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Alleged iPhone 4G Parts Appear in China

Liam Widman — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:04:28 -0600

China Ontrade says that this is the iPhone 4G Midboard. Not all that interesting in itself, but the last time they said they had parts for a new iPhone (3GS), the iPhone 3GS appeared a month later with those exact parts. This means that China Ontrade might be telling the truth about this new midboard for the iPhone 4G.

In May of 2009, China Ontrade said "This is great honor for China Ontrade (HK) chinaontrade.com to be the 1st started to supply iPhone 3gen 2009 parts directly from factory." This was treated as a rumor and nothing more. But then in June, the iPhone 3GS came out and China Ontrade's parts were confirmed to be in the iPhone. Somehow, the China wholesale comapny got the parts one month before the product hit street level.

Now China Ontrade claims they have real pieces for the upcoming iPhone 4G, which in theory, is supposed to be released next summer, as all the iPhones have before it, but this leak is against Apple's production style. Apple, like many other companies, produce everything right before they need it. This is because they don't want to have millions of parts lying around, only to discover they need to change something, and have to start over.

Some speculate that the iPhone 4G launch could be moved up to compete with Google Android 2.0, even though Apple COO Tim Cook said that Google phones, "are still just trying to catch up with the first iPhone two years ago." Not to mention that the iPhone 3GS only came out 5 months ago.

Of course, we can't ASSUME that any of this means anything about the iPhone 4GS release. The only thing we know is that China Ontrade has a history of being right about their claims, so it would make sense to assume this is an actual iPhone 4G part. But when placed against Apple's release date history and style of manufacturing, it may all be a publicity stunt.

What do you think? Are these parts the real deal?

Music Movies on iTunes

Liam Widman — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:50:24 -0600

In a bid to increase movie sales, Apple is featuring more alternative content in the iTunes store. Today, they've introduced the "Music Movies" library and added a landing page to promote releases. Music movies are music themed movies, concerts, and documentaries showing a lot of behind-the-scenes footage.

While at the moment the collection is limited, Apple does offer a few movies that are only available on the iTunes store, like the Kings of Leon concert DVD and U2's 'Rattle and Hum' and 'John Lennon Imagine'.

Apple also plans to negotiate early release of some music-themed movies for the iTunes store so people can buy them there long before they come out in stores.

100,000 Apps in App Store!

Liam Widman — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:35:03 -0600

Apple announced today that their iTunes App Store has surpassed the 100,000 apps mark, making it the largest application store in the world. iPhone and iPod touch customers in 77 different countries can go online and download from the amazing range of 100,000 apps within 20 different categories.

App Store users have downloaded over 2 billion apps making it the most popular application store as well. “The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve,” said the Vice President of Worldwide Studios, EA mobile. “With a global reach of over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch users, the App Store has allowed us to develop high quality EA games that have been a huge success with customers.”

Apple recently updated the App Store with things like Genius for App Store Essentials selections, sub-category listings, and more valuable customer reviews. Plus, the new iTunes 9 is making it easier for users to organize and sync their apps and have them appear on your iPhone or iPod touch with the same layout. Additionally, the new in-app purchase feature allows people to buy the full version of an app, from within the free version.

Blacksn0w Unlocks iPhone 3G and 3GS with OS 3.1.2

Andrew Villa — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:43:51 -0600

Make reports that an exploit was found by developer/hacker GeoHot that has lead to an unlock for the iPhone 3G and 3GS that use the 05.11.07 baseband. The baseband was cracked and the newest piece of code used to unlock your iPhone is titled blacksn0w.

Blacksn0w is available inside the app blackra1n for Mac and Windows users at blackr1n jailbreak. Lets just hope that GeoHot gets his $10,000 from Jody Sanders, the guy that sells freely available unlock tools and support to iPhone owners.

If you do plan on using the blackra1n app to unlock your iPhone, remember that you will need to connect your iPhone via USB to your Mac in order to restart it.

As always, jailbreaking your iPhone could void your warranty and brick the device. Use common sense.

AT&T Sues Verizon Over "Maps" Commercial

Cory Bohon — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:24:55 -0600

AT&T sues Verizon over a commercial designed to play on Apple's "There's an app for that" commercials.

Verizon's "There's a map for that" commercial (above) might have stepped on some feet when they bashed AT&T's 3G service saying that other companies don't have the service Verizon has and that "There's a map for that, too."

According to the suit, which was filed in an Atlanta, Georgia federal court on Tuesday, "The map attributed to AT&T shows large swaths of white or blank space, as if these are areas in which AT&T has no coverage whatsoever."

The suit goes on to say, "By depicting AT&T's non-"3G" coverage as white or blank space in the map used in Verizon's print advertisement, consumers are being misled into believing that AT&T's customers have no coverage whatsoever and thus cannot use their wireless devices when they are outside of AT&T's depicted coverage area."

Reuters got a reply from Verizon saying, "The ads in question clearly state that voice and data services are available outside 3G areas."

AT&T has requested a temporary restraining order that could prevent the television commercial from airing until this dispute is resolved.

Via AppleInsider

Marvel Comics on iPhone, Can DC Be Far Behind?

J Keirn-Swanson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:03:42 -0600

While none of the offerings are currently the newest material in their catalog, Marvel Comics is partnering with some app developers for the iPhone to bring comics to the small screen. If the sampling is any indication of how well comics can be done on a 3.5-inch screen, I can hardly wait for Apple to bust out the 10.7-inch tablet.

At this stage, at least three apps sell select titles from Marvel's catalog and the three of them offer differing iterations on the reading experience. Readers of comics can find their mobile fix at Comics by Comixology, iVerse and Panelfly, all of which feature in app purchasing of comics. While Comics and iVerse are offering Marvel titles at the price of $1.99, Panelfly is the better bet for pricing, offering the same titles at the discount price of $.99.

The three apps share many similarities with other reader apps while also each delivering their own take on the graphic format reading experience. They also each handle the downloading of comics in their own way, each highlighting different publishers and a different variety of free comics.

In the Marvel category, there seems to be variation with the titles on offer for each app. Comics offers Astonishing X-Men, Captain America, Civil War, Marvel Zombies, X-23, and X-Men Age of Apocalypse, while Panelfly offers Astonishing X-Men, X-23, X-Men Age of Apocalypse, Iron Man, and Amazing Spider-Man. iVerse for its part offers X-Men Age of Apocalypse, Amazing Spider-Man, Astonishing X-Men, Captain America, Iron Man, and X-23. No word on exactly the disparity in titles, though it's worth noting that the mix represents the new, with Josh Whedon's Astonishing X-Men series side by side with issues 1-25 of the classic Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Amazing Spider-Man.

The apps also differ on previews of the comics and other features. Some are strong in some aspects, while outshined by others elsewhere. Marvel's cautious approach in letting third-parties act as distribution channels could also be seen as a wise first toe into the mobile market before the creation of their own app culling the best features from others.

In the realm of samples, iVerse seems to offer nothing beyond a thumbnail of the cover. It also locks image sizing, preventing readers from zooming in on Veronica's tight sweaters in Archie Comics. One suspects that the same can be said for X-23's more revealing wardrobe choices. It does, however, feature nicely sized screens that don't crowd the view and a rotation to landscape focuses automatically in on just enough to fill your screen with readable goodness. iVerse's user interface is slick and polished, your comics titles resting nicely on a woodgrain shelf for you to tap and begin reading

Panelfly is a beautiful app to look at and allows you to preview up to four pages of a comic, though its download speeds are considerably slower than the other two and comics needed to process and be added to the library in a time consuming fashion prior to reading. Pages stocked with panels load and you have to double tap to get to one screen-sized panel zoomed in sufficient to read. Tap the right hand side of the screen to navigate to the next panel, left panel taps takes you back a panel or you can swish your thumb across the screen to bounce around the page without controls. There is no pinch-resizing of images.

Comics by Comixology works similarly to Stanza with the page being broken into thirds for tap-based controls which animate panel shifts beautifully. These occur in all directions, moving you across larger panels as you might read each text box, then zooming out to allow the whole picture to be viewed. The drawback here is that you frequently find yourself switching the iPhone from landcape to portrait and back. Comics does, however, allow for pinch resizing and image dragging, as well as the helpful feature of an in-app comic book store finder that uses GPS to put you on the right path to your local print comics seller. Of all three apps, it also has the finest tuning in the settings.

Each comics reader has something for a class of customers, each holds a slightly different selection of titles and publishers, and if you're a dedicated comics reader you just might wish to download all three to find out which experience works best for you. Or to take advantage of all the titles currently available across the spectrum. With well-developed user interfaces in each of the three apps it really comes down to a matter of taste and preferences.

For Marvel this step hopefully proves successful enough that more of their back and current catalog will soon be available. The inclusion of longer-length graphic novels and more adult geared titles would also be welcome as would a few more freebies to encourage more readers to support these formats.

If their moves are indicative of anything, this is likely to happen. Marvel has also tried experimenting with "motion comics" (minimally animated cartoons, reminiscent of low budget "cartoon" versions of children's books in the seventies) available in iTunes including Spider-Woman and Josh Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men. Exactly what support or benefits Marvel's Apple products related ventures may receive from their new parent company Disney isn't exactly clear at this point.

One thing is certain in this regard, though, the folks at DC Comics are watching with anticipation to see if their competitor can make a go of it. If it proves a success, we'll almost certainly see some kind of similar offering from the Warner stable. The sooner Batman ends up on the iPhone, the better.

Adobe Taunts Apple, Still No iPhone Flash

J Keirn-Swanson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:38:56 -0600

While many of us are familiar with the teeny little cube informing us that we've ended up at a Flash-based site on our iPhones, it appears that Apple's intransigence on the software plug-in has irked Adobe.

Go to Adobe's site on your phone to download Flash and you'll get this tight-lipped message:

Despite an announcement at the beginning of the year that Apple and Adobe were going to attempt working together to bring some form of Flash to the iPhone, nothing on the horizon seems to suggest this is any closer to happening. While Steve Jobs thinks full-fledged Flash is too bloated for the iPhone and Flash Lite is too wimpy, no one seems to be talking much about his desired "missing product in the middle."

It's unlikely that Adobe's passive aggressive message is likely to have much of an effect, but it is a nice reminder of where to put the blame for this particular lack on the iPhone.

From iMac to iPhone: A Video Trip Down Apple Announcement Memory Lane

Michael Delano — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:52:59 -0600

No one announces a product like Apple. To remind us of that fact, we've put together a video of Steve and company introducing products from the original iMac up to the latest iPod nano with video.

Never have the words, "One more thing," meant so much to so many people.

Enjoy the trip down memory lane.

Note: Be sure to turn up the volume of the video player. By default, it's on mute.

For fun, drop the products you've purchased that are announced in this video in the comments below.