IPhone | Thats Bad Ass!

Archive for the ‘iPhone’ Category

IPhone 3G Left Out of Apple’s Game Center

September 9th, 2010 |

Author: jos

If you’re planning on showing off your awesome gaming skills with Apple’s new Game Center, you’d better have a nice new iOS device to play on. Apple has released compatibility details for the fancy high-score table, and you’ll need to have an iPhone 3GS or 4, and second-gen iPod Touch or better.

People who have the second-generation iPhone 3G can run iOS 4.1 (including HDR and bug fixes), but won’t get the Game Center. (Also, as with iOS 4.0, it won’t get the multitasking features newer phones have.) If you’re still rocking the original iPhone, you can’t have iOS 4.x at all — but you knew that already, and clearly you don’t care, you pathetic Luddite.

Game Center was demoed by Steve Jobs at last week’s iPod event. It’s kind of a social network for gaming, allowing you to compete against your friends and compare results on the leader-board, and even invite people to play multiplayer games head-to-head. Right now the most common way to taunt your friends is to share your results via Twitter or Facebook, but that requires a log-in for each and every game.

Of course, that old iPod might not have the guts to actually play some of the more demanding games available, but at least you can excuse yourself when you limp in at the bottom of the league-table by blaming your old, weak iPod’s stuttering frame-rate.

Game Center [Apple]

See Also:

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

View original post here:
IPhone 3G Left Out of Apple’s Game Center

RIM Confirms It Bought Documents To Go

September 9th, 2010 |

Author: Rahul Gabe

Image from DataViz.com.

With its flagship mobile office suite Documents To Go, software company DataViz makes some of the most popular productivity applications for Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Mobile, and Android. Now that RIM has bought the better chunk of DataViz to work for Blackberry, its days as a cross-platform mobile superstar might be numbered.

The deal had been reported as done on Friday by Crackberry.com, reportedly for $50m in cash, shortly after DataViz had announced that they were cancelling development for Palm. RIM confirmed the acquisition yesterday in a statement: “RIM has acquired some of the assets of DataViz and hired the majority of its employees to focus on supporting the BlackBerry platform.” Translation: it’s all ours, now.

Even if RIM just lets its client apps for other platforms drift along for a while, they’re still a good business: as CNET’s Jessica Dolcourt points out, “fifteen dollars a pop for iPhone business professionals buying Documents To Go for iPhone isn’t a business to quickly pull from.”

Still, having Documents To Go in-house offers RIM terrific leverage. They can use its InTact cloud-syncing software for all media files on the Blackberry; offer the premium version for free to enterprise customers; and package a new suite of productivity and enterprise apps for its forthcoming BlackPad tablet. By buying Documents To Go and its software team from DataViz, RIM just solidified its position as the “serious” and “productive” smartphone company.

See Also:

Go here to read the rest:
RIM Confirms It Bought Documents To Go

RIM Confirms It Bought Documents To Go

September 9th, 2010 |

Author: Gabe Hall

Image from DataViz.com.

With its flagship mobile office suite Documents To Go, software company DataViz makes some of the most popular productivity applications for Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Mobile, and Android. Now that RIM has bought the better chunk of DataViz to work for Blackberry, its days as a cross-platform mobile superstar might be numbered.

The deal had been reported as done on Friday by Crackberry.com, reportedly for $50m in cash, shortly after DataViz had announced that they were cancelling development for Palm. RIM confirmed the acquisition yesterday in a statement: “RIM has acquired some of the assets of DataViz and hired the majority of its employees to focus on supporting the BlackBerry platform.” Translation: it’s all ours, now.

Even if RIM just lets its client apps for other platforms drift along for a while, they’re still a good business: as CNET’s Jessica Dolcourt points out, “fifteen dollars a pop for iPhone business professionals buying Documents To Go for iPhone isn’t a business to quickly pull from.”

Still, having Documents To Go in-house offers RIM terrific leverage. They can use its InTact cloud-syncing software for all media files on the Blackberry; offer the premium version for free to enterprise customers; and package a new suite of productivity and enterprise apps for its forthcoming BlackPad tablet. By buying Documents To Go and its software team from DataViz, RIM just solidified its position as the “serious” and “productive” smartphone company.

See Also:

View original post here:
RIM Confirms It Bought Documents To Go

RIM Confirms It Bought Documents To Go

September 9th, 2010 |

Author: Matthew Baker

Image from DataViz.com.

With its flagship mobile office suite Documents To Go, software company DataViz makes some of the most popular productivity applications for Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Mobile, and Android. Now that RIM has bought the better chunk of DataViz to work for Blackberry, its days as a cross-platform mobile superstar might be numbered.

The deal had been reported as done on Friday by Crackberry.com, reportedly for $50m in cash, shortly after DataViz had announced that they were cancelling development for Palm. RIM confirmed the acquisition yesterday in a statement: “RIM has acquired some of the assets of DataViz and hired the majority of its employees to focus on supporting the BlackBerry platform.” Translation: it’s all ours, now.

Even if RIM just lets its client apps for other platforms drift along for a while, they’re still a good business: as CNET’s Jessica Dolcourt points out, “fifteen dollars a pop for iPhone business professionals buying Documents To Go for iPhone isn’t a business to quickly pull from.”

Still, having Documents To Go in-house offers RIM terrific leverage. They can use its InTact cloud-syncing software for all media files on the Blackberry; offer the premium version for free to enterprise customers; and package a new suite of productivity and enterprise apps for its forthcoming BlackPad tablet. By buying Documents To Go and its software team from DataViz, RIM just solidified its position as the “serious” and “productive” smartphone company.

See Also:

Follow this link:
RIM Confirms It Bought Documents To Go

Apple Rolls Out iOS 4.1 Update for iPhone, iPod Touch

September 8th, 2010 |

Author: Ang Nguyen

Apple on Wednesday morning released a minor update for its mobile operating system iOS 4, which includes bug fixes and a new photography mode.

Apple last week said iOS 4.1 would address a proximity-sensor issue in the iPhone 4 and sluggish performance on the iPhone 3G, among other flaws.

In terms of features, iOS 4.1 introduces Game Center, a social network for iOS gamers, as well as high dynamic range (HDR) photo processing, which Wired.com demonstrated last week.

The update is compatible with every iPhone and iPod Touch except for their first-generation models. A few iOS 4.1 features are not available on some of the older devices.

To download iOS 4.1, connect your iOS device to your computer’s USB port, then launch iTunes. Under the device menu, select your iPhone or iPod Touch and click “Check for Update” and follow the on-screen instructions to install the update. Make sure to back up your data first!

In the mean time, iPad owners can’t get iOS 4 just yet. Apple said it would release iOS 4.2 in November for the iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone, unifying the devices into one tidy OS.

See Also:

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

See the original post here:
Apple Rolls Out iOS 4.1 Update for iPhone, iPod Touch

Android Holds the Key to Samsung’s Smart TV Plans

September 8th, 2010 |

Author: Tech Blogger

Samsung's 3D TV

Steve Jobs has attributed the iPod’s and iPhone’s success to Apple’s ability to write better software than the entrenched Asian consumer tech companies. Now that Korean giant Samsung has Google’s Android OS, they don’t have to write better software than Apple to stay successful; they just have to make compelling devices. On the heels of Apple TV and Sony’s partnership role in Google TV, Samsung’s next Android-powered devices may be a line of net-connected, software-driven HDTVs.

At least, that’s what Samsung’s TV head Yoon Boo Keun told Korean press today, Bloomberg reports. Bloomberg also cited analysts predicting that the market for internet-capable TVs will break wide-open in 2012, with as many as 87.6 million internet-capable TVs by 2013, about six times as many as today.

Samsung is in a tough spot here, but one with potentially huge upside. The company is already making 3D televisions with web-browsing capabilities, and has long sought to develop its own operating system for phones and TVs. Google Android gives its Galaxy devices an instant foothold in touchscreen smartphones and tablets to rival Apple’s iOS devices. Samsung’s strength in designing and manufacturing TV sets, when paired with Android’s interface and app marketplace, would seem to offer them a sizable advantage breaking into digital TV. You could get an app- and net-capable TV without any additional boxes.

However, Google doesn’t have Apple’s experience negotiating with media companies — particularly in Asia. That seems to be both the benefit and drawback of any venture where each player contributes and controls its own piece. Apple doesn’t have that problem.

Report: iPod Touch Makes Up Nearly 40 Percent of iOS Sales

September 7th, 2010 |

Author: Stefanie Jenkins

The iPhone gets all the hype, but the iPod Touch is Apple’s second weapon of mass consumption constituting nearly 40 percent of the company’s mobile device sales, according to a report.

Apple has sold 45 million units of the iPod Touch over its lifetime out of the 120 million iOS devices shipped overall, according to estimates by market research firm Asymco. That’s a hefty number relative to the 60 million iPhones Apple sold through June and the 3.2 million iPads sold to date.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod Touch, he called it “training wheels for the iPhone.” The phoneless, contract-free device has easily found an audience: younger people who likely can’t afford hefty smartphone plans but still crave the iOS experience. A study in 2009 found that 69 percent of iPod Touch users are between 13 to 24 years old, whereas 74 percent of iPhone owners are older than 25. The study also found that iPhone owners were generally wealthier than iPod Touch customers.

In a separate post, research firm Asymco questioned why other manufacturers haven’t produced “clones” of the iPod Touch to compete with Apple like they have with the iPhone and the iPad.

“If cloners are rushing to copy the iPad, why not its smaller incarnation?” the company asked.

It’s a worthwhile question. In terms of features and price, the closest competitor to the Touch so far has been the Zune HD, which some observers criticized for having a poorly executed launch. When Microsoft released the Zune HD in September 2009, the device included a few applications handpicked by Microsoft staff, but the platform was not open to third-party developers to offer additional software. In other words, there was no app store to compete with Apple’s gigantic iOS ecosystem. Other than music and video playback capabilities, it was unclear on day one what else the Zune HD could do.

Meanwhile, there are rumors that the Zune HD will be overhauled with Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system, which will launch with an app store. Perhaps then the Zune HD might rise as a serious contender to the Touch.

See Also:

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

See more here:
Report: iPod Touch Makes Up Nearly 40 Percent of iOS Sales

New iPod Touch Has a Vibrator

September 7th, 2010 |

Author: Troy Barnes

Steve Jobs wasn’t kidding when he called the iPod Touch the “iPhone without a phone”. We have been calling it that for years, of course, but with each iteration the two iOS devices get closer and closer in terms of features. Now a vibrating alert has been added to the the Touch.

The first iPod Touch was a chunky slab of metal and glass, and didn’t even come with a hardware volume-control. As the product-line has evolved, Apple has added not only a volume switch but a speaker (the latest version has a proper speaker, not the tinny thing hidden in the headphone socket like last year’s model), a pair of cameras, a gyroscope and a microphone. The only the Touch now lacks are the cellular radio, the GPS and the mute-switch on the side.

The vibrator shows up as an alert for FaceTime on the iPod accessibility page:

If somebody wants to start a video call with you, you’ll receive an invitation — along with a vibrating alert — on your iPod touch asking you to join.

The obvious use though (no, not that one) is for games. Tactile feedback has been around on bigger consoles for years, and as the Touch is being pushed as a gaming device, adding in a vibrator seems like a great idea.

Which makes me wonder how long it will be before the Touch really is a phone-less iPhone. Is it possible that the next step is to add in cellular data, just like the iPad 3G, leaving out only the actual telephony hardware? That would still suit Job’s other nickname for the Touch, which is the “iPhone without a contract.” Couple that with FaceTime and who needs a cellphone anyway?

Video calling with FaceTime [Apple via MacRumors]

Photo: FCC

See Also:

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

See the rest here:
New iPod Touch Has a Vibrator

Need A Microscope For Your iPhone? There’s a Hack For That

September 6th, 2010 |

Author: Antonio Pierce

Images Courtesy of I-Wei from Crabfu Artworks

Ever want to take a picture of that cool insect you found on your last nature hike but all you had was your iPhone? Well I-Wei, a friend of GeekDad and the great mind behind Crabfu Artworks has a hack for you. By attaching an inexpensive field microscope to his iPhone case he was able to take pictures of the tiny world around us. Check out his video and pictures at The Crabfu Artworks Blog.

I’ve always been a big fan of I-Wei’s steam powered machines so make sure you check out Crabfu Steam Works for some awesome toys.

If you do make an iPhone scope remember to post your pictures to the GeekDad Flickr Group

See the rest here:
Need A Microscope For Your iPhone? There’s a Hack For That

Need A Microscope For Your iPhone? There’s a Hack For That

September 6th, 2010 |

Author: Margo Tipton

Images Courtesy of I-Wei from Crabfu Artworks

Ever want to take a picture of that cool insect you found on your last nature hike but all you had was your iPhone? Well I-Wei, a friend of GeekDad and the great mind behind Crabfu Artworks has a hack for you. By attaching an inexpensive field microscope to his iPhone case he was able to take pictures of the tiny world around us. Check out his video and pictures at The Crabfu Artworks Blog.

I’ve always been a big fan of I-Wei’s steam powered machines so make sure you check out Crabfu Steam Works for some awesome toys.

If you do make an iPhone scope remember to post your pictures to the GeekDad Flickr Group

Visit link:
Need A Microscope For Your iPhone? There’s a Hack For That

Archive for the ‘iPhone’ Category

IPhone 3G Left Out of Apple’s Game Center

Related Posts:

RIM Confirms It Bought Documents To Go

Related Posts:

RIM Confirms It Bought Documents To Go

Related Posts:

RIM Confirms It Bought Documents To Go

Related Posts:

Apple Rolls Out iOS 4.1 Update for iPhone, iPod Touch

Related Posts:

Android Holds the Key to Samsung’s Smart TV Plans

Related Posts:

Report: iPod Touch Makes Up Nearly 40 Percent of iOS Sales

Related Posts:

New iPod Touch Has a Vibrator

Related Posts:

Need A Microscope For Your iPhone? There’s a Hack For That

Related Posts:

Need A Microscope For Your iPhone? There’s a Hack For That

Related Posts: