Another iPhone 4 has been discovered in the world, and this time the place is the Czech Republic! We already know what the external design of the iPhone 4 looks like but thanks to some Czech folks from the website called Jablickar.cz we now have something much more!
The official photographs taken under optimal conditions by the iPhone 4 are already out but what about the iPhone 4 potential in real conditions? Now we’ve got exclusive images taken with the rear camera as well as an HD-quality video. Read the rest of this entry »
A new Apple’s patent application entitled “Digital Radio Tagging Using an RF Tuner Accessory” has been revealed this week. It describes an HD Radio technology that may be later delivered to iPod touch and iPhone and gives its users greater flexibility in interaction with broadcast media. Nowadays HD Radio is a trademarked wireless radio format that allows FM and AM radio stations to simulcast analog and digital audio at the same time on the same channel. Currently it is owned by iBiquity. Read the rest of this entry »
After yesterday's introduction of iPhone 4 most of the Wall Street analytics expressed their opinions about new device. Everybody is satisfied and certain about new handset's upcoming popularity and that it will boost sales for Apple again. Here are the words of people to whom we are referring frequently. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is a video 'Shaping Digital Gaming' about the evolution of Gameloft company which is celebrating their 10th anniversary:
It 's a really great video. It starts with Nokia black and white, you see Java apps, than it goes to Palm Pre, iPhone and iPad. The graphical improvements are evident. We wish Gameloft other 10 years and more.
Recently UK Times published a report about Nintendo's current situation. The company's president Satoru Iwata said that he had already won the war with Sony and now it is Apple's turn. Satoru called it Nintendo's "enemy of the future".
The war with Sony was ended after last holiday season, when Wii had outsold Sony Playstation by almost double, though this year the sales of Nintendo's device in the first quarter were down 21% in compare to the first quarter of 2009.
So now the competition is held between Nintendo DS and Apple's iPod touch and iPhone platform. The latter has advantage of relatively low prices for games (moreover, some of them are even free). There are also studies, that reveal that people who like to play would rather carry an iPhone than a DS.
As you remember, last week Steve Jobs posted a letter about his thoughts on Flash and that same day Adobe’s CEO commented on it. Sometime later chief technology officer Kevin Lynch also expressed his opinion on the situation:
"It's not about HTML5 vs. Flash. They're mutually beneficial. The more important question is the freedom of choice on the Web."
In the meantime, Instead of using plugin-based technologies like Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, Apple created a new client-side framework Gianduia to produce quality online applications for retail users. Read the rest of this entry »
The picture above reveals that World of Warcraft was launched on the iPad. We don't know does it work correctly because there is no video yet, but there is information that the game was launched via Gaikai.
Gaikai is a service that allows you to play games in a browser, directly from the cloud. The scheme is pretty simple - the service runs and hosts the games and then streams it to the user using Silverlight, Java or Flash. As you know, iPad doesn't support Flash but somehow WoW works through Gaikai.
Gaikai and its competitors (OnLive and OTOY) are still in beta, but when it'll reach maturity there is a big chance to successfully use it for playing graphically intensive games on different devices including iPad.
Yesterday Apple released a minor update for its media player suite iTunes. Now the version of the app is 9.1.1 and here is a list of issues that were fixed:
Addressing some issues that improve stability and performance.
Addressing a usability issue with VoiceOver and Genius Mixes;
Addressing several stability issues with VoiceOver;
Addressing issues with converting songs to 128 kbps AAC while syncing (this function was previously available only for iPod shuffle)
More information about security updates can be found on Apple's support page here.
You can update your iTunes via software update utility or download it directly from Apple.
Apple has released a new iPhone ad called "Family Man". The commercial highlights the ability for the iPhone 3GS to capture and playback video as well as a few applications from the App Store:
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 here.
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.
The same guy who two years ago ported Linux 2.6 kernel to the iPhone has yesterday posted a video of Adroid OS running on iPhone. He is a member of iPhone Dev-team and his nickname is Planetbeing.
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 here, but he also states this version works fine only with iPhone 2G. Porting to iPhone 3G must be simple, but there may be problems with delivering Android to iPhone 3GS.
There are 30,000 games on the iPhone and this number is growing. People pay for games, but exactly how much do they pay? A new report from mobile app analytics company Flurry gives some impressive numbers. Flurry estimates that users spent $500 million on games in the US AppStore during 2009. This is up from $115 million in 2008. Compared to the overall U.S. console and portable video game market, the iPhone/iPod Touch now represents 5% of total video game sales. In just the portable videogame market, the numbers are even more exciting - Apple has 19% of portable games revenue.
The numbers are especially painful for Sony who had four times as much revenue as Apple in 2008 which dropped to just over half of Apple's revenue in 2009. With the iPad coming soon the iPhone OS will grab even more of that Portable Gaming revenue.
It seem like Apple have always been concentrated on Macs and iPhones/iPods/iPads, so their Apple TV product may be considered more like a hobby. But the company's main rival thinks of it as of another field to work on.
Intel, Sony and Google created a team to work on the device called GoogleTV. The latter already has its prototype. The New York Times says it consists of Intel's Atom processor and Android OS with Chrome web-browser. The project has been under development for a few months and there is still a work to do, but preliminary the device will be introduced this summer. To test their set-top box Google cooperates with Dish Network.
The NYT's source say:
“Google wants to be everywhere the Internet is so they can put ads there.”
It sounds plausible, because GoogleTV device is planned to allow users to browse the Internet, watch YouTube videos, check out Hulu content and even run Web apps and games.
According to Wall Street Journal, Sony is planning to launch a line of products, potential competitors of Apple devices. With the smartphone from Sony a user will be able to download and play Playstation games. Underway are the plans for another device, which will combine e-reader, PSP and netbook. Sony is also planning to create Online Service to distribute television shows, movies, games and music to the devices.