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.

Given that every one of the local stores offers the hot spots, you would think I would have already tried it out, but I had the “Ask to join networks” option turned off on my first-gen iPhone, and so I hadn’t been reminded that the network was available, which would have been handy on several occasions that I used EDGE to search for a book on B&N’s mobile website while in the store.

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.

GV Mobile offers a pretty nice feature set. You can use it to set your Google Voice preferences, such as your preferred phone, so that when calls come through the right phone rings. That’s an awesome feature on-the-go. Yes, the same option is available at the Voice website, but I really like the simple interface GV Mobile offers to switch that number with just a couple of taps.

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

Maybe it’s already Saturday in the UK, or close to it: Apple has released iPhone OS 3.0.1 for iPhone, iPhone 3G & 3GS, an update that patches the phone to prevent bad actors from taking it over or taking it down with the just-demoed SMS exploit.

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.

This is actually a fairly big shot across the board of other networks vying for players, including Aurora Feint’s OpenFeint, Chillingo’s Crystal SDK, Scoreloop, and a few other competing services. ngmoco had originally announced that their Plus+ service would be proprietary to the titles that they published, but the inclusion of Freeverse as a partner means they’re likely headhunting for quality titles to add to the mix, much like everyone else.