via UnWiredView.com

Now that iPhone has almost become an open platform for third party software development, we can expect tons of new exciting applications that will make it into a much more useful thing, then a fancy phone and media player.

But that does not mean that developers inside Apple are leaving all this to the third parties. They are also busy, thinking up a whole lot of new things that an iPhone could do.

And recent patent applications provide us with a glimpse of the things to come.

When I started browsing through these patents , I first thought that it was just a new fitness application for iPhone:

Read the rest of this entry »

via pocketnow.com

The recent announcement of a software development kit and the Microsoft Exchange Activesync support for the iPhone has raised the eyebrows of a few users who have remained hesitant from switching to the iPhone. Our own Brandon Miniman even exclaimed that now that the iPhone has Exchange support, various device form factors was the only reason left to stick to Windows Mobile.

On the contrary, here are 42 reasons you still don’t want an iPhone: Read the rest of this entry »

Good news everyone. Just trying to connect my iPhone to my new jacket Burton Audex iPod Field Jacket and everything is working fine.

The Burton Audex iPod Field Jacket ($379) is a high-end snowsport jacket with an integrated iPod remote control. If you’ve ever taken a spill and watched your snowboard and MP3 player shoot off in different directions, then the Burton Audex iPod Field Jacket is worth more than a passing glance.

Like most Burton products, the Burton Audex iPod Field Jacket has a very hip design, constructed with materials that are both high-tech and high-style. The jacket employs taped seams, laminated fabric, and resizable fittings to keep moisture from finding its way through to your clothing. Zippered pockets can be found practically everywhere, in sizes large enough to stash away a pair of snow gloves, or snug enough for a pair of earbuds. An interior pocket is built into the field jacket specifically to cradle your iPod. With your iPod tucked away, earbuds can then be threaded through a small port within the jacket’s lining and up to the ears.

The Audex iPod remote control can be removed from the Burton Field Jacket’s molded rubber compartment.

While the jacket alone is worth the price, what really makes the Burton Audex iPod Field Jacket unique is the iPod remote control integration. The Audex-branded iPod remote comes in two parts: a remote receiver that plugs directly into your iPod’s dock connection; and a remote control. Both the receiver and the remote use high-frequency radio signals to communicate with one another, with an expected range of 100 feet. While the Audex iPod remote receiver is basically a nondescript black nub that plugs into your iPod, the remote control has a little more going for it. The pebble-shaped Audex remote features five rubber buttons that control volume, track skip, and play/pause. Although the Audex remote is meant to be operated within the field jacket’s custom-molded rubber compartment, it can also be used separately as a go-anywhere iPod remote. We found that the Audex iPod remote system worked flawlessly with both a fifth-generation video iPod and a third-generation iPod Nano.

Taken as a whole, both the Burton Field Jacket and Audex iPod remote system provide an uncompromised solution for sliding down a snow-covered mountain in style. There are other good ways to bring your music onto the mountain, but none that are nearly as cool.

Thanks 2 ZDNet

M:Metrics report says that iPhone users are tend to check the web more often than the users of other mobile devices.

Research revealed that 85% of iPhone users accessed news and other web information in January 2008.

M:Metrics found that a 30.9 percent of iPhone owners watched mobile TV or video, versus a 4.6 market average, and more than double the rate for all smartphone users.

Social networking is also popular among iPhone users: 49.7 percent accessed a social networking site in January, nearly twelve times the market average. Twenty percent of iPhone owners accessed Facebook, one of the first Web properties to customize its content for the iPhone, versus 1.5 percent of the total mobile market.

iPhone users tend to listen to music more as well. 74.1 percent of iPhone users listened to music compared to just 27.9 percent of the smartphone audience.The study showed that iPhone owners, like other smartphone owners, tend to be male, aged 25-34, earn more than US$100K and have a college degree.

Yesterday The Financial Times reported that a group of big music industry labels approached Apple, whose iTunes music downloads store is responsible for over 70% of all music sold online, with a rather innovative offer.

According to the report, Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI, are interested in a similar deal like the one that they get from Nokia’s “With Music” program. Apparently, they’re interested in receiving a part of the revenue that Apple gets from sales of iPods and iPhones (sort of like Apple gets a part of iPhone carrier’ revenues).

In return, they’re allegedly willing to provide unlimited music subscriptions to Apple’s customers — that means you, iPhone owners to be (since most likely the price of the device with free music subscription would cost more than the regular price — in Nokia’s “With Music” case, free-music-enabled phones cost $80 more).

But BusinessWeek reports today, quoting an insider source, that the idea has been “kicked around” for approximately a year with “no meaningful discussions” taking place. Likewise, other insiders in the music industry dismissed the idea, while Apple declined to comment.
One of the potential reasons for Apple not wanting to get along with this program that BusinessWeek is bringing up, is the fact that iTunes is very successful as it is, and requires no revamps to its own business model (although the case might be very different when it comes to the business model of the music industry itself). Another potential reason is that despite the fact that iTunes sold over 4 billion songs, it has also sold a total of 142 million iPods and 4 million iPhones — which would mean that the average iPod/iPhone owner has bought fewer than 28 iTunes tracks.

But still, not all is lost, according to Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. “There may be millions of people who would never buy into the iPod-iTunes ecosystem who’d be willing to pay $7 to $10 a month for all the music they can get. If anyone can explain the benefits of a plan like this, it’s Apple,” he says.

Indie musicians have a new shortcut to reach megastar status: Having their music picked up for an Apple commercial., “New Soul”, by Yael Naim, was featured in the ad for the MacBook Air. The song just debuted in the Billboard Hot 100 at number nine. Not bad for somebody nobody had heard of a few months ago.

In this regard, Apple is following in the footsteps of Levi’s. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the jeans company broke many new acts with its famous TV commercials. In the UK, having a song featured in a Levi’s spot pretty much guaranteed a number one hit. And Apple knows this. Famous for driving hard deals, the Cupertino company pays a lot less than usual for its music rights. According to Ad Age, Apple paid just $80,000 for Feist’s “1234″. The normal cost would be around $300,000.

It helps that Apple is a “cool” brand. Licensing music for a Mac ad is not seen as selling out to The Man. Can you imagine, say, the Beastie Boys allowing their music to be used in a Vista commercial? Neither can we.

Many iPhone users want to transfer their music clips, movies, and just random videos onto their iPhone. However it’s not all that easy to do, at least when your movies library is encoded in different formats and you don’t have professional software to convert the videos into an iPhone compatible format.

That’s where Movies2iPhone by Olivier Ksikes comes in. Movies2iPhone is a completely free video converter (based on FFmpeg) for Windows-powered machines that will convert any movie you have on your PC into an iPhone compatible format, which then could be easily transfered onto your iPhone via iTunes.

 Movies2iPhone supported formats are Divx, Xvid, avi, mpeg, wmv, asf, mov, vob, and more. The software also features support for subtitles, and comes in 7 different languages. However, make sure that you have Windows XP or Windows Vista installed, as it’s not compatible with other operating systems.
Also worth noting is that this is still a beta version, so bugs are still in there: we’ve encountered a few, namely:
- The program can only process English file/folder names (so if your file is named in some other language, just give it an English name, and it will work).
- Occasionally (this bug happened while converting a 2 hour long DiVX movie) the program might give an error and appear to be closing. However, the conversion process will still be running, and as such you just need to wait patiently for it to complete.Direct download:
- Movies2iPhone v0.66 beta (2.7MB)