Apple has released a number of new television ads aimed at increasing awareness of the iPhone 3G. Specifically, the ads focus on speed, GPS capabilities and finally the price reduction. Twice as fast, half the price. One of the new ads titled "Work Friendly" tabs the iPhone as a phone that "works great with work".

I have discovered the most amazing website and iPhone/iPod Touch application called “Pandora”. If you love music, as I do, and have never heard of Pandora today is your lucky day. You have just hit the jackpot! Every now and again, I run across something that totally blows me away, and I can’t wait to share this with you. It seems that since the op

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone

When I first heard that the iPhone WordPress app was open source I thought that was cool, but what about the SDK NDA (that's nondisclosure agreement, which means you won't share any information you're told with anyone)? It would seem that the fine folks at WordPress aren't too worried about that bothersome NDA because they are now sharing the source code of the app via their SVN server. It'll be interesting to see if Apple releases the legal hounds upon WordPress or not. If they do it means that Apple is still considering the iPhone SDK NDA serious business, but if they just let WordPress distribute the code I wage we'll see plenty of other devs posting iPhone code of their own.

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Filed under: iPhone

The iPhone 3G is a hot commodity, as you may have noticed by reading every other post here at TUAW. These things are selling like hot cakes, which I assume sell very well, and are hard to keep in stock. AT&T has posted a note letting people know that they are plum out of iPhones at their retail stores. You can snag one from AT&T by using their 'direct fulfilment' option which means you order the iPhone and AT&T will ship it to the store when it is ready (and then you can just stroll in to pay for it). If you go that route be prepared to wait 14 days or so, depending on the model, to get your iPhone. At least you don't have to stand in line!

O2 has all been moving iPhones like nobodies business. The iPhone is in short supply in the O2 shops, though this website will be updated with stores that have them in stock. If you like to shop online, you're out of luck as the O2 online store is out of iPhones. O2 expects a shipment of iPhones on Friday, so if you're in the UK you just have to hold out a little longer.

[via Engadget]

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The iPhone 3G delivers on its promises by adding critical features and sharper performance. The iTunes App Store is pretty amazing, and the 3G support is more than welcome. We still have a few gripes, but the iPhone 3G is a big improvement over the original model.

It's no secret that I love iPhone apps. You can find me browsing the App Store more often than I'd like to reveal. But getting to my point, while browsing the store, I've noticed a few things that probably need to be addressed in an upcoming update. For instance, after I install updates to applications [...]

Good news, Windows users! If you were feeling dismayed about your inability to jailbreak your iPhone because Pwonage Tool 2.0 isn't Win compatible, WinPwn 2.0 is now available. You can both unlock and jailbreak your iPhone 3G, though you can only unlock your first-gen iPhone. The main site, winpwn.com, has already been taken down, but [...]

While most of the attention has been on iPhone 3G stock at Apple Stores (rightfully so, since Apple is hoarding most of them) anyone not in driving distance of an Apple Store has to get theirs in AT&T; land. So here's the sorta good news, if you're patient: If you do AT&T;'s direct fulfillment deal—pay for it in full, then they call you to pick it up when it arrives—you'll get your phone in about two weeks on average, guaranteed. And the bad news:

All the phones are going to the direct fulfillment program, so don't expect to just walk into a store and buy one. They're not getting them, and won't, until the shortage is over:

We hope to begin re-stocking our stores as soon as we can, but first priority goes to those customers who purchased through direct fulfillment.

Our advice? If you've gotta have one NOW, take Friday off, drive to an Apple Store before it opens, and make an urban camping trip out of it—bring beef jerky, a fishing pole (to fend off panhandlers) and guitar to sing Kumbaya, which, with any luck, will drive people out of line. [AT&T;]

While Apple's website updates its Apple Store iPhone 3G stock count every night after 9PM, the guys running the iPhone 3G availability tracker at Top Muffin say the data is actually updated throughout the day. So it hits the feed every 15 minutes, theoretically providing the most up-to-date stock count around. Or you could just, you know, call the store and have a real live person tell you to bring some sunscreen, an umbrella and some s'mores since a wave of diarrhea cut the line down to a mere 7 hours. [Top Muffin via 9to5Mac]

I'm not a Photoshop wizard. I know I do plenty of photobotching myself—guilty as charged, your honor—but unlike these brilliant Photoshop Disasters, I've to do mine in a few minutes in order to publish news on time, and they don't get published in ads, packages, or magazines. My favorite from the gallery: the frontal shot of a model wearing a pearl g-string (which even while it shows no genitals whatsoever and is from Amazon.com, could be considered NSFW by many.) Update: how could I forgot the worst Microsoft ad ever? Added.

Seriously, I love pearl g-strings, but that sex-less editing almost took my fetish away. How can anyone use the infinite power of this software to create this crap—then spend thousands of dollars publishing it in magazine covers, catalogs, product packaging, and online shops—is beyond me. Specially knowing that any of your Photobotch works have 100 times the quality of these commercial pieces. [Photoshop Disasters]

Mossberg has rolled out an in-depth review of MobileMe backed by a week of testing in today's WSJ, and if you've been following our coverage it won't come as too big of a surprise that he's not a fan. But his problems with the service go well beyond the launch hiccups you've read about. So what's got Mossberg so riled up that he's thrown down his big badhammer on MobileMe?

To summarize his grievances:

His major gripe with MobileMe is that unlike most Apple products he's reviewed, it doesn't "just work." He cites changes made on computers taking "15 minutes, at best" to sync out to the web interface and iPhones, which is a big no-no for a service touting instant syncing across all of your devices. Other results from his test are equally disappointing:

• Web interface sluggish, and needs to be hard-refreshed to get changes to show up.
• Web-based storage is full of bugs when trying to connect with Windows machines
• Tons of incompatibilities bringing Mac contact groups and calendars into Outlook—things showing up as separate address books and calendars rather than groups or merging into the main calendar.
• Synched contacts loading slowly on iPhone, occasionally loading with no phone numbers and dropping custom ringtones (to play the Rocky theme when Pogue calls?)

In short, MobileMe is still full of substantial bugs and isn't close to being ready for prime time, if you haven't been able to tell already. Coming from Mossberg, though, means Apple needs to get serious about fixing this thing. So f you're on the fence of whether to drop the $100 on a subscription, it's probably a good idea to wait a bit.

Here's the report straight from Walt's iSight.

[AllThingsD]

At $449, MyAccountsToGo Dynamics GP and MyAccountsToGo SAP BusinessOne are the most expensive iPhone Apps available as of right now. It's under the Finance category and is designed for sales, marketing and finance people to access their transactions, statements, and other corporate terms that we have no clue about. Since the most we know about "business" is "business time", we can't say whether or not the $449 is worth the cash, but we do know that you should buy both apps and just make it an even $898. There's a free version if you want to know what the excitement's all about. Just don't accidentally buy the paid version.

When Nintendo isn't busy heating their offices with a money furnaces just to wipe the sweat off their brow with money, sometimes Nintendo president Satoru Iwata takes a moment to step down from his sweaty throne to lay the smackdown (generally through a stinky sock filled with golden pirate coins) on competing consumer electronics. This time, he responded to those thinking that the iPhone might be the new DS:

I use the iPhone myself. I know that it's an attractive product, but when I look carefully at the iPhone's users vs. the users of our Nintendo DS, I understand there are some overlaps. And if you ask 'Is the overlap too big?,' my answer is no, not so much.

Iwata's argument may be true, but the real reason that Apple can't touch the DS market is that Nintendo has sold like a bajillion of the things already. Oh yeah, and the iPhone still has some control issues... [Forbes via DSFanboy]

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth (who we interviewed last year) announced that he's out to make Linux a better-looking operating system than Mac OS X—within two years. An ambitious goal! At O'Reilly's OSCON conference this week, Shuttleworth said:

"I think the great task in front of us in the next two years is to lift the experience of the Linux desktop from something stable and usable and not pretty, to something that's art," Shuttleworth said. "Think of the way the iPhone uses a pure software experience, it abstracts away all the hardware," he said. "You can paint anything on the screen because it's all software."

Everyone loves eye candy on their desktop—Apple's record-setting Mac sales can attest to that—but is looks is the main hurdle for Linux adoption amongst Normals? Seems like the inability to run Windows and Mac-only software like Microsoft Office or Outlook/Entourage natively, and niggly problems like Wi-Fi and video driver incompatibilities are the biggest problems. What about you? Would a better-looking Linux make you switch? Or is it deeper than that? Tell us what would get you to go Linux all the way (or what got you, if you're already there) in the comments. Gorgeous Linux desktop image by Andrew Katzman.

Arthur C. Clarke once famously wrote that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. One corollary...

GarageGames on Thursday has announced that their Torque game engine can be used to create iPhone games. Torque is inexpensive...

Between Enigmo and Cro-Mag Rally, Pangea Software decided to recycle its existing games to support the new platform rather...

Conspiracy theories tend to run rampant when a phone (or any object of desire, for that matter) that's produced in absolutely enormous quantities dries up in retail locations. Are they really sold out? Is the retailer trying to work prospective buyers into a frenzied lather? Is the CEO sleeping on a bed fashioned of gilded iPhone 3Gs?

We had the iPhone Dev Team releasing their Pwnage Tool 2.0 to jailbreak, unlock and activate iPhone firmware 2.0, then we had iPhone hacking expert Nate True figure out a way to tether jailbroken iPhone 3G to the laptop, and now we have news that iPhone hacking community has successfully ported the iPhone Open Source Tool Chain to iPhone firmware 2

This was what I really needed, it was rather confusing, every blog telling me what to do, hope this helps those like me who has no idea what hacking the iphone is about!