Is this the face of the iPhone 4G?

There's very little to go on at this point, just a series of photos posted to a forum by a device repair company, but if their suspicions are correct, this could be the front panel of the presumably upcoming "iPhone 4G." iResQ claims to have obtained the sample part from a "reputable source" that has provided genuine parts to it in the past, parts which iResQ uses for repairing products -- even if those products don't exist yet. Interestingly, the LCD is factory glued to the digitizer on this 4G wannabe (like on the original iPhone), as opposed to them being separate elements on the 3G and 3GS, meaning higher replacement costs. But most notable about this face part is the fact that it's roughly 1/4-inch taller than previous generations. Your guess is as good as ours as to why it's taller, since the screens themselves seems very similarly sized. We're also incredibly curious as to whether this here face would line up with that supposed 4G midboard we saw a little while ago. So, elaborate scam by iResQ to get its name up in lights? Prank played by a fun-loving parts supplier? Earth shattering iPhone form factor change unearthed? And just what is that "reflective surface" supposed to be for? Beats us. The flip side of the screen can be seen after the break.

[Thanks, Todd F.]

Continue reading Is this the face of the iPhone 4G?

Is this the face of the iPhone 4G? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MWSF 2010 iPhone: FloTV, Square, iV Plus, Mobile Navigator

FloTV - Live Television on Your iPhone


If you've been missing a way to watch live television on your iPhone, Mophie and FloTV have teamed up to provide just that solution in the next couple of months. FloTV is a new wireless T...

Macworld 2010: TUAW talks with App Cubby’s David Barnard

Filed under: Macworld, Video, iPhone, App Store

App Cubby has some of the more popular apps in the App Store. Whether it's Gas Cubby for tracking car maintenance, Trip Cubby for capturing mileage information, or Health Cubby for motivating ourselves to get into better shape, the company keeps customers coming back with well-executed and full-featured software.

We talked with App Cubby's David Barnard at Macworld Expo 2010 to see what's new from the company. While we won't tell you about the new and completely different app he has recently submitted to Apple, David told us a lot about the free version of Gas Cubby -- Gas Cubby by FRAM -- that provides the functionality of Gas Cubby in an ad-sponsored format.

Check out TUAW blogger Steve Sande's video interview with David by clicking the Read More button.

We apologize for the sound quality, which was hindered by interference picked up by the microphone.

Continue reading Macworld 2010: TUAW talks with App Cubby's David Barnard

Macworld 2010: TUAW talks with App Cubby's David Barnard originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Macworld 2010: TUAW talks with App Cubby's David Barnard originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Best iPhone Apps For 2010 Winter Olympics

MWSF 2010 Mac: Tales of Monkey Island, iPlayback, Wireless USB Audio/Video

Tales of Monkey Island


One of the big new announcements at Macworld was Tell Tale Games' release of a Mac version of Tales of Monkey Island available immediately. The company has also committed to delivering Wallace & Gromit'...

Macworld 2010: Hands-on with the 4iThumbs keyboard for iPhone

Filed under: Macworld, iPhone, iPod touch

I stopped by the 4iThumbs booth to check out their product that would purportedly increase my (admittedly dismal) typing speed on the iPhone/iPod touch. It consists of a plastic overlay that puts small ridges between the letters of the standard iPhone keyboard, available in both portrait and landscape formats. The product comes with some tabs that you affix to the top and bottom of the device, and you can then slip the plastic overlay on and off. You can touch through the overlay and use the phone as usual while it's attached, although the bumps aren't terribly comfortable for swiping. There's a matching set of tabs for the back of the device which can hold the overlay when it's not in use.

I tested it out, and it works. I never texted much on any device other than the iPhone, so I can't make a direct comparison of typing speeds between an iPhone and, say, a Blackberry. I do type a lot on my iPhone, though, and I can readily say that my typing speed and accuracy increased dramatically while using the 4iThumbs overlay.

4iThumbs is $19.95US online for 1 set, which includes portrait and landscape versions and the tabs to attach them to your iPhone/iPod touch. At Macworld, you can pick up 2 for $15US, but you'll have to get there quick to take advantage of the show pricing.

Macworld 2010: Hands-on with the 4iThumbs keyboard for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Macworld 2010: Hands-on with the 4iThumbs keyboard for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Expo Notes: TripIt keeps all your travel data in one place

At Macworld Expo this week, TripIt was demonstrating the mobile version of its travel organizing service. Besides a standalone app -- which collects all your flight, hotel, and car rental information to create a master itinerary -- TripIt also lends its services to around a dozen other App Store offerings.

Macworld 2010: Frog Design shows off their iPhone apps

Filed under: Macworld, Internet, Apple, iPhone, App Store, iPad

Frog Design is here on the show floor at Macworld 2010, and we stopped by their booth earlier in the week to check out what they've been up to on the iPhone. They're a storied design firm (they worked on the Apple II series back in the day) that is diving headfirst into the App Store, with two apps out already and one more on the way.

We've talked about Postcard Express on the site before, but they ran us through the latest version of the app, which has fixed a lot of the problems that users originally had -- the picture size has been tweaked a bit, and the geotagging has been updated and smoothed out to work much better. The most intriguing part of the iPhone app is of course the design -- everything, including emailing out the actual postcard, works completely within the app and is as intuitive as possible. While the actual act of sending a virtual postcard might not appeal to everyone (the charm of postcards is that they actually come through the mail), the app itself makes the process easy and fun.

We also saw two more apps from Frog Design: tvChatter, which is a TV-centered Twitter app, and the upcoming Temptd, a "health-based social networking app." Read on for more about both.

Continue reading Macworld 2010: Frog Design shows off their iPhone apps

Macworld 2010: Frog Design shows off their iPhone apps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Macworld 2010: Frog Design shows off their iPhone apps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Expo: FastMac turns the iPhone into a unversal remote

FastMac's iV Plus turns your iPhone into a universal remote with customizable interfaces and built-in TV listings.

Macworld 2010: Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite demonstration

Filed under: Apple, iPhone, App Store

If you've ever had a need to create or edit Microsoft Office documents on your iPhone or any other mobile device, you're probably familiar with Quickoffice. It's a solid app that provides a way to transfer documents to your iPhone, open them, make changes, and then save them back to the device. At Macworld 2010, Quickoffice announced some changes to their iPhone product line.

The app now comes in two flavors -- Quickoffice Connect [Free, iTunes Link], which is a document viewer, and the full Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite [US$9.99 sale price]. Both apps now have a feature that should make almost everyone happy -- integrated access to multiple cloud services including MobileMe, Dropbox, Box.net, and Google Docs.

TUAW editor Steve Sande visited the Quickoffice booth at Macworld Expo 2010 yesterday and was treated to a full demo of the the Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite. We've got video, so see how Quickoffice can help you keep those docs in order by clicking the Read More link below.

Continue reading Macworld 2010: Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite demonstration

Macworld 2010: Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite demonstration originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Macworld 2010: Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite demonstration originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft To Unveil Windows Phone 7 Series At Mobile World Congress To Take On iPhone [Updated]

Want to argue about Global Warming? There’s an app for that

Filed under: Odds and ends, Freeware, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review

I'm not sympathetic to the Global Warming skeptics. There's plenty of scientific evidence to contradict them. The trouble is, when you get into arguments about the subject, you're likely to be without facts and the arguments become emotional rather than rational.

Now, at least, you'll have some science to buttress your arguments. All you have to do is whip out your iPhone or iPod touch and tap a free app called Skeptical Science, and from there you can quickly navigate to the various arguments that are offered by the skeptics. 'It's the sun', or 'it's cooling', or 'there is no consensus.'

You tap on the argument, and up comes some scientific info along with links to more information, graphs, definitions and more. No matter what side you take on this subject, there is a lot of useful information. The app is updated on a regular basis to reflect new data as it's available.

Now the truth is, apps like this aren't likely to change minds. They reinforce your own beliefs, and the skeptics will just remain skeptics. They can drag out their own scientists and graphs and quotes, so nothing really gets settled.

On the other hand, this is a really good idea, and I learned some things reading the assembled material. The app is free, and worth a look if you spend a bit of time arguing about this subject. Actually, it would be nice to see apps dealing with other topics people argue about, like the death penalty, legalizing drugs, or UFOs. Now excuse me while I turn up the thermostat.

Here's a look at some of the screens the app offers:

Want to argue about Global Warming? There's an app for that originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Want to argue about Global Warming? There's an app for that originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Study Claims iPhone Users Consume Five Times More Bandwidth Than Blackberry Users

Closed vs. Open, Control vs. Chaos — What’s Best for Apple, the iPhone and iPad?

Yesterday at Macworld two events helped clarify something I’ve been discussing with Dieter for a while now — Apple, the iPhone and iPad, and closed vs. open systems, control vs. chaos. These tow events were a presentation by John Gruber of Daring Fireball concerning the 10 biggest problems faced by Apple, and a brief conversation with Leo Laporte of TWiT about Google Buzz.

As part of his Round Robin BlackBerry review, Dieter departed on a rant about BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) of epic proportions. A closed communications protocol, he argued, was untenable. BlackBerry users create incredible amounts of content in BBM (yes, chat is content) but it’s all completely closed off and owned by RIM. If you leave BlackBerry, you can’t take your BBM content with you. If RIM ever disappears, all your BBM content is lost. Something like Gmail on the other hand, works across platform and if you switch from BlackBerry to iPhone to Android, you enter your Gmail account and everything is there. Since you can access it via standard protocols like POP and IMAP, you can also make local copies and upload them to a different service (i.e. upload your mail to a non-Google IMAP folder).

Laporte made a similar comment about Twitter and Facebook. If either Twitter or Facebook were to fail, all your status updates, all your wall posts, all your friends and those you follow and/or follow you would be gone.

I don’t know if Google Buzz will prove to be an open protocol and system for sharing status, location, and relationships, and certainly it’s implementation shows signs of the typical Google “release now, fix later, polish never” model, but something needs to.

And this brings me rather circuitously back to Apple and the iPhone. As much as a certain segment decries Apple as “closed”, in terms of protocols they’re remarkably open. They use IMAP for mail, and open-sourced CalDAV and CardDAV for calendaring and contacts. They use WebDAV for web directories and WebKit for Safari. iChat supports most IM protocols, including Jabber. They use BSD Linux and the Darwin kernel for the core of Mac and iPhone.

Apple is generally built on top of open technologies, and one of their core strengths is melding that open architecture with tightly controlled (i.e. proprietary) user interface layers (and developer APIs, and App Store review processes).

For some, that last part is an absolute deal breaker. But they have Ubantu and Open Moko. (Yes, even Android is closed — you can’t muck about with Gmail or Google Maps apps). For mainstream users, however, the front end, the user experience, “just works” to the point where it’s become a cliche.

I said it previously in my Round Robin summation, to use Google you must give up privacy, to use Apple you must give up control. (I don’t even want to think about what I’m giving up to use Google on Apple!)

So proprietary interfaces to open technologies — how does that work for us? What happens when we use something not controlled by Apple?

John Gruber suggested AT&T as an example. Indeed, he listed it a one of Apple’s problems. Now, some people get great AT&T service while others have connection problems that have become near-legendary. Either way, it’s hurt media and mainstream perceptions about the iPhone.

Gruber also mentioned Big Media (movie and TV studios, music labels) as a problem. They want to charge more than the market will bear (certainly enough to make free-as-in-torrent an alternative) and make less available via iTunes than via a retro 1980s corner video store.

Is it a coincidence that some of the main aspects of the iPhone and iTunes that Apple has absolutely no control over are some that cause the greatest amount of user frustration?

(The App Store and its review process mostly create developer frustration, and Gruber listed this as a problem as well, though one that’s slightly improving since the holiday shut-down).

So, we come back to and down to Apple liking to control the user-facing aspects of the iPhone (and iPod touch, and soon, iPad) but using and promoting open standards for a lot of the technology underneath. While this approach might clash philosophically with some users (and again, Android, Palm, etc. aren’t open, they’re just more open) and practically for others (power users who want the control themselves), its proved remarkably effective for casual, mainstream users, and for power-users willing to give up some control for a better experience.

Except for that part about AT&T and Hollywood, but then those are controlled with little concern for user experience…

Closed vs. Open, Control vs. Chaos — What’s Best for Apple, the iPhone and iPad? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

How many oranges does it take to charge an Apple? (video)

We've seen lemons power a digital clock, and we've seen an Orange tent energize a gaggle of Apples. But have you ever wondered how many oranges it would take to charge just a single Apple? Name games aside, we have to hand it to Imperial Leisure, the company that executed a new iPhone-centered advertisement aimed at raising awareness for Jaffa oranges. We won't spoil the whole thing for you, but we will say that you'll be far hungrier after watching than you are right now. Video's past the break, per usual.

[Thanks, forumz]

Continue reading How many oranges does it take to charge an Apple? (video)

How many oranges does it take to charge an Apple? (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Quick App: NBC Olympics Mobile for iPhone and iPod touch

The 2010 Winter Olympics officially began yesterday and if you want to keep up with your country to see how well they are performing, the NBC Olympics Mobile app [iTunes Link - Free] for iPhone and iPod touch is a great companion piece that offers a ton of great features.

• News, results and medal counts are all updated live.
• Video on-demand: Those of you in the U.S. can watch NBC Olympics video clips and highlights. Sorry Canada!
• Favorites: Save athletes, sports and nations as favorites
• Push Notifications: Have results for your favorite sports pushed directly to your iPhone.
• TV Coverage Schedule: View NBC’s TV and online coverage schedule and set program reminders.
• Athlete Bios and Sports Information: You can read up on all of the sports rules and get the full details about nations and teams.
• Social networking: Share Olympic Games content with your friends directly on your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts.

Why Canadian users would be omitted from viewing video is beyond us, especially since they are hosting all of the events. Surely some sort of deal could have been made for those of you in Canada? Now if you throw that major fail aside, you have a great app to give you your daily dose of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Screenshots after the break!

Quick App: NBC Olympics Mobile for iPhone and iPod touch is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Review: Ceville for iPhone

Ceville for the iPhone, a take-off of the award-winning PC game by the same name, is a point-and-click arcade-style game in which the player tries to hit as many enemies as possible in a given amount of time.

Smashing good iPhone insurance from Worth Ave. Group

The Worth Ave. Group offers laptop and iPhone insurance.

TiPb Give Away — 10 FREE Copies of PCalc RPN Calculator for iPhone

PCalc [$9.99 - iTunes link] is a great RPN Calculator for the iPhone but now developer James Thomson is curious as to what users would like to see in an iPad version. How curious? He’s made a cardboard version to play around with (above) and is offering TiPb readers ten (10) free copies of PCalc to tell him what you think!

So, head on over to the TiPb Forums and let him know just exactly which features you’d like to see on that big 9.7″ iPad screen. His favorite ten (10) answers will get a copy of PCalc for iPhone for FREE.

Give-away starts now and ends Monday at 12pm, PT. Promo codes require a US App Store account (Apple’s rule, not ours).

TiPb Give Away — 10 FREE Copies of PCalc RPN Calculator for iPhone is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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First Official Final Fantasy Trailer Makes its Debut

If you did not already know, Final Fantasy 1 and 2 coming to an iPhone/iPod touch near you and on Friday, Square Enix decided to tease us all with the first official trailer.

We are sure all of you who are die hard RPG fans are growing impatient by the minute but unfortunately there is still no specific release date or price. The only information the video gives us is that it is “coming soon”. If you’d like to get the latest information be sure to follow Square Enix on Twitter.

Video after the break!

[Via Crunch Gear]

First Official Final Fantasy Trailer Makes its Debut is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog