7/11/08 UPDATE: see http://applechannel.net/2008/07/08/n95-8gb/

For the past couple of weeks I have been trying to decide on what my phone of choice will be. Right now i own the one and only iPhone 8GB version, which I LOVE. After seeing native apps like GPS, and services like QIK, to name a couple, I cant help but feel somewhat inferior to N95 owners. After much consideration, time, and inquiries, there is only one way I can go with the decision….

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From day one i had not been a huge fan of big social networking sites. I could not get into Live Journal, I don’t really care for MySpace, and did not understand the use of Twitter. Now after tons of trial and error, to see what really keeps you in touch and what doesn’t I am now very much within the social networking..network. But with careful consideration, I feel there are only a few worthy of getting the job done.

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Im still torn and doing a ton of research to decide if I should stick with my iPhone or switch over to the awesome Nokia N95… story soon

-Jake

First and foremost, the reason I am giving these needed suggestions on protection is i have got plenty of emails asking what’s good, what sucks, and what’s unnecessary. Ok here we go. After investing in something beautiful like a Macbook Pro, you will want to treat it like its your kid…a very expensive kid. Those of you owners know what I’m talking about. After spending lots of time and money i think a have come up with the perfect bundle that will take care of your laptop and make it look good at the same time. All of these products can be purchased from their websites, or get a deal on eBay. I will also go over what the best kind of carrying case is. Click story for the list…

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As a long time Starbucks employee,   I can now safetly say, “It’s bout F@##ing time!” A while ago there was some rumors, going around about AT&T taking over Starbucks Wi-Fi, which would not only kick T-Mobile to the curb (which is what they get for the bull crap price of $19.99 for hotspot service), but offer FREE wireless to frequenting starbucks customers. Even as an employee I still could’nt get a WiFi “hook-up.” Today a San Antonio Starbucks cafe was shown to have the AT&T service pop up when connecting to Wi-Fi and their favorite store. This is good…very very good. I hope this roll-out happens FAST! The way i understand it is: People with a Starbucks Card (gift or Duetto) will get 2 hours of free WiFi every day for as long as they have the card(s). I guess to show that you are at least a customer. This is a good deal. Finally Starbucks gets smart. Oh yeah if you still pay for T-Mobile HotSpots you can still access them at Starbucks. ::High Five::

-Jake

Here is the scoop: T-Mobile had spent about $4 billion dollars through FCC auction for 3G capability which has yet to be used. Now statistics show that T-Mobile is more of the underdog as far as coverage and speed features are concerned but will soon move away from that to go head to head with companies like Verizon and Sprint. T-Mobile 3G should be announced this year, to include the high speed wireless we are all dying for.. This may go hand in hand with the release of the iPhone 3G release…maybe…yes?.. I don’t know, we will see. The only thing keeping T-Mobile afloat right now is that it is the #1 text messaging company, hands down, especially with the exclusive and very gay awesome Sidekick. The N95 is looking more and more appealing at this point.

-Jake

Alright ladies and gentlemen, the moment we have been waiting for has finally arrived: The return of our beloved Demonoid. A couple of hour ago everybodys favorite torrent site was re-established. Everything seems to be as good as before and I am testing it out now, so head to Demonoid which is now open to the public with nothing added other than a disclaimer on the front page that says:

“Welcome back!

Since a few months ago, Deimos, the site administrator, lacks the necessary time to take care of the website, because of personal matters he’s been needing to attend to. For this reason, he has decided to leave the site staff.

Before leaving, he assigned a new site administrator from among his friends to take care of the site. The old moderator team will continue helping with the site, unchanged. We will try to keep running everything just as it always has been.

The trackers and website seem to be working properly, and should any issues arise, they will be taken care of as soon as possible. The site might be going on and offline over the next days as we work out any problems.

Welcome back, and enjoy your stay!

- Umlauf
Demonoid Site admin”

Is anybody else as excited as I am?

via Demonoid

-Jake

My favorite web host, and producer of Mahalo Daily, Veronica Belmont is going to be the new Co-Host on Revision 3’s Tekzilla with Patrick Norton. The former CNET show creator, who has also been on shows like  DL.TV, MSNBC, CNBC, the G4 Network, “PC Gamer,” and “This Week in Tech” , will add a sort of fresh take on the already failry good podcast. A few episodes ago she co-hosted, and it made the show that much more enjoyable….and more good lookin. Great choice by Revision 3 and be sure to subscribe to Tekzilla with your favorite podcast reader.

-Jake

via Revision 3

Apple announced that they rule the world. Well, close… The company announced that they beat out Wal-Mart  as the #1 music retailer in the US. Its not really a big surprise, seeing as how iTunes is probably more of a household name than Wal-Mart. Plus, on iTunes, you can buy songs with bad words on them! Since music and movies are heading to 100% digital anyway, you can always count on Apple being the biggest and best to take care of business. iTunes currently supports 50 million customers and has sold over 4 billion songs. If you do the math, thats pretty good.

-Jake

I believe many many people can agree, that the Apple iPhone is a developmental achievement within itself. It was a first in so many aspects, and from day one there are people who are 100% devoted to the magnificent device, including myself. Lately, it seems like it’s just not enough though. First off, I already get mad taking care of the $500 (early adopter) piece of awesomeness because no matter hoe careful you are, you cannot win, and it will get scratched and dented. Second, is the software.

Now I have had every kind of smartphone known to man. Lately I feel Nokia may be coming around the corner, with their “iPhone Killer” using their s60 Touch Interface. It is already bad enough that i am thinking of getting a Nokia N95, because really..what CAN’T you do with it, but now Nokia will bring the delight of all touch interface with their ever so popular OS. With this, it is confirmed that the new Nokia, along with existing Nokias (N95) support, flash embedded video, any third part chat app, wi-fi, divx support… etc. just those reasons alone make me want to throw my iPhone back at Steve Jobs, while telling him to get out of the 1-OS mentality and embrace open source and 3rd party support!

Well all i know is there have been a lot of advertised “iPhone Killers” all have come and gone, and none have succeeded. Why? because it is amazing. But like most things, the hype cannot last forever. One of two things will happen within this year: Either Apple is going to completely wow us and give any tech junkie what they want with iPhone 2.0, leaving the iPhone at #1. Or Nokia is going to slap Apple across its face, tell them to shut up, and make sure their next-gen smartphones leave em in the dust…which is quite possible.

s60 Touch Interface in action below

-Jake

When i saw this video on TUAW, the mere hope for the existence of gamig on an iPhone/iPod touch was suddenly resurrected from grave in which it was buried after seeing ZERO development for this. The closest that I have seen to a first person shooter on these devices worthy of mentioning is Yeti3D, released not too long ago, via installer app. But even with the advancement of Yeti3d’s workflow, I felt there is still lots and lots of work that needs to be done before we can really start “gaming” on our iPhones. As you can see in this video, we are not only now dealing with a FPS in portable format, but a named FPS, Quake 3. Now if you think it cannot get any better than that the video (below) shows the ever so awesome quake playing in full, graphics, no lag, and 100% multiplayer!!! This LAN demo will show the realtime fragging from one iPod to the next. This is nothing short of amazing, and what tops it off is the fact is the controls are all accelerometer based! People are going to say that this video may be fake, but this would have to be a 100% sync, which i don’t think is possible. Look out for news about this, and hopefully a revolution will begin shortly…

-Jake
via TUAW

It was reported today (via Gizmodo) that AT&T’s Mobility CEO, Ralph de la Vega, stated to PC Mag’s  Sascha Segan, that AT&T expectes to have all of the smartphones on their network with 3G. So as any good journalist would inquire, about the most successful phone known to man, she asked if the iPhone would incule this integration. He stated, and I quote:

“Let me repeat what I said: I think that you’re going to see our integrated devices be 3G devices in the not-too-distant future, and I mean months. That should be clear enough.”

To add to this, if you have not noticed, Apple has had quite a shortage on iPhones! Warehouse stock on iPhones are low. Online is backordered and refurbished are being pushed so much so that, At&t now carries the refurbs. They are almost giving them away. Put it all together and know that, 2.0 firmware and 3G will be hitting us in the face soon, causing a massive amount of iPhones to be listed on eBay, to earn for the upgrade. I give it a few months

-Jake

There has been quite a bit of controversy in the last couple of days dealing with everybodys favorite iPhone-Dev Team. If you recall the stories from before they were the FIRST to successfully do a full hack of Apples upcoming 2.0 firmware for the iPhone. The eidence was proven with some great youtube videos demonstrating their claim to fame. However, yesterday they said they WILL release the Pwnage hack software today for the community. In an interesting turn of events the release was delayed due to some “legal” disruptions. At the end of the workday today their site has only a white page with the following text (via a png file pasted to the main page):

My money says that is it an April Fools joke and the site will be up on the 2nd with the most anticipated Pwange hack.

see video of pwnage in action after the jump

via iphone-dev.org

-Jake

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