The iPhone Blog


Apple to release an Apple Television?

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 01:47 PM PST

Apple has posted a job advertisement for a new position within the company that leads us to believe that it could be planning on making a full blown TV set. The job position entails working on power supply technology but specifically mentions displays and TV’s as separate products.

Apple already has a line of LED displays, so it is not that far-fetched to think that this could well be the next venture for Apple. Apple will never allow other TV manufacturers to integrate the Apple TV into their sets, so this could well be the future vision. You can already buy TV sets with integrated Google TV, Windows Media Center and other solutions. It would make sense for Apple to go this way too and eliminate another box, power supply and HDMI cable from behind the TV.

Of course this is pure speculation at this stage and it may just be referring to the current Apple TV; either way it is an interesting prospect.

Would you buy a high quality Apple TV set with an integrated Apple TV? Let us know in the comments!

[9 to 5 Mac]

Apple to release an Apple Television? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Updated: Twitter suspends UberMedia clients for privacy, monetization, and trademark violations

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 01:30 PM PST

Twitter recently suspended all Twitter clients supported by Ubermedia. Among the clients suspended are Twidroid and UberTwitter, which are both insanely popular on Android OS and Blackberry OS. They also operate and support the popular TweetDeck client which is available on iOS and several other platforms. They’ve also acquired Echofon, another popular Twitter client for iOS.

According to Twitter, they’ve been working with UberMedia since April of 2010 when they were operating under the name TweetUp, which also apparently violated some copyright issues. Currently Twitter is claiming that Ubermedia has changed the content of tweets in order to generate revenue for themselves. They’ve also pulled the clients due to privacy issues concerning direct messages over 140 characters.

When asked about the suspension, Twitter spokeswoman Carolyn Penner had this to say:

We ask all developers in Twitter ecosystem to abide by a simple set of rules that are in the interests of our users, as well as the health and vitality of the platform as a whole.

We often take actions to enforce these rules; in fact, on an average day we turn off more than one hundred services that violate our API rules of the road. This keeps the ecosystem fair for everyone.

Some of the allegations being held against UberMedia are pretty serious. For the full letter Ubermedia received, hit the break!

Dear xxxx,

Regardless of how you access Twitter, we are dedicated to making Twitter better, faster and more reliable for you. As part of this effort, we ask applications that work with Twitter to abide by a simple set of rules that we believe are in the interests of our users, and the health and vitality of the Twitter platform as a whole. We often take actions to enforce these rules.

We are sending this email today because we suspended twidroyd for violating our policies.

Every day, we suspend more than one hundred applications that are in violation of our policies. Generally, these apps are used by a small number of users. We are taking the unusual step of sending out this letter because today's suspension may affect a larger number of users.

We are committed to helping you continue to use Twitter during the disruption of this application. You can download Twitter for Android and other official Twitter apps here. You can also try our mobile web site or apps from other third-party developers.

We appreciate your continued support of Twitter and regret any inconvenience to you.

Updated: Jerry over at AndroidCentral reached out to UberMedia to see if they had any response to the whole thing and this is what we received back:

STATEMENT FROM UBERMEDIA REGARDING TWITTER'S SUSPENSION OF SERVICE TO UBERTWITTER, TWIDROYD AND UBERCURRENT

PASADENA, CA – February 18, 2011 – Early Friday morning, Twitter shut off access to its service by several of our Twitter client applications: UberTwitter, Twidroyd, and UberCurrent. Twitter then notified us that they believed we were in violation of several provisions of their terms of service.

We were immediately in touch with Twitter, and the changes they asked us to make were very small. As a result, we have completed the changes, and new apps are currently being posted to their respective stores. Twitter has assured us that as soon as those changes were complete, they would reactivate our applications.

Twitter also asked us to modify the name of UberTwitter. We began a process of changing the name three weeks ago by polling our users, and we've decided based on their input to change the product name to UberSocial, which we completed today.

To our millions of loyal users, we appreciate your patience during this temporary period. We look forward to continuing our innovations on the Twitter platform.

Bill Gross, CEO
UberMedia, Inc.

It appears either UberMedia is playing down the issue or it really wasn’t that big of a deal in the first place. What do you guys think?

TechCrunch

Updated: Twitter suspends UberMedia clients for privacy, monetization, and trademark violations is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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President Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, and America’s technorati [Photo]

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 10:07 AM PST

President Barak Obama, Steve Jobs, and America's technorati [Photo]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs met with US President Barack Obama alongside other tech leaders such as Google’s Eric Schmidt and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg last night, as scheduled. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said:

"The president specifically discussed his proposals to invest in research and development and expand incentives for companies to grow and hire."

Any guesses what the cheers was for?

[WSJ]

President Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, and America’s technorati [Photo] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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TiPb Answers: No, you don’t need to kill all the apps in your multitasking dock

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 09:55 AM PST

One of the most frequent questions we’re getting these days is how to close all apps at once — basically how to force quit or kill every app from the new multitasking/fast app switcher dock Apple introduced in iOS 4 for iPhone and iPod touch and iOS 4.2 for iPad.

The short answer is you don’t need to. Really. If you’ve been worried about it, relax. It’s all good.

For the long answer, read on after the break!

Multitasking is more of a marketing terms these days than a technical one. Don’t think of your iPhone as a Windows or Mac OS X machine because it’s not. It isn’t Windows Mobile or even Android either. iOS doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t (most of the time) leave a bunch of rogue processes running in the background that have to be force-quit.

iOS manages all that for you. Most applications, when you exit them, save their state and “go to sleep”. So if you were playing a game or looking a Settings and then hit the home button or switch to another app, it keeps track of where you were in the game or what page you were on in Settings, writes that to storage, then stops the app. When you tap the icon to launch the game or Settings again, it reads the state from storage and returns you to the same place in the app. It only seems like it was multitasking — it wasn’t. If you haven’t used an app in a long time, iOS might not even keep the saved state (you’ll notice the app re-launched and shows you a splash screen instead of going back to the last place you left it.)

This means, for most apps, you never — not ever — need to “delete” them or close them from the multitasking dock. You might feel a desire to, even an obsession to. But you really don’t need to. Really. (Breath out!)

The only exceptions are:

  1. Streaming audio like Pandora. This can keep playing in the background but if you pause or turn off the music, it ends. No need to force quit these apps either. (Just check to make sure volume isn’t off, otherwise you might as well pause the music…)
  2. VoIP apps like Skype. These can keep running in the background and Skype especially can drain your battery. You can close Skype or other VoIP apps if you aren’t actually waiting for a call.
  3. Turn-by-turn navigation like TomTom. These can stay in the background and give you location and voice instructions and if you don’t need it anymore you can quit it to spare your battery the aGPS hit
  4. Task completion, like finishing uploading a picture to Facebook or downloading your Twitter stream. These will automatically close when the activity is finished. Even if the activity doesn’t finish they’ll close after a short period of time anyway. So again, unless you really want to stop what they’re doing there’s not need to close them.

There will be rare — rare — occasions when a specific app, even an Apple app like Mail, stops working properly and a force-quit can get it to restart and behave itself. Once an a while your iPhone or iPad might get really sluggish and closing any big, recently played games might help.

But when it comes to closing ALL apps, ALL the time, just remember:

You don’t ever — never as in not ever — have to close ALL the apps in your multitasking, fast app switcher dock. It’s a sniper rifle, not a nuke. So just relax and enjoy your apps and let iOS do the heavy lifting for you.

TiPb Answers: No, you don’t need to kill all the apps in your multitasking dock is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Daily Tip: How to sell your old AT&T iPhone after switching to Verizon

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 06:27 AM PST

Tip: How to sell your old AT&T iPhone after switching to Verizon

Want to know the ins and outs of how to sell your old iPhone? Were you one of the iPhone users who switched to Verizon now that it’s finally available? Not sure what to do with your old AT&T iPhone? There are a number of things you can do with your old iPhone — from using it as an iPod Touch to handing it down to family or friends — but if you’re looking to get some quick cash then there are a few things to know before getting started. Today we’re going to show you how to throw out the old and bring in the new using a number of great services, just hit the jump to find out how!

When Apple and Verizon finally announced the iPhone would be available under the nation’s largest network, Verizon subscribers across the country rejoiced. The same can be said for a hefty number of AT&T subscribers too, as a recent ChangeWave survey suggested a significant number of AT&T iPhone users would jump ship to Verizon once they had the iPhone.

So if you were one of the many AT&T subscribers who decided to go the Verizon route then here are a few quick tips to think about before putting your AT&T iPhone up for sale:

  1. Jailbreak/Unlock: The iPhone usually sells for more money when it’s jailbroken or unlocked, meaning you have the additional options of running restricted apps through Cydia or getting service on another carrier (like TMobile). If you are new to jailbreaking we suggest checking out the jailbreak forums, and we’ve also written up a few posts on how to jailbreak your iPhone on 4.1 firmware using Greenpois0n, Limera1n and PwnageTool.
  2. Condition: It kind of goes without saying that you’ll get more money if your device is in better condition, but this counts even more when it comes to the iPhone. If your device is in excellent shape, you’re going to be able to ask for a higher amount. For example, an iPhone 3GS in ‘fair’ condition with wear and tear can get you around $230 while a 3GS in ‘perfect’ cosmetic condition can get you as much as $300. I’ve seen a wide range of pricing on the iPhone 4 and 3GS based on condition, so make sure you research prices and price competitively.
  3. Wipe your data: Before you end up selling your old iPhone, we highly suggest you run a full data wipe on your device to make sure none of your data is available to the lucky new owner. We’ve done a quick How-To post to help you with the process.

Now that we’re passed the basics and you’re ready to put your iPhone up for sale, it’s important to take a look at all the options you have before making a decision on which service to use.

There are a ton of great online services out there to help you sell your old iPhone and we won’t be able to go through them all, so we’ve filtered down the list of services for you. We’ll start with the most familiar of them all…

eBay

Selling your iPhone on eBay is a pretty simple process. If you’ve ever used eBay for selling things in the past then you know the selling process isn’t all that tricky, however there are still some things to keep in mind when using eBay to sell your iPhone. For instance, eBay charges fees for each auction based on the item you’re selling and how much it sells for, among other things, so here are five quick tips to help you get the most out of your auction:

  1. Only ship to the buyer’s confirmed Paypal address if using Paypal.
  2. Price competitively if using Buy It Now as an option.
  3. Make sure the pictures you use follow your description and are good quality — post pictures of any physical blemishes on the iPhone and be up-front in your description.
  4. Use a fast shipping service and make sure you include that in your item description.
  5. Use keywords in your title and in your item description to attract more potential buyers.

You may also want to consider insuring your item in case anything goes wrong during shipping. Watch out for low-feedback buyers and also keep in mind that Paypal charges processing fees as well.

Craigslist

Selling on craigslist is locally based, so you’ll be making a face-to-face exchange with someone in your area. I’ve used Craigslist to sell a number of things around the house, and always follow a few basic rules:

  • Don’t ever put your personal or home address in an ad. Ever!
  • I’m usually fine with putting my personal phone number in an ad, but that’s up to you. Some find it easier to text rather than email.
  • Meet in a public place, preferably in the daytime.
  • Watch out for email scams, something Craigslist is notorious for.

It’s always a good idea to use caution when dealing with Craigslist. I’ve heard some pretty crazy stories of people getting robbed or worse when meeting with people for a transaction, so bring a friend and meet in an open, public area to avoid those types of situations.

Gazelle

Gazelle offers a service that lets you easily turn most electronic devices into cash. Simply send in your iPhone and Gazelle will send you money after confirming the item condition. The first thing you’ll need to do is tell Gazelle what you’re selling and what condition the item is in. You can choose from poor, fair, good or excellent condition, and it’s important to be honest when rating the condition so there’s no hiccups or snags along the way. It also helps if you have the box and original documentation and cables with your item, and the service will check for any water damages before giving you a quote.

An average-conditioned 16gb iPhone 4 will currently grab you about $280 where a perfect-conditioned iPhone 4 will get you as much as $360. The process takes about a week, and although you’re not getting as much money in the end it’s a great service if you don’t want to deal with a lot of hassle. You can have your payment delivered through Paypal among other methods, and you can also submit multiple items if you’re looking to get rid of a few more things while you’re at it.

SellYourMac.com

SellYourMac.com offers a similar service to Gazelle by letting you send in your old iPhone for payment with little to no hassle involved. In a nutshell, they’ll buy your old Mac or iOS device. You’re required to provide pictures along with a serial number next to your item description and condition. Once SellYourMac.com receives your iPhone they clean it, inspect it and verify that it’s in working condition before they turn around and sell it on eBay. Users can receive payment via Paypal and SellYourMac.com even says they give higher quotes than competing services like Gazelle, so you’ll definitely want to compare before making any final decisions.

Verizon Trade-in

Verizon is also offering an iPhone trade-in program for current AT&T corporate customers who want to switch over. Verizon is offering the following quotes for older iPhone hardward:

  • iPhone 2G – 16GB: $60
  • iPhone 3G – 16GB: $105
  • iPhone 3Gs 32GB: $160
  • iPhone 4- 16GB: $280
  • iPhone 4 – 32GB: $360

To the best of our knowledge Verizon hasn’t clarified if they’ll be making this service available to all AT&T subscribers or just to corporate customers, so make sure you give your Verizon rep a call to get more details on the incentive.

Bonus Tip: If you’re going with Craigslist or eBay, another tip worth mentioning is to include all packaging, cables and adapters if possible. If you have any extra cases or accessories you want to throw in the deal it can usually net you a higher selling price as a bundle instead of trying to sell them individually.

Now that the iPhone is finally on Verizon, the time to start planning on how to dump your old iPhone is now. So whether it’s eBay, Criagslist or any other method for selling your old AT&T iPhone we hope this article will help you along the way. As always, let us know if you have any questions or additional suggestions in the comments below!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it's especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we'll even give ya a reward…)

Daily Tip: How to sell your old AT&T iPhone after switching to Verizon is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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U.S. antitrust regulators looking into Apple’s new subscription service

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 04:52 AM PST

The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are starting to look into Apple’s new subscription service. Right now “looking into” the matter is as far as it goes and it may not ever develop into a formal investigation or any actions against Apple. The European Commission is also carefully monitoring the situation as well.

The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are looking to see if Apple’s new subscription service is in violation of any U.S. antitrust laws since it appears as if it is forcing the media companies’ customers into using iTunes as a payment service thus giving Apple a 30 percent profit cut for themselves. The other issue is that the publishers will not have the ability to link to outside sources for users to get their content and will also not be able to have different prices amongst the different sources for their content which could definitely pose antitrust problems for Apple.

Several executives from music streaming services have already commented stating the royalties they already pay to labels for their music and now having to pay Apple 30 percent for any subscriptions they sell is making for an anti-competitive environment and a poor business model. The problem there is that Apple only has a small portion of market share indicating that they are not the leader of an industry. The other issue is trying to figure out what percent would be appropriate as that can vary and can also become rather complex and authorities are not price regulators.

All-in-all Apple has stirred things up with their new policies and it doesn’t appear as if things will be simmering down any time in the near future. Apple has had issues in the past and ended up taking a step back as to not get further heat from authorities so it will be interesting to see if Apple sticks to their guns on this or if this look into their new service makes them take a step back and relax a little on their policy.

[ The Wall Street Journal ]

U.S. antitrust regulators looking into Apple’s new subscription service is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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New and updated iPhone and iPad apps for Friday, February 17

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 04:49 AM PST

Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you!

  • Tap-Translate: Get word translations while browsing with Apple’s official browser. [$1.99 - iTunes link]

  • AmpliTube: Connect your guitar to your iPhone and use this app as a mobile multi-effect processor and mobile recording studio. New update includes official Fender amp and stomp models via in-app purchase. Requires AmpliTube iRig. [$19.99, with in-app purchases - iTunes link]

  • TomTom U.S.A.: Updated to support the Verizon iPhone. [$34.99 - iTunes link]

  • Ms. PAC-MAN: The classic arcade game is now available on iPad! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

  • TripAdvisor Hotels Flights Restaurants: iPad version now has Go Before You Go: see a street-level view of your destination, plus nearby hotels, restaurants, and more. [Free - iTunes link]

Any other big apps or game releases or updates today? If you pick any of these up, let us know what you think!

New and updated iPhone and iPad apps for Friday, February 17 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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


iPhone Live 138: Nano a no no

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 08:11 PM PST

iPhone Live 138: Nano a no no

Rene and Georgia talk Verizon iPhone launch, battling TV commercials, iPhone 5 rumors, HPs new phones and Nokia’s burning platform, the greenpois0n Jailbreak, Angrier Birds, and we give away an iPhone! The is iPhone Live!

Show notes and all the week’s iPhone news after the break!

Announcements

Crazy Future iPhone rumors

More MobileMe

New App Store Subscriptions and Guidelines

iPhone News

Jailbreak

Tips and How to

Hosts

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPhone accessory store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

iPhone Live 138: Nano a no no is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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


iPhone to get cheaper, better voice control, better MobileMe — but nano a no go?

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 06:33 PM PST

iPhone to get cheaper, better voice control, better MobileMe -- but nano a no go?

The New York Times is weighing in on the previous rumors published by Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal saying Apple may working on less expensive device with better voice control and MobileMe, but not an iPhone nano.

Apple's engineers are currently focused on finishing the next version of the iPhone, which is likely to be similar in size to the current iPhone 4, said one of the people. The person said Apple was not planning to introduce a smaller iPhone any time soon. Analysts expect the new iPhone to be ready this summer.

Another person who is in direct contact with Apple also said that the company would not make a smaller iPhone at this time, in part because a smaller device would not necessarily be much cheaper to manufacture and because it would be more difficult to operate.

More important, a phone with a smaller screen would force many developers to rewrite their apps, which Apple wants to avoid, the person said.

An Apple executive reportedly also said it wouldn’t make sense to expand the iPhone family at this time, other than continuing the practice of dropping the price of the previous year’s model (like the $49 iPhone 3GS still available on AT&T). And that N97 code name reportedly for the iPhone nano? Yeah, the NYT says that was for the Verizon iPhone. (Daring Fireball previously said the Verizon iPhone was N92.)

The voice commands (possibly leveraging Siri artificial intelligence?) sound especially interesting as the article suggests they’ll be robust enough to replace virtual keyboards for some uses. Likewise, a more “versatile”, perhaps cheaper version of MobileMe could finally allow the iPhone to lose its iTunes tether.

Google’s Android platform has system-wide voice control and access to ever-growing, predominantly free Google services, so Apple will likely need to address that with iPhone 5 and iOS 5.

Anyone sad iPhone nano may not be a done deal? And does better voice control and MobileMe lessen the sting?

[MobileMe]

iPhone to get cheaper, better voice control, better MobileMe — but nano a no go? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Daily Tip: How to delete an iPhone or iPad app [Beginner]

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 06:20 PM PST

How to delete an iPhone or iPad app

Brand new to iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, downloaded a few apps and games, and curious how to delete the ones you no longer use? It may not be obvious at first but once you learn how, it’s really simple. We’ll show you after the break!

To delete an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad app:

  1. Touch and hold your finger down on the app until it goes into “Jiggly Mode” (starts to dance around).
  2. Look for the small X badge at the top left of the app you want to delete
  3. Tap the small X badge
  4. A dialog box will pop up identifying the name of the app you’re about to delete and warning you that you’ll delete all the data in the app as well (your account login, game progress, etc.)
  5. If you’re sure, tap Delete (if you’re not, tap Cancel)
  6. If you decide not to delete an app, tap the Home Button to exit Jiggly Mode

Jiggly mode

That’s it, your app is deleted! If you want to delete more apps, just tap their X badges in the same manner. Yes we know this tip is very basic but we need to help out new users too. If you want to flame us please sent the comments to chad.garrett@tipb.com. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it's especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we'll even give ya a reward…)

Daily Tip: How to delete an iPhone or iPad app [Beginner] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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