As Steve Jobs would have it, the iPhone 4 unveiled Monday represents the biggest revision for the iPhone since the device’s original 2007 release. Looking back now, it’s tempting to lump the iPhone 3G and the 3GS into a single category. It’s not hard to see the latter as an incremental improvement on the former—the two had more in common than not, and the devices were almost exactly the same.

[From Hands on with iPhone 4 | Phones | iPhone Central | Macworld]

Technorati Tags: iPhone

Two years ago I linked to a web site called Ninjawords — a fast, simple online dictionary backed by a good data source (Wiktionary).

The developers behind Ninjawords, Matchstick Software, have released an iPhone version, currently available from the App Store for just $2. Here’s how they describe it:

Ninjas are three things:

They’re smart
They’re quick
They’re deadly accurate
Ninjawords is a dictionary for the iPhone built on these principles. We made it because we saw that the low-cost dictionaries on the App Store are slow, cluttered, and all use the same bad data source (WordNet) for their definitions.

Ninjawords takes a different approach. We use awesome, fresh, high quality data with more words and synonyms than you can throw a ninja star at. And best of all, when you look up your words, they all stay on the page. No need to flip back and forth between different pages as you look up multiple words.

It’s a terrific app — pretty much exactly what I’ve always wanted in an iPhone dictionary, and, yes, with both a better user experience and better dictionary content than the other low-cost dictionaries in the App Store.

But Ninjawords for iPhone suffers one humiliating flaw: it omits all the words deemed “objectionable” by Apple’s App Store reviewers, despite the fact that Ninjawords carries a 17+ rating.

Apple censored an English dictionary. [From Daring Fireball]

Technorati Tags: The most fucked up thing I saw today

I’ll see how it progresses but I’m happy with it so far.

nnwbeta.com beta releases of NetNewsWire/Mac NetNewsWire 3.2 beta

NetNewsWire 3.2b6 syncs with Google Reader, adds a new Send to Instapaper command, and shows off a brand-new app icon by RogueSheep.

Those features are, not coincidentally, among the top feature requests.

It’s still a beta, though: it’s unfinished software, with bugs — known and unknown — and incomplete features. We say this not to scare you off but to inform. NetNewsWire has a seven-year-long tradition of doing public betas because we know there are lots of folks who like to help — and we appreciate the help.

Download
NetNewsWire 3.2b6 (4.5 MB)

Requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

Before running, it’s a very good idea to back up your current NetNewsWire preferences and data, in case you have to go back. They’re here:

[home folder]/Library/Application Support/NetNewsWire/ [home folder]/Library/Preferences/com.ranchero.NetNewsWire.plist The main point of 3.2 This is supposed to be a minor upgrade. And it is, largel [From nnwbeta.com: NetNewsWire 3.2 beta]

Technorati Tags: blogging, online

Safari 4

Apple have made a public beta of the latest version of their Safari web browser available for download. It is a pretty thing indeed. There are a number of bells and whistles that we have seen before (it looks and feels a lot like Chrome). There are a number of new features like the ability to save a web page as an application a la Google Gears or Fluid (edit: although I have yet to find this function). There is also a start page not unlike Chrome or Opera that takes your history and shows you which sites you are going to the most. Pretty useful, not especially innovative but it it executed really well. I’m going to keep working with it for a while where I can. Note that I say where I can.

Sadly I have discovered a couple of problems already that have hindered my experience. First, Safari 4 does not play nice with GrowlMail. If you have that plugin installed then Safari will cause Mail mail to repeatedly crash when it checks for new mail. This is very frustrating, especially as you need to open mail to disable GrowlMail properly. In order to trash GrowlMail I had to remove the following from my Library.

/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.bundle
/Library/Receipts/GrowlMail.pkg
/Library/Receipts/growlmailPreflight.pkg

…and then disable GrowlMail in the Growl Prefs pane. It works now I have both S4 and Mail open at the same time. It looked for a while like that was never going to happen again. There is a discussion about this on the Apple Support site.

A more pressing problem and one that I can upon as I was about to write a glowing review was that it appears impossible to use the WYSIWYG interface of WordPress when adding a new post. I was writing this post and attempted to insert a link and the screen went dark as if some javascript was running and then nothing. The box that I wanted was behind a wall of grey and I couldn’t click the grey away. It was most frustrating. See screenshot below.

So I know that it is a preview release and there are bound to be bugs but this means that I can’t use the browser for blogging which really sucks. I hope it gets fixed soon. I’m still playing with it and if I find anything else I will post it up here.

Apple – Safari – Download Safari – Download the world’s fastest and most innovative browser for Mac and PC.

Technorati Tags: apple, internet, safari, tools

This does beg the question of what will happen to the iPod Touch. With the iPhone now down at the €200 mark does that mean a forthcoming price crash for its non communicative little brother?

Did I mention that it was also available in white? Check it out here iPhone on Apple’s website

In a keynote speech today, Steve Jobs announced the next version of the iPhone, complete with 3G networking, better battery life, a slimmer profile, and global positioning system support.

The phone features a black plastic back, solid metal buttons, the same 3.5-inch LCD display, and a headphone jack mounted flush with the enclosure (which should make third-party headphone vendors happy).

With GPS, the iPhone can be tracked across a Google map as a pulsating blue dot. The iPhone can still derive location data from cell phone towers and WiFi networks.

In terms of battery life, the iPhone 3G offers five hours of 3G talk time, 5 – 6 hours of browsing time, seven hours of video time, or 300 hours of standby time.

The new iPhone will be available in 70 countries over the next several months via a variety of carriers, including Canada, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and many others.

The iPhone 3G will start $199 for an 8GB model. The 16GB model will sell for $299, and is available in a black or white backing. It will be available in all countries starting July 11. iPhone 3G announced – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

In other news Steve Jobs also announced Mobile Me which is apparently a re-branding of the old .Mac service with a slight price reduction. They seemed to really be bigging this new version up. It boasts total syncing throughout all of your applications on you iPhone, Mac and even PC. I’m looking forward to hearing more about this little fella.

I didn’t even get a chance to finish this post when the backlash appears to have started already. Engadget are griping about the size.
More news on MacRumours and The UnOfficial Apple Weblog

Technorati Tags: Features, iPhone

Apple is about to kick off the 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference with their Keynote speech which takes place at 10am Pacific, June 9th, at Moscone West. We will provide live Keynote coverage at MacRumorsLive.com. We also have alternative coverage via SMS, Twitter, Spoiler Free. Also a reminder that iPhone users can visit MacRumorsLive and will be redirected to a specially formatted site.- Attendees have already moved indoors, and one covered banner has been spotted.
– Apple Store Japan, Hong Kong, Australia Korea are down.
– iPhone Dev Center is down.WWDC 2008 Keynote Coverage Live – Mac Rumors

[Update: Apple Store Netherlands is also down. I'm hoping this is good news]

Technorati Tags: iPhone

Apple also announced today the launch of iTunes movies in the UK.

“We’re kicking off movies on the iTunes Store in the UK with over 700 films for purchase and rent,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We think customers in the UK are going to love being able to enjoy their favorite movies on their iPod, iPhone or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV.”

For movie rentals, customers have up to 30 days to start watching it, and once a movie has been started customers have 48 hours to finish it.
iTunes movies are available at £6.99 for library title purchases and £10.99 for new releases. iTunes movie rentals are £2.49 for library title rentals and £3.49 for new releases, and high definition versions are priced at one pound more. Apple Launches iTunes Movies in UK – Mac Rumors

Technorati Tags: iTunes

Technorati Tags: iTunes