Entries tagged with “applications. iPhone apps” from WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

WebMD has launched Medscape Mobile, a free iPhone application for physicians.

Medscape Mobile offers drug information, clinical reference tools, medical news and continuing medical education (CME). It is the only mobile application to include specialty-specific news from Medscape's award-winning professional news team. Medscape Mobile also includes CME activities organized by specialty and designed for use on a mobile device.

Medscape Mobile is a free information service and its comprehensive features include:
 

• Drug database of over 6,000 generic and brand name drugs, plus hundreds of herbals, supplements and antidotes.
• Drug interaction checker that quickly shows interactions for a combination of up to 30 drugs, herbals and/or supplements.
• Medscape Medical News with up-to-date, specialty-focused medical content across more than 30 specialties.
• Continuing Medical Education from MedscapeCME in formats created specifically for the mobile device.
• The WebMD Health Directory featuring contact information for over 400,000 physicians, 57,000 pharmacies, and 6,000 hospitals in a convenient search format.

A new NPD Group study shows the main reasons consumers do not want to purchase an iPhone, "high price" was the second-leading reason (42 percent) after "lack of interest" (55 percent).

Based on consumer tracking information reported in NPD's "iPhone Opportunity and Demand" report:

• One in five mobile phone owners say they want to purchase an iPhone, but have not yet done so.
  
• Data plan pricing and exclusivity remain key obstacles for iPhone adoption.
  
• Reasons for not purchasing an iPhone, 18 percent of consumers who have not purchased an iPhone cited the expense of the data plan, while 21 percent said they didn't want to switch carriers.

According to NPD's director of industry analysis, Ross Rubin, "The iPhone 3G's original price of $199 set a smartphone benchmark. Halving that price to $99, while adding more features, should significantly expand the market for Apple's smartphone."

Yankee Group in their latest report "Latest Palm Device "Pre"-views Future OEM-Operator Relationships" shows the smartphone category is becoming he most important competitive battleground in wireless today:

• Forty-one percent of consumers are likely to choose an advanced OS phone as their next mobile phone purchase.
• Smartphone volumes will grow to 38 percent of all handsets by 2013, representing the largest growth opportunity within mobile devices.
• The average U.S. consumer has had 4 mobile devices, increasing his or her appetite for enhanced features and more sophisticated designs when he or she purchases a fifth device.

Traditionally, operators have had the upper hand when working with device manufacturers to bring a new device to market, but the power dynamics are shifting. With more competitive entrants, tighter budgets and increased consumer expectations, OEMs and operators need to work together, on equal ground, to thrive.

"The release of the Palm Pre spotlights the changes in the OEM-operator dynamic," says Chris Collins, Yankee Group senior analyst. "Sprint and Palm, Inc. are two companies desperate for a blockbuster hit. And as such, they are either the perfect--or worst possible--partners for one another. The fate of both companies relies on the success of their alliance around the Pre."

There are really two stories to the Palm Pre. One story is the device itself, which--though flawed--offers a compelling alternative to Apple's iPhone. From its crisp out-of-the-box experience to its innovative Touchstone recharging accessory, the Palm Pre is a beautiful and powerful entrant in a competitive category.

The current iPhone related rumors included that Steve Jobs will be back at Apple this month.  The other is that at the the Apple developers conference, they will announce a less expensive iPhone, probably $50 or $100 less than the present iPhone models.

This rumors are from anonymous sources.

Apple has posted a notice on its website warning that their earbuds can give electric charges, like when you rub your hair with balloon.

There doesn’t seem to be any health problem concerned with the condition.

When using headphones in areas where the air is very dry, it is easy to build up static electricity and possible for your ear to receive a small electrostatic discharge from the headphones. Receiving a static shock from a pair of earbuds does not necessarily indicate an issue with the iPod, iPhone, or earbuds.

This condition is very similar to dragging your feet across a carpet and receiving a static shock by touching a door knob. However, instead of the static charge building up on your body, the charge builds up on the device that the earbuds are connected to. Likewise, instead of the static buildup discharging through your finger when you touch a door knob, it discharges through the earbuds.

Some people in the past have been concerned with “bud crud” a similar to condition to what happens to workers who wear ear plugs. The bugs carry bacteria and could lead to ear infections.

Acco rding to Business Week, AT&T is considering lowering the month cost of the monthly plan rates for the iPhone.  "One plan that could be introduced as early as late May would include limited data access at a $10 monthly reduction."

The cost of the making the iPhone has been reduced and a new iPhone is going to be introduced in in June or July.  There are rumors that there may be cheaper version of the iPhone. Price reductions could lure the fence-sitters.

The good news for those on other carrier's networks is that the competition may also reduce data plans and smartphone prices.

iPhone eBook reade rapp-maker Lexcycle has been acquired by Amazon.com. Their iPhone eReader app, Stanza grew out brainstormed ideas into one of the most downloaded iPhone applications.
 

Lexcycle is not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user experience as a result of the acquisition. Customers will still be able to browse, buy, and read eBooks.

Currently Stanza supports Adobe PDF, EPUB format, the XML-based standard format and support for Adobe's eBook content protection technology, allowing users to purchase commercially published eBooks. The Stanza app also delivers content from magazine websites including The Atlantic Monthly and Wired.

Cinthia Portugal, a spokeswoman for Amazon, told the New York Times, "It's very early days for e-books, and we believe there is a lot of innovation ahead of us. Lexcycle is a smart, innovative company, and we look forward to working with them to innovate on behalf of readers."

Stanza has more than 1.3 million users in 60 countries. Speculators suggest that Amazon may sell books through the app as well as use some of its technology for the kindle.  There is also a desktop version of the Stanza

USA Today reports it has heard from people familiar with the situation that Verizon is talking with Apple to sell an iPhone. The article claims that it will be for the CDMA network.

"They declined to be named because they aren't authorized to speak publicly. "

The backlash to this leaked information from tech journalists is huge.  Ars Technica says that it doesn't make sense for Verizon to use iPhone until its more GSM friendly LTE network is built out.  Also Apple's Tim Cook recently said that Apple is "very happy" with its relationship with AT&T.

Cook dismissed the idea of making a CDMA- iPhone. "From a technology point of view, Verizon is on CDMA, and we chose from the beginning of the iPhone to focus on one phone for the whole world"

"When you do that, you really go down the GSM route because CDMA really doesn't have a life to it after a certain point in time."

AT&T's exclusive iPhone deal ends in 2010. AT&T is currently in talks with Apple to continue the deal.

It looks like AT&T will offer the iPhone 3G at a higher price to non-committal iPhone users who don't want to sign up for a two year contract o even activate the phone on the AT&T network.

According to a presentation leaked to Boy Genius, AT&T will selli 8GB and 16GB iPhones to existing subscribers at $599 and $699 without requiring activation or a two-year contract.

An iPhone Data Plan is required if the phone is activated on the AT&T network. The no-commitment-priced iPhone 3Gs are limited to  one per customer.

The fact that they are selling iPhones without contracts and the new announcement of the 3.0 iPhone OS, is leading to rumors that there will be a new iPhone on the way to market soon.

The South By Southwest music/film/interactive festival in Austin was attended by so many iPhone users, AT&T had problems keeping the network working.

According to Daniel Terdiman at CNET, "it was nearly impossible to call anyone inside the Austin Convention Center because the cell service was so poor. And because it seemed like nearly everyone at the conference has an iPhone, that meant that very few phone calls were going through."

Sunday night, AT&T said that it was trying to improve capacity with this statement:

"To accommodate unprecedented demand for mobile data and voice applications at SXSW, we are actively working this afternoon to add capacity to our cell sites serving downtown Austin. These efforts are ongoing, but we anticipate that customers should see improved network performance this evening and for the remainder of the event. We will continue to monitor network performance throughout the event, and will do everything possible to maximize network performance throughout. We apologize to customers who were inconvenienced during this surge in local network demand."

Pandora was named the top iPhone app by Time magazine and has just been upgraded to a new version 2.0.  The software creates radio stations based on songs and artists that you like based on algorithms from the Music Genome Project.

New features include a song progress bar, 30-second previews for bookmarked songs, the ability to create a new station from a song or artist, artist information, cover-flow view for song history, and some sharing features. Artist biographies also show up inline now.

You can also rotate to landscape to see recently played songs.

Time magazine released it's Top 10 Lists of everything for 2008.  The iPhone 3G is the only phone on the Gadget List and given the number three position.

Times' Josh Quittner wrote about the iPhone 3G

"It doesn't handle email as well as the cheapest BlackBerry, and as a telephone, it's no better than most cell phones. But this is the gadget that launched the era of mobile computing, and what an epoch that promises to be! "

Note that they actually use an exclamation point!!!!!!

Time is so crazy about the iPhone,  they even named the top iPhone Apps of 2008 which are:

1. Pandora Internet Radio - once you choose music you like, it helps choose music for you.
2. AroundMe - helps find services around you sucha banks, coffee shops, bars, gas stations, hospitals, movie theaters, and restaurants.
   
3. AP Mobile News Network - read, email, text and save the latest AP news.
4. Ocarina - lets you play the iPhone like an Ocarina.
   
5. Wikipanion - quick easy Wikipedia search app.
6. Adrenaline Pool Lite - virtual pool game.
7. Instapaper - saves web pages in an iPhone format to be read later on your iPhone.
8. NetNewsWire - RSS feed aggregator.
9. iTalk - captures audio in the high-quality AIFF format.
10. Fake Call -  a fake contact can call you and interrupt that very boring conversation.

All the iPhone apps are available in the iPhone App Store.

Although Macworld is not set to be exciting this year due to the absence of a speech by Steve Jobs. An analyst predicts more phones from the Big Apple.

"While we believe it is unlikely that a new iPhone will be released at Macworld, we continue to expect a new model by the end of the March quarter,"  Piper Jaffray analyst Gerald Munster  wrote. "Specifically, we believe Apple could introduce a lower-end model that is slightly thicker due to the inclusion of a slider keyboard for students (texting) and business use (email) between $99 and $149."

While there appears to be case logic popping on the Net where reputable case manufacturers (XSKN and Vaja) are showing an IPhone Nano case. Netizens are using the case description as a case for a new smaller iPhone Nano.

Today, select Walmart stores will start selling iPhones for a $2.00 discount.

Recently, in our local Walmart,  we noticed that the cell phones, including the T-Mobile G1, were right next to the pink Hannah Montana designer doggie coats.  Next to the fluffy sparkly canine outerwear were DVDs of Spiderman with a free action figure.

The screen on the non-functioning T-Mobile G1 looked like a cartoon and it was strapped down with a plastic tie.  The surroundings made the G1 look cheap and chintzy.

There's a photo of an iPhone Walmart display that looks very nice at Boy Genius. It cuts out the area next to it.  Perhaps, it is next the Spiderman kids' table or the Hannah Montana pink and silver boats. How cute.

Note: In our recent research the absolute rock bottom price for an iPhone 3G is $50 for the 4GB refurb with the Wireless and Mobile News coupon-link. Sorry, Walmart.

iPhone users have an alternative to B4Udrink.mobi for checking drunkeness.  David Steele Enterprises sells the iBreath, a compact iPod accessory that checks Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC).

iBreath is a full breathalyzer, and an FM transmitter that wirelessly sends iPod tunes to FM radios.

For more information you can view our first article on the iBreath or go directly to the iBreath website.

The iBreath does not show the actual BAC but shows the user if he/she is in the legal limits because some unsuspecting new drinkers sometimes want to see how drunk they can get.

USA TODAY is offering a free USA Today iPhone app on the Apple App Store.The app provides access to the latest news stories, weather, photos and interactive polls.

USA TODAY for iPhone offers the following features:

Headlines - Browse and read stories from News, Money, Sports, Life, Tech and Travel. Articles can be shared via email, text message or Twitter, and are automatically saved for later reading.

USA TODAY Snapshots - Scan through USA TODAY Snapshots, and vote on an interactive poll question for each. Review responses from all users and filter the results by state and city.

When you buy the Salvation Army Christmas Music application for iPhone for $2.99,  $1 is donated to the Salvation Army.

You will can listen to a thousand Christmas-spirited songs on your iPhone.

These Christmas song are placed into appropriate playlists for your listening pleasure. Playlists include: - Children’s Christmas - Christmas from Around the World - Christmas Hymns - Classical Christmas - Instrumental Christmas - Soul/Jazz Christmas - The Salvation Army Brass Christmas

Shake your iPhone when selecting a song list for a familiar sound. 

 SimCity is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch.

“SimCity for the iPhone and iPod touch takes mobile games to a whole new level,” said Adam Sussman, VP Publishing Americas and Asia for EA Mobile. “Easy to learn, a lifetime to master, it’s one of the largest mobile games ever produced, providing our customers with hundreds of hours of great gameplay.”