Colbert’s top threat of the week: killer iPhones. Solution: buy a Zune.
Filed under: Cellphones
Of course, it all seems so obvious now! How did we not interpret El Jobso’s true meaning of the iPhone kill-switch — it actually kills you. We have noted iPhone expert Stephen Colbert to thank not just for this brilliant deduction, but also for sticking up for the lot of us and giving the iPhone 3G a cold staredown — but not before declaring, “I knew I should have gotten a Zune! They can’t kill me… or do anything else.” Zing! Clip after the break (iPhone at 5:45).
[Thanks, Matt]
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iPhone mod turns the Apple logo into a mini-flashlight
Filed under: Cellphones
Sure, this video feels like it might veer into creepy snuff-film territory right at the beginning, but luckily it just reveals a fairly sweet looking iPhone mod. Apparently some Russian iPhone fans have replaced the regular, boring Apple logo on the back of an original iPhone with an eye-piercing, glowing version. There’s not a lot of detail on how this is done — and the video is in Russian — but the source link claims it’s just a matter of, “removing the aluminum ‘fruits’ and inserting the glowing ones.” We’ll see about that. Otherwise, check this similar step-by-step mod seen earlier. Eerie video included after the break.
Update: As commenters (and Croiman himself) have pointed out, this appears to be a boost of the impressive Croiman Psycho iPhone mod we saw back in April.
[Via Hack a Day]
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iPhone 3G reception woes unfixable? Maybe, maybe not
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Support forum threads on Apple’s site and a number of ramblings across these great interwebs are starting to complain at great length about the iPhone 3G’s headlining new feature — 3G reception, that is — and pretty much every aspect of it: signal strength, call dropping, connecting to EDGE when 3G is present, the list goes on. Some smartypants analyst from financial firm Nomura thinks he has it all figured out, saying that the issues are “typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack” and suggesting that a firmware update pushed out to existing handsets is unlikely to ease the pain. We’ve been hearing that Cupertino could actually be working on just such an update at this very second, though, so this cat better get ready for the possibility that he could be eating his own words down the road. For what it’s worth, intermittent issues have been reported the world over, so this doesn’t seem to be anything to do with AT&T’s (or anyone else’s) infrastructure — and needless to say, not everyone is having issues to start. And for anyone whose iPhone 3G we just jinxed by writing this post… well, our bad.
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AT&T now hawking iPhone 3Gs online to biz customers
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
If you’re fortunate enough to have access to a Premier (business, that is) account with AT&T, you’re now able to forgo the charade of meandering down to your local store to buy — or place an order for, more likely — the iPhone 3G. All three varieties of the best cellphone Apple makes are now available directly through the carrier’s B2B online store for the usual $199 / $299 pricing scale; if we had to guess, it’s just a matter of time before they’ll throw the doors open to the riff raff (read: us), too. We’ll drink to that.
[Thanks, Vasudev R.]
Update: We touched base with AT&T, and it looks like the real news here is that Premier account holders who pay their own bills now have access to the iPhone 3G online, whereas before, only those whose bills were covered by their companies had access. The more, the merrier!
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Best Buy to sell iPhone 3G starting next month
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
And now for the irony: it’ll be no better a buy than what you can find at ye olde Apple or AT&T store. Best Buy officially becomes the first third-party retailer in the US to sell the iPhone in an official capacity — 3G or otherwise — when it launches the iPhone 3G in some 970 stores plus an additional 18 dedicated Mobile locations on September 7 for the same $199 and $299 price points found elsewhere. Quoth Best Buy Mobile’s CEO, “We had a lot of work to do, obviously, to get in a position where Apple and AT&T
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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Raging Thunder in the App Store
Filed under: Gaming, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
We’ve come full circle on the Thunder that Rages — after first releasing their game on a jailbroken iPhone, and then switching off to do a Crash Kart game, developer Polarbit has now brought it out onto the official store for release. It rings in at a relatively pricey $7.99, but it does look terrific with a little physics built in and (and here’s the kicker) features WiFi multiplayer (Polarbit said they were working on it in our interview with them a while back). Multiplayer is one place that iPhone games haven’t quite reached their potential yet, and if Raging Thunder delivers as nice a multiplayer experience as it claims to, it’s worth the price of admission.
Once again, this is a title that could definitely use a demo, but if you’re already sold, you know the drill: hit up the App Store, download away, and use the accelerometer to race off into the Raging Thunder.
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First Look: Equivalence for iPhone
Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
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Keeping with the famous science teacher saying of “every number must have a unit,” Equivalence (iTunes link) is the one-stop converter for all things units. Did we say “one-stop?” Why yes we did, because Equivalence can convert between over 260 units in 31 categories.
Once of the nice features of Equivalence is the ability for the application to auto update the unit conversions over the air, instead of through the App Store. So, if the developer decides to add a unit, or if a unit were to change, updates could get pushed out to the application.
The beauty of this application is when you flip your iPhone into landscape mode. Just like the built-in iPhone calculator, this application adds much more functionality when horizontal, including a calculator that can add units together.
Bottom line: This is the best unit converter for the iPhone, hands-down. Be sure to take a look at our gallery of Equivalence screenshots. You can buy Equivalence from the iTunes App Store for $4.99 (US).
Update: The developer has dropped us an email to let us know about a special promotion. Equivalence will sell on the App Store for $1.99 until October 6th. The pricing changes have already been submitted to Apple for approval and should appear soon. Also, we have added two new screenshots in the gallery showing off the landscape mode in Equivalence.
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First Look: Cosmovox, an iPhone instrument
Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Reviews, iPhone
Cosmovox by Leisuresonic is an intriguing iPhone app; the kind of app which immediately looks appealing to me. Essentially, it’s a theremin hopped up on music-theory steroids. While it does a decent job of emulating first-gen Star Trek sounds — using the iPhone’s accelerometer to translate vertical rotation into pitch with a continuous tone — it ups the ante with a very complete set of scales: Major, Minor, Harmonic Minor, Major Bitonal, Pentatonic … even heading East a bit to Okinawa and Hirajoshi (in case you want to play a digital koto) scales. All total, there are over 30 scales available, as well as a set of controls for adjusting modulation, beating, vibrato and doing other fine-tuning.
Here’s the thing, though. It’s a lot of fun to play with by itself, and my head immediately filled with ideas for incorporating the sound into a composition. I was going to make a video demonstration with a breakbeat and B4 accompaniment, but try as I may, I found it too difficult to really make music with it. I attribute this in large part to a lack of practice and, quite possibly, skill; I can find my way around an array of instruments but this one is truly a challenge. For as simple as it seems once you set the scale (you can’t play a wrong note, right?), attaining any kind of consistent melody or rhythm can be an uphill struggle. The best results I got were from layering Cosmovox tracks (recorded through a microphone, Cosmovox has no built-in recording abilities) with other Cosmovox tracks and chopping them up in post to cut out the mistakes. Thus, my efforts yielded no (bearable) movie. The demo video in the FAQ is far more impressive than my feeble attempts anyway.
My thoughts: Cosmovox is a fun app for musicians of any caliber, with a far-reaching landscape of space-age sounds to explore. If I can find the free time, I’m hoping that enough practice will allow me to do with it what — at this point — only my imagination is capable of.
Last I checked, Cosmovox was only $1.99USD at the App Store. A more-than-fair price for hours of wavering, warbling fun. Beyond its practical applications, it makes a great soundtrack for any occasion which kicks off with the words, “Captain’s log: Stardate … ,” too.
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iPhone USB adapter recall announced
If you think that your iPhone’s ultracompact USB power adapter is the coolest thing around, think again; Apple has announced an exchange program for the teensy wonders, as apparently they have a very infrequent habit of prong-snapping, leading to a risk of fire. Check to see if your adapter has a green dot like the one pictured here; if so it is already up-to-date and does not need replacement.
You can get details on the exchange program from Apple’s site or in the 2nd half of this post. Exchanges begin on October 10, both online and in person at Apple retail stores. Be careful out there.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
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iPhone Safe Mode: Who knew?
Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone
What happens when you set your jailbroken iPhone to “fast respring” (that is, turn on one of the SpringBoard relaunching options) via BossTool, and SpringBoard crashes? Safe mode, apparently. Who knew that Safe Mode even existed on the iPhone? I certainly didn’t until TUAW reader Max S. sent in the pictures below.
Safe Mode apparently disables certain system extensions. You can get out of safe mode by rebooting. So let’s see, a blue screen of doom and safe mode. Hmmm. I thought this phone was manufactured by Apple. Where’s Seinfeld?
Anyway, this isn’t the first time the topic of iPhone’s Safe Mode has come up. I googled up this Austrian page and a few other hits — most of which seemed to appear in September of 2008, after the recent firmware upgrade.
Know anything about Safe Mode and the iPhone? Drop a comment and tell us more.
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Update: Readers do know more! They point out that this is a Winterboard feature and not part of Apple’s firmware.
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