iPhone 3G Accessories

Research in Motion has some big plans for 2009 when it comes to music downloads and content. RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsille made some comments recently at a music industry conference in Cannes, France that made some heads turn.  “We’ve moved to [music] 2.0, where music is undergoing a radical transformation and it creates a remarkable new opportunity for content owners to monetize their content… [BlackBerry is] already very music centric, what were talking about now is our platform”, said Balisille referring to the BlackBerry Application Centre. “We’re ingesting apps now and it goes online in March… [It has] a billing engine and is a channel for developers - you’ll see dozens of music apps.” He also said, “we are the overwhelming market leaders and we’ve been in the smartphone business for years… The Storm is a BlackBerry with different packaging, not a competitor of iPhone.” Tell me honestly, does anyone really think that the Storm is not a competitor to the iPhone? So, let me get this straight... Storm is not a competitor to the iPhone and yet you are talking about toppling Apple who is the biggest music seller in the world? Am I missing something here?

This has to be one of the best apps for anyone regardless of age. If you own the iPhone or the iPod Touch then I recommend the Restaurant App from the Apple Apps Store.  This one is free and a great way to know exactly what you are eating the next time that you are out at a fast food or a major chain restaurant. Updates are done regularly as menus change and new brands are also added regularly.  Want to decide what's healthier at McDonald's - a Big Mac or 6 piece nuggets? Just click on your Restaurant app and select McDonalds to get full nutritional information, including caloric and fat content.  Non-fast food chains are also included such as Chili's, Ruby Tuesday, and Pei Wei (my favorite!). There's even pizza menu information for chains such as Papa John's and Pizza Hut.  All in all, this is app is a must-have for everyone who is interested in keeping in shape and wanting to know exactly what they are eating. Go and download for your iPhone or iPod Touch today.

I have't used the word groovy in a long time but that's exactly what I would use to describe the new Apple App for iPhone and iPod Touch.  Available for download for only $0.99 from Toejam Software LLC, this one is fun and a great way to know your mood throughout the day. Are you happy? Are you sad? This app uses special sensors in-built in your iPod Touch and iPhoneto sense your mood. Your color reading is accompanied by a few words that will describe your mood as well.  All in all, good fun and a great fun app from the Apple Apps Store.

Isn't it ironic that within a week of the announcement of Palm's new OS and new device, Steve Jobs from Apple has stepped down as CEO? We wish him a speedy recovery from our end but the timing is just too good to be true for Palm. Jobs is imperative in Apple's smartphone strategy and now that he'll be out of the loop, Palm might just be able to swing this one out of the ballpark. Palm once ruled the mobile smartphone market in the USA and many of us early adapters will actually claim Palm as their first smartphone (including myself)... the BlackBerry came later on. And now, after years of slipping down a mountain mudslide Palm is back with a bang. Could it be that all the while they've been waiting for the right time and the opportunity to showcase their new bevy of products and hog the limelight? Most likely no. It seems to be pure coincidence that they were the star of CES 2009, given that many companies have scaled back during tough economic times and decided to hang tight until 2010 for new products. However this wasn't the case with Palm. Since 2008 word's gotten out about the company working secretly on a new OS, thanks to help of some former Apple employees, and also a new lineup of devices, starting with the launch of Pre. From the beginning it was touted that Palm was neither after the Apple iPhone 3G or the RIM BlackBerry market. Their claim, that plenty of people 'in the middle' and this argument seems valid. Once the Pre was launched, however, there's been a whole new story on the horizon. I really wonder who these other people in the middle are.  There is some genuine feeling amongst wireless industry experts that indeed the Pre is a solid contender for bringing down the iPhone 3G. Not necessarily because they can be compared side by side... there are a few significant differences between the two devices that make comparing them more like apples and oranges. Rather, the Pre is being tagged as an iPhone Killer because if Palm can dig itself out of the hole and find a way to make this the new 'it' device of 2009 then Apple and RIM will certainly see loss of market-share in a continuous volatile smartphone arena where no one is truly king.

And who says that Apple isn't a 'play-nice' company? In an unprecedented move, the Apple Apps Store has approved 3rd party browser apps as part of its offerings suddenly.  MacRumors reported this breaking news and points out that if you look at the dates on some of these, it goes back to October of 2008.  Web browsing applications were previously charged with "duplicating functionality" of other iPhone apps and was felt to be the reason why Opera would never be approved by Apple.  Regardless, if you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch then head on over to the apps store and check out these browsers, before Apple changes their mind! (Just Kidding!) A partial list browsers now available for sale: - Edge Browser (Free) - Full screen all across your iPhone/iPod Touch - Incognito ($1.99) - Doesn't leave behind any history... - WebMate:Tabbed Browser ($0.99) - Lines up all the links you click on and then you can view them when you're ready.  - Shaking Web ($1.99) - adds a sophisticated algorithm to compensate for small hand shaking to allow for easier reading.

 

A solution that is compatible with the iPhone, G1 and BlackBerry Storm. Surprising?

Homemanageables, a developer of home management solutions has done it. Says it is the first in industry. All the phones are fully compatible with the new solutions launched by the company.

On offer are disaster kit for your home, energy conservation kit for your home, caretaker kit for the elderly and smarthome management kit for your home. Manage your home with these kits via your phone.

Talk to your home while on the go. Made possible by homemanageable solutions. Communicate with your home using a Web-based graphical UI, a cell phone browser interface and an Interactive Voice Command System similar to Bluetooth.

The iPhone, G1 and BlackBerry Storm all with cutting edge technology help you manage your home whether it is energy conservation and management, disaster monitoring and prevention or elderly monitoring. 

 

The iCEphone was a true medical phone, giving step by step instructions for emergency care. Now it is the turn of our very own iPhone.

Moving away from some cool apps let us get into some serious stuff. Listen up medicos.

Beyond instant access to drug info the latest release of the iPhone software by Skyscape gives drug interaction information, clinical and evidence-based info and other guidelines. MedAlert service doles out medical news, research and clinical trials and journal summaries.

The iPhone App from Skyscape has brought under its net over 925,000 healthcare professionals.

Skyscape’s president and CEO Sandeep Shah said that the user adoption of the iPhone app has been tremendous.

The Skyscape iPhone app has seen more than 8,000 downloads per day on some days. It has proven itself to be an intuitive and user friendly medical software for the iPhone. The app’s specialty specific portfolio moves ahead of just drug info. The app’s decision support is welcomed by medical professionals coming in handy at the point of care.

This clinical suite is available for the iPhone from Apple’s iTunes AppStore. 

Image: BusinessWire

There's a Grocery sale. What I mean is a great iPhone App called Grocery iQ is on sale right now over at the Apple Apps Store for only $0.99! That's a steal considering how much time, effort, and paper this great tool can save you. Forget about your old fashioned way of making a grocery list. I'm one of those people that needs to write down everything so when I saw this great app, I knew it was going to be very useful for me on my weekly trip to the grocery store. So, here's how this app works. It's already pre-loaded with over 130,000 grocery store items. All you do is build your favorites or regular items list and then save it! How easy is that? Then, whenever you head to the store, it's all there. Add or delete items as needed. Choose quantity, container size as well based on your preference.  Plus, here's the doozie. It'll even organize the list by aisle so shopping is a breeze.  There are so many advantages to this app and for such a great price, I totally recommend everyone to download it today. Two thumbs up all the way!

Sure there's plenty of old-fashioned ways to calculate a tip in your head. But, if you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you don't need to do that anymore. Introducing the CheckPlease App now available for free download at the Apple Apps Store. CheckPlease from Catamount Software is a fast and easy way to figure out your tip options when you're paying your bill at a restaurant. This app is also useful if you're out with another friend and decide to go dutch. It will help you split your bill as well. Best of all, it allows for different currency settings so just pick the currency of the country you are in and you're all set!   Image: AppstoreApp

Cost-optimize Instant Messaging on the iPhone 2.0 with BeejiveIM. This customizable iPhone app will support AIM/iChat/ MobileMe, MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo!, MySpace, GoogleTalk, ICQ and Jabber. 

Now you can handle all your IM clients on one interface. Your iPhone becomes a desktop what with the connectivity and instant messaging features. Surely a cost-effective way to communicate for those who do not dig texting. 

The always connected BeejiveIM makes for effective communication showing you who are available among family, friends and co-workers. Communicate only with who is present. Send photos directly within the body of your IM. 

Your IM can be personalized by adding voice too. Keep your contacts a fingertip away by linking your friends to your iPhone address book directly. 

What more? The little iPhone becomes your office letting you receive and review different file types-image, audio, video files and also PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint documents. 

Available on the iTunes App Store for $ 15.99 BeejiveIM for iPhone 2.0 will let you seamlessly integrate instant messaging to your highly customizable iPhone.

A few retailers have jumped on the bandwagon and started selling refurbished iPhones. This might be tempting to some people who have been dying to get their hands on this device. However I have to wonder if it really is a good idea to buy a refurbished iPhone. iPhones are different than other cell phones and  smartphones in that you really can't remove the battery from the device; you're not supposed to remove the SIM card either (though I am sure some of you have done that out there); and you're not really able to back up your phone profile anywhere else. What if your refurbished phone crashes? I think they are a riskier phone to get in the form of a refurbished model and might cause you too much of a headache and hassle. My iPhone 3G, which I bought brand new, has had to be hard reset more than a few times. And I've had to do my fair share of factory restore which I've never ever had to do on any other device that I've owned. The point is that the iPhone still has too many glitches without you having to worry about one more thing if it is being purchased as a refurbished model. Plus you're only getting $50 off which isn't all that much. For a refurbished iPhone I wouldn't want to pay $149 for something that isn't new. My suggestion to you is this: either shell out the extra $50 and get a new iPhone or to go for another device if it's going to break the bank.

Spend some time in a retail wireless store and you'll soon realize that people don't want to part with their money so much. Whether at Verizon Wireless or AT&T or any other carrier, customers are generally all the same. They have come to expect a 'deal' by getting a free phone or an almost-free phone. Well, the problem now is that most phones are more than just phones.  Today's smartphones can parallel your desktop to some extent and provide you with an organizer, MP3 player, and cloud computing among other capabilities. So why do we expect for these phones to be given to us for such a discount when they are actually worth so much more? Some people predict that the days of giving out free phones are coming to an end. That's because wireless carriers are already heavily subsidizing the smartphones they sell. One reason they are doing this is to gain more customers, of course. More importantly though, they all know that revenue from data plans can be very profitable in the long run so subsidizing doesn't seem so bad. As far as the device manufacturers are concerned, they're in a rat race.  They have to continue to discount their handsets to get them into the hands of mainstream and middle class consumers and for that to happen the price has to be just right. Apple set precedence in 2008 when they lowered the price of the iPhone 3G to $199. Now it seems any smartphone hitting the market at anything over that price is setting itself up for automatic failure.  On the flip side, the problem with consumers is that they don't realize the value of a smartphone and the actual cost of the device. Smartphones retail for anywhere from $400 to $1000 without a contract. That's really expensive right? But not if compared to say if you walk into a Best Buy to get a new laptop in that same price range. Smartphones are starting to replace laptops so why not give them the same value consideration that we would with a computer and realize that we will all have to pay for that mobile convenience?