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Filed under: Cellphones

Apple’s insistence on locking down iPhone developers with a restrictive NDA has been controversial from the start, and it looks like the company’s seen the light — it’s just posted up a tersely-worded letter saying that the NDA is being dropped. It’s a strange little note, actually — the first paragraph comes off as a little defensive and whiny, if you ask us — but we’re not going to complain about anything that makes developing apps easier and faster for devs. Now let’s work on not capriciously rejecting and deleting apps from the App Store, and maybe we can go back to focusing on the iPhone platform’s actual merits instead of all these paperwork shenanigans — we’ve got some suggestions if you’re having a hard time figuring this out on your own.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Source: Nilay Patel

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After Facebook rolled out v1.1 of their iPhone application, they promised that a bigger, badder v2.0 was in the works for September. They cut it pretty close, but they’ve kept their word. Just a few hours ago, the second major release of the Facebook application hit the App Store, bearing a whole new user interface and a slew of fresh features. With this latest release, they’ve managed to pack just about everything Facebook has to offer into a neat and native mobile interface.

While previous releases of the Facebook application supported the News Feed feature, only mobile photo uploads and status updates were displayed. In version 2.0, the News Feed has been completely overhauled to match item-for-item with that of the site itself, throwing news posts, relationship and interest updates, and all photo uploads into the mix. Furthermore, users are now able to comment on any given bit of news, or limit the feed to only the categories they wish to peruse.

Notably limited in the original release, much of the photo-oriented functionality of the site has made the jump over. Where as previous versions were confined to the most basic of upload options, v2 supports captioning, tagging, and the posting of photos to the Walls of your cohorts.

Moreover, digging through for that specific person or top secret love letter has been made far less taxing, thanks to the addition of people and inbox searching. Once you’ve found the person you’re looking for, you’re now (finally!) able to send them a friend request. Last to be mentioned but perhaps the most important for some, the application has been polished up on the stability and efficiency fronts, which they claim will be especially obvious if you run with a massive e-crew.

Even as a fairly regular user of the initial release, I’ve yet to find anything to complain about in this newest one. The interface is clean and buttery, and all of the functionality I’d found myself trekking over to the nearest standard browser for has made its way in. It doesn’t have support for Facebook apps, which I view as a good thing; even be it that the number of existing limitations that would prevent or dampen that could be circumvented, a significant portion of applications would be little but annoyances when on the go.

Coming in at the always welcome price of free, Facebook v2 is more than worth the few seconds required to upgrade. Grab it over here. [iTunes Link] (Note: According to comments, Facebook might be having a rough time handling the onslaught of iPhone users, preventing some folks from logging in. If you can’t live without Facebook at your side, you may be better off waiting a day or two to upgrade.)

Source: Greg Kumparak

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Rumors are coming fast and furious today citing unnamed tipsters that Apple is hard at work hammering out a CDMA iPhone for its friends at Verizon to be announced and released next year, the carrier it had initially approached about carrying the device back in 2005. Way we see it, though, 2009 ain’t 2005; Apple’s wielding boatloads more power in the wireless biz than it was before the first model launched, the industry’s economics have changed, and technology roadmaps have been rewritten.

So why isn’t this happening, exactly? First, Apple appears to be having no trouble finding enough customers (carriers, that is) to keep iPhone 3G production at a nice clip. Second, CDMA represents a minute fraction of the world’s mobile customer base that GSM / UMTS does — no matter how big Verizon, Sprint, Telus, Bell, KDDI au, and the remaining CDMA stalwarts may be. Third, CDMA is a dying technology that will be finished off in the early part of the next decade as networks make the migration to LTE and other 4G platforms. Fourth, we have to believe Apple would sooner pour its engineering efforts into advancing the iPhone platform in the same direction as the world’s networks than divert considerable resources to busting out a one-off special.

Might this mythical CDMA iPhone yet exist? Yeah, Verizon’s a huge carrier, and yes, stranger things have happened — but until Steve and Ivan get on stage together at Macworld 2009, we’re not buying it.

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Source: Chris Ziegler

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If you’re a devoted IM’er and have owned a BlackBerry or a pre-App-Store iPhone, you probably know of BeeJive - or at least know it by its previous name, Jivetalk. Their BlackBerry IM solution is generally considered the best IM offering on the platform, and the BeeJive iPhone Web App nailed out a solid instant messaging solution long before full blown third party applications were an option. Over the weekend, BeeJiveIM made the jump out of the Web App realm, with its first iPhone App Store release.

With a handful of free IM applications (IM+, Palringo) already out there, BeeJiveIMs $16 dollar price tag might incite a few nasty words from first-glance pessimists. Sure, it’s a bit blingy - but for anybody who IMs on the iPhone for more than a few minutes a day, it’s worth it. This thing is looking to be the best iPhone IM solution by leaps and bounds. Compared to the free solutions which seem to have a hell of a time just staying open, we’ve seen nothing but stability from BeeJiveIM.

Whatever your IM platform of choice may be, BeeJiveIM probably supports it. In the initial release, it’s ready for AIM, MSN, Yahoo, GTalk, Jabber, and Myspace IM. If you’ve got MobileMe or Exchange/ActiveSync set up, BeeJive can send you messages to alert you of new IMs when the application is closed, serving as a temporary alternative to the ever absent Push notifications everyone’s waiting for. It also features chat history, support for sending SMS over AIM/Yahoo, and for the sake of clumsy fingered fools like myself, landscape keyboard support.

Be on the look out for our full review in just a few days.

Source: Greg Kumparak

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A beta release of the iPhone v2.2 software began seeding to developers yesterday. While much of the developer community is still digging to try to figure out what exactly changed in this release, the iPhone-dev team has already torn it apart. At least in its current state, v2.2 is vulnerable to the same jailbreaking methods already freeing handsets around the world.

They do note that the recently released 2nd generation iPod Touch remains unjailbroken, and mention that they’re toying with the idea of hardware based hacks in order to smash through that challenge.

Besides a UI change in Safari which moves the Google search bar out into the main interface, has anybody gotten wind of any changes yet?

Source: Greg Kumparak

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Filed under: Ask Engadget, Cellphones

We know, we know — this one’s going to be a doozie, but it’s something that just has to be done. For folks out there too far from the reaches of GSM or simply unwilling to cough up the requisite dough to pay for AT&T’s comparatively pricey plans, we figure Kevin’s question will hit very close to home:

“What is the best alternative for the iPhone / iPhone 3G? I am looking for a touchscreen phone that has most of what the iPhone can provide, such as media and decent web browsing. I am also looking for a device with a lower cost (with or without a new plan). Could you please help point me in the right direction?”

Feel free to dish our your best options for GSM and CDMA, particularly if you’ve wondered this yourself and found your answer. Keep it civilized down there, alright? Got a question you’d like to pose to Engadget’s fine, fine readers? Shoot it over to ask at engadget dawt com and hope for the best.

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Source: Darren Murph

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The rumor of a (RED) iPhone 3G has been coming and going since for a while now - before the phone had even been made official, even. The rumor died for a while after launch, but alas - it’s back.

According to the guys over at MacBlogz, a red-backed iPhone may be in the works as an easy/cost-effective product revamp for the holiday season.

Seeing as Apple’s had a (RED) tie-in with just about every popular iPod model they’ve released thus far — save the original nano — it’s certainly not too crazy of an idea. Plus, it gives Apple another chance to involve Bono in some way - and Apple hearts Bono.

Source: Greg Kumparak

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Conspiracy theories tend to run rampant when a phone (or any object of desire, for that matter) that’s produced in absolutely enormous quantities dries up in retail locations. Are they really sold out? Is the retailer trying to work prospective buyers into a frenzied lather? Is the CEO sleeping on a bed fashioned of gilded iPhone 3Gs? The answer to that last question is very likely “yes” either way, but for their part, AT&T and O2 have both come out to promise customers that they’re putting handsets out in retail just as quickly as they possibly can, with AT&T additionally noting that it’s shipping out direct fulfillment orders on a “first-come, first-serve basis” with lead times currently running around two weeks — in other words, “ship us some more frickin’ phones, Apple.” Seriously though, how’s Apple going to come even close to keeping up with the next round of national launches when they’re so woefully behind on the existing ones? And more importantly, if these execs would just sleep on queen-sized iPhone beds instead of king-sized ones, just imagine how many more happy customers we’d have out there?

Read - O2
Read - AT&T

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Source: Chris Ziegler

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Filed under: Cellphones

Sure, it was already possible (if complicated) to jailbreak a first-gen iPhone running the 2.0 software under Windows, but this is the one-click tool all you crazy cats with those extra G’s need if you don’t have a Mac — too bad no one’s come up with a better name than “pwn” yet. Please, people. Let’s do better.

PS.- As usual, you run the risk of totally destroying your phone mucking around with this stuff, so don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Update: winpwn.com is down already, mirrors in the comments!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Source: Nilay Patel

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Sure, Apple alleges to have flipped over a million iPhone 3Gs at this point, but what does that mean? The devil’s in the details, as always; yes, true, the first one took 74 days to reach that same milestone, but it was available in less than one-twentieth the number of countries and an even smaller fraction of carriers. Hell, the very definition of “sale” is under scrutiny here, with some suggesting that Apple’s making reference to the number of phones it’s sold to its carrier partners, not end users — a metric that would make sense from Cupertino’s perspective since Apple’s payday technically ends there. We have some metrics on hand here that paint an interesting picture of the iPhone 3G launch that might be a little different than what you expect; head on over to Engadget Mobile for the scoop.

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Source: Chris Ziegler

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