We’ll save you the preamble this time; suffice it to say iPhone+Twitter = peanutbutter cuppy goodness. And now Twitter is rolling out new features to either make it dark chocolatey super good, or just to give us a sugar headache, we’re not sure which (though we’re fairly sure we’ve strained the confectionary metaphor well beyond the point of painful, so moving on…)

Twitter Lists aims to help with discovery — to let more users find more interesting people to read and follow. Basically, if you follow hundreds, thousands, or more, it was nigh-impossible to keep up with a few specific ones, or to organize them in any way (sort of like iPhone apps on the home screen, don’t get us started!). With lists, you can create groups/categories and add the people you’re following to those lists. Family, friends, co-workers, fellow gadget enthusiasts or movie geeks, pretty much any system you can think of. Then, to see what that list is up to, you just go to the handy list view and voila, all their tweets, nice and separate. You can also follow other people’s lists if you find a group you really like.

We’ve set up a few already:

• TiPb Staff, for all our editors, writers, reviewers, and moderators.
• SPE Network, for TiPb sibling sites and their Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, Palm, and Windows Mobile coverage.
• SPE Site Editors, for behind-the-scenese commentary and random thoughts from those who manage the above-mentioned sites.
• SPE Everybody, for the master-list of everyone involved with Smartphone Experts.

We’ll be adding more if/when they make sense, so if you have requests, send them our way!

New-style retweets is more controversial and potentially confusing. As Twitter rolls these out, when someone you follow retweets something, you no longer see them and their retweet, but the original tweeter, (even if you don’t follow them), along with a note saying which of the people you followed retweeted it. Again, it’s supposed to help with discovery, but it’s already driven Justine Batement into curse-riddled outrage, and depending on how it’s implemented on the web and in clients, could jut be a bad of Twitter hurt. (Techcrunch posted the above screenshot of how Tweetie 2.1 will be handling them, pink corners and all).

If you’ve tried them, let us know what you think, either in the comments below, or on Twitter:

@theiphoneblog, @reneritchie (Rene), @backlon (Dieter), @iChadman (Chad), @JFSikora (Jeremy), @jamesus (James), @llofte (Leanna), @JHamilton24 (Josh), @justin_horn (Justin), @msproductions (Matt), @skeetobite (Chris).

In Stock: Motorola H17 Bluetooth Headset for iPhone

The Motorola H17 Bluetooth Headset [$89.95 - TiPb store link] features the easy to use RapidConnect on-off switch and includes CrystalTalk dual-mic technology for excellent audio. Flip open to talk; flip closed to end the call and save battery life.

This lightweight bluetooth headset can pair with two phones simultaneously and can be used up to 33 feet away from your device!

Features:

• Talk Time: 5 hrs
• Standby Time: 7 days
• CrystalTalk Technology
• Dual Microphone
• Automatic Volume Adjustment
• Bluetooth Version 2.1
• Range: 33 feet
• Weight: 9 Grams
• Lightweight, On-Ear Style

Learn more about the Motorola H17 Bluetooth Headset for iPhone at the TiPb iPhone store…

The BlueAnt Q1 voice controlled Bluetooth headset for iPhone [$109.95 - TiPb Store] is the higher end version of the BlueAnt V1 I tested last month, and came away impressed with. How impressed? It’s a piece of hardware I would recommend it to anyone in the market for a new bluetooth headset. Now that the good folks over at BlueAnt were nice enough to send me the Q1, will I make the switch? For all of the juicy details follow us after the break! Read the rest of this entry »

As part of their massive, yet strangely casual, new product drop this morning, Apple also introduced a new version of the Apple Remote [$19 - Apple Store link], which when combined with an IR-enabled Universal Dock, can control your iPhone or iPod (as well as iTunes on Mac or an Apple TV sans-dock). Add in the A/V out cables, and the remote also lets your iPhone or iPod function as a mini, highly portable Apple TV all its own, showing your content on the big screen, controllable with the touch of a button.

Or three buttons now, as the new aluminum and black Apple Remote, which replaces the ancient white plastic one, not only matches Apple’s new design aesthetic, but takes the play/pause button out from the center of the 4 way, and puts it on its own, on the side next to the menu button.

Not sure how we feel about this new arrangement yet. It’s a little more scattered than Apple’s usual (and older) elegance. However, we’ll reserve judgement until we get our geeky little mits on it!

Apple’s info, after the break!

Read the rest of this entry »

Wolfram Alpha [$49.00 - iTunes link] for iPhone (and iPod touch) is the “computational knowledge engine” made mobile. While the website is (currently?) free, the iPhone app is decidedly not. But is it worth the premium price? Christina Warren from Mashable says:

It’s a high end graphing calculator (that supports discrete number theory, Calculus derivative and plotting of functions), an almanac, a currency/unit converter and a pretty sophisticated stock analysis tool. And that’s just the beginning.

She shows several examples of the kind of results the Wolfram Alpha app produces, and is particularly impressed with its mortgage calculations and graphical math calculations.

So, for students or those who work in fields that require these specific types of computational features, and Mr. Spock, it very well could be. If anyone tried it out, let us know what you think!

TwitBit 2.0 Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Surprisingly, nearly 3 months after iPhone 3.0’s release, there are only a few twitter applications that offer push notifications. Twitbit is one of them. Version 1.x wasn’t compelling enough for me to use as my primary client, but the latest 2.0 update is rather impressive and brings Twitbit up to par with other great Twitter clients. The design is clean and simple yet not lacking in important features.

Read the rest of this entry »

Could Apple’s iPhone be destined for 3rd place in smartphone marketshare by 2012, trailing Nokia/Symbian’s 39% and Google Android’s 14.5% with a paltry 13.7%? That’s what some analysts at Gartner are telling ComputerWorld, with Nokia already in the global lead, and Google’s wallet, cloud-services, rapid iteration of the OS, and variety of form-factors and UIs from multiple manufacturers. Rounding out the other players are Windows Mobile with 12.8%, RIM BlackBerry with 12.5%, various Linux mobiles with a collective 5.4%, and Palm webOS with 2.1%.

iPhone, projected at 71.5 million unites sold, doesn’t have Nokia’s existing footprint or Google’s services, but here’s the thing: a) it has Apple’s still-unmatched 360 degrees of ecosystem integration, b) will likely continue to improve at the same rate it has since the original iPhone 2G running 1.x with no apps or services in 2007, and c) will remain wildly profitable, and that profit share will remain more important to Apple than raw marketshare.

TiPb has discussed this before, of course. Back in August we heard that while the iPhone currently only has 8% of the market, it gets 32% of the revenue. Further back in January, we heard Apple was making double the profits of Nokia.

So, okay, if the Mayans are wrong and we’re all still here in 2012, maybe Apple will only be making 30% margin on a 13.7% share. But that might still be killer compared to very little on a 39% share.

Just compare Apple’s current financial results to the rest of the industry for an indication of how that works…

UPDATE 2: Apple comments to Digital Daily:

“As we’ve said before, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players.”

UPDATE 1: PreCentral.net is back with the low-down on how Palm re-enabled iTunes sync in webOS 1.2.1:

by setting its Manufacturer to Apple and also perhaps by changing the USB Product ID to the iPod Video’s (they even changing the serial number that appears when you plug it in with Media Sync).

ORIGINAL: Palm has just updated their software to webOS 1.2.1, and according to PreCentral.net, the changelog reads “Resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (9.0.1)”

Congrats Palm, just after we went and praised you for finally putting users ahead of your own ego, for spending your limited resources on solidifying your own software rather than hacking someone elses, after the USB-IF slapped the hand you yourself raised, you went ahead and showed your desire for blog press and whatever “daddy issues” exist between you and Apple, Rubinstein and Jobs, are what’s most important to you. Kudos. Golf clap.

Bored now.

Apple is no doubt already hard at work on iPhone OS 3.2, the second minor update to the third major release of their mobile platform. Sure, we got iPhone 3.1 just over two weeks ago on Sept. 9, but looking back, we should expect to see the first beta versions of 3.2 sooner rather than later.

By way of comparison, iPhone 2.1 was released on Sept. 12, 2008. iPhone 2.2 Beta 1 was released on Sept. 25, with some tweaks to App Store and Safari’s UI. iPhone 2.1 Beta 2 dropped on Oct. 24, with Google Street View, SDK support for line-in audio, and direct podcast downloads and streaming. The final iPhone 2.2 firmware was released on Nov. 21, and both Google Street View and the ability to get podcasts on-device were great enhancements.

So, it’s not unreasonable to imagine 3.2 Beta 1 could show up before the end of the month, with a final release before the holidays.

Since we’ve already gotten direct TV and Movie downloads (over Wi-Fi), there may not be an analogous improvement to iPod and iTunes this time around. Subscribing to podcasts on device, however, where a push notification alerts you when a new episode is available and you’re on Wi-Fi to download it, is something we’d adore. iTunes LP and iTunes Extras support would also be dandy give their introduction in iTunes 9.

Likewise, Google Voice and Google Latitude having been rejected/held-for-study by the App Store, we may not get a Maps app update either (though Apple baking Latitude into the existing Maps app, Google-willing, could be a great compromise solution). We won’t hold our breath for push Gmail either (not GoogleSync, we mean built-in, doesn’t use up your only ActiveSync slot, genuine push email like MobileMe and Yahoo!)…

Enabling 720p TV-out from the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch G3 would be a great, and competitive addition, especially with a souped up dock-to-HDMI video cable to go with it.

We have our ongoing (though admittedly greatly reduced since 3.0) wish-list: better support for Bluetooth controls (AVRCP), APIs to allow apps to interact with the calendar, some form of background support for streaming audio, turn-by-turn, and other apps that cry out for it, Mobile iChat, remote backup and restore, iTunes music and video streaming, file system access for document handling, etc.

(Yes, we left out bug fixes, as we hope Apple sees those as urgent enough to address in an iPhone 3.1.1 release much, much sooner).

But what do you want to see Apple prioritize for iPhone 3.2?