iPhone - page 462

In the words of a late, great, British Saturday morning kids TV show: THIS IS WHAT WE WANT. This is what I’ve wanted since I first got my grubby little fingers on an iPhone. This is how I used to use my Palm (with a GoType keyboard) to write articles on the road. It worked just fine. I really, really want this; not as a plaything for the jailbroken, but as a built-in, out-of-the-box, totally legitimate feature.

Some people are saying this is faked. They say the guy is either using VNC, with an accomplice doing the typing out of sight, or that the camera was paused after the keyboard typing to allow the text to be entered normally (and it’s fair to say that there is a slight camera shake at about 00:33).

But I don’t care if it’s a fake or not. This is a feature I want on my iPhone. In fact, I’m going to stop writing about it and just call my old friend Tim Cook right now. Me and him, you know. We’re buddies.

(Via TUAW.)

Oh, and in other news: people use Macs.

This post at The Next Web made me stop and think for a moment. I’ve been one of the many people who’ll cheerfully spend a dollar or two on an app that looks enticing and has generally good reviews.

After all, a dollar or two is nothing, right? Less than a cup of coffee, less than a pint of beer in my local pub.

But what’s the cumulative effect? Let’s see now… Open iTunes, click iTunes Store, click on my account ID, enter my password, click “Purchase History”, do some adding up, and the total is:

£68.60, or US$99.70 at the current exchange rate.

One hundred bucks, near as dammit, on iPhone apps. Wow. I had no idea was going to be that much. I was expecting about half that.

It also highlights just what an excellent idea the App Store is, and how well it has been designed. Shopping there is so simple, so instantaneous, and often so cheap per-app, that it almost becomes a thoughtless act. “This app looks cool. I’ll try it.” A dollar here, a few dollars there.

I’m not complaining, I’m just noticing my own App Store spending habits for the first time. This information is available to anyone who goes digging around inside iTunes to see it, but perhaps Apple could make it a little easier to keep track of spending.

How about a small box on the iTunes Store front page, which says “So far this month/year/to date, you have spent $X on iTunes.”?

Something small and unobtrusive; but visible.

Confession time: how much have you spent? And is it more or less than you expected?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp2s7nydo6w

Look, it’s Rogue for iPhone, otherwise known as Rogue Touch.

Those of you of a certain age will have fond memories of Rogue, which became very popular in the early 80s. Its co-creator Glenn Wichman has written an entertaining history (sadly, his link to Rogue-related stories he’s been sent is broken) and of course, these days you can play it in a browser window.

Chronosoft’s colorful update is a world away from Rogue’s ASCII origins, and the gameplay is very different because the keyboard controls have been replaced with (somewhat hard to fathom) swipes, touches and gestures. So if you want something more authentic (and you’d rather not pay for your dungeon-exploring), you should try Gandreas Software’s version of the original, which is much more “Roguelike”. It includes a plain ASCII mode and a graphics mode, and lets you enter commands with letter-shaped finger gestures. It’s still very different, but it’s as close to the original as a keyboard-less device is going to get.

And if you still want to play the original game on your computer, you can download it from Sourceforge. See you in the dungeons.

Have you ever tried reading in the car and gotten a headache, or even sick to your stomach? For just 99¢ you can get that feeling anywhere, any time with SkyCoaster 3D on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

SkyCoaster 3D makes effective use of panoramic photography by Gavin Farrell and iPhone’s 3D rendering engine to create a fully customizable rollercoaster experience right on your mobile device. Users can tweak parameters such as height, track length, and acceleration, as well as adjust the ride’s loop-the-loop, corkscrew and downward spiral effects.

The app comes with a built-in techno soundtrack to heighten (or, if you prefer, enhance) its vertiginous effects, or a track from the device’s iPod can be used. The precise map of every ride is randomly generated, so each ride is unique.

Barf bags sold separately.

UPDATE: v1.1 of SkyCoaster 3D released early Friday and v1.1 makes it even easier to induce barfing. The track is more detailed (with links that run perpendicularly to the rails), which gives a greater sensation of speed. Also, you can look around during the ride, and even ride the roller coaster with your back facing forward.

Here’s my latest addicton, taking over where Trism left off. It’s Drop7, and it’s just wonderful.

The rules are very simple: drop the numbered discs into the grid. If the number on the disc matches the number of discs in that column or row, that disc will vanish and you’ll earn points. Hidden discs are revealed by making their neighbours vanish. It sounds simplistic but it soon gets fiendishly challengng, especially as extra rows of hidden discs appear whenever you move up a level.

But the main thing I’ve noticed about Drop7 is the way other people react to it.

Jonathan Zdziarski, creator of the first iPhone forensics toolkit,  has developed a new iPhone app called AMBER alert, aimed at helping find kidnapped children in the US.

These alerts are issued when missing child cases are granted Amber status —  kidnappings of children under age 17 who police believe to be in danger of  bodily harm or death.

Zdziarski’s  iPhone application will provide a real-time feed of recent alerts including victim photos and information, suspect photos and descriptions, vehicle photos and descriptions and a reporting mechanism allowing users to report sightings.

The Amber Alert program was created in 1996 after the kidnapping and killing of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman from Arlington, Texas.

The free app is pending approval by Apple.

Via MacNN

Well. That didn’t take long.

Just Tuesday we reported on the sad news that Apple decided a South Park iPhone app that allowed downloading of episode clips would be “potentially offensive,” and so barred it from distribution in the AppStore.

Here’s a how-to video for all the jailbreaking criminals out there who just can’t live without South Park on the iPhone.

Dude has pretty good taste in music and a very easy-going instructional manner. If you’re willing to flaunt “the law” he shows you how to download South Park episodes to your iPhone and even how to put ’em on your PC.

iPhone developer Jason Cross has the antidote to the nine thousand fart apps available on the AppStore, an ingenious application called iFreshener.

FIGHT BACK against Fart app inanity!

Simply launch iFreshener and touch the screen. Using its non-patent-pending psychosomatic virtual smell nonenzymes, iFreshener will make you and those around you feel like better smells are on the way.

Among the reasons Cross touts for spending 99¢ on his app:

* iFreshener costs less than the average name-brand non-virtual air freshener

* Non-virtual air fresheners eventually run out of air freshening chemicals. iFreshener’s virtual smell nonenzymes never run out (so long as you keep your iPhone/iPod charged).

* iFreshener won’t blind you if accidentally sprayed towards your face.

* Free updates for life are included with iFreshener.

Do you get free lifetime updates with real world non-virtual air fresheners? I think not!

Jakob Nielsen is the one of the world’s leading Web usability experts. What that actually means is that people spend a lot of time criticizing him, as he spends a lot of time criticizing them. That’s especially true because his website, Useit.com, is stripped of flashiness to the point of looking a lot like a HyperCard slide deck circa 1992 — but without any visuals.

Nielsen has finally delivered a new verdict on the mobile web (it’s been about nine years), and, to the surprise of no one, he hates it. Regular phones are “horrible,” smart phones are “bad,” and the iPhone is “impoverished.” He also says some fairly common sense things that are none-the-less often ignored, like, design a website that fits the strengths of the device that will view it.

The only really interesting line comes near the end, when he makes reference to Silicon Valley legend Alan Kay’s proclamation that the Mac was “the first computer worth criticizing.”

“Similarly, the iPhone is the first mobile Internet device worth criticizing. It’s a starting point for mobile online-services access, not an endpoint.

Although devices will get better, the big advances must come from websites. Sites (including intranets) must develop specialized designs that optimize the mobile user experience. Today, few sites have mobile versions, and those that do are usually very poorly designed, without knowledge of the special guidelines for mobile usability.”

Well said. And absolutely true.

Via Cennydd

Anyone who went to elementary school in the 1980s can tell you that the world’s best edutainment game of all time is Oregon Trail for Mac or Apple ][, which plotted the westward journey of pioneer families in search of Pacific prosperity and their inevitable deaths of dysentery in snake bite somewhere in Wyoming.

Thankfully, the chance to relive those days on the go will soon be available to iPhone and iPod touch users in the form of a beautiful remake of the original from Gameloft. No announcement of the release date, but IGN has some screenshots, and it’s clear that the new graphics are quite lovely. And who wouldn’t want to play a fair river-fording minigame? There’s a demo at Gameloft’s site, but it looks like the iPhone graphics will be even nicer. Seriously, if you haven’t picked up an iPhone yet, this alone is the reason to do it.

Via Offworld

Designer Tristan Zimmerman has created a unique speaker for your iPhone or iPod that uses no power.

Through passive amplification alone, this unique piece instantly transforms any personal music player + earbuds into a sculptural audio console.

Without the use of external power or batteries, the Phonofone II inventively exploits the virtues of horn acoustics to boost the audio output of standard earphones to up to 55 decibels – or about the max output of typical laptop speakers.

But the Phonophone is only peripherally about sound.

The Phonofone is a clever piece of applied science, a beautiful icon of nostalgia, and an ironic twist on the insular nature of personal listening devices. It is not intended to be used as home stereo system. The device, more a functional work of art than a gadget, is constructed entirely from ceramic, which is not only environmentally low impact, but also inherently rigid and resonant, creating a naturally rich sound ideally suited for the classical, blues and folk music called to mind by its throwback design.

$600 at Charles & Marie.

Ancient Frog is a new kind of puzzle game for the iPhone. The premise is very simple: you have to guide your frog so that he’s in position to eat a tasty fly. But there are only so many places on the lily pad where he can tread, and his legs will only move in certain ways.

Yes, it’s bizarre, but it’s different and it’s challenging after the first few easy levels. Each fly catch is given a par score, just like golf, and you have to think very hard to get your fly caught under par.

This game isn’t just unusual to play, it’s also gorgeous to look at. Like all the best software, Ancient Frog benefits from attention to detail – I particularly like the way the frog’s little toes animate after you’ve moved his foot. Recommended.

iFart Mobile, maker of a wildly popular app for iPhone and iPod Touch, asked a court on Friday to rule that it can use the term “pull my finger” without risking trademark infringement claims by another iPhone fart app named, …wait for it, Pull My Finger.

InfoMedia, which developed iFart Mobile, filed a complaint for declaratory judgment in Colorado District Court naming rival Air-O-Matic as defendant after a lawyer from Air-O-Matic demanded $50,000 from InfoMedia for its use of the phrase, according to an InfoMedia blog post.

Apparently, Air-O-Matic first approached Apple with complaints that InfoMedia was guilty of unfair business practices and trademark infringement because it used the term “pull my finger” in a news release and YouTube promo video. Air-O-Matic also asked that iFart Mobile be removed from the iPhone App Store, but Apple told the companies to work it out among themselves, according to a report at Cnet.

Early this year, iFart Mobile was one of the more popular titles on the AppStore, where there are currently over 75 fart-themed titles on offer. The bloom may be off the rose, however, as only iFart (99¢) Mobile and the free app Atomic Fart are in the top 100 downloads of either category.

iPhone developer Ralf Ackermann has achieved a working device-to-device Bluetooth solution, according to a report at ArsTechnica.

Building on work developed by Matthias Ringwald, who has put together a user space bluetooth stack, Ackerman has built external adapters that plug into the iPhone’s connector port, accessing the phone’s bluetooth stack in a way that could possibly even comply with the standard iPhone SDK, according to developer/blogger Erica Sadun.

With such capability developers could theoretically build games and utilities that allow phones to transfer data without having to be on the same WiFi network or connect to a server as an intermediary. Users could transfer photos, play chess against each other, shoot over a vcard, and more, using software that could be sold on App Store.

While the iPhone ships with Bluetooth capabilities, they are a limited subset of its normal features. You cannot, for example, connect your Mac to your iPhone and transfer data files.

Don’t hold your breath for Apple to take Ackerman’s lead in this arena, but this, as Sadun notes, is pretty big news and a great step forward for the effort to make iPhones communicate directly with each other.

Via ArsTechnica

We start this week with The Belgian Constitution.

Yes, the *actual Belgian Constitution*. As in, the Constitution of the nation of Belgium. Not a joke app. The real thing. Look:

“One of the most important changes was the introduction of the Court of Arbitration whose competencies were expanded by a special law of 2003, to include Title II (Articles 8 to 32), and the Articles 170, 172 and 191 of the Constitution. The Court therefore developed into a constitutional court and in May 2007 it was formally redesignated Constitutional Court.”

See?

I think this goes some way to proving that Rule 34 applies not just to the internet, but to the App Store: if you can imagine it, there is (or there will be) an app for it.

Moving on.

More than a year ago, I was visiting my cousin in Sunnyvale. It just so happens she works at Apple, but that fact is not germane to this story, though I mention it for the sake of serendipity.

She had a little gadget called Perfect Guy or Perfect Man (I forget which) that, when you pressed a button, produced a computerized voice that said things like, “how about if we just cuddle tonight” and “we might be lost, i’ll ask for directions” and “i don’t know how to fix it” – that sort of thing.

I thought it was cute; my six year-old son couldn’t get enough of mashing the button.

Now, just in time for Valentine’s Day, iPhone developer Michael Hill has released Perfect Girl, an app premised on similar lines, available now in the AppStore for 99¢.

Follow after the jump for what you can expect to hear from the Perfect Girl.

Via Gizmodo

Here’s an iPhone concept sent in by an anonymous Cult reader overnight. Looks pretty fly to me, but then I’m still on a PowerBook G4 and an original iPhone.

What say you, dear reader?

Two stories in the iPhone developers ecosystem Thursday illustrate the challenges of navigating the path to fame and fortune on the back of a cleverly written app and its AppStore sales.

First comes news from AppCubby, whose experiment with 99¢ pricing we reported on a few weeks ago, saying, indeed, selling apps for 99¢ and depending on voluntary donations to cover the gap between success and failure is, for AppCubby anyhow, unsustainable.

Blogger/developer Erica Sadun relates how Apple’s own Department of AppStore Security is quashing some innovative developer marketing efforts and refusing to approve any app that advertises a contest or promises prizes or awards in the app itself or in its AppStore description.

Sadun uses the example of iFartMobile’s currently selling app, which advertises a $5000 prize to one lucky user for submitting a winning video of the app in action, saying Apple’s lawyers want no part of being named in potential suits against developers who may fail to deliver on contest prizes advertised through the AppStore. Developers are now being told no app using contest or sweepstakes marketing will be approved.

With the news this week there are now more than 20,000 apps on iTunes, it’s clear a lot of people out there are hoping to strike it rich panning for AppStore gold.

One can hardly blame Apple for trying to police the panhandlers, though, as Sadun points out, it can be frustrating for developers when the policing lacks transparency.

I’m one of those freaks who much prefers listening to radio than watching TV. Consequently, I like to have radios around me. I have one in my office, one in the kitchen, and one in the bedroom. I really need to get hold of one for the bathroom.

FStream and the BBC Streams web site have jointly come to my aid.

It’s not exactly Shazam for fonts, but WhatTheFont is a pretty cool new app in the AppStore that will identify or make pretty darn good suggestions for identifying almost any font you find in the wild.

Using the iPhone’s built-in camera, users can photograph the text in question (or choose an existing image from the camera’s photo albums). The app allows you to crop the image, focusing on only the important parts before uploading to the WhatTheFont web-based identification service.

After confirming which characters are used in the image, the app provides a list of possible matching fonts, which users can either e-mail a link to a MyFonts page with more info on that font, or open the page in the iPhone’s built-in Safari web browser.

iPod Touch users can even get in on the action by using any image saved from apps such as Safari and Mail.

The app is free in the AppStore.

Via MacMerc

Om Malik, a notable technology blogger, gave up on his iPhone Wednesday.

Citing ongoing and ultimately insurmountable frustration with AT&T’s network, Malik decided to ditch the iPhone and opt for a T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8900 for email and SMS. “I also signed up for a plain-vanilla voice service from Verizon Wireless. And I already have a 32 GB iPod Touch for surfing and music,” he said.

Admitting all that is probably not an ideal solution, Malik – wiith over 1800 friends on Facebook and nearly 20,000 followers on Twitter – found solace in the fact his new devices “can all be charged using the USB port of my Macbook, thereby obviating the need for extra chargers.”

Given that his decision rested solely on the deficiencies of AT&T’s network in the San Francisco Bay Area – ungodly stretches of time “searching” for the network, slow download speeds of web pages, problems with email, static, dropped calls and shoddy call quality – and he professed love for the iPhone, it’s a wonder he didn’t just jailbreak it.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6BrtXI9Da4

If you’re one of the many out there who lives wild and free with a jailbroken iPhone, this is a big week for you.

First we reported on the availability of some serious porn for you, and now it appears you can have turn-by-turn voice navigation, courtesy of the dev team at xGPS.

xGPS uses Google’s map data and driving directions, adding a real-time navigation readout and a voice engine.

If you expect you might lose your data connection during the drive, you can also select a map area to download ahead of time.

Watch the ModMyi video above to learn more.

The app also supports a number of external GPS units, so 1st-gen iPhone and iPod Touch bad-boys and girls can get in on the fun too.

Via Gizmodo

httpv://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jCHU4ZHq15Y

Oh, the fun you’ll have with Fracture. Created by Visuamobile, it finally gives you the chance to find out what it would be like to smash your iPhone to pieces – without actually doing so.

I very nearly put this in a WTF iPhone Apps Of The Week post, but then I thought – actually, no. This might be quite entertaining, especially for the kids. My son loves smashing stuff up (I blame Power Rangers, myself) so I think he’ll get a kick out of destroying my iPhone. Over and over again.

Fracture is, as they say, “Coming soon” on the App Store.

Maybe I’m just out of touch with college-level humor today, because the animated dig at iPhone produced by the Flash technicians at College Humor strikes me as, well, kinda like a skit on SNL – pretty good idea; too long by a lot.

If you manage to sit through it to the end, though, the last 5 – 10 seconds is pretty funny.

Via Gizmodo