Bites from the Apple: Catching Up

August 12, 2009 · Posted in Apple

After a few weeks’ hiatus due to holiday (both of the vacation variety and firecracker variety) and a home construction-enforced retreat, my RSS reader is bursting at the seams with Apple-y news, views and ephemera, so let’s get right to it:

The Tap Tap Tap blog shows with some charts culled from the Memory Status iPhone app how the additional RAM added to the iPhone 3GS helps it live up to Apple’s hype about speed.
While the new iPhone 3GS features a new 3G cellular chip that’s compatible with the new 7.2 Mbps HSDPA 3G network that AT&T will be rolling out starting later this year (and already supported by many European networks), it seems that Apple chose to not include the faster HSUPA upload speeds with the chip. Glenn Fleishman in Macworld explains that the 3GS still uses the older UMTS speed (capped at a max of 384 Kbps, though real-world speeds rarely reach that height) instead of the up to 1.9 Mbps speed of HSUPA.
Everyone knows a new iPod touch is coming in time for Apple’s annual back-to-school push (usually early to mid September), and it looks like the 3rd generation device is already being tested in the wild–but will it have a camera?
The App Store turned 1 this week. Macworld takes a look at a distinctive dozen apps that have been released during its first year.
With Amazon cutting the price of the Kindle by $60, the Apple-centric wing of the gadgetosphere has inevitably started to ponder whether this is connected to upcoming competition with the long-rumored Apple iTablet.
Instapaper, one of my fave iPhone Apps, has gotten an upgrade on its Pro version to 2.0 (on sale now for $5 at the iTunes App Store). If you’re not familiar with it, Instapaper allows you to save longer articles or blogposts from the Web and download them to your iPhone so you can read them even when not connected via cell signal or Wi-Fi. The best part of it is that it can strip out all the extraneous ads and imagery so that it’s just text. Macworld reviews the new 2.0 version (giving it 4.5 mice) and notes that it now offers RSS feed capabilities as well as the ability to move stories to an archive folder.
Yepp, Microsoft’s got another laptop hunters ad (posted over at 9to5Mac).
While Greenpeace still is after Apple to get greener in its manufacturing, one sustainability consultant has found his new iPhone to be quite a green purchase as it replaced several other devices he was using or planning to purchase.
VLC (aka, VideoLAN Client), my favorite multimedia Swiss army knife, is finally out of beta and has achieved version 1.0 status. The free download offers better stability as well as frame-by-frame playback and support for playing through AirTunes (via Macworld).
Fast Company lists their 10 favorite Mac-only apps that will make Windows users drool, including the Delicious Library media collection application. Regarding DL, however, there’s a bit of bad news–its iPhone app has been pulled from the App Store due to it running afoul of some Amazon contractual terms (as DL pulls info from Amazon’s product database)… which is a bummer.
Intuit won’t release a new version of its Quicken financial software for the Mac until 2010 (via Ars Technica)
The Apple Blog reports that Apple has started to replace defective or cracked iPhone screens while you wait at the Genius Bar. However, if you’re past the warranty period and need to do some DIY repair work, Jeff Carlson documents that painstaking of fixing his wife’s iPhone screen over at TidBITS.
Lifehacker documents how you can set up push Gmail notifications on your iPhone using the Growl notification software on your Mac and the Prowl iPhone app. In addition to Gmail, you’ll also be able to see your other Growl notifications (such as to-do reminders from OmniFocus or new tweets from Tweetie or Twitteriffic).
If you’re thinking about using AT&T’s turn-by-turn GPS service (a $10 monthly subscription), check out TUAW’s take on the thing to decide if you want to pull the trigger or wait for software from TomTom or Navigon.
I still don’t own an iPhone 3GS. My plan was to get one last weekend at the University Village Apple Store here in Seattle, but they ran out of 16 GB models by the time I got there (even after checking availability earlier in the day) and it seems all stores have been experiencing inventory problems this week (I could got either way with white or black, but I’m also getting one for my wife who requires black… which seems to be the most popular of the models).
And finally… the first music video shot on an iPhone 3GS (though, as pointed out on Mobile Crunch, where this was sourced, it’s not the first iPhone-shot music video–but it is the first from Apple’s official video capabilities):

Music Video Shot on iPhone from Kenny Mosher on Vimeo.