iPhone Software

The Pragmatic Studio announces more dates for their popular iPhone Programming course: April 10-13 and August 13-16. In this 4-day, hands-on training course youll learn the tools and APIs in the iOS 5.0 SDK, Xcode 4.3, Objective-C and Cocoa Touch programming. If youre a programmer new to iOS development, or youve started building an app and need help putting all the concepts together, then this is the course for you.

Securifis Almond is the first wireless router for the rest of us. It sports a color touch screen that does away with PC- or Mac-based setup or maintenance. Almond not only removes the need for the intimidating web-driven interfaces consumers have struggled with for over a decade, it removes the need for operating through a PC or Macintosh entirely.

RAGE Software announced today the immediate availability of SEIntelligence 2.5, a major update to the first native, professional Search Engine Optimization software for Mac OS X. SEIntelligence provides step-by-step instructions on how to optimize a website foe search engines. It shows exactly what aspects of a website need to be optimized in order to achieve higher search engine rankings. This new version adds support for Google Plus and reports more incoming links for your competitors.

As Apple promised in early October, the company has posted an updated Software Developer Kit (iPhone SDK) Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which allows iPhone application developers to more openly discuss their development plans. In order to facilitate such discussion, Apple has also opened a forum especially for iPhone developers.

Adobe confirmed yesterday at the Flash On The Beach (FOTB) conference in Brighton, UK that it is actually developing a Flash Player for the iPhone. Even though it's still work in progress, with the iPhone is at its second generation, it's about time Apple!

Flash is basically the only thing that keeps the iPhone from not delivering and now Adobe confirmed that such an application is in development. Ever since the iPhone was launched in 2007, one of the most sought after features that were missing from the phone's Web browser was the possibility to run Flash content.

Some naughty developer must have violated their Apple NDA agreement – tsk, tsk.

A couple of details have begun to trickle out about iPhone 2.2, the next revision to the iPhone/iPod touch software. According to a piece at AppleInsider, Apple has released beta 1 of firmware 2.2 to developers that features a number of small UI tweaks.

Sure, on the surface Google’s Android seems more like a shot through the heart of Windows Mobile — or the head of Palm’s Linux-based OS 2.0 aspirations — but while those platforms enjoy their own historical and market share, it’s Apple’s iPhone that has all the mind share of late. That means, despite Google’s CEO being on the Apple Board of Directors, Google’s Maps, Search, and other services having a prominent place on both devices, and — let’s face it — Google’s full on tech-crush for the iPhone — no one is going to hesitate to pit the two systems head-to-head. Including us!

So, what advantages does each one have? What drawbacks? Here they are, in our opinion: the top five iPhone vs. Android Wins and Losses… after the break!

By James Alan Miller
September 24, 2008

As you may now, some Windows Vista users have gotten the blue screen of death error message after installing iTunes 8 and then connecting either an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPod to their PCs. Thankfully, Apple's posted detailed instructions on how to resolve the situation.

Here's what Apple recommends you do:

Apple have released iPhone firmware v2.1, announced by Steve Jobs earlier this week and the company's promised cure for dropped calls, poor battery life and slow iTunes backups. According to the update details, it also includes improved email reliability for both POP and Exchange users, faster third-party application installs, improved SMS performance and speedier contacts searching.

I've just downloaded and installed iPhone 2.1 software and, like iPod 2.1 a few days ago, the changes are important. There are scant new features around the fringe, but the bugfixes and streamlining are significant.

On the surface everything appears the same. But it is not. Apple has listed the following features and fixes:

• Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls
• Significantly better battery life for most users
• Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
• Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
• Faster installation of 3rd party applications
• Fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes for users with lots of third party applications
• Improved performance in text messaging
• Faster loading and searching of contacts
• Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
• Repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
• Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
• Genius playlist creation