNet thinks they should do the same with DVDs. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Why? While ripping CDs is legal in the US, ripping DVDs is not and Hollywood and Big Media would do their best to sue any product, iTunes included, into oblivion if put that feature in. In fact, that’s what they’re doing with Real’s RealDVD right now. This is based on the claim that it violates the DMCA by breaking copy protection, though Real wraps copy protection of their own around the ripped movies).

Apple, of course, has $30 billion in the bank, which could fund one heckuva legal battle (and maybe even get the EFF on their side?) If anyone is in the position to help consumers retain fair use of their media, and increase the functionality and appeal of their own product at the same time, it’s certainly Apple.

But would they spend their time and money litigating the right to rip content from old, legacy media when they’re busily trying to get people to embrace digital downloads of the same content as the “next big thing”? Should they?

For consumers, it would be the same win as letting iTunes rip CDs even as music downloads were coming online. Apple maintains they run iTunes at low-profit levels simply to fuel hardware sales. The same model holds true for DVDs. Some consumers have huge collections of legacy DVDs and would love nothing more than easily, officially, load them up into iTunes and sync them over to their iPhone, iPod, set top box, computer, etc. alongside new digital downloads.

Of course, savvy consumers are already doing this with free, third party programs, and perhaps Apple is happy enough with the status quo. It’s less expensive for them that way, and doesn’t offend the same media companies Apple has deals with for iTunes rentals and downloads.

So the question is, are you happy with the status quo as well? Or is this a fight Apple should be fighting?

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

Should Apple Enable DVD Ripping in iTunes?

3G Fuzzyband Downgrader: GUI based Tool Makes it Easy to Downgrade Baseband to 02.28.00 for iPhone 3G Users