However, its Sunday and there is still no sign of the new version. The ever so resourceful and reliable Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has just provided an update based on what they have heard from a source with knowledge of the situation that the new version of Google’s app will likely be available on the App Store on Monday.
Arrington goes on to add:
“Google was under the impression that the application would be live on the App Store on Friday (obviously, since they pushed all significant press attention to it). Sometime Friday they found out Apple wouldn’t be pushing it, despite the fact that Google submitted it for review earlier in the week and got a thumbs up for Friday. One source says they’ve had little direct contact with Apple during the review, instead getting their updates via the standard iPhone developer tool, which has said “in review” for the last few days.”
The positive thing to take away from all this is that Apple seems to be treating Google like any other iPhone Developer even though Google CEO’s Eric Schmidt is on Apple’s board.
But it also highlights the pitfalls of Apple’s approval process. It is quite embarrassing for a company of Google’s stature to get press attention only to find out that the application is not getting released.
iPhone Developers big or small should ideally get a 24 to 48 hours notice informing them about the expected release date of their iPhone app so they can plan accordingly.
Arrington believes:
“If the application is half as good as the demo video shows, Google has done something pretty amazing with voice recognition and mobile platforms. This application will, quite simply, sell iPhones. Lots of them.”
We agree that it would be amazing if the application works half as good as the demo video but don’t think it will be a feature that will sell iPhones, it would definitely be one of the features in iPhone’s rich feature list, but we should soon see the app for other mobile platforms so it will not be a differentiating factor for long.
As we have mentioned before, though we are excited to hear about the voice search feature; we are not too sure if it is going to be more convenient than typing out the search query. It will probably depend on the accuracy of the voice recognition technology.
It is definitely promising as iPhone Hacks readers Justin and cabbit who have used GOOG-411 mobile service (which voice search is based on) have found it to be very accurate for them, but it will be interesting to see how it works in the international markets as the GOOG-411 mobile service is available only in the US and Canada.
Whether you actually need an excuse to ditch that fugly blind date or just want to goof on your friends, you need a “fake call” app! You never know when it’ll come in handy. Here’s a quick look at three of the ten fake callers I found in the iTunes App Store.
Fake Caller by Hot Potato does what it says it’ll do, but the current version has one major flaw. You can set it to ring at a specific time or after a delay of (x) minutes which is great, but the big problem is that the “incoming call” looks nothing like the iPhone’s call screen! Apparently this will be corrected with a pending update, but still… come on! Shoulda been done right the first time around.
Chances are the poor sap you’re fleeing from won’t notice the difference in the call screen, but I’d advise against taking a chance on getting busted. You also have to choose the name of the phantom caller from your Contacts list which limits the goof-potential.
Fake Caller also has a “premium” version for $.99 which gives you the luxury of remembering your fake call settings.
Ok, this one isn’t free but it was when I installed it a few weeks ago.
For some reason Magic Tap makes you go into your iPhone’s Settings menu to set up your fake calls which can be kind of a hassle. When your phone rings it’s totally believable, but my feeling is that setup should have been built into the app itself.
Call timing is currently limited to an interval ranging from 0 seconds up to 10 minutes, and the App Store description lists “get missing calls” and “proximity sensor” as features, but I have absolutely no frakkin’ idea what they’re talking about. One thing Fake Calls does right is it’ll repeat the fake call if you hit “decline”.
Magic Tap says they’re donating “10% of the earnings” to a charity called Mi Sangre Foundation. If you really want to help out, my suggestion would be to give them the full dollar and get a free fake caller!
This one is my personal favorite. It’s ad-supported, but Excelltech, Inc. did a nice job on their free Fake-A-Call. It lets you set a specific time for the fake call to ring, or you can shut the timer off and activate the fake call with a quick double-tap anywhere on the screen. Whether you “answer” the call or decline it, it reverts to a black screen so you can double-tap again if you’re really hamming it up.
The background image has to be chosen from a preset list, not your camera roll, but that doesn’t seem like a big deal to me since the incoming call looks as legit as any. Still, it would be nice if this could be fixed in a future update.
You may have already seen the recently debuted iPhone 3G ads, one of them featuring a little app Shazam.
There’s a reason Shazam has 4.5 stars after 1,880 reviews… it kicks ass! We’ve all been in the situation that Shazam is designed to remedy: you’re in a bar or a store or maybe you’re just driving along in your car and you hear a song. You love this song but you have no idea what it’s called or who sings it, and neither do any of the knuckleheads you’re with.
Back in the Stone Age (a couple months ago) you would have spent the next few days humming the song for your friends while they look at you like you’re an idiot, but now all you have to do is whip out your iPhone in mid-song, launch Shazam, tap on “Tag Now”, and wait for it to tell you the artist, song title, album, genre, and it also displays the album cover. It might even find you the music video on YouTube! And of course you can buy the song from iTunes.
Shazam is one of the few apps that belongs on every single iPhone on the planet. It may not recognize 100% of the music you throw at it, but my unscientific estimate is that it’ll tell you what you want to know about 80-90% of the time if what you’re listening to has ever been released on a semi-major record label. It’s even pretty good at sniffing out more obscure titles, but the more obscure the more hit-or-miss your experience will be.
If you listen to music and don’t have this app yet, go get it right now. Seriously, go. Now!
P.S. A little tip: There’s no way to mass-delete tags, so if you want to delete them quickly without opening every single one, just swipe your thumb left-to-right under the time in My Tags. This will bring up a red delete button, but be careful because it doesn’t ask you “are you sure” before deleting.
I saw an application in Cydia today called Transformer. It is an app that allows you to make your iPod Touch look more like an iPhone. According to the more info, you can add iPhone Prefs, Signal Bars and iPhone Apps (Phone, SMS, Camera) to your iPod Touch. Transformer is available via the ModMyi source.
A release candidate of vWallpaper and vRingtones has been released for the iPhone 2.x firmware. The application allows you to display a video as your iPhone’s wallpaper or ringtone.
To install you must add the http://i.danstaface.net/deb/ source to Cydia. You will find the final version (after some feedback) on the iSpazio repo.
What’s new in this version:
- You can add some pictures over the video who can give great effects, as you can see on videos.
- vRingtones don’t popup when you have a double call.
New features in 2.5 Beta:
- Ability to insert a contact name & number or email address when composing an SMS just right swipe in the message text box (not supported in landscape mode)
- Ability to insert your current GPS location coordinates when composing an SMS just right swipe
in the message text box (not supported in landscape mode)
- For incoming SMS messages that contain a http url, now allows user to open up Safari, YouTube or Google Maps
- Added Landscape mode when composing an SMS message, and with a larger font as well!! (you need to be in the compose text box before it’ll rotate to landscape)
- Faster navigation from “Text Messages” view to specific message conversation
- Compliance with Cydia Mobile Substrate framework for registering of dylibs (now a Cydia prerequisite)
- Unify status bar color (containing character counter and credit / message indicator)
- Upon pressing “Send…” keyboard reverts to normal mode (if currently in numbers / special symbols mode) as per Apple SMS application If you can’t wait until the 2.5 general release you can beta test biteSMS 2.5 by adding the following repo to your Cydia Installer: http://www.bitesms.com/cydia/beta
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