Gmail for iPhone, Android gets message muting
April 30, 2009
Mobile 'muting' is on.
(Credit: CNET/Jessica Dolcourt)
Earlier this month, Google ingratiated itself with mobile users by refurbishing Gmail.com for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android devices. On Wednesday, Google followed up its initial redo with a small new feature that helps trim fat–or rather, keep it from accumulating in the in-box in the first place.
The capability to “mute” a conversation has now been added to the drop-down options under ‘More,’ the same place you find it when reading a Gmail message in the browser. Muting a message excuses you from seeing further messages in the thread, for instance, an entire guest list’s worth of comments for a party you can’t attend.
It’s a great incidental feature online, but it could become more valuable in the mobile sphere where preserving space and maintenance time is everything. However, using it is a little less convenient. Mute for mobile Gmail is only available at this time from Gmail.com, not from a native Gmail-reader, which, for now, defeats the purpose of Android’s Gmail in-box, and of the iPhone’s, if you have your mail streaming into it by default. Those who intend to use the feature regularly should affix a browser bookmark to their home screen.
Gmail mute is just one of the many features Google plans to toss over one at a time during the process that Shyam Sheth, a Google Mobile product manager, calls “The Iterative Webapp.” In some ways, an application by a thousand updates is an exciting way to witness the development process. In others, I fear readers may bludgeon me with their iPhones and G1s if new releases trickle out every day.
Dictionary.com’s iPhone game tests ur spelling
April 30, 2009
Since launching its Dictionary.com app for iPhone and iPod Touch in early April, the folks over at Dictionary.com have been plotting other iPhone applications that use the tools they’ve got: grammatical, orthographic, synonymic authority. And while they’re at it, maybe duplicate the numerical success of their reference app, which has floated among the iTunes Top 10 since its launch, and which hit more than a million downloads within the first three weeks.
The conduit of such lofty ambitions is Miss Spell’s Class, a 99-cent app that despite its name, letter-grade scoring, and nostalgic background of college-ruled paper, Dictionary.com insists is aimed at their core demographic of high school and university students, and business professionals.
(Credit: Dictionary.com)The app is straightforward. You quickly decide which of the 20 words in the round are spelled correctly or incorrectly. Points are knocked off for inaccuracy, and added to your total time. If it takes you 40 seconds to go through the list, but you get two wrong, your score spikes up to 60 seconds, a B. So save the pokiness for reviewing your score and for kicking yourself for casual errors.
The game is cute all right, and a test to the ego in the way that SATs and other standardized tests are–taunting in their simplicity, and debasing when you miss a word you ought to know. At least you’re not alone–the misspellings that are your object to spot are siphoned straight from the top 5,000 botched words entered into Dictionary.com at a rate of 2 million typos and flubs per month.
Still, there are a few light raps of the ruler we’d make. In a test game, ‘consiencious’ was paired with ‘consensus’, rather than with ‘conscientious’. Apart from that, we’re not quite convinced the game will make us more intelligent, until Dictionary.com slips in definitions, and perhaps the pronunciation guide from the free Dictionary.com iPhone app. Miss Spell’s Class is also a bit one-dimensional. Although this game title is just the beginning, we’d like to see it instilled with different skill levels and playing modes, where you might actively spell a word, not just passively review it, or quickly choose the right configuration from a handful of choices. There should be different skins to pull in the grade-school youngsters, old fogeys, and tweens who are too cool for school, and competitions over Wi-Fi.
Some of these additional features are admittedly coming. A future version is planned that will shade in the tricky words with vocabulary content, and on Thursday, Dictionary.com is releasing its anagram game, Anagram Cracker, for the Web, which leverages the site’s Thesaurus content.
The bottom line is, while Miss Spell’s Class is original and challenging, we know Dictionary.com can do better.
P.S. In case you’re curious, here are the top-10 words most often misspelled when searched on in Dictionary.com: definitely, separate, sense, savvy, liaison, accommodate, embarrassed, occasionally, inconvenience, and dilemma.
Simplify Music streams songs from PC to iPhone
April 30, 2009
Like many people, I have a music library that’s way too large to fit on my iPhone. (Yo, Apple! Can we please get a 64GB model already?) Fortunately, I can still listen to every track I own thanks to Simplify Music 2.0 (formerly Simplify Media).
The app streams tunes from your PC by way of a music-server program that’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Download it, install it, then choose the folders you want it to scan, monitor, and queue. (Alas, the program can’t stream DRM-protected iTunes purchases, so it’s time to move everything to iTunes Plus.)
The desktop software costs nothing. The Simplify Music iPhone app has an introductory price of $2.99, but the developer plans to bump it to $5.99 in a few weeks.
Once everything’s installed and configured, just leave your system running and hit the road. When you run the app, you’ll be able to browse your entire desktop music library by album, artist, genre, or song. Tap what you want and presto: the music plays, complete with album art and even song lyrics (which is so cool, it single-handedly justifies the cost of the app).
Want even more variety? Get some buddies on board: you can stream music from friends’ music libraries in addition to your own.
Version 2.0 adds some nifty amenities, including a search function (something the iPhone itself doesn’t have–yet), an add-to-favorites option for building an on-the-fly playlist, and a “scrub bar” for easy backward/forward scanning.
As you might expect, a Wi-Fi connection produces the best sound quality, though 3G runs it a close second when you have four or five bars. Even over EDGE, Simplify Music delivered surprisingly good sound, about on par with FM radio.
Though the app was sometimes annoyingly slow to connect to my PC, for the most part it worked like a charm. And much as I’m loathe to leave my system running 24-7, I’m now hopelessly addicted to having access to all my music.
Simplify Music makes that a reality, meaning I’ll probably think twice about springing for a new iPhone just to get more memory. With the money I save, I’ll be able to buy a lot more tunes.
Qt for S60 Developer’s Library v0.7 (Eclipse plug-in)
April 30, 2009
Motorola Honors North American and Latin American Channel Partners with Enterprise Mobility Solutions Awards
April 29, 2009
Motorola Introduces New Business Line of RFID Readers
April 29, 2009
FX7400 RFID reader offers high performance in a compact design for improved inventory management
Texas Hold’em iPhone game hides an Easter egg
April 29, 2009
I recently learned about an Easter egg in Apple’s Texas Hold’em card game, which sells for $4.99 in the iTunes App Store.
If you’re playing the game in landscape mode, you’ll be able to see both your hand and the hands of the other players. Looks normal right? Indeed, the game will continue to look normal until you make a random touch motion on the screen.
Simply make a circle with one finger in the middle of the screen and the game’s hidden Easter egg–a heart-shaped cartoon face with his hands in the air–will make its appearance. In case you missed him, we’ve captured the little surprise. Find our screen capture after the break.
We haven’t discovered any other Easter eggs in this game or other iPhone apps, but if you or someone else you know has, please post information about them in the comments.
Apple releases iPhone OS 3 beta 4 to developers
April 29, 2009
(Credit: Apple)Apple’s engineering department is still working hard towards the summer release of iPhone OS 3.0. It has released beta 4 to developers only two weeks after beta 3 was released.
Like most Apple updates, we suspect that the new beta 4 includes several stability and performance enhancements that might make the beta more pleasing to use, if you are testing it.
We’ve heard from some early beta testers complaining (see article comments here and here) about the number of issues they were experiencing with the previous releases.
It is too early to tell what kinds of changes have been made in beta 4, but we suspect that it will not take long for people to discover them.
CNET had additional coverage about iPhone OS 3.0 here, here, here, and here.
Developers and beta testers, let us know about your experiences with this latest iPhone OS 3.0 beta in the comments.
Truphone 3.0 improves call quality, unifies IM
April 29, 2009
Truphone 3.0 gives Skype a run for the free-call money.
A new version of popular voice over IP app Truphone just hit the App Store, offering better call quality, single-screen instant messaging, and various interface improvements.
In case you’re unfamiliar with it, Truphone leverages Wi-Fi networks to provide free voice calls–worldwide–to other Truphone users and to your Google Talk and Skype contacts. In other words, if you’re in range of a hotspot, you can gab all you want without spending a penny.
Truphone also lets you call landlines and cell phones at low rates–great if you routinely burn through your allotted AT&T minutes and don’t want to rack up massive overages, or if you’re looking to make international calls on the cheap.
Calls to India, for example, cost about 10 cents per minute–less if you sign up for one of Truphone’s monthly plans (which can quickly pay for themselves if you make a lot of calls).
In addition to “radically improved” call quality (which is hard to gauge given how many variables come into play for a VoIP call), Truphone 3.0 lets you manage all your instant messaging from one screen. The app supports all the major services: AIM, GTalk, MSN, Skype, and Yahoo. You can also access your Twitter account, though that happens on a different screen.
Truphone now lets you see the rates for a call before placing it, view call history, and top up your account from within the app–all nice perks.
Still, truth be told, there’s nothing too earth-shattering about Truphone 3.0–it feels more like a 2.5 release. And I had lots of trouble staying connected to my various IM accounts, and frequently received errors when trying to send messages.
Even so, Truphone trumps Skype for iPhone with its multiplatform calling and chat support. The app itself is free, and you get a $5 credit when you create a Truphone account–more than enough to test the VoIP waters.
Get to know yourself with Human Atlas for iPhone
April 29, 2009
(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)The most I’ve paid for an iPhone app is $5.99. This is why I was so excited to get a a promotional code for the $19.99 Human Atlas and install the software on my iPhone 3G right away. The app also works on the iPod Touch.
Human Atlas offers 3D images and videos of 150 common medical treatments and conditions. After a few days of use, I think this is a great application for those who want to learn about their body and conditions ranging from allergies, muscle pain, high blood pressure, stroke, and tendon injuries to diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS, and more.
Basically, you will appreciate anything you can learn from this app.
What you won’t appreciate, however, is its lacks of features. The Human Atlas app has two parts: 3D image and video. The images don’t allow for rotating the body, you’re stuck with the front of the object. This makes the images seems less “3D” than they could be. Also, you can’t display the images vertically. While it’s OK to watch the video with the phone put in the horizontal position, the images could benefit a lot more from the vertical display as you won’t have to scroll as much.
The biggest shortcoming of the app, however, is the fact that it requires an active Internet connection to work. The app won’t even launch if you’re not connected. This means you will not be able to use it as a time killer, say, on an airplane.
Also, as videos seem to be hosted somewhere else, you’d better use a Wi-Fi connection if you want to view them. I tried to play video via 3G and Edge connections and that required a lot of patience. There’s no way you can save them to view later offline, either. The app’s video section’s performance is much like that of YouTube on your iPhone.
So all in all, this is a very informative, educational, and fun app to use. However, it does have a lot of room for improvement. Personally, I’d love to see it be able to work offline, at least the image part.
But that’s just a suggestion, not a complaint. After all, I got the app for free.