Aardvark gets it right
February 19, 2010 (late afternoon)
Yes, this is a nice way to show your users that the service is unavailable.
Great job, Aardvark. I’ve the additional screens as well.
dfbills.com blog
New Kensington iPhone Dock Adds Extra Battery to the Mix
August 03, 2009 (late afternoon)
Kensington has announced a really useful new iPhone dock which adds a removable, external battery. The dock charges both the mini battery and the iPhone.
Mini Battery Pack is supposed to extend play time up to 30 hours of music, 6 hours of video & 3 hours of talk. Charge overnight and grab both devices for a full day of iPhone usage- slick!
[Kensington via iPodNN]
For the anxious iPhone 3.0 nerds
June 17, 2009 (edited since original posting)
Erica Sadun has posted a simple, nerdy method for checking the availability of the iPhone 3.0 firmware. The idea is to grab the XML returned from the iTunes iPhone software check.
curl -s -L http://phobos.apple.com/version |\
grep -i restore |\
grep ‘_3.’ | open -f
To understand the output, you need to know which model you’re looking for.
iPhone- 1,1
iPhone 3G- 1,2
iPhone 3G S- 2,1
iPod Touch- 1,1
iPod Touch 2G- 2,1
When I see this- I know I’m golden:
iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
[via TUAW]
Skype, yes that Skype, now available on iPhone
March 31, 2009 (terribly early in the morning)
Skype, Inc. has just released the official Skype app for the iPhone. Available for free today on the Apple App Store, you can now make free skype to skype calls, paid Skype-out calls & instant message.
Wi-Fi is required to make calls, but this is to be expected as it is an Apple-imposed restriction.
Dupin 2.0 has landed
March 14, 2009 (late afternoon)
Doug Adams has released the second major version of the must-have Dupin. This app is the iTunes duplicates manager.
If you’ve ever wanted to rid your library of dupes, do yourself a favor and spend the $15 on this amazing piece of software. The new “Consolidate History” tool in this version consolidates play, skip & ratings info from all dupe tracks into a single “Keeper” track. Awesome!
While you’re there, take a look around the the huge library of iTunes scripts. Chances are if you’ve ever wished iTunes could do something that it can’t, Doug has created a script that does it for you.
Loved Dan Moren on the App Store (and Tweetie)
March 10, 2009 (evening)
Reacting to the rejection of the latest Tweetie twitter client, Dan Moren wrote “Apple rejects Twitter app because there’s swearing on the Internet” for Macworld.
Regardless, the review process for iPhone apps needs to be standardized, and it needs to be done now, not later. Apple’s created an impressive business out of the App Store — it’s time to stop acting like it’s being run out of a garage.
The ending phrase: “run out of a garage” so perfectly sums up my feelings on the matter.
[via Daring Fireball]
iTunes to add variable pricing, expansion of DRM-free & over-the-air music downloads
January 06, 2009 (evening)
Apple announced a variable-pricing model for the music offered on the iTunes store. The new, tiered pricing will be launched in the spring at the $0.69, $0.99 and $1.29 price points. Phil Schiller assured the crowd that more tracks would be priced toward the bottom tier than the top.
Additionally and perhaps more importantly, all music from the major labels will be available DRM-free in the iTunes Plus format by the end of Q1 2009.
Finally, label and carrier restrictions have been lifted for the iTunes Mobile Store on the iPhone and iPod Touch allowing over-the-air downloading of music with no artificial restrictions. Pricing and content is identical to the desktop offerings. Hopefully, video will come soon-
App Store has more than 2 million downloads daily
December 12, 2008 (late morning)
The Apple iTunes App Store is now serving more than 2 million apps daily. When it was announced, it felt like a game-changer to me, but many analysts theorized that the initial hype would blow over. At 2 million (and growing) this business is shaping up to be much more than hype.
It seems that predictions of a $1 billion market place are right on track for 2009.
300 Million iPhone Apps Downloaded
December 08, 2008 (edited since original posting)
Following up on the unofficial news earlier last week that Apple had crossed the 10,000 app mark, Apple has announced 300 million downloaded apps.
The milestone was reported in ads placed in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal rather than the typical press release.
Only one additional marker has been reported since the iTunes App Store first opened in July of this year. In October, Apple reported 200 million apps downloaded and the availability of 5,000 apps.
Not bad.
Apple iTunes App Store reaches 10,000
November 29, 2008 (evening)
According to website “148Apps,” the Apple iTunes Apps Store has reached the 10,000 application milestone.
They’ve posted a nifty page showing mini icons for every application and a bit of interesting data on release frequency and cost distribution.
TechCrunch notes:
About 24% of apps are free; 35% cost $.99. The average cost is $3.12, including free apps. About 34% are games or entertainment, and there are 49 weather related apps for the iPhone despite the fact that a weather app is built in.
[via techcrunch]