iPhone App Blog

Well, the iPhone’s been out for a month and there’s already a class-action suit in the works. Illinois iPhone owner Jose Trujillo is suing both Apple and AT&Tstating that, among other things, the battery “can only be charged approximately 300 times before it will be in need of replacement, necessitating a new battery annually for owners of the iPhone.”

Trujillo claims that Apple kept it a big ‘ole secret that batteries eventually run out and must be replaced. His claim that iPhone users will have to replace their batteries annually is dubious at best and just plain wrong at worst. Not to mention his claim that the iPhone’s battery replacement was “undisclosed to the public” when Apple’s website clearly states that:

A properly maintained iPhone battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 400 full charge and discharge cycles. You may choose to replace your battery when it no longer holds sufficient charge to meet your needs.

Well, keeping an 80% charge after 400 charge cycles doesn’t sound like the battery needs to be replaced to me. Some blogs and articles even place battery replacement at 2 years or more after purchasing the iPhone. Either way, it’s not possible for Trujillo to have fully charged his iPhone over 300 times in the month he has owned it.

Another point the lawsuit makes is that the iPhone’s battery is soldered in and cannot be replaced by the consumer. Well, this is true and a lot has been made of this design decision. A soldered battery allows the iPhone to be slimmer and more streamlined, but requires the phone to be sent in to Apple to get the battery replaced.

Apple has actually been called to task by New York’s Consumer Protection Boardfor its not-so-customer-friendly customer service. Among the complaints is (surprise) Apple’s battery replacement plan. After the year warranty has run out, replacement batteries go for $79 plus a $6.95 shipping fee. The whole thing takes three days and wipes the memory of the device. If you can’t bear to be without an iPhone for that long you can get a loaner iPhone for $29.

NY’s Consumer Protection Board makes many good points about Apple’s iPhone return policies, battery replacement, and other terms and conditions. Trujillo does not. Which just proves that a nice letter can get more support than a lawsuit.

Here’s some exciting news for those of us who love games and want as many as possible for our iPhones. PopCap Games, the leading online company for casual gameplay, has released a version of its premier game for the iPhone. Bejeweled, the popular jewel-pattern game has been called PopCap’s flagship game and now there’s a version for the iPhone.

This version of Bejeweled has been specially designed to work with the iPhone’s screen size and input controls. Working with Polish developer Arkadiusz Mlynarczyk, who developed a Bejeweled clone called Diamenty for the iPhone, PopCap has transformed the familiar game with specialty controls to take advantage of iPhone’s unique touch screen capabilities.

Bejeweled was a clear choice for the iPhone due to the game’s vertical orientation. The game takes advantage of iPhone’s landscape capabilities as well. If you turn the iPhone, the game will zoom in on the active part of the screen; making selecting individual gems a little bit easier.

Not only is Bejeweled super fun (personally, I’ve  played it far too much), but PopCap’s new version is absolutely free. Bejeweled and Zuma (another popular PopCap game) have both been available on video iPods for a year and have both been great successes. It’s easy to speculate, then, that this will not be the last game that PopCap develops for the awesome-game-lacking iPhone.

For more information on this game app as well as info about PopCap Games check out PopCap’s Bejeweled Press Release.

So you’re a busy, on-the-go iPhone owner, right? You don’t have time to look up nearby restaurants and attractions using Google or Mapquest, right? You can’t be bothered to look up addresses in a phone book while burning the candle at both ends, huh, iPhone user?

Well, whether you’re actually that busy or not there’s a new iPhone app that can make your hectic and fussy lifestyle a little easier. Introducing InfoSpace Find It!, an iPhone version of Infospace’s awesome local search application. Simply go to InfoSpace Find It! to look for local restaurants, concerts, tourist attractions, and other stuff.

Local search queries are organized into six categories including Dine Out, Go Out, and Shop. There are also categories to help you find local addresses and phone numbers. You can even find the names and addresses of people just by knowing their phone number.  The service is updated weekly so concert listings and the like stay relevant and useful.

With listings for over 35,000 US cities InfoSpace Find It! can help you find whatever you need wherever you are. There’s a nifty What’s Nearby feature that searches the six categories if you know where you are. All you need to know is a zip code, phone number, address, or even just the town you’re in.

This is a really nifty little local search app. All you need to know is pretty much anything about where you are and suddenly you have access to most everything around you. The people searches are surprisingly accurate as are the other searches. Make sure you check out this neat little app.

The iPhone was released two days before the end of the fiscal quarter and weeks later Apple and AT&T are panicking. First of all, the iPhone didn’t sell nearly as well as many predicted it would. Most analysts predicted anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 iPhones to be sold in the first few days of availability with some sure that up to 700,000 would be sold.

With such pomp and circumstance surrounding the release, it’s no wonder that the real numbers were a bit disappointing. Apple announced yesterday in its fiscal third-quarter earnings report that 270,000 iPhones were sold in the last 30 hours of the quarter. While still impressive, the number falls short of many predictions.

The real headscratcher comes when AT&T reported that they activated only 146,000 iPhones during the same period. So the question becomes, “Where did those 124,000 iPhones go?” Both Apple and AT&T reported that a small percentage of iPhone users had trouble activating their accounts, but the percentage was in the single digits.

An AT&T spokesman gave several reasons for the discrepancy, but most of them don’t hold water.While some of those who bought iPhones may have waited a day or two to activate them after waiting in line for hours to purchase them it certainly wouldn’t be a huge number. Another explanation given was that the discrepancy was due to people buying iPhones to sell on eBay or CraigsList.

Ok, so maybe 124,000 people had activation problems, procrastination problems, and problems re-selling the things. The real point is that it really isn’t that big a deal. It was almost certain that the iPhone wouldn’t live up to sales hype in the first thirty hours it was available, but that doesn’t stop some from freaking out.

Both Apple’s and AT&T’s stock fell after the third-quarter reports were delivered. Despite that fact that Apple’s net profit has risen over 50% compared to the same time last year and that quarterly sales of the Mac were the highest EVER, there were panicky doomsayers dropping their stock.

The point is that even though iPhone’s sales weren’t as high as predicted it still kicked major selling butt. For an interesting comparison of iPhone’s early sales to that of its sibling the iPod check out this article by Arik Hesseldahl of Business Week.

There have been a lot of custom ringtone hacks for the iPhone floating around the web. Ranging from 7 to 20 steps these hacks are ridiculously complicated and even thinking about using them voids your warranty. Custom ringtone hacks probably won’t do you any good unless you are super versed in the workings of computers.

Not only are these ringtone hacks pretty complicated, but you also risk bricking your iPhone and ripping up the warranty in the process. So for those (like me) who just want showtune ringtones and don’t even begin to know how to hack anything it was “no ringtone for you!”

Well, fortunately, that has all changed thanks to the nerds at Efiko Software. They’ve designed an almost too good to be true iPhone ringtone app. The aptly named iPhoneRingToneMakerlet’s you do just that; make custom ringtones quickly and easily from your existing MP3s.

For the introductory discount price of $9.95 you can download the software and make unlimited custom ringtones. Right now the RingToneMaker is only set up for Windows so Mac users will have to run a parallels desktop program. Matt Miller at ZDnethas some good instructions to do this as well as a video showing how easy this ringtone creator is to use.

And easy it is. Once you have iPhoneRingToneMaker downloaded onto your computer you simply right click onto any MP3 track in your library and select “create a ringtone.” You can also add sound effects to further personalize your ringtone and even set the song as your MP3 alarm on the iPhone. 

This ringtone maker is really super neat and sooooo easy to use. It really beats following a 20 plus step hacking tutorial.

Well, if you’re in school it’s probably going to start in about a month. Yeah, I know, I just realized it, too. Don’t panic, it’s all going to be alright. With the realization that I and many, many others will be joining the legion of students all too soon I thought I’d do a little spotlight on some iPhone apps that are a little more academically minded.

One of the first steps in getting ready for school time, school time, break the golden rule time is buying books. Buying textbooks from Amazon can usually save you some money, and now you can browse Amazon’s listings from your iPhone. TeleMoose is a specially designed Amazon page for the iPhone so you can save money on books while your shopping for folders and binders and booze and whatever else students need.

There are several reference apps that have been developed for the iPhone. One unique and rather neat reference app is TechDictionary. Whether or not you are technologically minded TechDictionary can be a really useful application to have. Simply type in any tech term that you need a definition for and get your learn on. This TechDictionary app also has useful tech and virus news as well as fun emoticons and IM abbreviations.

If you’re a history buff you’ll definitely want to bookmark This Day in History for iPhone. Powered by the publishers of World Book, This Day in History features the important and interesting events that happened every day in history. This is a special version created just for the iPhone so you can be full of historic trivia every day. Your history prof will love you.

Now if you have a question that your friends, family, and professors can’t or won’t answer direct your iPhone to this Fluther app. Fluther is a neat site where you “tap the collective” to get your questions answered. From the frivolous to the profound, users ask questions and other users answer. Whether you have many unanswered questions or just like to be a know-it-all Fluther’s iPhone app is a must visit.

Now if you’re a quote lover you’ll want to check out BrainyQuote for the iPhone. BrainyQuote’s iPhone app has a quote of the day as well as a way to search for quotes by author and subject. You can even search for quotes by the profession of those that penned them. Useful if you need an introductory quote for that paper that’s due or if you just love quotes.

There’s been a lot of talk going around about possible security flaws on the iPhone. That zombie botnet, browser dialing concerns, and other security issues have buzzed around the iPhone since its release. The main concern with iPhone’s security is that it is basically a computer that holds all the personal information of a cell phone without many of the security features of a computer.

The guys over at Independent Security Evaluators have thoroughly exploited this.

Independent Security Evaluators is basically a hacking company. Not a malicious hacking company by any means, but a hacking company. You hire them and they rip your software or hardware or new technology a new one by finding all the security flaws inherent in the system. They did this to the iPhone for fun.

Good thing, too, because they have informed Apple of the iPhone’s security issues that allowed them to pretty much break into and control iPhones that become compromised. They designed a toolchain embedded in a malicious website that would give an attacker access to SMS messages, contact lists, call histories, and voicemail data stored on the iPhone.

There are many points of attack. Links sent through e-mail or SMS messages may re-direct to the malicious website as could a misconfigured forum link. Perhaps the most deceptive way would be through an attacker controlled wireless access point. The iPhone learns access points by name so if an attacker copied the name and encryption code of an already trusted access point they could replace any page browsed with a malicious webpage.

Another exploit developed by ISE allows an attacker to actually control the iPhone. In their tests they made the iPhone “vibrate for a second.” Using this same hack it would be possible to make calls, get passwords, and even record calls turning the iPhone into a portable bugging device.

This is possible because the iPhone’s version of Safari recognizes the arbitrary code with administrative privileges. All of iPhone’s main programs have administrative privilege so once you have broken in you have access to everything.

Now this doesn’t mean you have to hide your iPhone in a drawer and not touch it until Apple issues a patch to fix it. Just use the same security steps you would on your laptop or other computer. Only visit sites you trust, only use wi-fi networks you trust, and don’t open links from e-mails or SMS messages.

For more info on this exploit check out this New York Times article.

Ever since the iPhone came out there have been hackers and hacker communities writing code to open the iPhone. There have already been many hacks that allow iPhone users to make custom ringtones, use pay-as-you-go SIM cards, and even activate the iPhone without an AT&Tcontract. Of course most, if not all, of the sites that offer these hacks have a very large disclaimer that doing any of this could brick your iPhone, void the warranty, or even get the law after you.

However, today there was a big step in the process of hackers opening the iPhone up to third party downloadable apps. The folks over at the iPhone Dev Wiki have finally started to make inroads in opening up the iPhone. A hacker named Nightwatch has apparently sequestered himself for weeks working on his special project; the first independent “Hello, World” application for the iPhone.

The iPhone Dev Wiki’s front page sums it up pretty nicely:

After many, many hours of intense work from “Nightwatch”, the first independent “Hello World”* application has been compiled and launched on the iPhone. This was made possible using the “ARM/Mach-O Toolchain“, Nightwatch’s “special project”, that he has been working on so carefully over the past few weeks. Certain parts of the toolchain (such as the assembler) are being refined and tested and these will be released as soon as possible.

It should be noted that Nightwatch has been instrumental in creating these tools, working in near isolation to get them finished.

The folks at the iPhone Dev Wiki has asked that people don’t link to their website because of the last time the URL was linked on a site (digg) the wiki had problems (it crashed). But a quick search on, say, Google should hook you up.

Anyway, this simple little hack is pretty exciting for those looking to download third party apps onto their iPhone. From here it’s not out of the question to start seeing full third party applications in the near future. For more info on iPhone hacks and the “Hello World” hack check out Hack The iPhone or this article from The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Probably the most annoying thing about third-party apps for the iPhone is that you can’t download them onto your home screen. To get to the app you want to use you have to open Safari, type in the web page, and find the app on the site. It’s not that big a deal, but for someone used to the downloading and organizing freedom of a desktop it can get really irritating.

Enter AppLists.

AppLists is a new and unique app portal from the Elias Corporation. First designed during the iPhoneDevCamp in early July, AppLists gained popularity very quickly. Less than two weeks later AppLists has been officially launched.

The first, and only, iPhone application “playlist” site, AppLists lets iPhone users create and organize apps into lists that are saved in their profile. The AppLists can be organized and altered further on the iPhone user’s desktop with Safari and the updates are immediately available on their iPhone.

AppLists is so different because it lets iPhone users organize as many application lists as they need for home, work, school, or just for fun. Best of all? It’s free. There are no ads or trial periods or hidden charges. That’s right. This service is absolutely, positively free. It’s free and it offers an unique service that is unavailable through any other app portal out there.

With nearly 10,000 unique visits in the first two weeks of its creation, AppLists is showing no signs of slowing down. There are new apps and features available all the time at AppLists so make sure you check it out. Especially if you love to organize things.

Well, the first free text messaging app for the iPhone has been launched. TxtDrop has developed an easy iPhone interface for its texting service. Simply enter your name, message, and your friend’s mobile number and the service sends your text completely free of charge. No sign up fee or anything!

TxtDrop is just one of the many iPhone apps developed by third parties to enhance iPhone’s messaging abilities. The lack of a chat feature on the iPhone has lead to many instant messenger apps online. Some of these only work for one or two instant messengers, but there are some that offer iPhone access to almost any instant messenger.

There are lots and lots of rumors that in the next iPhone updates a chat function will be featured prominently. The most likely candidate for an Apple-authorized iPhone chat app is iChat. iChat is an AOL based instant messenger that is currently in beta stages on Publictivity’s servers. Right now the features are limited, but is sure looks pretty!

Of course there are several full iPhone instant messenger apps available online. BeeJive is a JiveTalk application for the iPhone that connects to multiple IM networks. AOL/iChat, MSN, Yahoo, GoogleTalk, ICQ, and Jabber are all available on this super neat app. Right now this service is free to use, all you have to do is sign up over your iPhone to get chatting.

Another nifty iPhone IM app is Heysan, an easy access way to IM on AIM, MSN, and ICQ with Yahoo and GoogleTalk on the way.  Heysan is one of the more stripped down apps only including the bare minimum of messaging needs.

With all this IMing going on you may want to check out how fast you can type on the iPhone’s digital keyboard. Well, now you can do just that with the iPhone Typing Test. Unlike some other typing apps, this is a free-form test that allows you to either type whatever you want or repeat the test’s text.