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Posts Tagged ‘Mms’

Apple posts two new iPhone ads

Filed under: iPhone, App Store

Apple has posted two new iPhone ads tonight. Both ads seem to target Joe Average and spotlight situations we find ourselves in every day.

The first, called “First Steps,” targets moms and grandparents who want to show/never miss a single moment of the new tyke’s life. The mom uses the iPhone 3GS to record her son’s first steps, sends the video file as a MMS, and then starts a conference call with the grandparents to talk about the video. The ad ends with the mom saying “We would never have shared all that without the iPhone.”

The second ad is titled “On Hold” and presents a situation we’re all too familiar with. A man calls 1-800-204-7450 and is put on hold (before you try, I already called the number. A voicemail answers that says “At the tone, please record your message.” I didn’t leave one). The man then checks his email, pays a credit card bill, buys Monopoly from the App Store, and plays the game — all while on hold.

As always, the apps spotlighted in the ads can be found here.

TUAWApple posts two new iPhone ads originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patent suggests location-based social networking for iPhone

Filed under: Rumors, iPhone

Imagine you and a friend are on a phone call, and both of you own iPhones. You’re trying to meet up somewhere downtown in a city neither of you know very well, so the best answer you can give your friend when he asks, “Where are you now?” is “Uhhh…” followed by several seconds of silence. It’s already possible to share your location using the Maps app on the iPhone — find your current location, tap on the blue marker on the map, tap “Share Location,” and then send it to your friend either as an e-mail or MMS. Then your friend receives the e-mail or MMS with your location, opens it in Maps, and has the option of finding directions to your location from his current location.

If that sounds like a lot of unnecessarily complex steps to answer the simple question of “Where are you,” you’re in luck, because according to a new patent application, Apple agrees with you. By putting “Request location info” and “Release location info” buttons on the call screen in the Phone app, it would be possible to share your location or request someone else’s with a single button press. The same process applies — the iPhone polls its GPS to find out where you are, then transmits that info to your friend’s iPhone — but instead of having to jump through all the hoops yourself, the OS handles it for you in the background. Once your phone receives a request for location info it comes up in a notification, probably very similar to the notifications location-based apps already use when they request permission to use location data. If you agree to release your location data to the caller, it’s transmitted in a fully encrypted signal to the caller’s iPhone. Your location data would then show up on your friend’s iPhone, complete with the option to find directions.

Some other interesting information has come out of this patent application. In describing the type of call this feature could be applied to, Apple says, “Note that the reference to ‘voice call’ here is not limited to a conventional, sound-only conversation. It may also include video of the two users, synchronized with their audio. The call may be a cellular network telephone call that has been initiated by either user.” This shows further evidence that Apple is researching the possibility of including video conferencing capabilities in a future iteration of the iPhone.

Additionally, Apple seems to be exploring greater location-awareness options for its own apps, including weather and a Yellow Pages app. The patent also refers to several apps as “Widgets” — Calculator, Alarm Clock, and Dictionary all fall under an application module subset referred to as “Widget Modules.” There’s two possibilities here: either these apps are still being referred to as widgets because their basic interfaces grew out of OS X’s Dashboard Widgets (an explanation I’ve heard a few times before), or Apple is looking toward bringing Dashboard-style functionality to a future version of the iPhone OS, with smaller apps like Calculator and Alarm Clock being implemented as “widgets” rather than standalone apps. This has been offered as one possible explanation for the mysterious absence of several of Apple’s apps from the iPad.

TUAWPatent suggests location-based social networking for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 07 Feb 2010 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thwapr: Mobile-to-mobile video sharing from one of the creators of QuickTime

Filed under: Multimedia, Odds and ends, Reviews, Beta Beat

It’s not every day that I get to view a product introduction on my iPhone. In fact, today may have been the first time ever that a product intro has been done through mobile messaging.

Eric Hoffert was one of the original developers of QuickTime and is now the CTO for Thwapr, so he really understands video. Thwapr provides mobile-to-mobile video sharing — in other words, it’s a way to create a video on your iPhone and share it with friends on a variety of mobile phone platforms. The idea is that you or your recipients don’t need to download any special apps, and that the video is shown in its best possible format for the mobile device that receives it.

That’s the idea. However, I found the beta of Thwapr somewhat clunky to use, and I’m not sure I really “get” the reason for the service as it is currently set up. To start with, if I want to share a video message or photo with a friend (at least a short one), I can use MMS. If it’s a longer video or I want to share it with the world, I’m going to use something like YouTube and send friends a link. I asked Leigh Newsome, Thwapr’s VP of User Experience, why I wouldn’t just use MMS?
His reply? “MMS is very, very limited – it works poorly cross-phone/cross-carrier, has limited file sizes ~300k, and doesn’t store info in the cloud. Thwapr works cross-phone/cross-carrier, with large files, and stores info in the cloud. So, even if your phone gets wiped out, you can still get to your content either from your mobile device or the web.”

Eric Hoffert’s reply was similar: “Another benefit is that the ThwapBack experience of rich media conversations is (a) accessible across a wide range of mobile phones, more than a hundred and seventy, and (b) is stored in the cloud. MMS conversations are stored on each device.”

The way Thwapr works at the current time is that you record a video with the iPhone’s camera (it also works on Android phones), then email it from your registered email address to “me@thwapr.com.” Once it’s there, you go to the thwapr.mobi web site using Mobile Safari, sign in, and the movie is sitting there in an “uploaded Thwapr” folder. You choose a friend or group of friends from a list of registered users, and then you share the movie or picture with them. Within seconds, they receive a text message (standard text message fees apply) with a link in it. They tap the link, which opens Mobile Safari, and they can view the message and even “Thwapback” (reply) to it.

That’s the problem with the beta, in my opinion. It just takes too many steps to Thwap somebody. I was able to ask the executive team if they are planning an iPhone app to improve the user experience, and received this reply: “The approach with using email, camera, browser, SMS is targeted to enable many phones across many carriers. We are advanced on an iPhone app that provides a seamless integrated experience for capture and Thwap. We plan to deliver the iPhone app in Q1, please stay tuned and we will keep you posted.”

That’s good to hear, because I’m not sure I’d use Thwapr in the current form. I do like the ability to see a thread of text, photo, and video replies, but I just don’t think that switching between Messages, Camera, and Mobile Safari is the way to get things done efficiently. It’s apparent that I’m not the only person who feels this way, since I saw a message from another person involved in the product intro today who said, “Upload, send link, view on mobile browser. Can’t this already be done without regard to platform?”

I’ll keep my Thwapr account for now, because I think it would be useful to eventually be able to zap longer video messages back and forth quickly and easily. If you’re interested in getting in on the beta, point your browser to Thwapr.com to sign up and give it a try.

TUAWThwapr: Mobile-to-mobile video sharing from one of the creators of QuickTime originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Tilt2 now available on AT&T

Those looking for a slightly more QWERTY-equipped WinMo 6.5 device for AT&T than the HTC Pure need look no further than its stablemate, the Tilt2, now that it’s officially available to all comers. The carrier’s second model to use Microsoft’s latest and greatest cut of Windows Mobile stays pretty true to its Touch Pro2 roots, offering an industrial-strength full duplex speakerphone, 3.2 megapixel cam, WVGA tilt-up display, and of course, that five-row QWERTY keyboard that makes banging out long emails and extended MMS tirades just a little more tolerable. Interest parties should come bearing gifts and plenty of cash, because it’ll run $349.99 on contract before a $50 mail-in rebate.

[Via PhoneDog]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

HTC Tilt2 now available on AT&T originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TUAW Talkcast live tonight at 10pm Eastern

Filed under: Hardware, Retail, Rumors, Software, iMac, Apple

Our weekly talkcast returns to the virtual airwaves this evening over on Talkshoe, so if you’re around on a Sunday night, and want to tune in and talk Apple with a crew of TUAW bloggers and readers, you’re in luck. We’ll start up at around 10pm Eastern this evening, and we’ll be talking about the biggest stories in the province of Applevania, including the “new” features of Gmail push and MMS on the iPhone (and how neither one really works as it probably should), as well as the ongoing rumors of new iMacs and the tough topic of how to actually install apps on Mac OS X.

Should be a lot of fun — definitely tune in if you can make it. To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, or you can try out the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the “TalkShoe Web” button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VOIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 — during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. Talk with you then!

Recording support for the talkcast is provided by Call Recorder from ecamm networks.

TUAWTUAW Talkcast live tonight at 10pm Eastern originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The AT&T MMS launch: How was it for you? A TUAW Poll

Filed under: Multimedia, Video, Software Update, iPhone

The long awaited and much vilified AT&T MMS service was finally launched in the U.S. yesterday. I’ve scoured the Apple support boards, and it seems like it was pretty tame, with some reports of failure to get the update, failure to get the MMS functions after an update, late delivery of MMS messages, and so on.

In my own circle of friends it seemed to go OK, but most of them didn’t need MMS and didn’t really care about it one way or the other.

So how was it for you? The update of your dreams, or your worst nightmare?

View Poll

TUAWThe AT&T MMS launch: How was it for you? A TUAW Poll originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Week in review: The future of healthcare, our favorite DEMO companies, and more

Here’s our rundown of the week’s tech and business news. First up, the five most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:

Health care: It’s time for technology — “Even the most partisan players in the debate over health care reform agree on two things. One, that this is crazy. And two, that technology can help.”

New Halo game has a secret game within the game — “But apparently that was plenty of time for Fourth Wall Studios to dream up a new game within the game for fans of ‘alternate reality’ games, which are game-like stories that unfold in both the real and fictional worlds. The game is entitled ‘Sadie’s Story’ and it unfolds in audio form as the human soldiers hunt down the enemy Covenant aliens in the future African city of New Mombasa.”

Unchallenged by Nvidia, AMD makes the world’s most powerful graphics chips — and it ships them too — “Today, the company is announcing that its ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics chips will be the fastest ever created. And they’re available to buy now in new PCs you can order today.”

Do dysfunctional families breed entrepreneurs? — “Her response was surprising, ‘Steve, almost all my CEO’s came from very tough childhoods.’”

MMS vs 12seconds — videomail wars begin — “I don’t have any brilliant insights here except that it’s 100% certain that MMS will spawn some immensely popular iPhone app that no one thought of until MMS went live.”

And here are five more stories we thought were important, thought-provoking, or just fun:

Best of DEMO — VentureBeat’s picks for the 10 best companies — “VentureBeat’s staff has chosen our top 10 picks of DEMOfall 09, the emerging technology conference that we co-produced.”

DEMOfall09: Your guide to VentureBeat’s coverage — Speaking of DEMO, this points to all our coverage of the 70 presenting companies.

Twitter confirms its latest round; no word on size — “Twitter confirmed its latest round of funding, reportedly valuing it at $1 billion.”

A123 IPO charges the market as share price jumps 50 percent — “Yesterday, we reported that advanced battery company A123Systems‘ initial public offering would be a bellwether for the rest of the energy storage industry, whether it soared or flopped. With all eyes fixed on its predicted $13.50 share price, the stock (AONE) proceeded to wallop the market, closing at $20.29 a share.”

VentureBeat Profiles, a directory of info and buzz about companies — “I’m pleased to introduce a site called VentureBeat Profiles, which lists comprehensive information about tens of thousands of companies and executives. We just launched the site this morning. It offers all kinds of ways to find, discover and share information about companies.”

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AT&T slips some iPhone MMS rollout details for Friday

We’ve just heard from AT&T that new carrier settings for the iPhone 3G and 3GS will be available “late morning” Pacific Time (which would be early afternoon Eastern) this Friday, September 25, which will finally enable MMS support. Owners will have to tether up to iTunes to grab those settings, so fish out your cable (as if you don’t have it permanently attached to your machine already) and make sure you’ve got some solid time in front of the computer to check for the update over and over (and over) again, alright?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

AT&T slips some iPhone MMS rollout details for Friday originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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