Don’t you wish Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) would make a flip phone? An iPhone with a keypad and a flip form-factor. No? We thought not. But, for the 12 people out there that actually want an Apple clamshell phone, you’ll be glad to hear that some no-name Chinese phone maker has crafted a dumbphone that looks a lot like a mini MacBook, it even sports the backlit Apple logo. Make no mistake, though, the handset is as fake as they come – even with a name like the “Apple Q300 Ultra.”
The Apple Q300 Ultra and its glossy-white exterior can be yours for $70-$80. It doesn’t support any apps, it doesn’t even run a smartphone operating system, and it sports a 2.2-inch display. It will, however, get you some attention (don’t blame us for any ridicule you bring unto yourself).
Turkey Day is fast approaching, and you know what that means. Burned, dry and otherwise barely edible birds will be hitting American dinner tables in a few days’ time! Admit it, you’re secretly hoping you don’t make a mess of Thanksgiving by cooking the turkey too long. It’s okay, we feel your pain. That’s where TurkeyTimer for iPhone comes in. The new iPhone app keeps track of your turkey’s cooking progress, reminds you when it’s time to baste the bird, and even alerts you to take your sizable bird out of the oven. The TurkeyTimer app even adjusts cooking time to accommodate your taste for moister or dryer turkey. In other words, it does for your cooking skills what your mother never could.
TurkeyTimer takes into account your turkey’s weight and uses algorithms based on cookbook instructions to determine cooking time. The app tracks the brownness of the turkey, the approximate internal temperature (which will determine how moist your turkey turns out), how long it needs to cook, and even how long you have to wait before tearing into the oversized bird.
Grab TurkeyTimer from the iPhone AppStore for $2.99. We think the price is worth not having to face your family with a too-dry turkey… again.
Gameloft had previously been very excited about Android, jumping into the market with twenty titles last February, but they have since changed their tune, and are pulling away from Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s mobile platform. Gameloft’s director of finance, Alexandre de Rochefort, had this to say about their performance on Android at a recent investor’s meeting:
“We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like … many others … It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue … We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android.”
Ouch. The iPhone has definitely made a name for itself in mobile gaming, and combined with mass consumer demand for the handset itself, it’s easy to see why a big name publisher would side with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s droid is certainly pushing hard with its marketing and preliminary sales have been decent, but odds are slim that it will put a significant dent in iPhone’s numbers. The bigger question raised here is “is this attitude prevalent across application segments other than gaming?” Gameloft is a pretty big deal; I can only imagine how many other major app developers are openly neglecting other mobile platforms as a result of the iPhone’s massive gravitational pull. With resources shrinking for a lot of companies, devs have to be especially picky about which camp they chose.
Update: I don’t if that financial director was talking out of line, or what, but Gameloft just issued a press release reiterating their support for Android, including that they have plans for 2.0. VP of publishing, Gonzague de Vallois said:
“The arrival of this new generation of phones will allow the development of High Definition games that make the most of the technological capacity and the speed of execution offered by the new Android phones. Consumers will benefit from a top quality gaming experience.”
Looks like my bud Jake over at Nuclear Nova Software has been hard at work on one of my favorite golf games for the iPhone and iPod Touch… GL Golf. He’s updated GL Golf (along with GL Golf Deluxe and ‘Lite’), bringing all versions up to 1.09. In the latest edition you’ll get 12 new courses (awesome), four new clubs, a 50% increase in performance and many, many, many bug fixes and tweaks.
To celebrate the update, Jake is offering GL Golf for $0.99 (regular $4.99) and GL Golf Deluxe for $5.99 (regular $7.99). The discounts are good for a week, so I’d recommend trying before you buy with the ‘Lite’ version… If you like, pick up the standard or deluxe version before next Monday to save a few bucks.
Other notable improvements in 1.09 include:
New course available through in-app purchasing (GL Golf Deluxe)
Fast forward and slow motion buttons when the ball is in flight
Improved ball trail effect
Wind arrow is no longer covered by trees
Fixed resume game submitting scores on the Old Andrews course
Improved in game scorecard
Added version information to the main menu
Added a link to the support FAQ
Perfect “ding” shots now show a visual confirmation
Resume button now shows information about the current course and hole
Fixed a bug where scores <10 wouldn’t post on the LE National course (GL Golf Lite)
Not sure when this popped up, but I’m thinking it was sometime over the weekend. Adobe has launched a new Acrobat.com Mobile app for the iPhone and BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM). Developed by the folks at scanR, the app allows you to view or fax documents from an acrobat account, plus a lot more. The official description:
The Acrobat.com mobile application by scanR® allows you to view or fax your documents from your Acrobat.com account on supported mobile devices. Or upload document images from your mobile phone and have them automatically stored as searchable PDF files in your Acrobat.com account. Note, your account includes sending two outbound faxes and up to five document uploads from your mobile phone. You can upgrade your account at anytime if you need to upload or fax more documents.
For the moment it looks like the app is available in the US, France, Germany and the UK. Hit up mobile.acrobat.com, select your country, enter your email, and punch in your mobile number. From there you’ll receive an SMS with download and installation instructions.
A company called gridMob is bringing what they say is the “first true karaoke experience for iPhone and iPod Touch” to the AppStore. The application is called iOKi and in addition to putting a karaoke machine in your pocket, it also allows users to browse and purchase tracks from a vast catalog of songs – they’ve signed contracts with all major labels.
And the news doesn’t stop that. In addition to the “generic” version of the application (which is still not available in the AppStore), gridMob has also announced a special, Lady Gaga-branded application, who [Lady Gaga] I’m not sure I like. But considering just how popular Lady Gaga seems to be these days, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the app becoming a bestseller. It comes with four Lady Gaga karaoke tracks featuring her master recordings, plus the newly released “Bad Romance” from her soon to be released album “Fame Monster.” All this could be yours for $4.99 (a dollar per song). Moreover, gridMob prepares to release other versions of iOKi app, branded by other artists later in the year…
We’ve already reported about Pizza Hut’s success with its iPhone app. Well, in addition to the numbers achieved ($1 million in sales), the company is all proud to announce that it also won two MMA’s (Mobile Marketing Association) global awards: Mobile Display Campaign in North America, and Emerging Technology Campaign in North America.
Commenting on tha announcement, Pizza Hut’s Bernard Acoca said: “It’s an honor to be recognized as a mobile marketing leader by the MMA with wins in two categories. The Pizza Hut iPhone App continues to be an applauded breakthrough digital innovation that connects with consumers and industry organizations.”
Now I’m hoping other restaurants will follow Pizza Hut’s example and make the food ordering as simple and convenient as it should be, and ultimately make more money along the way.
A company called ecobee has released a new application in the AppStore called Smart Thermostat, allowing users with compatible (i.e. expensive) systems to remotely adjust the thermostat’s temperature, schedule or update vacation events, change the system and fan operating settings. In addition, the application alerts users about the status of the system.
See where that’s going? Soon enough every iPhone user will be able to have all the benefits of Bill Gates’ famous digital home. The problem, however, is not in the available apps, it’s the high-end equipment that costs fortune that keeps many folks, myself included, from pushing our homes into the digital age.
Quick, raise your hand if you sent an MMS from your iPhone this past week. Okay, how about this past month? If you’re not raising your hand, your either A) not following the rules of this game or B) just like the millions of Americans that just don’t send out MMS (picture messages) regularly from their iPhones. I fall into the latter category. Today’s release of FunMail might change all that.
FunMail for iPhone automatically analyzes your text message and serves up relevant images that you can embed into your message. The idea behind FunMail is to bring MMS out of the dark ages and allow people to use images for rich communication. Rather than send your friend a text message asking them if they want to eat, FunMail would have you send them the same text with overlaid on an image of a burger. You can even send that messages to Twitter and Facebook.
The trick to making picture-chats convenient is FunMail’s “Media Brain,” which pulls out the semantic meaning behind your text and gives the user a set of pictures that might fit the situation. If you’re talking about going to lunch, FunMail returns images of food. Talk about a birthday, and you get birthday-related images.
The app is free in the iPhone AppStore, so it won’t hurt to give it a shot. I personally can’t see myself using FunMail for everyday communication, but it’s definitely worth trying out at least once.
This week in Paris at the Cartes exhibition, Visa was showing off what they’re working on for mobile payments. They demos a native iPhone application, along with a Visa application that is embedded on a SIM card. The most exciting stuff, NFC, is shown off on a shipping Nokia (NYSE: NOK) device. Payments under 20 EUR are just tap and go, useful when you’re in a crowded bar and don’t want to fiddle with credit cards or hard currency, while payments over 20 EUR require a tap, a PIN code, and then another tap to confirm. The sad thing about all of this is that we’re unlikely to see it for at least another year or two. That’s just enough time for Nokia to start rolling out Nokia Money to customers and operators around the world. Here is hoping that rumour of the next iPhone having NFC is true. I’m tired of having to sign little pieces of paper.
Turkey Day is fast approaching, and you know what that means. Burned, dry and otherwise barely edible birds will be hitting American dinner tables in a few days’ time! Admit it, you’re secretly hoping you don’t make a mess of Thanksgiving by cooking the turkey too long. It’s okay, we feel your pain. That’s where 
Gameloft had previously been very excited about Android, jumping into the market 
