Ordering room service using an iPhone or an iPod Touch is one the most interesting things I’ve heard regarding Apple’s products. Apparently Malibu Beach Inn is trying to attract people that are in love with their touchscreens and won’t let go of the fancy brick, no matter what.

The hotel has a web application built for the Safari Browser, that allows all iPhone/iPod Touch users to access remote capabilities like room service, setting a wake up call, requesting luggage, renting a limo and flipping the door placard to “Do Not Disturb”. Does that mean that geeks are lazy or is it just a nice way of saying we love you Apple freaks, come stay at our hotel for a couple of nighs to play with the system. Not sure if any geek will afford something like the Malibu Beach Inn though.

via Fashion Funky

iPhone 3G has gained the buzz that Apple was looking for. Every press release or online article praised its qualities, features and price. Regarding myself, I had been a big fan before the iPhone launched, but I must tell you I changed my opinion as I used it. The same negative opinions have appeared recently regarding the latest iPhone version, the 3G.

People complain about its slow data speeds, weak signal or lack of enterprise features. That doesn’t sound good for Apple’s business, but it seems the praises were left out. Most of the users showed disappointment in iPhone’s data connections. The blame cannot be put only on iPhone’s weakness, but also to carriers. For example the data speeds vary from network to network - T-mobile of Germany has the highest rates, while a carrier in Australia provides the lowest speeds.

Another issue pointed out by 3G iPhone users is the call dropping problem. It appears to be an intern problem, as the 2.02 firmware update has solved it. In addition, the users that didn’t experienced such a problem have encountered another - the weak signal inside buildings. That trouble was allegedly caused by a faulty chip set supplied by mobile chipmaker Infineon Technologie.

The bad experiences continue with outages in MobileMe service and iTunes incompatibility. In the same list users included the third party applications sold over AppStore that created glitches and dissatisfaction.

An overall opinion makes you think twice before purchasing an iPhone. From the most precious mobile of our time it has fallen in disgrace.

There are times when you don’t have your high class DSLR with you, but only your telephone, and you need to zoom in more to get a clear shot of something stunning, amazing, incredible, etc. What do you do? Until now, there were not many solutions, but Brando found the niche and is now exploiting it. Their new add-on telescope was designed for the 3G iPhone, and other than looking incredible weird it’s going to improve things 6 times (zoom I mean).

My honest opinion? I don’t think the pictures are that good so you’d better go for a pocket camera to keep it in the other pocket of your jeans next to your iPhone if you plan to sneak on someone. Brando’s iPhone Telescope is going to cost $19 if you don’t!

via Brando

iTunes’ full image backup of your iPhone can take much more than you’re willing to wait, if you made changes to the installed applications. I’m not talking about a minute or two, but tens of minutes, and it’s time we don’t have these days, so the solution is to disable the iPhone’s backup process, and skip it, isn’t it?

But there are two things (risks) you should consider before doing what ZeroLogic found out.

1. Don’t interrupt your ongoing backup process to skip it. Not that something will block or you losing warranty on your iPhone. It’s just that you may forget to do it correctly again and restoring would be useless because you’ll have only corrupted files.
2. Using this “solution” means that you won’t have a phone backup, so act with caution.

So here is what you have to do to disable the iTunes iPhone backup process:

This command will change a hidden setting in the iTunes preferences that will force it to skip the backup process.

1. - Quit iTunes.
2. - Open Terminal.app
3. - Copy and paste this in, then hit return:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool true

4. - Open iTunes
5. - Plug in your iPhone (2.0 or 3G) and sync.

It will take a few seconds, assuming you don’t have a ton of music or podcasts.

Changing the ‘true’ in step 3 to ‘false’ will re-enable the backup feature.

Let me know how it goes by leaving a comment here. I will not be held responsible if your phone takes a crap and you have no backup.

Enjoy!

Image courtesy of ArsTechnica

God, i hate timezone! Why? Because the New Zealand people will get to have the new iPhone3G first, on the 11th.

But i guess I can wait a day before I can get mine, or not. You can either pre-order it from O2, but get only one per customer and on a first come, first served basis, or you can order it and have it delivered to your door though iTunes.

Just so you get an idea of how much us mortals want and need the iPhone, O2 sold out the 16GB version in just 3 hours.

I think I made my poing. Over and out.

O2 UK
Vodafone NZ

Boys and gals, the wait is over.

Steve Jobs’ keynote gave in all the info one should / would want to know about the new 3G iPhone which will be released to the market on July 11th. Only 22 countries will get it then but a total of 70 are prepared to give it a try later on.

With a full plastic back, a flush headphone jack, packed with the iPhone 2.0 firmware the new iPhone goes cheaper ($199 for 8GB and $299 for 16GB) than the old 2.5G versions. Add to that the 3G speeds are 2x faster kicking Nokia N95 and Treo 750 right in the soft parts and the fact that “Customers who purchased a 2.5G iPhone on or after May 27 and want to swap it out for a new iPhone will be able to do so without incurring an additional handset charge for the new device” and we’re some happy campers over here.

What do you think?

Apple just bought the iphone.com domain for $7 million from Michael Kovatch. Mike bought the domain in 1995 when the phones still had wires and we weren’t expecting anything with touchscreen.

I’m not sure if they’re going to give us iPhone reviews on the site or hot news about the “best cellphone in the world” as some may call it, but we’re prepared. There are info about the revolutionary features of the iPhone, rate plans, specifications or how to get started using it. Cellphones evolve, so to be honest I was expecting something like this, though it wasn’t that figure I was counting on.

Good job to Mike selling the domain and to Steve buying it, as DomainTools reports. If you’re visiting iphone.com you’ll be sent to Apple’s iPhone page from now on, so go ahead and try it.

That’s the price paid for an golden iPhone at an auction on eBay. The auction gathered many enthusiasts, toting up 69 bids. The winner identity wasn’t disclosed, perhaps he or she didn’t want to get friends attention.

The 16GB model was meticulously disassembled and then plated with pure 24Kt gold by iCandyPhones manufacturer. I believed the iPhone would have looked better if had been plated with platinum.

The phone is unlocked and works with any GSM operator worldwide. In my opinion the phone looks too flashy for anybody who’s not a pimp.

via gizmodo

We all know that a new iPhone is soon going to be available. Our buddies from Engadget managed to get some info from a very authoritatively source about the next-gen iPhone so here it is.

• 3G and GPS are the main changes. Lots of people screamed for those features and Apple listened very carefully.
• The new iPhone is going to be all (glossy) black, it doesn’t have a back metal case anymore and should be slightly thicker.
• Apple may start shipping it from July.

Though these are pretty interesting changes, there is still no word on a removable battery but I guess you know that when we talk about Apple, nothing is final. The source seems to be highly credible but even so, take some salt with it.

I’ve just heard that the all mighty phone, the iPhone, is going to get itself a specially built Flash player. Yes, Adobe will release it just for the iPhone, despite Apple’s concerns that the technology is not to be developed for mobile phones.

Shantanu Narayen, President and CEO of Adobe said in a press conference today “we believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone. [..] We have evaluated [the software developer tools] and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves.”

Can you argue the guy? I don’t think it’s going to be a hit, but bring it on and let us test it a lil bit. Rumors say Apple will probably provide Adobe with the framework they need to do a Safari plugin. But remember the part where I said, they don’t want a Flash Player on their iPhone? The other solution for Adobe is to build it just like Quicktime, as a stand alone player.

via Gizmodo