The other day, Google launched it’s voice activated search function for the iPhone - whoop, whoop, no more adventures in touchscreen QWERTY madness. The program, allows users to search Google for cinema times, bring up pictures, information, convert currency and measurements simply by talking to it.
Sadly, for us Brits and our tendency to pull the diphthongs and vowel sounds of the English language into glorious new forms, the application is having a hard time working out what we are saying. Hardly surprising really, when you consider just how many very different regional accents we have packed into this tiny little island.
According to The Telegraph, when prompted to search for “iPhone” in a Kentish accent the program returned with “my sister” and “Einstein”. Similarly, a Surrey user was offered “myspace” as well as “Einstein” for the same search. Ah well, looks like it’s the iPhone’s much maligned QWERTY for British folks, at least for the foreseeable future.
There’s a lot to be said for lateral thinking, though turning your iPhone into an alternative short range communications device does seem somewhat gratuitous to us. This clever but simple little app called Banner Free (available on the App Store now) allows you to type in whatever you want and then have it displayed as one of those old school scrolling banners you used to see in the display window of dodgy second hand hi-fi shops.
Great for transmitting surreal messages to passing traffic when commuting on the bus. See the video below for a full live action demo…
How many apps is too many? Ten? Twenty? How about fifty? We reckon that if this chap’s iPhone screen grabs are to be believed, he has something in the region of 105 after core apps like Safari etc. are deducted. Wowsers indeed.
It’s not only a testament to humanity’s obsession with labour saving frivolities, but also to the robustness of the iPhone’s OS and its ability to handle a myriad collection of different applications and games. That said, there’s a good chance that among this collection there are a good many garden iPint variety apps that are only slightly more useful than shoes made out of butter.
Even so, that still leaves plenty of room for some useful ones too, throw enough mud at the wall and see what sticks and all that. Wonders never cease…
Safari is a decent mobile browser, but I don’t think anyone would claim it is perfect. Opera certainly don’t think so, which is why they have been working on a port of Opera Mini for the iPhone. Well, that and trying to stake a claim for browser mindshare on a hot new platform, obviously.
Not so fast, though. Apple has decided that it cannot countenance any competition for its precious mobile web experience and banned Opera Mini from being sold via the App Store - by extension from being legitimately distributed on non-Jailbroken iPhones.
It’s not exactly a surprise - if Apple won’t allow a different email client then a new web browser was always going to be a no-go.
It is disappointing, though - and one more reason to get a G1, in my book.
Stating that the iPhone is popular is much akin to making other obvious statements concerning the religious leanings of the Pope and the woodland bathroom habits of members of the Ursidae family.
But few people would have guessed that in the space of a year the iPhone would lift Apple’s total revenue by a whopping 27 percent. The company has now shifted 13 million iPhones worldwide, 3 million more than Jobs’s initial projection of 10 million in the first calendar year.
Not only that but the App Store’s performance is currently nothing short of stratospheric, reaching the 200 million download mark just 100 days after its launch. Admittedly, many of those downloads will have been of free applications, meaning that of those 200 million downloads, a significant percentage will not translate into generated revenue. Still, with the App Store generating $60 million in sales within the first month, chances are Apple isn’t too concerned about the number of free downloads iPhone users are racking up.
Poor Apple - they pump all those design resources into the iPhone, lovingly crafting a beautiful interface only to have those pesky users poke holes in it just because it is ‘inconvenient’ or ‘not as good as it could be’.
The lack of landscape-mode typing in th eMail client is a persistent iPhone bugbear and one that Apple seems reluctant to fix. Thank heaven then for Mike Schneider, who has written TouchType - a sneaky workaround that will at least let you create new emails with a better onscreen keyboard, if not reply to them.
The app can’t replace the real Mail interface, but it does let you draft the text of your mail in its own widescreen format and then creates a new email in Mail with your entered text.
It’s not perfect but it will have to do, I suppose. TouchType costs 99 cents from the App Store.
Apple, this is getting silly. Slashdot is reporting that Apple has removed another iPhone app from the App Store.
MailWrangler is an application for checking multiple Google Mail accounts simultaneously. The app was removed for “duplicating the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion.”
This seems not to be the case, and either Apple has misunderstood the nature of the MailWrangler app or it is trying to stop it from competing with its own products.
Apple has previously removed Podcaster for ‘duplicating’ the functionality of iTunes.
An iPhone developer has had their app removed from the App Store because it - in Apple’s words - “duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes”.
The app - Podcaster - simply allows the use to download podcasts directly to the iPhone. Understandably disappointed by the ruling, the developer - Almerica - has made the app available by the ad-hoc distribution method here.
Apple’s decision has lead another coder - Fraser Speirs to declare that he will no longer write apps for the iPhone until the company can clarify their policies, writing
You have to wonder if Apple wants the App Store to be a museum of poorly-designed nibware written by dilettante Mac OS X/iPhone OS switcher-developers and hobbyist students. That’s what will happen if companies who intend to invest serious resources in bringing an original idea to the App Store are denied a reasonable level of confidence in their expectation of profit.
Apple is yet to flip the fabled Kill Switch and wipe an iPhone App from the face of the Earth, but they are still reserving the right to turn their noses up at Apps they don’t like.
One such is Pull My Finger - an app you might describe as an innovative multimedia, flatulence-based prank simulator. If you had to.
The developer of this nugget sent it off to Apple and received the following:
We’ve reviewed your application Pull My Finger. We have determined that this application is of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community, and will not be published to the App Store.
It may be very appropriate to share with friends and family, and we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing.
Outrage! I mean, there are plenty of apps on the App Store that are of ‘limited utility’. At least Pull My Finger is meant to be limited, utility-wise. This developer was only trying to Think Different, Apple. Or do you no longer endorse that slogan?
To get a taste (not literally, urgh) of the kind of innovation that Apple is stifling, check out this clip:
There is no denying that Apple’s App Store is leading the charge when it comes to mobile content delivery, so it’s hardly surprising that other major players in the mobile field are looking to offer similar services.
Google is set to launch a new channel for Android called Android Market, that will operate as a direct line delivery service for Android applications and services. The system sounds quite different to the App Store in that developers will merely need to register as a merchant, upload their content, providing a description, and then publish it. Android users will then be able to rate the content in a feedback system similar to YouTube (presumably after they have downloaded and tried out any particular application).
It all sounds very open indeed which should definitely help foster development, let’s just hope it’s not the sort of development we don’t want (i.e. shovelware.)
It seems that it’s not only Google getting in on the action either. Over in Redmond a fresh job posting suggests that Microsoft might be looking to develop something similar for Windows Mobile. The job description details a platform called Skymarket that would be a “marketplace service for Windows Mobile,”. It doesn’t get much clearer than that in our eyes but let’s wait for an official press release before we go getting all sure of ourselves.
The other day, Google launched it’s voice activated search function for the iPhone - whoop, whoop, no more adventures in touchscreen QWERTY madness. The program, allows users to search Google for cinema times, bring up pictures, information, convert currency and measurements simply by talking to it.
There is no denying that Apple’s App Store is leading the charge when it comes to mobile content delivery, so it’s hardly surprising that other major players in the mobile field are looking to offer similar services.
