Tag Archives: iphone

The Potion Factory have failed to deliver an iPhone client for The Hit List.

Not a moment too soon? Sad to say it — I do like the app — but it’s months and months too late. The pace of progress has been so glacial that it’s impossible to have faith in its future development; I can’t let myself become dependent on an app without that.

via the comments in TUAW’s “Potion Factory seeking beta testers for The Hit List iPhone”.

Also another favourite:

Is that a joke? after all this time of waiting… and it’s not even in beta? he hasn’t update the desktop program for quite a while saying he was working on the iphone app, and only now it’s ready for beta…

To further add insult to injury, The Potion Factory (the guys behind The Hit List) say that beta invites are open until September 21. FOR. TEN. PLACES.

I’m currently undecided as to how I should apply…

Dear Potion Factory,

So, how do I use The Hit List?

Put simply, I don’t.

And why would I, when any software development can only be described as “glacial”, the beta invites are frankly, a joke, and there’s not even a leaked screenshot to show for any progress that may or may not have been made?

Sure, I can understand that you’re a one-man team. If you’re willing to make such a great application and then pretty much stall any development, don’t promise things without delivering. Last Google Group interaction was months ago. The iPhone app promise has been out there for at least as long as THL Mac has been out there, and yet there’s nothing to show?

I now use Things on my iPhone, and am seriously considering switching to Things on the Mac as well, and I’m sure that there are countless others like me who have done the same.

It’s one thing to promise. As I’ve found out, it’s entirely another to deliver – underpromise and overdeliver is the name of the game, and you’ve clearly failed. First mistake was promising an iPhone app. Second was not delivering said iPhone app within a reasonable time frame.

I’m sorry, but for a getting things done client, you clearly don’t.

Jumping URL iPhone App Review

What I will say about this app, however, is that it is absolutely awesome. Often, while surfing the ‘net, I run out of time to take a look at everything before heading out to school, or going out for dinner, etc. Using Jumping URL, I can simply beam over a few websites and check them out on-the-go. It also works in the opposite direction, which I find very handy. With this app, I can simply copy the address of a website I’d like to look at, paste it into the application (by tapping (P)) and use it as a sort of cross-platform bookmarking system. When I get home, I can whip open the application, tap “Beam” on one of the websites and go to http://www.jumpingurl.com/ (or use the fetch feature included in the Firefox extension) on my computer, instantly getting redirected to the site I’m beaming from my iPhone.

[…]

Overall, this application could easily surpass a perfect 10 rating. It is extremely handy and came out of nowhere. Despite the developer’s original intention for it to be used with YouTube videos, this can come in handy when you come across an interesting article that you don’t have time to read, or would like to view later on your iPhone, for example. On the other side, it can also be useful for those times that you get linked to a flash-based website while you are on your iPhone, in which case you just copy the URL into the application and beam it over when you have access to a flash-enabled computer.

via Jumping URL iPhone App Review – POST1604.

I was one of the lucky few to receive a promocode from Matt (because I’m a cheapskate, lulz), and what can I say, Jumping URL just blows me away.

It’s that awesome – pushing or beaming URLs to and from your iPhone to your Mac or PC. The way it does it is so completely simple, so completely awesome, and like Matt said in his full review (hit up the link), seemingly came out of nowhere.

It’s one of those apps that make you stop and think – “hey, why didn’t I think of that?”, and yet it’s almost flawless in execution and damn, IT JUST WORKS, and brilliantly at that!

This is definitely an app I’ll be showing all my friends. I really can’t get over how easy and simple it is. I know I sound like a raving fanboy here, but it’s just so incredible.

As always, I do have one suggestion – with push notifications, this app would be *perfect*. Imagine it now – push a URL from Firefox on your Mac, you get a notification on your iPhone, and you slide to open the URL in Mobile Safari – that would be très awesome, no?

For $1.19, it’s a steal. You’d be nuts not to grab this on the App Store.

Seriously – it’s that good.

The impact of the iPhone 3GS RAM increase

The most significant thing that Apple’s been touting about new iPhone 3GS is its speed. Generally, when you think about speed improvements, you think of faster CPUs, faster GPUs, and such. But one very important difference in the 3GS that’s contributing to the overall performance is the increased RAM and that’s pretty much gone under the radar.

[…]

CPU (central processing unit):

  • original iPhone: ARM 11, 412 MHz
  • iPhone 3G: ARM 11, 412 MHz
  • iPhone 3GS: ARM Cortex, 600 MHz

GPU (graphics processing unit):

  • original iPhone: PowerVR MBX Lite
  • iPhone 3G: PowerVR MBX Lite
  • iPhone 3GS: PowerVR SGX

RAM (random access memory):

  • original iPhone: 128 MB
  • iPhone 3G: 128 MB
  • iPhone 3GS:256 MB

via tap tap tap ~ 256÷128=10?! The impact of the iPhone 3GS RAM increase.

Just goes to show, once again, that you can ALWAYS do with more RAM, regardless of whether you’re upgrading a computer or an iPhone – especially when you’re doubling the original amount of RAM to begin with.

The secret app that’s on every iPhone…

DemoApp is that mystery application that coexists in the iPhone’s Applications folder along with all the standard apps like Google Maps, Calculator, Stocks, and so forth. We’ve known for a while that it had something to do with movies but until today, we weren’t sure what it did. Today, I can confirm that it does what most people have suspected: it plays a single movie over and over in a repeat loop. It does not, as others hoped, allow you to play video out through your dock. Here’s the down and dirty on DemoApp.

via How I got DemoApp to Work on the iPhone.

Ssh! It’s a secret! 😉

iPhone Carrier Bundles Update

I’ve jailbroken my iPhone 3G, extracted and modified the bundle included, to enable tethering, set up MMS properly (full resolution photos anyone?) and properly configuring Group SMS.

Previously if you attempted to send a SMS message to a group of people, it would instead be sent as a MMS, at MMS rates. Not good. [This carrier update allows you to send multiple messages to groups as SMSs, not as MMSs – Benny]

This new bundle also conforms to the official bundles avaliable for iPhone OS 3 (unneeded/redundant settings have been removed, like EnableMMSCEditing).

All data (iPhone data and tethering) goes through the telstra.iph APN, and MMS goes through telstra.mms.

You can find the carrier bundle here: Telstra_au.ipcc.

via iPhone Carrier Bundles Update | Selling Expectations.

Beau then goes on to handle that pesky no-manual-carrier update issue:

Enabling custom carrier file uploading in iTunes 8.2:

For OS X users, paste or type the following into Terminal, and then restart iTunes:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE

For Windows users, please paste these into ‘Run’ (Press WinKey + R while on the desktop:
32bit –
"C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1

64bit –
"C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1

Copy and Paste

That we had to wait two years for the iPhone’s text selection and pasteboard is a good example of one aspect of the Apple way: better nothing at all than something less than great. That’s not to say Apple never releases anything less than great, but they try not to.2 This is contrary to the philosophy of most other tech companies — and diametrically opposed to the philosophy of Microsoft. And it is very much what drives some people crazy about Apple — it’s simply incomprehensible to some people that it might be better to have no text selection/pasteboard implementation while waiting for a great one than to have a poor implementation in the interim.

via Daring Fireball: Copy and Paste.

Better late and completely awesome than early and epically retarded, right?

Right?!

I’d actually go so far as to say that Apple made the decision not to release copy and paste until now, iPhone haters be damned. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, and that applies to the iPhone just as it applies to any other mainstream consumer electronics device. And they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, eh Palm? 😉

Even with all of 3.0’s numerous improvements, it’s hard to think that this shouldn’t have been the OS that shipped with the device back in 07. People have commented that iPhone OS 3.0 should have been there from the start – but look where we’ve come! That, ladies and gentlemen, is progress in it’s finest form.

Nice work, Apple. Kudos.