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Posts tagged with "iPhone"

Roots Rock Boombox Is For The Bob Marley Fan In You

At first glance I couldn’t quite figure out what the Roots Rock Boombox was supposed to be. Sold under the House of Marley, this boombox appears to be part cargo pant - part cargo bag - and part smoke machine all in one. This iPhone boombox is clearly designed to bring a little of Bob Marley’s heart and soul to life in over-the-top fashion, and I could see myself having this on my tailgate at party or something - just please don’t get caught in the cargo straps. Proceeds go to the 1Love charitable foundation, so if you’re thinking about a killer post-Christmas gift, you might be able to make up for your belated gift giving by purchasing this or another of the House of Marley’s products through their website.

[House of Marley via Gizmodo]

The Japanese Government Wants Apple To Add Filters To The iPhone

The iPhone is becoming one of Japan’s best selling smartphones – something quite strange for a country that’s not usually huge on products coming from the States, or Europe – and now the Japanese government is asking Apple and Softbank, the iPhone carrier in the land of the Rising Sun, to add content filters on the iPhone by default. To prevent teenagers from accessing “harmful” web content (can we have a guess? porn) and, generally, stuff they shouldn’t be able to see on a smartphone, the National Police Agency requires handsets markers to ship devices with this kind of filtering.

As you can imagine, this isn’t going to be easy for the Japanese government and Softbank, who’s just the middle man between Cupertino and the Japanese folks lining up to buy iPhones every day. Softbank can’t install proprietary code on the iPhone – they should open an iPhone first and find a way to give it to customers with some filtering software enabled. But we know iOS doesn’t allow for these kinds of software to be installed. So it’s all on Apple now, which has to evaluate whether or not they should follow the Japanese government’s request.

The way I see it, Japan will have to wait for filters to come on their iPhones for a long time. [via TUAW]

iPhone 4 Becomes A Skateboard

On iOS, a device becomes the app it’s currently running. Are you using a calculator app? The iPhone looks like a digital calculator then. A GPS map? A TV remote? Full-screen apps can turn an iOS device into, well, anything. What about hardware accessories, though? Can a rather simple accessory like a case turn an iPhone into something else?

The Skateboard Series for iPhone 4 is a new case available on Etsy made out of laser-cut grip tape and actual wood. It looks like a mini-skateboard, only it’s an iPhone and it doesn’t have wheels. Build quality looks impressive, too.

When combined with a wood grain vinyl edge wrap this design actually gives your iPhone 4 the illusion of being a skateboard, all you need now are the wheels. The only advice we can give you is not to slide this phone against your grandma’s table because this material is very rough.

Whether or not you think the grip tape on the back of the device could make it a little harder to get it out of your pockets, this mod can be yours for only $20. Available now on Etsy. [via Reddit]

Eye Scope Adds 8x Optical Zoom To Your iPhone

If you’ve ever wished you could spy on your neighbor’s house or simply take better photos of distant objects with your iPhone (yes, we’re going to pretend your never thought of spying on people using an Apple device), you might want to consider the Eye Scope, a $45 (£29) accessory that can add 8x optical zoom to the iPhone’s lens.

Available for iPhone 3G / 3GS / 4 owners,the Eye Scope is basically a case with an attached optical lens that promises to cover 246 meters ahead of you and your iPhone. Not bad, huh? In the package, you’ll also get a tripod mount and a lens cloth to keep everything clean and well focused.

If you want to go ahead and buy it, the Eye Scope for iPhone is available on online retailer Firebox. [via Ubergizmo]

Merriam-Webster Dictionary App Adds Dragon Voice Recognition

Merriam-Webster launched a free, ad-supported iPhone dictionary app in mid-December. The dictionary app can pronounce words by pressing the speaker icon in the red button but did you know that you can speak a word for it to search for too? A few weeks ago, they updated it with voice search, first for a free iPhone dictionary app. Just press the microphone in the blue button next to the search text box and it activates the new voice search.

The built-in voice search is powered by Nuance Communications’ very popular Dragon voice recognition technology and it’s very accurate but you would expect nothing less from Dragon. Simply look up a word by speaking it directly into your iPhone. You don’t need a connection to the internet, so it’s very iPod Touch friendly. The UI is polished and the ads don’t distract you too badly; Reader Mode is very cool - it shows you a definition in full screen, landscape or portrait, hiding both the header and the footer.

Voice search is an example of the kind of innovation that Merriam-Webster has been bringing to the dictionary business for more than 150 years,” says President and Publisher John M. Morse. “And with the mobile platform being the fastest growing part of our business, we’re pleased to bring our content to wherever our audience happens to be.

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iPhone Alarm Still Not Working? Try A Reboot or Reset

The New Year broke the iPhone’s built-in alarm clock app. After much of a backlash on the Internet (and too good reason, people depend on alarms to wake up in the morning and, you know, do stuff like go to work) and a temporary fix that involved setting a repeating alarm on the device, Apple then reassured everyone that the bug would auto-magically fix itself on Januar 3rd. That didn’t happen for many, as seen both on Reuters and Apple’s own Discussion boards. If you’re running an iPhone or iPod touch and you still can’t manage to get the device to work with alarms, the solution might be easier than you think.

Several users on Apple Discussions are suggesting that a simple power cycle (reboot) or “soft reset” can fix the iPhone software to work correctly with alarms after January 3rd. By “soft reset” they mean the procedure that involves pressing both the sleep / wake and home buttons until the Apple logo appears on screen. This will force the iPhone to dump its temporary stored files and should fix the alarm clock app woes. If you rebooted your iPhone before today and it didn’t fix the problems, do it again now.

The clock app on my iPhone 4 (with iOS 4.2.1) is working just fine both with single and repeating alarms, but I think a reboot or two happened in these past days. I have a jailbroken device so reboots and “resprings” are very frequent. If you’re still experiencing the alarm issues, you can give the method above a try and report back.

Layar Reality Browser Updated to Version 4.0

Layar was one of the first “augmented reality” apps in Apple’s App Store before all the competitors showed up. It’s had a few UI overhauls and the most recent is nice. Layar shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of the real world as seen through the camera of your mobile phone. Layar augments the real world as seen through your mobile phone, based on your location. The idea is simple: Layar works by using a combination of the mobile phone’s camera, compass and GPS data to identify the user’s location and field of view, retrieve data based on those geographical coordinates, and overlay that data over the camera view.

Refresher video after the break.

What’s New in Version 4.0:

  • Layers now support new interactive features
  • The Camera View interface has been redesigned
  • The Camera View is stabilized using the gyroscope on iPhone 4.

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