It's almost Halloween! The kids at my house are dressing up as Batman and a bumble bee this year, and it looks like we will have some great weather in New Orleans. I hope it is a good weekend for you wherever you live. Here is my collection of interesting iPhone stories from this week:
- Earlier this week, I wrote that Apple has once again delayed the white iPhone 4. John Gruber wrote a hillarious story about the mysterious white iPhone 4.
- As I've written in the past, LogMeIn Ignition is one of my favorite iPhone apps. It allows you to use an iPhone to remotely control a Mac or a PC, and it is a great way to quickly do something on your computer when you are out of the office. Ashlee Vance of the New York Times wrote a great profile on Michael Simon, the creator of LogMeIn.
- If you are curious about Microsoft's answer to the iPhone — Windows Phone 7 — I can recommend two well-written and informative reviews. First, David Pogue wrote a great review for the New York Times. Second, Andy Ihnatko wrote a great review for the Chicago Sun Times. The consensus of these and other reviews is that Microsoft created a very innovative product, but one which has a lot of shortcomings in this first version. Of course, the same was true of the iPhone when it was first released in 2007. As Pogue notes, it may be called Windows Phone 7, but this is clearly a 1.0 release. Nevertheless, over time, Microsoft will improve the product and maybe a future version will be a credible alternative to the iPhone.
- Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times writes about travel apps.
- Peter Rojas of gdgt wrote an interesting article on why HP bought Palm.
- Bryan Chaffin of the Mac Observor writes about a spy thriller movie called Goldilocks shot entirely using an iPhone. You can view the movie on YouTube or via an iPhone app.
- Whitson Gordon of Macworld explains how to create a shortcut on your Mac that makes it faster to make a Facetime call with someone.
- If you use Safari to read your GMail on your iPhone, you may have noticed an improvement to the interface this week. As Bryan Wolfe of AppAdvice writes, the floating toolbar has been replaced by a fixed toolbar. I find that this works much better.
- Bryan Wolfe also writes about a developer of free apps for the iPhone that is bringing in over $500,000 a month thanks to ads in apps.
- Josh Ong of AppleInsider writes about the increasing interest in selling iPads to businesses.
- Tim Chaten of AppAdvice writes about an update to Pastebot (which I reviewed here) that allows the app to run in the background, making the app much more useful.
- For those who really love the Angry Birds game, Greg Kumparak of MobileChrunch writes that plush toys will be available to purchase for Christmas.
- In case you were curious, Alexander Mooney of CNN reports that former president George Bush loves his iPad, especially the Wall Street Journal and Scrabble apps.
- And finally, this time last year I wrote about Reko Rivera and John Savio of Tampa, Florida who dressed up as what they called guyPhones. Savio is back this year with a new version — the guyPhone 4 — and it ... well ... I'll just let the video speak for itself. Happy Halloween!
