iPhone - page 440

Big shocker: Microsoft isn’t supporting Adobe’s Flash in its brand new Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Windows Phone 7 joins Apple’s iPhone and iPad in snubbing the widely-used plug-in.

The news was delivered to Information Week, which received a surprise email from Adobe saying:

“While the newest version of Windows Phone won’t support Flash at initial availability, both companies are working to include a browser plug-in for the full Flash player in future versions of Windows Phone. More details will be shared at Microsoft MIX next month.”

Information Week is skeptical. It says it’s not clear if Flash is coming to WinMo 7 at all.

Microsoft launched WinMo 7 on Monday to great acclaim. Blogs like Gizmodo and Wired’s Gadget Lab, which got to play with the new system at the Mobile World Congress, say it looks better and is easier to use than the iPhone. (Giz: Windows Phone 7 Interface: Microsoft Has Out-Appled Apple; Gadget Lab: Hands-On With Windows Phone 7 Series

Of course, Microsoft makes its own Silverlight platform, a rich-media platform which competes with Flash on the web.

Although Apple has remained officially mum on the issue of Flash, it’s widely understood that the company views the plug-in as buggy and power-hungry.

Not all smartphone makes are snubbing Flash, however.  Adobe just announced Flash for Google’s Android platform, it’s first step into mobile.

Information Week: Windows Mobile 7 Won’t Get Flash

Via Gadget Lab.

Although I’m still an Adium man on my primary Mac, I’ve been using the excellent online IM client Meebo for years to keep in contact with a decade’s worth of collected buddies scattered across ever instant messaging protocol under the sun across multiple machines.

Unfortunately, using the Meebo site on the iPhone was never quite as good as an experience. I’m really excited to see, then, that they’ve just released a native Meebo app to the iTunes App Store.

All the best features of Meebo are here, including searchable chat history across all of your Meebo sessions, regardless of machine, and support for just about every IM protocol under the sun. The Meebo app will also push IM notifications to you when the app is closed, and early reports suggest that it keeps you logged in far longer than just about any other IM app out there. It’ll even automatically reconnect when you lose coverage.

The best news, though, is the price: Meebo is completely free. I’ve been a huge fan of the Meebo web service for years: if you do any instant messaging on your iPhone at all, this is worth a download.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RNpMAtqIZ8&feature=player_embedded

In the wake of last week’s report that sausage-mania was gripping South Korea when Maxbong brand sausages were found to be usable as capacitive styluses, there were some small few who doubted the report.

Our retort? This video, showing a South Korean playing Taiko Drummaster with a pair of Maxbong Sausages. As you can see, it works well, but those Maxbongs look a little too thick to be truly decent styluses. I still think a Slim Jim would work better.

Well, that certainly took long enough: Apple has finally allowed a version of SlingPlayer Mobile app to creep through the App Store with 3G support.

And it’s about time. SlingPlayer Mobile is a great little app that allows you to stream video from your television, cable, satellite or DVR to your iPhone. The previous version was WiFi only, due to pressure from AT&T, but Ma Bell claims that they worked with SlingPlayer to optimize their 3G compression scheme, and they are now happy that the app won’t be too much of a bandwidth hog.

That’s good news for home theater enthusiasts: it means you never really need to load your iPhone up with movies at all, but can just stream your library from home. Of course, that functionality has a price premium: it costs $30.

A report by a UK insurance company says phony claims for iPhones soar every time a new model launches.

Since the November 2007 launch of the first gen iPhone in the UK to the iPhone 3gs, claims on iPhones increase by 50% during the month after a new model is launched, Supercover Insurance director Carmi Korine said in a statement. Her company estimates that four out of 10 of those increased claims are abruptly-mangled iPhones that owners hope to have replaced with the latest model.

“While most customers take out insurance because they value their iPhone, we started to notice increases in claims as new and upgraded iPhones were launched.

“For short periods around new model or upgrade launches, claims for lost, stolen or damaged iPhones go through the roof.

“The issue appears to be that most iPhone owners can only go for so long realising that they’re a generation behind the latest must-have spec before they resort to extreme measures.”

It might be worth faking the break: Korine notes that although 40% of the claims received after a new iPhone model launch were suspicious the company  rejected about 25%.

Just don’t be too obvious: the insurer requires that you send in the phone. One over-zealous early adopter claimed the phone had been “dropped” when he or she had evidently driven a car over it.

Via Press Association

Valentine’s Day is almost over but maybe you have someone on your list who might appreciate your going uber-digital in your expression of affection, even if it’s a tad belated.

Then you might want to check out QR loveCode, a quirky little free app for iPhone and iPod Touch that gives you a choice of several love messages you can embed into QR coded thought bubbles on a series of stylistic digital art pieces you can share via email.

QR codes are big in Japan, where many cell phones come equipped with QR decoding software that works through the phones’ camera.

Here in the US, the recipient of your QR loveCode message will need to download QR scanning software in order to read your message. But guess what?

There’s an app for that.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — One of the most welcome aspects of the post-Apple Macworld is the absence of the giant booths devoted to iPhone accessories.

In recent years, Macworld was in danger of becoming the iPhone case show. Many of the biggest and most prominent booths on the show floor were devoted to cases and screen covers.

This year, they’re mostly absent. While there were about 100 case and accessory makers at CES in January (in the iLounge pavilion), the 150 iPhone developers at Macworld are mostly software publishers. It’s a welcome change.

Our own lovely modern-day Beatrice, Miss Nicole Martinelli, made passing reference to the latest fad to grip South Korean iPhone owners earlier today, but just in case you missed it: they’re using a particular brand of snack sausage as iPhone styluses so they don’t need to remove their gloves in the winter.

The snack sausages, made by South Korea’s own CJ Corportation, are electrostatically compatible with the iPhone’s touchscreen…. and it’s apparently a useful enough solution to cause sausage sales to surge.

True, some might get squeamish at the thought of carrying around a cigarillo of unwrapped meat in their pockets at all times… but I think this is brilliant. On the other hand, this is perhaps the first practical way to merge both my Slim Jim and Apple hardware fetishes. Kudos, Korea!

Tech writer Leo Laporte didn’t quite buy the story that South Korean iPhone owners adopt snack-sausage stylus sticks to use their devices with gloves on in winter.

In the time-honored tradition of investigative journalism, he decided to check it out for himself. He didn’t happen to have a meat stick handy, so he tried an appropriately stylus-shaped cheese stick instead. (For the record, it was “chilly” and string cheese).

It’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.

This time, we review Showtimes, Space Deadbeef, UFO Kidnapped, Ramp Champ, IMDB, Air Hockey, Valet Hero, RunKeeper Free and RunKeeper Pro.

Mobile Safari is a lovely browser but lacks a few features, and one of those is Find-in-page. If you want to find a specific piece of text on a very long web page, you have to resort to third-party fixes.

There are a variety of bookmarklets, alternative browsers and add-ons around, but this latest one is a bit different. Although it’s basically just a bookmarklet, it’s being distributed as an app on the App Store, for a fee of 99 cents.

It’s called Find in Page, and just from the title you know what it does. Here’s a simple demo video:

What separates this from other bookmarklets is the extra interface controls that appear above Safari’s built-in navigation controls when you’re using it. They let you flick between instances of your search term, or start a new search, without having to start all over again.

The app itself simply adds the bookmarklet to Mobile Safari’s bookmarks folder; in theory, you need only run it once to do this, then you can delete it from your device. But you might want to keep it around in case your bookmarks get edited or lost and you need to add it again.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_LLj4_3ZRA

If you’re inclined to chop that much, you could charge your iPhone with 2,380 orange slices.

Anita Bryant probably wouldn’t approve.

Via lindenitzan

On a physical keyboard, my own digits are pounding pistons capable of rattling off text with enough pressure pounds per inch to bore through a human skull at roughly 120 words per minute… but get me on an iPhone, and all of my speed typing skills go to pot.

I’m more impressed with this video of some guy typing at an incredible rate of 56 words per minute on the iPhone in portrait mode, then, than I would be at the touch typing tornado of a polydactyl secretary with an IV drip of amphetamines smashing out text at three times the rate.

Simply amazing… and I’m willing to bet some of you out there can do even better, self-proclaimed “fastest iPhone texter in the world” or not.

[via TUAW

UPDATE: See interview with iMussolini dev below.

Controversial iMussolini app was yanked from the Italian iTunes store a week ago, not for ongoing protests but for possible copyright violations of material from Italian state archives Istituto Luce.

The grim jawline of Il Duce has been reinstated in the iTunes store — now iMussolini, a mobile compendium of fascism, features  speeches,  a video selection (with a disclaimer), plus a section on fascist architecture and songs from his 20-year heyday.

It costs more than the previous version €1.59 (was €0.79. ) It’s also available in the US iTunes store for $1.99, in Italian only.

Cult of Mac asked developer Luigi Marino on how the app made a comeback.
Cult of Mac: So the copyright-contested video segments are still in the iMussolini app?
Luigi Marino: Yes. The videos are still there, my lawyer evaluated them in terms of copyright violation and advised me to keep them but add a disclaimer.

CoM: What does the disclaimer say?

LM: It says that the video footage is property of Istituto Luce. It also says that in no way does the app intend to praise fascism but is just a vehicle for recounting historical events.

CoM: What made you decide to put the app back in the store?

LM: I also made a few other new additions to the content in the meantime, too.

CoM: What do you think about the Holocaust suvivors’ protests of the app?

LM: I’m sorry to hear about the protests, I don’t think they understand what the app is really about. I hope they may take a closer look at the content and change their minds.

Vampire scribe extraordinaire Anne Rice just agreed to make a video-enhanced book or Vook for the iTunes store.

Her effort may provide a necessary lifeblood to the genre, even though she’s not risking much by giving video treatment to a 1984 story first published in Redbook magazine. Set in 1888,  “The Master of Rampling Gate”  is a vampire tale of two siblings and a foreboding mansion that has already been published as an audio book.

Rice’s Vook, priced at $6.99, will launch with iPod Touch and iPhone versions on March 1, a strategic move before the iPad hits the scene.

It never takes long for the Dev Team to pry open the seams of the latest iPhone OS firmware, tickle its insides and come up with a fresh Jailbreak. Less than a week after Apple released their iPhone OS 3.1.3 update, the Dev Team followed it up with an update of their own: Pwnage Tool 3.1.5.

Here’s the caveat: the iPhone OS 3.1.3 update was pretty insignificant. The only real bug fix for non-Japanese users was improvement of the battery life indicator in rare cases. If you haven’t noticed a problem with your jailbroken phone, especially an iPhone 3G or 3Gs, you shouldn’t upgrade, since if you mess up your Pwnage, you risk losing your carrier unlock forever.

Apple’s refusal to spec their devices with memory card readers continues to irritate. My assumption has always been that the lack of an SD card reader on the iPhone has to do with two things: discouraging customers from buying the lowest priced iPhones and cheaply supplementing the storage with an SD card instead of shelling out a couple hundred more on the higher-capacity models, and making sure iTunes is the only real entry to shift to the device.

Still, when Apple updated the iPhone OS to firmware 3.0, adding functionality for iPhone peripherals into the mix, it was only a matter of time that we’d see an aftermarket SD card reader accessory… and here it is, ZoomIt.

Essentially, you plug the ZoomIt SD reader dongle into your iPhone or iPod Touch’s dongle connector, launch the free ZoomIt app and you’re free to shift any file supported by the OS to and from your device.

Of course, this isn’t really an expandable storage solution, but it wouldn’t be a bad way to backup photos from your camera while you’re on the road… and it should even work on the iPad. You can pre-order the ZoomIt now for $50, with a ship date in April.

Peter-Paul Koch is a man with opinions about the mobile web. And his latest opinion is a trifle controversial: Mobile Safari, he says, is this generation’s Internet Explorer 6. All the rage now, but destined to be hated by webdevs of the future.

Late last week, a word of warning to iPhone and iPod Touch app developers was posted on Apple’s official developer site: “If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.”

It’s a strange little note. The iPhone’s Core Location functionality is already opt-in, and it seems useful from both a developer and user’s standpoint if advertisements are tailored to a user’s individual experience… and location is a big part of that.

The wording is also worrying: what does “primarily” mean? That’s another one of those vague App Store Review Process wordings that just leads to headache down the line.

There are a few interpretations on this. When Apple tries to launch their own in-house iPhone ad network, they may want to position location-based advertisements as a major advantage of their service. On the other hand, this simply could be about limiting advertising-based apps from needlessly hogging the GPS radio and draining battery life.

If I were to guess, I’d say the latter is true. Hopefully Apple will clarify matters in due time.

[via Boy Genius Report]

It’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.

This time, we review Pastebot, 007: Top Agent, Jackson Pollock, Rhythm Racer, Judgement Day War, and TweakyBeat.

Welcome to the “iPhone photography toy of the week” slot. Today’s toy is: InfiniteScope.

Yesterday, we alerted you to blossoming galleries of attractive young women posing in various states of undress with their iPhones.

But, hey, iPhone fetish pics aren’t limited to the fair sex: there are a few galleries dedicated to iPhone Guys, too. Plus the NSFW user-generated Guys with iPhones website.

Can the right gadget make you hotter? This gallery of iPhone girls would seem to suggest yes. Otherwise adding a smartphone to a bikini and pout would be superfluous. Right?

This isn’t the only gallery pairing pulchritude with tech, there are also a few dedicated iPhone babe blogs,  too.

Since they all seem to be SFW, it’s a wonder no one has launched an iPhone app for iPhone babes. We’ll keep you posted on further developments…

With the iPad’s debut, we’re all looking forward to iPhone OS 3.2, but since we can’t expect that until the iPad starts shipping in March, we’ll have to make do with the latest software update to hit iTunes. So cram your 30-pin white connector umbilical into the omphalos of your iPhone, my friends, because iPhone OS 3.1.3 is here.

It’s a small update. Here’s what has been improved:

• Improves accuracy of reported battery level on iPhone 3GS

• Resolves issue where third-party apps would not launch in some instances

• Fixes bug that may cause an app to crash when using the Japanese Kana keyboard

Those first two changes may be tiny, but they are nice. Better battery life accuracy is always helpful, and that second fix looks like it might be focused on the issue where App Store apps sometimes wouldn’t launch until you downloaded a new app and installed it.

Needless to say, if you’ve jailbroken your phone, you go and see what the Dev-Team has to say about upgrading, although it looks like they’ve almost got it all sussed out.

We’ve covered a number of iPhone apps that field citizen complaints in a few different cities — Boston, Pittsburgh, San Jose — but always wondered if angry folks snapping potholes on the way to work would find their grievances fell on deaf ears.

The good news: if you live in Boston and can afford an iPhone, it’s like having a personal fix-it crew.

Some 2,500 downloaders of CitizensConnect have filed 750 complaints since October;  at least one reports swift action: