...And We're Back!

Woah! It's been nearly a year since anyone posted anything on here! Sorry about that if you're even still reading this. WWDC 2010 is less than a week away already, and WWDC '09 was the last thing I posted about on here. That's about it. Don't be surprised if this drops of the planet again, but I'll try to keep this updated.

Best Buy to sell iPhones (Confirmed)

There have been a swarm of rumors floating around the web in the past few days claiming that Best Buy will begin selling the iPhone 3G. The rumors of Best Buy's interest in iPhone distribution began over a year ago, and it was officially announced that they will begin selling the iPhone 3G on September 7th.

The announcement came on Tuesday. This is what Shawn Score, president of Best Buy Mobile had to say:

"We had a lot of work to do, obviously, to get in a position where Apple
and AT&T would feel good about Best Buy Mobile carrying it, and
that's what we've done in the last 18 months."

iPhone 2.0 Software and iTunes 7.7!

The iPhone 3G goes on sale tomorrow, but today Apple has released the iPhone 2.0 Software, and an update of iTunes (7.7). The updated iTunes includes the app store, and so does the iPhone 2.0 software, but there is no update for the iPod Touch software yet, but when it comes out, it will cost $9.99. It's free for iPhone owners. I'm anxiously waiting for the iPod Touch software update, so I can play around with some of the free ones on my brother's new iPod Touch.

App Store Launch Deadline July 7th

Developers must get their iPhone Apps finished, and submitted to the App Store by July 7th for them to be included in the App Store in the launch. The launch of the App Store is expected to be July 11th, along side the new 3G iPhone, however, Apple could still change things up a bit, and release it a little earlier. Having an app in the store on the first day would give quite a bit of free publicity, as everyone will be playing around and seeing all the new things they can do with their iPhone/iPod Touch.

WWDC Wrap-up

The entire thing was about the iPhone. First off, Steve Jobs talked about the numbers.

52,000 in attendance at WWDC, 250,000 have downloaded the free iPhone SDK, 25,000 have applied to the beta program, and 4,000 have been admitted.

Mac OS X 10.6 will be named "Snow Leopard" and Bertrand Serlet will be doing a demo after lunch on it.

Next Steve Jobs invited up a bunch of developers from pretty big companies such as: Sega, eBay, Loopt, TypePad, and Pangea Software. Some cool apps include Super Monkey Ball, a game including 100 levels and will cost $9.99. MLB.com, an app with real time video, and detailed scoring; I don't know about pricing on this one. One of my favorite apps is the "Band" app; It includes a virtual piano, drums, 12-bar blues "instrument", and a bass; includes recording capabilities. There were some more apps, but those are the ones that stuck out to me.

I'll skip past just a little bit to get ahead to when it was announced that the iPhone 2.0 software will be available in early July. It will be a free software update for iPhone owners, and it will cost $9.99.

The iPhone App Store will be available in 62 countries. If the app is less than 10MB, it can be downloaded through the "cell" network, otherwise it requires iTunes or WiFi.

After talking about the iPhone apps for over an hour, the subject of interest temporarily shifted to the .Mac service, which is now called "Mobile Me" It's a service which works over the air with Mail, iCal, and Address Book on Mac, and works on Outlook on Windows. iDisk is integrated into me.com as well. .Mac subscribers will automatically be updated to the service. It will cost $99 per year for the service.

After Phil finished his brief demo of the Mobile Me service, Steve took the stage to talk about the iPhone again. He talked about the iPhone having it's first birthday on June 29th.

Now to what everyone cares about: the 3G iPhone. It will have GPS, and obviously 3G networking. It will cost $199 for the 8GB model which will only be available with a black plastic back, and it will cost $299 for the 16GB model which will be available with a choice of a black or white plastic back. The rumors of a (Product) RED iPhone were proven false, for now at least.

That's my report on the WWDC 08 keynote, I was kind of let down. I was hoping for an update on the Mac Mini line or possibly the Mac fusion that there were rumors of.

My favorite iPhone Apps

Hey, Timothy here again; with some of my favorite apps you can get when you jailbreak/unlock your iPhone/iPod touch.

Sketches:

An etch-a-sketch app, shake to erase. Drawing is a bit delayed, but other than that, it's a pretty cool app.

Tap Tap Revolution:

Like Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero, in your hands.

NES.app:

Great NES emulator, controls are slippery, though.

PhotoBoard:

It's like Microsoft Surface(I believe that's what it's called), use 2 fingers to make the image bigger, and you can add more photos as well.

Pianist:

Great instrumental app, it uses real keys from a piano, and sounds great. You can also change the tune of the piano.
The developers of this app also made a Drummer and Guitarist app, I won't show it because it'll take up too much space.

Well, those are some of my favorite iPhone/iPod touch apps, these apps can all be found in Installer.app.
You know, with all these musical apps, maybe we can expect GarageBand app...

iPhone Apps I'D like to see....

Hey, there, Jason here, a new writer for this blog, and I'm coming at you with a few apps I'd like to see for the iPhone.

1) Etch-a-sketch. After watching the keynote, and seeing the app they made in 2 days, and the cool shaking action, I immediately thought of this app.

2) An IDE. Some sort of development tool to write apps and web apps and stuff so you can work on an app on the go.

3) FireFox. Yeah, I know Apple said that they won't allow this (at least I think they said that. I'll get a link up soon.), but I still think it would rock!

4) LiquidMac. LiquidMac is a fun app that detects what direction you've tilted your Mac in, and makes a little "water", in a sense, and the water runs down in the direction you tilted your Mac in. So, it, in a sense, gives gravity to your Mac. Just a fun little app to add to the iPhone to demonstrate the accelerometer.

So, yeah, that's about all I can think of right now. I'll post with more if I can think of any more.

iPhone Apps I'd like to see.

Here's some ideas of iPhone Apps I'd like to see made. I'd be glad to make them, but I don't have a Mac (yet) or an iPhone.



1) iAnimate - A program very similar to Pivot Stickfigure Animator. Which lets you make computer animations by dragging "pivot" points on the character's body to a different position on the screen. It also has a drawing mode which lets you draw your characters/props and chose make the points of articulation static or unmovable.

More to come soon. Prototype image by me.