The guys at PocketMac have come up with a way to make your Blackberry look like a Mac. The themes change not just the icons on the main screen, but even how text, menu, and lists are displayed. The theme costs $9.95. I think it makes sense to just get into a queue and wait for the iPhone 3G at the nearest Apple store, but if you don't want to shell out $199, maybe this is a good temporary arrangement.
First there was anger in Canada over the ways Rogers Communications priced the iPhone. Now the same story is being repeated in New Zealand, where Vodafone has announced its pricing plans for the iPhone. Vodafone’s plans are so steep that it makes you wonder if they want to sell the device at all, or whether they are just making a show of it for some mysterious reason. Here’s a quick look at the plans announced: 8 GB - Black Phone Monthly 250 MB/month data plan $549.00 $80.00 500 MB/month data plan $449.00 $130.00 1 GB/month data plan $199.00 $250.00 16 GB - Black Phone Monthly 250 MB/month data plan $699.00 $80.00 500 MB/month data plan $599.00 $130.00 1 GB/month data plan $349.00 $250.00 16 GB - White Phone Monthly 250 Read More...
Here’s a quick look at some fun but useless applications for your iPhone. And in case you wonder where to get them, they are available only for jailbroken iPhones—for now. Let’s hope we get them on the App Store soon. iBeer In a way, the most useful app you could possibly get. You launch the app, and you screen fills up with beer. If you shake your phone, the beer will slosh about, and maybe even froth a little. Just tip the phone, and have a swig. (Someday, I hope they come up with an upgrade where the app will also measure how Read More...
Apple is working on an iPhone version which has a slide-out keyboard. This iPhone version will take on BlackBerry on its own turf, and, rather than simply fend off a bunch of me-too devices and “iPhone killers”, would actually go out in the streets looking for kill. Steve Jobs has sent out prototypes--not mockup phones, but actual, working phones to some senior executives at all the major operators, and wants their opinion about whether people will be interested in such a phone. The keyboard has some issues which have not been resolved, but it is a prototype after all. True story. See Read More...
BioWare is considering launching games for the iPhone platform. The Co-CEOs of BioWare, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk recently declared: Something that’s as big a cultural and technical success as the iPhone is something you really got to take a close look at. Certainly, there’s nothing written in stone yet but we’ve got a lot of folks looking at it. It’s intriguing. Translation: We know it’s a great platform, but we are waiting for July 11 to see if there’s money there too. Actually, there are a lot of reasons why the iPhone is a particularly exciting platform for game developers. The accelerometer, Read More...
Sprint is promoting its iPhone killer Instinct by offering to pay YouTube users to upload videos which include images of Instinct. A site dedicated to this offer announces: Shamelessly plug the Samsung Instinct into your home movie this summer, turn your loved ones into cash with blatant product placement. It's the greatest product placement home movie of all time. And no, you don’t have to actually own the phone. In fact, it’s perfectly OK if you’ve never seen it. They’ve made it easy by providing the images and the movie upload options right there on the website: I don’t doubt Read More...
There’s news that the release of Android has been delayed. It was scheduled for release in the second half of this year--should have been any day now. Instead, it is now scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year. Which basically means that they are hoping to somehow make the release this year, and not carry it over to 2009.0 Most of the partners in the Open Handset Alliance have an explanation for the delay. China Mobile is struggling to the Roman characters of the Android OS to--you guessed it--Chinese. Sprint wants to customize the OS, and offer branded services and are unwilling to put Read More...
The problem with using numbers to indicate achievements in concrete terms is that it is generally very easy for people to start arguing numbers and forget the issue at hand. Here’s an example: Jacqueline Emigh of Beta News suggests that Apple’s claims to be the number one music retailer, and of having overtaken Walmart are suspect. In April Apple announced that it had sold four billion songs through its iTunes store. And in June, the number of total downloads was pegged at 5 billion. Jacqueline says it is unlikely that in a period of just 75 days, a billion songs were downloaded. Read More...
Dave Taylor has a cool tip for uploading pictures to Flickr from your iPhone. He says you can take pictures on your iPhone and send them off to Flickr on the fly, without using a computer as an intermediary step. Flickr generates a unique email address for each registered user, so if you just send your pics to that address, they get uploaded without any hassles. He’s really thought it through, you’ll notice. Check this: ...create a new contact in your Address Book called, perhaps, Flickr, and set that odd address that you’ve gleaned from their site as the e-mail address for Read More...
Samsung and Sprint’s touch screen smartphone Instinct is making news these days. we know they’ve tried hard, and we must all be nice to them for the effort put in, but against the iPhone, Instinct doesn’t have much of a chance. Peter Svensson figures there are problems with the phone: The screen has two-thirds as many pixels as the iPhone, which means it displays less information. Worse, it's limited in the number of colors it can display, which spoils the look of some photos and movies. The Instinct can only sense the touch of one finger at a time, which makes Read More...