Coming this spring from Mophie is the Juice Pack Air for the iPhone 3G, which is essentially the Juice Pack but with a top cover to fully encase your iPhone. I’d be excited by this concept, but I’ve been using FastMac’s iV for the last month and it’s significantly better despite it’s girth. → Read More
Video game developer Swamiware was surprised to see its latest iPhone app rejected by Apple, and so are we. The application was a harmless game that let you select a known U.S. politician (both republicans and democrats) and have him/her jump a virtual trampoline. You could use the head to pop some balloons with the White House or the Oval Office in the background, do some acrobatic flips or shake the device to clear the scene.
That was it.
Now of course we know why Apple decided to reject the application, because there are precedents. About a month ago, Tim Burks saw his cartoon being rejected as an iPhone app for likely the same reasons the Obama Trampoline was denied:
… it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:
“Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”
Just FYI – 2.2.1 is jailbroken but upgrading will totally bork your unlock.
UPDATE #2 – The real deal iPhone dev team QuickPwn (Windows/Mac) and PwnageTool (Mac only) apps are now available. They have yet to SIM unlock the new baseband (02.30.03), so tread with caution and read directions especially close if you’re planning on liberating your handset. → Read More
Students from Stanford’s Fall 1008 iPhone class CS193P created a nice crop of apps that are now available or will be soon for the iPhone (see our Stanford Facebook apps posts here and here).
A list of them is here, and some of them I’m going to keep on my phone. My favorite is iDiscover, which gives you random content you think will be interesting (text, videos, apps). You rate them and it teaches the app to refine what it sends you in the future. It’s a sort of StumbleUpon for the iPhone, and its addicting. iDiscover is free. Air Guitar, a $1.99 app, looks like it might be another winner but I’m having issues downloading it.
Among the yet-to-be-approved apps, Site Saver looks like a useful way to store web content locally. I tend to take a screen shot of whatever I’m looking at, but this looks like a better solution if it saves the whole web page rather than just what’s on the screen. And Heydar, a location-based dating application, is being released at the perfect time.
The complete list is below. → Read More
I’ve never felt so dirty in my entire life. I gave the Mophie Juice Pack nothing but praise last year and now I feel used and abused. It shouldn’t surprise me, really. The first review unit that was sent to me basically broke after a few hours. It managed to recharge my iP3G once and then failed to do so ever again. I assumed it was just a faulty unit that wasn’t caught during a QA check. But now I see the light.
Update: mstation’s Director of Sales and Marketing Ross Howe sent along a note regarding the issues I posted about this morning. Hit the jump to see what he had to say. → Read More
For $8 you can get a piece of plastic that redirects whatever sound is coming out of your iPhone 3G speaker to your face. Or the general vicinity of your face. → Read More
What if the iPhone had four cores? (If I were a rich man!) Such a rumor has, apparently, been circulating around the shell of MacWorld. With four cores, Apple could turn the iPhone into a legitimate gaming platform. → Read More
Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem sent out an email to investors yesterday updating them on the status of the iPhone/Android focused company. It was forwarded to us, and we reprint it below.
The company makes the popular Tap Tap Revenge application as well as Tweetsville and others. Like competitor Social Gaming Network, everything they touch seems to turn to gold.
In the email Decrem says they have had 5 million unique installs of Tap Tap Revenge and claim it is the third most popular application for the iPhone, after Facebook and Pandora. He also says that they have 100,000 customers who’ve paid them for apps and they went from no revenue in September to break-even in December, an important milestone.
On December 31 the company closed an additional $1 million in funding, Decrem says, adding to the $1.8+ million they had previously raised. He also says Tap Tap Revenge II will release in early February. → Read More
At the beginning of each year I traditionally publish a list of my favorite startups and products. This is the fourth year I’ve done this – previous lists: 2006, 2007, 2008. You guys get to pick the winners of the Crunchies – this list is all mine.
This is a list of the products I tend to use daily. Some are for work (Wordpress, Delicious, Zoho, etc.), some are for fun (MySpace Music, Hulu, etc), and some are useful for both (Digg, Skype, YouTube, etc.). But I use most of them every day, or nearly every day, and I would not be as productive or happy without all of them.
The list changes a bit from year to year, and is also getting longer (see chart). Just three products have been favorites all four years: TechMeme, Skype, Wordpress. TechMeme continues to be the news aggregator I check multiple times per day to keep up on tech news. Skype is the instant messaging and VoIP platform that I use most often, and Wordpress software powers all of our blogs.
I’ve added nine new products, including one gadget (which I’ve left off in the past): Animoto, Friendfeed, Hulu, iPhone 3G, MySpace Music, Pandora (which was on in previous years) Docstoc/Scribd and Yammer. → Read More
Yellowsn0w, the illustrious iPhone 3G unlocking software, dropped with the Times Square Ball yesterday, but the first beta edition didn’t work for many. Hopefully the updated 0.9.4 beta from the iPhone Dev Team should resolve those issues and allow all those Jesusphone 3Gs to be released from their AT&T shackles. So if our step-by-step guide left you frustrated and furious, give it another go with the updated software. → Read More
Wal-Mart may have teased us with the false $99 iPhone rumor, but AT&T has given us an after-Christmas surprise. They’re selling black refurbished 8GB iPhone 3Gs for $99 with a 2-year contract renewal, and refurbished 16GB iPhone 3Gs in black or white for $199. → Read More
André Bresges, professor at Köln University, announced that all the university students will receive an iPhone in the name of higher education. The plan involves the development of various applications that will help students to keep in touch with their teachers and keep track of to-do’s. They also want to develop a hierarchical application that will help organize university life, sign up for tests, blah blah. Yeah, it must be great to study in Köln. Think about all the Star Wars nerds running around welding lightsaber iPhone apps. For the (german) article, click here. → Read More
Spending your fiat money from the comfort of your iPhone is even easier, now that Amazon has released an application (“App”) for Apple’s little wonder. The mundane functions are as you’d expect: you launch the app, then you can browse and buy goods from Amazon just as you would from your computer. What’s worth singling out is this little photo-takign feature. Using the app, you take a photo with your iPhone then send it to Amazon. Then, after a bit of voodoo, Amazon sends you an e-mail with a link to products that match the photo (or its best guess). For example, you take a photo of a a french press, then Amazon sends you links to french presses you can buy from them. Technologically neat, sure, but you wonder how well it works in practice… and me without an iPhone! → Read More
Joost launched their iPhone application on the App Store this evening, giving users access to 46,000 Joost videos, including major television shows and films. The iPhone has a built in YouTube application already, giving them a serious head start when it comes to video on the iPhone. But archrival Hulu doesn’t yet – giving Joost a little room to maneuver for now.
I’m sure it’s a temporary issue, but the application just doesn’t work yet. I tried to play multiple videos, including the full length version of Men In Black, but an error message reads “The connection to the server was lost. This may be because of poor network quality. Please try again later.” Meanwhile, YouTube videos are playing promptly.
Still, when the app settles down and works properly, it will be a nice addition to the iPhone. Lots of great shows to watch while wiling away the hours on a plane. At least until the battery runs out. → Read More
Flickr’d Are you ready for some iPhone 3G tethering, that is, being able to connect your laptop to the Internet by using the iPhone’s 3G network? Sure is useful when you’re at a café or whatever that, shockingly, doesn’t have Wi-Fi. Moving on. Some details have leaked to MacBlogz regarding AT&T’s plans for iPhone tethering. The big news, I’d say, is that AT&T plans to limit data consumption to 5GB per month—go over that and you’re paying through the nose. (Those of you who need more than 5GB of 3G connectivity will be encouraged to purchase one of those wireless cards, which will no doubt be all over CES in January.) → Read More
Ever use the Myvu Crystal? It’s a pair of glasses that has a built-in VGA-quality display. The idea here is that you connect the Crystal to your portable media player or cellphone and you can take immersive audio/video with you wherever you go. That’s the idea, but like I said I haven’t used them so I can’t speak to how well they work. Doug seemed to like it, though. In any event (which is my latest crutch of a phrase, you may have noticed) the Crystal is now fully compatible with the iPhone 3G. You need to buy a separate $25 cable to get your Crystal and iPhone to play nice. Photo from Flickr → Read More
