Google has dropped the iCal bomb. That's right. Buh-bye third party intermediaries, hello built-in Google Calendar support for Apple's open source CalDAV standard:
Joost, from the P2P masters who brought us Skype and Kasaa, went from hyper-anticipated start-up to barely whispered almost-forgotten in what seemed like the blink of an eye.
Well, according to Gizmodo, they're back baby, and with free WiFi streaming movies and media to sweeten the deal -- if only slightly:
It's kind of crashy, could use a better navigation UI and takes too long for movie streams to get going (and then when they do it's kind of finicky) but we definitely appreciate being to stream The Fifth Element over Wi-Fi in decent quality, when it actually gets going. More than anything though, it just makes us soak our pillow with even more drool dreaming of a Hulu app.
So, is the free-ness worth the -- what might just be growing -- pain? Think Joost has something here? If you try it out, let us know!
Patrik Aronsson let us know that MadInSweden has released their first iPhone game, Whack It: Frogs, intended to deliver a high level of graphics, music, and sound enjoyment. Why target the iPhone? According to Patrik:
Of all the reviews I have to write as part of the Smartphone Experts Round Robin, I have a feeling this one is going to be the hardest. See, I was a Palm OS user since the Palm V and stuck with the platform through the Treo 680, before switching to the original iPhone.
That, year after year after year, Palm still hasn't been able to ship a successor to Palm OS Garnet is inconceivable to me to the degree that what I'm now holding in my hand, gorgeous and powerful though it may be -- isn't a Palm, isn't a Treo. Not really. I was funny about that in my video. I'm actually more than a little sad about it real life.
The Treo 800 series should really be running Palm OS 2.0 "Nova". Since it's not, however, I'm reviewing an HTC handset running Windows Mobile 6.1 -- something I'll be doing almost immediately again with the HTC FUZE/PRO.
How to handle that? To avoid redundancy, I'm going to stick reviewing hardware -- a front facing Qwerty this time, slider the next -- and breaking up the software into two parts. This review (and thanks to Dieter for the idea!) will focus on the traditional Palm core -- the four pillars of PIM (Personal Information Management). The FUZE review will cover everything else Windows Mobile (media, apps, maps, etc.)
Steve Jobs is likely set to unleash the hounds on Fox's The Simpsons TV show, after they thoroughly lampooned the iPhone and all things Apple on last night's episode. Check out both videos after the break. (Via Gizmodo)
While many sites are reporting that the iPhone App Store has hit 10,000, MacRumors says it's not quite there yet, but will be soon:
While several sites have reported that 10,000 iPhone Apps have been released into the App Store, the actual number of active iPhone apps that can be downloaded is about 9,676 as of today's count. The discrepancy comes from the fact that many apps have been removed from the App Store for various reasons (trademark infringement, discontinued apps, pulled and released).
With approximately a quarter of those being games, and a tenth each for entertainment and utilities.
That Russian website post about accessing a pre-pre-release of iPhone OS 2.2.1 and finding Push Notification Service and Notes Sync? Turns out not so much. BGR says:
The site that houses the forum has posted an update to the blog post that brought attention to the push notification claim, and has stated the original posting was indeed a fake.
So we can all go back to our regularly complaining about PNS being late again, b'okay?
