We’ve mentioned the original, FREE, MobileFiles application before, which lets you access MobileMe’s iDisk via the iPhone. Well, now we’ve also got MobileFiles Pro and along with the $9.99 price tag comes a killer feature that a lot of productivity mavens have no doubt been waiting for:
EDIT! native Microsoft Excel 2003 documents just as you would on your desktop. Save the edited Excel file on your iPhone, send to your iDisk account remotely, or upload to your desktop using WiFi – all while maintaining perfect data integrity.
MobileFiles Pro is developed by QuickOffice, so this definitely makes the kind of sense that does. The only question is: when will Word and PowerPoint editing follow?
Have you tried MobileFiles yet? If so, let us know what you think!
The 2008 Smartphone Round Robin was originally scheduled to finish… in 2008! December 31st — Today!
HOWEVER, by popular demand (read: delayed shipments, holidays, prep work for Macworld and CES, and Kevin escaping from yet another CrackBerry withdrawal facility), we’re now giving everyone 10 extra days to win. That’s right, from now until January 10th, you can make one more comment/forum post, per thread, per day (including this one!).
Given how many threads we have going not just on TiPb, but on Android Central, CrackBerry.com, WMExperts, and TreoCentral, that’s like a smartzillion extra chances to win an iPhone 3G, Android G1, BlackBerry Bold, HTC FUZE, or Treo Pro — each with accessories! (We’re going with the Case-Mate Naked Case, and Motorola H9 Bluetooth Headset! (Full contest rules here!)
So what are you waiting for? Check out all TiPb’s Round Robin posts, comment every day, head on over to the forums, make fun of Kevin, Dieter, Casey, Jennifer, and me (also every day), and good luck!
Not had your fill yet with iPhone nano and iPhone Pro “sliders“? Want even more form-factor furor to fuel your pre-Macworld fires? TechCrunch and the iTablet to the rescue!
We’ve got this from three independent sources close to Apple: expect a large screen iPod touch device to be released in the Fall of ‘09, with a 7 or 9 inch screen. Prototypes have been seen and handled by one of our sources, and Apple is talking to OEMs in Asia now about mass production.
Of course, we all know the story about the iPhone originating as a tablet device code-named Safari Pad, as well as Steve Jobs’ statement that he’s just as proud of the devices Apple hasn’t released as the ones they have.
So, while we have no doubt that Apple already has working iTablets deep beneath the vaults of Cupertino, given the shape of the tablet market, which outside Bill Gates has yet to take off, who knows if they’ll ever surface as a production device?
Uptake on the iPhone/App Store platform and popularity of the “netbook” class ultra-mini laptops may make some feel it’s more likely now than ever, but with Apple you only ever really know for sure when Steve Jobs (er… or Phil Schiller) hold it up on stage.
Still, the graphic designer would love one of these babies. How about you?
Jeremy posted this earlier in the month and linked to the video, and he’ll be back again when the iPhone 3G Unlock goes live, but until then, we just wanted to remind everyone (who’s never updated their iPhone from OS 2.0!) that today is supposed to be the day!
Well it is now official, the Dev-Team has updated their blog today to let you all know when the iPhone 3G software unlock will be released. Seems as if New Years eve is what they are aiming for.
- The target release date for the unlock is New Year’s Eve 2008.
- This unlock method is available to iPhone 3Gs that have 2.11.07 baseband or earlier, we did warn you.
- The unlock requires a jailbroken 3G iPhone.
Guess Times Square won’t be the only massive countdown going on today!
And Lo! When Apple opened the 1st seal, “Pull My Finger” was approved. When Apple opened the 2nd seal, “iFart Mobile” earned $10,000 a day. And when Apple opened the 3rd seal, there was silence in the App Store… except for a deafening cacophony of flatulence as Fartbox took to the field of battle.
Mactropolis has all the… graphic details, including sounds and languages (languages!).
Yeah. Um. Darwin kernel, BSD networking, OpenGL graphics, and the first new UI revolution in a decade, and farting is dominating the sales discussion and — doubtless — the funding pitch space.
Could the Hell Mouth hurry up and swallow us now-ish?
Form-factor-palooza continues! During the iPhone Round Robin, our best frenemy CrackBerry Kevin spoke extensively about his desire for an iPhone Pro:
know a big part of the iPhone philosophy is to keep it simple, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to be a little more complicated, and luckily, tagging a product with “Pro” at the end covers the reduced intuitiveness of a professional device. At the bottom of the iPhone is a single home button. How about we toss a little Apple key to the left of it? Maybe when you hit that button you could get a few basic functions to pop up on the display… maybe like copy and paste? While we’re at it, let’s add a little back button to the right of that home key. The lack of a back key on the iPhone is one of my BIGGEST irks of all – you have to learn within each app the correct way to tap “back” to a previous menu (time waster). The most unified/simplistic means of getting back is via a back button. I know this is something that even iPhone fans (Rene, I’m looking at you) would like to see. Maybe add the ability to edit office docs natively – it’s not something one typically does on a smartphone all that often (more likely to view than to edit), but sometimes “Pro” users do have to make changes on the go. And last but not least, give it a flashing red light. In other words, make it more like a BlackBerry! 
Seems he’s not alone, though Gizmodo certainly takes it to another level entirely: enter the slider! (Or re-enter, as we heard rumors of the iSlider back in July…) It’s not TiPb’s cup of tea. We’re still predicting an iPhone HD, but sans-slider. We highly doubt it’s something Apple would ever consider either, but we’re sure it would appeal to at least some of the HTC Pro/G1 crowd.
What do you think? Does the iPhone need it a big @$$ keyboard for 2009?
We’re coming up on MacWorld awfully quick now (TiPb will be there, natch) and so the rumors are flying. Expectations have been decidedly lower than in years past due to the absence of his Steveness, but there’s one persistent rumor that just won’t go away: the iPhone Nano.
The universal response to these rumors has pretty much been “Meh.” Engadget wants to know what the deal is. Macrumors thinks that it’s just case makers riding Apple rumor coattails. Gizmodo doesn’t believe either.
The rumor won’t die, though, so: what if it were true? What would an iPhone Nano look like?
Read the rest of this entry »
In case you haven’t read it already, our editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn, has an outstanding article up at sibling-site WMExperts highlighting his top 5 reasons Twitter is better than SMS (and vice versa).
There’s a lot of intertube fuss about SMS lately, as a recent New York Times article once again shone the spotlight on the disgustingly dirty price gouging (and potential fixing) that goes on when it comes to SMS rates in North America. Basically, SMS (at 160 bytes/characters) is ridiculously cheap for the carriers to transmit, no matter what the scale, and yet the prices have doubled from $0.10 to $0.20 on many networks over the last few years. Voice, by contrast, involves much more data and is much more “expensive” in terms of infrastructure costs. North Americans will pay ludicrous sums of money for “cheap” SMS but not for “expensive” voice, so the carriers take advantage.
Dieter points out that the cost, community, compatibility, control, and context of Twitter give it a clear advantage of SMS, even as the discoverability, dilution of quality, dropping 20 characters, downtime, and potential delays in notification (outside the US) make it still far from perfect.
Flaws and all, Dieter is moving towards Twitter (@backlon) and away from SMS. Am I going to do the same? I already have (@reneritchie) and without really considering it. But here’s the thing — I have considered that not only should I not have to consider it, I don’t think any iPhone user should. (Or any @theiphoneblog follower either!)
Read the rest of this entry »
For the first time ever, the complete iPhone Dev Team finally got together and met each other face to face. They gathered recently and gave a presentation at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.
Keep in mind the video is 58 minutes long and they do go pretty deep but it is definitely a interesting thing to check out. My favorite part of the whole thing comes in around the 2 minute 30 second mark: there are 180 IP addresses inside Apple that the Dev Team have tracked who have “updated their quickpwn and pwnage tool on a regular basis”.
Very interesting indeed. 
[Via Gizmodo]
