In Your Pocket
I'm a big fan of the Mplayers, in particular when they are bedazzled with Swarovskis. I just wish Disney would see fit to release them here in the U.S. so I don't have to explain to the TSA agent what that lump in my pocket is why I fly home from my Tokyo shopping binge. And what can possibly be better than Swarvoski-studded, Mickey Mouse-shaped MP3 player? New designs and patterns, of course, including this lovely model entitled "Ethnic." Yeah, they called it Ethnic.
For just $135, you can snag one of the pretty little 1 Gig, Disney-fied players up. The good news is you won't have to deal with smudging up a screen because the Mplayers don't have screens. And you get to player with mouse ears all day. The bad news is… well, there is no bad news. Just carry around your Swarovski-ladened Mplayer, proudly showing it to the world, and only good luck will come your way.
Brand new iPhone 3G running out of juice at the beach? Mine just did. It was, like, a total bummer, man.
With Mobilefun's solar-powered charger and cute little leatherish case, the sun could pull double duty and spread melanoma while at the same time juicing up the solar case's internal battery - a 1500mAh bad boy that achieves as "functional" charge in three hours but takes a full 10 to charge completely.
EcoGeek suggests leaving the (empty) case in the car or at a window all day and then using it to re-juice your iPhone throughout the evening, which sounds like a very reasonable way to use this green gadget. Compatible with all iPhone models and replete with mini USB plug just in case.
Gnarly, dude.
iPhone 3G Goes Solar Powered with New Case EcoGeek
OK, I realize the development platform for the iPhone was open to just about anyone, and I also realize there is a lot of trivial bologna on the App Store, but this has got to be the single most pathetic (and sickly funny) thing I've yet!
The App titled simply I Am Rich comes with the following description:
"Art & Livestyle (sic) - Not for everyone
The red icon on your iPhone or iPod Touch always reminds you (and others when you show it to them) that you were able to afford this.
It's a work of art with no hidden function at all.
After pressing the (i) on the main page, a secret mantra will be shown. This may help you to stay rich, healthy and successful.
If it's to(sic) expensive for you - check out my other apps - they are all much cheaper."
Yep. The App's sole purpose is to show how rich and snooty you are. You know, because carrying around an Apple branded product doesn't already do that. And why the hell not, at the low, low cost of $999.99. Not a mis-type there, just honest reporting. I'm still trying to figure out how Apple can let something like this hit the store, but pull real apps like NetShare and BoxOffice?!
Look, I know we gays are all about our status symbols, but I swear, I will call the cancel and have your gay card revoked if you or anyone you know buys this. Conversely, if you or anyone you know buys this, please send me a picture of you holding the phone with the App running because I think it could possibly be the funniest thing I've ever seen.
My jab last week calling MobileMe the "worst Apple product launch ever" has now gotten some validation from the top man himself: Steve Jobs.
In an internal e-mail sent to employees yesterday, Steve Jobs expressed his disappointment with the MobileMe launch:
[MobileMe is] not up to Apple's standards...
...It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store. We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.
Steve Jobs also detailed what Apple could have done to launch MobileMe more smoothly, including launching each of MobileMe's services one at a time instead of all at once as a "monolithic service."
"The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services, and learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year."
The learning has already started, with a recent restructuring of the MobileMe team following the catastrophic launch. The entire MobileMe team will now report to Eddy Cue, a former lead manager on the iTunes team. He will now lead all of Apple's Internet services, including iTunes, App Store, and MobileMe. Cue will also now report directly to Steve Jobs.
In the meantime, it seems all of MobileMe's kinks haven't been worked out yet, as one of our own readers, tmp00, has written us to tell his tale of MobileMe woe:
Oh yes, it's 100% fixed. Which is why I can't email anyone, except from my free Yahoo! account. Apple says I'm not one of the ones affected, buh-bye, you're on your own. Guess which account I will not be paying $99 for when it's up for renewal?
We're now what? 26 days after launch?
Worst. Apple. Product. Launch. Evar.
Steve Jobs: MobileMe "not up to Apple's standards" [Ars Technica]
Sony Ericsson announced a new, limited edition C902 CyberShot camera phone to coincide with the new 007 flick, Quantum Of Solace. Now, not only am I a Bond fan, I'm kind of a fan of Sony Ericsson's phones. The C902 CyberShot will feature a solid 5MP camera and several CyberShot features, like on-the-fly editing and sharing, not to mention a pretty sleek design. The C902 will also be used by sex god Bond himself Daniel Craig in Quantum Of Solace, so to up the ante on the phone, Sony will be dropping the limited edition Bond Phone that will also feature a pre-loaded Bond game, some graphics and wallpapers, and interviews and clips of the crew.
When talking about the phone, I'm a bit more inclined to be excited about the CyberShot C905 with its 10MP goodness, but when talking about special features, you simply can't go wrong with Daniel Craig in a pocket. Sheesh, just the thought of that gives me the tingles!
Ericsson, Sony Ericsson Issues Limited Edition Quantum of Solace Bond Phone [Gearlog]
Some of the clunkiness of the iPhone was eradicated yesterday with the release of OS 2.0.1. The meaty, mealy download clocked in at 249.2MB. Some of the improvements:
- Drag app icons across multiple pages in one fluid motion
- More responsive contacts
- Quicker backups
- Quicker keypad loads
- Smoother screen rotation transitions via the onboard Safari Web browser
I'm especially pleased with the first update: I've been trying to drag those bitches ever since I laid my hands on the phone.
Also reported:
- More nimble user interface (UI)
- Increased performance when switching between applications on the home screen
- Quicker sync times
But that's not all! OS 2.0.1 also supposedly kills the Pwnage Tool for all those law- and phone-breakers out there. I'm not nearly ballsy enough to unlock my iPhone, but if you out there have done so, does 2.0.1 kill it for you? What other improvements have you seen? What are we lacking?
Apple's iPhone 2.0.1 software update kills Pwnage Tool [The Tech Herald]
P.S. It's nice to be back.
Apple has removed BoxOffice, the popular movie times and tickets application featured in our video segment "10 Best Free iPhone Apps," with apparently no reason given to developers Metasyntactic:
Apple pulled the app yesterday without giving my any notification that they were doing it, or what their justification was for removing it.
I've tried to contact them about the issue, but it's been a complete dead end. If anyone has a useful contact number for apple, please let me know.
I'm in regular contact with all my data providers, and none of them have had an issue with my app. Indeed, the response was the exact opposite. They like my app and have even asked if i would do custom application work for them in the future. Furthermore, all the data i use is licensed by the owners as 'free for non commercial use'. i.e. precisely what BoxOffice is.
So i'm stuck here not knowing what has happened, or what i can do about it. If any of you have any ideas, please let me know. You can respond here, but i'd actually appreciate a reply at cyrusn@stwing.upenn.edu since i probably won't check back here that often.
I can't possibly think of any reason why BoxOffice has been pulled. It doesn't violate any of Apple's license terms or NDA, so I'm baffled. It's an absolutely excellent app and I use it all the time on my personal iPhone.
Without more transparency in your process, Apple, you may have the beginnings of a developer riot, and that will certainly hurt your chances of becoming the next ubiquitous mobile platform. You've been warned.
When it comes to cell phone carriers and their Early Termination Fees, there is a lot of heated debate going around. The cell companies claim that they need the fees to recuperate the subsidy costs on the phones you buy from them, while consumers are crying anti-competitive and anti-consumer behavior. I tend to agree with the consumers here. ETF (early termination fees) are unjustly enforced by a service provider to suck money out of their customers. Want to leave because you don't like our service? Sure! That'll be $200 or you just finish out your contract… Anyway, I think I've beat that dead horse before.
Unless you happen to live in California (man, California gets everything before we do!), you probably aren't lucky enough to cancel your service with your carrier easily and/or without prohibitive costs. There are ways to get out of the contracts though, you kinda just have to learn the system, as Ely Rosentock of Crastinate points out in this video. It's all a matter of knowing your contract and knowing the arguments the carrier will use and their affective counter-arguments. Check out the video above for some good information. This is directed to Verizon customers, but can probably be applied to the other carriers in a similar manner.
As someone that just quit Verizon, I kinda wish I would have seen this before. More to the point, I wish I had just claimed I was moving to Uganda… then they couldn't argue about anything! As a side note, if you're just looking to get a month or two of free service, you can call to cancel your contract and they will try to persuade you to stay with a free month of service… or two if you hold out. Not that I'm saying those of you happy with Verizon should take advantage of the system or anything… but a free month of service is nice!
[via: Digg and Gizmodo]
I gotta say, of all the useless crap on the App Store, I finally some a pointless App that I'm enjoying waaaay too much. A new free App, creatively called LOLcats (link goes to the app store, FYI), is an app that serves up nearly unlimited LOLs to your iPhone any time of day! The app crawls through Flickr for LOLcat tags and tosses everything it finds into a database for your viewing pleasure, anytime of day or night. It's no Icanhascheezburger, but it's still fun and useful, considering my sanity breaks at the day job involve hitting up some LOLcats myself.
The app is basic and small. It provides you a quick link to the Flickr page of the actual photo if you'd like to say it or comment it or do whatever you do on Flickr (problem here is that anything that someone has tagged LOLcat could show up… yeah, use your imagination). The pics are best viewed in Landscape Mode. And that's about it. Plain and simple.
Which brings me to another question altogether. Has anyone found actual useful apps on the App Store that… you know, work? Well. Without crashing when you try to use the features in the App? Personally, I think I'm a bit underwhelmed by the offerings on the App Store, but to be honest, I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting. Maybe it was the hype behind the launch of the iPhone 3G and the App Store, but I thought there would be more apps that would make me want to spend every dime I had right off the bat, but as far as I can see, there isn't anything blowing my mind yet. Just me? Let me know what you've found in the actual productivity market. Personally, I'm just not that interested in games for the phone yet.
In any case, I'm off to find some more LOLs. TTYL.
[Shout out to the sexy Vega82 for the head's up!]
Dell is trying really hard to be follow the Apple model to success. Not that Dell is doing poorly, by any stretch (aside from the occasional law suit), but they want more. One of the biggest things they are trying to foster in their customers is a sense of brand loyalty, and when you start speaking about brand loyalty and tech, the single best example to follow is Apple (thus why there are always tech blog stories on Apple even though they own less than 10% of the computing market. They do dominate the MMP market, but the stories you read are hardly ever about the iPod line). So, to emulate Apple, it looks like Dell is headed down the MP3 player road… again.
What made the iPod brand successful? Design and delivery. They are sleek and provide an easy (if increasingly controversial) method to legally obtain content for it through iTunes. So Dell has decided that the best way to meet the design side is to hire some of the best product designers around, including the man behind the original Razr. And for the delivery side? They have plans to provide plenty of options for people in an easy manner. And call the thing a Zing. Yeah, that's really its name.
The Zing should be out "soon," as in possibly September. The Zing will also be the focus of a whole slew of new products centered around the Zing name. Think specialty Media Center PC's and entertainment center type equipment, possibly even a phone featuring an altered Android OS. Now, supposedly they aren't copying the iPod model, but… well, lets just say I hope they aren't following the Zune model.
We'll be bringing you more information on the Zing as it comes, as well as pics and specs once they are released. But here's the real question: what will it take to pull you away from your iPod?
In true Tiny form, I've had an iPhone for 48 hours and have already fallen in love with it three times, hated it twice, made out with it for a while, and begged it for the one feature that, in my brief but torrid iPhone experience, would really make my day: copy and paste.
Thanks to developer Proximi, a new app called MagicPad will be bringing that functionality to the device that has so belatedly rocked my world. Not terribly different than the iPhone's native notes app, MagicPad adds support for multiple fonts and font enrichments such as italics and underlining... and of course, copy and paste.
As you can tell from the picture, MagicPad adds a small but prominent toolbar to the iPhone's virtual keyboard that appends the new features, which are unfortunately only available within MagicPad itself - you still won't be able to copy and paste between apps, which of course is the holy grail.
MagicPad has yet to be approved, so of course it could all go up in vapor. But hopefully one way or another Apple will ever-so-gently relax their human interface guidelines to include this essential functionality.
Developer nails copy/paste with upcoming iPhone app [Crave]
If you're still without the second coming of the Jesus Phone (Woe be unto you, Tiny), Apple's making it easier to get your hands on the still hard to get iPhone 3G:
Your favorite Apple Retail Store is making it easier and more convenient to purchase an iPhone 3G. All stores will now open at 8:00 a.m. every day but Sunday and, to accommodate demand, we're adding staff to help you get up and running as quickly as possible. Customers will be prequalified to purchase while in line and will receive a claim ticket for an iPhone 3G. Your ticket can be redeemed on the spot or -- if it would be more convenient to return later the same day -- by 6:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. on Sundays).
No more standing in line waiting for people to buy and activate the phone all in one go. Now you can come back later in the day to finish the transaction.
Good luck, and remember to check the iPhone availability tool after 9PM the night before to make sure the Apple Store has your model in stock.
Apple Retail Open Early, Issuing Tickets [MacRumors]
And girls who like girls who like fembots!
Gadget of the Week
One way or another, Microsoft will try to sell you a phone.
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