June 2009: Monthly Archive

After braving 4 hours in line on Friday morning, I was able to walk away with a 32GB iPhone 3GS in white. So what do I think?  There are more than a few things that impress me about the iPhone 3GS. These observations are from using the device, not from mere published technical specifications. Let’s start to tackle them one at a time shall we?

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Join Dieter, Matthew, Rene, and Kevin as they discuss all of the insanely great new smartphones that have been announced and released in the past month. On the docket:

• Palm Pre Review
• iPhone 3GS Review
• Nokia N97 Review
• BlackBerry Tour Review
• HTC Hero
• and a bit more about Windows Mobile to boot. It’s all here!

(Update: links and player fixed.)

• Download it directly with this link
• Subscribe via iTunes
• Subscribe directly to the Podcast feed with your favorite Podcatcher here
• Listen to it here with the player above

Show notes after the break.

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Tiger Woods PGA Tour for iPhone is currently 30% off for a limited time [$6.99 - iTunes Link]. To celebrate, they’re giving a lucky TiPb reader a free copy for the iPhone (technically a gift certificate) and for the Xbox 360!

Hoping to score a give-away hole-in-one? Get over to our TiPb iPhone Forums and tell us your favorite funny golf moment or joke. (And no, you can’t just link to Robin Williams videos, okay?)

Ready… Swing!

Zodttd (via Gizmodo) whets our appetites for iPhone 3GS jailbreaks to come:

I now have psx4iphone running very speedy on the 3GS. It’s at the point where Final Fantasy 7 is fullspeed at very least without sound. The build is rough around the edges, as you can’t switch games without restarting the emulator, and only memory card saves are currently working, no save states just yet. Both these issues are being worked on.

For those not into the jailbreak scene, that also whets our appetite for higher-end gaming to come as well…

Well, at least it took longer than push notification or turn-by-turn navigation, right?

As should be no surprise, given how the porn industry is typically among the first to adapt to new technologies, Macenstein reports that the first app to feature nudity has made it into the iTunes App Store.

The app is rated 17+ for frequent/intense sexual content or nudity, and frequent/intense mature/suggestive theme. This means the new Settings > General > Restrictions > feature for parental controls in iPhone 3.0 can be used to globally allow or block the app (or any app based on several age-based levels). MacRumors explains the results:

If an App falls outside of the allowed rating they will simply disappear off your home screen. Once you turn the restrictions off again, the affected apps reappear.

This should mean we don’t see any more app rejections for search-based language or content, but it also leads us to wonder how long it will be before we see major adult entertainment companies come knocking on the App Store door…

Paul Haddad from Tapbots let us know just how fast he’s seeing users update to iPhone 3.0. Based on the headers included when their app Convertbot checks with its servers to get the latest currency information, Paul figures:

The data seems pretty clear. Prior to June 8th we have a fairly low adoption rate of ~3%. Starting on June 9 this jumps up to 6-8%, which can be directly tracked to the developer release at WWDC. Starting on June 17th we get a huge jump as all the non devs start upgrading. We’re currently running at an overall 75% upgrade rate which is pretty insane considering the number of devices and the fact that its only been 5 days.

Outside enthusiasts who regularly follow the news, users are only alerted to updates when they tether their iPhone to iTunes to sync. Looks like a lot of people are either enthusiastic enough to know about the update and want it, or fairly regular about syncing with iTunes.

Either way, these uptake levels are amazing.

Sorry everyone, no iPhone Live! this week. Nope. Not gonna happen. Instead, this week we’re bringing you — Smartphone Experts Roundtable Live!

Tonight, Wednesday, June 24 at 8pm EDT/5pm PDT, SPE Editor-in-Chief, Dieter Bohn (representing PreCentral.net, AndroidCentral.com, and WMExperts.com), Kevin Michaluk (fearless leader of CrackBerry.com), and Matt Miller (editor of NokiaExperts.com) will be joining yours truly (from theiPhoneBlog.com, ‘natch) to talk Palm Pre, BlackBerry Tour, Nokia N97, and our very own iPhone 3GS/iPhone 3.0.

As always, pre-show will start about 5 minutes before if you want to drop by early and reserve a space in our chat room. See you then!

Join in via http://www.tipb.com/live

Went into the App Store and what did I see, why an updated Remote app for iTunes and Apple TV! One of the first apps in the App Store at launch, the latest update for Remote [free - iTunes link] turbo charges the cool factor with support for gesture-based Apple TV control. Very slick:

• Hold down “Menu” to bring up main menu. Swipe to move around.
• Tap to play or pause music or video.
• Drag left or right and hold to rewind or fast-forward music.
• Flick left or right for previous or next music track.
• Flick left or right or drag and hold to rewind or fast-forward video.
• Flick down to show chapter markers, then flick left or right to skip through video.
• Drag two fingers left for 10 second reply.
• Tap “Exit” or “Options” for those actions.

If you hit exit, you get similar functions, art display, etc. to the previous version of the Remote app. Hitting Options brings up a new overlay menu on the Apple TV. Speaking of which…

The new Apple Remote app’s gesture features require iPhone 3.0 and the latest Apple TV software update, also released today (which seems to have gotten a UI over haul as well). Get that, or you won’t get the nifty new interface.

I’m trying it. I’m liking it. How about you?

More screen shots after the break!

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One of the biggest gripes a lot of iPhone 3G/3GS readers have is battery life. Now this is mainly due to not being able to put the iPhone down to give it a rest, but we now have another solution to your iPhone addiction. Enter Case-Mate’s Fuel Case for iPhone 3G/3GS, which is available in TiPb’s store for $74.95. For a full review, follow us after the break! Read the rest of this entry »

Once again validating Dieter’s iPhone 3GS vs. Palm Pre web rendering smackdown, MacRumors reports on Medialets‘ latest Sunspider Javascript tests pitting the iPhone 3GS against the iPhone 3G (both on 3.0 and 2.2.1), Palm Pre, and Google Android G1.

As MacRumors points out, not only is iPhone 3GS’ clear, current speed advantage impressive, but the 3x improvement iPhone 3.0 gives the iPhone 3G is most impressive as well.

Bill Gates’ “power of software” indeed…