404: Firefox NOT Coming to iPhone, Sorry Kiddies

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The folks at Mozilla are still fuming mad over Safari-gate. The developers behind the popular open source browser Firefox stated flatly that no efforts will be made to port Firefox to iPhone, blaming Apple’s Gestapo-like restrictive software license.

So this means I can’t look forward to a browser that consumes half my memory and grinds to a halt on AJAX-heavy websites? Tragic.

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British Invasion: iPhone to Surpass Nokia as Dominant Mobile Browser in UK

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Blimey! Hey, Bert - you see this news on the telly today? Yeah, tarts. It says ere that iPhone is kicking Nokia’s bum something awful in the browser business - a real flogging as it were. Some blokes at a firm called StatCounter is sayin it’ll overtake Nokia soon in mobile web share, and you know how the Finns are about losing.

Remember what they did when they lost the world cup soccer championship? Helsinki burned to the ground, it did. Bloody business that was. God save Safari.

ReadVia TUAW

That’s What She Twittered: New Twitter Mobile Shows iPhone LUV

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iPhone users can now more easily access and update their Twitter feeds thanks to Twitter’s efforts to improve support for mobile browsers, including Safari. Now when you access Twitter.com from your iPhone, you are greeted with a mobile friendly version of the service instead of the standard “pinch me please” desktop version.

Finally I can inform my followers of important moments in day. “I’m eating a ham sandwich, sitting on the john.”

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Adobe Flash Support Coming to iPhone, Ending YouTube Envy

What feature request has been on the lips of every iPhone user since the idolized gadget first came galloping out the gate? I’ll give you a hint, it starts with the letter “F”, and is the same thing your inebriated Uncle Frank does at family get togethers after knocking back one too many martinis. Of course, I’m talking about Flash.

GearLive claims that Apple will be announcing Adobe Flash for WebKit (aka mobile Safari). There have been rumors to this effect for some time, but with the blessed arrival of the much anticipated SDK now only days away, this seems plausible. Still, I wouldn’t start bookmarking YouTube.com on your iPhone just yet. Let’s wait for Apple make this rumor a reality.

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Track Your Feeds And Friends With Enophi, Beta

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Enophi is a new online service designed specifically for iPhone users. This RSS feed reader allows you to track your favorite newsfeeds, sprinkled with some social web trappings as well.

The service works as advertised and is free. Just point your iPhone to enophi.com and register. Create a list of feeds, then sit back and let your fingers do the walking…or scrolling, such as it is.

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Mundu IM: iPhone Edition, Chat Till Your Thumbs Bleed

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Mundu has a long pedigree in the world of business-class mobile instant messaging software. I have used their Mobile Messenger client on PalmOS and Windows Mobile - it works like magic. So it didn’t take long for their developers to show some iPhone love.

The company has announced a web based service that fully supports iPhone, via Safari of course (we’ve heard this line before). To access the web client simply point your iPhone to iphone.mundu.com. Login to any existing IM accounts (Yahoo, Gtalk, AIM, or Windows Live Messenger protocols supported), and text your way to repetitive stress injury.

The service is in beta, so don’t look surprised when Safari chokes and drops you back to the homescreen.

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Browser Cagematch: BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile Vs. iPhone

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InfoWorld pits three reigning Smartphones against the iPhone, comparing the browser experience of each platform. The verdict: Safari wins. Color me shocked.

This was a foregone conclusion. Mobile web browsers are simply crap compared to iPhone. I speak from experience as a Smartphone aficionado, having used every platform under the sun. None of the devices referenced in this article delivers even a remotely comparable experience to Safari.

iPhone includes a real web browser - a desktop web browser. Not the toy browsers you’ll find on PalmOS, Blackberry or Windows Mobile, that render webpages through a paper shredder, producing a mangled stack of images and text.

While I won’t deny that iPhone has a few shortcomings, web browsing isn’t one of them.

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CoolGorilla.com Offers Talking Universal Translator for iPhone

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Coolgorilla.com breaks down language barriers and offers a novel way to meet foreign women in bars with the help of its talking translation service. Avoid those embarrassing social faux pas as you stumble to form poorly structured sentences from a book.

Just visit CoolGorilla.com on your iPhone - select any available sentence from the phrase book and your iPhone will repeat it back in the desired native tonque of your guests.

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Plusmo Announces iPhone Support, Plus a Buttload of Widgets

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What better way to waste spend your time than downloading thousands of Widgets, slideshows, gamecasts, and feeds right on your iPhone. Plusmo offers a very simple iconic web frontend that delivers easy access to online content, suited for mobile devices. It works very similar to another online mobile content service called Widsets.

Plusmo goes a bit further my creating a homescreen-like interface and enabling web content developers and bloggers (that would be me) to create one-click publishing links that allow users to quickly subscribe to your mobilized content.

And like so many other Web 2.0 services…this one is free!

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Chapura Announces FoldedMirror for iPhone

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Chapura has added a new application to its product lineup, called FoldedMirror. What this application does is enable iPhone users to connect with Outlook Calendar and Contacts folders right from their device, by mirroring data created on a PC running Microsoft Outlook. A host PC is required, with Outlook running at all times, in order for this process to work. FoldedMirror doesn’t come cheap, however. A single user license will set you back $49.95. Ouch!

I haven’t yet put this software to the test since I already use a hosted Exchange account but it looks very promising. You can read the full press release here.

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NewsGator Mobile Updated for iPhone

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Over the years, NewsGator Go! has remained one of my all time favorite mobile RSS feed readers. The mobile client app to NewsGator’s popular RSS aggregation service was been available for Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Blackberry for some time now. And while the iPhone may not support third party software, yet, Newsgator provides a mobile web accessible service that supports iPhone. Just point Safari (via iPhone) to m.newsgator.com and login to your NewsGator account. From there you can access your feed through a simplified web interface optimized for iPhone. Enjoy!

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Find the Nearest Bar or Brothel With Earthcomber

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Earthcomber is an interesting location-based service that bills itself as a “personal radar”, providing an organized list of events and entertainment in relation to where you are. Just type mobile.earthcomber.com on your iPhone (Earthcomber will work with ANY web capable mobile phone) and Earthcomber’s server will detect your locale. From there you are provided with category-based list of services such as Food, Music, Movies, Recreation & Sports, Adult Entertainment, etc.

The service works really well, based on my own testing. Not only did it correctly identify various entertainment venues in my area, I was even provided with basic mapping and driving instructions as well.

Texterity Puts Mobile Magazines at Your Fingertips

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An online media service called Texterity delivers mobile editions to popular print magazines right to your iPhone, via Safari. In a nutshell, what Texterity does is simply digitize each print magazine page, turning it into an image file that can then be displayed and viewed within Safari much like a photo. Just point your browser (from the iPhone) to http://iphone.texterity.com/magazines/. Tap on any magazine that you like and a fully illustrated thumbnail library appears, representing pages from the selected magazine. Using the “Pinch” gesture, allows you to zoom and drag any portion of the document, making it readable. Believe it or not this is a workable solution. I’ve tried it myself.

Unfortunately no adult content is available, sorry pervs. And what’s worse Rachael Ray’s “EveryDay” Magazine is among the top featured. Having to see RR on my TV is nauseating enough. On my iPhone the experience is even more hideous.

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FlickIM, Web Based iChat Client for Your iPhone

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Psst…hey, buddy. Over here. So, you want to chat with your friends using AIM or iChat, on your iPhone? Well I got something for you. There’s this place on the internets called FlickIM. Just point your browser (via iPhone) to flickIM.com. You punch in your AIM ID, they look the other way, and you send instant messages to your “associates”. No questions asked.

I said no questions!

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Indentify Yourself in a Crowd With Name Tag

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Marcus Kazmierczak has created a fun little web based app called Name Tag, which is fairly self explanatory. Just visit the link below…punch in a name, and be a nobody no more.

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SeeFile Offers 5GB of Free Online Storage for iPhone Users

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SeeFile is an online media storage and collaboration service focussed towards creative professionals. The company recently launched a service that offers up to 5GB of storage for photos, documents, video, and other forms of media, accessible right on your iPhone through Safari.

Where the cool factor comes into play, is that you can also manipulate and edit documents right from you browser as well, through an AJAXy interface. I like.

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Zimbra Offers iPhone Support via iZimbra

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Zimbra has announced mobile account access to iPhone users via it’s new web service front-end called iZimbra. Zimbra, for those of you unfamiliar with the product, is an open source messaging and collaboration solution that is what one might describe as a Microsoft Exchange clone, offering the same functionality and collaboration exchange as Microsoft’s proprietary corporate communication suite.

What iZimbra does is basically bring something very similar to OWA (Outlook Web Access) formatted to iPhones’s mobile browser.

I’ve always been very curious about Zimbra and it looks extremely promising. I subscribe to a hosted Exchange account, so iZimbra is something I would find very compelling and usable were I hooked to Zimbra account.

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iPhone Does Have RSS Support…Via Safari

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So now we know how iPhone will handle RSS, and as we feared it’s through Safari. Apple has developed RSS viewing through a Safari-based web app (reader.mac.com). However, iPhone should be able to support my favorite RSS solutions; Google Reader. Can’t wait to try that out.

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101 CookBooks Develops iPhone-Friendly Recipe Site

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The folks at 101 Cookbooks have developed an iPhone-friendly versions of their website to better accommodate its native screen resolution (HVGA). Don’t ask me why they thought it necessary given that Safari already enables full web browsing, negating the need for such “mobile web” content. Buy hey, who am I to argue.

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iPhone Widget List

The iPhone Widget list keeps a close inventory on the growing list of iPhone web based applications in development. Worth a look.

ReadThanks to Chris Kerins for the tip

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