Do you play a bad guy in Hollywood films or just generally drive around in a Hummer with a fat, unlit cigar hanging out of your mouth? Oakley has the iPhone case for you. Made from their patented Unobtainium rubber, the black case offers full access to the iPhone’s controls as well as dock and headphone ports. $30 at Oakley’s website.
Looking to replace your iPhone headphones? Do you also want a pair with a built-in microphone and play/pause/answer features? They may be tougher to find than you think. Third-party headphone makers have been slow to market with their full-featured earphones. Some sell extension-cord dongles that add the microphone/button control to regular earphones. But many people find that solution unsatisfactory. Here’s what your selection looks like right now for full-featured earphones:
Ah, the crack of the bat. The smell of spilled beer. The glow of your iPhone. Show your support for your beloved baseball or other sports team with an iPhone wallpaper. There are tons of wallpapers for sports teams at Theme My iPhone, including baseball wallpapers. Actually, it’s one of the best sites to find iPhone wallpapers, period. Cubs fan? You may never win the World Series, but at least you’ve got a sexy iPhone wallpaper. Cheer up.
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Griffin has just announced an updated version of their iTrip Autopilot that allows playback of music from an iPhone over a car’s FM stereo radio. It also charges the iPhone by plugging into the 12v power port (cigarette lighter). In addition to the iPhone, it also works with all docking station-compatible iPods, including the iPod Touch.
Perhaps the most important feature for iPhone and iPod Touch users is the iTrip’s remote, which removes the need to manipulate the iPhone’s touchscreen interface, which can take more of your concentration than a normal iPod. This is an especially important feature when driving. The iTrip’s controls allow you to play, skip, and pause tracks as well as change the volume.
The iTrip automatically scans through the FM frequencies for the 3 best stations that will deliver the cleanest sound. It also saves those stations to presets for repeat use. Song details will display over a RDS-enabled car radio display.
The control unit also features a light ring that displays red, yellow, or green depending on the level of charge of your iPhone or iPod. The Griffin site still lists it as “Coming Soon” with a price of $99.00.
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It’s that time again. More iPhone and iPod Touch webapps have been added to the A World of iPhone Links page. I scan through the hundreds of iPhone webapps so you don’t have to, presenting you with only the choice morsels, flambé style.
AOL Horoscopes - iPhone-optimized horoscopes. Interface is very quick and clean.
Deviantart - The Internet’s best art site now with an iPhone interface. Browse and become inspired. This site will be especially cool with 2.0’s upcoming feature to save pictures.
GravitySwarm - Asteroids for the iPhone. Neat feature that tracks where you tapped in order to direct your fire.
Modguitars - Guitar chord reference guide. Very cool site. Features a graphic of a fretboard with blue dots to show you where to put your fingers to form guitar chords. Very quick to select and show new chords. Slick.
Revision3 Mobile - Revision3 brings its online video content to the iPhone with very highly compressed video designed for transmitting wirelessly. It’s even Edge friendly.
Tankbuster - Game. Drop bombs from a great height on tanks below. Get your timing right, or your ordnance has been wasted.
Wordfind - Classic word-finding game. Find the words among a grid of letters. Words can appear horizontal, vertical, or diagonal.
ZooVision CBS Mobile News - CBS News video clips highly compressed for mobile viewing.
We’re all anticipating the arrival of the 3G iPhone soon. Similar to someone about to have a new baby, there are a few steps that should be take in preparation.
The first is to check if AT&T Wireless’s 3G network is accessible in your area. There’s no use preparing for something you can’t use. Most metropolitan areas are covered, but if you live out in the boonies, you may currently be out of luck. To check your area, travel on over to AT&T’s coverage map. You’ll see a link at the bottom that says “View 3G/Mobile Broadband coverage (in select areas).” This will bring up a list of cities sorted by state. Click on your city and a heat map will appear showing strength-of-signal coverage.
If you are going to replace the previous version of the iPhone, it may be time to plan what to do with the old one. You could give it as a gift to a loved one or keep it as a backup phone. You could jailbreak it and use it as the world’s coolest Skype phone (note: you may soon be able to do this officially soon thanks to the SDK). Or, you could sell it on eBay. There are used iPhones going for around $300 on eBay right now (but probably less once the new version comes out).
You could also prepare yourself spiritually for the 3G iPhone. Fasting will clear your mind in preparation for fighting the ADD that faster 3G speeds will surely bring. It will also save tons of money on food, which, in turn, will help you afford the iPhone and its, perhaps, more expensive data plan.
If you have any ideas on how to prepare for the iPhone, leave them in the comments section.
MacWorld’s no-so-glowing review of Fring (Skype app for jailbroken iPhones).
Our favorite iPhone-optimized RSS reader, Google Reader, just got a nice update. The first thing you have to know is that it has a new address. Because it’s still in beta, it’s not currently the default Reader that shows up when you navigate to reader.google.com. So, it’s time to tap some glass. The new address is:
http://www.google.com/reader/i/
The old and still default address is /reader/m.
The coolest feature is that each story now expands on the same page–there is no more navigating to another view to read the story and then hitting the back button to go back to the list view. Now, you tap to expand the story, then tap to contract when your finished reading.
Also, now the stars show up right next to the story and are much more easily selected. This is much easier than the old method, which required journeying to the end of the article and selecting a tiny star at the bottom of the screen.
New placement for stars.
Previous method for starring an article. Yuck.
Another update is that they have removed the Tags link. There now only two selections at the top of the landing page: Feeds and Refresh. In fact, it appears the ability to view your tagged articles has completely disappeared.
Tags go to the land of no return
Regular Google Reader (for the regular Internets) also recently added the Notes feature. You can now view those notes on your iPhone along with the original source material in the Feeds view. However, you can’t write notes for stories on your iPhone. Durn it.
I highly recommed using Google Reader on your iPhone. If you aren’t using an RSS reader to read websites you frequent, it’s time to start, especially with your iPhone. Even with the smaller loading times 3G will bring, it can save you lots of time by bringing all your news sources into one place. And the iPhone-optimized auto- formatting makes reading much, much more pleasant. Thanks again to the Google Reader team for keeping up the hustle. Glad to see they are big iPhone users as well. They also have a version optimized for the Nintendo Wii that ulitizes the Wiimote’s unique functionality.
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