iPhone. News and Tips

While this review was created a nice and useful application iPocket by Erica Sadun was thrown out of AppStore. As you remember, this is a second occasion of this type, that happened to Erica – recently she was denied to sell a Light app there. But the iPocket app was so interesting and our believe in justice was so strong, so we decided to publish the review.

The iPocket application was announced on many tech-blogs and it was completely impossible to miss the D-Day of release. The main feature of this software is an ability to transfer files to computers/servers using Wi-Fi Interface, or just EDGE.

The following app features were announced:
- A FTP and Bonjour transfer protocols support, and, as it follows, an ability to transfer files to PC/Mac/Linux/*nix workstations and servers;
- An ability to view PDF, text- and mediafiles on iPhone;
- a dedicated HTTP-server to manage files through web-browser.

There are four sections in app:iPocket, FTP, Account и WWW .
The first one displays files, available on mobile phone. You can just look through the list, there are not any operations like rename or modify permitted. If you still want to do that – so use MobileFinder.

In FTP section you can connect to preliminary configured server. After connection established you will be able to list the contents of FTP-folder.
An Account part is responsible of FTP server configuration. Everything is clear – Server, Username and Password fields are standard. Unfortunately you can’t point your FTP client to any port that differs from the default 21.
A WWW-section was not available on the test phone. If there’s anyone who has bought this app please leave a comment, does a WWW works on your mobile or not.

You can do the following in the Viewer-mode:
- examine the file’s attributes;
- send the file by email;
- transfer file using Bonjour or FTP protocol.
The servers for FTP and SMTPAUTH are configured manually.

So, what are the impressions about this software? There’s a lot to do with this app version. We would like to see:
- the properly working WWW-server;
- an ability to manage a number of FTP-accounts on your iPhone;
- in ability to manage files using FTP – moving them, renaming and so on…
- a renewed interface;
- in ability to organize downloaded files in folders in automatic or manual mode.

Inspite of all, the target software looks like a good improvement of MobileFinder и DataCase applications.
Price: $6.99
iTunes Link

And now we’ll try to configure the iPocket to communicate with your workstation. Mac owners could take a seat aside, wait while this utility will download another nice movie from FTP and see, how the Mighty Guys will configure an FTP-server on Windows-workstation.

The one of the best open license applications for managing FTP-server is FileZilla Server. First of all, you should download it from the official project site (http://filezilla-project.org/) and install on your PC.

During the installation process the remote administration port was changed by tester. All other settings were left default.

After the installation will be finished you’ll see a Administration account logon window. Leave the Password field empty.

First of all, enter the Edit->Settings->Admin interface settings menu, check the Change admin password checkbox and enter a new Administrator’s password. Yes, of course twice.

After that you must enter the Edit->Users menu and configure the FTP user accounts. If you will experiencing troubles managing them just look at the screenshots.

You can also configure all other application settings if you would like.
That’s all! The installation and initial configuration is finished. Mac-boys can take their iPhones and connect to your brand new FTP-server.

The authors of Enigmo and Cro-mag Rally, Pangea Software, have released yet another arcade for iPhone. I’ve been waiting for that release for a long time, and here it is.

The game takes place in alternative reality. You are a cowboy from a wild… wild space.
Just like the other cowboys, you like bars, booze, guns, shooting and home animals. Those are the things we are to deal with.

Currently, the game costs $2.99. Hurry up, that’ll be $5.99 next week.

[iTunes link]

Here is the video

There’s a new game released in AppStore named aBalls made by rashid. That’s a Lines logic game remake, that was so popular in Russia in the beginning of 90th.

You should make lines out of five balls of the same color. The gameplay is improved by adding bonus- and disaster-object. There’s also a time counter to compare your results with your opponents. If you made a nice score – send it to web-based table of honour.

Price: $1.99
[iTunes Link]

ImagePhone is a useful application to create custom wallpapers and upload them to your iPhone. The main features:

- you are free to cut, rotate and resize wallpapers;
- the ability to work with iPhone library and Address Book;
- app can preview the results of your work;
- of course, you can export finalized versions to iPhone.

Resume: a nice addition to iToner app. Easy, steady, fast – like everything running on Mac.

Do you remember news about the vulnerability, found in the 2.x.x Apple iPhone firmware? According to MacWorld, Apple engineers have taken this information very seriously, and are going to present an updated firmware in September (an estimated date is 9th of September), with the vulnerability elimionated.

The Apple official Jennifer Bowcock sent an e-mail to MacWorld, providing the following comment: “The minor iPhone security issue which surfaced this week is fixed in a software update which will be released in September”.

Fast and Enthusiastic – a good name of a new movie about Apple Support Engineers!

The iPhone maniacs are making the best to do something else with an iPhone to demonstrate it’s. Guys from this clip are covering the iPhone with a superdurable film and putting a number of heavyweights on it. Very impressive performance…

And here you can see a some kind of underwater iPhone.

And, of course, pop-corning iPhone into pieces!!!

A modmyfone.com portal posted an information about new project start named XiPhone. This program should be a sum of WinPwn and QuickPwn apps with some improvements and brand new features.

The good news are that XiPhone will be built using XPWN architecture. The bad one is that only Windows users will be able to use it. Here is a short list of XiPhone features announced:

- an automatic firmware loading;
- a glamorous Vista-style design;
- an ability to export configuration settings into .xml;
- automatic software update;
- an impressive set of pre-loaded logos;
- an ability to turn on or off the customization settings after system restore.

There’s more information about project on developer’s blog – XPWN.

This is a mobile operator’s dream – a huge crowd in front of every mobile phone shop, clamouring “I wanna buy an iPhone”. A company’s market index is raising, competitiors are in panic, and all the people are happy to join the army pf your clients. This is of iPhone 3G sales start in USA, some kind of “American 3G Dream”.

photo from appleblog.pl

But if it works in America it can fail in Europe. For example, in Poland people are not so anxious to buy a new mobile, even if there are three Apple logos on it. That’s why the Orange mobile operator tried to simulate a customer rush on the eve of official iPhone sales start.

photo from appleblog.pl

The hired students of Warsaw universities organized a number of queues in front of Orange shops. They were equipped with camp chairs, provisions backpacks and everything seemed they are going to stand there until they get a new iPhone.

But at a closer look you’ll see, that all the chairs are the same color, bottles with water are the same brand, and it looks not like a sign of simultaneous will of having a new iPhone, but like a bad staging.

A T-Mobile operator decided not to organize queues, but point “the statists” directly in shops at the H-hour. It looked very curious – a huge number of customers were assaulting a T-Mobile office, but another shop 150 meters away was completely empty.

By the way: according to mobil.idnes.cz and myapple.pl, there were only 4000 iPhones sold in Czech, and approximitly 4200 sold by Era Poland mobile operator in first day of sale.

Apple recently published three new iPhone advertising movie clips. There’s nothing extraordinary in them – just the ability to by new applications in Apple App Store with ease. The target customer is a not owner of iPhone or just a non App Store visitor.

The scenarios are the same and differs only by the programs, shown in App Store.
Here’s one of the bunch:

According to Sky News agency, British Advertising Standards Authority officially banned the Apple iPhone TV advertising. The main idea of banned short movie clip is “You never knew what part of the Internet do you need… that’s why all parts of the Internet are on the iPhone”. Some people from the TV audience were irritated by the last words in the advertisement scene. They have drawn attention to the next gap: iPhone’s browser doesn’t support Flash and Java internet technologies, that’s why you wouldn’t be able to see the sites, that use these technologies. The regulator agreed with this argumentation, considered this fact as advertising rules violation and banned the clip. Now Apple must edit the wrong video clip to continue their advertisement company on television. The Apple’s officials say, that they meant the ability of iPhone owners to visit all the sites on the Internet unlike other mobile operator’s users, who are limited to view www-resources on their mobile devices. And all the sites, shown in the advertisement scene are opened on iPhone without any errors.

Probably that’s the simple misunderstanding between iPhone authorities and the TV auditory. But it’s more likely to consider it as a little corporate war between Apple and it’s competitors. Every movie clip about iPhone, that wasn’t demonstrated on TV, leads to the sales collaps. And the only who takes care of this are the other mobile phone producers.

The iPhone was presented a year ago. On 11 of July, 2008 the renewed version, iPhone 3G began to conquer mobile phones markets all over the World. It took Apple only two days to sell two millions of these 3G-mobiles.

P.S. By the way, here’s this scandalous video clip. This is not advertising. Just for your information, of course =).

After MTS announced that they will sell iPhones in Russia, the response came from Beeline. Interfax approves the fact that the deal was signed. So, we only have to wait for the Russian bee to pollinate the market with the Californian pollen.

There is no information concerning dates, however. Operators do not arrange press-conferences, although they intended to. However, two advertising companies are preparing for some actions in the Internet. One of them will work on media part, the other – on BTL actions.

What’s new:
- QuickPwn (2.0/2.0.1/2.0.2) support
- DFU assistant
- automatical updater (no need to track news on our site anymore)
- and more to come…

The other screenshots of the new release can be found at the developer’s site

Congratulations to the LiveJournal users. In the nearest future (probably on 8.11) LiveJournal.app by igrick will be ported to the new firmware.

Further information can be found in author’s blog.

In the nearest future the App Store will get a sexy arcade from famous Astraware – Golden Skull.

You’ll be acting as an adventurer called Sahid, travelling to the Maya’s ruins in order to find the “golden scull”

Price: € 2.39 / $ 2.99

iLiberty has published the figures for sales figure for iPhone 3G in Russia. A big party of iPhone was chosen. Accordingly to them:

We’ve got a big party of iPhone 3G in 5 days after the official world release. We were the first to start shipping unlocked iPhone 3G to Russia officially.

Today we can make an analysis of iPhone sales in Russia.

Despite the fact that the unlocked phones (that work in any operator’s network) cost more than 12000 rubles than the activated one (that come from USA), the majority buys the unlocked – some 80 %. However, we were not surprised, since a person who has paid a lot of money for his iPhone 3G is likely to be willing to use the phone straightaway, without having to wait for the unlocks to be released.

The other thing was a big surprise to us – Russia has incredibly small demand for white iPhone 3G 16 GB – less than 1% of the overall sales, whereas white gadgets and cars are trendy on the West. That’s why the white iPhones were hard to find, so the dealers had to sell them at a higher price, than the black ones. And they are more practical anyways – the fingerprints aren’t that noticeable on the back side, and so are the scratches.

Speaking of the 8Gb vs 16Gb sales we have an expected result – 2 versus 1.

Many people were shocked to see a 17 pages of Steve Jobes obituary. The Apple HQ in Cupertino was overwhelmed with phone calls. The people wanted to know, whether this is true.

Cupertino people were surprised, to put it mildly: why everyone knows that Apple’s frontment is dead, but not the Apple people?

Apparently, Bloomberg hase published the obituary… by mistake. In many agencies there is a common practice to prepare the obituaries in advance. They write it, while the person is still alive. This way they can react as fast as possible: when the “victim” is finally dead, the obituary is pretty much ready to be published. They simply take it from the archive, publish it and amaze their rivals with their speed.

Bloomberg’s webmasters have fixed the issue pretty fast, but the obituary went in the Web. The original can be found here. The text is about Jobes’ life, achievements, people to be contacted in first place: family, colleagues, politicians, Steve Voznyak, Bill Gates, etc.

This situation is not new. Wikipedia even has a category – List of premature obituaries.

Yet another game has migrated from Installer to App Store – CyberSaurus 3D

The game is still very exciting and nice (can’t call it beatiful, though). You still control the robot and destroy the others.

Price: 6,99$
[iTunes Link]

A new messenger was released. This is an infamous (for WinMobile users) IM by Shape Services – IM+.

The app supports
AIM®/iChat, MSN®/Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo!®, ICQ®, Jabber®, Google Talk and MySpaceIM.

The compatibility test has the following results:

1. Adium: the messages are being delivered even from off-line
2. QiP: the messages have wrong encoding anyways
3. ICQ6: the messages are being delivered even from off-line

The program isn’t really customizable (apart from displaying the off-line contacts there aren’t any options) and new message notifications.

Price: free
[iTunes Link]

An utility called Russian Carrier Bundles by two former IPS Pirates employees (former iPhoneStuff) – Narmo and HoBBuT. After installation your iPhone will get the corresponding logos of the Big Trinity. There are two editions: Full and Light. You can see from screenshots what’s the main difference.

In comments you can report the missing operators. Maybe they’ll add.

Repo: http://weho.ru/iphone

An infamous ruBooks by Colel had recently hit the Cydia repo. It was ported to the new firmware by ZodTTD.

There is no stable release as of now, but I believe the update is coming soon, featuring many bug-fixes.

You can discuss the app on our .