Filed under: Apple Corporate, iPhone, App Store

Earlier today, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) sent out letters to Apple, AT&T and Google, readable here [FCC's letter to Apple, to AT&T & to Google] asking each company about its involvement in the Google Voice app rejections. The agency is asking Apple to explain why the Google app was rejected and the third-party apps removed, if any VoIP apps have been approved, and whether there are general rules and regulations covering application approvals (something many developers would also love to know).

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Filed under: Wireless, How-tos, iPhone

With the recent discussion surrounding the changes to AT&T’s Wi-Fi Hot Spot authentication for iPhone users, I realized that I have never actually used their service, although my wife and I can be found in one of the nine Salt Lake City area Barnes and Noble stores at least one day out of the week.

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Filed under: iPhone, Jailbreak/pwnage, App Review

After writing about the GV Mobile situation on TUAW the other day, a helpful TUAW reader sent me a Google Voice invite (thanks Ian M! You rock!). I set up my account, hopped over to a jailbroken 3.0 iPod touch and downloaded a copy of the software via Cydia. I then copied it off the touch via sftp, signed it with my developer credentials and installed it through iTunes on a non-jailbroken iPhone to see what I’d been missing. Read more…

Filed under: Hacks, Bugs/Recalls, Software Update, Security, iPhone

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store, SDK

Freeverse has picked a partner in the ongoing dance of social gaming networks on the iPhone. They’ve joined up with ngmoco and their Plus+ system for all of their games, including Flick Bowling, Flick Fishing, and Moto Thunder. The first Freeverse game to use the system (which allows players to earn points across games, track friends’ playing habits, and vie for the tops of leaderboards) will be an upcoming title called Warpgate, and then it’ll be ported back to the already-released games as well.

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Filed under: Apple, Security, iPhone

Yesterday’s news from the Black Hat Technical Security Conference in Las Vegas about the SMS security flaw affecting iPhone, Android, and Windows Mobile smartphones was a bit unnerving. Through skillful manipulation of SMS messages, an attacker could gain control of a smartphone.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, iPhone

David Pogue, who writes on tech for the New York Times had an interesting and thoughtful column yesterday. He’s been complaining about the ridiculously long messages the cellular carriers stick on to the end of your voicemail message. He’s right, too. But what I hadn’t realized was that these incessant and long messages add to your air time and are bringing in millions of dollars of extra, and unearned revenue to the cellphone providers.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Here are two different insights from Pocket Gamer about how developers can grow the profile of their iPhone apps. The first comes to us from the wisdom of Peggle, that game that I just can’t stop playing. Apparently, they’ve coined the term “Peggling,” which means lowering the price of your app, and seeing a huge benefit from it. Whenever a game drops its price down to 99 cents, much as Peggle did soon after release, it sees a significant bump in the charts. I’m sure there are many other factors at play here — Peggle was a great game, so you can’t sell more of a crappy game just by selling it for cheaper, and I saw a lot of Twitter and blog attention when the price dropped, so it pays to have people watching the price in the first place. But under the right circumstances, dropping the price can do a lot for a game that’s already selling pretty well.

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Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

iConcertCal is a new app for the iPhone that lets you track where and when all your favorite musicians are performing. Using some of the new features in the APIs of iPhone OS 3.0, it reads all the artists in the iTunes library of your iPhone, uses the built in GPS to find your location and then displays results dependent upon how far you are willing to travel.

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Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone

We all know that texting and driving is dangerous, but what about going beyond just sending short text messages, and actually composing and sending emails while driving? I’m voting for “stupid” as the proper adjective to use.

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Filed under: Security, iPhone

Two security researchers, Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner, have discovered a serious security vulnerability affecting SMS messaging on the iPhone that will be unveiled later today at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. This flaw affects all iPhones and can allow an attacker to gain complete control of an iPhone, including the ability to make calls, browse the web and access the camera. This exploit is caused by corruption in the iPhone’s memory handling and is executed by sending a burst of text messages by using a uncommon text character or by sending a hidden message.

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Filed under: iPod Family, Apple, iPhone, App Store

With the recent kerfuffle surrounding the removal and rejection of Google Voice apps from the App Store, many developers are beginning to question the trust they have placed in Apple to provide them with a reliable system for developing and distributing applications.

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Filed under: App Store

If you’ve been following coverage of Apple’s rejection of Google Voice for iPhone, you saw TUAW blogger Chris Rawson considering whether pressure from AT&T might have been behind the Google Voice rejection — an assumption first floated by TechCrunch and later substantiated by Daring Fireball. The absurd nature of the app removals is highlighted in the blog post from Riverturn, developers of VoiceCentral, which reports the conversation with an Apple representative.

Google Voice offers free call forwarding to your home, office, and cell, free Internet-accessible voice mail (with text transcription!), free SMS, and a single phone number for life. These free features compete against AT&T’s revenue streams.

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Filed under: Apple, iPhone, App Store

The U.K. advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority, says Apple is correct when it claims it’s App Store is better than the Google store for the Android.

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