The curtain is closing on our Forum Membership Drive Contest, but there is still time to enter. To be eligible, you simply have to make a quality post in our iPhone forums before September 22nd. Members who have made a contribution to our forums between July 22nd and September 22nd, will have the opportunity to win an Apple Store gift card valued at $199 courtesy of EverythingiCafe.
Not a member? Register today and become part of the iPhone community.
Congratulations to Mike Elliott who won week #6 of our "Review an App, Win More Apps" contest. Mike has won a $50 iTunes gift card that can be redeemed for music and of course for more iPhone apps.
As a reminder, we've extended the contest through Monday, so get your reviews in by high noon. Unlike previous weeks, this week we'll be giving away a $200 gift card. That's plenty of apps, music or can even be used towards the purchase on an iPhone 3G. To enter, visit our review section and submit a review of any application or accessory. Reviews must be 100 words or more to be qualified.
It's hard to believe, but we are just over a week away from the start of the NFL season. For some, it marks the start of fantasy football, where armchair quarterbacks flex their statistical muscle via virtual football teams. My draft happens to be on Tuesday where I'll match wits with 11 other football junkies. Most fantasy GM's will scour the Internet looking for an edge and most will enter their draft rooms with the vaulted cheat sheet. Can the iPhone help you win your league? There are two apps which are available in the App Store that aim to help you win your draft.
Draft Central allows to to sort through available players by name or by UltimateFFB's ranking system. You can even set up teams and monitor your competition's draft strategy. All of these are great tools, but one has to wonder if you can manage all of this during draft day on nothing more than the iPhone. Having set up a custom FileMaker database for drafting purposes, I can tell you from experience that it's difficult enough using a desktop application. This might also be the occasion where good ole pen and paper trumps the iPhone
There are hundreds of free applications in the iPhone App Store. They range in capabilities from one trick ponies to in-depth apps that one would expect to find in the paid category. So what are the best free apps? What are members of EIC finding the most useful or simply entertaining at the price of free? In this new iPhone App economy, many free apps turn paid, so we'd advise our readers to download these free iPhone apps before they become paid. In no particular order, below are a few of our recommendations for free apps that you should add to your iPhone.
Tris : Tetris is a great game and even better when it's free. Tris is the free alternative to the paid Tetris app. The latter will set you back $9.99.
AIM : IM on the iPhone, that's all you need to know. Mobile AIM offers a host of features, supports .mac addresses and allows you to chat on your iPhone.
Simplify Media : Stream your music directly to your iPhone. If you cannot fit your entire music collection on your iPhone, this app fixes all of that. It's free for now, but the company has said this app will eventually find it's way to the paid category. Get it fast, while it's free!
Remote : This app is made by Apple and allows you to use your iPhone as a remote control for your iTunes. Next time you have a party, no need to rush to the computer to change the track when iTunes selects Milli Vanilli from your music collection. Remote allows full control of your iTune, works great and it's free.
SportsTap : The perfect companion for any sports fan. SportsTap is rated highly among our readers and on iTunes. You can access scores and stats from a host of leagues including the MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, Nascar and more. Faster than ESPN via Safari, take a look at SportsTap if you are a sports fan.
There are plenty of other great free apps, so explore the iPhone App Store, see what our members are saying in our iPhone App Store forum or check out the latest reviews . Think there is an app worthy of a future "Best of the Free Apps" list? Let us know in the comments.
When reports of connectivity issues started cropping up on the Interwebs last week, there was a report that Steve Jobs had replied to an email from a customer who was concerned about the problems affecting his iPhone 3G. The email read,
"We are working on some bugs which affect around 2% of the iPhones shipped, and hope to have a software update soon."
The soon to be released BlackBerry Bold will soon go head to head with the iPhone 3G next month when it becomes available. It appears RIM has some additional work to do on the browser. While it's much improved over the previous web browser, it still pales in comparison to Safari. When comparing rendering speeds over WiFi, the iPhone 3G outpaces the BlackBerry Bold by a wide margin. Expect RIM to continue to tweak the software before it's official release, that is if it wants to truely compete against the iPhone 3G. The below test was done using WiFi. It would be interesting to see a comparison using AT&T's 3G network.
