May 2009: Monthly Archive

Math Ref Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Math Ref is what its name implies – a math reference app. It includes formulas, tips, and examples from many areas of mathematics. Math Ref has the potential to be a very helpful tool once some errors are fixed and the organization becomes more intuitive.

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(Photogene Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

Photogene is an iPhone “touch up” utlity that can be used to touch up or enhance photos you take with your iPhone.

First, what Photogene isn’t. It isn’t simply a series of filters that you can apply to photos. There are lots of apps out there that can apply a huge range of filters (oil painting, cartoon, black and white, sepia, posterize, etc). I have reviewed a couple of them. This app does have a few filters, but it is more about touching up photos (fine-tuning them, if you will) rather than simply applying a filter to make it “art”.

When you start the app, you can choose to take a new photo, edit an existing phot, or continue a previous session. This last option is particularly nice, it means the app “remembers” where you were and what you were doing. If you get interrupted, you don’t need to start over. One cool little thing is when you start the app, a “tip of the week” appears about taking photos with the iPhone. Normally I don’t like tips that appear like this, but I like it here because the tip is specific to using the iPhone camera (not just a general photography tip).

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With the release of Terminator Salvation only a few short weeks away — May 21st to be exact — Gameloft has gone and sent TiPb the very visually-pleasing trailer for their new iPhone game tie-in.

This game looks to be the most impressive iPhone game to date, we can only hope that the controls will be half as good.

There is no word on pricing (We’d expect it to be in the $9.99 price range.) or a release date but you can only assume it should be hitting the App Store on or around the movie’s theatrical release.

As for the movie, it is looking pretty decent, if you can get past the PG-13 rating…

No. Despite the Washington Post’s provocative headline, Apple’s no more “secretly working on an iPhone camcorder” now than they were “secretly working on an iPhone camera” in 2006.

Technology advances. Early digital cameras had very low resolution, now they’re in the double-digits for megapixels. When VGA cameras were no longer of any value as stand-alone products, they were integrated into cellphones. Now 2, 3.5, 5 megapixel, and even higher resolution optics are becoming likewise obsolete as anything but integrated options, and so are finding their way into the iPhone, Nokia, or SonyEricsson devices.

Those same camera kits have been used by other smartphones to shoot video for a while now. And as the low-end, highly-pocketable stand-alone devices like the Flip turn their sights to HD, the older, lower-resolution technologies get integrated away.

It’s likely Apple will provide video shooting, editing, and sharing in the next generation iPhone (we’ve seen lots of screen shots to confirm that), and fans of the iPhone, low-end camcorders, convergence devices will no doubt celebrate. Others will keep their 1080p units handy…

At least until 2011 when Apple and RED announce their partnership to produce the iPhone 4K (2160p)… on Verizon…

(Joking!)

myauntishot (via TUAW) shows an innovative guy using his iPhone to take his radio-controlled planes and helicopters to the sky.

Check out the link above for the scoop on why he did it and how…

Daring Fireball posted a tremendous article about how Verizon, AT&T, and Apple benefit if the rumors about an iPhone Lite and iPad media tablet on Verizon are true-ish (Gruber also looks at Apple’s iPod strategy mapped to the iPhone — go read it now, I’ll wait).

What struck me, however, was how Verizon, AT&T, and Apple benefit from the rumors themselves rather than the actual devices and/or their eventual carriers, if any.

• Apple is, according to a separate rumor, negotiating with AT&T to increase the length of their iPhone exclusivity agreement. AT&T’s last earning report showed just how important the iPhone was to their revenues, especially their new customer acquisition and premium service charges. This puts them at a distinct disadvantage with Apple, who could theoretically — if inconveniently — re-engineer the iPhone to work on any of the big 4 US carriers (CDMA for Verizon or Sprint, different GSM bands for T-Mobile). Rumors that Verizon is already talking to Apple, then, pushes AT&T over edge of disadvantage cliff. Obviously this is of great benefit to Apple.

• Verizon had what could only be termed a lackluster launch of their so-called iPhone killer, the BlackBerry Storm. With AT&T likely getting yet another mainstream hero phone this year in the form of the 3rd generation iPhone. Sprint, the other CDMA carrier, is getting the less mainstream, but still geek-anticipated Palm Pre as their hot summer hero phone. Where does that leave Verizon? The BlackBerry Tour (”Niagara”) and various HTC Touch series Windows Phones which will — eventually — be upgradable to the profoundly incremental Windows Mobile 6.5. Great gear, perhaps, but not hero phones on the same level as the iPhone or even Palm Pre (or last year’s Android G1 launch on T-Mobile). Rumors that Verizon may (soon) get an iPhone of sorts, or iPad, however, give the perception of a hero phone coming to the network. This is a huge benefit to Verizon, and might even keep some users from switching to AT&T (or Sprint) this summer to get a real device.

• Inversely, AT&T benefits not one bit from these rumors. They hurt AT&T’s negotiations with Apple and they may cost them some users who would have defected from Verizon.

We discussed this briefly last Wednesday on the iPhone Live! podcast, and no doubt others have made the same observation this week after reading the series of rumors (yes, even the one about the iPhone Lite actually being the Microsoft iPhone-Killer Pink). However, looking past the devices, it does seem like the rumors in and of themselves carry a hefty benefit for both Apple and Verizon.

Until the 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks roll out in a couple years, that might be the closest we really get to seeing Apple and Verizon together.

The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA)’s latest Quarterly Journal includes an article entitled Apple’s iPhone: The Case For Broadening Exemption Five To 17 Usc 1201 To Ensure Continued Non-Infringing Use Of Wireless Communication Handsets.

The introduction begins provocatively enough by spotlighting an American who, in August 2007, received an AT&T data roaming bill for $4200 after he took his iPhone on a trip to Europe. They do this to point out users who are “angered and frustrated” by carrier lock-ins, and threats that Jailbreaking and unlocking could void their warranties and brick their devices in the future.

The iPhone was chosen to draw a sharp example in support of their arguments in favor of expanding the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act exemption to “better protect non-infringing use” of wireless devices of all types.

We previously heard about the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asking for a DMCA exemption for Jailbreaking and Apple coming out against that idea. As ubiquitous data access becomes more important to more people, however, the real cross-network costs of roaming and the subsidy-based, handset exclusivity business model of big telcos will have to be carefully weighed against users not having to worry about bankruptcy when crossing a geographic border (or standing too close to a cruise ship).

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) related, they’re fair game.

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

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It was only a matter of time before some developer, in this case IntuApps, created an application revolving around the Swine Flu and why not, it’s actually pretty informative and it will be free. According to Techcrunch you can expect the following features:

“you can see the current Threat Level for the disease, a map showing confirmed and suspected cases, a symptoms area to inform people, and an alert page for breaking news on Swine Flu.”

This one can be very useful for a lot of people but now the big question is when will this application be approved?

Another screenshot after the break…

[Via Techcrunch]

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Apple.com/business has published a case study of micro-blogging darling, Twitter. Not surprisingly, Apple.com gives Twitter a lot of love for loving Apple products, especially the iPhone:

When it comes to availability, iPhones accommodate peoples’ needs to work remotely and stay connected with the Twitter team. Stone notes that Twitter remains loyal to iPhones even though other handset manufacturers offer them free equipment.

Not surprising. The price of a thing is seldom equal to its cost. If a free product takes you more time or resources or requires greater infrastructure to support, the cost of using it can rapidly grow higher than the dollar price of even a premium product or service.

For businesses that thrive on the technology the iPhone best supports, web, media, and a certain strategic perception and mind set, paying for iPhones is probably a much greater value than any “free” phone.