Apple’s iPhone, along with the help of a medical application, has saved at least one life in the tragic Haiti earthquake. American film maker, Dan Woolley, found himself trapped in rubble when the Haitian earthquake struck, injuring his head and leg. With no other place to turn he used his trusty iPhone along with help from a unknown first-aid medical application. The app helped him diagnose his broken foot, make a tourniquet for his leg, and described the best way to bandage his head to stop the bleeding. He even set the alarm clock to go off every 20 minutes to make sure he stayed awake and alert.

65 hours later he was rescued.

[Thanks to Robert for the tip! Via NBC Miami]

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

Haiti Earthquake Survivor Uses iPhone App as Survival Tool

AppleInsider is claiming “people familiar with the device” as saying Apple’s upcoming iTablet/iSlate/iPad will have a physical design reminiscent of the original iPhone 2G launched in 2007:

Nestled in an aluminum shell that leverages the Apple’s expertise in unibody construction but thinner proportionality than the original iPhone, the tablet reportedly sports all of the same buttons found on the handset, right down to its iconic home button — which, like the volume toggle, is missing from the rendering.

Similarly, the tablet is said to sport all the same in/out connectivity as the current iPhone 3GS, including a 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack, built-in speaker grills, a microphone, GPS, 3G connectivity and a 30-pin dock connector. Like the rendering, its 10-inch display is framed by a black border that bleeds into its wrap-around aluminum enclosure.

The above conceptual rendering from Fotoboer.nl is said to be close, though lacking the home button and other details. Apple being Apple, they’ll likely want to maintain visual ties between their iPhone, MacBook Pro, and iMac lines, and that means blacks, aluminums, and glass, so this doesn’t sound at all far fetched.

AppleInsider is also hearing there may be a CDMA-compatible (read: Verizon-friendly) chipset version, but don’t know if it’ll make it into the final product.

Meanwhile, 9to5mac picked up a DigiTimes story that hints Apple’s new smart, long-lasting MacBook battery technology will be found in the iTablet as well:

Taiwan-based [MacBook battery suppliers] Simplo Technology and Dynapack International Technology are expected to share orders from Apple for its tablet PC, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report.

Again, not far fetched at all. Apple leverages their technologies across their product lines, and that’s one of the keys to both their hardware and platform models.

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

iTablet to Look like Bigger, Slimmer Original iPhone 2G, Use MacBook Battery?

To celebrate their Canadian launch, the fine folks at Slacker are teaming up with TiPb to offer you 10 FREE Slacker Radio Plus subscriptions. Here’s the break-down:

• 3 first prizes — 1 year FREE Slacker Plus subscriptions
• 7 runner-up prizes — 3 month FREE Slacker Plus subscriptions

(And yes, it’s open to American Slacker listeners too. Love. Up.)

Here’s how to enter:

1. Make sure you have a free Slacker basic account (they’ll need the account info to make the upgrade).
2. Head on over to the TiPb iPhone Forums and tell us the name of a great song you’ve recently discovered.
3. Contest starts now and ends Saturday, Jan. 23, 12pm PST.

You don’t have to have discovered the song on Slacker (but hey, let us know if you did). We need music recommendations, TiPb-verse!

And just to make you want to go enter now, we’re listing the Slacker Plus features again… after the break!

Slacker Radio Plus:

• Cache stations to Blac kBerry and Android smartphones; soon on iPhone/iPod touch
• Enjoy Slacker music even without a wireless network on select mobile applications
• Unlimited song skipping
• Ad-free listening
• Complete song lyrics*
• Create custom stations based on artists or songs
• Unlimited song requests for creating perfect custom stations
• High-quality stereo playback
• Over 60 professionally programmed genre stations
• Fine tune stations on-the-fly to play more of the music you like
• View artist biographies and photos
• View album art and reviews
• “Peek Ahead” artist and album preview
• Pause and skip songs
• Rate songs as favorites
• Ban the songs and artists you don't like
• Downloadable “mini” player for your PC

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

TiPb Give Away: 10 FREE Slacker Plus Subscriptions Up for Grabs!

Speaking of Daring Fireball links and HTML5, Guillermo Esteves has re-created the opening crawl from the original Star Wars using only web-based technologies. It currently runs exclusively on the bleeding-edge WebKit nightly builds, Safari for OS X Snow Leopard… and on the built-in iPhone Safari (though it doesn’t look as polished).

That’s right. No Chrome anything, including Android 2.1. No Palm webOS browser. That it works on the iPhone’s and iPod touch’s MobileSafari… is kind of crazy considering it hasn’t been updated since iPhone 3.1.2 back on Oct. 8. Just goes to show how seriously Apple is pushing the web on the iPhone.

So, yeah, words moving away into perspective in your browser, but this is without QuickTime or Flash or anything to strain your bandwidth or burn your battery. Very nice.

YouTube video of the WebKit/Safari version after the break!

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

Star Wars Opening Recreated in HTML, CSS!

Last night, Daring Fireball linked to YouTube’s new opt-in beta that allows you to get HTML5 video instead of the traditional Flash-wrapped kind.

Why is this important? HTML5 is an open standard, not owned by any company (including Apple), it’s much lighter on CPU and battery life than Flash, and doesn’t suffer from increasing malware attacks or onerous “cookie”/privacy issues the way Flash does.

And while it may be purely coincidental that this beta comes on the eve of an expected Apple tablet announcement (a device that will surely benefit from better CPU and battery, not to mention security and privacy), it’s interesting to remember that the last big change in YouTube — the move to H.264 — occurred back with the launch of the original iPhone and its YouTube app.

Now, it should be pointed out that the HTML5 beta is only available for YouTube.com proper right now, and not for videos embedded elsewhere. But here’s hoping that’s the next step. (And that Firefox decides to spend some of their Google Search revenue on licensing MP4 so we get a, you know, standard standard).

If that happens, if automatic buffering is fixed, and if other companies follow suit (the way Vimeo and even Microsoft SilverLight are already doing specifically for the iPhone), we could be seeing the beginning of a huge shift in online video, one that will crash headlong into Adobe’s plans for Flash 10.1.

If, if, if. Fair enough. But most of the time when people complain about the lack of Flash on the iPhone, it’s not actually the lack of Flash that bothers them but the fact that a lot of the video they want to see is wrapped up in Flash. If YouTube is an early bellwether that things are changing on that score, and people start getting their videos without Flash, we’re guessing the complaints will in large part evaporate.

UPDATE: As The Reptile points out in the comments below, Google owns YouTube and Google is all-in on WebKit as the foundation for the Chrome browser, Chrome OS, and Android browser. They’ve shown repeatedly they’ll push for standards and for the faster adoption of web technologies because it benefits them. Since Apple’s Safari is WebKit, it benefits iPhone users as well. That makes this interesting.

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

YouTube Beta Testing HTML5 Instead of Flash for Video

Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II, the classic RPGs that started the blockbuster franchise, are coming to the iPhone and iPod touch.

No release date yet, but stay tuned. More pics after the break!

[via Redmond Pie]

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

Final Fantasy I and II Coming to iPhone

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Join Rene, Chad, and The Cell Phone Junkie Mickey for Apple’s “Come see our latest creation” rumors, iPhone 4.0, iTablet, iTunes.com, AT&T’s new plans, Windows Mobile 7, and all the week’s news and opinions! Listen in!

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

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

TiPb Presents: iPhone Live! #84 — What the [BLEEP!] is Apple’s Latest Creation?

Unofficial emulators and Apple are not a good mix, so when we heard from Gizmodo that Sega is planning on releasing an official emulator, all of us here at TiPb cheered with joy.

Sometime in February you can expect to see the emulator application packaged with Space Harrier II free of charge. Then, with the use of Apple’s in-app purchasing, you will be able to add the following titles.

• Sonic the Hedgehog: $5.99
• Golden Axe: $4.99
• Ecco the Dolphin: $2.99
• Shining Force: $2.99

So what do you gamers out there think about this setup? Let us know in the comments below!

[Via Gizmodo]

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

Official Sega Genesis Emulator for iPhone Coming Soon

Boy Genius‘ sources have been hearing that AT&T has been meeting with their regional executives to discuss network changes that will soon be taking place in order to handle the load of “unannounced” devices that will use “heavy data”.

iTablet and/or 4th generation iPhone perhaps?

“Heavy data” use has led AT&T to talk about tiered data pricing plans in the past. When these “unannounced” devices appear on their network, would you be surprised to see AT&T spring that on us as well?

[Via BGR]

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

AT&T Preparing Network for “Unannounced” Devices — iTablet, 4th Gen iPhone?

When the Wall Street Journal cites sources and talks Apple, it’s usually part reporting, part expectation setting, and if this is the latter, than exactly what Steve Jobs plans the iTablet to do for print media — newspapers, magazines, and books — is no less than what he did for music on the iPod. Digital revolution much?

• Focused on the home and the classroom
• Shared by multiple family members [Um, sorry sis, get yer own!]
• Apple has explored electronic textbooks
• Has virtual keyboard
• Working with print media on text content
• Working with CBS/Disney on video content
• Working with EA on video game content
• Talking with Microsoft about search and maps
• Cable/TV providers resisting giving Apple “best” content (4-6 shows per channel), would rather it be “all” content
• $1000 price point “tested” again
• iTablet UI meant to be shareable; Apple has explored “sticky notes” as a way to share messages; facial recognition as a way of knowing who’s using it
• Apple planning web-based version of iTunes called iTunes.com
• “Buy” buttons would go wide on as many websites as possible

Part round up of previous stories, part analyst musing, part real information, check it out and let us know what your sorting hat puts in the “real” pile.

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

WSJ: Apple iTablet to do for Newspapers, Magazine, Books, What iPod did for Music