News tagged ‘application’

Apple today launched a new holiday-themed iPhone commercial entitled "12 Days of Christmas". The ad reworks the standard Christmas carol of the same name to feature twelve iPhone applications related in some way to the holiday season:

• 12 cookies cooking: The Betty Crocker Mobile Cookbook [App Store, Free]
• 11 cards a' sending: Postman [App Store, $2.99]
• 10 gifts for giving: My Christmas Gift List [App Store, $0.99]
• 9 songs for singing: TabToolkit [App Store, $9.99]
• 8 bells for ringing: Holiday Bells [App Store, $0.99]
• 7 slopes a' skiing: Snow Reports [App Store, $1.99]
• 6 games for playing: Christmas Fever [App Store, $0.99]
• 5 gold rings: Anna Sheffield Jewelry [App Store, Free]
• 4 hot lattes: myStarbucks [App Store, Free]
• 3 flights home: Flight Search [App Store, Free]
• 2 feet of snow: Weather Pro [App Store, $3.99]
• And an app that can light up the tree: Schlage LiNK [App Store, Free but hardware required]

Let's watch the video:

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Microsoft just released an official application of its search engine "Bing". The app looks really good and is well done. It allows you to find websites, images, videos, maps, shopping, news and offers step by step directions to navigate from one point to another! There is even a voice search, a business directory, ability to add pushpins and save locations.

Bing app is avaliable for free via AppStore (link).

It seems Apple is continuing to invest in advancing web-based technologies to provide a more full feature experienced on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Daring Fireball describes in detail an impressive new web framework called PastryKit. This kit is for making HTML, CSS, and JavaScript-based WebApps.
It is already deployed in Apple's iPhone User Guide web page (when viewed from an iPhone). You can watch the video at hte end of this post.

Apple has implemented a few key interface features in Javascript that could make web-apps feel much more like native iPhone apps. These include:

• Completely hiding the address bar
• Allowing for fixed-position toolbars that don't move when you scroll
• Allows for scrolling with momentum so you can quickly scroll long lists

Since these features have been implemented by Apple in Javascript, they could be available to any web developer.

Let's watch the video:

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Apple has approved iVideoCamera, an application which lets you record video on any iPhone including the iPhone 2G and iPhone 3G. Now you don't need a 3GS to record and share videos with your friends and family. Works with firmware 3.1 OS installed and includes:

Ability to save to your camera roll or "Photos" and share via:

• FaceBook
• YouTube
• Vimeo
• Twitter and more coming soon

Limitations:

• The iPhone can only capture about 3 frames per second
• Videos are limited to about 1 minute in length
• Resolution is low: 160x213

You can purchase iVideoCamera in App Store for $0.99 (link).

This is a great step forward, because Apple did not allow such apps to be in Appstore before. The quality of the recorded video is quite low, however it might be improved in the future. Could the acceptance of iVideoCamera open the door for Cycorder, popular video recording app that can be installed via Cydia?

French site Nowhereelse.fr has published a very cool video of what appears to be a multitouch tablet device. The user is browsing through an electronic version of an Ikea catalog. The device itself is very slim and has several Apple technologies: cover flow, shake to shuffle, etc.

Is this the Apple iTablet? That's how I imagine the interaction with the Apple Tablet. However the video is fake, a clever fake over a blue screen (as you can notice on the hands' edges and shadows).

Anyway, a good concept video. Let's watch it:

On Tuesday, December 8, the official Playboy iPhone app hopped into the App Storу. Everybody can buy it for just $1.99.

The app is a scaled-down iPhone version of the largest selling men’s magazine, Playboy, and includes portions of the text from the following well known features … Playboy Interview, Playboy Advisor, 20 Questions, Party Jokes, Fashion and more.

However do not expect to see everything you can find in the magazine. Apple does NOT allow nudity in the App Store. So the application includes the Playmate’s intro, data sheet, preview pictures and exclusive behind the scenes preview video. Theresa Hennessey explained: “The pictures are all non-nude or cropped, either from the magazine pictorial or from the Playmate’s Playboy.com pictorial.”

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Apple created a list of the best iPhone games of 2009. The list is part of their iTunes Rewind 2009 where they are highlighting the best content across 2009 in music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, podcasts, and apps.

Here is a list with links to AppStore.

• Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor
• Real Racing
• Zenonia
• Ravensword
• Earth vs. Moon
• Sally's Spa
• Ragdoll Blaster
• Canabalt
• Blades of Fury
• Doom Classic
• Sway
• geoDefense
• Flight Control
• Alive 4 Ever
• Fantastic Contraption
• Samurai: Way of the Warrior
• Backbreaker Football
• Meteor Blitz
• Rolando 2
• Star Hogs
• Paper Toss
• Boost 3D
• Doodle Jump
• Zen Bound
• Stick Wars
• Eliminate Pro
• Tap Tap Revenge 3
• Call of Duty: Zombies
• iBomber
• Jet Car Stunts

Congratulations to all developers who created these impressive applications.

If you are a developer, make sure you do not make fake reviews for your applications. Apple in fact, has taken serious steps, blocking the accounts of a developer and removing 1011 applications because of fake reviews.

The developer "Molinker" had many apps. Each of them had about 50 reviews. The developer was using his promocodes (every developer gets 50 of them for every app) to write reviews for his own apps. One of the users, who bought several apps, investigated this issue and wrote to Phil Schiller. The apps and all the reviews were removed very very quickly from AppStore.

What’s incredible is that the developer had 1011 apps, which is almost 1% of the entire App Store. Well that’s 1% of the App Store that no longer exists.

The developers shouldn’t be surprised, but they are:

We got email from Apple yesterday [Sunday 6th] which told us our contract is changed to pending status.
Actually, we do not know what’s wrong so far. We had contacted Apple for such sudden changes, hope we can get quick response and actions from Apple.

Nice, isn't it?

Magazine publishers seem to already be getting on board with the concept of a media tablet even based on just the possibility that Apple will enter the market in the near future. The latest concept design comes from Time Inc who developed this design prototype to show off their plans. They think that digital magazines will replicate the print version, including advertising, and will include add-ons like multimedia and links to the Web. The publisher imagines that it will port all its titles into the new format, which it says will be ready for primetime by the middle of next year or sooner.

The ultimate design is planned to run on "whatever tablet Apple or any[one] else has up their sleeves" according to All Things Digital:

Dragon Naturally Speaking is a popular speech recognition software application for PC/Mac. Soon it will be released for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The program for the iPhone will capture a clip of about 20-30 seconds and turn into text everything that was said. Then you can send your dictation via email or SMS.

Here is a video demonstration:

Fring has added video calling support to the iPhone and iPod touch via Skype. This is a huge step further. iPhone became a videophone!

It works on Fring to Fring, and Skype to Fring. Unfortunately, it's not bi-directional. You would be able to see whoever is calling you from a desktop, but you won't be able to transmit your image. The reason is because the iPhone doesn't have a front camera, so you can't do face to face. The application will support two-way video calling if the iPhone and iPod touch gain front-facing cameras in the future. The company already supports two-way video calling on several Nokia phones with such cameras.

A promotional video highlighting the new video functionality has also been released:

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MacRumors has found a new Apple job listing seeking an iPhone Software Engineer to join the iPhone and iPod Touch Maps team with the goal of taking the iPhone's built-in Maps App to "the next level":

The iPhone has revolutionized the mobile industry and has changed people’s lives and we want to continue to do so. We want to take Maps to the next level, rethink how users use Maps and change the way people find things. We want to do this in a seamless, highly interactive and enjoyable way. We’ve only just started.

Apple and Google have increasingly become competitors in the mobile space while Google's mapping data remains an integral part of the iPhone's Maps application. Add this job listing to previous news that Apple quietly acquired Placebase, a would-be Google Maps competitor, back in July, and it certainly looks like Apple is planning something interesting (and less dependent on Google) for future Maps.app updates. Rumors say this new app will have navigation functionality.

iPhone developer Pandav informed MacRumors that they, thanks to the scripts of statistics included in their application, have managed to record tracks for a new iPhone model, not yet released.

PinchMedia, which offers a system of statistics and analysis on the use of software, has noticed the same thing and the new device is identified with the code iPhone3,1. The last iPhone released to the public was the iPhone 3GS which carries the identification string iPhone2,1. Apple similarly began testing the iPhone 3GS (iPhone2,1) back in October of 2008 about 8 months ahead of its launch.

The next generation iPhone might include a multi-core processor and Verizon compatibility. It might be released as early as mid 2010.

iH8Sn0w has posted another teaser trailer for Sn0wBreeze, a windows utility to build custom iPhone ipsw files.

Another Teaser... I have no idea why Teaser 2 was removed. Anyway. Like always, its not done yet! GUI is subject to change. Like the window sizes

Take a look below...

iPhone Explorer is a handy application for Mac and Windows. It allows users to use a USB connection and access all the system files. Users can create, delete and rename files and folders on iPhone or iPod Touch, or use the device as a flash drive. If you have a jailbroken device can gain access to the root directory. The functionality is somehow similar to iFunBox and iPhone Folder applications.

The application is completely free and you can download it from here.