U-Verse iPhone App To Download Videos & Schedule DVR Announced

AT&T has announced a new iPhone application that will let users browse the U-Verse TV program guide remotely from their iPhone and also schedule and manage DVR recordings on-the-move. In a statement released yesterday, AT&T has announced that this new iPhone application not only offer DVR management controls, but will also allow users to download available TV shows directly onto their iPhones and be able to watch these TV shows in full-screen mode on their iPhone.

There is however a catch. To be eligible to access these content, subscribers need to be at least signed up to the U-Verse U300 package that starts at $82 and costs higher if you also want HD access. If you do own the subscription, go ahead and purchase the new iPhone app from the App Store. It’s free.

How to Password-Protect Any Single iPhone App

How much do you hate to see your close friends sneakily checking out photos and emails on your iPhone? If this is something you do not want to happen, you need to jailbreak your device. That’s because a new iPhone app called Locktopus could help you protect your individual iPhone apps with a password.

To get started, you need to first jailbreak your iPhone. Once that’s done, head over to Cydia and search & purchase the Locktopus app. Installing the application will create a new lock functionality in the Settings page where a password can be set up.

To lock/unlock any app, simply tap and hold any app to view the characteristic app-shake screen (used to delete apps). You will now see a lock button against every app that can be tapped to lock or unlock an app.

Of course, remember that jailbreaking can void your warranty and all. So, all this is at your own risk!

Turn Your Blog Into An iPhone App With MyAppBuilder

Bloggers looking at iPhone as an additional channel for gaining website traffic may now rejoice at the launch of a new tool that will enable them to create an iPhone app for their blog or website. The tool from MyAppBuilder makes use of RSS feeds generated for the website to create an iPhone app specifically for your website in just a few clicks.

To be clear, the tool is not free. However, at a monthly cost of $29, the cost for creating an iPhone app should be significantly lower than the alternatives available – especially for bloggers who do not possess technical coding skills. To get started, users must sign up with the MyAppBuilder application who will then be guided through a series of defined steps to upload pictures, RSS feed,etc. to the application. Interestingly, MyAppBuilder has noted that the application will automatically proceed to submit the app to the App Store for review which means users may not have to go through the approval process themselves.

If you are interested, check out the sign up page on MyAppBuilder website and let us know how it works in the comments below.

Now Make Free Voice Calls To Facebook Friends From Your Phone

Those of you who own iOS (iPhone or iPod Touch) or Android devices rejoice. Vonage – the popular VoIP service provider has launched a new Vonage Mobile App for Facebook that will allow users to make free voice calls to their friends on Facebook by using their mobile app.

Do note that to use the app, both the caller and the receiver must have the application installed on their mobile devices. Once installed, the caller may simply sign into the app using their Facebook credentials and surf through their friends list. The Vonage app will display a small sign of their service against those user names who have already downloaded and installed the app. These user names may simply be tapped for the free voice call to be initiated. Alternately, the app users may also choose to simply text-message with other friends who are online on Facebook.

The Vonage mobile app for Facebook (iTunes) is clearly an attempt to go viral with clever use of social media and the offer of free voice calls. There are no caveats as far as I can see. Nevertheless, Vonage for the win here.

Download YouTube Videos To iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch With Free App

iOS applications that allow users to download videos from YouTube to their iPhone or iPod Touch have been available for quite some time on the Cydia jailbreak app store. However, app developer Max Weisel has now released MiTube which is possibly the first official iPhone/iPad app on the Apple App Store that will let users perform the same task.

The newly released app is universal – that works on both the iPhone and iPad – and allows users to download videos of any resolution; including the HD quality videos. The app provides a basic search functionality that will allow users to search YouTube for videos and then lets them stream these clips either in low or high quality besides offering them an option to download it. The downloaded videos reside within the app and may be transferred to the users’ PC or Mac using the iTunes file sharing option.

The best thing about this app is that this is free. So what are you waiting for – click away to the iTunes store to download the app to your iDevice.

Update: Sorry, looks like it’s gone!

Browse The Best Web Apps For iPhone With OpenAppMkt

Native iPhone apps that you can access from the App Store have without doubt revolutionized the smartphone segment. However, though there are close to 250,000 iPhone apps on the App Store today,a lot of apps do not make it to the store because Apple’s fickle app review policies. No doubt then that a significant number of such app developers either move underground to the Cydia store or make alternate web apps for legitimate access from the iPhone.

OpenAppMkt is one such app store that exclusively showcases web apps. The store launched late last week and presently contains a good number of applications that can be accessed via the Mobile Safari web browser on the iPhone. Installing the OpenAppMkt store to your iPhone is not exactly hard – just open the website OpenAppMkt.com on your iPhone and bookmark it to your Home Screen. All web apps opened from here will open in full screen mode thus making it similar to a native app user experience.

There are not too many apps available at present. But with apps including Google Voice present on OpenAppMkt, expect a good number of users to rush in here pretty soon.

Create Photo Slideshows From Facebook Or iPhone With MediaStory App

Want to create slideshows of your Facebook photo albums? MediaStory is a nifty application that will help you with that. The app will allow users to upload pictures either from their Facebook album or upload them directly to the application while creating the slideshow.

MediaStory is available as both a web application on Facebook or as an iPhone app. Android users fret not. There is also an Android app to achieve the same. All you need to do is give the application the necessary permissions, upload the pics, style them and publish.

There is one step before you publish the pictures that is contentious. The app requires you to become a fan of the application. That’s understandable and if you are not the kind who is bothered by these, you can try out this application by visiting the app’s Facebook page or iPhone app ($1.99).

How To Deposit Checks Online With iPhone

If you are a Chase bank customer, here is some real simple way to now deposit checks with just a tap of a virtual button. Chase bank has announced some really cool new features on its iPhone application. One of the biggest additions, as you can read from the title of the post is that users can now deposit checks virtually from their iPhone.

This is how it works – Users looking to deposit a check have to take a picture of the front and back of the check. This can now be uploaded via the Chase iPhone app via the QuickDeposit feature. The functionality is very similar to the recently introduced Chase Bank ATM systems where deposited checks are immediately scanned.

Besides the free QuickDeposit feature, the Chase Bank iPhone app also includes a lot of other interesting features. For instance, the new QuickPay allows users to send money to other users like they would using Paypal. Users may simply send money to the recipient’s email address. The user does not require a Chase Bank account.

The only disappointment is that the app is still not ready for Android. We wonder how long it would be before Android users too get to enjoy these exciting new features.

Explicit Apps Back On App Store?

Lots of Apple stories today.

Few weeks back, Apple stunned app developers by deleting all iPhone apps with sexual content overnight. No reasons given for those apps, some of which had existed since the time App Store came to town. Phil Schiller, the head of Apple’s worldwide product marketing did however put the blame on “parents” and “women” who had found these apps unpalatable.

In short, Apple wanted to “cleanse” the App Store. The period of abstinence has been short-lived, however. Folks at MacStories have noticed a couple of iTunes pages that indicate that such apps could be making a come-back – this time on a separate category aptly titled, “Explicit software“. According to these reports, there could be one separate explicit section for iPad users as well.

I just wonder if Apple could have done away with all the negative PR that it so fondly accumulates with regards to the App Store by bringing in this section straightaway instead of letting the app developers wander in the wilderness for a month and now promising to get their apps back.

[via MacStories]

Where Are Stocks, Calculator And Weather Apps On iPad?

Do you regularly use the iPhone’s Stocks app to check on the market? How about doing those simple math calculations over the iPhone Calculator app? If you are planning to get the iPad, remember that you may no longer be having these apps on the new tablet device.

First and foremost, these are not the hottest apps on the iPhone. In fact, there are several third party apps that do a better job. Secondly, we all knew that these apps are not on the HomeScreen the day the iPad was unveiled. However, there were numerous speculations over why they were missing. Some suggested that these apps may be put up on the App Store, a-la iBooks for users to download only if they need it. Another group of users saw hints of multitasking coming to the iPad whereby these “minor apps” may be relegated to a Mac-esque dashboard that can invoked with hot keys.

It now seems that neither of these theories is true. John Gruber from Daring Fireball cites close inside sources as having told him that these apps have been removed for good from the iPad because Steve Jobs didn’t like them there. Gruber writes

“It’s not that Apple couldn’t just create bigger versions of these apps and have them run on the iPad. It wasn’t a technical problem, it was a design problem. There were, internally to Apple (of course), versions of these apps (or at least some of them) with upscaled iPad-sized graphics, but otherwise the same UI and layout as the iPhone versions. Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who.”

So praise the Jobs for being fair and neutral..It’s not just the third party app developers who have been facing the axe of late.

[Daring Fireball via Wired]