The New Yorker (via Engadget Mobile) has an amazing cover for their June issue that was painted… on an iPhone!

Jorge Colombo used the app, Brushes ($4.99 - iTunes link) to create the work. He told the New York Times that the iPhone:

"made it easy for me to sketch without having to carry all my pens and brushes and notepads with me, and I like the fact that I am drawing with a set of tools that anybody can have easily in their pocket," he said. There is one other advantage of the phone, too: no one notices he is drawing. Mr. Colombo said he stood on 42nd Street for about an hour with no interruptions.

The editors liked the more organic, dream-like quality of the iPhone image, not as sharp or technical as typical electronic renderings.

We like it too. Video after the break!

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Artist Paints Cover for New Yorker Magazine — on iPhone!

(100 Sounds Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

This is going to be a fairly short review. 100 sounds is just what you would think it is: hundreds of various sounds effects to play on your iPhone (more than 100!). They are organized alphabetically by name, and to hear a sound, you simply tap the name of the sound.

There are various settings you can adjust – having a sound repeat, having a time delay, and utilizing the shake to replay a sound or choose a random sound effect. The sounds themselves are varied – ranging from things like airplace, air raid sirens, and clapping to more abstract sounds like "correct", down, "ouch", or ditty. Some of the sounds are clear and concise, some are a little more difficult to comprehend. The previously mentioned "ouch" for example, sounded like someone with a helium voice saying ouch in 1/10th of a second!

This app was billed as being fun for kids, but one of the problems I found was that unless the kid can read (which my daughter can't do yet), there is no way to identify the sounds. Having some sort of icon or image associated with the sounds would be much more fun for kids. Also, some of the sounds could be stretched out somewhat. A sound effect that lasts less than one second (in some cases) seems sort of pointless to me.

It would also be cool to be able to view categories out sounds – animals, human, speech, machine, abstract, etc. That might help clarify some of the more random sounds effect – for example, is the "fabulous" effect – is that someone saying "fabulous", or is it some musical effect that is supposed to denote "fabulous". (It turns out it is the former, but that isn't always the case).

The quality of the sounds are very good, although some of them were a little short (as I mentioned before). For the most point, I could make out what the sounds was supposed to be very easily. One nice feature that they are offering is that they will email you a ringtone of 5 sounds effects if you like. This is nice, since some of these could make cool ringtones (I don't know why Apple won't let an app make a ringtone!)

The last feature that I think would be really cool would allow a user to program their own sound track. Create a routine of sound effects (which effects, how long, et) that you could start and it would play over a certain length of time.

The breadth of sound effects included in this app are nice – much better than the previous sound effects app I downloaded. But there are a few "tweaks" that could be utilized to make the app better organized and more enjoyable. It is my hope that eventually 100 sounds will continue to add effects, even ones that may seem redundant so you can have more than one option for each type.

Pros:

• Nice array of sound effects available

Cons:

• More organization options,
• images for kids would be nice

(Note: the developer responds in the forum thread)

All in all, the sounds effects app does exactly what it claims to be – a repository of sounds effects. Some of them are fun, some of them are a little random, but there is a nice library available. There could be better organization, or since it is listed as a kids app it could have better identification for kids, but for general use this is a nicely designed app. At $.99, the price is not prohibitive and if you wanted to create your own sound track, this app can help you out.

TiPb Review Rating

[100 Sounds is available for $0.99 via the iTunes App Store]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Kids Corner App Review: 100 Sounds

Mac and iPhone icon designer Sebastiaan de With of Cocoia takes app designers to task for not making their icons better match the quality and look of Apple’s built-in apps. Says de With:

A lot of professional designers get it wrong as well, and I can understand; it's truly very hard to make an icon that looks as great as one from Apple's bunch and blends in with the rest. I don't mean to be an icon snob; I like diversity in my icons, and especially creative freedom. It's more than just annoying, however, when creative and diverse motifs look extremely alien to their environment.

Part of the blame is placed on Apple who’s iPhone HIG (human interface guidelines) provide a mere 378 words on icon design, with examples that are sub-par. But de With isn’t just complaining — he’s doing something about it. Enter: Composition:

Sean Patrick O'Brien and I are working on the very first Mac application that will be released under the Cocoia 'brand': Composition. Composition allows you to take any image and get a pixel-perfect preview of iPhone's default effects at regular home screen size and Settings/Spotlight small icon size. It also lets you look at your icon in a virtual home screen to achieve a native look (and yes, both iPhone and iPod touch home screens will be represented), and export it for further usage on websites and other materials.

Best of all, it’s going to be free.

Check out the pre-announcement for details.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Cocoia Composition: If Apple’s Not Going to Help Developers Make Great iPhone Icons — We Will!

With WWDC 2009 only two weeks away, the many rumors and leaks and informed guesses seem to have coalesced into a somewhat unified view of what we probably will — and probably won’t — see if/when the next generation iPhone 2,1 is announced. Given the full version upgrade number (the original iPhone 2G is 1,1, the iPhone 3G is 1,2) we’d expect there to be more in the way of hardware changes than we saw last year with the addition of “just” 3G and GPS. Will those expectations be met? We have a pretty good handle on the iPhone 3.0 software, but what about the hardware?

More Than Likely

• More storage. Thanks to all the telco leaks over the weekend, either Apple has acquired the double-density NAND flash memory chips needed to move the iPhone to 32GB (and iPod touch to 64GB), or they’re all just as convinced as we are that the high end iPhone will be twice as roomy this year.
• Faster processor(s). Not yet the miracle system-on-a-chip Apple will eventually produce based on PA Semi, ARM and PowerVR licenses, OpenCL, and all their recent expert hires, but a healthy 50% bump up from the current CPU. We might not see the multi-core GPU yet either, but more graphics firepower would make sense here as well.
• More RAM. Right now the iPhone is a lot like the genie in Aladdin. Unbelievable mobile potential… trapped in an itty-bitty RAM bottleneck. Dieter tells us that in the larger smartphone world, the iPhone’s current 128MB of RAM gets looked at askance. It also causes Mobile Safari to crash and Apple to prevent background multitasking for anything but their own core apps. 256MB is increasingly the norm, and something we fully expect will make it into the next iPhone.
• Faster networking. TiPb called 802.11n Wi-Fi way back in October ‘08 and we’d now be surprised not to get it. Hopefully an improved cell radio will hook into faster 3.5/3.9G HSPA+ cell networks as well, and for the love of all things American, please let the new chip work better with AT&T’s rabbit ear antennas. The rest of the world enjoys solid iPhone 3G connectivity, the USA should as well.
• Longer battery life. If one things remains constant, it’s the entitled internet denizens demand twice as much of everything for half the price of anything before. So, in addition to all the new features packed into the next gen iPhone, Apple will no doubt have to figure out a way to make the battery last longer as well. Part of this will be smoke-and-mirrors, no doubt, the rest could be the result of leveraging the same new battery technology found in the 17″ MacBook Pro allowing them to put more and smarter cells into the iPhone. If updated components help too (especially the outside chance of an OLED screen — see below), so much the better.
• Better camera. Because it couldn’t get any worse, right? There have been rumors of 3.2 and 5.0 megapixel cameras. We’re betting 3.2 is what we see at WWDC, with 5.0 coming to an iPhone (or iPod) further down the line. Auto-focus will be included, if only to take better pictures and to provide a mechanical feature that’s easier to break than the screen when we inevitably drop it trying to take that one great photo… (or video, but that’s a software feature so we won’t get into it here).
• Digital compass. Hey, it will make Google Street View demos infinitely cooler. Okay, and a magnetometer will also allow for faster, more precise positioning for things like Turn by Turn GPS when we finally get them in the App Store. And we’re certain game developers will find spectacular ways of hooking into it as well.
• Price point. Same $199/$299 we currently enjoy. In the increasingly competitive smartphone space, it would be hard for even Apple to push the premium — and with carriers subsidizing anyway, what would be the point? Lower prices are unlikely as well, though there’s always hope AT&T and others might give users a break on data rates…

Less Than Likely

• Higher definition screen. Yeah, we called for an iPhone HD back in October ‘08 as well. Given the rise of up to 800×480 screens on other platforms, we (meaning me) figured Apple would move to match it giving us more pixels for everything from web browsing to gaming to watching 480p video. Since only a very few nebulous rumors have come out since then, and there’s no sign of support for that resolution in the iPhone 3.0 SDK, we’re just going to have to wait and recycle this prediction next year… (Though maybe HD-out will still happen.)
• OLED screen. Only a few rumors to back up OLED (organic light emitting diode) screens as well, which would look better and use less battery power and component space. They’d also be more expensive, which might explain why there have only been those few rumors. It could still happen, but odds make it look increasingly likely for next time rather than this time.
• Updated casing. While the next iPhone might change shape just enough to force everyone to once again buy new accessories (and get out the pitch-forks and torches), it doesn’t look like a radical redesign is in the cards for the next iPhone casing either. No aluminum unibody. Not yet. And likely no glowing Apple logo either. Bummer. Outside chance of a soft-touch back plate, however.

Things could change as more and better rumors break — and there’s always a chance the iPhone will skip WWDC and show up at some special event later in the summer — but that’s what the landscape looks like right now.

Did we miss anything? And either way, if you were placing your bets, what do you think we’ll see?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

2009 Next Generation iPhone 2,1 Rumor Consensus Reached?

A user on MacTalk Forums (via MacRumors) may have just stumbled upon Apple’s icon for the next generation iPhone, buried inside the iPhone 3.0 SDK. And the big surprise?

It looks pretty much the same as the icon for the iPhone 3G.

iPhone 2,1 is Apple’s internal number for the next gen iPhone, expected to be announced at WWDC. The original iPhone 2G is iPhone 1,1, while the iPhone 3G is iPhone 1,2. The numbers show that even Apple doesn’t consider there to be much more than a point difference between the first two iPhone generations (as opposed to the iPod touch, which went to 2,1 last fall).

The use of iPhone 2,1 led many to believe the next gen iPhone would have more differences than the addition of 3G and GPS last time around. And while it still might, including processor bumps, digital compass, a better camera, etc. if this icon is accurate it looks like few if anything will change on the outside.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Next Gen iPhone Icon… Looks Same as iPhone 3G?

To see the above image in all immenseness and glory, head on over to our sister site PreCentral.net. And yeah, AT&T did draw first blood a while back with their own internal comparison document, so we’re really more amused than amazed by this one, even if the categories chosen for the above comparison are a little on the weighted side. (If they’d chosen desktop syncing, massive integrated media service, 35,000+ current-gen apps, etc. things might have ended up a little differently…). Beyond the talking points, more details have also emerged:

We can also confirm that until you set up your Palm Profile, the Pre won’t work at all. You’ll also need to accept Google Mobile’s terms of service in order to get GPS services working properly. Multiple Exchange accounts are a go with full push support and the ability to search through Global Addresses on the server - but inviting attendees isn’t up yet.

Also, DocsToGo will be built in but read-only. Full version, with editing will be available to those on the “Now Network” at some time that is “later”…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

When Sprint Picks the Categories, Palm Pre Wins vs. iPhone!