Jan 05

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone Coming Up Soon

By Sebastien   Accessories, Apps, iPhone News, iPhone Talk 1 Comment »

We’ve talked in the past about Sling and their SlingBox, a digital box you connect to your cable box, dish receiver, or DVR and allows you to grab either live or recorded video from that source, anywhere in the world that you can connect to the Internet.

It seems that Sling will be demonstrating SlingPlayer for the iPhone at MacWorld this week and they will be submitting their app to the App Store sometimes in the next few weeks. SlingPlayer will allow you to watch cable TV directly from your iPhone!

Here are a few highlights from the press release:

“SlingPlayer Mobile is ideally suited for the iPhone’s large touch screen display and I know iPhone users are eagerly anticipating the application’s availability,” said Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media. “Add to that HD streaming support for Slingbox PRO-HD customers and live TV support on our video entertainment site, Sling.com, and you can see Sling Media is committed to delivering great solutions for Mac users.”

SlingPlayer Mobile gives consumers their entire home TV experience, including local channels, local sports teams, video on demand, pay per view, etc. Any program that you can watch on your sofa back home, you can now watch via your iPhone using a standard network connection (3G Cellular, WiFi). In addition, SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone users can also control their home digital video recorder (DVR) to watch recorded shows, pause, rewind, and fast forward live TV, or even queue new recordings while on the road.

Pricing and Availability

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone will be submitted to Apple for testing and approval in Q1. The price has not been determined at this time. SlingPlayer for Mac HD will be available for free via the web-based SlingPlayer within Sling.com later in Q1. Mac customers will be able to use either Safari or Firefox web browsers to get both HD streaming and Live TV within Sling.com.




Jan 05

Steve Is Doing Good… And Peace In The World Is For Tomorrow…

By Sebastien   iPhone News, iPhone Talk No Comments »

Contrarily to what I reported last week about Steve Jobs health, our good old Steve-o seems to be doing ok, according to a note he sent to the WSJ. Well people, don’t get duped by this piece of PR. It is clear that Steve Jobs is sick and Apple is lying to all of us, most likely to protect the value of its stock.

One thing though. Steve will not be able to lie forever, and when he does pass away, I am pretty sure the stock will hurt even more than it would if he told us right now that he is indeed sick. Why doesn’t he slowly but surely prepare the stockholders to see him step down from its CEO position like Bill Gates did at MicroSoft. It took Gates a few years to step down but it was done so smoothly that MS stock didn’t suffer at all.

Anyways, here is a copy of the note Steve wrote to the WSJ:

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

I suggest you check out CrunchGear’s post about it because it’s full of good insight.

What do you think of all this?





Jan 04

Red iPhone To Be Announced At MacWorld? Picture!!!

By Sebastien   iPhone Talk 1 Comment »

red iphone

After the pink iPhone that hit eBay earlier this week, now is time for the Red iPhone. We had heard about it before and it seems the rumor is resurfacing, especially since we’re just days away of MacWorld.

This image was found on a French blog and it seems really fake to me but you never know… It is much more probable that Apple will launch a Red iPhone, rather than a pink one… What do you think?

UPDATE: After doing a little research, I found out it’s totally fake and you can buy iPhone 3G back covers pretty much everywhere online. However, as you can see here, you will need some skills to install it!





Jan 03

New RSS Feeds! Check Them Out. You Will Love Them!

By Sebastien   Apps, Apps On Sale, New Apps & Games, iPhone News, iPhone Talk No Comments »

Within the last few weeks, I’ve been working on a new “project” for this blog. I wanted to have all new applications from the App Store directly seeded to the blog, but most importantly, I wanted to show all the apps that are currently on sale in the App Store. So I worked with a web developer to bring you 3 new types of information:

  1. New apps and games: every single game or application added to the App Store is now automatically added to this section of the blog. It’s pretty much like an online version of iTunes App Store.
  2. Apps on sale: because Apple doesn’t make it easy for you to find out what apps are currently on sale, I added this section to the blog. Every single application on sale in the App Store will now show up there.
  3. Daily recap of apps on sale: It is a daily summary of all apps that are currently on sale today, in one convenient blog post.

Since there are hundreds of new apps and apps on sale everyday, I have them NOT show up on the homepage of the blog, or else, you would never see anything else but apps… Only the daily recaps of apps on sale show up on the homepage.

For your convenience, I created 3 new RSS feeds:

  1. New Apps and games feed: Subscribe in a reader - Subscribe by email
  2. Apps on sale: Subscribe in a reader - Subscribe by email
  3. Daily recap of apps on sale: Subscribe in a reader - Subscribe by email

And there is always the general blog feed that shows all the posts, except the new apps and apps an sale (Subscribe in a reader - Subscribe by email).

On another note, I had a few emails from loyal readers complaining about the low quality and quantity of posts lately. The reason is pretty simple. I simply don’t have time! At some point, there were a few other people writing here with me but it seems they lost their motivation (I don’t blame them for that!).

I recently quit my full-time job and now have to rely solely on my skills to pay the bills, so no, I don’t have much time to blog about the iPhone, because this blog doesn’t pay the rent… I do have to focus on other projects that bring in money. I still do my best to blog here as much as I can. I don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve been pretty good at it within the last few days :-)

I am still looking for people to join me and blog here on a regular basis. So hit me up if you’re interested!





Jan 03

Fewer Bars In More Places: AT&T Downgrading 2G Service

By Sebastien   iPhone News, iPhone Talk 2 Comments »

According to Timothy Butler with OFB, AT&T has been shifting transmitters to the weaker 1900 MHz band in some areas. What if you’re one of the unlucky customers? Well, simply get a new phone… that’s pretty much what AT&T is saying…

This shift has resulted in customers past their 30-day return policy, but still with relatively new phones, finding themselves stuck with equipment no longer able to pick up signals properly in previously strong coverage areas, even though the equipment itself is without defect.

Reports suggested the problem started to appear as AT&T ramped up its 3G network in preparation for the iPhone 3G in early 2008. Each AT&T technician OFB talked to concerning this problem offered the same solution: that the customer should purchase new, 3G-enabled equipment at the customer’s own expense.

AT&T reps obviously denied this information but if you’ve been noticing slower data transfers lately while on Edge… don’t look any further. Look at the bright side though; you now have another good reason to get yourself an iPhone 3G!



Jan 02

Pink iPhone 3G is “Absolutely Fabulous”

By Sebastien   iPhone Talk 1 Comment »

pink iphone

A mysterious Pink iPhone 3G showed up on eBay today and while a Red iPhone had been rumored for a while, I honestly didn’t think about a pink model, especially one for sale on eBay…

If you look at the back of the iPhone, it clearly looks legit, and not some type of ColorWare job. Like Engadget suggests, it could be some OEM in Asia whipping up custom colors. Or maybe Apple ready to announce it at MacWorld next week? I don’t think so.

What’s your take on it?

pink iphone



Jan 02

Is Apple Looking To Patent An iPhone-Friendly Glove?

By Sebastien   Accessories, iPhone News, iPhone Talk No Comments »

iphone friendly glove

Because the iPhone uses capacitive touchscreens, it may be difficult or impossible for the electrical signals from a person’s fingers to pass through glove fabric. I don’t have this problem because I live in Southern California, but if you live in some cold places such as Alaska or Iceland, this might be a way for you to use your iPhone, without risking to freeze your fingers.

The US Patent and Trademark Office published what seems to be an application from Apple for gloves that would actually work with the touchscreen. The glove would most likely have layers that emulate properties of human skin, such as electrical resistance.



Dec 31

Mobile Crunch Interview With Dev Team Member Pytey

By Sebastien   iPhone Talk 1 Comment »

Mobile Crunch published a nice interview with Pytey, one of the preeminent Dev Team members. Interviews with Dev Team members are very rare and I suggest that you have a look at it if you’re remotely interested in jailbreaking and unlocking your iPhone. The interview obviously evolves a lot around the awaited Yellow Sn0w, supposed to be available today.

Here is my favorite part of the interview:

However, Apple places restrictions on what you can run on the device. They impose draconian restrictions on the type of application that you can run, they don’t allow applications to run in the background and they even restrict the applications by subject matter or if they compete with their own applications. If I buy a device I want to be able to do what I want with it, if that involves gambling or looking at an application that involves porn then so be it. The real estate agent who sold me my house doesn’t knock on my door every month to check what pictures I have hanging on the walls, so why should Apple have this right?

Earlier this month, I published a translation of another interview with Pytey.



Dec 31

Breaking News: iPhone 3G Unlock Will Work For All Basebands

By Sebastien   Cracks & Hacks, iPhone News, iPhone Talk No Comments »

Earlier today, the Dev Team published a post on the blog with some strange binary codes that won’t mean anything to anyone that doesn’t speak geek fluently (I don’t!). I completely disregarded this post as I thought it was a pre-message for tonight’s release of yellow sn0w, the new unlocking tool that will be available sometimes today through Cydia.

However, a tweet from twitter user Yellow Sn0w got me all excited when it said that it will be safe to use yellow sn0w on any firmware. Tweeting back and forth with him, I was directed to a blog post of his that actually explains the full meaning of the binary codes posted by the Dev Team.

Here is his explanation:

In binary that message translates to vtaber 61060174. vtaber translates to “ignore” and the 61060174 means post# 61060174 on the iPhone DevTeam blog. http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/61060174/the-man-from-delmonte-he-say-yes

Hoping that this is true…



Dec 30

Apps On Sale In The App Store on 12/30/2008

By Sebastien   iPhone Talk 2 Comments »

This is your daily serving of iPhone and iPod Touch applications on sale. Today, iPhone Download Blog is bringing you the latest apps that are currently on sale in the App Store. Some of them are even free! If you were hesitating about buying any of these apps, now is the right time as most of these deals are for a limited time only.



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