While the iPad won’t sport much more than a dock connector for interfacing with other devices, that dock connector may be pretty flexible. In addition to the obvious use for syncing iTunes media to and from a Mac, Apple will offer numerous adapters. For instance, there will be a camera “kit” consisting of an SD and USB adapter, presumably to download pics and videos without having to get a Mac. This means that on-release, the iPad will have access to external media, as well as an external keyboard, all via the dock connector.

The obvious question is whether external storage access will be extremely limited. We guess it will be, but if the iPad could write to external storage devices, that would open a whole new world of possibilities for the device, making it ever-so more versatile. Otherwise, the iPad relies exclusively on networking to transfer files to and fro. There are other interesting possibilities for future accessories, however, which could leverage the USB adapter, or otherwise leverage the 30-pin iPod dock connector. Two such examples follow.

iSight, anyone?

One of the disappointments people have with the iPad is the lack of a front-facing camera. Some will remember that PowerBooks didn’t have iSight cameras embedded in the display frame, but that the original iSight form factor was rather large, and slide onto a laptop via a plastic attachment. These iSights sold for over $75 on release, and releasing a new, smaller version, is a financially considerate move for Apple, who may not want to tack on more money to the iPad’s currently alluring price-tag.

We can see Apple releasing an iSight attachment to the iPad later this year, or early next year, once the mobile version of OS X is more mature, and when its distribution includes a mobile iChat application. The camera could simply orient itself to however the iPad is positioned, and potentially, this attachment could be used on the iPhone and iPod Touch as well, since the connector is the same. Releasing such an iSight would allow it to be used on all mobile Apple devices, and test the popularity of video conferencing on mobile devices before Apple decides to include it in a later iPad revision. In the meantime, the fact that the iSight remains an out-of-box option for the MacBook lineup serves as just another example as to how the iPad fills a category between the iPhone/iPod Touch and the MacBook line.

Drawing tablets.

Apple’s demo of the redesigned Brushes app made for a great presentation, but for many artists, the feel of a pen/brush, along with pressure sensitivity, is important. There’s a clear market for drawing tablets out there, which is why Wacom products sit in every Apple store we’ve ever stepped in. If such tablets could be used with an iPad, we could certainly see many artists jumping on board Apple’s new product niche, as the portability of such a canvas, with a drawing interface aimed at the more artistic crowd, makes for a solid combination. Rather than sitting in front of a computer at one’s desk, artists could bring their iPad/tablet combination outside, to practically anywhere, and expect amazing battery life in a more inspiring location.

Understandably, Apple is all about pushing multitouch, but there’s no reason that the two input mechanisms can’t go hand-in-hand. Literally smudge paint with one’s fingers, but finely draw lines via the tablet, in a more controlled and usual fashion that many artists are used to. Turn the iPad as though manually plopping a canvas on its side, and continue working with virtual brush. Even as non-artists, we find the prospect enticing.Similar Posts:

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With word-on-the-street that the iTablet will emerge from the Pandora’s Box that is Apple’s campus later today, and with all signs pointing towards the iTablet leveraging the iPhone’s version of OS X (and with it, the AppStore), it makes sense to identify apps that no iPhone user should be without. That is to say, must-have apps for the iPhone could very well become must-have apps for the iTablet as well, so it’s high-time that we updated our ongoing iPhone compilation.

Perhaps the most important change to this update of mendax.iphone is clarifying its audience. Before, we included most apps that resided on our iPhone, with the exceptions being apps very specific to our personal needs. The change we’re making with this updated compilation is in removing niche apps, and focusing on daily use. The change is a practical one; our iPhone includes a hodge-podge of apps that simply aren’t useful for everyone. Our goal with this revision is to tailor our recommendations to the average iPhone user, whereby “average” we include not only non-nerds, but some overlap with more geeky computer users who can benefit from some of the more advanced features some of the compilation’s components offer. The name change also opens the possibility of us focusing in on niche app markets for future updates (i.e. creating a mendax.iphone section for photo apps, or games).

The (major) revision coincidentally lets us drop a “3.0″ title to the compilation, mirroring the general release number for the current iPhone OS. We may or may not stick with mirroring the major revision numbers for iPhone OS releases, but we’re fond of the coincidence at the moment. If we do stick with it, it conveniently gives us time to evaluate new apps for inclusion at fairly regular intervals.

One last note is our philosophy on the compilation in general. Our goal is not to list every great or even well done app for the daily user. We’re minimalists at heart, so rather than list three apps that do different things extremely well, we’d rather list one app that does the same thing only fairly well. In other words, we’d prefer to have less apps on the springboard, even if it means that we don’t get the absolute best experience in one particular area. There may be exceptions to this rule from time to time, but regardless, we won’t list bad apps just for the sake of minimalism; we lean towards minimalism, but still seek to offer an above-average user experience.

So let’s take a look at what’s changed.

AppStore apps we decided to get rid of.

We removed some apps in the 3.0 mendax.iphone revision, because their functionality now exists in other apps, else we no longer think they’re that great in the first place. For example, we removed the Flashlight app, as we found launching it cumbersome when wanting, say, a quick red light, as the app wasn’t used enough to reside on our home screen, and even then, the bright flash of the home screen itself was adequate for most uses, and distractive if we then followed up with our intended red light for low-light reading use. In the rare cases where the home screen itself wasn’t bright enough, launching any app with a predominantly white screen/background worked just as well, and didn’t take up a valuable springboard icon slot.

DVR Remote was taken off our iPhone as well, since there’s a basic DVR remote built into i.TV now. i.TV isn’t as good as the many applications it’s replaced, but the fact that it does so much by itself is impressive. With Backgrounder enabled for i.TV when we’re home, it’s easy to jump over to the remote when we need it, instead of digging through sub-menus every time we launch i.TV just to get to the remote. Ideally, i.TV would make the remote feature easier to get to, but it’s fine for the limited use it gets at home.

We pulled HearPlanet from our lineup because we rarely used it. Maybe the paid-for versions are better, and we still recommend the free version if you’re in avid tourist-mode, but for daily applications, it’s not a must-have app. We pulled Urbanspoon also, because even though it’s a nice novelty, especially when trolling the same-old neighborhoods, we’re just as happy with Yelp, which does more even though it’s not necessarily the most elegant random-food-spot-finder. Both of these apps would be good nominations for a future iPhone tourist app section, however.

The MySpace app got the boot because, quite frankly, almost everyone worthwhile has moved onto Facebook, and keeping up with two social networks seemed pointless, especially when one of them is quite clearly dying. We also found the Weather Channel app nice, but ultimately rarely launched it; even though the built-in weather app was spartan in comparison, we rarely found the need for an in-depth weather forecast.

The AppStore apps we replaced.

With this 3.0 release, we replaced 1Password with 1Password Pro, though at the very least, we still recommend its non-Pro sibling. The application, primarily because of its ability to sync with the desktop component, is a fantastic tool not only for holding various online logins, but to securely keep track of all the various OS X licenses one has purchased, as well as the miscellaneous wallet items regularly filling up one’s, well, wallet.

We’ve temporarily replaced Air Sharing for Air Sharing Pro. The latter can handle larger PDF files, and has built-in FTP capabilities in case you need it.

The 2.0 version of our compilation included iHandy Level, but we’ve since upgraded that to the full iHandy Carpenter suite. In truth, we mostly only use the level and ruler components, but the other tools are nice to have in the rare situations we need them.

SnapTell, while quite awesome, is an app we replaced with Red Laser. It’s just way easier to scan barcodes than book covers, and Red Laser lets us look up items that aren’t books and movies, which has made it a much better shopping companion than SnapTell.

While we were fans of TwitterFon (now EchoFon) in the past, we spent some time evaluating paid Twitter clients, as ads in some of the free apps were becoming distracting. We used Twittelator Pro for some time, but eventually landed on Tweetie (and later Tweetie 2), and haven’t looked back since. We still recommend Twittelator Pro if one wants every feature known to man, but for slightly above-average features and a much nicer user experience, Tweetie 2 simply beats other iPhone Twitter clients within an inch of their digital lives.

The AppStore apps we added.

While we used to look up unit conversions using Google, there were times that we couldn’t, on account of not having any cellular access in certain locations, like in the back of our local grocery store. We looked into the various unit conversion apps, and Convertbot stood out. It sports a very nice UI, and has a pretty complete set of units to convert to and from.

We used Air Sharing for some time to view PDF files, but then the app crashed on some of our larger files. We found that because Air Sharing (and its Pro version) render the full PDF file at one time, it’s more limited by file sizes. So, we picked up Good Reader, which is designed to display much larger PDF files, because it only renders one page at a time. It also has more reader-friendly options than Air Sharing, so compliments Air Sharing nicely.

While Red Laser meets our price-comparison expectations well, we picked up Good Guide to scan barcodes and get product information. For example, one can scan an item to find out how ethical the respective company is, or how healthy the product is. Great for comparing items in one’s local grocery store without having to compare the often misleading nutrition information.

As Starbucks drinkers, we picked up Mobile Card, which lets us reload our Starbucks card of choice, and keep tabs on what the current balance is. When heading west, we can even pay for our drinks at some stores via the iPhone alone.

Finally, we have myWireless, which is AT&T’s auditing tool for looking at how many minutes were used on your iPhone plan. Also lets you check data use, et al. Also, you can pay your monthly bill, so for everyone not jailbroken and using T-Mobile, this app is quite handy.

Cydia apps we decided to get rid of.

We decided to dump categories after we started using the left-of-homescreen text-entry method of launching apps buried multiple right-finger-slides over. Categories is definitely useful in concept, but it still leaves something to be desired, and maybe that’s just a matter of better integration with the OS, which is likely not possible. It’s still a great app launcher but it’s simply caused us too many problems in the past to have to set up again and again.

While Winterboard is still the best customization app for springboard, we found actual customization arduous, since no theme has icons for every app out there, and such app icons tend to jibe with a theme’s atmosphere. Overall, still a great app, just not one we consider “must-have” anymore.

Cydia apps we added.

Not liking the fact that we couldn’t download files larger than 10MB via 3G/EDGE, we picked up 3G Unrestrictor, which tricks apps into thinking they’re on wifi. Great for downloading apps and podcasts while on the road.

Unsatisfied that Apple still hasn’t approved a Google Voice app, we grabbed GV Mobile to take care of out virtual-phone-number needs.

Finally, to compliment Backgrounder, we grabbed ProSwitcher, which makes switching between apps easy and intuitive, without us having to jump back and forth to the springboard.

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People love to complain, and we think half of it is due to laziness. Or incompetence. And with the iPhone, it’s no different. Take MMS for example: thousands claimed it was silly for the iPhone not to support it, but we disagreed. MMS is an outdated technology for which there are plenty of modern-day solutions, ranging from e-mail to Twitter. To rely on yet another protocol for sharing multimedia, when more reliable solutions exist, is nonsense. With rock-solid Twitter integration thanks to the dozens of Twitter apps on the AppStore, we barely find a need for SMS anymore, let alone it’s bigger cousin. Never mind the fact that e-mail works just as well for sharing multimedia.

But then there’s Flash, arguments for which are even more ridiculous. Who needs Flash on their iPhone? Yes, some sites aren’t non-Flash friendly, and therefore can’t be browsed via Mobile Safari, but that’s less Apple’s fault, and more the fault of web developers who decide to use Flash instead of other, more accepted (and open) technologies. It’s not like Flash was always viewable from every browser anyway, so why do people argue that the iPhone should suddenly adopt Flash as a sort of multimedia standard? Even dismissing arguments about how Flash is burdensome on one’s CPU and battery, there remains the obvious distaste for a third-party plugin that’s not friendly to industry-wide standards.

What Flash is, is a luxury. A luxury you get to have if you’re on a system not constrained by smaller processors and batteries. A luxury you get when you don’t care about a common user interface for your apps, because you’re not using a heavily-integrated phone-computer. And that luxury is not a right just because a bunch of lazy developers refuse to use more modern technologies to reproduce the output of a commercial Adobe product.

What people should be complaining about is not that the iPhone doesn’t support Flash, but that some sites are developed in Flash in the first place.
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Since we picked up an iPhone 3GS a couple months back, our jailbroken/unlocked 2G iPhone has been sitting on a shelf collecting dust, as though a forgotten relic in the battle against Big Apple. Now forced to use AT&T, which drops calls at an alarming rate compared to our experience with the 2G iPhone on T-Mobile, we’re still happy with our service overall, if only because the iPhone user experience, occasional dropped call or not, is still better than using any other cellular phone in the United States. Yes, that’s how great the iPhone 3GS is, and why Apple’s market dominance in this area continues to swell.

That said, the iPhone isn’t perfect, and one of the imperfect things about it is the fact that Big Apple is doing its damndest to keep the iPhone user experience consistent, and in doing so, limiting the types of applications that developers can release in the AppStore. Now, admittedly, the need to jailbreak an iPhone in order to run third-party “homebrew” applications is no longer what it was when we first decided to hack our 2G iPhone two years ago. Quite simply, the AppStore has evolved into a pretty nice store, with a great selection of apps that do most everything we need to. And where it doesn’t offer a particular app that we’d like it to, in most every case, that kind of app isn’t available in Cydia either. That is, except for three that we consider must-haves, two of which we mentioned in our mendax.iphone article. Specifically, we’re talking about Backgrounder (which lets us run any application in the background), SBSettings (a quick way to toggle settings on/off), and the more recent GV Mobile (the infamous Google Voice client).

While our experience using GV Mobile hasn’t been flawless (the app crashes consistently when changing forwarding numbers), an update is on its way. With no word on whether Apple will ultimately approve or deny the official Google Voice app, GV Mobile is our only hope for using Google Voice on our iPhone today. Having access to SBSettings again is a fresh walk down memory lane, and significantly reduces the need for us to jump into Settings to enter airplane mode, as we can now easily turn off select services when we need to save some battery life. Plus, we can now disable everything except wireless, which is nice if we want to use, say, Virgin America’s in-flight wireless (even though, realistically, we’ll almost always have our MacBook Pro with us for such trips). But Backgrounder, assuming it works as well as it did on our 2G iPhone, is the cornerstone of the must-have jailbreak scene. Finally, we can keep Pandora running while switching to Google Maps (or a GPS application), or keep active any other audio programs while fiddling with whatever other apps we need to.

But enough about why we decided to jailbreak again. Let’s get back to how. While the process for jailbreaking is amazingly easy these days for older iPhones, the 3GS has been a different story. Until very recently, jailbreaking tools developed by the iPhone Dev-Team didn’t work on the 3GS. Even now that they do, how to upgrade a non-jailbroken 3.0.x iPhone 3GS to 3.1 and put a jailbreak in place isn’t a solution readily advertised. Even the guides at iClarified aren’t entirely accurate. After spending too many hours this past weekend figuring it all out, it’s time to share our procedure.

1. Obviously, back up your iPhone and sync it with iTunes before you begin.
2. If you haven’t already, download the 3.1 iPhone update via iTunes, but don’t install it.
3. If you no longer have it, download the 3.0.0 iPhone update. The iClarified guide says you can alternately use the 3.0.1 update, but it did not work for us.
4. Jump into a terminal window, and type the following commands:

   cd /etc/
   sudo pico hosts

   You’ll have to input your admin password at this point, after which you’ll be in a simple text editor window. Use the arrow keys to get down to the bottom of the document, and add the following line at the end:

   74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com

   Hit Ctrl+X to exit, press Y to save, and hit return to overwrite the old hosts file. What this step does is redirect iTunes to a jailbreak-friendly server for firmware updates, instead of relying on Apple’s servers to control which firmware updates you’re allowed to receive and use on the iPhone.

5. Download redsn0w v0.8 and run it. You’ll be prompted for the 3.0 firmware file. Follow the prompts, and at the end of the redsn0w process, you’ll have a jailbroken 3.0.0 iPhone 3GS.
6. Now, download PwnageTool 3.1.3. Run it, and click on the expert mode icon. Select the 3GS icon, and proceed with the program. Make sure the program uses the 3.1 firmware update. Refer to Step Six of this second iClarified guide. If you are an AT&T subscriber, ensure that “Activate the phone.” remains unchecked. If you check this box, you will be unable to get new carrier settings from iTunes. Also, it’s not likely that you need to mess with the partition size, so don’t worry about it.
7. You can follow the rest of the iClarified guide, but don’t worry about putting your iPhone in restore mode. Instead, once PwnageTool is done and has output a custom 3.1 firmware package, jump into iTunes, hold down the option key, and click on the Restore button from the iPhone screen. You will be prompted for a firmware update: choose the custom firmware file, and let iTunes do the rest. When your iPhone finally reboots, it will be jailbroken, and Cydia/Icy will be installed.
8. You can now sync the phone from your last backup to restore all your old apps and such. You’ll also be prompted for the 5.5 AT&T carrier file, which you’ll need to install to enable MMS.

At this point, you’ll have a fully-jailbroken iPhone 3GS running at the latest firmware revision. Jump into Cydia and install jailbroken apps to your hearts content!Similar Posts:

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There’s a special place in Hell for those who destroy good lore. Sure, some lore tweaks are necessary now again just to keep a back-story consistent, and fluff moving in the right direction. Yet some designers, like George Lucas, take things too far when they butcher Star Wars by introducing midichlorians and other such nonsense. Yet we forgive even some grievances, like when Blizzard decided to arbitrarily split races in the World of Warcraft along rigid lines of Alliance versus Horde. Sure, they put the usually-peaceful Tauren up against the similarly nature-loving Night Elves, but made up for it by making a druidic stronghold where both races got along peacefully. But then Blizzard did very little with actual factional warfare, so like many other things WoW, the whole idea went to shit fairly quickly.

Let’s be honest: Blizzard ignoring good lore has become ever more frequent over time, to the point where we seriously wonder whether Azeroth will just be one big hodge-podge of confused races and classes, where no one is truly unique anymore because being different is bad, even if it’s only bad because the game’s developers can’t figure out a good way to balance things effectively. Look what happened to the only two classes unique to the respective factions upon WoW’s release: by the time WoW’s first expansion came along, Paladins were offered to the Horde, and Shamans to the Alliance. One of these we could have argued as reasonable, but bringing a holy order to the typically shamanistic Horde?

There’s clearly a lack of communication between those who developed WoW’s fluff, and who’s making the game’s design decisions today. Maybe that’s because many of WoW’s original developers are no longer with Blizzard, or maybe it’s because the company has just “sold out”. But clearly, there’s a discrepancy between what’s sensical in-character, and what changes have been made merely to keep millions of subscribers hooked to a grindy enterprise, particularly when any semblance of perpetuity of a character is thrown asunder when paid character modifications result in race, faction, and aesthetic changes. Simply put, a character rolled in 2004 may look totally different today, with the only consistent factor being class, and the role of that class may have changed over the years as well.

So what’s bugging us this time around? Well, with the Cataclysm expansion announced, Blizzard is adding two new races to WoW: Goblins for Horde, and Worgen for Alliance. We’ll even disregard any objections to these inclusions by the truly hardcore lore zealots, but instead move directly on to class/race combinations. When we began writing this, we thought we’d do a run-down of every class and prod at the allowable races upon Cataclysm’s launch, but that exercise quickly became too painful to finish. But we’ll still mention some highlights, just to illustrate the sheer stupidity of it all.

• Everyone can be a Death Knight. Nice, dumb precedent, Blizzie.
• The Undead now commune with the animal kingdom. Undead druids next?
• Holy Cows. LOL.

On the one hand, we can now create guilds based almost entirely on one race, though arguably that was doable before. So that leaves us with the other hand, which points at the same old sad story of Blizzard watering down WoW in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Five years ago, not only was WoW a well-polished DIKU, but it was a well-polished DIKU with unique toons, limited by their choice of race, class, and spec, not to mention slight aesthetic tweaks. Today, everyone of a given class is practically the same, with some racials no longer being unique (ala the Priest racials), and players able to settle on easy race decisions because there are too many race options for most classes. Compounded with the fact that existing players can funnel funds from WoW’s broken economy to new toons for an enormous advantage over new or returning players, and the stage is set for the casual WoW player (“the grinder”) to have too much say in WoW’s continued development. Never mind that dual-specs further water-down the character building process.

It’s sad, really, because while Cataclysm is a snazzy attraction to everyone who’s played WoW before thanks to the focus on “evolving” old lands, WoW as a whole is still on the slippery slope to trashville. It’s like the X-Files of the video game world, with a strong start, a great following, and an ultimate decline into obscurity.Similar Posts:

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The iPhone dramarama wheel landed on Tweetie 2 recently, to the tone of much annoyance regarding the fact that the Tweetie 2 upgrade won’t be free to existing iPhone Tweetie users. That is to say, Tweetie 2 is a totally different program than Tweetie, and as such, will require another $3 purchase for those who want to use the latest Tweetie version. That’s not to say that users of Tweetie will be incapable of still using their Twitter client of choice, merely that the developer, atebits, will clearly be focusing on Tweetie 2 users rather than spending most of their time addressing problems with Tweetie “1″. So naturally, buyers of Tweetie may be a little peeved, since they feel neglected and betrayed, particularly when atebits could offer a discount to existing Tweetie users, or even simpler, make Tweetie 2 a free upgrade instead of a new app (albeit at the cost of atebit’s development time).

Perhaps the hoopla is mainly grounded in the naming of Tweetie 2. Clearly, atebits wants to capitalize on the success of Tweetie, though naming Tweetie 2 something different may not have gotten everone as riled up, since a clearer line would be drawn in the sand. After all, it’d be easier to convince people to buy a new Twitter client than a newer version of a client they already paid for. Sure, the argument against a sense-of-entitlement is a simple one to make: atebits clearly spent a lot of time building Tweetie 2 from the ground up, and as a business, they wants to make money where they can (and not where they can’t, thus the continued free-ness of Tweetie for OS X).

And maybe that’s where the second problem lies: blame it on self-entitlement or not, there’s a reason many Tweetie users are upset: the precedent for major upgrades to iPhone apps (as well as software like Tweetie for OS X), at no cost to previous buyers, was set long ago. Developers of apps like Twittelator Pro, for example, have added just as many features as Tweetie 2 will offer, and arguments of Tweetie 2’s superior useability aside, there are many other apps that have offered iterative, substantial updates over time, at an arguable loss to the developers who continue supporting purchases long after they were made. Now that’s no fault of atebits: they’re clearly trying to break free from the way things are generally being done on the AppStore, in such a way that they can afford to work on iPhone apps full-time, whereas many other developers may simply be working on their apps as a side-job. Neither way is inherently right, it’s just that Tweetie users are used to things moving in a direction that favors their AppStore expenditures.

It’s really not a matter of having to shell out a whole $3 more just for the update. We’d argue that if atebits made Tweetie 2 a free upgrade and kept certain features unlockable only through in-app purchases, that they could more easily convince many dissenters to spend that $3 for fancy new features. But instead, they made a new app, which will probably earn atebits a few more bucks in the long-run (since in-app purchases generally make less than stand-alone products), and though that’s certainly a valid move for a business trying to make some extra moolah, it somehow feels wrong, as though atebits is not being honest to consumers. That’s especially true for people who buy Tweetie today, only to find that their purchase will barely be supported once Tweetie 2 comes out.

So the hoopla is an emotional reaction to a problem not with atebits, but the AppStore process, highlighting yet another deficiency with the AppStore’s mechanism for enabling long-term application support by developers who make a living writing, and maintaining, iPhone apps. The only real fault we can find with atebits is not using the in-app purchase mechanism to support the transition from Tweetie to Tweetie 2, but maybe there’s a legitimate reason that atebits couldn’t go that route. (Any developers want to comment on this?)

Ultimately, if Tweetie 2 offers the same features as Twittelator Pro (with TweetPress support for WordPress), we’ll probably drop another $3, knowing full well that that $3 we spent earlier was effectively thrown away (Tweetie offered too little functionality by the time we picked it up). What we don’t want to see is this kind of practice being repeated again and again, however. Rather, if there’s an obstacle to using in-app purchases to charge for major iPhone app revisions, then Apple needs to address this issue pronto, else this won’t be the first time that app buyers get all up-in-arms over the Tweetie 2 upgrade process. As it stands, the process not only angers consumers, but negatively affects app developers also.

09/30/2009 Update: According to atebit’s response to an inquiry by The iPhone Blog, the in-app mechanism wasn’t appropriate.

If all I were adding were features, then the in-app purchase route would have been an option (but then again, if all I were offering were features, I’d probably release it as a free update). Tweetie 2 is a fresh start, 100% rewritten, shares no code with the original . The only thing they have in common is the name.

That doesn’t entirely answer our question though. Does Apple require a minimum amount of code to be the same between app updates? If not, then Tweetie 2 could have new features enabled with an in-app purchase, despite it being rewritten from the ground-up. Aside from the extra development time needed to include the in-app purchase functionality, is there an Apple-imposed obstacle here?Similar Posts:

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Now that iPhone OS 3.0 is out, with better support for bluetooth accessory access, it’s time we start seeing some nice accessories to make our iPhone-using experience even better. Sure, we already have a slew of standard bluetooth headsets to choose from, and now we even have A2DP stereo headsets, but that’s not what we’re talking about. No, we mean game controllers like the iControlPad, Zeemote JS1 and GameBone Pro.

The problem with these devices is simple, however: they rely on developer support to work with anything, making a spontaneous purchase moot for the foreseeable future. What the manufacturers of these devices need to do is make a deal with big-name iPhone gaming developers (is that an oxymoron?) like EA or ngmoco, and have them include support for gaming peripherals. Otherwise, there’s no sign of a gaming peripheral standard for the iPhone, which is sorely needed if these devices are to carve out a niche market among iPhone gamers. Establishing a set of standards is something these companies can actually do now, and arguably should have been doing all along. As we’re still a bit away from seeing these devices hit retail, however, perhaps we can look at them as mere prototypes while a multi-company standards board is enacted (wishful thinking, we know).

More exciting to us, however, is the prospect of a bluetooth keyboard for the iPhone, which could work with any text-input-based application. Aside from serving as a better way to input long streams of text, such a device could also be used for gamers, much as they still are for PC gaming. Combined with id iPhone releases of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, the fond memories would come trickling back like a waterfall.Similar Posts:

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AT&T, known for gouging people due to what we can assume is only pure greed, just released AT&T Navigator, a turn-by-turn GPS app that we can describe as pathetic at best. Never mind that the application is free to download, because it relies on a monthly subscription of $9.99 to actually work. The sadness doesn’t end there, however, because the application neither integrates the local address book, nor works without a data connection. Interestingly, for a company concerned about unnecessary bandwidth usage, one would think that AT&T would at least provide the option for users to download maps. Whether this is a limitation imposed by partner TeleNav or not is hardly the point: AT&T Navigator is crap.

A few days ago, people were upset that Gokivo, another GPS application, similarly restricted functionality to customers paying $9.99 per month, only their application costs $0.99 in the AppStore. The iPhone Blog was, apparently, incorrect in identifying Gokivo’s two-time wallet attack:

Note, Gokivo isn’t free just for the app because Apple doesn’t let developers do in-app purchases for free apps. Hence, $0.99 will likely be the foundation for what TiPb considers iPhone “scaleware”.

If this were true, it would mean that AT&T is exempt from this rule, but a more likely scenario is that any app can charge for in-app features once downloaded, though this would, of course, remove the need for “lite” versions of applications in the AppStore, which we recall Apple not wanting. Admittedly, charging for content after a free AppStore download is questionable if the application is listed as a “free” one.

While the issue undoubtedly crosses application boundaries, as far as GPS is concerned, we’re not happy with the status quo at the moment. Quite simply, turn-by-turn GPS applications should not require a monthly subscription, particularly when they don’t in stand-alone GPS device. At least MobileNavigator Europe is playing fair, even though their “introductory” price of $94.99 is a tad high.

For comparison, updated Garmin maps for their devices run for about $70 online. New (decent) GPS devices, complete with updated maps, run for about $200+. Since iPhone owners already have the hardware, however, we’d expect to pay only for updated maps and the core software using these maps. Really, anything more than $100 is definitely in unreasonable territory, unless we’re to expect future map updates for free, even if that’s just yearly.

Using the AT&T and Gokivo system, however, a user will easily move beyond the $100 price barrier in under a year, regardless of whether or not their map updates are free (which we’re guessing they are). But for unreliable systems (like when data service goes out), the price we’re talking for turn-by-turn is simply ridiculous. Hopefully, the folks at Tom Tom will set the iPhone GPS market straight, else another well-known GPS company (i.e. Garmin or Magellan) will enter the ring instead.

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When jailbreaking first began on the iPhone, allowing users to install third-party applications, there were definitive advantages for going through with the somewhat tedious procedure, which is why some sources claim that at least ten percent of iPhone owners had done the deed. We did it, unlocked our iPhone, and have been happy using our 2G iPhone on T-Mobile’s network since the first unlocking apps were available in 2007. To this day, we still use applications only available from Cydia to compliment what we can obtain through the AppStore, because many apps available from Cydia have features restricted by Apple (tethering apps, background apps, etc).

Slowly, however, the need to jailbreak has dwindled, despite the fact that the process for doing so has gotten easier and easier. The AppStore’s selection of applications, compounded with Apple’s own improvements in the iPhone’s OS, have been effective in combating the jeailbreaking scene; many reasons to jailbreak have been nullified, such as the official inclusion of copy/paste, turn-by-turn directions in upcoming GPS applications, (eventual) AT&T support for tethering and MMS, and the sheer size of apps available. In other words, there are only a handful of reasons left to jailbreak and run unsigned Apple code, and every one of these reasons goes back to restrictions imposed upon developers by Apple. Interestingly, the fact that Apple didn’t crush the jailbreaking scene by somehow banning jailbroken or unlocked phones from accessing the AppStore/iTunes, and instead paving ahead with software improvements, was a much more effective solution to their perceived “problem”.

Our recent revisions of our must-have app list for the iPhone should be some indication of jailbreaking usefulness. All of the apps we recommend from Cydia clearly do things that Apple, or AT&T, would not be pleased with, though definitely make power-users happy. There’s the ability to selectively give applications the opportunity to run as a background process, a way to store app icons in folders so as to keep icon sprawl on the Springboard to a minimum, the requisite tethering app, a quick and efficient way to toggle phone features on/off, and finally an app to customize the look of one’s device by skinning the UI. Arguably, all of these things should be allowable in the AppStore, though clearly they’re not because they can alter the “feel” of the iPhone experience in a way that may be negative if used improperly. (For example, background apps can make the iPhone sluggish, poor UI skins may be ugly, etc.) In other words, Apple would rather guarantee a common experience, rather than give people a potentially bad user experience, so as to make more sales.

With less people needing to jailbreak, there’s obviously less need for multiple distribution centers for unsigned apps (if there ever was one). So it’s no surprise that Installer.app is now dead, with Cydia remaining king of unofficial app repositories. Maybe Installer.app and Cydia haven’t exactly become resources for the truly hardcore, but in many ways, Cydia remains the only source for software that Apple will likely never allow. That’s despite the fluff still available on Cydia, but sifting through it, there’s enough hardcore apps left that we’re still glad jailbreaking is around, and why we look forward to a jailbreaking method for the iPhone 3G S soon.

In the meantime, we expect Apple to continue adding features to the iPhone OS, and some day in the future, perhaps we’ll finally see better icon management on the Springboard, interface customizations, and a quicker method for toggling features on/off without having to dig through Settings. And when that comes to pass (iPhone OS 4.0?), the need to jailbreak will be even slimmer. It may not kill the jailbreaking scene entirely (heck, retro-gamers still need their emulators), but with less reasons to jailbreak, less developers will be interested in making jailbreaking a possibility, and that means that further jailbreaking improvements will move along much slower.

In the end, the lesson to developers is clear: it’s not about keeping a device from being hacked, its about lessening the reasons to hack a device in the first place.

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As we hadn’t updated our recommended iPhone apps compilation in some time, we thought that a quick refresh was in order, especially with iPhone OS 3.0 out, and a new iPhone just days away. With the iPhone 3G now a mere $99 (albeit with a two-year contract), many holdouts will undoubtedly be giving up their souls to AT&T, and will, in short order, seek out must-have apps to fill their new smartphone. If you want to get right to our complete list, take a look at mendax.iphone, but if you first want to see what changes we made to it, keep reading.

Replacements.

First up, let’s take a look at the apps we removed. iTalk was a nice audio recording app, but since Apple bundled one along with iPhone OS 3.0, iTalk is redundant.

We also gave ByLine another look, as it received a couple updates since we replaced it with Feeds, and surprisingly, Byline’s performance put it back in the lead. Both apps are priced competitively, but since Feeds’ integration with Google Reader appeared worse than quirky for us, we went back to Byline, which has thus far worked solidly both online and offline. As far as RSS readers go, ByLine definitely stands ahead of the rest (admittedly, there are few that support Google Reader integration, but we consider this a must-have feature).

We pulled another retro-glance with i.TV, which we initially supported as a great television programming guide before it started to suffer unbearable crashes. We gave it another look recently, and since it integrates television programming, theater movies, NetFlix, and remote TiVo programming, we decided to dump both Now Playing and What’s On in lieu of i.TV. It’s a real twofer, and so far, stability hasn’t been much of an issue.

On a recent trip across the country, we found ourselves scanning for wireless hotspots, and as anyone who’s used the built-in wi-fi tool under Settings can tell you, the out-of-box method is annoyingly poor, even if one resorts to the auto-alert pop-up when walking around. WiFinder was our previous winner for this function, but it didn’t let us join open networks despite advertising the feature – the join network button simply didn’t do anything. The icon for WiFinder was horrible besides, so we finally found a replacement, even if it’s not for free. WiFiFoFum handles wi-fi scanning admirably, and appears to be a great wardriving tool if that’s one’s purpose for this type of app. Even if it’s not, being able to triangulate the source of local wi-fi signals makes troubleshooting a local wi-fi network a much easier task.

Newfish.

Since our last update, we also added some apps that are simply fantastic, especially since we weren’t happy with previous apps that may have claimed to have similar functionality. For example, Bento is a great database app, which is cheaply priced and syncs with the desktop version. With a little time to set up database templates, Bento itself is a replacement for numerous apps in the AppStore that claim to handle inventory management, tasks, and other projects built around a database that users can’t edit. It took awhile, but there’s finally an awesome database app available.

We finally added Air Sharing to the list even though we’ve had it for awhile. Way back, we picked it up for free, but lost it and didn’t re-download it until recently. In short, Air Sharing sets the iPhone up to be discoverable, such that it can be used as a portable hard drive. The main benefit to this is that one can copy various document files to the iPhone via Air Sharing, and use the app as a document viewer when on the go. We’ve found that it can’t handle PDFs that are fairly large (at least 100MB), but does well with smaller documents. (Anyone know of Air Sharing Pro addresses this limitation?)

DVR Remote is an app we added to compliment Apple’s own Remote app. Rather than control apps on our computer, however, DVR Remote is used to control our TiVo, effectively acting as a replacement for the TiVo remote, and also letting us browse what’s on our TiVo as long as we’re in range of our home network. Flashlight is another utility app that we’ve used for some time now, and though all flashlight apps in the AppStore are similar, we’re happy with it’s zero cost and decent features.

Since the first iPump apps were available, we got ahold of a couple just to see what all the fuss was about, and we quickly decided that they were quality apps for the home workout (we bought the Kettlebell app, and picked up the Yoga and Stretch versions later on for free). Since, we decided to give in and pick up FitBuilder, which consolidates all of the iPump applications and allows one to set up great workouts. We think the app could be streamlined a bit more for usability, but the feature-set and number of exercises makes FitBuilder the best workout app out there.

Finally, the last AppStore app we picked up was Geocaching, which is the “official” app for the hobby with the same name. This purchase was more to prepare us for the iPhone 3G S, such that we can get our Geocaching groove on with full force, but with only one other real competitor in the mix, this app has an excellent feature-set for an excellent outdoor hobby.

Black sheeps.

As far as Cydia apps go, we decided to remove CyCorder as a recommended app, not because it isn’t a great tool, but because it’s unnecessary for iPhone 3G S users. If you’re still using an iPhone 3G or 2G iPhone, however, CyCorder is a reasonable stand-in. Obviously, the video quality isn’t the same as with the iPhone 3G S (it pulls approximately half the frames per second), but since video recording is otherwise impossible, CyCorder is a nice tool to have along.

We also pulled MobileFinder and OpenSSH from the list, because we simply never used them after our initial iPhone setup. Both apps, along with Mobile Terminal, are nice tools to have, but just as we rarely need a command prompt, messing with iPhone files at all is rarely a task we need to undertake. In circumstances where they are necessary, such as with moving Winterboard theme files around, they’re easy to install, but otherwise the icons just take up screen real-estate that we’re happy to use for other apps.

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