Touching Up II: Earth 3D, BBInfo 1.1, AOL, AP, and More…
by Eric March on April 18, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Is it that time again already? Yes, we do indeed have another course of enteric-coated, easy-to-swallow news capsules for the popping. Today’s menu includes Earth 3D 1.1, PicoCalc, AOL and Associated Press’ iPhone-friendly portals, Apple’s lost MVNO dreams, Mobile Twitter, Mobile Flickr, iCalls 0.7, Vehicular Pack 2, and Wiki2Touch.
Check it out:
PicoCalc
Remember PicoMemo? Meet its math-geek brother. PicoCalc does what PicoMemo does, but for numbers, and comes with a simple calculator that you can use to add and subtract numbers to and from each other or the number you’ve already got stored in the notification balloon, so you can keep a running total. It has the same limitations on character length though, so this wouldn’t be the most ideal app for any presidents looking to keep an eye on the current cost of the war in Iraq.
PicoCalc is available on the ModMyiFone repo (http://modmyifone.com/installer.xml).
(via Installer)
Earth 3D 1.1
I put off writing about this one because I could never get it working. Finally though, this latest update fixes the problems us 1.1.3/1.1.4 users experienced with crashing back to the desktop (which is, in fact, the sole purpose of this update). In a nutshell, Earth 3D is a rather cool 3D OpenGL-ES animation of the moon orbiting around the Earth as the Earth orbits around the sun. It is neither real-time nor to scale, but it is a rather cool graphical demo. It automatically adjusts for landscape and portrait modes and can be dragged back and forth. No screenshots because, like all OpenGL-ES apps, screenshot apps don’t work, so I’m stealing one from an older version provided by Apple iPhone School.
(via Installer)
AOL Mobile Search for iPhone
For you AOL fan(s), they have just announced the launch of their iPhone-optimized search portal, which works just like a real search engine, but with results that lean towards AOL-owned properties. To its credit, it weighs mobile versions of sites heavier than standard desktop versions, which makes its results relevant not only to search criteria, but device formatting as well. There is a 6-minute video demo available. It doesn’t work on the iPhone.
(via iPhone Atlas)
AP Does Mobile News Portal
Not to be outdone by the likes of AOL, everybody’s other favourite news service, Associated Press, has announced plans to launch a mobile-centric news portal. The new Mobile News Network will aggregate their own coverage with that of local papers and serve it all up in a mobile-friendly format aimed straight at the iPhone in particular.
(via iPhone Atlas)
Mobile Twitter 1.5
Big update for this robust Twitter app: Update View has been moved to the top-right to mitigate accidental taps when typing; Settings reorganized and new options; the option to enable/disable secure connections; automatic checking for new @replies and direct messages; Messages view updated; “View User’s Tweets” added to menu options; new Springboard icon; new black UI; manual Reload button on each tab; smaller fonts for tweets to fit more on-screen at once; manual reloads will return your view to the top; public timeline renamed to “Everyone” to comply with the latest twitter.com changes; and a bunch of back-end changes. Whew!
Mobile Twitter is available on the Ste Packaging repo (http://repo.smxy.org/iphone-apps/) I’m not on Twitter so I’ll have to borrow a couple screenies from Apple iPhone School.
(via Apple iPhone School)
Mobile Flickr Released
For you Flickr-heads who’ve been aching to be able to upload pics from your camera roll directly to Flickr, your panacea is here: Mobile Flickr has been released, and gives you the ability to browse your Flickr photos, search for others, explore, and of course, upload your own pics directly from your camera roll. Videos and screenshots over yonder.
Mobile Flickr is available on the XK72 repo (http://xk72.com/iphone/repos/). Once again, I don’t use Flickr (I’m a Photobucket kinda guy) so it’s Apple iPhone School to the rescue again.(via Apple iPhone School)
Wiki2Touch
Jumping into the Offline Wiki pool, Wiki2Touch is another Wikipedia viewer for storing the entirety of Wikipedia offline, so you’ll never be without a resource to let you behave like you know it all. (Seriously, you’re making those of us who do look bad.) Unfortunately there seem to be some issues with the long-winded download and indexing processes necessary to install Wikipedia on your iPhone or Touch, to say nothing of the 4 gigs or so required to actually install it, so caveat emptor.
Wiki2Touch is available on its own Wiki2Touch repo (http://168weedon.com/i/)
(via Apple iPhone School)
Vehicular Pack 2
iPod Touch Fans user H3X has released the sequel to his iPhysics level pack, known as H3X’s Vehicular Pack 2. It features the same motor controls as the original but with all new levels and challenges. If you don’t have the first pack, don’t worry; this pack comes with everything — the original Vehicular Pack, Vehicular Pack 2, and the sandbox level.
H3X’s Vehicular Pack is available on OpenRepo’s primary repository (http://openrepo.org/repo)
(via H3X his own self)
Apple’s Dashed MVNO Dreams
Once upon a time — October 10th, 2006 to be exact — Apple had plans for their iPhone. It was clear that they were hedging their bets; though it is not known whether this was concurrent to their deal with AT&T or after, nevertheless Apple had filed for a patent to become a multi-carrier “smart” mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). The technology patent, dubbed “Dynamic Carrier Selection,” would connect each iPhone to a central server and obtain realtime location information from the phone and cross-reference that with a list of supported carriers (i.e. carriers that have successfully bid for contracts with Apple) in the region to allow customers to connect to that carrier with the appropriate SIM card. I’m guessing the logistics of such a technology were fairly nightmarish, as nothing ever came of the idea — but it would have been very interesting if they went through with it.
(via iPhone Alley)
iCalls 0.7
Not much to add to yesterday’s Touched Up entry, but a new version has been released that allows you to E-Mail your call history to yourself in HTML format. The Incoming and Outgoing screens now sport an “@” symbol which, when tapped, will pop up a dialog to enter an E-Mail address and then ship you off to the E-Mail app with the list as the message body.
iCalls is available on the iSpazio source (http://repo.ispazio.net) but for some reason I only found this version on the ModMyiFone source (http://modmyifone.com/installer.xml).
(via Apple iPhone School)
And that closes the book on another edition of Touched Up! Join us next time when The Sun catches Steve Jobs lounging on a beach wearing only a plum smuggler. (There. Get that image out of your head.)
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Posted in Apple Patents, Application Related
April 19th, 2008 at 6:51 am
“There is a 6-minute video demo available. It doesn’t work on the iPhone.”
Looks like it makes sense, doesn’t it? Now try reading the whole paragraph, and try to work out from a reader’s point of view whether you mean the video doesn’t work on the iPhone, or the actual AOL search portal =P
May I suggest:
“There is a 6-minute video demo available, which sadly doesn’t work on the iPhone.