Google Navigation coming to iPhone
Android phones have an advantage over Apple's iPhone in navigation, because Google includes their free nice Navigation program, while Apple doesn't have built in navigation in Maps. Here are some good news for iPhone users:
Google confirmed at a London press conference that it plans to bring free satnav to other smartphone platforms, including the iPhone, although it wouldn’t say when.
Unlike TomTom or iGo software, Google’s satnav software doesn’t store maps on the device but downloads them on-demand from the internet. However "Google Maps pre-caches the entire route," said Mobile Maps product manager, Steve Lee. "It needs a data connection when you ask for navigation. But while driving to your destination, if you intermittently lose the connection, it will still carry on. As long as you stay on the route."
Users can choose from several viewing options: standard maps and directions, satellite view and access to Street View, plus live traffic data. Sound like a good deal.
Flight of the Bumblebee On An iPad
Few days ago Lang Lang, who is a famous Chinese pianist, had a concert at San Francisco's Davies' Symphony Hall. At one moment he amazed audience with playing The Flight of the Bumblebee on an Apple's iPad! He made this possible with Magic Piano iPad app that is available for download
It is amazing how apps can make a device so functional. But some people say it is impossible to play like this on an iPad because its touch screen is not sensitive enough for such a fast play. You can even notice the moment when Lang Lang gives a device to conductor without skipping a beat. So probably it's just a record that was made before.
How 99-Year-Old Virginia Changed Her Life With iPad
99-year-old Virginia Cambell who lives in Lake Oswego, Oregon, is an enthusiastic reader. But she suffers from glaucoma, a disease that affects her vision so it becomes hard for her to read books.
But she found a solution - it's an iPad. It is her first computer. Virginia changes fonts and increases screen brightness to gain the ability to read back. One of her daughters said the device has "changed her life".
One of her other hobbies is writing limericks, and one of it is about Apple (you'll see it in the end of the clip).
As more stories pop up every day it is no wonder why there is such a big demand for iPad.
iRetrophone: Like Making Calls In 1937
Freelancestudios created another cool accessory for iPhone - this time it's an "iRetrophone" dock that allows you making calls with a retro handset. The design is obviously borrowed from Henry Dreyfuss, prolific industrial designer who in 1937 created the iconic type of phone.
The base is compatible with any iPhone. We also recommend installing the
iRetroPhone is available for purchase in ping, clear or black resin
iPads Become Popular Among Hospital Staff
Some time ago we posted an article about shocking popularity of the iPad among physicians. Well yesterday PCWorld posted an article about first institution which is looking forward to use this device. It is a Kaweah Delta Health Care District in Visalia, California. Its director of technical services Nick Voloshin says healthcare workers need a device with a long battery life while moving from location to location, and iPad is a great choice not only for usual everyday tasks, but also for looking at EKG results, X-ray images, and for other purposes that can be easily delivered with Citrix virtual desktop. He has already bought three iPads to test it and have plans to deploy more than a hundred for hospice and health care workers, pharmacists, dietitians and nurses in a next two months.
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Android OS has been ported to iPhone!
The same guy who two years ago
What is more important, Android has been ported to iPhone with ability to choose what OS you'd like to work with on a boot. This was achieved by OpeniBoot bootloader, which is also developed by Planetbeing.
As it can be understood from the video, this is the alpha-version of Android for iPhone though most of the functions (such as playing music, making calls, browsing Internet) are working fine. The volume buttons serve as the "home" and "call" buttons.
Planetbeing has also posted image that can be downloaded
Steve Jobs about iPhone OS 4.0 In Three Minutes
Video above can be described as a humorous quintessence of Steve Jobs' keynote when he presented iPhone OS 4.0. It is made by Neil Curtis who is known for his another 180-sec
Interesting facts from Apple Financial Results Conference Call
Recently Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer had a financial conference call with the press and analysts. Here are some interesting facts we gained from the conversation:
Google Purchased Agnilux For Reasons Unknown
Dan Primack from Pehub.com reported yesterday that Google acquired Agnilux. The latter is a startup company in San-Jose comprised of former Apple, P.A. Semi, Cisco and TiVo employees. It is intriguing that there almost no public information about the reasons why Google bought it and what Agnilux has recently been working on. One of the Google representatives confirmed the information but didn't comment it on.
Agnilux's website is currently unavailable, so we have no information about the company. But because of former P.A. Semi employees it seems like Agnilux may be working on a new chip that can be a rival to Qualcomm's SnapDragon or Apple's A4 SoCs. But, according to an investigation made by New York Times in February, one of the employees named Mark Hayter said:
"We want to make a splash. We don't want our manufacturer to take our intellectual property before we're ready".
So it looks like the company's main purpose in kept in a big secret. But it is known that later NYT heard from another Agnilux employee that the company is working on server and has a partnership with Cisco. Well that might be interesting to Google whose thousands of servers till this moment have been made by the company's engineers but not purchased.
Multitasking in iPhone OS 4 beta 2
Apple added new and beautiful animation for multitasking in the latest firmware 4 beta 2. Here's how it looks like now:
Apple releases iPhone OS 4 beta 2
Today Apple released new SDK and iPhone OS 4 beta 2 (8A248C). This is only for developers, who can download it here.
We will keep you updated on new iPad/iPhone/iPod features that will be found in this new firmware 4 beta 2.
Photos of future iPhone 4G internals
Gizmodo decided to take apart the future iPhone 4G before they will return it to Apple. It is interesting just to see what's inside. And this is one more confirmation that this phone is from Apple. There are three separate places, inside the case, where APPLE is written prominently.
Here is a photo gallery of iPhone's internals:
Skyfire Browser Will Bring Flash To iPhone
Some time ago Apple approved Opera Mini and now everybody can download it for free. Skyfire team understood it as a reason to work harder so now they look forward to bring their own mobile browser to iPhone and iPod Touch. Skyfire CEO Jeff Glueck congratulated the Opera in his company's blog and told about upcoming version for 'iDevices'.
The idea of their app is almost the same as for the Opera - the browser also renders web content though the remote servers of the company and then presents it on a mobile devices. But with Skyfire users can view Silverlight, Flash and Quicktime content without needing any of the plugins or powerful processor.
The video above shows how the Skyfire browser works on Symbian devices.
iPad App Store Will Be Worth $1B in 2012
One of the developers named Vimov made some quick math and figured out that in two years the iPad apps market will probably be worth at least $1 billion by 2012. It can even be much higher if the iPad will gain the same success as the iPhone had a year ago.
Vimov, who developed the Weather app for iPad, says Apple makes $136 million in a year from the first thousand of apps available for the 500,000 iPads that have been already sold in the US.
“If the iPad App Store were to be like the iPhone’s, then 40-60% of the sales would occur internationally, so on average that figure would rise to become $272 million per year.”
As you remember, the iPhone helped Apple to gain 4 billion downloads in 19 months.
Jobs recommends to buy Android-based phones
And we're back now with a new e-mail reply by Steve Jobs, received from a TechCrunch reader. He was interested why Apple doesn't apply parental control to apps released in AppStore but simply denies accepting it. Jobs' answer was suddenly long, and he recommended to buy an Android-based phone.