AppleInsider is reporting that the car kit will not be compatible with the iPod touch and first-generation iPhone 2G. This is a complete turn around from early reports from TomTom claiming since the car kit contained it’s own GPS, you could indeed use the TomTom App Store software/car kit combo with an iPod Touch and first-generation iPhone.
TomTom’s car kit for iPhone has been in the news countless times the past few months and here it is once again. This news should sadden many iPod touch/First-generation iPhone 2G owners who have been waiting for this often delayed accessory to be released. It was first slated to come out this past summer, which was then pushed back to October and now will not be shipped until November.
Streaming music has gotten pretty popular among iPhone owners and today we’d like to introduce you to one more option, Lala.
Lala gives you the ability to listen to any song for free one time. If you happen to like the song you pay $0.10 for unlimited listening. And at $0.10 per “Web Song” you can pretty much purchase a full album for a single dollar. That may not convince all of you but Lala has one more trick up it’s sleeve — you can upload your entire music library from your computer to the cloud for you to stream back to your iPhone, completely free. Lose you data connection for some reason? No worries as Lala uses caching to save your music. Exactly how much is cached is not known just yet but it’s a nice feature regardless.
This is definitely an app worth taking a closer look at when it hits the App Store. It should be free to download and you can expect to see it available within the next few weeks.
How important is the iPhone to Apple’s business going forward? See the chart above, prepared by Fortune. Up from 5.7% in 2008 to 18.5% in 2009.
We’re going to say “very” and “increasingly”. Daring Fireball highlights how Apple goes about ensuring that “increasingly” part, riffing off The Loop’s reminder of when Apple killed the iPod mini at the height of its popularity and replaced it with the iPod nano:
You know who thinks the iPhone 3GS stinks? Steve Jobs. No one is working harder on an “iPhone 3GS killer” than Apple.
Given that competition is ramping up (see Android Central’s coverage of Droid Day, CrackBerry’s BlackBerry Storm2 watch, and Nokia Experts’ massive N900 guide), is that internal drive still enough?
While Apple made a Windows version of iTunes years ago, they still haven’t seen fit to roll out any official syncing solution for our Linux friends. That leaves unofficial solutions, which according to Marcan’s Abort, Retry, Hack? blog, are finally on their way:
libusb-1.0 provides an advanced API to access USB devices under Linux, replacing the old libusb-0.1 API
usbmuxd coordinates application access to the device and talks the specific iPhone/iTouch USB protocol
libiphone implements the Apple-specific protocols that are tunneled through usbmuxd: it can launch services through lockdown, retrieve device info, send notifications, and access the filesystem via AFC.
iFuse and gvfs-backend-afc both provide access to AFC to regular Linux apps. iFuse does this by mounting via FUSE, while gvfs-backend-afc is obviously a backend for gVFS.
libgpod (the library that traditionally has managed music databases for iPods) is being extended to support the new SQLite format, the new hash, and also to talk to libiphone to properly put the device in to and out of sync mode.
Theoretically, actual music players such as Amarok and Rhythmbox will need none or very few modifications to work.
If you’ve got your FOSS-on, and you’re eager to check out this solution, head on over for the details, and then let us know what you think!
Metallica and iPhone apps seem to be pretty popular as of late. First they released Live Metallica and now Tap Tap Revenge Metallica has just been released into the App Store. [$4.99 - iTunes Link] For your money you get the following 10 tracks:
Enter Sandman
Sad But True
King Nothing
All Nightmare Long
Some Kind of Monster
Master of Puppets
Seek and Destroy
Fuel
One
For Whom the Bell Tolls
This Tap Tap game may seem to be no different than the rest but it the first of the series to include battles over Bluetooth. This Bluetooth battle mode allows players to challenge their friends to a point-by-point battle where they can deploy bombs and other special objects to distract the opposition and come out victorious. Tapulous then added another all new fast-paced Arcade Mode where players are challenged with even more bombs and other objects that make the game that much more difficult.
So if you are a Metallica fan and have $4.99 to spend, we highly recommend checking this one out as you will not be disappointed.
Lee Williams, executive director at Symbian, sits down with GigaOM’s Om Malik, and gets candid — really candid — about Apple and Google:
“Android is building a perfect storm of fragmentation. I don’t view Apple as evil, just greedy. Google … Come on.”
He claims his opinion is informed by his conversations with large carriers who complain that they have to provide Apple App Store apps to iPhone users yet derive no income from them (we’d point out they made money off the data plans — dumb pipes!), and that Google is taking away their customer interface, “cookie-ing” them (tracking their online activities) via proprietary apps obscured in lip service to “openness” and using that to feed their advertising business.
When asked why companies like HTC, if they know Google is “evil”, aren’t investing in Symbian instead, Williams advises Om to “wait and see”, and thinks those manufacturers might be interested in “very open systems.”
While offering no advice to Apple, he does invite Google to join the Symbian foundation so they can have a voice in that open system. Somehow we doubt he’ll see them take up that offer any time soon.
Harsh words for competitors, but also strangely refreshing to see on camera. As to the iPhone, is the carrier beef legitimate? Should they be getting a cut of App Store profits, or should they be happy with the huge increase in data revenue the iPhone is already bringing them?
With Star Wars: Trench Wars THQ Wireless is finally giving all of the Star Wars fans what seems to be a quality game based off of the classic films. To us it looks like a nice remake of the classic Star Wars arcade game.
Use the Force to overthrow the evil Galactic Empire as they attempt to destroy the small Rebel base on Yavins jungle moon. As part of the Rebel Alliances Red Squadron you dogfight with TIE Fighters above the Death Stars surface before heading into a trench where you are inundated by cannon fire. Dodge obstacles, and stay out of Darth Vaders sights as he tries to gun you down before you have the chance to fire your proton torpedoes into a thermal exhaust port the size of a womp rat. If successful, a direct hit will cause a chain reaction that destroys the Death Star, thus saving the Rebel base from impending doom.
While no price or exact release date has been given, the game is showing promise. I’ve grown up a fan of the Star Wars films and yes, the last three films were unfortunate but hopefully games like this will make us all feel a little bit better. Maybe?
The BlueAnt Q1 voice controlled Bluetooth headset for iPhone [$109.95 - TiPb Store] is the higher end version of the BlueAnt V1 I tested last month, and came away impressed with. How impressed? It’s a piece of hardware I would recommend it to anyone in the market for a new bluetooth headset. Now that the good folks over at BlueAnt were nice enough to send me the Q1, will I make the switch? For all of the juicy details follow us after the break!
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The above graph, part of Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker’s presentation at Web 2.0, showing iPhone/iPod touch as the fastest-growing consuming electronic platform in history pretty much speaks for itself. However, TechCrunch is happy to add a big exclamation point at the end:
[iPhone/iPod touch] adoption ramp is even steeper than videogame consoles including the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP. The original iPod and Blackberry aren’t even in the same league.
No doubt this plays into Apple’s recent financial results, but building on what must now be around a 60 million strong install base (50 million from last quarter + 7.4 million new iPhones, + undisclosed amount of iPod touches), builds just the kind of momentum that tends towards freight-train like.
TechCrunch also shows charts highlighting the increase in AT&T data traffic since the iPhone came online (4,932%), and how mobile adoption is “outpacing” desktop. Check out the full article, linked above, for more.
Sean Cooper Games and MEDL Mobile have created a highly addicting gem of a game, Boxhead: The Zombie Wars. [$0.99 for the next two days - iTunes Link] Playing this game makes me feel like I’ve died and gone to zombie heaven.
Boxhead: The Zombie Wars is a extremely fast paced action-shooter where you get to play as Jon Bambo, a mercenary with a kick butt arsenal of weaponry which includes – pistol, shotgun, C4 explosives, minigun, turret machine guns, etc…
The premise is simple, kill as many zombies as you possibly can without dying. The more zombies you kill in a row, the higher your points multiplier will go. The higher you get your multiplier, bigger and more destructive your weapons will be at your disposal. Zombie destruction on your iPhone has never been so enjoyable.
