Join Rene and special Round Robin guest Matt Miller of NokiaExperts.com, for a look at how the Symbian S60 N97-mini and Maemo N900 compare to TiPb’s own iPhone. Plus all the week’s news, views, and rants. If you have any questions, leave a comment below, hit us up on Twitter @theiphoneblog, or better still — join us live in the chat room via http://www.tipb.com/live

REMINDER: You can watch us live on your iPhone with the Ustream Viewer app [Free - iTunes link]. Just wait until the show starts (8pm ET) and search for iPhone. We’ll pop up. Literally.

Chat with you soon!

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

iPhone Live! with NokiaExpert’s Matt Miller! iPhone Live! Tonight at 8pm ET/5pm PT (1am GMT)

So the suspiciously familiar Dieter Bohn of PreCentral.net got a guided tour (check out the video) from yours truly to catch him up on all things iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3.0 , and he shared his preliminary thoughts on Monday (same link). Of course, there was only so much help I could give him, so he went on over to TiPb’s iPhone Forums for the real experts — you, and boy have you given him some ninja-level instruction. He still needs you, however, so keep posting in that thread — and remember every day you do you get another chance to WIN AN iPHONE 3GS! (smartphoneroundrobin.com has all the details on that).

As for me, I’m still struggling with Nokia, the S60 N97-mini, and N900. Yeah, wish me luck with that. (Or give me some help and maybe win a Nokia smartphone as well!)

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

iPhone from a webOS User’s Perspective, Smartphone Round Robin

According to Mary Meeker and analysts from Morgan Stanley, Apple has a two to three year lead over its competitors in the mobile Internet space. Even though Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch represent just a small piece of of the global smartphone pie with 17 percent, the two devices are responsible for a astounding 65 percent of all mobile internet use.

The iPhone and iPod touch have significantly surpassed the likes of Netscape, AOL, and NTT’s DoCoMo in the first nine quarters of being on the market with an install base of 57 million users. That’s most impressive if you consider that in the same time frame DoCoMo achieved 25 million users, Netscape 11 million, with AOL coming in last with 7 million.

We can’t say Apple is slaughtering the competition, not with Android coming on strong and other platforms just rebooting (or about to). But, we are not likely to see this trend die anytime soon as Apple continues to gain more and more market share in the smartphone world.

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

Apple Has “2 or 3 Year Lead” in Mobile Internet Computing with iPhone and iPod touch

Why did I choose the iPhone Golla Bags for iPhone [$19.99 - TiPb Store link] for my first TiPb accessory review? Well, I have tried a wide variety of cases. Being active, I need a case that can withstand life’s little brutalities (includes being dropped, kicked, drooled on by a baby, or just plain surviving a day in my purse). So, when choosing my first review item the question that came to mind was: which iPhone case would Sarah Conner use?

Well, she would probably have a triple-lined Kevlar pouch with extra ammo clips, but if she was stuck with stock, I think she — like me — would go for the iPhone Golla Bag. Here’s why…

These soft, padded pouches come in a variety of colors and designs, from flowery pink to camouflage chic and so can blend in with whatever you are wearing, and are affordable enough that you can justify getting a few and keeping them around to mix and match.

On the less fashion, more function side, Golla pouches allow for easy access for your phone in any situation. Small enough to fit into your purse, convenient enough to attach to a belt loop via the carabineer (D ring), and flexible enough to offer a strap and a lanyard (for those who, like me, have no clue what that is, it is a looping rope with a spring clip), you have all the carry options you’ll need.

In the heat of battle your Golla Bag may be subjected to various terrains and elements, and luckily the Golla pouches are easy to clean. Most stains will come out with a wet cloth, and that includes blood, dirt or anything else you may encounter (just short of Judgment Day).

The inside of the pouch is soft and will protect the phone from scratches, though it comes at the price of having to take the phone out of the pouch each time you need to use it. There are two strips of Velcro on the front of the bags which keep the iphone secure so you don't have to worry about it becoming unattached and having the phone fall out. The pockets are great in that you can go jogging and bring your phone and have space for some cash and keys.

If you are like me and lose your iPhone ear buds and accessories all the time, the Golla pouch has two extra pockets in order to keep all of your iPhone items in one place when you need them. The side pouch has a zipper for extra security.

Though I love the D-ring for its versatility. The downside to using the D ring is that I worry about getting my precious iPhone caught on something as it dangles. (I also managed to damaged the D-ring on one of the cases during my first week of testing — don’t ask).

Overall Golla bags are a fun versatile pouch that is affordable and comes in a wide variety of looks. Not yet tested against the T-1000.

The iPhone Golla bags were provided for review by TiPb’s iPhone accessory store.

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

iPhone Golla Bags — Or, iPhone Cases I’d Want on Judgement Day

Some quick App Store updates this week, including Mobile iDisk 1.1, PCalc and Pcalc Lite 1.9, I Am T-Pain 1.2, and Canabalt 1.2. (Not that the iTunes App Store is letting me download some of them!)

• MobileMe iDisk 1.1 [Free - iTunes link] brings autocomplete for email, saves file sharing emails to your sent folder, allows tap-hold to copy or save to camera roll, cache is now embiggened to 500MB, plus faster downloads and more languages supported (Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish)

• PCalc 1.9 [$9.99 - iTunes link] adds more themes and what-not, but the real news is PCalc Lite 1.9 [Free - iTunes link] which lets you get the basic calc functionality free, and then use in-app-purchase to buy only those features you need, only when you need them. This includes a theme pack ($0.99) and conversion pack ($0.99), and a complete pack ($9.99) to get the full version and a coupon for the Mac app. Math. On demand.

• I Am T-Pain 1.2 [$2.99 - iTunes link] now lets you use Auto-Tune to your existing iTunes library content (the joy… and horror), and more T-Pain music.

• Canabalt 1.2 [$2.99 - iTunes link] throws in global leader boards, new music, and more obstacles. Let’s see how fast we can defenestrate that little runner now! (What, that’s not the goal?!)

Any of your favorite apps get updates this week? Let us know in the comments!

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

MobileMe iDisk, PCalc and PCalc Lite, I Am T-Pain — Quick App Updates!

In the ever-envigorating game of “What’s That Apple Patent for Anyway?” this time we get a look at a multi-touch click-wheel iTablet, a way to remotely control your Mac from your

First up, an un-thin looking iTablet-style device with a retro click-wheel but an even more interesting backstory, according to 9to5mac, as:

One of the patent applicants for Apple is a one Dr. Carlin Vieri. He’s no longer with Apple (hel left just over a year ago). He happens to be the VP of Engineering for [rumored Apple iTablet screen supplier] Pixel Qi right now.

Second, a patent to allow the iPhone to remotely control your Mac either via gestures, specialized on-screen buttons, and/or Voice Control, as well as support for peripherals like printers. PatentlyApple has the goods, but from the sounds of it, you could email that new PDF home, launching Preview, deleting some pages, then sending it to the printer so it’s waiting, warm and ready when you get in door.

Last, PatentlyApple also shows off a new kind of universal dock. It employs an elastic, spongy material that can morph into the shape of any iPod or iPhone, past, present, or future. Yes folks, it might just make the dock insert extinct.

As always, there’s no telling when, if ever, Apple will make use any of these patents in ant consumer-facing product. But it’s fun to watch.

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

Retro iTablet, Remote Mac Control via iPhone, Mighty Morphing iPhone Dock — Apple Patent Watch

In response to Fake Steve’s call for Operation Chokehold — a flashmob event intended to overwhelm AT&T’s data network — AT&T has told Cult of Mac:

We understand that fakesteve.net is primarily a satirical forum, but there is nothing amusing about advocating that customers attempt to deliberately degrade service on a network that provides critical communications services for more than 80 million customers. We know that the vast majority of customers will see this action for what it is: an irresponsible and pointless scheme to draw attention to a blog.

Fake Steve has responded thusly:

AT&T has a much bigger problem on its hands. The problem is that the wireless data explosion is just beginning. This 3% of AT&T users who are supposedly accounting for 40% of bandwidth use? Pretty soon that 3% is going to become 30%. [...] The whole point of having these mobile devices is to consume data. This is not just about the iPhone. There's the Droid, and the Pre, and soon there will be the Nexus One and a zillion other Android phones. Plus all the tablets. This is the future. We are going to carry these devices and use them as our televisions, our radios, our newspapers.

And finishes with:

Go look at [AT&T's] financial statements and open up the Financial Operations and Statistics Summary and look at capital expenditures over the past eight quarters. I'm no math whiz, but it looks like capex has gone down by about 30% over the time period. Scroll down a bit to the Wireless section and check out data revenues — they're up 80% over the same period.

Irresponsible? Pointless? Yes, that sounds familiar.

Valid arguments all around, then?

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

AT&T Calls Operation Chokehold Irresponsible and Pointless. Fake Steve Calls AT&T the Same.

Daring Fireball has a supersized post up on PastryKit, which looks to be an Apple-developed framework for making HTML, CSS, and JavaScript-based WebApps, and its been quietly lurking for a while now in the online iPhone User Guide when viewed via the iPhone (or Mac or Windows Safari with the browser-agent set to MobileSafari 3x, or just watch the screencasts). What does it do? According to Gruber:

• Completely hides the address bar, even when running not from a saved-to-the-home app icon, but within a page in MobileSafari itself.
• Allows for fixed-position toolbars that never budge from the top when you scroll.
• And: sets its own scrolling friction coefficient, allowing you to fling long lists.

At WWDC 2007, when Steve Jobs announced WebApps as the original “sweet” iPhone SDK, it was arguably too soon and developers rightly pushed back and hard. Now, with HTML5, SQLite local storage, fast 3G connections, and no App Store “gatekeeping” (not to mention webOS, Chrome OS, and other web-platform initiatives), is Apple re-embracing the cloud? (See Lala, purchase of). Gruber sticks the finish as well:

The $64,000 question, though, is whether PastryKit is something Apple intends (or that a team within Apple hopes) to ship publicly. It seems like a lot of effort to build a framework this rich just for this iPhone User Guide, so I'm hopeful the answer is yes. Perhaps something integrated with the next major release of Dashcode? And, perhaps with integrated UI layout tools, along the lines of Interface Builder?

Yes please.

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

Apple-developed PastryKit WebApp Framework Spotted in iPhone User Guide

Microsoft has just made Bing [Free - iTunes app] their second iPhone and iPod touch app (no, Office wasn’t first — that’s still MIA — the amazing image-zooming Seadragon was), and it’s fairly impressive. It takes a lot of the services Google powers throughout the iPhone and the Google Mobile app and collects them all in one place — internet text string search, image, movies, a business directory, news, and maps and directions. You can also do Voice Search though without the accelerometer and proximity sensor tricks that make’s Google’s version so Star Trek.

The Bing app is great looking as well, with large photo backgrounds a la Bing website (and yes, you can tap the rounded square overlays to get factoids). Text string searches are pretty much on par with Google, sometimes returning more sensible results in more logical orders, sometimes not. A simple image search for “theiphoneblog bing”, however, returned no results from the Bing app, and exactly what I was looking for in Google. (see below). Likewise, Voice Search tended to crash the app when it went into “thinking” mode. The business and other directory-style information is great, as usual with Bing.

If you’re interested in comparing Microsoft’s own Windows Mobile version, our buddy Phil from WMExperts has you covered. If you’re wondering why Microsoft made Bing for the iPhone, despite Steve Ballmer cracking wise about the iPhone and the internet, Apple’s platform enjoys a huge share of the mobile browsing space and Bing wants those eyeballs as much as the just-as-competitive-now Google.

Screenshots after the break!

[Bing via Thurrott]

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

Microsoft Bing’s it’s Way Onto the iPhone With New Search App