ReelSmart.com » AppStore http://www.reelsmart.com Video, Technology, Digital LifeStyle, Macintosh Tips, and Opinions Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:13:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 en The iPhone App Store Money Grab http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/11/the-iphone-app-store-money-grab/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/11/the-iphone-app-store-money-grab/#comments Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:44:36 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/11/the-iphone-app-store-money-grab/ Mobile Application folder. iTunes backups of my iPhone takes forever if any third party apps are installed. Sometimes hours are spent backing up an iPhone. After a restore however I have usually found that iTunes will tell me the back up can not be used as it may be corrupted. Now this is a waste of time. I am hopeful that the iPhone 2.1 update that is pending and expected to come sometime in September fixes some of the iPhone problems and stability. iTunes will also need a fix. Until then, I can not recommend the iPhone or downloading lots of apps from the App Store. Apple needs to get back to some quality control instead of the money grab it is doing now.
Steve Jobs: “This thing’s going to crest a half a billion, soon,” he added. “Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time.” and also said, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software”
The iPhone is a remarkable product and has changed the game in smartphones, but it needs to be a stable platform for serious road warriors and business people to want to use. Constant crashing leaving you with a useless plastic and metal box that no longer even works as a phone is a deal killer. Even people who think it is cool to carry an iPhone will get tired of it if Apple does not get it stable fast. Apple enough with the amount of apps sold. How about giving us a stable platform? ]]> http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/11/the-iphone-app-store-money-grab/feed/ More Disappearing Apps http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/04/more-disappearing-apps/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/04/more-disappearing-apps/#comments Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:06:50 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/04/more-disappearing-apps/ NetShare ($9.99) that used networking to share your iPhones cellualr broadband connection with your laptop, is not the only app for the iPhone to disappear from the iTunes App Store. I have seen three others disappear. BoxOffice (free) a movie finding app, Light (free) that turned your iPhone or iPod touch into a flashlight and iPint a free entertaining game with the drinking a brew simulator have also disappeared. No explanation from Apple for any of this. Developers for at least two of these seemed puzzled and were apparently told nothing. If this keeps up expect to see third party app stores and installers on an iPhone near you. Let us know if you have noticed and other app that has disappeared.]]> http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/04/more-disappearing-apps/feed/ NetShare: The Case of the Disappearing iPhone App http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/02/netshare-the-case-of-the-disappearing-iphone-app/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/02/netshare-the-case-of-the-disappearing-iphone-app/#comments Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:32:19 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/02/netshare-the-case-of-the-disappearing-iphone-app/ Nullrivers's NetShare Review and How-to One of the most sought after features for the iPhone is tethering. That is using your iPhone's 3G (or EDGE) cellular broadband connection to use with your laptop. This feature's availability would certainly sell more iPhones for Apple and might even make more money for AT&T (in the US). However no official tethering has been announced by either Apple of AT&T. Jail-broken iPhones with some terminal hacks have accomplished tethering, but it is not supported by Apple or AT&T and is not for everyone. NetShare [direct iTunes link, at least it was], and iPhone app showed up unannounced in Apple's iTunes App Store for purchase last night for $9.99 that allowed iPhone users to connect their Macs (or PCs) to the Internet using the cellular network. As you might imagine this caused quite a stir among iPhone users. For the price of two lattes at my favorite coffee chain, road warriors could gain what some Blackberry and Windows Mobile have, a way to connect to the Internet when there is no hotspot in sight. Here is were the story gets weird. Within 20 minutes of the NetShare app appearing in the US iTunes Store it disappeared without a word from Apple. Only a few lucky iPhone owners were able to snag a copy. This instantly gave the NetShare app a special place in Apple history! This disappearance confused iPhone owners and the developers as they claim to have never heard a word why the app was pulled. No one knows for sure if posting it for sale was a mistake or if it was meant to be sold in other country stores only. Even weirder, the NetShare app shows up again earlier this evening for sale! This time I snagged a copy as soon as I saw it. Now as of this writing it was pulled from the US store yet again! I have no idea if it is pulled permanently or not. Well as weird is all this is. The question you may have is does it work? I was able to set it up with my iPhone 3G and my MacBook Pro and put it thru its paces. In fact I posted this using my MacBook Pro using Mars Edit tethered to my iPhone 3G. Set up is a bit involved for non techies, but Nullriver does provide decent instructions. I found it worked quite well. I could not think of a better app for iPhone and MacBook Air owners. This would be a match made in heaven. You can even have multiple devices join the ad-hoc WiFi network created when using NetShare an your iPhone by having the second computer simply join the created network on the first. See NetShare uses networking to accomplish sharing the iPhone's cellular broadband network which is a bit different from true tethering where the cell phone becomes your computer's modem. It will be interesting to see how this plays out with tethering now that the "app is out of the bag" so to say. Should be very entertaining. MacRumors has a nice tutorial on how to set this up with your Mac. Tips: Once you set this up create a Location in your Network settings for using the NetShare with your Mac as this will make it easy to call this up when you want. Also, on the iPhone set the screen lock timer to never turn off while using it as I found it disconnected me when the screen closed. Speeds will depend on the signal strength and if you are in a 3G area. It is generally never as fast as Wi-Fi hotspots, but is as fast as it is on your iPhone. Lucky for me my house is in a 3G area and my results were very good. Plenty fast enough to browse and post to a blog. Note: Since we have no idea what Apple's and even more importantly AT&Ts take on the use of this app, I suggest if you were lucky enough to get it, use it sparingly. Unlimited data, is NOT really unlimited data. Tethering may still be against AT&T's user agreement, even though you have that receipt from the iTunes Store. Anyway, thank you Nullriver for a very useful app that adds yet another missing iPhone feature. Maybe video recording next? ]]> http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/08/02/netshare-the-case-of-the-disappearing-iphone-app/feed/ MagicPad Demo Shows First Copy-Paste on iPhone http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/29/magicpad-demo-shows-first-copy-paste-on-iphone/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/29/magicpad-demo-shows-first-copy-paste-on-iphone/#comments Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:48:53 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/29/magicpad-demo-shows-first-copy-paste-on-iphone/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/29/magicpad-demo-shows-first-copy-paste-on-iphone/feed/ App Store Breaks 1,000 iPhone Applications http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/29/app-store-breaks-1000-iphone-applications/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/29/app-store-breaks-1000-iphone-applications/#comments Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:31:14 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/29/app-store-breaks-1000-iphone-applications/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/29/app-store-breaks-1000-iphone-applications/feed/ WordPress for iPhone Now Available in App Store http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/22/wordpress-for-iphone-now-available-in-app-store/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/22/wordpress-for-iphone-now-available-in-app-store/#comments Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:18:53 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/22/wordpress-for-iphone-now-available-in-app-store/ WordPress app for the iPhone [App Store link]. It is now available for free in the App Store supporting WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress 2.5.1 or higher.]]> http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/22/wordpress-for-iphone-now-available-in-app-store/feed/ App Store 25 Million Downloads in 10 Days http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/app-store-25-million-downloads-in-10-days/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/app-store-25-million-downloads-in-10-days/#comments Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:37:13 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/app-store-25-million-downloads-in-10-days/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/app-store-25-million-downloads-in-10-days/feed/ 1Password Coming Soon to App Store http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/1password-coming-soon-to-app-store/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/1password-coming-soon-to-app-store/#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:32:21 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/1password-coming-soon-to-app-store/ announced on their website that 1Password for iPhone is in development, is almost ready and coming to the App Store soon. Looks fantastic. As a user of the Mac desktop app I am looking forward to the iPhone version. Securely saving passwords, logins, and information is even more important on the iPhone for me. You will be able to sync the desktop app with the iPhone app which will make using this a dream since that iPhone offers no copy and paste. For a limited time they have decided to give away the iPhone/iPod touch version of 1Password for FREE! Nice touch, pun intended. ]]> http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/1password-coming-soon-to-app-store/feed/ Byline Awesome RSS Reader for iPhone http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/byline-awesome-rss-reader-for-iphone/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/byline-awesome-rss-reader-for-iphone/#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:14:27 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/byline-awesome-rss-reader-for-iphone/ Byline [App Store link], $9.99 is available in the App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch bringing a great RSS feed reader that integrates with a Google Reader account. Landscape mode and offline reading make this the best RSS I have tried on the iPhone so far. Well worth the $9.99 price in my opinion. See the video. I was using NewsGator's NetNewsWire [App Store link] for the iPhone as it is free and I have used the Mac desktop version for many years. But I have to say Byline has captured me. If you are serious about reading RSS feeds on the go or you are a commuter that uses the subway and is often without connectivity Byline may be the iPhone app for you.]]> http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/byline-awesome-rss-reader-for-iphone/feed/ GarageBand Comes To iPhone - Well Almost! http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/garageband-comes-to-iphone-well-almost/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/garageband-comes-to-iphone-well-almost/#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:10:41 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/garageband-comes-to-iphone-well-almost/ Band [App Store link]. It sells for $9.99 and features the ability to play guitar, bass, two octave piano, and drums with an impressive recording functionality. You can overdub, solo a track, mute tracks, and make basic edits, all on a handheld device!]]> http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/garageband-comes-to-iphone-well-almost/feed/ WordPress for iPhone Coming to the AppStore http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/wordpress-for-iphone-coming-to-the-appstore/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/wordpress-for-iphone-coming-to-the-appstore/#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:02:23 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/wordpress-for-iphone-coming-to-the-appstore/ iPhone for WordPress project has announced that they have successfully uploaded a new app to the AppStore and the product should be available for sale soon. Supporting WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress 2.5.1 or higher. I can't wait!]]> http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/wordpress-for-iphone-coming-to-the-appstore/feed/ Apple’s Candy Store for iPhone and iPod touch Users http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/apples-candy-store-for-iphone-and-ipod-touch-users/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/apples-candy-store-for-iphone-and-ipod-touch-users/#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:36:25 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/apples-candy-store-for-iphone-and-ipod-touch-users/ RSS feed to help you keep track of the new apps being released. Incidentally, I have downloaded about 86 apps so far and am having a lot of fun with my new iPhone.]]> http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/21/apples-candy-store-for-iphone-and-ipod-touch-users/feed/ App Store Growing Adding New Apps Daily http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/16/app-store-growing-adding-new-apps-daily/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/16/app-store-growing-adding-new-apps-daily/#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:40:12 +0000 Stephen Antonucci http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/16/app-store-growing-adding-new-apps-daily/ http://www.reelsmart.com/2008/07/16/app-store-growing-adding-new-apps-daily/feed/