iPhone Live! comes to you tonight (Wednesday, August 12) at 8pm ET/5pm PT.

If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to address, let us know in the comments below or tweet them to @theiphoneblog.

As always, pre-show will start about 10 min. before if you want to drop by early and reserve a space in our chat room. See you then!

Join in via http://www.tipb.com/live

Chat with you soon!

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

iPhone Live! Tonight 8pm ET/5pm PT - Got Questions?

Apple Insider picks up a Sierra Sun story about Apple filming a top secret commercial for a new product at a restaurant called Jax at the Tracks in Truckee, California. Said owner Bud Haley:

"Apple found us, they’re trying to show us as a hip and cool spot for the 20-something crowd."

Indeed? So what was it for, folks? The upcoming third generation iPod touch? The mythical iTablet? Steve Jobs’ revolutionary iVeggie Smoothy cup? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you expect!

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

Apple Shoots Top Secret Commercial for New Product?

The Plantronics Voyager PRO Bluetooth headset [$89.95 - TiPb Store link] sounds great, fits fantastically, and makes you look like something in between a SWAT team member and a Battlestar comms officer.

I’ve said many times before that I have trouble finding a Bluetooth headset that stays in my ear. Admittedly, my ears have been ground-down by years of punches, kicks, and grappling, but even those that came with various types of loops have left me hanging, or just plain left by falling out.

The Plantronics Voyager PRO, which I’ve been using it as my daily driver (literally — it’s the law where I live) for just over a month now, hasn’t let me down yet. It’s larger than some competing devices, but that size is put to good use wrapping over and behind the ear to house the guts of the device, while the slender boom extends down across the cheek. The look is hardcore sci-fi, the sound is crisp and clear, with noise-reduction and a host of control features (and with the upcoming iPhone 3.1, Voice Control will work over Bluetooth as well). Plus, the battery just seems to keep going and going, with 6 hours talk time, 120 hours stand-by.

For complete tech specs and purchasing details, check out TiPb’s iPhone Accessory Store. For more pictures, look below the fold…

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

Plantronics Voyager PRO Hardcore Bluetooth Headset

The iPhone’s Mail app connects to Google Gmail — and it’s paid version, Google Accounts — via the IMAP protocol [Wikipedia link]. Until Apple and/or Google get off their duffs and provide built-in push Gmail (or absent that, Google Sync Gmail for those not otherwise using their single Exchange ActiveSync slot), IMAP is all we have. (And IMAP IDLE may be what we have for push Gmail as well…) So what’s the problem?

Gmail was born of and for the Web, and admittedly Gmail for the iPhone’s Mobile Safari web browser is among the very best WebApps on any platform. However, many people still use, and even prefer to use, local clients like the iPhone’s Mail app, and for that or any local client, Google’s IMAP implementation has always been a second-class citizen.

Forgetting for now for the mapping of labels to folders results in multiple copies of the same email being stored on the local side, one of the major issues with Google’s IMAP implementation is their ludicrous 10 simultaneous connection limit. This might not seem particularly strict, but given that every client can and does typically open multiple connections and having your iPhone, desktop, and laptop all open at the same time can cause Gmail to error out.

On a daily basis, users have to carry the mental overhead of carefully and conscientiously closing email clients on one machine before turning on another, or enabling or disabling a VPN connection (which then treats the mail client as a new set of connections).

By contrast, MobileMe and Exchange/ActiveSync have no problem with this usage pattern. Add to this random “invalid certificate”, “unable to find mailbox: inbox”, “over capacity”, and other errors, and the state of Google’s IMAP implementation is really called into question.

For iPhone Gmail users, the lack of quality error messages (likely something that needs improving on Apple’s side) makes it particularly frustrating, as many of the different problems listed above simply result in an “incorrect password” pop-up box. (See image at the top of this post).

Personally — and I’m not alone in this — I’ve pretty much abandoned front-facing Gmail. I still use the unmatched excellence of Gmail’s server-side filters, but then forward the mail itself to MobileMe. (The irony of the once-plagued MobileMe service now proving more robust over IMAP than Gmail isn’t lost on me and should be lost on Google).

For those who maintain Gmail is free and we shouldn’t complain, Google Accounts — which is paid for — exhibits the exact same problems on a regular basis.

Gmail is arguably the best webmail on the internet. It could easily be the best email period. Google’s finally taken the humorously long-standing “beta” tag off the service. It’s gone prime time. It’s time to make the IMAP implementation live up to that level of standard.

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

Dear Google: Please Fix Gmail IMAP Problems

WMExperts (via Crunchgear and Gizmodo) rounds up the latest on Zune HD, linking up the above hands-on video, and news that it might just drop at $100 lower than the iPod touch. In other words, Microsoft to Apple: “it’s broughtn’ed”.

Now, there’s no getting around the Zune HD being an OLED iPod touch two years too late, much as the original Zune was a Wi-Fi squirting iPod classic two years too late. At even $100 discount, can Microsoft compete with a 3rd generation iPod touch, rumored to include a camera, perhaps video recording and sharing, and a 65,000+ strong App Store?

Meh. They’ll get some iPod rebels and budget conscious adaption, no doubt, and that’s probably all they intend. A strong #2 in the music player market, much like they’re going for against Google in the search/advertising space, is likely enough for them now. Understandable, to be sure, but we’d still rather see a mind-blowing Windows Mobile Phone with Zune-like interface and hardware specs, Mobile Xbox gaming, and awesome Windows integration.

But we’ve been wanting that for years…

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

The Competition: Zune HD to be Priced $100 Less than iPod touch?

Our fearless friend, CrackBerry Kevin has been watching videos again and this time the take away has him happy: analysts who might be “in the know” say RIM may be fixing their infamously buggered browser by “next summer”.

While the iPhone uses the mobile version of the Apple-supported WebKit rendering engine, as does Palm’s Pre, Google’s Android, and some Nokia devices, RIM has thus far been content to roll their own rendered — with JavaScript turned off by default. No word on whether RIM will turn to WebKit or stick with the custom code, but it does look like the analysts are at least saying they’ll address some of the major gripes.

Our take? If RIM is serious about becoming a world-class web experience, Apple better get just as serious about matching them on messaging.

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

The Competition: BlackBerry to Get iPhone-Class Web Browser… Next Summer

TiPb is getting reports that Apple’s iPhone Developer Connection site is down for update, although it looks like some are logging in fine, and others get the update warning at first, but can log in fine later.

Whether this is just some form of maintenance, or something is actually being changed, is uncertain. We haven’t seen iPhone 3.1 Beta 4 yet, even though Beta 3 was released two weeks and a day ago, and the site hasn’t been taken offline for previous betas, so the obvious guess may not be so obvious after all…

More if/as this develops. (Pun only partially intended.)

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

Apple’s iPhone Developer Connection Site Down-ish?

Desktop Safari, predecessor and big brother to the iPhone’s Mobile Safari web browser, has just received an update chock a block full of the usual security and compatibility fixed, and stability improvements. Mac users (and Windows users?!) can get it via Apple’s Software Update or directly from the web via Apple.com/safari.

Under the theory that where goes desktop Safari, so goes the iPhone and iPod touch’s Mobile Safari, it’s not hard to imagine any and all applicable fixes getting rolled into the iPhone 3.1 firmware which should ship by Apple’s next iTunes and iPod music event, typically held in September (and given the rapidity of exploit discovery, and the media-darling status of the iPhone, can’t come too soon).

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

Apple Updates Mac and Windows Safari Web Browser to 4.0.3