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Join Rene, Chad, Dieter, and the Cell Phone Junkie, Mickey Papillion, for iPhone vs. Droid, AT&T vs. Verizon, Jailbreak SSH attacks, the week in apps, and your questions live! Listen in!

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

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

TiPb Presents: iPhone Live! #75 — DROIDed!

Today’s TiPb Top 5 will be directed towards our iPhone and iPod Touch wielding readers who love photography. Just like our other TiPb’s top 5 must-have posts, all of these applications are available in the App Store. For the full overview, follow us after the break!

Photogene

Today’s first application is Omer Shoor’s photo editing app Photogene. If you’re looking to do some serious photo editing with your iPhone, Photogene is the app for you. Whether you want an app that auto edits for you and has special effects or you want full control over every aspect of the editing process, Photogene does it all!

• Correct color distribution, brightness, color temperature, exposure and contrast
• Gamma correction
• RGB Balance
• Special effects
• Customizable Frames and Frame effects
• Text bubbles

Photogene is available for $2.99. [iTunes link].

DSLR Camera Remote Professional Edition

Are you an aspiring or professional photographer with a Nikon or Canon DSLR? DSLR Camera Remote displays what your camera sees on your iPhone or iPod Touch and allows you to remotely control your camera’s shutter release and settings. This app is ideal for studio photography, self portraits, and awkward angles. Even though you are restricted to using this app on WiFi, when comparing it to the price of professional remotes, DSLR Camera Remote is a must-have for photographers with a supporting camera.

• Remotely fire your DSLR over any WiFi network (ad-hoc ok)
• See through your camera’s viewfinder with LiveView mode and focus remotely
• Remotely control camera settings like aperture, white-balance, and shutter-speed
• Auto Bracketing, burst, and intervalometer modes

DSLR Camera Remote Professional Edition is available for $19.99 [iTunes link]

Panorama

Next up, we have the excellent panoramic application Panorama. Similar applications require the user to have skill in aligning photos for the final stitching to look good, but not Panorama! The stitching algorithms built into Panorama are very sophisticated and do an amazing job at fixing a bad alignment job. So if you’re interested in taking beautiful, high quality panoramic shots, be sure to pick this one up!

• Sophisticated stitching algorithms
• Take individual photos as portrait or landscape
• Add photos to the left or right
• Auto brightness/exposure corrections

Panorama is available for $9.99 [iTunes link]

TiltShift Generator

Photographers will often shoot photos with a shallow depth of field to make their subject stand out, but the iPhone’s camera is rather limited in this regard. With TiltShift Generator, you can add a very natural blur to your photos to bring non-subject matter out of focus and adjust contrast and saturation to really make your photos pop. Look no further than TiltShift Generator to satisfy your depth of field generating needs.

• Create “retro miniature pictures”
• Radial or linear Blur
• Edit contrast and saturation
• Vignetting
• Direct email and Twitter support

TiltShift Generator is available for $0.99 [iTunes link]

ColorSplash

Have you ever wanted to add a Sin City feel to your photos with only specific details in color? With ColorSplash you can! This technique is what’s known as selective desaturation and with 4 different brush types and a mode to clearly see the boundaries between black & white and color, ColorSplashis an excellent choice to give your photos that dramatic look.

• Give photos a dramatic look by keeping chosen details in color
• Use your finger as brush
• 4 different brush types
• Share with Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter
• Alternate mode that shows colored regions in red to easily see boundaries between black & white and color.

ColorSplash is available for $1.99 [iTunes link]

Conclusion

There you have it, TiPb’s Top 5 Must-Have iPhone photo apps. Did we miss any of your favorites? Overlook any killer photo apps? Drop us a comment and let us know your list!

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

TiPb’s Top 5 iPhone Photo Apps

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Join Chad and Rene for blackra1n and blacksn0w, Apple TV 3.0, Magic Mouse, more DROOOOID! talk, and all the news, apps, and your questions answered. Listen in!

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

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

TiPb Presents: iPhone Live! #74 — blacksn0w Day!

Did Verizon and Motorola forget to include a few things in their iDon’t attack ads, like iDon’t render web pages as slowly or badly, iDon’t arbitrarily restrict the amount of apps users can install to 256MB, iDon’t fail to implement multi-touch, and iDon’t have a worse user experience.

We can’t blame them, of course. They were focusing on the iPhone’s weaknesses, as the geekier among us (nitpickers included!) would have to admit, and not the Droid’s. It was their ad, and fair enough.

However, for those considering the Droid vs. an iPhone, we should lay all the cards on the table. Sure the iPhone lacks a physical keyboard (that irks some users, pleases others), doesn’t have Google Maps Navigation (yet), doesn’t match all the specs, and has issues with App Store approvals (though that doesn’t effect most users). But what about the Droid?

(And no, we don’t mean that horrible devil-red eye graphic that’s kind of the opposite of “not evil” and makes that incessant “DRRROOOOOOIIDDD” chime pretty much indistinguishable from “REDRUM!”)

First, in the perfunctory Browser Battles, it turns out the almost two month old iPhone 3.1 Safari is still king of the mobile mountain, according to MobileCrunch:

On the popular web-standards test known as Acid3, the iPhone scores a 100/100 while the Droid caps out at 93/100. [...] Once you’ve grown accustomed to pinch-zooming, the level of accuracy provided by tap-zooming alone simply doesn’t cut it. [...] The iPhone browser is also considerably faster, with page loads completing anywhere from 15-30% more quickly with both handsets on WiFi.

Second, we all know the Android Market doesn’t have as many apps as the App Store, but maybe that’s a good thing since Android 2.0 still doesn’t fix its app space limitation, leaving Droid with a paltry 256MB for apps according to AndroidandMe.com:

Google does not support installing apps to the SD card (and likely never will), so developers are limited in what they can create. [...] For most applications, we want a small file size to limit the download times. When it comes to 3D games though, we need a ton of space for all the high-res textures, audio, and video. [...] Have you seen all the awesome iPhone and iPod Touch games? Hardly any of them would fit on an Android phone.

This problem, of course, also plagues the Palm webOS and BlackBerry platforms. NokiaExpert and ZDNet’s Matt Miller’s been told it’s a security issue, but does that matter to end users when iPhone’s can go up to (almost) 32GB?

Third, if you’re a fan of the iPhone and iPod touch’s (and Magic Mouse’s!) multi-touch, don’t think the Droid will have your fingers covered. According to Engadget:

As you have probably heard (or guessed), there’s no multitouch on this device. That’s clearly an issue with Android 2.0 and choices that Google is making about user interface

Fourth, the user interface, while definitely an improvement — and maybe even a refreshing change for some — still doesn’t rise to level of usability as the iPhone. Like MobileCrunch (and every other review we’ve seen), we’ve given our iPhones to toddlers and they’ve been able to use them well.

That’s still Apple’s killer app. And that’s likely why, even after going all in on Droid and throwing BlackBerry under the bus (even canceling their BOGO!), Verizon still wants the iPhone…

[Thanks to Tom for the app limit tip!]

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

Verizon Droid iDoesn’t Beat iPhone on Browser, Apps, Multi-touch or User Interface

Apple TV 3.0 (or Apple TV 3, or Apple TV Take 3) is the just-released third version of Apple’s and Steve Jobs’ “hobby”. And, for good or for ill, its latest feature-set seems designed to keep iTunes’ living room gateway as niche as ever. That’s not to say it isn’t good, because it is (though it does have problems we’ll get into below), but it’s certainly not great. Not yet. And we’re beginning to wonder if Apple (now or ever) even wants it to be?

Preamble 1

Yes, this is an iPhone blog, but just as other SPE Network sites like WMExperts will touch on the big Microsoft picture and Android Central will keep its electric eyes on Google, TiPb tries to include everything Apple that connects to the iPhone ecosystem. So you won’t find a review of the latest Mac Pro, you will find one of the pocketable iPhone’s big screen cousin, the Apple TV. If your interests lie elsewhere, just skip on to the next post. If you are interested, however, follow on after the jump for more!

Preamble 2

I’ve had an Apple TV since version 1.x and I use it every day. For me it’s part of the Apple/iPhone ecosystem and it “just works” to let me use the same music and video on my iPhone and on my TV (and in iTunes on my PC). My living room setup is a 1080p LCD with 7.1 surround (which I put together as cheaply as possible — check out this forum post for more), which I use Apple’s Remote app to control the Apple TV with my iPhone or iPod touch.

Long ago, I ripped every DVD I owned to iTunes format, and whenever I find a movie or TV series I love on sale at Amazon or elsewhere, I buy it, rip it to a Drobo, and box ye old physical media as backup. I also buy via iTunes, especially when they have their sales. I’m exploring going all in on PVR’ing content as well, but I’ll save the rant on how Canada has no consumer protection when it comes to telecommunications, and Canadians have no access to CableCard, mandated unencrypted OTA broadcast signals, etc.

All this by way of saying I have a lot of content and I watch it via my Apple TV a lot, and so the Apple TV 3.0 update is something I take seriously. Apple… well, we’ll see…

Software not Hardware

Apple TV 3.0 is, sadly, a software only update. There’s no new Apple TV gear to go buy. No better chips, no bigger capacity, no added features like TV tuners or 1080p out. If you haven’t bought one before, it’s cheaper than it was a few months ago, but it’s not better. That’s a far bigger problem at this point than the software.

New Look, Tweaked Feel

The user interface for Apple TV 3.0 has been refreshed — at least on the top level. Now, instead of just two vertical menus, a horizontal menu cuts across the top showing off poster/album art for your content. The spots on the left are, refreshingly, reserved for your own media — your most recently added movies, TV shows, music, podcasts, etc. I count 5 spots on mine. The spots on the right show stuff Apple would like you to buy from the iTunes Store. Yeah, it’s like that — Apple TV remains a hard-sell for purchases and rentals. It’s not as bad as it used to be — they’ve even moved your content above store content in the menus, but it’s still the overall purpose of the device. Then again, online rentals seem to be the future of the set-top box, so fair enough…

LP and Extras

One of the major reasons cited for the Apple TV 3.0 update was to add compatibility for iTunes LP and iTunes Extras. If you already have either or both, iTunes will download new versions of the content (?!), but once done, they look great. Extras present similarly to DVD extras, however the interface for the one we tested — Wall-E — was very un-Apple. It wasn’t clear where to click or when. Choosing one option left that option highlighted when, in order to actually use it, we had to navigate over to the artwork, and then notice the dots beneath the artwork denoting a number of different elements to that content. Apple usually nails this stuff, but we’ll test a few more and hope very hard it was an isolated accident.

Note: there aren’t very many iTunes LP and iTunes Extra offerings yet, barely a dozen of each, but expanding it to the Apple TV is a good sign Apple is making at least another “hobby” out of it. We’ll see how well it plays out.

Also note: Are we waiting on iPhone 3.2 so we can get those extras on the mobile screen as well? Sure would be nice to have them if we got them…

Final Thoughts

Apple TV Take 3 it certainly isn’t. Only its elegance, simplicity, and seamless integration for iTunes users makes it a valid alternative against Windows 7 Media Center or competing set-top boxes that offer Netflix (for those in the US) or XVID/DIVX/MKV (for those who get their content… elsewhere).

That, however, is exactly how Apple has positioned it. Want a DVD option? get a Mac Mini. Want portability, get the AV cables with an iPhone or iPod touch. Want to take iTunes content and splash it on your big screen, there’s an Apple TV for that. For now. But “hobbies” only last for so long. If Apple doesn’t make a serious run at “business” with a proper 3.0 (or 4.0 we guess) and updated hardware, we’re guessing it will dwindle into “canceled” before long. And that would be a shame.

Gallery

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

Beyond iPhone: Apple TV 3.0 First Impressions and Screenshot Gallery

Apple’s Magic Mouse, introduced via simple press release on October 20, is the latest point-and-click peripheral for the Mac, and the latest showcase for Apple’s multi-touch technology, first introduced in the iPhone and later the iPod touch. While the iPhone is still the premiere multi-touch experience in consumer electronics, however, Apple’s modern history of mice has been… poor to mediocre. The hockey puck that shipped with the original iMac was goofy, the one-button Mighty Mouse hard to second-click with and prone to gunked up scroll balls.

Does the Magic Mouse work an iPhone-level spell, or is it just more of the middling? TiPb takes a look after the break!

Unboxing Beautiful

Apple once again shows that their attention to detail and customer experience doesn’t end with the device, it starts with the packaging. The Magic Mouse comes in small plastic box that shows it off similar to how the iPod touch is displayed in its packaging. Once open, you find the mouse and not much more, only some paper, and that’s pro forma.

Magic Mouse connects to a MacBook or Mac desktop via Bluetooth, once again showing Apple’s move towards fewer wires and farther range. It’s not rechargeable, but comes with a battery already in place, ready to use with a flip of the power switch.

Getting Started

If you’ve got the Bluetooth icon in your menu bar, click on it and choose Setup Bluetooth Device… The Bluetooth Assistant will launch, it will detect your Magic Mouse, and as soon as it does, you can choose it and pair it. (If you don’t have the BT icon in your menu, just launch System Preferences, choose Bluetooth, and hit the + icon at the bottom left to launch the BT Assistant).

It took me all of a minute or so to get up and running. Kudos to “just works”. Or at least it does once you launch Software Update, download, and install Apple’s Magic Mouse Software. This comes pre-installed with the new iMacs and Mac Minis, and will no doubt be integrated into Mac OS X 10.6.2 when it’s made available, but for now it’s an extra step and requires a restart. Apple must be patching something core, and that in and of itself is interesting.

Hardware

Compared to the previous Mighty Mouse (a name which is now trademarked by another company), the Magic Mouse feels about the same on the table. It’s alright, but it’s not the smoothest experience. The weight feels good but the profile isn’t as high. The angle of the edges feels great in the hand, but the lack of a higher, rounder top leaves your palm kind of empty. No doubt that’s to make space for the multi-touch gestures, but it will take some getting used to.

Like the Mighty Mouse, the entire upper shell is one giant button (with an Apple logo on it this time), but the Magic Mouse’s “click” feels much better and more satisfying. When setup to do so in System Preferences, it also detects the right (or left if you’re right handed) second mouse click much, much better than the Mighty Mouse ever did (no doubt because the capacitive technology “knows” where you’re clicking). From that purely old-school point-and-click perspective, Magic Mouse is a big improvement.

The bottom has a second Apple logo, along the laser and an on/off switch you can toggle to save battery power if you’re going to be away for a long time.

Multi-touching

Okay, on to the gestures. Those that are included so far work… from very well, and just okay. To back up a moment, like the iPhone, the surface of the Magic Mouse is capacitive (see the teardown for details) so it can detect multiple finger actions and execute whatever behavior those actions represent.

The scrolling, where you move a single finger around to pan left-to-right, up-and-down, and basically any direction is great. Say goodbye gunked-up physical scroll wheel or ball, evolution has selected you for extinction. In an especially nice touch, System Preferences lets you turn on (or off) momentum based scrolling, similar to how the iPhone flicks fast at the beginning, then slows to a stop. Sadly, there’s no elastic banding like the iPhone in Mac OS X. Yet.

The “just okay” defines the two-finger sideways swipe, currently only implemented in Safari to go back and forth within a tabs history (I’d prefer switching tabs), and iPhoto to cycle through images. I have no problem with doing it (mad iPhone-derived skillz, yo!) but a friend who tried it with me found it difficult to annoying.

I mentioned so far, above, because I have a suspicion Apple is doing what they did with iMovie ‘08 here — introducing something new and deliberately keeping it simple to start. The multi-touch trackpads in the MacBooks are another example. At first they introduced the second finger for left click, and the double-finger for scrolling. When the MacBook Air debuted, they added three-finger swiping and four-finger tabbing and Expose. Apple could easily be making the same play here, scrolling and swiping at first, Expose and tabbing (or other added functionality) in a future software update.

That might help allay those like Dieter, who miss the side buttons on the old Mighty Mouse, or a third button or other assorted mechanical doodads.

Bottomline

I’d still prefer an Apple-produced iPhone or iPod touch app that exactly duplicates the functionality of the current MacBook (Air/Pro) trackpads. Absent that, the Magic Mouse is the best mouse Apple has made in a long time (I supposed in the same way, post Vista, many proclaim Windows 7 the best OS Microsoft has shipped). If you’re a fan of the iPhone’s multi-touch, like trying new, ambitious technology, or just want to stick completely within the Apple ecosystem (and don’t mind paying $69 for the privilege!), this is the mouse for you. If you’re not sold yet, head on over to your local Apple Retail Store and give it a test drive.

If you prefer clickety-clackety multi-button mega-mice, we’ve heard Logitech might be a better choice for you.

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

Review: Apple Brings iPhone-style Multi-Touch to Magic Mouse

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Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

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

TiPb Presents: iPhone Live! #73 — Great Googley!

So while the dust is by no means settling following Google’s bombshell announcement of their free Google Maps Navigation app for Android 2.0, it’s thinning enough that we can start to survey the landscape again.

In terms of the iPhone, Google is saying they’re working with Apple to add the same or similar navigation features to the iPhone’s built in Maps application that Android 2.0 now enjoys. TechCrunch thinks that, in light of the Google Voice situation, Google should make Apple beg for what they say is best car navigation software, with the richest feature set in the space (or at least the US space, since it’s not international yet). They see it as a replay of when Apple had to beg Microsoft to keep Office on the Mac, with the cloud being the modern “killer app” equivalent of productivity software then.

Apple is in a terrible position here because the future of mobile apps are Web apps, and Google excels at making those. Apple needs Google, it’s most dangerous competitor in the mobile Web market, to keep building apps for the iPhone. Google would be foolish not to since the iPhone still has the largest reach of any modern Web phone. But it will no longer be a priority.

However, Google delivering Google services to Android — Google’s own OS — makes sense. Android got native push Gmail before anyone else (something most handsets still don’t enjoy, GoogleSync being the alternative). Likewise, Google Street View was first shown off on the Android during it’s initial unveiling.

For arguments sake then, let’s say Google does indeed work with Apple to bring Google Maps Navigation to the iPhone Maps app and to all those search-happy, high-value iPhone users’ eyeballs — again, for free — where does that leave existing, premium priced, iPhone turn-by-turn software makers?

Navigon, one of the highest grossing apps in the iTunes App Store, told TiPb:

[Google's] app is not available for the iPhone yet and on Android it’s just launching, so we’ll have to see how professional the navigation experience really is and how well the map material supports navigation functionalities. We have over 18 years of experience in the navigation field which lets us develop unique and high quality features not found on other navigation software and we are using maps that were created specifically for this use case. We provide excellent features such as Text-to-speech, Reality View™ Pro and Traffic Live and are convinced that consumers will pay extra dollars for a better, and more premium navigation experience. Besides, their solution is off-board which means that the navigation is interrupted when there is no cell phone signal available while our iPhone app is on-board and therefore works like a traditional navigation device – you will continue to get directions even without cell phone signal. This is particularly relevant in Europe where you have to pay extra roaming fees when using an off-board solution and traveling from one country to another. In addition, we already have navigation solutions for Android as well as WindowsMobile and Symbian smart phones on the market in Europe and are currently evaluating the options for launching some of these in the US as well – including Android. Our iPhone app is currently the top 3 grossing app in the App Store.

TeleNav, which supplies the service behind the subscription-based iPhone’s AT&T Navigator app, had this to say:

It’s premature to assume that this will have any dramatic impact on the industry. We will see how many phones the service launches on, the content and usability, as well as consumer feedback before we make any assumptions or conclusions about any impact on the industry. We know that people value navigation and are willing to pay for a high-quality, differentiated service.

Certainly there are many industries where people are willing to pay a premium price for premium services. Will navigation software for mobile devices be one of them? Or is paid navigation software about to go the way of paid web browsers?

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

What Google Navigation Means for iPhone Maps App, and for Turn-by-Turn Competitors

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: Bento

This week I am picking the Bento app from FileMaker. There are several apps out there that can keep track of passwords and other data. What is nice about Bento is that you can make these databases yourself! You can edit fields, make lists and choose data types. If you own Bento for Mac, you can sync the data between apps! For $4.99, Bento is a great value for simple database creation. [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Chris’ Pick: Bed Bugs

Bed Bugs is a fun, quick paced pseudo-shooting game (for some reason it reminds me of Space Invaders). In the game, you try to keep your sleeper asleep by shooting the various monsters that try to wake him up. Different monsters have different weaknesses (when you can “shoot” them, for example). Succeed and your sleeper gets a good night sleep. [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Jeremy’s Pick: The North Face Snow Report

Snowboard/Ski season is fast approaching so my pick is the Snow Report. It’s free and you get a slick user interface, detailed information on any resort you select, trail maps, built in Twitter support, etc… Nifty little app that anyone interested in skiing or snowboarding should pick up.[$Free - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick: RedLaser

RedLaser is created by Occipital, which has that nifty barcode scanning technology (used in foodscanner as well.) The application scans barcodes with ease and has recently come to my aid in purchasing books. After it scans, it pulls up results from Amazon, Google and other locations, letting you know where the cheapest place to purchase is. If you’re one of those people that like to compare prices while at the store, this might just be the perfect app for you! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Canabalt

Canabalt is a highly simplified, highly stylized — indeed pixelized — game where you race across rooftops, jump over obstacles, leap between buildings, crash through windows, avoid bombs and collapsing construction, and otherwise do everything you can just to keep running. If you hit something you slow down, if you don’t, you speed up, and if you mistime a jump, you fall, crash or get vaporized and the game is over. How far can you run? [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

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

Bento, Bed Bugs, The North Face Snow Report, RedLaser, Canabalt – TiPb Picks of the Week

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Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

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

TiPb Presents: iPhone Live! #71 — Jailbreak Broken!