Last we heard, cloud/streaming music service Lala was getting on the iPhone App Store while simultaneously partnering with Google, but now there are reports that Apple might just be in negotiations to buy them outright (Lala, not Google!)

Talks are very advanced, said the sources. One of the sources said that the sides have already agreed on terms and have only to sign a final agreement.

Steve Dowling, Apple’s spokesman, said the company doesn’t comment on rumors and speculation. A representative from Lala was not immediately available.

Would Apple marry Lala’s “store everything in the cloud and stream it to your devices” with their “people want to own their music” on-drive iTunes? Contradictory or complementary?

Do you see a fit? Do you want one?

[CNET via MacRumors]

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

Apple in Negotiations to Buy… Lala?

Apple is no stranger to lawsuits, and today is no exception as St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants have slapped them with a lawsuit that claims the iPhone infringes upon four digital camera patents that the company holds. The four include the '459, '219, '010 and '899 patents.

• 459: Take image contained within lens and store in some type of memory.
• 219: Display the picture that will be taken in some type of display window.
• 010: Push button in order to capture image.
• 899: Make images contained within some type of memory and make them viewable in some sort of digital camera roll.

St. Clair is a veteran of suing over patent infringements as they successfully squeezed 25 million out of Sony back in 2001 and in 2003 they sued Canon and were awarded $34 million in damages. They also have gone after companies such as Fuji, Kyocera, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, Casio, Samsung, Panasonic, Nokia, HP, Kodak, LG, Motorola, RIM, Palm, and various others.

[Via Loopinsight]

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

Apple Being Sued for iPhone Infringing Four Digital Camera Patents

One would think that if the iPhone went on sale in the Chinese market it would sell like mad. So far, this is simply not the case as one of the largest Chinese online retailers, Taobao.com, has sold a total of five iPhones within the first two weeks of the device being available. China Unicom is also a seller of the phone but as of today, no official numbers have even been released.

With these poor sales aside, the iPhone is indeed very popular in China because of the unlocked devices that have been sold on the black market since the first generation iPhone was released back in 2007. If you take that into consideration and throw in the facts that the official version now being sold has been stripped of WiFi along with the ability to use pre-paid SIMs, both of which are very popular in China, you can see why people flock to the black market.

As it stands now, the iPhone is a flop in China. At least through official channels…

[Via Cult of Mac]

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

Chinese Online Retailer Sells Five iPhones in First Two Weeks

Google has introduced a new, free public DNS service which, according to their information page, is intended to:

• Provide end users with an alternative to their current DNS service. Google Public DNS takes some new approaches that we believe offer more valid results, increased security, and, in most cases, better performance.
• Help reduce the load on ISPs’ DNS servers. By taking advantage of our global data-center and caching infrastructure, we can directly serve large numbers of user requests without having to query other DNS resolvers.
• Help make the web faster and more secure. We are launching this experimental service to test some new ways to approach DNS-related challenges. We hope to share what we learn with developers of DNS resolvers and the broader web community and get their feedback.

And so far, they’re not even trying to monetize via add placement or site-suggestion. For those whose ISP is simply not performing DNS well, or for anyone worried they may be subject to DNS cache poisoning, it’s definitely something worth checking out.

You can either set the DNS on your iPhone or iPod touch by tapping on the blue arrow to the right of your currently-joined WiFi network, tapping on the DNS entry, and typing in the settings, or you can set it on your router and when your iPhone connects to WiFi, it’ll pick up the Google DNS settings as well.

And those settings are the unbelievably simple-to-remember 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4.

For more information, check out the Google Public DNS page.

[Thanks deadeye for the correction!]

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

Google Introduces Free Public DNS

It’s an iPhone controlled Solar Powered Arduino Tank. Do we need to say more?

[via Gizmodo]

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

Friday Fun Video: iPhone controlled Solar Powered Arduino Tank

So, according to Verizon, the Motorola DROID is for wannabe male porn stars and the iPhone is for the beauty queens they demean?

Okay, I love iPhones and this is an iPhone enthusiast site, fair enough. But I have to admit that when Jeremy first posted the above video a few days ago, my initial reaction was simply that Verizon was taking a shot at the iPhone and going after the young male demographic again. Hey, the Lucas-licensed DROID name makes that clear enough, and obviously Motorola’s brand spike shows it’s working.

Getting together with my fellow SPE editors this weekend, however, Dieter made me watch it again, and pay attention to imagery and metaphors.

And oh, those metaphors: we get the race horses, Skud missile, iPhones reduced to puddles, shears tearing gashes, saws ripping through ripe bananas, and a multitude of splatter effects on mannequins/dolls and, frankly, the screen in our face.

The iPhone is marketed to appeal to the mainstream, from kids to grandparents, both men and women, for getting things done and for having fun. Spending some time with Casey’s Android Central DROID this weekend, I’m curious to see if it can’t be just as mainstream in its appeal, and if not, if Verizon really feels they have to counter-program the iPhone this forcefully, why they’d want to go in such a misogynistic direction?

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

Verizon Commercial Symbolizes DROID is for Guys Who Wannabe Porn Stars, iPhones are Demeaned Beauty Queens?

Twitter is previewing a new iPhone-friendlier version of their website, mobile.twitter.com, this time “eating their own dogfood” by using the same APIs they provide to developers. While Twitter has long had their m.twitter.com mobile site it’s fair to say it was eclipsed by native iPhone apps making use of those APIs.

Will the new WebApp get users to go back to the online source? Personally, the power and performance of the latest App Store apps is going to be tough to beat, but if I’m ever stuck using someone else’s iPhone (or non-iPhone mobile device, like I will be this weekend), a better web-based alternative will certainly be much appreciated. Says @twittermobile lead @leland on the Twitter blog:

This is just the start, we're excited about the new APIs launching at Twitter, and have been busy tinkering with some neat ways to use them. We look forward to sharing more cool things with you soon.

It’s optimized for mobile WebKit based browsers like the iPhone right now, but they’ll be tweaking it for the good of all platforms eventually. If you give mobile.twitter.com a try, let us know how you like it.

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

Twitter Eats Own “Dogfood”, Previews New Mobile WebApp for iPhone

Apple is sending out an iPhone related marketing email, encouraging people to give the gift that keeps on… making Cupertino millions?

Thousands of Gifts. One Box.

With tens of thousands of apps on the App Store and more added every day, iPhone is much more than just a phone — it’s a gift that can give just about anything.

They pimp the Apple Store iPhone Gift Card, some choice accessories, and Apple services.

So, anyone giving an iPhone this year? Anyone have it on their want list?

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

Apple Says: This Year, Give iPhone

Could Apple be ending the old-school clickwheel iPod games? Perhaps, according to a comment by developer Square Enix:

the iPhone Song Summoner contains both Song Summoner and Song Summoner 2, which was never released due to Apple ending support for click wheel games.

No doubt iPhone and iPod touch gaming has become a juggernaut, and the traditional iPod nano and iPod classic are slowly winding down in popularity. But is this the first portent of Apple going all-in with the iPhone OS platform?

[Joystiq via 9to5mac]

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

Apple Ending Clickwheel iPod Games?