For anyone looking for a dedicated iPhone magazine there is a new publication from the publishers of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine called iPhone Life, and as anyone who has read Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine you will know how good it is/was. Whilst iPhone Life is yet to be published, if it is anything like their current/past offerings then it will be well worth subscribing, despite the fact it will be biased towards the US. Planned for release in 2009 you can sign up now for the paper based, and iPhone/iPod Touch version, with a current price of $25, and an electronic version should be available via Zinio when published.

Tags: iPhone Life

This weeks FREE single is What Up Man from The Cool Kids, and can be downloaded from here...

... and the 99p film rental is A Guy Thing, and is available from here.

Tags: UK iTunes FREE Single of the Week, 99p Film Of The Week iTunes offer

Due to some legal action be threatened against my company (Pocket PC Solutions) posts to this blog will be limited for the next week or two, but we will be back with a big bang, so do not give up on us.

As soon as the issues have be resolved I will disclose what I can with out naming any names, but the past few days have been stressful.

This weeks FREE single is LOL from Little Jackie, and can be downloaded from here...

... and the 99p film rental is A Fish Called Wanda, and is available from here.

UPDATE: It looks like for some unknown reason Apple have pulled this weeks 99p film rental A Fish Called Wanda, and replaced it with The Usual Suspects. Thanks Barry for the heads up.

Tags: UK iTunes FREE Single of the Week, 99p Film Of The Week iTunes offer

Apple have made available yet another "bug fix" update to the iPhone, and I updated my iPhone 3G at 1.00 am this morning (sad I know). The update went OK (taking about 10 mins to complete), but as I was getting tired I went to bed. This morning I have had a quick play, and I can confirm there are NO user experience improvements, there is still lag, poor touch screen sensitivity, and the camera is as slow as ever.

With 2 updates in the past month, the question everyone wants to know the answer to, is when will Apple fix the real bugs? so come on Apple get it sorted!!

UPDATE: I may be wrong, but there seems to be an improved 3G reception, and there seems less lag when typing text messages. If you are reading this blog and have upgraded, then post your experience in the comments section.

Tags: iPhone 2.0.2 upgrade

This morning the following email dropped into my mailbox, and considering all the problems with MobileMe, it is about time. To be honest I had considered canceling my MobileMe account and demand a refund, but I'm prepared to give it a second chance.

"We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users' patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60 day extension. This is in addition to the one month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe's launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around. Read this article for more details.

The MobileMe Team"

Tags: MobileMe

Following on from the announcement that Best Buy will sell iPhones, I have heard that Apple are planning a similar exercise in the UK, and that sometime in the next few weeks they will announce their strategy. It is unclear at this time if it will be all or just a select few of Apple's Premium Resellers that will be selling the iPhone, or what part O2 will be playing. Could this be the beginning of the end of O2's exclusivity, or could we be going to see a Pay As You Go option from O2? Only time will tell, but be rest assured we will bring you the news as soon as we know.

Tags: iPhone 3G coming to an Apple Premium Reseller

I have been meaning to write a post on the quantity and more importantly the quality of the iPhone/iPod Touch apps available on the App Store. For me about 95% of the apps on the App Store have been very disappointing, and I find myself asking myself "why?" "what is the point of this app?", and in some cases because there is no real try before you buy options (other than some lite apps), I have wasted good money on apps that I thought sounded good, but end up being removed from my iPhone as they were pointless or became too boring to keep. I personally think Apple are partly to blame for the messy App Store, as Steve Jobs seemed to keen to announce how many apps there were in the store at launch, but come on Steve how may of these launch apps did you have installed on your iPhone? That said there are now some very good, and very useful apps beginning to appear and being announced, and for me the following apps (in no particular order) have a worthy place on my iPhone:

1. Light - a free torch like app. Whilst looking for the app to link too, I discovered Apple have removed the app because they did not like an element of a version update!! come on Apple get you act together, you are happy for crap rip off apps to be made available, but when a developer adds a feature you don't like or agree with you pull the app.
2. Palringo - a free instant messenger app
3. Twinkle - the best free Twitter app
4. Picoli - a very cool image enhancement app for pictures taken with the iPhone's camera
5. SpeakEasy - a very good voice/sound recording app
6. DataCase - for me the killer iPhone app that I use to carry documents with me
7. TubeStatus - for free London Tube line status information
8. Tris - a very good free Tetris game
9. Bejeweled 2 - my most favorite of games

Other notable apps that I have installed, but rarely use are:

Facebook, Twitterrific and Monkey Ball.

Below is a screenshot of the apps I have downloaded (either free or paid for) from the App Store, and you can see for yourself the apps I have either removed or just decided not to install.

There are still a number of apps I plan to buy, but there is only so much money you can justify spending in a month.

I would be interested your thoughts on the app store, and the apps that you think are worthy of any iPhone or iPod Touch, so please either drop me a line, or add your comments or favorite apps to the comments section of this post.

I hesitate to report this, as for me this has to be the most pointless freebee on iTunes, a free clip of Get Smart. Why do we have to download a clip? when all other films can be previewed online. Anyway if you are interested you can download the clip here.

Could this be the killer iPhone/iPod Touch app we've all been waiting for? Well for me yes it is. DataCase allows you to easily upload, download and view files on your iPhone or iPod Touch. This afternoon I downloaded and installed DataCase to my iPhone, and in the few hours i've used it, I have been totally wowed by it. Setting up the application couldn't be easier, you just launch it, and as long as it is connected to a WiFi network you will be given two options to connect, either http or ftp.

I chose to connect using an ftp client and and to ensure that not just anyone can connect to your iPhone/iPod Touch, DataCase prompts you to accept the incoming connection. So far I have loaded an Excel Spreadsheet, a PDF and a copy of one of my websites. All of these work like a dream, and now finally I can carry files and information with me on my iPhone

For more information check out Veiosoft's website.

Tags: DataCase