I don’t get how Apple gets people will pay $80 for a cradle for the 3G iPhone. Stupid, stupid, stupid! BUT, if you’re desperate, ya, then you’ll do it. But guess what? You don’t have to be. There is a choice!
Wireless Ground sent us a cradle that is only $23 (fall sale)! We used it, abused it, and loved it. It’s an easy job and it doesn’t have to cost and arm and a leg to make happen, folks.
Take a look at the full review on this cradle and then nab it before the sale ends!
When Handmark first suggested I take a look at PocketExpress, I was hesitant. I asked them, why? Handmark’s answer was persuading enough for me to at least try the free download.
Pocket Express for the iPhone is a watering hole of information ranging from news, sports, weather, financial, entertainment, movies, travel, horoscope, and 24/7 customer service. Taping on your topic of choice brings up a selection of articles or choices.
The first thing I tried out was the weather. Having used all the weather applications for the iPhone, I was curious how PocketExpress stacked up to them. Like Apple’s app, Cupertino is the default location. Sweet, huh? 
Adding your location is as easy as letting the phone use its GPS to do so! You can also type in your address as I did for other spots I like monitoring. This is where problems occurred. When I tried to add Kaiserslautern, Germany (my birth-town), and Incline Village, Nevada (my favorite summer getaway), neither could be found. I ran into this problem for other popular suburban areas and was surprised since even the Apple Weather application found these locations no problem. It looks like Handmark is using weather stations and if a station does not exist in your desired location, you get a big fat Location Not Found. To test this theory out, I added my small town of 900 by hand and it failed. Using the GPS locator worked. When I looked what it attached me to, it was a large city 20 miles north of me.
That aside, the weather section is really nice. It displays a nice two day forecast in sections of day with a large area on the upper most of the screen with current conditions. The bottom contains two locations and a More button for other locations and settings. Truly, the weather section is filled with information that the Apple or even Weather Bug applications don’t offer. Within a few minutes of use of just the weather feature made me want to keep PocketExpress on my iPhone!
I checked out the news next and was again surprised how good it was. The articles were interesting and current. The sports section, too, had great articles as well lending me some insight on my favorite NFL team, the Steelers. Speaking of favorites, you can track your favorite teams (or teams in your division as I did) to get a quick glimpse of scores. MLB is the only other sport you can currently track, but Handmark told SvenOnTech that NHL should hopefully be coming soon.
News, Entertainment, and Finance all present a list of current articles that you can tap to view the full article. Each article is presented in a nice fashion with a thumbnail picture next to the headline. It is very clean and pleasing looking. I found the articles to be very complete and yet short enough that I didn’t find myself wasting away valuable time.
The Movies section, like Weather, will find local theaters using the GPS function. It then lists all near by movie outlets. You check off which ones you frequent or select them all. After that’s done, you tap the movie theater and up comes the listings. Tap on a movie and you’ll find a four star review, genre, cast, director, writer, producer, distributor, website, release date, as well as a synopsis. If the theater supports the option, you can even purchase tickets online. The movie section also gives information about each theater including address and phone number. Like all things iPhone, you can tap on the address to send it to Google Maps or tap the phone number to give the theater a call. Nice.
Horoscope gives you a Birthday section and sections for various signs. Each sign will have a short horoscope for the day.
Travel launches a web app but should be included locally into PocketExpress soon. Assist is for questions and support using the application.
A nice thing PocketExpress does is remember where you last were. So if I had the weather section open and I go to another program and come back to PocketExpress later, there’s the weather. If sports scores was last looked at, it’ll come back when I next open PocketExpress. I like that a lot.
Overall, PocketExpress offers a lot of nice features in one place. Since it is free, it is ad driven, but the ads are desecrate and not in the way. No word if a Pro version is coming but, again, it’s a great application for the price.
Designed to satisfy the needs of both consumers and business customers, the BlackBerry Storm smartphone combines the powerful communications features, global connectivity and personal productivity advantages of the BlackBerry® platform with a revolutionary touch-screen technology that dramatically enhances the touch interface and enables easy and precise typing. The world’s first “clickable” touch-screen responds much like a physical keyboard and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation.
In the U.S., Verizon Wireless customers will benefit from the nation’s most reliable wireless voice network and the pervasiveness of Verizon Wireless’ reliable high-speed 3G Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Revision A (Rev. A) network for rich Internet browsing and multimedia applications. In Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand, Vodafone will support customers with its high-speed 3G mobile broadband networks and the power and reach of the world’s leading international mobile communications group.
“We are proud to introduce the first touch-screen based BlackBerry smartphone together with Verizon Wireless and Vodafone,” said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive officer at RIM. “The BlackBerry Storm is a revolutionary touch-screen smartphone that meets both the communications and multimedia needs of customers and solves the longstanding problem associated with typing on traditional touch-screens. Consumers and business customers alike will appreciate this unique combination of a large and vibrant screen with a truly tactile touch interface.”
“The BlackBerry Storm offers our customers more ways to stay connected to both their personal and professional lives – whether in their communities or around the globe,” said Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless. “The BlackBerry Storm combines the reliability of our 3G network with the dependability and network efficiency of the BlackBerry platform to deliver our customers the ultimate wireless experience – all in one of the coolest smartphones available on the market today.”
“We are delighted to bring the power of the purpose built BlackBerry Storm, directly into the hands of consumer and business customers,” said Frank H. Rovekamp, global chief marketing officer, Vodafone Group. “With its unique clickable touch-screen, giving access to all the desirable multimedia features and services such as browsing, music and video, turn-by-turn satellite navigation, messaging and social networking, and BlackBerry’s mobile heritage and strong business reputation, the BlackBerry Storm is being brought by Vodafone into the consumer world. With Vodafone’s ultra high-speed, reliable mobile network and this exclusive and exciting new smartphone, there has never been a better time to be with Vodafone.”
Touch and Feel
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone comes with an innovative touch-screen that actually depresses ever so slightly when the screen is pressed. The user distinctly feels the screen being pressed and released with a gentle “click,” similar to the feeling of a key on a physical keyboard or a button on a mouse. The “clickable” touch-screen gives the user positive confirmation that they have made a selection and the result is a dramatically enhanced touch interface and a highly-intuitive typing experience.
In addition to the familiar navigation keys (“phone,” “menu” and “escape”) that are common to other BlackBerry smartphones, the new BlackBerry Storm adds support for multi-touches, taps, slides and other touch-screen gestures, so customers can easily highlight, scroll, pan and zoom for smooth navigation.
The BlackBerry Storm smartphone also features a built-in accelerometer, allowing its touch-screen to automatically switch between landscape mode and portrait mode as the user rotates the handset – RIM’s SureType® keyboard layout is available in portrait mode and a full QWERTY* keyboard layout is available in landscape mode. Other relevant features, such as cut and paste, are only a touch away for the ultimate smartphone experience.
You get what you pay for. An old but still very true saying. While Twitterrifc is a beautiful client, it’s lacking features just make it a pretty looking client. The Premium edition costs $10 and still doesn’t bring up the feature list to par for the asking price. TwitterFon is nice and free, but with little more offering than Twitter’s own mobile web page, it’s not too worthy of icon space on your iPhones home screen. Twinkle is nice, but since it is tied into its own network, your replies sometimes do not appear on Twitter and there are other issues, such as the near impossibility of activating the application. Not much left in the App Store for you to find, but thankfully Stone Design has upped the ante from Twittelator (its free offering) with Twittelator Pro (App Store link.)
With slew of features and an interface that rivals Twitterrific’s awarding winning look, you’d have to be silly not to consider Twittelator Pro’s $4.99 price. Any Twitter user that finds themselves tweeting at least a few times a day, or needing to read others tweets, will need to have this on their first page of their iPhones home screen. Some of the offerings of Twittelator Pro includes the ability to tweet from any screen, paste links, text and images, full reply ability, tweet from within Safari (!), various themes, copy tweets, easy to read tweets, post photos, TwitPic photos show as thumbnails in tweets, delete your own tweets, read up to 200 tweets, advance filtering, in-depth user details, en or disable following, drill down into friends, super advance search, bookmarks, recent, and emergency tweeting. This is just SOME of the offerings of Twittelator Pro!
SvenOnTech has used all the Twitter clients available on the iPhone and without a doubt, we like Twittelator Pro the best. We’ve given the clients a few months to mature and the only one that really has done that is Stone Design’s client. Author, Andrew Stone, has taken the time to listen to our and other users requests and implemented them into Twittelator Pro quickly to allow it to pull well ahead of any other Twitter client for the iPhone. As of this writing, an entire chunk of new features and fixes are on their way and are only waiting for Steve Jobs (our assumption, not Stones) to okay it. Any day now you should see the following in the update:
NEW FEATURES:
- New Twitter Keys panel to insty insert cool graphics into your tweets - tap Guy Smiling
- New Advanced Setting to thread your replies and direct messages right in with your friends
- You can edit existing accounts to fix typos or change password
- Groups show where Nearby is
FIXED:
- Better memory management when memory runs low (less exits!)
- Handles bad TwitPic image in tweet (doesn’t exit!)
- Better error message if you direct message someone who isn’t following you
- Search results with unicode characters appear correctly now
- & appears correctly in tweets now
- & and quotes don’t take as many characters to encode
- No error message if TwitPic times out
- Upside down landscape photos fixed
- Failed image/tweet combo uploads let you retweet them
- increased timeout for TwitPics to deal with their success
- Fancy curly quotes are displayed correctly
Look, we’re like the next guy looking for a free hand-out at the App Store but for a mere $5, you’re getting a quality and slick looking Twitter client that you’re just not going to get anywhere else. Twittelator Pro is just plain and simple, slammin’! And yes, I’ll tweet that! 
PumpOne introduces iPump Total Body™, the first in a series of workout applications for iPhone and iPod touch available through Apple’s iTunes App Store. This ultimate on-the-go video, image and audio personal trainer contains three components, WORKOUT, LOG and INSPIRE, that not only coaches users through complete workouts, but also allows them to keep track of sessions and instantly send progress logs to friends, family or medical professionals.
“Everybody would love the luxury of their own live personal trainer, but not everyone can afford it,” says Craig Schlossberg, President of PumpOne. “iPump is the next best thing. The clear exercise videos, crisp fitness images and quick intuitive interface show a user exactly what exercises to perform, in what order and with the proper intensity. Plus, you can enjoy your music while training with the application.”
iPump Total Body is made up of three levels; Foundation, Intermediate and Comprehensive, each with three gym workouts, totaling nine. The exercises in each workout target all major muscle groups and include workout-specific intensity charts showing reps, sets and rest intervals. This easy to use program removes the mystery from performing effective workouts while helping users gain strength, lose weight and increase endurance.
With the world’s largest exercise image and video library, PumpOne’s content was created specifically for mobile devices that do not get in the way of a training session. The iPump series will contain fitness programs from all areas of training; Strength, Cardio, Flexibility, Sports, Yoga, Pilates and Physical Therapy. Available soon are iPump Abs & Core, Golf, Pulse, Pilates and Office Stretch. These interactive state-of-the-art fitness programs are exclusively distributed through the desktop iTunes application or directly from the App Store on a user’s iPhone or iPod touch.
iPump Total Body is now available for the introductory price of $2.99 from the iTunes App store or by going to http://www.PumpOne.com/ipump/totalbody.
The iPhone 3G from Apple is one of the more multi-talented Smartphones and boasts a huge range of skills from the very basic to the rather special. Whether you are simply making calls or navigating yourself around a new city, the Apple iPhone 3G allows you do all this and much more. It doesn’t look half bad either.
Proporta have designed the Perfora Case with the iPhone 3G specifically in mind. This stylish case not only enhances the aesthetic of the device (even if we do say so ourselves), but will also keep your iPhone 3G fully protected from all of life’s little nasties.
Made from high quality, durable leather, the physical design of The Perfora Case or the iPhone 3G provides surrounding protection. The secure closure mechanism ensures that your iPhone 3G will be as snug as a bug in a rug and the matching belt clip also makes this case ideal for use on the move.
Proporta know that screen protection is vital at the best of times, but with a touch screen you really shouldn’t be without their Advanced Screen Protector (Apple iPhone 3G series). They’ve managed to increase the thickness without impairing screen brightness or clarity. Clever eh?
Wipe that bead of sweat from your forehead, the anticipation is over! OtterBox releases iPhone 3G protection in the semi-rugged, drop and scratchproof Defender™ Series design. Case available now in black and coming soon in white, black/yellow and pink.
“Our waiting list for iPhone 3G cases has been building for months,” said Curt Richardson, CEO, Otter Products LLC. “OtterBox engineers have worked hard to introduce slim and durable protection for Apple’s hottest new device. Good design takes time and we wanted to guarantee our customers quality.”
The OtterBox for iPhone 3G Defender™ Series accommodates Apple iPhone 3G 8 GB and 16 GB with three slim-fit layers of protection*:
- Layer 1: Patented polycarbonate membrane protects against scratches and dust intrusion while allowing for full use of the screen
- Layer 2: Hi-impact polycarbonate shell
- Layer 3: Silicone skin to absorb impact and provide tactile feel
Listening to customer suggestions about the first generation iPhone Defender™ Series case, OtterBox improved the design of the iPhone 3G case. The new case allows access to the silence switch, provides an improved screen and better fit and feel. Sync/charge, home, sleep/wake, volume, camera and headphone jack all remain accessible. Acoustical vents safeguard the microphone and speakers from dust and dirt to allow clear sound transmission. Case also includes a holster-style swivel belt clip which converts into a display stand when device is inserted screen out.
Purchase a black model today or wait for white, black/yellow or pink models coming soon. Pink “Strength” cases benefit the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade and 10% of the purchase price will be donated to support access to care and finding a cure for breast cancer, with a focus on the medically underserved.
For customers needing less extreme protection; OtterBox will soon be offering a new silicone, skin-like case known as the Impact™ Series. Case will combine durable silicone with impact absorbing features and complete user interaction. Check www.otterbox.com in the coming weeks for details and availability.
It took a group of Stanford and Princeton music PhD’s (see, even these guys know the needs of Stoners every where) to come up with a safe way to show the rockers on stage that we can bring them a light show from the vast sea of die hard fans. Sonic Lighter is totally realistic and allows you to not just light the flame but also interact with it. Touch it and watch it dance around your finger. Tip the phone to the side and watch it burn the insides of your Cupertino-designed hardware. Blow at the flame (and blow long) and watch the flame extinguish! But if that wasn’t enough, worry not my pyro, you can find others with your same love around the country lighting up by glancing the global flame map.
Now, others have offered far much less than this wonderful flaming piece of software so at a penny under a dollar, it’s a steal. A fire sale, almost! So after watching the video demo of it on YouTube, purchase it on the App Store and impress all your rocking friends tonight!
Apple has had immense success with the iPhone as an application platform since the opening of the App Store in early July. With over 100 million downloads in just 60 days, iPhone users are frantic for software on their super-duper phone. Yet even with thousands of applications to choose from there still is many holes left at the App Store for various programs. Even with rapid development from software vendors and authors, the voids will continue for some time. Well, HanDBase wants to change that this winter with the release of the first full out relational database.
DDH Software has announced on its site that indeed it is bringing its well known database to the iPhone. With a three minute video to prove it, many will surely become excited by what they see in the video. For all those needing a certain application that just isn’t there in the App Store, they will soon be able to just download databases from the HanDBase website right from their iPhone. For free in many cases. Ranging from sales, CRM, medical databases, patient billing, and tracking systems, the vast amount of possibilities to fill your void will be incredible. Since these are fully functioning databases, you’ll be able to edit and tweak each database to your suiting or leave as is. With access to many built-in features of the iPhone, you’ll be able to tap on web addresses and view the page in Safari or email a client or friend from the address right in a database field with a simple tap of the finger. The easy and fluid interface structure of the iPhone seamlessly powers the HanDBase application and will leave little room for confusion while navigating ones database.
No pricing has been announce or a specific release date; however, do look for it in the end of the 4th quarter of this year. Further information can be obtained by visiting the site.
developers worldwide over an Internet-based service. This new addition marks another significant milestone for the company, which released the first generation of the iPhone device last year at the CTIA Wireless & Entertainment Conference in San Francisco. With this release, DeviceAnywhere brings the only solution to the mobile marketplace that offers developers a simple, direct connection to more than 1500 mobile devices - now including first and second generation iPhone handsets, to optimize their development efforts without having to physically acquire the devices.
With the addition of the new iPhone 3G, DeviceAnywhere users will also be able to capitalize on the latest new features available on the device. For example:
* Users can test downloading their application through the AppStore
* Users can test how fast their Web sites loads on the 3G network
DeviceAnywhere will be demonstrating the iPhone on DeviceAnywhere at the CTIA Wireless & Entertainment Conference in San Francisco, CA (September 10-12) in Booth #751.
According to William Ho, Research Director (Wireless Services) at Current Analysis: “Applications have become a major part of the iPhone’s appeal since the arrival of the App Store. Whatever the issues that Apple has faced over the performance of the iPhone 3G, it has done little to dampen the enthusiasm of application developers who have been creating more and more applications for the platform.”
DeviceAnywhere is a revolutionary online service used by thousands of mobile organizations and their developers. It provides access to real mobile handsets that are each connected to live networks. These devices are accessible remotely over the Internet, allowing users to interact in real time to ensure all development, porting, testing, and monitoring needs are met. The DeviceAnywhere service uses actual, physical handsets to provide developers with the same experiences as having the devices in hand.
“With the addition of the iPhone 3G to DeviceAnywhere, we are leveling the playing field for application developers around the world,” commented Faraz Syed, CEO of DeviceAnywhere. “It can be tough, not to mention expensive, for developers to get hold of the right devices on the right networks, so this should come as welcome relief for the many application developers who are building apps for the iPhone platform .”
To access the iPhone 3G, simply register to trial DeviceAnywhere, please visit www.deviceanywhere.com. Once registered, users have access to three free hours on the system. Existing users are able to access the iPhone 3G through their standard DeviceAnywhere subscriptions. Additional DeviceAnywhere features - such as monitoring and test automation - are also available on the iPhone 3G, empowering users to more efficiently create better applications and content for the marketplace.