It was another week packed with lots of interesting iPhone news. Here are some of the interesting stories that I ran across.
Last week I discussed evidence that Apple is working to improve the iPhone App Store, including Apple’s VP Phil Schiller reaching out to people who were critical of the app store. Soon after that, reports TechCrunch, Schiller personally intervened to get an app approved that does a magic trick involving cards with your iPhone. Once again, Apple seems to really be working to improve the App Store process, which is great news.- The Washiington Post picks their 35 favorite apps of the year so far. Although they name a few apps that are new to me, they name many others that I love such as Quickoffice and the addictive game Peggle. If you are looking for good apps,for your iPhone, check out their list to see if anything catches your eye.
- If you use Gmail, you may want to check out GPush, an app from Google
that notifies you when you get new e-mail. I haven’t tried it yet, but
MacNN writes about the app here. - CreativeBits has an interesting interview with Rob Janoff, the man who designed the iconic Apple logo.
- TomTom is now selling their $99.00 GPS app for the iPhone. Early reviews have been positive. Here is a good one from GPS Review.
- iLounge reports that the latest data from NPD Group reveals that 25% of all retail music sold in the U.S. is sold by iTunes. Wow.
- In the early 1980s, my brother and my cousin and I would frequently go to the neighborhood arcade, and one of our favorite games was Frogger. (We don’t seem to have many arcades anymore, perhaps because of amazing home game machines like the Xbox and PS3, not to mention home computers.) A Frogger app for the iPhone was released a year ago for $9.99, but it got mixed reviews because of the controls and the lack of many of the retro sounds. For the next few days, the game is on sale for only $0.99, so if you are looking to recreate some childhood memories, now is the time to dart between the cars and hop on some logs on the way to the App Store and get your copy. Click here to get Frogger:
- While we are all feeling nostalgic for the 1980s, TouchArcade reports that a Commodore 64 emulator is coming soon for the iPhone. Although my first computer was a Sinclair ZX81, it was my second computer, the C64, that got me through high school and my freshman year of college before I bought my first Mac. I even ran a BBS (if any of you remember those) on that C64 for a short period of time in the 1980s. It will be interesting to see a C64 app on the iPhone.
- Twitterrific, my favorite Twitter client for the iPhone, was upgraded to version 2.1. There are a ton of improvements, and Macworld’s David Chartier describes them here. My personal favorite new features are landscape view and the built-in e-mail client.
- Electronista reports that AT&T is improving 3G coverage in New York and San Francisco. My friends in San Francisco say that they are not seeing much improvement yet, but hopefully it is coming soon. I’ll be in New York in two weeks so I’ll be curious to see how 3G is working there.
- Echoing many of the comments I have included in my reviews of Quickoffice (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and Documents to Go (1, 2, 3, 4), Macworld has now published separate reviews of Quickoffice and Documents to Go. The Macworld reviewers like both apps, as do I, which is why if you plan to view and edit a lot of Word files on your iPhone, you might want to get both.
- George O’Brien writes in BusinessWest Online (a Massachusetts business journal) that devices like the iPhone are handy for attorneys but also make them feel forced to practice law 24/7.
- And finally, we all love Google, and because it is so good at collecting information it makes good sense for it to be the default search engine in Safari on the iPhone. But what would it be like if Google was your roommate? This cute video, which has been around for a while but I just ran across, answers that question: