To quoth our good friend Phil from WMExperts (and by that we mean shameless copy): It is time, ladies and gentlemen, for the sixth annual SPB Survey. SPB Software House is looking to get a better look at your needs in the mobile applications, and they’re doing so worldwide, with the survey going out in 10 languages.

And your time may be rewarded. Three winners, picked at random, will receive the following:

• First place: A free smartphone of your choice from a major Internet retailer (such as Amazon or Expansys), valued up to $1,000.
• Second place: $100 worth of accessories from Smartphone Experts (that’s us), plus $100 worth of SPB Software.
• Third place: $100 worth of SPB software.

So, really, you have no excuse for not taking the survey, which runs through 7 p.m. GMT Dec. 4, 2009. Take the survey now!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Take SPB’s Survey, Win a Smartphone, SPE Accessories, and/or SPB Software!

PCalc [$9.99 - iTunes link] has 30 promo codes to give away to TiPb readers willing to help them out with a little survey. Here’s the thing: since “free apps no longer have to stay free”, and in-app purchases are now available to everyone, they’re interested in knowing just which in-app purchasable features interest YOU.

Ready? Here’s what you need to do:

• Download the free version of PCalc Lite [iTunes link]
• Try it.
• Rank the following features from the full version that you’d like to see made available as in-app purchases, in order of preference:
  1. More keyboard layouts with additional functions aimed at engineers and programmers.
  2. More themes, digit styles, and key click sounds.
  3. More unit conversions and constants.
  4. A virtual paper tape and display of memory registers.
  5. More advanced settings for controlling things like number of decimal places shown, thousands separators.
  6. Hex / octal / binary mode.
  7. Multi-line display and multiple memory support.
  8. A coupon code to save $9 on PCalc for Mac OS X.
• Suggest one cool new calculating feature they’ve inexplicably forgotten to include so far (real or fantastic).
• Email your feature ranking and new feature suggestion to survey[at]dragthing[dot]com
• Best suggestions received in the next 24 hours will get a promo code for the full version of PCalc in return. (US App Store only — Apple’s rules, not ours.)

Here’s what a sample entry would look like:

Got it? Good. Go get it and get to it!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Give Away: PCalc Wants Your Input — Has 30 Promo Codes to Prove It!

Tap Tap Revenge 3 [$0.99 - iTunes link] is scorching up the charts, and so to thank their fans the fine folks at Tapulous are tripling up on the give-aways.

First, if you’ve already got the app, they want to give you the TTR3 version of #1 hit on iTunes, “Fireflies” by Owl City for FREE for the next 7 days! That’s right, just fire the game up and download away!

Second, for those who haven’t yet upgraded from Tap Tap Revenge 2, buy the game in the next 2 days (through midnight Friday, PST), gets a FREE credit for a premium two-pack bundle (by top artists like Foo Fighters, Fall Out Boy, Blink 182, Smashing Pumpkins, and more being added every day). To get your free tracks,just email your iTunes receipt or screenshot to freemusic[at]tapulous[dot]com with your Tap Tap Revenge 3 username (and nothing else) in the subject line. Clear?

Third, they’re giving away a chance to win the entire premium catalog of Tap Tap Revenge 3 for FREE (over 100+ sensational songs). Want that chance? Drop a comment below (through midnight Sunday, PST), telling us who you’d most like to challenge on TTR3. Anyone in history, any where, any when. Who do you most want to play off the TTR3 stage and leave begging for music mercy? (Me, I’m claiming Shatner! He tasks me and I will have at him!)

Note: You’ll need a copy of your TTR3 iTunes receipt to claim your winnings, so keep it handy. Also, be sure to leave a valid email address so we can contact you. Now get going!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Give Away: Tap Tap Revenge 3 Wants to Help You Get Your Groove On!

Sorry. Had. To. Be. Memed. But as long as we’re being so predictable, we might as well make it a contest. A caption contest, of course. So let’s set the stage:

iPhone 3GS, blockbuster selling, uber-popular, satisfaction levels off the hook, has just won the smartphone of the year award, and is about to give its heartfelt speech, in front of proud Pappa Jobs, no less, when the boldest of Kanye West-inspired BlackBerrys storms the stage, speaker on full, auto-tune set, and just has to interrupt and say…

??

What? That’s where you come in. Head on over to our TiPb iPhone Forums and let us know. Be creative, be comedic, be original, and the caption we love best will get an iTunes gift certificate!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Caption Contest: KanyeBerry Says… What?

Ten years ago today, 9/9/99, our fearless leader Marcus Adolfsson launched VisorCentral.com - a community providing news, reviews and forums focused on a single product: the Handspring Visor.  The Visor, you may recall, was the PDA that was destined to start the smartphone revolution with the VisorPhone.

Ten years later, we have grown from that single small site to a network of seven different communities, each focused on a core brand of smartphone and dedicated to providing everything a user could need or want to know about their smartphone – from news to chat, reviews to ringtones, podcasts to apps, accessories to wallpapers. The Smartphone Experts Network has over 1.8 million members in our forums; on any given day there are thousands of users logged in: finding help, talking about the latest news, reviewing products, and more. We still have plenty of active members that signed up literally within days of our 9/9/99 launch. Millions of visitors every month come to us to find out the latest information for their smartphone.

The original VisorCentral

On our blogs, we have moved from an average of a single post a day on a single site to around thirty per day across our network. In our accessory stores, we provide a wide variety of accessories for every major smartphone platform and were named the fastest growing retailer of 2007 by Inc500. Our stores also provide sales and support for a large and growing network of affiliate sites.

Back in 1999, it wasn’t at all clear that a ‘Blog’ (the term still needed quotes back then) and community could be formed around a single device and thrive – VisorCentral was one of the first to do it and looking at the landscape of the technical blogosphere today, the model has worked. Since then we’ve kept the same goal: give users a place to learn about their specific smartphone and use it better. We couldn’t have done it without an incredibly great team of editors and writers, but most of all we couldn’t have done it without you.

So we just wanted to say thanks to our users and readers – thanks for sticking with us on what started as a strange experiment in web communities, thanks for being so passionate, engaged, and intelligent about your phones. We’re grateful for the knowledge, the discussions, and the friends we’ve gained over the past ten years and look forward to even more in the future.

To celebrate our ten year anniversary, each of our sites is giving away ten $50 gift certificates to its respective accessory store. To enter, simply make a post in this forum thread (not here on this post) sharing how this site has helped you better use your smartphone before midnight Pacific this Friday.

The Smartphone Experts Team

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Celebrating 10 Years of Smartphone Communities

TiPb’s giving away a 32GB iPhone 3G S (technically Apple gift certificate for $399). You had three chances to enter: on Twitter, by watching iPhone Live! and on our forums. And you entered in droves!

Best. Community. Ever.

Unfortunately, there can be only one winner, and for this contest, this time, the winner is…

Ahambone!

Congratulations! Enjoy, and when you get your iPhone 3G S, send us a picture!

This is the second iPhone we’ve given out this year (along with tons of other stuff — so if you didn’t win, don’t fret, it could be your turn next time!)

OH… BUT WE’RE NOT DONE YET!

The response on Twitter was so fantastic we’re giving away a special runner-up prize, courtesy of the TiPb iPhone Store, just for the sheer fantasticalness of all our followers and friends:

• Motorola S9-HD Bluetooth Stereo Headphones

Make sure you’re following us and check your DM’s soon!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

And TiPb’s 32GB iPhone 3G S Give Away Goes to…

Tuesday was all about the Twitter. Wednesday we took it iPhone Live! Well today, we bring it back home.

For your last chance to enter TiPb’s 32GB iPhone 3G S give away, just go over to the TiPb iPhone Forums and tell us the #1 reason you want to upgrade (if you already have an iPhone), or why you want to make this your first iPhone (if you’re currently rocking some other RAZRPreBerryDroidMobile97 device). Nothing fancy, just the deal-maker.

• One forum post per person
• The rest of the contest details

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb 32GB iPhone 3G S Give Away Day Three – Last Chance to Enter!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered our Make Us a TiPb-themed YouTube video intro contest!

The winning entry, courtesy of llofte, is embedded above, and be sure to check out some of our other favorites from Alli, sil3ntrid3r11, iLoveiPhones, and Bela, below the fold!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Friday Fun TiPb Birthday Bash Videos!

Earlier this month, we celebrated TiPb’s Birthday Bash, and as a giant thanks to you, our members, we spent nearly a week giving away iPhone accessories, promo codes for some of our favorite apps, and iTunes gift cards. We’ll be highlighting some of the winners, runners-up, and otherwise awesome entrants this weekend, but for right now I think we’ll just go ahead and announce the winner of our biggest grand-prize so far:

• A factory unlocked 8GB iPhone 3G in your choice of 35 different color options courtesy of the awesome folks at ColorWare.

That’s right. One of you is about to get your iPhone, your way. And we’ll tell you who… after the break!

Drum roll please….

Congratulations to — PirateNinja!

We hope you enjoy your new, unlocked ColorWare iPhone 3G — and for those of you who didn’t win, be sure to check out ColorWare’s services as well, pimping your iPhone has never been so fun or so easy, and if you want to maximize your geek-bling cred, check out their Beats by Dr. Dre.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Birthday Bash: And the Unlocked ColorWare iPhone 3G Winner is…

Keeping this Birthday Bash organized has been a lesson in futility for us these past few days! Too much to give away, not enough time to give it! Not wanting our readers to suffer the same fate, Stand Alone is kindly offering up four (4) copies of Satchel, the Backpack Client for iPhone ($9.99 – iTunes Link)

Satchel is a native client for Backpack, 37signals’ web-based service that makes organizing your information incredibly easy. After creating your account on Backpackit.com, you can edit your pages, lists, and notes right on your iPhone, whether you’re online or not.

So what do you have to do to get one? Well, TiPb has already spent the last year taken on the iPhone. Now… (insert megalomaniacal laughter) we want to take on the world! Drop us a comment below and help us figure out the top three tasks we need to do… to bring order to the galaxy… er… planet!

1. ?
2. ?
3. ?
4. Rule earth

Of course:

• US iTunes Store account required to redeem promo codes
• Backpackit.com account (basic level is free!)
• Contest starts now and ends May 12, 11:59pm

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Birthday Bash Give Away: Satchel Backpack Client for iPhone