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AdMob Could Have Gone to Apple, Sources Say

Written on November 16, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 3 people have commented

AdMob, the mobile advertising firm that recently made headlines thanks to a Google acquisition, might have become part of the Apple fold if things had worked out differently, according to a report by Bloomberg that appeared this weekend. Apple reportedly approached AdMob with interest before the Google deal went down.
That’s according to “people familiar with [...]

iPhone Left Out of the Flash Party: Big Deal

Written on October 05, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 38 people have commented

Today’s big announcement is that Flash is getting an update to 10.1 that will bring support for full Flash functionality to a lot of mobile phones — except, of course, for the iPhone, which remains staunchly Flash-independent.
Google Android, Symbian, and now BlackBerry are all signed on with Flash to work together on the Open Screen [...]

CNN Launches iPhone App, Includes Lazy Reporting Feature

Written on September 30, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 4 people have commented

As a major news outlet, it’s a little late to the iPhone party, but CNN has finally released an official app that covers its entire news network, unlike the previously available CNN Money application. The paid app features text, video and photo updates throughout the day, including breaking news updates that make use of the [...]

SlingPlayer for iPhone Now Available in Europe, Wi-Fi Only

Written on September 21, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 2 people have commented

You no longer have to gaze wistfully across the Atlantic, European readers, because SlingPlayer today officially released its mobile app (iTunes link) for iPhone across 16 countries in your continent. You may, however, bemoan the lack of 3G streaming in the version that was released.
It’s been four months since the original SlingPlayer app was released [...]

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 [...]

Official Flickr App Arrives on iPhone and iPod touch

Written on September 08, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 8 people have commented

Around the time I first got my iPhone 3G, I used to use Exposure (now called Darkslide) for Flickr browsing, and I was well satisfied, until it became rather buggy with later versions. Not sure what the state of that app is, but I’m glad to see Yahoo finally step forward and release an official [...]

Google Launches Latitude for iPhone

Written on July 24, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 6 people have commented

In another move in Google’s continued bid to dominate the entire internet — albeit with useful and occasionally innovative services — the search giant has officially launched Latitude for the iPhone.
Latitude allows users to locate and track each other, via their cell phones. Since its original launch back in February this year, it’s been rolled [...]

It Must Be Nice to Be Verizon

Written on July 20, 2009 by Tom Reestman and 73 people have commented

It must be nice to be Verizon right now. Free from the intense scrutiny AT&T receives by having the hottest and “smartest” smartphone, it can appear to rise above it all. It can have TV ads to claim the best network on the planet, and it’s done. It can have legions of people claiming they’d [...]

Google Brings Local Web Search to iPhone via Safari

Written on July 16, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 5 people have commented

As you may already know, one of the improvements that came along with iPhone 3.0 was mobile Safari’s ability to access the iPhone and iPod touch’s geolocation services. Geolocation is quickly becoming a feature that more and more web developers are looking at implementing, especially given that the recently released Firefox 3.5 and Chrome 2.0 [...]

Apple Bringing Geolocation to Mobile Safari

Written on June 01, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 2 people have commented

Since Apple doesn’t provide detailed release notes with each of their beta installments, it’s understandable that details about less obvious features and changes would only come to light gradually, as people poked around and tried different (and sometimes unusual) things with their devices. Computerworld’s Seth Weintraub was fooling around with the Mobile Safari browser included [...]

How-To: Calibrate Your Laptop Battery

Written on May 29, 2009 by Jenny Kortina and 27 people have commented

I recently wrote about extending your MacBook’s battery life via a firmware update. Today I am going to outline how to extend your battery life by calibrating it so that it holds its charge properly. After all, running out of juice with when you’re on the go is the worst possible scenario in the electronic [...]

Nintendo and Sony “Freaking Out” Over Apple iPhone

Written on April 16, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 33 people have commented

If you go and do something like found Electronic Arts, which then goes on to be one of the dominant forces in video games worldwide, people tend to take notice of things you say. Yesterday in an interview with Venture Beat’s Dean Takahashi, Trip Hawkins, EA founder and current Digital Chocolate executive, said that Nintendo [...]

Yahoo for iPhone Released: Worthwhile Alternative to Google?

Written on April 02, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 7 people have commented

With all the attention in the arena of iPhone applications being fixed squarely on Skype for the past few days, it almost escaped my view that Yahoo has finally released their free Yahoo Mobile app, which we reported on in February. The app’s release coincides with a revamp of their entire Yahoo Mobile web portal, [...]

doubleTwist Takes Jab at iTunes Tyranny

Written on February 26, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 7 people have commented

Look out iTunes, there’s a brand new media manager in town, in the form of a public beta just released for OS X. The program is called doubleTwist, and it’s the brainchild of anti-DRM crusader “DVD” Jon Johansen.
Ars Technica had a look at it in length, and it seems to be fairly promising. The idea [...]

Sony Set to Take On Growing Dominance of iPhone and iPod Touch

Written on February 26, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 11 people have commented

Sony is no doubt feeling the heat from Apple, whose campaign to push the iPod touch (and the iPhone, though less directly) to the forefront of mobile gaming continues, with another recent advertisement using the “Funnest iPod Ever” tag line, and highlighting another selection of games available for the platform. They’ve also introduced a Games [...]

Yahoo Mobile Coming, Google Likely Doesn’t Care

Written on February 17, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 2 people have commented

The search engine that had a strong claim on the web long before upstart Google came along may be down, but they aren’t out. They’re planning a massive undertaking, a cross-platform release of a mobile suite of applications that, at least according to them, could revolutionize the way you use the web from your mobile [...]

CSS Animation in Latest WebKit Builds, Threat to Flash On iPhone?

Written on February 06, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 5 people have commented

According to the official WebKit blog, the browser rendering engine now supports some explicit CSS animations. A recent nightly build brings support for keyframes and repeating animated effects coded directly in CSS. The animation features are currently exclusive to test builds of Safari, but they have already been put into play by Apple in the [...]

Higher-priced Premium Game Section Coming to App Store?

Written on January 29, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 5 people have commented

One of the barriers to big studios developing big name titles for the iPhone and iPod Touch has been pricing. The kind of investment that goes into making blockbuster titles requires a pricing scheme that the App Store probably couldn’t currently support. Users are now used to the extremely low prices most of the apps [...]

Flickr Mobile Makeover

Written on December 10, 2008 by Josh Pigford and No one has commented

It was only two months ago that Flickr unveiled a beta version of their mobile site optimized for iPhone and iPod touch users, but now it’s official.
Compared to their previous mobile endeavor, this update of the site is nothing short of leaps and bounds ahead. Beyond a svelte new interface that makes browsing, not only, [...]

Finish Your Holiday Shopping With Amazon Mobile for iPhone

Written on December 04, 2008 by Josh Pigford and 6 people have commented

Just in time for last minute Christmas shopping, Amazon.com has released their mobile app for the iPhone and iPod touch. It offers searching, Wish List and account access, and purchasing directly from the app. If you’re already an impulsive internet shopper, then this may just be your worst nightmare. If you dread the mall and [...]