All Articles Tagged Apple

It’s time again for another From the Forums post, today we have a few good poll threads for our forum members to participate in. Not a member you say? Well all you have to do is register right here for free! After you take a care of that, check out the following threads!

Another image, floating around the internet this past week, shows the iPhone 3G plastic back casing next to the rumored 3rd generation’s matte casing . So this thread is pretty basic, Matte or Shine? So far the matte finish has a comfortable lead in the poll. What’s your vote?

Today’s second thread contains a couple images of the rumored next generation iPhone’s auto-focus camera, compass, etc… in action. Again this thread contains a poll – are the images fake or are they legitimate? You be the judge!

Next up we asked the question that pretty much all Apple fans have been asking, will Steve Jobs be attending WWDC in any way, shape, or form? As long Mr. Jobs is healthy and feeling up to it, TiPb sure hopes to see him make an appearance. What are your thoughts?

For our last poll of the day Rene asks who wants a glowing Apple logo on the next generation iPhone?! We are thinking this one will be split pretty much 50/50. At first I was against the thought of this but have since changed my mind. If used properly it could come in handy. What do you think?

See you on the forums!

It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything regarding the rumored official Sirius XM application for the iPhone. (If you are not familiar with the situation be sure to check out TiPb’s complete Sirius XM coverage!) Now a report from SeekingAlpha has pointed us to a App Store app called ReachMD. [iTunes Link]

What makes this application interesting is that it streams, with no subscription needed, Sirius XM’s channel 160 – MedicalRadio – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

So with that being said, TiPb poses this question to all of our readers: if ReachMD is providing their content to Sirius XM for satellite but separately licensing digital streaming rights via an App Store app, does this mean we will start to see other Sirius XM channels pop up in iTunes? Or are you still holding out for a full-fledged subscription based application? Some kind of major content deal between Sirius XM itself and iTunes?

[Via SeekingAlpha]

Even with all of the negative things said about AT&T, people still love Apple’s iPhone. According to a new report from ChangeWave, customers are still leaving their current cell carrier to flock to AT&T’s network just to purchase an iPhone.

According to this report, within the next 6 months 13% of the people polled are looking to bail out on their current carrier and 33% of those people said they will be headed to AT&T for an iPhone. These numbers are the highest since this question was first asked back in 2005. As for AT&T’s competition, namely Verizon, 24% will be going in that direction.

If you’d like to take it one step further you will find out that current AT&T customers are less likely to ditch the Evil Empire compared to 11% ready to leave Verizon. Now for all of you Verizon fans, they did beat out AT&T in terms of the quality of service customers are getting from the carrier. 50% of Verizon customers reported they were “very satisfied” while AT&T was tied with the likes of T-Mobile and Sprint at 31%.

This just emphasizes exactly how important it is that AT&T keep the iPhone out of Verizon customer hands.

[Via AppleInsider via ChangeWave]

In today’s Apps For Less we found a few very worthy deals that you should definitely take advantage of.

First up we have a gem of a game from Gameloft — you might have heard it? — Assassin’s Creed – Altaïr’s Chronicles [iTunes Link]. You should know that it is one to pick up, especially at it’s new low price of $5.99 (down from $9.99!) Not a bad deal at all.

The fate of the Holy Land depends on you… Plunge into this direct prequel to the critically acclaimed game title, Assassin’s Creed™, offering rich gameplay and a well-balanced mix of stealth, chaotic action, and riddle-solving exploration in the midst of fully 3D-rendered historical environments of the Crusades’ Middle East

This next game also comes to us from Gameloft, Siberian Strike. [iTunes Link] You can now pick this one up for $.99! Great deal for an action packed, quality game!

Renewing the retro genre, Siberian Strike offers tons of enemies to destroy in many different ways thanks to the wild array of dangerous weapons at your disposal. Explosive missions make this game one of a kind with gameplay mixing shooting and riveting piloting assignments. Made for shoot’em up fans and casual players thanks to intuitive gameplay that makes it fun and within reach for everyone.

Last but not least we have an application that is actually not a game! The unit conversion app, Convertbot, [iTunes Link] is now on sale for a very limited time for the low price of $.99!

Convert currency, length, mass, time and much more in an exciting new way! Converting numbers will never again be a mundane task. In addition to its innovative interface, our robot is smart enough to convert to and from mixed units. Are you 5 foot 9 inches tall? Other converters require you to convert that to 5.75 ft in your head before being able to enter it. Convertbot allows mixed units like Foot + Inches, Pounds + Ounces, and more!

If you are a developer and are planning on a sale for your application feel free to contact us to be included in the next Apps for Less!

Say you are having a hardware related issue on your iPhone, first place you would think to go is your local Apple store, right? Well not if you’re running iPhone 3.0 Beta it turns out, as MacRumors forums show you will politely get rejected and denied any sort of help.

TiPb has confirmed this is indeed true from speaking with a few Apple employees.

Now where does that leave someone who purchased the beta from a stranger on Graigslist? Not in a good place obviously since to get your issue taken care of or to have your phone replaced you must call a developer-only help line. Now if you are a bit more expierienced with the iPhone you can always try to downgrade back to the 2.2.1 software before going into the Apple Store but say your home button is not working, you are flat out of luck and you are now stuck with a official iPhone paper weight.

So with all that said, TiPb can not stress enough — and we’ve said it many times — do not purchase the 3.0 Beta from anyone.

This late into the beta cycle, in a few short months it will be released to the public anyway.

We typically don’t follow every little Apple or AT&T lawsuit that closely because, frankly, there are too many of them and the frivolity of some just harshens our collective mellow. Case in point, according to Apple Insider:

Apple, AT&T and several others have been named in a new patent infringement lawsuit, presumably for their connection to Shazam, a maker of music identification software distributed under the same name for the iPhone and several other mobile devices.

The suit was brought by Tune Hunter, Inc. Assuming their case has merit, why sue Apple and AT&T instead of focusing on the actual Shazam app in question? Tune Hunter claims it’s because the iPhone duo are contributing to the infringement. For our part, we couldn’t help but notice Apple especially is contributing towards having tons of money.

They’re also suing Samsung, Napster, Motorola, Gracenote, LG Electronics, Pantech Wireless, and Verizon.

Ok, not many applications currently in the App Store worthy of our Apps for Less. Although, the ones we did end up finding are not bad deals.

First up we have Terminator Salvation [iTunes Link], if you have not checked out the trailer we post two weeks ago what are you waiting for? This is one of the top games in the App Store and it seems like Gameloft has gotten the hang of programming games for the iPhones hardware. The best thing about this game now is it’s price – it has dropped from $9.99 to $5.99. People complained about the higher price and Gameloft has listened. I feel bad for the early adapters as we always get the short end of the stick in terms of price but that’s to be expected.

Next up we have PCalc [iTunes Link], now on sale for $4.99 An excellent app for anyone who needs a feature-rich calculator that the stock app on the iPhone simply can not match. Features are as follows:

• Switchable button layouts – choose from many different horizontal and vertical layouts to suit your needs.
• Calculator themes – pick your look, all the way from minimalist to striking.
• An RPN mode with one button access to the stack and optional two-line display.
• Hexadecimal, octal and binary modes, complete with a variety of bitwise operators.
• All the extensive unit conversions and constants from the desktop PCalc.
• A simulated paper tape to keep track of your calculations.
• Multiple undo and redo. Just flick the LCD to the right and left to reveal the past and future.
• Stylish, consistent user interface.
• Shake to clear! Two shakes to clear, three shakes to clear all.

If you are a developer and have a great app in the App Store at a great price, we want to hear about it!

Zombie fans take note, today Capcom has released an iPhone and iPod touch version of their most popular video game series into the App Store. Resident Evil DEGENERATION [iTunes Link] is a 3rd-person survival horror shooter that is based on the CG-animated movie of the same name, recently released on Blu Ray and DVD. Some features of this shooter are as follows:

• Use your in-game PDA to collect intel, manage inventory and access maps.
• “Laser targeting” allows the players to make aimed accurate shots.
• Backgrounds, character models and objects are all rendered in full 3D.
• Intuitive context sensitive control scheme.
• Action icons pop up as needed.
• Accelerometer features: >- Shake iPhone/iPod Touch to “Shake of Zombie” melee attacks. >- Tilt back device to reload.

Resident Evil DEGENERATION is now available in the App Store for $5.99. If you pick this one up be sure to let us know what you think!

More screen shots after the break! Read the rest of this entry »

Back in March, Apple’s App Store was blessed with the free Amazon Kindle iPhone application. One of the biggest gripes that we had with it was the inability to purchase new books right from the app itself. While we still did not get that ability, Amazon has done the next best thing: last night they flipped the switch on an iPhone optimized Kindle store.

This freshly optimized store is nice to have but what, if anything, will change when iPhone OS 3.0 is released? If you remember, 3.0 has the ability to make in-app purchases. Will Amazon finally allow in-app purchases and give Apple a 30% cut off the top, or will Amazon stick with the current arrangement to avoid paying Apple for every book that is sold?

So what do you, our readers, think about this one? Either way, it should be interesting!

The iPhone Dev-Team has posted a few words regarding Jailbreaking the 3.0 software:

Because there are so many beta releases, we couldn’t possible refine, test, and release both PwnageTool and QuickPwn for each of them. That’s why we’re waiting until the final release. You may have seen other “hijacked” versions of QuickPwn out there, but all of them are buggy, none of them work on OSX, and almost everyone who uses them reverts back to 2.2.1 (because none of the useful jailbroken apps (Qik, Cycorder, and others) work on 3.0 yet).

Now this does not mean you currently can not Jailbreak 3.0 because you can, it’s just that the Dev-Teams software is not fine-tuned for the iPhone beta software. If you do decide to Jailbreak the 3.0 beta you will run into some issues. The biggest issue, as stated above, being a lot of the applications available via Cydia will not be compatible with 3.0. It is also important to note that if you ever want to unlock your iPhone 3G, you need to avoid the 3.0 software altogether unless and until the Dev-Team provides a safe jailbreak path.

So our advice to the Jailbreakers of the world: have some patience. When the final build of 3.0 drops sometime this summer you will be able to Jailbreak your iPhone 3G.

(The only way Apple could prevent a Jailbreak does not rest within the software, rather the hardware. As for Jailbreaking the next generation of iPhone, only time will tell, we are sure Apple will make it interesting…)