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iPhone Maps Icon: Close to Apple’s Heart

Written on September 24, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 22 people have commented

Apparently, as far as the folks at Apple are concerned, all roads lead to Cupertino.
Toying with your latest Apple purchase, it’s not unusual to marvel at the visual joys of the Cupertino company’s product design — gorgeous electronic objects one and all, whether it be the pristine sheen of a brand new Unibody Mac Book [...]

NetNewsWire for OS X and iPhone Officially Released

Written on September 24, 2009 by Andrew Bednarz and 11 people have commented

NewsGator released todayNetNewsWire 3.2 for OS X. At the end of July, NewsGator announced the ending of its news feed subscription service and released a beta version of NetNewsWire 3.2 with Google Reader synchronization.
The way NewsGator handled the ending of its service and migration to Google Reader left a lot to be desired. After sending out [...]

Pay for Your Grande Latte at Starbucks With Your iPhone

Written on September 23, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 16 people have commented

Coffee lovers with overstuffed wallets rejoice: You can now pay for your Starbucks coffee with your Starbucks Card without actually using a physical card. There’s a catch — you’ll need an iPhone. But if you have one, you can now pay with Starbucks Card Mobile (iTunes link), a new app now available as a free [...]

iPhone 3.1: Unresponsive and No Vitals, But Not Dead?

Written on September 23, 2009 by Dave Greenbaum and 114 people have commented

iPhone coma. Two words you never want to see in the same sentence! Yesterday I went to pick up my phone, and it wouldn’t unlock. Weird. I figured maybe the battery had died. That’s a common problem with the 3.1 iPhone software update. After 15 minutes I still had no [...]

USB Forum Sides With Apple Over Palm

Written on September 23, 2009 by Charles Jade and 20 people have commented

After months of software updates by the respective companies to disable and enable the Pre syncing with iTunes, the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) has ruled on the issue.
Palm loses.
The standards group has not only rejected Palm’s claim of anti-competitive behavior by Apple, but says that it is Palm that’s violating the USB-IF Membership Agreement, John [...]

Snapture Goes Legit and Gets Cheaper

Written on September 22, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 6 people have commented

The iPhone’s camera app is OK, but it really leaves much to be desired. That was why Snapture came to exist in the first place. Snapture is a jailbreak app that many users on that side of the fence have sworn by for quite a while now.
Now owners of legitimate, non-jailbroken devices can take advantage [...]

New Pioneer In-Dash Nav Units Get Hardware Specific iPhone App

Written on September 22, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 2 people have commented

At least one company is taking the hardware integration features of iPhone OS 3.0 seriously. Pioneer, which announced A/V home theater receivers with some serious iPhone connectivity in June, has just revealed an iPhone app (iTunes link) designed to integrate with two of its brand new in-dash navigation units.
While the iPhone app doesn’t provide iPod [...]

Google Sync Gets Push Gmail Support on the iPhone

Written on September 22, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 33 people have commented

Oh, MobileMe, how will you deal with this latest threat to your iPhone feature dominance? First it was improved Exchange support, and now it’s push Gmail using Google Sync.
Remember Google Sync? It’s the service from Google which allows you to synchronize your contacts and calendar with your iPhone or iPod touch, in much the same [...]

Here Are More Apps for That: Three New iPhone Commercials From Apple

Written on September 22, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 3 people have commented

It’s fall premiere season, and that means new shows. But it also means sparkly new ads to fill all those commercial breaks. New Apple ads for the iPhone provided pleasant relief for me yesterday from the tedium of the two-hour Heroes premiere. On a side note, the Castle premiere was pretty good.
But back to those [...]

Nine iPhone Apps for Cricket Lovers

Written on September 22, 2009 by Peter Venero and 10 people have commented

This round-up of Cricket apps is dedicated to all of the Cricket lovers around the world. With the ICC Champions Trophy beginning today, I thought it’d be a great opportunity to cover and review the Cricket apps that are available on the App store.
Despite the worldwide popularity of cricket, the market for cricket applications on [...]

Apple Investigating Poor Battery Life With iPhone OS 3.1

Written on September 21, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 27 people have commented

At first I thought I was alone, and that my iPhone 3GS was defective, but now it looks like battery complaints relating to iPhone OS 3.1 are far from isolated incidents. Apple is officially investigating the matter, according to The iPhone Blog, which is something the company generally only does if enough people crow loud [...]

AT&T Begins Public Trial of 3G MicroCell

Written on September 21, 2009 by Charles Jade and 17 people have commented

For iPhone users like myself chained to the shoddy service of AT&T by Apple’s seemingly interminable exclusivity contract with the carrier, hope for better reception springs eternal, at least if you live in North Carolina.
The AT&T 3G MicroCell that looks more like a video game console is actually a tiny cellular base station, or femtocell. [...]

Google and Apple Debate the Meaning of “Rejected”

Written on September 21, 2009 by Charles Jade and 14 people have commented

Apple rejected Google Voice for the iPhone. That’s not what Google says, exactly, except by posting the unredacted response to the FCC on the issue there remains little room for interpretation.
According to Google, none other than Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller told Google Senior VP Alan Eustace “that Apple was rejecting the Google Voice application.” [...]

Weekly App Store Picks: September 19, 2009

Written on September 19, 2009 by Olly Farshi and No one has commented

It’s the end of another week and so it’s time for me to scour the latest releases in the App Store for the hottest new iPhone apps. As ever, I’ve selected four hot picks released in the last seven days for you to check out.
This week I’ve plucked our picks from across the globe. Hailing [...]

App Review: Ramp Champ

Written on September 18, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 8 people have commented

Arcade bowling style games are very popular. In the real world, skee-ball is probably the most recognized of these. In the iPhone world there have been several who have risen to the challenge, but Ramp Champ, the newest game from The Iconfactory and DSMediaLabs, brings a very interesting and addictive twist to this genre.
Boasting an [...]

iTunes U: Learning Wherever You Are

Written on September 18, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 2 people have commented

iTunes U (iTunes Link), part of the iTunes Store, is an amazing venue for top-notch educational content from the world’s greatest universities, institutions, museums and other public educational foundations. From language lessons to audiobooks to lectures and more, iTunes U is a great place for those who love to learn. With the release of iTunes [...]

iTunes 9: Keeping In Sync

Written on September 17, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 10 people have commented

iTunes 9 brings about a much more flexible setup for syncing. It’s definitely an improvement, in some senses, but still far from perfect. In fact, many might be quick to term some of the options as “feature creep.” Check out some of our thoughts on the new options and look at the side by side [...]

Autodesk Brings Sketchbook Product Line to the iPhone

Written on September 17, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 3 people have commented

Is the iPhone quietly becoming a serious mobile illustration platform? That’s the question I asked myself after seeing news this morning that yet another drawing and painting program has been released for the device. Autodesk’s Sketchbook Mobile is available now in the App Store.
Those of you who’ve done professional illustration work on a Mac will [...]

Retro Gaming Roundup: 40 iPhone Games to Take You Back in Time

Written on September 16, 2009 by Andrew Bednarz and 37 people have commented

There are few iPhone games that I will immediately buy. Most of the ones I do, however, are the classic games I played as a teenager.
The iPhone/iPod touch is more than powerful enough to handle these games and it seems that there are many people like me who are keen to experience these classics again. [...]

Apple Negotiating Deal With Second Chinese Cell Carrier

Written on September 15, 2009 by Liam Cassidy and 1 person has commented

No one said Apple’s partnership with China Unicom is exclusive, right? It’s an open relationship. Y’know how it is, dinner dates, the cinema, maybe even occasionally meeting the parents. But it’s totally cool for them both to see other people, OK?
And that’s precisely what’s happening. Back in July, I reported here that China Unicom had [...]