Top 5 Christmas Apps for iPhone

Christmas is right around the corner, so now it’s the right time to pick out some holiday apps for your iPhone. Here are the Christmas apps I personally enjoy, and I hope you’ll also like them. Continue reading »

iOS Notification System To Be Improved

Apple is currently trying to improve the notifications system on their iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. The present notification system on the iOS forces users to to deal with the notification no matter what. Users would either have to go to the application like facebook or SMS in order to retrieve the message or just close it. Though not a big deal, Apple is planning to make this system more users friendly so that users are not forced to quit something they are already on to their systems at the time of notification.

Apparently Apple has coordinated with another small company in order to help them on this endeavour. This company is also known to have prepared apps for Apple in the past and if the rumors are to be believed, the company involved in the notifications’ system improvement could be Boxcar.

Apple’s App Store Restrictions Not To Hurt Amazon

We received the news yesterday about Apple’s restriction on Sony’s Reader regarding its applications on App store and how it was going to affect Amazon. The restrictions imposed by Apple definitely did not go down too well with Sony as they complained that the restrictions were imposed on a very short notice. However, Apple has come up with a clarification and has stated that there has been no change in developer rules and guidelines. Apple has reiterated that all they need to know about an App, like Amazon is if they have the ability to sell ebooks of their own, which Amazon does any way.

Apple has said that such Apps would be allowed on App store if only these Apps are also ready to list the ebooks available on Apple as well. Sony’s available ebook app is definitely a competitor to Apple and the Inc. is making sure that they hold their grip on the App store.

Jailbreak Tweak to Enhance the Functions of iPhone’s Voice Control Commands

A new jailbreak tweak called the voiceactivator is going to be made available sometime this week that will enhance the present functions of the voice control feature in the iPhones. The current functions of voice control allow a user to make calls, play the song from a particular album or by a particular artist and also enable the genius feature. This is in fact a very useful function while driving.

The new voiceactivator tweak which is being developed by developer chpwn would also allow one to open Apps, URLs and also enable Activator functions. The following is the tweet by chpwn-

Custom Voice Control commands! VoiceActivator is a new tweak by chpwn (http://chpwn.com/) to let you take full control of the Voice Control feature of your iPhone or iPod touch. Launch apps, open URLs, use Activator actions: it’s all here, in on

chpwn is also the developer of the jailbreak apps Infinidock, Infiniboard, Infinifolder and Proswitcher.

Free iPhone App Promo Codes Now Available Worldwide

Every time an iPhone app gets submitted or updated on the App Store, Apple lets developers generate up to 50 promo codes. These promo codes can be offered by developers to reviewers and friends so that they may download these applications for free.

Until now, these promo codes could only be redeemed by Apple customers in the United States. No longer. Apple has changed its terms to now let promo codes be redeemed by customers across the world. In a statement to app developers, Apple has noted,

“Your promo code distribution is no longer limited to U.S. customers. Promo codes in iTunes Connect can now be redeemed by all App Store customers worldwide. Your Team Agent can request 50 codes per version of your app in iTunes Connect and your customers can redeem these codes in any App Store. To learn more about requesting promo codes in iTunes Connect, see the iTunes Connect Developer Guide.”

Google Latitude App For iPhone Launches In Japan – Pulled Later

Google Latitude, the location based service that lets users to check out on friends in the vicinity could soon be launching as an iPhone app on the App Store. In fact, Google only recently went ahead and launched the service in the Japanese app store only to pull it back soon after.

iPhone users are not exactly a new market for Google Latitude. The service has been available as a web application for more than a year. But this was primarily because of the Google Voice fiasco that saw Apple and Google on a virtual warpath. Things seem to have eased since then which means a Google Latitude app for iPhone should be coming soon.

We expect an official launch to happen soon. We will let you know when the app becomes publicly available.

iBooks App For iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch To Get Folder Management Option Soon

It is not just the apps on the iPhone homescreen that can now be organized with folders. According to a rumor, Apple could be offering similar folders to the iBooks app that will let users organize the books in their virtual library better. Called Collections, the new feature will let users to collate books and PDF documents into separate groups for easier management.

To organize books into collections, users will have to tap on ‘Edit‘ icon. Now, tapping on any book icon will bring a checkmark that can be used to move the document to any specific Collection. There is also going to be a Collection tab on the top of the iBooks app from where the user can view all the Collections which may then be edited or deleted. The section will also let users create new Collections.

No word yet on when these features will be rolled out.

How To Disable HDR Photography On iPhone 4

Sometime back I had written about a jailbreak tool called HDR Camera Enabler that would enable HDR photography on an iPhone 3GS even though that feature is disabled by default on the iOS. Now if you are looking for a counter feature – the ability to disable HDR photography on iPhone 4, here’s this new tool.

Before you start wondering if anyone will need this, do remember that HDR photography capture can be a power guzzler and some people may think it fit to enable and disable such features at will. If you are one such user, you need to check out the new jailbreak app called myOS. myOS is an application that is available on Cydia that makes it possible for iPhone users to enable/disable not just HDR photography, but all the other iOS features as well. The app lets you manage the following

• Multitasking
• Homescreen Wallpapers
• Unified iPod
• App Store
• Contacts
• HDR Photography
• Game Center
• Camera
• Voice Control

myOS is available right now on the BigBoss repository and can be had at a price of $0.99. Check it out and let us know if you found it good.

Now Watch Adobe Flash Videos On iPad, iPhone Without Jailbreak

No, Steve Jobs has not had a change of heart overnight. Skyfire, a browser application that we had written about in early September is finally ready for approval and will hit the App Store tomorrow. Like we had mentioned last time, this browser app will render Adobe Flash content on iOS devices without violating any of the terms that Apple has set on its app developers.

What Skyfire basically does is that it uses a proxy browser to remotely interpret Flash content and transcodes them into an iOS compatible format before it is rendered on the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. This does not violate any of Apple’s terms since all the transcoding happens remotely and not over the application on the users’ end.

However, a point to note here. This application will only help you “watch” Flash based content and you cannot interact with them. That means, playing Flash games on your iPhone is still not available as yet.  Skyfire for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad should be available on the App Store at a price of $2.99 starting tomorrow.

Find Out Who’s Spying/Stolen Your iPhone 4 With New App

One thing that is commonplace when an iPhone (or for that matter any gadget) gets stolen or spied upon is that the thief attempts to unlock your device by trial and error with a series of passcodes. iGotYa is a new iPhone application that makes use of this common user behavior to help owners find culprits.

iGotYa is set up in such a way that the application will take a picture as well as tag the location of the iPhone every time a user inputs a wrong passcode. This is assuming the person uses the trial and error method to break into the phone. This picture is taken with the front camera of the iPhone 4 and the picture and location details are sent down to an already specified email address of the owner.  The application also has other options like letting the thief in, but hiding sensitive details like messages, call history, mail,etc.

Now the sad part is that this application is not available for non-jailbroken iPhones. For those who have already jailbroken their device, you can check the app out on the ModMyi repository on Cydia and can purchase it for $4.99.