iPhone Apps

Here's an article written by Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus. He is leading authority on Mac OS X, the author of more than 50 books including iPhone For Dummies 3d Edition, and a Mac consultant, troubleshooter, and trainer. Visit his Web site at www.boblevitus.com; e-mail comments to doc@boblevitus.com. Read his article below.

With more than 85,000 applications available for the iPhone and iPod touch, there is almost certainly an app for whatever it is you love. I've been working on a new book that will feature descriptions of the best apps in more than a dozen categories and have been spending a lot of quality time testing various ones. Here are a few that really impressed me:

I love to read, so a couple of my very favorite apps are Comics and Stanza, which are both free. Comics gives you access to a huge comic book library-store, plus a great interface for reading them. It comes with over 50 free comics, with thousands more available for a buck or two.
Stanza is an award-winning app for eBooks. The Stanza store lets you choose from more than 50,000 contemporary books at prices well below the printed versions, plus access to another 50,000 free classics and recent original works.

You'll never run out of reading material with one or both of these on your iPhone or iPod touch.
I also like to shoot digital photos and movies with my iPhone 3GS, so I am enthralled with ReelDirector ($7.99) and Photogene ($2.99). ReelDirector is a way-cool video-editing app for your iPhone 3GS. You can rearrange clips on a timeline, choose from 27 beautiful transitions, add fade-in and fade-out effects, and create great-looking titles and credits. Photogene ($2.99) helps you improve digital photos with a terrific array of useful tools such as cropping, sharpening, color and gamma correction, exposure and contrast controls, straightening, rotating, cartoon text bubbles, special effects like pencil, sepia-tone, and heat-map, plus a sweet selection of frames in a variety of shapes and sizes. And both apps feature thoughtfully designed user interfaces that make using them easy and fun.

I love music and played The Beatles: Rock Band on my son's Xbox until my fingers bled. So it's no surprise that I'm totally hooked on the RockBand iPhone app ($9.99). If you've ever played the Beatles or any of the other Rock Band games for Xbox, PS3, or Wii, the iPhone rendition is just like them but on a smaller screen.

There are lots of knock-offs of Rock Band in the App store but none of them is as polished and fun as the real thing.

Finally, though the 2009 baseball season is drawing to a close, the MLB.com At Bat app ($9.99) rocks. With streaming video over WiFi or 3G, multiple camera angles, live audio feeds, condensed games, and more, it's a must-have for baseball fans.

As many of you will be aware, Apple is hosting a music themed event in San Francisco on September 9th. The tagline on the invitations reads “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it,” which certainly suggests music will play an important role in the keynote. While there are certainly rumors surrounding an update to the iPod line, there are also many other rumors that have been circulating the Internet, so here’s a round-up of all the possibilities we could see from Apple tomorrow.

iTunes 9

The last major update to iTunes included the App Store, along with updates to iTunes DJ. This upcoming event is rumored to see the release of iTunes 9 which could include the option to incorporate your library and listening styles with your favorite social networks, such as Facebook and Last.FM.
A screenshot of what could be iTunes 9 featuring social network integration

A long-awaited feature from many customers has been to have the ability to re-organize your iPhone/iPod touch applications from within iTunes, which would then synchronize across to your device. According to the Boy Genius Report, this could also be making an appearance in iTunes 9, something I personally am certainly looking forward to.

It doesn’t stop there, however. The third major update that could feature in iTunes 9 is support for Blu-ray movies. This was rumored for the previous upgrade to iTunes, but with HD DVD out of the race, it’s more possible that Apple hase decided to jump on the band-wagon with Blu-ray support.

iTunes 9 could also see an iTunes Unlimited service come to life. Similar to what’s available with the Microsoft Zune, customers would have full access to the entire iTunes Store, with the option to buy the tracks to keep, if you’d prefer. A similar service to this has been launched in the UK, called Spotify, and has been incredibly successful.

iPod and Nike+ Refreshes

Previous to the iPod shuffle, the last iPod to receive an update was the iPod nano—a year ago on September 9th 2008. Sources believe that the iPod nano could see a slight update in its design, making it more convenient to hold and use, especially during sporting activities. It is also expected that Apple will add a camera to both the iPod nano and iPod touch, making them more useful and more media-based rather than simply music players. Apple Premium Resellers are reporting they are not replenishing their stock of the iPod nano, iPod touch or iPod classic, which leads to believe that updates will be appearing for all three models.

This could also include a refresh for Nike+ to include support for the iPod range, and also the iPhone 3G and 3GS. With the iPhone’s GPS capabilities, the Nike+ software could provide a lot more information that could synchronize back to your computer for you to review.

Apple iTablet

While rumors have been coming in about this for quite some time, it’s quite unlikely we’ll see such a device on Wednesday. If only because of the music theme for the event. It’s also plausible such a device would warrant its own event, possibly closer to the Christmas holiday season, if not in February 2010 at another event. It would be great for an iTablet, or iPad to be unveiled tomorrow, but, as I said, we’re clutching at straws for that one. It’s unknown at this point whether such a device would use a modified version of the iPhone OS or of Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Findings within the accessibility settings within Snow Leopard that reveal full-size keyboards lead us to believe Snow Leopard could be the basis for a tablet device upon its launch.

Apple TV

We mentioned this last week on Appletell that an Apple TV update could be the “outsider” of the event. Wall Street analyst Gene Munster believes Apple could be phasing out the smaller 40GB model to leave space for an update to the device. If an iTunes Unlimited option also included TV shows and movies, the Apple TV could become quite popular. Even if you were required to pay a monthly subscription to access the iTunes store via the Apple TV, it would still be a hit. It’s certainly an outsider at this point, but there’s always hope for the “One More Thing…” section of the media press conference on September 9th.

Tomorrow, all will be revealed

So there you have it; the most likely (and not so likely) updates that could be emerging from Apple HQ tomorrow. Is there anything in particular you’ve been waiting to see, or something else you wish would get a little love from Apple this September? Personally, I feel we’ll see a refresh for the iPod classic, iPod nano and iPod touch, along with iTunes 9. An update for Nike+ could also be likely, while I feel an Apple Tablet and a new Apple TV are less likely to appear at this particular event. Feeling the same? Let us know below in the comments.

SOURCE : APPLE'S SEPT 9 EVENT

Apple today announced that iPhone and iPod touch users have downloaded over 1.5 billion applications in the App Store's first year of operation. There are currently over 65,000 applications available in the store.

Apple today announced that customers have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications in just one year from its revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. The App Store is also growing at an incredible pace with more than 65,000 apps and more than 100,000 developers in the iPhone Developer Program.

"The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up."
Apple also notes that it has sold over 40 million iPhones and iPod touches capable of running App Store applications.

The App Store surpassed one billion downloads less than three months ago. Today's announcement suggests that the 500 million downloads since that time occurred two weeks faster than the previous 500 million, demonstrating continued acceleration in the download rate.

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