You know the drill, come 6pm PT, 9pm ET, 2am BST, we’ll be live over at:

http://live.tipb.com/live/

With special guest Mickey Papillon, the Cell Phone Junkie. Be there, and be ready to chat. We want to hear from you.

iPhone live tonight, 6pm PT, 9pm ET, 2am BST is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Apple has applied for yet another patent; this one is for filtering text messages. Why would one want to filter text messages, you ask? To prevent sexting of course!

Sexting — SMS text messages containing sexual content — restrictions could allows the user (or parent of the user) to block the exchange of text-based messages containing any type of content, or to have the offending content removed before the transmission is complete.

Systems, devices, and methods are provided for enabling a user to control the content of text-based messages sent to or received from an administered device. In some embodiments, a message will be blocked (incoming or outgoing) if the message includes forbidden content. In other embodiments, the objectionable content is removed from the message prior to transmission or as part of the receiving process. The content of such a message is controlled by filtering the message based on defined criteria.

The patent is not only about stopping material, however. It also talks about requiring certain text to be included in the messages.

The criteria may be defined according to a parental control application. These techniques also may be used, in accordance with instructional embodiments, to require the administered devices to include certain text in messages. These embodiments might, for example, require that a certain number of Spanish words per day be included in e-mails for a child learning Spanish.

If Apple adds this type of control to the iPhone, it will be very appealing to parents who want to make sure their teens aren’t engaging in activity they do not approve of. Teens, however, will likely not welcome this feature with open arms. On the flip side, the more control a parent has over an electronic device, the more likely they will purchase it for their child.

As a new mom to a baby girl, you better believe I hope this type of control is available when I’m ready to give her her first iPhone.

Any parents out there hoping to see this feature hit iPhones in the near future? Any teens hoping this feature does not hit the scene until you’re out of the control of your parents?

[9To5Mac]

Apple applies for iPhone anti-sexting patent is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Since Apple still hasn’t shipped a white iPhone 4 — much less a pink one — I decided try out a few, fun Incipio Ultra Light Feather Cases instead. Because really, why should I have to wait for style? They come in black, turquoise, metallic black, metallic white, pink, metallic orange, forest green, yellow green, metallic gray, coral, metallic purple, and bright purple (phew!), and are thin and unobtrusive enough you’ll barely notice the difference in your pocket or purse. They also come with a screen protector, so if you’re worried about scratches, they’ve got you covered.

Changing the color of my iPhone 4 to white or pink was as simple as snapping on the case. There are openings for all of your buttons and ports with the exception of the small micro sim slot opening on the side. I do not think this omission is a big deal. I have an officially unlocked iPhone 4 from Apple and it’s just something I rarely need to have access to in the first place.

Also noteworthy, the Incipio Ultra Light Feather Case should be compatible with most iPhone 4 chargers and sync cables. The wide cut around the 30-pin dock port meant everything from my slim Apple USB cable to my bulky car adapter worked just fine. I did have some problems with Apple’s own dock but that is to be expected as most Apple chargers are made to exacting measurements. (I did not have any trouble with the Seidio Inno Dock Jr. of course!)

Overall I liked the look and feel of the Incipio Ultra Light Feather Case, especially the matte finish which lessens the chance that I will drop it and damage my precious iPhone. Also, the case doesn’t come up over the iPhone screen which is one of my pet peeves. The white version is a little different, it feels more solid and less flexible, but that’s probably due to the more difficult nature of making a white product, something Apple no doubt understands!

So if, like me, you’re tired of waiting for a white iPhone (or any color iPhone really) give the Incipio Ultra Light Feather Case a try. It’s the perfect way to add a splash of fun and excitement to your iPhone 4.

Tired of waiting for a white iPhone 4? Add some color with Incipio Feather Case [Sponsored] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

MailTones, by Electric Pocket, has received a nice little update. In case you are unfamiliar with the app it enables iPhones users the ability to change your email tone and set different tones for emails. The newest updated is bundled with 60 more tones raning from discrete bells to more audible horns and buzzers as well as an enhanced overall look and feel with full retina support.

MailTones has been a nice little application for people who want the option to filter their incoming emails. It allows you to set filters to change the priority of an email based on who it was sent from. So for example you can set your boss or your spouse to a higher priority so as soon as the email hits you will get a notification with their special alert you chose and you can respond right away. If you set the filter to make someone less of a priority you know you can wait and get back with them at your earliest convenience. You can also set tones based on domain or by contacts. This would be handy for the professional users who want an easy way to tell if an email has come from someone in their office.

MailTones uses Apple's Push Notification Service, and offers simple set-up from Gmail, MobileMe and any server which supports “forward a copy” forwarding of email. Costs $3.99.

[iTunes Link]

by Brian Tufo

MailTones for iPhone gets new look, more tones is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Looks like Apple will be holding an event in October again, this time called “Back to the Mac” and no doubt focusing on — OS X 10.7 Lion?! — new MacBooks, a new MacBook Air, and maybe iLife ‘11 and iWork ‘11?

Since iOS is such an integral part of Apple these days, it’s hard to believe they’ll skip iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad entirely, so we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for anything from new slideshow exports (yawn!) to a whole new app for making HTML 5 goodness for our mobile devices, or Back to my Mac for iOS? (I still want an iOS layer to replace Dashboard and FrontRow.)

What do you expect?

[Engadget]

Apple holding “Back to the Mac” event October 20 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Is Foxconn about to increase what it charges Apple (and other companies) to produce products like the iPhone and iPad?

Oct 13 (Reuters) – Hon Hai (2317.TW), the world’s largest electronic parts maker, will raise prices from October for some clients, including Apple (AAPL.O), according to a Citibank analyst, a Taiwan newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Citibank analyst Chang Kaiwei said Hon Hai would also raise prices for Nokia (NOK1V.HE), Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Sony Ericsson (ERICb.ST) (6758.T), helping to push up its fourth quarter profit, according to the Commercial Times newspaper.

If an iPhone was made in North America, it would probably cost $5000. Will Foxconn hold the line on prices at the expense of corporate profits (and, you know, maybe increasing their workers’ standard of living?), will Apple give up margin and eat the increase to keep prices the same for consumers, or will will all be paying more for iPhone, iPad, and the other gadgets we love?

[New York Times]

Foxconn raising manufacturing costs for iPhone, iPad? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

VLC developers Applidium have announced that they have submitted an update to the existing iPad app that will make it universal and support the iPhone and iPod Touch. The update to VLC, the media player all our otherwise unsupported video files love, and that came to the iPad about a month ago, is now headed to the iPhone and iPod touch is currently being reviewed by Apple, and we should expect it in the AppStore any time soon.

There area few restrictions with this new version:

• It's still not possible to use the hardware video decoder, so unfortunately in most cases 720p video still won't play smoothly.
• Unfortunately, we couldn't support older iPhones and iPods. You'll need either an iPhone 3GS or an iPhone 4 (or a same-generation iPod). The reason is actually pretty simple : based on our tests, the older iPhones (3G and Edge) don't have enough power to properly decode most movies.

But along with the restrictions, there are some new features as well:

• Playback should be smoother than the previous version. Indeed, we've enabled low-level assembly optimisations to use the ARMv7 core of the Apple A4 processor as efficiently as possible.
• We're supporting a lot more video extensions. Also, as many of you requested, it's also now possible to open attachments from Mail or Safari (or any other applications actually) in VLC!
• This update is expected soon, and will be FREE for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

We’ve seen how it works now on iPad, so is who’s excited to see it coming to iPhone?

[iTunes link, Applidium]

by George Lim

VLC app update to bring video player to iPhone is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

T-Mobile has been the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in Germany since the first iPhone in 2007, however there is new evidence to show that T-Mobile may lose its exclusivity to O2 and Vodafone in the coming weeks.

• The O2 Germany website, has launched a 'keep me informed' page, that offers "the latest news and everything to know about the iPhone 4 on O2"

• The Vodafone website has launched a similar page that allows you to sign up and select which iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS you want to be notified about.

Both carriers are yet to announce any official pricing or release date, however one source at iPhone-Ticker.de has said that Vodafone will have iPhone 4's starting Wednesday 27th October, with prices starting at €729 and as high as €849, off contract.

Rumoured contract prices start at €169,90 for the handset and €45 a month for the low-tier contract, to as high as €119,95 a month, with the handset at €1 for the higher-tier contract.

This marks the end of T-Mobile's exclusivity in Germany, and sees them join the likes of the UK and Canada in the list of multiple-carrier countries. Unless and until Verizon iPhone (or Sprint or T-Mobile) rumors prove true, the US remains exclusive to AT&T.

So, any T-Mobile Germany iPhone users tempted to switch?

[iPhone-Ticker.de, AppleInsider]

by George Lim

T-Mobile Germany losing iPhone exclusivity? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

Apple’s just-released iOS 4.2 beta 3 doesn’t seem to be packing too many surprises yet. But while developers and code-ninja alike do their deep diving, we’ll take a look at the obvious changes, including new text tones for iPhone (though still no custom tones, sorry!), new wallpaper for iPad, and some new restrictions in the settings.

For more, check out our complete iOS 4.2 beta walkthrough, and if you notice anything we missed, let us know!

iOS 4.2 beta 3 in 5 minutes – everything you need to know [video] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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

In their summer earnings call earlier this evening, Intel conceded that Apple’s iPad has eaten away at overall computer sales since the revolutionary tablet device was released in April. Electronista reports:

“There was “softness” in sales mainly in the US and Western Europe, both of which have been cornerstones of iPad sales. Executives said Apple’s tablet was likely taking away sales “at the margin” as customers without a large income often had to choose between one device or another.”

Over the past 6 months, some believe that as high as 13 percent of computer sales could have been lost to the iPad alone. This is an astounding number when you factor in how new the iPad is to the market — and further suggests that Apple has single-handily defined a new market genre with their quickly-adopted iPad.

During the same time, it appears that they’ve taken a significant chunk of sales from the largest consumer electronics device category in history. Additional comments from the article suggested that the iPad may have an easy time holding their ground through 2011, as there won’t be any form of concordant competition from any of the major players in the immediate future:

“Intel doesn’t plan to have truly thin and long-lived tablets until 2011 but expected to be competitive with Android, MeeGo and Windows tablets.”

Intel is assuming that these other players are going to just pick up market share with their initial offerings, and that they’ll be able to compete head-on with iPad. However, assumptions are never a good thing to make — especially in a market that’s dominated by a company as smart as Apple.

What about you? Have you recently opted for an iPad over purchasing a new PC or laptop? Let us know in the comments below!

[Electronista]

by Andrew Wray

Intel acknowledges that iPad is eating away at overall computer sales is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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