2009: Yearly Archive

The UI wizards at Gx5 have been a favorite of mine since they saved my old Treo 680 from the Garnet-uglies back in the day. So, when sibling-site leader, TreoCentral’s own Jennifer was kind enough to forward us news from Gx5 that they had whipped up some iPhone (and iPod touch) optimized Obama wallpapers just in time for the Inauguration, we figured we’d pass it on to you, our readers, as well.

(For those new to the iPhone and unsure how to change wallpaper, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!)

The v-moda vibe duo In-Ear Headphones w/ Mic, available in the TiPb Store for $99.95, are compatible with the iPhone 3G, iPhone 2G, iPod Touch, and iPod Touch 2G. In a sea of headphones ranging from the very inexpensive to the absurdly expensive, v-moda has found a nice middle ground in price without compromising quality. The design is stylish and the performance is above-average. Keep reading for the full, detailed review!

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Just in time for the inauguration of the next US President, Ustream’s Viewing Application for the iPhone has gone live in the iTunes App Store.

It’s FREE, so go grab it, then settle in and watch the Inauguration (and doubtless much more content to come) stream right to your iPhone.

One word of warning: it’s WiFi only at the moment, so make sure you’re near your favorite router before the festivities commence.

It’s been some time since the 2.2 firmware dropped, yet we have not heard of any developers getting their hands on the next version. So Dizzy wants to know, when is iPhone 2.3 firmware coming? That is a very good question, so check out that thread and let him know what you think…

Next up is a thread regarding the sharing of a single SIM card between your iPhone and another phone on the AT&T network. I’ve done it previously with no issues, now it seems like AT&T is tightening the screws just a bit. Have you tried sharing your iPhone SIM with another phone? Let us know how it’s worked out for you.

Forum member, EnterpriseGlobe, has started a fun thread – where did you get your iPhone? I stood in line for 2 hours or so on July 11th at my local Apple store. To kill time I emailed pictures and updates to Dieter while he was in line at the Providence, RI Mall. Oh the memories.

I know what you are thinking, this is an iPhone site, so why feature a thread about the upcoming Palm Pre? We all love competition, it just makes products better. Or at least that is the idea. To cut to the chase, what are your feelings regarding the recently announced Palm Pre? Is this real competition for the iPhone or is it simply one last ditch effort by Palm to try to stay afloat?

Finally, spidermanroach wants to know, Yahoo or Gmail? Which one do you think is better and why? Get in the forums and let him know!

Remember, before you can get in on any of the TiPb forum action be sure to register! It’s free and will only take a minute of your time.

See you on the forums!

Monopoly – Here and Now Edition Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Monopoly is a classic game, and it was just a matter of time until it appeared on the iPhone. I remember playing this in the summers with my sister when we were out of school. We would get games that lasted months as we would finally run out of money in the bank!

So finally Monopoly comes to the iPhone! The game is visually appealing, and is based on the Monopoly: Here and Now version with updated locations, dollars amount, and random cards. There is a lot of animation in the game, including rolling the dice, moving the pieces, and various cut scenes while running the app. That graphics are nicely done, and there was only a little stutter now and then with the animation sequences.

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Welcome to 2009, where Microsoft will — at some point later this year or next — release versions of what Apple released in 2008!

Our frenemies over at WMExperts have the details, and we have the snide remarks:

• SkyMarket looks to be the App Store done Microsoft’s way. Does that mean each app will ship in Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Really Professional, Ultimate, and 8 more server SKU’s?

• SkyBox, which if MobileMe is “Exchange for the rest of us”, makes SkyBox “MobileMe for the same of you?”. We can only guess it’s a repackaging of Hosted Exchange and Live! services, so join in on the Sync Toy/Live Sync/Live Mesh/Azuze MPD-brandfusion. It will, reportedly, run on non-WinMo devices (which is actually a Very Nice Thing).

• SkyLine, either a business version of SkyBox(!) or a Mobile clone of iDisk, depending on who’s reading the tea leaves.

Microsoft, like RIM, Google, and Palm have to go in this direction. Apple opened a floodgate with the AppStore, no doubt about it, so while we poke some friendly fun, we also hope this gives Apple more competition, like the new Palm Pre, so that Apple has to up their game and give us iPhone faithful more functionality faster than we might otherwise get.

Anyone racing to pick up an HTC FUZE and try it out?

Craig Hockenberry and the Icon Factory are among the earliest and most well respected iPhone developers in the community. In addition to their amazing design work and Mac and Windows software, they created the highly popular Twitterrific and Frenzic for the iPhone.

TiPb: We’ve been spending a lot of time lately discussing the App Store and what business model(s) it will evolve From launch, you took the route of having both a premium paid version of Twitterrific and a free, add-supported version. What made you settle on that idea, and how effective has it been for you?

Craig Hockenberry: The desire to have both a free and paid version of Twitterrific came from our experience on the Mac. It’s the best of both worlds for everyone: we get some funds to pay for the development of the product, and users get to choose how they want to support us.

We decided on having ads before the final details of the App Store were revealed. Since there are no demos in iTunes, the ability to have a free version for people to evaluate has been a big benefit. A lot of my fellow developers are now looking at this model.

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Every week I will be bringing you what I think are the week’s biggest stories and articles. Let’s get started, after the break!

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Christina Warren from TUAW wrote on Twitter that Google recently dumped the iPhone optimized version of iGoogle and now simply redirects users to a generic mobile version instead.

Update: Here’s Christina’s story on DownloadSquad.

What in Google’s green earth could they be thinking? One of our readers, Jesse, wrote in to share this forum post from Google employee, Paul:

“Hey everyone, I have an update for you. We’ve decided to direct iPhone users to the standard mobile iGoogle page. We’ve found that people hit iGoogle from lots of different phones — we want to ensure you’ll all see the same version.

Most or all of your existing content should translate over to the standard mobile version. The only exception would be any gadgets that aren’t compatible with most mobile browsers.

We’ve got several articles in our Help Center about the mobile experience on iGoogle, which you can find in our Help Center [link].”

Lowest common denominator much?

Jesse also let us know that Jailbreak users have a workaround: spoofing their browser via the Cydia app, Useragent Faker.

So is this Google playing it fair, playing favorites for Android (which still has functioning Gmail in its iGoogle mobile according to Christina, unlike the iPhone or BlackBerry), or just doing the mobile equivalent of re-coding all sites to standardize on the original version of Netscape?

Apple’s VP of iPhone and iPod Marketing, Greg “Joz” Joswiack, chatted with the UK’s Edge Online about all things iPhone (and iPod touch!) gaming, and he once again shows us the power of perspective. While some might find the iPhone SDK limiting in terms of Apple’s tight control and opaque approval process, Joz argues that, in some ways, its far more open than gaming handsets:

some of the game guys have told us that they love the experience here because, on a product like a DS or a PSP they’re very limited in what they can do, because they have to get the permission of a Sony or a Nintendo who might say, “No, we don’t want another example of that game,” or maybe because they’re creating such a game themselves, so it’s a lot more tightly controlled. Here, if they’ve got a great idea for a great game, they can just go for it, and that’s actually worked very much to our favour.

Joz shares his thoughts on the design of the iPhone, the SDK, App Store pricing, and many other issues as well. Given that the App Store has just passed 15,000 applications and half-a-billion downloads, with games no doubt accounting for a high percentage of those, the entire article is definitely a worthwhile read.

Check it out, and let us know whether you agree or disagree with Joz’s point of view…