IPHONE APPLICATIONS POWERED BY NETFLIX

Because everything needs an App Store or central directory of its own, Netflix is preparing to unveil an App Gallery on its website showing what created by developers to get the most out of its service. No word exactly when the page goes up, but until then we'll highlight the Windows mobile manager with integrated streaming trailers and the ability to add movies directly from Rotten Tomatoes as good examples...

How the Palm Pre Can Beat the iPhone

The Palm Pre is being touted by almost everyone as the first serious rival to the iPhone. That’s no surprise — almost every other manufacturer has squeezed out a touch-screen, big-icon handset since the iPhone debuted almost two years ago, but they have all been me-too clones, and about as successful in topping the iPhone as the myriad MP3 players that failed to beat the iPod. The Pre looks like the first phone to actually bring something new.

What has this shown us? It makes it clear that simply adding extra features doesn’t work. Adding a 5MP camera is no more likely to topple the iPhone than adding an FM radio worked to beat the iPod. The reasons for the success of the iPhone are subtler and harder to see.

Here’s what the Pre needs to do to make a dent.

Be Fun to Use

Arguably, almost every cellphone before the iPhone was horrible to use, a monstrosity of hard-to-access features and bad UI decisions. Because every phone was as bad, the manufacturers got away with it. The Pre enters a post-iPhone world. The iPhone’s UI is not only easy and intuitive but a joy to use. Little tweaks, animations and subtle guides combine to make the iPhone fun to just play with.

The Pre’s wiggly strip, its un-intrusive pop-up notifications and its “card" metaphor are all good candidates for this. And when you see the “window-blind" expandable menus for the first time, I dare you not to crack a smile.

Applications

The iPhone is lacking in many features — just look at the reception that the addition of cut-and-paste got at the OS 3.0 announcement. But the beauty of the iPhone model is the App Store, which means developers can add almost any missing feature they like. Every smartphone can run third party applications, but Apple was the first company to make it so easy that it’s hard not to buy apps.

Palm needs to make sure the Pre has a store at least as good as the iTunes Store, and — unlike Apple — it doesn’t have the luxury of spending a year making it. The Pre needs to launch with a perfect, well stocked store to stand a chance. Pandora and Amazon have already signed up, so its off to a good start.

An Kick-Ass Ad Campaign

One of the secrets of Apple’s success is brand awareness. Nobody goes to the store to buy an “MP3 player"; they go to buy an iPod. And so the iPhone, too, isn’t seen to be the same as a phone. The iPhone exists in a category of its own.

To have a chance of really competing, rather than being a respectable also-ran, the Pre needs to become a household name, and to garner similar buzz to that surrounding Apple’s phone. This is starting with the tech blogs — we are almost universally excited by the Pre, but it needs to go mainstream. Other than the BlackBerry and the iPhone, name another handset that get regular coverage in regular news and newspapers.

One More Thing

While Palm shouldn’t try too hard to push the Pre as an iPhone competitor, it needs to have something to differentiate it from the Stupendabrick. And it has it — a keyboard. The iPhone is, like the iPod Touch, a mobile computer, a handheld pocket-box tht can do anything thanks to its very simple hardware design. The Pre is a phone, albeit a good one, and it has the keyboard to prove it.

For many, the lack of a hardware keyboard on the iPhone is a “deal-breaker". For them, the Pre might be just the thing, although with 30 million already sold, the iPhone/iPod Touch on-screen keys can’t be that bad.

YAHOO MOBILE ARRIVES AT IPHONE AND MOBILE WEB

Yahoo has officially unveiled its Yahoo Mobile application for mobile web and iPhone for the UK market.

AlthoughYahoo Mobile was announced at the World Mobile Congrees , it has now arrived for more than 300 models with 'HTML-enabled mobile browsers' and is also a made-to-measure iPhone application.

"Consumers around the globe are demanding compelling mobile internet services that offer increased personalisation, and allow them to easily manage all the content they care about in one place on their phones" said Mitch Lazar, MD of Yahoo Mobile in Europe.

"To further capitalise on the market potential and continue our mobile leadership, we created Yahoo! Mobile, a dynamic starting point enabling consumers to discover the world around them, stay connected through a variety of communication services, and customise content to define their internet experience on mobile devices."

The service wraps up Yahoo's mobile search, an instant messenger client, Yahoo mail and third-party applications.

Early reviews on iPhone's App store are less than glowing, ranging from 'it's okay-ish' to 'not ready yet' with one user stating that it is 'slow over GPRS' and that there are 'too many oops! the page is not available' messages.

(courtesy : tecradar.com)

HOW IPHONE TOUCH SCREENS WORK

Ever wondered how your simple finger tips work magic at an iPHONE??? If you thought it was THE HIDDEN POWER WITHIN;you weren't wrong. Electronic devices can use lots of different methods to detect a person's input on a touch-screen. Most of them use sensors and circuitry to monitor changes in a particular state. Many, including the iPhone, monitor changes in electrical current. Others monitor changes in the reflection of waves. These can be sound waves or beams of near-infrared. A few systems use transducers to measure changes in vibration caused when your finger hits the screen's surface or cameras to monitor changes in light and shadow.

The basic idea is pretty simple -- when you place your finger or a stylus on the screen, it changes the state that the device is monitoring. In screens that rely on sound or light waves, your finger physically blocks or reflects some of the waves. Capacitive touch-screens use a layer of capacitive material to hold an electrical charge; touching the screen changes the amount of charge at a specific point of contact. In resistive screens, the pressure from your finger causes conductive and resistive layers of circuitry to touch each other, changing the circuits' resistance.

Most of the time, these systems are good at detecting the location of exactly one touch. If you try to touch the screen in several places at once, the results can be erratic. Some screens simply disregard all touches after the first one. Others can detect simultaneous touches, but their software can't calculate the location of each one accurately. There are several reasons for this, including:

• Many systems detect changes along an axis or in a specific direction instead of at each point on the screen.
• Some screens rely on system-wide averages to determine touch locations.

Some systems take measurements by first establishing a baseline. When you touch the screen, you create a new baseline. Adding another touch causes the system to take a measurement using the wrong baseline as a starting point. (Courtesy: howstuffworks.com)

Another Iphone Next gen concept...

I drooled at the idea of an iPhone Pro with slide keyboard and big camera, but let's face it: It's probably never going to happen. So—using logic—what will the next iPhone look like?

Probably something like this: A flatter, even more tapered and slender version of the current one. After all, if you have a winning formula, why radically change it?

Hassaan says that he would be disappointed if it ends being something like this, just a version of the current model. I'm going to be pessimist and expect just an evolution of the current design. The market keeps growing with what they have now, so it won't make sense for them to go through a radical design change just yet. And besides this point, there are at least three generations of smooth evolution and tweaks in Apple hardware designs until something completely new comes along (witness the iMacs, for example.)

Not that it really matters: As long as they include a bigger camera sensor while reducing the thickness to iPod touch levels, I'd be happy. But who knows, perhaps there will be a radical departure. What do you think? Do you have any original idea? write in the comment section... (Image Courtesy by Dotdash)

TV for iphone...

Long rumored and eagerly awaited, DirecTV has finally posted their free iPhone app for finding and recording content. The DirecTV app [App Store link] has been pretty hard to find. It didn't come up in an iTunes search last night and this morning, but that may have been fixed. Locating programming is much faster and friendlier than using the iPhone friendly web page that had been the way to look at the DirecTV schedule. The new app allows you to search for any shows up to 14 days in advance. You can browse the DirecTV schedule by date and time or by channel. You can select from multiple DVRs if you have them, and you can record a single episode of a program or a series. The app runs on either the iPhone or iPod touch with version 2.2.1 software or above. You can search the schedule even if you're not a DirecTV subscriber, but if you want to trigger recordings you must use your DirecTV password. I set up a few tests and all the recording worked, one DVR request was made 2 minutes before the program started and the data made it to the DVR via satellite in time to catch the show. I liked the old web-based method, but this is light years better. You get good program descriptions and ratings when available, and speed over the 3G network or even EDGE was quite usable.

Free Wallpapers that will rock ur desktop...

This is another link that I stumble upon while surfing the the web...InterfaceLIFT... this websites has incredible wallpapers which have resolution from iphone to full HD wallpapers supporting both standard aspect and wide screen ratios...most important offer all is free. There also an app for iphone called Backdrops... you can download it from this website.. now go and see for yourselves... http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/downloads/

Pirates Board Apple's iPhone App Store

The iPhone's App Store is becoming an increasingly juicy target for pirates, who have illegally cracked 20 percent of paid applications for free distribution.

Apple's App Store offers about 25,000 paid apps, and iPhone analytics company Medialets estimates at least 5,000 have been pirated. The company also said it has tracked dozens of apps with as high as a 100-to-1 pirated-to-paid ratio.

"It's a real problem that developers, Apple and the community need to address," said Eric Litman, CEO of Medialets, a market research company that tracks app statistics and usage for developers.

Just how much piracy affects App Store sales is unclear and remains up for debate — since Apple, tight-lipped as usual, has not disclosed any numbers. Apple didn't respond to several requests for comment.

Software piracy is rampant on the internet, with illegal, free downloads of expensive software just a Google search away.

The Business Software Alliance commissioned a study in 2008 that suggests the economic impact of software piracy is tens of billions of dollars. In the United States, if the amount of software piracy were reduced 10 percent over four years, the end result would be $41 billion in economic growth, according to the study.

So it was inevitable that the App Store would fall victim to piracy, too.

Pirated iPhone applications appear in a number of places. There is, for example, a 5.4 gigabyte Torrent file called the X-Mas iBrain Pack, which contains 808 cracked iPhone applications.

There are also websites hosting dozens of pirated iPhone apps, such as Appulo.us, which currently offers about 3,200 cracked apps. Another site, The Monkeys Ball, recently relaunched with 81 cracked apps. The Monkeys Ball promotes the cracked apps as "trial" downloads, encouraging users to buy the apps after they've tried them.

"We want people to think of these as trial apps since Apple doesn't allow trials of apps before purchase," said "Omar," one of the creators of the site, who refused to disclose his real name to Wired.com. "It's Apple's fault for not putting up a trials system."

Kai Yu, president of BeeJive, said he installed analytics software in his IM application BeeJive, and his company discovered 60 percent of activity comes from users who own pirated copies. BeeJive costs $16.

"We think that current piracy of content from the App Store is much more widespread than most people realize," Yu said.

Since Apple has not installed security in the App Store to combat piracy, BeeJive has had to enforce its own measures to disable cracked versions of its software. In fact, when users try to log in to pirated versions of BeeJive, they are instead pointed to a video clip of Office Space about theft.

However, not all app developers say piracy is a problem.

Brian Greenstone, owner of Pangea Software, said he actively tracked piracy of his iPhone game Enigmo, and piracy made a very insignificant impact on sales. During the first week of Enigmo's launch, only 5 percent of downloaded copies were pirated versions. After that week, piracy dropped to nearly 0 percent, according to Greenstone.

"Like any piracy scheme, it's just a matter of time until hackers find their way around," Greenstone said. "There are things we can do as developers, but since the piracy rate is so low, my thought is 'Who cares? It's not even worth the trouble.'"

Steve Demeter, developer of the popular iPhone puzzle game Trism, said he also saw little impact from piracy, even though his app was one of the first in the App Store to be pirated.

"When I first saw it on Pirate Bay I couldn't decide whether to freak out or to say, 'Whoa, cool!" he told Wired.com.

Demeter said his App Store sales decreased for about two weeks. However, he said eventually everything "evened out" and that he is not very concerned about piracy. (Demeter did, in fact, announce earning $250,000 in profit in just two months with Trism sales.)

Yu said he believes Apple is aware of App Store piracy and is working toward a permanent solution.

"This will hopefully be a temporary state, mostly due to the 'newness' of the App Store," Yu said. "It is like the Wild West."

(Image Courtesy Wired)

At last Skype for iPhone...coming tomorrow

Skype is set to launch its iPhone application Tuesday bringing its much anticipated Net-based phone service to Apple's mobile platform. With the Skype iPhone app users will be able to make free calls using Wi-Fi to other Skype users as well as use their Skype accounts to make reduced price calls to traditional landline phones. Skype announced its iPhone application would be available on Tuesday for free. Mobile versions of Skype are already available for Nokia, Windows Mobile, and Google Android phones.

From what we can tell the Skype for iPhone looks great, but there are some drawbacks. One disappoint is users won't be able to place calls over cellular networks but only via Wi-Fi. Still, for international callers especially Skype's iPhone app will save callers money by allowing them to avoid AT&T's traditional wireless phone network and adds the convenience of allowing Skype users to use their iPhone handset for Skype calls.

Looking more like a traditional iPhone app rather than its desktop Windows counterpart most of its 400 million users are used to, Skype for iPhone features five tabs at the bottom of the screen, displaying contacts, chats, a calling panel, call history and your profile (with Facebook style status).

Skype for iPhone will use phone numbers directly from your phone's address book, so no more nasty duplicated contact lists. It even displays your contacts' photos (if they have one set up on Skype). Conference calling is available, but for the moment you can only take part in one if someone invites you.

You can also chat with your Skype friends, but unfortunately this is the only thing (besides seeing who's online) you can do over a cellular network. Skype for iPhone places calls only via Wi-Fi, not differentiating itself much from the other voice apps in the App Store.

Skype for phone is still a young app and is short on some of the features its desktop counterpart has. SMS, video and proper conference calling, file transfer and voicemail are missing from this first version, but they would hopefully make their way in future versions.

iPod Touch users will also be able to enjoy Skype, but this would require them to purchase a microphone, or headphones with built-in microphones (like the iPhone's).

(Images Courtesey by PWM)