We heart XBMC, which debuted as a gorgeous and highly polished replacement OS on the original XBox, and has grown up to be the go-to media center for all types of gear now (and is the background technology behind Boxee to boot!). So what could be better than a killer open-source media center? A killer open-source media-center you can now access via your iPhone with XBMC Streamer [iTunes link], of course!
The XBMC Streamer connects to a running XBMC host and streams your music from your house, to you… anywhere in the world! You will never have to worry about running out of space on your Iphone again. Never again will you have to pick and choose which albums to take with you and which albums to leave at home. The XBMC Streamer gives you access to every song, artist, and album in your XBMC library.
And what’s even better than all this? The awesome folks at Collect3 have given TiPb three (3) promo codes to give to you! Just head on over to our forums and tell us the most embarrassing song in your media collection. That’s right! We want the best of your worst!
When it rains it pours. Just the other day we reported that if you wanted to use the soon to be released(?!) SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhones you may have to upgrade your home SlingBox first. Not a wise move if you ask us, especially since it seems to be no reason but greed. Well now PublicKnowledge.org is reporting that AT&T last week went in and changed their TOS (Terms of Service).
This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services, customer initiated redirection of television or other video or audio signals via any technology from a fixed location to a mobile device, web broadcasting, and/or for the operation of servers, telemetry devices and/or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition devices is prohibited.
So what does this all mean now for SlingPlayer Mobile? Is AT&T the the reason for what seems to be a delay of this application hitting the App Store? Maybe, maybe not…
Keeping it short but sweet, Skype’s blog shows once again how crazy-powerful Apple’s iPhone software platform really is:
In less than two days, Skype for iPhone has been downloaded more than one million times – around six downloads every second.
While copypetitors are still announcing or coming online (almost daily, with RIM’s App World! launch on April 1st — we fool you not! — and Microsoft’s Marketplace) this showcases the high ground Apple has already seized with their “on every iPhone” ecosystem, and the uphill battle rival platforms might face.
We seen both mobile players, QuickOffice and Docs2Go announce upcoming Word and Excel editing suites for the iPhone, but rumors of the king of the desktop doc jungle, Microsoft itself, entering the space remain just that: rumors. For now. TechCrunch has the latest:
I’m here at the Web 2.0 Expo keynote, where Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division, hinted that we may be seeing Microsoft Office make its way to the iPhone some time soon. After his interviewer Tim O’Reilly caught him on the comment, Elop backtracked a bit, stating “not yet, keep watching”. But it’s clear that an iPhone version of Office is on his mind.
So, do we need Big Redmond to give us Office for iPhone, or are the already-announced mobile players enough? Could they provide something no one else outside of Microsoft ever could? Like… Clippy for iPhone?!
As it stands, many of you have been craving some Slingplayer action on your iPhones. Well the good news is you are about to get it, the bad news is you may be paying more than you originally thought.
Engadget has posted that folks with older Slingboxes must upgrade to newer hardware in order to be able to stream content to your iPhone. And to make matters worse, this upgrade is technically not needed! Yup, the good people at Sling have decided that for everyone who wants to use Slingplayer Mobile on their iPhone, you can dish out some extra cash on some fresh hardware at home as well.
the company just posted up a page saying that owners of every older SlingBox save the Slingbox PRO will have to upgrade to a Slingbox SOLO or Slingbox PRO-HD in order to stream to iPhones. Yes, this is totally ridiculous: we’ve been told that the limitation is purely money-driven and that previous builds of the iPhone client worked just fine with older Sling hardware
Ouch, there you go, the only reason you may have to upgrade is pure corporate greed. This is surely a shot below the belt to current owners of older Slingboxes. So what do you say, will this prevent you from using Slingplayer Mobile on your iPhones or is it time for you to upgrade? We are curious…
The fine folks over at Longtail Studios have been gracious enough to offer up a couple (2) promo codes for TiPb readers eager to get their submission holds on the hot new iPhone game, TNA Wrestling [iTunes Link]:
Get ready to experience Total Nonstop Action anytime, anywhere! Once players create their own custom wrestler, they can jump into the ring against 15 TNA greats, including AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe and Sting, and compete in eight different match types such as Tag Team, Iron Man, Gauntlet and Lumberjack. The goal is to make it from unsigned rookie to TNA World Champion, while unlocking new moves, forging ring alliances, creating rivalries and making decisions outside of the ring that will affect what goes on inside of it.
Go grab it now. Or if you want a shot at the give away, well.. Cue the entrance music, make your way down the aisle to the hexagonal ring that is the TiPb App Forum and try to pin it down for the 3 count!
First we had Crackulous, and now as is the case with any sort of media today, piracy is running rampant. It is something that is bound to happen no matter how many ways are created to prevent it. DVD’s, CD’s, Satellite TV, Video Games, and now iPhone applications. According to Wired.com nearly 20% of all the App Store apps have been pirated and are now available. One torrent file of 5.4 gigabytes worth of apps, 808 cracked apps to be exact, was recently floating around on the web. It’s all out there to grab… but it doesn’t make it right and no we won’t tell you where.
Wired.com interviewed a creator of one of these pirated app web sites:
“We want people to think of these as trial apps since Apple doesn’t allow trials of apps before purchase,” said “Omar,” one of the creators of the site, who refused to disclose his real name to Wired.com. “It’s Apple’s fault for not putting up a trials system.”
Has “Omar” ever really been on the App Store lately? There are lite versions all over the App Store and that rests in the developers hands whether or not they want to make that available, but certainly that is not Apple’s fault. Right? Either way, this is getting out of control just a bit, I mean you have pirates pirating other pirates now!
So who really is to blame for this piracy gone crazy in the App Store? Apple? Developers? Let us know where you stand on this one!
Dieter’s on the floor at CTIA, and we’re hoping he’ll bring back a closer look, but in the meantime the fine folks at QuickOffice have just let us know that their new iPhone app, QuickOffice for iPhone will be available in the next few weeks, and will cost $19.99.
Quickoffice for iPhone has an intuitive user interface and supports comprehensive functionality including cut, copy and paste, font formatting, content selection and bullets within Word documents. Users can also leverage a wider keyboard to edit and create documents in landscape mode. Excel functionality includes extensive mathematical and statistical formulas.
Other useful features include file sharing capabilities via Wi-Fi desktop connectivity and access to one’s MobileMe iDisk account. Editing is done with maintaining perfect data integrity, in addition to ‘auto-save’ to ensure none of your work is lost on-the-go.
We’re guessing “next few weeks” means they’ll be using a custom-made cut/copy paste implementation under iPhone 2.x, which means we’re also guess there’ll be a new version come iPhone 3.0 launch this “summer”.
There have been other apps offering Excel editing in the paste, but Word editing is new for the iPhone (unless DocsToGo gets there first). Is it enough to get you over your document hurdle, or are there any power users still hungering for more?
A few weeks back we reported that MLB At Bat 2009 [iTunes Link] would be available on April 3rd, well it seems it was pushed out a few days early and can now be found in the App Store. Most of it’s features, however, will not be activated until April 6th. The biggest feature being, live Gameday Audio, from either the home or visiting team radio announcers, streamed directly to your iPhone. That feature alone should make this app worth the price of admission for all of you hardcore baseball fans.
So you have to be asking, how much will this cost me? For the entire baseball season including post season play this will run you $9.99. That really is not too bad considering in-game audio for the complete season, directly from the MLB website, costs $14.99.
So how many of you will be picking this one up? Let us know what you think!
Citrix, whom internet legend holds helped develop the Windows kernel and knows their way around Microsoft’s OS like Ballmer knows a good monkey dance, have been talking iPhone client for a while, and it appears they’ve now made good on it.
Citrix Receiver [iTunes Link] is a FREE application that hooks into the Citrix XenApp and XenApp Web Services environment to let you access your Windows system remotely from the iPhone. Labeled as a 0.9 release “Technology Preview” it still purports real-time, anywhere (as long as you’re online) access to your apps and docs, and an high def HDX experience, including special mention of piping Flash and Silverlight websites over to your iPhone. And yes, your data is encrypted and stored back on your server-side, not the iPhone client.
So, anyone try this out yet? Is it the great experience Citrix has come to make us expect of them? How’s AutoCAD and IE 6 ActiveX working for you on the iPhone?
