Guest Author

Blackberry facing the iPhone heat… again

Guest Author ∙ November 10, 2008

From my previous post many of you may think I am a Blackberry Basher. To be very frank, I personally have no grudge against it but from recent studies one can’t help but notice that the iPhone is indeed bashing Blackberry. First, the news of the iPhone hammering down Blackberry to gain second position in overall Smartphone market share, and then the iPhone giving Blackberry a run for its money by ranking number 1 in Business Satisfaction. Now the latest news is that even in the area of reliability, the iPhone stands out as the king of the ring.

According to recent research conducted by SquareTrade group, the Blackberry has twice the failure rate of an iPhone. iPhone's average failure rate is 5.6% as against Research in Motion's Blackberry which has a malfunction rate of 11.9%. The research was conducted by taking a sample of 15000 phones covered by company's policies. On spreading the projections over a period of two years the study says, an iPhone user can expect the failure rate to be 9-11%, on the other hand Blackberry user should be looking at a figure of 14.3%.

The iPhone fared well in the department of call quality and battery issues, with only 0.5% of iPhone batteries dying versus an approximate 1% for the rivals. The overall malfunction rate of the iPhone would have been even lower had it not been for touchscreen issues and accidental damage claims. This study clearly shows that the iPhone is proving out to be more than a pain to Blackberry as it’s facing the heat from all corners.

Apple’s pursuit for IBM’s Papermaster

Guest Author ∙ November 10, 2008

Apple, who was counting on ex-IBM exec Mark Papermaster's leadership skills to steer its iPod and the iPhone engineering teams will have to wait longer to have him on board. Before his decision to leap frog to Apple, Mr. Papermaster was vice president of IBM’s Blade Development unit which sells computers for corporate data centers. He has been the head of IBM’s technology department in the past and also has had access to company’s intellectual property for long.

Given this fact, IBM is worried that Papermaster would generously give away IBM's trade secrets to Apple. The company has expressed its indignation by taking the issue to the court and has sued him on the grounds of violating a contract in which he agreed not to work for IBM's competitor within a year of leaving his job. The result: a U.S district court has barred him from working at Apple for now. In the words of Judge Kenneth Karas, Papermaster "will immediately cease his employment with Apple Inc until further order".

As end consumers of Apple, this is bad news for us. We may have to face problems like delay in getting the cool new firmware updates for the iPhone that Apple comes up with from time to time. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and pray that this court order is lifted soon. At the end of the day, Apple's problem is our problem.

iPhone Bluetooth Making Progress

Guest Author ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

According to an iSpazio article there has been a significant breakthrough on unlocking the iPhone bluetooth. What does unlocking the iPhone bluetooth mean? It means that the iPhone will be able to detect other phones, and the other phones will be able to detect the iPhone.

According to the article, an iSpazio user named MeDevil, has been working on a project called The iPhone Bluetooth Project, to unlock the iPhone's bluetooth. So far they have made significant progress by an application developed by MeDevil, and the terminal. Using this application they were able to find two other devices a Sony Ericsson phone and an Hackintosh phone, from the iPhone.

MeDevil has provided images.

Apple’s very own Podcaster

Guest Author ∙ Updated March 9, 2016

We all know how the rejection of Podcaster (an application enabling direct download of podcasts onto the iPhone) by Apple created outrage in blogging circles. Apple justified the move by telling "Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes." The excuse was rather lame given that there are loads of applications which easily fall under the "duplicate" category and yet have been approved by Apple. Developers were rather flustered about the weird Apple policies which saw their hard work go down the dumps for no valid reason.

Now to add insult to injury to the Podcaster developers, Apple is coming up with its very own Podcaster like feature in the upcoming iPhone 2.2 firmware. Take a look at this screenshot of iPhone 2.2 firmware (BETA version) from Schimanke.com.

Once you click on the App Store button on your iPhone. You will be taken to a screen which will have the "podcast" option at the bottom apart from other typical options. You can click on the podcasts button to search for your favorite podcasts and download them right onto your iPhone. One can use either WIFI or their cellular data connection (3G, Edge). A provision for Video Podcast Downloads has also been made. However, the user will require WIFI connection as the 10 MB download limit per file applies even on the new firmware.

All in all, even if it stings the Podcaster developer, one has to agree that a good functionality has been included by Apple. So thanks to Apple’s very own Podcaster, we have one more reason to wait for the new 2.2 firmware.

Best BlackBerry Vs. Mighty iPhone

Guest Author ∙ November 7, 2008

We all know that gone are the days when people took pride flashing their Blackberry's. The coolest gadget worth flaunting off is undoubtedly the iPhone. No one understands this better than the folks at Blackberry. In their quest of coming up with the best ever Blackberry model which can defy the iPhone, they have released the latest Blackberry Bold 9000.

The latest Blackberry model comes packed with WiFi, 3G, GPS functionalities. Am I fascinated? Hell No! These are like basic functions on the iPhone. Next, it has a larger screen than the previous Blackberry models. As an iPhone user you sure wouldn’t envy that. The keyboard on the Blackberry Bold is smarter and much more convenient. I would say "Whatever". (Though I would like typing to be made easier on the iPhone, I am happy enough with the touch screen for now).

If these not-so-extraordinary features weren't enough, Blackberry also comes packed with a bundle of complications. For instance: you need to manually scan through WiFi connections available nearby to get hooked to the net and also manually set up email. We all know how you can breeze through these activities on an iPhone within a matter of seconds. Moreover, the iPhone has a way better browser, a potential of being future gaming powerhouse and of course an impeccable music player. Now the strongest reason why people would steer clear of latest Blackberry: it costs $100 more than the iPhone 3G.

All this makes the verdict loud and clear: even the Best Blackberry can't beat the Mighty iPhone 3G!

The Future of The iPhone

Guest Author ∙ Updated January 29, 2016

At the Web 2.0 Summit on Wednesday, AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega described what he believed is the future of the iPhone.

In response to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington question, Ralph de la Vega announcement a long list of possible scenarios for the iPhone.

Before the iPhone wakes you up in the morning with its alarm clock, De la Vega says, it will have already loaded all of your daily news feeds onto the phone. It will also have already sent a wireless message to your coffee maker to get the coffee ready. While you’re sitting there drinking your coffee, he says, you might decide that you’d rather read your news on the TV screen; so with a wave of the device toward the TV, de la Vega says, you’ll send your news feeds wirelessly from the phone to the TV for reading.

Now you leave the house, and use your iPhone to lock the door on the way out. You get in the car. The iPhone starts your car. On the way to work, the iPhone continues reading your news to you using its text-to-speech function.

Later on, at your office, the iPhone initiates a conference call between you and two potential customers in Japan. On the call, when you speak English, the iPhone translates it to Japanese so that your potential customers can understand you. When they answer in Japanese, the iPhone converts their speech into English so you can understand them.

Now, who wouldn’t want a phone that could do all that?

Get Halo on your iPhone with iHalo

Guest Author ∙ Updated October 9, 2018

Yes, it's possible! The Halo DevTeam and Back-of-the-Bus Productions recently launched a mod for the Quake4iPhone game that allows you to play Halo on your iPhone. Currently you can only play a few levels including Sandstorm, Zanzibar, Last Resort, and King.

The Halo DevTeam and Back-of-the-Bus Productions are working on a multiplayer feature, many more levels, and maybe even a campaign mode.

Installation instructions:

1. Install Quake4iPhone from default Cydia source.

2. SSH into your iPhone and replace the Quake4iPhone folder with the one included in this mod, and re-spring

If the installation method above doesn't work for you, try this other method.

A look at Audio Notes

Guest Author ∙ Updated May 26, 2017

There are many folks and companies who thought of developing voice recorders for iPhone ages back. The evidence being a vast array of voice recorders available on iTunes App Store and we are glad that developers are providing us with some exceptional voice recording tools right on our iPhone.

Ever since I got my iPhone I have tried a bunch of audio recorders. Until recently the one which I loved the most was Newpea Audio Recorder mainly because of its ease of use and the ability to save files in mp3/mp4 format. By clicking on a button inside the application one can start recording and once the recording is done, the user can click on the file either to playback, rename or delete the file. Sounds pretty neat right, and you get this at a price of $9.99.

I was quite happy with the application but wished it had the option of recording right from the moment the application was launched and also the ability to write short notes for every recording so that I could better organize and find the right audio files at the right time without having to make much effort. Then again on second thoughts I felt I was just hoping against hopes and that developers wouldn’t care a damn about selected few like me demanding these features.

But Surprise! Surprise! On 31st October, a brilliant application called Audio Notes [iTunes Link] was released in the App Store. It not alone puts a check on two of the items on my wish-list (1. Immediate recording on launch; and 2. Short notes for the recorded audio) but also released a few other new and very useful features.

It brought out an option of prioritizing notes by assigning different colors to each of them. Moreover, an alert system is provided where you can set the date and time so that you are reminded about your notes when they matter the most. (The user is however alerted only after launching the app, wish there was a mechanism by which the application could act as an alarm and buzz the user to remind him to check the note).

Now the icing on the cake: Using this application you can directly export your recorded audio notes to the PC using WiFi via FTP in order to make a permanent backup of the same on your computer or upload them onto net. All in all, the application works like a charm and provides great value for money. At $2.99, its not at all expensive given the fact that it can bail you out of your work woes!

Price swings, Lite versions and Sub-platforms

Guest Author ∙ Updated November 20, 2008

The iTunes App Store's control over developers is notoriously binding, so none of them really expected any fancy business model to emerge. Online, nobody knows you are a dog, and people are OK to pop $.99 for something with a funny name and a promising screen cap. If you actually plan to make a living from more than $5, and you're a developer and you were not one of the three games featured at the Jobsian App Store launch... Too bad!

Get Your Coffee Fix With CoffeeBreak

Guest Author ∙ Updated February 14, 2018

TweakerSoft has just launched their new application CoffeBreak 1.0 for the iPhone and iTouch. It takes full ability of your iPhone GPS and has an amazing interface to find the route to the nearest coffee shop.

CoffeBreak has choices of the most popular coffee shops that you can choose from. Users can also view all the coffee shops in their area and easily get directions. CoffeBreak 1.0 is a must have application for any coffee addict!

You can download CoffeeBreak [iTunes Link] from the App Store for $1.99.

Your iPhone Can Quench Your Thirst For Words

Guest Author ∙ Updated March 18, 2019

Gone are the days when people went through the tedious process of looking up for a word on a bound dictionary. Electronic dictionaries on PC made the process easier but as usual we wanted more – an anytime, anywhere, instantaneous access to digital dictionaries. Some thought this was just another unreasonable whim of mankind. But as they say "whims and fancies can be a path to creativity and success". This was proved with the creation of Mobile Dictionaries, its strongest manifestation being iPhone dictionaries.

Many dictionary-related apps have been covered in this blog so far but let me give you an update on WordBook [iTunes Link], an already excellent app which has gone par excellence with the release of its latest 2.0 version. With its rich 150,000 entries you would be scanning through an 1,800 page equivalent content in a jiffy. That's brilliant, but even its previous 1.1 version had the same feature. So there isn't anything fresh on that front. However, a new feature in the latest version has the power to give pronunciations and origin of words along with their definition.

Now let's not get ahead of ourselves and shower praises since there are many dictionary applications out there providing these features. So what is it that sets this dictionary really apart? Is it the anagram window which boasts of an ability to search words whose spelling the user partly knows/remembers? Well not entirely. So what’s cooking?

Look closely at the words DICTIONARY, LINKS, THESAURUS and WEB towards the right hand side of the image above. These are not just mere words but they are links to a one stop destination to all that you could ask off a dictionary.

By default the Dictionary link is active which gives you the pronunciation, definition, and origin of a searched word. Now comes the useful part you can click on LINKS to get the synonym, antonym and attribute of the word. Furthermore, you can click on THESAURUS which gives synonyms in different forms i.e. adjective, noun and verb. If this weren't enough you can click on WEB so that wordbook directly looks up on the internet to retrieve information on the word you have searched. You can even customize and set your own favorite dictionary site to be searched by wordbook.

This phenomenal linkage of thousands of words equips you with not alone the definition of a word but also provides you with a series of similar words which can be used in different forms and contexts all from one single window. Yeah that’s true a one window access to all your wordy needs. So go ahead and "Quench your thirst for words" through WordBook [iTunes Link] that you can download from the App Store for $7.99.

Controlling Cool Electronic Stuff with your iPhone

Guest Author ∙ Updated March 18, 2019

The new Sonos[iTunes Link] Controller for iPhone app has really got me thinking about all the cool things we are going to be able to do with the iPhone. I've compiled this list of things you can manipulate with your iPhone.

Controlling your Car

Delphi has come up with a really cool app that lets your lock and unlock your car, power automatic doors, and even remote start your car. Although it is just a concept, it was demo'd at CES 2008 working with a GMC Acadia vehicle. It works with a blue-tooth enabled key fob that can work from up to a mile a way. This software also allows users to monitor and control several aspect's of a vehicle's system, including temperature, tire pressure, gas levels, oil levels, and can detect break ins.

Controlling What You Watch on TV

I already wrote about controlling your DirecTV DVR to setup recordings, but you can also control Tivo interface.

Believe it or not, You Can Use Your iPhone to Fly an Aircraft

The clever folks at UC Berkeley have developed a system to issue commands to unmanned aerial vehicles using a device we all know and love: the iPhone.

While the iPhone is specifically restricted from piloting the drones themselves, the team uses Mobile Safari on the iPhone to enter coordinates and select tasks for its airborne fleet. A web server then relays the tasks to the aircraft mid-flight.

The video shows, in real time, an exercise where a remote-controlled airplane is instructed to photograph a particular area underneath it. The photo is then transmitted wirelessly back to a workstation at ground control.

Controlling Your Home

There have been several different home automation applications for the iPhone. iPhone Home Controller lets an iPhone User set up a home automation scheme using x10 automation hardware and a Safari/iPhone/iTouch optimized web interface controller. Crestons Home Automation iPhone Application elegantly enables wired home owners to control lighting, temperature and all sorts of other things via WiFi or 3G, at home or anywhere else in the world. Users can even program in settings for multiple houses, enabling them to turn the AC on in Orlando while blasting the heat in Jackson Hole. You can get the source code for a home grown X-10 iPhone app as well.

Controlling your Bathomatic Bubble Bath Tub

You can even regulate the bubbles in your whirlpool tub with an iPhone. Now that is luxury.

Controlling a Radio Controlled Car

A guy having fun figured out how to use the iPhone to control his RC Car. He set up an interface and leveraged the accelerometer to steer it.

Controlling your Music At Home

Sonos is a wireless digital music player that plays digital music files from your PC or networked hard drive anywhere in the home. The Sonos Controller for iPhone™ is a free application that turns your iPhone (or iPod® touch) into a full-fledged Sonos Controller. I am really excited because I have been eyeing their system for years but didn't want to spend the $900. Their new iPhone app will let me buy just the ZonePlayer Base and I can use our iPhones and iTouches to control it around the house.

Remote, the well known free Apple app that lets you control iTunes and pipe music throughout your house. I described how to do this here.

Controlling your Music Jam

There are iPhone Applications that use your iPhone / iTouch touch as new generation midi controller for your favorite audio DAW or VJ performance tool. iTM MCU [iTunes Link] is the latest iTM release Mackie Control Emulation for your iPhone or iPod touch ITMMidi [iTunes Link]. ProRemote [iTunes Link] is a product that runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch that uses your existing wireless network to control professional audio products such as Digidesign’s ProTools and Apple’s Logic Music production systems.These apps free you up so that you can sit at your instrument and make changes to your setup without stopping and walking across the room every few minutes.

Control Your Computer

There are several apps that let you remotely control your home or work computer with your iPhone. Jaadu VNC [iTunes Link], formerly known as Touchpad Pro, lets you wirelessly control your PC or Mac through your iPhone or iPod Touch. You can use it to advance slides in a presentation, control your media center, check e-mail -- whatever a regular touchpad and keyboard can do. It's got various features that you really have to see to believe. With ScreenView, you can now see what's happening on your screen and control your computer even if you're miles away. Watch the video to learn more! It is a bit pricey at $24.99 but a lot more expensive that one of these presentation remote controllers they sell in office supply shops. Also available in the App Store are Mocha VNC, and Mocha VNC lite. If you've jailbroken your phone, you can use Cydia to get Veency, a very robust useful VNC application to reverse this, i.e., control and view your iPhone from your computer.

Controlling your Digital Picture Frames

Now that Wifi digital picture frames are becoming more available, I expect to see more of this, but right now I could only find one company that let you do this: Control your digital picture frame with your iPhone. eStarling frames lets you use the application by SeeFrame [iTunes Link], to send photos from your iPhone to wifi connected picture frames.