Apple has issued a fix for iOS 3.1.3 App Store download bug. The bug in question removed the ‘Download’ button altogether when users running the older firmware attempted to acquire apps from the App Store.

Since the App Store is essentially a native wrapper around a web-based interface, Apple is able to update it without having to push out a full version of the whole OS. That can lead to things breaking out of nowhere, but also getting fixed.

It’s good to know that Apple still has the backs of those running on firmware that’s now going on two years old.

Source: Apple Support Communities via Engadget

Reports in Apple’s Support Community suggest some users running on older iOS 3.1.3 firmware are no longer able to download apps from the App Store after Apple pushed out an update on December 16th.

Specifically, when users jump into the App Store and try to download any app, the download button is completely missing altogether. Although fragmentation within Apple’s iOS ecosystem is extremely limited — at least compared to the closest competition with Google — some users are still running older iOS versions.

There’s currently no fix outside of upgrading to a newer version of iOS, but for some users with older devices that simply don’t support current iOS versions, this could become a serious problem. Hopefully Apple pushes out a fix soon.

Source: Apple Support Communities via Engadget

Apple has released another update for the Apple TV, this one is numbered 4.4.2.  It appears that Apple has been having some strange problems with recent Apple TV updates with widespread reports of devices having to be restored using iTunes after the 4.4 and 4.4.1 updates. If you are already running version 4.4 or 4.4.1, Apple wants you to perform a system reset before updating to this latest version.

Apple TV devices with software version 4.4 and 4.4.1 have an issue with updating software to later versions. The recommended way to resolve this is go to Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings, prior to updating. Note: If you apply the software update without resetting all settings first, the updater will reset the settings for you.

Source: Apple

We’ve known for a while now that iPhone 5 won’t be coming out this month, as it has for the last four years, but this fall, when iOS 5 is also scheduled to ship. Whether one delayed the other, or Verizon contracts, component shortages, engineering hours, a deliberate decision to change the launch schedule, or some combination of factors caused the delay, we may never know, but now rumors suggest new Macs are similarly on hold, this time waiting on OS X Lion before they ship.

Steve Jobs has always stressed that Apple is a software company, and has several times quoted Alan Kay’s “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware”. They make beautiful boxes out of glass and aluminum and stainless steel and plastic, but as recently as WWDC 2011, Jobs called software their “soul”.

iPhone has always been tied to major new releases of iOS (previously iPhone OS), the two launching together with precise regularity. (iPod touch has almost always coincided with an iOS x.1 release, and iPad launched with the unique-to-iPad iOS 3.2, and iPad 2 came with the more modest iOS 4.3).

New Macs, however, were seldom if ever tied to new OS X releases. Users who bought new Macs on or around OS X launches would get a free upgrade offer or a DVD in the box, or something… less than coordinated.

But MacBook Airs with ThunderBolt ports and Sandy Bridge processors might just be on hold for Lion now.

Apple hasn’t always had luck with big, coordinated releases. They — and their servers — struggled under the same-day iPhone 3G, iOS 2, MobileMe, and App Store release back in 2008. But they have kept their mobile releases in a row.

There was little chance we’d see iPhone 5 announced with WWDC as shipping in June with iOS 4.3, upgradable to iOS 5 in the fall, and if rumors of Macs waiting on Lion pan out, could Apple be moving to an even more tightly integrated hardware/software model? Could we see a day where OS X and iOS releases are coordinated so features that bridge both, like iCloud, “just work” as desktop and mobile both come on line?

[Apple Insider]

The Verizon iPhone is one of the most anticipated smartphones in recent memory, made even more so by the endless rumors and years of waiting those who wanted it had to endure. Now it’s here and while the radio has changed it’s still pretty much the same iPhone 4 Apple shipped on AT&T back in June 2010. A 7 month old phone on a brand new network is not something iPhone users have had to consider in the past. Is it worth the wait? Is Verizon really a better network? Does CDMA have important shortcomings you need to be aware of? Will the entire thing be rendered moot when Apple announces an iPhone 5 in June?

Figuring out the answers to these questions and more have kept all of us at TiPb extremely busy over the past couple of weeks. So hit the jump and on for our full Verizon iPhone review!

Since the Verizon iPhone 4 is still an iPhone 4 we’re only going to look at and compare the differences between the Verizon model and the AT&T/GSM model here. If you haven’t already, check out our original iPhone 4 review to see all the features that are similar including FaceTime video calls, Retina Display screen, 5mp camera and HD video recording, etc.

In the box

You’ll get the standard Apple headphones, the wall adapter, a sync cable, and your manuals. The only difference is really the phone and the back of the box.

The back of the box simply specifies the carrier. Other than that, everything should be the same. Oh let’s not forget that you won’t get a handy dandy micro-SIM removal tool, since CDMA phones don’t use them.

Hardware differences

The Verizon iPhone has different breaks in the antenna band than its AT&T/GSM sibling. Even though the antenna band was redesigned for CDMA, I don’t see any improvement when it comes to the “death grip” issue (see our explanation of “death touch” vs. “death grip” for more on this). If anything, I experience it more than I do on my AT&T iPhone 4. I’m not sure if attenuation on the Verizon version is worse because of a difference between CDMA and GSM or if it’s something else. I experience the issue on my AT&T iPhone but it seems that the signal doesn’t drop as quick and when it does, it goes up quicker when I’m not touching the break in the band. The Verizon version seems to lose bars a lot quicker and it takes a bit longer for them to come back.

As most people have already figured out, putting a bumper or a case on your phone will solve the death grip problem.

Other than the breaks in the antenna bands, the mute switch and volume buttons are moved down about 2mm on the Verizon iPhone 4. This is because of the break in the antenna at the top left of the phone. For users coming from an AT&T iPhone 4, this can be annoying as many current iPhone 4 cases will not work as the silent switch and volume buttons are positioned differently.

The only other difference I have found is that the Verizon iPhone 4 doesn’t have the FCC and other clearance marks on the back the way the AT&T/GSM version does.

Software differences

The AT&T/GSM iPhone 4 is currently running iOS 4.2.1. The Verizon iPhone 4 launched with iOS 4.2.6. The only major feature 4.2.6 adds is personal hotspot capabilities (called mobile hotspot on other devices). AT&T has announced that they will offer mobile hotspot as well but no dates have been given yet, and it will require an iOS 4.3 update. Currently AT&T offers internet tethering for iPhone users but you are limited to Bluetooth and USB tethering.

The Verizon version supports wifi tethering for up to 5 devices. This is extremely nice if you’re somewhere without wifi and need to access the internet from a wifi only device (like a wifi iPad). You can simply enable the mobile hotspot feature and it’ll show up as a wireless network on your other device. You can also choose to add a password if you’d like. We’ll cover that below.

Syncing data

If your’e coming from an AT&T iPhone, you’ll feel right at home. Actually, if you’ve ever used an iPod of any kind or an iPad, you’ll already know what to do. The Verizon iPhone is no different than its AT&T brother. Plug into iTunes, sync your content, and you’re good to go. Verizon also offers a contact transfer app for current customers that’ll easily bring down all your contacts wirelessly for you (given you use Verizon’s contact backup service). If you need more help:

• How to transfer data from your old AT&T iPhone to your new Verizon iPhone
• How to transfer data from your old Blackberry or Droid/Android to your new Verizon iPhone

There’s really nothing new here, both iPhones will sync and store data in the same manner.

Apps

All the apps that run on the current AT&T/GSM iPhone also run on the Verizon iPhone (with the sole exception of carrier branded apps, like AT&T Navigator.) Apple has hundreds of thousands of apps and games available for the iPhone and Verizon will be releasing some carrier-specific ones as well, hopefully something to tie into their NFL deal. Here are some good starting points:

• Top 10 best iPhone 4 apps
• Top 5 iPhone apps for Droid/Android switchers
• Top 5 iPhone apps for BlackBerry switchers

Call Clarity

CDMA is long known to handle calls better than GSM. But is that really true? When it comes to clarity, sure. But you do lose some features when using a CDMA iPhone. Conference calls are only good for up to 3 people, including yourself. The way calls are handled can differ too. On AT&T, if you initiate a conference call, you can merge the calls, split them off, and hang up separately. On Verizon, hanging up on one will hang up on both. This is also a downside of the current version of CDMA Verizon is utilizing.

In most of our Verizon voice tests, call clarity was always on par with AT&T or better.

Personal Hotspot

Personal hotspot is definitely a welcome feature to iOS. It’s also only available for Verizon customers at the moment. AT&T has stated they have plans to release it, presumably with the launch of iOS 4.3, but no date has been given yet.

This feature allows you to turn your phone into a wireless hotspot. Up to 5 devices at a time can connect and use your iPhone 4′s internet connection. We tested this pretty thoroughly and found that it works as promised. I was pretty impressed with the speeds and reliability.

Data Speeds

Verizon is offering their customers unlimited (though potentially throttled) data, while AT&T only offers 250MB and 2GB data tiers. This is a huge selling point for them. But can their network handle the traffic? From our experience, yet it can. Quite well actually. Leanna and I both conducted speed tests. Mine in the Chicago area and hers in the Denver area. While AT&T was much faster for me, in real world situations (even tethering), neither of us had issues with Verizon and it always loaded pages within seconds of our AT&T iPhones. Sometimes it even loaded them quicker.

Data speeds and network reliability will, of course, heavily rely on coverage in your particular area. AT&T typically handles well in larger populated areas while Verizon has been known to have a strong network in rural areas as well. We conducted several Verizon iPhone 4 speed tests and the results were more than respectable.

Verizon iPhone or AT&T iPhone?

That’s really a decision each individual person is going to have to make. As always, you should base it on what the coverage is like where you live. For some, AT&T and Verizon may both be strong players in your area. If you’re in that situation, take a look at each carrier and what benefits GSM has over CDMA and vice versa. We also did a Verizon iPhone 4 vs AT&T iPhone 4 comparison. We pitted them against each other, and both held their own. You’ll really have to weigh out what options are more important to you. Do you need simultaneous voice and data or are you more concerned with call clarity? The little differences can end up being annoying over time so it may be worth it to weigh your options and choose the carrier that’ll best fit your individual needs.

State of the Verizon Jailbreak

A lot of potential Verizon switchers have been asking if they’re able to jailbreak if they switch. The answer to that is a big fat yes! greepois0n supports the Verizon iPhone as well. I jailbroke mine on launch day without a hitch. We’ve also got a complete guide up on how to jailbreak the Verizon iPhone 4. So if you’re a jailbreaker (or want to be), make sure to give that a look.

Wrap Up

We had quite a week playing with the Verizon iPhone 4. We came away feeling that Verizon is definitely capable of delivering a great customer experience. I’d have no qualms about using the Verizon iPhone 4 if you don’t need simultaneous voice and data or don’t mind some of the little annoyances that come along with CDMA. The plans on both carriers are roughly similar with the exception of Verizon offering unlimited data while AT&T only offers tiered.

Now that Verizon finally has the iPhone, both businesses are going to have to compete for our business. For almost 4 years, AT&T hasn’t had to compete for iPhone revenue. If you wanted an iPhone, you were going to play by their rules. Those days are long gone and we have a feeling it’s going to get pretty interesting from here on out. Let the carrier wars begin!

The Verizon iPhone 4 and the AT&T iPhone look almost identical at first glance. There are, however, subtle differences between the two model’s hardware and software. The antenna band on the Verizon variant has been redesigned for CDMA and iOS 4.2.6 adds hotspot connectivity for Verizon users. Click through for a quick comparison and photo gallery.

What’s in the box?

The Verizon iPhone 4 is pretty much the same deal as the AT&T iPhone 4. You’ll get the standard Apple headphones, the wall adapter, a sync cable, and your manuals. The only difference is really the phone and the back of the box.

The back of the box simply specifies whether or not the phone is Verizon or AT&T. Other than that, everything should be the same. Oh let’s not forget that you won’t get a handy dandy micro-SIM removal tool, since CDMA phones don’t use them.

Hardware differences

The Verizon iPhone has different breaks in the antenna band than its AT&T sibling. Even though the antenna band was redesigned for CDMA, I don’t see any improvement when it comes to the “death grip” issue. If anything, I experience it more than I do on my AT&T iPhone 4. I’m not sure if attenuation on the Verizon version is worse because of a difference between CDMA and GSM or if it’s something else. I experience the issue on my AT&T iPhone but it seems that the signal doesn’t drop as quick and when it does, it goes up quicker when I’m not touching the break in the band. The Verizon version seems to lose bars a lot quicker and it takes a bit longer for them to come back.

As most people have already figured out, putting a bumper or a case on your phone will solve the death grip problem.

Other than the breaks in the antenna bands, the mute switch and volume buttons are moved down about 2mm on the Verizon iPhone 4. This is because of the break in the antenna at the top left of the phone.

The only other difference I have found is that the back of the Verizon iPhone 4 doesn’t have exactly the same certifications and FCC clearance marks the AT&T version does.

Software differences

The AT&T iPhone 4 is currently running iOS 4.2.1. The Verizon iPhone 4 launched with iOS 4.2.6. The only major feature 4.2.6 adds is personal hotspot capabilities (called mobile hotspot on other devices). AT&T has announced that they will offer mobile hotspot as well but no dates have been given yet, and it will require an iOS 4.3 update. Currently AT&T offers internet tethering for iPhone users but you are limited to Bluetooth and USB tethering.

The Verizon version supports wifi tethering for up to 5 devices. This is extremely nice if you’re somewhere without wifi and need to access the internet from a wifi only device (like a wifi iPad). You can simply enable the mobile hotspot feature and it’ll show up as a wireless network on your other device. You can also choose to add a password if you’d like.

Signal strength differences

I have noticed signal differences in both models. While the AT&T phone seems to keep a steadier signal when it comes to physical bars, the Verizon iPhone seems more finicky when it comes to maintaining and keeping a steady signal. I thought maybe this was just an issue at my home but after testing it out in several different environments, this does seem to be the case. It didn’t ever affect call quality so I don’t see it as a big issue. The picture above I took while writing this article, tethered to Verizon. The iPhone shows 3G with no bars yet I’m tethered on my MacBook, a friend is tethered browsing the web on her PC laptop, and my AT&T iPhone is connected. The internet is still functioning. I do not think the Verizon bars are extremely accurate.

The AT&T version, even with full bars, took quite a bit longer to connect a call than the Verizon version. The fact that CDMA has better voice quality is not a secret. This held true whenever testing call quality on both devices.


There were times when I had 2-3 bars on the Verizon iPhone and full bars on the AT&T iPhone and the Verizon version still seemed to have better call clarity.

This is one of those issues you’re going to have to look at closely before deciding which carrier to go with. While Verizon seemed to have better overall voice quality, AT&T did much better than Verizon when it came to data speeds. I’m still a bit freaked out by being able to tether with no bars. Extremely odd.

While testing personal hotspot, the Verizon iPhone faired extremely well. The connection was steady and barely ever cut out. When tethering on AT&T (using MyWi), the connection was faster but I didn’t think it was such a huge difference that Verizon users would be hindered by the slower data speeds. Unless you plan on downloading substantially large files or streaming media, the Verizon hotspot will work perfectly fine for browsing and basic internet use.

If you’re a frequent talker, Verizon may suit you better. If you rely heavily on e-mail, text, media, and web – AT&T is probably going to serve you better if you live in an area with 3G coverage. Again, this is really going to come down to what you want to use the phone for.

Syncing data

If your’e coming from an AT&T iPhone, you’ll feel right at home. Actually, if you’ve ever used an iPod of any kind or an iPad, you’ll already know what to do. The Verizon iPhone is no different than its AT&T brother. Plug into iTunes, sync your content, and you’re good to go. Verizon also offers a contact transfer app for current customers that’ll easily bring down all your contacts wirelessly for you (given you use Verizon’s contact backup service).

There’s really nothing new here, both iPhones will sync and store data in the same manner.

Conclusion

The Verizon iPhone is definitely a contender. AT&T should be concerned. Verizon is offering unlimited data and personal hotspot tethering. Their data speeds may not match those of AT&T 3G or HSPA+, but they’re going to be good enough for a majority of users. Likewise the Verizon CDMA iPhone can’t roam in anywhere near as many countries as the AT&T GSM iPhone can but many users are more concerned about a good network at home than abroad. Data hungry users could be swayed by Verizon’s unlimited data offering as well. I think it’s only a matter of time before we see AT&T bring back their unlimited feature. Unless Verizon switches to tiered data soon, AT&T will have to if they want to compete.

In the end, the Verizon iPhone is only going to benefit consumers in the United States. Up until now, if you wanted an iPhone, you had no choice but to be tied to AT&T. Now that we have a choice, things are only going to get better for the customer as two reputable carriers are going to have to compete for our business. So no matter how you look at it, the Verizon iPhone 4 is a winner.

The Gold Master of iOS 4 that was just released yesterday after Steve Jobs WWDC keynote has already been jailbroken by msft.guy. This was accomplished by using some hackery along with the Dev Teams’s existing Pwnagetool.

The Dev Team has stated that they do have a working jailbreak for the final iOS 4 but we will not see that until June 21st or shortly there after so it may be wise to hold off on this particular hack. But if you are feeling brave and just have to jailbreak your iPhone 3GS running the iOS 4 GM then feel free to give it a try using these directions here.

Video after the break!

[Redmond Pie]

Just hours after it’s beta release, iPhone OS 4.0 has been jailbroken and iPhone Dev Team member MuscleNerd has the video to prove it. The method of which this was done will remain kept under lock and key until it’s release this summer. Something else to keep in mind is that there is no guarantee that Apple won’t throw in a monkey wrench to shake things up between now and the final build.

How many of you are already thinking about jailbreaking 4.0 when it goes live?

Video after the break!

Looking to kill some time before the big iPhone 4.0 keynote? From the Forums is a great way to do that! In order to create any new threads of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is a simple process that will only take a few minutes out of your day, so if you have not already already done so, head on over and register now!

• Which iPhone OS did you start with?

• Discuss the iPhone OS 4.0 software here!

• Give Away: Crosswords for iPad

• What do you think of the iPhone OS 4.0 software? (This thread will be open after the keynote is over.)

• Your iPad and screen protectors: Yes or no?

See you in the forums!

AppleInsider is reporting that they are hearing from reliable sources to expect multitasking in Apple’s iPhone 4.0 software. This is not the first time we’ve heard about multitasking being included in 4.0 but if it does hold up to be true it should silence many of the iPhone haters out there while making all iPhone owners jump for joy.

The iPhone currently does do some very minimal multitasking with apps such as email and iPod, but those of you with jailbroken devices are well aware that the iPhone can handle full blown multitasking with ease. Apple has just been shy to enable it since day one claiming it would bring poor battery performance along with various security threats.

The sources also claim the 4.0 software is still a long way off from being finished (this summer) so show some patience as good things come to those who wait.

Anyone else excited for some iPhone 4.0?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

According to the gadget website T3, Microsoft Senior Product Manager Mike Tedesco recently let it be known that the Seattle based company is currently toying with the possibility of creating a version of their Office suite for Apple’s iPad.

“Yeah, it’s something that we’re looking at,” said Microsoft’s Mike Tedesco, who is the Senior Product Manager for WindowsBU. “Obviously the announcement (of the iPad) is really fresh and there’s nothing to announce or nothing that I can talk to you about today. We’ve had tablet technology forever and both Windows 7 and Windows Vista automatically detect that and you can be running your Office on there.”

This is great news as it is has the ability to attract a huge sector of business users to the iPad. Perhaps this is just a sign of things to come between Apple and Microsoft. We first heard the rumor of the two companies trying to oust Google by making Bing the default search engine on iPhone. Now we learn Microsoft is interested in Office on iPad and what’s next, Office on iPhone?

[Via MacRumors via T3]

Apple’s new iPad tablet is essentially a larger form-factor iPhone 3GS or iPod touch G3 which leverages both the bigger, 1024×768 screen and an updated iPhone 3.2 OS with enhanced versions of existing apps like Mail and Calendar, new offerings like the iBooks e-book reader and store, low-cost 3G data plans, and a 1GHz Apple A4 processor.

Critics have called the iPad “just a big iPhone” and fail to see how it changes anything. Supporters have called the iPad “a big iPhone” and feel it changes everything. Which is it? Until it ships in March (for the Wi-Fi version) or April (for the 3G version) and TiPb gets to do a full-on review, we can’t say for sure. But we can go through and preview what we’ve seen so far and try to figure out just which direction Apple’s leaning. And we’re going to, after the break!

What is the iPad and Where Does it Fit?

At their “Come see our latest creation” keynote (available now via Apple.com and iTunes), Apple CEO, Steve Jobs announced the iPad as a new category of device in-between the smartphone and a laptop. That’s not to say in-between devices didn’t exist before, they certainly did — netbooks, tablet PCs, large media devices, etc. have all tried to be that device and most have failed. Just as there were MP3 players before the iPod, however, Apple aims to mainstream the concept and possibly create if not a new category position, then a new contender to be that category.

Sure, the iPad could be just a large slab of glass too big for the pocket and too underpowered for productivity. Or it could be a highly abstracted computing appliance with an incredibly intimate, easy-to-use interface. It could fail to catch on, like others before it, or it could conceivably mainstream computers the way the iPhone mainstreamed smartphones. Geeks might enjoy using it on the sofa or while traveling. Non geeks might enjoy finally having a way to browse the web, handle email and appointments, consume music, movies, TV shows, and e-books, and use apps and games without the massive overhead involved in managing even a modern Windows, Mac, or Linus-based machine.

Significantly Better

In order to introduce the iPad, Steve Jobs said it had to be significantly better at a few key things than either a smartphone or a laptop. His list included:

• Browsing
• Email
• Photos
• Video
• Music
• Games
• eBooks

The ability to hold all that in your hands and interact with it through a fast, fluid multitouch interface was Jobs’ pitch — so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smartphone. But for whom?

Horizontals and Verticals

Again, geeks often buy just to have the latest gadget, but for non-geeks, an iPad might be preferable to a file-system bound PCs that require tons of tech-support from manufacturers or tech-savvy family members. No anti-virus or anti-malware, no hunting down and installing software and only partially uninstalling it later, no drivers to be driven mad by, and runtimes to rundown the system.

TiPb and many others have joked that this could be the perfect machine for our mom, but that just means it could be perfect for anyone who finds current computers impenetrable and hostile. That includes grandparents who just want to see photos and movies of the grandkids and email them back and forth. It also includes those young grandkids who, if the iPhone is any indicator, can take to the user interface like fish to water.

The lack of an iSight webcam does hamper this, however, as many grandparents actually want to see their grandkids (apply that equally to any friends or family).

For verticals, it could also be a boon to medical professionals, teachers and students, technicians, business users, or anyone who needs an easy-to-use interface that’s highly customizable via apps, and incredibly low maintenance. Whether that’s to review x-rays, carry around tons of interactive textbooks, follow detailed schematics, or use rich data visualization models, the iPad could be a better, more specific solution while on rounds, in class, at a customer, or on the road.

A Bit of History

Before we begin to look at where we are today, it’s interesting to once again note that the iPhone we’ve had since 2007 was an adaption of older, existing Apple tablet efforts. The iPad (or Safari Pad) started life before the iPhone but ended up being released later. Much of the technology in the iPhone and iPod touch comes from work on the iPad, Apple just felt they could productize the smartphone and iPod version earlier, and that the iPad just wasn’t ready yet.

Today, Apple thinks it is.

iPad Hardware

If the original iPhone 2G (and the iPod touch G1 that followed it) established Apple’s take on the iconic black slab, the iPad establishes the black slate. Like the original iPhone and like all generations of iPod touch, it’s backed by an aluminum unibody — and the 3G-enabled version even has a similar black plastic, antenna friendly, cutout. And like all versions of iPhone, the front is a single piece of glass wrapped in a silvered bezel.

Size Matters

If we examine the size, the iPad is 9.56″ high compared to 4.5″ for the iPhone and 4.3 for the iPod touch. Width is 7.47″ compared to 2.4″ for both the iPhone and iPod touch. Depth is 0.5″ for the iPad compared to 0.48″ for the iPhone and 0.33″ thin for the iPod touch. Weight is 1.5 lbs for the iPad compared to 4.8 ounces for the iPhone and 4.05 ounces for the iPod touch.

So in terms of size, the iPad is more than twice as high and three times as wide as an iPhone, and it’s quite a lot heavier as well. It’s certainly not pocketable but it is portable. Sure it’s heavier than a Kindle but that’s a tradeoff for the aluminum and glass-covered, full-color screen.

And oh, what a screen. 9.6″ diagonal as opposed to the iPhone’s 3.5″, it’s LED and uses IPS — the same technology found in the new 9:16 iMac display. While we haven’t seen the iPad’s screen in action yet, the iMac’s is phenomenal, with an incredible range of bright, beautiful colors and ultra-wide viewing angle perfect for sharing with lots of people sitting on a couch together (if you’re familiar with older generation displays, and how the colors would seem to invert from an angle, have no worries about that here.)

It’s also oleophobic, aka oil resistant, just like the iPhone 3GS.

Where the iPhone and iPod touch which have 3:2 aspect ration screens, the iPad’s is 4:3 like an old standard definition TV. By contrast, Apple’s old iMac had a 16:10 ratio, and their new iMacs, like modern HDTVs, have 16:9 aspect ratios. Why has Apple gone in the opposite direction for the iPad?

Unlike a TV, where you sit across the room and the screen fills a relatively small part of your field of vision, and like the iPhone, the iPad will be held much closer. Even with monstrous letterboxing, the video will still fill a large part of your field of vision.

Of course, the iPad isn’t only a video player. There are other forms of content to consume. For web browsing, even 16:10 sometimes feels too “short”, and you need to scroll more than you like. For books, a narrow page may not be ideal, and with a two-page spread, those pages will seem squat, squarish. In that context, the 4:3 ratio could be a good compromise.

Bottom line, the iPad is more to lug around than an iPhone, but if you’re used to lugging a laptop or netbook, taking an iPad with you will be a breeze. Taking it in addition to that laptop, however, might be annoying — and something Apple likely hopes you do instead of, not as well as.

Buttons, Ports, and the Usual Paucity Thereof

The iPad boasts just as many — or rather just as few — physical controls as the iPhone and iPod. There’s a home button just below the screen, an sleep/wake button on the top, and mute button and volume rocker on the side.

Update: As of March 12, when the iPad officially went on pre-order in the US, Apple updated the specs to indicate an “orientation lock” had replaced the mute button on the iPad. As the name implies, this hardware button will prevent the iPad display from rotating — a boon to those who want to read while lying down, for example. As to the mute functionality, that will now likely require holding down the volume rocker.

To control anything else, Apple expects you to use that beefy multitouch display.

Ports are similar. There’s the iPod-standard 30-pin dock connector at the bottom, a 3.5mm headset jack, weirdly shaped speakers on both sides, and a microphone.

That’s right, no USB or Firewire, no HDMI. You can get video-out via VGA adapter (meant for business use with projectors) and Apple’s existing composite and component A/V cables. A new dock adapter also allows cameras and SD/SDHC camera cards to be connected so pictures and video can be loaded into the iPad. Since the iPad supported 720p video files, here’s hoping Apple ads an HDMI adapter to the list sooner rather than later.

Astonishing Accessories

Apple is providing a basic dock for the iPad [$29 - Apple Online Store link], just as it does for the iPhone, as well as a case [$39 - Apple Online Store link] that can be flipped open and around to prop up the iPad for easier typing or movie viewing. There’s also a 6-foot extension for the AC USB power adapter [$29 - Apple Online Store link], and the aforementioned video cables.

What is new — what’s astonishing given Apple’s history with the iPhone — is a second dock that’s attached to, and provides full support for, an Apple-style hardware keyboard [$69 - Apple Online Store link]. Yeah, we almost fell over too. And if that’s not enough, the iPad can also use Apple’s — or anyone else’s — Bluetooth keyboard as well.

This means people who might not have considered an iPad for serious text entry can now consider it, and could potentially take it on short trips instead of a netbook where they’d use just the iPad functions 80% of the time, but still need a hardware keyboard once and a while.

We hold great hope that both make their way back to the iPhone and iPod touch with all deliberate speed.

Last but not least for business users, Apple is providing a dock to VGA adapter for running presentations on a projector [$29 - Apple Online Store link].

Apple A4 System-on-a-Chip

One of the biggest stories coming out of the iPad launch was Apple introducing their own system-on-a-chip, dubbed the Apple A4. Other than the announced 1GHz speed, no one will know the exact details until the iPad ships and is subsequently torn down. We won’t know for sure until there’s a post-launch teardown, but Apple is either using an optimized version of the same single-core ARM Cortex A8 CPU found in the iPhone 3GS, or the next-generation multi-core ARM Cortex A9.

Similarly, Apple is either using the same PowerVR SGX graphics core as the iPhone 3GS, or the newer generation version introduced this year. There’s been no word on RAM yet, though Apple did say the A4 had an on-board memory controller.

To be clear, Apple isn’t making their own chips (at least for now), they’re just putting the chips they want together in their own way.

Up until now, with Apple controlling software and hardware, it’s been difficult for competitors to produce as nicely integrated devices. With Apple controlling the internals as well, its only going to be harder.

Storage and Pricing

Storage and pricing go together like Apple and $100 increments. Trust us, that makes sense if you’re at all familiar with how Apple determines low, medium, and high-cost versions of their iPod and iPhone families, and now iPad as well.

As of March 12, you can pre-order the Wi-Fi version for pickup at your local Apple Retail Store or delivery on April 3, or the 3G version for delivery in “late April”.

For the Wi-Fi only model, you’re looking at:

• $499 for 16GB [Apple Online Store link]
• $599 for 32GB [Apple Online Store link]
• $699 for 64GB [Apple Online Store link]

For the Wi-Fi + 3G model, it increases to:

• $629 for 16GB [Apple Online Store link]
• $729 for 32GB [Apple Online Store link]
• $829 for 64GB [Apple Online Store link]

Those are the same storage options currently available on the much smaller iPod touch, so yes, we’re disappointed. Physically, our guess is Apple could have fit 128GB of solid-state NAND Flash memory in the iPad. Whether they could have fit 128GB without significantly raising the price-point, however, is another story. That Apple was prioritizing low price over huge specs isn’t surprising here.

And what a low price it is! After analysts and journalist either predicted or were fed a $999 price point, announcing at $499 made the iPad seem like a sweet deal, and it is given the functionality of even that 3G-less, low storage version.

Like with the iPhone, we’re betting people get lured into the Apple Store for the $499 but realize even $699 or $829 for the 64GB, 3G version isn’t that much more amortized over the course of the 12-36 month product life (gadget lovers tend to update every year, mainstream consumers only when they have to).

Cheap, No-Contract Data Plans… if You Have a Micro-SIM

For the version of the iPad that supports 3G cellular networking, unlike the iPhone — which remains locked to carriers who, in exchange, subsidize its price to the tune of $450 — is being offered unsubsidized and unlocked. You can run it on any 3G carrier that supports UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz), which included AT&T — but not T-Mobile US. It also supports GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), however, so if you really want to run it on T-Mo (or Wind in Canada) you can do so on the much slower 2.5G.

Sounds great, but as Apple has done in the past, they’ve jettisoned current technology for next-generation. Instead of the ubiquitous 2FF Mini-SIM cards used by the iPhone (and almost all modern GSM phones), the iPad uses smaller, 3FF Micro-SIM cards. Steve Jobs said, if you have one, you could stick it in the iPad and it should “just work”. Trouble is, most people don’t have a Micro-SIM yet. No doubt AT&T should by launch, and we’ve heard T-Mo, O2 in the UK, and Orange in France are getting them as well.

Speaking of which, Apple didn’t stop the low-cost train with just the iPad itself — they somehow got AT&T to agree to unprecedented data plans:

• $14.99 for up to 256MB of data
• $29.99 for “unlimited”

We’re fairly certain “unlimited” is the typical “use over 5GB’s at your own risk. That they’re off-contract, however, and unlocked is outstanding. Customers can get on-demand, pre-paid data for times when they’ll be traveling, anywhere in the world. What’s more, Apple says you can enable the data plans right on the device, making it super convenient.

If you go for an iPad 3G, you can select and purchase your plan on a month-by-month basis right on the iPad. Choose the 256MB plan and you’ll get messages alerting you when you have 20%, 10%, and 0 data left so you can turn 3G off, add another 256MB for an extra $14.99, or upgrade to an unlimited plan right from the device.

Whether or not this will be rolled-out internationally is unknown. We should know more by June when Apple said they would announce more network deals.

As to the AT&T data plans, they can be managed directly on the iPad itself.

iPad Software — iPhone 3.2

The iPad doesn’t run full-on Mac OS X. If you want a highly-portable Mac, Apple offers the Intel Core2 Duo-powered MacBook Air with Nvidia graphics that runs Adobe CS 4, including Photoshop, well. In other words, you can hammer nails with a screwdriver but that’s not its intended purpose, and in Apple’s mind the iPad’s intended purpose meant the right tool for its job is iPhone OS X in general, and iPhone 3.2 in specific.

With 70 million iPhone and iPod touch devices sold to date, Apple pointed out that there’s a huge base of consumers already educated on how to use their brand of multitouch interface, something they must consider important in mainstreaming the iPad.

iPhone Inside

That’s right, the iPhone 3.2 OS that’s been missing in action for actual iPhone and iPod touch owners have been waiting for since late 2009 has finally shown up — and so far it’s iPad only.

Now that’s not to say iPhone and iPod touch owners might not get it eventually, like in March when the iPad ships, and it does bring some interesting things to the iPad that we’d all appreciate. And, Apple being Apple, it also lacks some things that we really wish it didn’t lack.

Some of what’s lacking — and we’ll get to specifics below — might well change before launch. The iPhone added the YouTube app between introduction and shipping, for example. Also, if Apple holds true to schedule, March will bring us an iPhone 4.0 sneak preview event, which means anyone getting an iPad on release could get a free software update that adds significant functionality in June/July — just as previous iPhone and iPod touch users have enjoyed for years.

All that being said, here’s where we stand as of today.

System-wide Embiggening

Apple Senior VP of iPhone Software, Scott Forstall said that all of the built-in apps for the iPad’s version of iPhone 3.2 were re-written from the ground up. Since the screen is much bigger, that makes sense. Where on an iPhone or iPod touch you have to switch screens to get to list views like the Email inbox or album contents, or change options without having to go to a separate settings window. Primarily these are exposed through “popover” menus, especially in portrait mode, and side panels in landscape mode.

Scrubbers, seen on the iPhone 3GS for video trimming, also get bigger and pushed out across the system so you can scrub through everything from photos to calendar days.

Multitouch gestures like pinch-to-zoom are found in more apps, and from the demo of a prototype version of the game NOVA, more complex gestures are also possible — such as three-finger turns.

Lastly, the virtual keyboard is much bigger and MacBook-looking (it even includes faux ridges on the F and J keys!) that almost MacBook size in landscape mode

According to numerous hands-on reports, however, the home+sleep button combo to take a screenshot isn’t currently implemented. (Do a reviewer a favor, Apple, flip that switch and soon.)

Photos from the Lock Screen

The iPad has an almost identical lock screen to the iPhone and iPod touch with the exception of an extra button that launches photo slide shows. Essentially, when your iPad is off and especially when its charging in its dock, it can become a 9.6″ digital photo frame (with a gorgeous LED panel!)

However, if photos aren’t your thing, if you’d prefer weather, news, Facebook or Twitter status updates, or… anything else, you’re out of luck. Full screen or dashboard-like widgets, Apple doesn’t currently offer any other way to use that giant screen when locked.

Like with the iPhone, you can set wallpaper for your iPad Lock Screen background. But that’s not all…

Home Screen: Bring your own Wallpaper, Even in Landscape

Like the iPhone, the iPad Home Screen hosts all the icons for the built in apps, App Store apps you’ve downloaded, and websites/web apps you’ve created short cuts for. Unlike with the iPhone, however, you can customize the background of your iPad Home Screen (without Jailbreaking!). And what’s more, you can set wallpaper for both the Lock Screen and Home Screen, or each separately. Customization! (From Apple!) If you don’t want to use your own photos, Apple provides several wallpaper options.

While the demonstration and associated press images have shown an iPhone-live 4 icon wide grid for apps, the iPad simulator shipped as part of the iPhone 3.2 SDK (more on that later) shows up to 6 apps can fit in the dock.

What’s more, the iPad Home Screen can now be rotated into landscape mode.

Spotlight

The iPhone’s Spotlight search feature shows up pretty much intact on the iPad, both as a “Home Screen” swipe to the left, and as a built-in option for Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, iPod, etc. You can also rotate it to landscape where it shrinks horizontally and appears as an overlay for easier scanning.

Accessibility

Also transported over from the iPhone are Apple’s terrific accessibility features which can either be called up via a triple-click of the home button, or through Settings. They include Voice Over, Mono Audio, Zoom, Closed Captioning, and White on Black.

Calendar Goes Weekly

iPad Calendar takes visual cues from both iPhone Calendar and Mac iCal but really looks like it comes into its own, with the real-world look and feel Apple has sprinkled throughout the iPad, and all the room the big screen provides.

Along with month, day, and list view, it also gets a week-view, which the iPhone still lacks.

Like the iPhone, iPad can sync iCal, MobileMe, Google, Microsoft Outlook, AOL, either via iTunes or over the air (MobileMe, Exchange, GoogleSync, etc.)

Contacts

iPad Contacts gets re-envisioned to look more like… well, a contact book complete faux open page design and ornamental bookmark.

Not much in the way of new functionality has been shown yet, though the SDK shows hints that either camera hooks from the iPhone were left in (and SMS and phone call handling hooks as well), or Apple has plans for future iPad devices.

Notes

iPad Notes, in landscape view, gets the side panel list so you can jump quickly from note to not without having to navigate back and forth like you do on the iPhone. In a move that might be the highlight-equivalent of the still-in-use Marker Felt font for body text, Apple helpfully circles the current note in red…

Maps, Still with Google

Like on the iPhone, Apple created an iPad Maps app that hooks into Google’s ginormous back end of location, satellite, and street-view data. The biggest change is — wow, does it look great on the bigger screen.

The “page curl” to access settings remains, and no matter how nice it looks, why this inconsistent method exists only in Maps remains a mystery.

Also, popovers make an appearance in Maps, for example when you start typing in a search, a popover appears containing suggested terms. While not expressly shown, it’s not difficult to imagine this is another system-wide addition across the built-in apps.

Popovers also appear for bookmarks and even the information boxes when you tap a pin.

As an aside, it’s nice to see Google still playing a role inside the iPhone/iPad OS, despite rumors to the contrary.

Videos and that 4:3 Aspect Ratio

Rather than being included in the iPod app like on the iPhone, iPad has a separate Videos app like the iPod touch. As mentioned, due to the 4:3 aspect ratio, you’ll get some chunky letterboxing on video, especially the HD video (we’re guessing 720) that Apple claims is supported. If you prefer, you can tap to fill the screen but you’ll lose part of the picture on both sides — something that will not doubt make cinemaphiles cringe.

Due to the bigger screen real-estate, however, instead of a vertical list, poster art is shown in an iTunes-style grid.

There’s also a large, thumbnailed chapter view for titles that support it.

YouTube, Now in HD

The YouTube app for iPad pulls in the H.264 version of Google’s popular video site and supports high-definition now as well (though what resolution that means, we’re not sure yet).

Unlike the iPhone, where you can only see full-screen video, or video information or related videos on separate screens, on the iPad you can see a partial screen video with all that information displayed at the same time.

You can also share videos via Email or Facebook.

iTunes Store

The iPad wouldn’t be part of the Apple ecosystem if it didn’t include the iTunes Store. Visually, this version looks more like the Mac iTunes than the iPhone, with multiple panels that let you keep browsing along the sides and bottom even as you call up more details on top.

When you select something, however, an overlay spins out of the album art to give you more options — something very different than either the iPhone’s full-screen change or desktop iTune’s window reload.

App Store — 150,000 Apps for That… and This!

The App Store on the iPad looks like two iPhone App Store list views side-by-side at the bottom, and a big CoverFlow view stacked on top. Since CoverFlow hasn’t been shown elsewhere on the iPad yet, it’s a little strange seeing it here… When an app is selected, the app page proper looks similar to the desktop iTunes presentation.

Far more interesting than the UI, however, was the announcement that “almost all” existing iPhone OS App Store apps — 150,000 and counting — would run on the iPad. (We’re taking “almost all” to mean the same ones that don’t run on an iPod touch due to the lack of a camera and telephony will likewise not run on the iPad for the same reason).

That’s huge, and it gives the iPad a monstrous software library right out of the gate, and it means anyone who already has iPhone/iPod touch apps can just hook an iPad up to iTunes and sync over their existing library (or, we supposed, just download them again from the App Store for free).

On the iPad, iPhone apps will run at normal size, framed in a black box, or can be pixel doubled via a 2x button to appear almost full-screen. The pixel doubling looked okay if not perfect, and better on fast-moving games then static social networking apps.

What’s more, thanks to the simultaneously released iPhone 3.2 SDK for iPad, developers can make iPad-specific user interfaces that take better advantage of the larger screen, and can also make “universal binaries” where users can download an app and be presented with an optimized UI for their iPad and one for the iPhone depending on which device they run it on at the time. We’re guessing this will make apps bigger overall, but simpler for the end user to manage. Of course, developers will also have the option to make, for example, App X for iPhone and App X for iPad and offer both independently on the App Store.

iPad apps will have their own section in the App Store to make them easier to find. A few prototypes have already been shown off, including the game NOVA, the New York Times newspaper app, New Yorker darling Brushes, MLB at Bat, and Need for Speed Shift.

We should also mention the iPhone 3.2 SDK contains some extra hooks that we haven’t seen in the iPad yet, including VoIP, a file repository, external display support, iChat-style video calling, file downloads from Mobile Safari, support for telephony like SMS and calls, and some prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard”. We may see more of this in the future, or we may not. With Apple, anything is possible.

Interlude — Still No 3rd Party Background Multitasking

Of course, the elephant in the iPad is that — just like the iPhone — none of the 3rd party App Store apps will run in the background and multitask. So you can’t run 2 apps at 1x side-by-side in landscape, though they’d easily fit. You can’t stream Pandora or Slacker while surfing the web (you have to use the iPod app, which does work in the background). You can’t leave AIM or BeeJive open to check for IMs while you’re composing in Email. (Push notifications should work for the latter, same as the iPhone, but it wasn’t demonstrated.)

That may change for power-users with a Jailbreak-like effort post-launch. Better yet iPhone 4.0, should be shown off and made available in beta form sometime in March, right around when the WiFi-only iPad ships. As of today, however, iPad apps remain unitaskers.

Likewise, nothing resembling a widget platform, such as Apple’s own Dashboard widgets, were shown off. They’d make just as much sense as optional popovers while using other apps as they would for glance-able data on the Lock or Home Screen.

Pounding out a blog post in Safari, if the menu bar alerted me to a new IM or @mention, being able to tap it, get a popover, quickly fire off a response, and go back to blogging would undeniably be better for some users than the current work, get push notification, exit app 1, launch app 2, perform action, exit app 2, launch app 1, resume work. Certainly the market for full-screen word processors and other window-shaded productivity apps on the desktop shows some prefer to “get things done” without distractions, but that’s not how everyone works.

And when you start getting into bigger touch screen devices, the idea of multiple app windows being visualized together, like Palm webOS cards or even Mobile Safari Pages makes me drool for drag-and-drop functionality. Holding to float and drag to re-arrange within an app is excellent. Being able to hold to float and drag into another app with be phenomenal. Maybe we’re not there yet in terms of hardware or software, or maybe iPhone 4.0 will start us down that road, but it’s something important to point out iPad and iPhone 3.2 haven’t shown off yet.

Safari Web Browser

Safari was the first app Steve Jobs showed off during the iPad demo and it resembles nothing more than the iPhone’s Mobile Safari gone big screen. Pinch to zoom, swipe to scroll work just as you’d expect though there’s obviously less zooming and scrolling needed on a 1024×768, 9.6″ screen.

All the controls are now at the top, which seems global on the iPad, and popovers rather than screen changes let you access things like bookmarks.

Instead of the horizontal, swipe-able “pages” view on the iPhone, the iPad gives you a thumbnail view where 9 pages can be seen and selected in a grid view (Apple only shows 7 in the promotional graphic but we’re assuming 9).

Safari for iPad continues Apple’s exemplary support for HTML5, CSS3, and other advanced, standards-based web technologies. Unlike the iPhone, it will even play supported video forms (H.264) in line, or you can double-tap for full screen.

What hasn’t changed is support for plugins, which includes Java, Silverlight, .Net, ActiveX, but most notably for most users — Flash. Apple has stated that plugins in general and Flash in particular accounts for the majority of crash reports on the Mac platform, and that along with CPU requirements and battery drain are reasons for not having it on the iPad, just as they don’t have it on the iPhone.

Most users don’t care about that, however. They care that they can’t get their videos and games, including Hulu, Farmville, and adult content (aka porn). YouTube has a built in app for the iPad and other video sites like Vimeo have started making H.264 versions of their videos available as well. Games like Farmville are mouse-based and may require rethinking for the iPad’s touch controls anyway, can be offered as App Store apps, and Flash-maker Adobe has announced that their next version, Flash CS5 will allow Flash apps to be compiled as iPad/iPhone App Store apps anyway. Porn is an early adopter and already specifically targets the iPhone, so iPad should prove not problem for them (we’re told!)

That just leaves Flash-only websites, common to entertainment, restaurant, and other types of businesses that want to bring the visual excitement. Also to “Rich Internet Applications” that want to do more than even HTML/CSS/JavaScript based WebApps typically allow. For them, and for users who go to their sites, the iPad will only show the same blue lego-block of plugin fail that the iPhone shows now.

Apple likely won’t change their mind about supporting Flash, and some websites will want or need to keep using Flash because HTML5 and other new, standards-based alternatives just aren’t feature competitive yet. So if Flash-based web sites are a must for you, and you avoided the iPhone, you’ll probably want to avoid the iPad as well.

Email — No Longer Pane-less!

iPad mail supports the same Exchange, MobileMe, Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail, and most other IMAP and POP mail accounts as the iPhone.

However, anyone tired over having to tap in, tap out, tap in, tap out, to move non-linearly between email messages in those accounts will be happy to know the iPad Mail app integrates the inbox with the message view window via a side pane in landscape mode and a popover in portrait mode.

In landscape view, rather than full screen email composition, Apple again provides an overlay. Fans of less eye-travel will no doubt appreciate it…

Otherwise, it’s the same rich, HTML Email with embedded pictures you’re used to on the iPhone, including viewing support for .jpg, .tiff, .gif (images); .doc and .docx (Microsoft Word); .htm and .html (web pages); .key (Keynote); .numbers (Numbers); .pages (Pages); .pdf (Preview and Adobe Acrobat); .ppt and .pptx (Microsoft PowerPoint); .txt (text); .rtf (rich text format); .vcf (contact information); .xls and .xlsx (Microsoft Excel).

Rumor has it, on the iPad you will also be able to choose other apps in which to open attachments, such as sending a Word .Doc file to Apple’s new iWork Pages app for iPad.

Data detectors, familiar to Mac and iPhone users both, discover phone numbers, email addresses, locations, etc. and turn them into links so you can call, message, map, and otherwise act upon them with a tap.

Photos, Now with Multitouch Peeking

Photos for iPad shows your picture albums in a grid of rough stacks.

Tapping on a stack takes you to a grid of photos in that gallery with a thumbnail-ed scrubber along the bottom as an alternate means of selection. Tapping on a photo gives you a big, full-screen view.

In one of the few new multitouch tricks Apple unveiled with the iPad, you can also spread/pinch to zoom only partially in or out — to peek at the contents of stack to make it it’s the one you want before opening it. To open, you can keep spreading, and to close you can pinch it back down into a stack. This is the kind of thing we hope to see more of from Apple, because we know we’ll see more of it from App Store developers.

Photos also includes the de facto slide show functionality, and Apple has made some nicely animated ones like the paper-folding inspired Origami, which can be viewed in the app or from the Lock Screen.

if you sync with iPhoto on the Mac, it will also pick up Faces (albums of people you know, based of facial recognition), Places (albums of locations you’ve been to, based on GPS), and Events (albums of things you’ve done, based on time stamps).

As mentioned previously, Apple is also providing an accessory to import photo directly into the app, though we haven’t seen how that works yet.

iPod

Unlike the iPhone, the iPod app handles music and video. On the iPod touch, there’s no iPod app but two separate Music and Video apps. Confusingly, on the iPad there’s the aforementioned Video app for video, but an iPod app for music.

Consistency quips aside, iPod on iPad again looks more like iTunes player on the desktop, with a grid of albums

Again, instead of the iPhone’s full screen switch, when you select and album a widget-like square flies out with the track listings.

You can, of course, also get full screen album art, and in one of the least Apple-like UI choices seen on the device, darken it down and superimpose white lyrics on top of it.

We understand as well that iTunes LP will be fully supported on the iPad, which is Apple’s new interactive, old-school album format replete with all sorts of bonus material including video.

iBooks and iBookstore

In addition to the updated built-in apps, Apple announced a new app available for download from the App Store called iBooks and is Apple’s entry into the eBook space. (Likely it wasn’t built in so as not to appear overly predatory towards existing eBook clients like Amazon’s Kindle app).

iBooks has two parts. The front — literally a bookshelf metaphor — contains a grid of your existing iBooks. Tap one and it zooms up full screen, or into a 2-page spread in landscape mode. You can tap to change a page or swipe to “turn” it complete with page curl. Apple is trying hard for the real-world interactions here.

When viewing a page, a popover allows you to increase or decrease the font size, and change the typeface. Options include Baskerville, Cochin, Palatino, Times New Roman, and Verdana.

Apple also mentioned that, along with color, video could be used inside iBooks. That will make them compelling for educational and professional settings.

In terms of format, Apple is using Adobe’s ePub, which means ePub titles elsewhere might work on the iPad. However, iPad ePub iBooks most likely will use Apple’s iTunes DRM (the same kind used on iTunes movies and TV shows, and App Store apps) and won’t be compatible with other readers. DRM-Free books, like DRM-Free music, will work fine on iPad and any device supporting the format. If you have existing DRM-Free ePub books, just drag them into iTunes and sync them over.

Apple is also saying that the accessibility feature, Voice Over, will work with iBooks. Amazon ran into significant problems with the authors and publishers when they enabled a similar function on the Kindle and had to remove it, then make it opt-in. (Authors and publishers claimed it infringed on Audio Book rights). That Apple has the feature listed means perhaps they’ve obtained approval from all iBooks publishers and authors for the rights, or perhaps they’re willing to take on the fight Amazon picked then backed away from.

Unlike iPod and iTunes Store, which are offered as separate apps, iBooks integrates the new iBookstore into the reader. At the tap of the screen, the bookcase flips around and you’re in the store. iBookstore looks visually very similar to the iTunes Store, which makes perfect sense. Browse for titles, tap to get more info, and hit Buy to make it your own. (At which point the book case flips back, the title appears top left on your shelf, and a handy bookmark is left to remind you it’s new).

It should be noted, however, that iBooks may be US only at launch, since content licensing on an international scale is a long, slow, bag of hurt. (Which may also be a factor in the app being downloadable rather than built-in).

iWork — Keynote, Numbers, and Pages

The other three, new App Store apps debuted by Apple were ports of their Mac productivity/office suite, iWork, which includes Keynote for presentations, Numbers for spreadsheets, and Pages for word processing.

According to a comment by Steve Jobs after the event, they’ll support exporting as Microsoft Office docs for PowerPoint, Excel, and Word respectively, as well as PDF, just like the Mac versions.

Advanced features shown off included animations for Keynote, charts and tables for Numbers, and auto text wrapping for Pages. Multitouch controls, such as tap and hold to float slides or table rows for easy repositioning, and bounding circles similar to iPhone cut/copy/paste for image positioning and masking all looked surprisingly usable.

Highlighting the benefit of a the virtual keyboard, just like Safari has a specialized layout for URL entry, Numbers includes specialized keyboards for numeric entry and formulas.

Each app will be available for $9.99 in the App Store, presumably in time for the March launch.

So Should You Buy an iPad?

After all that, it still comes down to one question — with all it has to offer (or not offer, depending on your point of view) — should you buy an iPad, and if so, when?

(This preview was long enough, so we’ll tackled it in a follow up post).

Not Concluded

It’s impossible to offer a conclusion on an announced but unreleased product. First, a lot can happen in terms of the final iPad release between now and March, or nothing could happen at all. Also, seeing a demonstration or spending a few minutes with the device will be different than having time for a full-on review.

For now, the question remains whether the iPad with just be a big iPod touch, or whether it will transform general-purpose computers the way the iPhone did mainstream smartphones and become a big iPod touch.

Either way, we’ll update this preview as often as required by new developments, so look forward to TiPb’s continuing coverage!

ZDnet is reporting that Microsoft has plans to port their Zune software over to other platforms… and that means rumors of Zune on iPhone.

“Zune is a music and video service from Microsoft. Period, Our next step is mobile phones, but we haven’t talked about a timeline for when that will happen.”

Just more proof that Microsoft is treating the Zune platform as software rather than hardware. Now, we don’t know about any of you, but we are highly doubtful you will ever see Zune content on any iPod or iPhone. But for all of you who are Mac owners and Zune faithful, this may be a good sign of things to come as sometime in the near future you may be able to sync your Zune with your Mac.

Then again how many of you actually own a Zune?

[Via ZDnet]

On the fence about downloading iPhone 3.1? Wondering what’s changed since iPhone 3.0? Need a handy link to send your friends who may have questions? TiPb’s got your back with our complete iPhone 3.1 Software Walkthrough.

Previously, we took you through all three beta versions, now we’ll take you through the final release.

And we’ll get started, right after the break.

What Hasn’t Changed

A lot. Too much to list neatly this time around. When you finish reading this walkthrough, go back and read our iPhone 3.0 walkthrough. It’s a giant compared to this.

Still, there are a few talking points…

iTunes 9 Features

It’s also worth noting that a couple of new features touted for iPhone 3.1, like Genius Mixes, and App Management are actually contained in the simultaneously released iTunes 9. See our iTunes 9 Software Walkthrough for more.

Bug Fixes

Big .0 releases are typically followed up swiftly with quick .1 bug fixes. While the swift part here is debatable — though on par with last year’s update — the bug fixes aren’t. Among the issues addressed:

• Better iPhone 3G Wi-Fi performance when Bluetooth is turned on
• Fixes issue that cause some app icons to display incorrectly

Note, we’d heard iPhone 3.1 would also fix the Spotlight issue that displayed deleted emails, but Apple doesn’t list it, and we’ve heard reports it isn’t yet fixed. (Though it apparently was in iPhone 3.1 Beta 3. Strange.)

Home Screen

With the iPhone 3GS and its accessibility features, you can now enable triple-clicking of the Home Button to toggle VoiceOver, Toggle White on Black, and Ask (which then will pop up a menu offering Turn VoiceOver On, Turn Zoom On, Turn White on Black On).

Voice Control

Voice Control in iPhone 3.0, after holding down the Home button for several seconds, let you speak simple commands to place calls and control music. With iPhone 3.1, it will now also work over Bluetooth.

Just hold down the Bluetooth call button as you would the Home Button, let go, and Voice Control pops up. State your command into the BT mic, and Voice Control will “speak” the confirmation (whether it gets it right or not) through the BT earpiece.

MobileMe Find My iPhone Remote Passcode Lock

Expanding on the Find My iPhone remote tracking and wiping service that came with iPhone 3.0, you can now also remotely assign a passcode lock. This is a nice half-way ground between leaving your iPhone wide open, or having to wipe it clean, if you can’t find it but aren’t sure you’ve permanently lost it.

Messages

Still no MMS for AT&T users. That’s being released on September 25 (though whether it will require an iPhone 3.1.1 update, or just a new carrier file is unknown).

For those outside the US with working MMS, you can tap the action button at bottom, left to save them to the camera roll, just like you could previously do with pictures under iPhone 3.0.

Calendar

Calendar gets a minor tweak in iPhone 3.1. Now event alerts also display the location of the event in the popup. Presumably, this is now considered important glance-able information.

Photos

Video trimming is now non-destructive. Previously, if you trimmed a video, it was automatically saved over the original, meaning you could never undo or go back to the full clip. Now, a Save As… dialog gives you the option of preserving the original and creating as many version copies as you want (an short clip to email, a longer one to share to YouTube, and the full clip to sync and bring into iMovie, for example).

Maps

We haven’t seen this show up yet ourselves, but during Steve Jobs’ iPhone 3.1 overview, the slide behind him listed Sponsored Links in Maps as a… feature. (Maybe that’s why Google CEO, Eric Schmidt was there?). Not quite sure how we feel about this in a built-in app either, as opposed to a site we choose to navigate to in Safari…

Settings

Setting usually accounts for the longest list of changes in a new iPhone firmware, but this time it’s fairly short.

Settings: General: Usage now includes a separate meter for Tethering Data. Apologies again, AT&T users, but for those outside the US — if it proves reliable! — it could help avoid nasty overage charges if you exceed your data cap.

Settings: General: Accessibility includes that aforementioned toggle for the Home Button triple-click to enable quick Accessibility switching. Options include Off, Toggle VoiceOver, Toggle White on Black, or Ask which will launch a pop-up and let you choose between the above and Turn Zoom On.

Settings: Safari now, finally, has that toggle to enable Fraud Warnings for malicious web sites (like phishing sites, malware sites, etc.).

iTunes Store

iPhone 3.1 lets you display available iTunes account credit both iTunes Store, and in the App Store, and allows you to redeem gift cards and other promotional codes.

Also, iTunes U is now “better organized”.

In addition, displacing Podcasts (which moves to the other side of the tracks beneath the More tab) is Ringtones, displayed like music, and available ready-made for $1.29.

App Store

Since the App Store is closer akin to a local WebView, it’s fairly easy for Apple to update the App Store (or iTunes Store) without updating the firmware. Case in point, the night before iPhone 3.1 went live, the App Store was updated to feature “Top Grossing” as one of the view options.

Apple has extended their Genius technology to recommend apps as well in iPhone 3.1. The Genius tab appears under Featured, taking the left-most slot. Once you log in, activate, agree to the terms of service (twice!), Genius will crowd-source other iTunes App Store users with similar tastes in an effort to suggest apps you don’t have but might enjoy. (The app on which the recommendation is based is listed on top of the suggested app — nice touch).

As mentioned above, you can now also see your current iTunes Store credits in the App Store, and you can now also redeem iTunes gift cards, promo codes, and certificates here as well. Feature. Parity.

Phone

Copy and Paste comes to the Phone Keypad. Just tap and hold and the input area will change from dark blue to light blue, and the Copy Paste menu will pop up.

The iPhone Paste feature is “smart” enough to change alphanumeric phone numbers to pure numbers (i.e. 1-800-FLOWERS to 1-800-356-9377).

Contacts also get direct copy, so you can hold your finger down on a contact field, just like a picture in Photo, to trigger the copy pop-up menu.

Conclusion

Like the recently released Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, iPhone 3.1 doesn’t provide a lot of fancy user-facing updates (we likely won’t see those until Mac OS X 10.7 and iPhone 4.0 respectively). What it does is fix things that needed fixing, and fill in missing functionality that needed filling in. And, it throws in a couple small feature enhancements, just because.

Free for both iPhone and iPod touch 3.0 users (iPod touch 2.x users will still need to cough up $9.95 to pay the subscription accounting devil’s dues), if iPhone 3.0 was a must-have for the sheer magnitude of its new functionality, 3.1 is a no-brainer update to make the must-have that much nicer-to-have as well.

[Thanks to everyone who contributed screenshots and descriptions for this walkthrough, especially Justin, Jeremy, and James. If you noticed we missed anything, drop us a note in the comments and we'll update as needed.]

Waiting to download iPhone 3.0? Trying to figure out exactly what’s included in the new OS? Wondering what’s changed since iPhone 2.2.1? Need a handy link to send your friends who may have questions? TiPb’s got your back with our complete iPhone 3.0 Software Walkthrough.

Previously, we took you through all five beta versions, now we’ll take you through the final GM (gold master) seed. (And when it goes live on iTunes for one and all, we’ll update any changes we find as well, so consider this your one-stop-shop for everything iPhone 3.0).

And we’ll get started, right after the break.

iPhone 3.0 software offers a host of new features (100 according to Apple). However, not all of these are available on every hardware generation. Here’s a list of the differences, and we’ll mention them again, as appropriate, below.

• 2009 iPhone 3GS: All features
• 2008 iPhone 3G: no video camera, voice control, compass, or related features.
• 2007 iPhone 2G: no video camera, voice control, compass, stereo Bluetooth, MMS, or related features.

Also note: iPhone 3.0 launches 2 days before iPhone 3GS, so until we can get our hands on the new hardware and take proper screenshots, we’ve included captures from Apple’s video. We apologize for the lower quality and will swap them out as soon as we can.

What Hasn’t Changed

As has become our custom, we’ll start off by listing what hasn’t changed in iPhone 3.0. It’s amazingly short this time:

• Weather: Still unchanged from iPhone 1.0. Still no HTC TouchFlo 3D-style animations, and no landscape mode with more/different information. Nada.
• Calculator: Previously upgraded for iPhone 2.0 with landscape-activated scientific mode, calculator doesn’t sport any additions this time around.
• That’s it!

Home Screen

At first glance the SpringBoard app behind the iPhone 3.0 Home Screen seems identical to earlier versions. Sure, SMS is now labeled Messages, the Stocks icon has had a make-over, there’s a new Voice Memos icon and app and — exclusively for iPhone 3GS owners — a new Compass icon and app.

With iPhone 2.x, Apple introduced 9 Home Screen pages, allowing 148 apps total. iPhone 3.0 expands that to 11 pages, allowing 180 apps total (11 built in, leaving 159 for 3rd party apps and WebClip Safari bookmark shortcuts — rumor has it you can load more, but their icons won’t be visible).

Not much else looks different. There are still tiny dots above the dock that signify your additional app screen. However, there’s now an equally tiny magnifying glass icon to the left of them…

Spotlight

On the Mac, Spotlight is the system-wide indexing and search feature that allows you to find files by scouring through metadata and text strings. Apple re-purposes the name and icon here for a new, system-wide iPhone search feature that serves up Contact names, App names, iPod media file names, Email headers (from, to, and subject), and Calendar event names.

You can access Spotlight from the main/primary Home Screen by swiping from left to right, or by clicking the Home Button. When on the Spotlight Screen, you can return the main/primary Home Screen by swiping back from right to left, or clicking the Home Button again. (Yes, clicking Home will toggle you back and forth between those two screens).

Spotlight starts with a blacked-out screen with a search box on top and the portrait keyboard on the bottom (no landscape mode for Spotlight thus far). As you type, results begin to populate the screen, narrowing as you refine your search term. At any point, you can tap on a Spotlight search result to launch the app and/or take you to the resulting content within an app.

Hitting the blue Search button at the bottom right will slide the virtual keyboard away and give you full screen results. Or almost full screen. Since Spotlight is integrated into the Home Screen, the Dock is revealed along with the results so you can quickly launch any of your four docked apps (Phone, Mail, Safari, and iPod if you’ve kept the defaults).

Voice Control

With iPhone 3.0 when used in conjunction with iPhone 3GS, holding down the Home button (or the center button on earphones) sounds a tone and launches Voice Control, which takes the VoiceOver feature introduced in the iPod shuffle to the next level by allowing you to talk to the iPhone.

Voice Control’s interface is simply a wave form with the various commands floating by, and a cancel button. Currently, supported commands include: call/dial [contact name], call [contact telephone number], play [playlist name, album name, artist name, song name], what [song, group] is this, play more songs like this (creates Genius playlist), shuffle.

A second tone is followed by VoiceOver (which is computer generated) repeating back your command and then your corresponding call or music starts.

(It’s not hard to see this eventually expanded to include things like: email Bob at work, launch app Peggle, take voice memo, etc. now is it?)

One of the most impressive aspects is how many languages will be supported by Voice Control at launch:

Chinese (Mainland), Chinese (Taiwan), Czech, Danish, Dutch (Belgian), Dutch (Netherlands), English (Australian), English (UK), English (U.S.), Finnish, French (Canada), French (France), German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish, Thai, Turkish

Force Quit

Under iPhone OS 1.x and 2.x, holding the Home button down allowed you to force a frozen application to quit, clear the RAM, and return to the Home Screen. Since, as mentioned above, holding down the Home button now launches Voice Control on the iPhone 3GS — and does nothing on the iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G, Force Quit has be reassigned.

Now, to Force Quit an app you hold down the sleep button until the the red “slide to power off” control appears. Then hold the Home button down (it can take a while so keep holding!) and — presto! — the current process will be terminated, memory cleared, and you’ll be taken back to the Home Screen.

Messages

Messages is the new SMS, and is renamed to signify the addition of MMS (multi-media messaging service). It allows, in the case of the new iPhone OS 3.0 software, for you to receive, vCards (contacts), audio, location, and — for iPhone 3GS only — video to be sent using the Messages interface to any other smartphone or feature-phone that supports MMS and those file types.

Once you receive an MMS, you can tap the icon in the message bubble to get a better look at it. In the case of a contact, you’ll see a page similar to what you get when you call up a contact in Phone, except at the very bottom you’ll have extra, saving and sharing related options that we’ll cover later in the Phone app section.

Location opens in Google Maps as you’d expect, audio and video in iPod, and images pop up full screen where you can tap the share icon to Save Image — but strangely not re-share it…

Note: The details of MMS vary carrier to carrier. While many international carriers do have MMS enabled with the iPhone 3.0 launch, AT&T is the largest and most notable exception.

When it comes to sending MMS, only picture sending can be initiated from within the Messages app itself. Everything else starts a “share” function from another app (i.e. Share Contact is in Contacts, Share Location is in Google Maps, Share Audio is in Voice Recorder, etc.)

There are two ways to insert a picture into MMS. The first is to tap the camera icon, bottom right. A requester will ask if you want to Take Photo or Choose Existing. Take Photo will call up an embedded version of the Camera app. Frame your picture, tap the camera icon, look at the preview and either hit Retake to try again or Use to insert the picture into your MMS window. (If you want to erase it later, just backspace over it like you would a text character you want to delete)

Choose Existing will call up an image picker (like the Photo App). Pick an Album, pick a picture, and tap Choose to confirm.

The second way to insert a picture into MMS is to paste it…

The new, system-wide Cut, Copy, and Paste service has also been introduced into Messages. It works in a similar way to the implementation in the Notes app, and we’ll cover it more fully there. One difference is that double tapping a previous SMS will give you the Copy popup allowing you to duplicate the entire contents of the SMS to the clipboard. Tapping on an empty entry box will launch the Paste popup, so you can stick the contents back down in an message of your own. If the entry box already contains text, double tapping will select the closest word, and double tapping an holding will select the closet word and popup the loupe.

Again, we’ll cover this more fully in the section for the Notes app.

Messages also now includes line-item deletion and forwarding. Tap the Edit button at the top right, select the messages you want — as many of them as you want — and then hit the red Delete button at the bottom, or the blue Forward button beside it. Edit still isn’t the most elegant name for the combination of deletion and forwarding, mind you, but the functionality is consistent with the Mass Edit feature introduced for Mail in iPhone 2.0.

Lastly, Apple has also answered the call for pervasive landscape-style keyboards, and Messages is one of the text-entry apps that received it. For those who want a Cadillac-wide typing experience, enjoy!

(Note to Apple: a way to “lock” the iPhone in portrait or landscape mode would be appreciated, especially when typing while reclining and every little angle change sends the UI spinning.)

Calendar

Calendar appears largely unchanged from the perspective of the app itself. No landscape rotation for week view — still no week view of any kind.

There are, however, two very welcome new features for Exchange users. You can now add Invitees and set Availability when adding a new event.

Tap Invitees to open the Add Invitees pane, then start typing to search for contacts or hit the blue + icon to pull up the embedded Contacts picker. You can add more than one invitee.

Tap Availability to choose between Busy, Free, Tentative, and Out of office.

The other changes occur in the plumbing and are — somewhat counter-intuitively for us at least — hidden almost entirely away inside the Preferences app (see that section for more details). That’s a shame because they’re rather significant: support for CalDAV and Subscribed Calendars (i.e. holidays, sports schedules, etc.).

Once added via Preferences, however, here’s an example of how Subscribed Calendars look:

Photos

The Photo app receives an update in the form of integration into the Copy (no Cut or Paste here!), MMS, and — for the iPhone 3GS — video camera systems.

For iPhone 3GS users, the Camera Roll now also includes any videos you’ve shot with the device. Similar to how iPhoto on the Mac handles video thumbnails, they’re shown intermingled with still pictures, a transparent black bar along the bottom showing the video icon and the run time of the video. Tabs along the top let you switch from the All view to Photos only or Videos only as well.

When in the Gallery view mode (where pictures are tiled in four columns of thumbnails), tapping on the Action button at the bottom left corner will no longer slide up a menu, but will place two or three buttons along the bottom. For Camera Roll, these are Share, Copy, and Delete. For any other galleries, you’ll still get Copy and Share, but not Delete (yes, you still can’t delete synced photos, only ones you’ve taken with the camera itself).

Tapping on a thumbnail will select it (or de-select it if it has already been selected). Selected photos are labeled with a red check mark icon in the lower right corner, and number of photos selected is reported in parenthesis and continuously updated beside each of the buttons. However, if you select more than 5 images, Share will no longer be enabled (you can still copy them and paste them into Mail, however.)

Tapping on Share button will let you send the photos via Email or MMS, Copy will place them on the clipboard, and Delete (Camera Roll only) will trash them.

In single photo viewing mode, you can Copy an image to the clipboard by touching and holding. A Copy button will pop up just above you finger. Tap it and the image is copied.

Also in single photo viewing mode, the Action button now brings up a longer list of options: Email Photo, MMS, Send to MobileMe, Assign to Contact, Use as Wallpaper.

iPhone 3.0 also now presents the Action button in Landscape mode, though the list view isn’t as attractive for some reason. When in Landscape mode, f you choose to share via Email or MMS, for example, the Email or Messages app pops up in Landscape mode as well. Expected, but we don’t always get what we expect so it’s still nice to see.

Sharing to MobileMe now does double duty, publishing photos and video alike. For photos, you can choose any existing MobileMe gallery, but can’t create a new one. Video is similar, though adds YouTube to the list of supported targets. We’ll cover that at the end of this section.

For iPhone 3GS users, you can view and share videos in much the same way as photos. Tapping on a video in the gallery bring it up full screen, portrait or landscape, along with a big Play button in the center. Hitting the play button, of course, plays the video.

If the controls are up (tap the screen to reveal or hide the controls), you’ll see similar options to photos, though the play button here will play the video, not start a slide show. The biggest difference is the Trimming control along the top. Similar to how Voice Memo works (we’ll cover that later), you can drag to select a point you want to see in the video, or you can drag either end — at which point the outline turns yellow — to cut off part of the beginning or end of the video. Tapping the yellow Trim button will re-save just the selected part of the video.

Note: trimming video is current destructive — you save over the full clip with the trimmed clip, and can’t go back. iPhone 3.1 Beta, however, looks to provide a Save As function for non-destructive video editing.

Options for sharing video include Email Video, MMS, Send to MobileMe, and Send to YouTube, though video will be highly compressed for sharing, and file size limits may not let all videos be shared via all options.

Camera

For iPhone 2G and iPhone 3G, the Camera app gets a minor tweak. Now, after you take a picture, instead of the Camera Roll icon at the bottom right, you see a tiny thumbnail of the last photo taken. (Even if there are additional items in the Camera Roll, like screen-captures, only the last actual camera photo taken is shown).

iPhone 3GS gets the above tweak, and a major upgrade thanks to the new auto-focus lens. Now, Camera will try to focus on what it thinks is the most important element of your photo — even macro! If, however, you want to focus on something else instead, just tap the iPhone screen to re-focus. A handy square overlays the sweet spot, so you can make sure the lens is set exactly where you want it to be.

Perhaps the biggest addition for iPhone 3GS is the ability to shoot not only still pictures… but video as well. To switch from still picture to video capture mode, simply toggle the slider at the bottom right of the screen. When you do, the camera icon, used to take a still picture, is replaced with a red recording icon that stays dark when in standby mode but blinks when video is being taken (keeping the common vidcam metaphor alive and well). Like with still pictures, video can be taken in portrait or landscape mode.

YouTube

The big news for the YouTube app in iPhone 3.0 is account integration. You can now enter your YouTube login information for access to your Subscriptions and Playlists.

Stocks

The Stocks widget is still powered by Yahoo, and still lists your favorite stocks on top and a handy graph at the bottom. You can now swipe across that handy, however, to change it into a news feed or a more detailed set of information including opening price, high, low, volume, P/E, market cap, 52 week high, 52 week low, average volume, and yield.

Rotating Stocks to landscape mode now expands the graph to full, wide screen mode. But there’s more: youch a point on the graph and you get the exact price for that day, touch a second finger somewhere else on the graph and you get the difference in value between those two days (delta).

Maps

For iPhone 2G and iPhone 3G owners, Maps is the same as 2.1. Sure, under iPhone 3.0 developers can now embed the maps in their App Store apps, but from the built-in point of view — nothing. (Google Latitude will, apparently get support via the browser, go figure?)

For iPhone 3GS owners, however, Maps will now leverage the new digital Compass hardware. Tap the Get Location button to find your coordinates via GPS, then tap it again to get your directional heading via the Compass (shown as an expanding white spotlight effect extending out ahead of you).

Voice Memos

Following iTunes and App Store, Apple’s third new built in app since launching the iPhone is also it’s first new, non-Storefront app. Voice Memos is also the first new app to shove its way into the middle of the existing apps (iTunes and App Store were added to the end).

(Note to sticklers: Remote and Keynote, though from Apple, aren’t built in to the software and require download or purchase separately from the App Store.)

Voice Memos, from icon to main screen, pays homage to an old-style microphone (though, unlike Calculator, we don’t believe it’s one ever manufactured by Braun…). The bottom has buttons for Record and (a rather non-intuitive-looking stack of three horizontal lines) to access Voice Memos that have previously been recorded. In the middle is a sound level meter.

Tap Record to begin and the Record button becomes Pause, the More button becomes Stop, and the top of the screen flashes red to show you you’re recording and the duration of the recording.

When you’re finished recording, the More page shows Voice Memos in a similar fashion to Visual Voice Mail in the Phone app. Tap a Voice Memo to play or pause it, toggle Speaker on or off, or use the buttons along the bottom to Share (via email or MMS) or Delete.

You can also tap the blue circles at the far right of each recording to slide into an Info screen where you can further tap to slide across to a Label screen pre-populated with tags including None, Podcast, Interview, Lecture, Idea, Meeting, Memo, and Custom. Choosing Custom slides another screen over where you can input your own Label names.

Back on the Info screen, tapping on Trim Memo slides up a bare-bones editing interface for taking off any unwanted content from the beginning and/or end of your recording. Interestingly, Apple chose yellow for trim slider and Trim Voice Memo action button.

Share on the Info screen does the same thing as the Share button on the Voice Memos screen. Convenience through repetition?

Notes

First up, you can now “swipe to delete” notes from the main contents screen, just as you could “swipe to delete” email all the way back to the original iPhone OS. Consistency points!

Next, like messages, Notes benefits from the several system-wide — or at least multi-app-wide — improvements in iPhone 3.0. The first is the pervasive landscape keyboard. Just rotate and the accelerometer does the rest.

The big thing, of course, is Cut, Copy and Paste. It works similarly for text — though not identically — across all supported applications, so we’ll do the heavy lifting here.

To start, double tap on some text. That will highlight the word and pop-up buttons for Cut, Copy, and Paste (the last of which only appears if there’s already text in the clipboard). You can also tap on an empty area to pop-up buttons for Select, Select All, and Paste. (Select highlight the closest word to the current cursor position, and again you need text already in the clipboard for Paste to appear).

If you want to change the length of your selection, grab one of the blue dot’s that form the handles on the top left or bottom right of your current selection and drag them in or out to add or subtract text. As you move the handles, a magnifying loupe will appear, similar in function to the round curser placement loupe that dates back to iPhone 1.0. This loupe, however, is a wide, horizontal, rounded rectangle and lets you more precisely adjust your text selection.

Selected text can then be Cut or Copied to the clipboard, or replaced by Pasting over it with text from the clipboard.

Text can also be pasted at the current cursor location by double tapping to bring up the Select, Select All, and Paste pop up.

If at any time you either type or paste something in by mistake, Apple has added a gimmicky yet semi-cool undo feature — just shake your iPhone to call up an Undo, Redo, and Cancel dialog.

(Note: While the Mail app, discussed below, gets similar Cut, Copy and Paste functionality, so do most 3rd part App Store application that use standard text input controls. Awesome).

Finally implementing functionality that Steve Jobs listed off during his iPhone 1.0 introduction at Macworld 2007, Notes now sync via iTunes back to your Windows PC or Mac.

Lastly, predictive text in general seems to have been improved as of Beta 3. Or rather, the dictionary that tries to guess and replace words as you type seems to have been updated.

Clock

The Clock app gets a minor tweak — you get a lap display in the upper right hand corner of the Stop Watch. While the main stopwatch shows total time as always, the lap counter shows only the time passed since you last hit the lap button.

Settings

Apple typically tucks numerous changes, large and small, neatly away inside the Settings app, and iPhone 3.0 is no exception. Due to the volume of changes, we’ll break them down by category.

Wi-Fi

Auto-login increases the ease of logging into commercial-style Wi-Fi services (the kind that typically present a web-based password form for authentication, like at hotels or coffee shops). In Settings, you now have the option to toggle on Auto-Join, which saves passwords and then automatically uses it next time to return to the same network.

Also, when you login, you get a special slide-up window with some new controls and an embeded web-view — no more inconvenient app-jump to Safari.

An added benefit for fans fans of super-strong, pseudo-random passwords — the kind almost impossible to type by hand — paste works in the password field. This means you can copy it from an email or text file of any kind and paste it right in. Very welcome!

Notifications

Push Notifications gets its own top level button in Beta 3 and as of Beta 5 and Apple beginning Push Notification testing, not only can users globally or individually enable or disable Sounds, Alerts (text boxes), and/or Badges, but each app gets its own sub-screen to do likewise. (i.e. if you want Twitter to badge but not alert, IM to sound but not badge, etc. you can have it your way).

As with GPS on iPhone 3G under OS 2.0, Push Notification-enabled apps will ask permission on launch, and give you a chance to choose “Don’t Allow” or “Okay” on a per-app basis as well.

General Settings: Network

New to Network Settings is Internet Tethering. On supported carriers (and no, AT&T isn’t supporting it yet and there’s no word on when they will) Internet Tethering will display current status, Off or On.

Tap the button to go to the Internet Tethering Settings, then toggle the switch to On. If Bluetooth isn’t currently enabled, an alert will pop up asking you if you want to enable it, or to leave it off and tether via USB.

When tethering is on, a blue bar appears at the top of the screen, similar to the green bar that appears when a phone call is in progress. Unfortunately, unlike the green phone bar, it tapping the blue tethering bar doesn’t seem to send you back to the tethering Settings to quickly toggle it off.

General Settings: Restrictions

iPhone 3.0 now provide more in the way of Parental Controls. First off, iPod has been removed from the top menu and Location has been added. A secondary menu has now been added below to provide more granular control over iPod content, allowing you to select which country/region ratings you use, and then set Music & Podcasts, Movies, and TV Shows. Control for Apps is at the very bottom.

App Restrictions can be based on age-ratings. Currently supported options are:

• Don’t Allow Apps
• 4+
• 9+
• 12+
• 17+
• Allow All Apps

General Settings: Home

Additional options are now available for you to assign to a double-click of the Home button. They’ve grown from Home (i.e. same as single click), Phone Favorites, and iPod to now include Search (epic win for mobile accomplishers) and Camera.

A sub-menu for Search Results allows you to check on or off the exact types of information you want called up in a Spotlight Search. Options include Contacts, Applications, Music, Podcasts, Video, Audiobooks, Notes, Mail, and Calendar.

You can also tap and hold down the line icons on the right side of any category and drag them to change the order of how search results are presented (i.e. you could move Applications on top of Contacts, and Spotlight will then list Apps first).

General: International

Courtesy of BGR, it looks like Voice Control’s languages settings will be found here when iPhone 3.0 is running on iPhone 3GS hardware.

General: Keyboard: International Keyboards and General: International, Keyboards

Even more international language keyboards are now available in iPhone 3.0: Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malay, and Thai. Good news for people in those regions eager to get their iPhone on. (And let’s see a hardware keyboard do that!)

Settings: Mail, Contacts, Calendar

You can add a MobileMe account, just like before, but now if you already have bookmarks, contacts, or other data on your iPhone (for example, if you synced it over via iTunes) and you enable MobileMe, a menu will slide up asking if you want to Merge the data, Not merge (i.e. replace), or Cancel.

Once you’ve added a MobileMe account, there’s now a new option called Find My iPhone. Turn it on, then go to www.me.com, login to your Account tab, and choose Find My iPhone from the sidebar. A map will show you the current, approximate GPS coordinates for your iPhone. There are also options to send a text and/or sound alert to your iPhone (e.g. a number where you can be reached if someone finds it), and to remote wipe your device if you think it’s been stolen or permanently lost and you want to protect your data.

As mentioned previously, also hidden here are the new LDAP (contacts directory), CalDAV, and Calendar Subscription, features under Add Account, Other.

Settings: Safari

Options can be found here for the new AutoFill feature, and a submenu for choosing who’s Contact Info you want to use for the fill, as well as an option to allow Names & Passwords to be stored and AutoFilled, and a button for Clear All to wipe the AutoFill database clean. This, at least, gives us some control as to whether we want the security of not storing and filling our passwords on a device that could be lost or accessed without our approval, or the convenience of saving us a lot of typing.

Likewise, the new anti-Phishing Fraud Warning can be toggled on and off. Keeping it on, of course, provides some level of safety when encountering malicious websites made to look like ones we trust, intent on stealing our login info and/or credit card data. Of course, no list of Phishing sites is ever complete or completely up to date, so keep surfing safely.

Settings: Messages

With the addition of MMS in iPhone 3.0, now, of course, Settings follow to includes an MMS Messaging On/Off toggle.

Settings: iPod

New to the iPod Setting is a toggle to enable the Shake to Shuffle option that Apple debuted with the latest generation iPod shuffle.

Settings: Store

Not as elegant as it looks in iTunes or App Store apps, but Settings give you a third, convenient point for on-device switching between iTunes store accounts. You can sign in, view account details, and sign out. Then you can sign in under a different account (i.e. spouse’s account, different country’s store, etc.)

Note: There was some confusion about whether or not Apple would let you re-download paid apps if you enabled multiple accounts (so you couldn’t log in as your buddy, for example, and get all his or her apps for free) but the restrictions that were in place during the beta period seem to be gone (for now?)

ITunes Store

As mentioned above, iTunes Store now allows management of multiple iTunes accounts. Scroll down to the bottom of a main page (i.e. before you’ve selected a specific piece of content to look at) and you’ll find a button containing your account username.

Tap on the button and you’ll be given options to View Account, Sign Out, or Cancel. Much more convenient than having to exit, launch Settings, navigate, switch accounts, go back, etc.

iTunes also adds to the previous music and podcast on-device download capability with support for Movie, TV Show, Music Video, Audio Book, and iTunes U content.

To make room, the tabs at the bottom lose Top Tens and Downloads and now include Videos (movies, TV, music video) and a standard More icon, which gives access to a screen offering Audio Books and iTunes U, as well as the displaced Downloads and relocated Redeem (for gift certificate codes).

Like with the iPod App, an Edit button lets you drag around tab icons to lay things out just the way you want them.

When you find a video you want to learn more about, tap on it and you get a detailed description. Like with music, you can sample before you buy. Tap the Preview button to see a short clip or trailer. Instead of just playing like music, however, iTunes opens an embedded iPod video player.

Also, like with video podcasts, music, and App Store apps, 3G isn’t an option for anything over 10MB — which for video we imagine will be almost everything — so have your Wi-Fi standing by.

App Store

App Store gets the same iTunes account management functionality as the iTunes store, above.

Also, Apple has also and again changed the way screen shots appear in the App Store. Now, you get full screen shots, side by side, with the ability to swipe through them. You can see additional screenshots on each side when more are available backward or forwards. (Similar to how you swipe through multiple Safari tab pages).

In-App Purchases and Subscriptions

Two other changes coming to the app store, in-app purchases and subscriptions, are more difficult to document right now because no apps that make use of them have currently been released in the App Store. So, we’ll base this for now on what Apple has presented and update it as soon as real-world examples go wide.

By way of example, if you previously wanted commercial E-Books, a developer had to wrap a reader app around each E-Book, and then sell each E-Book as a separate app on the App Store. This led to dozens upon dozens of apps that were just more books, or otherwise variations on the same functionality with different content.

With iPhone 3.0, a developer can now sell you an E-Book Reader app, and inside that app, they can sell you the individual E-Books. If you choose to buy another E-Book, the same type of iTunes confirmation and password requester will pop up as when you buy a stand-alone app, and the same iTunes-side billing and processing happen.

This can also work to buy additional levels or extra content in games, and theoretically map packs for navigation apps, etc.

Yes, Apple just invented the $0.99 “scaleware” model. Buy the low-price, entry-level version of an App, and if you like it, buy more. It’s not a demo, it’s not shareware, but it does let developers a way to create a cheap evaluation model for users to try before they buy… more of it.

Why $0.99? To avoid user confusion, Apple won’t let developers sell additional content to apps they gave away for free. If you want to charge more later, you have to charge at least something up front. Otherwise, “free apps stay free.”

Subscriptions, for their part, seem to work just like In-App Purchases, with the pop-up advising you are purchasing X issues of Y content for Z dollars. (e.g. 6 months of iPhone Monthly for $1.99).

Push Notification

Perhaps the highest profile addition to third party apps, if not the App Store proper, is the release of the-anticipated Push Notification service (PNS).

This service is supposed to replace some forms of background multi-tasking support, which Apple allows for their own apps like Mail, Phone, and iPod, but sites battery life, stability, and complexity of management as reasons not to grant third party (App Store) apps the same privilege.

So, under iPhone 2.0, if you exit an Instant Messenger (IM) app, you no longer have anyway of knowing when a new IM comes in unless and until you deliberately relaunch the app. (Sure, there are work around over SMS and Email, but the app itself is dead).

Under iPhone 3.0, if you exit an IM that supports PNS, the developer’s servers will alert Apple’s PNS which then “push” an alert to your iPhone. (Similar to how MobileMe already pushes alerts for email).

If you have IM, Twitter, a news app, etc. Apple’s servers will handle all of them, so theoretically your iPhone only has to listen to PNS instead of each one separately. One instead of many is supposed to save battery life.

PNS currently supports 3 kinds of alerts: badges (like Mail uses to show you unread messages), custom sounds (like a beep or bell or anything already built into the app by the developer), or modal text alerts (like the kind that pop up to tell you about a new SMS).

With the text alerts, if an alert comes in, it will stay up until you dismiss it or act upon it (e.g view an IM). If a second (or third, or more) text alert comes in, however, it replaces the previous one, and that previous alert is gone forever. In other words, if nine alerts come in, you’ll only ever see the ninth one and dealing with it gives you a blank screen, not the eighth — or previous — alert. (Badges, if used and enabled, would still show you 9 messages had come in).

If your iPhone is in sleep mode, alerts will still pop up, but the “swipe to unlock” will dismiss them, but not send you to the alerting app. Less than ideal, but perhaps the best solution given the limited notification handling the iPhone currently employs.

Dock and Bluetooth Accessory Connection

Potentially the biggest and most exciting development for iPhone 3.0, if not the iPhone in general, is the ability of developers to make apps that directly communicate with accessories/peripherals via the USB dock connector or Bluetooth radio.

This means, in short, the iPhone will be able to connect with, display data for, and/or control medical equipment like glucose readers, production equipment like cameras, barcode readers, game controllers, keyboards — almost anything developers care to create protocols for.

Peer-to-Peer Connectivity

Peer-to-Peer connectivity leverages Bonjour networking and the Bluetooth radio to create an easy way for apps to join together and exchange data. It’s clearly directed at multi-player gaming, but Apple points out that any app can take advantage of it to share business cards, photos, or almost anything. Yes, it’s the return of “beaming”.

iPod Access

Finally, Apple grants developers access to your iPod library. Now, third party apps can let you play, switch, and otherwise listen and control your music right from inside the app, without having to exit, launch the iPod app, exit, and re-launch the original app.

Compass

The Compass app is exclusive to the iPhone 3GS hardware, because that hardware is the only current device with a built-in magnetometer. The app shows a stylized compass that will spin to show either true north or magnetic north, depending on which one you’ve chose from the Info screen. Via the GPS, coordinates are also shown along the bottom.

If magnetic fields or something else prevent clear readings, an interface comes up asking you to rotate the iphone in an figure-8 patter to reacquire compass headings.

Phone

With iPhone 3.0, the Phone app’s Recents tab, when you tap the arrow to get more information, now shows you incoming calls from that contact, the time, and the duration. If you spoke to that contact repeatedly without any other contacts in between, multiple entries will show you the information for each one of those calls.

Also, the Contacts tab (and the stand alone Contacts app) now integrate the “swipe to delete” functionality we all know and love from Email and other, previous apps going all the way back to iPhone 1.x. Simply pick a name, and then swipe to call up the red “Delete” button.

Email

Email still hasn’t gotten a unified inbox or threaded messaging or unified messaging, but iPhone 3.0 does give the Email app a few improvements by way of the new system-wide changes.

Landscape keyboard lovers rejoice, Email now gives you the wide treatment when to rotate to that orientation. Like with other apps, if you’re already in landscape when you share, link to, or otherwise launch Email, it comes up the very same way.

You also get the same Cut, Copy and Paste functionality as Notes with a couple notable exceptions. First, you get support to copy rich text formatting (bold, italic, html). Second you can also paste pictures you may have copied from the Photo or Safari apps. We’re not sure if there’s a limit to the amount of pictures you can send via 3G from the iPhone in a single mail yet, but we’ve received 9 in one shot so far. If anyone has reached a hard limit, let us know.

Spotlight lives inside Mail to, just like it did inside Contacts with OS 2.0. Scroll up slightly inside a mail box and you get the search input and buttons letting you choose between From/To/Subject/All. As an added bonus, you can also go beyond the local store and “Continue Search on Server…” on Exchange 2007 or later, MobileMe, or IMAP installations that support it.

Much like Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, Apple has expanded “data detectors” in iPhone 3.0 as well. While previous iPhone version would identify phone numbers and link them to the Phone App (just as web and email addresses link to Safari and Mail respectively), now 3.0 will try to identify address location to link to Google Maps as well.

Safari

As mentioned in the section on Settings, if you choose to enable it, Safari will AutoFill form fields based on your Contact info, or the Contact info of your choosing. As a separate option, passwords you’ve previously entered as well.

Also mentioned in Settings, Safari will try to protect you from Phishing sites if you enable it, presumably consulting an continuously updated blacklist of sites, presumably the same as recently implemented on the desktop Safari 4 Beta.

In addition, when you go to a site with an enhanced security certificate, the text on top of the browser turns green (like the green bar, we get it!), with little green lock icon beside it, and the name of the certificate’s trusted organization. For example, the below screenshots show how Apple’s order status page looks on iPhone 2.2.1 (top right) and iPhone 3.0.

What does this mean for users? In an age of increased phishing attacks, where bad sites try to trick you into thinking they’re your bank or shop and steak your login or credit card info, this is one more visual cue in your assessment process for determining if you can trust that the website is what it says it is.

Updates to Safari don’t end there, however, as Apple has also (yes!) given us the option now to open links in new pages (the iPhone equivalent of tabs). Tap and hold on a link, and a menu pops up with the link path listed on top, and the option to Open the link (in the current page), Open in a New Page, or Copy to the clip board. As this is the same gesture used to allow Image Save in iPhone 2.0, if the link happens to be a picture, Image Save is rolled right into the same menu as a an additional option.

(This is also a handy way to check which URL exactly is behind a link before you click on it)

Rendering speeds have also been improved, from 3x to 16x faster according to benchmarks. Apple is using the new Nitro (formerly SquirelFish Extreme) engine to throw HTML and especially JavaScript up much faster than iPhone 2.2.1 could. On mobile devices, this will likely make a far more noticeable difference to users.

The big news, however, is that Mobile Safari gets the Cut, Copy, and Paste love from Apple as well, although it works a little differently here than it does in Mail or Notes.

Perhaps because double-tap is already used for zooming, in Safari you hold your finger down on some text (as you would in other apps to trigger the magnifying loupe) and the entire paragraph of text is selected (everything within the P, and perhaps DIV and other similar containers).

Sites that don’t properly format (i.e., use several BR, or line-break tags to simulate paragraphs) are now exposed for their shenanigans by confusing the Copy mechanic, resulting in entire reams, or even pages of text being selected. (For shame!)

The blue dot handles at the top/beginning and bottom/end of the selection are used in Safari, but if you drag them enough, the whole block will become selected and you’ll get blue dots centered on all sides, and they can be pulled up or down to select previous or following blocks respectively. Again, lack of proper HTML formatting can reduce the reliability (so coders, fix your stuff!)

Both text and/or images can be selected.

Paste works in form fields the same way it does in Notes and other apps.

iPod

New in iPhone 3.0, the formerly useless Repeat and Shuffle Option for when listening to a podcast has been replaced with an email icon on the left hand side, and a speed counter on the right hand side.

The email icon allows you to send an iTunes Link for the podcast (similar to how you could previously email YouTube video links).

The speed indicator on the other side shows x1 during regular playback, and we presume it might show x2 etc. as Apple has previously allowed you to “speed up” talk-heavy content like Audio Books.

Where the Genius button would be on music tracks, we now have a circular backwards arrow with a 30 in the middle, which allows you to jump back in 30 second intervals.

Variable media scrubbing now lets you put your finger on the position indicator at the top, and the buttons change to a text message reading “Slide your finger down to adjust the scrubbing rate.” Do so and the speed that you scrub though the file changes. Displayed in place of the track info, options so far include half speed, quarter speed, and a fine grain speed.

While these controls would also be much appreciated in video, right now implementation is not there. Movies and TV shows have the same Done and Full/Fit to Screen controls as previous OS, as do video podcasts in landscape view. In portrait view, video podcasts gain the mail link and media scrubber, but retain the shuffle control.

Spotlight search comes to the iPod app. Just like Mail, scroll up in any list-view (like Podcasts, Playlists, Songs, etc. and the search bar appears. Results populate as you type, and if you hit the blue Search button, the keyboard slides down and you can see all results organized by category.

As mentioned in the Settings section, Shake to Shuffle is also now available in the iPod app. Just remember, if you enable it and then start to dance with your iPhone, your music might jump around with you…

Another major check-box finally checked is support for Stereo Bluetooth. Paired to an A2DP device (similar to current blue tooth phone headset pairing), a Bluetooth icon appears to the right of the volume slider, and an Audio Source selector will let you choose from available devices.

(Note: this seems to work in apps like Pandora as well, bonus screen shot included below!)

Conclusion

This is not a review — our full rundown of the pros and cons will come soon — so our conclusion only goes so far as to say that, after going through everything above, anyone who claims iPhone 3.0 is really more fittingly iPhone 2.3 deserves a swift kick in the apps. This is a hefty release and we’re again impressed not only by Apple’s continuing ability to evolve the iPhone platform and provide software updates (again, free of charge to iPhone users, $9.95 to non-subscription accounted iPod touch users), but for the easy and consistent way in which they’re doing it.

Kudos to the iPhone team at Apple. Can’t wait for 4.0!

[Thanks to everyone who contributed screenshots and descriptions for this walkthrough. If you noticed we missed anything, drop us a note in the comments and we'll update as needed.]

That’s what some are taking away from the analyst briefings we linked to last week. Apple would have only one hardware platform, but different versions of the software for different SKUs of the iPhone.

Sigh. It’s hard enough to convince people that software isn’t just math, and math isn’t free, without dodgy OS stripping schemes artificially creating crippled, low-end versions. Apple thus far has known this — Mac OS X comes in only two versions, client and server. Likewise, they tend to have their free/cheap regular software like iPhoto, and pro apps like Aperture.

Could we see a “pro” version of the iPhone OS? Perhaps, but while the guts of the device would likely stay the same for compatibility and component cost reasons, it’s hard to see no hardware differentiation like more storage, better camera, tweaked casing. After all, that’s what Apple’s historically done with MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

If Apple did go with pure software differentiation, might also make for yet another interesting chapter in the Jailbreak cat-and-mouse game…

Apple believing their software differentiates the iPhone from OTHER smartphones is something they’ve made a point of making a point about since launch (and likely what they meant again this time). But differentiating within the iPhone platform? Well, we just hope they’re leaning towards iPhone Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. Because, you know, people just loved that about Windows Vista.

Say you are having a hardware related issue on your iPhone, first place you would think to go is your local Apple store, right? Well not if you’re running iPhone 3.0 Beta it turns out, as MacRumors forums show you will politely get rejected and denied any sort of help.

TiPb has confirmed this is indeed true from speaking with a few Apple employees.

Now where does that leave someone who purchased the beta from a stranger on Graigslist? Not in a good place obviously since to get your issue taken care of or to have your phone replaced you must call a developer-only help line. Now if you are a bit more expierienced with the iPhone you can always try to downgrade back to the 2.2.1 software before going into the Apple Store but say your home button is not working, you are flat out of luck and you are now stuck with a official iPhone paper weight.

So with all that said, TiPb can not stress enough — and we’ve said it many times — do not purchase the 3.0 Beta from anyone.

This late into the beta cycle, in a few short months it will be released to the public anyway.

Time Magazine has an interesting article up on Apple’s ongoing success with the iPhone in not only a poor economy, but in face of competition like Nokia, Palm, Sony/Ericsson, etc. doing badly, even when they offer much cheaper alternatives.

BlackBerry is enjoying similar success with their higher end products, leading Time to speculate that it’s based on brand, a multi-factor and mysterious currency that companies spend fortunes earning so they can make even greater fortunes exploiting:

A lot of people think that consumers who buy brand are suckers, the kind people WC Field used to mock in old movies. Samsung builds a smartphone that looks and works a lot like the iPhone. It is called the Instinct and Apple owners think it is junk.

Where the article falls off the rails, however, is in it’s conclusion:

All Apple cares about is that their customers have enough money to buy an iPhone, iPod, or Mac. Suckers have money, too.

It would be a mistake — and likely one other companies are still making — to assume “suckers” buy on brand absent other factors, rather than brand embodying the factors customers want to buy. (Even when Apple states just this much during every quarterly conference call.)

Could it be consumers are smarter than many companies — and perhaps journalists — give them credit for, and in tougher times they tend towards better products? A junk phone that provides daily frustration and requires monthly or yearly replacement is in no way a better value than a highly refined user experience with tremendous build quality that’s offered year-after-year free software updates and a previously unimaginable stream of ever-new applications, creating not only great initial value, but great sustainable value as well.

A better closing would likely have been:

“In tough times, smart customers make smarter choices on where and when to spend their money. Apple realizes this and makes sure their products are ready and waiting… in elegant, inviting little boxes.”

Well now we all know what to expect with iPhone 3.0… Rene has even been so kind to lay out a complete feature list for all of you to enjoy.

Is iPhone 3.0 it what you expected? Happy? Not so happy? In either case be sure to stop by in this thread and let us know what you think!

This next iPhone 3.0 related thread is started by my good forum friend Dizzy, he brings up a good question: After the announcement of iPhone 3.0 today do you think Apple will release 3rd gen iPhone in 2009? I’m with Dieter on this one and going with no, we will not see major hardware changes this year. We could be wrong, but I just don’t see anything major coming this summer in terms of hardware.

[Oh, it's on: I expect to see new hardware, iPhone 2,1, in June at WWDC! - Rene]

This last 3.0 thread has to do with release date. We all know it will be available this summer. But when exactly? Vote in this poll on when you feel the software will be ready to roll out to the public!

As always, be sure to register to get in on the forum 3.0 action!

See you on the forums!

TUAW (nice redesign, guys!) notices that the iTunes App Store no longer has a link on the lefthand side to browse all free apps. The best we have now is the Top 100 Free Apps over on the right. TUAW is hopeful that Apple will bring back the link to browse all them free apps, and indeed, so are we. Even stores that traditionally only sold for-pay mobile apps like the Mobihand store sister-site WMExperts have seen the writing on the wall and added a link for free apps.

Fear not, though, loyal TiPb Readers. We have the link to browse all 90 pages of free apps, over 1850 apps in total, right here. Go on, browse those free apps, don’t let the man keep you down. Browse all Apps

Update: Turns out that you can, in fact, stop the signal. The “Browse all free apps” listing linked above contains, well, a lot of apps that ain’t free. Could it be that Apple got sick and tired of developers listing their apps as free to move up the top apps chain, then switching to for-pay to bring in the cash? Our best guess: Apple must not have a good, automatic way to categorize “free,” so they took the above link down to tweak the store.

Disclaimer – Neither TiPb nor I take any responsibility for any problems/issues/bricking/etc. that may occur while using this software to modify your iPhone. Please be aware of what you are doing.

IMPORTANT: If you have a iPhone 3G that you want to unlock you must use the preserving baseband method – only available on Macs.

There has been a lot of buzz going on in the forums regarding jailbreaking the iPhone 2.2.1 firmware lately, and a lot of questions to go along with i t!. Today we’re going to take a deeper look at the exact steps you have to take to get your iPhone jailbroken on your Mac.

Let’s get started, after the jump!

1. Get the Tools

All good? Okay, next make sure your iPhone is not connected to your Mac. Then create a new folder on your desktop and name it “Pwnage”. Next you will need to download the following tools:

• QuickPwn
• 2.2.1 Firmware IPSW for first generation iPhone (2G) OR 2.2.1 Firmware IPSW for iPhone 3G 

[BE SURE TO SELECT THE PROPER FIRMWARE VERSION, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT]

2. Install the Tools

3. Launch QuickPwn

4. Connect your iPhone

5. Begin Pwnage!

Now the software will search for the 2.2.1 ipsw firmware file you downloaded a few minutes ago.

6. Customize Your iPwn

Now QuickPwn will create your custom IPSW file.

Once that process is complete you must enter in your OS X system password to continue. (Just like when you update certain applications).

7. PAY ATTENTION: Here’s the Tricky Part

First turn off your device.

Next, you will be prompted to hold down both the home and power button for 10 seconds.

Lastly, you will release the power button while you continue to hold down the home button for another 10 seconds.

8. Sit Back and Wait

Be patient while QuickPwn is modifying your iPhone. It will take a few minutes. [Do NOT do anything to your computer or iPhone while this process is taking place]

Your phone will the reboot and once it starts back up you will see the Installer app along with Cydia, and you are done!

9. We Have Jailbreak!

Now wasn’t that simple?

We’ll be back soon with our Windows PC edition, and in the meantime if you want more information or help troubleshooting please head over to our section of the forums dedicated to jailbreaking. There are plenty of members of our community that can help you out!

Looking for a mobile office suite for your iPhone? Almost a year ago, when the SDK was announced, Dataviz looked for iPhone users input:

You can bet we’ll have our hands on this SDK as soon as possible. I can’t guarantee anything, but please, if you are interested in having DataViz software on your iPhone, let us know!

Well you spoke up and they listened! It is official that Dataviz is bringing Documents to Go, the very popular office suite, over to the iPhone:

This is great news for former Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Mobile users. With this software users can view, edit, or create Microsoft Office content. All of the big apps are covered including Powerpoint, Word, and Excel.

Dataviz now has a website you can visit to sign up for release information here in this link.

[Thanks for the tip jwc194!]

iPhone 2.1 (build 5F136) is an incremental point update to the much larger and more encompassing iPhone 2.0 software release we reviewed back in early July. Light on new functionality, it focuses instead on bug fixes, which given the many problems that accompanied the massive 2.0 rollout, is a Very Good Thing.

Like 2.0, this update is also available for the iPod Touch, but unlike its predecessor, the 2.1 update is FREE (if you already have 2.0 — if you have 1.x, you’ll still have to pony up the $10 premium.)

So, 4 betas, dropped features, somethings new, somethings fixed — is iPhone 2.x Apple’s Vista? Or is it finally the next generation firmware we’ve all been waiting for? Find out, after the break!

Release Notes

iPod Touch 2.1 debuted September 9, with iPhone 2.1 following on September 12. Apple, given their usual mono-syllabic release notes, was positively chatty this time:

iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

• decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
• significantly improved battery life for most users
• dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
• improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
• faster installation of 3rd party applications
• fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
• improved performance in text messaging
• faster loading and searching of contacts
• improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
• repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
• option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
• Genius playlist creation

Fixed Things First

An email, purportedly from Steve Jobs, suggested only 2% of users were suffering from firmware related problems. Tell that to the comments, forums, and blogs! We here at TiPb have covered the various 2.0.x glitches extensively already, including 3G network issues, App crashes, and painfully long backup cycles.

Although a few new issues have arisen, including a bug in iPod Touch WiFi dealing with WAP authentication, and with MobileMe and Exchange Push services draining battery life for some users, Apple seems to have taken positive steps towards stability with 2.1. 3G signals report as stronger. Apps don’t crash quite as often. And backups are considerably faster. Oh, yeah. Apple also fixed that little security snafu — again — that allowed access to a otherwise locked iPhone data.

No doubt a 2.1.1 (already on shipping versions of the iPod Touch) or 2.1.2 is in the pipeline to further tweak things, but 2.1 itself is already a major improvement over 2.0. Who are we kidding? In the stability areas, 2.1 is what 2.0 should have been.

What Hasn’t Changed

Most everything. But as we said, this release ended up being less about features and more about fixing the persistent embarrassment that 2.0.x had become for Apple. (Threatening a Vista-like hit to its public perception — perpetually viewed as flawed no matter how solid it became).

For the vast majority of built-in applications, including Calendar, YouTube, Stocks, Maps, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Notes, iTunes WiFi Music Store, Phone, Mail, and Safari, while performance (scrolling, transitioning, etc.) has improved (and thank Jobs for that — especially in Contacts!), functionality is pretty much the same.

Alas, while typing on the virtual keyboard might also have improved, we’ve still encountered the dreaded lag at times, especially with SMS. A few Apps (like Safari or Mail) can still take their sweet time to load. Since these are multi-tasking Apps, a Force Quit can sometimes help, but it does make us wonder if something is going on under the covers — the same thing that keeps Apple so determined to keep multi-tasking off-limits to the App Store?

Home Screen/General

Minor cosmetics: 3G and Edge have both gotten slightly tweaked, more low-key icons. No particular reason that we can tell. Maybe Jonathan Ive had 30 seconds to spare?

Photos/Camera

The screen shot function (press Home and Sleep at the same time) now not only flashes white on activation, but now also makes an audible camera shutter sound, same as taking a picture. Our 2.0 iPhones don’t do that, so it seems to be new to 2.1..

SMS

I haven’t noticed this personally yet (maybe because I’m not a heavy texter), but reader Mr HiDefinition wrote in to tell us:

If you scroll all the way to the top of a long SMS message, you usually see call to the left and contact info to the right but now underneath both you see a new option to load earlier messages. If you press the load earlier messages you’ll see earlier messages and you can keep pressing it and pressing it to see further back until you get to the beginning of the conversation that you started with the person.

(Screen shot courtesy of Chad)

In addition, as mentioned above, Apple now claims you will receive repeated alerts for SMS messages — but we’ve likewise not seen this ourselves yet.

Useful stuff for those who live on SMS.

Settings

Because Setting is so huge, it almost always gets some update or another, and 2.1 is no different. According to Macworld, Settings – General – Restrictions now allow you to turn off the Camera app as well. Probably not enough for secure locations who won’t allow any device with a physical camera on site, but useable for parents.

Speaking of security, Apple has also added to Settings – General – Passcode Lock, allowing users to now toggle on Erase Data. This will, after 10 failed attempts at entering the unlock PIN, securely delete every byte on the iPhone. We’re still not sure if this is the military grade, multi-pass pseudo-random data overwrite type of secure erase, but we’re hoping it is… One note of caution: avoid this option if you have kids who might discover your iPhone and decide its fun to start randomly typing digits into the boxes…

App Store

cddiazz2010 let us know that, when installing an App straight onto your iPhone (a precarious undertaking on 2.x, as it pretty much ensured crashes and long backups, but rock solid for me so far with 2.1), you can now tap on the icon to pause the installation, and tap again to continue. Very nice, and could prove very useful.

Terry comments below that App icons will also stay in place now when updated, no longer jumping back to the last open slot. Good catch Terry, and good fix Apple!

iPod

Thanks to iTunes 8, iPod received what was possibly the biggest feature boost in 2.1. We’ve already covered how to create on-the-fly, and on-device Genius Playlists, which is the most obvious update…

…But Apple has snuck in a few other gems as well.

When the iTunes Remote App debuted alongside the App Store, many found it to be superior in some ways to the built-in iPod App. Apple seems to have listened, and added the improved music listings, which show album and artist underneath track names.

Podcasts get similar treatment, with not only date added, but length and length remaining if you’re only part of the way through. TV Shows give total time, as do movies.

Sadly, they didn’t add one of our favorite features — search. The more storage, the harder it is to find stuff. Apple needs to more seriously integrate this base functionality throughout the iPhone.

On the tweak side, Apple has added a new state to the small blue dot icon that used to simply distinguish “new” from “not new” for other media like podcasts and TV shows. Now, a half-blue dot indicates “partially new” (i.e., you’ve started but not yet finished watching or listening to it).

In terms of behavior, I noticed that since 2.1, when a podcast completes playing, the iPod App will immediately begin playing the next oldest podcast in the same series. I don’t remember seeing this in earlier firmware, and next newest would seem more logical.

Lastly, word is 2.1 now supports a triple-click on Apple’s wired earbuds and in-ear earphones to skip backwards one track. I’d imagine (and hope), it would also support the volume rocker on the newest versions of those earphones as well.

Conclusion

Sure. No cut/copy/paste, no turn-by-turn, no MMS, no video recording, no ubiquitous landscape keyboard, and the list goes on and on. But this wasn’t 3.0 on 3rd gen hardware. This was, all jokes aside, the real release version of 2.x. The proper gold master we should have gotten back in July. And taken at that, it’s a very important, and much appreciated update.

Not perfect yet by any means, but a much needed step in that general direction.

Should you update to 2.1? Now that the iPhone DevTeam has again worked their jailbreaking wonders, there’s no reason for anyone to shy away. It’s free, it’s functional, and its fixed. Go grab it, and drop by the forums to let us know how it’s treating you!

And if you notice anything else we may have missed, please let us know! (And if you’re still having issues post 2.1, Jeremy wants to make sure you hit Apple’s iPhone Feedback page and let them know!)

(Today’s Lightning Review comes from BaLLi5t1c, a full review of the awesome Pandora Radio app (available on iTunes for free!). BaLLi5t1c gets a 25% off coupon to the iPhone Blog Accessory store. Want one yourself? Post a review in our forums — full details here)

This is my first time writing a review for an iPhone app, partly because I just received my 16GB Black this past Friday and partly because I’ve been basking in the glory that is the App Store, and I couldn’t think of a more deserving app than Pandora Radio to review.

For those of you who have never heard of Pandora Radio, I’m sure you’re wondering what it is exactly and why I would make such a bold statement in my title. Allow me to enlighten you.

To put it lightly, Pandora Radio is a heaven-sent program/application that will allow you to stream music that you’ve never heard of but probably should have, music that you listened to many moons ago but somehow let slip into obscurity with those passing moons, music that is probably still in your current rotation in iTunes, and anything in between. Not too shabby, eh?

You might ask, “BaLLi5t1c, how does it do all of that without me hand-picking all of the artists and songs that I want to hear?”

(Disclaimer: This initial section is just to give would-be users an idea of how great this program works from a real-world/user perspective. I have a “Functions” section below that details what you can expect from the menus and features of the app itself. Feel free to skip to that portion if you just want to find out the basics/technicalities of Pandora Radio.)

The logistics are anything but simple and I won’t even pretend to understand all of the intricacies but if I were to hypothesize, I would have to guess that it boils down to old-fashioned voodoo magic. Ok, I admit I’m no scientist and my hypothesis is far from accurate but if you do want more detailed information on this truly spectacular process I would advise checking out Pandora Radio – Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music for an overview and FAQ for an in-depth explanation (other than voodoo) of how it all works.

As soon as I installed the app, I clicked on “Create a Station” and typed in Three Days Grace as the artist I was interested in. The first song that played was, as you might have guessed, by Three Days Grace. I enjoyed that song so I hit the “thumbs up” icon but wanted to delve further into what this handy-dandy app could offer. I hit the “next track” button and a song played that I had not listened to since back in 2006 when I played it several times a day for at least a month (10 Years – Wasteland in case anyone was curious). By that point, I was seriously intrigued but wanted to see what else this puppy could do. I hit “thumbs up” and then went to the next track and I couldn’t believe my ears. Disturbed – Stricken fired right up which coincidentally happened to be the artist whose newest album had been playing in my car non-stop since I purchased it several weeks ago. That was when I thought to myself, “Get out of my head,” then after realizing what I had stumbled upon, immediately retracted that thought and clicked “next track.” I’ve not looked back and I couldn’t be happier. The icing on the cake? It’s ABSOLUTELY FREE!

Functions:

The layout is pretty straight-forward and I don’t anticipate anyone having issues navigating the menus/using the app itself but if you do and don’t feel like perusing through the site or FAQ for your concerns, I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have right here. As you can see in the screen shot below, all of your current stations are listed (determined by what you search for using the “+” in the left-hand corner) and there’s a “QuickMix” station which basically melds all of your tastes together and samples them accordingly (Note: Stations included in the “QuickMix” can be edited from the site listed above).

Once you’re actually listening to a station, you’ll be looking at a very eye-catching screen with various options allowing you to manipulate and refine your experience even further. In the screen shot below, you can see the “thumbs down/up” buttons which are pretty self-explanatory meaning that you either like the song or you don’t and WILL have an effect on future choices presented to you through this application (read more on the impact your actions have in the FAQ listed above). There are also options to bookmark the song and/or artist and even purchase the song via iTunes which can be accessed by clicking the little up arrow between the “thumbs down/up” buttons.

If you are curious as to why a particular artist/song was chosen for your listening pleasure, you can click the button in the right-hand corner (kinda looks like a few bulleted lines) and it will bring up an in-depth explanation that may or may not go right over your head but it’s comforting to know that the selections aren’t just lucky guesses.

To ensure that users are actually rating the music/not just browsing for the sake of browsing, you’re limited to six (6) skips/next track selections per station per hour. So, if you have multiple stations with similar artists you can workaround this in a sense because you get six (6) skips on each per hour.

Note: If you hit “thumbs down” on a song, it will stop playing and go to the next song. This is considered a “skip” and will count towards your allotted six (6) per hour.

Pros:

• Accuracy with which it picks and chooses artists/songs based on your tastes is simply astonishing.
• Quality of the streams is definitely above-average and will please practically anyone utilizing this incredible app.
• Speed of streaming is quite impressive. My first encounter with the app as recounted above was on the EDGE network and the load-times were definitely tolerable then. On 3G and Wi-Fi, you’ll be going through songs at almost the same rate as you would by clicking “Next” in iTunes.
• Cover-Art/aesthetics when you’re actually listening to a song is top-notch.
• Easy-to-navigate menus and two volume controls based on your access to the device (on-screen slider and dedicated volume keys on side of the device).
• Seamless integration with your account via Pandora Radio – Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music and the ability to access all of the same features and then some while on the site.

Cons:

• Playback volume leaves a bit to be desired when just listening via the external speaker making it difficult to entertain multiple people in the same room without huddling around the device.
• The initial menu where all of your stations are listed is almost too simplistic visually. It’s not that it doesn’t do the job but it pales in comparison to the view you enjoy once you’re actually listening to one of your stations.
• Inability to edit/remove bookmarks and re-name stations unless using the online portal (Pandora Radio – Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music) slightly tarnishes the otherwise brilliant experience.
• Makes you want to worship your shiny Apple toy more than you already do!!!

Overall Rating: 4.5/5 – Highly Recommended

Masseym drops our latest Lightning Review, for MLB At Bat ($4.99 at iTunes), which we publish today even though masseym clearly was trying to play this Minnesota boy’s heart by using a Twins game in his screenshot. We’re publishing Lightning reviews of iPhone apps nearly every day, write your review in our forums and you’ll get a chance to win a 25% off coupon to our iPhone accessories Store. Click here for full details!

As an avid baseball fan (ok, just the Mets) living in Texas, I was excited when MLB announced their app. I could see the strike/ball/out counts live and then watch highlight clips from anywhere in the world! What an exciting application.

Well, after $4.95 I am disappointed. The app refreshes only once per minute, so there is no “live” update to strike count. It does have a small “on base” display, but again, only updates every minute. No box score or other stats.

I was most excited about the highlights. On my wifi connection, the highlights are AWESOME! 30 to 45 second clips of the “exciting” parts. They are delayed about 2-3 minutes after the actual action, but that involves the encoding of the video on MLB’s end.

On 3G and EDGE, the video is a different story. They are TERRIBLE. You can’t even make out who the players are since MLB compresses the video so highly. I can somewhat understand on EGDE, but 3G too? Come on.

Pros:

• Wifi highlights
• $4.95 for the rest of the season
• Baseball anywhere I go and have a signal

Cons:

• TERRIBLE video on EDGE and 3G networks
• 1 minute refresh rate isn’t instantaneous for balls/strikes/outs
• NO additional data (i.e. box scores, etc)

Could last Friday have been any more massive for Apple? Following on the heels of slew of preparatory updates including OS X 10.5.4 and iTunes 7.7, the transition from .Mac to Mobile Me, and — oh, yeah — the highly anticipated launch of the iPhone 3G hardware (see Dieter’s review), Apple also dropped a little something called the 2.0 firmware. Available pre-baked in the new iPhone 3G, Apple didn’t spare the love for owners of the original iPhone 2G who receive it as well as a FREE downloadable upgrade, as do owners of the iPod Touch (minus the phone, camera, SMS, and GPS functionality, and the FREE part — $10 please).

The 2.0 firmware was first demonstrated back at the Apple iPhone SDK Roadmap event in March 2008 and immediately went through a very long, very public beta process where almost anyone could sign up and download it. In spite of the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), during the 8 different betas released to developers, many new features that weren’t originally demonstrated still leaked out all of the interwebs. But did all of them?

Read on to find out!

What Hasn’t Changed

Before we dive in to all the new hotness, let’s just get some housekeeping out of the way. Some apps remain pretty much unchanged (at least to our eyes!) from the 1.4 firmware that immediately preceded this release. This includes:

• Home. 3G label replaced E(DGE) for the new hardware, and dock icons look to get a tad more translucent when they zoom out or back in, but otherwise its the same Springboard as before.
• Text. SMS messages tweaked to allow following or bookmarking of texted linls, but still no SMS forwarding. Still no MMS.
• YouTube. It’s your vidz, what else did you need? Oh… inline Flash…
• Stocks. Same old widgety goodness from the last gen.
• Weather. See stocks. No HTC Touch Diamond-style animated goodness here.
• Clock. What do you want, it’s timeless!
• Notes. Still no sync. Still no integration with the other PIM (Personal Information Management) apps. Still no landscape keyboard. Stevie, please!
• iTunes. Icon tweak aside, you can still buy songs over WiFi, and that’s still it. No media and nothing long-form.
• iPod. Gets some small tweaks like video rotation (you can watch portrait or landscape now), and video podcasts are gone from the audio section, so no more listening-only option (?!). But how about metadata? A2DP Stereo Bluetooth support ?

Sure, constraints on time and resources, not to mention battery life trade-offs mean we can’t have everything and all at once, so let’s see just what Apple did choose to update this time around…

Calendar

The most visible for every user in Calendar is color! No longer doomed to dull blue, the new Calendar 2.0 will retain your color settings when you sync from Outlook or iCal, and what’s more — will use transparency effects to visualize overlapping effects. Very sweet.

The biggest change overall, however, is integration with over-the-air, wireless syncing via “push”. For more details on these, see our already-posted reviews for both Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and Apple MobileMe “Exchange for the rest of us” service.

Camera

The Camera 2.0 software has also been tweaked to improve image quality but the big news is that it is now location aware, which means it will geo-tag your photos.

For more on how CoreLocation services work, including how to grant and reset permissions, check out the sections on Maps and Settings (below).

If Flickr popularity is any indicator, a lot of people will welcome these updates.

On the minus side, there’s still no ability to tweak basic camera settings, however, and no Mobile iPhoto-like post-processing options have been added. Apple may figure users will do this once they sync back to their computer, but if you want to take a shot and quickly email it upload it, the ability to do basic corrections on the iPhone itself would be more than handy.

Photos

Photos is mostly unchanged from 1.4. The only difference is that now, in addition to photographs taken with the iPhone’s built camera, the Camera Roll also store screenshots.

How do you take a screen-shot? Press the Home Button and Sleep/Wake button (on the top) at the same time.

For the iPod Touch, since it lacks a camera and hence a Camera Roll, screen caps are stored under Saved Photos.

An almost invisible addition if you don’t know about it, it’s still much appreciated (especially by reviewers, no doubt!)

Still no ability to tweak photos, Mobile iPhoto-like, but as a viewer — and a way to stun crowds with accelerometer spinning, finger-pinch zooming — it’s still a killer app.

Maps

Maps 2.0 gets a minor face lift, using the more literally page curl icon to activate — what else — the page curling to reveal the extra options added during the late 1.x era.

For iPhone 3G owners, however, Maps also adds the much more precise location functionality provided by the new aGPS functionality. Rather than just the large blue circle (sometimes encompassing entire city blocks) that Google cell tower mapping and Skyhook’s WiFi Router mapping provided previously, aGPS now gives a small blue dot within yards/meters, if not right at your exact current location. (Complete with eye-candy fading ripple effect).

Leveraging the cell and WiFi location services to handle some heavy lifting, the aGPS is remarkably snappy.

Moving? No problem, the blue dot will follow you.

From staying on route to keeping track of where you parked (via the pin drop), this functionality is huge, especially for people who have no inborn sense of direction… (present!)

Note: Like all location aware apps (including Camera and even 3rd party App Store apps like Twitteriffic), Maps will ask your permission to use your current location the first few times you launch it. Keep agreeing and it will stop bothering you. If you later have privacy concerns, you can revoke your permission in the Settings and force it to ask you again next time (see below). In the age-old battle between convenience and security (where the former often — and unfortunately — trumps the latter), this is an interesting and acceptable solution.

Incredible new functionality, though it is lacking in turn-by-turn

Calculator

Apple’s Vice President of Design, Jonathan Ive, loves him his mid-1900s Braun, and few places is that more obvious than the iPhone’s Calculator app. While the basic app itself remains unchanged from 1.x in its default, portrait mode, if you switch to landscape, Calculator 2.0 now switches with you, expanding to become a full-on scientific calculator.

While I have pretty much allowed myself to atrophy into a near math-lexic state, this had been a long requested feature and is a very welcome addition.

What would also have been a very welcome addition? The ability to backspace to precisely correct input errors. The ability to nuke the entire current display with the “C”-Clear button may be more in keeping with the 50 year old physical calculator from which the iPhone calculator was derived — and thus default behavior for those raised on said calc — it’s just not how modern computer input should work. Bad user experience.

Settings

While Settings is not the sexiest app in the bunch, it underpins pretty much everything else and has received quite a few updates in 2.0. Fire and foremost is a new “Fetch New Data” section, while “Mail” has been renamed the MobileMe- and ActiveSync-enabled “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”.

The Fetch New Data panel lets you globally toggle “Push” data syncing (for MobileMe and ActiveSync), schedule fetch/pull requests (e.g. for POP or IMAP email checking), and an Advanced panel to select Push or Manual (with the same type of scheduling set up in Fetch) for MobileMe.

Although a system-wide change, one thing is obvious in Settings that’s fantastic news for anyone that uses strong, even pseudo-random passwords (no, not cut, copy, and paste, don’t be silly!). Apple has changed the way password fields work, now leaving the last character you typed visible for a few seconds so you can minimize the chance of typos. Not perfect, but lightyears ahead of the old system which pretty much made everyone and their IT department shorter and simplify passwords, again trading security convenience. Good Job!

General Settings adds a new On/Off toggle for Location Services, to globally allow your iPhone to use the Google cell, Skyhook WiFi, and for iPhone 3G, aGPS technologies to keep track of where you are — or not.

A new section called Restrictions allows you to selectively disable (via a 4-digit Pin number), iPod content flagged as “explicit” (though sadly only for violence and adult subject matter, not explicitly poor taste or writing/production…), and potentially inappropriate Safari web pages and YouTube videos, as well as access to spend money on the iTunes WiFi Music and App Stores.

Good stuff there for parents, even if no toggles will prove perfect and parents will still need to monitor their young hax0rs lest they find a way around them.

The Keyboard and International sections have been beefed up in anticipation of Apple’s 70+ region eventual iPhone 3G rollout (and since the iPod Touch has already been available for almost a year in most areas, about time too!)

Yummy. Having done a couple of years of Mandarin, while I haven’t had the chance to try out the Chinese handwriting recognition yet, I’m eager to and will definitely report back in a future post.

Last in the General Settings, Reset has been updated to let you change your mind about previously allowing or disallowing location services (for the Camera, Maps, and some App Store Apps), and to go along with the new emphasis on enterprise features, Apple’s enabled Secure Erase, and warns it will take 2 hours just to prove it’s serious.

Given previous reports that AT&T refurb iPhones contained the data from previous users, this is an important addition to a device that can easily contain all your personal and business data. Hopefully — for Steve Gibson’s sake! — Secure Erase uses several passes of pseudo-random data writes, and not something patterned like zero-ing out, which can still be subtracted to reveal the underlying data — if you have the tech and the will to go to the trouble, of course!

For Mail, Contacts, Calendars, in the Mail, the only new addition is the ability to add Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and Apple MobileMe accounts (see our previous walkthroughs for more). Contacts and Calendars give similar options, allowing you to choose which account you want as default, how you want your information sorted and synced, and other bread-and-butter style management features. Newly added is the ability to Import SIM Contacts, which may be useful for people upgrading from GSM feature phones and who stores a lot of data on their SIM chips. For ActiveSync Calendar users, you can toggle New Invitation Alerts On/Off.

The last major change to settings is that now App Store apps, like AOL’s AIM, can add their own panels to Settings. Not all do, with others choosing to keep their own local settings within the apps. Daring Fireball, Ignore the Code, and others have commented on the relative merits and implications for Apple’s Mobile HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) for both approaches. I’d just add that Mac apps can have their own Preferences, or can add panels to the global Settings app. Perhaps the iPhone environment could likewise label local options as Preferences to avoid user confusion with the Mobile Settings app proper.

App Store

The only new icon on the first page of the 2.0 home screen, App Store is potentially the killer feature of 2.0, and one of the biggest ripples in the mobile market thus far. Check out our previous coverage in Brian’s How To review.

The core concept really is game changing, but even as some accuse Apple of being too controlling (and they are to the extent they will not allow certain classes of apps, nor the discussion of the SDK in public), they obviously weren’t controlling enough to keep out the silly, duplicative, buggy, ugly, and sleazy dev dwarves. But we’ll post more on that later.

Bottom-line for me? The cream of the crop put to shame any previous mobile development ecosystems. It really might be the next major computing platform…

Phone (and Contacts!)

Phone’s changes are primarily in the Contacts section, and as special bonus, Apple snuck the iPod Touch’s dedicated Contacts app into the 2.0 firmware for iPhone users as well (though the hid it on the second screen). What’s the point? Well, first its nice to have if you just want to access your Contacts in fewer taps. Second, unlike the Phone app’s contacts, Nate Bird points out that the Contact apps allows for you to add contacts while speaking on the phone. Nice bit of extra functionality there!

Rounding out the contacts goodness is the long awaited ability to search your contacts. If you’re at the top, you’ll see the search box ready to go. If you’ve already scrolled down, just tap the magnifying glass icon above the letter A on the alphabet running down the right side, and you’ll be whisked back up to it.

Drawbacks? It’s… not exactly zippy to bring it. We’re talking EDGE speed here, not 3G for the interface. But that problem plagues more than just contact search, so I’ll save it for the end.

For the rest of the enhanced contact functionality, see our previous reviews for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and Apple MobileMe.

Mail

At the risk of being repetitive, the major new feature in MobileMail 2.0 is the “push” integration of add Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and Apple MobileMe (see our previous reviews for the details).

Management gets a boost with multi-move and multi-delete functionality. Unlike 1.x, where you had to individually select and approve each message for deletion, in 2.0 you can select as many as you see and wipe them out all at once. Great for nuking “push”-spam according to Dieter!

Smaller, but also very nice new additions include, if you’ve setup multiple accounts, the ability to see which account your sending from, and change it on the fly if you want to.

Receive a picture in an email? Now with 2.0 you can hold your finger down on it for a second, and Mail will ask if you want to save the image. If you do, it will be filed in the Camera Roll, same as screen captures. (Or the Saved Images if you’re using the iPod Touch).

I also noticed (though haven’t been able to verify yet if this is new to 2.0) that when forwarding an email, I was prompted as to whether or not I wanted to include the attachments. If this isn’t new, d’oh! Where’ve I been? If it is, equally sweet.

Safari

Update: Safari did get much, much faster, especially in Javascript execution! Still, I’m waiting for a full MobileSafari update that brings in some of the new WebKit technology, like the lightning-quick SquirrelFish javascript engine, which should go a long way to speeding up and stabilizing some of the more script-intensive sites. HTML 5, CSS animation, audio and video tags, SQLite local storage, and all the rest as well…

Maybe in 2.4?

Right now we get the same image-saving ability built into Mail (see above), and according to Daring Fireball, a horizontal keyboard that’s roughly 30 pixels shorter, consuming less of the vital real estate than it’s 1.x counterpart. Personally, I didn’t notice. Confession: I don’t use it much. I’m fine with the vertical keyboard. Call me a mutant if you must, but I really like the keyboard. (But then, I never liked, and hated using, Treo and Blackberry hard keyboards, so maybe even more pariah than mutant, eh?)

For those who do prefer the landscape keyboard, Apple still hasn’t seen fit to enable it system-wide, like in Mail, Notes, or any other app in which it might prove beneficial.

3.0?

Sigh.

Conclusion

Overall, iPhone Firmware 2.0 is a stunning achievement that really puts the iPhone on par with the Apple II and Mac as one of the great revolutions in modern technology. It takes it beyond simple Phone + iPod, or even smartphone, and makes it the leading contender for the next great shift in computing.

That said, it’s still far from perfect, and more to the here and now, suffers from stability issues and overall sluggishness problems that make me think Apple was cramming until the very last minute to finish the 2.0 release. That some users have reportedly fixed their problems (including overly-yellow screens, App Store app crashes, etc.) by hooking up to iTunes and restoring to a 2.0 firmware 2 build numbers later than the one that shipped makes this seem even more likely. (And no doubt, Apple is already prepping a 2.0.1 or even 2.1 update to polish things up — hey, it happened with the original iPhone!).

If I had to give it a score right now, it would still be a 10, with the understanding that when it came to the 2.0 release, the bar was reset to 11 early on.

If you’re an iPhone 3G owner, you already have it. If you’re an original iPhone 2G owner, it’s a free — and therefore no-brainer — upgrade (now that Apple’s servers are working again!). If you rock an iPod Touch, and are worried about the $10 “non-subscription accounting mandated” charge, I would still recommend it. It’s almost the exact same price as Super Monkey Ball, which many of you will want to download immediately there after…

So there it is, my iPhone 2.0 review. Did I miss anything? Have you discovered any more hidden gems buried anywhere? Let us know!

Monday we asked you “What’s the iPhone 3G Chip and When Will it Ship?“. Tuesday it was “What is the iPhone 3G Going to Look Like?“. Today we want to know what YOU think the iPhone 2.0 software and services are going to give us, and what surprises might they have in store?

Exchange ActiveSync and the AppStore are gimmes. Enterprise features are checked. Beta leaks are everywhere. And .Mac to Mobile Me — Don’t get us started! But what else will we get? MMS? Blogging? Mobile iChat? Universal home remote control? And what about the Holy Grail… cut and paste?! What do YOU think?

To give you some help, here’s a HUGE roundup of all the iPhone 2.0 software and services rumors. Epic-style. Because let’s face it, roughly 0.01 seconds after Steve Jobs pulled the first iPhone from his pocket back at Macworld 2007, and someone, somewhere, put aside their childlike sense of wonder long enough think: “Nice! What’s the next gen going to be like?”

Complementary, contradictory, obvious, confusing, all but confirmed or from left field via outer space, the rumors have flooded the internet ever since. It’s become almost impossible to keep track of them all.

Five days from today Steve Jobs takes Moscone Center stage for the sold-out WWDC keynote, and according to everyone and their newsfeed, announces the iPhone 3G. In eager anticipation, every day this week, TiPb wil be asking you to tell us what you think the next generation iPhone will be, from 3G to GPS, release dates to price points, colors to casings, 2.0 software to .Mac .Me services, and this weekend we’ll wrap it all up with a look into the WWDC/iPhone 3G Crystal Ball, and a roundup of the very best of YOUR predictions.

So come on, let’s get in on!

WWDC -5 and Counting: iPhone 2.0 Software & Services

The iPhone’s interface quite literally took the smartphone world’s breath away. Some of us watched the Macworld 2007 demo over and over again — watched as Jobs slid, flicked, pinched, spread, and otherwise touched his way around a set of mobile applications so good looking they were positively “lickable”. We got SMS, Calendar, Photos, Camera, YouTube(!), Stocks, Maps, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Notes, Phone, Mail, Web/Safari, and iPod/Media Player, and Settings for all of them. The wait for release day was torturously long.

Apple also showed an unprecedented ability to upgrade and add functionality via firmware updates handled by iTunes. Minor things included double-clicking the home button to bring up Phone Favorites or the Currently Playing controls on iTunes, and double spacing to add periods. On the major side, the iTunes WiFi Music Store made its debut in the fall alongside the introduction of the iPod Touch, CoreLocation made Google Maps so much more useful, and WebClips and “jigglies” allowed for custom SpringBoards (home screens). All in all, we got updated 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, and 1.1.4. And then came the Apple SDK Roadmap Event and the debut of 2.0 (Beta).

Let’s start there, at the beginning and work our way forward. Please note, 2.0 has been in beta since early March, and that beta has been updated 6 times already, so developers have had ample opportunity to dive into the code for hidden strings and other goodies, making many of these rumors as close to fact as possible:

March 6, 2008: Apple held their iPhone SDK Roadmap Event.

While this event was primarily focused on the SDK and 3rd party apps (which we’ll get to tomorrow!), it also unveiled firmware 1.2.0 (which soon after became 2.0). What did that mean for 1st party iPhone software and services? Phil Schiller, VP of Marketing announced Cisco IPsec VPN, authentication and certs, enterprise/University compatible WiFi (802.1x), security policies, enterprise configuration tools, and “remote wipe”. But none of that was the big news. The big news was that Apple had licensed Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync technology. Not any locked-in application, but the technology itself. And they were going to be integrating it into MobileMail, Mobile iCal, and the other built-in iPhone apps for “push” based enterprise support. What’s more, ActiveSync was given first-class status, even over Apple’s own .Mac and existing partners Yahoo! and Google.

In addition to the event proper, Apple snuck a few more goodies into the press release:

[T]he beta iPhone 2.0 software provides several new Mail features such as the ability to view PowerPoint attachments, in addition to Word and Excel, as well as the ability to mass delete and move email messages.

Eagle-eyed viewers, like our own Chad Garrett, also spotted icons that provided the first hints of Event Invitations and Contact Search.

March 17, 2008: Hax0rs extraordinaire, the unofficial iPhoneDevTeam found the Parental Controls settings when they managed to get their hands on a pre-release of the 2.0 software.

March 18, 2008: Apple released Safari 3.1 with built-in support for advanced CSS, including animation, and HTML 5.0, including video and audio tags, as well as key technologies for offline interactivity, including SQLite databases. Based on the same WebKit framework, and big brother to the MobileSafari browser, could the same feature set be making its way to the iPhone?

March 25, 2008: Though his predictions about the first generation iPhone proved completely wrong, on his monstrously popular Diggnation podcast Kevin Rose claimed that iPhone 2.0 would include iChat video conferencing.

Likewise one of the longest and most confusing debacles of the first generation came to a head with rumors that politics and positioning would make 1st party Flash support in the iPhone unlikely even for 2.0.

March 27, 2008: iPhone SDK Beta 2 is released by Apple, changing the release numbers from 1.2.0 to 2.0, superficially with a YouTube plugin for Safari, and VPN, mail, and ActiveSync tweaks and re-org’s.

Over at Apple Insider, a very interesting Apple DVR patent was uncovered. More than just a TiVo-style device, it suggested the iPhone could work as a remote manager, scheduling recordings while you’re out, and syncing them so you could take them with you on the go. Was Apple poised to free your TV, with the iPhone as its key?

March 28, 2008: iPhone Alley dug into the Beta 2 frameworks and found the first references to expanded .Mac services and syncing in 2.0:

Syncing with this Dot Mac account will turn off syncing for other Dot Mac accounts and delete any existing synced data.

March 30, 2008: Not tiring of the seemingly endless soap opera, Gizmodo brought word (again), that Flash would be coming to the iPhone with firmware 2.0. Unfortunately, they mistook embedded YouTube support in MobileSafari for Flash. More likely, it’s a mere extension of existing MP4 H.264 video support already found in the YouTube App proper.

April 8, 2008: Engadget leafed through their WWDC course program and found hints at a MobileSafari update bringing CSS transformations and animations. Could it be getting the same ultra-modern love desktop Safari 3.1 got?

April 9, 2008: iPhone SDK Beta 3 was dropped, with the before-rumored Contact Search and Event Invitations activated.

April 14, 2008: More from Beta 3, as Gizmodo’s anonymous tipster discovered the ability to save images directly from MobileSafari to the iPhone Photo Album.

Meanwhile, Roughly Drafted speculated that ActiveSync itself could be a trojan horse for more open, standards-based “push” protocols like IMAP IDLE and CalDAV. Could Apple get a gorgeous iPhone interface in front of users, while they worked behind the scenes on technologies already supported in Leopard Server as part of the .Mac revitalization for consumers?

April 17, 2008: Apple Insider shone the light on an Apple patent for an iTunes-like iCarrier store for selecting carriers based on up-to-second rate information. This would remove lock-ins to the extent where the big telcos would “bid” for users by offering the best price/performance deal in real time. Unlikely any time soon, given the existing carrier agreements already in place, but one day?

April 22, 2008: Ever watchful Apple Insider revealed a patent filing that held tantalizing potential for a Mobile iChat, and also much-improved MMS and SMS applications. Multi-tasking 3rd party app restrictions may one day have a 1st party solution?

April 24, 2008: iPhone 2.0 SDK Beta 4 hits, with mucho developer tool fixes, updates, and enhanced functionality.

April 27, 2008: Deep code diving on Beta 4 had TUAW bring word on iController, an Apple project that would allow the iPhone to connect to shared iTunes libraries to browse and play media, similar to how the Apple TV functions.

April 28, 2008: TUAW’s tipster returns to reveal that the Beta 4 holds evidence of Jabber/XMPP protocols for instant messaging. Mobile iChat again moves from future potential to present possibility.

May 5, 2008: MacRumors reported that Apple had quietly added Chinese “handwriting” support to 2.0. Not only the key to a massive Asian market, the idea of handwriting recognition itself was huge. Could non-ideographic language support follow?

May 7, 2008: iPhone 2.0 Beta 5 landed with not much new, it seemed, but dev tools and tweaks.

A TUAW tipster soon brought word of .Mac “push” Settings. The buzz of a .Mac ramp up continued, even if on the email-only side. Still, could this be an effort to deliver something akin to ActiveSync functionality to non-business users?

May 8, 2008: Following up on their .Mac “push” email story, TUAW reported that the entire .Mac service would be revamped along with the iPhone 2.0 release at WWDC. Full wireless (wifi + cell) calendar, contacts, and email sync for both Mac and Windows (?!) users.

May 12, 2008: Apple Insider brought word of developers discovering strings that indicated 3G data support. While some controversy surrounding fake/mocked-up screenshots distracted from the news, this was the first software confirmation of the much-anticipated iPhone 3G.

May 22, 2008: Apple Insider again delivers the goodies, this time from “private” updates to “select developers” that showed support for Geo-Tagging. Although not necessarily bound to GPS (Google cell tower and SkyHook Wi-Fi triangulation are already on the iPhone), Geo-Tagging is typically used to add location-based data to photographs.

May 28, 2008: Less than three months in, and Apple released iPhone 2.0 Beta 6! This could well be the final beta going in to WWDC. Any last minute surprises?

May 30, 2008: Coding Robots went through OS X 10.5.3 and found that .Mac was .missing. Seems the name had been replaced with a string variable that would allow Apple to change it. Could the rumored revamp include brand new branding as well?

At the same time, Apple Insider’s patent watchers found a filing for a system to warn users of impending system loss, and another to help locate missing Blue Tooth enabled or tagged items. While iPhone users had been hankering for better BT support, stereo headset and keyboard-style peripherals were no doubt higher on the list… Could they, at least, be headed for 2.0?

May 30, 2008:The missing .Mac mystery deepened as DaringFireball suggested an old Apple trademark may be the new online services marquee: Mobile Me. Howls of grief and confusion echoed through the interweb pipes for days.

June 1, 2008:Dot Mac-Gate continued when DaringFireball brought word that Apple might skip the Mobile and go straight to Me.com (later reports suggested even .Me with a newly established Top Level Domain scheduled). DNS listings, hosts, and domain name ownerships were transferring left and right. And we still weren’t happy with the branding…

June 3, 2008: Those of us who use it found the .Mac email service down. Was Apple shuffling things behind the scenes in preparation for WWDC?

June 4, 2008: TUAW continued their .Mac scoopage with word that the new “MobileMe” service would include all new, all snazzy web interfaces that better resembled the desktop iCal, Address Book, etc. (Even for Windows users?)

Also from TUAW came word that, due to carrier “first look” agreements, the 2.0 firmware gold master from this week would require 1-2 weeks of testing before it could be released to the public, pushing it back as far as end of June/early July.

UPDATED:

June 4, 2008: A Gizmodo reader found icons for the iPhone (and iPod Touch) in a place typically reserved for Bonjour-capable devices. Apple’s implementation of the zero config networking system, iPhone integration could allow for wireless syncing.

June 5, 2008: WWDC banners unfurl, highlight a branding change to iPhone OS X, the World’s Most Advanced Mobile Platform.

Your Turn!

So there you go. We already know what Casey’s top ten most wanted features are, now it’s your turn. Tell us what surprises YOU think the iPhone 2.0 software and services bundle will have for us. Tasks? Consumer-oriented “push” mail/contacts/calendars? Even more Google or Yahoo integration? Custom Widgets? MMS? iChat 3D? Photo Speed Dialing? … Cut and @#$% paste?!

And after you’re done telling us, don’t forget to head over to our iPhone Blog’s super Wait-a-Thon spectacular where you could win an iPhone 3G of your very own, whatever it looks like, on the very day it’s released!

Go back and read Part 1: What’s the iPhone’s 3G Chip and When Will it Ship?
Go back and read Part 2: What’s the iPhone 3G Going to Look Like?
Continue reading Part 4: What 3rd Party iPhone SDK Apps Will Be Available Launch Day?
Continue reading Part 5: What Will the iPhone 3G’s Hardware Features Be?

The folks at Mozilla are still fuming mad over Safari-gate. The developers behind the popular open source browser Firefox stated flatly that no efforts will be made to port Firefox to iPhone, blaming Apple’s Gestapo-like restrictive software license.

So this means I can’t look forward to a browser that consumes half my memory and grinds to a halt on AJAX-heavy websites? Tragic.

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Fortune is quoting Microsoft VP of Specialized Devices and Applications Group (whatever the hell that is), who indicates the software giant may be open to developing applications for iPhone.

“It’s really important for us to understand what we can bring to the iPhone, to the extent that Mac Office customers have functionality that they need in that environment, we’re actually in the process of trying to understand that now.”

The thought of Microsoft software running on iPhone is sobering enough, but even more so when you consider the company’s own mobile platform, Windows Mobile, competes directly with iPhone. Fear the fruit.

ReadVia CrunchGear

The Flash drama continues, with more twists and turns than a California highway. It looks as though iPhone may be getting native Flash support after all, if dragged kicking and screaming. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen spoke to reporters during a conference call…

“Well, you really believe that Flash is synonymous with the Internet, and frankly, anybody who wants to browse the Web and experience the Web’s glory really needs Flash support. We were very excited about the announcement from Windows Mobile–adoption of Flash on their devices–and the fact that we’ve shipped 0.5 billion devices now, non-PC devices. So we are also committed to bringing the Flash experience to the iPhone, and we will work with Apple. We’ve evaluated the SDK. We can now start to develop the Flash player ourselves, and we think it benefits our joint customers. So we want to work with Apple to bring that capability to the device.”

Do let’s pretend that Steve Jobs earlier comments were some kind of smokescreen intended to mask Apple’s true motives, while backdoor negotiations with Adobe unfolded. That makes sense, doesn’t it? No, I didn’t think so either.

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Steve Jobs might want to look in his rearview mirror, because there’s a hulking eighteen-wheeler barreling down the highway, belching thick black smoke, and crushing every vehicle in its path.

The software giant is working with long time rival Adobe to bring Flash player Lite (yes, THAT Flash player) to Windows Mobile devices, while simultaneously incorporating support for its own SilverLight technology. The move will give Microsoft a leg up over Apple, making its mobile platform more web 2.0 friendly in supporting these ubiquitous web animation and runtime environments.

Apple has valid reasons for eschewing Flash lite, so it claims, like poor performance and a not-so-much like a desktop experience. Even if valid, it’s never a checkmark in your favor when competing products support features yours does not.

Wake up, Apple. You’re in Micrsoft’s crosshairs now.

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Avi Greengart, Research Director for market research firm Current Analysis, says Adobe’s Flash player performs poorly on iPhone, in its current incarnation, proving more trouble than it’s worth.

“There is no question the iPhone delivers a compelling Web experience and there are good reasons to want Flash in there, but Flash Lite wouldn’t give you the Web experience you’re looking for.”

The jixt of this statement, as we’ve known for some time, is that Adobe’s Flash Lite player comes with a high resource overhead, taxing the processor as well as battery life. Or so Apple claims. Forces are at work behind the scenes to develop a more optimized solution to bring native Flash content to iPhone users.

Much as I sometimes lament the absence of Flash, I don’t see it as a crucial feature. So long as some method exists for scraping content from YouTube, as it does now. That said, having no Flash support is yet one more missing feature that Apple haters will use as fodder for flinging rotten fruit at the device.

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Apple and RIM are on a collision course as the two companies go toe to toe vying for enterprise messaging market share. RIM has long held the corporate high ground with its dominant BlackBerry Enterprise Server technology and ubiquitous handsets. But Apple is sending iPhone to business school, adopting Microsoft Exchange support that is certain to give Apple the competitive advantage it needs to challenge RIM’s BlackBerry industrial complex.

This puts Apple in a unique position. Until now the company has narrowly focused its product strategy at consumers, not business. Apple and enterprise go together like Dairy Queen and Lactose intolerance, but iPhone has achieved the kind of sweeping success and brand awareness that makes it marketable to business customers, given the right pedigree of tools.

The combination of iPhone’s consumer appeal and business smarts could produce a perfect storm for Apple. Will it be enough to topple RIM?

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Response to Apple’s release of an iPhone SDK has been overwhelming; literally. Since it became publicly available yesterday, Apple’s developer website has been swamped with user registrations and download requests. I personally have made numerous attempts to download the SDK, all unsuccessfully. If that’s any indication of the frenzied bustle of app development we might expect, I’d say we can expect a torrent of iPhone applications in the coming months. Bring your umbrella.

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Angry verbs and adjectives are flying from iRate iPhone users brewing over the revelation that a site claiming to have a leaked SDK and working in partnership with Apple, was in fact a hoax intended to generate traffic and a some laughs. It’s getting lots of the former, but very little of the latter. The person behind the hoax site, Tiny Code, perpetrated this caper by posting what he alleged to be “leaked” information, then later pulled down the information, at the request (so he claimed) of Apple’s attorneys, and even redirected the site domain to point to Apple’s server.

In a forum post on MacRumors he confesses to his crime and then blames the blogosphere for picking up the story in the first place…

Overall I just apologize. I do not expect forgiveness and I definitely understand the posts following this to be nothing more than bashing. Just know than when I posted that information I had no intention for attention or otherwise, it was simply an excuse to stop publishing to the repo; seemed like a good one at the time.

Yeah, and I thought about faking my own death to get out of paying taxes. Seemed like a good idea the time. Well I forgive you, Kelly. But you’re still a tool.

For everyone else, look on the bright side; the SDK is coming despite this juvenile hoax, so keep the candles burning. It will get here when it gets here.

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What feature request has been on the lips of every iPhone user since the idolized gadget first came galloping out the gate? I’ll give you a hint, it starts with the letter “F”, and is the same thing your inebriated Uncle Frank does at family get togethers after knocking back one too many martinis. Of course, I’m talking about Flash.

GearLive claims that Apple will be announcing Adobe Flash for WebKit (aka mobile Safari). There have been rumors to this effect for some time, but with the blessed arrival of the much anticipated SDK now only days away, this seems plausible. Still, I wouldn’t start bookmarking YouTube.com on your iPhone just yet. Let’s wait for Apple make this rumor a reality.

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iPhone wielding Slingbox owners will soon be able to view their favorite smutty Spice Channel content on iPhone screens, if rumors are true. A site that goes by the charming name Electric Pig (I prefer my swine without rectal power adapters thank you very much) claims to have spoken with one of the higher ups at Sling Media, who went on record as saying that a version of its popular Slingplayer for mobile devices is in development right now.

Sweet. Now I can watch all my favorite episodes of Gilligan’s island while driving down the freeway. Zoom Zoom.

ReadVia MacRumors

C|Net’s French website is reporting that an upcoming Firmware update, to be released by Apple as early as Saturday, will include two added features that enable the iPhone to act as a USB Flash Drive when docked with a PC or Mac, and includes Voice recorder capability. Which means you’ll be able to throw out all those thumb drives littering you desk, as well as that ridiculously obsolete handheld voice recorder.

Aside: I’d like to know how C|Net France came by this seemingly “insider” information. The whole things seems very dubious, but we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

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Leopard sales are off to a honking strart. According to Apple the company sold a prodigious 2 million copies of the new OS in the first weekend since its official launch at 6:00pm on Friday. Several thousand Mac fanboys (and girls) stood in long lines, similar to those witnessed during iPhone’s launch, eagerly waiting to grope Apple’s new kitty-clad OS. How many copies were sold to Microsoft’s Research lab? Oh, we’ll have to wait for the next version of Windows to see what features Microsoft’s bovine borrows from Apple’s feline.

Astonishingly l was not among the rabble. I’m saving my spare change for the purchase of a MacBook Pro, which will come with Leopard pre-installed. As General Patton once said… “I never pay for the same real estate twice.”

Read the press release after the break.

Apple Sells Two Million Copies of Mac OS X Leopard in First Weekend

CUPERTINO, California—October 30, 2007—Apple® today announced that it sold (or delivered in the case of maintenance agreements) over two million copies of Mac OS® X Leopard since its release on Friday, far outpacing the first-weekend sales of Mac OS X Tiger, which was previously the most successful OS release in Apple’s history. Sales included copies sold at Apple’s retail stores, Apple Authorized Resellers, the online Apple Store®, under maintenance agreements and bundled with new Mac® computers. Leopard is the sixth major release of Mac OS X and is packed with more than 300 new features.

“Early indications are that Leopard will be a huge hit with customers,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Leopard’s innovative features are getting great reviews and making more people than ever think about switching to the Mac.”

Leopard introduces Time Machine, an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac; a redesigned Finder that lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs*; Quick Look, a new way to instantly see files without opening an application; Spaces, an intuitive new feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; a brand new desktop with Stacks, a new way to easily access files from the Dock; and major enhancements to Mail and iChat®.

Pricing & Availability Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard is available through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), at Apple’s retail stores and through Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $129 (US) for a single user license. The Mac OS X Leopard Family Pack is a single-household, five-user license for a suggested retail price of $199 (US). Volume and maintenance pricing is available from Apple. Leopard requires a minimum of 512MB of RAM and is designed to run on any Macintosh® computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5 or G4 (867 MHz or faster) processor. Full system requirements can be found at www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs.

Ambrosia Software has released an update to its popular custom ringtone software, iToner, now supporing iPhone firmware 1.1.1. If you’re already a user, download the update now. If you’re not, well… download it anyway.

ReadSource

Charge the defibrillators, my heart just stopped. None other than Steve Jobs himself has officially announced that Apple will indeed open iPhone to native software development, and provide an SDK next February. Apparently plans were in the works to open the platform to developers all along (told you so) but Apple still hasn’t figured a non-invasive procedure for allowing applications to run in OSX.

So, the good news is there is a God. The bad news is it’s Steve Jobs.

Read his excellency’s blessed scrawl after the break. Or go here to see the official announcement on Apple.com

Third Party Applications on the iPhone

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

Micromat is a name well known in the Mac software community, best known for its popular TechTool Pro; a utility for fixing troubled Macs and impatient IT managers. The company has now put its coding skills to work on iPhone. Their new application, Syphone, lets you archive and view all threaded text conversations, sent from your iPhone, right on your Mac. Never fear losing that important message from your boss, or sultry conversation with your mistress. It’s all saved right there on your Mac.

Syphone is currently in beta, and is available for download free of charge. If public response is positive Micromat plans to offer a premium priced professional version with more functionality. Good on them. Download Syphone here.

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Mark your calendars, Apple fanboys. A certain feline themed operating system is ready to pounce on Macs everywhere, as its appointed date with destiny draws nigh. Sources have pinned October 26 as the date Apple will officially launch OSX (10.5) Leopard. Every Mac rumor site from here to Nepal is claiming confirmation by “sources.” Yeah, sources. I have mine too and they prove every bit as reliable as a magic 8 ball. The thing I love about Mac rumor sites is that when one reports a rumor, it sets off a chain reaction of counter-confirmations; as if they can somehow collectively will the rumor into fact by supporting one another’s claim. You’d be better off consulting the giant clown head at McDonald’s; it won’t give you an answer but it will take your order.

I have to say, so far Leopard hasn’t knocked my socks off. I look forward to its arrival but I won’t be standing in line outside of an Apple store on the day of its arrival, as I did for iPhone. Still, I saved Leopard a seat on my hard drive partition should it come round. Hey it can’t be any worse than Vista, right? Ah, Vista. Leopard may purr, but Vista is the real pussy.

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SummerBoard users may want to fire up Installer.app. Four new themes are now available for download; Oren, Phiberglass, JrWallace, and two variations of Tiger. Oren stands out as best theme, in my opinion. It gives your home screen a purple-hued “Fo’ Shizzle” look that speaks taste.

Nothing too dramatic, but who doesn’t love freebies.

See folks, this is why Apple locks out third party software development – using Steve Jobs’s products as adult sex toys is naughty, and voids your warranty.

An app called iBrate (cute name) turns your iPhone into a $600 $400 vibrator, the only device in the world that can make phone calls and orgasms at the same time. So, guys, the next time you call your gal and she sounds somewhat far away, with a suspicious buzzing sound in the background, you’ll know that iPhone is the man you aren’t.

To download iBrate, you will need to be running installer.app with the Community Source package installed. If that’s already done you should see it listed.

I wonder if this app really works? Hold my calls.

Hey, check this out. I heard from a guy who knows an Apple employee that heard a rumor from Steve Jobs’s cleaning woman, that Apple is planning to rollout a big ass iPhone update (version 1.1) as soon as later today or tomorrow. What’s in this update, you ask? Don’t know. All I do know is that it has something to do with bringing iPod Touch features like iTunes WiFi Store and that Starbucks thingy to iPhone. But word is that bugfixes galore are also in store.

Be still, my heart.

Tired of the same default homescreen, and its OSX Dashboard motif? Bored with tapping the same icons over and over again? Well fire up your Community Source package, and let SummerBoard cure those homescreen blues.

This amazing app changes the look and feel of iPhone’s default launcher, with a choice of four available themes. If you have Installer.app setup, just select SummberBoard from the list of source packages. After installed you will see a new icon on your homescreen called SMBPrefs. Tap that and pick a theme. It’s just that simple.

Leopard is my favorite. It’s colorful but not gaudy. For those of you who lust for those new icons found on iPod Touch, the included Louie Mantia theme will satisfy your craving. If you don’t like certain aspects of your UI skinned, like the dock for example, you can simply turn off features you don’t want. Try it out yourself.

Hey, look who just got its first drawing app. Yes, our little iPhone is growing up so fast. In no time at all he’ll be wearing his first service pack, and heading off to school to join his classmates from RIM, Microsoft, and Nokia. tears

LateNiteSoft created a nifty app who’s time is long overdue. Sketches allows you to make drawings on iPhone’s screen using your finger, opening a world of possibilities for utility and frivolity; draw simple sketches, scribble notes, annotate photos, or just pass away the time drawing mustaches on photos of your friends.

The software is currently in the proof of concept stage of development (that’s Alpha, in geek vernacular) and offers no configuration options whatsoever. For example, only images from your iPhone’s Camera roll can be be imported, and no drawing tool options are offered. Only a “Setup” button is present, but tapping that reveals a generic “Coming soon” promissory note.

Bear in mind Sketches is not a web 2.0 Safari app – it’s one of those shady “unofficial” third party applications that involves utilizing installer mods like AppTap to get up and running. So use at your own peril.

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The developers at Twenty08 aren’t waiting around for Apple to release iChat for iPhone. Instead they are introducing their very own native instant messaging client application, called MobileChat, that looks and works exactly as you would expect Apple’s own software. What’s more, they’re even making the source code available for download, for anyone to freely modify, or hack if you will.

MobileChat’s feature list is surprisingly comprehensive for a first generation product…

• AIM Account Support
• IM Abilities
• Full Buddylist with Statuses
• Change status: Away & Online
• Suspend and stay online
• Sound notifications
• Popup Notifications

Another example of developer initiative overcoming Apple’s autocratic control on iPhone. Come on, Apple. You’re embarrassing yourself. Just release an SDK and open your platform already.

ReadSource

I came across this story this morning on PC World, and it stirred my own frustration with Apple. Web apps have their place and, truth be told, developers have found very clever ways to extend the genre, but I and every iPhone user on this hemisphere want the same thing – native application support!

What aggravates me further is that Apple does in fact have plans to open its platform. A friend of mine at Yahoo even informed me some time ago that they are currently working on their own native software for iPhone as we speak. So the question is…when will Steve Jobs unlock the backyard gate and let developers into his walled garden?

My suspicion is that a planned rollout is due to take place sometime in late Q4 to coincide with the release of Leopard, the next version of OSX. That day can’t come soon enough for me, but the problem is that when the moment does arrive it will be a point of embarkation, not a destination. In other words it will take developers months to study APIs and begin writing applications.

As someone who comes from an extensive Smartphone background, I relish productivity applications that form the basis of mobile computing. As it stands now, iPhone is like a high performance racing engine -it’s faster and more powerful than anything else on the road but it can’t go anywhere but on a racetrack. Every time I interact with my iPhone I feel as though I’m hitting a virtual brick wall. I keep wanting the device to do more than what it offers me. From day one I learned to accept the software limitations with an understanding that someday more applications would arrive, extending my user experience. With iPhone hype dying down, now is the time for Apple to create another spark by turning its product into a platform.

It’s your move, Steve. We’re waiting.

InfoWorld pits three reigning Smartphones against the iPhone, comparing the browser experience of each platform. The verdict: Safari wins. Color me shocked.

This was a foregone conclusion. Mobile web browsers are simply crap compared to iPhone. I speak from experience as a Smartphone aficionado, having used every platform under the sun. None of the devices referenced in this article delivers even a remotely comparable experience to Safari.

iPhone includes a real web browser – a desktop web browser. Not the toy browsers you’ll find on PalmOS, Blackberry or Windows Mobile, that render webpages through a paper shredder, producing a mangled stack of images and text.

While I won’t deny that iPhone has a few shortcomings, web browsing isn’t one of them.

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In addition to the big iMac announcement, Apple also made a few lesser but greater iLife feature introductions that could have a big impact on iPhone users – those who use Macs anyway.

iMovie ’08 now enables video to be encoded and formatted for iPhone’s native screen resolution (HVGA). So now you can view your home videos on any iPhone, and share them with other iPhone users.

That’s not all. iPhoto ’08 offers a new .Mac Web Gallery service for uploading and sharing photos from a Mac, PC, or…iPhone! So iPhone users can now upload images captured from the phone right to a .Mac account. Pretty nifty, eh? Of course you’ll have to pony $100 to purchase a .Mac account, and oh yes, a new iMac wouldn’t hurt.

So goeth the upgrade treadmill.

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ModMyiPhone is living up to its name. A haxor developer nicknamed “Cranium” has created a Windows-based File browser that enables users to access and transfer files directly to the iPhone, in mounted fashion, bypassing the sync process.

Unfortunately this is a quick and dirty application created in visual basic express. There is no installer and you’ll need .Net libs to make the magic happen. But if you do manage to fill these requirements, you’ll be rewarded with a window to your iPhone that allows full drag and drop support, Right-click save as, Auto previews, file backups, etc. The usual fare.

Finally! A reason to use Windows! Nah.

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Parallels is beta testing a new release of its desktop virtualization software that incorporates iPhone syncing with XP and Vista. Now you’re probably asking yourself “Why the hell would I want to sync my iPhone with a Windows virtual machine on a Mac?” And honestly, other than perhaps the same reason my Doberman Pinscher licks his genitals, I can’t think of one good reason. But it’s nice to know the option is there should I choose to utilize it, right?

Among the added features in this release…

    <li>Coherence windows now work with Expose! This means that each individual Windows application window will appears a separate, selectable window when you hit F9 to enter Expose. Windows windows (man, that sounds weird to say…) also have neat OS X effects too, like drop shadows. You’ll also be able to “stack” Windows application and Mac application windows in any order you’d like, so the experience is completely seamless.</li>

<li>The Image Tool is back at full strength and completely compatible with snapshotted drives. Using the image tool, users can:
      - Convert virtual hard drive format (plain to expanding, expanding to plain), 
      - Enable/disable the "undo disk" option, which will erase all changes made during a session at shutdown. Its ideal for those of you doing a lot of testing or working in school settings), 
      - Easily enlarge a virtual hard drive if you're running out of space.</li>

    <li>Explorer, our free utility that lets you browse and work with your VM’s hard drive even with the VM is off, now also works with VMs that are suspended. Be sure to read the release notes/user guide on how to do this safely.</li>
<li>iPhone support in XP and Vista. Yes, I realize the irony of syncing an Apple device with Windows running on a Mac, but lots of people need to hook their iPhones up to Outlook. Try not to judge.</li>

Sounds delicious! Download the beta here.

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Coolgorilla.com breaks down language barriers and offers a novel way to meet foreign women in bars with the help of its talking translation service. Avoid those embarrassing social faux pas as you stumble to form poorly structured sentences from a book.

Just visit CoolGorilla.com on your iPhone – select any available sentence from the phrase book and your iPhone will repeat it back in the desired native tonque of your guests.

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Gentlemen, start your downloading! Upon docking my iPhone I nearly spewed Coke Zero through my nostrils when a message popped up alerting me to a firmware update for iPhone, version 1.0.1. According to the documentation this is almost entirely a bug fix and little else. Correction It’s a security fix for several recently published Safari vulnerabilities.

Bummer. I was expecting some value added goodness.

UPDATE: Apple has posted documentation for this update here.

UPDATE 2: Since installing this update the Mail app has become alarmingly unstable. It seems to freeze up often. On the plus side IMAP folder support appears to have improved, allowing full server-side folder browsing. Nice, but I can do without the crashy crashy.

Thomas Robinson has started a really cool project that enables XBOX 360 owners to use their iPhone as an XBOX Media Center Remote, controlled via WiFi. A simple menu-driven interface allows you to play music, video, DVDs, photo slideshows, and more. I like!

The project is fully open source and can be downloaded free from Thomas’s website.

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YouTube junkies looking for an easy way to transfer and view Flash video to your iPhone, in place of Apple’s ill-equipped streaming client, can now breath a sigh of relief. TubeTV makes saving and converting any Flash video content to iPhone/iPod format quick and easy, just the way we like it.

Download this free application now so you watch all those wonderful videos of cats wearing hats and sweater vests.

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Are you sick of staring at that annoying AT&T logo? Do you hate the default arrangement of icons on the home screen? Is the incessant percussion sound of the Marimba ringtone making you wince with every incoming call? Well fret no more, with iFuntastic you can say goodbye to those walled-garden blues.

iFuntastic enables users to easily create custom ringtones and make various tweaks and changes to the iPhones settings and GUI, right from within from within a very simple interface.

Download it today. It’s free!

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Today iPhone is one step closer to gaining third party software support, unofficially of course. Hackers from the #iPhone IRC channel managed dissect embedded OSX’s source libraries and create a basic proof of concept application that does nothing more than display the words “Hello World”. The devs have now released these source binary files on public servers, available for anyone to download.

This is by no means the final solution in opening iPhone to software developers (that will come only through Apple), but I’ll take third party software any way I can get it. Even it is the result of a raped and violated hack ‘n slash effort.

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Tunji Afonja from Efiko Software informs me that he has created a new custom ringtone application that enables iPhone users to roll their own ringtones, bypassing Apple’s lame default set of barely audible tones. Thank God someone developed this software. The Marimba sound is getting on my nerves!

UPDATE: Matt Miller has posted a walkthrough video showcasing the features of iPhoneRingtoneMaker.

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So yesterday afternoon I was bantering with a friend of mine, who works at Yahoo, about the iPhone and what each of us thinks about the device, etc. As we were dinging its shortcomings the subject of third party software came up and whether Apple will ultimately open the platform up to software developers. He told me something interesting – not only is it possible, but apparently Yahoo is working (with Apple’s support) to bring its mobile services application, called Yahoo Go, to iPhone.

My initial reaction was that he was referring to a Safari web based app. Nope! According to him this is a native home screen application, and it’s being tested right now by the mobile team at Yahoo. Gah!

Now, I care as much about Yahoo Go as I do a bowl of leftover oatmeal. It was the revelation that somewhere in the world, outside of Cupertino, applications for iPhone are being developed and tested that had my ears standing.

This opened more questions that my friend had no answer for, namely whether development will be open to all developers or merely those hand picked by Apple? All I got back was a firm “don’t know. I only know we have an app in development now, and we’re working with Apple on services.” So there you have it. Will there be an SDK for developers…or will Apple only allow developers into its tent that it deems worthy of the Blessings of Jobs?

As much as I hate to say this, I think the latter will be the case rather than the former. My hunch is that Apple will erect guard towers around iPhone, and limit platform development. We’ll have to wait and see how this shakes out.

Sven Rafferty has posted information from one of his “sources” who claims that an update to iPhone’s mail app will integrate Microsoft Exchange DirectPush support. Not only that, but this feature upgrade will also enable OTA (Over-The-Air) syncing of contacts and calendar events as well.

In effect the iPhone will interoperate with corporate Exchange accounts just like a Windows Mobile device. Sounds great, but this is still rumor (Read: unconfirmed).

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It didn’t take long for hackers to break through the iPhone’s glossy exterior and into its inner bowels, gaining root access. What troubles me is how easily and quickly it was done. So far hackers have managed to uncover the iPhone’s root password for the device, which is “Alpine”, as well as the mobile user account password – “Dottie”. And DVD Jon found a way to unlock the damn thing so we can use it as an iPod sans AT&T service.

Needless to say, in all this merriment, security analysts aren’t laughing.

“Once hackers are able to dissect the firmware, they can come up will all kinds of avenues to get to the iPhone’s kernel,” Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism for Secure Computing, told MacNewsWorld.

Yeah, and you know what that means…soon the scaremongering will begin and security firms will be lining up to sell us copies of Norton Anti-Virus for our iPhones.

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This shouldn’t come as a surprise given that Nokia’s Symbian web browser is actually based on Safari’s core framework, known as WebKit. If anything this may benefit iPhone users by extending developer support to a much wider audience, beyond just iPhone’s Safari environment. I say good on them.

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Developers at Opera appear to be suffering iPhone envy. Today the company rolled out a public beta of its Opera Mini 4 browser, designed for Java enabled phones, which rips off features first unveiled on iPhone’s Safari browser. Opera Mini 4 sports Safari’s impressive zoom feature that enables users to see a large thumbnail image of a web page, and navigate or zoom to specific sections of the page by tapping in that location.

I’ve used Opera Mini on my Treo and frankly it stinks. So does the Treo for that matter, but that’s another topic. The browser is very poorly optimized and lacks elegance and integration of a native application environment. Opera’s mobile browser for Windows Mobile is a much better overall solution, but still lacks refinement. Keep trying, Opera. You’ll get it right – eventually.

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Say it ain’t so, Joe. Say it ain’t so!

Our sources at WWDC are reporting that, for now, there is officially no Flash support on the iPhone. Apparently, in the State of the Media address yesterday, the announcement was made that: “There will be no Flash support at the moment on the iPhone.” Developers are being told not to serve video via Flash, as there simply isn’t a player built for the phone yet.

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Some industrious haxor developer has created an interesting yet simple demo web application, highlighting what is possible via iPhone’s Safari browser. I still have very mixed feelings about this framework. Maybe I’ve been hanging around PDAs too long, but I prefer system-native applications as apposed to the Web 2.0 approach.

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Stop the presses! The Wall Street Journal is claiming that it heard from a source, who heard from a friend, who knows a guy that has a brother who was told by a street corner hooker, that Apple will require iPhone users to register an iTunes account in order to use the phone. Oh the humanity.

Ok, this isn’t as extreme as it might sound. Registration is free, and since I already have an iTunes account I won’t be screaming bloody murder.

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What’s this? iPhone supports Flash plugin? Just think of the possibilities! This means we’ll be able to watch xTube YouTube video right our iPhone. Or not. Keep a close eye on this story because it is completely unconfirmed by anything other than a product shot used in a TV ad.

Still, since iPhone is running OSX under the hood it’s totally conceivable that Flash is supported. We’ll see.

Via Engadget Mobile

New York Times columnist David Pogue has published an ammended blog entry containing a second round of FAQs everyone seems to interested in finding answers to. This is definitely worth the click, as it paints a clearer picture of this “micro” OSX platform. I found one comment from Steve Jobs to be rather dishy…

Markoff: “And what are you thinking about Flash and Java?”

Jobs: “Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.”

Markoff: “Flash?”

Jobs: “Well, you might see that.”

Markoff: “What about YouTube–”

Jobs: “Yeah, YouTube—of course. But you don’t need to have Flash to show YouTube. All you need to do is deal with YouTube. And plus, we could get ‘em to up their video resolution at the same time, by using h.264 instead of the old codec.”

Err..I hate to break this to Steve but YouTube’s embedded video playback feature is based on Flash, so I’m not sure whether he understood the relevance of Markoff’s line of questions regarding Flash and its inclusion in the iPhone. Partnering with YouTube isn’t going to enable playback of YouTube content on the iPhone unless that partnership involves said company building a portable Flash package for Apple’s new phone. But I digress.

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