Posts tagged with "iPhone"

Skyfire VideoQ for iOS Queues Up Flash Video

Skyfire has a new Flash player on iOS that queues up video you want to play on your iOS device by sending the video request through email! Yeah it’s old technology meets… old technology, but lets not dwell on the fact that we do want to watch Flash videos, and that iOS can’t play them. You have your YouTube and your Hulu, but those Funimation videos aren’t gonna play themselves. So whether you see a Flash video on the latest startup from TechCrunch, or you want to watch a segment of The Daily Show, VideoQ is there to convert your Flash video to a format compatible with your iPhone or iPad.

I gave VideoQ a chance on my iPod touch, and the first thing Skyfire asks is for you to send an email from an address you want to register with the company. Also sent in the email is your devices unique ID, which I find somewhat odd. I think that’s a bit skeevy, and I don’t know why Skyfire needs a device identifier, but it’s whatever right? With the email sent, you wait a few seconds to be registered, then VideoQ presents you with a tutorial you can watch to learn about the app.

So it breaks down like this: whether you use Safari or another web browser on iOS, you can email that webpage to Skyfire so you can playback that Flash video in VideoQ. VideoQ will show you the videos you’ve queued up (and you can also casually browse hot videos via the appropriate tab). Video playback isn’t spectacular: video is grainy, audio is muffled, and sometimes Skyfire can’t find the video, but in a pinch you can get your Jon Stewart fix on your iOS device. It’s not a replacement for a Mac or PC that can run Flash well, but it can give you some relief while traveling or when mobile. It works most of the time — it’s not perfect — but video is passable despite whatever conversion process Skyfire processes on their servers before serving the content back up to you on demand. I’d say if you watch a lot of flash video (and especially if you want to do it on the iPad), give VideoQ a try.

Skyfire’s VideoQ is $1.99 as a universal app in the App Store.

[found via Reuters]

Leaked Photos of Supposed iPhone ‘Light’ Surface Online

On Vietnamese forum Tinhte, a user has uploaded the above photo which he claims is a new “light” version of the iPhone 4 - potentially the rumored iPhone 4S that has been milling around in recent months. The photographs posted seem to show a nearly identical product to the iPhone 4, with the exception that there is no glass front and back panel. Instead the iPhone is plastered with a translucent plastic on either side with the familiar stainless steel banding around it.

According to information leakage, predictable from the English website, the more likely Apple will introduce the iPhone 4s (cheap version) and the iPhone 5 next month. And it looks like the iPhone that you see below is the iPhone 4s.

On the whole we’re fairly skeptical of this photo, except for the fact that in the past, Tinhte has been somewhat successful at leaking Apple prototypes, including this internal iOS 4 build and last year’s MacBook refresh. As for the possibility of a cheaper iPhone launching this year, not only has the rumor mill been churning out stories fairly frequently but Tim Cook conceded in this month’s earning call that Apple would be doing “clever things” to address the pre-paid mobile market and wouldn’t “cede any market”.

[Tinhte via TechCrunch]

Distimo: Mobile Game Prices Fall, In-App Purchase Revenues Soar

In a new report released by Distimo today, the firm highlights how mobile gaming trends have changed over the past year. It found that the prices of mobile games have declined by 28% from $2.01 to $1.44 over the past year. The ‘Games’ category on the Apple App Store is also the most popular category, with 56% of the top 300 free applications being games.

In-app purchases have dominated in mobile games, particularly in free games where 35% use some form of virtual currency to monetize their app. However over the past year the amount of revenue generated by ‘free’ games and their in-app purchases has increased ten-fold. The revenue-share of games that solely charge an upfront cost now only occupy 27% of revenue raised in App Store games, whilst of those, the top 10 publishers dominate with a 56% share of the revenue. An interesting note is that Andreas Illiger (creator of Tiny Wings) managed to enter that list of top 10 publishers and is ahead of others including SEGA and even Gameloft.

When comparing the various app stores to see which had the highest percentage of games in their catalogues, the iPhone App Store came first and the iPad App Store second – followed by the BlackBerry PlayBook, WP7 Marketplace, Palm App Catalogue, Nokia’s Ovi Store, Android Market, GetJar and lastly the BlackBerry App World. In terms of the growth of games in the app stores, only the iPhone App Store and GetJar saw a faster rate of growth for games – the others all saw the number of other applications growing at a faster rate.

AViiQ Portable Charging Station Powers Up Your Devices Without the Clutter

You know the feeling. You’re packing up for a two-day trip to some gadget conference and you find yourself stuffing your backpack with bulky cables and chargers so you can power the company BlackBerry, your personal iPhone and iPad. All of these different chargers are heavy, take up a lot of space, and add clutter to an already messy travel bag. What you want is a contained solution: something that can take care of all of your devices so you don’t have to remember to pack and unpack the bird’s nest of cables you’re likely to create.

AViiQ has a reputation for keeping things simple with their line of stands and cases for the MacBook and iPad, and their product design continues to shine through with the AViiQ Portable Charging Station. Complimenting their line of mobile products, the Portable Charging Station is a zip-up bag that features a charging hub which wrangles all of your cables into one small package that easily slips into a messenger bag or backpack. The charging hub, able to charge four devices when connected to a wall outlet, is smart in design. Pockets tuck away cable excess, a retractable USB cord can sync a connected device of your choice (designated with a pink label) to your computer, and the zip-up design keeps everything in its place. 3 powered + 1 power & data USB ports offers travelers plenty of choice for recharging everything from bluetooth headsets to smartphones and e-readers through a simple, unfolding base.

The AViiQ Portable Charging Station is $79.99 at AViiQ.com. Press release after the break.

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Verizon Activates 2.3 Million iPhone 4s In Q2

As noted by ZDNet, Verizon reported its second quarter earnings today, delivering strong results and reporting revenue of $27.53 billion. The company added 1.3 million postpaid customers, with data revenues up 22.2 percent year-over-year and 189,000 FiOS Internet and 184,000 FiOS TV net additions. As with the iPhone, the earnings reveal Verizon activated 2.3 million iPhone 4 units in the second quarter, a 100,000 units increase from the 2.2 million iPhone 4s they activated in the previous quarter after roughly two months of availability in the US since the February 10 launch.

Verizon’s relatively flat growth rate with activated iPhone units doesn’t surprise when compared to AT&T’s similar trend - AT&T activated 3.6 million iPhones in the last two quarters. The difference, however, is that Verizon only has access to the CDMA iPhone 4, both in black and white, whereas AT&T sells both the black/white iPhone 4 and the older iPhone 3GS model, which is still on sale and considered a good entry option for new iPhone users that don’t want to spend a ful $200 on an iPhone 4 with a two-year contract. AT&T’s offer is diversified, Verizon Wireless doesn’t have a cheaper iPhone 3GS to sell to its customers.

Moreover, with increasing rumors of a new iPhone coming out in September (allegedly confirmed by Apple’s “product transition for the September quarter” revealed at the Q3 earnings call), it’s likely customers are holding off new purchases (and thus, contracts) as they wait for a new device to become available in the Fall. The iPhone 5 has been rumored to have worldphone capabilities with an integrated GSM/CDMA chip, and most recent speculation has also claimed Apple could be considering a new, cheaper iPhone to sell off contract at less than $200 to attract the masses of the pre-paid market.

[ZDNet - PRNewswire]