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. 

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/

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

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/