Apple Patent Reveals Possibility Of Front Facing Camera in Future iPhones

News and notes from Expo’s Mobile Applications Showcase

Before this year's Macworld Expo fades even further into the rear-view mirror, Philip Michaels empties out his reporter's notebook with news about a half-dozen apps he saw on the show floor at this year's conference.

Win a limited edition set of Beatles MusicSkins from TUAW

Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, iPhone

Although you still can't get your Beatles fix through the iTunes Store, Apple Corps has made a license agreement with MusicSkins, the maker of music-related vinyl skin products for electronic devices. As a result, you can now purchase Beatles personal device skins featuring the Beatles logo and cover art from "Abbey Road," "Yellow Submarine," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Rubber Soul," "Let It Be," "With the Beatles," and "Hard Day's Night."

We have something completely different we'd like to give away to one lucky TUAW reader -- a limited edition (one of only 250) Beatles Album Jacket set with MusicSkins for the iPhone (2G, 3G, 3GS), iPod touch (1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation), iPod nano (5th Generation), and iPod Classic (80GB, 160GB). This features the full set of album cover art from the Beatles, and there are two MusicSkins for each of the iPod / iPhone types noted. If you don't have all of the devices, you can give some away to your friends as gifts!

To enter this special giveaway, just leave a comment below with the name of your favorite Beatle (and no, Pete Best, Stu Sutcliffe, and Brian Epstein don't count). Here are the details of the giveaway:

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
• To enter, leave a comment with the name of your favorite Beatle -- John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, or Ringo Starr
• The comment must be left before Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time.
• You may enter only once.
• One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: One Limited Edition set of MusicSkins featuring The Beatles (Value: US$120.00)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Good luck!

Win a limited edition set of Beatles MusicSkins from TUAW originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Win a limited edition set of Beatles MusicSkins from TUAW originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TeleNav: GPS helped guys get out of the Valentine’s Day doghouse

Filed under: Humor, Odds and ends, iPhone

TeleNav is known for its phone-based GPS navigation products, particular the AT&T Navigator app for iPhone. The company has over 11 million subscribers to its services, so it has a lot of data to sift through to find interesting location search trends.

That data showed that GPS location searches helped a lot of guys keep from getting in deep trouble with their significant others in the period surrounding Valentine's Day. Mark Burfeind of TeleNav tells us that they put together all the florist and flower-related GPS searches in their products around Valentine's Day, over 11 million users total, and "found that GPS may have come to the rescue for last minute shoppers." Among the interesting finds:

• During Valentine's Week (Feb. 8 - 14), searches for flowers increased more than 5.5 times over the previous, non-holiday week of Feb. 1 - 7.
• In fact, searches on Valentine's Day alone outnumbered searches for the entire week of Feb. 1-7.
• It looks like GPS may have helped some people get out of the "doghouse" following Valentine's Day. Searches for flowers by TeleNav's users the Monday following Valentine's Day were twice as high as those on an average Monday.

How about you, TUAW reader? Did you use your favorite iPhone navigation app to find flowers, candy, or an available restaurant reservation for Valentine's Day? Leave us a comment and let us know if your iPhone's GPS saved the day.

TeleNav: GPS helped guys get out of the Valentine's Day doghouse originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TeleNav: GPS helped guys get out of the Valentine's Day doghouse originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: Grocery Pal for iPhone

A feature that incorporates browsable versions of supermarket sales circulars into this shopping list app will surely appeal to coupon clippers. But despite some signs of promise, Grocery Pal needs dramatic improvements to its search capabilities.

Review: Reiner Knizia’s Poison a fun way to kill (a few minutes)

Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch, App Review

One of the criticisms launched against prolific game designer Reiner Knizia is that his games get their the theme pasted on. This means that whatever the players are trying to accomplish through the game's mechanics really doesn't have much to do with the graphics and the box description. He has at least 200 published games - and might have another one thought up by the time you're done reading this review - so we understand that they can't all be perfect matches.

Knizia's card game Poison, first released for the table top in 2005, is a perfect example of this. The game could almost be played with standard cards - the deck includes three colors/suits (each with three 1s, two fours and one each of 2, 5 and 7) and eight "poison" cards worth 4 each - but the company that released the game, Playroom Entertainment, printed it with a magician/warlock/witch theme. It was later rebranded and slightly tweaked to include donuts as the game Baker's Dozen in 2008.

The iPhone and iPod touch version of the game (US$2.99) uses the earlier Poison graphics, and it's a gorgeous looking little translation. The app was released 2009 by Griptonite Games and we honestly wish they'd have updated a few nagging items by now. Read on to find out what is good, and what could be improved, in this clever card game.

Continue reading Review: Reiner Knizia's Poison a fun way to kill (a few minutes)

Review: Reiner Knizia's Poison a fun way to kill (a few minutes) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Review: Reiner Knizia's Poison a fun way to kill (a few minutes) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Find My iPhone now works in Mobile Safari

Filed under: iPhone, MobileMe, iPod touch

Apple's MobileMe site at me.com used to be completely useless on the iPhone or iPod touch in Mobile Safari -- you'd get a splash page telling you to set up your contacts, calendars, and mail accounts, but that was about it. No webmail access, no direct access to galleries, iDisk, or even Find My iPhone. Apple introduced standalone apps that addressed some of these shortcomings (iDisk and Gallery), but there was still no way to access Find My iPhone unless you resorted to workarounds.

Things have improved somewhat with the new MobileMe page. Instead of simply admonishing you to set everything up on your Mac or PC, MobileMe now provides you with a link to instructions for setting up mail, contacts, and calendars. There's also links to download the iDisk and Gallery apps from the App Store. What's most useful about the change is you now have the ability to use Find My iPhone from an iPhone.

This might seem dumb at first -- "If I have my iPhone in my hand, why do I need to find it?" you may ask -- but if your household has multiple iPhone users and one of them leaves an iPhone at a pub, until now your only option was to dash home and try to find it on your computer. Now, you can access all the Find My iPhone features right at the moment your friend or significant other gets that wide-eyed, "I just misplaced a paycheck worth of electronics!" expression on his or her face. You can send an immediate message to the iPhone to get that loud, pinging submarine noise, which just might help you find the iPhone before you even leave the pub.

Find My iPhone is still only available as part of a yearly $99 MobileMe subscription.

Find My iPhone now works in Mobile Safari originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Find My iPhone now works in Mobile Safari originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple Changes Approval Policy; Bans iPhone Apps With Sexual Content

Want Hulu on Your iPad… as a Subscription Service?

MediaMemo is hearing from “multiple people familiar with the company” that the networks behind Hulu, NBC, FOX, and ABC, are still contemplating a version of Hulu for Apple’s iPad — but as a subscription service.

The problem is figuring out a way to keep the existing site free while adding new bells and whistles that consumers pay for. One idea the company and its backers like: Turning Hulu from a “one screen” service–one you’re only supposed to watch on your computer–to a “three screen” offering by adding support for TVs and mobile devices.

The “problem” is Big Media still thinks it’s 1960 and fails to show any understanding or imagination when it comes to re-invisioning themselves for 2010’s mobile, portable, ubiquitously connected culture.

But whatever. Would you pay a subscription to get a premium version of Hulu on your iPad?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Want Hulu on Your iPad… as a Subscription Service? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

iPhone accessories from Toy Fair

Filed under: Humor, Odds and ends, iPhone

Woot.com is one of my favorite sites on the entire Internet -- not only do they offer some great deals, and not only are they witty folks, but they're from my original hometown of St. Louis, MO. They recently went to the Toy Fair 2010, and in their roundup of the best stuff they saw are a few fun iPhone-related toys and goodies. First up is this monster-style iPhone skin that you can see above -- obviously, it's not the most practical way to protect your iPhone, but it does look cool. Apparently it's not in production yet, and there's no word on price, but we'll keep an eye out.

And then there's the My Ami Entertainment Holder, which is a bear with a place to put your iPhone so your kids can watch movies on it. Um, yeah. Not quite as cool as the robot iPhone skin, but a little more functional. Still, if your kids can't be troubled to hold their own iPhone, maybe they shouldn't be watching movies anyway. And geez, if we're going to have a place to set the iPhone in a teddy bear's lap, can we at least get a dock to plug it in to?

iPhone accessories from Toy Fair originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPhone accessories from Toy Fair originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mac Pro Audio Update Seen as Fixing Performance Issues

Effect of Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0 on Aperture and Compressor tasks
(Times in minutes:seconds)
With last week's release of a software update addressing heat and performance issues experienced by users of Apple's Nehalem Mac Pro ...

Hints Of Dashboard Widgets, URL Routing And Dictionary Lookup For iPad Found In iPhone OS 3.2 SDK

Find My iPhone Now Working on iPhone Safari, iTunes Preview Categories Now Working on Web

Apple has changed MobileMe’s me.com site, previously inaccessible from iPhone or iPod touch Safari, to not only allow access to Find My iPhone, but to offer help in setting up accounts and getting additional apps. iTunes Preview, meanwhile, has duplicated even more of the media and app browsing experience on the web by adding support for categories.

First up, when you used to go to http://www.me.com on your iPhone, you used to see an intercept page telling you to set up the services on your iPhone and that was it. Now the new page (above) has a link to setting up those services, a direct link to Find my iPhone, and links for getting Apple’s free Gallery and iDisk App Store apps.

Obviously, Find My iPhone from an iPhone or iPod touch (or iPad, as we presume that’s what Apple is setting all this up for) is the Big News here. The link itself is a bit clunky still and the Find My iPhone page hasn’t been optimized for the iPhone, but having it available online and mobile is huge.

Next, TUAW shows how Apple has once again expanded iTunes Preview — the web browser-based front for the iTunes store — adding full on category pages to the previous app and music rollout. Another piece in the rumored iTunes.com cloud-based puzzle?

Let us know what you think of these changes!

[Thanks Jason for the tip!]

Find My iPhone Now Working on iPhone Safari, iTunes Preview Categories Now Working on Web is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Apple updates MobileMe for iPhone

Apple has updated and improved the MobileMe experience for iPhone and iPod touch users. If you go to the site via Safari, you’ll now find links to help set up Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. You will also be able to use Find My iPhone.

iWeather Complete Pro for iPhone

If you like lots of weather information packed tightly into a single screen, then either iWeather Complete Pro or the free iWeather Complete is worth a look. But both versions require you to put up with clutter in the name of completeness.

Apple removing adult content from the App Store?

According to reports, Apple may be removing adult-themed content from the App Store. It's also improved filtering of App Store content browsed via iTunes.

Macworld 2010: Hangman RSS from Fingerarts

Filed under: Macworld, Gaming, Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

We met many developers and tried many apps while at Macworld Expo last week. Among the more entertaining was Hangman RSS from Fingerarts.

Developer Luigi, a self-professed "news junkie," visited the booth to tell us about his company's latest app. It starts with the classic game of hangman that we all played as kids. Here's the twist: Instead of presenting the user with a random word to guess, it pulls a timely news headline and leaves a key word out. It's your job to guess that word. If it's too difficult, you can get a hint in the form of the article's abstract. If you win, you get to read the full article.

It was surprisingly fun and looked great. Watch the video above for a demo and our conversation with Luigi. Then check out the game in iTunes (there's a free version as well).

Macworld 2010: Hangman RSS from Fingerarts originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Macworld 2010: Hangman RSS from Fingerarts originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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App Store rules changed to allow sweepstakes and contests

Filed under: iPhone, App Store

The prospect of an always-on, portable and discreet e-lottery ticket in your pocket may thrill some and horrify others, but as far as Apple is concerned it looks like it's A-OK for the App Store. We were first tipped to a change in the iPhone developer agreement this past Monday by Joel Comm, the originator of iFart Mobile; the particular adjustment is in section 3.3.17 of the agreement:

3.3.17 Your Application may include promotional sweepstake or contest functionality provided that You are the sole sponsor of the promotion and that You and Your Application comply with any applicable laws.

This opens the door to all sorts of games, prizes and payoffs -- not to mention the possibility of intriguing legal battles, as games of chance and contests are subject to all sorts of differing rules in different jurisdictions. Comm's company's latest app, KaChing Button, will be offering users the chance to win cash prizes in a monthlong sweepstakes that kicks off next Monday. He predicts -- and I concur -- that a massive wave of payoff apps is just over the horizon. I hope all those iPhone developers have excellent lawyers.

[H/T to RegHardware, AppFreak]

App Store rules changed to allow sweepstakes and contests originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

App Store rules changed to allow sweepstakes and contests originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple Comments on Removal of Sexual-content Apps

Following up on last night’s story about the removal of apps with sexual content from the iTunes App Store, TiPb asked Apple for comment and they responded:

“Whenever we receive customer complaints about objectionable content we review them. If we find these apps contain inappropriate material we remove them and request the developer make any necessary changes in order to be distributed by Apple.”

Developer Frasier Spears blogged about the plethora of sexually-based apps a couple weeks ago after exploring the deployment of the iPod touch at his school:

After some research, preference-tweaking and so on, I have one conclusion to share with you. Despite Steve’s insistence that Apple wouldn’t carry porn in the App Store:

The App Store is so full of soft porn apps that I cannot provide access to the App Store and comply with our acceptable use policies.

He went so far as to file radar bugs with Apple over the inability to filter out inappropriate content.

Putting aside the argument over whether or not Apple changed their policy yesterday or merely began more closely enforcing the policies announced in March, 2008, if filters can be created and deployed by iTunes such that users could control whether or not they (or their children, or whomever) could see sexual or violent or any other age-restricted content on the App Store, that might provide an ideal solution for all involved.

That, or Web Apps again become the alternate, unrestricted App Store.

Apple Comments on Removal of Sexual-content Apps is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

OS update lands, Stanza asked to remove USB feature, manufacturer chosen for next iPhone

Apple issued a new OS update for the iPhone Tuesday that patches security holes in the device. The new OS is version 3.1.3 and is available now. Apple has reportedly demanded that Lexycle remove the USB feature in its Stanza iPhone app. The USB feature allows users to share books via ...