iPhone - page 447

They’re calling it the first “iPhone reality show,” and it was likely inevitable; with TV saturated by the likes of The Apprentice and Biggest Loser, the genre of reality show had to find a new home somewhere.

So for one week, from December 6-12, Italian-based Command Guru will stream all the shenanigans that result when a bunch of iPhone app developers stop being polite and start getting real.

Contestants will assemble from all over the world with the goal of developing a free, open source social-networking iPhone app, from idea to final product at the iTunes App Store. The contest will also let developers from around the world can chime in at any time to help, which should prove interesting.

More pre-contest excitement can be found on the contest’s Twitter feed, where Command Guru says it’s giving away one iPhone 3GS per week till the contest begins.

From the press release:

“There are over 100,000 Apps and millions of users who do not have any idea of how they are developed,” said Alessio Zito Rossi, founder and CEO of Command Guru srl. “The stork doesn’t deliver iPhone Apps! We will show the world how they are really born – live and streaming!”

Russell Davies does lots of things that are interesting, including, um, Interesting and Newspaper Club and a bunch of other stuff, but the other week he did a talk at the Playful event in London, culminating in this fabulous mock-up of an augmented reality game using an iPhone.

The idea is genius: you start playing the game with one tap, and after that you don’t have to look at the device at all. You walk around with your earphones in, and it alerts you with sounds when there’s stuff to interact with. This video explains it better:

SAP from russelldavies on Vimeo.

Uh, oh. Looks like there’s trouble in Android land. The rapid growth of Google’s smartphone OS is causing developers conniptions as they struggle to support multiple versions of the OS and different hardware configurations. With more than a dozen Android phones on the market, all the different configurations are leading to serious platform fragmentation, Wired.com reports:

“A slew of problems have made managing Android apps a “nightmare,” they say, including three versions of the OS (Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0), custom firmware on many phones, and hardware differences between different models.”

For users, it means buggy apps that sometimes won’t work on their hardware at all. One developer tells Wired.com that instead of concentrating on adding new features, he spends all his time making sure his apps work on all the different hardware and software configurations.

Looks like Google might be wandering into Microsoft territory. Microsoft had exactly the same problem with it’s now-discontinued “Plays For Sure” music-player platform, which became known as “Plays For Shit” because of the difficulty supporting multiple hardware and software configurations.

Just goes to show that there’s distinct advantages over owning both the hardware and the software, like Apple. Apple has released just three different hardware versions of the iPhone, and does a pretty good job of making sure most iPhone owners are running the latest software. In addition, the tightly-controlled App Store ensures a high-level of software compatibility. Even Android developers say its a good idea, according to Wired.com:

For developers, Apple’s autocratic ways may be frustrating, but they can pay off.

“Apple maintains an iron grip on what they do and there’s an advantage to that,” says Kelly Schrock, owner of Fognl, which has three apps on the Android market. “IPhone developers don’t have to worry about fragmentation and creating apps for the iPhone is much easier.”

Threadless, the online tshirt company best known for its community-designed apparel, is expanding into iPhone cases.

Threadless has teamed up with Griffin, the long-time maker of fine Apple accessories, to offer a pair of iPhone cases designed by members of its community.

The two limited-edition cases — Clouds within the Thunder by Joe Van Wetering; and Birds of a Feather by Ross Zietz — are both available now at Apple Stores for $34.99.

No word though on whether Threadless is going to open up iPhone case design to the masses. I’ve put in a call to Griffin PR to find out, and will update here.

I’ve often suspected the staff at Cult of Mac of being significantly more attractive than bloggers at sites that don’t care how attractive their bloggers are. And now I can prove it.

Eighteen-year-old English entrepreneur Ed Nash has come up with a 99-cent iPhone app that claims to use Fibonacci’s golden ratio to scientifically determine whether or not a face is aesthetically pleasing. Just snap a photo of the hapless subject, adjust the anchor points, hit the button and viola, instant decision.

Fit or Fugly’s App Store page suggests you use it “to break the ice at dinner parties.” Sure. But we’re going to suggest “the ice” isn’t the only thing that’ll get broken when your iPhone decides the girl sitting next to you is “fugly.”

We recently wrote about JBMJBM, LLC — a one-man app factory with 87 approved ones so far — on the eBay block for  $100,000.

Top-selling titles include Friday Night Lights, iSpy Game, iReferee, Pet Peeves (a social network for griping pictured above), iSexyRef2, Pro Rodeo Fan, Sit Up Counter and Shake 2 Count.

CoM had a quick word with owner Brice Milliorn about the sale, what’s next for him and how he sees the future of apps.

CoM: Was JBMJBM sold?

BM: No, I have not sold company or apps yet.  I am in talks with one guy about buying me out via stock, but it doesn’t look promising.

CoM: What plans to you have to sell it now?

BM: No plans to sell again, just going to continue doing what I am doing and do more freelance work as well.

CoM: What changes would you like to see in Apple’s app store?

BM: I don’t have a problem with Apple, you follow their guidelines you get things approved, simple as that.  The few items that I have had issue with them, they called explained, I fixed and it got approved.  I even wrote the number down and called the guy back a few times when I was having issues and within a few hours it was fixed.

CoM: Where do you think the future of app development is headed?

BM: I think the future of the iPhone is opening it up to Verizon.  That will be another huge influx of potential app buyers and I look forward to this happening.

I also believe all this hype on the Droid and all those other handsets that will ultimately never get to the level of the iPhone.  The only company to match the iPhone and better it is Apple itself.

I’m always wondering how many Onion vodcasts I’ll get though while waiting in line at the DMV before before my iPhone’s battery shuts down and leaves me staring at the back of the bald guy’s head in front of me.

Not only will Battery Gauge tell me that, say the folks over at Tap Mode, but it’ll also crunch the numbers and give you an idea of how long I have remaining for any of the other myriad activities the iPhone is good for, like audio playback, connecting to the Internet and yammering on the phone. It’ll also reveal how much standby time is left.

Battery Gauge figures all this out by monitoring your iPhone use, and apparently needs to watch you through just one single charge-cycle.

Not bad for a buck. Also works with the iPod Touch.

We’ve written before in this space about Apple’s unique status as a Muse to creative people. In fact, the initial impulse for this post was a search for striking pieces of art created on the iPhone.

Those are out there, too, in droves — and we’ll be featuring them soon in another gallery post.

Today, however, we bring you something we didn’t quite expect to find: a series of art pieces that shed a bit of perspective on the dark side of Apple.

MagicHour is a world clock app with great information presentation.

In one screen, the app displays a wealth of info about time, daylight stages and moon phases in different cities. Edward Tufte would cream his pants. All world clocks should be like this.

Via tumbly.dotsar and Robot Wisdom.

MagicHour is $3.99 from the App Store.

Are you looking for a way to keep you iPod or iPhone charged, but not happy with the bulky options out there? PhoneSuit introduces the Primo battery, a compact mini battery unit that attached to your dock connector port. The unit’s 800mAh battery claims to power your iPod for up to 45 hours of music playback, or three hours of talk time on your iPhone 3G. The lithium-ion battery is good for 500 charges, according to PhoneSuit.

To charge the Primo, simply use the included USB cable to plug into any USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 outlet. A LED meter displays the battery’s remaining charge – when the LED turns blue you are fully charged.

The Primo costs $35 per unit or $89.95 for a three-pack. The mini charger comes with a 1-year warranty.

[Via Company and Engadget]

The 21-year-old Australian behind the first iPhone virus got a death threat, media interviews and job offers as the result of his efforts.

Ashley Towns, who said the result was an “experiment that got out of hand,” created a worm that  switches iPhone wallpaper for an image of 80s pop singer Rick Astley. Astley, who sang the 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up,” who morphed into the Internet prank known as “Rickrolling.” The bait-and-switch worm replaces an ordinary video with one of Astley.

Here’s how it happened:

“I was reading a blog that said in bold letters to change your passwords and I wondered how many had.”

It turned out that most of the people on his network had not.

“So I started writing it from there. I stayed up all night and when I was half asleep I decided to test it.

“I didn’t really think about legal consequences at the time. I honestly never expected it to go this far.

“I thought it would spread to no more than 10 or 15 people.”

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Let’s say you’ve got $30 grand to blow on a gold and diamond iPhone but the idea of just buying one without the thrill of an auction bores you.

Two of these tricked out iPhones are up for sale from “bespoke luxury communications” (read: cell phones that go bling-bling along with ring-ring) purveyor Stuart Hughes on BillionaireXchange.com, a site that launched this week billing itself as the first online marketplace for, uh, billionaires.

The pink 3GS model above, coated in 18-carat solid rose gold, was designed entirely by hand and dusted with 53 pink diamonds on the Apple logo. Each phone takes four craftsmen months to make. If that’s too girly, there’s also the 22-carat gold model with a white diamond logo.

Retail price for both?  Nearly £22,000 ($36,000). Starting bid on the auction site is £18,000 ($30,000).

Both auctions say the reserve price has already been met, so maybe diamond-encrusted iPhones aren’t the white elephants of the aughts.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

According to Wikipedia, which is where I’ve learned 92 percent of the useless stuff I know, the phrase in Latin above means something along the lines of “don’t make things more complicated than they should be, dumbass.”

The V-Moda Vibe II with Microphone fits this explanation so exquisitely, you might well see them being whipped out as a teaching aid by your Latin instructor when the above phrase comes up.

Carpe diem. (Seize the day. Best way would be by clicking on the link for the rest of the review.)

November 11th is internationally recognised as a day of Remembrance; in the US it’s Veterans Day, and here in the UK is known as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day.

iPhone ‘worms’ haven’t been much of a threat till now. However, things have changed with a new malware, discovered by Mac security firm Intego. Identified as iPhone/Privacy.A, it is a major threat for the privacy of many jailbroken iPhone users who have installed and activated SSH. Note: Non-jailbroken phones are not affected by it.

This malware acts through the SSH just like the others. It infects through client software installed on an attacking Mac, PC or even iPhone, which scans for jailbroken iPhones nearby. If they are vulnerable, they are then injected with the malware using the default filesystem password.

Previous exploits like iKee just changed the lockscreen background but after injection, this new malware copies private data, such as contacts, e-mail, contacts, SMSs, calendars, photos, music files, videos, which it then sends back to the source machine. It is even possible to send it as a malware to a Mac or PC which will then scan and copy the information from nearby jailbroken iPhones or iPod Touch and then send back to the source.

Even though it is not widespread yet, the amount of information it steals is a great deal. Intego currently recommends it’s own solution, Virus Barrier X5, which detects and removes this malware from a Mac but as far as other platforms are concerned, there’s currently no solution. This means that there is a high chance you can be affected as well. Therefore, we recommend you to take a simple precautionary step by changing the filesystem password on your jailbroken iPhones with SSH installed or turning SSH off when not in use with the help of SBSettings available in Cydia.

You can also have a look at our guide on how to change the filesystem password.

Are you tired of the giggles elicited by your upscale friends when you whip out your zebra-striped iPhone that burps each time a call is received? Maybe your handset needs a classier grill rather than yet another skin? If that’s the case, we might have your ticket to the technological upper-class: the Appstand.

Positioned as a great $20 Christmas gift for the iPhone 3G or 3GS owner, the Appstand from Thunk let’s you display your handset in the provided frame and start a series of calming slideshows (how about the sounds of wind or the lapping water from a koi pond?) It’s enough to make a subdued BlackBerry look downright scandalous.

The Appstand will be available December 1st.

[Via Gadget Lab, iLounge and Thunk]

LocFinder is an augmented reality app that boasts it will always let you see which direction is home or find your car, even if you’re halfway across the world.

LocFinder costs $0.99 on iTunes and while isn’t the first augmented reality app to tackle parking lot amnesia — we recently wrote about Car Finder — it sounds like a compass on steroids.

It has a bevy of features that may end those ping-pong SMS messages to set up a meeting, make stopping to ask for directions a non-issue even when you’re lost in Paris — or let you know exactly how far away you are from Cupertino at all times.

More on what it does with video after the jump…

If rumors that Apple is adding an RFID reader to the iPhone are true, it’s huge!

An RFID reader would turn the iPhone into an e-wallet — allowing you to pay for everything, from a cup of coffee to a subway ride. It could also turn the iPhone into an ID card, a security access system and an electronic ticketing device.

It’s could also function as an easy and secure online shopping system that doesn’t require you to enter your credit card number.

Your iPhone could unlock your car, pick up e-coupons at the local mall, and pay for all your supermarket groceries just by laying it on top of the checkout.

Imagine if such a system was enabled on your iPhone. It would supplant your wallet — if enough retailers adopted the system, of course.

Transport in Switzerland not only runs on time, but you can buy tickets with your iPhone.

The latest version of the SBB mobile app lets travelers buy e-tickets for trains and all public transport, so you can get off the train in Lugano and catch a bus for Mendrisio without missing a beat.

Users first register with the railway company site to buy tickets via credit card for trains and buses, including day and bike passes.

The app, offered gratis on iTunes, comes in German, French, Italian and English. It also offers timetables, a “take me home” GPS function and has a crowd predictor so you know when to stop in a cafe and wait for the next one.

Programmer John Carmack helped bring Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake into the world.

Getting his games on the iPhone was not so easy.

“My relationship with Apple has been long standing, but it’s a roller coaster ride,” he told web site Kotaku. “At the highest level of Apple, in their heart of hearts,” Carmack said. “They’re not proud of the iPhone being a game machine, they wish it was something else.”

However, the popularity of gaming on the iPhone has forced Apple to think different(ly).
And, now that former collaborator Graeme Devine has gone to work for the iPhone Game Technologies division, iPhone games may get the respect they deserve.

Carmack calls Devine his “man on the inside…a real developer and I understand everything he is saying.”
Via Kotaku

Pssst: If you want to get in on the iPhone app business, there’s one for sale on eBay.

The starting bid for JBMJBM, LLC. — an app factory with 87 approved ones so far — is $100,000 and ends Saturday, Nov. 14

Top-selling titles include Friday Night Lights, iSpy Game, iReferee, iSexyRef (pictured above, which helps muddled sports fans remember the rules), iSexyRef2, Pro Rodeo Fan, Sit Up Counter and Shake 2 Count.

Buy the developer out and you get 87 applications currently listed on iTunes plus all application assets which include source code files, website files and all collateral.

Sure, I could write a whole How-To on rolling your own “Back To My Mac.” It involves port forwarding, obtaining a Dynamic DNS, blah blah blah.

Or you could use the iPhone app LogMeIn Ignition [iTunes Link] to remotely access to your Mac or PC in three steps.

This is a great idea, and bound to go down very well with your kids.

Balloons is simple: you launch a virtual balloon into the air from your phone. You add a photo and a text message to the label that dangles below the balloon, and send it off.

Anyone with the Balloons app can catch that balloon and add their own message. If you shell out for the paid version, you can track the balloons you’ve launched and see what other people have added to them.

To celebrate and set things off, we’ve created a Cult of Mac balloon for you to catch. It’s purple with green stripes, and has a photo of the Cult home page at the top. If you catch it, let us know what you think about Balloons.

This is a particularly friendly application. I can see school classes all over the world launching balloons to make contacts in other schools. And Shiny development have wisely kept the choice of balloons fairly limited to start with; I wouldn’t be surprised to see custom balloons appearing soon, as an in-app purchase.

Virgin’s new Flying Without Fear app — an interactive guide to easing panic — left us with a few questions that we got answered by Mickey Beyer-Clausen, who co-developed the app for Mental Workout.

CoM: Can you use the app during take off and landing?

MBC: Unfortunately, passengers cannot use any electronic device – including the iPhone in airplane mode – during take-off and landing but the app is developed to prepare users for flight whereby making the brief “no electronics” period at the beginning and end of the flight more manageable.

The panic button is intended to be used during the flight when turbulence is encountered or other events occur which make the user uncomfortable.