The iPhone Blog |
- iPhone 3.0 Software Walkthrough
- Spy Shots! iPhone 3G S Landing Across the Pond
- iPhone 3G S (Finally!) Available via Apple Retail Canada
- QuickApp 3.0: Gokivo + Yahoo! Local Search for iPhone Shows off Turn-by-Turn Navigation, In-App Purchases
- UPDATED: AT&T to Allow Early iPhone 3G to iPhone 3G S Upgrades?
- iPhone 3.0 Now Live! Go Get It!
- iPhone 3G S-Shot Videos Hitting YouTube?
- iPhone 3.0 Drop Time Update and the Great iPhone 3G S Delivery Date Debate
- iPhone 3.0 A2DP Stereo Bluetooth Headset Review Roundup
- iPhone Live! iPhone 3G S Give Away Day Two! Tonight 8pm EDT/5pm PDT
iPhone 3.0 Software Walkthrough Posted: 17 Jun 2009 04:10 PM PDT Waiting to download iPhone 3.0? Trying to figure out exactly what’s included in the new OS? Wondering what’s changed since iPhone 2.2.1? Need a handy link to send your friends who may have questions? TiPb’s got your back with our complete iPhone 3.0 Software Walkthrough. Previously, we took you through all five beta versions, now we’ll take you through the final GM (gold master) seed. (And when it goes live on iTunes for one and all, we’ll update any changes we find as well, so consider this your one-stop-shop for everything iPhone 3.0). And we’ll get started, right after the break.
iPhone 3.0 software offers a host of new features (100 according to Apple). However, not all of these are available on every hardware generation. Here’s a list of the differences, and we’ll mention them again, as appropriate, below.
Also note: iPhone 3.0 launches 2 days before iPhone 3G S, so until we can get our hands on the new hardware and take proper screenshots, we’ve included captures from Apple’s video. We apologize for the lower quality and will swap them out as soon as we can. What Hasn’t ChangedAs has become our custom, we’ll start off by listing what hasn’t changed in iPhone 3.0. It’s amazingly short this time:
Home Screen
With iPhone 2.x, Apple introduced 9 Home Screen pages, allowing 148 apps total. iPhone 3.0 expands that to 11 pages, allowing 180 apps total (11 built in, leaving 159 for 3rd party apps and WebClip Safari bookmark shortcuts — rumor has it you can load more, but their icons won’t be visible). Not much else looks different. There are still tiny dots above the dock that signify your additional app screen. However, there’s now an equally tiny magnifying glass icon to the left of them… Spotlight
You can access Spotlight from the main/primary Home Screen by swiping from left to right, or by clicking the Home Button. When on the Spotlight Screen, you can return the main/primary Home Screen by swiping back from right to left, or clicking the Home Button again. (Yes, clicking Home will toggle you back and forth between those two screens). Spotlight starts with a blacked-out screen with a search box on top and the portrait keyboard on the bottom (no landscape mode for Spotlight thus far). As you type, results begin to populate the screen, narrowing as you refine your search term. At any point, you can tap on a Spotlight search result to launch the app and/or take you to the resulting content within an app. Hitting the blue Search button at the bottom right will slide the virtual keyboard away and give you full screen results. Or almost full screen. Since Spotlight is integrated into the Home Screen, the Dock is revealed along with the results so you can quickly launch any of your four docked apps (Phone, Mail, Safari, and iPod if you’ve kept the defaults). Voice Control
Voice Control’s interface is simply a wave form with the various commands floating by, and a cancel button. Currently, supported commands include: call/dial [contact name], call [contact telephone number], play [playlist name, album name, artist name, song name], what [song, group] is this, play more songs like this (creates Genius playlist), shuffle. A second tone is followed by VoiceOver (which is computer generated) repeating back your command and then your corresponding call or music starts. (It’s not hard to see this eventually expanded to include things like: email Bob at work, launch app Peggle, take voice memo, etc. now is it?) One of the most impressive aspects is how many languages will be supported by Voice Control at launch: Chinese (Mainland), Chinese (Taiwan), Czech, Danish, Dutch (Belgian), Dutch (Netherlands), English (Australian), English (UK), English (U.S.), Finnish, French (Canada), French (France), German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish, Thai, Turkish Force QuitUnder iPhone OS 1.x and 2.x, holding the Home button down allowed you to force a frozen application to quit, clear the RAM, and return to the Home Screen. Since, as mentioned above, holding down the Home button now launches Voice Control on the iPhone 3G S — and does nothing on the iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G, Force Quit has be reassigned. Now, to Force Quit an app you hold down the sleep button until the the red “slide to power off” control appears. Then hold the Home button down (it can take a while so keep holding!) and — presto! — the current process will be terminated, memory cleared, and you’ll be taken back to the Home Screen. Messages
Once you receive an MMS, you can tap the icon in the message bubble to get a better look at it. In the case of a contact, you’ll see a page similar to what you get when you call up a contact in Phone, except at the very bottom you’ll have extra, saving and sharing related options that we’ll cover later in the Phone app section. Location opens in Google Maps as you’d expect, audio and video in iPod, and images pop up full screen where you can tap the share icon to Save Image — but strangely not re-share it… Note: The details of MMS vary carrier to carrier. While many international carriers do have MMS enabled with the iPhone 3.0 launch, AT&T is the largest and most notable exception. When it comes to sending MMS, only picture sending can be initiated from within the Messages app itself. Everything else starts a “share” function from another app (i.e. Share Contact is in Contacts, Share Location is in Google Maps, Share Audio is in Voice Recorder, etc.) There are two ways to insert a picture into MMS. The first is to tap the camera icon, bottom right. A requester will ask if you want to Take Photo or Choose Existing. Take Photo will call up an embedded version of the Camera app. Frame your picture, tap the camera icon, look at the preview and either hit Retake to try again or Use to insert the picture into your MMS window. (If you want to erase it later, just backspace over it like you would a text character you want to delete) Choose Existing will call up an image picker (like the Photo App). Pick an Album, pick a picture, and tap Choose to confirm. The second way to insert a picture into MMS is to paste it…
Again, we’ll cover this more fully in the section for the Notes app. Messages also now includes line-item deletion and forwarding. Tap the Edit button at the top right, select the messages you want — as many of them as you want — and then hit the red Delete button at the bottom, or the blue Forward button beside it. Edit still isn’t the most elegant name for the combination of deletion and forwarding, mind you, but the functionality is consistent with the Mass Edit feature introduced for Mail in iPhone 2.0.
(Note to Apple: a way to “lock” the iPhone in portrait or landscape mode would be appreciated, especially when typing while reclining and every little angle change sends the UI spinning.) Calendar
There are, however, two very welcome new features for Exchange users. You can now add Invitees and set Availability when adding a new event. Tap Invitees to open the Add Invitees pane, then start typing to search for contacts or hit the blue + icon to pull up the embedded Contacts picker. You can add more than one invitee. Tap Availability to choose between Busy, Free, Tentative, and Out of office. The other changes occur in the plumbing and are — somewhat counter-intuitively for us at least — hidden almost entirely away inside the Preferences app (see that section for more details). That’s a shame because they’re rather significant: support for CalDAV and Subscribed Calendars (i.e. holidays, sports schedules, etc.). Once added via Preferences, however, here’s an example of how Subscribed Calendars look: Photos
When in the Gallery view mode (where pictures are tiled in four columns of thumbnails), tapping on the Action button at the bottom left corner will no longer slide up a menu, but will place two or three buttons along the bottom. For Camera Roll, these are Share, Copy, and Delete. For any other galleries, you’ll still get Copy and Share, but not Delete (yes, you still can’t delete synced photos, only ones you’ve taken with the camera itself). Tapping on a thumbnail will select it (or de-select it if it has already been selected). Selected photos are labeled with a red check mark icon in the lower right corner, and number of photos selected is reported in parenthesis and continuously updated beside each of the buttons. However, if you select more than 5 images, Share will no longer be enabled (you can still copy them and paste them into Mail, however.)
In single photo viewing mode, you can Copy an image to the clipboard by touching and holding. A Copy button will pop up just above you finger. Tap it and the image is copied. Also in single photo viewing mode, the Action button now brings up a longer list of options: Email Photo, MMS, Send to MobileMe, Assign to Contact, Use as Wallpaper.
Camera
iPhone 3G S gets the above tweak, and a major upgrade thanks to the new auto-focus lens. Now, Camera will try to focus on what it thinks is the most important element of your photo — even macro! If, however, you want to focus on something else instead, just tap the iPhone screen to re-focus. A handy square overlays the sweet spot, so you can make sure the lens is set exactly where you want it to be.
When you’ve finished taking your video, you can tap to bring up an interface that allows for trimming (basic editing). At the top, the video is shown in filmstrip form, bounded by a yellow box (similar the editing control in the Voice Memo app, detailed later). Drag the left side in to trim the beginning, the right side to trim the end. Hold your finger down on the yellow box, and the flimstrip expands for precision editing (shades of iMovie). A play button at the bottom of the screen lets you preview the edited video, and the yellow Trim button saves it when you’re happy. YouTube
Stocks
Rotating Stocks to landscape mode now expands the graph to full, wide screen mode. But there’s more: youch a point on the graph and you get the exact price for that day, touch a second finger somewhere else on the graph and you get the difference in value between those two days (delta). Maps
For iPhone 3G S owners, however, Maps will now leverage the new digital Compass hardware. Tap the Get Location button to find your coordinates via GPS, then tap it again to get your directional heading via the Compass (shown as an expanding white spotlight effect extending out ahead of you). Voice Memos
(Note to sticklers: Remote and Keynote, though from Apple, aren’t built in to the software and require download or purchase separately from the App Store.) Voice Memos, from icon to main screen, pays homage to an old-style microphone (though, unlike Calculator, we don’t believe it’s one ever manufactured by Braun…). The bottom has buttons for Record and (a rather non-intuitive-looking stack of three horizontal lines) to access Voice Memos that have previously been recorded. In the middle is a sound level meter. Tap Record to begin and the Record button becomes Pause, the More button becomes Stop, and the top of the screen flashes red to show you you’re recording and the duration of the recording. When you’re finished recording, the More page shows Voice Memos in a similar fashion to Visual Voice Mail in the Phone app. Tap a Voice Memo to play or pause it, toggle Speaker on or off, or use the buttons along the bottom to Share (via email or MMS) or Delete. You can also tap the blue circles at the far right of each recording to slide into an Info screen where you can further tap to slide across to a Label screen pre-populated with tags including None, Podcast, Interview, Lecture, Idea, Meeting, Memo, and Custom. Choosing Custom slides another screen over where you can input your own Label names. Back on the Info screen, tapping on Trim Memo slides up a bare-bones editing interface for taking off any unwanted content from the beginning and/or end of your recording. Interestingly, Apple chose yellow for trim slider and Trim Voice Memo action button. Share on the Info screen does the same thing as the Share button on the Voice Memos screen. Convenience through repetition? Notes
To start, double tap on some text. That will highlight the word and pop-up buttons for Cut, Copy, and Paste (the last of which only appears if there’s already text in the clipboard). You can also tap on an empty area to pop-up buttons for Select, Select All, and Paste. (Select highlight the closest word to the current cursor position, and again you need text already in the clipboard for Paste to appear). If you want to change the length of your selection, grab one of the blue dot’s that form the handles on the top left or bottom right of your current selection and drag them in or out to add or subtract text. As you move the handles, a magnifying loupe will appear, similar in function to the round curser placement loupe that dates back to iPhone 1.0. This loupe, however, is a wide, horizontal, rounded rectangle and lets you more precisely adjust your text selection. Selected text can then be Cut or Copied to the clipboard, or replaced by Pasting over it with text from the clipboard. Text can also be pasted at the current cursor location by double tapping to bring up the Select, Select All, and Paste pop up.
(Note: While the Mail app, discussed below, gets similar Cut, Copy and Paste functionality, so do most 3rd part App Store application that use standard text input controls. Awesome). Finally implementing functionality that Steve Jobs listed off during his iPhone 1.0 introduction at Macworld 2007, Notes now sync via iTunes back to your Windows PC or Mac. Lastly, predictive text in general seems to have been improved as of Beta 3. Or rather, the dictionary that tries to guess and replace words as you type seems to have been updated. Clock
Settings
Wi-Fi
Also, when you login, you get a special slide-up window with some new controls and an embeded web-view — no more inconvenient app-jump to Safari.
Notifications
As with GPS on iPhone 3G under OS 2.0, Push Notification-enabled apps will ask permission on launch, and give you a chance to choose “Don’t Allow” or “Okay” on a per-app basis as well. General Settings: Network
Tap the button to go to the Internet Tethering Settings, then toggle the switch to On. If Bluetooth isn’t currently enabled, an alert will pop up asking you if you want to enable it, or to leave it off and tether via USB. When tethering is on, a blue bar appears at the top of the screen, similar to the green bar that appears when a phone call is in progress. Unfortunately, unlike the green phone bar, it tapping the blue tethering bar doesn’t seem to send you back to the tethering Settings to quickly toggle it off. General Settings: Restrictions
App Restrictions can be based on age-ratings. Currently supported options are:
General Settings: Home
You can also tap and hold down the line icons on the right side of any category and drag them to change the order of how search results are presented (i.e. you could move Applications on top of Contacts, and Spotlight will then list Apps first). General: International
General: Keyboard: International Keyboards and General: International, Keyboards
Settings: Mail, Contacts, Calendar
Settings: Safari
Likewise, the new anti-Phishing Fraud Warning can be toggled on and off. Keeping it on, of course, provides some level of safety when encountering malicious websites made to look like ones we trust, intent on stealing our login info and/or credit card data. Of course, no list of Phishing sites is ever complete or completely up to date, so keep surfing safely. Settings: Messages
Settings: iPod
Settings: Store
Note: There was some confusion about whether or not Apple would let you re-download paid apps if you enabled multiple accounts (so you couldn’t log in as your buddy, for example, and get all his or her apps for free) but the restrictions that were in place during the beta period seem to be gone (for now?) ITunes Store
Tap on the button and you'll be given options to View Account, Sign Out, or Cancel. Much more convenient than having to exit, launch Settings, navigate, switch accounts, go back, etc. iTunes also adds to the previous music and podcast on-device download capability with support for Movie, TV Show, Music Video, Audio Book, and iTunes U content. To make room, the tabs at the bottom lose Top Tens and Downloads and now include Videos (movies, TV, music video) and a standard More icon, which gives access to a screen offering Audio Books and iTunes U, as well as the displaced Downloads and relocated Redeem (for gift certificate codes). Like with the iPod App, an Edit button lets you drag around tab icons to lay things out just the way you want them. When you find a video you want to learn more about, tap on it and you get a detailed description. Like with music, you can sample before you buy. Tap the Preview button to see a short clip or trailer. Instead of just playing like music, however, iTunes opens an embedded iPod video player. Also, like with video podcasts, music, and App Store apps, 3G isn’t an option for anything over 10MB — which for video we imagine will be almost everything — so have your Wi-Fi standing by. App Store
Also, Apple has also and again changed the way screen shots appear in the App Store. Now, you get full screen shots, side by side, with the ability to swipe through them. You can see additional screenshots on each side when more are available backward or forwards. (Similar to how you swipe through multiple Safari tab pages). In-App Purchases and Subscriptions
By way of example, if you previously wanted commercial E-Books, a developer had to wrap a reader app around each E-Book, and then sell each E-Book as a separate app on the App Store. This led to dozens upon dozens of apps that were just more books, or otherwise variations on the same functionality with different content. With iPhone 3.0, a developer can now sell you an E-Book Reader app, and inside that app, they can sell you the individual E-Books. If you choose to buy another E-Book, the same type of iTunes confirmation and password requester will pop up as when you buy a stand-alone app, and the same iTunes-side billing and processing happen. This can also work to buy additional levels or extra content in games, and theoretically map packs for navigation apps, etc. Yes, Apple just invented the $0.99 “scaleware” model. Buy the low-price, entry-level version of an App, and if you like it, buy more. It’s not a demo, it’s not shareware, but it does let developers a way to create a cheap evaluation model for users to try before they buy… more of it. Why $0.99? To avoid user confusion, Apple won’t let developers sell additional content to apps they gave away for free. If you want to charge more later, you have to charge at least something up front. Otherwise, “free apps stay free.” Subscriptions, for their part, seem to work just like In-App Purchases, with the pop-up advising you are purchasing X issues of Y content for Z dollars. (e.g. 6 months of iPhone Monthly for $1.99). Push Notification
This service is supposed to replace some forms of background multi-tasking support, which Apple allows for their own apps like Mail, Phone, and iPod, but sites battery life, stability, and complexity of management as reasons not to grant third party (App Store) apps the same privilege. So, under iPhone 2.0, if you exit an Instant Messenger (IM) app, you no longer have anyway of knowing when a new IM comes in unless and until you deliberately relaunch the app. (Sure, there are work around over SMS and Email, but the app itself is dead). Under iPhone 3.0, if you exit an IM that supports PNS, the developer’s servers will alert Apple’s PNS which then “push” an alert to your iPhone. (Similar to how MobileMe already pushes alerts for email). If you have IM, Twitter, a news app, etc. Apple’s servers will handle all of them, so theoretically your iPhone only has to listen to PNS instead of each one separately. One instead of many is supposed to save battery life. PNS currently supports 3 kinds of alerts: badges (like Mail uses to show you unread messages), custom sounds (like a beep or bell or anything already built into the app by the developer), or modal text alerts (like the kind that pop up to tell you about a new SMS). With the text alerts, if an alert comes in, it will stay up until you dismiss it or act upon it (e.g view an IM). If a second (or third, or more) text alert comes in, however, it replaces the previous one, and that previous alert is gone forever. In other words, if nine alerts come in, you’ll only ever see the ninth one and dealing with it gives you a blank screen, not the eighth — or previous — alert. (Badges, if used and enabled, would still show you 9 messages had come in). If your iPhone is in sleep mode, alerts will still pop up, but the “swipe to unlock” will dismiss them, but not send you to the alerting app. Less than ideal, but perhaps the best solution given the limited notification handling the iPhone currently employs. Dock and Bluetooth Accessory Connection
This means, in short, the iPhone will be able to connect with, display data for, and/or control medical equipment like glucose readers, production equipment like cameras, barcode readers, game controllers, keyboards — almost anything developers care to create protocols for. Peer-to-Peer Connectivity
iPod Access
Compass
Reportedly, if magnetic fields or something else prevent clear readings, an interface comes up asking you to rotate the iphone in an figure-8 patter to reacquire compass headings. Phone
Also, the Contacts tab (and the stand alone Contacts app) now integrate the “swipe to delete” functionality we all know and love from Email and other, previous apps going all the way back to iPhone 1.x. Simply pick a name, and then swipe to call up the red "Delete" button.
Much like Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, Apple has expanded “data detectors” in iPhone 3.0 as well. While previous iPhone version would identify phone numbers and link them to the Phone App (just as web and email addresses link to Safari and Mail respectively), now 3.0 will try to identify address location to link to Google Maps as well. Safari
Also mentioned in Settings, Safari will try to protect you from Phishing sites if you enable it, presumably consulting an continuously updated blacklist of sites, presumably the same as recently implemented on the desktop Safari 4 Beta. In addition, when you go to a site with an enhanced security certificate, the text on top of the browser turns green (like the green bar, we get it!), with little green lock icon beside it, and the name of the certificate’s trusted organization. For example, the below screenshots show how Apple’s order status page looks on iPhone 2.2.1 (top right) and iPhone 3.0. What does this mean for users? In an age of increased phishing attacks, where bad sites try to trick you into thinking they’re your bank or shop and steak your login or credit card info, this is one more visual cue in your assessment process for determining if you can trust that the website is what it says it is. Updates to Safari don’t end there, however, as Apple has also (yes!) given us the option now to open links in new pages (the iPhone equivalent of tabs). Tap and hold on a link, and a menu pops up with the link path listed on top, and the option to Open the link (in the current page), Open in a New Page, or Copy to the clip board. As this is the same gesture used to allow Image Save in iPhone 2.0, if the link happens to be a picture, Image Save is rolled right into the same menu as a an additional option. (This is also a handy way to check which URL exactly is behind a link before you click on it) Rendering speeds have also been improved, from 3x to 16x faster according to benchmarks. Apple is using the new Nitro (formerly SquirelFish Extreme) engine to throw HTML and especially JavaScript up much faster than iPhone 2.2.1 could. On mobile devices, this will likely make a far more noticeable difference to users.
Perhaps because double-tap is already used for zooming, in Safari you hold your finger down on some text (as you would in other apps to trigger the magnifying loupe) and the entire paragraph of text is selected (everything within the P, and perhaps DIV and other similar containers). Sites that don’t properly format (i.e., use several BR, or line-break tags to simulate paragraphs) are now exposed for their shenanigans by confusing the Copy mechanic, resulting in entire reams, or even pages of text being selected. (For shame!) The blue dot handles at the top/beginning and bottom/end of the selection are used in Safari, but if you drag them enough, the whole block will become selected and you’ll get blue dots centered on all sides, and they can be pulled up or down to select previous or following blocks respectively. Again, lack of proper HTML formatting can reduce the reliability (so coders, fix your stuff!) Both text and/or images can be selected. Paste works in form fields the same way it does in Notes and other apps. iPod
The email icon allows you to send an iTunes Link for the podcast (similar to how you could previously email YouTube video links). The speed indicator on the other side shows x1 during regular playback, and we presume it might show x2 etc. as Apple has previously allowed you to "speed up" talk-heavy content like Audio Books. Where the Genius button would be on music tracks, we now have a circular backwards arrow with a 30 in the middle, which allows you to jump back in 30 second intervals. Variable media scrubbing now lets you put your finger on the position indicator at the top, and the buttons change to a text message reading "Slide your finger down to adjust the scrubbing rate." Do so and the speed that you scrub though the file changes. Displayed in place of the track info, options so far include half speed, quarter speed, and a fine grain speed. While these controls would also be much appreciated in video, right now implementation is not there. Movies and TV shows have the same Done and Full/Fit to Screen controls as previous OS, as do video podcasts in landscape view. In portrait view, video podcasts gain the mail link and media scrubber, but retain the shuffle control.
(Note: this seems to work in apps like Pandora as well, bonus screen shot included below!) ConclusionThis is not a review — our full rundown of the pros and cons will come soon — so our conclusion only goes so far as to say that, after going through everything above, anyone who claims iPhone 3.0 is really more fittingly iPhone 2.3 deserves a swift kick in the apps. This is a hefty release and we’re again impressed not only by Apple’s continuing ability to evolve the iPhone platform and provide software updates (again, free of charge to iPhone users, $9.95 to non-subscription accounted iPod touch users), but for the easy and consistent way in which they’re doing it. Kudos to the iPhone team at Apple. Can’t wait for 4.0! [Thanks to everyone who contributed screenshots and descriptions for this walkthrough. If you noticed we missed anything, drop us a note in the comments and we'll update as needed.] This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. iPhone 3.0 Software Walkthrough |
Spy Shots! iPhone 3G S Landing Across the Pond Posted: 17 Jun 2009 04:07 PM PDT Fair warning, this post is only for the serious gadget-loving Euro-Apple-fanbois…. Looks like the US isn’t the only country where iPhone 3G S is already burning lens flares into people’s cameras. Here are some early arrival shots from our 007-type friends across the pond. Europeans, the iPhones 3G S have landed! The carriers have them, and soon… so shall you! More shots after the break!
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. Spy Shots! iPhone 3G S Landing Across the Pond |
iPhone 3G S (Finally!) Available via Apple Retail Canada Posted: 17 Jun 2009 03:49 PM PDT Up until now, the only places to get iPhone 3G in Canada were Rogers and their subsidiary Fido. Apple Retail Stores didn’t carry them. Friday, with the introduction of the iPhone 3G S, that changes. Per Apple mailing:
Which may be up to 2 hours earlier than your local Rogers/Fido store to boot. You can also book a personal shopping appointment to help you get in and out faster if you so choose. (Though we can’t imagine spaces will last long). So, Canadians, who’s going to Rogers/Fido, and who’s going to Apple Retail? This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. iPhone 3G S (Finally!) Available via Apple Retail Canada |
Posted: 17 Jun 2009 12:28 PM PDT TiPb had the opportunity to test drive Gokivo Navigator ($0.99 + In-App Purchases - iTunes link) over the last couple of days. This is one of the first iPhone 3.0 specific apps in the App Store, so first off it was great to see turn-by-turn navigation working (even in Canada!), and second it was interesting to see how Apple handles in-app purchases. Getting this going is a little bit of work. You start the app and type in a destination. I found Apple Canada in my contacts so hit that. Similar to the built in Maps app, Gokivo will show you your location on a map. Instead of Street View, however, you have a green GO button. Hit that and you’re on your way to turn-by-turn. If you don’t already have a subscription, Gokivo activates the aforementioned in-app-purchase engine, and once you login with your iTunes ID and buy a month of service ($9.99 in the version we tested) the GO gets going. It takes time to acquire a good GPS signal, and will advise you if there isn’t one to be had. Once it locks on, however, you’re in for a pretty smooth turn-by-turn experience. Arrows point your way and a synthesized female voice tells you when and where to turn and, and preps you for upcoming turns. We repeatedly went the wrong way, and were impressed with how quickly and accurately Gokivo recalculated and tried to get us back on track. Note, Gokivo isn’t free just for the app because Apple doesn’t let developers do in-app purchases for free apps. Hence, $0.99 will likely be the foundation for what TiPb considers iPhone “scaleware”. Whether the $9.99 monthly fee — or other in-app-purchasing options — suit your needs and budget you’ll have to tell us. This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. |
UPDATED: AT&T to Allow Early iPhone 3G to iPhone 3G S Upgrades? Posted: 17 Jun 2009 11:28 AM PDT UPDATE: AT&T has a press release up. It’s for real. A toss-away line in Walt Mossberg’s iPhone 3G S review (yep, it’s up already!) made us do a double take. Then a spit take. Then… (what other kinds of takes are there again?)
No, we don’t believe it either. But we’d love to believe it. AT&T, some confirmation? If it’s true, it’s a catastrophically generous gesture from AT&T to it’s beaten (by network issues) and battered (by lack of MMS and tethering) customer base. In essence, it’s like handing every iPhone 3G upgrader $200 in cool hard cash. (That’s why we’re having such a hard time believing it!) If it’s true, however, (and not to look a gift carrier in the mouth) what’s going to happen for those who already pre-ordered at the $499/$599 price? This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. UPDATED: AT&T to Allow Early iPhone 3G to iPhone 3G S Upgrades? |
iPhone 3.0 Now Live! Go Get It! Posted: 17 Jun 2009 10:39 AM PDT As of approximately 1:30 EDT/10:30 PDT, iPhone 3.0 (7A341) — weighing in at 230.1MB –went live and is now available via iTunes. We’re downloading now, and we assume you are too, so sound off in the comments and let us know how it’s working for you, and how you like it! NOTE: For those on the iPhone 3.0 GM seed, make sure you hit Restore as Update will think you already have 3.0! And if you need help finding all the features, check out our massive iPhone 3.0 Walkthrough for all the details! This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. iPhone 3.0 Now Live! Go Get It! |
iPhone 3G S-Shot Videos Hitting YouTube? Posted: 17 Jun 2009 07:59 AM PDT iFun.de (via MacRumors) has posted up the above video of what’s purported to be some of the first iPhone 3G S direct-to-YouTube uploads. How does it look to you? This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. iPhone 3G S-Shot Videos Hitting YouTube? |
iPhone 3.0 Drop Time Update and the Great iPhone 3G S Delivery Date Debate Posted: 17 Jun 2009 03:55 AM PDT Years past it was lining up outside Apple Stores days in advance, this year it’s staring feverishly at LCDs, hitting little buttons like mice at a combo food dispenser/electro-shocker, and hoping beyond hope that iPhone 3.0 is finally ready to download and the UPS dude is a couple days early at the door. Relax. Breathe. No one really expected iPhone 3.0 to hit at 12:01am Cupertino Prime Time, and no one truly believed Brown would roll up with an iPhone 3G S at the exact same moment — and a couple days early. Hope perhaps, dream indeed, but Steve P. Jobs like his events both maddeningly unpredictable and elaborately choreographed. Doing some elaborate time zone gymnastics, Engadget figures 1pm EDT/10am PDT is the magic moment for iPhone 3.0. Hey, it’s the typical start time for an Apple Keynote/Special Event, so why not? Meanwhile, huge hulking piles of email and tweets tell us all those with early UPS delivery dates are seeing those dates disappear and change faster and more frequently than glowing Apple logo rumors, with the latest being: it looks like UPS is holding packages until their originally announced release date of Friday, June 19. So, get comfy people, keep your virtual sleeping bags tucked and your coffee, cyber or otherwise, warm. It might just be a long day ahead — or few days ahead for hardware — for all of us. This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. iPhone 3.0 Drop Time Update and the Great iPhone 3G S Delivery Date Debate |
iPhone 3.0 A2DP Stereo Bluetooth Headset Review Roundup Posted: 17 Jun 2009 03:05 AM PDT Over the last month or so we took a look at several of the more popular stereo Bluetooth headset options so we could get ready for the iPhone 3.0 goodness set arrive sometime today. In case you’re itching to get your ears on some as well, here’s a quick roundup of what we looked at:
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. iPhone 3.0 A2DP Stereo Bluetooth Headset Review Roundup |
iPhone Live! iPhone 3G S Give Away Day Two! Tonight 8pm EDT/5pm PDT Posted: 17 Jun 2009 02:11 AM PDT Yesterday you could enter to win a 32GB iPhone 3G S via Twitter. Today, things go live! iPhone Live! Join us at the usual time, tonight at 8pm EDT/5pm PDT at http://www.tipb.com/live/ and at some point during the show, we’ll let you know how you can get a second entry into our give-away! Oh, and the TiPb crew will also be covering iPhone 3.0 and all the latest news and views. And who knows, if Apple only releases it tonight, maybe we’ll be doing our updates live! Chat with you soon! This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store. iPhone Live! iPhone 3G S Give Away Day Two! Tonight 8pm EDT/5pm PDT |
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