nick's view

He said/she said: Flash not coming to iPhone

Boo Hiss ...

So now PC World is reporting that Flash won’t be coming to the iPhone because:

“It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating,” Narayen told Bloomberg Television at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.”

Yes, friends, we can send a man to the moon but we can’t add Flash to the iPhone. Flash wouldn’t be impossible to add to the iPhone - the processor is fast enough and there is enough expertise out there to offer some sort of Flash derivative that would work on the iPhone without many problems.

This actually most probably similar to the hemming and hawing that we saw on Apple’s side with their plan not to release an official SDK and instead encourage folks to make web applications (we all saw how well that turned out.) Flash for iPhone is probably being prepared as we speak but no one is allowed to talk about it let alone give a timeframe for completion.

Tweetie Gets Major Update, Brings Much to the Table

A little while ago, our own Olly Farshi took a number of full-featured Twitter apps for the iPhone and iPod touch platform out for a spin, comparing each by features in a convenient table. His declared winner at the time? Relative newcomer Tweetie ($2.99, App Store), whose list of features blew competitors out of the water. At the time, fellow TAB writer Weldon Dodd brought up the valid complaint that Tweetie doesn’t remember where you were in the tweet stream on relaunch.

Today, Tweetie got a major update, which not only brings stream position memory on launch and refresh, but a long list of other improvements as well. Version 1.2 of the software brings lots of integration with outside apps and services, for instance, including Instapaper, Twitpic.com for pictures, and StockTwits linking.

Usability improvements abound, including an optional landscape typing mode, a launch tweets number setting, a public timeline, persistent drafts across relaunches, cached avatar, location aware radius control, and image compression control. The GUI gets a boost as well, with a refined version of the app’s simple theme.

My only minor complaints are that landscape mode has to be turned on in the Settings panel for the app, and doesn’t activate automatically on screen rotation, and that there’s no way to turn off the app’s ability to remember your place in the tweet stream, an option which I’m personally not crazy about.

Still, if Tweetie was not your iPhone app of choice, it definitely should be now. On top of the new improvements, it already supported multiple accounts, following, unfollowing, favorites, and fully functional Twitter search, which meant I could say goodbye to the completely capable, but uneccesary Summizer app. Also, Tweetie 1.2 comes with PEE, which makes it priceless.

Media Messaging in the UK With iPhoneMMS

The iPhone’s lack of any MMS capabilities was said to be on account of the versatile and full featured email support. If it’s so simple to send photos via email, why pay extra to send them via MMS?

While that is a valid argument to a certain extent, the two services remain predominantly different; e-mail is unlikely to be picked up by a regular phone user ‘on the go’ and isn’t tailored in the same manner for quickly sending and receiving photo snapshots.

Enter iPhoneMMS. This service is currently a web application for the iPhone allowing you to access and send O2 media messages through a more appealing interface. For the last few days I have been using a preview of the latest edition, a native iPhone application which has recently launched.

The app allows you to send and receive MMS messages in a far more user-friendly way than through the O2 website. It brings MMS functionality closer to a real, integrated solution.

International Support

For sending messages, international support is planned and under development. Unfortunately, the ability to receive messages relies on support from the network operator in question and no other international network offers the same functionality as O2 at this stage. Depending upon the success of the app in the UK, the developers may seek the assistance of AT&T to extend support to the U.S.

Setting Up

Once installed, you’ll see the red iPhoneMMS icon in your iPhone menu. I was pleasantly surprised to see the similar design to existing Phone and Text icons — albeit in a brighter red color. It makes the app feel like an official edition to support MMS sending and receiving.

To set your phone up to access your messages through the app, you need to receive a MMS and note the PIN code provided to you by O2. You then enter your mobile number and that PIN into the application to access your account.

Receiving Messages

When you receive an MMS, a notification is usually provided in the form of a text message from your network operator. You can open the iPhoneMMS application, login, and browse all previously received messages.

Sending Messages

Sending a new message is very similar to composing an email. You enter a telephone number, subject line and can take a new photo or attach an existing one.

Costs & Pricing

The iPhoneMMS app is free through the App Store and there are no recurring costs — you pay only for the messages you use. At present, each message costs one credit. You receive one credit for free when registering, after which they can be purchased via PayPal in blocks of 10 or more. They are priced at around £0.35 each.

Plans are in place to lower this price in the future through discussion with the MMS team at O2. An agreement with the network operator could lead to:

• Instant notification of MMS (no need to use your mobile number / pin to login)
• Sending messages will be charged by O2 through your standard bill
• Messages will be charged at the normal O2 rates

I feel that this would go a long way towards making the app more useful, encouraging casual users to dabble in sending media messages rather than those who are happy to pre-pay with a credit system.

iPhoneMMS is currently freely available through the UK iTunes App Store. I’m interested to see that the app has been readily accepted — I imagine its submission to the App Store sparked a debate at Apple surrounding plans to support or endorse this feature in the native iPhone software itself.

Who’s Behind the App?

This service is entirely owned and operated by two private individuals:

• Ross McKillop: A web developer and consultant who became frustrated at the lack of MMS on the iPhone (and others asking about it!) so decided to do something about it.
• Ed Lea: A talented iPhone developer behind many other excellent apps on the AppStore including TV Plus, which held the #1 spot in the Top 50 Apps for a number of weeks.

Conclusion

This app seems to be a great start for supporting MMS on the iPhone. I’m aware that UK-only support is limiting for many readers of TheAppleBlog, but the system provides a concept which could be expanded to the U.S. — either by the existing developers, or a different team based in America.

There’s still some way for the app to go before being fully integrated into your O2 bill and providing seamless MMS support. Initial impressions are good, however and it will certainly be worth investigating if you’re based in, or frequently travel to, the UK.

What are your thoughts on MMS support? Is it a service which you miss the support for on the iPhone, or have you adjusted to life without it just fine? I’d be interested to hear how many of you would welcome an app such as this.

SlingPlayer for iPhone Coming Soon

Sling Media, Inc. have announced at Macworld that they are working on a version of SlingPlayer Mobile for the iPhone. Demonstrations are being given at the conference, and the software would seem to be in the later stages of development.

The software provides a way to push TV content wirelessly (via 3G or Wi-Fi) to your iPhone; everything including standard TV content, local channels and video on demand. The iPhone is also able to function as a wireless remote control for your digital video recorder, to control the playback of recordings and schedule new ones.

Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media noted:

SlingPlayer Mobile is ideally suited for the iPhone’s large touch screen display and I know iPhone users are eagerly anticipating the application’s availability. Add to that HD streaming support for Slingbox PRO-HD customers and live TV support on our video entertainment site, Sling.com, and you can see Sling Media is committed to delivering great solutions for Mac users.

In addition, the company unveiled a prototype of the new SlingPlayer for Mac HD, allowing the streaming of HD content to your Mac. It will be a web based system, accessible from Sling.com.

Availability & Pricing

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone is scheduled to be passed to Apple for certification in the first quarter of 2009, and will be compatible with the iPhone and iPod touch. The price hasn’t yet been finalized, but is expected to come in at around $30 — similar to SlingPlayer Mobile on other devices.

SlingPlayer for Mac HD will be available for free via Sling.com at around the same time.

Best iPhone App Ever Winners for 2008

Written on January 09, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and No one has commented

It may not be the most authoritative source (what is?), but the winners of the Best iPhone App Ever Awards have recently been announced. The awards are organized and run by 148apps.com, an iPhone and iPod touch App review site whose main feature is a top 148 list. Awards were decided based on community and committee nominations and subsequent voting to determine the top app in each category.

There are 34 categories in all, including things like Best User Interface and Best Long Play Game. Winners are not generally too surprising, and the list stands as a good resource for new iPhone and iPod touch users who might otherwise be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of programs that now occupy the App Store.

Shazam takes the biggest prize on the list, walking away with Best App Ever. I admit, though I don’t use Shazam all that often, when I do, I find it extremely handy. Still, Best App Ever? I suppose its other benefit is that anyone and everyone can make good use of it, which isn’t the case with apps I might suggest as more deserving of the award. Curiously, Weightbot was also nominated in this category, something which I can only ascribe to the incredibly good design of the app’s graphics, icon, and interface.

Other winners of interest include Air Sharing for Most Useful App, Field Runners for Best Original Game, and Things for Best Productivity Enhancer. Probably not my first choice in any of those categories, but they’d definitely make the short list, at the very least. Check out the full list here.

Patent Filed for iPhone Gloves

There have been plenty of times when we've found ourselves in this chilly bind. It's cold outside and we need gloves on, but we desperately need to upload photos and update out status on Facebook using our iPhones. So what do we do? Well, we rip off the gloves and feverishly poke and swipe our iPhones in the hope that we don't get frost bite and have to have our fingers amputated. It's a crazy life we live. Good thing Apple has filed a patent that could solve this problem. 

The problem with most insulated gloves is that they block all, if not some of the electrical feedback from our fingers on the face of the iPhone. Apple's solution would be to give the gloves a second inner layer that would help stimulate the electrical feedback from human fingers when exposed. You would be able to peel back an exterior layer, exposing the 2nd more responsive layer. 

There is currently a glove with the iPhone lifestyle in mind, The Dots glove also works along the same idea.

Apple doesn't tend to work with fabrics, save the iPod sock, but this idea has been in the works for a whiles, the application was originally filed on June 28th, 2007, a day before the original iPhone was released.

Review: Take A Note for the iPhone

Note-taker blends gorgeous looks with functional features

Not too long ago, I had lunch with a graphic designer acquaintance and fellow Mac cultist who bemoaned the mediocrity of so many iPhone apps. “They don’t look like they’re Apple quality,” he complained. “They’re so dull and drab. They’re boring!”

Notable Appearance: Readdle’s Take A Note uses a brown and light yellow color scheme that creates an aesthetically pleasing app for the iPhone or iPod touch.

Now, it isn’t exactly fair to hold every third-party app developer to a lofty Cupertino standard. But it may be fairer to say that a healthy majority of apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch deliver on form or function, but rarely deliver both. Oh, sure, there are quite a few apps that are as stylistic as they are functional. Instapaper () and Classics () spring instantly to mind. Many developers, however, have the programming skills but lack the design savvy to effectively meld style with substance.

That thought occurred to me again as I was using Readdle’s Take A Note app. I had already reviewed and adopted YouNote (), which is an excellent, free note-taking organizational tool for the iPhone and iPod Touch. YouNote is functional, but not at all beautiful. Take A Note is drop-dead gorgeous. But is it also functional?

The answer is an emphatic yes. Although Take A Note lacks some of the features that makes YouNote a powerful tool, the app makes up for it with a brilliant design, a clean interface, excellent audio functionality and easy Wi-Fi backup.

Developer Igor Zhadanov obviously has a keen aesthetic eye. When you launch Take A Note, the title screen is a weathered, brown leather spiral notebook cover. The tasteful brown and light yellow color scheme evokes an old drawing room or a private detective’s office. All that’s missing, alas, is the smell of the leather and cigar smoke, and the silky smooth texture of the pages.

Take A Note organizes your notes by text, audio, drawing or photo. The app also lets you set up your own categories, such as “home” or “work” or any esoteric label you wish. Although I miss YouNote’s color-coding scheme, Take A Note’s simple checklist-style categorization is a nice feature for keeping notes orderly. You can also add text comments to audio, photo or drawing notes.

YouNote’s tagging function is superior, however. Take A Note will let you apply only one category to each note. But the app automatically sorts notes by category, which simplifies browsing somewhat.

Take A Note soundly beats YouNote with its audio note feature. This is a recorder built for reporters. It has a 100-minute capacity—limited, really, only by the amount of memory on your device. The noise reduction on the recorder is excellent, and you can pause, fast-forward and rewind by tapping and dragging a slide-button. Take A Note wins additional kudos for the recorder’s clever GUI—an old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape rolls as you record. All that’s missing is a way to record phone calls, which is a limitation of the iPhone at this time. (Please be aware that although Take A Note works with the iPod touch, it requires an external microphone to use the audio recording feature.)

Note The Date: Take A Note organizes your notes in broad chronological order, but it doesn’t apply date and time stamps to text-based notes.

You can back up your notes easily to any Mac or PC through a Wi-Fi connection. Simply create a new network connection on your desktop or laptop machine, tap the app’s Wi-Fi button, enter the username (it’s always “notes”) and password (newly generated with each use), and voila! Take A Note’s files pop open as easy-to-read text files. Perhaps best of all, this function works both ways—if you tap out notes on your laptop or desktop machine, copying them into Take A Note is a simple matter of dragging and dropping a text file into a networked folder. In this key respect, Take A Note has a decisive edge over YouNote’s cumbersome back-up process, which requires a hard-wired connection from device to computer. And Take A Note also lets you e-mail your notes within the app, a feature that YouNote sorely lacks.

Drawbacks? Take A Note has a few. It doesn’t have landscape support, for instance. Inexplicably, the app doesn’t apply date and time stamps to text-based notes, but includes dates and times by default in audio and picture notes. The app will break down your notes in broad chronological order—that is, “today,” “this month,” “last month”—but if you want to know when you made a particular note, you had best tap in the date and time yourself. Similarly, the app’s search feature only lets you search by name. Unlike YouNote, Take A Note does not let you grab and tag Web pages. Although I don’t use that feature in YouNote very often, it’s nice to have when I need it.

I maintain that, as an organizer, YouNote is still tops. And the price is certainly right. But Take A Note’s ease of use and a gorgeous interface makes it a truly worthy rival, and one that I suspect I’ll be using a lot more with future updates.

LogMeIn Ignition

LogMeIn connects you to your desktop from anywhere in the world. What a rush!

The iPhone is a small computer in your pocket. But what if you need access to your actual computer--the one you left at home or the office? Maybe there's a file you need to view, a program you need to run, or even a machine that needs troubleshooting. Whatever the case, LogMeIn Ignition makes that connection from afar.

The iPhone version of the popular remote-desktop service accesses your system (or a consenting friend's) remotely. Once connected, you get complete control over the machine, just as though you were sitting in front of it. Of course, you have to operate within the crowded confines of the iPhone's smallish screen and work without a physical keyboard or mouse. LogMeIn offers good alternatives to those devices, and except for a few bugs and input issues, it expertly handles virtual networking computing (VNC).

You'll need to install software on the remote computers, then enter your LogMeIn password and computer password to connect. An on-screen keyboard easily translates key input, and Windows users can send Alt-Tab and Ctrl-Alt-Del commands. However, we couldn't get similar application-swapping and force-quit commands to work on Macs.

Mouse control is trickier. By default, LogMeIn employs a screen-moving method; the mouse pointer stays fixed in the center of the iPhone, and the desktop scrolls underneath it as you drag around with your finger. To click a menu on the remote computer, you drag the menu to the pointer rather than the pointer to the menu. It sounds backwards, but it's effective in practice. (Or you can switch to a traditional mouse-movement style.)

You can zoom in and out on the desktop with quick, familiar finger-pinches. The only real navigation problem is scrolling within documents; you're supposed to use a "two-finger drag" to approximate a mouse wheel, but we just couldn't get this to work well.

We also encountered frequent "low memory" messages when starting LogMeIn, and the program often crashed shortly after connecting to our remote desktop. Fortunately, an iPhone reboot seemed to solve these issues, at least temporarily.

LogMeIn Ignition supports Edge, 3G, and Wi-Fi connections, and in our tests it worked smoothly over all three (though EDGE was a bit sluggish at times). Even with the bugs, it's an incredibly handy tool for your iPhone arsenal.

iPhone apps round-up: Business apps

Also released: ProPresenter Remote, Twitterlink, Fog Window, Television

by Philip Michaels, Macworld.com

The iPhone continues to try and make its bones as a business tool, and a number of recent releases to the App Store look to aid in that effort.

Among these business-centric releases is PunchClock , the latest addition to the ranks of time-tracking apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. This offering from return7 lets you manage time for multiple clients, view and export reports in HTML and CSV, and filter reports based on client. The app currently sells for $1, which return7 bills as an introductory rate.

PunchClock

Amigle , a social networking app from the company of the same name promises to solve the problem of losing business cards and their valuable contact information. A free iPhone and iPod touch app that links to a Web-based service, Amigle promises to let you easily exchange and share profile info. What’s more, the app boasts that it can keep both personal and professional contacts up to date.

iSugarCRM is also a mobile version of an application—in this case the SugarCRM customer relationship management software. The free iPhone and second-generation iPod touch app from Pramati Technologies gives users quick access to SugarCRM records, including access to accounts, contacts, leads, opportunities, calls, and meetings.

Other apps of interest that recently debuted at the App Store include:

• ProPresenter Remote , from Renewed Vision: The $5 mobile app works with the ProPresenter presentation software for worship services, letting users control presentation from their iPhone or iPod touch.
• Twitterlink , from Mere Complexities: The free social-networking tool lets users send a shortened link to Twitter from Safari.
• Fog Window , from Champion Software: The $2 app lets you “fog up” your iPhone or second-generation iPod touch by breathing into the microphone; you can then draw whatever you want on the device’s screen.
• Television , from Makayma.com: The $3 application promises to let you watch 50 pre-recorded shows from 30 channels over Wi-Fi.
• iStatic , from Mutant Piano Software: The $3 ambient noise program generates visual and aural noise to drown out distracting background sounds at work or on the road.
• iShakuhachi , from GClue: The $1 music app replicates a bamboo flute; blow into the iPhone’s microphone while touching the four finger holes to create music.

Review: CameraBag for iPhone

Photo app offers fun filters to make your pictures stand out

by Jonathan Seff, Macworld.com

Just as any piece of writing can benefit from the help of an good editor, so any photographer can tell you that a photo is just a snapshot before a little time in Photoshop. And when it comes to the iPhone’s camera—which, let’s be honest here, isn’t very good—its pictures are usually in dire need of aid. One good solution is CameraBag, which applies filters to your iPhone shots or pictures from your photo library to give them a stylized look beyond what the built-in camera can accomplish.

CameraBag from Nevercenter is a collection of nine photo filters, including Helga (square-format with vignette), 1974 (faded and tinted), Fisheye (warped lensing), Ansel (black and white), and Cinema (wide and dramatic). To get started, you either take a picture with the iPhone’s camera from within CameraBag, or choose a photo already in your library. You can then audition each filter on a particular picture and save the altered version with your given filter (the app doesn’t touch the original photo in your library; for photos you take within the app, there’s a preference you can set to save the original photo as well). You can also set the output size for your photos.

Here, Fishy: CameraBag's filters, such as Fisheye, help spice up your photos.

To see how a photo will look with a particular filter, you load the photo and then tap the name of the current filter at the top to bring up a list of all filters, or you can swipe your finger left or right on the screen to scroll to the previous or next filter. (I prefer the second method, because it requires less effort.) By default, all nine filters—plus an Original option that shows the unaltered photo—are available to swipe through. If you have filters you like using more than others, however, you can set your favorites in the app’s preferences—only those you turn on will be part of the swipe set. (You can still get to the whole list by tapping a filter name.)

You can stack multiple filters on a single photo by applying one filter, saving the photo, then opening it again in CameraBag—this method works, but it would be much easier if you could check off several filters to apply at one time.

Old Time Feel: A photo after applying the black and white Ansel filter.

The preferences section also offers options for turning on and off cropping effects and border effects. With cropping effects on, certain filters (Lolo and Helga, for example) will crop your photo to a ratio more fitting to the lens or camera its trying to emulate. With border effects turned on, you get Polaroid-like framing using the Instant filter, and a matted look with some of the other filters. It’s unfortunate, however, that you can’t turn these effects on and off for individual photos or filters—it’s all or nothing, and you need to open the preferences settings to make any changes.

All in all, CameraBag’s filters are varied and high-quality, and offer hours of fun. To get a sense of what they can do, check out the CameraBag Flickr group, with images from CameraBag users.

The company also offers a scaled-down version called CameraBag Lite: Retro (currently free) that includes three of filters from the full version if you want to try it out. And while CameraBag cost $3 when I downloaded it for review, it’s currently priced at $1 as part of a holiday sale at the App Store.

CameraBag is compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch running the iPhone 2.x software update.

[Senior news editor Jonathan Seff likes that CameraBag makes him look like a better photographer.]