iPhone Hunting

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.

iPhone Streaming Audio

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:

• BBC News update -- Five Minute Update on World News -- frequent updates
• CNET Podcasts -- Various podcasts focusing on the world of tech -- daily updates
• *click on the 'download mp3' link, not the 'listen' link.
• Podcast Directory -- Anything and Everything under the sun (some of the video podcasts work too!)

iPhone Gets New Ears

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.

iPhone Gets a Promotion

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.

iPhone Grows Up

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:

• You can BCC: yourself in mail (you had to CC: yourself before)
• Security holes are plugged
  
• Mail Program is snappier
• Safari Does not crash as often
• Using iPod and Safari does not cause as many crashes
• Volume control -- some claim it is louder, while others say auto-gain control is improved
• Google Maps re-centering bug is gone
• Increased time options for passcode lock (5, 10, 15, and 30 minutes)
  

If you have any iFuntastic magic installed, you'll be forced to do an entire restore, which can take 90 minutes and disables funtastic goodies. Some users were able to use iFuntastic after the update to re-install custom ring-tones--other users were not so lucky.