Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve already seen UK movie rental service Lovefilm expand its streaming service on Blu-ray players and consoles, and now — since parent company Amazon isn’t bringing the Kindle Fire over anytime soon — it has moved on to the iPad. While its existing Lovefilm app allows for disc browsing and queue management, the new Lovefilm Player app handles most of those functions, plus the aforementioned subscription streaming access (no VOD, yet.) Check out a quick video intro after the break or hit the source links below for the FAQ or to download on iTunes.

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Lovefilm player goes mobile, now available on iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Jobs may not be presiding over this year’s long-awaited iPhone announcement, but that’s not putting a damper on any of the excitement. Rumors of the coveted new mystery product (or products) have been swirling for months, but Apple will finally pull back the curtain at its Oct. 4 event.

Hard and fast details are few and far between, but we’ve got a pretty good track record in predicting new iPhone and MacBook announcements in the past. So we’ve taken a look at what little information there is available, and here’s what we think is waiting for us down at 1 Infinite Loop come Tuesday morning.

The Next iPhone

Powering the iPhone 5 will likely be an A5 processor, as it’s been spotted in purported photos of the next-gen model’s insides. The latest news also points to the iPhone 5 touting 1 GB of RAM, which makes for better gaming, browsing and more memory-intensive tasks.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

The rear-facing camera could also get a bump up from the current iPhone’s 5 megapixels to a sharper 8 megapixels. That’s the magic number for the industry currently, with Android smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S II and Motorola Droid 3 already touting as much. Photography is key to the iPhone experience — especially with iOS-only apps like the ever-popular Instagram — and we don’t see Apple skimping out in that area.

Appearance-wise, the iPhone 5 may sport a new metal back, as opposed to the iPhone 4’s glass-covered rear. Case design mock-ups point to a device that’s incredibly thin, with tapered edges and a larger, edge-to-edge display. A number of mock-ups and case designs are showing an elongated hardware home button on the device, which seems a bit odd to us, as we thought Apple would be more likely to remove some hardware and turn that button into a capacitive-touch space.

A Budget iPhone

We were inititally skeptical that Apple would release two iPhones this fall, a new iPhone and an incrementally updated or budget “iPhone 4S.” But hints from different sources suggest that a budget “iPhone 4S” could very likely make an appearance at Apple’s iPhone event.

For one, Apple board member Al Gore used the plural form when he said there would be “iPhones coming out next month” at a conference he spoke at in September.

CEO Tim Cook also previously stated that Apple would not be “ceding any market” and that “price is a big factor in the prepaid market.” Feature phones make up just about two-thirds of the nation’s mobile phone scene (not to mention foreign markets like China and India, where the prepaid phone market is huge). By producing a budget iPhone, with reduced storage capacity and cheaper data plan options, Apple could reach out to a large portion of the market that’s been holding out on purchasing a smartphone.

Sprint iPhone, No T-Mobile iPhone

In an effort to gain ground among the growing legion of Android users, Apple may introduce the iPhone to a third carrier — namely, Sprint — in addition to its existing relationships with AT&T and Verizon.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Increased distribution is a key component of Apple’s marketing strategy, according to Shing Yin of Citadel Securities, a position that wasn’t a major concern when the iPhone initially launched into the smartphone space.

T-Mobile recently confirmed it will not be carrying the iPhone this year. T-Mobile subscribers will have to get their smartphone kicks with Android, which the network is wholly embracing.

iOS 5

We’ve seen an iOS 5 preview at WWDC 2011 earlier this year, and it’s been available to developers in beta form for some time, so there are no surprises here. With iOS 5, the next iPhone will house a number of features currently accomplished by third-party apps. Examples include photo editing (something Camera+ currently excels at), image and document sharing (which falls in the realm of Dropbox) and a “Read Later” functionality (currently performed by Instapaper).

iOS also seamlessly integrates SMS and MMS messaging with iMessage and will allow for FaceTime-ing over a 3G connection rather than just a Wi-Fi connection.

Voice Control

One of the latest bits of exciting news we may be seeing Tuesday is the introduction of voice control on the iPhone. This purportedly comes by way of a feature called Assistant, a piece of software built by Siri, a start-up Apple purchased in 2010. Assistant will only be able to run on the iPhone 5, as it requires its beefed up CPU and additional memory.

Assistant would let you tell your phone something like “Send a text message to Joe Schmoe saying I’m going to be in town next Wednesday,” and then it would complete the task. It would also have a conversation mode to glean more information from the user in order to provide optimal results.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

No Steve Jobs

It’s unlikely that Steve Jobs will make a surprise appearance at this year’s iPhone announcement. Jobs stepped down as CEO. It’s new CEO Tim Cook’s time to shine now, and his place to lead the event. Like past announcements, there will probably be a handful of executives — VPs like Jonathan Ive and Phil Schiller — taking turns introducing and demonstrating the various new and improved features of the phone. But Steve Jobs will not be stepping out from behind a black curtain. If there’s “One more thing…,” Mr. Cook will be the one dangling the carrot on a string.

Image: Manzana/Flickr

This is not a real iPhone 5. Repeat, not a real iPhone 5. Photo: Benm.at

And the “Biggest Apple Fanboy of the Week” award goes to (drum roll please) the guys who made this insane real-life, glass and aluminum mockup of an iPhone 5.

A team of Apple fans at Benm.at in Germany used CAD designs, leaked hints, case designs and realistic mockups to develop a 3-D computer model that was then used to build a true-to-life, true-to-scale iPhone 5 mockup.

The team says they used the same process to create their prototype that is used to create the iPad. The rear of the case was hewn from a solid block of aluminum, which was then treated with glass pearls to give it texture.

Their mockup measures in at 2.36 inches wide, which is just slightly larger than the iPhone 4, but is slightly squatter (4.33 inches compared to the current 4.5 inches) and thinner. They adopted the rumored teardrop shape of the device, so the top is about .04 inches thicker than the bottom of the device. They also opted for an oval-shaped capacitive touch home button, rather than a mechanical button.

The result is kind of amazing, based on their photographs. Here’s one more — how their iPhone 5 fits in with some of the iPhone family — for your viewing pleasure.

Photo: Benm.at

via Cult of Mac

This article was written on June 25, 2007 by CyberNet.

Despite the fact that the iPhone will be released in just a few short days, we still really haven’t heard much about the details of the phone in regards to settings, and even some of its features. A recent video floating around the web gives us a glimpse at some of the settings that you can expect, including a sample of a few ringtones.

There’s a whole list of new details here, I’ll just point out some of the ones that stood out for me. From the movie, we learn:

• Included with the iPhone is an in-line viewer for PDFs, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel documents in email.
• Want to listen to a portion of a voicemail again? Rewind it like a sound file.
• iPhone headphones include volume and call control.
• Limited ringtone selection available in the start menu, and Gizmodo points out that it doesn’t look like songs can be used.
• Confirmed IMAP/POP support

Cost

Now, another thing we haven’t heard any official announcement on is the price of the service plan. While there is still no word yet, using the current prices that AT&T charges for their BlackBerry users, we can get an estimate of what you might expect.  Currently, BlackBerry users are charged between $34.99 and $79.99 per month for data, and between $49.99 to $99.99 for voice. Assuming that iPhone pricing will be similar, we can expect the range of prices to be between $84.98 and $179.98.

Remember, if you decide to purchase an iPhone, you will be required to sign a two year service contract.  Should you decide that you don’t want the phone/service anymore, you will incur a $175 cancellation fee.

iPhone Shortcomings?

Engadget is reporting that a “trusted source” of theirs has been fooling around with an iPhone, and not all of their reactions were positive.For example, they pointed out that the keyboard was “disappointing,” and often times registers multiple keys because of the two-fingered nature of the keyboard. If you plan on doing a lot of typing, it’s possible that you’re better off sticking with your BlackBerry. Another shortcoming mentioned was that the touchscreen took some rough-handling at times before it would register the input, which is certainly something that would take getting used to.

When you head into an Apple store or AT&T store on Friday, be sure you play around with the phone before you commit to buying it, and make sure that it’s something you’d want for two years.  I’d hate for anyone to have to shell out the $175 required in cancellation fees.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Without a dedicated app, iPad users have had to use Facebook’s iPhone app on the iPad. Image: Facebook

We’ve been without an official iPad Facebook app for so long it has seemed as if it would never arrive. But rumor has it we won’t be waiting for it much longer.

There’s a chance Facebook’s iPad app and an HTML 5-based mobile platform (rumored to be codenamed “Project Spartan”) are ready to hit the prime time, according to multiple reports. Both could be introduced at Apple’s iPhone event this Tuesday.

We first got a sneak peak at what looked to be Facebook’s iPad app in July. It was tucked away inside Facebook’s iPhone app and could be accessed by tweaking a setting when running it on your iPad (until the hack was removed). News of the mysterious “Project Spartan” also showed up this summer. The project was rumored to “use Apple’s own devices against them to break the stranglehold they have on mobile app distribution,” according to technology blog TechCrunch, but it could instead be used to demonstrate iOS 5’s HTML 5 capabilities at Apple’s upcoming media event.

The news about “Project Spartan” was discovered on a Facebook mobile developer’s page that has since been taken down.

If Facebook’s iPad app and Project Spartan don’t end up taking the stage at 1 Infinite Loop on Tuesday, the two products may be unveiled at Facebook HQ on a later date.

via TechCrunch and Mashable