Category: iphone

Posted on

Should iPhone 4 Affect Your Buying Decisions

Last night Hong Kong time (10:00 US PST) Apple announced the next generation iPhone, the “iPhone 4”, and renamed its OS from “iPhone OS” to “iOS 4”, during Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at their WWDC ’10.

During the keynote Jobs highlighted 8 of the new features in iPhone 4. These are:

  • FaceTime
  • Retina Display
  • Multitasking
  • HD Video Recording
  • iMovie for iPhone
  • iBooks
  • Gyroscope
  • 5-Megapixel Camera with LED Flash

Aside from these 8 features mentioned there are a few more that worth mentioning.

  • External antenna
  • Front facing camera
  • 7 hours of talk time on 3G

I will leave the summary of these features to Apple’s excellent web pages for the iPhone, what I will do instead is explain how these features should or should not affect your purchasing decision of the iPhone 4.

Continue reading “Should iPhone 4 Affect Your Buying Decisions”

Posted on

Review: L5 Remote for iPhone

The iPhone has always been a great platform for developers to innovate and invent new uses for the device. Recently L5 Technology did just that with their L5 Remote hardware dongle + iPhone app [iTunes App Store link].

The L5 Remote is an universal remote control. It comes in two parts: a hardware IR dongle attached to the iPhone (3G/3GS)/iPod Touch Dock Connector, and an iPhone app. The hardware dongle cost USD49.95 + shipping and the L5 Remote iPhone app is free from the iPhone App Store.

Continue reading “Review: L5 Remote for iPhone”

Posted on

Review: Twitter for iPhone

A bit over a month ago Twitter (the site/service) purchased the popular iPhone app “Tweetie”. During the announcement Twitter also announces that they will rename the app to “Twitter for iPhone” and reduce the price to free. The name is not that original but that was intentional, because Twitter wants people to find their client of the same name when they perform a search in the iTunes App Store.

Since the acquisition the Twitter 3rd party client development community has been shaken up. The thinking from analysts is why would any user pays for a 3rd party client when there is a free official client from Twitter.

With the name change Twitter also changed the icon of the app. I think they have chosen a great icon, because it is the same as the default avatar icon in the Twitter service.

Even prior to the purchase Tweetie 2 users had already have a great deal of anticipation for the next update, Tweetie 3, so they are glad that the newly released app is basically Tweetie 3 with a name change. In this new version of Tweetie (aka “Twitter for iPhone”) there are several speed improvements and bug fixes, the most noticeable are: Continue reading “Review: Twitter for iPhone”

Posted on

Review: CantoNotes & Hanzi Lookup on iPhone

A pair of iPhone app from Omar Rabbolini, an Italian application developer currently resides in UK.

These pair of iPhone apps: CantoNotes and Hanzi Lookup, will help Cantonese speaking users not familiar with writing Chinese; like myself, learn to write Chinese characters.

CantoNotes will allow users to enter Chinese characters using the LSHK (Linguistic Society of Hong Kong) JyutPing standard phonemes input method and CantoNotes will respond with the corresponding Chinese character. Characters displayed can be copy and paste into the built in Hanzi Lookup screen. Rather than using the built in copy & paste feature of iPhone OS, the app use its own Copy and Paste buttons. Although the iPhone OS built in copy & paste feature also works. After pasting the desired Chinese characters into the Hanzi Lookup screen, it will display the Chinese character in a medium size font, along with the Cantonese pronunciation beneath it one character at a time.

Continue reading “Review: CantoNotes & Hanzi Lookup on iPhone”

Posted on

Review: Numbric on iPhone

The maker [Headnix] of the very useful iPhone/Mac application “Finger” has release another new iPhone/Mac application, “Numbric“.

Numbric is one of those cool iPhone apps that enables the transform of the iPhone into something other than a simple smartphone. This time it converts the iPhone into an external numerical keypad.

Ideal for anyone using the recent models of iMacs that only come with the new Apple Keyboards. These new Apple Keyboards do not have the extra keys and numerical keypad like the old Apple Extended Keyboards. Of course anyone who has a frequent need for number entry and is using a new Apple Keyboard, MacBook or MacBook Pro will find this little application useful.

Continue reading “Review: Numbric on iPhone”

Posted on

Review: Numbric on iPhone

The maker [Headnix] of the very useful iPhone/Mac application “Finger” has release another new iPhone/Mac application, “Numbric“.
Numbric is one of those cool iPhone apps that enables the transform of the iPhone into something other than a simple smartphone. This time it converts the iPhone into an external numerical keypad.

Ideal for anyone using the recent models of iMacs that only come with the new Apple Keyboards. These new Apple Keyboards do not have the extra keys and numerical keypad like the old Apple Extended Keyboards. Of course anyone who has a frequent need for number entry and is using a new Apple Keyboard, MacBook or MacBook Pro will find this little application useful.

Continue reading “Review: Numbric on iPhone”

Posted on

Review: HoloToy for iPhone/iPad

I to come to aware of the iPhone/iPad app, HoloToy [iTunes link]. It is classified as Entertainment in the iTunes App Store.

There are a total of ten (10) screens: Fish Tank, Scarab Attack, HoloBall, HoloBot, Cornell Box, The Impossible Triangle, Planet Earth, The Moon, Mars, Jupiter. I guess the developer will refer to these as “toys”. Only two of the ten screens are games: “Scarab Attack” and “HoloBall”, the rest are 3D images where the user can change the point of view by tilting the iPhone or iPad, or animate the object in some way by tapping the screen.

Continue reading “Review: HoloToy for iPhone/iPad”

Posted on

Twitter BUYS Tweetie

The very popular iPhone app, Tweetie by Atebits (the Loren Brichter’s company) has been purchased by Twitter, the service it’s a client for.

Twitter decided to buy instead of recreate its own mobile client, so it settled on Tweetie. It rename the app to “Twitter for iPhone” and then make it free in the iTunes App Store.

Loren Brichter will join Twitter as a key member of their mobile team.

This has been confirmed by Evan William, one of the founder of Twitter, on their blog.

Continue reading “Twitter BUYS Tweetie”