Facebook have begun to roll out their new profile design: Timeline, to iPhone through the mobile optimized version of their website. The redesign features most of the important features of Timeline.

• Viewing and changing Cover Images.
• Scrolling back through time – from birth to the present day

Other features are missing, like the ability to add ‘life events’, or change the date of photos to have them listed accurately in your timeline, but overall the interface is really nice.

The new timeline interface is only viewable on profiles that have enabled them on the normal website. Timeline hasn’t rolled out on the iPad, or the native app, but no doubt it will be soon.

Source: m.facebook.com

Trying to figure out how to watch high quality YouTube videos when you’re on 3G? The iPhone is a great device for watching videos on YouTube. However, if you’re on the go, the built-in YouTube app reduces the quality of the video to save data.

One common way of bypassing this quality-reduction is by jailbreaking and using an app like My3G, but what if you’re not on #teamjaibreak? Luckily, there’s a work around that works on any iPhone, and all it requires is the stock Safari web browser.

1. Open Safari
2. Navigate to m.youtube.com
3. Find the video you want to watch
4. Select “HQ”
5. Tap the thumbnail
6. Watch YouTube in its HQ glory.

Bonus: You can add the web app to your homescreen to replace the default YouTube app by pressing the +, and then “add to homescreen”

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com.

During Facebook’s annual f8 conference today CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed an all-new, completely redesigned profile including the “Timeline” to better describe who you are and what you’re interested in. Facebook will also introduce better app integration across the platform and we’ll be seeing changes to the “Like” button as well.

So what are these changes all about and how soon can we expect to see them hit the iPhone app?

Timeline

Currently, each profile contains status updates and user activity in a static timeline with an “endless scroll” effect, requiring users who view your profile to scroll down continuously to see what you’ve been up to recently and in the past. This process can be time consuming if you’re looking for an older post or want to show friends interesting events from your past.

The profile changes include a new “Timeline” feature going back through your entire history on Facebook, even reaching back in time to before Facebook existed by letting you add information from the day you were born. Users can fill their backstory from before Facebook was created so friends can see when you’ve moved in the past, ended a relationship or got your first car from way back in the day.

Facebook describes the new Timeline as “The story of your life”.

• All your stories
• All your apps
• A new way to express who you are

Timeline essentially makes it easier for users to focus in on a specific window of time to get a good snapshot of your activity during that period in your life. Users will have more fluid control over their profiles and the ability to customize their own Timelines to reflect their personalities and lifestyles. You can determine how prominent or subtle any past story is displayed on your Timeline by adding a star to it, formatting the post in widescreen for more prominence within your profile.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the Timeline feature as I like to have full control and ownership over my profile and what my friends can see. It will be up to Facebook to make sure there’s enough customization available to users before I can pass judgement, but Timeline is definitely one of the biggest changes Facebook has made since it launched and was one of the focus areas in today’s f8 announcement.

Apps will play a larger role

Facebook apps in general will be getting Timeline integration too, letting users drop apps directly into their Timeline for display on the main profile. Apps will also be more socially integrated and hold a larger presence throughout Facebook, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how developers use the new app resources.

App “Reports” will also let you dive into the Timeline of any app so you can see the different ways you’ve been using apps at any point in the past. Want to see how many crops you harvested last summer, or how many Vampires you’ve slain this month? I think you get the point…

It will be interesting to see how the Facebook platform grows with the added benefits to app developers and the overall larger role that apps will play going forward. I could see this as more of a distraction than an added benefit, but you may think otherwise depending on the different ways you use Facebook.

“Like” is now a verb

Facebook’s well-known “Like” button that we’ve all grown to love (or hate) will also be getting an upgrade, where instead of just “liking” a book or a movie you can now say you’ve “read” a book or “watched” a movie.

The Like button will be evolving over time and adding additional verbs to open up a wide-range of possibilities. Facebook apps will also be able to tap into this new “Like as a Verb” functionality to help users better express their interests.

Open Graph

Facebook has partnered up with the likes of Spotify, Rhapsody, MOG and Rdio to integrate music directly into your profile page through Open Graph. Anything you Like or add to your profile can be played when your friends visit your page or check out your interests right from within the profile, fully integrated, and it’s completely free. Spotify currently touts 15 million tracks available, which Facebook users will have full access to just by Liking a song.

They’ve also teamed up with Netflix, Hulu, Blockbuster (wha?!) and a number of other video content providers to fill your profile with your favorite shows and videos. Netflix will not be available to Facebook users in the US initially, giving all the goods to Canada and Latin America until a certain US law that “creates some confusion over our ability to allow U.S. members to share what they watch” is sorted out.

So what about the iPhone app?

That’s a quick rundown of some of the bigger changes announced today with most of the updates being rolled out over the next couple of months. But where does the iPhone come in?

The added functionality to the “Like” button relies on HTML5 technology, so a simple backend update to the Facebook for iPhone app could easily include the new features across the service from within the app. Same goes for the Timeline, which could be displayed in a similar layout to the desktop thanks to the Retina Display on the iPhone 4 — at least in landscape orientation.

Open Graph is a different story, where complications like contracts and complex agreements come into place from music and content owners preventing users from fully enjoying what they love. There also may be technical limitations that prevent playback features from crossing over to the native iPhone app, especially with video from partners who don’t have their content setup in the right format.

We’ll have to wait and see exactly which changes ultimately make it to the Facebook for iPhone app, since recent changes like Top Stories have already been pushed while other features like the new activity ticker are still (and thankfully so) tied to the desktop browser.

There’s just one thing I’m still left wondering about after today’s f8 announcement — when the heck is Facebook going to release that long-rumored iPad app?!

[Facebook]

Google has announced via twitter that it now has an HTML 5 iOS optimized web app for its Google Music service. Google Music is currently a beta only service available solely in the U.S. If you already have an account, you can try it out and get access to all your content in this well designed web app. The web app works on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch running iOS 4.

Music Beta users – try the new mobile web app for iOS4 and listen to your music on the go: http://music.google.com

Do any of our readers use Google Music? Have you tried out the HTML 5 web app? Let us know what you think!

[The Next Web]

If you were lucky enough to get a beta invitation for Google+ and have an iPhone, you can already post updates and browse your Google+ streams quickly and easily. In just a few steps you’ll be posting updates, checking out your friends’ streams, adding them to circles, and more!

As a side note, this tip only works if you already accepted an invitation into the beta, otherwise you won’t be able to access Google+.

1. First go to www.google.com from Safari on your iPhone and sign into your Google account with your Gmail address.

2. Next tap more at the top right and you’ll see a few tabs. Tap the Apps tab.

3. Click the Google+ app and you’ll be taken into the main feed.

4. Next, create a bookmark on your home screen. Simply tap the arrow on the bottom of your browser and tap Add to home screen.



5. Now all you have to do to access Google+ is to tap that bookmark!

As a side note, if you have to sign in every time, you can remedy that by simply choosing to stay signed into your Google account. If you’ve been using Google+ let us know what you think. Do you expect more than the web app if and when they release an iPhone app?

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

According to a poster Hacker News, the Nitro JavaScript engine brought to iOS 4.3′s Safari browser, is now available to embedded UIWebViews and home screen WebClips in iOS 5. Apple originally claimed the Nitro engine, ported from desktop Safari, would make iOS Safari 2x faster, but due to restrictions on code interpretation (Nitro uses JIT, or Just-in-Time compilation), it was only available in the Safari sandbox. This effectively made web pages embed in apps and saved to the home screen feel twice as slow. No longer, according to this thread:

Q: Did they fix the bug from 4.3 where home screen web apps don’t use Nitro?

A: This is probably breaking my NDA to say this, but yes, they did. Web.app now has the “dynamic-codesigning” entitlement, which enables Nitro.

In other words, embed webpages and home screen web apps just became first class citizens, and should have the speed to prove it.

[Hacker News via CNET]

It seems that Google are slowly implementing a new UI for their web app. The update changes the ‘blue tabs’ at the top of the site to new ‘grey tabs’ with pull down icons. To change the type of search, they’ve updated it to include a drop down grid of all the different search types, and apps, instead of the old text list.

Interestingly, this UI update has only been updated on Web search, Video search, News and Blogs. The older ‘blue’ interface still appears on Image Search, Places, Shopping, Finance, Apps, iGoogle and Books. Google Apps, like GMail, Google Translate, Google Docs and Google Reader haven’t received any form of update either. YouTube has its own mobile web app, and Maps has recently been updated.

Do you like this update on the Google Web App? Do you use the Google Web App?

[Google Mobile]

Google has updated their online HTML5 Maps web app for both Android and iOS. But wait, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch already have built in Google Maps, right? Well, they have built-in Maps apps that use Google data, but the apps themselves are made by Apple and Apple hasn’t exactly been updating them at a brisk pace.

So, like they’ve done in the past for Gmail and YouTube, Google is using Apple’s “second development platform” — complete with location services and local storage cache — to get their own versions of their apps onto iOS and into the hands of users.

Now, when you visit maps.google.com on your phone or tablet’s browser and opt-in to share your location, you can use many of the same Google Maps features you’re used to from the desktop. This will allow you to:

• See your current location
• Search for what’s nearby with suggest and auto complete
• Have clickable icons of popular businesses and transit stations
• Get driving, transit, biking, and walking directions
• Turn on satellite, transit, traffic, biking, and other layers
• View Place pages with photos, ratings, hours, and more
• When signed into your Google account, access your starred locations and My Maps

It’s a smart move by Google, especially if rumors of Apple working on their own, next-generation maps app pans out. Apple has already replaced both Skyhook and Google with their own location database, and Apple has bought a couple of their own map-related technology companies as well.

Google is arguably the best in the world at web apps and while Apple would prefer everyone buy their shiny boxes and use commodity apps and services, Google wants the box to be commodity and the services to be the real, ad-driven value. By going HTML5, Google gets to dictate the look-and-feel across platform, ensuring a Google experience.

And like with Gmail, they even offer to help you put a WebClip icon right on your home page so you can use the HTML5 Maps web app rather than the iOS Maps app with the tap for a finger.

[Google Mobile]

When searching for “weather” on Google with your iPhone, you will now be greeted with a beautiful widget-like interface above your search results.

Google weather search displays the current weather conditions including temperature, humidity, wind speed, and chance for precipitation. Also, the forecast for the next four days is displayed and a slider to see the conditions predicted over the next 12 hours. As you slide the slider, not only are the conditions updated, but the background darkens or lightens to reflect the time of day. Underneath, you will find links to The Weather Channel, Weather Underground, and AccuWeather.

Google did a great job with this, and if you bookmark this page to your home screen, it can easily replace Apple’s weather app or many other apps available in the App Store. Anyone want to do this?

[Download Squad]

Yesterday, Hugh Hefner announced that Playboy magazine would be available uncensored on the iPad, but what he failed to mention was that it would be in the form of a web app, not a native application from the App Store.

We are releasing a web-based subscription service with Bondi Digital Publishing that will give users access to every issue of Playboy both past and present. The service will be iPad compatible and will utilize iPad functions.

The Playboy spokesperson went on to say that they “also have plans to release a non-nude version of a Playboy-branded iPad app in the coming months that adheres to all of Apple’s policies and guidelines.” So the above tweet by Hugh Hefner back in August still holds true.

So any concerns that Apple may be relaxing or removing their current restriction against nudity can be dropped. It looks like if you want porn, you’ll still have to go to Android – or just launch Safari.

[Forbes]

You know what the iPhone popularized? Not just iCloning. Not just multi-touch. Not just visual voicemail. What I’m talking about is watching video on your mobile device. Youtube was integrated into the iPhone from the beginning and well, most other mobile users were jealous.

But the iPhone has so much more video potential than just Youtube. As popular as Youtube is, there are other video sites out there. Take the webapp PocketVidz for example, they have thousands of videos available for your iPhone, sized and optimized for your viewing pleasure. What is the selection like? Should you try it out?

Read on for the rest of the review!

Design/Interface

After selecting a category the next page shows certain ‘broadcast networks’, if you will. The videos that populate PocketVidz are mostly vodcasts, so if you’re looking for the latest music video, you’re out of luck. You select which vodcast series you wish to watch and tap it for a short description and a listing of the latest episode. There is also a link at the bottom of the screen for all videos from this vodcast.

Usability

Over Wi-Fi, the videos load quick and snappy and the quality of the videos seemed to be on par with what Youtube currently offers (sorry I couldn’t screenshot a video). Loading the videos on EDGE was expectedly slow. There is also an option to download the videos as well which means you can step away from the typically iTunes-only videos of the iPhone and watch PocketVidz’ videos at your leisure.

The best feature of PocketVidz is the seamless way it loads videos onto your iPhone. Sure the layout of the whole web app is clunky and dated-looking, but when clicking the play button it effortlessly transitions into the video player. Also, unlike Youtube, you can watch videos in portrait mode which is of course smaller, or watch it in landscape (the recommended way).

Overall, the web app is still in its beginning stages. Its easy to use because there isn’t much flair to it and I was watching videos in a matter of seconds over Wi-Fi.

Criticism

PocketVidz claims that the experience is optimized for iPhone users and though the videos are sized correctly, the interface is clearly not. In order to have your application stand out among the rest of the more polished apps available, PocketVidz will certainly need to improve their layout. It functions fine, but man, it doesn’t feel like using an iPhone at all.

Final Thoughts

But PocketVidz definitely needs to step it up in design. The program is functional, to be sure, but it just lacks a certain amount of oomph to it. Put it this way, the program looks like it was made for smartphones with bad screen resolution and a trackball. And in the iPhone world of polished and multi-touch, PocketVidz current design layout just doesn’t cut it.

PROS

• Quick load times over WiFi
• Offers Categories and Channels to choose from
• Video launches effortlessly
• Serviceable Alternative to Youtube

CONS

• Poor, ‘rest-of-the-smartphone-world’ design
• Not all videos are available

Final Rating: 3/5

A lot of people have criticized the fact that there isn’t a Mobile iChat or any other Instant Messaging program on the iPhone. From a technological standpoint, there is absolutely no reason for it to be missing. Also, an IM client is a common offering among smartphones and feature phones alike. A IM program is often very useful to quickly stay in touch with your contacts and well, for ‘instant’ communication.

The Web App JiveTalk from Beejive, a company who makes the similar program and uber-popular JiveTalk for Blackberry, is the answer for those who need a chat program but aren’t ready to jailbreak their iPhones. How does it perform? Should you give it a go?

Read on for the rest of the review!

Design & Interface

Using Jivetalk is simple. Just point the Safari browser on your iPhone to iphone.beejive.com and the Jivetalk web app will be loaded.

The design of the program is sleek and very Apple-ish, the usage of brushed metal and chat bubbles creates an experience akin to iChat. It is extremely easy to flip through your buddy list and if in the case you can’t find it, the buddy search works as advertised. The whole interface is fluid and I have yet to come across a bug.

Even though it is currently in beta, Jivetalk is a very, very polished web app. The interface is clean and clear, simple buttons line the top of the screen such as Status, Log Off, Settings, Help, and a Buddy Search. The Settings are very customizable, almost to the point of iChat on your Mac. You can choose what theme to use, turn off bubble-chat, show offline buddies, and so on. The buddy list itself separates your buddies into your pre-determined groups and displays profiles/status of your buddies.

Usability

Jivetalk is able to use almost every chatting application ever created. Okay maybe that’s an overstatement, but AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Google Talk accounts can all be used. For this review, I kept it with AIM usage only. But note that multiple logins are also possible for those who have different accounts on different IM programs.

I found Jivetalk extremely easy to use, login is quick and painless—it even offers to remember your account and auto login on next arrival. Tapping a contact automatically opens a chat. And when chatting a new group is created for your ‘open chats’—this is a neat little feature that gives better accessibility to those whom you’re chatting with and cleans up a traditionally messy (on other phones) multiple chatting process.

There is also a tab-like interface in the chats. When having multiple conversations, in the upper right hand corner there are chat bubbles that correspond with each open chat. This allows for quick switching between chats.

You have the option to keep the keyboard up while chatting, which I chose to do, because having the keyboard slide in and out was dizzying, to say the least. Emoticons are also shown, so if you live to give your buddies smileys, feel free to on Jivetalk. There is a slight lag between pressing ‘Send’ on your iPhone and when it appears in your conversation (which is shown through a fainter font) which I will chalk up to data transmission.

Like any Web App however, especially those in Beta, Jivetalk is not without its limitations. Because of such limitations, it doesn’t always run in the background. I’ve had instances where I was able to stay logged in, but other times I was automatically logged off. It’s hard to fault Beejive for this limitation since it is Apple’s restrictions that causes this, but hopefully this can be solved..eventually.

Final Thoughts

Maybe when 2.0 rolls around (very soon!) there will be an AIM app or even iChat that can make for a better Insant Messaging experience, but I’m not so sure. Jivetalk for the iPhone is as good as any app can be, and its only limitation is the fact that it is a web app. Even on my jailbroken iPhone, I use Jivetalk rather than the other native IM options. It’s that good.

Hopefully the folks over at Beejive can release an official app for the iPhone because this is the best Instant Messaging Client currently available and it will only get better once it removes its web app status.

PROS

• Fluid Interface
• Handles Multiple Chats Well
• Groups, Profiles, Status, Emoticons—It’s iChat on your iPhone
• Customizable to your preference
• Great looking program

CONS

• It’s a web app
• Doesn’t always work in the background

Final Rating: 5/5