Planetaki Planet iPhone News

Nvidia showing new MacBooks to staff?

2008-10-06T21:05:27+00:00

Here we go with the MacBook rumor-mill again! The latest in a series of speculation and hype is this rumor that nVidia are currently showing the brand new aluminium-enclosed MacBook to staff around their camp. TUAW have also stated that nVidia will be playing a large part in the manufacturing process, which is interesting to say the least.

More as it develops.

The iPhone is now the second second best-selling US mobile handset

2008-10-06T21:05:27+00:00

In just slightly over a year, Apple’s iPhone has grown to become the second best-selling cellphone in the United States of all time, according to NPD.

The report, published by the market research firm on Monday, claims that the touch-screen handset is only behind the only Motorola’s RAZR V3 in the US sales charts. It’s believed a bump in sales following the release of the iPhone 3G that has allowed the revolutionary phone a 17 percent share of the overall US smartphone market.

This is huge news; within the next 6 months, the iPhone could be the biggest selling mobile handset of all time!

Apple to feature iPhone & iPod Touch game De Blob in stores worldwide

2008-10-06T21:05:27+00:00

Popular App Store title De Blob, a game created by THQ Wireless, will be featured accross thousands of Apple retail stores worldwide.

The game has said to have been selected primarily due to its effective demonstration of the iPhone and iPod Touch’s unique selling points, such as the accelerometer and multi-touch capacitive display.

De Blob will be featured as an installed application on all in-store iPhone and iPod touches, as well as in promotional posters around stores. It should arrive at all retail stores worldwide by late October.

Eating Apple: Hi there!

2009-03-02T10:18:33+00:00

We have lift-off!

Howdy folks; we’re here to give you the latest & greatest news and reviews in the whole Apple space: iPod, iPhone, and Mac. Nice.

Stuff is coming!

App Store reviews now require purchase - And that’s a good thing!

2008-10-06T21:05:27+00:00

Want to write an App Store review on that shiny new game? Well now Apple is making it so that you have to actually purchase the damn thing first. What are they thinking!? Nah, I’m kidding, we don’t see why this wasn’t included from day one; it’s pretty strange, actually.

To be honest, we were getting pretty damn tired of seeing the same reviews from people that disagreed with an app’s functionality just based on its description or what they’d heard, or even worse, some people were reviewing just to “balance out” other reviews they deemed unfair. And that was not good. Nope.

But now all of this has changed. For the good. Thank you, Steve.

Flash finally coming to an iPhone near you!

2008-10-06T21:05:27+00:00

Well, better late than never, right?

Paul Betlem, who just happens to be Adobe System’s Director of Engineering, confirmed the rumor by stating that “Apple calls the shots as to when it’ll be available,” according to iPhone Atlas.

Flash Magazine’s Jens Brynildsen was the dude who broke the news, writing:

Upon a direct question from the audience, Paul Betlem for the first time publicly confirmed that Adobe is actively developing a Flash Player for Apple’s popular phone. He said (not direct quote) “My team is working on Flash on the iPhone, but it’s a closed platform.” He noted that Apple makes all the decisions, so in other words, the ball is in Apple’s yard at this time.

While Adobe had Flash running on an iPhone SDK emulator way way back in June, porting the plug-in to efficiently run on a mobile device with limited computing power is easier said than done - but it looks like they have managed to pull it off.

It remains to be seen just how well the iPhone copes with the stripped down version of Adobe’s intense media technology, but at least we will actually get to see this thing sometime soon.

Apple says it will Shut Down iTunes Music Store: Oh dear…

2008-10-06T21:05:26+00:00

Stevie-boy has made his position known: raise the royalty fees he (or well, they) pays and iTunes will no longer be profitable. Jobs wants to make money. If he does not make money, he’ll shut iTunes down.

The Copyright Royalty Board, which will be voting this week to determine the issue put forth by the National Music Publishers’ Association to raise fees from 9 cents a track to 15, has a pretty large amount to consider.

In response to the request for iTunes to raise royalties, the VP of iTunes Eddy Cue wrote in with this statement:

Any increase in the royalty rate for DPDs (digital permanent downloads) will reduce aggregate revenues for copyright holders and stall or reverse the growth of lawful digital distribution channels for music. [The iTunes Store's] cost structure and margins are not flexible enough to enable the company to incur an increase in the mechanical royalty rate for DPDs without either (i) imposing a retail price hike that will reduce consumption and thereby reduce overall industry revenues or (ii) absorbing the cost input increase, eroding its margin and thereby jeopardizing its continued ability to remain in the business. Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.

We’ll keep you updated when we hear the result, but it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if iTunes shut down, to be honest. Hah.

Apple iPhone NDA Finally Removed - Developers everywhere party!

2008-10-06T21:05:26+00:00

Apple has just announced on their developer connection page that they have made the tough decision to drop the iPhone’s non-disclosure agreement (NDA):

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

This freedom only applies to applications currently out there roaming the app store; Apple still have a tight grip on apps still in development, and a lot of applications recently are being declined due to them accessing parts of the phone Apple don’t want them to, or for creating software which competes with Apples own.

Still, this is great news; let’s party, people!

Crash Bandicoot Confirmed For App Store - Nice!

2008-07-01T15:30:59+00:00

The latest popular game franchise that has been revealed to be heading to the App Store is famed hedgehog (uh, what is he again?) Crash Bandicoot. The game will be very similar to Crash Team Racing on the PlayStation 1, except it actually looks like it has better graphics than the original.

The game looks impressive so far and runs very smoothly; the iPhone gaming scene just gets better by the day!

Official Apple In-Store 3G iPhone Activator Leaked Onto The Web

2008-06-29T10:22:45+00:00

An anonymous tipster has leaked what appears to be instructions for the Canadian iPhone launch on Rogers; including the link to a special version of iTunes which allows stores to ‘unlock’ their iPhone so that they can use them as a display unit in store.

The leaked document reads:

In order to unbrick the iPhone in store (which is a requirement of the iPhone Sales Process), you must have iTunes version 7.6.3b4. Installed on your computer. This version has a special ‘Activation Only Mode’ that must be enabled and used in store.

Pretty interesting stuff, though it would not really be that useful anyway; you’re still required to sign up for a contract to get the iPhone in most country’s.

You can see the full leak here.

O2 Confirm Pay As You Go 3G iPhone Plans - We’re happy!

2008-06-25T20:46:50+00:00

After yesterdays rumours of a very highly priced 3G iPhone in the UK, O2 have today revealed the much speculated pricing - and we’re pretty damn happy!

Let’s get straight in to it… The 8gb 3G iPhone will cost £299 (pretty close to our prediction of £279!) The 16gb will cost £359.99. And guess what? All users get 6 months FREE unlimited 3G and WiFi access. That is pretty fucking awesome. Sign me up for the 16gb model.

You can get more information directly from O2 by clicking here.

O2 iPhone Pay As You Go Price Confirmed?

2008-06-24T11:21:11+00:00

Gadget magazine Stuff is reporting that they have confirmation on the price of the 3G iPhone over here in the UK - and if it’s true, there are going to be a lot of pissed off people.

According to Stuff, the 8gb model will come clocking in at a massive £370 (~$750) while the 16gb will be a hefty £470 (~$950) - ouch. This is by no means officially confirmed, though Stuff have had a decent track record when it comes to rumours. Of course, this means our own predictions were way off. Maybe we were just dreaming.

So yeah - there may be some truth in these numbers; but really, £470? Ouch. That’s more expensive than a PlayStation 3.

Streaming Video On The iPhone A Reality Thanks To QIK

2008-06-18T13:37:50+00:00

We had seen this coming for quite a while, but the very popular online video streaming service Qik has just announced it’s plans to bring the service to the 1 million+ iPhone users around the world.

Currently the application is only available on jailbroken devices, but we may have a chance of seeing this thing on the App Store; only time will tell.

Here’s a quick video demo…

Pay As You Go iPhone In France - Price Announced

2008-06-12T09:04:02+00:00

Early this morning, Vodafone Italy announced they will be offering a pay as you go (no contract) version of the 3G iPhone (following O2’s announcement for the UK) and have set an out of contract price of €499/€569 for the 8GB/16GB models, respectively. This is pretty steep; certainly higher than what we predicted, though if you compare it to other contract-free smart phones, it is competitively priced.

As of today there is still no news on the UK pay-as-you go pricing.

O2 Confirms Free UK iPhones & Other Plans

2008-06-10T10:56:49+00:00

Following the rumour that O2 would offer the iPhone for free to customers yesterday, they’ve now confirmed this and announced several other things. Here’s the details…

O2 to Launch iPhone 3G in the UK on July 11(as previously announced by Apple)
Available on consumer tariffs, business tariffs, and Pay As You Go (!)

Pay As You Go is fantastic news, and I wasn’t expecting it despite the rumours. No price has been announced for the phone on PAYG just yet, but we’ll keep you informed.

The price for the 8gb phone on a £30/month tarrif will be £99 (pretty good deal, we guess), but if you choose a higher £45/month tarrif you’ll get the 8gb model for free.

The price for the 16gb phone is £159 on the £30 and £35 tariffs, £59 on the £45 tariff and it will be free on the £75 tariff.

Based on the prices outlined above, we’d guess that a Pay As You Go version would cost around ~£199 for the 8gb model, and ~£249 for the 16gb model.

O2 To Offer The 3G iPhone To Customers For Free?

2008-06-09T20:59:29+00:00

TechCrunh UK have apparantly had a source from O2 confirm that the 3G iPhone will be free on an 18 month contract to new O2 customers, but £100 for existing customers. This is not confirmed, so take it with a pinch of salt - it sounds pretty realistic, though.

Hopefully there will be a Pay As You Go version on the phone, or at the very least, some cheaper tarifs.

Second Gen iPhone Finally Confirmed! All Details Here…

2008-06-09T18:44:24+00:00

Finally - the second generation iPhone has been announced and people can finally stop spreading rumours!

Features:

Full Plastic Back (with thinner edges)

Improved Camera

Cheaper

Flush Headphone Jack

Improved speakers/audio

GPS w/ Google Maps integration

Better battery - two hours extra talk time, seven hours of video, 24 hours of audio.

The iPhone 3G is being released in over 70 countrys.

Mobile Me - Exchange For The Rest Of Us

2008-06-09T18:44:24+00:00

Yep, Mobile Me was real after all! It’s basically Microsoft Exchange, but for normal people; all of the features are here… Push email, contacts and calanders, as well as a ton of other little things. For example, say you have a date in your calander on your Mac… If you change it on the Mac, it’ll automatically update on your iPhone. That’s basically how the whole thing works - pretty cool!

There will also be a web based application where you can access everything from any web browser.

Update on browser application: Very impressive AJAX application, looks just like a desktop application. There are web based versions of all the typical apps; iCal, mail, etc. Changes made on the web are automatically pushed to all other devices (Macs, iPhone, etc).

There will be a 60 day free trial of the service.

Mobile Me replaces .Mac completely - current members will automatically upgraded to the new service.

More details as they come.

Streaming TV Coming To The iPhone Thanks To Sling

2008-06-09T13:33:39+00:00

Live streaming TV is something almost every iPhone owner would love to have - it probably would even be the killer feature for a lot of people. Well, it looks like streaming TV on the iPhone will soon become a reality thanks to non other than Sling Media.

Sling have secretly been working on a native application for the iPhone which will allow SlingBox owners to stream live TV to the device (as well as the iPod Touch) - sounds pretty good to us, especially if you already own a SlingBox. The native application will feature an iPhone style horitzontal scroller (think coverflow, but for TV remote buttons) for control.

There is currently no firm release date.

FLAC & AAC Support On The iPhone Is Here!

2008-06-08T16:10:56+00:00

Ok, everyone may as well bow down to ZodTTD now. Just after our last post, he goes and blows us away once more. If you didn’t already know, ZodTTD has been working on porting the media player VLC over to the iPhone for the past week or so, and he’s pretty much done it.

There are now tons of supported codecs: FLV, XviD, H264, MPEG4, AAC, FLAC, 3GP, MP3, MPEG2, AVI, VCD, DivX, WMA and WMV.

Wow. Seriously? Wow. This dude is awesome.