So unless you are 100% out of the loop, today is the launch of the iPhone 3G, and version software 2.0. The #1 reason I am excited is because, it is an Apple product launch. Even when the Macbook Air was announced and launched, I was extatic. It does not mean I’m getting one though. My last article was one about the switch from the iPhone to the Nokia N95 8GB. One thing I was surely afraid of was selling my iPhone, purchasing the N95, iPhone 3G releasing, and me selling the N95 to aquire the newley designed iPhone. This is not the case.

I love you Apple, but here is the rundown of the new iPhone:

The Design:

3G, assisted GPS (not turn by turn), and black or white plastic backing.

The Software (Which ANY iPhone user can take advantage of)

This is the main selling point of finally getting the Jesus Phone.

MobileME support, and small kinks worked out with the OS.

The mere fact that they are pushing features of 2.0 does not support the reality that the iPhone 3G is still way behind when it comes to the advancement in the mobile market. The strong points: 3G, WiFi, GPS should all be standard these days. Not to mention, MMS, Video, and IM (just to name a few) have been a standard for quite a while. This is still missing. In the end what it comes down to is, if you feel you really need 3G upgrade, if not, just do a software upgrade.

Revolutionary Design= YES

Revolutionary Mobile Phone= NO

I’m sorry Apple. Maybe a revision or software update will change my mind. Until then I am still doing everything and much more on my N95 that I could do with the iPhone 3G.

-Jake

On my daily excursion to Engadget this morning i could not have help but be intrigued at some findings on this weeks WWDC keynote. What was it? Screen shots of what looked to be a front-mounted camera on a demo 3G iPhone. I watched this video over and over and it was quite exciting to think of the possibility. Then I glanced at my iPhone. I noticed that i have the same “camera!” This being a clumsy mistake on putting on my screen protector. Photos are blurry but you can get the idea.

note: I have privacy film with my iSkin Revo, so there are just top and bottom pieces on the phone, thats why it looks like crap.

-Jake

My iPhone

Phil Schiller’s iPhone @ WWDC

There were a bunch of cool things announced in San Francisco today for the new iPhone:

-awesome SDK stuff including PUSH service for things like IM, gaming, the APP Store

-GPS

-Enterprise Support

-MobileME

Surely I do not need to get into any information about the acutal 3G iPhone that was released today. There are a ton of Blog posts about that. So we need to analyze a couple of things that took away from the excitement of the WWDC 2008. It pretty much boils down to one thing. iPhone software 2.0.

Lets take a look at what the new “features of this will be”

- Contact Search - this should have been implemented from day one

- iWork and Microsoft Office Doc support- This is a plus

- Bulk Delete mail, and save attachments- finally, overall good

- Scientific Calculator- Who cares

- Parental controls - If you are a parent in need of Parental controls, your kid probably does not deserve an iPhone.

-NEW LANGUAGES!!- OH MY GOSH, WHO GIVES A CRAP!

Free for iPhone users/ $9.99 for Touch users

I think the only we were really looking for was AppStore and GPS, but what about the others!? Here is what we expected and didn’t see with Firmware 2.0 and 3G iPhone:

-iChat (will probably show up later)

-VIDEO SUPPORT

-improved camera/front mounted camera/flash

-landscape text

-improved storage

-MMS

-COPY/PASTE

The list goes on and on. If I saw at least MMS, I would be a bit happier but at the moment I am a bit steamed. The new iPhone is gorgeous, which i hope to get in white, but new features will not have me going the extra mile to get it.

-Jake

Click for live coverage with Gizmodo 06/09/08

10am PST / 1pm EST

A good day for all.

-Jake

I have to admit, I was definitely a late bloomer when it came to mass, social network usage. I don’t need to explain why that was a mistake on my part. One thing i feel I do need to share is all of the native and web applications I missed out on my iPhone.. until now, of course.

Twitter- everyone told me that one i started i would become addicted… They were dumb.. and I am addicted, and if you do not know what Twitter is…. Well if you have to ask, you don’t wanna know. As far as Twit is concerned, the iPhone has been the BEST mobile solution for being on Twitter 100% of the Day.

-Obviously there is the mobile site (direct mobile Safari to http://twitter.com), and this works fine but there are much more efficient, ways to tweet.

-The best web app, to use twitter on the iPhone, is Hahlo (direct mobile Safari to http://hahlo.com). The great interface, iPhone web application works GREAT. The only thing is, I would say it works about 80% of the time, but there is absolutely no install needed for this.

-One of the two native applications I will mention (which you can download via Installer App) is Twinkle. Twinkle was the first Twitter application i downloaded for my iPhone, and it is awesome. within 1 tweet you will be able to geotag your location, send a picture, and update. It has a great interface with avatars and all, alowing you to do everything you can on the Twitter site. In my eyes the only flaw with this application is it is not all that reliable. Although very intuitive with great UI, 50% percent of the time that i open it, i get that message “we are having some technical difficulties”. I always want to blame it on Twitter, but when i check, Twitter is not down and it is just the poor API app. Great idea, and it is worth a try.

-The last application which I will stand by and say is the absolute best is Mobile Twitter. I actually stumbled upon in it in the list of Installer Apps and decided to try it out. I’m so glad i did. Its fast, has photo support, using camera or photos in your photo album, and lets you do EVERYTHING you need to Twitter-wise, straight on your iPhone. Works amazing with EDGE or Wi-Fi. Not to mention, it has a great UI.

For all other social network sites i would just use the direct site web applications. I have tested them all and they do the job, so for any of the following just go to the URL on mobile Safari (these will also make awesome home screen icons for you if you bookmark):

-Twitter

-Pownce

-SocialThing!

-BrightKite

-Myspace and Facebook (bleh)

-Jake

Everyday, there are a bunch of Apple stories that hit the web, bu  tI only like to cover what I feel is the most intriguing. I think i have tried all of the 3rd party applications known to man, and what it comes down to when choosing the ones that will stay on your springboard, is “which one will provide the most swift and efficient satisfaction?” Today the 2nd beta for IntelliScreen was released for the iPhone. IntelliScreen, pretty much takes out the only good thing about Windows Mobile, and gives you a “Today Screen” which displays:

-SMS

-Email

-iCal

-News Feeds

-Weather

-Sports

You choose the ones you want to show up (I only use, SMS, Mail, and Weather) but its a great way to summarize all of your “need to know” info in an instant. Whats great about this application is that you can also LAUNCH from the mini feed menu! so lets say you see and SMS or email you dont really need to rush to, you can view it on IntelliScreen and just shrug it off. But if you see an email or SMS come in that you want to get to immediately, just “swipe” and click “launch ***” (see photo). This will also auto-refresh your email.

Hopefully in final release we can see some additions like:

-RSS

-opacity settings

-iTunes controller

Installation instructions and video after the jump

Read the rest of this entry »

During my latest Twitter post I noticed the one and only Cali Lewis requesting an invitation to a beta site called Evernote. To tell you the truth I have never heard of this so decided to check it out. I had to wait about a day for an invitation, but since then my internet life has become more organized and interesting than ever.

Evernote is a superbly innovative site, which combined with a desktop client (for Mac or Windows), and mobile support, makes it a great way to keep all of your internet happenings readily available for use anytime. Here is how it works:

-Sign up at Evernote.com

-Install the desktop client for your Mac or PC (not necessary but very useful)

-Drag the web clipper to your bookmark toolbar for easy clipping

-Rock it.

I wont go into explaining much, but in a nutshell, Evernote will allow you to highlight, any section of any website for future reference, with all links in tact. You can view them offline (with the desktop client). You can upload photos (via email using a special Evernote email) that will save in your notes online, which again, you ca view online or with your desktop client. Evernote also has an amazing integration with the a search bar on the desktop client, which can detect words in pictures you so happen to be searching for. Just take my word for it, check out the video (Below) and get registered with Evernote.

-Jake

The day is nearing when the new iPhone will be announced! Most likely June 9th during the Apples WWDC. Although what do we have to look forward to? There had been a lot of talk and speculation ever since the SDK was released so, Lets explore that shall we?

First off, we can obviously check off 3G support because that has already been confirmed. Surprisingly enough not only is the public ready for it, but so is T-Mobile!! Kind of strange how they just so happen to roll out 3G when we are among word of the hi-speed iPhone. Coincidence? Probably, but after speaking with a T-Mobile rep (fixing up some internet issues) it seems the iPhone is an everyday set-up for them. T-Mobile knows a lot of their service is supporting the AT&T exclusive device so why not take it up a notch with 3G. To also clear up any speculation about T-Mobile’s 3G, it was stated by blogs that it will be voice support only, when in fact T-Mobile’s press release leaves open the possibility of voice and data service.

Everything from here on out people can only guess and use their sources to their capacity. Kevin Rose had made a prediction a while back saying there will be 3G, ichat, video support, and front mounted video for video chat. With the recent unveiling of Video Recorder, 3rd part app that gives your iphone video capability, it makes the possibility seem more likely. The reason i think it may NOT happen is because I feel there i not going to be a major change in hardware. It’s just like a Blackberry. They do not add all of those extras, and in doing so sales hardly suffer. Plus with confirmation of the new $199 price tag, i doubt you will get a whole bunch more than the 1st generation iPhone.

This leads to the re-design of the iPhone. There was a whole bunch of rumors that the Phone would turn out to be an all BLACK design, which was supported with photos. This turned out to e some 3rd party Japanese housing you can buy online. Then Gizmodo gives us a story, from iLounge, which details specs for the “new” iPhone from peripheral manufacturers. These new specs show a new sensor arrangement, which could bring us back to the possibility of a front mounted camera, and a whole new color scheme (White, Red, or Black). This is probably the most influential source of material i have received thus far.

The fact of the matter is, there is not any one person that knows more that 3G for sure. For all we know we may be seeing a completely revamped, better working iPhone that will make the first gen obsolete, or the “new and improved” iPhone will pretty much be the same, saving all of us early adopters the time of putting them on eBay to upgrade.

Photos via Gizmodo and Engadget.

-Jake

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

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