Apple is announcing details on the new iPhone Software 3.0 today at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern. The following sites are providing live coverage of the announcements as they take place. I will update this list as more links become available:
The big iPhone news this week (month? year?) will be whatever Apple has to say about iPhone Software 3.0 tomorrow, Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 12 Noon Central / 1:00 p.m. Eastern. So rather than a product review or other major post today, I’m just posting a few small items including links to interesting iPhone tidbits I’ve recently come across.
Load Up On Apps. You can (currently) only have 148 apps on your iPhone at one time. But you can have as many as you want on your computer and swap them in and out to your iPhone. MG Siegler at VentureBeat computes that you can download all of the approximately 25,000 apps currently available for the low low price of $71,442.69. He also notes some interesting statistics on iPhone apps. (Example: The largest number of apps are in the “Games” and “Entertainment” categories, but did you know that the #3 category is actually “Books”? Look out, Kindle!) His article is a good read.
The Gray Lady Goes 2.0. The New York Times has long had an excellent iPhone app (not to mention great iPhone-formatted web pages when you use Safari), but it recently updated its app to version 2.0. I was going to write a post about all of the improvements, but Alan at Art of the iPhone has already done such a great job that I’ll just provide this link to Alan’s review. The app is free, and it is a must-have if you are a news junkie.
Panoramic Photos with the iPhone. I’ve used the camera on my iPhone to make panoramic photos before — I’ve just taken a few photos and then used Photoshop Elements on my Mac to turn them into a panorama. But Macworld reviews a $2.99 app called Pano that walks you through the process of creating a panorama on your iPhone and then lets you save the finished product to your iPhone’s photo album. I haven’t tried the app yet myself, but the review intrigues me because I like panoramic pictures. For example, here are two that I quickly created (excuse the stitching errors) from pictures that I took on May 19, 2006 during the grand opening of the flagship Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York. Note that I said 2006 — these were not taken with an iPhone
Boxee Remote. If you don’t know what Boxee is, ignore this. But if you use Boxee on your computer or other device, the new Boxee remote app allows you to use your iPhone to control Boxee, much like Apple’s Remote app allows you to control an AppleTV. I have used the hack to run Boxee on my AppleTV, and this free app has no trouble controlling Boxee on the AppleTV. Here is a link to a YouTube video from TapCritic showing the app in action.
Apple has decided to celebrate St. Patrick’s day this year by revealing the plans for iPhone Software 3.0, the next generation of the operating system for the iPhone, on March 17, 2008 at an invitation-only event at its Cupertino, California headquarters.
This approach parallels last year, when Apple announced iPhone Software 2.0 on March 6, 2008, discussing (as expected) plans for third party development of applications and discussing (in a surprise) support for Microsoft Exchange. The March, 2008 announcement gave developers time to prepare for the final release of Software 2.0 four months later on July 12, 2008. I presume that the March 17, 2009 announcement will once again be a preview and that the new software will be available in June or July of 2009, perhaps at the same time that a new iPhone is released.
Last year, the invitation for the March event was a map with a clear indication that the third party software development kit (SDK) and Enterprise support was coming. This year, the invitation is less revealing, simply indicating that a blueprint for 3.0 will be unveiled:
Macworld reports that the words on the invitation don’t reveal any of the new features, instead simply stating “Get an advance preview of what we’re building.” Thus, we are
now in that magical time — not unlike Christmas Eve — when
the mind starts to wonder about what exciting toys might be in store.
What is on your wishlist for 3.0?
Presumably, Apple won’t disclose any software improvements that are dependent upon new hardware. For example, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next hardware upgrade to the iPhone includes multiple processors that a future iPhone operating system could use to perform multiple tasks at the same time, but I would be surprised if Apple disclosed this next week. However, Apple could announce support for background processes. Apple said in June of 2008 that push notifications would be available for all iPhone apps in September of 2008, but here we are six months later and push notification only exists for Apple apps such as Mail and SMS. Push notifications were considered a substitute for background processes: instead of having an app running the background all of the time just in case it needed to alert you to something new, a message could be pushed to the app from a server on the Internet to tell the app to display a badge, play a sound, display a message, etc. Does the failure to deliver push notifications when promised mean that this feature is still coming and just late? Or does it mean that Apple has instead decided to just give apps the ability to run in the background? Perhaps we will find out on St. Paddy’s Day.
The iPhone runs a version of Mac OS X, and Apple is currently working on the next version of Mac OS X, called Snow Leopard. Will some of Snow Leopard’s features be ported to the iPhone OS, and if so, which ones? The main feature of Snow Leopard is simply that the OS runs more efficiently. On a device with limited horsepower like the iPhone, increased efficiency would be welcome. Snow Leopard also has enhanced support for multi-core processors, which is why I think that this might be a part of the hardware changes in the next iPhone.
Like John Gruber, I hope that we see a new feature for managing apps on the iPhone. I have around 100 apps on my iPhone, and while that is more than many people simply because I am constantly testing apps to review on iPhone J.D., I am far from the only iPhone owner to have a large number of apps — with good reason, because there are so many good ones out there. It would be nice to have a better way to manage the apps, either on the iPhone itself or in iTunes.
Also on my wishlist are some of the features added this week to the new 3G iPhone shuffle. At the very least, it would be nice for the iPhone to gain support for the volume up and down buttons on Apple’s new three-button headphone remotes, such as the one on the Apple In-Ear Headphones. It would also be nice to have some of the VoiceOver features added to the iPhone so that the iPhone could tell you what you are listening to and let you choose playlists without having to use the touchscreen. [UPDATE: Paul Meyerson shares a good idea in the Comments to this post — use of VoiceOver to announce the Caller ID when a call comes in and headphones are attached.]
How about the ability to record video — something that we know the iPhone hardware can handle, but Apple currently doesn’t allow. Support for Adobe Flash in Safari. Syncing of Notes with the computer and with Exchange, and a To Do / Tasks app that syncs with Exchange. Voice dialing. [UPDATE on 3/16/09: Here is Macworld’s wishlist. Here is one from The iPhone Blog.]
The Boy Genius Report, which often makes correct predictions on new cell phone features, predicts we will see support for MMS (multimedia messages) and tethering via Bluetooth and USB (the ability to share the iPhone’s 3G Internet with your laptop). Tethering would be nice, and while MMS isn’t all that important to me, I know it has been on the wishlists of others for a long time. AppleInsider has its own wishlist which includes support for stereo bluetooth headsets, user-creatable widgets, and the ability to access remote files.
And finally, do I really need to add how much I want to see copy-and-paste on the iPhone? Please, Apple?
I love having a remote on my iPhone headphones, so much so that I recently upgraded my Apple in-ear headphones so that I could have the comfort of in-ear headphones plus the useful Apple remote. Apparently, even Apple considers its remote pretty inspiring. Yesterday, Apple announced the $79 third generation of its iPod shuffle. Once again, this generation is even smaller than the last, and this time the miniaturization was made possible once Apple realized that it could rely on the headphone remote instead of making space for buttons on the iPod shuffle. Greg Joswiak, Apple’s VP of iPod and iPhone Product Marketing, explained to Macworld:
“The concept for doing this came from the iPhone, specifically the
iPhone headset,” said Joswiak. “After we expanded on it in the fall by
adding volume control, we looked at it and realized that would work for
the shuffle too.” Joswiak explained that by removing the buttons Apple was able to make
the shuffle smaller, without compromising on other features.
I own three iPods. First, there is the iPod app on the iPhone, which is what I use most of the time. Second, I have a 5th generation 60 GB iPod which had been my primary iPod before I got the iPhone; now it mostly lives in my Bose SoundDock Portable. Third, I have a second generation 1GB iPod shuffle. I love my shuffle. It weighs nothing and easily clips on clothes, which makes it the perfect iPod to listen to podcasts or songs when I am working out or doing chores around the house. When I got the shuffle, I thought it would just be a little toy, but I am amazed how often it is the iPod that I most want to use.
The new iPod shuffle improves on the old shuffle in many ways. First, it is smaller and lighter, which reminds me of the famous Saturday Night Live skit in which Fred Armisen plays Steve Jobs introducing progressively smaller iPods — the iPod Micro, followed by the iPod Piqueño, followed by the iPod invisa which held “eight million songs, every photo ever taken and Pong.” (Here is the best link I could find to that video, although if you are so inclined you can purchase it in HD from iTunes for $2.99 as a part of 22 minutes of sketches from the November 19, 2005 show.) Second, the capacity is increased to 4 GB. Third, it includes a synthesized voice that can tell you what you are listening to or even announce your playlists and let you choose one. Apple’s website includes some samples if you want to hear what it sounds like.
Of course, because there are no buttons on the new iPod shuffle, you pretty much need to use headphones that have a remote. Jason Snell, the editor of Macworld, noted on Twitter that that makes him unhappy — “it requires you to use Apple’s headphones. Which suck.” Christopher Breen of Macworld agrees. I am also not a huge fan of the standard Apple headphones, although as previously noted I really like the newer and much more comfortable Apple In-Ear Headphones that come with a remote, which I understand works fine with the new iPod shuffle. If you want to use headphones made by anyone other than Apple, you will need to make sure that they have an Apple-compatible remote built in or you will have to use an adapter along with the headphones. Otherwise, Apple says that standard headphones will work, but you lose many features such as the ability to change volume, FF, RW, the
voice features, etc., although you can use the
single switch on the 3G iPod shuffle to play either in order or randomly.
Removing all buttons from the iPod shuffle itself is also a controversial decision. Dan Moren of Macworld worries that the remote will be more complicated to operate than the buttons on the previous iPod shuffle. I will admit that Apple’s chart on how to use the remote is a little daunting at first look, but Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has been using the new iPod shuffle for a few days now and he says that it “sounds more complicated than it is.” Moren is also concerned that he will lose the Apple headphones. Frankly, given the size of this thing, if I was going to lose something it would most likely be the iPod shuffle itself.
[UPDATE: Jason Snell of Macworld got a chance to sit down with Greg
Joswiak this morning and he provides a lot more details about the 3G
iPhone shuffle here.]
Along with the new iPod shuffle, Apple updated iTunes to version 8.1. Apple says that the new iTunes includes speed boosts that iPhone owners should appreciate, including faster loading of large libraries, faster browsing the iTunes Store and faster syncing. To be honest, I didn’t notice much of a speed boost when I used the updated iTunes last night, but I’m sure Apple is correct and there were some increased speeds. iPhones can also use the Remote app with iTunes DJ, an updated version of what Apple used to call Party Shuffle. Click here for a Macworld article describing the additional new features.
Back to the iPod shuffle, although I haven’t tried one yet, I’m impressed by what I have seen so far. I love the design. As Stephen Wildstrom of BusinessWeek notes, Apple’s “minimalist approach is taken to the ultimate … I can’t think of a way to design a product any cleaner than this.” And it includes everything I love about the second generation iPod shuffle, plus great new features like increased capacity and the synthesized voice. If you are reading this, you presumably already have an iPhone and have built up your iTunes library. The iPod shuffle is a great and inexpensive accessory that will let you use your iTunes songs and podcasts when it would not be convenient to carry around the iPhone.
Click here to get the 3G iPod shuffle from Amazon.
There are lots of great books about the iPhone available. Want a great introductory guide? David Pogue’s iPhone: The Missing Manual is excellent. Want to go to the next level and get expert advice on troubleshooting? Then you’ll love Ted Landau’s Take Control of your iPhone. But what if you really want to push your iPhone to the max? There is no better choice than Andy Ihntako’s iPhone Fully Loaded (2d ed.).
The theme of this book is simple — how much useful and amazing stuff can you get into your iPhone, even if you need to think a little outside of the box to do so. He discusses innovative uses of smart playlists so that your iPhone always has fresh music and videos and you have the illusion of having much more space on your iPhone. He devotes several chapters to getting video on your iPhone, whether that video is on TV, DVD, an online service like YouTube or even your old home movies on VHS. Ihnatko loves comics, so there is a chapter on getting comics on your iPhone. There are several chapters devoted to the best ways to get news and other information from the Internet on your iPhone. Many attorneys will be interested in his discussion of different ways to get documents on your iPhone. By the time you finish reading this book, you brain will be overflowing with ideas of neat new things that you can do with your iPhone, and you will forever feel just a little guilty when you see some free space on your iPhone because you will be thinking of something else that you can add.
Just based on the book’s content alone, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to move to the next level with their iPhone. But what really makes this book a joy to read is Ihnatko’s writing style. A writer of the Wikipedia entry on Ihnatko called it a boisterous writing style, seasoned with references to US pop culture, P. G. Wodehouse, comic books, cartoons, and science fiction. He’s also been called a “comedian masquerading as a tech writer.” I’ll just say that he is smart and funny, my two favorite characteristics in any writer. If you are not already familiar with his writing style, then take a pause from this review and check out any of Ihnatko’s weekly technology columns in the Chicago Sun Times, or read any of the entries in his blog Andy Ihnatko’s Celestial Waste of Bandwidth, or listen to any of his weekly appearances on the MacBreak Weekly podcast. I’ll wait.
[whistles, shuffles feet…]
Back? Good. See what I mean? It is just good fun to read or listen to Ihnatko. So even if he had written a book about the weather in northern Alaska, I’d still probably want to read it. When you combine his great writing style with great content, you get the rare technology book that is actually a page turner.
Here’s one more reason I love this book: it is very well produced. Every page is full color, the book includes great iPhone screen shots and illustrations, the book is packed with sidebar “Tidbit” items that are often insightful, humorous, or both, and the book is well organized with a useful index that makes it easy to go back and find something.
I only have one complaint about this book, and it is a complaint about any book that is on a printed page but especially books about cutting edge technology: the book can get outdated. For example, the book has great tips on using RSS feeds to listen to podcasts that you didn’t sync to your iPhone, but now you don’t need to worry about that tip because with software update 2.2, you can download podcasts directly to the iPhone. Ihnatko has a chapter on reading books on the iPhone, but obviously it doesn’t discuss the Kindle for iPhone app that Amazon released last week. Indeed, this is the second edition of this book, released December 3, 2008, and I suspect that Ihnatko finished writing it in October or early November of 2008. Having said that, here we are in March of 2009 and I still find myself strongly recommending this book because virtually all of the content remains relevant and even the few dated parts are still informative and fun to read.
Because you are reading this website, I already know that you are someone who wants to learn how to get the most out of an iPhone, and that puts you in the target demographic for this book. It is less than $14 on Amazon, which would be money well spent for either the content or the humor — it is a bargain to get both. So give yourself a little gift and pick up a copy of the book today. I’ll end with a few pictures of Andy Ihnatko from his Flickr page that seem to capture his spirit:
A few years ago, David Watanabe developed Inquisitor, a Safari web browser plug-in that starts to give you search results while you are still typing your search terms. It was a neat idea to speed up search. Yahoo! acquired the rights to Inquisitor in May of 2008, and the plug-in is now available for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Last year, Watanabe started to work on an iPhone version of Inquisitor, and the free app was released by Yahoo! and finally approved by Apple on March 5, 2009.
I’ve been playing around with Inquisitor for the last few days, and I’m impressed. On my computer, I never considered Inquisitor to be anything more than a novelty. Sure, it was fast, but it only showed a few search hits. Plus, it doesn’t take my very long to type a few search terms, so I have always been happy to wait the very short period of time until after I type and enter my search terms before I see a full Google page with lots of matches.
On the iPhone, on the other hand, things are different. First, I cannot type on the virtual iPhone keyboard as fast as I can type on a real computer keyboard, so an app that starts to give me results before I even finish typing is a great time-saver. Moreover, Inquisitor search results are nicely formatted for the iPhone screen, so it can actually be easier to use than just running a search in the search bar of the iPhone’s Safari app.
Here is how the app works along with a few screen shots. Start typing the letters of your search, and you will see a list of possible full search terms come up. Tap as soon as you see the one that you are in the process of typing. This will bring up a screen with news items matching your search term (if any) at the top of the screen, followed by possible web page hits on the rest of the screen:
If you tap on the news items at the top, you will be taken to a page that lists several news stories that relate to your search terms:
If you instead tap on one of the web hits, Inquisitor (which can act as a web browser) will show you the website. But you don’t have to wait for the website to fully load to start to get information from that website. While the website is still loading, a box will pop up at the bottom of the screen containing text relevant to your search terms taken from the website. Once the website is fully loaded, the box at the bottom disappears and you will see the full website, just as you would see if you were using Safari:
Using the button at the bottom right of the screen, you can e-mail the website, or you can open the website in the Safari app.
You can adjust a few preferences for Inquisitor by going to the Preferences app on the iPhone. Note that one of the choices is to turn on or off the “Shake to Clear” feature. If you want to quickly erase what is typed in the search bar, just shake the iPhone (just as you might shake an Etch-A-Sketch to clear it) and the search field will clear. It’s a cute feature that is actually useful.
Inquisitor works as advertised. It definitely gives me search results faster than I can get using the Safari app. Of course, it is not the only app to have this feature; the Google Mobile App also lets you get search results quickly. While you are typing search terms in the Google Mobile App, boxes appear just below your search history that you can tap to quickly complete words:
Plus, the Google Mobile App includes its signature feature of letting you put your iPhone up to your face and say your search terms out loud, and the app will covert the speech to text and then run the search. I find that speaking search terms with the Google Mobile App is the fastest way for me to run a search. But of course, sometimes you are an environment where you cannot talk out loud to your iPhone, and if you are typing search terms using your fingers, Inquisitor is very fast — but so is Google Mobile App. The two apps also differ in the layout of the search results. The Google Mobile App shows you a smaller version of what you would get on the Google website, whereas the Inquisitor search results are bigger and look better on the iPhone screen.
Over time, I will be interested to see which app I use more to run searches — Inquisitor or Google Mobile App. But it is nice to have the choice. Both apps are great, and both are free, so you should download them both and try them out yourself. Either will substantially reduce the time it takes to run a web search on your iPhone.
The good iPhone website Apple iPhone Apps.com has an interesting article on Apple’s ability to reject an app from the app store without explicitly rejecting it — something that the site calls a “pocket rejection” (much like a pocket veto whereby the President can sometimes indirectly veto a bill). The website developed an app that would notify the user when the price of other iPhone apps dropped — something that happens all the time and can be difficult to track. They submitted the app to Apple several months ago, and even developed a video commercial for it … and then just waited. After several months of waiting, it would appear that Apple is not approving the app, and yet Apple has failed to advise that it is rejecting the app.
Many other iPhone developers have posted similar stories. Even if Apple has a good reason to not approve an app, it seems unfair to keep a developer in limbo for such a long period of time.
[UPDATE on 3/10/09: Dan Moren of Macworld has an interesting editorial on the problems with Apple’s app approval process.]
[UPDATE on 3/13/09: Today, Apple finally approved the BarginBin app submitted long ago by Apple iPhone Apps.com. It’s a happy ending for this particular story, but the fact remains that many developers are pleading with Apple for more communication during the app review process.]
There is an interesting article by Alan Cohen in The American Lawyer about the increasing use of iPhones in law firms. (The same article also appeared in the AmLaw Daily blog.) The article notes that there are about 160 attorneys using iPhones at Chapman & Cutler, a few hundred users at Sonneschein Nath & Rosenthal, and about 100 users at Howrey. All of these firms give attorneys the choice to use an iPhone or something else, like a Treo or a Blackberry. I think that is the right approach. At my law firm, where we have around 30 attorneys using iPhones right now, I am frequently asked by my partners whether they should get an iPhone or a Blackberry. For those who are never going to use anything beyond e-mail, I think that the Blackberry Bold is a fine choice. But quite often, once I start talking about everything that one can do with an iPhone, they decide that they want an iPhone.
The article notes that Howrey does something that is pretty smart — they will loan an attorney an iPod Touch (which is just an iPhone without the phone) so that the attorney can get a feel for the interface and the virtual keyboard while deciding whether to get an iPhone. I know several attorneys who first used an iPod Touch — often because their child or a relative had one — and then decided to get an iPhone.
The article also talks about how many law firms are making it easier for attorneys to access document management systems using the iPhone:
At Sonnenschein, iPhone users can securely access the firm’s network
and–via Safari, the iPhone’s browser–search and retrieve more than 6
million documents. “The nicest thing about the iPhone is that all the
formatting, indenting, and styles display on the screen,” says Jurczyk.
“[Apple] really nailed it on mobile browsing with Safari.” Chapman and
Cutler also provides remote access to its document management system.
“Because the browser works so well, attorneys can go into our private
Google search engine and pull any [file] they need,” says Nugent.
If you are an iPhone user looking to add or upgrade Wi-Fi in your home or office, Apple released two new products this week that will be of interest to you. First, Apple updated its AirPort Extreme base station, a Wi-Fi router that you attach to your broadband cable or DSL modem to create a wireless network throughout your home or office. Before talking about what is new, let me start by discussing the prior version of this product.
The prior version of the AirPort Extreme offered two types of bands. First, there was the slower 2.4 GHz band. This band can be used with the older Wi-Fi standards of 802.11b or 802.11g. The iPhone, for example, uses 802.11g. However, on the 2.4 GHz band, you can get interference from cordless phones, microwave ovens, nearby industrial sites or wireless cameras. Second, there was the faster 5 GHz band. The newer 802.11n can use this band, and 802.11n on 5 Ghz can be five times or more faster than 802.11g on 2.4 GHz. With the older AirPort Extreme (which is what I use for Wi-Fi at my house), you had to choose either the 2.4 GHz band or the 5 GHz band. For anyone with an iPhone, this is no choice at all because the iPhone can only use 802.11g, which only works on 2.4 GHz. Thus, even though I have other devices in my house that can take advantage of 802.11n and 5 GHz (specifically, other Apple computers and an Apple TV), I need to keep my AirPort Extreme in 2.4 GHz mode to maintain computability with both my iPhone and the Dell laptop provided to me by my law firm which only has 802.11g.
With the new version of the AirPort Extreme, you no longer need to choose because the new AirPort Extreme allows simultaneous dual-band support. It does this by including two radios in the unit, one which provides a 2.4 GHz network that your iPhone and older computers can use, and one which provides a 5 GHz band network that your new computers and other devices such as an Apple TV can use. The new AirPort Extreme also includes other new features, such as a guest networking feature that allows guests to use your Wi-Fi for the Internet but not have access to devices on your network such as hard drives, printers, etc. The new AirPort Extreme costs $179.00, the same price as the prior version.
The second item that Apple updated this week is called the Time Capsule. The Time Capsule is nothing more than an AirPort Extreme that also includes an internal hard drive (either 500 GB or 1 terabyte) which you can use to automatically backup your Apple computers using software that comes with every Mac called Time Machine. The new version of the Time Capsule adds simultaneous dual-band support. The price remains the same: $299.00 for 500 GB or $499.00 for 1 TB.
The updates to the AirPort Extreme and the Time Capsule are great for people who own an iPhone, and frankly I’m a little envious. I would love to have both 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network for my iPhone and Dell laptop and simultaneously have the faster 5 GHz network for my Macs and my Apple TV. I recently switched from using DSL to a cable modem at my house because with DSL I was only getting speeds of around 4 Mbps whereas with a cable modem I now see speeds at my house of up to 20 Mbps — downloads now just zip, and I can use products like Citrix to access my work environment on my home computer at top speed. But I can only get that top speed on the iMac in my study that I have connected via Ethernet cable to my AirPort Extreme. The other computers and the Apple TV in my house use 802.11g Wi-Fi and don’t see much additional speed beyond what I was getting with DSL.
If you want to learn more about Apple’s new AirPort Extreme and what it means for your home or office network, I have two words for you: Glenn Fleishman. Fleishman, who runs the respected Wi-Fi Networking News site, is perhaps the preeminent expert on all things Wi-Fi. Earlier this week, he posted a nice overview of the new features on the TidBITS website, followed by an expanded analysis on the Macworld website. And if you want to learn more about Wi-Fi on Apple products, there is no better source than Fleishman’s Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network, an e-book that you can download in PDF format instantly for only $15 and which covers everything that you might want to know in a very easy to read format. It’s really a great book that taught me a lot and which I use as a resource whenever I want to do anything involving Wi-Fi.
Amazon has been getting a lot of press lately with the new version of the Kindle. If you don’t mind reading books on your iPhone screen — which is much smaller, but has color, more contrast, a much brighter screen and is back-lit so you can read in a dark room — Amazon has released Kindle for iPhone, a free app that allows you to read any of the hundreds of thousands of books available at the Amazon Kindle Store on your iPhone. You can’t actually buy a book using the iPhone app, but you can use Safari on your iPhone to access the Amazon Kindle Store website (the app itself even gives you a link that opens up Safari).
There are lots of free public domain books for the Kindle if you want to download the free app and get a feel for what it is like. Here is a a link to free books in the Kindle Store that can get you started.
Once you buy a book, when you start the Kindle for iPhone app any books you purchased are listed. Just tap a book to start reading it.
The books appear full screen, and you can swipe your finger left or right to go through the book page by page. Or, you can tap once on the screen to pull up an overlay with buttons to do things like add a bookmark (the plus sign), go to a specific section of the book, or increase or decrease the font.
If you own a Kindle, you can use technology that Amazon
calls Whispersync to switch back and forth between your Kindle and your
iPhone. Both devices remember your bookmarks and remember where you
stopped reading, so you can pick up reading again on either device.
I don’t own a Kindle, but I’ve always been intrigued by it. The Kindle for iPhone app will be a nice way to get a feel for what it is like to read digital books. I wonder whether reading a long book on my iPhone screen would start to strain my eyes after a while, but as you can see from the screenshots above, the font looks like it would be quite easy to read for an extended period of time. We’ll see.
[UPDATE: Good sources for more information on this app include articles posted today by Harry McCracken (Technologizer), Glenn Fleishman (TidBITS), Brad Stone (New York Times), Jeremy Horwitz (iLounge) and Nicole Lee (CNET). I’ve seen conflicting reports on whether this app will eventually handle newspapers or other sources besides books; right now, the app just handles books. I’ve also seen conflicting reports on whether the text in books can use hyphens to better fit the iPhone screen; McCracken says no but Fleishman says yes, and both use pictures to back up their positions.]
. I love my shuffle. It weighs nothing and easily clips on clothes, which makes it the perfect iPod to listen to podcasts or songs when I am working out or doing chores around the house. When I got the shuffle, I thought it would just be a little toy, but I am amazed how often it is the iPod that I most want to use.
. 
that can get you started.
