News tagged ‘mobile’

Here is our live blog from Apple's event:

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IGF announced the finalists for their 2010 mobile games competition. Last year's winners were dominated by iPhone games. This year's finalists are:

Best Mobile Game Design

• MiniSquadron (iPhone)
• Glow Artisan (DSi)
• Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor (iPhone)

Achievement In Art

• Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (iPhone) – unreleased
• Guerrilla Bob (iPhone)
• Zombie Pizza (iPhone)

Technical Achievement

• Stair Dismount (iPhone)
• SCVNGR (iPhone)
• Tumbledrop (iPhone)

Audio Achievement

• Lilt Line (iPhone)
• MuBlip (iPhone) – unreleased
• Zombie Pizza (iPhone)

Best iPhone Game

• Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor (iPhone)
• Drop 7 (iPhone)
• Hook Champ (iPhone)

The finalists for IGF Mobile will compete for $5,000 in prizes. The results will be announced on February 8th and will be showcased at GDC 2010 in March.

Apple rejected Google Voice native application for iPhone. Now Google is launching a new version of mobile web app for iPhone OS 3.0 and higher. It uses the power of HTML5, so users can run it right from the Safari browser.

To get started, just visit http://m.google.com/voice in your mobile browser. For quick access, just create a shortcut to this URL on your home screen.

According to a (now deleted) tweet by major German electronics retailer Media Markt, the Apple iPad will go on sale March 1st at a price of 499 Euros (~$700) with T-Mobile contract or 899 Euros (~$1200) without. In the US prices would likely be around $500-$600 with contract and $999 without. These numbers were calculated comparing Apple items sold in Euros and USD (Mac Mini: 549 Euros / $599 USD, MacBook 899 Euros / $999 USD).

The company, however, quickly deleted the tweet but not before it was retweeted a number of times.

Acrobat.com mobile allows you to access your acrobat.com account from anywhere to view, share, and fax your Acrobat.com documents.

You can use the iPhone 3Gs camera to scan physical documents right into your Acrobat.com account! The application comes with the ability to scan up to 5 pages and fax 2 pages for free; then it will prompt you to purchase additional scan and fax pages through in-app Purchase. This is the perfect complement to your Acrobat.com account to let you work from anywhere, at anytime!

You can download Acrobat.com mobile from the App Store for free (link).

Businessweek reports that Apple and Microsoft are currently in negotiations to replace Google as the default search engine on the iPhone with Microsoft's Bing.com. The talks have reportedly been underway for weeks.

"Apple and Google know the other is their primary enemy," says one of the people, who's familiar with Apple's thinking. "Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle."

With Google's entry into the mobile phone business as well as Apple's recent acquisition of a mobile ad company, the two businesses have encroached on each other's territories. Apple has even been said to be working on distancing itself from Google's Maps data in the iPhone.

If the negotiations are successful, it could also mean that Bing could eventually replace Google as the default search engine for Apple's desktop version of Safari as well.

Skype for the iPhone has been updated to add landscape mode, performance improvements, and a call quality indicator

With Skype on your iPhone or iPod touch you can call and instant message anyone else on Skype for free. You can also call landlines and mobiles and send SMS anywhere in the world, at great rates.

What's new in version 1.3:

• Landscape mode for IM
• Hints and Tips
• General performance improvements
• Call quality indicator
• Fixed call drop issue when returning to a held Skype call

You can download Skype from the App Store for free (link).

According to a new patent application filed by Apple, the new and upcoming iPhone OS could offer contact icons on the home screen. These icons can be used to invoke apps, retrieve and display contacts information, or can be modified to display related info, tied to an individual contact. This patent, which was filed back in July 2008.

The icon can also be used to invoke one or more applications that are personalized to the contact. The icon can be modified to display information related to the contact. In one aspect, an icon associated with an entity can be temporarily displayed on the mobile device based on the proximity of the mobile device to the entity.

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office today has accepted Apple’s filing. This could probably mean that we may soon see this feature being introduced in the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0, which is expected to be announced with the next-gen iPhone in summer.

Google today announced the launch of its Nexus One smartphone. It is based on the Android 2.1 operating system and offers 800x480 screen, 5 megapixel camera with flash,  Qualcomm's 1 GHz Snapdragon processor. The Nexus One offers 512 MB of Flash and 512 MB of RAM, and ships with a 4 GB Micro SD card with support for cards up to 32 GB.

Nexus One is initially available from the Google web store in the US without service for $529 or starting at $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile USA. In the near future, Verizon Wireless in the US and Vodafone in Europe plan to offer similar service plans.

Here is the full list of hardware and software features:

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Google has announced an Android-related press conference for January 5th, and all indications point to a launch of the Nexus One at the event.

Rumors say that the Nexus One will be offered at an unsubsidized price of $529.99, or at $179.99 with a two-year agreement on T-Mobile. There will be only one rate plan avaliable for the Nexus One - unlimited talk, text and web for $79.99 per month.

Media research firm Nielsen released its lists of top U.S. mobile phones, sites, and brands for the first ten months of 2009. The iPhone 3G took the top spot among mobile phones with 4.0% of the market. The iPhone placed slightly ahead of Research in Motion's BlackBerry 8300 series at 3.7%, and well ahead of the remainder of the pack, which was led by Motorola's RAZR V3 series at 2.3%.

Apple also made an appearance on Nielsen's list of top ten brands accessed via mobile networks for the January-September 2009 timeframe, taking tenth place on a list topped by Yahoo! and Google.

Here are the results:

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The Unreal Engine 3 is a modern 3D gaming engine which powers games such as Bioshock, Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3.

Anandtech spent some time with Mark Rein (Epic Games) last week and was shown a demo of the Unreal Engine 3 running on a 3rd Generation iPod Touch. The demo included a flythrough as well as a playable level from Unreal Tournament.

The game engine requires OpenGL 2.0 so this will restrict the game to 3rd generation iPod Touches and iPhone 3GSs only. Epic is planning on making the engine available to licensees at some point, opening the door eventually to Unreal-powered iPhone games. Epic tells Anand we're going to see Unreal running on another mobile platform at CES.

Let's watch the video demo:

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According to Impress, the iPhone has taken over 46.1 percent of the Japanese smartphone market. This is extremely surprising, because the Japanese are known for being impervious to alien cellphones, preferring their japanese mobiles. Apple wins top two positions: the iPhone 3G commands the ranking with 24.6%, while the iPhone 3GS tops at 21.5% for number two. According to survey, the reason of this huge advance in only one year is the app store and the iPhone's ease of use.

The iPhone 3G was introduced in Japan in summer 2008 (the iPhone 3GS followed earlier this year). Sources in Japan say that the iPhone user base in Japan now stands at 3 million, which is an impressive 10% of the global userbase.

Here is a full Japanese Smartphone Market top list:

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This wonderful accessory plugs into the docking port on an iPhone (or iPod Touch), and turns Apple mobile platform into the holy grail of living room devices — a full programmable, multitouch universal RI remote. Included features are: an extensive library of IR codes, customizable buttons, and RF learning from other remotes. The accessorywill be used along with an app.

There is not much information about this gadget yet, but it will be officially announced at CES in just a few weeks.

MacWorld compared nine different iPhone GPS Navigation applications:

• AT&T Navigator
• CoPilot Live N.A.
• GoKivo GPS Navigator
• iGo My way 2009 (N.A.)
• Magellan RoadMate 2010 N.A. Ed.
• MobileNavigator N.A.
• MotionX GPS Drive
• Sygic Mobile Maps U.S.
• TomTom U.S. & Canada

Prices ranged from $4/month to $100 to own. Overall the AT&T Navigator ($10/month) and MobileNavigator ($90) received the best ratings.

Here are some results in tables:

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