iPhone Topics, Latest iPhone Reviews, iPhone News at iPhoneTopic.com http://www.iPhoneTopic.com/ Copyright 2008 iPhone Topic. All rights reserved. Electronic Weekly's David Manners writes (via CNet.com.au) about a revealing encounter he had with Luigi Licciardi, executive vice president for technology and operations at Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM). Licciardi confirms what everyone essentially k... http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/3g-iphone-be-sold-italy-june-2008.php Mon, 12 May 2008 00:59:00 CDT In April, SwitchToaMac.com published a rumor that Apple would be launching the 3G iPhone earlier than expected... in May. At the time, we dismissed it, as the rumor didn't seem to correspond with the circulating expectations that the new iPhone woul... http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/3g-iphone-may-another-device-at-wwdc.php Sun, 11 May 2008 15:42:00 CDT Earlier today we posted a screenshot on our dedicated iPhone blog (RSS) that claimed to depict a new On/Off option to enable 3G speeds. This new preference was found in the latest iPhone 2.0 Beta 5 distributed to developers. By default, th... http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/latest-iphone-20-firmware-3g-on-off-option.php Sat, 10 May 2008 20:06:00 CDT Both the U.S. and U.K. online Apple Stores are currently out of both the 8GB and 16GB iPhones. Customers trying to order the iPhone will find that both models are "currently unavailable." This comes just days after UK's O2 c... http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/online-apple-store-out-iphones.php Sat, 10 May 2008 12:39:00 CDT Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Retail, iPhone As many of our intrepid readers have pointed out, iPhones are unavailable at the online Apple Store in both the US and the UK. As we mentioned earlier in the week, cell carrier and Apple retail stores on both continents are reportedly facing shortages as well.With all the buzz surrounding the 3G model, the international rollout and the SDK, this is just one more sign that the release of a new device is right around the corner.While I'm obviously not privy to any official dates (or even unofficial speculation), my past experiences in the cell phone retail world lead me to believe that an early June release seems very, very probable.Thanks to everyone who sent this in! Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/iphone-unavailable-uk-us-apple-stores-3g-release-i.php Sat, 10 May 2008 00:00:00 CDT Filed under: Software, UNIX / BSD, iPhone Linux users are a bit left out in the cold when it comes to the iPhone, but if you're a Linux user who wants to sync your music library with your iPhone, Lifehacker's got a tutorial on how to do just that. Video syncing seems to work as well, but images are apparently a little idiosyncratic. You'll have to jailbreak your iPhone using ZiPhone, and the actual steps involved seem fairly involved...but hey, if you're a Linux user, you're probably cool with both fairly involved technical tweaking and voiding warranties. Go forth, brave adventurer.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/sync-iphone-s-music-library-linux-wireless-way.php Sat, 10 May 2008 00:00:00 CDT In another class action suit settlement, Apple has reportedly agreed to give refunds of $25-$79 to as many as 2.3 million PowerBook and iBook owners who purchased faulty power adapters that were prone to spark.Customers who bought ce... http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/apple-provide-refunds-notebook-power-adapters.php Fri, 09 May 2008 11:19:00 CDT Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Odds and ends, Apple, iPhoneUnfortunately we don't have much more than a splash screen on this one, but Stuart Carnie sends word that he's used the Apple SDK to port a Commodore 64 emulator on to the iPhone. He has yet to put in a Save/Resume state mechanism, a way to browse for files and disks, or a virtual keyboard/joystiq to control it with, but the hard stuff is done, so by the time the App Store comes around, we may have a working C64 emu in there ready to go.As long as it's ok with Apple. In point of fact, we have no idea how any emulators might work in the App Store -- actually, we have no idea how any apps will get in the App Store. Sure, it would be cool to play the original versions of Sim City or Maniac Mansion or Elite, but without Apple's OK to let any of those on the platform, we may not be able to do so without jailbreaking the thing anyway. We'll see -- if Carnie, once his work is done, can't get an official emulator in the App Store, maybe we'll be able to try it out and put it to use in some other, less official way.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/c64-emulator-iphone.php Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 CDT Filed under: Rumors, iPhoneHere's some good news for people in Switzerland, Spain, Poland who are awaiting iPhones. According to Fortune, all three countries may sell them soon.Earlier this week, Le Matin Online reported (linked page is in French) that Swisscom will be the official iPhone carrier for Switzerland. Coincidentally, Apple is rumored to be opening an Apple Store in Zürich in July of this year (we first heard rumors of a Zürich store in 2006). Likewise, France Telecom stated their intention to extend coverage to "...more than just two countries" via their CFO Gervais Pellissier. As the largest European countries that still lack a carrier, Poland and Spain are obviously attractive to France Telecom.In related news, French iPhone customers can expect no immediate changes, as France Telecom intends to remain the country's exclusive carrier for the next two years.To all the TUAW readers in Switzerland, Spain and Poland ... we've got our fingers crossed for you! Let us know if you hear anything from your local news outlets.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/iphone-news-switzerland-spain-poland.php Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 CDT Filed under: iPhoneWhile the UK has been reporting a run on current-model iPhones recently, Gizmodo says that the shortage has reached across the pond to New York City. According to an anonymous staffer at the West 14th street Apple Store, "it's been out of stock all week." And to think, you were only worried about rice and flour. If you check out the picture on Gizmodo, you'll see a line of about 30 people who are waiting for an iPhone at the West 14th street store. These people will probably be very upset in a month or two. [Via Cult of Mac]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/iphone-shortage-hits-nyc.php Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 CDT Filed under: iPod Family, Internet, iPhoneIf you are a Web 2.0 fanatic (which, come on, who isn't these days?) then you probably know about Muxtape. For those of you who aren't religiously reading the latest Web application news at DownloadSquad, Muxtape is basically a way to share your personalized mp3 mixtape. Not only can you subscribe to the tape's RSS via iTunes, but it turns out that you can also listen to Muxtapes on your iPhone! Just navigate over to the Muxtape page of your choosing and select a song. Mobile Safari will then load the file and begin to play it like normal mp3 audio. How cool is that?Thanks for the info, Craig!Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/muxtape-works-on-iphone.php Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 CDT Filed under: Cool tools, Found Footage, iPhoneReader Alex Bratton over at Lextech let us know about a fun iPhone project they're working on. Most high-end surveillance systems use a joystick or mouse to control those cameras that we see all over the place. Lextech has done some work using the touchscreen of the iPhone to replace the old 70's UI tech.To pan the surveillance camera, you scroll the screen left or right using the traditional iPhone finger drag; tilt is done by dragging a finger up and down. Want to zoom in for details on the bad guys? Use the iPhone "reverse pinch" gesture to get the close-up. And if you want to zoom back out to get the big picture, it's a simple pinch on the iPhone display.Videos demonstrating the control system are on the Lextech site and on YouTube.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/super-secret-spy-iphone.php Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 CDT Longtime MacRumors readers will remember the excitement surrounding Jeff Han's early multitouch videos which predated the launch of the Apple iPhone. Han and his team had explored new user interface designs surrounding the use of a large multi-touc... http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/jeff-han-s-multitouch-screen-hits-mainstream.php Thu, 08 May 2008 23:02:00 CDT NBC may not need no steenkin iTunes, but that doesnt mean theyre prepared to ignore the legion of iPhone/iPod touch users out there. Hence, theyve decided to make two of their most popular shows, The Office and 30 Rock, available to those on Apples mobile platform. In order to watch the free episodes, you just need to go to NBCs site on your device, hit Video, and then Full Episodes. All NBC has really done here is format their shows as iPhone-compatible QuickTime files. However, since theyre using the 3GPP codec to make the shows load faster (and they still, over Wi-Fi, do not load very fast), the quality is not very high. Also, this is downloading, not streaming, so while you can play the video before the entire file is downloaded, if you want to pause in the middle and go do something else, youll have to start the whole process over again. Also, the episodes are divided up into smaller segments, meaning youll need to load up multiple files. All of which makes it impractical to use this as a solution for downloading files to watch while offline. On the flipside, well, you get what you pay for. Should you wish, you can access the files from your Mac via the same User Agent spoofing trick we discussed on MacUser for getting onto AT&Ts Wi-Fi hot spots, but youll need to poke around a bit to find the file name for the videos. though, given how poor the resolution is, youre way better off just streaming them for free from NBCs site or from Hulu. Copyright Mac Publishing LLC. This RSS feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you're not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you're looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact webmaster@macworld.com so we can take legal action immediately. http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/free-episodes-office-30-rock-iphone-users.php Thu, 08 May 2008 15:11:00 CDT “You can’t imagine how satisfying it is to know that if your hard drive dies, you will lose no more than one hour of work,” relates David Pogue (nytimes.com) in his review of Time Capsule. “The Time Machine automatic backup feature of the latest Mac OS X version backs up your Macs onto the Time Capsule, automatically, constantly, completely and wirelessly. And in my book, automatic, constant, complete backups are the only kind that really count.” http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/delivering-automatic-constant-complete-wireless-ba.php Thu, 08 May 2008 15:06:00 CDT Using his 24-inch iMac, Jean-Pierre HĂ©bert, the 68-year-old artist-in-residence at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara, California, creates “algorithmic art” in a variety of media—from sand to copper to tree bark. “Mac OS X is a very good environment for me to work in,” he says. “It offers the best of all possible worlds.” http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/creating-algorithmic-art-on-mac.php Thu, 08 May 2008 13:10:00 CDT iPhone carrier fun continues apace. In addition to yesterdays news that Latin America would be picking up the handset later this year, we have a handful of additional news from the past week about other European countries. First up, France Telecom says that theyre currently in negotiations with Apple to distribute the iPhone in Spain and Portgual, and that they probably wont consider price drops until the 3G version arrives. Then, a source at Switzerlands largest mobile phone operator, Swisscom, told Swiss paper Le Matin that theyd scored a deal for the forthcoming 3G version of the iPhone this summer, seemingly making Swiss cheese—ha ha!—out of Apples usual secrecy. That gibes with a report from earlier in the week in which a T-Mobile spokesperson claimed that the company would be selling the 3G version of the iPhone in Austria soon. At this point, its going to be far more of a surprise if Apple doesnt release a 3G iPhone in the next couple of months. Copyright Mac Publishing LLC. This RSS feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you're not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you're looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact webmaster@macworld.com so we can take legal action immediately. http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/swisscom-france-telecom-t-mobile-all-talk-up-3g-ip.php Thu, 08 May 2008 12:36:00 CDT Appleinsider reports on a new Apple patent application that was published today that reveals Apple has done research on a 3d remote similar to the Nintendo Wii remote.The present invention can include multi-dimensional (e.g., 2-D or ... http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/apple-developing-wiimote-like-controller.php Thu, 08 May 2008 12:01:00 CDT “If your mom or dad has a Mac, help them safeguard their digital heirlooms with Apple’s Time Capsule,” implores Eric M. Strauss (abcnews.com). “Time Capsule combines simple setup and a speedy wireless network with automatic backup in a tidy box. Plus, recovering Aunt Chippie’s first black-jack victory photo after your mom’s hard drive crashes will certainly make it all worth the cost.” http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/time-capsule-can-save-digital-heirlooms.php Thu, 08 May 2008 11:29:00 CDT Macworld.com - Softpress Systems on Thursday announced the release of Freeway 5.1, a new version of its Web design software for Mac OS X. A free update for 5.0 users, Freeway is available in Express and Pro versions for $79 or $249 respectively. http://www.iphonetopic.com/news/freeway-web-site-editor-adds-rss-feed-action.php Thu, 08 May 2008 09:00:00 CDT