News and tips on the iPhone

Good version of a classic game. You can play against the computer with varying levels of skills.

http://www.metasparcsw.com/c4/c4.html

Google have released an updated interface designed specifically for the iPhone. Just point safari to http://www.google.com/m

The updated interface is faster and much easier to navigate (via touch).

The different types of applications (games, tools, etc) available for the iphone can get a little confusing, so I thought I’d clear it all up a little.

The first type of application is the System Installed App. These are installed by Apple by default on the phone and will always appear. Things like Safari (the web browser), YouTube and Mail. These are probably the applications you’ll use the most. Installed Applications run “inside” your phone and therefore run faster, have access to your phone’s data (address book etc) and can do things with your hardware (like the camera).

The second application type is a Web App. This is just a web page; like any other page you would normally access on the internet using a PC. You’ll often see the term Web App and Web Site used interchangeably, but basically an “App” tends to be more functional (like a game) and a “Site” is more just content. It’s a blurry line though.

Some Web Apps/Sites have been modified to suit the small screen size on the iPhone. Often these will be alternate versions of web sites. A great example to try is: http://iphone.facebook.com. You’ll notice the interface is substantially different to the normal Facebook site, and is much easier to use from an iPhone. (Some people actually use the iPhone version of Facebook on their computers because it’s so much faster.)

Web Apps have little or no access to your phone’s hardware (this may change in the future) and are somewhat limited by what you can do with a browser, so Installed Applications will tend to do a bit more, and do it faster. Accessing a Web App is as easy as opening Safari and navigating to the site.

The third type of application you can get is a Third-Party Installed Application (Third Party Apps for short). These are applications you install on the phone (Installed Apps) but are not provided by Apple. Right now the iPhone does NOT officially support any applications not developed by Apple. They say this is due to quality control (keeping your iPhone clean of nasty applications) but this hasn’t really been an issue with other phone platforms (like Windows Mobile), so the argument is a little cheap. Apple are planning on letting third-party applications be provided (through Apple certification channels like iTunes) sometime early in 2008. There will be an explosion of apps available once they do that, and all the big application developers will be converting their popular content over to suit the iPhone.

In the mean time you can install third-party applications using a method called “Jail Breaking”. This basically means installed software on your iPhone that breaks it out of Apple “jail”. Once you install the software you can then add your own applications – the software includes a directory of applications you can install. This used to be an easy process, but with the latest firmware update on the iPhone (v1.1.2). The process has gotten harder (here’s a good guide if you want to give it a go).

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson confirmed what everybody has been speculated, a 3G iPhone will be released “next year”. The assumption would have to be in Q1, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet.

So why do you care about “3G”? well, it’s all about speed. Downloading web pages on the iPhone over the current “2G” AT&T Edge network is about 1/10th of the speed of “3G”, so the difference is big; really big.

The only issue is going to be battery life — 3G sucks serious power. My other phone (an HTC Kaiser) is 3G and under heavy browsing will run down in a few hours. Let’s see if the wizs at Apple can do better.

The decidedly simple white of Apple products was once a sign of cool, but has it become so common its almost the new beige?

ColorWare transforms your white iPhone into a colorful beauty. Not a bad idea if you want your iPhone to be even more of a fashion statement then it already is.

The best thing about having an iPhone would be the applications you can use on it.

Here’s one that I thought was particularly cool – the Gameboy Emulator. Apparently ZodTTD just released a Gameboy Emulator that would let you play Gameboy games on the iPhone.

You’d have to supply your own BIOS and games in ROM, so it does sound like one for the advanced user. But still, how cool is that! Can’t wait to try this out!

Here’s a Battle Ship clone if you’re a fan of the game. This one is pretty cool because it’s multiplayer. Even has chat.

Here’s a good one. Point your browser on the iPhone to http://www.cellfire.com and you’ll be able to see a bunch of recent coupon offers. Find one that matches what you’re buying and you can just being it up on your phone and show it too the salesperson.

Is the iPhone scratch proof? In the PC World article How Tough is The iPhone the iPhone is put through a series of tests to see how it holds up. It is placed in a zip log bag alongside keys and other articles. It gets shaken up, rubbed up against the keys, it even gets a key scratched hard on its glass surface. If that is not enough, it then gets dropped onto several different types of surfaces. The iPhone amazingly passes these tests. The glass screen emerges with its screen in pristine condition, no scratches! The metal case gets banged up a bit on the drops but that’s about all – “...don’t need to coddle it like a baby…” – WOW!

But for those of us who suffer from Scratch-O-Phobia and are not convinced by the above tests, there is a product available- The Invisible Shield. Its made of a military grade translucent urethane which was originally developed to protect helicopter blades from wear and tear. The Invisible Shield coats most handheld devices(iPhone included) and comes with a lifetime guarantee. Sounds like a product worthy of the iPhone!

For anybody waiting for Google’s answer to the iPhone there was some news today, but it wasn’t a device being announced. Google “I’m more open than you” Inc. announced Android, an open platform for mobile devices to simplify application development.Android promises to complete what J2ME started, but more or less failed to deliver. Be a standard interface developers can use to create applications — reminds me a little of what BluePulse was attempting until they became a social network.

So is this cool? Well, yeah. It is. We can do a lot more with software for our phones, but development costs and proprietary APIs really hamper development of cool apps. If Android catches on it will seriously dent dev time, and that means more apps on more phones with more features.Google has a battle on its hands though. Sun is tight with the manufactures, and people like Apple, Nokia, Motorola and Samsung have massive investments in their systems and software. Google already have deals with HTC, so there should be plenty of hardware soon, just not sure enough to entice lots of app developers over. We’ll see.