We’ve all been getting our hopes up for a June release for the iPhone 4G, we’ve heard it could be at WWDC or in mid June. These dates sound reasonable especially when you consider that the iPhone 4Gs was announced on June 8th last year and went on sale 11 days later. However a financial analyst; Doug Reid of Thomas Weisel Partners wants to make us wait a bit longer and doesn’t think that the iPhone 4G will go on sale until July He doesn’t give any reasoning for this time frame and he also says that he doesn’t expect Apple to announce any additional wireless service providers for the iPhone in the US at WWDC. Oh when will we ever find out about the fate of the iPhone on Verizon? Another analyst, Brian Marshall said that the next gen iPhone coupled with the iPad could completely wipe out the need for the iPod media players altogether. If your looking for more information as to when the iPhone 4G will be released, see our list of evidence here What do you think, when will the iPhone 4G be released? And do you think it could wipe out the iPod media players? Let us know in the comments Source: PC World Free iPhone 4G Free iPhone 3Gs Free iPhone The Social Gaming Network, a company best known for its Facebook Platform apps, has launched a new iPhone app that uses the handset as...a gaming controller. Called "iFun," the app is a takeoff on the Social Gaming Network's existing sports apps: iGolf, iBowl, iBaseball, and the like. But instead of playing on your iPhone, you use your iPhone or iPod Touch much like the "Wiimote" device for Nintendo's Wii console. (Both gadgets use accelerometer technologies.) It connects via Wi-Fi or cellular network to your PC. You can then play against friends--remotely, and in real time. Currently, iFun is restricted to a golf game but will soon expand--as well as to other devices with accelerometers in them, like the Android-powered G1. It also uses Facebook Connect for authentication. Social Gaming Network CEO Shervin Pishevar told CNET News that the company is currently "lining up advertisers" and isound last spring, followed by more funding from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' venture firm. And--wait for it--here's the recession angle. Playing the free iFun game on an iPod Touch is &quo interested in turning iFun into a platform for external developers to create their own games. The Social Gaming Network raised a $15 million investment rt;significantly cheaper than buying a Wii for Christmas," Pishevar said. Originally posted at: Cnet Stanford University on Monday said its free iPhone Application Programming course has been downloaded more than 1 million times since being uploaded to Apple's iTunes U--a learning-focused area of iTunes--seven weeks ago. The course is a series of classroom videos taken from the live lectures at Stanford. Apple engineers teach the course to students in an auditorium at Stanford's Quad--the videos are uploaded to iTunes U two days after every class, giving the public free access to the material. The university even makes copies of the slides shown during the class available to the public. Jason Ediger, Apple's director of iTunes U and Mobile Learning, said this is the fastest any course hit the million download mark on iTunes U. Certainly a testament to the amount of interest from would-be iPhone developers. Apple currently has over 40,000 apps available for download from the App Store, according to numbers from 148 Apps, an enthusiast Web site that monitors the number of apps on the store. iPhone Application Programming is a 10-week course and can be downloaded free from iTunes U. Only students enrolled in the classroom course will receive credit, according to the university. Originally posted at: Cnet News If you want an iPhone, but your bank balance is barely healthy enough for a splurge in the local 99p store, then an 8GB iPhone 3G is about all you’ll be able to muster. But it appears Apple is planning to give financially challenged punters the chance to get on board with the iPhone 3GS, with new leaks showing an 8GB version is on the way. Read on to find out when it’s likely to land. The 8GB iPhone 3GS is on the way. The sneaky chaps at Boy Genius Report have snapped pics of Canadian operator Rogers’ internal memos, which claim that the the “8GB iPhone is transitioning to 3GS.” It would make sense for Apple to have this unleashed ahead of Christmas, when punters want a new iPhone, but don’t fancy lashing out on a specced up 3GS, while at the same time not wanting to step back in time with an iPhone 3G. Originally posted at: Mirror.co.uk So you just got your unemployment check and have a bit of free time? Let's go to the movies then. What do you want to see? Beats me, too. Let's check what's out. No, of course I don't have today's paper. Don't make me laugh. I've got my iPhone, though. I've got a couple of movie apps on it. Just downloaded Fandango the other day, as a matter of fact. I used Fandango all the time when my wife and I would go to the movies almost every Friday night. Of course, that was before we had kids. Good Web site, decent service. The Fandango app for the iPhone and iPod touch is pretty solid, too. It's functional and convenient. I wish it had a few more features, but the app carries out its raison d'être with aplomb. A movie ticket app really only needs to do two things seamlessly and well: It must let you search for movies near your location; more important, the app must let you buy the tickets with minimum effort. Most movie apps do a good job with the former by taking advantage of the handheld's GPS locator function, but trip over the latter. Fandango does both very well. When you launch the Fandango app, you'll see a list of movies currently playing in theaters. When you find a movie that interests you, tap the listing and a window will pop up with information about stars, running time, and where the film is playing near you. Most movies will have a trailer that you can watch by tapping the movie's poster. You can also tap the Theaters button at the bottom of the screen to browse all the features playing at your nearby multiplex. You can save your favorite theaters, which is a nice addition for creatures of habit. The app will show that day's movie times, but you can also look up times days in advance. The difference between Fandango and, say, Flixster's Movies app ( Macworld rated 3 out of 5 mice ) is that you can enter and save your credit card information in the app itself. Once you've done that, buying tickets is a mere matter of a few taps. I was generally kind to Flixster's Movies when I reviewed it in October, but I detested the way the app walked you through buying tickets. You ended up in Safari at Movietickets.com, trying to navigate several fields. It's an enormous pain. Fandango's solution is much simpler and more convenient. There are a couple of clear trade-offs with Fandango's approach, however. First, if you save your credit card information in the app and you happen to lose your phone, somebody could enjoy a night at the movies at your expense. (But that's all--the full credit card number does not display.) Second, Fandango will only let you buy tickets from Regal Entertainment Group theaters and that's about all. Fandango will show you movie times for other chains, but you won't be able to purchase tickets. That might be a deal-breaker for some moviegoers. Fandango doesn't have the frills and features of some other movie apps. The app doesn't link to news and reviews, show fan ratings or list this week's box office take. (Fandango's Web site does.) You can watch trailers for some current and future releases, but the app only lists attractions coming to theaters in the next week or two. Flixster's app, on the other hand, has trailers for movies months in advance and has a robust DVD section, too. The bottom line: Lacking the news features of Fandango.com and putting limits on the theaters from which you can buy tickets hampers Fandango's convenience and ease of use. Here's hoping any sequel to this iPhone app turns out to be better. Fandango is compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch running the iPhone 2.2 software update. Originally posted at: Pcworld.com Say you want to take a photo of yourself and your 4-year-old then swap your mugs, putting her teeny face on your giant head and your giant face on her teeny head. There's an app for that. Say you want each of your daily achievements to be immediately followed by a glorious chorus of "HAAAAAAA-leluiah." There's an app for that, too. Or say you want to fill the room with 16 varieties of obscene bodily noises, just by touching a button. Unfortunately - delightfully - there's an app for that, too. Even if you don't have an iPhone, you have undoubtedly seen one of those catchy television commercials touting the awesomeness of iPhone apps. For the uninitiated, "apps" is short for applications, which are little programs that when downloaded perform amazing tricks on iPhones. They're one of the perks that make iPhone ownership so fulfilling. Making phone calls, texting friends and e-mailing from the car is fun for a while. But when you own a powerful little handheld computer like an iPhone, you start to yearn for more. During my seven months of blissful iPhone ownership, I've downloaded about 30 different apps, which range in price from totally free to $100 and more. (Although most fall in the $5 and less category.) Downloading apps is simple - you just press the "App Store" button on your phone and start shopping. Some apps are downright useful. I use the Weather Channel app every day, which offers not only the current temperature but also a 10-day and hour-to-hour forecast. And my Amazon Kindle app allowed me last week to download my book club's current selection straight to my iPhone for half the cost of buying the actual book. But the best apps are the ones that serve no purpose whatsoever, other than to entertain or impress your friends. One can, for example, download an app that displays a big picture of a lighter with a burning flame that can be substituted for the real thing during concert slow songs. Those who are on a quest for more cowbell can download an app that allows them to clang away. There's the aforementioned bodily function app (an inappropriate favorite with kids). And a light saber app displays the famous "Star Wars" weaponry with appropriate sound effects. This week, I've learned of an app that will produce the "censored" beeping noise to be used around potty-mouthed friends, and one that provides a fake X-ray of a hand to be used around gullible friends. Perhaps my favorite useless iPhone app is iSwap Faces, which allows the user to snap an iPhone picture of two people, digitally cut out their faces, then swap them. The monstrosities I have created out of my otherwise attractive friends' heads are amazingly awful and very, very wrong. But we never fail to laugh hysterically through our grimaces at the finished products. Say you're easily amused. As I've demonstrated here, there are hundreds and hundreds of apps for that. Originally posted at: SavannahNow Is this the beginning of the end for the iPhone? Relax, analysts say. The BlackBerry Curve outsold the Apple iPhone in consumer sales in the first quarter of this year, according to research group NPD. The popular iPhone had held the title of top selling consumer smartphone for the last two quarters. All tallied, the top five best-selling smartphones so far this year: Curve, iPhone, Storm, Pearl and T-Mobile's G1. NPD says the Curve overtook the iPhone thanks to a "buy-one-get-one-free" promotion by Verizon Wireless. Four wireless carriers support the Curve, while the iPhone is tied up in an exclusive contract with AT&T. Nevertheless, the Curve's iPhone beatdown shocked and confused many mainstream pundits. It was as if the earth's polar magnetic fields suddenly flipped. Among tech analysts, though, cooler heads prevailed. "I don't think Apple is hell-bent on being the number one smartphone sold," says Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin. "They posted extremely good numbers, are driving significant net adds for AT&T, and their users are heavily engaged with the App Store which drives additional revenue and increases loyalty. There is plenty of room in the market for both Apple and RIM to be successful." Sure, Apple can grab marketshare if it lowers prices and opens up the iPhone to other carriers. Apple is reportedly in talks with Verizon, although a deal sounds unlikely. Eventually, the iPhone will regain its title over the Curve, says Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney. But Apple couldn't care less, he says. The smartphone market is bubbling with excitement as Apple readies a new iPhone in the next few months and the Palm Pre is set to launch in the same time frame. "There is plenty of growth for all," Dulaney says. "Apple will introduce their new model in the summer and drive sales that way. Originally posted at: PcWorld There is no doubt about the fact that iPhone is one of the most popular cell phone out there. The argument for a longer battery life on the iPhone is relative in free iPhone 3GS terms of its user requirement. If used as a cell phone, for the primary purpose that it has been designed for, the battery life would be fine and will last probably all day. However, if someone likes to use it as portable computer which I assume most iPhone users are doing, for checking email, web browsing, playing games etc, then the battery is comparable to that of any standard notebook at best. iPhone owners, unlike other cell phone owners, use more features on a regular basis. Use of these features considerably drain battery life. It’s not fair to blame the new hardware for the quick battery sucking of the new iPhone 3GS. The new design with all its bells and whistles aren’t the main and only culprits. Rather, it’s the software which is the main contributor for drawing the juice from iPhone 3GS batteries much faster than before. While iPhone 3.0 firmware was certainly a leap forward for Apple, with all the new features, there was also a huge disappointment with it, the battery life. Its funny how Apple didn’t add multitasking to save battery life, yet the new update with Push Notification System is doing away with battery faster. Given due cognizance to the importance placed on improvement of features and styles, it is rather high time for Apple to continue to provide innovative and compelling devices, while recognizing the need for an improved battery strength. Apple has to explore some new battery technology to reduce the charging cycles of iPhone and moreover, needs a relook into the software side of its various applications which are significantly contributing to the excessive discharge. Apple has done hardly anything to provide relief to users to cope up with weak battery life. Moreover, iPhone’s battery is sealed inside, meaning users can’t swap it out with a fresh one while their battery is recharging thereby leaving no option but to be dud till recharging. Apple announcement of the highly anticipated iPhone OS 3.1 firmware version is expected on September 9th where it claims improvement in the battery life. Let’s see how far Apple fixes the battery issues. Originally posted at: Product-reviews.net Naming any Apple product — much less the iPhone, the most iconic of them all — is no easy task. Remember all the mindless chatter when Apple risked legal entanglement with Cisco for the right to use the name “iPhone”? Gizmodo: Cisco rightfully owns the trademark for iPhone. And Apple can’t sue them or bully them into giving it up. The tech world had taken the title for granted, assumed it to be proper, plastered it over magazine covers, and now the name is lost. Which means Apple’s iPhone, if there even is an iPhone, will have to be named something else. It’s a big deal, if you think about what that name meant. Apple never designated the original product iPhone 1G or iPhone 2G. Introduced as a convergence device, it was simply called iPhone. The next version last year (twice as fast, at half the price) was named iPhone 3G. The “3G” part was referencing the speed upgrade from 2.5G/2.75G (EDGE) to 3G (HSPA), not its generational order. Only after the introduction of the iPhone 3G did it make sense to refer to the original as iPhone 2G, but that’s not Apple’s nomenclature. Give us the name Beyond simple versioning, however, product names often foretell Apple’s ambitions with a given product. Whatever value theme Apple will wrap around the next iPhone, it will likely be reflected in its name. Let’s consider some possibilities: • iPhone 3G+ Too nerdy for Apple. • iPhone 3G II Apple is not Nokia. • iPhone 3.5G No decimals in consumer hardware names. • iPhone 4G Four comes after three, to be sure. But in the cellphone industry 4G specifically refers to 4G LTE, the next major evolution in wireless speed and interoperability among mobile phone carriers. Apple’s carrier AT&T has said it would begin to upgrade its 3G network to HSPA+ this year and switch to 4G LTE by mid-2011. So the timing isn’t quite right for 4G. • iPhone Pro Assumes minor hardware upgrades to existing iPhone at same/lower price and introduction of a higher-end model at a higher price (like MacBook vs. MacBook Pro). So if Apple is about to expand the “touch platform” horizontally (like the iPod product line), we can expect to see a new mobile “quadrant” segregated by functionality and price among products like iPhone mini, iPhone 3G, iPhone HD, iPhone Pro, iPod touch, iPod touch HD, iPhone Business, etc. Balance that against Apple’s practice of product line simplification though. • iPhone V (Video) or iPhone M (Media) If Apple’s acquisition of PA Semi bears early fruit and the iPhone is turned into a multimedia powerhouse with faster CPU (ARM Cortex), multi-core GPU (Imagination PowerVR), parallel graphics processing (OpenCL), Wii-mote like 3D controls, better camera and video recording/conferencing, we can expect to see a long line of third party partners demonstrating the media prowess of the new iPhone at the WWDC. Apple knows that no other smartphone is even close to the iPhone as the mobile gaming platform, but it won’t be called iPhone G (Games) since the name can’t regress from 3G to G and association with “games” won’t help Apple battle RIM and Microsoft among business users. • iPhone U (Universal) Apple’s decision to open up the 30-pin port to third party developers was a central part of the new iPhone OS 3.0 SDK. This makes the iPhone a ‘controller’ of a huge range of hardware in all kinds of industries from healthcare to entertainment to transportation. Indeed, the iPhone becomes the universal front-end ‘UI processor’ to the rest of the world, and the hub of a multi-billion dollar ecosystem in the making. • iPhone X An opaque name, but nicely ties the iPhone via Snow Leopard (Apple’s upcoming OS, a mobile version of which will also power the touch platform) to the Mac OS X desktop world for the ultimate bi-directional halo effect. The next device in 2010 might then be called iPhone X2 and the one in 2011, iPhone 4G. How would the unwashed non-Mac users pronounce it, though, as “ton” or “eks”? • iPhone <#noun> We don’t quite see Apple losing its mind with something like iPhone Storm/Instinct/Chocolate/Rumor/Propel but if there’s in fact a unifying value theme for the next device and a semi-abstract word can capture its soul and purpose, it is certainly a possibility. • iPhone 09 Should Apple run out of naming ideas, there’s always the introduced-in-the-year standby. However, Apple does this with software (iLife 09, iWork 09) but not with hardware. Otherwise, what would it name the one capable of LTE, iPhone 4G 11? • iPhone The ultimate Rorschach inkblot test. A maddening knot in the world of Cupertinology is Apple’s predilection to introduce a market defining product under one name and, over time, introduce several iterations without any name augmentation. That inevitably forces customers and tech support alike to make up names to identify Apple products such as “3G iPod fat nano with video,” “C2D 24-in iMac,” “MBP 15-in late 2008″ and so on. So there’s also a chance that Apple might decide not to add a qualifier to “iPhone” until the appropriate opportunity presents itself, like when 4G LTE is ready for deployment. The name makes the product? It would be easier to decipher what the next iPhone version will contain if we could get a glimpse of just the name of the device instead of spec lists and blurry pictures soon to inundate us. The name will tell all. We already know, however, what it won’t be called: “Apple MyPhone P3G-2 Millennium Live Edition 2009,” pre-hyped with a cheesy YouTube video. Originally posted at: Counter Notions |
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