It’s time for some good old forum action. Reading From the Forums is a great way to see what all of the current hot topics are on the TiPb forums. In order to create any new threads of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is a simple process that will only take a few minutes out of your day, so if you have not already already done so, head on over and register now.

Rene has started an excellent thread for those of you who want to know more about iPhone 3.1 along with iTunes 9 – TiPb’s iPhone 3.1 Software Walkthrough is the place to go if you’d like to know what has changed in the software and/or need a link to send to some of your friends who have similar questions.

This next thread was started by xtremeyouth1 and he poses an interesting question – Will there be a new design for 4th generation iPhone? It’s never to early to start speculating!

Last up for today we’d like to remind everyone who is in search for cool wallpaper and ringtones to please visit our dedicated forum – iPhone Wallpapers and Ringtones. That thread is the place to be for the latest and greatest to customize your iPhone.

See you on the forums!

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

From the Forums: iPhone 3.1 Software Walkthrough, 4th Generation iPhone, iPhone Wallpaper & Ringtones

Updated with iPhone friendly video from WMExperts (irony!).

Would you watch un-skippable ads on your mobile device in exchange for free apps and games? That’s the question we’re pondering in light of Zune HD doing just that. You pay your hundreds of dollars for the device, and Microsoft provides a few extra games/apps, but sometimes an ad will play before the app launches, and you can’t skip them. See the video above for an example (apologies to those on the iPhone, we didn’t make the video, so have no control over the iPhone-unfriendly format).

We first heard about this from Matt Miller, editor of NokiaExperts.com and last night during iPhone Live! We discussed it with special guest, Phil Nickinson of WMExperts. At first Phil said he’d never seen one, but then lo and behold, right there live, one of those Kia car commercials began to play when he tried to launch and app.

Of course, watching commercials in exchange for free content is how broadcast TV works, but does that model translate to mobile devices?

Personally, I’m okay with it as long as I know about it up front and I have the option of paying something to get a commercial-free version in case my time (and, frankly, tolerance for seeing the same commercials over and over every time I launch an app) is worth more to me than a few dollars.

iPhone apps, since the beginning with Twitterrific have provided free (ad supported) and paid (no ads) versions, though even then the ads were far less intrusive than full screen video, un-skippable TV style commercials.

What do you think? More free apps the better, or can commercial monetization go too far? And is it more acceptable to put a commercial before a game than it would be, say, to put it before something more vital like the music player, web browser, or email client?

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

Would You Watch Un-Skippable Ads in Exchange for Free Games and Apps?

Google’s next iteration of their mobile OS, Android 1.6 Donut, is set to give sugar highs again in October, with support for CDMA radios, QVGA and WVGA resolutions, and to quote from sibling site, Android Central:

Android 1.6 ‘Donut’ also brings Quick Search Box for Android which is basically universal search that searches locally on your phone and through the internet at the same time, new text-to-speech APIs, and the beautiful new Android Market we leaked a few weeks ago. There’s also updates to the camera’s interface, improvement to the camera’s loading time (39% faster), and a neat battery usage indicator that details which applications are using the most power.

CDMA support will now doubt make all those longing for an iPhone on Verizon lose their minds just a little bit more. Support for different screen sizes is more of a mixed bag, however. It means device manufacturers will have more form-factor freedom, but it also means developers will have to deal with Windows Mobile- and BlackBerry-style platform fragmentation (either working harder to support all the different screens, or choosing not to support some and increasing confusion for users). iPhone, graphics power aside, hasn’t had to worry about this… yet.

Quick Search, like Palm’s webOS search, going beyond the device to bring back answers from the cloud isn’t something iPhone supports, but is something we hope Apple’s looking into.

Still, it’s great to see Google keeping up with the updates. Anything in there that makes Android more compelling to you?

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

The Competition: Google Readies Android 1.6 Donut

Post one bug, and everyone demands you post another even more frustrating one. Our bad, should have had this up already. Seems iPhone 3.1 users, mostly iPhone 3G users from what we can make out, are experiencing random freezes and complete shutdowns of their iPhones, and nothing, not reboots, not restores are fixing it.

TiPb did hear a few accounts of freezes during the 3.1 beta on all versions of the iPhone, but that’s the point of betas — to identify and fix bugs before the software goes primetime.

Seemingly random, intermittent bugs, however, can be some of the toughest to figure out, especially for users, so if you’re suffering from randomly freezing or shutting-down iPhones, let us know which device, and any pertinent details like clean 3.1 install, restore from backup, etc. and if you’ve stumbled onto any fixes of the more-than-temporary variety, please do share.

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

iPhone 3.1 Bugs: Got Random Freeze or Shut Down?

Instead of the iPhone’s built-in iPod app sorting podcasts chronologically up or down (newest to oldest, or oldest to newest), iPhone 3.1 users are seeing… no logical sequence that can be made sense of. Indeed, some of you let us know because the lack of order made you think your podcasts weren’t updating at all. Rest assured, it’s not you.

To be clear: You’re not out of order. Apple’s out of order! All these [redacted] podcasts are out of order!

If you’re having the same random podcast listings — or better yet, if you’ve come up with a solution or work around that’s better than just hunting for the blue “new” dot — let us know in the comments.

[Thanks to everyone who brought this to our attention]

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

iPhone 3.1 Bugs: Podcasts Out of Order

NAVIGON North America [$89.99 - iTunes link], just let us know that, fresh off adding text-to-speech for street names, they’ll soon be adding real-time speed information from actual drivers on the road, traffic messages, road sensors and cameras, and historic traffic flow data to reroute iPhone users around problem areas.

Billed as NAVIGON Traffic Live, it will be available in October and sold as an in-app purchase to existing MobileNavigator users. The added functionality will run $24.99, but go for $19.99 special introductory pricing at launch. And as with the main app, there’s no monthly subscription cost.

Will iPhone users be willing to pay more to get more? That remains a question. We’ve asked before for premium apps, and said we’d pay a premium price for them, and this is certainly an example of that kind of App Store model.

However, by aggressively adding new features so rapidly, NAVIGON is setting the pace when it comes to turn-by-turn GPS navigation on the iPhone. Users of up-front, subscription, and even crowd-sourced mapping apps will all benefit from that.

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

NAVIGON MobileNavigator North America Brings Traffic Live to iPhone Turn-by-Turn GPS Navigation