Tag: iPod Touch

iPhone Idea: Memory

The iPhone and iPod Touch are an amazing platform for App’s. From twitter clients to full feature games. Most of these work perfectly without a hitch but when it comes to some App’s, especially Photography App’s then it’s a different story.
Photo App’s usually use a lot more memory than other App’s and frequently go over the limit of RAM it’s allowed to use causing the iPhone to close it.

Using App’s such as System we can clean up the memory and free up a lot of free space, which some people achieve via re-booting. What would be a lot better is if you have an App that needs a lot of memory clean it up before you start the App. Maybe Apple should implement a memory cleaner which works in the background when it realises a certain amount of memory is being used that cleans it up.

Here’s a screenshot of System, an App for the iPhone/iPod Touch that free’s up memory.

System_1
System_2
As you can see System freed up about 39MB of RAM making App’s which are memory intensive work a lot better.
For a better user experience either the developers or Apple should implement this feature.

BeejiveIM Fighting Piracy

Beejive IM is arguably one of the best IM clients for the iPhone and iPod Touch, however as a lot of users I prefer to try app’s before I buy and so I had the ‘cracked’ version of the Beejive IM running on my iPhone. It worked like a dream and I will be purchasing it however when I tried it out today something different happened.

I got this appear after trying to login:

Beejive IM Screen

The words PC Load Letter kept flashing so I tapped the screen, it closed Beejive IM and launched YouTube and loaded the video Office Space – I Stole Something.

Now this never came up before and so must be done server-side, but it goes to show how that App Developers are beginning to fight back against piracy.

Update – Beejive have come out with this statement:

We have recently implemented new anti-piracy measures in BeejiveIM for iPhone. We have tried to keep our approach fun with an error message and a video. But we hope our message is clear: please respect the work of developers.

iPhone Idea: Cubefield

One of my favourite flash games is Cubefield, the objective of the game is to get you through a field of cubes that are dynamically created as you play the game. I’ve thought for a long time now how good this would be as an iPhone app using the in-built accelerometers and put together a mock-up to demonstrate what it would look like.

Cubefield iPhone Mockup

As you can see it would work perfectly on iPhone and iPod Touch using the in-built accelerometers.

Update: It seems it already exsists in the App Store under Cube Runner.

Tethering, Video Publishing & Find MyiPhone found in OS 3.0

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Numerous online sources have confirmed that USB tethering, publishing video to MobileMe & Find MyiPhone are in the iPhone OS 3.0.

Tethering we knew may be included but it will depend on the carriers, to weather of not it is impletmeted.
Find MyiPhone would be very useful if you left your phone somewhere accidently, I assume it will use the aGPS, Cell Tower and WiFi triangulation to find the phone via MobileMe.
The fact that you can post video shows promising ideas for the future, however with no video recording app, unless jailbroken, this feature won’t be of much use.

iPhone OS 3.0 Features Without the Wait

Many of the new features coming with the new iPhone OS are features that are already available and also one’s we wanted, but didn’t get are also available.

Now for these you do have to jailbrake your iPhone/iPod Touch, which as Apple recently stated is illegal, so we don’t encourage you to do this but we are giving you the information so that if you wish to do so then you know how.

First of you must Jailbrake you iPhone or iPod Touch now for this go to the QuickPWN site or for more information go to the Dev-Team’s Blog.

Cydia

The features, followed by there Jailbroken alternatives (available on Cydia):

Copy & Paste – hClipboard

Video Recording – Cycorder

Flash – iMobileCinema

Background Processes – Backgrounder

Tethering – Modem

Spotlight – Searcher

MMS – SwirlyMMS

YouTube Downloading – MxTube

Organised Icons – Categories

They may not be exactly like how Apple has implemted them in the 3.0 OS, but whilst you wait for the release of OS 3.0, you can give these a shot.

Features We Wanted, But Didn’t Get in 3.0

iphone_os_3With the new Apple iPhone 3.0 OS we have many new features that the userbase have been wanting for months, but still there are some things that were left out that we wanted.

  • Video Recording – It can be done, as possible on Jailbroken devices to a good standard, achieveing higer quality than most mobile phones on the market.

  • Full Bluetooth Support – Yes, we may now have AD2P but what about transferring photos, songs etc. to other devices other iPhones or devices. Obviously I can see the problem with music due to DRM and copyright issues.

  • Demo Apps – Yes many App’s come with a lite version but people want to try the full thing, maybe for a 24 hour period or maybe 5 uses of the App but just be able to test App’s would allow people to make there mind up and be more satisfied. And would also cut down the piracy of iPhone App’s.

  • Flash – Rumours have been around for along time that it would finally come to iPhone, even people at Adobe said there working on it, just please make it soon.

  • Background App’s – We now have push which helps and although I can see the power problems with background app’s it is possible. It’s true it can make the iPhone unstable due to memory issues and so I understand why at the moment it’s not been implmemted; maybe with better hardware or more battery power then it would be a good option.

Many of the things we wanted in 3.0 have been implemeted, we know that the things that have been left out are possible as they are possible if you jailbrake the phone but I understand the technical issues that Apple has with things such as Background App’s and Full Bluetooth Support but Video Recording and Demo App’s shouldn’t be that hard to implment, Maybe OS 3.1?

iPhone OS 3.0 Update Info

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Apple have just had there iPhone OS 3.0 Preview event down in Cupertino.
It seems like finally they have listened to a lot of the public’s outcry, it may of took them a while but at least they got there.

The beta of this update is avaiable to developers now and will be out in this Summer to the rest of us. It will be free to all iPhone 3G users and $9.95 for iPod Touch users. It will work on the first gen iPhone but due to hardware limitations MMS and AD2P will not work on the first gen device.

App & Developer Functionality

  • Peer-to-peer connectivity over Bluetooth for gaming and other info-swapping.
  • Paid apps will have the potential to be subscription fee-based, and can include optional paid content that can be bought from right inside the app.
  • Developers can now build apps that call out to Google Maps, and can also finally bring turn-by-turn to the phone.
  • Devs can also connect with hardware accessories over in their apps now.
  • Long-promised push functionality will at last be included, but apps won’t run in the background.
  • Developers can add streaming video and audio to their apps, along with in-game voice use.


General functionality

  • Cut, copy and paste. At last! You can shake the phone to undo and redo the action, and it works with both text and photos, allowing Mail to send multiple photos at a time.
  • MMS, along with forward and delete for multiple messages.
  • A2DP stereo Bluetooth.
  • Unlocked Bluetooth functionality on 2G iPod touch.
  • Spotlight has been added to a new home screen page to the left of existing pages, allowing for universal search on the phone.
  • Tethering is built into 3.0
  • App Store will be available in 77 countries.

Apple Apps

  • A new app called Voice Memos which lets you record notes and reminders.
  • A revised Stocks app, with news stories and a landscape view.
  • Landscape keyboard available in all major apps.
  • CalDAV support has been added to Calendar, along with subscriptions support in the .ics format.
  • Apple’s major apps have all been expanded with search functionality.
  • Note Sync to sync your notes.
  • YouTube account support.
  • Form auto-fill.
  • Phishing protection.

iPhone Idea: BBC iPlayer App

The BBC iPlayer has become a haven for people who occasionally miss there favourite TV Show or Radio Broadcast. The BBC luanched the iPlayer a few years ago, since then it’s become avaliable on the Ninteno Wii and the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch.
The interface is nice and easy to use as shown below it fits well with the iPhone design, however wouldn’t a native app be lot better?

BBC iPlayer

Using the familar design of the iPhone. the BBC could make a native app which does the same thing but without having to use Safari, it suprises me they have not already done such a thing. It would bring more people to the iPlayer and also could include many features of benefit to the user and the BBC.
Let’s say you like to watch Eastenders, however you work when it’s on and instead of manually having to check the iPlayer it automatically checks for your favourite shows and gives a notification a like the E-Mail App does.
Though I doubt Apple would alought this, let user’s download a copy of the show to there iPhone/iPod Touch like a Apple Movie Rental which will delete itself after it’s gone from the iPlayer. Allowing users who arn’t always in WiFi coverage to be able to enjoy there faveourite show.

(Tip: If you want to listen to your faveourite radio show but need to head out start streaming on WiFi and it will still stream once you’ve left the house over 3G or EDGE)

It could include a Genius like feature which reccomeneds shows you may enjoy and will overall intergrate better into the iPhone.