iPhone

A young software developer has decided to pull his iPhone game from Apple's App Store because it was too similar to the classic arcade game Tetris.

Noah Witherspoon, a college student in Atlanta, created a free game called Tris for Apple's handset platform. But Apple recently contacted Witherspoon to let him know that the Tetris Company, which licenses the eponymous video game, had notified it about copyright and trademark infringement claims against the app.

Witherspoon wrote on his blog that he has chosen not to take the matter to court and will pull the game on Wednesday. "… Read more

While on vacation in San Francisco last week, my family and I happened to stop by the Apple Store in Union Square. The buzz within was overwhelming--foreign tourists looking for cheap iPods, college students grabbing MacBooks, and business folks lining up for the 3G iPhones.

All of this activity isn't lost on large organizations. It seems that Apple is sitting pretty, ready for a backdoor entrance into the enterprise market with Macs and iPhones over the next few years.

The market certainly appears headed in this direction, but ironically, Apple may be its own worst enemy. Why? With its … Read more

CNET Reviews posted a great article last week on the best MP3 players for people who like to record audio directly to a device without the aid of a computer. (The article referred to these people as "pirates," rather than "lawful archivers of personally owned content." Argh, mateys!) I second their strong approval of Toshiba's Gigabeat U, and generally think the Gigabeats were sorely underrated.

But what if you've already got an iPod, as sales statistics suggest more than 70 percent of you do? Streaming Networks' iRecord is the answer. Connect any device with … Read more

Russians may soon get their chance to queue up to buy the Apple iPhone. Legally, that is.

Official sales of the iPhone are likely to start in October, with a deal having been reached between Apple and Mobile TeleSystems, Russia's largest carrier, according to the Reuters news agency, citing market sources. A second, carrier has also signed a framework agreement, and a third deal is in the offing, Reuters reported.

A mobile telecommunications analyst told Reuters that MTS aims to sell 1 million iPhones within two years, and that total sales by the top three carriers over that two-year … Read more

In New York, some Apple fans were miffed that the first people waiting in line for the iPhone 3G were activists hoping to stir up publicity for a cause. But don't you think they would've been even more ticked off if those first spots in the line were taken up by paid actors?

That's what's happened in Poland, where mobile phone operator Orange has admitted to Reuters that nearly two dozen stores in the country were manned with a line of actors in anticipation of Friday's iPhone launch.

"We have these fake queues at … Read more

An Alabama woman has filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming the iPhone 3G's network is slower than advertised.

In a 10-page complaint filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for Northern Alabama, Birmingham resident Jessica Alena Smith charged Apple with breach of express and implied warranty and with unjust enrichment. Smith, who refers to the phone she purchased throughout the complaint as "Defective iPhone 3G," is seeking class action status.

The lawsuit claims that Apple's iPhone 3G advertising campaign is misleading.

"Defendant intended for customers to believe its statements and representations about the Defective … Read more

Apple has finally acknowledged the iPhone 3G's reception issues, confirming that the iPhone OS 2.0.2 software update was designed to fix those problems.

A company representative told the Associated Press overnight (thanks, Macworld) that the latest update "improved communication with 3G networks," after weeks of silence regarding the reception issues reported by iPhone 3G owners around the world. Apple was reportedly working on such a fix last week, but Monday's update was labeled with the briefest of descriptions--"bug fixes"--making it difficult to know exactly what was addressed with the update.… Read more

These are the days I dread, but like in some sense. Release day for an iPhone firmware update. This always happens: I'm on my way out the door to work and want to synch my iPhone just to update any playlists or iCal entries when "BAM" - an update is available, "would you like to download now?" iTunes asks invitingly.

Of course I do, even though I have no idea what the difference between 2.0.1 to 2.0.2 is, it's just that it's better, right? (I would hope so, but … Read more

One of the common complaints about Apple's iPhone--and one that did not get solved with the launch of the iPhone 3G--is the lack of a copy-paste function. An independent developer, Zac White, recently unveiled his open-source solution: OpenClip, a standard for other iPhone application developers.

He's not the first one to have that idea: another developer, Preston Monroe, has created a hack called iCopy that lets iPhone owners copy and paste between the e-mail and Web browser applications.

OpenClip is not a standalone app but rather a technology that developers can incorporate into their iPhone applications, should they … Read more