All Articles Tagged Software

iPhone 2.1 (build 5F136) is an incremental point update to the much larger and more encompassing iPhone 2.0 software release we reviewed back in early July. Light on new functionality, it focuses instead on bug fixes, which given the many problems that accompanied the massive 2.0 rollout, is a Very Good Thing.

Like 2.0, this update is also available for the iPod Touch, but unlike its predecessor, the 2.1 update is FREE (if you already have 2.0 — if you have 1.x, you’ll still have to pony up the $10 premium.)

So, 4 betas, dropped features, somethings new, somethings fixed — is iPhone 2.x Apple’s Vista? Or is it finally the next generation firmware we’ve all been waiting for? Find out, after the break!

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(Today’s Lightning Review comes from BaLLi5t1c, a full review of the awesome Pandora Radio app (available on iTunes for free!). BaLLi5t1c gets a 25% off coupon to the iPhone Blog Accessory store. Want one yourself? Post a review in our forums — full details here)

This is my first time writing a review for an iPhone app, partly because I just received my 16GB Black this past Friday and partly because I’ve been basking in the glory that is the App Store, and I couldn’t think of a more deserving app than Pandora Radio to review.

For those of you who have never heard of Pandora Radio, I’m sure you’re wondering what it is exactly and why I would make such a bold statement in my title. Allow me to enlighten you.

To put it lightly, Pandora Radio is a heaven-sent program/application that will allow you to stream music that you’ve never heard of but probably should have, music that you listened to many moons ago but somehow let slip into obscurity with those passing moons, music that is probably still in your current rotation in iTunes, and anything in between. Not too shabby, eh?

You might ask, “BaLLi5t1c, how does it do all of that without me hand-picking all of the artists and songs that I want to hear?”

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Masseym drops our latest Lightning Review, for MLB At Bat ($4.99 at iTunes), which we publish today even though masseym clearly was trying to play this Minnesota boy’s heart by using a Twins game in his screenshot. We’re publishing Lightning reviews of iPhone apps nearly every day, write your review in our forums and you’ll get a chance to win a 25% off coupon to our iPhone accessories Store. Click here for full details!

As an avid baseball fan (ok, just the Mets) living in Texas, I was excited when MLB announced their app. I could see the strike/ball/out counts live and then watch highlight clips from anywhere in the world! What an exciting application.

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Could last Friday have been any more massive for Apple? Following on the heels of slew of preparatory updates including OS X 10.5.4 and iTunes 7.7, the transition from .Mac to Mobile Me, and — oh, yeah — the highly anticipated launch of the iPhone 3G hardware (see Dieter’s review), Apple also dropped a little something called the 2.0 firmware. Available pre-baked in the new iPhone 3G, Apple didn’t spare the love for owners of the original iPhone 2G who receive it as well as a FREE downloadable upgrade, as do owners of the iPod Touch (minus the phone, camera, SMS, and GPS functionality, and the FREE part — $10 please).

The 2.0 firmware was first demonstrated back at the Apple iPhone SDK Roadmap event in March 2008 and immediately went through a very long, very public beta process where almost anyone could sign up and download it. In spite of the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), during the 8 different betas released to developers, many new features that weren’t originally demonstrated still leaked out all of the interwebs. But did all of them?

Read on to find out!

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Monday we asked you “What’s the iPhone 3G Chip and When Will it Ship?“. Tuesday it was “What is the iPhone 3G Going to Look Like?“. Today we want to know what YOU think the iPhone 2.0 software and services are going to give us, and what surprises might they have in store?

Exchange ActiveSync and the AppStore are gimmes. Enterprise features are checked. Beta leaks are everywhere. And .Mac to Mobile Me — Don’t get us started! But what else will we get? MMS? Blogging? Mobile iChat? Universal home remote control? And what about the Holy Grail… cut and paste?! What do YOU think?

To give you some help, here’s a HUGE roundup of all the iPhone 2.0 software and services rumors. Epic-style. Because let’s face it, roughly 0.01 seconds after Steve Jobs pulled the first iPhone from his pocket back at Macworld 2007, and someone, somewhere, put aside their childlike sense of wonder long enough think: “Nice! What’s the next gen going to be like?”

Complementary, contradictory, obvious, confusing, all but confirmed or from left field via outer space, the rumors have flooded the internet ever since. It’s become almost impossible to keep track of them all.

Five days from today Steve Jobs takes Moscone Center stage for the sold-out WWDC keynote, and according to everyone and their newsfeed, announces the iPhone 3G. In eager anticipation, every day this week, TiPb wil be asking you to tell us what you think the next generation iPhone will be, from 3G to GPS, release dates to price points, colors to casings, 2.0 software to .Mac .Me services, and this weekend we’ll wrap it all up with a look into the WWDC/iPhone 3G Crystal Ball, and a roundup of the very best of YOUR predictions.

So come on, let’s get in on!

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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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Fortune is quoting Microsoft VP of Specialized Devices and Applications Group (whatever the hell that is), who indicates the software giant may be open to developing applications for iPhone.

“It’s really important for us to understand what we can bring to the iPhone, to the extent that Mac Office customers have functionality that they need in that environment, we’re actually in the process of trying to understand that now.”

The thought of Microsoft software running on iPhone is sobering enough, but even more so when you consider the company’s own mobile platform, Windows Mobile, competes directly with iPhone. Fear the fruit.

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The Flash drama continues, with more twists and turns than a California highway. It looks as though iPhone may be getting native Flash support after all, if dragged kicking and screaming. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen spoke to reporters during a conference call…

“Well, you really believe that Flash is synonymous with the Internet, and frankly, anybody who wants to browse the Web and experience the Web’s glory really needs Flash support. We were very excited about the announcement from Windows Mobile–adoption of Flash on their devices–and the fact that we’ve shipped 0.5 billion devices now, non-PC devices. So we are also committed to bringing the Flash experience to the iPhone, and we will work with Apple. We’ve evaluated the SDK. We can now start to develop the Flash player ourselves, and we think it benefits our joint customers. So we want to work with Apple to bring that capability to the device.”

Do let’s pretend that Steve Jobs earlier comments were some kind of smokescreen intended to mask Apple’s true motives, while backdoor negotiations with Adobe unfolded. That makes sense, doesn’t it? No, I didn’t think so either.

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Steve Jobs might want to look in his rearview mirror, because there’s a hulking eighteen-wheeler barreling down the highway, belching thick black smoke, and crushing every vehicle in its path.

The software giant is working with long time rival Adobe to bring Flash player Lite (yes, THAT Flash player) to Windows Mobile devices, while simultaneously incorporating support for its own SilverLight technology. The move will give Microsoft a leg up over Apple, making its mobile platform more web 2.0 friendly in supporting these ubiquitous web animation and runtime environments.

Apple has valid reasons for eschewing Flash lite, so it claims, like poor performance and a not-so-much like a desktop experience. Even if valid, it’s never a checkmark in your favor when competing products support features yours does not.

Wake up, Apple. You’re in Micrsoft’s crosshairs now.

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Avi Greengart, Research Director for market research firm Current Analysis, says Adobe’s Flash player performs poorly on iPhone, in its current incarnation, proving more trouble than it’s worth.

“There is no question the iPhone delivers a compelling Web experience and there are good reasons to want Flash in there, but Flash Lite wouldn’t give you the Web experience you’re looking for.”

The jixt of this statement, as we’ve known for some time, is that Adobe’s Flash Lite player comes with a high resource overhead, taxing the processor as well as battery life. Or so Apple claims. Forces are at work behind the scenes to develop a more optimized solution to bring native Flash content to iPhone users.

Much as I sometimes lament the absence of Flash, I don’t see it as a crucial feature. So long as some method exists for scraping content from YouTube, as it does now. That said, having no Flash support is yet one more missing feature that Apple haters will use as fodder for flinging rotten fruit at the device.

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