Category Archives: iPhone

Apple iPhone changed the smart phone industry for ever, and introduced a functional touch screen phone that worked, for the first time. Using the iOS operating system We have all the latest news, reviews, and discussions on apps and games for Apple’s iPhone.

iPhone SMS database hacked in only 20 seconds

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SMS

While you wait for the shiver down your spine to dissipate, yes, it is true the. iPhone SMS database was hacked in only 20 seconds.

A users entire SMS database which even included DELETED SMS messages was hacked in only 20 seconds without any user input. But the good news it’s part of a competition. Vincenzon Iozzo and Ralf-Philip Weinmann are security researchers performing for the 2010 Pwn2Own contest, the prize it seems is 15,000USD.

Weinmann and Iozzo won the 15,000USD cash prize and got the keep the hijacked iPhone.

Additionally the results will go directly to apple who will hopefully look at making the iPhone SMS database more secure. This also highlights for us the issue of being careful what websites we open. The iPhone like any OS needs to be kept as secure as possible from the user point of view.

ZDNet

Vodafone Ireland starts selling iPhone 3G and 3Gs from today

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vodafone iphone

Vodafone iphone

Vodafone Ireland has today started selling the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3Gs. With device prices ranging from Free to  €299, and price plans ranging from €35 to €100, this is the second network to offer the iPhone officially in Ireland, with O2 having previously an exclusive contract.

Every plan comes with unlimited free Vodafone to Vodafone calls & texts and 2GB of data.
On Perfect Choice Access + 150 and above, you also get inclusive minutes & texts to any network.

When this reporter tried to order a device the online website was unfortunately down, but this is bound to increase Apple’s iPhone sales, as Vodafone is one of the most popular networks in Ireland. Vodafone Ireland is also to offer tethering on the iPhone, which is using  your device as a modem to access the internet on your laptop. This would cost an additional €9.99 for 1GB allowance, in addition to an iPhone plan.

Press Release

Vodafone Ireland today announced it will launch iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G in Ireland on March 25 with a range of 3G tariff plans tailored for iPhone customers, supported by Ireland’s number-one network. iPhone 3G 8GB will be free for all qualifying upgrades and new customers on the Perfect Choice Access 500 and 700 plans (starting from €80 per month).

iPhone 3GS is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet, packed with incredible new features including improved speed and performance – up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G – with longer battery life, a high-quality 3 megapixel autofocus camera, easy to use video recording and hands free voice control. The groundbreaking App Store provides access to more than 140,000 applications from games to social networking to financial planning and health management, generating more than 3 billion downloads to date. iPhone is now available in over 80 countries around the world.

“We are thrilled to offer iPhone and showcase its outstanding features on the country’s number-one network,” said Vodafone Ireland CEO Charles Butterworth. “Vodafone’s 2.3 million Irish customers will enjoy great value with a range of compelling plans including free Vodafone-to-Vodafone calls and texts as well as 2GB of data per month across all plans.”

Apple takes a chunk of change from the $10 billion gaming industry

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According to US website flurry the iPhone OS now dominates 5% of the gaming market, which in the US is valued at about 10 billion USD. This is pretty amazing when we remember we are taking about a device that primarily is not a gaming system. That not withstanding more that 30,000 games have been released via the app store on the iPhone.

US video games by revenue

US video games by revenue

This 5% is creating a small hole in handheld device gaming units like PSP and Nintendo, who will need to move quickly to react to this piece of news. The graph posted above makes for some interesting study which shows iPhone taking a bigger piece of the pie in 2009. And with the iPad on the way, interesting changes are going to happen in the gaming industry.

With a larger screen and powerful processing tools, the iPad is bound to build on this with big names in gaming such as Gameloft already have there games ready for launch in the US.

In Ireland a number of games  appear popular in the app store, with the likes of classics such as Sonic the hedgehog (€4.99) , and Street fighter (€7.99) and newer games like Trisim (€2.99) and The Sims 3  getting great reviews!

iPhone Savior

Steve Jobs replies to customer emails!

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Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

This is an interesting one, over the past few weeks a number of emails were sent to Steve Jobs, he responded to a few! They are short and not so sweet! No doubt he gets enough to make any iPhone weak at the knees. Here are some of the most interesting ones.

“The reader asked if there was a way he could transfer his Google Docs to his iPad through iWork.com or iDisk“. Jobs’ reply? “Yes.”

“Reader Julio R. asked Steve if we can expect a universal mailbox on the iPhone”. His answer? “Yep.”

Source

“The iPad photo app looks incredible. Are there any plans to support Picasa’s faces and albums in iTunes….If not, please can you look into supporting the Picasa library format?His answer? “No, but iPhoto on the Mac has much better Faces and Places features.”

Source

10 Useful iPhone tips you may not have known!

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The iPhone has a number of lesser known shortcuts and features, you may not have known about, here are ten of my favourites, feel free to comment below and suggest ones that you found!

  • In most applications you can tap the top menu bar on the iPhone to scroll to the top of the document. For example in safari tapping the top menu (where the time and battery status are located) will scroll you back to the very top of the webpage. This is also supported by many third party applications such as Echofon for Twitter.
  • Holding down the home button will open voice command, where you can use voice dialing or play music by calling out artists name.
  • Pressing  and releasing the home button and power button together at the same time will take a screenshot of the screen and save it the photos application.
  • Double tapping the home button while the iPhone is on standby will bring up iPod controls, to allow you to control music playback without unlocking the iPhone, the function of the double press of the home button can be also changed in the settings screen.
  • Need a fada? On the keyboard holding down a key will display various versions of they key, handy if you are texting or e-mailing in Irish or such.
  • You can save an image in safari by pressing and holding a picture, you will then be prompted to save the image to photos.
  • While browsing through application pages on your device, pressing the home key once will take you the the  first page of applications, while pressing it on the first page of applications will take you the the search feature.
  • When taking a photo on an iPhone 3Gs tapping a location on the screen will set focus on that area.
  • You can soft reset your iPhone by holding down both home button and power buttons together.
  • You can move, or remove applications, by pressing them for a few seconds and releasing, you can then drag them around or remove them if they are not native applications.

Please suggest you own tips and tricks in the comments below.

Facebook updates iPhone application (version 3.1.1)

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facebook Facebook has updated  it’s application for the iPhone to version 3.1.1. Finally we have push notifications, which is a great little feature. Allowing for little pop-up messages when you have a friend. Interestingly facebook have added the option to sync your phone contacts with your facebook friends, which allows you to add facebook profile pictures and links to contacts.

One worrying element however is, as ever, security. What happens with the contacts you send to facebook, the ones that are not on facebook, are these disregarded – as you would expect or does facebook take a copy?

You do get a warning message when you enable this (as pictured) but the message does not state what will happen with the contacts you send to facebook. Are you comfortable giving facebook access to your contacts, are your contacts happy with giving you this control over their information, do they have a choice?

Clearer information is necessary from facebook before an informed decision can be made. On the other hand this is a useful feature, but not one you should enable unless you are sure.

Nexus One specs -The Google Phone

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Nexus one Will the Nexus One have iPhone success? More importantly why does everyone need to compare touch screen phones to the iPhone? It may because the iPhone was the first touch screen phone to the market that worked they way it was supposed to. Either way, the Nexus One looks interesting enough and has a few features which are denied to the iPhone.

Lets get technical

Display: 3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen WVGA AMOLED touch screen. 800 x 480 pixels
Height: 119mm
Width: 59.8mm
Depth: 11.5mm
Weight: 30 grams w/battery
Camera: 5 megapixels, LED flash
Connectivity: HSDPA 7.2Mbps, HSUPA 2Mbps, GSM/EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth
Battery: Talktime – Up to 7 hours on 3G and Up to 10 hours on 2G. Can standby – Up to 290 hours on 2G Up to 250 hours on 3G
Memory: 4GB Micro SD card but you can expand up to 32 GB
Location services: Assisted global positioning system receiver, digital compass and accelerometer
Additional features: Teflon coated back, proximity sensor, light sensor, active noise cancellation

The software on the Nexus One runs Android) has  live wallpapers, which move around in the background with different shapes and combinations (seem a little distracting to me) has a number of different live wallpapers.

Scrolling through the apps has a clever 3D effect which makes it look very snazzy indeed.

Widgets screen, such as weather widgets, and search.

The gallery provides a 3D experience, swipe to view, but no multi touch.

Voice recognition for text input, for text messaging.

There are  a number of features which the iPhone has neglected, such as background applications. But will it be as user friendly after a few days use? Will it give other touch screen phone vendors a run for their money? Time will tell!

Jamie Oliver 20 Minute meals

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While browsing the iPhone  app store, which I have to admit is something I do very often (almost  a daily ritual at this stage) I came across Jamie Oliver 2o minute meals an application on the iPhone app store that is not only well written by the program developer but also content rich,  well presented and extremely useful.

There are numerous positive reviews for this application, and they are well deserved.

When you launch the application the first time a video pops up. It’s Jamie welcoming you to the app, nice touch! Then you are presented with a list of categories, such as easy pasta, fast fish and so on. One of the nice things about the application is each dish is laid out step by step with some audio tips from Jamie. These are written recipes not videos by the way. But cleverly there are video tips which show you how to do things which many of the applications target audience would never admit to. For example the easy way to chop and onion (I know…).

I really like the shopping list feature, allowing you to add all the ingredients for a recipe to a list, which you can try cross off as you get them. I did get a few funny looks as I walked around Fresh on Camden street with an iPhone shopping list, but it works like a charm.

So apart from the technology element, are the recipes good. To date I have spotted about ten I plan on making and completed two. They tasted pretty good, considering my kitchen skills are pretty minimal. But if you’re new years resolution in 2010 is to be more active in the kitchen then this might just be the application for you!

iPhone 3Gs initial review

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O2 Ireland recently launched the new iPhone 3Gs (and no… I did not get one), I have to say some of the changes to the hardware and software – version 3.0 – are an exciting step forward for the device.

However I really was expecting something special this year in terms of device design. But Apple like to take it slow.

It is no secret that the success of the iPhone is down to excellent touch screen which is unique to the iPhone. However, features which have been on mobile devices for years now are only now happening on the iPhone, and yet it is selling very well indeed. There have been many missing features users expect from their mobile device. Take for example MMS which is has only recently been officially supported on the iPhone.

Recent updates has meant the iPhone is getting closer to having a backpack full of features to keep every geek and business person connected to their virtual lives.

What is new, under the hood? There is of course the much needed better ram , graphics and more, let us boil all that hu-ha down and say the ‘s’ in iPhone3Gs means SPEED, the iPhone 3Gs is a much faster creature. In terms of extra features, below is what has peaked my interest, if I miss anything that has you excited please add your comment, and I will try and keep the list of features updated.

Push Notifications

iphone_30_aim_push_notification_accept

Push Notifications

Push notifications are used by applications to alert you of new information, even when the application isn’t running.

What was requested for a long time on the iPhone was the ability to run applications in the background on the iPhone. For those of us with no idea what this means, allow me to explain, when you close a 3rd party application on the iPhone, it is closed completely, so say for example some sends you an IM message, you will not know about it until you reopen the application again.And while you still cannot run background applications because it would slow down the device (apparently). Apple have invented push notifications for the iPhone which is the next best thing (again apparently).

What this really means is that, for example even if you exit an application you can still receive notifications when you get an update or a message for that application. You can then relaunch that application and view the message. As per the image, the notification can be a small message or a number badge showing the number of updates for the application; it may also be an alert sound to draw you attention to an update.

Camera

iPhone 3Gs Camera

iPhone 3Gs Camera

The new 3-megapixel camera takes great still photos, too, thanks to built-in autofocus and a handy new feature that lets you tap the display to focus on anything (or anyone) you want.

Everyone is excited about this 3-mega-pixel…

If you want to take a great photo then use a camera, but you won’t always have your camera with you when a great shot comes your way, and chances are you will have your iPhone 3Gs clutched in your right hand.

Until now using the iPhone to capture any moment was pretty pointless due to the awful picture it would take. So Apple in there infinite wisdom have tweaked the iPhone to make it an almost useful camera substitute.

Basically the camera on the 3Gs is a 3-mega pixel auto-focus camera. Meaning you can now focus on subjects simply by tapping them on the screen. More interesting than all this is you can now use the camera to take and edit video footage. You can then forward this directly to youtube… not bad really! This will do doubt increase the popularity of this device no end!

Copy & erm.. Paste?

Cut, copy, and paste words and photos, even between applications. Copy and paste images and content from the web, too.

It is interesting that it has taken this long for a simple function like copy and paste to make it to the iPhone, but apparently it required allot of time…
For me that is the most interesting elements that comes with the new iPhone 3Gs device, but if you would like to discuss the iPhone 3Gs head to this website for a discussion.

For accuracy purposes here are the specs of the device.
iphone 3Gs Specs

  • Improved performance
  • 3-megapixel autofocus camera
  • Video recording
  • Voice Control
  • Digital compass
  • Cut, Copy & Paste
  • MMS
  • Spotlight Search
  • Landscape keyboard
  • Voice Memos

    • Written for johnmryan.com, used with permission