One of the biggest drags of the iPhone – its battery — may one day be supplemented with a wireless charging system that recharges the device in your pocket or bag when you walk in the room.
At the TED Global conference in Oxford on Thursday, Eric Giler, CEO of Witricity, demonstrated an iPhone being recharged wirelessly by his company’s new system.
“You’d never have to worry about plugging these things in again,” he said.
Giler explained the system to the BBC (see the video above). He says the technology could be on the market within 18 months.
Witricity’s wireless charging system is based on the physics of “electromagnetic resonance,†the same principle that makes a wine glass shatter when an opera singer hits the right note.
But instead of sound energy, Witricity’s system transports power over electromagnetic waves. The system has two parts: A transmitter unit, plugged into a wall outlet, which uses a vibrating coil to create a resonant magnetic field. In the target gadget, a matching coil tuned to the same frequency transforms electromagnetic vibrations into juice for the device.
The system works without any physical contact. Other wireless charging systems, like Palm’s Touchstone, require contact between the gadget and the charging base.
The system is claimed to be safe, and will charge gadgets and devices within range, including bigger electronics like flat-screen TVs. Giler demonstrated a TV running on wireless power that is commercially-available.
Giler also showed the system recharging a T-Mobile G1 phone, which had all the components packed inside. The iPhone had to be fitted with a special sled.
“They don’t make it easy at Apple to get inside their phones so we put a little sleeve on the back,” he said.
Tod Kurt put together this clean, clear iPhone dock from four pieces of acrylic scraps. He was inspired to create it after buying a case that wouldn’t work with traditional docks. More details and close-up pic after the jump.
Now, if I worked in a proper office with a bunch of other people, this app would probably have pride of place on my iPhone’s dock.
It’s called Tea Round, and it’s a work of genius. You enter the names of everyone in your office, then simply give it a shake every time the decision is made that a cup of tea is called for.
Tea Round decides whose turn it is, and the named individual must go and make the tea. After all, “Tea Round’s decision is final and legally binding.”
You can even have separate tea rounds for work, home, and anywhere else there might be a need for a group of people to have a cup of tea. Right now the app is free, which makes it almost as awesome as tea itself.
Unfortunately I work alone, at home, and it is always my turn to make the tea. That is both a blessing and a curse.
Steve Jobs has been awarded a patent for the iPhone's box.
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to a delighted Macworld audience in January 2007, he said Apple had protected its invention with more than 200 patents.
He didn’t mention that his company had also patented the box the iPhone comes in.
The iPhone’s box certainly is elegant. Pull off the top, and the iPhone is presented to its new owner sitting on a slab of glossy plastic, like an expensive watch. Hidden underneath are its accessories and instructions.
Jobs has always been fascinated by packaging, believing the unboxing routine to be a crucial part of the customer experience. All of Jobs’s products have been carefully packaged going back to the original Mac in 1984. Jobs believes unpacking a product is a great way to introduce unfamiliar technology to the consumer — they explore the components as they unbox them.
The new patent application contains little but pictures of the iPhone packaging. No less that 17 designers are named on the patent, including Apple’s design head designer Jonathan Ive.
Hit the jump for a cool exploded picture of the iPhone package.
A dormitory at Foxconn's factory city in Shenzhen.
A security official has been suspended by Hon Hai Group after the suicide of an employee who lost an iPhone prototype, Bloomberg reports.
Hon Hai Group, one of the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturers, suspended a security official and turned the case over to Chinese authorities, the company said in a statement, but didn’t provide further details.
The security official is identified only by the surname “Gu.”
Last week, Sun Tanyong, a 25-year-old employee at Hon Hai’s Foxconn International Holdings unit committed suicide after losing one of 16 iPhone prototypes he was charged with mailing to Apple in California.
Tanyong leapt to his death off a dormitory at Foxconn’s factory city in Shenzhen. He had reportedly been subject to an illegal search and rough treatment by Foxconn security.
Hon Hai says it is unaware of the reasons behind Sun’s suicide, according to the statement.It offered the company’s condolences to Tanyong’s family.
Apple says it is awaiting the outcome of an investigation.
“We are saddened by the tragic loss of this employee,” spokesman Steve Dowling told Bloomberg. “We require that our suppliers treat all workers with dignity and respect.”
Foxconn is one of the largest contract makers of mobile phones, and produces Apple’s iPhone and iPods at its walled factory city. Home to 270,000 workers, the walled city has its own fire station and hospital, stores, restaurants, and recreation facilities. The giant factory also produces cell phones for Nokia and Motorola, Sony Playtation and Nintendo Wii, as well as PCs for Hewlett Packard and Dell.
If you’ve told the kids 100 times not to interrupt while you work in the home office, maybe it’s time to download a new app that emits a high-frequency pitch that anyone under the age of 25 finds seriously annoying.
Called Kids Be Gone, it works like a teen deterrent device first used by British police to disperse unruly underage crowds by emitting a shrill tone only they can hear, 18.000 hz. (Kids and the under-30 crowd still have sensitive hair cells in their inner ears plus full aural capabilities people gradually lose as they age — try the demo for a similar service after the jump).
Multiple reports Tuesday indicate a 25 year-old employee of Foxconn, one of Apple’s OEM suppliers in China, killed himself last week after losing a 4th generation iPhone which he had been instructed to ship to Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA.
Sun Danyong was a recent engineering graduate who worked in product communications for electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn in Shenzhen, a city in the booming industrial corridor between Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
On Thursday, July 9th, according to the first English-language report on the incident at Venture Beat, Sun got 16 prototype phones from the assembly line at a local Foxconn factory. At some point in the next few days, he discovered one of the phones was missing.
On Monday, July 13, he reported the missing phone to his boss. Then, that Wednesday, three Foxconn employees illegally searched his apartment. Accusations have reportedly been flying about the Chinese language Twittersphere that Sun was detained and physically abused during the investigation, although this has not been substantiated.
Shortly after 3am on Thursday July 16th, security cameras at Sun’s apartment building show him leaping to his death from a window in his apartment.
If your memory is a little hazy on where to find a medicinal pot supplier, there are a couple of apps for that.
The Cannabis app, available on iTunes for $2.99, helps users locate the nearest medical marijuana collectives, co-ops, doctors, clinics, attorneys, organizations and other patient services in the thirteen states where pot is legal for medicinal purposes.
Cannabis is the work of a Devin Calloway — web engineer and medical cannabis patient and self-described “digital activist” — and software engineer Julian Cain. The pair will donate $0.50 of every app sold to found a cannabis non-profit reform fund.
Cannabis isn’t the only app on iTunes for pot-seeking people. The other cannabis finder is called California Herbal Caregivers and, for $0.99, offers a list of the state’s 700 dispensaries on-the-go.
Despite Apple’s ongoing policing for “inappropriate” apps, both pot apps are rated 12+, or suitable for anyone over the age of 12, for “infrequent/mild alcohol, tobacco or drug use references.”
Complaining he hasn’t received Visual Voicemail on his iPhone for weeks, Siegler joins a growing chorus of pundits dissatisfied with AT&T, including Gizmodo, Wired and GigaOm.
But as some Techcrunch commenters point out, Visual Voicemail is bolloxed by a popular tethering hack, which allows the iPhone to share its internet connection with a tethered computer.
“I enabled the tethering hack weeks ago when it came out,” says one commenter. “It broke visual voicemail, so I reverted it. One heck of a coincidence if everyone’s voicemail spontaneously broke the same week that a tethering hack came out that breaks visual voicemail.”
Siegler didn’t respond to a query asking if he had tried the tethering hack, and he makes no mention of it in the comments to his post, where he engages in some back and forth with TC readers.
Either way, here’s a very simple fix to get Visual Voicemail back, while still enabling the tethering hack.
Some perverted unfiltered online content. No wait, it's the Apple website! And in an app that enables access to unfiltered content, but doesn't have to worry about review copies and 17+ ratings: Safari. Because Apple's hypocritical like that.
Apple recently announced that 1.5 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store. With the dodgy approvals process alienating developers, you’d sometimes think Apple reckons it got where it did alone, without the people actually making the apps. Now, the company’s gone one step further, cleverly shooting itself in the foot (and developers in the face), thereby trying everything it can think of to screw up its lead and give the competition a sporting chance.
After all, surely Apple wouldn’t be quite so stupid as to ban all promo codes for 17+ rated apps? But that’s the story on TUAW, punching in the gut an already broken system (given that Apple has yet to provide non-US App Store account holders with an official means of redeeming promo codes). (See also: Q & A: How Sex Game Apps Get Approved By Apple)
You might think “so what?”, since, clearly, the only things rated 17+ would be dodgy ‘porn’ apps, right? Well, no. As we reported, Eucalyptus—an eReader for Project Gutenberg content—was saddled with a 17+ rating recently, due to it supposedly allowing ‘unfiltered internet content’. (In practise, Apple was seemingly miffed at the app enabling access to the text from Kamasutra, despite, say, Safari enabling access to hard-core pornography websites.) This means the 17+ rating is likely to affect some or all updates for all web-oriented software—Twitter clients, web browsers, IM clients, Flickr clients, eBook readers, RSS readers and so on.
Promo codes don’t generally affect the public. Although they’re sometimes given away by developers, they’re usually used by writers and journalists as review copies. Without promo codes, 17+ apps run the risk of not getting mainstream coverage, meaning they’re far less likely to ‘break through’ and become a sales success. (Contrary to what you might think, most publications don’t in fact have a ‘budget’ for writers to buy software, and many outlets enforce a policy of strictly not paying for review copies. When you’re reviewing hundreds of apps, those dollarpoundeuros stack up pretty fast.)
Here’s hoping Apple has a change of heart, because the App Store already has enough problems, without Apple making things worse, not only for developers and reviewers, but for users (who won’t find out about great new 17+ apps) and themselves (since sales will be lower).
UPDATE 2: Edge Lite’s now also gone. Some stores report Edge still available, but it’s certainly not on the US or UK stores. I guess Killer Edge Racing had better watch out, given that Langdell’s website has a Flash movie for the game Racers (which we suspect will never see the light of day).
UPDATE: At the time of writing, Edge Lite remains on the App Store, carrying an irony stick. So either someone missed the lite version or it really is all about the money. Which would be a huge shock, obviously.
We yesterday reported on the feud between Mobigame, makers of excellent iPhone game Edge, and EDGE Games, a company owned by Tim Langdell, who seemingly claims ownership over the word ‘edge’ in relation to any kind of gaming.
Edge by Mobigame - now no longer available from your local App Store
As stated yesterday, this ongoing battle has raged since April, and although compromises have apparently been suggested by both sides (indeed, Mobigames offered to rename their game Edgy, but Langdell then almost immediately registered that trademark himself), no agreement has been reached. More absurdly, Langdell contests that Edge wilfully ripped off ancient EDGE 8-bit videogame Bobby Bearing (and named it Edge to suggest the name of Langdell’s ‘famous’ trademark!), despite that game being a clone of Marble Madness and Edge playing almost nothing like Bobby Bearing.
Sadly, Edge is now again gone from the App Store, seemingly removed without warning (unlike the first time round, when Mobigame temporarily pulled the game voluntarily, in the hope of coming to a satisfactory agreement with Langdell).
Mobigame’s David Papazian told Cult of Mac: “We did not pull it. We don’t know exactly why it has been pulled [and] we don’t know if the game will come back. Maybe it will in some territories, but it does not depend on us. We are as surprised as many people, I think.”
“Making Edge took nearly two years of our lives, We hope the happy few who played it had a great time. We don’t know what to do now, and we cannot believe this is really happening. But we will probably have to fight since we strongly believe the law is on our side.”
It's Bobby Bearing, an 'isometric' arcade game from 1986!
Sort-of-UPDATE 3: And for anyone wondering whether the games featured in this post really do use true isometric projection, Adam Banks discusses this in a blog post.
UPDATE: I spoke to David Papazian of Mobigame, who told us that during discussions with Langdell, with the aim of settling amicably, Langdell not only proposed conditions unacceptable to Mobigame, but also stated the company had set out to copy one of EDGE’s most popular titles, Bobby Bearing. When Mobigame mentioned Marble Madness, Langdell even claimed his 1986 effort was actually completed before 1984’s Marble Madness and that Atari’s game is the clone. (I myself interviewed Marble Madness creator Mark Cerny a year or so back, and given the nature of how that game came to be—it actually started life as a mini-golf game—I find it hugely unlikely that this could be the case, even when you don’t take into account the two or more years between the games’ release dates.)
During investigative conversations between Mobigame and Bobby Bearing’s creators, questions have been raised as to rights ownership, with the game’s creators claiming they own the rights, not EDGE Games; furthermore, they do not consider Bobby Bearing and Edge similar games, which, having played both, I entirely agree with. Even on a superficial basis, there’s little similarity, bar the viewpoint.
Compromise was almost reached in May with Mobigames saying they’d rename their game Edgy in some territories, but discussions broke down, culminating in Langdell registering that trademark himself in the USA. Here’s hoping the ‘macho posturing’ doesn’t lead to Edge being removed from the store again. The $4.99 effort is one of the finest titles we’ve played this month. [Edge App Store link]
Oh, how we all love you, Tim Langdell. You sit there on the IGDA (International Game Developers Association) board, and boast about your 30 years of experience in the gaming industry. And yet you seemingly spend your life suing the crap out of anyone with the audacity to use the word ‘edge’ in gaming, due to trademark ownership relating to your videogame company, EDGE Games.
For this reason, Mobigame’s Edge was pulled from the App Store in May (it’s now returned), and Langdell now has his sights set on console game Edge of Twilight (no, we’re not kidding, sadly). Unfortunately, he’s also not quite done with the Edge iPhone game.
On Twitter, Mobigame reported “Tim Langdell is threatening us again… is this love?”, and a report on FingerGaming notes that Mobigame’s David Papazien says Langdell’s now not only affirming his rights to the Edge trademark, but claiming Edge ripped off an ancient EDGE game, Bobby Bearing. Sorry for the italics, but this statement actually make me nearly choke on my cup of tea.
I’m somewhat oldish, and I remember playing Bobby Bearing. (I also remember paying ten quid for the cassette version and discovering that the idiots at EDGE had shipped it entirely without sound—thanks, Tim!) In fact, here’s a screen grab, taken from C64 gaming website Lemon64:
On the face of it, you might, if you hadn’t actually played the games, argue that Langdell has a point. Both games use an axonometric projection viewpoint, commonly referred to as ‘isometric’ in the games industry. Also, both have you controlling a small geometric character around a blocky, retro-oriented videogame world where you can move reasonably freely in several directions.
But wait! I’m sure I’ve seen something like this before somewhere…
Hey, kids! It's Atari's Marble Madness, from 1984!
Oh, look! A game with an axonometric projection viewpoint, where you control a small geometric character around a blocky, retro-oriented videogame world where you can move reasonably freely in several directions! From 1984! Plus, when you actually play Edge, you realise how little it has in common with Bobby Bearing (and, indeed, Marble Madness) anyway…
Having done some digging, it wouldn’t entirely shock us to discover that Langdell’s aggression and, well, ‘jerkness’ are in part down to Bobby Bearing Remix for iPod touch being on its way. But with Edge already being available and great, the fab Marble Madness due soon for Apple portables (and Atari’s iPod touch games being rather good) and Bobby Bearing these days being slightly less fun than being repeatedly punched in the face by someone wearing an extra-large boxing glove stuffed with a brick, we’d suggest, Tim, that you put your energy into actually making your old, tired IP into a decent game, rather than suing the perceived competition. And here’s another free tip: just try suing Atari over Marble Madness. (No, really, please do, because it’d be really funny and we’d love to see you try.)
Here’s a neat little iPhone app for all you typography nerds: Typography Manual is a pocket reference book for everything you could wish to remember about fonts and typefaces.
Better still, it’s more than a reference book. It’s a toolbox as well, with a font size calculator, em calculator, conversion tables for switching inches and millimetres into points and picas, and a list of HTML character codes. If none of those things mean a thing to you, don’t buy Typography Manual. But if they do, you might find it hard to resist. It’s only five bucks.
My favorite review is the last one on the testimonials page: “One of only a handful of programs I’ve seen on the iPhone that hyphenate properly.” (And yes, I know I’m using straight quote marks there. I know, I know.)
Apple has disabled AT&T tethering in the latest iPhone beta released to developers on Tuesday.
The iPhone OS 3.1 beta 2 disables a popular tethering hack for the AT&T network. The hack works on iPhone 3.0, even though AT&T does yet officially support it.
The hack enables data tethering (and sometimes MMS) by altering the iPhone’s IPCC carrier files. It’s easily enabled by visiting sites like BenM.at using mobile Safari on the iPhone.
AT&T has promised tethering later this year, but has yet to release details. The company is expected to be enabled in late summer and cost about $15 extra.
If you’re looking for an interesting portal into the iTunes App Store’s 65,000+ titles with as little risk as possible, www.appgiveaway.com may be a resource worth checking out.
The website, which launched this spring and is gaining traffic steadily, posts descriptions of 5 – 8 apps per day in different categories (games, entertainment, utilities, business, etc.) and gives promo codes away randomly to users who register and indicate their interest in particular apps.
The site was originally conceived as a marketing vehicle for app developers, with the enticement for iPhone and iPod Touch users who like the idea of possibly getting a paid app for free.
“We seek out developers and they also find us,” said Al Lijee, an AppGiveAway spokesman, adding, “Developers have been kind and posted us in forums and are linking back to us from their websites.”
Posted apps currently get between 40 – 70 people registering for promo giveaways, Lijee told Cult of Mac, and the site gives away around 30 codes for each app it features.
Download the free Barnes and Noble App (iTunes link) for iPhone or iPod Touch and for a limited time you can get a free Tall iced or hot coffee at any Barnes and Noble cafe, just by showing your device running the app to a cafe server.
The iphone nano: Like throwing your two favorite things in a blender. Via Solomobi
There’s been a lot of concern of late about just how sophisticated Chinese bootleggers have become at creating counterfeit Apple products. Leander got snookered by near-perfect iPod earbuds, the head of Apple Switzerland was furious to receive a gift of a bootleg iPod shuffle, and we’ve all seen an increasing number of knock-offs popping up all over the place, potentially undermining Apple’s value.
But for all our concern, there are also magical gifts like the above “iphone nano,” which looks as elegant and beautiful as if Conan O’Brien had done a “What If They Mated?” segment on his show for the iPod nano and the iPhone. Simply stunning. I know I’m jealous.
Ocado is one of the UK’s classier supermarkets. It’s online-only (although closely linked to meatspace retailer Waitrose) and most people would probably say it appeals to the better-off kind of shopper.
It’s also, as of this week, a pioneer of iPhone shopping. The free Ocado app does a few clever things that the other big retailers might want to keep a close eye on when they finally get round to building apps of their own.
Make easy photo collages & slideshows with Pix Remix
What it is:Pix Remix is a new iPhone app from Bay Area-based Jump Associates and Originate Labs that lets you turn photos – taken with or stored on your iPhone – into slideshows, collages, and interesting pan & zoom presentations — and makes it incredibly easy and intuitive to share them in email or post them to Twitter and Facebook from right within the app.
Why it’s cool: Impressive for an initial release, Pix Remix is loaded with effective tools for personalizing your photo shows, with built-in transitions including fade/dissolve, push, drop and spin out; and the collage function makes it easy to drag, resize and bring photos to the front or back. The pan and zoom function lets you become an instant documentarian, guiding your viewers’ eyes from one spot to another on individual pictures, zooming in to a special detail area. Text can be added to give photos captions or tell a story about your show.
Once you’ve got your photo show together, Pix Remix makes it easy to share in email or to post to your Twitter page or your Facebook profile. Email recipients have the option of viewing your work on a web page or within the Pix Remix app on their iPhone; updates to your Twitter status automatically append a bit.ly url that sends viewers to the Pix Remix web page for your show; shows can be posted directly to your Facebook profile, where your contacts can view your creations right within Facebook, without ever having to leave the site.
Pix Remix is so intuitive and easy to use, I made my first collage and sent it to myself in email while I sat on the porcelain throne in my office during my morning constitutional today!
Where to get it: Pix Remix is available now on the iTunes App Store; it sells for $2.99.
Important Disclosure: Cult of Mac contributor Pete Mortensen is the communications lead at Jump Associates and works in the firm’s growth strategy consulting business. He was involved in the original brainstorming sessions that led to the development of Pix Remix but was in no way affiliated with the writing of this product review, nor did his association with Cult of Mac influence the author’s use of the application or his conclusions regarding its quality or value.
Word Flipper is an addictive, fast-paced word search game for iPhone and iPod Touch that just hit the iTunes App Store with update 1.1 and is bound to generate new buzz with some excellent feature updates.
One user describes it as “Sort of Boggle meets Dance Dance Revolution with a carnival twist!” but it really must be played to be appreciated.
Jamie Grove, Word Flipper’s developer, said, “I wanted to make a game that combined my love of word games with the fast-moving action available on the iPhone/iPod Touch,” which he’s done by incorporating innovative use of the iPhone OS accelerometer.
The new version also incorporates social media functionality, with achievement awards, global leaderboards, and integration with Facebook and Twitter.
Word Flipper (iTunes link) is available now on the App Store and sells for 99¢.
Exactly one year ago, Apple brought forth the iPhone App Store, which has gone on to become the greatest gift to Twitter’s growth imaginable. Among other things.
Let’s hope they have it really perfected by next year.
By all accounts, the iPhone 3GS launch has been a tremendous success for Apple. Despite launching in a down economy, the new model managed to sell as many units in its first weekend as its predecessor with little sign of slowdown. It’s also been an incredibly smooth launch. Though the iPhone 3G launch was marred by product shortages and buggy software, Apple’s kept a steady supply of hardware in the channel, and iPhone OS 3.0 is quite stable for such a new release.
But as effective as Apple has become in managing all of the aspects of the iPhone that it controls (hardware and first-party software), the launch also reveals the challenges the company faces in its efforts to take advantage of a larger network. AT&T’s signal strength continues to be a subject of much heated debate, and more crucially, Apple’s position as minder of a large software platform with thousands of developers looks increasingly untenable.
I don’t need to go into detail about the numerous cracks in the App Store facade of the last year: the baby shaking app, the unapproved porn, the copyright infringement, the excellent apps inexplicably rejected for arbitrary reasons and the apps that never made it out of the approval process one way or another. What I can say is this: the release of the 3GS has inspired a burst of app submissions the likes of which Apple has never seen before. When the App Store first opened a year ago, it had a flurry of submissions, but a smaller pool of developers. This is the first real “event” period since the iPhone dev community has grown, and the submission pool is not unlike the giant hyperwall of apps that dominated the conversation at this year’s WWDC.
A developer friend tells me that a pre-release version of his app was checked off and approved in a week in the period immediately before the 3GS announcement. The final release, submitted the day of the WWDC keynote on June 8, took nearly four weeks to get through the system, and I’m told that Apple has even notified its developer community that all apps are taking between three and four weeks to vet. That means it takes four times as long to get new products to consumers, four times as long to fix bugs, and four times as long to go from finished work to money-making.
If Apple wants to maintain the dominance of the iPhone and the success of the App Store, it needs to find a more effective way to manage the sheer volume of submissions it’s tackling. Too much crud is making it through, and too much brilliant code is sitting on the shelf. The iPhone is by far the best mobile platform today. Unless Apple learns to treat its developers better on the front end (I hear payment works brilliantly), they won’t be loyal when the next Next Big Thing comes around.
The United States Department of Justice has taken the first baby steps that could eventually lead to an official investigation of the Telecom industry and the effects its exclusive carrier agreements have on consumer prices and choices, according to a Wall Street Journal report Monday.
The initial review looks to determine whether large U.S. telecom companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have abused the market power they’ve amassed in recent years, according to people familiar with the matter.
Largely moribund and hamstrung by internal politics and inefficiency during the Bush administration, DOJ under President Barack Obama has seen renewed relevance as an arm of the Federal government and has lately signaled business as usual could soon be ending for an industry left to its own devices during the past decade or more.
Many people have long decried exclusive carrier agreements that make popular gadgets such as Apple’s iPhone available only to consumers willing to sign multi-year service agreements with AT&T and likewise Blackberry’s Storm to those who’d sign with Verizon.
The Wall Street Journal quoted the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Christine Varney, saying she wants to “reassert the government’s role in policing monopolistic and anti-competitive practices by powerful companies.”
