Announcements

I don’t know about you all, but I completely detest the fact Apple got rid of the “All iPhone Apps” link within iTunes. I did happen to stumble upon a very great site that will not only ease my frustration, but yours as well.

Meet AppShopper.com. This new site tracks updates, price changes, and all other apps that are entered in the App Store.

The main page gives you an instant view of all updated apps, beginning with the newest or most recent.

The site also breaks it down a bit further and allows you to search categories such as: New, Prices, New Free Apps, and New Games.

One thing missing - the option to search for an app. I’m not quite sure how this was missed, but at least the main functions of the site are there.

This site is quite useful and I hit myself over the head for not thinking about this myself!

Following on the 8 betas for 2.0 (released July 11), and 4 for 2.1 (released September 12), 2.2 will hopefully bring us a Push Notification.

The new version is labeled iPhone OS 2.2 beta 1 and is accompanied by a new beta of the iPhone SDK (build 9M2611). Beyond “compatibility testing”, there are no other differences noted by Apple.

I am starting to think we aren’t going to see the update in September, as promised, but who knows. There are still a couple of days left…

You know what is better than an Xbox 360, a Playstation 3 and a Nintendo Wii? A 3G iPhone. At least that was the vote of the United Kingdom’s Stuff Magazine readers.
Those folks obviously know their gadgets, the editors of the Magazine picked the Asus Eee PC which i groovy but a laptop is so 1992. Plus, try to look cool walking down the street with an Asus Eee PC held up to your ear while carrying an obviously important conversation. Can’t be done, you’ll be laughed at. But you can yell “I said SELL dammit!” holding an iPhone and people won’t only think you’re cool, they’ll also think you’re getting out of the market a few days too late.
via: Reuters

Amongst a slew of announcements, Steve Jobs briefly mentioned the iPhone 2.1 software.

A lot of the bugs affecting iPhone owners have presumably been fixed with 2.1, but we won’t know for sure until we have all had some time with it.

Steve Jobs has proclaimed that there will be fewer dropped calls, improved battery life, and backing up to iTunes will be a lot faster.

It’s available this Friday for FREE. Unfortunately there’s nothing about the background app notifications or copy and paste.

Good news: on Sunday Best Buy started selling iPhones.
Bad News: Best Buy sucks at customer service
Good News: You can get an iPhone three different places.
Bad news: Two of the three places have horrible customer service (AT&T, Best Buy)
Good news: One place has great customer service (Apple stores)
Bad news: You’re likely much closer to an AT&T or a Best Buy than an Apple store.
Good news: The price remains unchanged ($199.00 and $299.00)
Bad news: still no insurance option.

Well, there is more to it to that. If you remember the ascension of the iPod to the market making and dominating device it has become the trail closely parallels the number of different places the iPod was available at. First, it was just the Apple online store, then Target came on board followed by Dell and now the things are everywhere. More stores mean more exposure and more exposure means a growing market share. If you’re a fan of the iPhone… more...

Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event scheduled for Tuesday, September 9 is rumored to include the release of iPhone firmware update 2.1 according to an inside tip via Ars Technica.

So what all will this event have in store for us? We’ll, one thing is for sure that they’ll offer an updated iPod Nano. One thing that us iPhone users are anxious about is the 2.1 software update.

The firmware update is said to contain new GPS functionality, that will include tracking speed and direction. Several sources also indicate that there’s preliminary support for push notification services is coming. While some are holding out hope for copy and paste in the update. But what is a Rock Party without a better way to rock? iTunes 8 is coming!

Ars Technica claims that the release of iTunes 8 is finally confirmed for September 9th as well, aligning with many of the claims made by Kevin Rose, making iTunes 8 sound incredibly promising.

We shall find out tomorrow…

Remember that quite successful app called PhoneSaber? It’s coming back, but with a new name - PhoneSaber Unleashed.

Many people were sad to see PhoneSaber get pulled from the App Store due to copyright claims by mobile Star Wars rights holder THQ Wireless, but THQ announced today that it will be coming back soon.

Now, I am not a big Star Wars fan, but the app was pretty fun. Unfortunately, I lost the app in a restore and that was after it was removed from the App Store. I was becoming a master Jedi too…

They will be re-launching PhoneSaber under the name PhoneSaber “Unleashed” and will coincide with the launch of the console game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Fortunately, THQ is still offering it for free, and it will include the real sound effects and music from the movies.

You’ve heard about Apple’s September 9th event called Let’s Rock. The event has most people convinced we’ll see new nano or an extended version of the Bobby versus Satan Kids in the Hall skit. But it can’t just be a new nano, that would be far too boring. Plus Steve saves nano announcements for times he finds himself on stage with Motorola CEOs.

So there has to be something more to event than Steve whipping out an even smaller nano. Though if he does it like he did the first time it will be pretty cool:

what else could be going on? If you’re a podcast maker or listener you know that you can create enhanced podcasts. You also know that record companies are looking for ways to add value to your music buying experience. Well, that last part isn’t true. Mostly record companies seem to want to complain that they need more money but bands are being smarter and at least one is releasing an enhanced version of their album to increase your enjoyment.

Good news folks. Facebook’s native application is due to get an upgrade in September.

The upgrade should actually make the app reach some sort of feature parity with the web-app version of Facebook, which right now is far superior to the native app.

New features include a revamped profiles view, viewing all notifications in the home tab, friend search and approval, the ability to view your full inbox, and more.

This will probably make the Facebook app even more poular than it is now. Stay tuned…

We’ve all known that Nike+ was supposed to come to the iPhone, we’ve just been waiting a bit longer than expected. So what is in store for us? Nike+iPhone=Awesome!

Or a lot of great features and smart implementation, Nike+ definitely uses the iPhone’s technology to its advantage to create a better user experience and offer a better feature set.

Because of the capabilities of the iPhone, a lot of the stuff that Nike+ used to run on the Mac and on the Web are now being run on the iPhone itself.

You’re able to keep track of all the classic stats and maybe even map out your route with GPS. So the iPhone’s sensors and chips are going to be well used by this app.

Looks very promising…

Via: Gizmodo

{UPDATE}
So it turns out that the supposed screenshots that were leaked to iPhone.fr were in fact faked. AppleInsider noticed that the app showed someone using it to listen to a Coldplay song, but Apple doesn’t offer developers a way to play music on the… more...