The New York Times is weighing in on the previous rumors published by Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal saying Apple may working on less expensive device with better voice control and MobileMe, but not an iPhone nano.
Cult of Mac, who previously rumored a storage-free iPhone nano, is now offering some more potential details on that rumored MobileMe update, including functionality that would make it a mashup of Ustream and Foursquare. According to a "source who wishes to remain nameless":
Georgia, Chad, and Rene discuss iPad 2 and iPad 3 (with Retina Display!) rumors, free MobileMe rumors, HP's new TouchPad, true multitasking myths, Apple TV gaming, and the week in apps. This is iPad Live!
Complete show notes for the week in iPad after the break!
Cult of Mac is following up on the iPhone nano rumors from Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal saying Apple will make the low price points by getting rid of all onboard storage. No NAND Flash storage, no big price tag. Apple would get around this by streaming everything from an iTunes.com/MobileMe cloud just like Apple TV 2 does today.
Verbs for iPhone is a gorgeous new IM client that just recently hit the app store. It supports GTalk and AIM/MobileMe at the moment. I'm hoping support for more clients like Facebook chat and MSN are added in an update. What really got me hooked on Verbs is the beautiful interface. It looks like an app Apple would build natively into iOS.
Another feature I really like is the fact that it supports Cloud and Droplr file transfer services. I personally love Droplr and use it exclusively for sharing images and video. I chose it as my Pick of the Week a few weeks back. This is an added bonus for me.
I would like to see full push implemented as it currently only supports local notifications. This means you'll receive notifications only if the app is running or multitasking. If you close it from the multitasking tray, you won't receive notifications any longer. Not a huge issue for some, but may be a big one for others. If you're looking for a decent IM client that comes at a fair price, make sure you give Verbs a try and let us know what you think!
It looks as though we will be seeing a new feature soon in iOS called Find My Friends, an extension to Find my iPhone that could be similar to services such as Google Latitude.
A reference to the name was found in the iOS 4.3 beta for developers and it appears to be linked to MobileMe accounts. If it is similar to Latitude, it would allows you to track your friends via their iPhone's GPS (Naturally you would have to agree to broadcast your position so as to protect your privacy).
If you use MobileMe, Windows Live, Yahoo!, or AOL for email, then you can have Ping search your contacts for friends who are also using Ping as well as send annoying invites to those friends who are not using ping. Here's how:
Ever wonder how to invite someone else to an iPhone or iPad Calendar event? Whether you're setting up a meeting for work or a gathering for family or friends, if you have a MobileMe or Exchange account (including Gmail set up as Exchange), you can send an invitation that pretty much anyone can accept. We'll show you how after the break!
Is Apple's MobileMe service worth $99 a year? Or more to the point, who is Apple's MobileMe service worth it for? Now that one of its most compelling features, Find my iPhone is free (yes, even for older devices!) it's a question we're getting asked more and more often. And it's the topic for the eighth episode of our new, conversational video show, TiPb TV!
Rene and I go over the services MobileMe provides for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users, and the additional features people with Macs -- or multiple Macs -- get out of it, what Apple might do to improve it in 2011, cheaper places to find it (like Amazon.com) as well as free alternatives like Gmail and Dropbox for those who'd rather roll their own.
If you're trying to figure out whether or not to spend the money on MobileMe watch along and we'll help you decide!
