When you add an IMAP-based email account (including MobileMe and Gmail) to iPhone 4.0, in addition to the previous options you now get a toggle for “Sync Notes”.

Notes syncing was famously listed as an iPhone 1.0 feature but then mysteriously vanished only to return in iPhone 3.0 as an iTunes-limited option (i.e., not push or over-the-air).

Apple’s desktop Mail client includes special folders that serve as repositories for notes, so perhaps this is now (finally) being echoed on the iPhone.

Whether or not this gets tied in to the actual Notes app remains unknown (it doesn’t seem to right now, but it may just not be working yet). It also doesn’t seem to be an option for Exchange accounts (yet?).

If you discover anything else about iPhone 4.0 Notes sync, let us know!

[Thanks anon for the tip!]

iPhone 4.0: Notes Sync for IMAP is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

While Apple’s ban on cross-compilers in the iPhone 4.0 SDK has raised a lot of discussion on the net, and generated some fiery responses from Adobe, AppleInsider claims a source who says the move had nothing to do with Flash CS5 or another other, specific cross-compiler, and everything to do with multitasking performance:

The primary reason for the change, say sources familiar with Apple’s plans, is to support sophisticated new multitasking APIs in iPhone 4.0. The system will now be evaluating apps as they run in order to implement smart multitasking. It can’t do this if apps are running within a runtime or are cross compiled with a foreign structure that doesn’t behave identically to a native C/C++/Obj-C app.

“[The operating system] can’t swap out resources, it can’t pause some threads while allowing others to run, it can’t selectively notify, etc. Apple needs full access to a properly-compiled app to do the pull off the tricks they are with this new OS,” wrote one reader under the name Ktappe.

Apple is using a different kind of multitasking than we’ve seen before in mobile — saved state combined with API-level services that take the place of running apps. Are Cocoa touch apps generated in Xcode really different enough from Flash or C#/.Net apps cross-compiled by Flash CS5 or MonoTouch to cause Apple’s multitasking system problems?

We’re not developers, you tell us.

Is Apple’s cross-compiler ban pro-multitasking not anti-Adobe? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

With the apparent iPhone 4.0 SDK ban on cross-compiled code, Adobe has begun firing back at Apple. The New York Times Bits Blog carried the following statement from Adobe:

We are aware of Apple's new SDK language and are looking into it. We continue to develop our Packager for iPhone OS technology, which we plan to debut in Flash CS5

The TheFlashBlog (which readers might remember from iPad porn posts past) took it far more personally:

What is clear is that Apple has timed this purposely to hurt sales of CS5. This has nothing to do whatsoever with bringing the Flash player to Apple's devices. That is a separate discussion entirely. What they are saying is that they won't allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe. This does not just affect Adobe but also other technologies like Unity3D.

[...] Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment as I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.

The timing does seem interesting. Apple could have put this in iPhone 3.2 for iPad. They could have skipped iPhone 4.0 betas and put it in the final iPhone 4.0 GM release (rendering wasted all the apps (time and money) developers had built using CS5 between Flash release and iPhone 4.0 release).

The timing could be to hurt Adobe CS5 sales (though certainly lots of creative professionals use CS5 for reasons that have nothing to do with Flash cross-compiling) or it could be an advance warning to developers not to use those tools because they won’t be allowed (or perhaps even compatible) with the final iPhone 4.0 release. Spending several months making an iPhone app in CS5 and then not being able to run it under iPhone 4.0 would be worse.

Ultimately, the language used by Apple is unclear and everyone is going to waste a lot of time and worry until it’s clarified.

Adobe fires back at Apple over cross-compiler ban is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

iPhone OS 4.0 is already readily available over the internet. Somewhat less than honorable "developers" are even offering to "sell" access to the 4.0 beta. This has led to a lot of users getting, or at least thinking about getting, the 4.0 beta for their own iPhones. Well before you take the jump think carefully. And think twice!

Read more after the break!

This is not finished software. This is a beta, and not in the Google/Gmail perpetual meaningless beta sense. This is a true beta in that it is not meant for production iPhones, used as primary devices, out in the real world. Who knows what kind of de-bug, trace, non-optimized, or generally not finished code is running in the current, and first iPhone OS 4.0 beta. If you're a legitimate developer, using 4.0 on a test device to check for compatibility for your apps and report bugs back to Apple is one thing. To think you can use it for regular, day-to-day use is quite another.

First kiss iTunes backups goodbye and don’t expect working multitasking as no 3rd party apps have been updated to support it. 4.0 may be slow. Lists may disappear. Sound may cut out. Connection may time out. Battery time may worsen. 3rd party apps may crash or otherwise not work well. And you may need to reset your iPhone daily, if not several times a day, to work around the beta nature of the current build. You get the idea and that's what happens with a real beta.

Also, these beta's expire, and if you don't have quick access to the next beta, you'll be without your iPhone — and that's assuming Apple doesn't wait hours or days between expiry and the next beta release. And dropping back down to the previous build isn't always easy or possible.

So, yes, iPhone OS 4.0 has lots of amazing features, and we hope very much it will be killer stable come "summer"-time when Apple releases it via iTunes for everyone. Until then, read our iPhone 4.0 coverage. Watch Apple's video. If you're not into testing pre-release software, if you're not patient, if you need a reliable, primary iPhone, if you want it to "just work" think twice before loading the iPhone 4.0 beta. Then think again. One look at our developer forum shows it isn't a smooth ride.

(And tech pundits who've told readers and listeners it's no big deal, and to go for it, should also think twice and remember they're often cutting edge users themselves, with many devices to fall back on — not the case for everyone.)

TiPb Advisory: Not a developer and thinking of going to 4.0? Think twice! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Apple recently just release yet another iPhone commercial and this one is called “Shopper”. This particular commercial only highlights one 3rd party application, a barcode scanner app called RedLaser. [iTunes Link - $1.99]

The man in the ad is in search for a espresso maker for a gift for his wife. He first uses Safari to do a little research, then he shoots off a text message to seek advice on what color espresso maker to purchase, and finally he uses RedLaser to scan the barcode to check for cheaper prices.

It’s all about the apps…

Video after the break!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Apple debuts “Shopper” iPhone commercial is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

When the first Apple Tablet (now iPad) rumors hit years ago, I made the little mock-up above as a way of having some fun with our buddies over at CrackBerry.com because there’s no way RIM would ever make BlackBerry Tablet, right?

Right?

This week I received a bunch of emails, phone calls and BBMs from industry contacts seemingly out of the blue that were all to the tune of So what’s this I hear about a BlackBerry Tablet?! It took a little digging to figure out where this BlackBerry Tablet stuff was coming from all of a sudden, but I got to the bottom of it. The source is from a research firm that specializes in component supply chain information – and the company sent out a brief report this week touting “RIMM to Launch Own Tablet in Late 2010″ which got the industry insiders buzzing. The text in the image above that was sent in to us is from that report, which states three sources have confirmed that RIM has placed an order with supplier Hon Hai for 8.9″ displays for use in a tablet.

So let’s pretend the StormPad is for real, what could they bring to the table to compete with Apple’s iPad? BES/BEX/BIS integration and a BBM client are obvious. Full hardware keyboad (BoldPad?) is a possibility. Anything else?

BlackBerry making 8.9″ tablets? – the competition is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Yesterday’s iPhone 4.0 sneak preview event gave us 7 new “tent-pole” features, 1500 new APIs for developers, and once again took Apple’s mobile OS a step closer to feature parity and a step further towards elegant functionality… but we didn’t get everything we wanted. And no matter how hard we tried, we found we didn’t even get everything we needed. In other words, iPhone 4.0 is still missing out in some key areas. Even though we got some good stuff, this is what we didn’t get:

• No new Home Screen/SpringBoard. We understand that Apple has 85,000,000 legacy users now trained on the iPhone Home Screen system (aka the same app launcher metaphor going back to the days of PalmOS). We knew when Apple said as much during the iPad announcements that they weren’t going to confuse that “already trained” customer base. It’s the price of being an established OS, after all. So Apple didn’t radically re-invent the Home Screen. They did make it layered — it can lift up to show you multitasking apps and slit open to show you apps inside folders — but that’s it. And part of “that’s it” means…

• No themes. You get wallpaper and that’s where your customization ends. You still can’t remove built-in apps (though you can hide them in a folder so they take less space). You can’t chance the look of icons. There’s no animated backgrounds to be had. More disappointingly, however…

• No widgets. Want to know the latest weather, Facebook or Twitter updates, or stick a big clock on the screen? There’s an app for all of that, sure, but you have to go into and out of each individual app and the Home Page remains a giant grid of uninformative icons. Android and Nokia have had widgets for a while now, webOS lets you flick between live Cards, and Windows Phone 7 will have live tiles. iPhone… will be waiting on 5.0? More’s the pity too because…

• No new notification system. We got local notifications, so there’s some measure of offline alerts, but they’re trapped in the same single, modal, popup hell that’s existed since iPhone 3.0. (And it’s particularly ludicrous on the iPad!). Again, still, if you get a couple SMS, a few Twitter DMs, a game challenge or two, and calendar reminder, and then an IM, you’ll only ever know that IM existed — everything else is completely and utterly destroyed in terms of notifications, and while some apps will badge with a number for unread items, you have to go find them and that’s “pull”, not “push”. Maybe this is also a 5.0 feature…

A lot of other stuff failed to put in an appearance as well.

• Apps can now embed SMS, but why isn’t that a system-wide, OS level, quick-reply API included in the alerts?
• Calendar still has no week view. iPad calendar rotates to landscape, why can’t iPhone?
• Photos gets Faces and Places, but no MobileMe or other syncing abilities. It’s 2010, isn’t it?
• Weather is still 1.0. Even stocks has been updated. Compared to HTC’s weather, it’s in the dust.
• Settings are still bound to an app. You can’t tap the title bar to quickly toggle Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or any of a half-dozen other useful things.
• Mail gets universal inbox, threaded messages, and fast switching, but still no IMAP IDLE (at least GoogleSync can now be used alongside ActiveSync, but still…)
• Safari still lacks Flash, Java, or any other plugin and likely always will. But it should really have gotten in-page text string search.
• iPad gets orientation lock via a hardware switch where the iPhone’s mute switch is located. How about at least a software gesture?
• What about a universal “back” gesture while we’re at it as well? Tapping the title bar auto-scrolls a list to top, couldn’t swiping from right to left take us back to the previous screen, in every app?

iPhone 4.0 was full of functional goodness, no doubt about it. Perhaps we’ll even see one or two more come WWDC in June (Mobile iChat video?) Even given Apple’s size, there are limitations of time and resources that mean they have to choose what features get done now and what get left for later. You can’t have everything immediately. Did doing multitasking come at the expense of doing notifications this time around? (or did iAd?) Maybe. But that’s for Apple to decide and for us, the users, to take them to task over.

And, oh yeah, there’s still no built in task app (or sync).

Anything else missing from iPhone 4.0 that really ought to have been in there?

iPhone 4.0: What’s still missing is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Just hours after it’s beta release, iPhone OS 4.0 has been jailbroken and iPhone Dev Team member MuscleNerd has the video to prove it. The method of which this was done will remain kept under lock and key until it’s release this summer. Something else to keep in mind is that there is no guarantee that Apple won’t throw in a monkey wrench to shake things up between now and the final build.

How many of you are already thinking about jailbreaking 4.0 when it goes live?

Video after the break!

iPhone 4.0 jailbroken on the same day it’s released is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Real Racing HD [$9.99- iTunes Link] is a blast to play on the iPad. I have enjoyed the iPhone iteration for some time and I was really looking forward to the iPad version. Thankfully the game is still a blast to play, looks good and has a few new features to keep you interested in this version.

First of the changes is the resolution. The graphics and frame rate are really smooth. The immersive feel of the in- car view is fantastic. This game does have a different feel now on the larger screen and I like it. You can now add your own skin to your car via the Camera Role. This is a great way to customize the cars in the game if you get bored with what is available. Firemint even has a website with skins to download. To install a skin, just save to the Camera Role or use an existing image. You can then apply the picture to a car, giving it a new look.

The other new feature with this version of Real Racing is the ability to save/ load ghost car data. In Time Trial mode you can save your race after you finish. You are then added to the leaderboards. You can view or race against others in your bracket . You can’t at this time race against higher ranked players. Firemint says they are listening to feedback and may implement this in a future update.

For a first effort out of the gate, I really am enjoying Real Racing HD and I am looking forward to see how the development will improve on this already awesome game. Gallery and video after the break!

YouTube link

Quick Review: Real Racing HD for iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Daring Fireball discovered that, as part of Apple’s newly released iPhone 4.0 beta, the licensing agreement now seems to ban binaries compiled by Adobe’s upcoming CS5, Mono Touch, and the like:

Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

This seems to mean that cross-compilers, which let you develop in the soon-to-be-announced Adobe Flash CS5, the C# and .NET-based Mono Touch, or similar environments and spit out iPhone-compatible binaries at the end, are being prohibited.

Unity, which is used by many large iPhone game developers, creates Xcode Cocoa touch projects (the native iPhone frameworks) rather than binaries so it may not be effected. Given the importance of iPhone gaming and the companies developing them, it’s hard to see Apple going hard-line against them the way they’re stamping so very firmly on the neck of Adobe, Mono, etc. here.

As to the reasoning behind this change, Daring Fireball posits:

And, obviously, such a meta-platform [Flash or Mono sitting on top of Cocoa] would be out of Apple's control. Consider a world where some other company's cross-platform toolkit proved wildly popular. Then Apple releases major new features to iPhone OS, and that other company's toolkit is slow to adopt them. At that point, it's the other company that controls when third-party apps can make use of these features.

In other words, it once again highlights Apple’s device-centric philosophy. They want beautiful boxes that run commodity apps and services. Adobe, Mono (even Google) want commodity boxes that run their apps and services. Those diametrically opposed points create these conflicts.

Pragmatically, selfishly, and completely from a user’s perspective however, I’ll take great, dedicated developers making apps specifically and purposefully for the platform (in this case, iPhone) any day over the code-once-spit-out-everywhere approach that has never delivered on that promise (other than with ugly, janky Air and Java apps).

Adobe CS5 with iPhone compilation launches in less than a week.

Apple updates iPhone 4.0 SDK agreement to block Flash CS5, Mono touch, cross-compilers is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog