iphone

Waveboard – Google Wave Client for iPhone and Mac - I actually don't do anything with Google Wave, simply because so far (despite account) no opportunity has arisen, but the apps here - both for OS X desktops and iPhone (and I suspect in the long run also iPad) look quite nice.

Thoughts on Flash - is of course again dismissed as blah-blah by all Apple opponents, but well - the reasons are compelling. And sorry, but it's really true: Flash stinks.

Fiat lux » Extracting iPhone Backup Data with mobilesync-inspect - and another tool that is available for OS X and Windows for this purpose.

iphone-backup-decoder - Project Hosting on Google Code - the same again as a command-line script in Python. Possibly even more interesting for me than the GUI tool.

iPhone / iPod Touch Backup Extractor - since iPhone backups are binary files and a friend now has problems with a corrupted backup, I linked this tool as a precaution, with which you can extract files from potentially defective iPhone backups, as long as the basic structure of the sqlite files is still somewhat clean.

The New App Store Rules: No Swimsuits, No Skin, And No Innuendo - not that I need bikini models in apps, but one should keep an eye on what Apple is doing in terms of censorship. Yes, in this case, clear censorship, because in the iPhone app market, Apple is the central controller and massively uses this central function. And that means for users of these devices that they live in puritanical America, at least with their available apps. It's probably time to get more intensively involved with jailbreaking. And perhaps at the next contract renewal, not to go for the iPhone again, but to get something else, even if the alternatives look worse and have a significantly worse usability. With Apple's current efforts, I don't want to find out at some point that not only my apps are censored (where even "offensive words" in dictionaries have caused trouble - and one of my current main applications are Russian dictionaries), but also Safari might start censoring my surfing behavior. The Google phones are not an alternative, as their operator is a professional data octopus and is also based in the USA. Nokia may be economically bad since Bochum, but it now has the most open mobile platform with the N900.

How to create offline webapps on the iPhone - terrible page layout, but interesting documentation on how to build web applications for the iPhone that work offline thanks to the HTML5 Application Cache. After I thought for a moment about whether I should buy such a TI watch, and got annoyed that it doesn't exist as a pocket watch version, I was able to think clearly again and remembered my iPhone ... (sometimes the obvious is too obvious)

IPhone Remote - Plex - and the iPhone becomes the ultimate remote control.

More Freedom Necessary as Top Developers Abandon iPhone - if Apple doesn't get this under control soon, it could have a pretty negative impact. Because if die-hard Apple shops like Rogue Amoeba are already showing Apple the red card, others will follow in the long run. And if only silly flashlights are left burning in the App Store, Apple might realize that their approach was rarely stupid. But then it will be too late ... (just look at how Palm more or less led the Palm Pre platform ad absurdum through all the fuss around their variant of the App Store).

Google Releases A Nuke. Apple Won’t Win This Fight. - ok, that's just Techcrunch, and their "quality" isn't even good enough as toilet paper (it's just virtual) - but if Google really has the screenshot of the rejection and publishes it, I could imagine that some people in higher positions at Apple will lose their jobs. As arrogant as Apple behaves in the AppStore, they would deserve to get a slap in the face there.

There’s No App for That « Riverturn Blog and Talk Back - one of the reasons why I did not renew my iPhone developer account. Because even if I ever wanted to put one of my little hacks into the App Store, the way Apple treats iPhone developers makes me sick. I have no desire to deal with such nonsense, there are definitely more interesting things to do.

iPhone to Get SMS Vulnerability Fix - autsch. autsch. autsch.

iSqueak - and here is the development environment with which you can program the iPhone in Smalltalk.

Mobile Wiki Server - cool thing, a Wiki server created in Seaside and Squeak (Smalltalk) that runs on the iPhone or iPod Touch and allows, for example, local editing or remote editing from the desktop. I doubt that a web server on the iPhone really makes much sense, but it's always funny.

Whither Eucalyptus? - Apple continues to mess around with the AppStore. Now they are refusing to approve an eBook application because you can (if you explicitly search for it and actively download it) read the Kama Sutra with it. How stupid is that? Shouldn't they maybe give the reviewer, who seems to be so compulsively fixated on the Kama Sutra, a round with the house psychiatrist?

Telekom will iPhones Skype-frei halten - of course. Naturally. It's only because the voice quality could be worse than in the T-Mobile network. Logical. I mean, everyone immediately believes that Deutsche Telekom only doesn't accept VoIP and IM for the iPhone because of the quality. Users must be protected from the terrible quality! How stupid do they think we are at Deutsche Telekom?

Review of 3D Engines for the iPhone - interesting overview of available game engines for the iPhone.

The iPhone can soon also do «Copy and Paste» - hey, cool, Apple is finally catching up with its own technology from the early 80s! (I'm an iPhone user and fan, but the missing copy-paste was really too silly even for me). Why, however, should multimedia messaging only be possible with the new iPhone? Well, never mind, somehow nobody really uses that nonsense anyway, right? Email is much more practical with the iPhone. And Spotlight on the iPhone could be quite nice - at least if it is designed to be expandable like on OS X.

iUI Introduction Wiki Page. - great if you want to quickly visualize simple data so that it is practically accessible on the iPhone. The overhead for simple pages is very low and due to the strong JavaScript orientation, the data volumes are also very compact - which gives very good response times on the iPhone.

To WebKit or not to WebKit within your iPhone app? - interesting article about WebKit on the iPhone in your own applications.

Unity creates games and 3D applications for the iPhone [Update] - ouch, the price for the iPhone option is quite steep. However, Unity is quite an interesting story, so this could lead to some new games. And particularly interesting: Unity also supports network games and has basic functions in the server for persistent worlds (though you still have to do a lot of programming yourself). Could definitely cause some stir. But for my hobby budget definitely outside the realm of reason.

MailWrangler and the Apple App Store - Apple really has a screw loose. How many flashlight programs are there in the Apple Store? But a gmail-Auth-Switcher - which would really be damn useful, I love MailPlane on my desktop - is not allowed in?

I41CX+ - and since it's so nice, also an HP41CX emulator as an iPhone app. Even a very complete implementation with support for modules and built-in printer (so printer simulation). On the iPhone, this is even really practical.

Dumb User Interfaces (c) by Apple

What idiot at Apple had the brilliant idea of the icon configuration on the "desktop" of the iPhone? And above all, at whose expense is the great deed of updating a program to place the icon of the update not where the actual program is located, but to quickly place it on the first free spot of the first page with such a thing?

Either you have a cheerful icon shuffling after every update, or you are allowed to search for your icons after a series of updates to see where they have landed again. The pushing of icons is particularly great, of course, if you have all pages full - and if you don't have them all full, updates happily move across the pages. And has anyone ever tried to push an icon from the last page to the first one if you have more than just two pages? No fun, absolutely no fun.

The designer responsible for the iPhone's icon configuration deserves to be slapped. At least for a week. Non-stop.

Special report: Fixing short iPhone battery life - I need to take a closer look at this, as I have the impression that the battery life of my iPhone is suboptimal. The WLAN part sounds particularly interesting - perhaps I can simply turn off WLAN, since I have an EDGE flat rate anyway.

Still no ringtones in Germany - sounds dramatic, but only applies to the iTunes Music Store. You can't buy ringtones. Pretty stupid of Apple. Well, if you save sound files as AAC (e.g. with Amadeus) and then name them .m4r, iTunes sorts them as ringtones. Just wanted to mention that. (And yes, that means I have an iPhone)