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Author: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
For me, reading reviews is an important part of almost any purchasing decision I make.
OK, I don’t usually trawl the Web for reviews of, say, a coffee shop before I sit down, and I’m usually happy to buy a sandwich for lunch without first needing to see what others think of my choice. However, for most other things, having a quick read of a few reviews either gives me the confidence to proceed with the purchase, or it will stop me in my tracks and make me reconsider.
Now, for me, an important part of any review is being able to feel that I can trust the reviewer. After all, this is Web 2.0 and there are a lot of people out there saying a lot of things about a lot of stuff, and you can’t take it all on face value.
A key part to trusting a review is the knowledge that the person who wrote the review actually owned the product they reviewed. Problem is, most online stores don’t limit reviews to people who actually bought the product or service through the online store. I can understand this for most outlets since the reviewer might have bought the product (or come across it) somewhere else.
This is a tradeoff because, while the outlet increases the overall number of reviews that is receives for a particular product, it also opens itself up to review abuse where people who didn’t buy the product (or who have a vested interest in either promoting or trashing the product in question) post fake or worthless reviews. We, as consumers trying to get the best bang for the buck, have to wade through the reviews and sort out the valuable from those that are of no value.
So, given that I can understand why retailers like, for instance, Amazon.com, allows customers who haven’t actually bought the product from the Web site to post a review.
But what about products that are only available from a single outlet? Shouldn’t that outlet restrict the posting of reviews to individuals who are actually listed as having purchased the product?
Enter Apple’s App Store, the one-stop shop for applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. When you visit the App Store you’re seeing products that you can only buy there. You can’t have bought these apps from somewhere else, you can’t have downloaded them from the developer’s site, and you can’t have been given a copy from a friend or family member. The only outlet for Apple App Store Apps is the App Store.
So, if that’s the case, why does Apple allow people who didn’t buy a particular app to review it?
Author: Rob Enderle
Part of what makes the iPhone special, other than its impressive number of problems this year, is the fact that it promises a near no compromise Web experience on a phone-sized device. (Granted, “phone size” seems to be drifting a bit larger these days.)
The 2.0 iPhone has had an impressive start but seems to have run into some hardware quality problems, some cloud quality problems, and Apple seems to be repeating the Atari mistake with their Application Store. (Atari nearly died when they failed to ensure the quality of their games in the early ‘90s when buyers abandoned their game console). Several of us actually argue the 1.0 iPhone is better.
Bad timing, given that Intel is pushing two new portable platforms which could eclipse the iPhone if done right (big “if” here), and Google’s Android phone platform is on final countdown and the first, from HTC, is gorgeous. In addition, Google appears to be doing a better job ensuring most of their initial applications aren’t crap, something that Apple may want to emulate.
Click here for the full story at Datamation.
Author: Andy Patrizio
One month into the two-year marriage many have made with an iPhone 3G, and the honeymoon is definitely over in some quarters. While I am not as angry as others, when I see this kind of bubbling frustration, it's usually an indicator of one type of ending. Ever heard of Mt. Vesuvius?
Within a day of use, it became obvious that the 3G service stunk. San Francisco is supposed to have full 3G coverage, and I had no problems with my prior 3G phone at all. It was a very different story with the iPhone. Calls were dropped and the battery drain was unacceptable for a cell phone. On disabling 3G, service improved immediately. There were no more dropped calls. Audio quality was fine. Battery life was much better.
As it turns out, I wasn't the only person to notice this. AT&T denied their network was dodgy by pointing out they have plenty of other 3G phones with no such problems. Turns out they were right. The culprit, it seems, is turning out to be the Infineon chips used in the phone.
In a research note today from Richard Windsor, an analyst with Nomura Securities, blame was laid at the feet of the chip. "We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain Infineon is the 3G supplier," he wrote in a note that's been picked up all over the Internet, as he's confirmed what many people have suspected for some time now.
Author: Philip L. Graitcer
Independent software developers for the iPhone have created nearly 2,000 applications for your phone. There are applications that turn your iPhone into a flashlight, keep track of stocks, baseball scores, the news, and allow you to blog right from your mobile phone.You can get many of these application for free or purchase them for $.99 up to $999.99 (that was an application called “I am rich” that actually did nothing!).
You can browse the applications on your computer or on your iPhone. Here’s how you can check out the applications on your iPhone.
First, you have to have at least version 2.0 of the iPhone software on your phone. To get that, synch your phone with iTunes on your computer, and check the version on the Summary page. If you don’t have at least 2.0, click “Update” and follow the instructions. 
After you’ve updated your phone’s software, disconnect it from your computer, and click home. You should see a blue icon with a white “A” in a circle with a blue background. That’s your applications installer. Tap on it.
Author: Philip L. Graitcer
One of the most touted features of the new iPhone software (Version 2.0, now updated to 2.0.1, as of August 12) is the ability to download iPhone applications from the iTunes "App Store." These are third party applications, that is, they were not written by Apple, but Apple does some kind of vetting process on them before allowing them to be available in the store.
Right now, there are about 2,000 applications available for downloading at the App Store. To check them out on your computer, go to iTunes, click on "iTunes store" and then on the left side of the page in the iTunes Store box, click on "App Store".On the App Store home page, you'll be shown lots of applications. There are new picks, top picks, and staff picks. There is also an opportunity to sort the applications so that you'll only see the free ones. (Yes, there are free ones!).
Sort through, until you find an application that interest you. Then click on the "Get Application" button. The rest is just like downloading music from iTunes - your iTunes account will be charged and then the application will be downloaded into iTunes and will appear under Library as an "Applications" button.
To get the application downloaded on to your iPhone (or iTouch), plug in your iPhone as if you were going to synch it. When it is connected, click on your iPhone, and click the tab marked Applications, and then check the applications you want synched/downloaded to your iPhone. Click the "Synch" button in the bottom right hand corner and the application will then be downloaded and synched to your phone.
Applications can also be purchased and downloaded to your iPhone directly, without using your computer. We'll cover that in another Tip.
For more on how to use the App Store, see the tutorial below or click here.
Author: Damon Brown
As Steve Jobs hyped during the June 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference, the new iPhone App Store launched with more than 500 software titles. It now sports well over a thousand apps. Many of these are free, while others run up to $9.99 or more. It is fairly straightforward to add any of these applications to your iPhone.
The first step is to make sure you have the latest iPhone (2.0) and the latest iTunes (7) update. You should have received a notice the first time your iTunes-enabled computer was connected to the Internet after July 11th. To check, go to the Help menu, then click About iTunes. It should read "iTunes 7". If not, go back to the Help menu, then click Check for Updates. iTunes will then ask if you'd like to download the latest version. (It should be about 70 MB.)Once iTunes 7 is up and running, a new listing, Applications, will appear under the Library heading in the far left-hand column. Click on the iTunes Store.
On the left side, right under the three big cycling ads, you'll see an iTunes STORE listing with Music, Movies and so on. The last item is the App Store.
The App Store is organized very similarly to the music and movies storefronts. Below the iTunes STORE listing you'll see CATEGORIES, including Books, Games and Lifestyle. Across from the categories second you'll see TOP PAID APPS, featuring the top ten applications of the moment, and below it you'll find TOP FREE APPS, with its respective top ten. The center area is formatted like the other stores: new products, highlighted ads, the hottest apps and the staff favorites.
Choose an application you're interested in. I'm a music junkie, so one of the first applications I clicked on was Pandora Radio, a free Web site that tries to predict new music you may like based on your favorite artists. The original version, at www.pandora.com, seems to work extraordinarily well.
Author: Philip L. Graitcer
MobileMe keeps e-mail, contacts, appointments up-to-date between a Mac, and iPhone, iPod touch, and even a PC. That means if you make a change to an appointment or an address on your home computer, it will automatically appear on your iPhone and on any other computer you've set up.
Here's how to set the MobileMe service up on an iPhone/iPod touch for use with a Mac computer:
Author: Philip L. Graitcer
MobileMe might have been an all time hit, if Apple hadn't also launched the iPhone 3G and iPhone software 2.0 at the same time, and if there hadn't been technical problems with MobileMe that made it completely unusable for a group of users. Instead, the only news that MobileMe generated through much of July was bad news.
There were technical glitches with MobileMe—some people couldn't use e-mail, others couldn't even set up their accounts—and Apple was mum for a few weeks about the problems. That just made life more confusing for users. I spent at least eight hours, two of them with Apple technical support, trying to figure out accounts.Thankfully, as of late July, the technical issues with MobileMe had been fixed. And after a few weeks of using MobileMe, I'm happy to report that MobileMe is a great product.
What makes it so great?
Author: Damon Brown
A few weeks ago, more than a million new (and old) iPhone users lined up at the Apple Store to pick up the iPhone 3G. (As you probably know, $199 for the 8 GB, $299 for 16 GB.) Considering there were more than six million iPhone users before the new 3G model, many of the previous users opted not to pick it up - not right away, at least.
There are four reasons for this, three of which are Apple's fault. First, the poor economy here in America. Second, the well-reported hiccups with the iPhone 3G initialization that left some customers waiting hours without an active phone. Third, the almost equally well-reported bump in service contract costs, an increase that could run customers as much as $1,700 more over the course of the two year commitment. Finally - that which is most important to us - Apple gave the iPhone 3G's much-hyped 2.0 software upgrade to all of us. For free. I actually missed the boat on launch day, albeit by a few hours, while waiting for iTunes to tell me when the new iPhone 3G software upgrade would be available. It won't tell you. iTunes only checks for new software about every two weeks, which means, at least in my case, I could still be waiting for 2.0. Regardless, you can check for iPhone software upgrades anytime by plugging in your iPhone and viewing the Summary screen. It will automatically go to the Summary screen, but, just in case, you can always tap the Summary tab, the first tab on the iPhone screen in iTunes.
