Dropbox [Free - iTunes link] is now available in the App Store, and allows iPhone and iPod touch users to access their online Dropbox storage remotely.

For those unfamiliar with Dropbox, it provides something similar to Apple’s MobileMe iDrive, but with a free option at 2GB, and paid options at $9.99/month for 50GB and $19.99/month for 100GB, and syncing between any computers the Dropbox app.

The iPhone version lets you:

• Access your Dropbox directory
• View your files
• Download files to your iPhone
• Sync downloaded files
• Take photos and videos and upload them to Dropbox
• Share links to Dropbox files
• View photos

If you give it a whirl, let us know how it works for you!

{Thanks Frank for the head’s up!]

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

Quick App: Dropbox for iPhone

So you make an app free, get people to download it, then use it to violate your users’ privacy by pulling their telephone number off their iPhone so you can call them and try to annoy them into coughing up money for your paid app.

Yeah, that should be a rejection, if not a banning.

(No, we’re not mentioning the name of the app, why give them publicity? Picture above is proof of concept code showing how the iPhone user telephone number is retrieved.)

[via Mac4Ever -- thanks everyone who sent this in]

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

Apps in Need of Rejection: Ones That Steal Your iPhone Number and Call You to Up-sell

Pop-quiz: You’re O2 and you just lost iPhone exclusivity in the UK, and now have to compete with both Orange and Vodafone for users’ iPounds. What do you do? Why, tell them you still have the iPhone… and are getting the Palm Pre?!

We're proud that we've been able to offer an exclusive iPhone deal to our 20 million customers for the last two years. We always knew that iPhone exclusivity was for a limited period of time, but our relationship with Apple continues and will be an ongoing success. We have over 1 million iPhone customers and they remain very important to us.

We aim to offer our customers the best devices on the market, including becoming the home of Smartphones and we are really pleased to now add another device in the Palm Pre. We also offer award-winning customer service and benefits, which is why more people choose O2 than any other network in the UK.

What say you UK readers, if you’re thinking of taking your iPhone to another network, will offering you the Palm Pre change your mind?

[via Engadget Mobile]

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

O2 UK: We Still Have iPhone… and Palm Pre!

Apple might be preparing a 10.7″ multi-touch iTablet with 720p resolution, running the iPhone OS, for announcement in January and release in May/June 2010. That’s just one of the rumors dropped by iLounge this morning, from a source they say was accurate about the most recent iPod nano, iPhone, and Chinese iPhone stories.

Like the iPhone and the iPod touch, iLounge’s source claims both a 3G and non-3G version will be available, so users can weigh always-on connectivity vs. another monthly telco bill.

Apple is no stranger to big product announcements in January, but since exiting Macworld, they’re also now free to set their own schedule. Possible delays? Odds of it receiving the official “b’okay” from Steve Jobs in its current form are said to be 80% (after it already being nixed at 7″ for being “too small”). That’s good, but far from certain.

Also far from certain, but certainly interesting is Microsoft’s equal and opposite tablet concept — the Courier, which focuses not on media but on journaling. Gizmodo has another video up. It reminds us of those awesome, future-filled Bill Gates keynotes from CES. Most of what Gates demoed hasn’t made it to market, however. Hopefully the Courier will fare better.

People are used to phones, they’re used to MP3 players, laptops, desktops, even set top boxes. A decade later, there’s no indication of tablets breaking through into the mainstream, so Apple, Microsoft, and everyone else has their work cut out for them.

We’ll see if the iTablet can tell a compelling enough story, and offer a feature set that sells.

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

iTablet to be Announced in January, Launch in Early Summer, Run iPhone OS?

Is Apple planning a larger, touch-screen enabled remote control to go along with a next generation Apple TV? Boy Genius‘ tipster, the same one who leaked iTunes 9 app organization and social integration, says yes indeed. And if the image above is accurate, one of the updates will be — Safari. (No sign of Apps yet, though…)

Would this really be a lower-cost option to something like the Remote App for iPhone and iPod touch, which could conceivably do anything a dedicated remote could do and more? (Actually, adding Bluetooth to an Apple TV for more persistent, don’t have to wait for WiFi to reconnect, iPhone remote would be even better!)

Along those lines, we don’t see Apple investing this much in a single-purpose remote control, even if it can control Macs, docked iPods, etc. as well, given what they’re doing with the iPhone platforms, but stranger things have happened.

You want?

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

Crazy Rumor Tuesday: Touch Screen Remote for New Apple TV?

Apple has hired Michael Tchao as Vice-President of Product Marketing reporting directly to Senior Vice-President, Phil Schiller. What’s noticeable about this new hire, however, is that Tchao has worked for Apple before — he’s one of the original developers of Apple’s Newton message pad.

Apple, Tchao, and all involved are being mum on what Tchao’s specific roll at Apple will be, but rampant internet speculation has, of course, gone something like “ZOMG! iTablet!”

[New York Times, Photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/eschipul/]

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

Newton Developer Returns to Apple as Marketing VP

iLounge has noticed that, when connecting to an accessory that supports iPhone 3.x SDK’s dock access abilities:

an alert box labeled "Application Not Installed" appears, informing users that the accessory requires an application which is not currently installed, and asking if they would like to install the application from the App Store. Upon acceptance, the iPhone or iPod touch then takes users to a new "For This Accessory" page on the App Store, with a direct link to the necessary app's listing, from which they can download and install the application.

They show how it works for the iTrip, but this is a very “just works” solution in general for users who may not be aware when companion apps are available.

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

iPhone Accessories Can Now Prompt for App Download

Vodafone has just announced that they will begin selling Apple’s iPhone 3G and 3GS in the UK and Ireland in Early 2010.

This comes on the heels of a similar announcement by Orange UK, and means iPhone users across the pond will soon have 3 carriers battling it out for their love and data affection. And hopefully prices will reflect that.

So, UK readers, with O2, Orange, and Vodafone all on the table, who’re you going to go with?

[Thanks everyone who sent this in!]

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

Vodafone UK, Ireland Also to Start Offering iPhone in Early 2010

Tweetie 2.0 is one hotly anticipated Twitter client update, and developer Atebits has finally let the lid off just what features users can expect:

• iPhone 3.x only
• Full persistence
• Full offline mode
• Drafts manager
• Send drafts to Birdhouse
• Link Twitter contacts to Address Book
• Threaded conversations
• Nearby integrated with imbedded maps
• Geotagging support
• Saved searches to sync with Twitter.com and Tweetie Mac
• @people picker
• Recent hashtags
• Multiple attachments manager
• Peek gesture for replies
• Landscape support
• Profile editing
• Improved gesture shortcuts
• imbedded email
• New-style re-tweet support
• Refresh all on launch
• TextExpander support
• Read it Longer and Instapaper integration
• Go-to-User, searches autocomplete
• In reply TwitLonger
• Reply chain list view
• Short URL preview
• Tweet translation
• Block/follow from multiple accounts

And — wait for it — Atebits claims it’s kept Tweetie’s trademark iPhone-like UI concept:

Every single one of these features fits naturally into the user interface, none adds unnecessary complexity. It's arguably even simpler than Tweetie 1, all while being vastly more powerful.

While Tweetie 2 for Mac will be a free upgrade, Tweetie 2 for iPhone will be offered as a new app for $2.99. It’s in its final beta now, with plans to submit it to Apple this week. After that, all that’s left is the approval process.

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

Atebits Speaks: Tweetie 2.0 for iPhone Coming Soon

According to PreCentral.net, the upcoming Palm webOS 1.2 update will NOT be re-hacking iTunes 9 sync. In other words, the cat and mouse game between Apple and Palm may soon be missing it’s mouse. We’d heard Palm was in this for the long haul, even though we thought it was more ego than good sense, and at the expense of their own customers, so if true — huge kudos to Palm (even if it took a little help from the USB-IF). And to Palm Pre users, our sibling site is:

suggesting people at least dip their toes into the non-iTunes-direct-sync waters. DoubleTwist, Salling Sync, Drag ‘n Drop, The Missing Sync: learn them, love them, switch to them.

In the opposite of kudos department, it looks like Palm may be cloning one of least popular aspects of Apple 2-Billion download iTunes App Store — developer alienation. According to JWZ, he’s gone through dozens of emails, jumped through countless hoops, bended but refused to break, and now has faced an Apple-esque 2 weeks of silence.

Could it be that introducing, setting up, and running an app store is difficult, and until a few years from now, when all the bugs have been worked out, Apple, Palm, and almost every company will have their share of stumbles, falls, and face-plants?

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

Palm NOT Re-hacking iTunes Sync, but ARE Alienating Developers?