Platforms » Mac OS »

Spore hit the Apple Keynote stage all those months ago to show iPhone 3G hopefuls what kind of gaming experience to expect on the iPhone 3G and iPhones running the iPhone 2.0 OS. Spore Origins, alongside Sega’s Super Monkey Ball, promised to usher the iPhone and iPhone 3G into the world of mobile gaming.

Unfortunately, the initial release of the Spore Origins game was only compatible with the iPod. More unfortunate is the fact that Spore Origins doesn’t offer character transfer or online play. Spore Origins will essentially spin-off of the Spore game title, offering little more amusement than guiding your Spore creature  through a primordial soup filled with smaller-than-you food creatures and larger-than-you predators. The goal will be to feed on smaller creatures while running away from larger predators.

Spore Origins is expected to launch on the AppStore later this week for $5. Were the game more integrated in to the Spore parent-game, Spore Origins would have a larger potential audience. As it stands, we’ll have to wait and see how the game fares against the competition.

[Via: TUAW]

There’s no slowing down the iPhone and the AppStore. As popularity for the Apple smartphone and its integrated AppStore continue to grow, companies and musicians alike are looking to new ways to market themselves with an iPhone-twist.

The latest group to take advantage of the iPhone and AppStore’s popularity is the Irish band Snow Patrol. According to Music Week, the band will be releasing an “interactive album,” complete with music, lyrics, album art, and videos via an iPhone application.

“It will be an interactive element; a digital booklet that will take you into the videos and content,” says Polydor product manager Liz Goodwin. “For fans it will be a real must-have, and the fact that they are the first band to do this gives us an additional angle for exposure.”

Snow Patrol is the first band to release such an interactive album that caters specifically to the iPhone market-base, and could pave the way for new interactive albums released as iPhone apps. Could we be poised to see immersed and content-filled albums hitting the AppStore? Let’s hope so.

[Via: MusicWeek]

Talk about a lame excuse. Apple, long known as the tech-company that does whatever it feels like doing, has rejected an up-and-coming iPhone application on grounds that it provides “limited utility.”

Granted, the iPhone application, Pull My Finger, does little more than generate a “fart” sound, Apple’s rejection of the application is a disturbing move. The precedent for Apple to reject future iPhone applications that it just doesn’t like has been set.

Victor Wang, Pull My Finger’s developer, posted Apple’s rejection letter for all to see:

“Hello Developer,

We’ve reviewed your application Pull My Finger. We have determined that this application is of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community, and will not be published to the App Store.

It may be very appropriate to share with friends and family, and we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing.

Regards,

Victor Wang
Worldwide Developer Relations
Apple, Inc.”

Interestingly, other applications with likewise “limited utility” have been published through the iPhone AppStore. Koi Pond, for example, doesn’t provide much utility for the user, but has hit the top of the AppStore’s sales-charts in recent weeks.

So, what other applications will Apple reject on grounds that it’s just not worthy (read: in line with Apple’s taste) of the AppStore?

[Via: MacRumors]

The iPhone as a document scanner? No way!

It’s nigh impossible to hold an iPhone still enough and at just the right distance from a document to take a clear picture of said document for digital safe-keeping. That is, unless you’re rocking this DIY (do-it-yourself) homemade iPhone document scanner.

Digital warrior and University of Cincinnati’s school of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) industrial design student, Kyle A. Koch, crafted the home-brewed iPhone document scanner that you see above out of corrugated cardboard.

Says Kyle:

When I got my iPhone last year I loved having everything important in one place, and the ability to get rid of unnecessary devices, documents and information I kept with me. I would frequently snap photos of class assignments printed on copy paper so I wouldn’t have to worry about losing them. The documents normally came out pretty clear, but it was tough to keep still while taking the pictures. I set out to make something that would ensure clean, consistent pictures of documents taken with the iPhone that would be free and easy to make on your own. And so, here you will find pictures of and a link to a template to make your own iPhone document scanner.

The cardboard rig isn’t a document scanner, per se. It’s more like a copy-stand for your iPhone. Regardless, with an iPhone resting perfectly still on top of his iPhone document scanner/copystand, Kyle can now go about his document scanning ways with ease.

If you’d like to take a shot at scanning those all-important documents for digital storage on your iPhone or iPhone 3G, head on over to this link and download the printable templates to make your very own DIY iPhone document scanner.

DIY iPhone document copystand template

[Via: core77]

The latest evidence that Apple has to seriously give more thought to its iPhone SDK development guidelines comes to us in the form of Steve Wozniak’s “pwned” iPhone. The picture you see below shows Woz holding an iPhone that bears the telltale boot-logo of a jailbroken, “pwned” to be more precise, Apple handset.

With Pwnage Tool 2.0.3 released to jailbreak the latest iPhone 2.0.2 OS, it’s clear that the underground iPhone development culture is thriving. I wrote at length about Apple’s need to accommodate the iPhone development community with more flexible guidelines, but it seems that Apple is trotting along with their same, old game plan.

With jailbreak applications unhindered by Apple’s iPhone SDK guidelines that limit official iPhone applications from running in the background, Apple would do well to go live with their background notification service in the next iPhone OS release.

[Via: iPhoneAtlas]

AT&T has been struggling to keep up with demand on its data network since the launch of the iPhone 3G. Tests and speculation have all but absolved the iPhone 3G of any inherent defect as the root of sluggish data network performance on AT&T’s 3G network. At this point, AT&T’s recently upgraded 3G network is seemingly to blame for problematic 3G performance.

This morning, AT&T added some icing to their bitter 3G-cake when the No. 1 US wireless carrier’s data network took a nose dive. Reports indicate that AT&T customers on the East Coast saw their local 3G and EDGE networks go completely dark for 10-12 hours. The data network outage affected Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Illinois and Missouri - leaving users without access to emails and unable to surf the web. The voice network was still operational, allowing for text messages and voice calls.

Customers posted complaints about the AT&T data network outage on AT&T support forums and Apple forums , with some customers reporting success in getting a credit of $20-$30 from AT&T.

AT&T says that they are looking in to the cause of the data network outage.

[Via: AP]

Apple may just be working on an official solution that would allow iPhone 3G users to use their 3G connection on their laptop or desktop. Apple recently pulled the NetShare application from the AppStore. The iPhone app allowed users to tether their iPhone to their computers, but once AT&T realized they were losing out on potential revenue, the application disappeared from the AppStore.

The app-killing move angered one iPhone 3G customer so much that he wrote Apple-head Steve Jobs an email complaining that a data-tethering option was not available for the iPhone or iPhone 3G. Steve Jobs reportedly wrote back, saying that Apple was working with AT&T to roll out an official iPhone data tethering plan add-on. To be clear, you can tether your jailbroken iPhone to your laptop with a bit of elbow-grease and technical know-how. But, without an official, point-and-click solution, many iPhone users will be left in want of a tethering plan.

The alleged email from Steve Jobs looks to be legit, but hasn’t been confirmed as authentic. Still, the launch of an iPhone tethering plan makes sense. It would allow AT&T to cash in on mobile road warriors with iPhone 3G’s in tow, and would allow Apple to appease the iPhone 3G-toting masses with a tethering option.

[Via: Gizmodo]

The iPhone 2.0.2 OS was publicized by Apple and AT&T as the solution to all iPhone 3G users’ 3G network problems. Unfortunately, users that had updated to the new iPhone 2.0.2 OS didn’t immediately realize any improvements with their iPhone 3G’s network performance.

Then AT&T sent out mass SMS text messages urging iPhone 3G users to hurry up and update their handsets to the iPhone 2.0.2 OS. But, if the iPhone 2.0.2 OS didn’t fix any 3G issues on the iPhone 3G, why would AT&T urge customers to adopt the latest iPhone OS?

Apparently, iPhone 3G customers weren’t getting much of a performance boost with the latest iPhone OS due to the way AT&T’s 3G network infrastructure handles 3G connections. Roughly Drafted cites “a source close to AT&T” in their report that explains why users weren’t seeing immediate improvements.

Here’s what the “source” said:

“In UMTS, power control is key to the mobile and network success. If the UE [user pool] requires too much downlink power then the base station or Node B can run out of transmitter power and this is what was happening. As you get more UEs on the cell, the noise floor rises and the cell has to compensate by ramping up its power to the UEs.”

“The power control issue will also have an effect on the data throughput,” the source said, “because the higher the data rate the more power the Node B transmitter requires to transmit. If the UEs have poor power control and are taking more power than is necessary then it will sap the network’s ability to deliver high speed data.”

“In a mixed environment where users are running 2.0, 2.0.1, and 2.0.2, the power control problems of 2.0 and 2.0.1 will affect the 2.0.2 users.”

So, it seems that when iPhone 3G users first updated their handsets to the iPhone 2.0.2 OS, there were still a good number of iPhone 3G users rocking the older iPhone OS. The pool of devices with the older firmwares were causing the network to become overloaded, forcing even those with the newest iPhone OS to experience laggy 3G performance. iPhone 3G users in more densely populated cities were largely at the mercy of their iPhone 3G-toting neighbors than users living in less populated cities.

It’s obvious now why AT&T urged users to update to iPhone 2.0.2 OS. And, with Pwnage Tool 2.0.3 now compatible with iPhone 2.0.2 OS, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t update. If not for yourself, do it for the betterment of the community.

[Via: RoughlyDrafted]

There’s nothing worse than paying for high-speed 3G wireless data and then getting shafted with artificially-limited data speeds. iPhone 3G owners have been complaining of sluggish 3G data speeds, resulting in speculation that the iPhone 3G’s hardware or firmware were to blame. But, with Wired’s global iPhone 3G data speed survey suggesting that the network is likely to blame, and laboratory testing of the iPhone 3G’s antenna essentially absolving the iPhone of any hardware defects, it seems that slow 3G data speeds are rooted in the wireless network.

Today we learn that Orange, Apple’s iPhone carrier in France, has indeed been artificially throttling (limiting) 3G data speeds for iPhone 3G customers. Orange defended their move to limit 3G data speeds in claiming that the decision to throttle data was made in the name of network stability. That obviously didn’t sit well with customers.

The announcement follows on the heels of speculation that some iPhone 3G users on Orange’s network were able to reach full-3G speeds on the network.

In response to customer complaints that their iPhone 3Gs were struggling to reach 400Kbps, while iPhone 3G users in Germany were routinely seeing download speeds of 1.8Mbps, Orange announced that it will increase 3G data speeds to 1Mbps (1000Kbps) by September 15.

A noble move on Orange’s part. Now, if we could just get AT&T to improve their 3G network in the US…

[Via: AppleInsider]

Hardware, software, firmware, or networks. No one really knows what’s going on with the iPhone 3G that’s causing all these network problems, but new data points to the problems being rooted in the wireless network itself.

At this point, we can rule out the iPhone’s antenna as causing the network issues. And, Apple has announced that their iPhone 2.0.2 OS should help alleviate some 3G connectivity woes.

The latest data from Wired’s global iPhone 3G data speed survey allows for some interesting interpretation. The data shows that the iPhone 3G sees the highest wireless data speeds in countries with fully-mature 3G infrastructure capable of serving up 3G data at faster-than-US speeds. On the downside, the data also shows that the US wireless infrastructure is likely to blame for our iPhone 3G’s data sluggishness.

So, what’s the deal? AT&T hasn’t had the extra three years worth of 3G development that our European friends enjoy. And, as such, Yankees have to suffer with an immature 3G network to use with our iPhone 3Gs. But, it’s not like we didn’t already know about the US’s woefully lagging wireless networks.

[Via: Wired]