Shinya Kasatani has developed PocketGuitar, a native iPhone virtual guitar
Widget by Css Reflex | TutZone
Showing posts with label iPhone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iPhone. Show all posts
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Apple Sells 4 Million iPhones: Software Update Announced
During his keynote address at MacWorld 2008 today, Steve Jobs announced Apple has sold 4 million iPhones since the smartphone’s introduction late June of last year. That's an average of 20,000 iPhones per day over 200 days.While that number is not unexpected, it is still wow inducing. It also places Apple, with 19.5 percent of the market, behind only smartphone leader Research In Motion and its BlackBerry devices in the U.S.Jobs also confirmed Apple's intention to release a software developer kit (SDK) in February. The SDK would allow for the creation of 'official' native applications by developers.
Currently, only unofficial software can run directly on the iPhone, which you must jailbreak first—a process too complicated, too much trouble or too much of a risk for many iPhone users.
As expected, Jobs officially announced the latest software upgrade for the iPhone, version 1.1.3. A video outlining a leaked version of this upgrade appeared a couple of weeks ago. The new features added in the actual update closely matches what the unofficial video walkthrough showed.
Here's what iPhone users gain with the upgrade:
First up, and perhaps most significantly, is the addition of Google's "My Location" service. This upgrade to Google Maps uses cell phone tower triangulation rather than GPS satellites to determine your location.
While less accurate than GPS, this technology is capable of determining your general position and displaying it on a map.
Apple is partnering with Skyhook Wireless in a bid to improve accuracy of the service by leveraging Skyhook's data about 23 million Wi-Fi networks to compliment the information provided by the cell phone towers.
You can also now send SMS or text messages to more than one person simultaneously. Unfortunately, the update doesn’t add support for MMS (picture & video) messaging to the iPhone, which still, by the way, can't take videos.
Other improvements include the addition of support for song lyrics to the iPhone's iPod function and the ability to create as many as 9 custom home screens. A simply flick of the finger allows you to go through them. Home screen icons can now be rearranged as well.
Apple also adds a button in the Safari Web browser to allow users to save bookmarks, called Web Clips, directly to the iPhone's home screen(s). This should be very convenient for those who've made good use of the thousands of so-called Web 2.0 applications—this is software that runs through Safari from a remote location, available for the iPhone.
In addition to the new features listed above, upgrade 1.1.3 brings the iPhone's Mail, Notes, Stocks and Weather applications to the iPod touch. As the iPod touch isn't a phone, Google’s "My Location" service relies only on Wi-Fi wireless to attempt to determine a user's location.
Unlike with the iPhone, Apple is charging iPod touch users $20 for the upgrade. Doesn’t seem very fair, does it?
Both the iPhone and iPod touch will support a new iTunes movie rental service, also announced by Jobs today.
Apple gives you a month to view a movie, which costs $4 for new and $3 for older films, once it has been downloaded. After you start viewing it, Apple allows you to watch the movie as many times as you like.
You can learn more about iPhone/iPod touch update 1.1.3 here.
Source:blackberrytoday.com
Widget by Css Reflex | TutZone
Monday, January 14, 2008
No iPhone for China Mobile, This Time for Good
China Mobile have been discussing to bring the iPhone on the Chinese market since November 2007. At a given moment, the discussions stopped, but the fact seemed possible at the end of the last year. However, now it's clear that China Mobile will not be an iPhone carrier, as the two companies have officially called off the negotiations.Apparently, the deal went down because Apple wanted a bigger share form the sales than China Mobile offered, which is no surprise, since Apple lost other negotiations for the same reason in the past. Both Apple and China Mobile's stocks declined with a few percents after the news about the discussions' ending surfaced.
With more than 360 million customers, China Mobile is the largest mobile operator in the world, so, if the discussions with Apple had lead to an agreement, the iPhone global sales would have surely bloomed. And this despite the handset's price (about $500), which is quite high for the normal Chinese user. But even if, let's say, only 1% of China Mobile's subscribers are interested in the iPhone, it would still be a great deal for Apple, leading to more than 3 million handsets sold.
Even though the negotiations with China Mobile failed, the iPhone might still hit the Chinese market, as the country's other important mobile operator, China Unicom, which has more than 100 million customers, could be interested in a deal with Apple.
By far the most influential mobile device from the last years, the iPhone is currently available in China only on the black market, illegally unlocked. Also, there are many iPhone clones in China, handsets that look very similar, but have an inferior quality and can be bought for 100-200 USD. Well, unless Apple doesn't convince one of the two Chinese mobile operators to make a deal, this is how it will always be.
Source: Softpedia.com
Widget by Css Reflex | TutZone
Sunday, January 13, 2008
iGoogle customized for iPhone
Google's never-ending quest to customize every one of its products for the Apple iPhone continues, the latest being Google's personalized homepage, iGoogle. iPhone users can now access all their Google gadgets and RSS feeds they have subscribed to from their iPhones. This version has many improvements compared to the standard iGoogle accessible on other mobile phones. The standard version displays feeds and a very small number of gadgets. Users have to manually add the items and the number of items displayed from a feed cannot be changed.
iPhone users can access iGoogle via http://google.com/ig/i and they will be automatically be directed to this URL if users types in http://google.com/m, the URL for other mobile phones.
Widget by Css Reflex | TutZone
Friday, January 4, 2008
iPhone Firmware Update 1.1.3 Brings Lots of Improvements
Some new features that should be available with the update are already known, and it's possible that other improvements, unknown yet, will also come with the 1.1.3 firmware. Probably the first new feature that will make users happy is the ability to drag and drop applications on the home screen. This ability makes it easy for any user to customize the iPhone and, considering the fact that the home screen will also support pagination, it's clear that Apple is more and more open towards third-party applications.
The 1.1.3 firmware update will also bring the ability to send an SMS message to multiple contacts. Furthermore, Google Maps will have the "My Location" feature, to pinpoint user's location using cell tower triangulation. Also, Google Maps will be able to display the Hybrid map view. And finally, the last known improvement to come with the new update, consists in the fact that web bookmarks can be added to the phone's home screen.
We can't know if any other improvements will be available, but we're waiting for official details from Apple, as well as for the 1.1.3 firmware's release date. Rumors say this will happen in the first week of 2008, so apparently it's not a long wait. Anyway, the update to 1.1.3 will not work on unlocked iPhones. Moreover, those who update to the new firmware version will lose all their third-party applications without the possibility to have them back, so they'll have to install new third-party applications, specially created for the 1.1.3 update.
Widget by Css Reflex | TutZone
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)