When Apple engineer Gray Powell’s prototype iPhone HD/iPhone 4G fell from his bag in a bar, it was “found” by Brian Hogan, and — as it turns out now — it was Hogan’s roommate, Katherine Martinson, who turned Hogan in. Here’s the gist, including Hogan’s obvious effort to enter into karma receivership right from the start:

"Sucks for him," Hogan allegedly told Martinson. "He lost his phone. Shouldn't have lost his phone."

Martinson turned Hogan in because Hogan had plugged the phone into her laptop in an attempt to get it working again after Apple remotely disabled it. She was convinced that Apple would be able to trace her Internet IP address as a result. "Therefore she contacted Apple in order to aboslive herself of criminal responsibility," according to the affidavit.

Martinson informed Apple Hogan had found the phone, knew the Facebook profile of the person who lost it, but instead of trying to return it was offering it up to gadget blogs. (It ultimately found its way to Gizmodo).

What followed is an almost farcical attempt at destroy evidence with police hot on the trail.

Now we just need to find out how the older prototype got to Vietnam…

[Wired]

iPhone HD/iPhone 4G “finder” turned in by roommate is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Fieldrunners for the iPad, from Subatomic Studios, LLC, is a tower defense-style game, where the object is to obliterate the fieldrunners before they get to your base. To do this you place weapons on the field so that they will take out all fieldrunners before they get to the other side.

You start the game with 20 lives, which translates into 20 enemies that may pass through your defenses before the game ends. The placement of your defences is in real time, though after each level you do get a small amount of time before the fieldrunners start their attack. Strategy is paramount, as the towers you set up early in the game are still in play for later levels. You do not want to have to sell and move around towers as this will use up valuable resources (arms sales are not as profitable as they once were).

A large green ring indicates where your tower can be placed, a red ring indicates a illegal placement. The size of the ring shows you the range of the weapon which is very important for game strategy. Just clicking on the weapon will bring up the upgrading/sell options. Fieldrunners allows you to choose what difficulty you want to play in. So for veteran tower defense players starting on easy may be quite a bore, however as the game progresses each Fieldrunner you obliterate gains you more funds to purchase weapons.

The controls are very simple — just point click and drag. You place your finger on the tower you want and then drag it to the location you want. All of the game options are also accessible through the game with a touch of your finger. You can also choose to put Fieldrunners into fast forward to accelerate the onslaught.

The game graphics are very clean and cartoonish yet not childish. Even the background of the game is beautifully rendered along with little bugs and flowers (not girly, I promise!).

Fieldrunners is really fun game for anyone who enjoys the tower defense genre. The increasing levels of difficulty keep Fieldrunners enjoyable and challenging. Well worth the price tag.

[$7.99 - iTunes Link]

Pros

• Beautiful graphics
• A lot of fun
• Intuitive controls

Cons

• Repetitive gameplay
• Could have more weapon variety

YouTube link

Fieldrunners for iPad – app review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

No shock: Apple has rejected that nifty Wi-Fi sync application that was submitted for the App Store. Good news is, it’s now available via Cydia for any jailbroken iPhone for $9.99. Engadget contacted the developer by phone and here is his rejection explanation.

“While he agreed that the app doesn’t technically break the rules, he said that it does encroach upon the boundaries of what they can and cannot allow on their store. He also cited security concerns.”

If you need to have this app and don’t know a thing about jailbreaking be sure to stop by our jailbreaking forum for all of the information you will need.

[Engadget]

iPhone to iTunes Wi-Fi sync app rejected by App Store, finds home in Cydia is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Bloomberg is reporting that Wal-Mart will begin offering Apple’s iPad to consumers at some point “later this year”.

“We anticipate being able to have the iPad later this year,” Gary Severson, senior vice president of entertainment for Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores, said in a telephone interview. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company isn’t prepared to provide specifics on the timing and pricing of the iPad, he said.”

This really should come to no surprise considering Wal-Mart carries the iPhone. Currently iPad sales are limited to Apple’s online and retail stores and the certain Best Buy locations that offer the Apple shop sections. Apple did not have a official comment regarding any deal with Wal-Mart.

Our best guess is that you will see Wal-Mart selling iPads just in time for the holiday shopping season. Do you think this wishful thinking on the retailers part or is this going to happen? Sound off in the comments below!

[9to5Mac via Bloomberg]

Wal-Mart to carry iPad ‘Later this year’ is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

With Apple all but certain to announce a the 4th generation iPhone (iPhone HD/iPhone 4G) with iPhone OS 4 at WWDC the week of June 7, and AT&T to release it later the same month, why would AT&T want to release the new BlackBerry 9800 slider running OS 6.0 at around the same time?

Since 2007 the iPhone has been AT&T’s summer blockbuster. It’s been the phone that got the users and made the numbers, quarter after quarter. Some would go so far as to say iPhone exclusivity is the only thing that’s kept AT&T competitive with their arch-rival, Verizon.

Rewind. Back in March our sibling site CrackBerry.com did a Q&A roundup about the BlackBerry Slider, which could end up being part of the Bold lineup. A full, capacitive touchscreen device with a Palm Pre-style vertical slider it would give the BlackBerry faithful the Storm-like experience needed to compete in today’s mainstream smartphone market, but keep the industry-leading physical keyboard those same faithful are so loathe to do without. And CrackBerry thought it was going to be released on AT&T, and in the summer.

Today Boy Genius added fuel to that fire, saying the BlackBerry Bold 9800 slider would launch on AT&T in June, be exclusive for 3-6 months, and that AT&T had placed an incredibly large order for the device — easily exceeding 1,000,000 units.

Repeat. Why would AT&T want a huge order of an exclusive, powerfully branded, touchscreen smartphone with keyboard differentiation at the same time they’ve traditionally, and successfully launched their heretofore exclusive new iPhones?

Since I’ve sworn off Verizon iPhone rumors this week, including rumors of Verizon iPhone ads, manufacturers and equally large manufacturing runs, and increasing chatter, I’ll let you answer that in comments.

Why would AT&T want an exclusive BlackBerry Bold 9800 slider hero phone this summer? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

QuickReply for SMS functions basically as an expanded plug-in to the built-in SMS app.  There is no icon for QuickReply and it just interacts with built-in functionality.  QuickReply attempts to solve a lot of the problems that the native SMS app still has.  The major one being when you get a text, you have two options, either close the text or view it to respond.  If you’re in the middle of doing something on your phone, it’ll close you out of it in order to take you to the text app.

QuickReply solves this problem by adding another button.  In addition to the traditional close and view buttons, you’ll see a reply button to the right.  When you click reply, it’ll simply bring up a keyboard and you can reply to the text without interrupting the app you are currently running.  When you’re done, tap send and you’re done!  The keyboard disappears and your text sends in the background. In settings, you have the option of changing the traditional keyboard to a transparent type keyboard if you’d like as well.  You’ll also see an option to replace the view button with a call button.

With the latest update to QuickReply, contact pictures were added. I thought this was a really neat addition. If you have a picture set for a person in your address book, it’ll pop up in the right hand top corner of the text on the homescreen. Speaking of the homescreen, QuickReply also allows you to reply directly from the homescreen. Enabling the lockscreen option in settings will allow you to double-tap a text off the homescreen and bring up a keyboard to respond without even having to unlock your phone.

QuickReply is definitely one of those apps I’d sorely miss on a stock iPhone. For anyone who’s jailbroken, it’s definitely worth the $2.99. And if you’d like to try it out, they have a trial period available.

[$2.99 - Cydia Link]

Pros

• No extra icon cluttering your homescreen
• Ease of use
• Reasonably priced

Cons

• Available to jailbreakers only

QuickReply for SMS on iPhone – Jailbreak app review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

Another iPhone HD/iPhone 4G prototype in the wild, HTC counter-files, AT&T and Verizon, how to downgrade from iPhone OS 4 to iPhone 3.1.3, and the week in apps and games. Listen in!

Want to be part of the show?

Grab your iPhone, launch VoiceMemo, record yourself introducing the show. Tell us your name, where you live, your favorite iPhone app, and finish it off with “…and my favorite podcast is iPhone Live!” Then email it to news (at) tipb (dot) com. We’ll pick one of you, and you’ll be on the show!

• Example: "Hi, this is Jon from Cupertino. My favorite app is We Rule and my favorite podcast is iPhone Live!!"

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

iPhone Live Podcast #99 – HTC-you in court! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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