Griffin's Clarifi case for iPhone 3G

Griffin is a well known mobile phone accessories manufacturer, especially for Apple's products. If you own either an iPhone or iPod, and when you're looking for the best (both in good looking & protective expertise) protection, then you might at least heard the name once while you're looking.

Griffin's latest case protection for iPhone 3G is one of its kind, in fact it's the first case that comes with an additional camera's lens enhancer for your iPhone. The case is called as Clarifi, and priced with $34.9 tag; although unfortunately there's no release date mentioned yet.

Slide the Clarifi lens (pictured on the top right) into place over the built-in lens of your iPhone. WIthout Clarifi, iPhone requires about 18 inches to focus properly. Slide Clarifi's lens into place and you can move in to 4 inches for crisp detail and great pictures.

And, of course, Clarifi is also a super-protective case, constructed of durable polycarbonate, with cutaways for access to power switch, headphone jack, volume controls, and dock connector. For use with Apple Universal Dock wells, Clarifi features Griffin's trademark EasyDock™ design: the bottom third of the case slides down and off to fit in standard dock wells.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

CraigsMobileList for iPhone/iPhone Touch gets updated

Some of you probably are much prefer to use the notorious Craigs List instead of Google, to find things you need in this crazy life. ;-p

So then if you do, and you're an iPhone/iPod Touch owner, then you'll need to get or update the new CraigsMobileList v1.1. Which according to Rick Krakowski, president of Mobile Simplicity maker of the app (via modmyi.com) the updates are:

• Support for pictures in listings
• Improved UI
• New font
• Recent locations remembered
• Added subcategories
• More locations
• Ability to name bookmarks
• Save search terms within bookmarks
• Restore previous search settings automatically
• Filter improvements
• Faster search load times
• Assorted bug fixes

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Star Wars the Force Unleashed for iPhone/iPod Touch

Alright now, don't be surprised cuz you know it's coming sooner or later. But actually, I'm a little bit surprised, since THQ Wireless Inc. move so quickly to bring the latest of Star Wars game into iPhone/iPod touch platform.

Star Wars the Force Unleashed (v1.09) for iPhone/iPod Touch is tagged with $9.99 price at App Store, but is it worth every penny you're about to pay for playing it?

Well, according to touchArcade and modmyi.com who have reviewed the game are all saying that it's not as good as the original one for gaming console. Of course, in order to fit the game onto iPhone, the software developer must compensate with the video engine that the Apple's device has inside.

The basic play of the game is simple enough, all you need to complete each stage (there are 6 levels) is to defeat the enemies with your Jedi's power. The game uses iPhone's touch gesture to complete the attacks, unfortunately it doesn't use iPhone's acceleromater feature in its game-play.

The verdict from touchArcade is: "The actual game play is quite enjoyable and tie-ins to the Star Wars franchise certainly help. Who hasn’t wanted to fling storm troopers into a wall with the flick of a finger? But the actual “puzzles” presented are incredibly simple, making the game just a paint-by-numbers sort of experience. ... As a result, I think this game may only be worth it for the die-hard Star Wars fan, and even then with the understanding that your $9.99 will not get you long term replayability."

While the verdict from modmyi.com is: "After the first couple of levels my initial feelings say it is worth the $9.99 price tag assuming the game advances in difficulty, challenges, and force powers as it has so far. EDIT. 6 LEVELs??!!?! Don't buy this game I can think of a lot of better things to spend $10 on for an hour of entertainment."

There are plenty of screenshots from the game at modmyi.com page, while touchArcade provides a video demo that I attached below this post. Enjoy!


[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Sonic Lighter for iPhone

I've been posting some trivial iPhone apps lately, well... I won't exactly say they're useless, but likely more for fun than for serious work. And so is this one, this cool app is called Sonic Lighter.

The application is only showing up a fire lighter, at first it looks nothing special at all. But like what iPhone Savior says in its review: "The realistic flame reacts brilliantly to breath and wind input using the iPhone's microphone, allowing you to create movement or even to extinguish it completely if you're a blow hard like I am. Turn the flame sideways and your iPhone frame starts to sizzle with a simulated burn effect. You can also light another iPhone users flame with your device, though I have not had a chance to try that one yet."

If you're still having a hard time to figure out what this app does, then I suggest you watch the YouTube video demo below. For $0.99 cents price tag, I guess this little app can be usable to show off a little magic trick to your friends. ~LOL~



[blogged with my Treo 750v]

The other thing that went down with Lehman Brothers

When the Lehman Brothers is finally swirling down the toilet drain (as nicely put in words by Andrew Sheppard's email post), the massive lay off is inevitable. It's estimated that there are around 29,000 Lehman Brothers employees have lost their jobs.

But that's not all they're losing, guess what? Yup, they'll also are probably going have to give up the BlackBerry handsets in their pocket. Because they, the BlackBerry phones & email services, are apparently funded and paid monthly with the company's money after all. ;-p

You think it's a joke? Apparently not for one of those 'now-unemployed' angry Lehman Brothers employees. New York Times is reporting that after packing up their desks, many Lehman Brothers employees stopped by two bars near their Times Square office Sunday night.

As they passed around shots of hard liquor, one yelled out: “Are they going to take my BlackBerry? Come on, come get it.” ~LOL~

And Research In Motion (RIM) will definetely need to re-evaluate their next month's quarterly earnings, since Bank of America who would purchase Merrill Lynch is also expected to cut some 20,000 employees soon. So with those numbers went down the drain, RIM will have to look for new companies to cover up the lost monthly paid services.

A strange of chain reactions have happened in this strange world of ours, and like it or not, the down of Lehman Brothers will slowly affect our little mobile world as well.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Google Audio Indexing, aka. gAudi (in short)

Google is doing its thing at best again; innovate new web service. And this time around, Google is going back to its core and well known technology: search engine.

Google Audio Indexing, or called as gAudi if you prefer it in short; is a new technology from Google that allows users to better search and watch videos from various YouTube channels. It uses speech technology to find spoken words inside videos and lets the user jump to the right portion of the video where these words are spoken.

Google Audio Indexing uses speech technology to transform spoken words into text and leverages the Google indexing technology to return the best results to the user. The returned videos are ranked based -- among other things -- on the spoken content, the metadata, the freshness.

Right now gAudi is focusing only on political videos and election materials, and uses the other Google's most famous video service; the YouTube. After showing up the results of your search, gAudi will then shows yellow dot marks on the video's timeline; they represent the words that you're searching for.

And according to TG Daily, Google said it will gradually increase its (gAudi) scope. But what I really wanted to see is how gAudi can be implemented into mobile phones usage. Just imagine when you're on a foreign country, say like... Spain? D'oh I really envy Sammy for able to have a vacation there ;-p Wouldn't it be convenient if you can just fire up your mobile web browser in your phone, launch gAudi, spoke the words you're looking for, and then v'oila; in a matter of second you have your translation shown on your mobile screen. How cool is that, eh?

gAudi might be not a great thing for all of us now, even maybe so for Google, it might only a startup experimental project at Google Labs. But if what I've mentioned above can really comes true in near future, then it might as well generates the same revenue for Google the same as its web search right now. "Cha-ching...!" Did you hear that Sergey Brin?

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Get or lose a job, all because of your social networking profile

I don't think it's a surprising act of conduct for employers to know more the background of the workers they're about to hire, you know; the usual background check.

Like if your last/family name is the same as their boss or not, do you have a certain addiction, are you just break out from prison, do you have supernatural powers, are you an Obama or McCain supporter, do you used to dress the opposite of your gender, etc. ~LOL~

The list can go on, and given the natural born uniqueness of mankind, plus the endless curiosity of ours; where else is the best place to look up the dirty little secrets and see the naked of you, than the place where you're the one who love to expose all of them by yourselves: social networking profile.

According to Careerbuilder (via PCW Business Center), 20% of the surveyed companies have admitted to checking out candidate's profiles on social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace before deciding to employ them. A further 9% said they planned to start reviewing potential employees social-networking pages in the future.

The research also revealed that while 24% of employers had hired a member of staff based on their social-networking profile, 33% had also decided not to make a job offer after reviewing the content on a profile.

But that doesn't stop there, the use of over exposed social networking profile can create a huge impact and devastating result; the worst is you'll get fired from your job. Like those 12 photos that should never have been posted online, which are summed up by Dan Tynan at PC World, and a very fun editorial to read. Don't miss it out, hit the link to find out which one is the most ridiculuous for you. ;-p

My favorite is the latest one; #12. I'm a PC, She's a Mac, and You're Unemployed. In October 2003, the Microsoft temp posted photos of Macintosh G5s being unloaded on the Redmond campus to his blog with the title "Even Microsoft wants G5s." And that was enough to get him canned from his job in Microsoft's print shop for an alleged "security violation." Apparently, the world's largest developer of software for the Mac (besides Apple) didn't want anyone to know that some of its employees use Macs. ~LOL~

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Ambience for iPhone/iPod Touch

Good day dear readers, how's your Monday? I hope you're having a wonderful and productive work environment today, as for myself, I've been sweating more because of the humid weather and do some lifting items on this start of the weekend.

It's alright I guess to help others at work, even that means I had to sweat for it. The most important part is to recharge back the energy when it's time to take a break in the afternoon, I usually take a relaxing seat and fire up pTunes in my Treo to shut off the noise at workplace and listen to my favorite tune today: Kaskade - Beautiful Thing. A very cool song, love his other works too, hit the link there to stream & listen to one of his DJ skill. (tip: pump up the volume for better experience ;-D)

But that doesn't always work for everyone, some time music isn't quite the right thing you need to keep away the noisy environment that's surrounding the place you're currently working. Just a simple yet soothing noise you're familiar with to cover up the annoying noise, is probably more suitable. If this is your thing, then Ambiance is the right noise application for you iPhone/iPod Touch owners.

The Ambiance user interface is simple enough to get it going and quickly start using the app, and it got plenty of ambient noise for you to choose from its playlist. Matt Coneybeare, the creator, is keep updating new sounds into Ambiance. But in the app's web page, explains that you can delete the unwanted sound files so you can sync faster the iPhone/iPod Touch with your computer.

I think it's a pretty neat idea, simple but useful, trivial but needed. It must be a very pleasant experience to work while hearing the sound of sea wave, and picture myself on a beach instead at smelly small sized cubicle. ~LOL~ IMHO the application isn't that expensive, it cost only $0.99 cents. And if you're interested, you can grab it at App Store, or through this iTunes link.

It's better to use this kinda "environment enhancer" (like Matt calls it in his Ambiance web page) while you're still working, rather than hearing some "weird" sounds like in the Youtube video below. ;-p I had a good laugh watching the funny video, it really cheered me up; and so I hope it'll work the same for you too. Have a fantastic start of the weekend y'all!



[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Plastic Logic Reader sets a new level to e-reader competition

I'm not a fan of e-books or e-readers, for me personally, the best reading experience is coming from real paper books. But if the Plastic Logic's product, which is introduced at DEMO conference last week, is going to be the next generation of e-book/e-reader; then you can bet I'll definetely lining up to get one of Plastic Logic Reader when it finally gets out and arrive here.

This isn't a new news at all, it's been around quite back a bit. At first I thought some of you, who are an avid reader of e-books will be posting about this sometime at PalmAddict. But times went by, and no Associate Writers or Editors that I know of who are very fond on anything about e-readers or e-books, aren't mentioning about Plastic Logic news at all. It's a bit of puzzle for me...

Anyhow, I agree with Michael V. Copeland from Fortune blog, about this 'Plastic Fantastic' device which is dubbed as the 'Kindle-killer' already by blogospheres: "There are still those rare tech gadgets that elicit oohs and ahhs from even the most jaded gear hounds. PlasticLogic’s display is one of those."

Only by looking at the images above, you must've also make oohs and aahs sounds spontaneously. The Plastic Logic Reader's size isn't much differ from a portfolio (most left picture), the 8.5- x 11-inch touchscreen is only able to display gray & white colors, with motion gesture control to flip between the pages. While the thickness is only at 7mm & weighing at 13 ounces. You can tell how thin it is by seeing the middle picture above, even the Plastic Logic's CEO is comparing it with MacBook Air in video demo below.

Plastic Logic promises there'll be Bluetooth, WiFi, and wired connection for data sync with computer. And the reader will support reading PDF files, CAD drawings, text docs, spreadsheets, etc. And most importantly, the standard battery life is expected to run for days, not hours. This is probably because the Plastic Logic Reader doesn't have backlight for its display, so the users need to be in a bright room or outdoor to use it.

Unlike Kindle, Plastic Logic Reader is aimed for business use. Especially business workers who usually carry lots of papers in their bags and briefcase, but I'm sure it'll appeal to more wider consumers than that. No mentioning on the price tag yet, but they're planning to launch the reader by the middle of next year.

Another good product that's coming out from Plastic Logic, is the use of the same technology for hospital need like patient's wrist info (pictured on the right). Where the essential informations like patient's name, age, gender, room number, doctors in charge, etc. can be strapped easily on the wrist.

It'll be interesting to see how Amazon and Sony react on this amazing new e-reader, which is based on a new technology compared to their own products. We're already hearing of a refreshed new Kindle & Sony reader lately, but both companies haven't made any official announcement yet so far.



[blogged with my Treo 750v]

iPhone says: "I remember whatever you've just done"

It's like that stupid horror movie's title: I Know What You Did Last Summer (and the sequel too!), this another security concern for your shiny iPhone is also like that. First, let's take a look at the horror parts.

Reported by Wired blog: iPhone hacker and data-forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski explained that the popular handset snaps a screenshot of your most recent action ... This is purely for aesthetic purposes: When an iPhone user taps the Home button, the window of the application you have open shrinks and disappears. In order to create that shrinking effect, the iPhone snaps a screenshot, Zdziarski said.

The iPhone presumably deletes the images after you close the applications, but anyone who understands data is aware that in most cases, deletion does not permanently remove files from a storage device. "There's no way to prevent it," Zdziarski said during the webcast. "I'm kind of divided on it. I hope Apple fixes it because it's a significant privacy leak, but at the same time it's been useful for investigating criminals."

What's the 'stupid' thing about this for me? Well, Apple has sacrifice the security just for the cool fade effect in iPhone. All are in the purpose to be the most good looking UI in mobile phones, and like Zdiarski has said that the method didn't look all that easy, but it could take as little as 60 seconds to break the iPhone's security. And anybody with the time and digital sophistication has the ability to break the iPhone's security.

And so how to prevent your precious data leak to unwanted hands? Here's the tip from Zdziarski: "This flaw can only be exploited by somebody with physical access to a device, but your phone could get into the hands of someone with more malicious intent," he said. "Obviously, you don't want to trust any of your data to a passcode."

Right, so from now on there'll be no more borrowing my iPhone to any of you! You said... ~LOL~

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Podcaster has been blacklisted from App Store

It's just a week ago when I asked you about "pulling Apple's/Steve's finger", and now here's a very good proof that it is actually Apple who is pulling software developers' fingers.

Podcaster, which according to Ars Technica is a native iPhone app version of Podcaster.fm, a web app that could stream podcasts over WiFi or even EDGE. The obvious idea behind a native version is that podcasts could not only be streamed, but downloaded on the fly for offline listening. Although Al Sokirynsky, the Podcaster maker; proclaims that he's designed everything according to Apple's guides, so it shouldn't be a violation of the iTunes App Store Prime Directive.

Apple still blacklist the Podcaster on the grounds that "since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes."

And David Chartier (Ars Technica) make a very good point; isn't there already plenty of apps in App Store that duplicates iPhone's functionalities such as calculators & stopwatch? So Apple's ground for blacklisting Podcaster is not right, and they should explain it further in details why.

Wilson Rothman (Gizmodo) says that for you who are interested in Podcaster, you can sign up here, and the developer will e-mail you back with instructions. They say it will be distributed ad hoc—so no jailbreak required—for a donation of $9.99.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

iPhone users: Are you more playful than serious?

If we’re having a face to face conversation, you and me, I would love to challenge you into a game of Truth or Dare. If you choose Truth; are you willing to be honest and tell me if you’re using your iPhone more for playing/fun than for work? And if you choose Dare; are you willing to ditch your iPhone and go back use your previous mobile phone (other than iPhone)?

I’m wondering what will you choose… ;-D But I guess it’s easier to admit that iPhone is indeed more suitable for play/fun rather than for serious work. Wait, maybe if I put it this way is more crystal clear; you buy the iPhone because it’s cool and fun, rather than what it can do to help with your workloads.

Is it? I can’t help but to say the same if I ever buy an iPhone, because I’m sure it won’t be able to replace what my Treo can do for me daily. Aside from there’s no physical QWERTY keyboard on iPhone like in Treo, there hasn’t been much of viewing and editing supports for Microsoft’s Office documents. The document formats that are most used in business world, whether you like it or not…

iPhone users still need to wait a little bit longer until Quickoffice ready to launch their three apps for reading and editing spreadsheets, Microsoft Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations. Each of them will be called Quicksheet, Quickword, and Quickpoint, those apps are planned to be tagged with $10 price apiece.

And of course, the worst part is there hasn’t been a solution for cut & paste support in iPhone at all even with the 2.1 software update released yesterday.
But the fact is, business applications aren’t growing that much of proportion compared to useless apps that are sold in App Store these days. So far, there are only around 60-65 more or less business apps in App Store. It’s a very small percentage, if you compare it with more than 2,000 apps available other than for business/work.

The numbers usually don’t lie, that’s the nicest thing about numbers. So it comes down to a simple basic question: what has been holding up business apps to flood App Store? First thing came up in my mind is maybe it’s hard to create such apps for iPhone platform? You know, with all those strings attached at iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit) by Apple. The rules and NDA agreements might be what have hold up the business apps progress, but not with the writing process of the apps itselves.

According to Lenley Hensarling, general vice president of application development at Oracle says developing an iPhone app was easy as pie. "The cool thing is that you're actually developing in Cocoa and the Mac OS environment, so in terms of the development environment, it's very mature and complete."

In rhymes with Hensarling, Chuck Dietrich, VP of Salesforce Mobile also agrees that building an iPhone app is a smooth process. "Thanks to the iPhone's robust development environment, we were able to develop, test and deliver Salesforce Mobile for the iPhone, all in less than three months. In fact, the process was so painless, the company plans to develop additional apps in the coming months."

If that’s so, then why the business apps growth is still small? Perhaps the reason is like what Nick Halsey, vice president of marketing at business intelligence (BI) vendor Jaspersoft has said: "Our business users are using Safari to deliver JasperReports to them on their iPhone. While the effort to write the 100 lines of Java code to build an iPhone app is minimal, it's just not needed."

Is this true? There haven’t been any great demands yet from business users for work & productivity apps in iPhone? If that is the case, then Apple should retrace its steps to pierce the mobile business market with iPhone. After all, there’s that embedded security concerns in iPhone that Apple needs to take care of first before it can beat RIM’s BlackBerry as the king of business mobile phone.

If your argument to counter back of what I’ve just mentioned, that iPhone is great for accessing email accounts through its Safari web browser; then you might be surprised to know a good fact of truth from JMP Securities. The JMP Securities has found out that at 11 AT&T stores it visited, the stores’ employees were twice as likely to initially recommend a BlackBerry Curve or Pearl over the iPhone when asked to suggest a "phone to access the Internet and check email."

When asked specifically about email, employees would consistently suggest a BlackBerry first. When browsing the web was mentioned, employees would always recommend the iPhone first.
What do you think? Can browsing the web considered as serious work, or just plain playful fun? Your call…

It would be nice for iPhone, Apple in particularly, if it will become more multi-purpose device rather than just a cool status symbol for exclusive people only. Like what’s portrayed in the funny cartoon strip below, click to enlarge it. ~LOL~
Sources are from:

IPhone Enterprise Apps: What's the Holdup? (PCW Business Center)

The iPhone Apps for Business Watch (Business Technology)

iPhone apps 97% play, 3% work (Valleywag)

Quickoffice demos iPhone apps at CTIA (Webware)

AT&T stores recommending RIM over the iPhone (AppleInsider)

[blogged with my Treo 750v]