Quick update here – Not much to it, but if you jailbreak, you’ll like it. Go to blog.iphone-dev.com and download Redsn0w. You have to manually update to 3.0 via iTunes at this point, but if you’re like me, you don’t have a lot of jailbreak apps, just a couple themes that are easy to reapply. After updating to 3.0 – just run Redsn0w on your PC or mac, it’ll do the whole jailbreak thing for you. After jailbreaking, add http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com to your repositories in either Cydia or ICY, sorry ICY – but we still prefer Cydia. Then search for ultrasn0w in the packages and install it. Reboot. You’re now unlocked and jailbroken. I’m selling my 3G to get a 3GS… I’ll let you know what it’s like once I have it. P.S. This will get your phone running on OS 3.0 – but you will have to redo everything in your jailbreak… wait for the dev team to send out an update on that process if you don’t want to lose your hard work. CTA is not responsible for any damage you do to your phone… sure we can fix it for you, but we’re not always cheap. ;)
App Store Weather – The Weather Channel
I’ve never been a big fan of just sitting around and watching the weather channel… there’s something about the combination of cheesy elevator music and bad graphics that makes me want to puke. Even still, I’ve come to accept the fact that the built-in iPhone OS weather application isn’t really up to par (Yahoo! apps aren’t my favorite). So I went through the store and tried to find the best weather application out there that really reflects accuracy. I tried several and even stuck with Weatherbug (Link opens iTunes) for a while but eventually settled on The Weather Channel’s app because it seemed to give me the best accuracy. Take a look at the gallery to see all of the features, but a few that stick out in my mind are: hour by hour weather, 10 day forecast, live radar, severe weather warnings, and local weather videos. Those features make this my favorite weather app because I always know what’s going on. I was out driving not to long ago and the sky became pretty dark around two in the afternoon, so I pulled up the app and sure enough there was a severe weather warning waiting for me. I [...]
Turn-by-Turn Coming to Jailbroken iPhones
A short update for all of the jailbreakers out there. xGPS is currently working on a public distribution of their updated app that will allow jailbreakers to use it for turn-by-turn navigation. A pleasant monotone voice is waiting to give you directions and should be around by February 20th. Right now, you’ll find a version with out the “vocalization” feature… but given that time, you will be able to download and listen to a computer animated voice to fulfill all of your iPhone navigation fantasies. We’ll be giving this a go when it’s available… if you have any thoughts about it, be sure to let us know in the comments. via Gizmodo
CTA – WPtouch 1.6
So, it’s not an app and we’ve talked about it before, but we’re HUGE fans of WPtouch. It’s a WordPress plugin that all bloggers using WordPress need in order to accommodate their iPhone, iPod Touch or even Android device using readers. While we’ve been gone, Dale Mugford and Duane Storey have been busy getting this plugin right. I’ve been playing with it for a while now and all of the little quirks that I remember from previous versions are gone and it’s HOT. It’s been installed for a while now, so you may have seen it on your devices but we’ve finally updated the custom theme to look like CTA. Yes, the default theme looks amazingly like our site already, but we’ve tweaked it a bit and are completely satisfied with the look and user experience. If for some reason you would like to turn off the iPhone optimized view, just scroll to the bottom and click the “Normal View” tab… thus taking you to the regular site. Seriously, check it out and then go tell BraveNewCode.com how cool they are.
App Store Productivity – Keynote Remote
In Apple’s last Mac World keynote, they introduced an update to their iWork suite that included a new capability for the iPhone or iPod Touch. You can now use your Cocoa Touch device to control a keynote presentation wirelessly. Apple claims that you must be connected on the same wifi network… they’re wrong – more on that later. The app itself was designed by a minimalist. But it’s the functionality that counts. I’ve used this application several times since I downloaded the trial from Apple and subsequently purchased the software. I can say it’s nothing new – there have been apps that have tried to replicate this feature – and it’s nothing special, but it works. It does become quite annoying when you have to swipe to the next slide for every animated bullet you put into a presentation. I have to swipe 50 times during a 6 or 7 slide presentation. It just gets old. Maybe a double tap for bullets is in order… something to prevent me from getting carpal tunnel. This app could do so much more, hopefully we’ll see that in the future, but until then it gets only 6 stars. Do I need a wireless network? [...]
App Store Music – Shazam
I know all of us have heard a song on the radio that we just can’t remember who sings it or the name of the song – I haven’t come across that situation in a while now thanks to Shazam. It’s been around for a while, but we’re just now getting to it. Essentially, you can use your iPhone’s built-in microphone and stick it next to your speaker, press tag and with a good internet connection, you’ll find out who and what the song is. The song is then saved for later in the tags section of the app. Each tag will give you links to buy it, check it out on YouTube, read the artist’s bio, check out the discography or even take a photo to commemorate the occasion. I mainly use it to find out what song’s playing on the radio, but it’s definitely capable of a whole lot more. It’s not perfect, pretty much anything on popular radio stations will show up, but I listen to some obscure music and it can’t identify the song on occasion. Maybe 1 out of 20 songs isn’t recognized – so we’re not talking about big numbers here. It’s a great app, [...]
Jailbreak 101 – Categories
Categories is one of the most popular jailbreak applications available at the moment. It was the reason I jailbroke this time. We all know what it’s like to have pages and pages of applications to sort through. I used to have my main page, a page of useful apps, 2 pages of games that I wanted to try out, another page of applications I wanted to try and then my unwanted applications. Now, I have my main page and then three app icons on my second page – that’s it. Categories is listed in Cydia as a featured package, so you can download directly from there or search for it. Once installed, you can add as many categories as you would like. I made three categories: apps, games and misc. You can actually scroll through the apps in categories, there are no pages, just a continuous list. I was able to shorten it down to the three categories because it allows me to select an order for all the apps in each category. I tossed the “important” apps to the top and the lesser to the bottom. I have to say that it really makes life easier and more aesthetically [...]
Customize.app coming to the latest firmware?
I don’t want to get your hopes up too much, but I just checked customizeapp.com and found that it was back online. There was a period of time within the last few months where the URL just took us to a dark and dreary error page. It’s back now, and there’s an actual update from thespicychicken saying that he’s working on getting it compatible with the latest firmware (2.2 at the time of the post). For those of you who are ancient enough in the world of iPhone, you should remember that customize.app is THE best theme software for the iPhone OS. Read on for more information…
Now Playing: Local Movie Show Times and Ratings
After a brief stint as the controversial Box Office, many movie-goers’ most useful app is back in the App Store but under a different moniker: Now Playing. We haven’t done a full review on this free app yet, so we thought we’d let you know it was available for free and explain a little bit more about its functionality all in one swing. Did we mention that it’s free?
Apple Removes NDA from Current iPhone/iPod Touch Software
In a surprise move — well one that should have been done a long time ago — Apple removed the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) from all current versions of the iPhone and iPod Touch software. This will allow developers to better communicate and understand what works and what doesn’t. Developers have been begging for this since the beginning. Everyone thought that it would be dropped once the 2.0 software became finalized… but we were all wrong. Nearly 7 months after releasing the first SDK, Apple has decided that everyone will benefit from the discussion. Duh. Score one for the developers… now let’s just fix the failure that is the App Store… at least from a submitting perspective. Via TUAW
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