Case Turns iPhone Into Universal Remote While Charging It

remote

You would think that turning the iPhone into a universal remote control would be easy, but it turns out it’s not: We’ve seen a couple of unimpressive attempts from developers. FastMac and Umee’s solution looks like it might work though.

Dubbed iV Plus, the gadget consists of an iPhone case with an integrated battery and a built-in infrared transmitter, which communicates with an app to control your home entertainment products. The idea is such: After a long day of work, you can plop down in front of the couch, pop your iPhone in the case and charge the handset while using it as a remote to control your TV, your stereo or whatever else is in your living room. And if you’re OK with carrying your iPhone around in a chunky case, there’s a bonus: It actually includes a LED flash for snapping photos.

Even more interesting is Umee’s design of the app. You can select remote control codes based on manufacturer and types of devices in your living room. From there on, you can actually customize the remote control buttons, adding or removing whatever ones you wish. So say for instance you only use five buttons on your Comcast cable box remote: the power, select, guide, page-up and page-down buttons, for example. You can delete all the junk and keep those buttons you actually use.

The iV Plus sounds promising, because past universal remote apps we’ve seen have failed to create an intuitive user interface to comfortably control your living room gadgets, rendering the product impractical.

We tried a demo of the iV Plus at Macworld Expo last week, and it was only working with television sets at the time. We’re looking forward to trying the iV Plus when a full version is available. Due for release in the second quarter of 2010, the case will cost $130 and the app will be free.

Compage page [FastMac]

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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com



Former Apple Evangelist Kawasaki Pimps New iPhone Apps

macworld_keynote
Former Apple evangelist and professional self promoter Guy Kawasaki spent Friday morning at Macworld Expo helping developers pimp their software. While he was at it, he managed to deliver some obligatory jabs to Microsoft and Google.

macworld_keynote“Back then the Mac division was the largest collection of egomaniacs,” said Kawasaki, reflecting on his past job evangelizing the Mac platform. “But that record has been broken by Google.”

From 1983 to 1987, Kawasaki was Apple’s Mac evangelist, who reached out to software developers to convince them to develop applications for the Macintosh back when the platform had a diminutive install base. To attract developers to the platform, he’d often publicize hot software to show off the capabilities of the Mac.

Reviving his old role as a software promoter, Kawasaki on Friday featured app demonstrations by several developers. The key appearances were Twitter creator Jack Dorsey (below), former Apple engineer Bill Atkinson and Microsoft Bing manager Florian Voss.

Dorsey’s new startup Square revolves around a platform that enables anyone to perform a credit card transaction. The Square magnetic stripe reader plugs into any computer or phone with a 3.5-mm headphone jack, and the Square software transmits payments to Square’s database, which eventually wires the money to a bank account.

“Everybody becomes a merchant,” Dorsey said.

The credit card reader could come useful for people selling items on Craigslist or for charities asking for donations. Both the app and the accessory will be free; the Square system charges merchants fees depending on the cards used. (See Mat Honan’s review of Square published earlier this week.)

Microsoft’s Voss showed off the new Bing app for iPhone, which enables users to perform Bing searches with voice commands. Kawasaki complimented the Bing app’s beauty, but not without slipping in a Microsoft diss.

“I never thought I’d hear a Microsoft employee extolling the virtues of beautiful applications,” he said, to which Voss retorted, “I never thought I’d hear an Apple evangelist say a Microsoft product looks beautiful.”

The two enjoyed a bitter laugh.

Apple veteran Atkinson demoed his $5 app PhotoCard, which allows users to create postcards using their own images or Atkinson’s photographs. You’d use the app to design the postcard and send off the request to a local print shop, which will physically produce the postcard and mail it out to your recipient through the U.S. postal service. You’d pay for prints inside the app with credits purchased through PayPal.

macworld_keynote

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com


Caption contest: iPhone as a CPR device

Alright, we’ll leave all the zingers for you and our mercurial staff to deliver, and just use this space to dish some info on the hardware. Ivor Kovic, an emergency physician from Croatia, has recently demoed a new iPhone cradle that turns the already multifunctional handset into a CPR assistance device. By using an app titled Pocket CPR and the built-in accelerometer, he can get audio and visual feedback to tell him if he’s doing it correctly, while his basic (but awesome) cradle allows for longer CPR sessions if necessary. Check out the video after the break, then hit the comments with your finest witticisms.

Paul: “Come on Luke Wilson’s Career, stay with me now, you’re not going to die on me!”
Darren: “Man, I could really get a better look at what’s going on if this thing had a 9.7-inch IPS panel…”
Chris: “Everyone is either dying or staying alive these days, and we began to ask ourselves: is there room for something in the middle?”
Nilay: “He then died.”
Vlad: “Our other cradle also measures rhythm and depth, though its purpose isn’t entirely medicinal.”
Andy: “A rare case where a lack of multitasking is actually helpful to the task on hand.”
Thomas: “Can you stop dying for a second, I have to take this call.”
Joe: “This actually adds an intriguing level of complexity to Super Monkey Ball 2.”
Richard Lai: “Come on… COME ON!! Wait a tick… AT&T? No wonder it isn’t working. Dammit.”
Tim: “Looks like this guy’s heart (puts on sunglasses)… has dropped its last call.” Yeeeaaaaaahhhh…

Continue reading Caption contest: iPhone as a CPR device

Caption contest: iPhone as a CPR device originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Comic Books Will Look Incredible on the iPad

I’d buy an iPad just to read comic books. Think I’m nuts? I probably am, but see how you feel after this first look at what Panelfly, maker of a popular comic book iPhone app, is building for the iPad.

Instead of simply scaling up the existing iPhone app, the folks from Panelfly put their heads together with the Sugarcube dev team and brainstormed. With all the talk of the iPad and how it could restore comic books to their former glory, they realized that they needed to revamp the app and make a version specifically for the iPad. This way they could take full advantage of the device’s screen size and provide a new way of purchasing and interacting with the content.

The way the Panelfly iPhone app works is that you download the app for free from the app store and then add comics to your library through in-app purchases. Stephen Lynch, CTO and designer at Panelfly, hinted that the company is currently exploring several different purchase models for the iPad version, but was unfortunately unable to elaborate even when I tried to coax out whether there’d be a subscription option.

As far as reading and navigating content on the new iPad app goes, let’s just say it’ll blow us all away. From what Stephen was able to share with me, Panelfly “didn’t want to stray too far from the native Apple UI elements, [they] wanted to create something that was [theirs] as well as a platform that gave the content the respect it deserves.” And from the looks and sound of it? They’ve succeeded.

Be sure to click on the images in the gallery for the full-sized view. It’s worth it.

Call me a geeky comic book lover, but apps like this one are what I’m looking forward to when it comes to the iPad. The gadget won’t replace my computer, it won’t replace my TV, and it won’t replace any other device I’ve got around the house. But it will be what I sit down with when I want to catch up on some comics, magazines, journal articles, and what will be formerly known as “print” media.

Apple Tablet Will Likely Support 2 Kinds of Apps


In addition to launching its tablet Wednesday, Apple will likely introduce a new programming solution for iPhone developers to easily tablet-enable their apps.

Developers polled by Wired said they expected additions to Apple’s software-development kit that would help make iPhone apps work at any resolution, for full-screen support on the rumored device.

But how will that work? The tablet will likely support all iPhone apps out of the box in their current 480-by-320 resolution. These apps will probably be able to run in the background, perhaps in separate windows. It’s unlikely they’re going to automatically maximize to fill up the tablet’s screen, which is rumored to be 10 inches diagonally, developers polled by Wired.com agreed, because that would result in a blurry, pixelated mess — not Apple’s style.

Therefore, it’s likely that Apple will offer a quick workaround for developers to rescale their apps for full-screen tablet support.

For people who buy the tablet, that means we’ll see a slightly bifurcated world of apps. We’ll be able to access all iPhone apps in small windows, and some of those apps will be resizable to fit the tablet’s larger screen.

“It’s easy to imagine how Apple might offer tools to make it easy for me to not have to make all my graphics from scratch,” said Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous, developer of the popular iPhone rhythm game Tap Tap Revenge. “That’s one of the things I’d be on the lookout for.”

“We’ve made a big investment,” he continued. “People have made huge investments in their games. I’d expect Apple to accelerate the process of having lots and lots of apps that feel native and migrate from a fixed-resolution world to resolution independent.”

Decrem said he could not comment on whether Tapulous would be appearing as a presenter at Apple’s Jan. 27 event in San Francisco, where the Cupertino, California, company is rumored to be launching a tablet. Tapulous appeared in the recent September iPod event to present a new game, Riddim Ribbon.

Multiple independent reports agree on the physical description of Apple’s tablet: a blown-up iPhone or iPod Touch with a 10-inch screen. But the software experience has remained a mystery. Offering a glimmer of insight, The New York Times just a day before Apple’s product event has published a bold report claiming the tablet would support all 100,000 iPhone and iPod Touch apps currently in the App Store.

“It will run all the applications of the iPhone and iPod touch, have a persistent wireless connection over 3G cellphone networks and Wi-Fi, and will be built with a 10-inch color display, allowing newspapers, magazines and book publishers to deliver their products with an eye to the design that had grabbed readers in print,” NY Times wrote.

Corroborating NY Times‘ report, McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw said in a live TV interview that McGraw was developing e-book content for the Apple tablet. He explained that the tablet’s OS was based on the iPhone OS, meaning McGraw’s e-book iPhone apps will be easily portable to the tablet.

Other iPhone developers polled by Wired agreed that Decrem’s theory was solid. They said the SDK needed to be updated with new tools streamlining migration to the upcoming tablet. Jeff Meininger, iPhone developer of Snaptic, said Decrem’s proposed solution regarding resolution-independence would work.

“It would be the simplest and most effective way to be able to support all iPhone apps,” Meininger said. “It’s absolutely technically feasible.”

David Castelnuovo, developer of the immensely popular iPhone game Pocket God, said it was likely Apple would offer some new sizability code in the iPhone SDK with the tablet in mind. But he said it wouldn’t be a blanket solution for all 100,000 apps in the App Store.

Pocket God, for example, is game that involves torturing pygmies on an island, and it would have to be redesigned for a tablet with a bigger island and more pygmies, Castelnuovo said. So, some quick and easy sizability code will likely accelerate full-screen tablet support for form-based apps such as Facebook. For games or apps with more complex interfaces, it could take more thoughtful tweaking.

“Ideally we wouldn’t want to just scale [Pocket God],” Castelnuovo said. “We’d want to make the world bigger.”

Just how big a portion of the App Store will support full-screen tablet resolution will be up to the developers. Appcelerator, a company that helps developers build cross-platform mobile apps, polled 554 developers on their interest in coding for the tablet. 51 percent of respondents said it would be “very important” for them to port iPhone apps for the tablet “in a simple, easy fashion without too much cost or delay.” Thirty percent responded “Somewhat important” and 19 percent responded “Not important.”

It remains a question whether Apple will launch an entire section in its App Store for tablet apps. Decrem said he doubts that, because all iPhone apps will work with the tablet. He said it’s realistic that developers will state in their apps’ descriptions whether they feature full tablet support.

We’ll find out soon. Stay tuned on Gadget Lab for full, live coverage of Apple’s tablet event, which kicks off 10 a.m. PDT Wednesday.

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A mockup of an imaginary Apple tablet: Stephen Lewis Simmonds


Acer to launch e-reader, app store, and Chrome OS netbook this year; wants to ‘change the Microsoft-Intel environment’

Man, Acer’s on the warpath. The world’s second-largest PC manufacturer seems hell-bent on radically changing the status quo, telling Bloomberg today that it’s “aggressively pursuing” Chrome OS “so there’s a change to the Microsoft-Intel environment,” with plans to be among the first to ship in Q3. That’s somewhat ahead of Google’s own schedule for reaching v1.0, so yeah, it’s definitely aggressive — and it also sounds like a strong hint towards an ARM-based Chrome OS machine in our future, but Acer wouldn’t confirm anything. Still, those are basically fightin’ words, especially since Acer’s framing the future as a choice between “either” Windows or “Google’s defined OS space.” Acer also promised to fully detail a 6-inch monochrome e-reader by June with an initial focus on European markets, and we’re also informed of a forthcoming free / cheap application store that will be compatible with Android, Windows Mobile, and, obviously, Chrome OS. And lest you thought Acer was ignoring the Apple tablet madness that permeates our world, we’re told that an Acer tablet is in the works, accompanied by the candid admission that the Taiwanese giant is waiting to see what Apple has in store before finalizing its own plans. Yep — things are getting a little nuts.

Acer to launch e-reader, app store, and Chrome OS netbook this year; wants to ‘change the Microsoft-Intel environment’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kindle’s active content given 100KB free monthly bandwidth allowance

We were wondering how Kindle’s impending active content (read: apps) would be harnessing that free Whispernet bandwidth. As it turns out, there’s just a smidgen allowed for gratis. According to the terms laid out by Amazon, there’s a 70 / 30 revenue split, with that smaller percentage going to Bezos and co. “net of delivery fees of $0.15 / MB.” The price tiers is a little simpler: apps can be free if their download over 3G is less than 1MB and they use less than 100KB per month, per user. Apps between 1MB and 10MB require a one-time purchase fee that offsets the bandwidth usage, and likewise a subscription fee is needed for those that plan on allowing over 100KB of a monthly data streaming. (To put that in perspective, this post — just the copy — is 4KB. That image above is 120KB.) Anything over 10MB requires a download over WiFi, and the maximum file size is 100MB… and if anyone manages to justify a 100MB app that runs on a greyscale E Ink display, color us impressed.

Kindle’s active content given 100KB free monthly bandwidth allowance originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tablet Wars: Amazon Adds Apps to Kindle

landing_page_center_graphic_v208591534_Amazon has announced that it will open up the Kindle e-reader to third party developers, allowing applications, or what Amazon calls “active content”, to run on the device.

What kind of apps could run in the low-fi Kindle? Well, you won’t be getting Monkey Ball, but interactive books, travel guides with locations data, RSS readers and anything that brings text to the device would be a good candidate. This could even include magazine and newspaper subscriptions.

The key is the revenue split. Right now Amazon takes a big chunk of the selling price of Kindle e-books. The terms of the new Kindle Development Kit (KDK) specify a 70:30 split, with the large part going to the developer. This is the same as the iTunes App Store, which is surely no coincidence — with an expected e-reading Apple tablet announcement next week, Amazon may be showing its hand now to pre-empt Apple.

It might appear that Amazon is going head-to-head with Apple on this, but we see it a little differently. Apple sells hardware, and while the App Store brings in a nice chunk of change, it is there primarily to sell more iPhones and iPods. Amazon sells books, and the Kindle is a way to make sure you buy Amazon’s e-books. That’s why there is a Kindle app for the iPhone, and why there will be a Kindle app on the tablet: it benefits both companies.

“Active content” will certainly make the Kindle more compelling, especially against other e-readers, although it will also make the Kindle more distracting. One of the nice things about an e-reader is that you can’t use it to check your email every five minutes. Or perhaps you can. The KDK allows the use of the wireless 3G connection. If the application uses less than 100KB per month, the bandwidth comes for free. If it uses more, there is a charge of $0.15 per MB which can (and surely will) be passed on to the customer as a monthly charge.

This model could, interestingly, also make its way into Apple’s tablet. Instead of trying to sell us yet another data plan, the tablet could have a Kindle-style free 3G connection used only for buying iTunes Store content, with the bandwidth price built in to the purchase. That is just speculation, however.

What we are sure of is that the next year will be an interesting one, and the e-book is set to take off in the same way that the MP3 took off before it. The question is, who will be making the iPod of e-books? Given its relatively low price, its appeal to an older, book buying demographic and its ascetic simplicity, the surprise winner might actually be the Kindle.

KDK Limited Beta Coming Next Month [Amazon]


Man Buried in Haiti Rubble Uses iPhone to Treat Wounds, Survive

U.S. filmmaker Dan Woolley was shooting a documentary about the impact of poverty in Haiti when the earthquake struck. He could have died, but he ultimately survived with the help of an iPhone first-aid app that taught him to treat his wounds.

After being crushed by a pile of rubble, Woolley used his digital SLR to illuminate his surroundings and snap photos of the wreckage in search of a safe place to dwell. He took refuge in an elevator shaft, where he followed instructions from an iPhone first-aid app to fashion a bandage and tourniquet for his leg and to stop the bleeding from his head wound, according to an MSNBC story.

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The app even warned Woolley not to fall asleep if he felt he was going into shock, so he set his cellphone’s alarm clock to go off every 20 minutes. Sixty-five hours later, a French rescue team saved him.

“I just saw the walls rippling and just explosive sounds all around me,” said Woolley, recounting the earthquake to MSNBC. “It all happened incredibly fast. David yelled out, ‘It’s an earthquake,’ and we both lunged and everything turned dark.”

Woolley’s incident highlights a large social implication of the iPhone and other similar smartphones. A constant internet connection, coupled with a device supporting a wealth of apps, can potentially transform a person into an all-knowing, always-on being. In Woolley’s case, an iPhone app turned him into an amateur medic to help him survive natural disaster.

Say what you will about the iPhone. This story is incredible.

Update: As Wired reader “bbqbologna” noted in the comments below, the app used in question was Pocket First Aid and CPR. A user review by “Webguydan” reads, “Consulted this app, while trapped under Hotel Montana in Haiti earthquake, to treat excessive bleeding and shock. Helped me stay alive till I was rescued 64 hours later.”

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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com


Apple’s App Store said to have 99.4 percent of all mobile app sales, more like 97.5

The latest research from Gartner indicates that, for the year 2009, only 16 million app sales were executed on mobile devices not bearing the infamous bitten apple logo. In reporting this data, Ars Technica inadvertently conflates Apple’s latest announcement of three billion apps downloaded with the notion of three billion apps sold and pegs the App Store’s market share at a whopping 99.4 percent — but more realistic calculations still show it to be somewhere in the vicinity of 97.5 percent. Going off estimates (obtained by GigaOM) that a quarter of App Store downloads are paid-for apps, and taking a rough figure of 2.5 billion downloads in 2009, leaves us with around 625 million app sales performed by Apple, which comfortably dwarfs all its competition. Considering the fact 18 months ago there wasn’t even an App Store to speak of — whereas today Cupertino is gobbling up the best part of $4.2 billion in annual mobile apps revenue — maybe you can now understand why we’re covering every tiny drip of info about that mythical tablet.

Apple’s App Store said to have 99.4 percent of all mobile app sales, more like 97.5 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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