Calling all iPhone Fellinis: a contest for short flicks shot on iDevices is open for entries.
The official name is the Original iPhone Film Contest, but you can enter anything shot on an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad2.
The violations of Apple’s verboten on third-party iPad giveaways just keep getting better: it seems there’s now a push to incite women to strip in support of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s presidential bid.
The Telegraph reports that there’s a group of lovely young Putin backers bearing their fronts and other bits to earn him votes.
Vitamin Water may be the 2011 equivalent of snake oil, but now those bus shelter ads have got some actual juice: you can hook up your iPhone or iPod to charge on the go.
The ads featuring USB ports will be rolled out in Boston, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. They are the brainchild of Crispin Porter + Bogusky — the same Mac-happy guys behind Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunters” campaign.
Dred Scott is a homeless musician who plays for passersby at Denver’s open-air 16th Street Mall.
A local producer heard him, recorded his music and launched an album on iTunes to help get Scott off the streets.
As the U.S. 2012 presidential election campaign gathers momentum, an app that checks the factual statements of politicians earned a thumbs up from Apple.
Usually only a nobody walks in L.A., but the greater Los Angeles will be turned into a wasteland of nobodies when 10-mile stretch of the 405 Freeway closes July 15-17.
The locals are braced for “carmageddon,” the gridlock of all gridlocks as the most traveled freeway in the U.S. shuts down.
Some are predicting that it may also be a test of iPhone apps, mainly those designed to re-route drivers based on traffic conditions.
Washington Post senior vice president and chief digital officer Vijay Ravindran lost his MacBook Air when his son’s spilled baby bottle put the fizzle in it.
So he got an Asus Transformer (aka Asus Eee Pad) to replace it and never looked back. He ponied up $399 for the 16-gigabyte version with a 32-gigabyte memory card then added a $150 keyboard dock that essentially transforms it into a netbook.
Lots of people want iPads, right? Well Téa Smith, 32, wants to meet men. So if you introduce her to her future husband, she’ll hook you up with Apple’s magical device.
Smith, a self-described “guerilla marketing consultant,” from Perth, Australia first tweeted a half-joking offer for “an iPad or $500 to the person who sets me up with the person I marry. GO, power of social media.”
The Philadelphia Media Network announced today that in addition to local news it will also peddle “deeply discounted” Android tablet computers pre-loaded with four apps, including digital versions of its two newspapers, The Inquirer and the Daily News, as well as additional content from The Inquirer and the Philly.com website.
Too bad they can’t offer at least one thing anybody actually wants.
Apple may have banned apps that helped drivers find DUI checkpoints, but it has approved a game where drinkers try to follow a straight line to see how drunk they are.
The iPhone is a powerful reporting tool, so much so that the BBC is creating an app that will help reporters make the most of it in the field, replacing more expensive and sometimes less reliable equipment like satellite phones.
Many other mobile journalists are using them in the field. Their tips for recording and editing audio and video can come in handy for any iPhone user who wants to capture a lecture, conference or family moment — then edit and send with minimum hassle.
UPDATE: Youtube has marked the ad “private,” though a few other copies were available when we checked. It no longer appears on the official Pecos channel, either. We’ll let you know if we find out whether they have pulled it for copyright violations or something else.
This ad is a twofer of bad taste: Taiwanese tea makers use a Steve Jobs lookalike as they violate Apple’s policy on third-party promotions.
The 21-second ad stars a fake Steve promoting Pecos tea and the company’s iPad 2 giveaway.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVXeRe3WlvI&feature=player_embedded
Yesterday, we reported on 15-year-old Eduard Saakashvili, who typed the entire English alphabet correctly on an iPad with one hand in just 5.26 seconds, setting a new Guinness World Record.
Brian Sweet made this video showing how he touch types the English alphabet on an iPad in about three seconds, albeit using a two-handed approach.
If you think your fingers fly across the iPad touchscreen, try typing the entire English alphabet correctly in 5.26 seconds with just one hand.
An former executive of an Apple supplier pleaded guilty to leaking Apple secrets.
Walter Shimoon, who once worked at electronic manufacturer Flextronics a supplier of camera parts to Apple, was arrested in 2010 for spilling the beans on actual and forecast sales figures for iPhones and iPods in the third and fourth quarters of 2009.
He’s the 12th person to plead guilty so far in a government investigation of insider trading.
This tops any list of back-handed compliments: a woman leaves her iPhone 4 on the roof of her car. Drives away.
It looks like artist Christo got to the iconic glass cube of Apple’s Fifth Avenue store. Too bad for all those tourists who came to take pictures of one of the Big Apple’s most snapped attractions.
City commissioners in a Florida town approved iPads for themselves to save money on paper costs despite budget problems.
The expense of $2,916 was approved for four iPads despite a cash crunch. Last year, Coral Springs dipped into reserves for $4.8 million plus raised fees and property taxes to carry on.
A 9-year-old girl with sight problems has swapped out magnifying glasses and other clunky equipment for an iPad.
Holly Bligh, of Melbourne Australia, has albinism, which affects her vision. To read, teachers had to make photocopies with enlarged text for her or she had to use a magnifying glass or other devices to read.
The first travel guide apps for Cuba are arriving in iTunes as a record number of Americans visit the country.
iCuba is billing itself as the first travel app for the island nation. In truth, it arrived in iTunes about a month after the Cuban Beaches in HD app, which offers hotel as well as beach info, and the Havana Travel Guide which promises an augmented reality feature. There are also a number of map apps for Cuba.
iCuba is offered in English, Spanish and Italian for $5.99. There are a few hiccups — notably, the English translation offers a category of “luxory” hotels — and other tourism info looks scarce. Still, the maps are available offline which makes consulting them easier when traveling and you can make hotel reservations via the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch versions.
The Havana Travel guide for $4.99 offers up to five days of itineraries, hotels and restaurants by budget range, nightlife info, public transport and safety tips.
Havana Good Time, by resident expat author Conner Gorry, promises to “open doors to the forbidden city” with 160+ entries that will have you living like a local. If you want to check out the $2.99 app, though, you’ll download it in the U.S. iTunes store before you go — since restrictions will keep you from getting it when you are actually local.
The bump in travel to the communist-ruled island is attributed to the U.S. government easing some travel restrictions to Cuba, mostly for “purposeful” travel (family, some business and religious activities). However, a battle is currently ensuing to turn back restrictions to the Bush-era bans.
Via iPhone Italia
Now that the iPhone has sent the the common point-and-shoot camera the way of Kodachrome, there’s no excuse for bad pics.
Designer and photographer Dan Marcolina wrote a well-received book on iPhone Photography called iPhone Obsessed. Now he’s got an iPad app companion to the book, which teaches even more tips and tricks.
Yesterday, we published extracts from a press release where PhantomAlert, an app that helps drivers avoid all kinds of potential tickets, boasted that its DUI checkpoints were staying put and that it had “defied” the senators who convinced Apple to ban DUI info.
CEO Joe Scott wrote to us, essentially retracting the whole release, also stating for the record that the company does not condone or encourage drinking and driving.
Once again, Apple has fallen back on its developer guidelines as a reason for pulling an app that caused a public-relations catastrophe.
In just about 24 hours after a letter of complaint from an Israeli minister, it removed the Third Intifada app from the iTunes store.
“We removed this app from the App Store because it violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people,” an Apple spokesman said Wednesday evening.
The same reason was cited as cause for removal of the “gay cure” app back in March after it unleashed a huge protest.
The question remains: doesn’t anyone at Apple read these guidelines first?
You could (and for the purpose of discussion, please do) substitute or Baby Shaker, iSlam Muhammad — both apps Apple had to remove after a predictable public outcry.
It’d be so much easier if they vetted the apps instead of approving, then yanking them.
Apple has pulled the Third Intifada app at the request of an Israeli minister.
In what may be the quickest removal in iTunes history, Apple yanked the app just a day after Israeli Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli-Yoel Edelstein wrote to Steve Jobs saying the app “passed on information about protests, some violent, planned against Israel.”
We don’t know exactly when, but when we checked for it about an hour ago it was still there, racking up negative “ratings.”
Apple has not responded to our requests for comment or issued a press release on its website.
More to come.
UPDATE: CEO Joe Scott retracted the statements made in the press release quoted below. That story is available here.
When Apple sidelined new apps that were tipping off tipsy drivers about DUI checkpoints, we wondered what would happen to the apps that were already in the iTunes store.
Some of them — like Trapster — pulled the DUI alerts while continuing to offer info on speed traps.
But PhantomALERT just issued a press release boasting about how it stayed in iTunes “defying” the senators who pressured Apple to ban apps with DUI checkpoint info.
