iPhone - page 471

It seems unlike Apple, which has scoffed at inexpensive Macs and been viewed as catering to higher-income consumers. However a new study suggests the iPhone is fast becoming a favorite of low-income buyers.

From June through August, iPhone sales grew 48 percent in households earning between $25,000 and $50,000 compared to 21 percent growth overall, according to comScore.

The researchers found low-income consumers see the iPhone as a way to consolidate costs of a phone, broadband connection and music device.

iPhone stands don’t get much simpler, or cheaper, than a standard binder clip. We like.

Via To Darrin Hudson

Apple’s iPhone was among one of the few bright spots in a gloomy third quarter for cell phone manufacturers.

Apple now has 2 percent of the global cell phone market during a time when cell phone makers scrambled to adapt to slowing consumer sales. In September, the Cupertino, Calif. company reported selling 6.9 million iPhones during the third quarter, a 516 percent jump over the previous year.

“Apple has become firmly established as a top ten vendor,” Strategy Analytics announced.

Analysts Thursday said global cell phone shipments either shrank or rose a tepid 5 percent to 8.5 percent.

You’ll remember the $1000 iPhone app, I Am Rich, that made it to the AppStore in August just because it could. Well, for a savings of $100 you can get an app that actually does something useful, like monitor your multiple IP based surveillance cameras.

For only $900 Lextech Labs’ iRa serves the mobility needs of the high-end security industry, enabling users to view multiple video feeds and directly control pan-tilt-zoom cameras from their iPhone or iPod Touch.

iRa is not something you just download and off you go, however. Interested parties are strongly encouraged to locate a surveillance equipment integrator before purchasing the app. End users who download iRa from the iPhone App Store must have a working knowledge of network and digital camera system installation and configuration, with support for the app and for configuring hardware available exclusively through local integrators.

Once installed and properly configured, users can enjoy easy viewing of many video feeds in full screen video view or thumbnail view; pan, tilt and zoom control camera motion; use the touchscreen’s familiar finger drag and pinch controls; and get automatic discovery of properly configured network cameras.

Happy spying!

Google introduced Earth for the iPhone and iPod touch today with a free version of the fascinating desktop program that literally puts the whole world in your hands. I’ve spent a good portion of the morning playing around with it and am pleased to report the satellite imagery and 3D terrain effects are quite amazing.

Earth makes impressive use of touch screen technology and Apple’s accelerometer, letting you spin the globe with a swipe of your finger and literally tilt your view to the curvature of the earth to see the terrain of whatever place you’re visiting. The application has a ton of information and labeling built in, with links to over 8 million Panoramio photographs and Wikipedia articles you can read within Earth or jump to in Safari.

Google’s handy two minute video linked above explains the app pretty well, and there’s additional information at the Google Earth and Maps Team blog.

I’ve also posted below a gallery of screenshots from my journey this morning. Based on my initial experience, I’d say Google Earth is likely to become a popular time wasting app in a hurry.

The grown-up version of Juicy Couture’s jelly iPhone cases, this black or dusky pink leather case with a clear plastic cover brings the bling with a gold chain and charms.

$75 At Nordstrom

No frills for this Sportsuit convertible iPhone and iTouch case, but the three-in-oner goes from an armband case to a clip-on case or a slim-profile sleeve.

A belt clip lets you take the iPod or iPhone with you in the car, on a bike and to the gym; we do not know if the handiness of the case makes you work out harder resulting in these biceps.

In black or blue, $34.99. From Marware.

WorldView puts global webcams in your pocket, in a really lovely little free app.

What’s lovely about it isn’t the webcam shots themselves – frankly, once you’ve seen one blurry shot of the Eiffel Tower in the rain, you’ve seen ’em all – but it’s the little extras alongside the images.

The T-Mobile G1 has only been out for a couple of days, but new problems with the first generation of Google’s entry into the phone business continue to materialize just about every hour on the hour. Still the most shocking is the lack of corporate e-mail and calendaring support, with Google assuming that a third-party developer will just magically figure out how to do Exchange ActiveSync and Lotus integration.

Today, the big news is that Google plans to send out a software update at some point with a touchscreen keyboard so that it becomes possible to enter text while using the phone in vertical portrait orientation. Yes, in case you missed it earlier, it’s impossible to even type in a URL while browsing the web in the preferred one-handed iPhone style orientation. Granted, the G1 has a physical QWERTY and a pretty decent one at that, but it’s incredible that any company could ship a phone this intricate without realizing this could be a deal-breaker in actual human use. It’s like they didn’t even test their ideas out before sending them to final production.

I bring all of this up, because it’s another piece of evidence that even though an open-source model works incredibly well when working on technical feasibility and optimization, it’s pretty poor at making a consumer-facing complex system work well together. It’s the same reason that Linux has incredibly low-level networking and multithreading code, and it’s still impossible to expect a decent graphical user interface.

Apple’s focus on freakishly detailed design and engineering can have its own failings, of course (most specifically in leaving out any features that Steve Jobs can’t understand the value of), but it also tends to lead to solutions that were considered as full experiences instead of a collection of features. It all works together well, instead of working well in spite of contradictory features. The holistic approach Apple takes to product design is the reason we love it. Android’s haphazard approach of fixing things as they become crises. Google will mostly catch up eventually, but I have to pity T-Mobile for being forced to fight back with such an unfinished product. The G1 is so far behind that it’s hard to imagine anyone who isn’t a hobbyist being pleased with the first kludgy Android phone.

Android Roadmap via HTC Source via Gizmodo

Developers Phil Ryu and Andrew Kaz are about to release an iPhone eBook reader with a very cool interface. Flip the iPhone’s screen to turn the page, and the page turns as though it’s a real book! It’s very slick.

Ryu’s $2.99 “Classics” app will feature 10 to 12 books including Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

“We’ll be adding books with free updates,” says Ryu, 20, who lives in Boston.

Ryu is probably best known for his work at MacHeist, and Kaz, 18, was just 14 when he worked on delicious library. Kaz is based in New Jersey.

The pair are planning to submit the app to the app store in a few days.

Meanwhile, they have a preview available, and more details about the app here.

Partially hidden by the fantastic iPhone sales numbers Tuesday was the fact that Apple outsold RIM’s BlackBerry during the third quarter. Analysts say the information may serve as a roadmap for Apple.

Tuesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said 6.9 million iPhones during the quarter. RIM sold 6.1 million BlackBerries during the same period, according to reports.

Global Markets

“Apple sells to a much wider audience than RIM,” Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney told Cult of Mac. Apple’s iPhone 3G is sold in 51 nations.

Cool your jets. That’s the advice from analysts on a flurry of conjecture about whether Apple is stealthily testing online some mix of iPhone and MacBook.

What sparked the talk was a brief mention in the New York Times that an unnamed search engine found in its logs an unannounced Apple device with a display size between an iPhone and a MacBook.

Lending further weight to the suggestion were comments by CEO Steve Jobs that the Cupertino, Calif. company “had some pretty interesting” ideas for the netbook or mini-notebook market.

Proving yet again that it pays to shop around, at least two recently-released apps are offering broadly the same functionality. One is free; the other is free (with adverts) or costs three bucks. But which is the better option?

iPhones could be a big part of the changes coming to Washington, DC in the post-George W. Bush era if a House Chief Administrative Office (CAO) test deems them suitable for use by members of congress and their staffs.

At the request of a number of congressional representatives, the CAO has begun testing a small number of iPhones within its ranks to see if they are compatible with the working needs of lawmakers and staff, according to a report at the Hill.com.

RIM’s Blacberry handhelds have been the communicator of choice in Washington since 2001 and today nearly 8,200 rely on a dedicated Blackberry exchange server to deliver email to people affiliated with the House of Representatives. “We’re trying [iPhones] out … because we heard a lot of people wanted the option to have them,” said Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the CAO.

Should the iPhone become widely adopted after congress reconvenes in January, it will require costly investments including a new email server, in addition to the handsets themselves, funds for which would be required to come from the Member’s Representational Allowance, which is a government term for “paid for by taxpayers.”

Does your member of congress deserve an iPhone?

Photo credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet.com.au

Senior executives from Intel yesterday called Apple’s bet on ARM chipset technology for its mobile phone platform “not very smart.”

Pankaj Kedia, director of ecosystems for Intel’s ultra-mobility group told attendees at the Intel Developers Forum in Taiwan, “I know what their roadmap is, I know where they’re going and I’m not worried.”

Kedi appeared with Shane Wall, Intel mobility group VP and director of strategic planning, who said iPhone “struggles” running any application that “requires any sort of horsepower at all.” Their comments came on a day when Apple reported 4Q earnings and, in particular, sales of the iPhone roundly acknowledged as a “home run.”

Kedia tarred the entire smartphone market with the same brush, saying reliance on ARM technology makes “”the smartphone of today … not very smart.”

Of course Intel has a dog in this fight, as the chipmaker is known to be working on a mobility chipset of its own, known as Moorestown, and is likely feeling left out of Apple’s earnings party, having been rebuffed by the company’s purchase of P.A. Semi and its decision to develop iPhone ARM chips in-house.

Wall brushed off the success of the iPhone as a phenomenon combining clever UI and Steve Jobs’ knack for hype.

Claiming Intel processors achieve two to three times the performance of ARM equivalents, Wall said “”If you want to run full internet [on a mobile platform], you’re going to have to run an Intel-based architecture.”

For his part, Jobs joined an Apple earnings call yesterday for the first time since 2000 to celebrate the company’s success with the iPhone, telling those who wonder when Apple will start selling a less-expensive “netbook” computer that the iPhone is already leading that nascent market segment. He also said his company “had some pretty interesting” ideas if the category continues to evolve.

And so, the gauntlet in the mobile platform war appears to have been thrown. Let the chips fall where they may.

Via ZDNet

A nice article by Mark Hachman at PCMag.com looks at Steve Jobs’ comments during the quarterly earnings conference call, and comes up with a promising line of thought.

Jobs, as we suspected and made plain here at the Cult a few days ago, doesn’t have anything against a netbook style Mac per se; he simply cannot see how Apple could produce one that wouldn’t suck. Or to put it another way:

“We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that.”

Jobs is waiting patiently to see what happens next to netbooks. I postulated last week that the Air would morph into a cheaper device (which I’ve no doubt it will), but perhaps I missed something more obvious: the iPhone will morph into a more flexible device. It’s already cheap (well, affordable at any rate).

There’s no hurry, at least not from Apple’s perspective. It is already making plenty of money from the products it has on offer right now, especially iPhones. And as John Gruber points out today, might soon be putting more focus on its phones than on any other part of the business – simply because that’s where the money is, and will continue to be for some time yet.

Which means Apple has time to watch how netbooks evolve, particularly how they evolve with regard to connectivity options, and this is an important factor, I think.

The first gen netbooks appeared with simple wifi connectivity, which is fine for a lot of people in a lot of circumstances. But the old fashioned “road warrior” (yuk, what a horrible phrase) needs connectivity from anywhere, and cannot depend on the availability of wifi networks. They need to be able to open their computer at a moment’s notice, and just get their online stuff done.

Right now, the only feasible way of managing that is via the telephony data network, 3G or otherwise.

So we’re now seeing new generation netbooks with 3G cards, and what’s interesting isn’t the tech inside, but the shop windows they’re appearing in. These netbooks are being sold from phone stores.

As the phone companies start selling contracts (and with them, heavily subsidised netbook computers), Apple will be watching to see just how much the whole arrangement sucks. Some people will end up with two contracts – one for their existing phone, one for their netbook. Some will have one contract, but still be using two devices, carrying around a separate phone handset.

So when Steve says: “We’ll wait and see how that nascent market evolves, and we have some pretty good ideas if it does,” – what ideas does he have in mind? Something that makes ownership of a tiny portable computer easier. The iPhone’s got the connectivity and the computing power to do what’s needed. All that it needs to get it competing with the netbooks is a keyboard, or something that makes the keyboard redundant.

Might Apple let us use normal Bluetooth keyboard with the iPhone? Possibly. Personally, I’d love that, but Apple doesn’t care about me. It wants to me products that really sing with cool, and I think that Steve Jobs would consider an iPhone propped up on a tabletop and controlled with a Bluetooth keyboard to be uncool.

Paramount Digital Entertainment has revived the School of Rock brand with an application that teaches you principles of music education on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

The 2003 movie starring Jack Black tells the story of a struggling musician who scams a job teaching at an upper-crust private high school and ends up teaching the kids how to form a band and play rock music. The app gives users the opportunity to experiment with a variety of authentic virtual instruments ranging from guitar and bass to piano and drums. Users can also learn to play tracks from legendary artists including Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Scorpions and Royal.

The $6.99 app is organized as a game that incorporates features allowing players to explore the history and diversity of music and instruments through a series of quizzes and challenges. Players are challenged to identify brand-name guitars and keyboards using “axes” from well known musicians, receive instruction in the areas of melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo and beats, and have the ability to record and play back jam sessions.

As the game progresses, the songs and variations become more challenging, allowing players to master instruments, advance to different levels and accumulate points that eventually result in graduation from The School of Rock. Groupies and backup singers not included.

AppLoop released a program today that turns any web content into a native iPhone app in under two minutes.

Because many websites are produced by people with few to no developers’ skills and because the iPhone does not store web content locally on the device, developers at AppLoop sensed the need for a way to let content providers do a better job of extending their material to mobile platform users.

Enter the Mobile Application Generator, which converts any RSS feed into a brandable mobile application in less than two minutes. It requires no programming, software downloads, or code maintenance – AppLoop does the nerdy stuff. For free.

Along with generating a fully brandable native app for you – you customize the appearance of the application and include your own logos and color schemes in the set-up process – AppLoop provides an end-to-end analytics library so you can track real-time usage, popular content, and application engagement across various platforms.

Native applications will eventually be deployed across multiple mobile platforms, though Apple’s is the only one operational at present. The company expects to be distributing to Android soon.

Creating a native app allows users to access content regardless of internet connection availability. Images, text, and other data are stored locally for access at any time. Users can also share and promote content on a variety of social services, including Digg, Twitter, FaceBook, and Email, as well as mark items as favorites for later access to read and share with friends. The company envisions support for multiple feeds within the same application in the near future, so larger websites can have different categories and a more customizable user experience.

Via Read Write Web

Will Motorola’s Android handset pose a greater threat to the iPhone, improving on the G1, the first Google phone from HTC and T-Mobile? That’s the question on many minds as details of Moto’s open-source phone appeared Monday.

Motorola’s Android unit, not expected until late 2009, reportedly sports many features missing from the G1, offering improved specs, according to Monday’s BusinessWeek.

Citing information distributed to carriers, the financial news source said the Motorola device appears to be “a higher-end version” of the G1, produced by Taiwan’s HTC.

The trouble with iBone, a plush squeaky toy for dogs modeled on the iPhone, just slightly larger than the real thing, is that it’s unlikely to discourage Fido from playing around with your iPhone, should it get within paw reach.

Via Nerd Approved

Cool alt-designs for your iPhone or iPod touch wallpaper, for free, thanks to designers, artists, illustrators and “dopey street bums” over at Poolga.

There are over 50 designers on the roster, designs range from retro family collages to Sex Drugs Rock Roll, written in Spaghetti-os, on toast.

Via Swiss Miss

If you live where the weather behooves you to go out without gloves or freeze your pinkies off, you’ve probably been caught fumbling for speed dial with warm woolies on.

These black leather or stretch gloves with flick-back fingers called Freehands let you “stay warm and keep in touch.” The fingertips stay back with magnets, a handy feature.

Why are they for the iPhone, specifically?

Well, because the guy who designed them, Josh Rubin, father of CoolHunting, said they are.

Rubin also went to the trouble to photograph the gloves with an iPhone, which is more than Fox could do launching its iPhone-optimized service, so we’ll take his word.

$40 for the leather version, $20 for fleece. Bike messenger-techno-geek chic.

Via Bunch of Nerds

You can’t live without your iPhone, now you can live inside an iPhone.

That’s the idea behind The Pad in Dubai. Its designers are billing it as the “most technologically advanced building in the planet.”

One thing’s for sure: the 231 “smart apartments” on the 24-story building are meant to look like an iPhone.

Back in 2006, architects wanted it to look like an iPod. In keeping with the times, they’ve upgraded the theme to iPhone. The basic shape is still pretty much the same.

Not surprisingly, all the nifty doodads are called iFeatures.
Although the site’s a little fuzzy on the details (maybe they should call the iPhone hotel folks?) amenities include iArt, which lets homeowners to download artworks and update their collection.

An “iReality” feature projects the real-time skyline view of any city in the world on to the walls of your flat. So you can live in Dubai but be California Dreamin’.

There’s a health monitor to keep track of your weight in the bathroom and you can clickwheel your pad, moving rooms around to catch a better view.

The Pad should be ready by the end of 2009.

No excuse for boring water-cooler conversations: now you can follow must-see TV like “Night Club Confessions” and “Reality Binge” on your iPhone.

“Given the ease of use of the iPhone…we believe that the experience of the user will be exceptional,” said Ed Skolarus, Vice President, Business and Operations, Fox Reality Channel. “Reality fans everywhere will receive real-time updated information along with new and exciting reality content on a daily basis making the service a must have.”

Those in the know say there’s a dearth of loboto-tainment for iPhones, and hey, the “Search for the New Elvira” is one way to fill it.

One sign that iPhone entertainment could use a killer app: the non-iPhone illustrating the iPhone press release from tech partner Transpera.

Threadless, online purveyor of uber-cool community-designed tees, now has an iPhone app for on-the-go purchases.

Much like the Tag Show queries on Flickr or Picasa, the app connects to the Threadless database of new shirts and loads designs on your iPhone for quick perusal.

Fringe benefit: the T-shirt designs also make cool wallpaper.

The free app was designed by Ian Marsh.

Via App Craver