Posted by: Marianne Schultz
on Sep 3, 2008
Ever since I saw the demo of Spore on the iPhone on the web a few months ago, I've been looking forward to its release.
TUAW reports that it's due out later this week from a conversation with Will Wright, the creator of Spore. It doesn't sound like it will have the same type of gameplay as the full PC version, unfortunately.
Apple seems to be taking a harder look at the Apps it approves for the App store these days. Over at MacRumors, a rejection email a developer received from Apple for his "Pull My Finger" app is
posted , where his app is described as having "limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod Touch user community." My guess is that this is a direct result of the issues with the infamous "I Am Rich" app that was available for a short time on the App Store with a $999 price tag that had no real use other than providing bragging rights. If Apple is indeed vetting apps against some utility standards, they have a lot of work ahead of them to go back through the App Store to review apps that they approved prior to the implementation of these standards.
iLounge claims to have the dimensions of the second-generation iPod Touch. We don't know if these drawings are the real deal, but if so, the next iPod Touch will bear more resemblance to the iPhone 3G with tapered edges and a thicker middle. The supposed 4th generation iPod Nano dimensions show a taller and thinner form factor similar to that of the 2nd generation Nano. Of course, new iPod product announcements are expected at Apple's September 9 event, so we'll all know soon enough!
Posted by: Marianne Schultz
on Sep 2, 2008
AT&T's data network appears to be down this morning along the east coast and fairly far inland as well. Users on Macrumors.com are describing various reasons behind the outage from calls with AT&T, with the most interesting one given as "Apple's Safari servers are down." Come again? Oh, yeah - all the data on every iPhone in the U.S. runs through Safari servers managed by Apple first. How could I forget about that? Right. Engadget has reported on this outage as well.
Has your iPhone camera taken odd pictures showing mis-placed pieces of the scene you want to capture like a live puzzle? If so, you're not alone - TUAW reports on a number of these distorted pictures posted to Flickr by various people, and the phenomenon is being called "iPhone Cubism." Who knew that you could create post-modern art with your iPhone without even trying? This looks like a software bug that will hopefully be addressed in a future update.
Griffin has announced some new iPhone 3G accessories at the IFA Consumer Elecrtronics show in Berlin. The new products are a suction cup window mount, the Reflect hardshell case, and the Streamline sport armband.
Remember that goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of the year that Apple has set? Well, it sounds like they are well on their way. Some dedicated fans have gathered data from the general public and extrapolated from it that about 8 million iPhones have been sold so far. Apple stockholders rejoice! -Via TUAW .
Posted by: Christopher Meinck
on Sep 2, 2008
A second lawsuit has been filed against Apple and AT&T over 3G network performance issues related to the iPhone 3G. The plaintiff, William Gillis, complains that the companies "recklessly oversold the iPhone 3G" while knowing that both the device and AT&T's network could not support fast access for the influx of new users. Gillis claims that speeds do not reach advertised levels and that many people are bumped to EDGE while in areas that should support 3G.
The 18 page complaint reportedly relies primarily on Internet reports of problems as the foundation of its argument.
Posted by: Marianne Schultz
on Aug 28, 2008
If you owned a smartphone before the iPhone, you probably used it for tethering to get online with your computer in a place where wifi was not available or too expensive. With the iPhone, tethering hasn't been possible unless you've jailbroken your iPhone or were lucky enough to buy NullRiver's NetShare app while it was briefly available in the App Store. In the U.S., you'll notice that other smartphones offered by AT&T can make use of data plans that allow tethering, and the iPhone is one of the few smartphones, if not the only one, that they offer that cannot make use of one of these plans, nor is there currently a native app or Settings option on the iPhone that enables this.
Well, today there's a
rumor that indicates that AT&T and Apple are looking into this! The rumor revolves around an email supposedly sent by Steve Jobs in response to someone who complained about AT&T's lack of tethering options for the iPhone. The purported reply from Steve says "We agree, and are discussing it with ATT [sic]".
Every year, there is always at least one rumor supported by an alleged email from Steve Jobs, and we've already had one or two of these this year, but this could prove to be one of the more exciting ones so far for iPhone users who really want to be able to use their iPhone 3G's high-speed network connection to be able to do even more on the go without worrying about doing something unauthorized on AT&T's network and/or voiding the warranty on their iPhone to enable this capability.
So, as always, we'll wait and see if this turns out to be true. My trusty Magic 8 ball says the possibility of this rumor coming true is "Most Likely" and it's never lied to me yet.
Via
MacRumors
Posted by: Marianne Schultz
on Aug 26, 2008
I keep a lot of personal information on my iPhone that I don't want just anyone to have access to, so I've set the Passcode Lock option in Settings with the hope that it will keep my information from prying eyes for the most part if it's misplaced or gets stolen. And I also have my Home Button shortcut set to go to my Favorites in the phone app. It's this very combination that reveals a security flaw where the passcode lock in firmware 2.0.2 can be bypassed, allowing access to your favorite contacts and email accounts. Not good.
You can see the demonstration of how this can be done in a
video over at Gizmodo, but here's how it works:
- After sliding to unlock, select Emergency Call on the passcode entry screen.
- Double-click on the home button, and the phone Favorites list will appear.
- Click on the blue arrow to the right of a Favorites entry to see the full information for that contact.
- Click on an email address for that contact and you'll be taken to a new message in the Mail application.
- Cancel out of the new email and you'll see the full list of email accounts, which can be accessed fully.
Crazy, isn't it? I'm setting my home button shortcut to something else, effective immediately. Granted, this doesn't allow access to everything on your iPhone, but it's far more than I'm comfortable with. Chances are that someone who finds or steals your iPhone won't know about this particular security flaw, so it's probably not something for you to worry about regularly. Unfortunately, my luck isn't so good and my iPhone would probably fall into the hands of a thief well-versed in the flaws of the iPhone. Hopefully, Apple will recognize this and address it in the next firmware version...
Via [Gizmodo ]
Posted by: Marianne Schultz
on Aug 23, 2008
While I love the iPhone’s accelerometer and how current apps and games take advantage of it, Super Monkey Ball is just plain hard. Hand me a controller with a D-pad or joystick and I could make short work of it, but tilting the iPhone like a madwoman isn’t working all that well for me. Enter iControlPad - they’ve been working on a gamepad for the iPhone for a little while now, but it looks like they are closer to a working model that would be sold for around $30. Sound good? Yeah, I thought so.
TouchArcade has anonymously received pictures of another iPhone gamepad that could also be in the works and they’ve posted these images. There’s no other information on this second possible gamepad, so its validity is uncertain, to say the least. It’s reasonable to think that there’s more than one company out there looking to capitalize on the iPhone as a gaming device, so the idea isn’t that far-fetched.
While we’re on this topic of gaming on the iPhone, I have to admit that I don’t play games all that often on my iPhone. As I did before the advent of the 2.0 firmware and the App Store, my iPhone is primarily my phone, personal information manager, portable email and web-surfing device, and iPod, and games are something I do only when I need to kill time while waiting in line or when I’m too antsy to focus on anything else. So, if any gamepads are released in the $30 range, that might be too steep for a casual iPhone gamer like me. But what about you? How much would you be willing to pay for a gamepad for your iPhone? Tell us in the Comments section!
Via [TouchArcade ]
Posted by: Marianne Schultz
on Aug 23, 2008
Remember Open Clip’s Copy & Paste framework I
mentioned the other day? Well, it’s already broken. Yep, you read that right. Broken. The beta version of the iPhone’s next firmware (2.1b4) was released to developers around the same time that Open Clip’s framework was getting talked up on the internets, and it turns out that the “community space” that Open Clip was relying on to be the holding place for copied information to be accessed between applications will be closed off. According to an
update posted on Open Clip’s website , copy and paste within a single application using Open Clip’s framework will still be possible in 2.1, but copy and paste will no longer work between different applications.
Open Clip’s developer, Zac White, does not think that this was an intentional move by Apple, but just normal tightening-up on their part of the firmware that was probably in the works for a while. We can still hope that Apple will eventually implement copy and paste between applications in the future - it has been mentioned that this is on their radar, but just not very high on the priority list. Or that a developer will again find a way to make this work that will “stick” despite future firmware updates. I don’t know about you, but I am dying for a way to copy and paste the log-in information for that terrible viewmymessage.com site that AT&T so kindly sends vis SMS to remind me of the fact that I can’t view MMS messages on my iPhone when my friends forget that I can’t get those kinds of messages. Who’s with me?
