Atif Shamin, a Phd student in electronics at Carlton University in Canada, has figured out a way of reducing iPhone battery drain.
He’s replaced all the internal wires and PCBs of his iPhone with an antenna.
The swap allows a wireless connection between a micro-antenna embedded within the circuits of the chip.
“This has not been tried before that the circuits are connected to the antenna wirelessly. They’ve been connected through wires and a bunch of other components. That’s where the power gets lost,” Shamim said in an article on the University website.
He estimates that his solution uses 12 times less power than the traditional, wired-transmitter module. That means more juice for the ever-expanding choice in apps.
“It’s a common problem. There are so many applications in the iPhone, it’s like a power-sucking machine,” said Shamim.
He’s filed for patents in the US and Canada, look out for details on his hack in an upcoming issue of Microwave Journal.
A promise to “unleash the true power of your iPhone” might not be the best marketing slogan for Snapture Flash, a xenon flash accessory with red-eye reduction for Apple’s mobile device. As snappy as it sounds, the slogan also calls attention to what is roundly regarded as the iPhone’s weakest attribute, its 2.1 megapixel, fixed focal length still camera.
The flash’s sleeve-like case is powered by the phone itself, which SnaptureLabs estimates will give you 1000 flashes on a single charge. As a bonus, the sleeve also provides amplification for the iPhone’s on-board speaker.
The downside here is that the flash is only a prototype and the accompanying Snapture camera software (which itself provides some interesting creative mods and controls for the iPhone’s camera), requires a jailbroken phone to avail yourself of its charms.
It will be interesting to see whether Snapture Labs can strike a deal to get it’s patent-pending flash technology to market before Apple comes out with a new version of the iPhone with some sort of flash built-in.
The kind Apple fanatics at iPhone Savior have done the great public service of creating Apple and Steve Jobs-themed Christmas eCard templates and posted them over at Flickr for anyone who still has a few last minute greetings to get out.
You can use a pre-made card like the one above, or choose from two styles of hi-res blank cards and add your own graphical text message to express your holiday sentiments and your love for all things Apple in the same vehicle.
As they put it over at iPhone Savior, “Sincerely wishing everyone an iPhone 3G for Christmas and some sweet dreams of Steve.”
Seismometer is the iPhone app that can not only let you know if you’re in an earthquake (and how bad it is at your personal epicenter), but also records and displays the movement energy of just about anything.
Seismometer uses your iPhone’s built in accelerometer to measure movements in two axes, calculate the resulting energy and draw the results on a rolling scale.
Version 1.1 updates feature noise filtering, expanded frequency settings (20, 40 , 60 and 200hz), and choice of output to logarithmic or linear scale.
99¢ buys you fun for the whole family; no additional premium charged to iPhone users located on major fault lines.
Last week I asked Cult readers for their nominations for new Mac app of the year. Things, 1Password and Dropbox seemed to be the consensus choices, all of them excellent new software products.
It got me thinking, though: how has my computing behavior changed during the last 12 months? What new software am I using that I wasn’t using last Christmas, and why?
57 Varieties of Fart-oriented applications are approval worthy in the eyes of the inscrutable AppStore gatekeepers. But iBoobs, a demo of which can be seen above, apparently violates a threshold of taste beyond which Apple is unwilling to go.
It’s nice to know there is a standard one must meet as an app developer, though, personally, it seems to me iBoobs at least uses the accelerometer to somewhat realistic effect.
What would an impending Apple-oriented convention be without some rumor-mongering to pique the interest of the faithful and get tongues a wagging? Ahead of Macworld 2009, slated for January 5 – 9 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, one of the more persistent rumors has involved the supposed announcement of a smaller form-factor iPhone, dubbed the iPhone Nano.
TUAW reported an interesting escalation of the iPhone Nano rumor Monday, showing evidence of an iPhone Nano case being marketed by XSKN, a company that began selling iPhone 3G cases in mid-May of 2008, almost 2 months prior to Apple’s release of the phone. In early September, XSKN was showing off new 4th Generation iPod nano cases, prior to the Let’s Rock event where they were officially unveiled.
As you can see from the screen shot I captured tonight from the XSKN website, the company is taking orders for cases for a product called iPhone Nano.
If that’s not enough to whet your whistle, how about the photo, below, which someone submitted late Monday on the down-low to MacRumors.
Wonder if Phil Schiller will use the traditional “one more thing” phrase on this item or if perhaps Apple has something else up its sleeve.
In the hustle bustle of modern urban life, especially during holiday seasons fraught with travel delays, white-knuckle driving on treacherous roads, crowded shopping districts (though maybe not so much that, this year) and kids on vacation underfoot, a little bit of peace and tranquility can seem like the greatest of gifts.
Now you can give such a gift to yourself, a friend or loved one, with Freeverse’s Tranquility app for iPhone and iPod touch.
For just $1.99, drift off to sleep or catch a few peaceful moments during a stressful day. With a beautiful visual interface and new audio tweaks in the recently updated version 1.3 (requires iPhone 2.2 firmware), you can choose from a full 60 minute relaxation and meditation track, or from other themes such as Flowing Water, Ocean Waves, Desert Wind, Gentle Rain or Thunderstorms, even Pink Noise – an enhanced form of white noise.
Tranquility is the other side of Freeverse, the award-winning app developer responsible for Moto Chaser, Burning Monkey Casino and Big Bang Sudoku, among many others. Available now in the AppStore.
Writing Monday for the eWeek blog, AppleWatch, Joe Wilcox gave the iPhone a D in telephony and a C for battery life, saying he simply could not recommend the device as a phone. Despite singing the praises of Apple’s mobile platform he gave it an overall grade of B- and seemed mighty pleased to announce that everyone in his family has rejected the iPhone in favor of an iPod Touch + some other cell phone.
I find Wilcox’s assessment curious and wonder how many of the other 8 – 10 million iPhone owners feel their device is so disappointing from the telephony and usability standpoints that they’d actually prefer to carry two devices around instead of one. Follow me after the jump to learn what Wilcox thinks is so bad about iPhone and where my own assessment takes me in response.
The iPhone app formerly known as Exposure has just been updated to version 1.5 and now has a new name: Darkslide.
Developer Fraser Speirs explains what it’s all about on his blog. For the uninitiated, the app is an iPhone-friendly environment for your Flickr account. It lets you keep track of your photos, your contacts’ photos, and check what images have been taken near your current location (which comes in extremely handy when you’re at a tourist attraction and you want to try and shoot something a bit different).
The big new feature in Exposure – sorry – Darkside 1.5 is, in Fraser’s own words, “Upload, upload, upload”. So, it does uploads now.
(I’ve not been able to test it yet, because my App Store is refusing to acknowledge that Exposure has been updated to anything other than Exposure. I expect it’ll all update itself in a few hours.)
Dimensions is a virtual toolbox offering a bakers’ dozen of functional tools animated with gorgeous 3D graphics that turn your Apple mobile device into something far more useful than any other cameraphone/musicplayer/gamestation-computer could hope to be.
Among the things you can do are:
* Use the caliper to measure to a precision of 0.156mm or 0.006 of an inch.
* A flexible tape measure lets you measure interior furniture, fabric and more up to 2.5 meters or 8 feet.
* Another tape measure handles interior and exterior distances up to 5 meters or 16 feet.
* A third measuring tool uses the iPhone’s camera to measure distances up to 25 meters, or 82 feet.
* Distances over 80 feet, up to a mile, can be calculated with the measuring wheel.
* The podometer uses GPS location services to measure thousands of miles or kilometers.
All calculations can be rendered in metric or Imperial scales. Dimensions was 2008’s best selling app in AppStores France and Italy, the #2 seller in Japan, Belgium and Switzerland, according to advertising placed by its developer, pocketDEMO.
And here we are in the US spending all our money on Sim City and Pull My Finger – it’s no wonder we’re a laughingstock in Europe.
There are many fine and useful offerings coming out of the Freeverse development shop and I recommend a visit to the website, but I want to talk right now about a couple of their iPhone/iPod Touch games – Flick Fishing, which you can see in the video above, and Flick Bowling.
When I got into this gig, I didn’t intend on becoming an iPhone game addict, but I’m beginning to understand why some people chase the mobile handset dragon.
Ancient wisdom in fishing circles holds that the worst day fishing beats the best day working. Well, Flick Fishing is an app that will give you a mighty realistic taste of a day on the water during that smoke, or coffee, or lunch break on a day when you’re stuck at work.
Choose from 6 locations, 9 types of bait and tackle, a dozen tournaments and dozens of unique species of fish, for a far more satisfying virtual fishing experience than you’d think 99¢ might buy. You can even use Network and Hotseat play to compete against your friends and show off your trophy catches by email with the “Brag” feature.
If you’d rather kill some time with a virtual indoor experience, you could do a lot worse then Flick Bowling. There are a couple of other bowling games on the AppStore, but Freeverse’s 99¢ program knocks ’em down in the first frame.
Excellent 3D animation and realistic bowling alley sounds, along with great music – and customizable bowling balls in the latest version – make Flick Bowling an oddly relaxing way to feel good about doing nothing in particular. You can choose from varying levels of difficulty and bowl solo, against your friends or against a built-in opponent. Between frames you can switch over to iBeer and come back to pick up where you left off.
With only five shopping days left until Christmas you’ve probably just got enough time to take care of your last minute stocking stuffers to make the Mac or iPhone lover on your list say “Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!” with a protective skin that’s also a work of art – from San Francisco-based Infectious.
Choose from 43 eye-catching, original designs like the ones above for your iPhone, or a selection of 85 from the laptop gallery, to personalize your Apple gear in style. Infectious features designs from artists all over the world and has ongoing open submissions if you are an artist who sees any blank surface as a canvas.
Infectious makes adhesive art for walls and automobiles, too, so don’t let your Apple gear limit your imagination. The skins are easy to install and easy to remove when you’re ready for a change. The iPhone skins, which include device backing as shown above as well as a complementing strip of art for the phone face around the home button, regularly sell for $15 but are on sale for the holidays at 1/3 off.
See the website for details.
‘Tis the season for Holiday parties and overindulgences of many kinds, not the least of which can sadly include having too much to drink. It’s fitting then, that December is National Drunk Driving Awareness Month and we wondered how our iPhone might help us avoid the embarrassment and possible tragedy of too much drinking and driving.
Cheers! is a handy app from Addison Hardy that will help you estimate your blood alcohol content (BAC) over time, as long as you remember to add each drink you consume into the program. It factors in weight, gender and the time of each drink to help you make a reasoned estimate of your BAC after you’ve had last call and are ready to head for home. An excellent feature of this $3 program is that it will use your physical location to help you call a taxi if you’ve had too much to drink and drive.
A similar app that comes at the problem from a different angle for just a buck is Drink Timer, from Simpsonics. With Drink Timer you enter your drinks and a calendar wheel tells you when you’re estimated to have zero alcohol in your system from the time you stop drinking. So if you’re out on a Friday night and being good about entering your drinks into Drink Timer, and you look down to see that calendar reading, say, Monday, you may want to throttle back a bit and have a nice warm cup of tea when it comes time for the next round. No Taxi services with Drink Timer.
r-u-drunk? is a game you can use to approximate the embarrassment and shame you’d face if a cop pulled you over driving in that condition. With 5 tests, including a balance test and a straight line test that make use of the iPhone’s accelerometer, it also has an alphabet typing test, a hand-eye coordination test and a simulated breathalyzer. Given the hit and miss nature of typing on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, you might want to start out with that one and if you can pass it, have another glass of champagne. The developers at MobilityWare market this $3 app as a companion to drinking games and it falls under the AppStore’s 17+ rating category.
Last but not least is iMeter, a 99¢ app that could actually help you save lives with its big graphic “meter” you can use to show your drunk friend that he is in fact talking too loud and that his BAC is at danger levels. Simply announce what you’re going to measure and when the meter loads on the iPhone’s screen, you control the “level” the meter will read out using a slider similar to the one used to unlock the phone. Comes complete with funny sounds and pop-out animation for maximum meter readings.
Please remember that drinking and driving is not a laughing matter and it is never fun to play games when real lives could be at stake. The Holiday Season is a time to celebrate with friends and family and to enjoy the spirit of giving and togetherness that make being part of a “cult” special. Drink responsibly and remember that Taxi feature if you use Cheers!
It’s probably a good bet Phil Schiller is not going to introduce an iPhone with a built-in video camera in a few weeks at Macworld. In the meantime, Sol Lipman and 12seconds.tv have created a 99¢ app for the iPhone that lets you take 3 photos (either on the fly or choose from your camera roll), record 12 seconds of audio, which it ties into a multimedia masterpiece “video slideshow” you can then share with your friends and an unsuspecting world.
Slideshows are automatically uploaded to servers at 12seconds.tv, where users have an account from which they can manage their body of work. Every video has its own page (sort of like Flickr) and any video can be emailed, downloaded or embedded.
One of the 12seconds dev team told us, “we tried hard to keep the app simple and straightforward and fun.” From all appearances, they have succeeded. The slideshows make effective use of the “Ken Burns effect” that will be familiar to anyone who’s made a slideshow in iPhoto, and the recording quality of the iPhone’s microphone is surprisingly good.
Another consideration behind limiting the final output to twelve seconds was that “twelve seconds is about the ideal amount of time for most user-generated content,” according to David Speiser, who consulted with Lipman on development of the app. “The goal is to keep the barrier for consumption really low – no matter how badly a video might suck, you know you’ll never waste more than twelve seconds of your life watching it.”
Only Google treats us as well as this. Other software developers insist on adding functionality to their updates; only Google gives us the benefit of enhanced version numbers. These people really care about us. It brings a tear to my eye, it really does.
You yourself might not be an actual superhero, but with Earthcomber, a free GPS-leveraging search/mapping/social networking app for iPhone and iPod Touch, you can have “superhuman awareness,” according to developer Jim Brady.
Preloaded with a comprehensive database of restaurants, movie listings, events, historical sites, local information and more, the app lets users tag their interests – for example, Greek cuisine, historic buildings, hot chai tea, or free WiFi access. They can also add their own items, and invite friends so they can find them as well.
Earthcomber then scans an area for any matches, using the iPhone’s GPS. Any place that has anything of interest is announced by an optional chime.
Earthcomber is different, according to Brady, because it utilizes multiple technologies so the user doesn’t have to jump from one application to the next to accomplish related tasks. “That’s the whole point,” Brady said. “We don’t have to turn off our eyes to start up our ears, and we sure don’t have to fill out a search box for our brains to work. Earthcomber uses mobile technology as a powerful extension of our natural abilities, so that we can be constantly aware of what’s right around us.”
Earthcomber won Nokia’s 2008 Mobile Rules! competition for “Best Infotainment” application. The company provides USA service today and plans international coverage with a coming update.
Retina-X released the unsubtly named Mobile Spy software for iPhone on Wednesday, a product the company says “will reveal the truth for any company or family using Apple smartphones.”
Mobile Spy operates in stealth mode, invisible to the iPhone user, but permits parents or employers who install it to silently monitor incoming and outgoing text messages (SMS) and call information of children or employees – even if activity logs are erased. The software starts when the phone is booted up, records all call and SMS activity and uploads the data in real time to Retina-X servers, which may be accessed from anywhere on the Internet.
The company says it is working on adding spy awareness to email activity in a future release.
Because the software runs in the background, sending and receiving data across the network while other software is in use, Mobile Spy violates Apple’s iPhone SDK, so you won’t find it on the app store, but it is available on the Retina-X website.
Priced at $100 annually, $70 semi-annually or $50 quarterly, it is compatible with iPhone 3G only.
This holiday season you may want to beware of parents, bosses and spouses bearing iPhone gifts.
One of the most depressing scenes in the already depressing “Sex and the City” movie is the one where Carrie Bradshaw gets left at the altar.
The groom, aka Big, hasn’t shown up. In a scene where all the stars especially look like they need a good night’s sleep and more calming carbs in their diets, Samantha holds an iPhone, set off against a fire-engine red dress.
Apple doesn’t sell its own iPhone 3G mobile devices on its web store, but you can now get both new and refurbished 3G models online through AT&T. Following last week’s quiet launch of on-line sales for new 3Gs, AT&T began Tuesday also offering refurbished units at $150 for the 8GB model, while both the black and white 16GB models sell for $250. As with new units, purchase of the refurbished phones requires the buyer to sign a two year service contract with AT&T.
Rapper Lil’ Wayne recently launched an iPhone, iPod touch app designed to give fans a taste of what it’s like to be him.
Well, what it means to look a little like 25-year-old Dwayne Carter, or to paraphrase the old cosmetics slogan: “You, only blinger.”
The app developed by Lil’ Wayne and his record company Universal Music, comes from epictilt, the makers of iPhone app ESPN Cameraman.
The Lil’ Wayne app adds gold jewelry, his trademark teardrop tats and oversized hats to your pics. If you’re unsure you want to pop $0.99 for it on iTunes, you can check out a photo gallery here. The app allows fans to check out other Wayne-ified photos and buy his music.
One guarantee: you get to look fierce but avoid Lil Wayne’s real-life arrests with corresponding mug shots.
iBend marketing materials call it “the thinnest stand for the iPhone and iPod Touch.”
$5 gets you what appears to be two pieces of plastic or maybe laminated card stock (the website doesn’t say) cut in such a way they could be mistaken for “Snidely Whiplash”-style fake mustaches, but that, when “bent” just so, will hold your device in place on any flat surface so you can look at it (and the video or slideshow you’re watching on it) without having to hold it in your hand. The iBend is thin enough to fit in your wallet, pocket or purse.
iBend is patent-pending and manufactured in California.
Apple released the 10.5.6 update to Leopard on Monday with a feature that makes it impossible to jailbreak and/or unlock an iPhone or iPod Touch using PwnageTool or QuickPwn, according to a report at iPhoneAlley.
Blogger Erica Sadun explains in more detail that engineers at Apple propagated to all 10.5.6 loaded Mac systems USB kexts (kernel extensions) that prevent a Mac from recognizing an iPhone or iPod in Device Firmware Update mode, a high level communication protocol used for firmware restores among other things.
The battle between Cupertino and a dedicated band of Apple users who believe the company’s mobile platform should be opened for general use and development outside the limitations of the AppStore has been going on since the original iPhone was unlocked weeks after its initial release in June 2007. Subsequent updates to the mobile firmware have ben decoded within days of their release.
Many, though not all users who jailbreak/unlock their iPhones do so to enable them to operate on cellular telephone networks other than AT&T, the exclusive authorized service provider in the US. Others see the advantage of an unlocked phone that can run software developed for it that has not otherwise been approved by Apple for sale and distribution in the iTunes AppStore.
Sadun confirmed with sources inside Apple that the current roadblock to unlocking efforts was deliberate and both she and iPhoneAlley suggested those wanting to operate jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches ought to wait to install the 10.5.6 update on their Macs until developers working to maintain the open mobile platform have devised a workaround.
One possible avenue around the DFU mode restriction has been suggested by Phone developer Steven Troughton-Smith, who told Sadun the problem relates to devices plugged directly to Macs. He relates that DFU mode can be used with a unit connected via a hub and can be pwned as normal, even with the 10.5.6 update.
Rogue Amoeba Software added to its lineup of innovative audio software titles Monday with the release of Radioshift Touch, software that lets users listen to internet radio anywhere on their iPhone or iPod Touch.
Powered by RadioTime, an internet radio catalog with thousands of stations from around the world in its database, Radioshift allows users to browse by genre, search by keyword and view listings for thousands of specific radio programs as well.
The app leverages iPhone firmware’s GPS capabilities to serve up local stations based on the user’s location and uses a feature called “SmartStream” to point to the most bandwidth-friendly stations, depending on the connection. Users can access Internet radio via, WiFi, EDGE or 3G.
Radioshift Touch is available at the iTunes AppStore for $9.99.
Given the host of free and low cost music programs available on the AppStore, including the ever-popular Pandora, and ClearChannel’s iHeartRadio, it will be interesting to track the success of Radioshift, with its relatively expensive price tag. Paul Kafasis, lead developer at Rogue Amoeba, has a sterling reputation for developing useful, high quality audio software for the Mac, so we invite Cult readers who try Radioshift to let us know what you think.
We recently wrote about iBreviary, an iPhone and iPod Touch app that gives the morning prayer, evening prayer and night prayer or complines for the day.
The Italian priest who had the brainwave for the app, Don Paolo Padrini, informed us that the 1.2 version of the prayer app, which he says has the blessing of the Vatican, is now available in Spanish, French, English and Latin (for those, like the Pope, who want a return to pre-Second Vatican Council days) and a version that follows the Ambrosian Rite, for the five million Catholics or so in the Milan area.
iBreviary costs $0.99 on iTunes and now also comes with a how-to page to help those unfamiliar with daily prayer rituals. The original Italian-language version was gratis, Father Padrini says the price of the app is a contribution for the developers.
Don Padrini also says an app is in the works for Facebook called that “Praybook” that will let groups use the Breviary via social network.
A similar app that comes at the problem from a different angle for just a buck is 
Last but not least is 
