iPhone - page 461

A ringtone company that professes to hate ringtones has introduced three new sets of  ringers for the iPhone that address cellphone etiquette.

Available now for $10 each, the three new collections from San Francisco-based iRingPro are designed to make your ringing iPhone less shrill, annoying and intrusive.

“We hate ringtones,” said founder Joel Hladecek in a statement. “Which must sound odd coming from a company that makes them. But then I think that’s why iRingPro ringers are more sophisticated – why they sound cooler and seem so much more adult than anything else out there.”

iRingPro’s ringtones come in two versions – long and short. While the short tones have a traditional gap between rings, the long version has a longer period of silence, making it more relaxed and allowing you time to check who’s calling before the next ring.

The ringtones also come in “Meeting Grade” or “Active Grade.” Designed for meetings, the Meeting Grade tones are quieter and softer. When you’re out and about, the Active Grade tones are more vigorous, making them audible from a pocket or handbag, or over traffic noise.

Joining iRingPro’s well-received Zen Collection, the three new collections are:

Tek: A collection of sc-fi tones inspired by the futuristic gadgets of Hollywood. “Everybody looks to see what kind of technology you’re holding,” the company says.

Origin: A collection of “hand-made” sounds that invoke the origins of music. “Each time the phone rings, it sounds slightly different,” iRingPro says.

Zen 2: Designed for meetings or quiet settings. Free to registered owners of the original Zen Collection.

Each collection costs $9.95 and available now in iPhone and MP3 formats. You can preview each collection on iRingPro’s website.

Apple has revoked the iPhone developer’s license of one prolific mobile app developer, according to a report at MobileCrunch, but the company is still taking heat for inconsistencies in its App Store approval policies.

Kahlid Shaikh and his team of 26 engineers working under the name Perfect Acumen had over 900 apps approved and selling in the iTunes App Store until July 24, when Apple terminated Shaikh’s iPhone Developer Program License due to concerns over “numerous third party intellectual property complaints concerning over 100 of [his] Applications.”

The majority of Shaikh’s apps merely aggregated content found on the web and delivered it to iPhone users under titles such as “US Army News”, “Skin Care Updates” and “Economical Crisis Updates”, as well as other questionable content under titles such as “Top Sexy Ladies” and “Top Sexy Men”.

Shaikh admitted he is not concerned about creating particularly valuable apps, according to the MobileCrunch report. Instead, he said, he’s going for “less product value” and “more monetization.” Many of his apps had been sold for $4.99, generating revenue in the range of thousands of dollars per day for Perfect Acumen, according to the report.

Despite having finally grown exasperated with fielding copyright and intellectual property claims against Shaikh, and having acted to remove what some believe was a raft of useless apps from the App Store, Apple is taken to task by the author of the MobileCrunch report for inconsistencies in its App Store review process. The entire brouhaha here is seen as evidence that “Clearly, Apple doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing.”

It appears, in the eyes of some, Apple cannot win for losing, no matter what the company does with the App Store. Either its review process is too open or it’s too restrictive; the store has too many useless apps, bans products users want, or acts to cull sketchy apps — and the end result is “Apple Sucks” no matter what they do.

Apple’s is a difficult position for a company to be in. The company created an entirely new distribution model for an industry that didn’t even exist two years ago. It created opportunity and economic activity that has amounted to one of the few glimmering beacons of hope in what has been roundly described as one of the worst economic downturns in nearly a century. And yet some people seem unable to accept the fact that every single decision made at every step of the way has not resulted in clear skies, smooth sailing and endless joy for one and all.

Make no mistake: Apple is a huge company that can and will act with caprice to get and maintain whatever economic advantage it can in a ruthless marketplace. The FCC appears increasingly interested in the operational nuances among Apple, Google and AT&T, as the formerly moribund antitrust watchdogs of the federal government are starting to prick up their ears under the Obama administration.

However, when Apple acts to shed the likes of Shaikh and his questionable work product from the App Store the company ought to be praised for finally — if belatedly — doing the right thing.

Netflix’s fantastic streaming movie service is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch, according to a report in the trade mag Multichannel News.

Citing “an industry executive familiar with Netflix’s plans,” the trade mag says Netflix’s Watch Instantly service is headed to the iPhone, iPod Touch and the Nintendo Wii. However, because of bandwidth concerns, it will likely be available only over WiFi  and not AT&T’s 3G network, MN says.

Either way, it’s great news.

I’m a subscriber and a big fan of Netflix’s service, which I find to be easier, more convenient and much, much cheaper than Apple’s iTunes. For about $20 a month, we get to stream a wide a wide variety of TV shows and movies from Netflix instead of paying a la carte for rentals or purchases from iTunes.

Indeed, Netflix’s Watch Instantly is the strongest of the online on-demand video services — the gold standard for content on demand.

The selection isn’t comprehensive, but I find it to be pretty good. There’s not the latest releases, but there’s a pretty deep and wide library of great movies, which is more than can be said for iTunes, which I find unbearably popcorn and shallow.

In addition, Netflix movies stream quickly, the quality is great, even on a big 42-inch HDTV, and we’ve never, ever encountered a problem — a rare and astonishing testament to the company’s technology.  (We use the service through a Samsung Blu-Ray player which streams Netflix and Pandora).

The service is already available on a wide range of devices from Windows PCs and Macs, to the Xbox 360, TiVo and several Blu-Ray DVD players with support for streaming downloads.

Via AppleInsider.

Porno director Matt Morningwood, who shot the first adult scene on an iPhone 3GS, made the mistake of shooting in portrait mode, or “tallscreen.”

The vertical video format presented Matt with problems when it came to displaying the video at 16:9, but here’s how he figured out how to use iPhone video with Final Cut Pro.

Being somewhat old of years and gray of hair, I remember the good ol’ days of gaming, before all this new-fangled 3D nonsense. Entire games would be smaller in size than a thumbnail JPEG, controllers didn’t have 56,000 buttons, and games weren’t always sequels to sequels to sequels to [that’s enough of that—”Ed]

Clearly, I’m not the only one, because retro games are hot properties for all current gaming systems, and Apple handhelds are no exception. The App Store is peppered with clones and ‘tributes’ to ancient games, along with a slew of official remakes from the likes of Atari and Namco. Recently, though, Manomio—developers of Flashback for iPhone—went a stage further, aiming to bring an entire retro system to iPhone: the Commodore 64.

The build of C64 we played with was quite impressive. Although frameskipping was evident (which is no longer the case for C64 emulation on desktop Macs), the small selection of games sent over with the demo were perfectly playable. Surprisingly, the controls also worked nicely, which is quite a feat when you consider that the C64 was a distinctly ‘digital control’ platform, and that virtual joysticks don’t often work well on Apple handhelds.

Sadly, the public at large has yet to experience the app, because Apple unceremoneously rejected it, citing issues regarding its built-in BASIC (App Store apps aren’t allowed to launch executable code), and, presumably, ignoring the fact that Frotz—a Z-Machine interpreter—has been happily living on the App Store for ages, despite there being no practical distinction between it and C64.

Stu from Manomio was kind enough to offer his thoughts on this and other issues surrounding C64, along with talking about why Manomio developed the app in the first place, and why the organization considers it important to fully license content for the App Store (a position that, ironically, puts them at odds with at least several dozen rip-off apps already for sale for Apple handhelds).

Nick Mangold, a  6’4”, 300-pound offensive lineman for the New York Jets, talked to uberfan Angel Navedo about, among other things, why he loves the iPod Touch but prefers a Blackberry to the iPhone.

The salient bits:

Do you consider yourself tech savvy?

Nick Mangold: I like to. I don’t know where I measure up to everyone else, but I like to believe I’m gadget and tech friendly. I’m a Blackberry guy.

AN: That hurts my feelings.

Nick Mangold: (Spots my iPhone) But I’m an iPod Touch guy! The iPod Touch is awesome. I think it’s a great device for games and messing around. But for dealing with emails and everything, I pick Blackberry—with the actual keyboard and everything—hands down. I can bang out a page-long email while I’m sitting, doing whatever. Touch screens, you know, I got fatter fingers. It’s not my thing.

AN: It definitely took some getting used to for me.

Nick Mangold: I’m just not a touch screen guy at all. I love it for playing games and stuff, but I keep them separate. If that requires me to carry two different things, I live with it.

The interview caught my eye after spending an afternoon thumbing on a number of keyboards in the quest to finally put my beloved first-gen smartphone out to pasture.

Not an Apple customer by kneejerk, the contract nonsense with the iPhone got me testing the Blackberry and a bunch of Nokias.  And leaving empty handed, for the moment.

Any advice?

If you are accustom to waking with a blaring radio or the blinding light of early morning, the new wake-up light by Philips may be the perfect solution. The gadget, which includes an iPhone/iPod dock, promises a gradual wake-up routine by increasing the light gradually in your bedroom.

“Light falls on your eyes and positively affects your energy hormones, preparing your body to wake up,” according to Philips. For heavy sleepers, the light can reach 300 lux.

Replacing that obnoxious jolting alarm are natural sounds or tunes supplied by your iPod or iPhone. If you go with the built-in sounds, you can choose between “morning birds in the forest, a relaxing beep, the sounds of the African jungle or soft chimes in the wind,” according to the company. If you pick your favorite iPod or iPhone tunes, the sound level will increase over 90 seconds until reaching a preset maximum.

The Philips Wake-Up Light will cost $200 when it is released Aug. 22.

[Via Philips]

Apple on Friday afternoon released a firmware patch for the iPhone to fix a dangerous SMS security hole.

The 3.0.1 firmware update is available now through iTunes. The 300MB update is available for the iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. It doesn’t appear to contain any other features or bug fixes except for the SMS patch, according to Apple’s security advisory.

As previously reported, noted security experts Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner revealed a major security exploit in the iPhone’s SMS system on Thursday at the 2009 Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas.

The exploit takes advantage of memory hole in the SMS system, allowing hackers root access to the device. Programs could theoretically be sent to any iPhone, through multiple SMS messages if necessary, and take over all functions, including the camera, phone and microphone. The only indication of the hack would be a SMS message containing a single square character.

Miller and Mulliner reportedly chose to reveal the exploit, which is applicable to all mobile platforms including iPhone OS, Android and Windows Mobile, at Black Hat after Apple had been unresponsive in the wake of their showing it to company officials earlier in July.

Looks like Apple woke up fast. The patch was issued in about 24 hours.

UPDATE: Google also patched its Android system on Friday, and Microsoft says it is investigating, according to BusinessWeek. To be fair, Microsoft was just informed of the vulnerability, while Apple was warned weeks ago, which may explain the speed of its patch.

Watch out the for sand and water, but bring your device to the fourth annual international meeting for iPhone and iPod fanatics in Riccione, Italy.

This Sunday, August 2, thousands of Apple fans are expected to stage playlist battles and contend for Apple-related prizes at the event organized by Italian site ipodmania.

How did it get started? Well, according to the press release in somewhat maccheronic inglisc:

“The iPod and the iPhone are a mania, there’s nothing to do, and we are subjugated by that insana disease, so we have decided to celebrate this obsession…”

Never mind that iPod/iPhone festivities at Aquafan, Europe’s biggest water park, will be a minefield for devices (everybody in the pool!), site founder Andrea Di Mambro says past editions drew thousands of fans from all over Italy, plus the UK, Germany, Spain and Russia.

A live concert from lounge virtuosi Montefiori Cocktail is also on, as well as tutorials from website staff on how to get the most out of your device.

If you happen to go, send us a report and pics.

Apple plans to release a security patch on Saturday to address a security issue for iPhone users that had some worried third party criminals could gain control over their phones remotely, the BBC reported on Friday.

Noted security experts Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner revealed a major security exploit in SMS technology Thursday at the 2009 Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas. The exploit sent shockwaves through the wireless world and caused owners of mobile phones no end of terror over the prospect that bad guys might gain control over their devices by sending a series of simple SMS messages, including one containing a single square character, which would be the only indication of the hack.

Miller and Mulliner reportedly chose to reveal the exploit, which is applicable to all mobile platforms including iPhone OS, Android and Windows Mobile, at Black Hat after Apple had been unresponsive in the wake of their showing it to company officials earlier in July.

It was not immediately clear whether the patch reported by the BBC would be available to all iPhone users or just to those in the UK. Calls to Apple PR were unreturned at press time, but we’ll update the story as more information becomes available.

Chinese regulators have approved a modified iPhone for the giant Chinese market, which uses the speedy GSM/WCDMA chipset but has no WiFi.

Why no WiFi? Hit the jump for an explanation (It’s partly business, partly snooping).

Picture via Aurum3

The comically wrong-headed announcement that Verizon would be launching VCast Apps, its response to Apple’s App Store, made me realize that pretty much everyone, including, major cell phone carriers, are confused about how and why the iPhone has been such a success. I could spend awhile talking about why an all-Verizon app store is a stupid idea (when you create apps for dozens of phones, all running different OSes and using different interfaces, you get the lowest common denominator; Verizon already has a pan-network app store; people love iPhone App Store because the software is good, not because of the basic concept), but instead I’ll devote a little while to analyzing the success of the iPhone and provide some basic definitions that are going to be critical to understanding the new mobile landscape in years to come.

Those terms? Products, Platforms, and Networks. To have a truly great experience, you need to excel in all three. Unfortunately, no one in the U.S. is doing that. Read on for more.

The long-standing tiff between Apple and the iPhone jailbreaking community reached new heights of absurdity in a recent filing Apple made with the US Copyright office, in which the company all but claimed granting iPhone jailbreakers an exemption from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act would invite terrorist attacks on the nation’s wireless network infrastructure.

In a written response (PDF) to questions from the Copyright Office, Apple claimed that jailbroken iPhones could be used by drug dealers to avoid authorities, by hackers to skirt carrier-enforced limitations or even by attackers to crash the software at cell phone towers. “Technological protection measures were designed into the iPhone precisely to prevent these kinds of pernicious activities,” said the Apple statement, which added, “if granted, the jailbreaking exemption would open the door to them — to potentially catastrophic effect.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), representing consumer interests and arguing in the case for the jailbreaking exemption, dismissed Apple’s claims. “This is all just a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt,” said Fred von Lohmann, an EFF senior staff attorney and the organization’s expert in intellectual property law.

Von Lohmann called Apple’s claims that jailbroken iPhones could bring down a carrier’s network a hypothetical game. “None of this has ever happened [with jailbroken iPhones],” he said. “You don’t see the independent iPhone stores filled with malicious software tools. Instead, they’re filled with the software that Apple has refused to offer in its App Store.”

The Copyright Office is expected to make its final ruling in the case by October.

[via PCWorld]

The iPhone has been an utter disaster in Russia, according to an interesting report penned Thursday by Svetlana Gladkova at Profy.

The Russian experience suggests that, despite howls of complaint by some consumers in markets where Apple has exclusive distribution agreements with a single or perhaps a pair of wireless carriers, where the device is sold unlocked and unsubsidized by carriers, its price simply puts it beyond the means of all but a tiny number in the current global economy.

Three major carriers sell the iPhone in Russia, having collectively agreed with Apple to sell 3.5 million units over a two year period. But they have managed to move barely 250 thousand phones in the first six months of availability, according to Gladkova, and market players there a feeling distinctly glum about prospects for meeting their goal.

Unlocked phones in Russia — where service contracts are not nearly so common as in markets such as the US and UK — sold initially for the dollar equivalent of $1000, though the market price has dipped currently to $700 – $800, which is still hardly affordable to a populace with per capita GDP of around $15,000.

Corruption also hampers legitimate iPhone sales in Russia, where some 400,000 black market devices made it into circulation before the official release, according to Gladkova, soaking up early demand and deflating the impact of continued heavy advertising by the country’s three service providers.

Now, carriers and their retail partners — local distributors on the hook for millions of dollars in ancillary distribution agreements — are playing hot potato with millions of unsold phones while the carriers scramble to rewrite their contracts with Apple.

The chaos in the Russian market makes things here in the West seem downright orderly, where, ironically, an 8GB iPhone 3G can be had for under $100.

Image – Russian exclusive SimaPhone by Denis Simachev

Apple took one more step toward fully integrating the iPhone platform into MobileMe Wednesday, making a free MobileMe iDisk application available for download on the iTunes App Store.

Members of Apple’s $99 per year cloud computing service will be able to use the iDisk app on their iPhone or iPod Touch to view files stored on an iDisk; access Public folders; easily share files from an iPhone using integrated email links; quickly access recently viewed files and view iPhone-supported file types-including iWork, Office, PDF, QuickTime and more. Files larger than 20MB may not be viewable.

The iPhone jailbreak community, famous for stepping into the breach when Apple’s incomprehensible App Store approval process fails to give users what they want, now offers GV Mobile on Cydia, just one day after Apple thumbed its nose at Google Voice apps for the iPhone.

While some outlets remain comfortable blaming AT&T for Apple’s rejection of Google Voice apps, despite the fact that it’s demonstrably wrong to do so, the jailbreak community was pleased to offer up developer Sean Kovacs’ GV Mobile app, which had been available on the App Store before being yanked in the larger decision to separate Apple from Google with respect to voice services.

Google itself has a Voice app, presently in beta and available by invitation only, but Kovacs’ GV Mobile brings the power of Google’s revolutionary voice product to the iPhone, allowing users to:

* dial numbers via the iPhone address book or typing on the keypad
* Full SMS support (view historic, reply, send new)
* retrieve and delete recent call history
* playback and delete voicemails
* take calls from different phones other than your iPhone
* enable or disable the phones that Google Voice forwards calls to
* add or delete phones that Google Voice forwards call to.

Users must already have a Google Voice account and a working wireless phone plan in order to take advantage of the app’s features, but it seems clear – with millions of numbers in reserve and broad interest in the convenience and configurability of Google’s Voice product – some may find access to GV Mobile something worth jailbreaking their phone for.

Add one more to the list of classic Mac apps making a comeback on the iPhone. MetaTools, famous for the legendary PhotoShop plug-in suite Kai’s Power Tools, has brought goofy photo manipulation back in the form of Making Faces (App Store link), an adaptation of its wacky classic Power Goo.

I haven’t tested it yet, but I used to rock Power Goo on my dad’s Performa 6115. In retrospect, it would have worked way better with multitouch than it did with a mouse. Ah, sweet memories. Like almost everything else on the App Store, it’s $2.99.

Via Techbeat

An adult video company has found a way to get porn onto the iPhone despite Apple’s restrictions on XXX apps.

Pink Visual has shot what it claims to be the first porn scene using an iPhone 3GS.

“We figured this was the next logical step in our ongoing fascination with the iPhone,” said Pink Visual spokeswoman Kim Kysar in a statement. “I think it’s safe to say we are the most ‘iPhone-centric’ porn company around.”

Based in the San Fernando Valley (or Porn Valley), the company’s slogan is: “We innovate, you masturbate.”

The new scene features “popular cougars” Lexi LaMour and Diamond Foxxx, Pink Visual said, and is being published as a webisode on MilfSeeker.com (Definitely NSFW).

The scene was shot by director Matt Morningwood, who said it was easy to shoot with the iPhone. The 3GS gave the scene a certain ‘cinema verite’ and was easier to get into tight spots than a big HD camera.

“If anything, it was too easy to shoot with the iPhone,” Morningwood said. “I’m used to HD cameras, boom mics, and all sorts of other peripherals being part of the deal. The only thing that was difficult was holding the phone steady with two knockout blonde cougars getting naked and going at in front of the camera.”

Pink Visual is considering making iPhone footage a regular feature of its productions.

“The nature of the footage definitely augments the immediacy and realness of the scene,” Kysar said. “Shooting content on the iPhone is a viable option, and something special we can add to the mix now and again.”

Link to press release.

New pictures from a Chinese case manufacturer suggest that the next-gen iPod Touch and iPod Nano will get video recording.

Are you on an iDiet?

If you really want to move your dieting practice into the modern age, you may want to check out The Connected Scale from Withings, a WiFi-enabled scale that sports a free companion iPhone app (iTunes link) that will give you access to information about your weight and body-fat percentages over the course of time, all viewable in table and graph form – and accessible from the Internet.

Now, there’s a password you’ll want to keep secure.

UPDATE: Withings informs CoM the Connected Scale will be available to US Customers in September at a retail price $159 USD, on their website (https://www.withings.com/). And yes, it can display weight in pounds.

Nissan unveiled the details Monday on its plan to produce the first electric, fully-networked consumer automobile, which will function with an exclusive remote-control iPhone application to make efficient use of the car’s battery.

Dubbed Car 2.0, Nissan’s idea suggests the next generation of cars will connect to public and private power grids and communication networks, and will function similarly to electronic gadgets familiar to consumers today.

Nissan calls the system controlling the auto EV-IT, a central brain encompassing an onboard transmitting unit that stays connected by mobile networks to a global data center.

Drivers will be able to view the driving radius within range of their battery charge level on a navigation map, and also find detailed information about available charging stations within range, according to a report describing the car at Earth2Tech.

The iPhone app will let drivers access information about the time required for a full charge and the current temperature inside the vehicle. The app will also let drivers control air conditioning and heating from outside the vehicle, allowing them to cool down or heat up their vehicle while it’s still plugged in rather than using the battery once they are on the road.

The final prototype for Nissan’s 2010 electric car is set to debut on August 2nd.

Apple’s iTunes – the only online music distributor that matters, according to one well-placed music lawyer – may get additional competition before year-end, if an exclusive Wired report published Monday proves accurate.

Spotify, a music service boasting over 6 million songs that can be accessed on-demand and customized into personalized, editable, downloadable playlists, is currently available only in Europe but the company is feverishly working to sign distribution agreements with copyright holders and music labels to bring both a desktop and an iPhone application to American consumers as soon as possible, according to the report.

Spotify’s potential to compete with iTunes in the US remains speculative at this point, and the company understands that despite having created a slick iPhone app to which Wired writer Eliot Van Buskirk gives rave pre-release reviews, Apple could put the kibosh on the whole thing if it determines Spotify “replicates functionality” provided by Apple’s native iTunes application. “It’s going to be very interesting to see if Apple lets this through or sees us as competition — fingers crossed,” explained Spotify communications manager Jim Butcher.

Whether or not the iPhone app is approved, when the company gets its US distribution agreements in order it seems likely that many will check out some of the interesting features the desktop service will have to offer, such as the ability to stream playlists created by other Spotify members and to access an ad-free version of the service with a premium account.

It will be interesting, too, to see how Spotify differs from and compares with Lala, another iTunes competitor with great potential already available in the US.

The family of the Foxconn employee who reportedly committed suicide over a lost iPhone prototype has been compensated for his death, even though the company suspects him of industrial espionage, the New York Times reports.

The family of Sun Danyong, 25, received 300,000 renminbi, or more than $44,000, and his girlfriend got a new Apple laptop.

However, Foxconn, which makes iPods and iPhones under contract to Apple, says the employee had a history of suspiciously “losing” products, suggesting he might be involved in industrial espionage.

“The case also underscores the challenges that global companies face in trying to safeguard their designs and intellectual property in the hotly contested smartphone market, particularly here in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, an electronics manufacturing center known for piracy and counterfeiting,” the Times says.

This handmade iPhone cover enlists an Apple icon born in the early 1980s to protect your smart device.

The gray felt case sporting a Happy Mac face is 5.125″ high x 3.25″ wide, so it should fit all iPhone models.

I’d buy it just for the tiny, embroidered Apple rainbow symbol in the corner.

$25 on Etsy.

Apple is adding moisture sensors to everything, from iPods and iPhones to MacBooks and even its latest keyboards.

But recent reports suggest the sensors may be too sensitive, and may even be triggered by high humidity.

The moisture sensors, or Liquid Submersion Indicators (LSI), are small stickers that change color from white to red if submerged. Apple refuses to honor warranties on products with triggered sensors, assuming they’ve been dropped in a swimming pool or doused with Mountain Dew, no matter what the owner says.

The sensors, which are found in the dock connector ports of iPhones and under the keys of Apple’s latest keyboards, are controversial. There have been complaints that they’re triggered by sweat.

Now, there are reports out of Singapore that high humidity is killing iPhones, but positive LSI indicators are allowing the local carrier to reject warranty claims.