Sony Ericsson Ruriko Project, 1 GHz CPU and 12.1 Megapixel Camera, Perfect?

We’ve shown you the Sony Ericsson Ruriko concept teaser before and finally we’ve got images of the “real” device, designed by the famous Esato board user Razec. This superb concept handset packs a 3.5 inch external AMOLED display with capacitive touchscreen surface, a Qualcomm QSD8250 1GHz CPU, 256MB RAM and 16GB Flash Memory.

There’s also a unique slide hinge included in its design, a brushed metal back finish, 1080p HD video support, a 12.1 megapixel camera (Exmor CMOS, 28mm wide Carl-Zeiss Sonnar, Xenon Flash, HD 720p video recording) and the Android OS v2.0 with Sony Ericsson GUI.

Ruriko also incorporates a second camera (1.3 megapixels), used for videocall and live chat, a 3.5 inch internal WVGA AMOLED display, touch sensitive multimedia keys, a QWERTY keyboard, a 4 way DPAD plus a 2.1 stereo subwoofer. Isn’t this Sony Ericsson concept a bit better than your Eee PC?

Next time we’ll have have a look at Razec’s concept interfaces for the Android OS.

5 killer Backgrounder apps to keep going on your iPhone

Last October, we wrote about Backgrounder, a jailbreak utility that allows iPhone users to run more than one application at a time. Backgrounder is an open source extension to the iPhone’s SpringBoard, the application launcher that works as the device’s version of the Macintosh Finder. When installed, you can move any application into the background by pressing and holding the Home key. The application continues to run and you can move on to other tasks.

If this sounds like a battery killer, well, it is. When used the right way, however, Backgrounder lets you multitask short-term visits to whatever app strikes your interest while running the important stuff in the background. 

True, some (but not all) of these background apps may get used when you’re near power sources: at your desk or in the car for example. But others will not, and many apps are just as useful on the go. It’s obviously a trade-off: shorter usage life versus higher productivity when taking advantage of Backgrounder’s features.

The trick lies in choosing the right apps to background. Yes this might mean backgrounding apps where going through the launch sequence and menus is a pain. If you don’t want to interrupt a game, it’s convenient to background it, take care of another task and then pop back a few minutes later. For the sake of this post, however, I’m talking about apps that you might stick in the background for longer sessions, the really core stuff that you want to keep going on while you do other things.

Here is a list of our top five killer Backgrounder applications, and why you would want these to keep running when you’re busy doing other things.

1. Pandora

Ah, Pandora, my love. Backgrounding you is like having a little angel of music sit on my shoulder at all times. Apple’s built-in iPod/Music application may also offer background music, but it doesn’t offer the music exploration features that power the Music Genome Project. Pandora uses song analysis to create suggestions and introduce you to music you’ve never heard before. With Backgrounder, Pandora plays new music as you get on with other iPhone work.

2. Mobile Colloquy and 3. AIM

Back in the days of the iPhone’s 1.x firmware, before Apple introduced its strict one-application-at-a-time rule, IRC and IM clients ran in the background as a matter of course; they would badge their SpringBoard icons to indicate when new messages became available. That’s the way clients work on PCs and Macs, and it was the way they should work on the iPhone.

Apple cut off third-party background processes in the 2.x firmware (and, in a related matter, never delivered on Push notifications). Backgrounder offers the closest approximation you can come to the halcyon implementations of the early days of jailbreak. 

With it, you can leave your IRC and IM sessions running in the background and check back in to ongoing sessions at will. In the best of all possible worlds, these should work the way the SMS app works: in the background, with badges and ongoing conversations. In the real world, Backgrounder makes Colloquy and AIM more practical and more accessible. With it, they operate closer to the way we really use these tools on our desktop computers.

4. File transfer apps like Air Sharing

When you’re working at home, there are occasions when you just want to throw a file onto the iPhone for later use. Instead of stopping what you’re doing and launching a file transfer application, it’s extremely convenient to have that app running in the background and toss over a file as needed. Using Backgrounder lets you leave that server going unattended, available for use whenever.

5. Twitter clients like TwitterFon

Most Twitter clients check in at regular intervals to fetch new tweets and messages. This check in can only occur when these applications are open and running. Backgrounding them lets this happen unattended, avoiding long delays when you return to see what your tweeps have been up to. You don’t have to wait to refresh; the software stays in the now as you allow it to keep running.

Other apps

That’s five, but there are many other applications that rock under Backgrounder. Our short list represents the apps most commonly used on our phones, but many other apps didn’t make the cut. When consulting with colleagues, a number of honorable mentions were thrown around. Here are some of the more notable uses, adding to the “pausing your ongoing game” mentioned earlier in this write-up.

• Reminder apps don’t have much utility when they’re not running. Backgrounding them means they can function better and keep you on top of the tasks that you’re supposed to do.
• Internet connection apps let you share your connection with nearby laptops. Backgrounding those apps lets you keep using your iPhone even while a friend surfs the Web. (These apps are legal in many countries; consult your local laws.)
• Slow-to-load apps may not take up a lot of background cycles but it’s nice to hop right back into these apps whenever you want.

TiVo For The T-Mobile G1

Now that they are finally putting some paid apps on the market, wouldn’t it be great if TiVo came out with one? I love TiVo and I’m an avid fan and user of the service and I think we need some absolutely to die for apps on the Android Market and an applications where we could edit our TiVo setting from ANYWHERE would definitely do be worth the buy.

A couple great features the TiVo app could have is to show listing of “Whats Hot” that’s going to be coming on the tele for example the Academy Awards and Oscars, movie listings, and more. It would also be cool if they had maybe a Top TiVo thing where you can see the most coveted shows that everybody is trying to get recorded. 

But really now, lets get some killer apps out there developers. Even if you have to charge for them. The first person who makes a decent video recorder can charge 1 dollar for the app and I’m sure they’d rack up a few hundred thousand in the first night. So who’s going to be first to create a TiVo application for me? I’ll give you a dollar ?

Found Footage: Swing yer iPhone ’round and ’round with Danglet

For those of you who have been anxiously awaiting a way to hang your iPhone or iPod touch from your neck or wrist, your wishes have been answered! There’s a new accessory called the Danglet that plugs into the dock connector port on the bottom of your favorite device, then clips onto a wrist or neck strap. The neck strap in particular would be an excellent accessory for anyone who needs to have both hands free, yet have immediate access to their iPhone (geocaching, anyone?).

Towards the end of the video above, you can see the obviously unpaid actors swinging their iPhones around by the straps. Personally, I kept expecting to see one of the phones flying off into the trees or pavement. Much to my relief, the Danglet mechanism appears to be well-designed and kept the devices from becoming projectiles.

The Danglet retails for $14.99 and includes both a hand strap and neck strap. Do not use your Danglet to turn your iPhone into martial arts weaponry. Thank you.

Most iPhone applications gathering dust

Just 30 percent of people who buy an iPhone application actually use it the day after it was purchased, according to Pinch Media, which analyzed over 30 million downloads from Apple’s App Store. And the numbers plunge from there: after 20 days, less than 5 percent of those who downloaded an application are actively using it. The drop-off is worse for free applications.

iPhone AppStore Secrets – Pinch Media

Those are amazing numbers. It’s not a new pattern–GigaOm and TechCrunch noticed this last August–but back then, with the App Store just a month old, it was hard to know whether that usage model would last.

Now it’s clear that seven months, 15,000 applications, and 500 million downloads later, things haven’t changed. App Store activity continues to be huge; Apple has made the App Store the centerpiece of its iPhone marketing over the last few months, highlighting the breadth and depth of applications that are available on the App Store for business and entertainment.

But if most people don’t find iPhone applications very compelling, does it matter how many exist? It’s enough to wonder if the App Store is starting to get a bit saturated.

Pinch Media CEO Greg Yardley looks at it a little differently. In his view, Apple has built such an easy-to-use distribution (as well as payment processing) platform for iPhone applications that people find it very easy to move onto the next thing that catches their fancy. The lack of a “try-before-you-buy” feature means iPhone users have no choice but to take the plunge, and given that most iPhone applications are free and the ones that do cost money are very inexpensive, there’s little incentive to carefully shop around for the one application that best meets your needs.

Only about 10 percent of iPhone applications appear to retain an audience over time, and most of those are games, entertainment applications such as movie listings, and things like Facebook (”their user sessions must be off the charts,” Yardley said).

But developers are still making plenty of money from the other 90 percent, he said. As noted, people are very willing to try new iPhone applications, meaning that building a better mousetrap is still a very viable business model for the world of mobile computing. His advice for developers is to get your money up front, and charge something for your application rather than trying to depend on a free/ad-subsidized model, because the number of people viewing those ads will plummet the day after the application lands on their iPhones.

At some point, however, Apple will need to find a better way to help developers promote their applications within an ocean. “The App Store fails as a promotional mechanism. There’s only so much screen real estate” that Apple can use within the App Store window to promote applications, Yardley said, and if you don’t get on those Top 100 or Staff Favorites lists, your application languishes.

Yardley thinks there is still a great deal of opportunity for developers on the App Store, which isn’t that surprising given he makes his living by advising iPhone developers. And it’s true that if the installed base of iPhones continues to grow, there will be more and more niche opportunities to cater to the needs of high-school students and seniors, and everyone in between.

Still, how many more currency conversion (37), recipe (67), and fart-joke (30) applications do iPhone users really need, especially if they aren’t using the ones they’ve already got?

T-Mobile bringing the BlackBerry Curve 8900 in February

Sprint’s now officially holding up the tail end of the BlackBerry train in the States (though hopefully not for long) now that T-Mobile has announced that the thoroughly modern Curve 8900 is hitting the lineup. Like the 8320 before it, the 8900 does WiFi for UMA-based HotSpot calling service and a 3.5mm headphone jack, but the similarities end there; besides arguably becoming the hottest BlackBerry in RIM’s stable, the 8900 features a 3.2-megapixel cam with image stabilization and a glorious 480 x 360 display that’ll put anything shy of a Storm to shame. Look for it next month — T-Mobile hasn’t committed to a date, though we have no reason to doubt the 11th rumor at this point.

Why Apple should implement a 24 hour return policy for all iPhone apps

One of the more interesting facts surrounding Google’s Android Market Place is that there will be a 24 hour return policy for all paid applications.  Users who aren’t satisfied with their purchase can opt to return it for a full refund within 24 hours of the time of purchase.  This policy stands to benefit both consumers and developers, and hopefully Apple will implement something similar in the iTunes App Store.

As the number of applications in the app store now number over 20,000, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for users to sift through the crapware to find programs actually worth downloading.  Apple’s recent reorganization of the app store helps to a certain extent, but a breakdown of the most popular free and paid apps in each category is just a start, not a be all end all solution.

People will gamble on a few 99 cent apps, but wont take a chance on a $7.99 app

iPhone users might be willing to shell out 99 cents for a game that looks cool, but they’re naturally more hesitant to spend upwards of 10 bucks on a program they’ve never used before, no matter how appealing it may look.  This becomes somewhat problematic because some of the more high quality and complex applications necessarily require more developmental resources, and are therefore sold at higher price points.  These applications are having an increasingly tough time competing in the app store because consumers don’t want to spend 7 bucks on a program that might suck.  Some worthwhile applications therefore get overlooked in the process, and the last thing Apple wants is to drive away developers who churn out some of the more impressive applications.

If Apple needs any evidence that a 24 hour return policy would be useful, they need look no further than the current pricing problems currently plaguing the app store.  More and more developers are becoming frustrated with applications that don’t sell, and are lowering prices to bargain basement levels in an attempt to boost up sales volume.  The “race to the bottom”, as its called, is advantageous to consumers in the short-term, but in the long run, it might preclude developers from devoting the necessary resources towards quality iPhone development.

Are Lite applications the answer?

Recently, a number of developers have been having success with free to download “Lite” applications, which are essentially watered down versions of applications that otherwise cost money.  This method of advertising works well because application screenshots and YouTube videos are not always enough to give users a realistic idea of what a program is like.

One developer in particular who achieved success this way is Ethan Nichols, the developer of the popular iPhone game iShoot.  When first released in October, iShoot sold for $4.99, yet failed to get any significant traction.  A subsequent price drop to $2.99 also did little to help sales.  But when Nichols introduced a ‘lite’ version of iShoot for free into the App Store in January, downloads skyrocketed.   The popularity of iShoot Lite, in turn, drove up sales of the paid version of the application, and within a few days, the $2.99 version of iShoot was the top paid application in the iTunes Store.   Clearly, users downloaded the free version of iShoot really enjoyed the game, and therefore had no problem at all with paying a few extra bucks for a full featured version of the program.

The problem with lite applications, however, is that they force developers to essentially release two versions of the same application.  Why put the onus on developers to do extra work when Apple can solve this problem in one fell swoop?  Besides, wouldn’t Apple prefer its developers to begin work on new applications, as opposed to figuring out what features to include or keep out of a lite version of a program that they’ve already finished coding?

‘Lite’ applications work to a certain extent, but it’s really only a temporary solution.  Not to mention, if every developer started releasing paid and lite versions of applications concurrently, navigating through the app store would become a jumbled mess in a heartbeat.

Consumers are willing to pay more for quality applications

The success of iShoot demonstrates that users have no problem paying for quality applications if they can first give it a test run of sorts.  In that regard, Google’s policy of allowing 24 hour returns makes perfect sense, and is one Apple should follow.

Any application not worth keeping for 24 hours most likely ends up being deleted anyways, and in the end, you’re left with a customer who feels bilked out of his money.  A 24 hour return policy, however, ensures that iPhone and iPod Touch users will always be satisfied with their purchases, and more importantly, will also give some of the more highly priced applications a chance to succeed.  This will, in turn, encourage developers to continue churning out high quality iPhone software.

At the very least, even if Apple chooses not to implement a 24 hour return policy, it should at least consider application demos whereby users could have 2-3 hours to play around with a program before having to make a decision of whether or not they should click the ‘buy’ button.

Apple has repeatedly stated that they view the iPhone as a software platform, and that being the case, Apple needs to do all it can to push forward some of the more polished applications, and to ensure that the App Store doesn’t become thought of as a haven for cheap and second-rate apps.  A 24 hour trial period seems like an obvious solution, and hopefully Apple will soon realize that.

Jon Maddox over at Mustache sums up the situation aptly when he writes:

The third party software market on Mac OS X (which is one of the most thriving software circles around) would be no where without allowing their users to try before they buy. Shareware and Trialware has been around forever. It became obvious to software developers VERY early that letting people use their software was the best marketing they could come up with. Apple ships iWork trials on every computer they make. Why, in 2009, do we have a whole new platform that is rejecting this proven idea?

New iPhone 4G Concept Is Son of MacBook Air and iPod Touch

This beautiful concept, inspired by the curves and tapering of the Macbook Air coupled with the touch’s back, is even better than the cool Macbook-inspired iPhone 4G we featured at the beginning of the month.

The thing that excites me most about these concepts, however, is not the aesthetic aspect of it. It’s the the front camera and the fact that people seem to be excited about getting videoconferencing on the iPhone. Specially about the idea of interacting with desktop videoconferencing software on both the PC and the Mac. This is a must for the videochat feature to be really useful, and personally I think it’s one of the reasons it hasn’t been done by Apple before.

My hope is that they are working to make it crossplatform, either with Apple releasing iChat for the PC at one point or, ideally, working on the connection with existing PC videoconferencing software like MSN and Skype.

For sure, Jason and I can’t wait to have cellphone videosex. With other people, I mean. [Thanks Rodolphe Desmare for the art]

10 Beautiful Apple iPhone Concept Designs

While the world is waiting for the announcement of the next generation Apple iPhone, we decided to showcase our favorite iPhone concept designs. Enjoy!

iPhone Concept from Japan

Apple iPhone concept by Japanese photographer Isamu Sanada [link]
 

Apple iPhone Nano Concept

Creative iPhone Nano concept with microphone integrated into the earbuds designed by Tracy Hall. [link]

iPhone Slider Qwerty Concept

Apple iPhone Slider Qwerty concept designed by Aaron Besson. [link]

iPhone with iChat Concept

Designed by Rodolphe Desmare, this Apple iPhone concept was inspired by the curves and tapering of the Macbook Air. [link]

iPhone ELITE Concept

iPhone ELITE concept, designed by Mat Brady, comes with optional slide out keyboard and front-facing camera that enables video conferencing. [link]

iPhone Pro Concept

Extended version of the iPhone ELITE concept with added direction pad and two buttons for better gaming. [link]

Titanium iPhone Concept

Beautiful titanium Apple iPhone concept designed by Jim Young. [link]

iPhone Air Concept

This is the iPhone Air, a duel touch screen iPhone with a clam shell design to protect both screens. When closed you can still see and control what is playing on your iPod as well as see an incoming call. [link]

iPhone Nano Concept

Another beautiful Apple iPhone Nano concept design. [link]

Futuristic iPhone Concept

See-through Apple iPhone concept designed by Robert Davis. [link]

Top 5 Free iPhone Games!

Free iPhone Games – How good are they really? We decides to find out – and have posted what we think are the best ones below (download links provided – and no need for a  complicated NES emulator or anything  – these download straight to your iPhone!)

iPhone games have been very popular – to say the least. In fact, according to Google, searches for “iphone games” have averaged around 300,000 a month for the last 12 months! And this interest has been matched with enthusiasm by new games developed for iPhones.

There are now over a thousand games in the App store and nearly a third of them are FREE! At first that was a pretty exciting deal for us iPhone owners. But now there are just so many – mostly poor – free iPhone games on offer in iTunes that its easy to get overwhelmed – and even to just ignore them!

Now, Apple does make some attempt to help us, by providing lists like the “top free Apps” shown below

But here’s the problem with this list.

The topped ranked game – Super Monkey Ball Lite – has only a 3-star rating (mainly because it only has three levels).

But it gets worse!

The iPhonegizmo team went bizerk and read every review written for these games!

As a result, we could not really understand the reasoning behind the rankings given for these games.

For example, three of the four “top ranked games” – iSniper lite, Save kitty, and duck shoot – only get 2 star ratings by users. With Falling Balls managing a slightly better, 2.5 stars. Not very encouraging.

Now the above image is for the US “Top Free Apps” – but we checked and found that other countries have much the same games in the top ten apps list!

So, we wondered – does this mean that all free iPhone games suck?

So we actually went (painfully) through the long list of free iPhone games listed in the App stores for both US and UK to see if we could find any better games. And we did!

iShoot Lite

 

But not many! Sadly, we found that few free games got better than 3.5 star ratings. (We are currently doing a survey of paid games as well – results will be posted in the near future). Here are our results:

Top Free iPhoneGames (rated by users as 3.5 stars or better):

1) iShoot Lite - 4 stars (Released Dec 08 );
2) Galcon lite - 3.5 stars (Released Sep 08);
3) Bounce On Lite - 3.5 stars (Released Jan 09);
4) Fastlane Street Racing Lite – 3.5 stars (Released Jan 09),
5) Downhill Bowling Lite - 3.5 stars (Released Feb 09);
6) Trace – 3.5 stars (US) (Released Oct 08)
7) Tap Defence – 3.5 stars (US) (Released Nov 08)

We were prepared to include games earlier than Sep 08 only if they had a rating of at least 4 stars as we reckon a lot of the games released back in July to September 08 had the benefit of being the glamorous first to be appreciated and so were met with the kind of rave reviews not seen since! And because we figured the good ones would be well known, anyway. But we did not find any!

So what did we take away from this exercise?

1) Most free games get very poor reviews

2) There are only two or three free games that are worth getting (out of hundreds!)
3) iTunes is a major pain to navigate! Unless you know the game you want it is just too much trouble to browse through what is available.

Kali Anti-Piracy Service for iPhone Devs from Ripdev

Last we talked about crackulous the one-click iPhone software cracking application.Crackulous is available to the public. The software would give anyone the ability to remove the copy protection from software purchased from the Apple App Store, enabling people to share them with others.Crackulous is the most powerful cracking application ever created for the iPhone cracking community. Crackulous requires a jailbreaked iPhone because it is installed VIA Cydia.After cracking App if you wants to share them with your friends.Now RipDev introduced Kali Anti Piracy an answer to crakulous.

iPhone developer Ripdev says that its new ‘Kali Anti-Piracy’ system has been in development for some months now and today sees its official ‘beta’ launch. Ripdev acknowledges it has become trivial now for anyone to become a “cool hax0r” by cracking iPhone app DRM and distributing the results worldwide, but believes that with Kali, it has the answer.

According to Ripdev, the Kali system is a server-side service which can take any App Store application and place it inside another protection wrapper which, Ripdev claim, will prevent it from being pirated. Claimed to be fully compliant with the Apple iPhone SDK, Ripdev says that Kali-protected apps meet Apple’s approval process. The company adds that it has been protecting its own software (such as Kate, i2Reader Pro, iPref and Installer) with it for months and no-one has yet cracked any of them.
There is a one-off charge for developers to start using the system. If they sell their app for $9.99 or less it’s $100. Over $9.99 and it goes up to $300. Ripdev are also taking additional ‘royalties’ for each copy protected with Kali (in order to “keep the hackers on their toes”) of between 1% and 5% of the developer’s 70% cut.
Ripdev also has a message for would-be pirates; “Expect more and more apps to be much, much harder to crack in the near future.”

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