Two Great iPhone Apps

RunPee Mobile
RunPee Mobile is a must have app for every moviegoer with a bladder. RunPee tells you which points in a movie you can safely go “run” and “pee” without missing an important plot point.

WAZE
Waze is a social mobile application providing free turn-by-turn navigation based on the live conditions of the road.
100% powered by users, the more you drive, the better it gets. Join the community of drivers in your area today!

Digital Effects Workshop July 17th at  The Domain

July 17th @ 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Digital Effects Workshop at the Apple Store in the Domain
Join cinematographer Justin Kirchhoff and compositor Karl Wolfmueller as they demonstrate how they used Final Cut Studio and Shake to create stunning visual effects in a short film. Find out how they produced their amazing imagery by utilizing color grading and the compositing of visual elements.

Quick Draw – Trailer and More… from Digital Shakedown on Vimeo.

Adobe Flash gets its full launch on Android

After months of back-and-forth debate about whether Adobe’s Flash technology is a good fit for smartphones, Adobe is launching a full version of Flash for mobile devices, starting with Google’s Android operating system.

Adobe released a test version of Flash to the public about a month ago, but this is the real launch of the finished product. Flash 10.1 should now be available for download on phones using the latest version of Android, 2.2, which is known as FroYo. And the company says it has shipped Flash to its other device partners, so that Flash should soon be available on BlackBerry, Palm webOS, Windows Phone 7, LiMo, MeeGo, and Symbian phones — basically, all the major smartphones except for Apple’s.

The desktop version of Flash 10.1 should also be available today.

Developers and designers use Flash to build a wide range of online content, but its biggest presence is in powering Web games and videos. Flash came under attack recently from Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, who blocked Flash from iPhones and iPads, calling it an outdated technology. Adobe has fired back, saying Flash works just fine on the iPhone and that Apple is playing “legal games,” but until Flash 10.1 it was really a battle of words, not products — the full version of Flash (as opposed to a stripped down version, called Flash Lite, that Adobe hardly mentions anymore) didn’t actually work on mobile phones.

I was given a review copy of a Nexus One to test out Flash, but I couldn’t get it to work properly before last month’s test release. It turned out I was given a review phone without Flash, so once everything was set up properly, things seemed to work smoothly. The mobile-optimized gaming and video sites that Adobe highlighted provided a better experience than random Flash websites, but even on sites that weren’t designed for smartphones, it was nice to no longer get error messages because Flash wasn’t supported. That seems to be the impression of analysts who tested Flash as well. (I didn’t keep the phone long enough to assess the effect on battery life.)

In its announcement, Adobe included a bunch of positive quotes from analysts, content partners, and device partners, but perhaps it’s best to end on a comment from Google — a company that is moving its video supersite YouTube from Flash to HTML5, and which has been more vocal in evangelizing for HTML5, but which has also sniped at Apple for its lack of Flash support. Here’s the statement from Andy Rubin, one of the inventors of Android and now vice president of engineering at Google:

We are excited that Android is the first mobile platform to support the full Flash Player. Now mobile users can browse the full web on their smartphones, and Android developers can use industry-leading tools to create immersive experiences on the web

OS 4′s Most Revolutionary Feature?

Reading the coverage and comments on iPhone OS 4, I’ve seen some sentiment that Apple isn’t really doing anything fresh, and is merely catching up on features already offered on other mobile phones. That’s true for some things, but not with iPhone Game Center.

The service will be a social networking layer for iPhone games. Players can invite their friends to multiplayer games, and in lieu of friends, they can use a matchmaking service to find other players. There appear to be achievements for in-game tasks, which accumulate in a sort of meta-game, and there are online leaderboards as well.

As a list of bullet points, Game Center is nothing new. It’s more or less a clone of Xbox Live, which offers all the same features. Even on the iPhone, the existing Plus+ and OpenFeint networks offer friends lists, achievements and leaderboards.

So, why is this revolutionary? Because there isn’t a single mobile gaming platform that’s already doing it. Sony dropped the ball when it said last year that the PSP won’t support achievement-like trophies, and there’s no platform-wide invite feature that encourages players to jump between games. Nintendo’s just oblivious when it comes to online gaming, and Microsoft, which arguably could do great things with Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7, will still be months from launch when iPhone Game Center arrives.

Predictions are always risky, but I’d be surprised of other phone platforms and portable consoles don’t scramble to follow Apple’s lead. You can’t say that about multitasking, folders and customizable wallpapers.

iPhone 4.0 to drop at 1pm Eastern

Computerworld - Apple will release the iOS 4 update today around 1 p.m. ET, 10 a.m. PT, according to claims from users citing calls to the company’s sales and support desks.

As of 11:45 a.m. ET, the update, which Apple said earlier this month would be delivered today, was not yet available via iTunes. Apple updated iTunesto version 9.2 last week to make the software compatible with the new mobile OS.

Several iPhone owners on Apple’s support forum claimed that they had been told by Apple support personnel that the iOS 4 update would launch at 10 a.m. PT. Apple is headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., in the Pacific Time zone.

Computerworld was not able to confirm the reported launch time; Apple’s telephone lines were swamped with calls, with wait times that exceeded 30 minutes.

New MobileMe Launched

Apple has launched their new MobileMe interface tonight with an overhauled MobileMe Webmail system as well as a “Find My iPhone” App Store App. The new interface reveals a new application switcher interface which replaces the row of icons that was previously used.

The new Webmail features are detailed by Apple as well. These include:

- Widescreen and compact views.
- Rules to keep your email organized everywhere.
- Single-click archiving.
- Formatting toolbar.
- Faster performance.
- Increased security with SSL.
- Support for external email addresses (new since the beta)
- Improved junk mail filtering (new since the beta).

Meanwhile, Apple has also released a brand new Find My iPhone app [App Store] that offers a universal iPhone/iPad App to locate your lost device:

If you lose your iPhone or iPad while on the go, simply install this free app on any other iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to find it. Sign in with your member name and password (MobileMe subscription required) to locate your missing device on a map and have it display a message or play a sound. You can even remotely lock the device to protect your privacy, or wipe it to permanently delete all of your data if you think that it won’t be returned.

What’s with the Mac Mini

Why is the Mac Mini the only apple product that goes up in price? What ever happened to $499?

iPhone 4 Pre-Orders Bring Down Servers

iPhone 4 pre-orders kicked off today and have been causing trouble for Apple’s online ordering systemwhich has been up and down throughout the morning. In fact, we are still receiving reports of U.S. customers being unable to fulfill the order forms online.

Boy Genius Report has also heard that AT&T’s own internal network has been brought down by the crush.

Apple launches new iPhone Apple Store App

Apple has released an official retail store app. Simply called “App Store,” the new app lets users shop the full line of products available at The Apple Store. But it’s more than shopping.

You can use the app to read customer reviews, find an Apple Retail Store in your area and monitor in-store events. Speaking of the brick-and-mortar stores, if you’re planning a visit you can first use the Apple Store app to arrange personal shopping, schedule a Genius Bar appointment or organize a One to One session.

And we thought those vending machines were dangerously convenient. After years of growing accustomed to the easy of “tap and buy” with the App Store, it’s a bit frightening to have a Mac mini or the like just as accessible.

Apple Store for iPhone is free and available now.

Starbucks to offer free Wi-Fi

Starbucks has just announced that they’ll be offering free Wi-Fi at all stores nationwide on July 1, no matter what brand of laptop, tablet, smartphone, or computer you may have. Access will be provided through a one-click logon portal that brings Starbucks customers unrestricted access to the Web at large, just like many other coffee bars.

Less than two years ago, Starbucks rolled out a program to offer freeWi-Fi for AT&T mobile devices (such as the iPhone) and customers of AT&T DSL. It was a nice perk, but customers who wanted to use Starbucks Wi-Fi with a laptop or a tablet have had little recourse but to log on through an AT&T Wi-Fi account that offers two hours of free Wi-Fi access per day and costs $4 for every additional two hours after that.

But this isn’t just a matter of Starbucks catching up to the rest of the coffee bar nation. Starbucks’s Stephen Gillett told Mashable that he has bigger plans for the company’s Wi-Fi. Its hotspots will eventually bring all Starbucks Wi-Fi users to the new Starbucks Digital Network, planned for release later in the fall of 2010.

In cooperation with Yahoo, the Starbucks Digital Network will pull in content from local-aware services like Foursquare as well as pay-wall services like the Wall Street Journal and Zagat. This will allow Starbucks customers to sample these services, which those companies no doubt hope will eventually translate into paying customers at home.

One downside, however, is that AT&T’s recently revamped data plans for the iPad and iPhone offered free access to AT&T hotspots, which included Starbucks. You could argue that the value proposition has dropped a bit, though ultimately those users are still getting free Wi-Fi, so perhaps that’s neither here nor there.

It’s a nice compromise for the Starbucks empire to offer better service for their customers. Hopefully, the transition won’t be nearly as rocky as the last time.