At the TechCrunch Mobile Web Wars event (basically a Silicon Valley roundtable discussion), the topic of conversation often turned towards, you guessed it, your favorite gadget, the iPhone. Many Execs were claiming that the traffic generated by the iPhone is extraordinary and the amount of apps downloaded in a matter of weeks are jaw-dropping.
Apple anonymized "blogger" David G. is back with the 3rd in Steve Jobs' promised regular MobileMe status updates, and this time it's all good news... at least from their perspective.
Tired of waiting for a cut, copy, and paste on the iPhone? MagicPad -- a Note App replacement that also features Rich Text editing (buh-bye Marker Felt!) -- sure was. Witness the above proof-of-concept video. Ladies and gentlemen, the holy grail of iPhone feature.
Curious as to how they implemented their solution, and what challenges they faced? So were we, so we asked them. Read on for their answer!
Are you a frequent international traveler? Are you always confused by international electrical outlets? Have you realized that there are a gazillion different electrical outlets requiring a gazillion different plugs? Well, the Mobi Products World Wall Adapter for S&C Cables for iPhone 3G, iPhone ($34.95) tries to simplify the tangled messy world of cables by giving you almost every solution in a simple adaptor. How does it perform?
Pop quiz: Moms gets home, busts out her shiny new iPhone 3G, sets it up, makes ready to snazzify it another notch with some custom art, and -- Boom! -- she finds three snapshots lurking in the Camera App. Two are blurry. One's golden: A spy shot dead in the heart of the iPhone factory.
What do you do?
Post them on the intertubes, of course! (And thanks for that!)
Folks who've transitioned over from Windows Mobile (or BlackBerry) to the iPhone (or folks who, like me, are dual-wielding) take heed: one of our favorite IM apps from those other platforms has finally made its way into the App Store. It's Palringo (iTunes Link) and it's free. Palringo is an instant messenger app that's able to talk to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, etc. It will also let you send media files (like photos). There is one downside -- you do need to set up a Palringo account to get it all going, but for now at least, if you want multi-client IM, Palringo's your best option.
"Another day, another MobileMe problem" is rapidly becoming a -- very tired -- cliche. This time around its with contacts and calendars. Or more accurately -- without them. Yesterday TUAW covered how some users' data would disappear from their iPhone after syncing from MobileMe (to be clear, it would disappear from the iPhone but remain in MobileMe).
Some MobileMe members may be unable to sync new, edited, or deleted contacts, calendars, and bookmarks over the air between computers and mobile devices (iPhone and iPod Touch). Service will be restored ASAP. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Apple identified and resolved an issue with MobileMe Sync on iPhone and iPod touch. Although no action is required for most members, some may need to reset their data from MobileMe to sync normally again.
Is it safe yet to call MobileMe the "rockiest" launch in Apple's history? Read on to find out why it just might be...
(cjvitek is back with a review of Units ($.99 at the iTunes Store), a straightforward unit conversion app. It's currently sitting pretty at #4 on the bestseller list, but does it belong? Read on to find out!)
On my old Treo, I had a great conversion program which I used frequently. When I switched to the iPhone 3G, I was hoping to find a similar program. The best I have found so far is "Units".
Units is a conversion program that allows you to convert currencies, length, area, temperature, energy units, volume, time, speed, and weight. It has a simple, straightforward interface. First you select the mode you want to convert (say, currency), then the "from" units, then the "to" units. You select these options be repeatedly tapping on the "mode", "from", and "to" buttons until you get the selection you want. Then, using the calculator style interface, you type in the number you want converted. While I haven't used the currency converter yet, the currency values are updated daily (automatically) or you can update them yourself manually.
iPhone users sure love them some Facebook. In just two weeks following the launch of Apple's App Store, Facebook's Director of Mobile, Jed Stremel announced that the Facebook App for iPhone has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times. Whether those are unique downloads, and whether all downloaders are now using it consistently aren't known, but Facebook remains in the top-ten list for free apps and doesn't look to be going anywhere anytime soon.
Thus far making good on their promise of consistent updates, Apple has once again posted as to the status of their beleaguered MobileMe service. David G. -- who may be the poster formerly known as "me" ? -- chimed back in last night:
