Twitter

The App Store Gets An Official Twitter Account

Who says Apple doesn't like Twitter? The hilarious @CEOSteveJobs Twitter account was recently approached by Twitter (on Apple's behalf ) and asked to make clear that the account was parody and not reflective of Apple Inc. While Apple had a bad impression of Twitter in that case, the company still understands the value in the "tweet."

Apple has a few official Twitter accounts in existence. The @AppStore is the newest addition. The App Store welcomed itself into the Twittersphere with the tweet, "Welcome to App Store on Twitter! Follow us to discover new apps, get exclusive offers, and share with friends. #appstore"

Apple will use @AppStore for featured apps, promotions, and hopefully some interesting App Store facts and statistics...

Verizon Uses Twitter for the iPhone

We don't need anymore proof, but hey why not, this is getting fun. The eagle eyed scouts over at The iPhone Spot, have spotted (go figure) a tweet from @Verizon, originating from the Twitter iPhone app.

Now I don't know about you, but something tells me that Verizon employee responsible for the Twitter account isn't using an iPhone on AT&T's network. You gotta admire the subtlety.

Incoming announcement tomorrow, folks.

Comex is Most Likely Saving His Next iPhone Jailbreak for iOS 4.3

So far, RedSn0w has been the only publicly released tool that can jailbreak iOS 4.2.1. The Dev Team warned users about the dangers of updating their iOS firmware to 4.2.1 before the RedSn0w beta was released. Around that time, the iPhone hacker, P0sixNinja, said that the GreenPois0n jailbreak would be ready for 4.2.1 around the same time as RedSn0w.

The GreenPois0n jailbreak has still not come out for 4.2.1, a LimeRa1n update is nowhere to be found, and all we have had is a somewhat unstable RedSn0w beta. Luckily, PosixNinja has recently said that the GreenPois0n (most likely tethered) jailbreak will actually be ready very soon. And Geohot could always come out of the woodwork and surprise us like he did with LimeRa1n.

After some drama about a leaked SHAtter exploit in mid-December, the jailbreak developer community has seemed to be a little more divided. Comex, a prominent personality in the jailbreak community, was supposed to be working on an untethered jailbreak tool for 4.2.1. However, it seems he might be saving his hack for iOS 4.3...

Apple Patent Indicates Plans For A Social Network iPhone App, With A Focus On Shopping

More and more shopping is happening online these days, but plenty of people still prefer brick and mortar stores to buy their jeggings in. On December 30th, 2010, Apple's latest patent was published. This patent hints at a native social networking app that Apple may implement in a future version of iOS. Such an app would merge social networking into a shopping experience.

This Ping-like, social-shopping network would allow users to have an enhanced shopping experience with participating merchants. Apple's patent is titled "Social Networking in Shopping Environments."

Warning: You May Want to Set a Second Alarm for Tomorrow Morning

There have been reports of outrage from iPhone users who weren't woken up by their iPhone alarm on New Year's Day morning. There is still mystery surrounding why this problem has occurred, but it seems to be widespread enough to raise concern.

As of 1/1/2011, users began complaining on Twitter that their alarm in the iPhone's clock app didn't wake them up like normal. After the clock struck midnight to usher in the new year, all non-repeating alarms in the clock app failed to sound. This problem sounds like the Daylight Savings Time issue that the iPhone had back in November.

The point is, you if set your alarm clock on your iPhone to be woken up tomorrow, you'll be getting more sleep than you intended...

The 10 Best App Store Apps of 2010

The App Store has never been a very quiet place. 2010 was no exception; thousands upon thousands of new apps were submitted to the App Store. Most of them aren't worth mentioning, but there have been some exceptional apps that have risen to the forefront of what the App Store has had to offer throughout the year 2010.

We've covered a lot of App Store apps this year on iDB, with the goal of keeping our readers in the know.

Now, we’d like to take some time to reflect on our favorite App Store apps of 2010. Being included on this list doesn’t necessarily mean the app was released in 2010, it just means that it was amongst our most utilized of this year. Drumroll, please…

WikiLeaks App Has Been Pulled From the App Store

It seems that we spoke too soon. A couple days ago, we reported that there was an unofficial WikiLeaks app in the App Store. The app allowed you to view Twitter updates and leaked documents from WikiLeaks.

Igor Barinov, the app's developer, recently tweeted that Apple had his app "removed from sale." At the time of the app being pulled, downloads of the app had nearly approached 4,500 with almost $6,000 in profit.

There is no clear reason why Apple would have pulled such an app, but it's not a shocker that a sensitive app about WikiLeaks was pulled...

WikiLeaks Has Its Own iPhone App

WikiLeaks, the globally recognized brainchild of Julian Assange, has its own unofficial iPhone app.  This unofficial app was recently approved by Apple and released in the App Store.

The app's official description reads, "The Wikileaks app gives instant access to the world’s most documented leakage of top secret memos and other confidential government documents." You can now have all of the sensitive WikiLeaks data easily available on your iPhone...

Pull To Refresh for Mail brings Twitter Styled Refreshing to Your Email

Pfft, refresh buttons, who needs 'em, right? Head into the new decade with style by adding Twitter app-esque refresh functionality to your email, courtesy of this latest jailbreak tweak.

That's essentially all that the cumbersomely named Pull To Refresh for Mail does, although it performs quite well. The only suggestion I have for the developer is to perhaps fire their entire "app naming department." Check inside for the full scoop.

Path, The Personally “Personal” Social Network

A new social network startup has been getting lots of attention over the past few days. I say "social network" with hesitation. Path is a San Franciso-based startup with some high profile employees from the tech industry. Dave Morin, the former senior platform manager at Facebook, is the company's CEO. Shawn Fanning, the co-founder of Napster, is also heavily involved in the project. Kevin Rose, of Digg fame, is an investor.

Don't let the attractive and mysterious woman in Path's web banner fool you, you won't find her on Path. In fact, you won't find many people at all. Because Path only lets you have 50 friends...

Twitter for iPhone Updated With Push Notifications

The official Twitter app for iPhone and iPad was just updated to support native push notifications for @mentions and direct messages. Push notifications can be enabled in a new pane for your account settings.

Push notifications for  the Twitter app (and what was formerly Tweetie) has been a highly desired feature for a very long time. I'm sure we're all glad that Twitter has finally gotten around to implementing a feature that should have been part of the app when it was first released...

A Favorite Mac Application Drops By the iPhone

Droplr. No, not Dropbox, but Droplr. Similar in function, similar in name, but quite different in a lot of interesting ways. Droplr is one of my favorite Mac apps, and for good reason. It allows you to quickly upload and share practically anything by simply dragging and dropping.

Just recently, the iPhone counterpart to Droplr appeared in the App Store. How does it work? If you already use DropBox, should you even consider it? And, most importantly, does it feature two way syncing between the desktop application and the iPhone app? We tackle all of that and more inside...