iPad & iPhone Blog

To coincide with the range of new iPods announced just an hour ago by Apple, iTunes 10 has been released. Apple thinks CDs are over and have removed the CD icon from the iTunes logo. The most exciting feature on iTunes 10, is a social network for music called Ping which is included with iTunes 10.

iTunes

Ping allows you to follow friends and artists and purchase music and movies based on their activity. You can also view pictures and videos posted by artists. Great idea by Apple to integrate social networking to iTunes, time will tell if it is a hit!

The update is available now on the iTunes website, although the link leads to the old version, when we tired. To be fair it was just announced!

Apple TV

Apple’s  media event starts on Wednesday, September 1st at 10 a.m. Pacific. As always with Apple at these things -  expectations will be high, usually too high! But based on the usual rumors doing the rounds, here are some possibilities.

• iTV – aka Apple TV, which will be a set top box running iOS?
• iPod Touch – With FaceTime?
• iOS 4 for the iPad? – overdue really, the iPad badly needs multitasking (or something like multitasking.)

As always feel free to speculate in the comments.

Source

Apple working on touchscreen Macs(?)

A recently-filed patent shows that Apple may be planning to develop touchscreen iMacs and MacBooks.

A European patent filed by Apple this year clearly shows that the company is working on iMacs and MacBooks which will run both Mac OSX and iOS.

The patent, titled ‘Transitioning between Modes of Input’ (published in 2010 under number 006210 A1) describes how this would be achieved, and how users could switch between OSX and iOS simply by repositioning the screen. [...]

Xtra Vision

In a document released internally to staff, Xtra-Vision announced that it will be releasing a smartphone app in September.

A redeveloped version of the company’s website – www.xtravision.ie – will be launched at the same time. The new website will be “based around a comprehensive product database with a focus on film and game trailers.” The mobile app will be a “subsection” of the new site, and will be published on “key platforms”. [...]

iMovie for iPhone 4

When iMovie for iPhone 4 was first presented to the world, it looked amazing, Apple  demonstrated the capabilities of making your own holiday movie from your iPhone 4. While it is true, iMovie can make pretty good movies and output them in HD format, iMovie for the iPhone really is a bit of a let down. With limited options, restrictions on audio and a small number of themes, you will find yourself wondering where is the rest of this app? [...]

iPad

Daft.ie  have launched an iPad app to complement their iPhone app which has been a big hit in Ireland. “Daft.ie is the first property portal in Ireland to launch an app developed specifically for the iPad. The new app has been optimised to take advantage of the generous iPad screen, particularly where media viewing is concerned.”

The app functions in much the same way as the website with the addition of searching locations nearby. The best part about using daft.ie for iPad has to be the photos, using the usual swipe gestures you can really see the photos much better than on the iPhone and the quality of many of them is better than on the iPhone. Taking advantage of the iPad screen, you can browse Daft’s database of 100,000 properties.

You can save your favourite properties, as well as sign into your daft.ie account

Ciarán Maher, CTO at Daft Media commented, “The Daft.ie iPhone app has been extremely successful with almost 50,000 downloads since the beginning of the year. Performance and feedback exceeded expectations. We’ve now taken the same approach to designing our iPad app, but we’ve paid particular attention to ensuring media looks really great with high res property photos and photo galleries that are easy for iPad users to navigate.”

Now in the iPad app store iTunes link

Daft.ie iPad app in pictures

Sourced via press release

Wordpress

We all know what a blogging website is. WordPress.com is one of many, and also happens to be one of the most popular. It’s free, it’s easy to use, and it looks good – all boxes ticked. Registration is quick, and you can start sharing your noise with the world within minutes.

One of the nicest things about WordPress is the Dashboard section. The Dashboard is a visually pleasing overview of your entire blog, showing how many posts you’ve written, how may comments have been made on them, and so on. There are plenty of background themes you can choose from to give your blog a bit of a personal touch, and I also like the way other users’ blogs are laid out on the WordPress homepage, allowing you to sample other people’s musings.

The mobile app falls a little short, however. It has a meagre 2-star rating, which is a little harsh perhaps, but isn’t far from accurate. Upon first opening the app, you can either add your current WordPress blog to the list, or sign up if you’re a first-time user. Personally, I’d recommend registering on the website – I always find it a bit fiddly filling in forms on the iPhone. Once added/created, your blog appears in a list, and when selected gives a stripped-down version of the online-version’s Dashboard. In fairness, this app does exactly what you want it to, but it isn’t very nice to look at, which is a shame. It’s also a bit glitchy; posts appearing more than once in the list, things like that. According to one user, it fails to save posts, which is a frustrating waste of time (and seeing as I’m typing this post on the app on my iPhone now, I’m going to select all the text and copy it just in case).

Overall, in terms of functionality, it seems to do everything the web version does, and its geotagging function is pretty cool, though setting them up to actually appear on your online blog feels like more hassle than it’s worth. I’d say that for WordPress, it’s handy if you want to publish a post as a draft perhaps, but as another user – ‘Mandog2’ – put it, it really is just “clunky, dull, and hard to use.”

Bump for iPhone

Bump Technologies’ data sharing app allows iPhone owners to share photos, contact details, and more quickly and easily – something that the iPhone has been lacking for quite some time.

The point of having a camera on a mobile phone is to take impromptu pictures. Showing them to friends and family is another part of it, but when someone asks to have one sent to them via bluetooth, iPhone folk are left floundering. Enter Bump, the app which finally allows this. Simply select as many photos as you want to share – maybe a couple of contact details and even a Facebook friend request as well – and bump the two phones together to make the trade.

A simple, straightforward user interface makes this app a pleasure to use, and after ‘bumping’ you can then have a conversation with the other person in a Facebook-style chat (but personally I don’t see the point).

The bad news about Bump is that sharing requires an internet connection, which has the potential to irritate people, unless you have a generous data allowance or access to WiFi. Other than that, I have no complaints. Although you might only use from time to time, it is well worth having on your phone, particularly as it does so much for an app which is free.

High: You can even swap calendar events.

Low: Why use our voices when we can text-chat on our iPhones!?

Software update

The jailbreakers have been having fun with this one. A well know and publicised security flaw in iOS which used a PDF exploit to jailbreak the iPhone has been patched by Apple. It seems the only point of iOS 4.0.2 is to fix this exploit in the iPhone. Aside from jailbreaking, it is good to see Apple respond fast to these security issues, particularly for enterprise users. There is also an update for the iPad software version 3.2.2.

Fixes security vulnerability associated with viewing malicious PDF files.

Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4
• iPod touch 2nd generation
• iPod touch 3rd generation (late 2009 models with 32GB or 64GB)

Jigsaw Box for iPad

Jigsaw Box for iPad is now available in the iPad app store. Developed by SparkleApps and available in 6 Languages, Jigsaw Box provides entertainment for kids and adults alike. Jigsaw Box is designed to look like you actually have the jigsaw in front of you. You can even hear the pieces snap together. There are many different puzzles to choose from, with varying amount of pieces from 12 (easy) to 208 (hard). Beautifully designed this game is great fun for all the family.

The game is designed by Irish developer Paul Reilly who has released the game in 6 languages? English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch and Japanese. Why?

“People are playing our Jigsaw game in 38 countries, most of which do not have English as their primary language. We want people to enjoy our games, and so it makes sense to provide the game in as many local languages as possible”. The localisation of the game was done by Dublin startup company Tethras, who specialise in mobile application localization. “We were delighted to work with Sparkle Apps on bringing their Jigsaw game to a larger market” said Brian Farrell, CEO of Tethras.

It comes with 100 beautiful jigsaw puzzles in 9 different jigsaw packs including:

★ Famous Landmarks (Niagara Falls, Golden Gate Bridge, Eiffel Tower…)
★ Kids Jigsaws
★ Castles
★ Wild Animals

Jigsaw Box is available on the iTunes App Store now for €2.39 ($2.99). For more information on the Jigsaw Box game including screenshots and video of the app, see www.JigsawBoxApp.com

Jigsaw Box in Pictures

If you would like further information on Jigsaw Box or Sparkle Apps, please contact:
www.sparkleapps.com paul@SparkleApps.com.

For more information about app localization with Tethras contact:
www.Tethras.com info@Tethras.com

iPhone 4 hands on

The hardware

The first thing you will notice about the iPhone 4 when you take it out of the box is how it feels in your hand. It has a much ‘flatter’ sleeker design. It’s not hard to hold or anything just very different. You will immediately notice  Apple used premium materials  with this iPhone compared to 3Gs. The glass front and back looks and feels much more expensive and of a higher quality, especially when you hold it beside its sibling. Apple made a big deal during it’s presentation about the manufacturing process – holding the iPhone4 in your hand – you would tend to agree. [...]

Genius

Apple has enabled ‘Genius Recommendations’ in the iPad’s app store.

Genius Recommendations functions similarly to the genius on the iPhone. On the iPad  Genius Recommendations even has it’s own tab – see screenshot above.

Apple takes a screenshot of your applications, uploads this information to their servers, runs the list through an algorithm, and posts back a list of suggested apps to your screen. Before this is enabled you need to agree to their terms as you are uploading information from your iPad to Apple, although we are told this is anonymous!

What suggestions did you get? So for on my iPad there  is the following suggestions.

• ABC News for iPad
• BMW Magazine
• DIE Welt
• Super 7

Flag

Which network did you select for your iPhone 4? -  is a conversion right now in our forums. Three mobile  had some great price plans,  did you select O2, or Vodafone?

Why did you select that network.? We had another poll before the iPhone 4 was released, but it will be interesting to see what people in Ireland selected in the end!

Join our forums now to discuss this and more!

How to lock your iPhone with any password

If you think think it’s a little too easy for someone to guess four digit numeric password, you might want to consider disabling “simple passcode”. Disabling simple passcode means you can use a full keyboard to create a password of your choice. If you have iOS4 running on your iPhone then it is easy to do this.

Password Lock

1. You need to open the settings app on your iPhone, under the General heading select “Password Lock”, if this is currently enabled you will be prompted for your current password, enter it.

Simple Passcode

2. You will now see the “Simple Passcode” which is turned on by default, if you switch this to off, you will be prompted for a full keyboard password, you will need to confirm your old password first if you had one.

Passcode

3. Select your password, and confirm it. You are now using the more secure password of your choice. You can also change the “require password” time for a length of time that meets your needs. There is more on using passcodes in this post.

iPhone 101 is a series of blog posts by iPadiPhoneBlog.com that makes no assumptions. If you are new to smart phones, iPhones or mobile phones, you will find this guide straight forward to use.