The iPhone Virgin Blog

Guess what?

Here’s a tidbit that’s sure to irk Flickr’s elitist photographers: The iPhone has just topped Canon’s high-performance Digital Rebel XTi as the most popular camera on Yahoo’s popular image-sharing site.

The iPhone, with its bare-bones, two-megapixel camera, has been battling for the No. 2  spot for months in a tight race with two other Canon cameras and the Nikon D80, according to a graph plotting the overall user percentages of each model on Flickr’s Camera Finder.

But recently, the iPhone shot up to No. 1.

The newest iPhone 3GS added much-improved photo-taking quality, with features such as video, auto-focus and white balance. Still, its lack of a zoom lens and a flash put it at a major technical disadvantage compared to dedicated point-and-shooters like the 10- to 12-megapixel Canon Rebels.

Flickr has long been a popular spot for professionals to dump their hundreds of digital stills. The website is an ideal place for …

… pros to display their work to the world and for long-term cloud storage (as long as they’ve paid for a pro account, to remove the 200-picture restriction).

But the Rebel’s dethroning doesn’t seem to indicate a major consumer shift away from professional-quality cameras. Rather, it’s more of a shift in the battle among cellphone cameras, in favor of the iPhone, as well as a change in how people share digital photos. Apple’s smart phone has outpaced the share of user uploads compared to other camera phones. The Nokia N95 holds a distant second, followed by a couple of BlackBerry models.

IPhone users are notoriously heavy consumers of mobile Internet — in some cases, surpassing the amount of time they spend surfing the Web on their computers. That could mean they’re apt to share the photos they take on more websites, rather than suggest that the phone’s camera is supplanting more powerful devices.

We’ve been tracking the Apple-Canon race on Flickr for months. Strangely, this isn’t the first time that the iPhone has jumped past the Rebel — even though the graph doesn’t show it. Hours after iPhone took the lead, the leap had been inexplicably stricken from the record.

Source:  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/08/iphone-flickr.html

Because I own an iPhone 3G, I never really liked to take photos with it due to the pathetic 2MB low resolution.  It is also a challenge to take a sharp photo because any movements (be it my shaky hand or my “unstill” objects of interest) will blur the picture in an instant.  I guess 3GS may be a notch higher, but I probably won’t change my iPhone till it gets better than 3MB.  Well, it doesn’t affect someone like me who rarely “cam-whores”.  Haha.

Good news and bad news about this, at least for me!

Discovery Communications has released a Discovery Channel application on the iTunes App Store, bringing heaps of video content produced by the popular non-fiction media company to the iPhone and iPod Touch. In addition to video clips, the app also boasts a collection of quizzes, photo galleries, programming schedules and updates from Discovery News. Furthermore, you can use the app to share content via e-mail and save to favorites for your re-watching pleasure.

Evidently, full episodes for Discovery’s top programming (Shark Week, Man vs. Wild, MythBusters, etc.) are not available through the free yet ad-supported application, but it does come with links to the iTunes Store where the media company offers a selection of full episodes for purchase.

Source:  http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/18/not-a-myth-to-bust-discovery-channel-hits-the-app-store/

I am an avid fan of Discovery channel, so this is great news.  I caught every episode of Man Vs Wild and now I am chasing every Monday’s Treasure Quest.

But just as I got too happy, I realised this is only available to US users.  I couldn’t find it on Singapore iTunes Store at all.  What a dampener.  Ha. 

Ever since I started using the iPhone, I was secretly hoping Apple will come up with a larger version that can serve as a netbook.  I can imagine how cool it is going to look with its large portable touch screen interface.  It is also going to be more pleasant for the eyes as we do not have to zoom in and out to read.  But is this apple tablet surfacing soon?  After reading this article (http://gizmodo.com/5335942), I certainly hope so.

I never fully believed the Apple tablet was real beyond dreams, until I heard these words over my phone: “Hey, it’s [redacted]. I may or may not have sat in some Apple meetings for the tablet.”I was driving, and swerved a little bit, even though both hands were on the wheel. Someone honked at me.

“What was that?”

They repeated themselves.

I switched on Bluetooth and pulled over to the side of the road to hear the story. You see, earlier in the day I’d given my phone number out to someone who sent me a cryptic email wanting to talk Apple. This must have been them. (Later on I verified to a high level of certainty that they were in the position to have access to the information and after talking to them for over an hour, I believe them to the same level of certainty.)

“The device, which I’ve held mock ups of, is going to have a 10 inch screen, and when I saw it looked just like a giant iPhone, with a black back— although that design could change at any time” they said, “with the same black resin back, and the familiar home button.” That’s obvious.

“But it will come in two editions, one with a webcam and one for educational use.”

Educational use?

They continued to explain the device as something that would sit between an iPod/iPhone and a MacBook, and would cost $700 to $900—”More than twice as much as a netbook,” they said.

To make up for that cost and make the device more than just a big iPod there was, this person claimed, there was talk of making the device act as a secondary screen/touchpad for iMacs and MacBooks, much like a few of the USB screens that have come out in recent months from Chinese companies. Very interesting.

This certainly sounds like something to look forward to in the next few months.  Going to ditch my plans to buy a typical netbook, I have decided to put my money in this.    Hurry up, Apple, Christmas can’t wait!  LOL.

Facebook has submitted v. 3.0 of their iPhone application to Apple, Joe Hewitt says via Twitter: “Just uploaded Facebook for iPhone 3.0 to the App Store for review. ”

Hewitt also says he’ll post screen shots and more details on this Facebook page for the iPhone app next week, and that he’s looking forward to getting started on v. 3.1 tomorrow.

It’s likely Apple will approve this app in short order. Not only are they trying to avoid high profile app problems, there’s also not very much in the Facebook app that they or AT&T would take exception to.

Facebook addicts, are you excited?

Source:  http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/16/facebook-30-for-iphone-submitted-now-lets-count-the-days-until-available/

How satisfied are you with your iPhone 3G/ 3GS?  I guess I belong to the 99% group.  Haha.

A total of 99 percent of 200 respondents to a RBC/IQ ChangeWave survey in August said they are satisfied with their iPhone 3GS, with 82 percent of those “Very Satisfied.” That’s an improvement from the already-stellar statistics on the last two iterations of the iPhone, of which 73 percent of customers gave a superior ranking. Similarly, 94 percent of iPhone 3GS buyers said the product met or exceeded their expectations.

But the iPhone’s U.S. carrier, AT&T, was seen as the product’s biggest pitfall. When iPhone 3GS owners were asked to rank what they dislike about the product, 55 percent chose the AT&T network. That was followed by the 41 percent who felt the device’s battery life is too short, and 8 percent who said their company’s IT department doesn’t support the product.

The data was released Friday as part of a new report from RBC Capital Markets. Citing customer satisfaction, analyst Mike Abramsky reiterates the company’s “outperform” rating for AAPL stock, and maintains a price target of $190.

As for the phone’s most-liked features, the touchscreen interface took top honors with 45 percent, followed by ease of use and faster Web browsing. It’s likely most who bought the iPhone 3GS knew exactly what they were getting: 41 percent of respondents were migrating from an older version of the product. Switchers from other devices mostly came from Motorola (18 percent), followed in order by Nokia (11 percent), RIM (9 percent), Sanyo (8 percent), and Palm (6 percent).

“iPhone 3GS owners are a highly satisfied group, strongly loyal to Apple, and that Apple innovation (touchscreen, software UI, applications) is what continues to lure new buyers to its smartphones,” the report reads. “The benefits to Apple for achieving this premium customer satisfaction include: strong pricing power, high customer lifetime value, powerful, inexpensive viral marketing (recommend to others), increased carrier channel leverage, indirect benefits to Apple’s other businesses (e.g. Macs).”

Source:  http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/08/14/apples_iphone_3gs_has_99_percent_satisfaction_rate.html

What do you think of this?

College students could soon be able to ditch their backpacks and put their textbooks into their shirt pockets thanks to a new program that will let them read their books using iPhones or iPod Touch devices.

CourseSmart of San Mateo, California, already makes more than 7000 college textbooks from 12 publishers available to its subscribers online via their computers, but now the company has added “eTextbooks for the iPhone,” allowing students to free themselves from even having to lug around their heavy laptop computers.

There are a couple drawbacks — you have to be connected to the Internet to view the books you can access with your CourseSmart subscription on your iPhone or iPod Touch, and the first version of the new app doesn’t allow users to add notes in the margins.

The app itself is free from Apple’s App Store; and it appears that most of the textbooks CourseSmart sells in digital form cost about 60 to 75 percent of the price of their dead tree versions.

This is a cool idea in general, and I can certainly see the benefits — textbooks sure have gotten bigger and heavier over the years and carrying them around all over your campus is not fun at all — but miniaturizing your textbooks and being able to take them anywhere also could introduce some problems.

First, we’re talking about reading a large textbook on a small iPhone or iPod Touch screen. It may be neat to imagine, but it may not be so easy to use, especially when you are looking for information and you just can’t seem to locate it on the device’s small screen. How likely is it that students will actually want to do this and will find it as productive as reading a traditional paper book? And what happens when your Internet connection is down and you can’t access your books? Believe me, this will happen sometimes.

Then there’s the potential for cheating at exam time when students can stealthily view their iPod to get information from an e-textbook to answer a tough exam question. Hey, it could happen. Maybe you’ll have to leave your iPhones and iPod Touches at the door as you enter the exam room to prevent cheating. Could we eventually see students being patted down by hand for their iPhones or iPod Touches at exam time as they enter the room?

What about incoming text messages while you are reading your books on your iPhone? Now, that would be distracting because they’d be hard to avoid. At least if you are not using your iPhone as an e-book reader, then you can tuck it away or turn it off so you’re not distracted while reading. This would be a new challenge for students.

Well, I am long past the age for college , but no matter how much I love my iPhone, I guess I would still prefer to scribble on my textbooks.  Haha, yeah, and doodling with my different colored pens and highlighters on the dog-eared pages.

Source:  http://www.pcworld.com/article/170075/college_textbooks_hit_iphone_ipod_touch.html?tk=rss_main

For those who can’t live without Facebook everyday, good news!  The new Facebook iPhone App version is almost completed according to this article on Techcrunch.

As one of the most popular applications on Apple’s popular iPhone platform, a lot of users are eagerly awaiting the next version of the app. And that wait is almost over.

“The app is pretty much done – we’re just working on translating it into a bunch of languages,” Facebook developer Joe Hewitt wrote tonight on Twitter.

That means that shortly, we’ll have access to the much-improved app which is scheduled to have features such as a News Feed that is more like the one on Facebook’s site, the ability to “like” items and a new customizable home screen. More importantly, it will also have video support for the iPhone 3GS, something which Hewitt threw-in at the last second, unexpectedly. And perhaps best of all, the app will have the ability to manage events, finally.

But don’t get too worked up just yet. We asked Hewitt if “pretty much done” meant next week perhaps. His response: “Can’t be sure – translating could take a while. I’ve been avoiding predicting an actual release date“. And of course even when the app is done, Facebook still has to submit it for approval in the App Store, and as we all know, that can be a crapshoot. We could see it next week, we could see it 6 months from now. Though, Apple does seem to do a pretty good job pushing important apps like this one through quickly. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

I am not an avid Facebook user, but for those who are, this should be something exciting huh?

Source:  http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/07/new-facebook-iphone-app-pretty-much-done/

Hey guys, time to take good care of your iPhone if you are just throwing it around.  Some TLC won’t hurt ya?  Unless, if you can afford another new one. 

Apple has investigated a system where portable devices like iPods and iPhones would detect and store into memory “consumer abuse events” such as exposure to extreme cold, heat or moisture in void of warranty, a new patent application reveals.

The invention, entitled “Consumer Abuse Detection System and Method,” was discovered by AppleInsider in a new patent application disclosure this week. Apple originally filed for the patent on Feb. 1, 2008. The concept aims to detect issues, like a dropped iPhone, that might void the warranty on the device.

Apple already includes liquid submersion indicators in its MacBook Pros, iPhones and iPods. They irreversibly change color once they come in contact with a liquid, thereby offering the company’s retail store staff and authorized repair specialists an easy way to determine if a customer caused damage to their product with liquids — incidents that aren’t covered under Apple’s standard warranties. Rather than the physical indicator, the new system would save information of damage digitally into memory.

“The system may include an interface by which a diagnostic device may access the memory to analyze the records and determine whether a consumer abuse event occurred, when the event occurred, and, in some embodiments, what type of abuse event occurred,” the patent reads. “By providing the capability to quickly and easily detect whether consumer abuse occurred in an electronic device, a vendor or manufacturer diagnosing a returned product may be able to better determine whether or not to initiate a product return under a warranty policy.”

In addition to warranty protection, the abuse detection circuitry could be used to disable the electronic device if an issue is detected, potentially reducing the risk of damage to the device. The system would aim protect a myriad of parts on devices, including the screen, processor, memory, and potentially inserted devices like SD or CompactFlash cards.

The system would recognize a number of incident types, with liquid and thermal sensors detecting the elements, a shock sensor for drops, and a continuity sensor to detect tampering with the device. Apple suggests that such a system could save money for product vendors and manufacturers who receive warranty returns on products that have been abused.

“A problem arises when a device has failed due to consumer abuse which may not be readily apparent upon a cursory inspection, but a consumer attempts to return the device for repair or replacement under the warranty,” the patent reads. “Often, particularly at a point of sale, personnel receiving the returned device may be unqualified or untrained to determine whether or not a device has failed due to manufacturing defects or due to consumer abuse.”

It continues: “Thus, personnel at the point of sale may often times exchange the returned product with a working replacement product regardless of the cause of failure in order to avoid potential conflicts with the customer. As a result, it is not uncommon for consumers to receive replacement products or repair services on abused products not covered under the terms of a warranty. Such erroneous replacements or repairs may be costly to the vendor and/or manufacturer of the product.”

Source:  http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/08/06/apple_working_on_device_abuse_detection_technology.html

Just when you thought the iPhone App Store approval process couldn’t possibly become more of a debacle, it did.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball details the story of Ninjawords, an iPhone dictionary that Apple censored.

You read that right: Apple refused to sell Ninjawords unless the developer removed certain words from the dictionary.

John Gruber describes Ninjawords as “a terrific app — pretty much exactly what I’ve always wanted in an iPhone dictionary,” but that, “Ninjawords for iPhone suffers one humiliating flaw: it omits all the words deemed “objectionable” by Apple’s App Store reviewers, despite the fact that Ninjawords carries a 17+ rating.”

Apple’s role as gatekeeper should be to keep apps that could keep malicious or illegal software off the app store. Apple’s role should not be deciding what’s offensive. Leave that up to iPhone owners and parents.

What are your thoughts about this?

Source:  Extracts from  http://www.pcworld.com/article/169667/apple_screws_up_again_censors_iphone_dictionary_app.html

Did you experience this fatal error when you tried to upgrade to Wordpress 2.8.2 or 2.8.3?

Well, I did and I finally got rid of the problem by disabling one of my plugins, NextGen Gallery before I tried to upgrade.

If you do not have this plugin, it could be another plugin causing the memory error, so try to disable your plugins first, upgrade to the latest WP version, then enable them back again.

Arghh!  I am really sick of upgrading Wordpress versions.  I love the blogging platform, but it can get so irritating having to upgrade so often.  Thankfully, there is automatic upgrade available now, otherwise I will go crazy overwriting my files again and again manually every other week or so.  So much for my rant now.  LOL.