iPhone app can help you to stop smoking?

We have apps that will help you with speaking other languages, apps that will tell you what direction you’re walking in, and apps that will tell you what birdcall you’re listening to, or what song is playing. But here’s one of the first ’self-help’ iPhone apps out there: My Quitline. Scientists from George Washington University have [...]

Apple, Cartier resolve legal tussle over iPhone app

Cartier withdrew its lawsuit against Apple, after the company removed two apps from the App Store that Cartier alleged infringed on its trademark.

Another Source ‘Confirms’ 2010 Apple Tablet?

Last week Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster claimed that an Apple tablet computer was in the works though it would not arrive until the first half of 2010 due to the complexity surrounding the operating system.

"We expect the develop...

Capture those spur of the moment ideas with iNapkin

iNapkin is quite an original new note taking / drawing app for the iPhone – that is based on the age-old ‘scribble your thoughts down on the back of a napkin’ concept. This app is great for jotting down quick ideas, diagrams, drawings, or an all-important phone number of some important person you meet. Its features include: [...]

Cocoia Composition: If Apple’s Not Going to Help Developers Make Great iPhone Icons — We Will!

Mac and iPhone icon designer Sebastiaan de With of Cocoia takes app designers to task for not making their icons better match the quality and look of Apple’s built-in apps. Says de With:

A lot of professional designers get it wrong as well, and I can understand; it’s truly very hard to make an icon that looks as great as one from Apple’s bunch and blends in with the rest. I don’t mean to be an icon snob; I like diversity in my icons, and especially creative freedom. It’s more than just annoying, however, when creative and diverse motifs look extremely alien to their environment.

Part of the blame is placed on Apple who’s iPhone HIG (human interface guidelines) provide a mere 378 words on icon design, with examples that are sub-par. But de With isn’t just complaining — he’s doing something about it. Enter: Composition:

Sean Patrick O‘Brien and I are working on the very first Mac application that will be released under the Cocoia ‘brand’: Composition. Composition allows you to take any image and get a pixel-perfect preview of iPhone’s default effects at regular home screen size and Settings/Spotlight small icon size. It also lets you look at your icon in a virtual home screen to achieve a native look (and yes, both iPhone and iPod touch home screens will be represented), and export it for further usage on websites and other materials.

Best of all, it’s going to be free.

Check out the pre-announcement for details.

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

Cocoia Composition: If Apple’s Not Going to Help Developers Make Great iPhone Icons — We Will!

iPhone-generated artwork featured on cover of The New Yorker

Filed under: Cellphones

iPhone-generated artwork featured on cover of The New Yorker originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 May 2009 10:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2009 Next Generation iPhone 2,1 Rumor Consensus Reached?

With WWDC 2009 only two weeks away, the many rumors and leaks and informed guesses seem to have coalesced into a somewhat unified view of what we probably will — and probably won’t — see if/when the next generation iPhone 2,1 is announced. Given the full version upgrade number (the original iPhone 2G is 1,1, the iPhone 3G is 1,2) we’d expect there to be more in the way of hardware changes than we saw last year with the addition of “just” 3G and GPS. Will those expectations be met? We have a pretty good handle on the iPhone 3.0 software, but what about the hardware?

More Than Likely

• More storage. Thanks to all the telco leaks over the weekend, either Apple has acquired the double-density NAND flash memory chips needed to move the iPhone to 32GB (and iPod touch to 64GB), or they’re all just as convinced as we are that the high end iPhone will be twice as roomy this year.
• Faster processor(s). Not yet the miracle system-on-a-chip Apple will eventually produce based on PA Semi, ARM and PowerVR licenses, OpenCL, and all their recent expert hires, but a healthy 50% bump up from the current CPU. We might not see the multi-core GPU yet either, but more graphics firepower would make sense here as well.
• More RAM. Right now the iPhone is a lot like the genie in Aladdin. Unbelievable mobile potential… trapped in an itty-bitty RAM bottleneck. Dieter tells us that in the larger smartphone world, the iPhone’s current 128MB of RAM gets looked at askance. It also causes Mobile Safari to crash and Apple to prevent background multitasking for anything but their own core apps. 256MB is increasingly the norm, and something we fully expect will make it into the next iPhone.
• Faster networking. TiPb called 802.11n Wi-Fi way back in October ‘08 and we’d now be surprised not to get it. Hopefully an improved cell radio will hook into faster 3.5/3.9G HSPA+ cell networks as well, and for the love of all things American, please let the new chip work better with AT&T’s rabbit ear antennas. The rest of the world enjoys solid iPhone 3G connectivity, the USA should as well.
• Longer battery life. If one things remains constant, it’s the entitled internet denizens demand twice as much of everything for half the price of anything before. So, in addition to all the new features packed into the next gen iPhone, Apple will no doubt have to figure out a way to make the battery last longer as well. Part of this will be smoke-and-mirrors, no doubt, the rest could be the result of leveraging the same new battery technology found in the 17″ MacBook Pro allowing them to put more and smarter cells into the iPhone. If updated components help too (especially the outside chance of an OLED screen — see below), so much the better.
• Better camera. Because it couldn’t get any worse, right? There have been rumors of 3.2 and 5.0 megapixel cameras. We’re betting 3.2 is what we see at WWDC, with 5.0 coming to an iPhone (or iPod) further down the line. Auto-focus will be included, if only to take better pictures and to provide a mechanical feature that’s easier to break than the screen when we inevitably drop it trying to take that one great photo… (or video, but that’s a software feature so we won’t get into it here).
• Digital compass. Hey, it will make Google Street View demos infinitely cooler. Okay, and a magnetometer will also allow for faster, more precise positioning for things like Turn by Turn GPS when we finally get them in the App Store. And we’re certain game developers will find spectacular ways of hooking into it as well.
• Price point. Same $199/$299 we currently enjoy. In the increasingly competitive smartphone space, it would be hard for even Apple to push the premium — and with carriers subsidizing anyway, what would be the point? Lower prices are unlikely as well, though there’s always hope AT&T and others might give users a break on data rates…

Less Than Likely

• Higher definition screen. Yeah, we called for an iPhone HD back in October ‘08 as well. Given the rise of up to 800×480 screens on other platforms, we (meaning me) figured Apple would move to match it giving us more pixels for everything from web browsing to gaming to watching 480p video. Since only a very few nebulous rumors have come out since then, and there’s no sign of support for that resolution in the iPhone 3.0 SDK, we’re just going to have to wait and recycle this prediction next year… (Though maybe HD-out will still happen.)
• OLED screen. Only a few rumors to back up OLED (organic light emitting diode) screens as well, which would look better and use less battery power and component space. They’d also be more expensive, which might explain why there have only been those few rumors. It could still happen, but odds make it look increasingly likely for next time rather than this time.
• Updated casing. While the next iPhone might change shape just enough to force everyone to once again buy new accessories (and get out the pitch-forks and torches), it doesn’t look like a radical redesign is in the cards for the next iPhone casing either. No aluminum unibody. Not yet. And likely no glowing Apple logo either. Bummer. Outside chance of a soft-touch back plate, however.

Things could change as more and better rumors break — and there’s always a chance the iPhone will skip WWDC and show up at some special event later in the summer — but that’s what the landscape looks like right now.

Did we miss anything? And either way, if you were placing your bets, what do you think we’ll see?

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

2009 Next Generation iPhone 2,1 Rumor Consensus Reached?

Review: ArXiview for iPhone

Researchers are likely familiar with arXiv.org, an open-access digital repository for preprint scientific articles. Dave Bacon's arXiview for iPhone lets you search for, browse, and save those articles when you're on the go.

iPhone SDK contains icon for unreleased model — again

You might recall that this happened right about this time last year when we were all patiently waiting for the iPhone 3G to be announced, and once again, it's been discovered that the latest beta of the iPhone SDK has icons for an unreleased version of Cupertino's finest. We've been able to verify that two icons tucked away in a deep folder refer to black and white versions of the "iPhone2,1" (black is pictured above), which is one of the internal model codes we've been hearing get thrown around for a while now. Thing is, the icon is identical to the one being used for iPhone1,2 -- better known as the iPhone 3G -- so Apple's either smartly using a placeholder until the final SDK build, or the latest and greatest model is a dead ringer for the old. We're betting on the former.

[Thanks, Matthew]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

iPhone SDK contains icon for unreleased model -- again originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 May 2009 07:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Step-by-Step Guide to Register an iTunes Account without a Credit Card to Download Free iPhone Apps

Next Gen iPhone Icon… Looks Same as iPhone 3G?

A user on MacTalk Forums (via MacRumors) may have just stumbled upon Apple’s icon for the next generation iPhone, buried inside the iPhone 3.0 SDK. And the big surprise?

It looks pretty much the same as the icon for the iPhone 3G.

iPhone 2,1 is Apple’s internal number for the next gen iPhone, expected to be announced at WWDC. The original iPhone 2G is iPhone 1,1, while the iPhone 3G is iPhone 1,2. The numbers show that even Apple doesn’t consider there to be much more than a point difference between the first two iPhone generations (as opposed to the iPod touch, which went to 2,1 last fall).

The use of iPhone 2,1 led many to believe the next gen iPhone would have more differences than the addition of 3G and GPS last time around. And while it still might, including processor bumps, digital compass, a better camera, etc. if this icon is accurate it looks like few if anything will change on the outside.

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

Next Gen iPhone Icon… Looks Same as iPhone 3G?

Unreleased iPhone2,1 Icon Reveals No Major Physical Changes?

A MacTalk.com.au forum thread reveals that the unreleased "iPhone2,1" model that has been previously referenced actually includes its own icon within the iPhone 3.0 SDK. The icon, however, appears identical to the iPhone1,2 model which repre...

Apple’s Back to School Promo Launching This Week? To include iPhone?

A couple of reports have indicated that Apple may be launching their Back to School promotion as soon as this Tuesday. Apple's Back to School promotion is traditionally offered throughout the summer and has offered students and faculty free or discou...