iToner for iPhone makes adding ring tones as easy as it gets -- just drag and drop. We love it. (But we don't love the $15 price tag.)
For those of you more adventurous, a new update to iFuntastic adds oodles of features including the ability to steal iTunes Music Store samples and make them a ring tone. We Lurve it. (Especially because it's free!)
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but sometimes it's also a violation of international patent laws.
Seems Nokia knows (hot to steal) a good thing when they see it. They have just announced a new phone that looks like an iPhone and even has many of the same features as the iPhone, the only real drawback to Nokia's new phone is that it's NOT an iPhone.
We all know the iPhone can't do flash, which stinks, because 'The Steve' promised us the 'Real Internet' and since the real internet is peppered with flash, we can't really experience the real internet without it. (Sorry, Steve, it just ain't real without flash.)
Well, we here at iPhonePOV have stopped crying long enough to try and solve the 'flash video dilemma' and have discovered a neat (and hopefully temporary) solution called Vconvert. This free website will gobble up the web address of any page containing flash video (like all of youtube) and convert the video into a variety of formats, including one that your iPhone can play. We're the first to admit it's a pain in the ass, but if you want a flash video on your iPhone, this is the easiest way to do it.
NOTE: This website is for your desktop computer, not your iPhone. After you have converted and downloaded your video, you will have to sync it into your iPhone with iTunes.
UPDATE 1: Many iPhonePOV readers have pointed out that this site is often offline (meaning the link above often does not work.) Sorry, good things don't last forever.
A couple of hack-a-licious upstarts have broken about 43 laws and in so doing, found a way to unlock the iPhone with a little tid-bit of home-made software. What does this mean? In a nut-shell, you can buy an iPhone for full price, but you don't have to sign up for ATT service, thus allowing you to use an iPhone with T-Mobile or any other GSM provider, perhaps even an international provider. If the latter is true, the value of Ebay auctions may quickly rise. The software is not yet publicly available, but as soon as it is, we're gonna start our auctions!
If you're super-rich (and/or dumb) you can even bid on the 2nd iPhone ever unlocked (outside of Apple's Headquarters.) Current price is $15,500.00 (We think it's worth about... $599.00 same as every other iPhone.)
Some crazy hacker genius has written a simple GUI based iPhone application installer which can help you put applications on the iPhone. In normal people speak, this means you can install 3rd party applications without pretending you're a hacker. Several of the editors at iPhonePOV have already done it--it was so easy that we're starting to get giddy about the future of iPhone applications. The process takes about 10 minutes but works flawlessly.
Note 1: If you do something like this to your iPhone, you will have to do a full-restore the next time Apple updates the iPhone's firmware.
Note 2: After you follow the directions for loading the installer, be sure to install the 'community resources' application to get access to all of the cool stuff available from 3rd party developers.
If you look around the web you'll see varous artilces which detail the level of privacy the iPhone practices when transporting your data across the world wide web. While digressions like this are interesting to geeks and terrorists, the normal web-surfer isn't all that concerned with data privacy. That being said, there's one place every telephone user expects privacy, and that's when they're using their phone... as a phone. We'll we're here to tell you that the iPhone is not so private when you are using it as a phone. For example, if you are sitting in the passenger seat of a car and your friend is chatting on his iPhone in the driver's seat (with the iPhone help up to his right ear), you can easily hear both your friend's voice and the caller's voice blaring out the back of the iPhone.
Moral of the story, if you're into illicit behavior, use a headset.
If your significant other has been missing your 'special treats' since you got the iPhone, here's a little something that might make their 'special treats' as fun to play with as your iPhone.
Apple has posted another update for the iPhone which is available via iTunes. They descibe it as "bug fixes" and its only 4 Mbs so there's not much in there. Hopefully they've tweaked the iPod so it doesn't crash when using Safari and the iPod at the same time.
NOTE: Be sure to download any pictures you have on your iPhone before updating. If, for some reason, you are forced to do a full restore (which can happen when you update--especially if you have any hacker mojo going on) all the pictures on your iPhone will be erased. Bye-bye.
Well, actually, you can't play sports, but you get your sweat on as you listen to Sportsy podcasts at ESPN's Razzle-Dazzle PodCenter which was designed specifically for iPhones.
If you're looking to buy an iPhone and you want to save a few bucks, check out Apple's Refurbished Sales. They are currently offering the 4G iPhone for $399 and the 8G for $499. These babies are just like new (except they're refurbished) which means you get Apple's industry leading 1 year warranty and you can return them for any reason in the first 14 days (they will charge a 10% restocking fee if you return.) All Apple iPhones require a 2 year contract with AT&T (unless you unlock the phone, but that's only for the brave.)
Apple refurbished deals come and go with availability, so check back daily if the deal disappears.
Amazon's ongoing quest to acquire all of our shopping dollars has taken another step forward with the announcement of their official Amazon iPhone Beta Website. It's a lean and mean cash sucking machine. Now you can buy all those DVD's you never watch, right from the iPhone.
iPhone Nano--iPhone Schmano. Apple has decided to play a fast one (but not fast enough) by skipping right over the iPhone Nano and announcing the iPhone Shuffle. We think its still a little big--hopefully the next version will be smaller.
If you've been bitching and moaning about the lack of a decent flight simulator for the iPhone, The iPhone Wish List is the place for you. This feisty website allows iPhone Hataz to suggest features and likewise promote the 'bitching and moaning' of other Hataz with a DIGG-like interface. Fairy Tales can come true, so please, vote away, you never know who's reading.
iPhonePOV's favorite suggestion: Flashlight Mode: A simple "flashlight" application for using the iPhone as a flashlight. (You can't make this stuff up!)
Last week 'The Steve' intro'd iLife '08, Apple's suite of multimedia programs which help you look like you know what you're doing on a computer even if you don't. During the presentation he let loose a fresh dropping for the iPhone and we're here to say it's a tasty dropping.
If you have iLife '08 and a .Mac and an iPhone (all of these together run you about $800.00) you can now post pictures to .Mac's insanely cool Web Galleries directly from your iPhone. When viewing a picture you've taken with your iPhone, simply push the little arrow button on the bottom left of the screen and you'll see a new option, "Send to Web Gallery." If for some reason, this option does not appear, you can simply email the photo to your .Mac Web Gallery, which works equally well.
Okay, lots of us have too much time on our hands, but the mastermind behind this video has way, way, way too much time on his hands.
After the jump you'll see a fake video about a possible method for cutting and pasting on the iPhone. No big deal right? Except, this video uses special effects to make Apple's creepy iPhone Demo Guy say things he never said. The practicality of the copy/paste method is okay, but the special effects are worth the jump.
Some Crazy Nintendo Fanboy has created an iPhone version of the 80's classic, Duck Hunt. It looks good, but doesn't have sound and the damn ducks are nearly impossible to hit with your finger. But, in a world where all iPhone games suck, this one is slightly less sucky.
Sidenote: Apple, what's the deal? Since the iPhone came out you have offered two new games for the iPod and nothing for the iPhone. Come on, that's ridiculous! There are situations where you can't get web access and a little cheesy game (ANY GAME!) would be a great time-killer. Jeepers, for twice the price of a Wii you'd think they'd throw in at least the same crappy games that come pre-installed on every iPod. Please, Apple, give us, or sell us some games. Seriously, please.
As far as streaming media goes, the iPhone doesn't really live up to its promise. Yes, we can look at trailers on the Apple site and yes, we can view a few dozen YouTube videos through the special iPhone interface, but what about the millions of Flash, Real, Windows Media and Quicktime streaming videos on the internet? Well, those don't work.
Since waiting for vapor-soft updates that might never come is not our cup of tea, we here at iphonePOV went on the hunt for real media that we can stream to the iPhone and we actually found some.... MP3s.
Turns out the iPhone can play MP3s as they are downloading, which feels a lot like streaming (even though it isn't.) So, if you point your phone to any downloadable MP3 (including countless Podcasts) you can pretend, if only for a moment, that the iPhone has all the internet capabilities it should.
Here are a few links to get you started:
If you've been boo-hooing over the fact that you can't use your own headphones for phone calls on the iPhone, boo-hoo no more. Shure's MPA (Music Phone Adapter) kills 2 birds with 1 piece of plastic. As you would expect from the name, this headphone adapter allows you to connect any 3rd party headphones to the iPhone's recessed headphone port, but what you would not necessarily expect from the name, is that the adapter also has a built-in microphone, which transforms ordinary headphones into a hands-free kit.
The $50 price is hard to swallow, but if you can afford an iPhone and an over-priced set of headphones, you can easily afford this adapter.
All you stuffy corporate types out there can breath a sigh of relief. (sigh) A little upstart called Synchronica has released a Mobile Gateway for business users of the iPhone. This bad-boy transforms your snot-nosed baby iPhone into a full-fledged business tool which (they claim) enables seamless iPhone integration with corporate Email.
If you're hobby is corporate email solutions, you'll want to check out their free trial right away.
Update 1: Synchronica's free trial is still free, but their servers are down, so in spite of what we told you in the paragraph above, you're getting nothing for free. (You get what you pay for, right?) The link page claims the servers are down because they where unable to meet the crushing demand that occurs when the word iPhone is inserted into a press release.
Apple, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to give the iPhone its first software update (it will show up in iTunes during your next sync.) It's a paltry list of changes, but better than nothing:
Here's the newness:
