Apple iPhone4 and iOS4.0 - Thread

There are now 250k apps in the apple app store with about 1,000 a day being approved/added right now. It's just crazy, 249k of them are crap. I hang on the apple app developers forums and it's like a competition for all the high school kids to see who can make the most apps not the most money, one 16 year old kid has over 100 apps and makes $40 a month from all of them combined :) apps are the new form of spam.
 
Yeah, agreed. I have a friend who made a nice little Android app for location-based reminders. I use that one. But so many of them are just awful.

Myself, I am focusing most on experimenting with how to use the devices to tell or augment stories. Working with location based stuff, AR and OpenGL. Fun stuff.
 
My thought is that if you want a cell phone just to make calls, there are phones and plans that do that very well and cost quite a bit less than any of the smart phones.

But the iPhone and others are information appliances that also act as phones.

I agree that most of the apps are done well, or at least offer nothing in the way of utility. Most are games.

But the ones that work well . . . well . . . work well.
 
pCam is pretty damn nice! Still don't see that for the Android yet (they should port it though, not that complicated of an app in terms of hardware dependence).

I like games on my phone. When I am waiting for people, I play them. Things like Angry Birds, Spider, Ragdoll Blaster 1 & 2 have been a lot of fun and really use the touch interface well.

What I want is someone to make the android allow video in so it can be used as a monitor. THAT would sell one to me in a heartbeat. I'd LOVE to be able to use it for a simple monitor.
 
grimepoch said:
pCam is pretty damn nice! Still don't see that for the Android yet (they should port it though, not that complicated of an app in terms of hardware dependence).

I like games on my phone. When I am waiting for people, I play them. Things like Angry Birds, Spider, Ragdoll Blaster 1 & 2 have been a lot of fun and really use the touch interface well.

What I want is someone to make the android allow video in so it can be used as a monitor. THAT would sell one to me in a heartbeat. I'd LOVE to be able to use it for a simple monitor.
Click to expand...

What do you mean allow video? My HTC shoots video and I can use the live view for AR apps. You mean plug a video camera in via USB?
 
No, plug like composite or hdmi IN so that it can be used for a display device. With such a nice screen on my iPhone, I'd have loved hooking it to my camera on a boom if I needed it in a pinch just for framing.

But from apple, yeah, that will never happen.
 
Hmmm, wonder if I can do that on the android...you have a lot more access to low-level system stuff...will check it out.
 
There's a lot of really great apps that aren't games:

- Pulse News Reader (visual RSS reader, no subscription, saves to device to read offline)
- PayPal (send/request money by contact list, bump to transfer $$)
- Red Laser (scan barcode to check prices and nearby stores for cheaper)
- iTranslate (translation on the go)
- StarWalk (awesome for star gazing)
- Wolfram Alpha (very good reference tool)
- LED Flashlight (uses the flash as a flashlight)
- Bump (bump fists to transfer contact card)
- Skype (leave on in background, save minutes)
- Pandora (couldn't live without it, especially at the gym)
- AutoStitch (panoramic photos)
- Pro HDR (hdr photos)
- Reel Director (like iMovie for iPhone, but with more power)
- Yelp (saves me from bad food on a near-daily basis)
- Flixster (showtimes when out; buy tickets; see rotten tomatoes reviews)
- RoadCam OR (map or list view of all traffic cameras in my State. Awesome to avoid traffic)
- Sit or Squat (life saver on East Coast trips. Locates nearest bathroom with user tips on how to get in, how clean it is, etc.)
- SoundHound (like Shazaam, on steroids)
- Guitar Toolkit (handy!)

I could go on... but I am getting tired of it... Movies and games on plane rides make time fly. I got lost in the original Final Fantasy, watched a movie, and before I knew it I was landing. All on one battery charge (really lasts a long time in airplane mode).

Also I've had no antenna problems on my phone and neither I nor my friend are using a case. I've even done the death grip during a call to see how long it could hold out and it never dropped, even though I started with only 3 bars. Anandtech has the best and most thorough technical review on the issue. To sum it up, all phones attenuate, most phones lose about 10db with a grip that covers the antenna. The iPhone loses about 20db of signal... but it holds onto signal better than any other phone, in fact it holds calls at -121db whereas most drop around -107db.

So it's kind of an overblown joke. I guess if you had such a weak signal that you were at -120 and gave the phone a light touch it might drop a call in a few seconds... but the same could be said if you were at -107 on another phone... and on another phone, you couldn't even get a signal at -120db. So really, whatever.

Besides, the vast majority of people have cases on their phones (80%+) so as small as an issue as this is... it gets even smaller. Waste of time if you ask of me.

I've been thrilled with my iPhone 4.
 
I hate to admit that I'm considering using my phone as an MP3 player but one way I can justify paying the $200 bucks to dump my Palm Pre is to use my next phone at the gym...since I don't want to spend $$ to replace my stolen iPOD. Anyone have any real world experience with using either of these phones as their primary music device?
 
I use my iPhone as an iPod and use it at the gym with an arm holder and a different set of headphones that wrap around the back of my head and don't fall off when I am running on the treadmill. I like to listen to Pandora while I work out.

I think either phone platform would work fine in this regard.

I also use my phone in the car as my car radio has an iPod connection and the iPhone does work through it and the car can change songs and such. Works pretty cool.

Last night one of my friends could play a vimeo video on his Nexus one while I could not on my iPhone. +1 to Android (although he hacked his to get it to work, it still worked) on that front.
 
Rick Meyer said:
I hate to admit that I'm considering using my phone as an MP3 player but one way I can justify paying the $200 bucks to dump my Palm Pre is to use my next phone at the gym...since I don't want to spend $$ to replace my stolen iPOD. Anyone have any real world experience with using either of these phones as their primary music device?
Click to expand...

Yeah all the time. that seems to be what the iPhone is best at. I've used it at the gym for watching tv shows, listening to music, etc. Also with the Android now, music works fine.

Time was, back when I had my palm treo, that music playing was sketchy. But that's what they all do well now.
 
Just ordered mine. I went with the griffen with the cool cross pattern on the back.

Pertaining to the DCMA stuff, I imagine Apple will start following suite with what Canon is doing with their newer hardware, making it harder to hack. I think with OS4 it's already hard to go back to 3 if you wanted (although I so know someone with a 3GS that was able to go back).
 
Mark Harris said:
Speaking of iPhone, this is interesting. Curious to see what effect this will have on the iPhone ecosystem...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/t...-E-FB-SM-LIN-EWA-072610-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click
Click to expand...
Not just the iPhone ecosystem, but ... everything else too. How is this any different than what Vitaliy's doing with the GH13? Or for people who want to create a Hackintosh, is "jailbreaking" OSX now allowable? I'm sure the lawyers are just getting started in trying to figure out what this means, but this could have some rather significant wide-ranging ramifications for closed-system vendors.
 
Well its pretty widely understood that Apple tolerates jailbreaks and hackintosh cause its free r&d. But agreed this will be interesting...
 
I'd think it would lead to increased iPhone and iPad sales, I hacked / jailbroke my older iPhone so I could put my T mobile sim chip in it, this let me use my iPhone on my cheaper t mobile company plan.

The latest iPad update blocks it from being jail broken, for now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top