iPhone

iPhone - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

  • iPod Touch numbers almost equal iPhone

    There are almost as many iPod Touches — 11.5 million — in the US as there are iPhones, according to estimates by mobile advertisement server AdMob.

  • Mobile search engine a product of graduate's passion

    Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) Bachelor of Engineering graduate Jay Park says being a long-time fan of Apple products, plus a desire to build a better business search engine for mobile Apple devices than was available from Google Maps, was what motivated him to develop Find! NZ.

  • Apple iPhone 4G patent surfaces?

    Three new Apple patents applications unearthed this week suggest a range of new features that may be included in the next generation iPhone.

  • Is Apple's push notification enough for the iPhone?

    Apple's iPhone is renowned for being the sole mobile platform that runs only one application at a time. If you want to write an instant messaging client for iPhone, knock yourself out, but recipients will be reachable only while your IM software has control of the screen. As soon as an iPhone user presses Home, the running application quits, voluntarily or otherwise. It's not allowed to leave so much as a thread behind to listen for connections from the network, do periodic GPS logging or run anything else in the background. Its competitors, such as the Palm Pre and RIM BlackBerry, have no such limitation.
    Apple's not likely to give ground on background apps, but it does realise the competitive and functional gap that its one-app-at-a-time policy creates. So the iPhone 3.0 OS offers the APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) to provide a workaround. Is it a limited workaround or enough of a bridge to overcome the multitasking advantage of its competitors?
    APNS does run in the background and listens for communications from a single server, and vendors or organisations are free to use APNS as a gateway to deliver short alerts and data messages to individual iPhones. Google, Yahoo and AOL still can't run background tasks on your iPhone, but as long as they link to APNS, they can push chat invitations that pop up on the invitee's iPhone no matter what he is running. If the user taps Accept, the IM client launches and the session begins.
    IM is neither the only nor the best usage scenario for APNS. Most users will experience it in a familiar way: A small badge that appears on an app's icon, such as the familiar unread-message counter in the iPhone's Mail app or the latest new-invitation counter in its Calendar app. (The user has to see the Home page in which the app resides to see such indicators, however, which means leaving whatever app you may be in and seeing if other apps have any new notifications.)
    If the app is running, it gets the notification immediately. If the app isn't running, the notification is held in the phone to be consumed at the app's next launch. If the iPhone is offline when the sender attempts delivery, APNS attempts to send the notification for 28 days. (The notification itself is a small 256-byte, arbitrary encrypted payload sent from a server-side app to a specific application running on a specific iPhone. So APNS is a general mechanism for shooting structured data to iPhone applications.)

  • Tips to stop the iPhone overheating

    In light of a spate of recent iPhone 3GS overheating reports, Apple published a set of guidelines to help iPhone users ensure that their devices remain at proper operating temperatures to prevent overheating and related issues.
    More accurately, Apple released the tips the day that many of the initial reports surfaced, last Thursday, June 25, so it's unclear whether or not the two are connected — Apple has not issued an official comment on the reports.
    But the following information could be valuable to any iPhone owner concerned with possible overheating.
    From Apple:

  • Apple reports iPhone 3GS shortages

    Apple's retail stores reported shortages of some models of the new iPhone 3GS Sunday, according to the company's own inventory tracking tool.

  • Apple changes name of iPhone 3GS

    In an oddly uncharacteristic move, Apple has quietly changed the way it is spelling the new iPhone 3GS, which now appears without a space all of Apple's press materials.

  • O2 to cut off unauthorised iPhone web tetherers

    Apple iPhone owners who've upgraded to iPhone OS 3.0 have been told by O2 not to tether their phones to laptops in order to enjoy free 3G connectivity of their PCs. O2 says it will disconnect anyone who attempts to use their iPhone as a modem without paying the necessary charges.

  • Apple fans flock to buy iPhone 3G S

    The iPhone's magic is still there: The crowds turned out to see -- and buy -- Apple's iPhone 3G S early Friday morning as it launched around the world.

  • iPhone 3G S tear-down reveals 3x speed boost

    The iPhone 3G S' hardware, including a faster microprocessor and a faster graphics processor than those in last year's model, supports Apple's claims that the new device is two to three times faster overall, a just-completed tear-down shows.

  • AT&T squashes tethering surcharge rumours

    Two iPhone features introduced in iPhone OS 3.0 are still awaiting activation by AT&T: Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and tethering — where the phone is used as a modem to connect a computer to the internet.
    Rumours suggesting that AT&T will surcharge its users $55 to activate the tethering capability are wrong, according to AT&T.
    Tethering will enable iPhone users to connect their Mac or PC to the internet using AT&T's data network instead of wi-fi. It's a useful feature for business travelers or others who need access away from a faster network. The feature was unveiled during the introduction of iPhone OS 3.0 earlier this year.
    But the absence of AT&T's logo from a keynote slide at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco earlier this month, paired with the cell phone service provider's taciturnity, has left customers wondering when AT&T will enable tethering, and whether it'll cost extra.
    Nature abhors a vacuum, as does the Mac web. Rumours are afoot that AT&T plans to sock customers with a heavy surcharge if they want to use tethering. It's the latest turn of the worm as disgruntled iPhone users in the United States complain more and more vociferously about AT&T's exclusive distribution arrangement with Apple.

  • iPhone 3GS offers speed boost, video capture

    Apple on Monday unveiled a new version of the iPhone. Dubbed the iPhone 3GS, the latest version of Apple's popular smartphone promises to launch applications and run software faster than the previous model.

  • What we know, what we expect with iPhone 3.0

    As Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference nears, speculation over what's in store for the iPhone has reached an ear-splitting, glass-shattering pitch. In the wake of Apple's departure from Macworld Expo, WWDC is the last remaining annually scheduled event for the company, so expectations are high. Will Apple have some surprises up its sleeve? Or will eager fans and watchers have to "merely" be satisfied with what Apple's already announced — particularly when it comes to the next version of the operating system for its popular iPhone?

  • Fight to legalise iPhone jailbreaking nears

    Apple's iPhone marketing chief will square off against the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others on Friday as the US Copyright Office considers whether to allow an exemption to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that would permit jailbreaking.

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