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| Tuesday, 06 January 2009 23:04 |
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iPhone News
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|  Well known for its 99 cents pricing, the Apple iTunes music store finally gave in to the music companies and offer multiple price points starting April 2009. Each song will cost $0.69 , $0.99, or $1.29. Phil Schiller at Macworld announced "most" of these music companies plan to offer music at the lower price point, but I would wait to see how true that is. Without question pricing will also depend on popularity of the song. Quality will improve, as the music will be encoded using 256 Kbps.
Another change is the songs will be sold DRM-free. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is used to control usage of digital media so that you cannot duplicate and use the songs however you want to. Although it has the largest market share in digital music sales in the United States, Apple is still very mindful of competition from Amazon.com and other online retailers, which sell digital music without DRM. Another thing is I can't wait to try to download iTunes on my iPhone over the 3G network. Previously you can only purchase music from Apple over wi-fi networks. As well, if you buy music directly on your iphone, the songs will automatically be downloaded to your desktop the next time your phone is synced, making the entire music purchase experience easier. Good job Apple.
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| Thursday, 13 November 2008 17:22 |
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iPhone News
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| The 2.2 firmware update is expected to bring a number of new features to iPhone. iPhoneHellas.gr claims that it will be available on Friday, November 21, based on a “reliable” source. New features that have been confirmed because they were included in the 2.2 betas distributed to developers include: 
(screenshot from wired.com) Past rumors claimed that this release would happen in October, but clearly it did not happen. So we hope that the firmware update will happen in time for Thanksgiving.  (screenshot from i.i.com.com)
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| Sunday, 09 November 2008 17:18 |
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iPhone News
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 Up until now, the iTunes is not equipped for over-the-air download of podcasts direct to IPhones or iPod Touch. That will soon change with the pending release of firmware upgrade 2.2. The new feature was included in the 2.2 beta that was distributed to developers for testing, and screenshots of this were published on a German blog “Flo’s Weblog.”
There are doubts whether these downloads would bog down AT&T’s 3G network. Rumor is direct downloads may only be offered for files under 10MB. For now it looks like it will only be available for Wi-Fi connections.
iPhone users were denied a chance to get this function on their phones earlier when an application called Podcaster was rejected from the App Store back in September. The iPhone app’s function also allows for Wi-Fi downloads of podcasts direct from ITunes, and was rejected because it “duplicates an existing feature.” That feature did not quite exist back then but obviously was on Apple’s roadmap
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| Friday, 07 November 2008 17:17 |
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iPhone News
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 Many iPhone users will appreciate the addition of more Google map features to the phone. With the upcoming firmware upgrade 2.2 expected later this year (hopefully not too much longer), Google will be adding a couple new products to the existing suite of Google map applications on the iPhone: Google Street View, and better navigation instructions for people walking or taking the bus in Google Maps. The driver’s-eye view offered in Google Street View made its first appearance not on the iPhone, but on other smartphones such as the BlackBerry and the Android G1. But Google had been hard at work at bringing that to the popular iPhone. Google Maps for mobile makes it easy to see Street View imagery when you're on the go. Users can view imagery at each turn in driving or walking directions, and study a storefront's facade so that you don't pass it up while you're moving by. Watch the demo here provided by Google:
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| Thursday, 06 November 2008 17:15 |
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iPhone News
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|  Soon you will be asked to rate an app before you delete it from your iPhone. With firmware upgrade 2.2, Apple is adding a new pop-up to the screen that asks you to rate the iPhone app you are about to delete. Will it be another annoying pop-up or would it help collect useful statistics for the developers and users? Well, if you are going to delete an app I don’t think you will give it a very good rating. So all data collected this way will be skewed one way as the people who like the app enough to keep it on their iPhones will not be asked to do the same. User participation may seem to go up, but I doubt the new rating averages will be representative or that useful.
Screenshot provided by iPhoneHellas.gr, a Greek website that seems to have some inside news on the upcoming release of 2.2.
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