Coffee Timer! for iPhone is here to assist you in brewing the perfect cup of coffee. If you know how much coffee or water you plan to use, Coffee Timer will give the the correct measurement of the other ingredient and tell you exactly how long it takes to brew your coffee. It supports 6 different brewing methods and will run in the background to notify you when your coffee is ready.

Coffee Timer is a simple and beautiful app designed for people who love brewing coffee. You can enter either the amount of coffee, or the amount of water, and we will do the rest. We calculate how much time your coffee takes to brew. If you enter the amount of water, we will calculate the amount of coffee, and vice versa.

We take advantage of the following brewing methods:

• French Press.
• Aeropress.
• Chemex.
• Siphon.
• Clever coffee dripper.
• Hario V60.

We also allow you to configure the following settings:

• Total Brew time or Bloom time for each brew method.
• Coffee to water ratio for each brewing method.
• Sounds.
• Default measuring units for either coffee or water.
• Background notifications for when your coffee or bloom timer finishes.

Coffee Timer! is available on the iPhone for $1.99.

[App Store link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

RIM today announced BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, something they’re touting as “The Next Generation Enterprise Mobility Solution for BlackBerry, Android and iOS Smartphones and Tablets”. Really. Says so right here:

We are pleased to introduce BlackBerry Mobile Fusion – RIM’s next generation enterprise mobility solution – to make it easier for our business and government customers to manage the diversity of devices in their operations today,” said Alan Panezic, Vice President, Enterprise Product Management and Marketing at Research In Motion. “BlackBerry Mobile Fusion brings together our industry-leading BlackBerry Enterprise Server technology for BlackBerry devices with mobile device management capabilities for iOS and Android devices, all managed from one web-based console. It provides the necessary management capabilities to allow IT departments to confidently oversee the use of both company-owned and employee-owned mobile devices within their organizations.

While RIM is still struggling to get PlayBook to 2.0 and BBX superphones into the hungry hands of the CrackBerry Nation, this could be an interesting way to hedge against Enterprise BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trends that skew users away from traditional BlackBerry’s and towards iPhones.

Still, consumers would probably still prefer BBM for iOS…

Source: CrackBerry.com

With typical cat-like speed and agility, rumor has it Microsoft’s Office team might finally be ready to pounce on something iOS — namely the iPad. Quoth The Daily:

According to sources, the tech giant is actively working on adapting its popular software suite for Apple's tablet. [...] It's assumed that both of these would work with Office 365 as well as mobile versions, such as Windows Phone's Office Hub. Because it would be compatible with these full suites rather than as stand-alone apps, the pricing will most likely be significantly lower than existing Office products. In fact, it's likely the cost will be around the $10 price point that Apple has established for its Pages, Numbers and Keynote products.

No word yet on timeline. Would Microsoft really launch Office for iPad before giving Windows 8 Metro slates a chance to compete using Office exclusivity as a draw? Maybe. They did license away ActiveSync after all.

Source: The Daily

Twice now, once with Netshare in 2008 and now again with iTether in 2011, Apple has initially approved and then turned around a rejected an app that let iPhone users tether for free.

While some carriers in some countries allow for free tethering on the more expensive data plans, many countries, including the US do not. That means those carriers make extra money charging for tethering plans, and apps like Netshare and iTether threaten that extra money (or double-dipping, as you may wish to call it.)

I don’t know if Apple has carrier agreements in place to prevent tethering apps and protect revenue streams, the way they once did to prevent VoIP over 3G, but should that really be the users problem? Should it be Apple’s to police? If you get a tethering app and stay beneath your data cap, shouldn’t that be between you and your carrier? And if you’re on an unlimited plan, aren’t they already sending nastygrams if you go over a certain amount anyway?

TiPb Nation, what do you think? Should Apple allow tethering apps in the App Store?

iTether is currently showing up as unavailable in the iTunes App Store. iTether, which was approved and released yesterday, let users tether their laptops to their iPhones without having to pay any additional fees to carriers. Another tethering app, Netshare, was approved and then later removed in 2008.

Whether iTether has actually been removed by Apple or the developer, temporarily or permanently, remains to be seen but the developer has claimed they were in communication with Apple throughout the app approval process. If Apple couldn’t have, or simply didn’t want iTether in the App Store, it’s strange they’d approve it at all.

UPDATE: Tether just let us know they’ve released a statement, and confirmed Apple pulled the iTether app from the App Store. Their site is currently getting hammered so we’re reproducing it here. Please do click through and give them a comment with your thoughts. Tether.com:

Around 12PM EST, Apple called our head office to let us know they were going to go ahead and pull our app iTether from the App Store. They stated it was because the app itself burdens the carrier network, however they offered us no way to remedy the solution… We were very clear when listing the app what the primary function was and they even followed up with several questions and requested a video demo then they approved the application.

We strongly disagree that it burdens a carrier's network, as from our own data history on more than 500,000 users we know the average user consumes less than 200 MBs of data per month on Tether. In comparison, one TV show streamed from Netflix, an approved Apple App, could easily be in the 300-400 MBs range. Sure, there are some users that will consume way more than the average however that's the case with any of these types of products.

Our team is very disappointed in Apple's decision; as we strongly believe we help carriers better monetize their data stream by pushing customers into new data tiers further increasing their bottom-line. It is very anti-competitive to not allow any Tethering application to enter into this space to innovate. Our team has created a lot of innovative solutions for the BlackBerry product, which we were hoping to port over to the iPhone like end-to-end encryption, compression, website filtering and port filtering.

According to Apple, users who purchase iTether before it was pulled will continue to be able to use the product.

Our team is evaluating all of our options… Stay tuned.

Rather than just throwing up a quick “#BREAKSCLUSIVE: Cluzee brings Siri to Android!” post, Android Central‘s Phil Nickinson actually took the time to test out the new virtual assistant, and while it shows potential, it doesn’t yet show anywhere near Siri‘s polish on the iPhone 4S.

• It’s not quick to launch
• It’s crash prone
• It’s still struggling to parse voice
• It’s not quick to respond

Apple’s had more than their share of downtime even in Siri’s current, carefully caveated “beta” state, but inarguably they’ve gotten the basics right.

The one nice things about Cluzee, however, is that rather than simply being dismissive in monotone corporate-speak the way Google and Microsoft officials have been, they’re recognizing the future of this technology and making a play for it. Maybe they’ll nail it in a future update, maybe not, but they’re trying. Let’s see if Jellybean/Klondike Bar and Tango/Apollo follow suit.

Source: Android Central

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Kevin, Phil, Derek, Dan, and Rene discuss the future of phone fashion, how to pick a tablet for the holidays, and what happens when all phones are smart. Plus, our holiday gift guide! This is Mobile Nations!

Hosts

Phil Nickinson (@philnickinson) of Android Central

Kevin Michaluk (@crackberrykevin) of CrackBerry.com

Derek Kessler (@dkdsgn) of PreCentral.net

Daniel Rubino (@malatesta77 of WPCentral

Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) of TiPb.com

Feedback

Got something to say? Agree or disagree with something we said? Have something you want us to discuss on a future show? Don’t just sit there yelling at the screen, dammit, let us know!

• Email: podcast@mobilenations.com
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• Web: www.mobilenations.com

Credits

Our music is pROgraM vs. Us3R by by morgantj. Introduction by Joseph Holder.

Thanks to the Mobile Nations network of store for sponsoring this podcast, and to our fantastic live chat members for keeping us honest and making us smart!

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

An iPhone 4 caused a major scare on an Australian passenger flight when it appeared to commence self combustion. The iPhone 4 belonging to one of the passengers on Regional Express flight ZL319 operating from Lismore to Sydney started to emit a significant amount of dense smoke accompanied by a red glow.

Luckily the aircraft had already landed when the incident started and a flight attendant carried out recovery actions which included extinguishing the iPhone. The incident has been reported to the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau (ASTB) as well as the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). The iPhone is also now in the possession of the ASTB for analysis.

Source:  Rex Press Release, [AV Herald](http://avherald.com/h?article=446c4f7f&opt=0 3:30 PM), thanks Phil!

Hello everyone and welcome to TiPb's weekly celebrity iPhone and iPad sightings roundup! Time to take a little break from your daily routine and relax with some gossip from the world of the rich and famous. What do all of these celebrities have in common? They all were spotted with an iPhone or iPad, of course. Check out a ton of pictures after the break, and if you spot a celebrity rocking an iPhone or iPad, drop us a note at news@tipb.com so we can include them in the next roundup, next week!

Please note: Some pictures may from time-to-time be NSFW (Not Safe For Work) so use discretion when viewing.

Actress Whitney Port strolls around with her iPhone in a black and red case.

 

Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes spent some time in Paris. He is seen snapping some photos in the Père Lachaise cemetery with his iPhone.

 

Actor Robert Pattinson looks kinda sad without girlfriend Kristen Stewart, but he’s got his iPhone close to keep him company.

 

Reese Witherspoon spends quality time with the family (and gadgets) at Disneyland.

 

Miley Cyrus with her iPhone.

 

Megan Fox stopped by the Veteran’s Home of California in Los Angeles, California.

 

Maggie Gyllenhaal and her husband Peter Sarsgaard take daughter Ramona to Central Park for the afternoon.

 

Psssst… Joshua Jackson, you’re holding your iPad wrong.

 

Ever beautiful Jessica Alba runs some errands last week with her iPhone in white.

 

Jennifer Love Hewitt and Kim Kardashian helped out at a shelter for Thanksgiving.

 

Hugh Jackman looking good with his iPhone.

 

American Horror Story star Connie Britton is seen here with her newly adopted baby Eyob after lunching with family in Beverly Hills.

 

Just who is this shirtless fella Annalynne Mccord is chatting with on her iPad?

ROAD inc is an iPad app for car enthusiasts. It includes 50 landmark automobile models and over 70 videos, 350 HD photos, 3000 documents, and 100 engine sounds. Exploring these classic cars is a very interactive and immersive experience, that even non-car enthusiasts will enjoy this app.

Check out the promo video below!

In effect, Road Inc users can enjoy a true sense of ownership in relation to each car, and its immersive approach is heightened immeasurably by a vast interactive library of multimedia content (image, video, sound, text) that gives full life to the history, style and feats of the most remarkable automobile models.

• 50 landmark automobile models to unveil and explore, from the Ford T to the Bugatti Veyron.
• 3D museum tour
• Over 70 videos including race archives, interviews, commercials and more…
• More than 350 high definition studio photographs from acclaimed photographers
• Over 3,000 Archival documents including brochures, yearbooks, blueprints, adverts, plans, press articles and more…
• More than 100 roaring engine sounds for the full experience
• 50 original in-depth feature essays
• Social content-sharing features (Facebook, Twitter, email)

ROAD inc is available on the iPad for $1.99.

[App Store link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Road inc. app for iPad – It’s driven from PYROLIA SA on Vimeo.

• Recipes Genius: Knows 485 recipes from a wide range of areas which are easily put into practice in every kitchen, thanks to expert app-instructions. Step-by-step instructions for each recipe are a special feature, where more than 3,500 high-resolution photos are put to use and each interim result is displayed. [Free (sale) for iPhone and iPad - App Store link]

• Shiny Treasure: Become the richest and most feared pirate of the seven seas! Build guard towers and use the powers of the mysterious green pearl to protect your valuable treasure chest from evil pirate looters![Free for iPhone and iPad - App Store link]

• Math Battle: Use your finger to draw on the screen to solve math problems. The level of difficulty can scale from kindergartener up to complex long division. Right answers power up your ship for the ensuing 3D space battle. The gameplay alternates between arithmetic drills and exciting space missions. [Free for iPhone and iPad - App Store link]

• Meet the Orchestra: An easy to understand and beautifully designed game that will capture your child's imagination and teach him or her how musical instruments sound and look. Probably, an introduction to classical music. [$1.99 for iPad - App Store link]

• Bunny Reaper: Grab your trusty scythe and jump into the role of the Grim Reaper on his quest to collect the souls of bunnies! [$0.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

Any other big app or game releases or updates today?

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

The iTether app has arrived in the app store and it enables a user to tether their iPhone to a Mac or PC and use its data connection. The app does not appear to require a tethering data plan with your carrier so it is really a surprise that this app has been approved by Apple; it may be that its life is short lived. If you have been waiting for a way to tether your iPhone without the need to jailbreak or pay extra for the privilege, don't hang about with this one.

Tether is an application that allows your Mac and PC to take advantage of your smartphone’s data plan, providing you access to the Internet on your laptop anywhere there is cellular coverage from your smartphone. Tether is easy to install, easy to use, works practically anywhere, and is very cost-effective.

The iTether app requires a small program to be installed on the PC or Mac as well as the app on the iPhone. Once both are installed, plug in your USB cable and then you can use your iPhone’s data connection to surf the web, check email etc. A word of warning, a carrier may be able to see that your data connection is being used in this way and attempt to charge you an additional fee for the data.

iTether is available in the App Store for a price of $14.99.

[App Store link]

Have an app you'd love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we'll take a look.

 

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Georgia and Rene discuss ways to de-stress your holiday shopping, and our guide to the best zen and tech gifts for 2011. This is ZENandTECH!

Georgia’s gift picks

• Blends for friends tea
• iSee Me personalized books for kids or Shutterfly photo books
• Use iMovie or Windows Movie Maker to make a personalized movie or movie trailer

Rene’s gift picks

• Global knives
• [iRobot Roomba vacuuming robot(http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=irobot%20roomba%20vacuuming%20robot&tag=wingchunkuencom&index=garden&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325)

Shopping tips

• Make a list before leaving to shop
• Set a budget — for each person — before leaving to shop
• Shop at off hours to avoid crowds
• Shop online to avoid crowds
• Get the store to gift wrap
• Don’t shop when you’re feeling guilty
• Make a note of refund/exchange policies

Hosts

• @GeorgiaTiPb (Georgia)
• @reneritchie (Rene)

Contact

You can reach all of us @ZENandTECH, via email at podcast@zenandtech.tv, or leave a comment below!

Thanks everyone, you’re the best community on the web and we love having you with us!

Disclaimer

While Georgia is a therapist, she’s not YOUR therapist. Everything said or implied on this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only. And shouldn’t be taken in any way as a replacement for proper, professional care.

Credits

Music is Peace on Earth by wellman.

No one outside of Apple, and likely very few inside of Apple, if anyone at all at this early stage, knows what the 2012 iPhone will be called. For the sake of convenience and familiarity, we’ve been using iPhone 5 (or whatever Apple ends up calling it).

But Apple can call it anything they want. iPhone 4G. iPhone 4GS. iPhone 4GS Mark II Epic, LTE X. (Okay, that’s very unlikely, but the point is it’s their phone, their name.)

There’s no logical reason they couldn’t call it iPhone 5 either. The model number will be 5,1 after all, and for most mainstream customers the logical number after 4 — even after 4S — is 5. Mainstream customers don’t know, and don’t care, what generation the device is. Nor should they.

Apple doesn’t really care either. They’ve used 3 twice and 4 twice now. They could easily use 5 twice next. They still call iOS 5 on Apple TV “software 4″, after all.

Marketing has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with perception and presentation.

There will almost certainly be a new iPhone next year, but until they officially announce it and it’s name, we’ll be using iPhone 5.

9to5Mac has found some code references in the recently released-to-developers iOS 5.1 beta for iPhone 5 (or whatever Apple ends up calling it), iPad 3, and Apple TV 3.

• The next iPhone is model number 5,1, representing another large internal upgrade, likely a next-generation Apple A6 system-on-a-chip. (iPhone 3G was 1,2, iPhone 4S was 4,1, so factor that into your tea-leaf reading about Apple’s 2012 naming conventions.

• iPad 3 has already been seen in model number 3,1 and 3,2 and now it’s joined by 3,3 and a 2,4 (perhaps a Sprint version) as well.

• Apple TV 3 is model number 3,1, code-named J33, and again the jump likely represents a processor upgrade, but in this case to the current Apple A5 SoC.

While everyone expects Apple to keep producing iOS devices into 2012, it’s still reassuring to see the signs pop up along the way. iPhone 5 could be seen summer/fall 2012, iPad 3 spring 2012, and Apple TV 3… well, that’s anyone’s guess at this point.

Source: 9to5Mac, x2, x3

• Our podcast feed: Audio | Video
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Georgia and Rene discuss ways to de-stress your holiday shopping, and our guide to the best zen and tech gifts for 2011. This is ZENandTECH!

Georgia’s gift picks

• Blends for friends tea
• iSee Me personalized books for kids or Shutterfly photo books
• Use iMovie or Windows Movie Maker to make a personalized movie or movie trailer

Rene’s gift picks

• Global knives
• [iRobot Roomba vacuuming robot](http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=irobot%20roomba%20vacuuming%20robot&tag=mbn0c-20&index=garden&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325)

Shopping tips

• Make a list before leaving to shop
• Set a budget — for each person — before leaving to shop
• Shop at off hours to avoid crowds
• Shop online to avoid crowds
• Get the store to gift wrap
• Don’t shop when you’re feeling guilty
• Make a note of refund/exchange policies

Hosts

• @GeorgiaTiPb (Georgia)
• @reneritchie (Rene)

Contact

You can reach all of us @ZENandTECH, via email at podcast@zenandtech.tv, or leave a comment below!

Thanks everyone, you’re the best community on the web and we love having you with us!

Disclaimer

While Georgia is a therapist, she’s not YOUR therapist. Everything said or implied on this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only. And shouldn’t be taken in any way as a replacement for proper, professional care.

Credits

Music is Peace on Earth by wellman.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Google is collecting information from Wi-Fi access points from all over the world  to enable it to speed up location services. Unfortunately it is gathering this information and maybe more, without the consent of the owners of the access point.

What's more, Google is not only gathering data from public Wi-Fi access points but also from home and business users too. If you value your privacy, there is a way to stop Google recording your Wi-Fi access point's location information. It's reasonably straight forward to implement.

• Log in to your routers home page; usually this is done via an IP address similar to 192.168.0.1 if you don't know, consult your router instruction manual
• Once you are logged in, go to the routers Wireless Settings

• Find the name or SSID of your Wi-Fi access point

• Add _nomap to the end o the the SSID

• Make sure to Apply or Save the changes
• That's it, Google will no longer have your Wi-Fi router in its database.

One things to note, now that you have changed your access point name, you will need to reconnect all of your Wi-Fi connected devices to the new access point name.

Source: Google via Android Central