May 2009: Monthly Archive
No sooner does T-Mo Austria pre-post an iPhone 32GB SKU then Vodafone Australia sees them and raises the dreaded End-of-Life (EOL) on the iPhone 16GB. MacTalk says:
Why is this interesting to us? Well it just adds further fuel to the fire that there will be a new iPhone very, very soon. What mixes us up is the fact the 8GB isn’t EOL, but the 16GB is. Perhaps a 32GB and 8GB model will be around, the 8GB being the value option for the price conscious set.
Our bet is that the 16GB will be replaced with a 16GB next gen iPhone, joined by a 32GB model. Whether the 8GB iPhone 3G becomes the low-end option or not is anyone’s guess…
Colossal blunder to be sure, but is it a blunder in content, or was it just made live before it was finished and authorized? Are we seeing the first signs of a real, honest-to-Jobs iPhone 32G? Decide for yourselves, though Engadget reminds us that the original iPhone was prematurely posted by T-Mo Germany two years ago. Could this be the double d’oh!?
(But really, T-Mo, you couldn’t have used a faded out, stock photo of an iPhone 3G there? My eyes. Ouch. My eyes…)
[via AreaMobile]
iPhone 3.0 (and maybe hardware version 3 as well?) vs. Palm Pre. This summer, that’s the question many would-be-smartphone purchasers just might be asking themselves. Both have their pros and cons. The iPhone has a huge profile and market presence, but the Pre has the old-school Palm faithful who have been waiting a long time for their Next Big Thing. The iPhone has massive channels and even Sprint admits they won’t be advertising the Palm Pre much due to low initial supply. But those most likely to want the Palm Pre already know it’s coming, where to get, and may well be reading this while already standing in line.
But what about the consumer on the edge? The consumer who has an older iPhone or Palm, or the one who’s about to move up from a feature phone for the first time. What about the dreaded “undecided”? This article is for them. And, yeah, we’re an iPhone blog, so make sure you head on over to our sister-site PreCentral.net. They’ll keep us honest and make sure you get a full, fair representation so you can make an informed decision.
Now let’s get it on… after the break!
Okay, yeah, I rocked a Sega Genesis back in the day, which is perhaps not coincidentally the last platform where Sonic the Hedgehog was really done well. (Sorry, it needed to be said).
Can the iPhone version [$5.99 - iTunes link] make me eat those words, or at least spin me around on them faster than Yoda in a lightsaber duel? Let’s see, Sega does say it’ll make me relive my fondest memories from the Genesis era…
Blast through Seven Zones including classics as Green Hill Zone and Labyrinth Zone, as well as the Special Stages in an attempt to collect the Chaos Emeralds!
Classic 2-D Sonic experience on the go for the first time on the iPhone and iTouch!
Pick-up-and-play accessibility: Play in Full Screen or classic “Arcade” look and play with just the touch of a button.
If you give it a try, let me know what you think!
John Gruber of DaringFireball.net, who knows people who know people — no names! — has weighed in with his opinion on what we just might see from Apple in terms of a next generation iPhone at WWDC 2009.
Very likely: July release with roughly double the CPU power, digital compass, better camera with video shooting + editing, and 16GB/32GB SKUs.
Somewhat likely: Same $199/$299 price point, 256MB of RAM
Just maybe: Better battery life
Very unlikely: iTablet at WWDC
Sorta unlikely but…: iPhone mini at WWDC.
We’re guessing that’s soft affirmation from him on both the iTablet and iPhone mini/nano, just not yet.
Pretty much in line with all the other rumors, so consider this just more weight on the scales.
A while back we mentioned that an update to popular Twitter client, Tweetie was rejected by the iTunes App Store because, at that particular day and time, ****itlist showed up as a popular trend on Twitter. Later that same day Apple reversed the decision. But they haven’t, apparently, reversed the capricious lunacy that led to it.
Latest example: the e-book reader Eucalyptus has been rejected because not once, but twice, an App Store reviewer specifically searched for “the kama sutra of vatsyanya translated fr…” (or at least searching for enough of it to be offered that search term, then selecting it).
Developer James Montgomerie blogs about his frustrations, the continued opaqueness of the App Store review policy, and points out the blatant inconsistency of Safari, Google Mobile, and a variety of other built-in and already approved 3rd party apps providing complete internet search access to pretty much any content imaginable. (And some we’d frankly rather not imagine, thanks!)
Needless to say — and regardless of Apple’s statistics saying 98% of all apps are approved within 7 days of submission, 35,000+ apps in the store, and over one billion downloads — that simple, clear, and consistent guidelines, and developer support equal to the customer support Apple touts and prides itself on, are still not available some 10 months since launch, is embarrassing.
The App Store is a phenomenal success, no doubt about it, but doesn’t matter how fine your tuxedo is if you keep walking around with one or more battered, bloody eyes.
Need more absurdity? Forbes profiles the trials and tribulations involved in getting an app approved about US President Obama’s dog in cartoon form…
[via @chokenberry on Twitter, and the Reptile]
In today’s Apps For Less we found a few very worthy deals that you should definitely take advantage of.
First up we have a gem of a game from Gameloft — you might have heard it? — Assassin’s Creed – Altaïr’s Chronicles [iTunes Link]. You should know that it is one to pick up, especially at it’s new low price of $5.99 (down from $9.99!) Not a bad deal at all.
The fate of the Holy Land depends on you… Plunge into this direct prequel to the critically acclaimed game title, Assassin’s Creed™, offering rich gameplay and a well-balanced mix of stealth, chaotic action, and riddle-solving exploration in the midst of fully 3D-rendered historical environments of the Crusades’ Middle East
This next game also comes to us from Gameloft, Siberian Strike. [iTunes Link] You can now pick this one up for $.99! Great deal for an action packed, quality game!
Renewing the retro genre, Siberian Strike offers tons of enemies to destroy in many different ways thanks to the wild array of dangerous weapons at your disposal. Explosive missions make this game one of a kind with gameplay mixing shooting and riveting piloting assignments. Made for shoot’em up fans and casual players thanks to intuitive gameplay that makes it fun and within reach for everyone.
Last but not least we have an application that is actually not a game! The unit conversion app, Convertbot, [iTunes Link] is now on sale for a very limited time for the low price of $.99!
Convert currency, length, mass, time and much more in an exciting new way! Converting numbers will never again be a mundane task. In addition to its innovative interface, our robot is smart enough to convert to and from mixed units. Are you 5 foot 9 inches tall? Other converters require you to convert that to 5.75 ft in your head before being able to enter it. Convertbot allows mixed units like Foot + Inches, Pounds + Ounces, and more!
If you are a developer and are planning on a sale for your application feel free to contact us to be included in the next Apps for Less!
Once again it is time for another From the Forums. A weekly post in which TiPb takes some of the many good threads from our forums to put into the spotlight. To join in on the forum action be sure to register, it’s a painless process – we promise.
If you are like me, you are sick and tired of hearing rumors about an iPhone coming to Verizon. Well here is yet another rumor that started in the Crackberry forums that has now found it’s way onto our forums thanks to Duvi – iPhone on Verizon Soon? Now I can’t speak for everyone here at TiPb but I can honestly say I do not see this happening anytime in the near future. Thoughts?
This next thread started by KaiZeRKhan, is actually a question that I get asked quite a bit – Do you ever get bored of your iPhone? I’ve had a ton of phones along with my iPhone and the reason the others always end up sold is that I get bored with them, not the iPhone. How about you?
The last thread for today is one that has been spotlighted here before. We figured with WWDC approaching fast why not toss it in one more time – Will Apple reveal the new iPhone at WWDC? Did I mention this one has a poll and so far it’s 38-14 in favor of yes, we will see the new iPhone introduced at WWDC.
See you on the forums!
Perennial Apple guestimator, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, is back in the headlines (see above) with his prognostications about an Apple iTablet, which he sees hitting market in 2010 at a price point between $500 and $700 (i.e. between the top level iPod touch and bottom level MacBook).
Apple Insider sums up the specs, which are likewise ranged: screen between 7 and 10 inches, OS between iPhone and Mac. In one interesting aside, Munster wonders if Apple would allow both a higher screen resolution into the App Store to leverage more pixels, but also let several iPhone 320×480 apps run on screen at the same time (like Mac apps do in their windowing environment). Wireless carrier subsidies, like the iPhone enjoys from AT&T are also speculated.
Our favorite line?
“In other words, we expect the end result of the expected product to be launched later but with more dramatic differentiation than the Street is expecting.”
