Very interesting- Apple includes SD copies of all HD purchased downloads from iTunes. Then, iTunes 8 automagically syncs the SD copy to the iPhone and iPod for mobile viewing. No re-encode allowed or even necessary.
AppleInsider points out that this is very similar to Blu-ray and DVD movies which offer the iTunes Digital Copy. Apple is just taking this concept online.
Steve Jobs: This is the funnest iPod ever.
Jason Snell: And a million English teachers weep openly.
Patrick Crowley posted a comprehensive library of iPhone UI elements in OmniGraffle. Designing an iPhone app? Grab a copy today at GraffleTopia.com.
Music Week is reporting that Apple will be launch an a new app to add exclusive content the iPhone and iPod Touch for the upcoming Snow Patrol album. Many have cited these types of exclusive features as some of the last remaining benefits to physical CDs. The app will come in the form of an interactive booklet, containing exclusive videos, photos, lyrics and artwork.
Charles Carver recently launched the iCons website. iCons is an organizational tool for iPhone apps.
Have you ever taken time to find applications on a cluttered iPhone or iPod Touch Screen screen? Have you ever wished that there was a way to remember which app’s are where? Well now you can! With iCons, you can organize your iPhone’s/iPod Touch’s screen with a custom image for each select group!
Custom icons are downloadable from the site and allow you to create app screen bookmarks to organize the screens. Additionally, the bookmarks themselves link to online resources pertaining to each category- clever.
The longstanding iPhone camera tool, Snapture, is not only a great product, but also sports a pretty snazzy website. The fonts may be a bit tiny, but it is a nice “dark” site with plenty of whitespace.
Too bad the software is Jailbreak-only. I’m looking for a good camera enhancement package.
Dunno how I missed this, but Plasq has brought he fun of Comic Life to the iPhone. Comic Touch is not the full ‘Life experience, you you can squeeze and stretch photos with your fingers and add hilarious comic speech bubbles to your shots on the go.
The iPhone 2.0 Field Test mode can be accessed by dialing *3001#12345#* from the phone app. Apparently, this is the same code that’s used on other phones including some Nokia-branded models.
Using and understanding the values is another matter.
Due to popular demand, I’m posting an updated version of my iPhone html email signature that’s more broadly compatible with a range of email clients. This version of the html code replaces the CSS inline encoded background image with a standard image tag.
The code below has been tested to work (as of 09.29.08) in Apple Mail.app 3.4, iPhone 2.0, Outlook 2003, GMail (new version), Yahoo! Mail (new version), Hotmail and MobileMe.
Please note that when using this version, your recipient will almost certainly have to click a button or link to display the image unless you are already a “trusted sender.”
<div style=“font: 10px ‘Lucida Grande’,Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif;
line-height: 18px;
color: #525252;
margin: 6px 0;
padding: 6px;
border-top: 1px #999999 solid;
border-bottom: 1px #999999 solid;
background: #fff;
height: 58px”>
<img src=“http://dfbills.com/images/avatars/iphone.jpg” width=“63” height=“57” alt=“photo” style=“float: left; margin: 0 5px” />
<p style=“margin: 0; padding: 0; float: left;”>
<strong>David F. Bills</strong><br/>
<a href=“http://dfbills.com”>http://dfbills.com</a><br/>
sent from my mobile</p>
</div>
Too bad you still need a jailbroken iPhone to install this properly. Thankfully, this particular modification tends to stay in place across upgrades- including 1.4 to 2.0.
For more information on the full hack, see my previous posting: Set a custom css signature on your iPhone.
Update 1: fixed curly quotes in code
Update 2: Another point to note is that the Microsoft HTML renderer, in both Outlook & Webmail, will not allow padding on IMG elements. In my example, I’ve taken 6px of padding out of CSS and moved it to the actual JPG.
Update 3: Make sure to reboot after updating the .plist file on the iPhone.
Update 4: Updated CSS code to finally wrap properly. Thanks to Patrick Crowley for the help.
I had to laugh this morning when I saw that “Crazy Lighter” was the top paid app on the iTunes App Store. It was only yesterday that I introduced it to a handful of people on 57th street. Now, it’s gone paid and #1. Totally my doing. 
