Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re one of the trendy hipsters driving a Smart Fortwo, here’s another way of pimping up your ride: Daimler has announced a Q2 2010 launch for its Smart Drive kit for the iPhone. As pictured above, the kit consists of a cradle for handsfree communication plus charging, and an app that “combines all the features needed on the road” by the means of “extra-large buttons and extra-large letters.” You’ll get access to your usual music library (plus Internet radio), contacts, phone functions and map by Daimler (points-of-interest data from Microsoft Bing). There’s also the handy “Assist” feature that can automatically mark your parking location when undocked, and can provide GPS coordinates to the Smart hotline for roadside assistance. What’s more, Daimler’s currently working on a camera for this kit that can identify speed limit signs, and can then warn you if you’re speeding. Want it? You’ll need to fork out a dear €240 ($326) for the cradle (which may or may not be necessary), then a one-off €9.99 ($14) for the app, and finally the optional annual €49.99 ($68) for on-board European and US maps plus live traffic data. We’ll reconsider if the app can also start our car.

[Thanks, Jason]

Daimler’s Smart Drive kit for iPhone gives you big buttons, a dent in your wallet originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T certainly made a few of us happy yesterday when it announced that the iPhone SlingPlayer app would now be allowed to run over its 3G network, but the carrier apparently embellished the facts a little when it said Sling had optimized the app to be “more bandwidth sensitive” — Sling’s John Santoro told Ars Technica that it “didn’t change anything,” and that “AT&T never discussed specific requirements with us.” So much for that happy narrative — we thought AT&T’s line sounded odd, given that SlingPlayer has always run just fine on AT&T Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and S60 devices. It’s cool, though, Sling isn’t sweating it: “Whatever the reason, we’re just glad AT&T has approved it.” Now it’s just up to Apple to let it through the App Store — any day now, guys.

Update: Sling just called us to clarify the above statements — while it didn’t make any specific changes to iPhone SlingPlayer, its engineers did work with AT&T to make sure the app didn’t interfere with other customers and clog up the network. Sling says that once AT&T was involved in the testing process and “saw how the app worked,” things went smoothly, and that the app was “refined” to meet AT&T network requirements — refinements we were told would come to other platforms over time. Sounds good to us, although we’re still wondering why this wasn’t the party line in the first place.

Sling says it didn’t change iPhone SlingPlayer for AT&T (Updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Even though you probably still can’t figure out what good the ability to connect your Bluetooth keyboard to your iPhone will do, the BTstack project is steaming ahead with this demo of a connected Magic Mouse twirling its pointer all over Apple’s handset. The driver code is still unreleased, but we get to see some nice lag-free interaction between the two devices, suggesting it shouldn’t be too far away from public consumption. As if to answer your earlier quandary, the video also features a Celluon CL800BT virtual keyboard, which projects onto and responds to your touch of any flat surface. A gimmick most likely, but a fun journey into the dream of nomadic computing nonetheless. Check out all the action after the break.

[Thanks, Daniel]

Continue reading iPhone and Magic Mouse linked up by BTstack (video)

iPhone and Magic Mouse linked up by BTstack (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news, everyone! Our very own iPhone / iPod touch app is finally really available in Apple’s much talked about and critically acclaimed App Store! That’s right, all the excitement and info you’ve come to know and love from Engadget is now bottled in an easy to digest and delicious iPhone form. The application — easily downloadable from your device or iTunes — features a whole bunch of useful features such as offline viewing, built in streaming for The Engadget Show, in-app tipping (you know, for when you see the next iPhone), and all kinds of customization options. You can download the app right here, or click on the image above.

Even better than this? We’ve got more apps on the way! Before CES (fingers crossed), you should see both a BlackBerry and webOS version of the Engadget application, and plans for the Android version are already in motion.

Lastly, a big, big, big thanks to the team at AOL that actually made this thing a reality: Sun Sachs, Andy Averbuch, Hareesh P, Anibal Rosado, Rajesh Kumar, Rich Foster, Claudeland Louis, Mike Wolstat, Eric Wedge, Vikas B R, Milissa Tarquini, Asha Indira and Bob Gurwin. You guys rule.

Engadget for iPhone / iPod touch: available now! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One-handed touchscreen typing is the hip new thing, apparently, since mere weeks after getting our first whiff of Swype, Tiki’Labs has debuted its own free TikiNotes app for the iPhone with a proprietary “large target” sort of keyboard. We’ve seen the idea before, specifically with some accessibility devices, which lets the user drill down into one of six alphabet sectors, and then pick one of six characters. TikiNotes improves upon that by not only predicting the word you’re currently typing, but also often correctly guessing the next word you were planning on typing. To be honest, we find that second feature just a little depressing — all that money the government spent on our two years of high school education and we still form sentences like everybody else — but certainly useful (Tiki’Labs claims a 40% success rate). We tried out the free app for a couple of minutes and found it more akin to a Brain Age-type exercise than a typing utility, but we’re sure we could get used to it. What we can’t get used to, however, is how hilariously great it is that Tiki’Labs spliced a Swype demo video (originally pitted against the iPhone keyboard) to serve as a typing race example… and still only barely squeaked through with the victory. It can be found after the break, naturally. The app will be available on Windows Mobile and Android soon.

Continue reading Tiki’Labs virtual keyboard for iPhone takes shot at Swype, one-handed typing wars commence

Tiki’Labs virtual keyboard for iPhone takes shot at Swype, one-handed typing wars commence originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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