You know what the Internet needs? One more blogger trying to convince you that The Wire is the greatest, most utterly wonderful TV show in the history of the medium.
So I’m not going to do that (I mean, don’t get me wrong, it IS but..). What I can tell you is that HBO, the US cable telly people behind that show and a great many other televisual gems has signed a deal with the UK iTunes store to bring some of their biggest hits to the iPhone and iPod.
Episodes of Sex And The City, The Sopranos, Entourage, Rome and the aforementioned BEST TELLY PROGRAMME EVER will be available for £1.89 an episode.
For reasons best know to itself, though, iTunes is offering only season 1 and 5 of The Wire. This is essentially like offering a great novel with all the middle chapters ripped out. No.
Everyone in the techie blogosphere is getting all in a tizz about the forthcoming Apple event (Tuesday 9th) that will see the unveiling of some new iPods. What we are most interested in however, is whether Jobs (or whoever takes the stage) will use the event as an opportunity to confirm the iPhone 3G’s sales figures.
It’s very possible that Apple could announce sales of more than 4 million of its 3G wonderphones next week, or at least that’s what RBC Capital Markets seems to think. The analyst firm doesn’t stop fortune telling there however. Analyst, Mr Mike Abramsky, is currently making some bold claims about Apple’s potential future plans in the mobile arena.
Continue reading ‘Analyst claims weekly: Apple to confirm stellar iPhone sales next week, iPhone nano on the way…’
Although the iPhone is effectively an mp3 player as well as a smartphone, the fact that even the most spacious model only has a measly 16GB of storage means that most serious music fans will have to think carefully about what to leave at home.
Do I really need to take that entire Can box set (that I will probably never listen to but still..)? Do I ditch those mid-period Eno ambient effforts in favour of the new Kylie? Decisions, decisions..
Simplify Media might be the answer. Load it up on your Mac or PC (Windows or Linux, which is nice) and you can stream your entire music collection directly to your iPhone.
The app integrates with iTunes - as you might expect - but also Winamp and Rythmbox (a top Linux iTunesalike). You can chat to other users and share you collection with up to 30 others. Doubtless there will be some kind of music industry meltdown when more people find out about this, but for now- Enjoy!
Its free, and fully street-legal with no Jailbreaking required, although you will of course need a working wifi connection to get the most out of it.
StyleTap have confirmed the release of their Palm OS emulator for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
We have previously looked at StyleTap on S60 and WinMo, but the iPhone/iPod is such a natural candidate for Palmification that I can’t believe it has taken this long.
StyleTap emulates a virtual PalmOS PDA and is capable of running most of the 20,000 or so Palm shareware and freeware apps that are available.
Here is a quick video clip of StyleTap in action on an iPod Touch.
UK firm Censorit has been quick off the mark following the recent Byron Review, which looked at child safety and new technology, and spurred calls for more content filtering.
The company has launched a subscription-based filtering service aimed at web-enabled phones, portable media players and handheld games devices, which will let parents protect their kids from inappropriate content.
The phones angle is interesting, since Censorit is targeting handsets with built-in Wi-Fi, which get around the age-restrictions imposed by the mobile operators on their own networks. In theory, say, a child surfing the mobile Web through Vodafone can’t access porn and gambling sites, but if they switch to their phone’s Wi-Fi connection, they can. Continue reading ‘Censorit launches web-filtering service for iPod Touch, PSP, DS…’
It’s only a few weeks since the MacWorld Expo, but already the rumours are beginning to fly about Apple’s next big announcement. As is often the case, financial analysts are the source of much speculation. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has written a research note speculating that Apple will expand its iPod Touch range with cheaper models, although they’ll still have Wi-Fi, touchscreens, and email and web browsing.
However, he thinks Apple will launch new services alongside them, including a way to pay for food and drink at cafes via your iPod, and also launching a subscription-based music service, which would let you listen to unlimited music on the go for a flat monthly subscription. The question is, if this speculation is true, what would it mean for iPhone?
The positive spin: these services could work just as well on an iPhone. The negative spin: people might decide they only need a wireless iPod, rather than an actual iPhone. Especially if Apple launches some form of Voice over IP service for its iPods. The question of how much beefed-up iPods will cannibalise iPhone sales is sure to remain a hot issue in the coming months, at any rate.
(via Macworld)
The Beeb has been quick to experiment with the iPhone’s capability for web applications, with the first fruits being its BBC Podcasts site. It lets you browse the broadcaster’s radio podcasts by station, genre or title (an A-Z list). I wrote about it earlier this month, but have been having a play with it to see how it shapes up.
It’s well designed, with a clean and easily navigable interface mirroring the way the iPod feature works on the iPhone. Clicking through (that should be thumbing through, really) to the podcast gives you a paragraph of textual description of the overall podcast, as well as a description of each individual podcast, along with their duration.
But what’s good is the Play button, which lets you stream these podcasts directly to your iPhone over Wi-Fi using Quicktime streaming - which again, means the controls for pausing and controlling the volume work in exactly the same way as the iPod feature.
Continue reading ‘iPhone Web Apps No. 2: BBC Podcasts’
Apple is clearly pitching the iPhone as “Your New Primary Music Device”, with the idea being that you can junk your iPod and just use the iPhone for music and calls alike. Trouble is, there’s a few issues preventing me from doing that. For starters, at 8GB, the capacity is a bit on the small side if you’ve got a sizeable digital collection - 16GB would have hit the spot better, although that’s down to limitations of flash memory.
More annoying is the headphone jack, which is recessed, and thus doesn’t fit a lot of third-party headphones, including my two Sennheiser pairs. As a result, you’re left either stuck with the white earbuds that come with the iPhone, or you have to spend £8 or so on a special adapter from the Apple Store. Swizz, to say the least.
However, as far as I can make out, the sound quality is good, with a range of EQ settings available through the main Settings menu on the iPhone. Getting music onto the device could be easier though, since on iTunes you can’t just drag and drop songs across as you would with an iPod: you have to set up a playlist to be synced, and drag them into that. I’m not sure why.
Continue reading ‘UK iPhone Review Part 4: iPod and the iTunes Wi-Fi Store’
Microsoft has entered into talks with French mobile music specialist Musiwave with a view to purchasing the company.
Musiwave currently provides mobile music services for several operators including Orange, and Microsoft may be planning to use its software to set up on-demand music downloads and streaming similar to Nokia’s Music Store for use with both Windows Mobile and Microsoft’s iPod competitor, the Zune.
Musiwave has relationships with music labels and content providers, which should mean Microsoft get a boost in those areas.
“Musiwave would bring key assets to us as we continue to bring our vision of Connected Entertainment to life,” said Microsoft’s J Allard, MS Corporate Vice President in charge of music
No financial details have been released as yet, but it will be interesting to see how Musiwave’s other clients react to this.
The first speaker dock for iPhones has gone on sale, just in time for the phone’s release today.
Ok, you can use your existing iPod speaker docks, but when you get messaging, making calls or using the internet the sound quality will suffer unless you enter Airplane mode. With the iStuff PhoneDock, you apparently won’t have this problem.
The iStuffPhoneDock comes in one colour - white - and offers 40WÂ of music via two tweaters and two woofers (plus a third at the back). Also included is an infra-red remote control, a USB port, an iPod dock, a 3.5mm jack input and cables for hooking up to other things like hi-fis.
You can order your iStuff PhoneDock for £129.00 here.
