Mozilla is expanding its browser platform into new realms, creating APIs and a portable storehouse for bookmarks, customizations, passwords, histories, preferences and other metadata. Just like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and others, Mozilla wants its platform, called Weave, to serve as a kind of a Web operating system, managing basic services for users (more on Techmeme). […]
Guest post: Chris Matyszczyk offers some reading suggestions for this holiday season, when techies should be taking a respite from their digital labors.
It is holiday time, and, in my tech naivete, I am assuming that the hard-working, soft-partying readers of this site take a few hours, perhaps even a few days, to remove their glassy […]
When former Delta Airlines chief operating officer James Whitehurst takes over as CEO of Red Hat on New Year’s Day he’ll face the worst kind of doubters–the quiet ones. But Whitehurst could very well take Red Hat to the next level.
Aside from the blogosphere (Techmeme), you won’t hear much questioning about the choice of Whitehurst. […]
Jajah just launched their new Jajah iPhone Web application.The new app comes with the look and feel of the iPhone’s dial pad and address book enabling users to make low-cost global calling directly from the iPhone and iPod Touch. And there’s no jailbreaking and no software to install.
Here’s how it works:
You simply point your mobile Safari browser to http://iphone.jajah.com and type in the number you want to call. You can also select the name in your Jajah contacts and click on the number you want to call. I know what you think, and no, this can’t be done from the iPhone
address book. Maybe later with the promised iPhone SDK? JAJAH will call your phone, you pick up, and you will be connected to the desired international number. You can call any phone anywhere in the world (landline or mobile) without the need of an international calling plan - registration is free, there is no contract and no monthly fee, just big savings.
Jajah says that depending where you’re located and where you’re calling to, the service can be as low as 2 to 3 cents per minute. I’ve tried it in Canada to Canada, and the cost was 8 cents per minute. That is still cheap and could be an extremely good alternative when you’re roaming internationally. I’ll be in Vegas in January for the CES and I’ll use Jajah exclusively. I’ll let you know what my experience was.
his might be a stretch, but it’s worth a look. Apple Inc. has filed for a patent for a Digital Rights Management system for controlling where software can run. It involves injecting a special piece of code into an application’s run-time instruction stream that constantly checks and re-checks to see if it is being run on an authorized platform.
Should all of these checks fail, the software into which the code was injected would cease to function and become inoperable. The patent describes this as being, “transparent to the user and impossible to circumvent.”
This would also be usable to limit Apple software like Mac OS X to be limited to only Apple hardware, restricting the use of Mac OS X on Mac machines.
On the other hand, and this is simply speculation on my own part, it is possible (though I hope untrue) that this software might also be used to certify applications running on the iPhone and iPod touch. While it might be a bit of a stretch, it’s possible.
MobileScrobbler has dropped us a note that he’s updated the iPhone’s Last.fm client to a 1.2.0 release. There are a number of neat features, not least of which is the ability to stream Last.fm radio content over EDGE or Wifi (”Wifi strongly recommended,” sez Sam). The app will also scrobble tracks as you listen, allow you to tag songs as “love” or “ban” (everything is cached, and then uploaded when a connection returns), and view upcoming events and add them to your calendar. And he’s even pulling in lyrics from LyricWiki– I don’t know if that’s a MobileScrobbler thing or a Last.fm thing, but it’s great.
Pretty amazing. MobileScrobbler can be obtained through Installer.app, and a look at the changelog tells you just how fast Sam is updating it to keep up with all the tickets (the app is free, but he’s accepting donations if you do think it’s worth jailbreaking your iPhone for). Software like this is terrific– here’s hoping that when Apple does release an SDK, they make sure that dedicated developers like Sam can do this stuff officially.
So, here’s a little list of some great iPhone apps - both web-based applications and native (locally installed apps) - and some handy places to go to look for and discover new apps.
This is not a comprehensive list by any means. Just a quick rundown of some very useful and exciting programs, sites, and resources we’ve found for the iPhone. Hope this will help some of you to get a head-start on getting the absolute max out of your iPhone …
iPhone Web Portals, Start Pages, & Web Application Lists
iPhone Web Apps
These are apps that run locally on your iPhone (if you have jailbroken it) - almost all of these applications are available to install easily if you have used one of the popular jailbreak methods, and have the Installer.app program on your iPhone:
I’m sure we’ve left out lots of great apps here - so feel free to let us know some of your favorites in the comments …
According to the financial times, Apple and Twentieth Century Fox have finalized negotiations and struck a deal to provide movie rentals for the iTunes Store. It is suspected that the deal will be formally announced at Macworld.
Fox will not be the first company to offer films on iTunes; Disney currently has a long list of films available through the online store, as well as a few from other studios. However, this is the first enactment of a rental service of any kind for Apple.
Also expected with the agreement is the inclusion of iPod-compatable files on Fox DVD’s, allowing iPod owners to place the special video file onto their iPod instead of illegally ripping the DVD and converting to MP4 format.
Simplify Media, the iTunes plugin that lets you share your entire music library over the internet, now works with iPhone and iPod touch. Unlike similar applications, Simplify Media does not use Safari to stream music. This allows you to surf the web while you and your friends listen to your iTunes library from anywhere you have Wi-Fi access.
To install Simplify Media, you will need a Jailbreak iPhone or iPod touch with the AppTapp Installer. Then go to AppTapp and look for Simplify Media under the multimedia category. When you run it you will need to sign in with your Simplify Media username and password. Download the desktop version of the software for Mac or PC to create your free account. Be sure you have a Wi-Fi connection because EDGE won’t cut it. And you might want to check out the iPhone demo at the Simplify Media web site.
Well, there is now an application available to capture data points through the iPhone’s built-in camera. It’s called iMatrix. If you have jailbroken your phone and have been updating through installer.app, you may have already had a chance to try this application out.
According to the application website: “Application can: open web link via Safari, add contact in your Address Book, add event to Calendar, add new note to Notes, and initiate new e-mail or phone call. “
What applications can you see this being used for?
Amazon has unveiled their iPhone version, and it’s a very good version, it simplifies the website to the essential: product search and discovery, here is a screenshot:
The iPhone version of Kelkoo, but still in French ;-(
Labyrinth was one of the best games created for the iPhone, it made good use of the phone’s accelerometers and showed the true potential of 3rd party apps for the iPhone. Unfortunately, the popular game was recently updated by its developer to v1.0 adding a timer (which was way too quick) and a demo only version…meaning that now the game was not free anymore.
The new version adds some new features like calibration and probably fixes some bugs…but the full game costs $7. If you think its worth it…go ahead and buy it, if not then we got your piece of cake! Download Labyrinth v0.4 and follow the following instructions to get it working :
1. Extract the zip file to your Desktop
2. Open WinSCP and connect to your iPhone via SSH
3. Go to the root/Applications folder and Drop the extracted folder in there
4. Next go into the Labyrinth.app folder and right-click on the file labyrinth and set permission to 0755
5. Reboot your phone
Its a pretty simple procedure to find the IP Address of your iPhone but you will need to do this anytime you want to SSH into your phone. Follow the instructions below to get started.
Step One
Press to select Settings from your SpringBoard
Step Two
Press to select Wi-Fi from the Settings menu.
Step Three
Press to select your network if it isn’t already selected. Then next to your network name press the blue circle with the arrow in it.
Step Four
You will now be displayed your iPhone’s IP Address!
If you’re brave enough to program an iPhone application under Windows, Christmas just came early. Over at the iPhoneGameOver wiki page, programmer David Supuran has posted a link to the Windows Cygwin Binary Toolchain as well as full installation instructions and a binary installer.
From here, users can download the files, install them on a jailbroken iPhone and combine this with a free Apple Online Developer account in order to download existing software development kit files. The development environment can also run in the Cygwin Bash shell, so users with some background in Unix can start creating iPhone applications provided they have some experience under their belt.
If you’d care to recall, Apple signed a deal with mobile phone company O2 to distribute the iPhone in the UK. From all indications, the initial consumer reaction towards the mobile phone was pretty good.
O2’s CEO, Matthew Keys, said that he expects to sell 200,000 iPhones by January next year. An estimate which some analysts have called conservative.
Keys also mentioned an interesting fact about the mobile phone’s popularity: 60 percent of UK iPhone customers are new subscribers to his company. This indicates that the people interested in the iPhone were not limited to O2’s old established consumer base and it opens up the potential for further growth.
Because of these facts, Keys is confident that O2 will be landing an exclusive deal for Apple’s second generation 3G iPhone. If they do enter into an exclusive contract with Apple for the new phones, they might be one step closer to the company’s goal of hitting one million customers by 2010.
