A new application, Backgrounder, is now available for jailbroken phones! This allows you to run official App Store apps in the background. Yes, you can now listen to music while you are in your favorite App Store app!
With Backgrounder, you don’t have to log into a secure shell session. You don’t have to perform black magic. You just press and hold the home key while running any application. After a few seconds, the Backgrounding Enabled pop-up appears. Release the home button and go about your business. Backgrounder automatically returns you to SpringBoard. To quit the background application, re-launch it from SpringBoard, then press and hold Home until the Backgrounding Disabled pop-up appears.
Why Apple has not allowed apps to run in the background is beyond me. At first I thought that maybe the iPhone couldn’t handle a few apps running at the same time so Apple rightfully did not allow it… well after trying this new app, which is only available to jailbreakers via Cydia, it is more than obvious that the iPhone indeed can handle apps running in the background.
So Apple when will you learn if you don’t give us what we want, we eventually just take it…
So are you finally going to jailbreak your phone now? We’ve got step by step instructions up to Jailbreak the iPhone 3G for both Mac OS X and Windows PC users, and for the original iPhone 2G. Jailbreakers UNITE!!! Argh!!!!
[Via Ars Technica]
Brian passed on this tip from Kevin Doel. Looks like Tetris is being ever-zealous in broadly defending their “look and feel” trademarks:
Phunkware’s Shaker game is being pulled from the market in about 5 hours. The
Tetris Company contacted Apple claiming the game is too close to Tetris for comfort.
If this is legit, and you read this post in time, and the FREE game at all interests you, walk — don’t run — to the App Store and grab Shaker now!
Daring Fireball has posted an interesting article that focuses on trust-issues developers have with Apple’s current App Store approval process. In a pod-shell, they can’t depend on Apple not to reject Apps they’ve invested time and money on, hence they are reluctant to develop the kind of Apps that require time and money, which are typically just the kind of innovative, mind-blowing Apps we really, really want them to develop and Apple not to reject. While DF’s solution is both simple and profound, it’s an analysis of just why Apple may have rejected PodCaster and MailWrangler, the two Apps whose rejection made manifest this developer fear:
The theory is that there is an unpublished rule that Apple — and in this case, where by “Apple” I really mean “Steven P. Jobs” — will not publish third-party apps that compete with or replace any of the four apps in the iPhone’s default “dock”: Phone, Mail, Safari, and iPod.
Why?
And so my guess is that while there may not be any logic, there’s at least a notion, if only in Jobs’s mind, that these four apps are sacrosanct because they define the iPhone. Everything else, both from Apple and from App Store developers, is piffle, secondary to those four apps.
While I remember there being another issue stated for MailWrangler’s rejection: that it didn’t allow users to edit their account information, it’s impossible to know at this point whether or not fixing that and resubmitting it to the App Store would have gotten the developer any further (though I hope he at least tried?)
What do you think? Could a lot of the current App-angst be traced back to Apple’s (and Steve Jobs’) holding the iPhone dock applications sacred? And if so, if they clearly stated in the SDK “Thou Shalt Place No Apps Before the Them”, would that go anywhere towards calming developer fears, or only increasing their frustration?
Is it possible that web apps can return from the dead? It seems to me that the 2.0 firmware pretty much buried the poor web apps six feet under. Even if they are not used nearly as often since we have 3rd party apps along with the App store, it seems as if Apple are quietly tweaking the iPhone for them.
According to a reader over at AppleInsider.com:
One unpublicized feature introduced by Apple’s latest iPhone software updates is the ability save Web Apps to the home screen and have them launch in full-screen mode without the Safari wrapper, essentially mimicking the experience of a native app.
The reader also notes that the capability is “only present in Web applications specifically authored to include the full-screen code”. Pretty clever trick Apple. But is this enough for you to start using web apps again? Or have you never given up on them even though we have the App Store?
We here at TiPb are curious what you think, sound off in the comments!
[Via AppleInsider]
Today on the forums come a few hot threads from one user! ExBBUser want to know, what are you current top 5 apps from the App store? He’s a newcomer to the iPhone and would love to hear your opinions! In this next thread ExBBUser wants to know do you use any other device in addition to your iPhone or if you still carry around your old BlackBerry, Palm, or Windows Mobile device? Would you be so kind to help him out?
What makes this edition of Today on the Forums a special edition? Because of the contest of course! Don’t have any idea of what I am talking about? Check out our TiPb AT WORK Contest that we are currently having in our forums! The voting ends this Saturday, which just happens to be tomorrow! So you don’t have much time left! Get in there and vote for your chance to win some FREE Apps! Vote here!!
Just a reminder, you need to be registered in our forums to vote, registration is free and easy. You can get registered here.
See you on the forums!
So, we’ve heard all about how the bloggers feel about iPhone 2.0 and the issues surrounding its launch, but we’re not what anyone would call — by any stretch of the imagination — normal. We love our gadgets hard, and hate their flaws with a breathing passion, so we’re skewed from the outset. What about real users, however? You know, the sane ones. What are their impressions?
Technologizer wrote in to tell us about their look into
The State of iPhone Satisfaction. 2150+ iPhone Users surveyed, top 7 answers on the board:
Vast majority love their iPhone and rate the App Store highly, but are ticked off about Apple’s acceptance (read: rejection) policies and think Apple responds only “fairly well” to problems/issues. Almost everyone has gone 2.1 and thinks it improves the iPhone. Half of MobileMe users loves it, the rest are mixed or haters. For those who have problems (just about everyone), freezes, crashes, slow internet, and poor coverage were the culprits. The biggest missing feature? Cut/copy/paste (who knew?). And no one cared about the lack of a tic-tac-tile keyboard.
For the full results, head on over to their expanded coverage entitled: “An iPhone Opinion Explosion”.
Apple has just released the following statement (via Daring Fireball, who thinks it might have flowed from Steve Jobs’ pen):
We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.
We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.
However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.
Updated for clarity: This means that released firmware, like 1.x up to 2.1 is no longer covered by NDA, but un-released firmware, including the current iPhone 2.2 Beta 1, is still under NDA. Okay to talk about what was and what is, but not what will be, b’okay?
Hey, maybe the full on Dieter-rant from the last Phone different podcast finally got to them?
While issues of clarity in the rejection progress and app demo/refund handling remain, this will certainly go a long way towards not only easing the burden on developers, but restoring some of the lost luster (and ill will) Apple has garnered from the developer and blogging community as of late.
What do you think? First step? Giant leap? Or drop in the bucket?
I am a big music lover and I hold a special place in my heart for Trent Reznor’s music. Nine Inch Nails has been one of my favorite bands since freshman year in high school (when nobody really knew who Trent Reznor was, let alone Nine Inch Nails). This is an iPhone dedicated web site so why am I telling you this? Well you will soon be able to rock out to Nine Inch Nails right on your iPhone… Tap Tap Revenge Style!. (iTunes link)
Tapulous, the developers who brought you the highly addictive Tap Tap Revenge, are hard at work getting 12 NIN songs into their highly successful app. This will be the first developer to bring licensed content to iPhone Apps. No release date or price has been given but I’d pay a few bucks for this for sure.
I have a feeling it will do very well and we can all hope that it could bring us Closer to more musician/application deals. That would be a pretty sweet deal!
(Via Gizmodo)
On Saturday we covered some MobileSafari browser makeovers for iPhone 2.2, now it looks like its the on-board App Store app that’s getting a (minor) fresh coat of paint. Apple Insider reports on the changes:
Among them is a new categories page that will feature large category icons — not yet functional — and more generous spacing between each listing. [As well as] shifting the “Tell a Friend” option from the title bar to just below the reviews summary, and adding a “Report a Problem” function that will allow shoppers to inform the company of problematic apps.
Neither of these are the unified inbox or searchable email I was hoping for, let alone cut and paste, but before jumping to conclusions, we’ll let Apple take a few more of these tiny little steps…
For now.
Apple has made a vital change to the App Store, in order to review an app you now have to actually have downloaded it first. All I have to say is… it’s about time!
This brilliant idea (that should have been in place since day one!) means we no longer have to read reviews from people who have never tried the app out — or don’t even own a iPhone or iPod Touch!
Now all we have to get rid of are the thousands of reviews that simply say “How do I uninstall this?” That is so sad, not only because they give it a rating of 1 star but the person has no clue how to uninstall a app! Is a 1 star rating simply because you can’t uninstall the app fair to the developer? I think not.
Your thoughts?
(Via DaringFireball)
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