T-Mobile and Orange merger in UK hits a snag

The merger between mobile operators T-Mobile and Orange significantly threatens to decrease competition in the U.K market, according to the UK regulator

iChat, iMags, iNews, iFeeds, and iBlog — TiPb’s Top 5 iPad and iPhone iWants!

With the launch of Apple’s iPad tablet and iBooks eBook purchasing and reading software, Apple has significantly rounded-out their device and content offerings, but TiPb can’t help but think a few iApp holes remain, namely iChat, iMags, iNews, iFeeds, and iBlog.

Some of these will likely resonate immediately, others we might need to explain our thinking, but either way what Apple gave us last week and the hype and hyperbole, expectations and exasperations, hopes and howls that proceeded and followed it shows just how much we all think and feel about the iPhone OS platform.

First things first. None of these ideas are new or novel. In fact, most of them have been mentioned from early on and mentioned a lot. We’re just looking at where the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad are today, and listing — or re-listing — some of the remaining, wickedly obvious, gaps in their apps.

Second things second. As much fun as we think an iPad version of Mac OS X’s Photo Booth would be, we’re not going to include anything that would require additional hardware like an iSight webcam. We want it, believe us we do, but we’re going to stick with what Steve Jobs showed us on stage last week… for now.

iChat

Seriously, where the [redacted] is Mobile iChat? While Mac OS X power-users might gravitate to third party solutions like Adium, Apple makes sure every one of their computers ships with iChat, and for mainstream Mac users, that’s still the go-to app. That it’s on every one of Apple’s computers, along with Mail and Safari, shows just how core IM (instant messages) are to the internet experience. Yet three generations heading towards four, and we’ve seen no sign of it for the iPhone — and now the iPad — other than the always plentiful Apple patent filings.

There are great 3rd party IM clients for the iPhone in the App Store, no doubt about it. Maybe if there was a Mobile iChat that wouldn’t be the case. There are no other email clients or browsers in the App Store by way of worst case scenarios (just embeddable mail and webviews). There are other camera apps and photo viewers, however, weather and stock apps, contact managers and voice recorders, so there’s a best case as well.

Apple already has the built-in Messages (formerly SMS) app on the iPhone. Maybe carriers weren’t originally keen on the idea of 1st-party threats to their utterly plush text message business but that ship has sailed. Build out or build upon Messages and give us iChat. Give mainstream users base instant message functionality out of the box, with typical Apple simplicity and elegance, and of course the background multitasking that would come with such status. Power users who want more, and are willing to switch to push-notifications, could find other options in the App Store.

And yeah, we’re not bringing up iChat Video because we promised not to mention hardware, but you know that they know they we know we’ll bring it up again at some point…

iMags

At the iPad announcement we got iBooks, Apple’s answer to eBook buying and reading, but what about iMags for magazines? As much as we love our eBooks, we like the idea of getting our weekly or monthly magazines delivered with just as much iTunes automagical goodness.

Going one strep further, how about an iTunes LP/Extra style format then that would allow easy and consistent eMagazines to be produced, seamlessly blending text, video, even music into something readers would be willing to pay for so that publishers can afford to create it. (And you bet we think an iLife ‘10 with iDVD turned into a super-slick iTunes TuneKit development tool would be a great idea no matter which road Apple chooses to take). Just like indie music, it would let independent writers/publishers get into the game. iZine, if that doesn’t make you shudder.

Okay, maybe iTunes isn’t set up to handle subscriptions yet and that’s the current show-stopper. Apple never pulled that trigger for music and is apparently having trouble getting the TV industry to let them pull it for video. Even season passes for TV series aren’t really up to the level of a real subscription service yet.

But Amazon’s Kindle is already handling magazines and newspapers (which we’ll get to next), and as much as iBooks is an ePub answer to the Kindle Book Store, Apple and the iPad need an answer for eMagazines.

iNews

While iMags covers weeklies and monthlies, the dailies need a solution just as badly. iNews, or eNewspapers, or whatever is the appropriate term for digital content that “just works” its way onto your iPad at 3am every day — again just like the Kindle is already doing — is the other missing piece of the iBooks puzzle.

Sure, Apple has the no less than the New York Times up on stage showing off their prototype iPad app during the introduction, but hundreds of independent apps clogging up our devices — and the App Store — is a very un-Apple-like solution. While it would no doubt lead to tons of creativity and variety, Apple prides itself on simplicity and UI consistency. (Otherwise why not just sell the OS and let OEMs and do-it-yourselfers build their own Macs, right?)

Maybe Apple is just taking its time, starting off with books the way they started off with music in iTunes, and they’re already intending to add magazines and newspapers the way iTunes has added movies and TV shows. Sure, no matter how big they are, Apple is still only one company and they have to choose how to spend their finite engineering resources. Hopefully they’ll choose to spend some on those subscription services, because we can’t help but think they’d be killer, especially for periodicals.

iFeeds

Say what you want about desktop Safari RSS, but at least desktop Safari has native RSS. Mobile Safari pushes RSS out to a webapp so abandoned it still uses .mac in its URL (which Apple changed to MobileMe back in summer of 2008 with the launch of the iPhone 3G/iPhone 2.0). Just like with IM, there are a lot of great RSS clients in the App Store, and they do something Apple would likely not choose to do — sync with the 900lbs gorilla that is Google Reader. So, we hope they don’t go anywhere. But for casual news reading, a built-in Apple client, even a native extension to Mobile Safari would be nifty, if only and again for background multitasking.

See, on desktop Safari our RSS just updates in the background and new articles are brought down and ready and waiting for us to peruse immediately and at our leisure. App Store apps launch, contact Google Reader, check status, start to sync or populate a list view from web data, and then and only then can we start reading. (Or they just function as a skin for a WebApp and then we can just as easily add Google Reader proper to our Home Screen).

This one is a tougher sell, no doubt about it. Mainstream users don’t use RSS and a certain segment of geeks is moving from RSS to social networks like Twitter and Facebook to crowd-source and crowd-sort their news. The former is something Apple just doing it could fix, especially with a few pre-populated, and popular, feeds ready to go. The latter still strikes us as far too subject to happenstance (if you stop following for a couple hours to nap or watch a movie, a story that matters to you could be plowed away by several newer ones that matter more to others).

iBlog

And we can already hear you complaining this one is thinner than an iPod touch, but again bear with us. As much as the iPad, and to the same extent the iPhone, is focused more on consumption of content than creation, but as the iPad iWork apps themselves show, we’re going to need some creation, including for web-based services.

If iDVD is going to be reborn as an easy iTunes LP/iTunes Extras development tool, why can’t iWeb be reborn to better handle modern web 2.0 content creation? Rather than static pages, blogs and micro-blogs are the web site creation mediums of today. There are dedicated apps for several of the more popular blogging platforms already on the iPhone App Store, but they’re dedicated apps and the web is more distributed than ever.

Microsoft makes Windows Live Writer and on Mac OS X there are a couple great applications that let you write for many of the most popular blogging platforms. Apple’s been accused of not “getting” social media for a long time but it’s getting to the point where it just has to be gotten.

iLife ‘09 for Mac contained iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and (hidden away) iDVD. We’ve already seen iWork’s Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iPad. We’ve seen Photos for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPhone. I’m sure many would like a multitouch GarageBand and iMovie (expanded from the iPhone’s trimming) as well as am iWeb 2.0 or iBlog that allowed for simple blog and micro-blog text, photos, and movie posting.

Conclusion

So that’s TiPb’s top five iApps we’d still like to see added to the iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone. Agree, disagree, or have alternatives or additions all your own? It’s still 2 months to the iPad’s debut at the end of March, and 6 month until we likely get the final release of iPhone 4.0, so let us — and Apple — know what you think!

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

iChat, iMags, iNews, iFeeds, and iBlog — TiPb’s Top 5 iPad and iPhone iWants!

More Details on Verizon’s iPad and iPhone Negotiations Reportedly Surface

Earlier this week, a report briefly mentioned that Clayton Morris of FOXNews.com, who offered several reports about the iPad coming to Verizon in the weeks leading up to the device's introduction, had spoken to a Verizon source who claimed that Apple...

Google Nexus One Software Updated to Offer ‘Pinch-to-Zoom’ Multi-Touch Capabilities

Google yesterday announced that it had begun to deliver over-the-air software updates to users of its Android-based Nexus One smartphone, offering a number of enhancements. Most notably, the update enables pinch-to-zoom multi-touch functionality in ...

Review: Eliminate Pro for iPhone

How much you like Eliminate Pro, a 3D first-person shooter game from Ngmoco will depend on three things: how much you enjoy shooting things, how much time you have on your hands, and how much money you’re willing to invest into an iPhone game.

Skype sheds light on 3G calling, iPad

A post on the company's blog provides some details on why we still don't have a 3G-capable Skype client—and hints at iPad developments to come.

TUAW at Big Nerd Ranch: cabin tour

Filed under: Developer, iPhone

More coverage of TUAW's inside look at developer boot camp. See below for notes & disclaimer.

This is a quick video I shot on Sunday. It's a quick tour of my cabin, just to show you what the lodging and amenities at the Big Nerd Ranch look like. Participants don't spend a lot of time in their rooms, as the class schedule makes for a long day, and is usually followed by some lab time spent working on projects and getting answers to additional questions. Meals are served in the main building, so you end up spending a lot more time with the group than you do in cliques or on your own. The food, by the way, has exceeded my expectations, and the cooks have cheerfully catered to my dietary preferences (a picky pescatarian with a penchant for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches).

Read on for the video of the cabin; I should have a video of the actual campus and some footage from our daily hike up soon, too!

In order to give our readers the first-hand account of what it's like to experience developer boot camp, Big Nerd Ranch has permitted Brett to attend complimentary classes and has provided transportation/lodging assistance. Other than those considerations, no sponsorship or advertising relationship exists between BNR and TUAW. This series is not an endorsement of BNR's programs or teaching methodology.

Continue reading TUAW at Big Nerd Ranch: cabin tour

TUAW at Big Nerd Ranch: cabin tour originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAW at Big Nerd Ranch: cabin tour originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iHarmonix Platinum i-Series stereo earphones for iPhone

The iHarmonix Platinum i-Series stereo earphones for the iPhone [$59.95 - Store Link] are sleek, lightweight, and stylish with great sound quality. To find out more, follow us after the break!

The earphones comes with a right and left specific earbuds, three different sized ear gels, and a small velvet carrying pouch. The plug is 3.5 mm and fits easily and securely into my iPod touch, old-school iPod and iPhone. The three different sized gels — small, medium, and large — allows everyone to customize the fit for to suit their own ear size. I have a lot of discomfort with large earbuds so I choose to use the smallest sized gel. It fit comfortably and did not feel like it was going to dislodge even when I was dancing (I can’t dance so no video but for the curious, it looks something like this). The carrying pouch is a wonderful addition, though I usually let them run wild in my purse or put them in the side zipper of my Golla bag.

The microphone hangs off of the wire where the two earphones converge, which is well positioned for talking on the phone or recording sound. Its position on the earphone wire also makes it easy to find even when you are wearing bulky clothing. Its rounded form also makes it less likely to get caught on your clothing and dislodge the earbuds, something I find endlessly annoying. The microphone is also a multi-function button that’s able to send your phone calls, hang up and pause your music. It has a nice click to it, so you are well aware when it has been pressed and won’t mistakenly double-click and end a call after it has been just sent. Every now and then I do mistakenly press the decorative nameplate which hangs further down the earphone wire. This could have been easily fixed by having the nameplate be a different shape or placing the logo on the actual microphone button.

The most important aspect, of course, is sound quality. These earphones pack a punch in the sound department and are small enough to keep with your iPhone at all times. The base is surprisingly strong for earphones of this size and sounded clearer than many earphones I have tried which were much more costly. The microphone picks up sound with incredible accuracy and when I used it for phone calls people were unable to tell I was using a mic.

All in all if you are looking for a good set of earphones that are portable and do not skimp on the sound department then iHarmonix Platinum i-Series stereo earphones are the ones to get. They sound great and look stylish while doing it. They make a great gift for that special someone in your life, and the brushed stainless steel matches any case or accessory.

The iHarmonix Platinum i-Series stereo earphones are in stock and available now from the TiPb iPhone accessory store.

Disclaimer: the earphones were provided for review by TiPb’s iPhone accessory store.

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

iHarmonix Platinum i-Series stereo earphones for iPhone

Apple Receives Patent for Touch-Sensitive Bezel for Portable Devices

Patently Apple reported yesterday that Apple has been granted a patent regarding the use of touch-sensitive bezels in electronic devices, primarily focused on portable devices. While the content of the patent is not new, having been previous...

Could Missing iPad Apps Reappear as Dashboard Widgets?

Are you checking out the iPad’s big, mostly empty Home Screen and wondering where the iPhone’s Weather, Stocks, Clock, and Calculator apps have all gone? Are they missing in action, simply unfinished for now, or like Kevin Fox of Fury.com seems to think, could Apple be planning on turning them into Dashboard-style Widgets?

Imagine that a five-finger pinch caused the screen to dim and a bevy of widgets flew in to the screen for quick consumption and calculation, and then were dismissed by another five-finger flick? With props to Entourage, ‘Is that something you might be interested in?’

It is, because we’d not only love to see full fledged widgets on iPad but on iPhone as well. But TiPb asks you this: would you actually prefer a Dashboard-style fly-in-fly-out set of widgets that live separately in their own screen mode, or would you prefer widgets that live on the Lock Screen, or stay put on the Home Screen alongside app icons, similar to how Android does it?

[Fury.com via Daring Fireball]

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

Could Missing iPad Apps Reappear as Dashboard Widgets?

Taiwanese Industry Sources: Next-Generation iPhone Manufacturing Deal, USB 3.0, iPad Suppliers

DigiTimes today offers a series of reports involving Apple, revealing a number of claims from industry sources in Taiwan regarding the next-generation iPhone, Apple's possible plans for USB 3.0, and iPad component suppliers.

One report...

MobileMe Gallery, Engadget, TaxCaster, Homerun Battle 3D, Booooly, Readdledocs 2, SoundHound, DropBox, Classics — TiPb Picks of the Week

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch, and soon… iPad!) related, they’re fair game.

Confession: in all the iPad hubbub last week, Rene didn’t get around to posting everyone’s pick. Bright side, you get almost twice as many this week!

So who’s on deck this double-dose and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick I: MobileMe Gallery

Apple’s new MobileMe Gallery app is awesome. I really like the way it previews photos at the top (just like Apple TV) and you can easily share photos, albums or movies. Adding friend’s galleries are bonus too! I just wish you could comment on photos…

Just like with the MobileMe iDisk app, once you view an image, it saves it to your iPhone for easy access later. You can also tap and hold to save your images to the iPhone’s camera roll. [Free - iTunes link]

Chad’s Pick II: Engadget

This week I decided to look at some news apps, specifically Engadgets new app. What is nice is that they have all three of their sites available to view: Engadget, Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD. The app remembers the last news source and looks beautiful doing so. The standard fanfare is there too such as posting to Facebook and Twitter any articles that you find interesting. One nice bonus is streaming video, including the Engadet Show. Give Engadget a try for all of your gadget news from TVs to robots! [Free - iTunes link]

Chris’ Pick: TaxCaster Mobile

With tax season upon us, Turbo Tax has given iPhone user an easy tool for a quick tax estimate. With basic deductions and incomes, you can get a rough idea if you will owe money or (hopefully) get a nice hefty refund. You can enter exact amount or just estimates to see what your fate will be this year with the IRS. You cant export data for your return, but for a free app, this is a useful tool to have. [Free - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick I: Homerun Battle 3D

Homerun Battle 3D is hours of fun, mainly because it has online play. I’d suggest to try out the LITE version of this game and I’m sure you will love it and buy the full version. [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick II: Booooly!

Booooly is a fun little puzzle game that is very entertaining and I would suggest it to anyone looking simply to pass some time. Even better, Booooly has a free version you can try out on the App Store! [$0.99 - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick I: Readdledocs 2.0

I know in the past, I have picked Readdledocs before; however, with the version 2 having come out, it adds a whole slew of new features that make it easily worth mentioning! Readdledocs is a document viewer with so many feature, it’s ridiculous! I think it is probably one of the best, if not the best PDF viewer for the iPhone.

The new application includes numerous new features – a new interface, capable to view PDFs in “text reflow” view (allows the text to be made larger or smaller), better handling of large documents, zipping files, text file creation, file filter views/tasks and lots more! [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick II: SoundHound

Recently I have been digitizing my parent’s CD collection and quite often my Mom has come up to me humming and asking me if I knew the song. I rarely have a clue. So the other day I grabbed SoundHound and had her hum the tune and the app found it. We spent much of the evening using the app exploring songs from the same artists. I’ve been an avid user of Shazam, but SoundHound blows it out of the water with all it’s features! [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick I: DropBox

When MobileMe’s iDisk stopped syncing on me the last time, turned out it was also for the last time, and I decided to give the much geek-loved DropBox a try. It’s free for up to 2GB of data, and $10/m or $100/y for 50GB, but it’s features are so far ahead of iDisk that Apple really should buy them up before Google does. For those not familiar, basically it lets you store your files on their cloud server, and with the Dropbox desktop client, mirror that folder on any Windows, Mac, or Linux computer you own. You can see the sync status of each folder and file and easily share them, and the photo folder gets special gallery-style treatment. And, of course, it has an iPhone app that lets you browse your cloud-stored files, or star them to keep a copy locally on your iPhone. Note for the security conscious — you can, of course, encrypt files or directories before uploading them to Dropbox, but then you lose the web and iPhone access. The battle over convenience rages on! [Free - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick II: Classics

Interested in that iBooks app Steve Jobs showed off for the iPad and upset you can’t have one or both new? Users of the existing iPhone app, Classics, know from whence iBooks borrows a lot of its look and feel (with an even earlier nod to Delicious Library!), but that means that if you want to get your bookshelf storing, multitouch paper flipping, eBook read on, you can do it now… With one caveat: as the name suggests, Classics only contains free, public domain, classic books. As a bonus, however, following the iBooks announcement, the makers of Classics have decided to give it away from free, so it’s definitely worth a download. [Free - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

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

MobileMe Gallery, Engadget, TaxCaster, Homerun Battle 3D, Booooly, Readdledocs 2, SoundHound, DropBox, Classics — TiPb Picks of the Week

Review: MailTones for iPhone

Most users who utilize -- or at the very least monitor -- their e-mail on the iPhone or iPod touch will likely find this audio e-mail notification app quite useful.

Quick App: Cookmate Recipe Finder for iPhone

Cookmate [$1.99 - iTunes Link] for iPhone and iPod touch lets you tell it what you already have in your pantry and then finds you a recipe to use it.

The graphics are so beautifully rendered and the interface so user-friendly it makes choosing what to cook for dinner much less stressful. In fact, it’s so easy that I even allow my 4 year old to help out.

Cookmate includes a grocery list that you can use to add and later check off any ingredient or items you may be missing.

There is also a user-based rating system for each recipe. On the downside, that means that if no one likes the high-rated meal you prepared, it is probably not the recipe but your cooking.

Video after the break. If you try it, let us know what you think!

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

Quick App: Cookmate Recipe Finder for iPhone

User-generated maps? Game on!

A crowdsourced GPS app has an intriguing future, says Glenn Fleishman.