Apple’s iPhone OS 3.1 introduced some great new features, including that MMS thing we’ve all been waiting for, but the update also brought some hiccups, including even poorer battery life for an already thirsty device. Apple’s doing something different with this round of complaints, though. It’s getting involved.

This weekend the company started contacting forum users who had complained about battery life, asking follow-up questions like, “When you notice a power drop, does it seem to be a legitimate power drop, or rather an issue with the battery icon indicator?” The users were also prompted to install a battery life logging profile which then syncs back to Apple when you connect to iTunes. There are also instructions for turning off the logging feature once data has been collected.

Apple has gotten involved with some of the past iPhone concerns. Hopefully this time things will get fixed in a timely fashion.

It’s really becoming a year among years for Apple. The super-trendy company was once a sleeping puppy in a den of wolves, quietly wooing customers to the questionable promise of a more stable lifestyle. Since then they’ve released the Kleenex of the MP3 player market and turned tens of millions to the iPhone. Just three months ago their app store hit 1 billion downloads and just this month the store had its first birthday.

Today marks another milestone for your favorite fruity company. According to an Apple press release, the app store has reached 1.5 billion downloads to date. We already know Apple’s iPhone as host to the fastest growing development community in the world, sending coders on a rite of passage with dreams of hitting it rich. Those quasicultish seekers have made more than 65,000 apps available in 77 countries around the world.

Our congrats to Apple. May your useful apps continue to improve and your frivolous apps continue to make us scratch our heads as we look at the download counts.

You can read the full press release here.

The folks at PocketGamer.biz recently took a look at the iPhone gaming situation to come away with some cold, hard data about what people are buying and why. I’ll spare you the full report (really I just don’t want to leech all the credit here) and focus instead on some of the more interesting details.

For standards, PG took a snapshot of the top 100 applications and then broke down the results by price, price by rank, games by publisher, and source (new IP, console port, music, movie, etc.).

Pricing was actually different than you might think. While most of the top 100 came in the $.99 category (36 titles), second place went to the $4.99 bracket with 20 titles. But that’s just number of games for each price bracket. Obviously since they are top 100 these are games that are getting downloaded a lot, but how much do the games get played after downloading?

If you look at price by rank, the top 10 games average just $1.89/download. At 11-20, the price drops to $1.19. Of course there are a load of factors that could contribute to the rankings. Are people really playing these cheap games more or are they just deleting them more often and so being prompted to rate more of these games?

Perhaps the most useful statistic, at least to industry developers, is the rate of new downloads and the desire for new IP. Of the top 100 games, 40 were released in June or July (this likely includes a few updates). Another 22 were April or May releases. As for IP, 52 of the top 100 are fresh content, designed just for the iPhone.

If you’re downloading games, where does your allegiance lie? Are you a bargain shopper, only buying apps that are cheap or on sale? Or do you look for the best IPs from hot developers, regardless of price?

This is the month of phone hype, beyond a doubt. We’ve seen the Pre release, Nokia’s super-expensive N97 spot with LL Cool J, iPhone OS 3.0, and now the iPhone 3GS. Of the phone launches, the biggest is certainly the update iPhone, though it may have come more quietly than the world expected.

Lines outside Apple’s flagship store in NY reached several hundred, but amidst some rain, they were all shuffled under Apple’s roof making this the smallest iPhone launch yet. Still, AT&T reports hundreds of thousands of preorders for launch day, which dwarfs Palm’s Pre 50,000 first weekend statistic.

It wasn’t just scale that kept the launch quiet, though. In part, it was a lack of hangups that have plagued Apple’s past launches. Apple announced both iPhone OS 3.0 and the iPhone 3GS at WWDC this year, but the set the launch days two days apart. The staggered launch was presumably to reduce server load so that new owners weren’t trying to activate their 3GS while 20 million others were waiting for OS 3.0 downloads. It was a smart move, and it kept problems with the 3.0 release and problems with the 3GS launch (so far, at least) to a minimum.

Now the focus shifts to AT&T and how their network will handle more users hoping to see the wireless carrier make good on promises of MMS and tethering. Will MMS from iPhone users bring the sole US carrier to its knees later this summer?

We already posted a how-to for enabling tethering on your shiny new OS 3.0. While awesome, it is clunky, slow, requires a mac… yada, yada, yada.

Leave it to iClarified to give us a handy and simple way to enable tethering right from the phone. All you have to do is use Safari from the phone and navigate to a specific website. Click a link here, say yes there, and next thing you know, tethering is enabled on your iPhone.

I know someone, who knows someone, who did it (wink, wink) and it was as easy as pie. Click through and try it for yourself. Let’s just say I know it works.

Most of the bad news coming with the iPhone OS 3.0 release is from AT&T, the iPhone’s sole US carrier. Despite most every other iPhone carrier in the world enabling tethering and MMS today, AT&T did not, much to her users’ chagrin.

The software is there, though, and it’s taken less than a day for someone to figure out a hack (for tethering that is – MMS has been around since the first jailbreak). The guys at MacMegasite have a quick and dirty tutorial to get the thing running. In short, all it requires is that you download a carrier settings file and perform a defaults write command in a Mac terminal. Restore your phone while holding option down and you can add the carrier settings update without messing with the rest of your phone. Head to “Network” under your general settings and you should see tethering, with options for USB and Bluetooth functionality.

Early reports suggest things are a little slow, and I have yet to read of a successful PC mod for this. Still, good work from everyone involved with this (seems like MacMegasite, Gizmodo, and AppleNova for some quick credits). Have you tried this yet? Did it work for you?

Full tutorial here.

As good as their word, Apple released OS 3.0 for the iPhone today. You’ll need to have iTunes 8.2 installed for the update, which is free for iPhone owners, $10 for the iPod Touch.

In case you’ve forgotten, the OS update brings long-awaited features to the iPhone, like copy and paste, push notification, and universal search, among other things. Finally applications will be able to alert you when you receive new messages, and copy and paste, well I think the benefits there are obvious.

Don’t forget to check back on Friday for an unboxing/review of the iPhone 3GS.

We’ve all been waiting for it. We’ve all seen the rumors. Some of us have even spent loads of time in photoshop doing some mythbusting. Plenty of us have held off on buying a new phone for just this announcement. Well wait no more, fanboys and girls; the new iPhone is here!

Set to be available on June 19th (just two days after 3.0 drops), the 3GS matches up to many speculations we’ve seen over the past few months. For starters, adding the S to the nomenclature stands for speed, because it’s the fastest iPhone ever made at an average of 2X the power (they didn’t release hardware specs). There is, of course, the much needed camera upgrade, lifting your picture-snapping from an abysmal 2 megapixels to an improved 3MP with autofocus and autoexposure. It won’t be replacing your point and shoot anytime soon, but the hardware upgrade was a must, and autoexposure is a great feature for a mobile phone. Simply tap the area on the photo you want exposed and the software adjusts accordingly.

Also included in the update is the much rumored (and nearly confirmed a while back) magnetometer, turning your iPhone into an accurate compass. This one should be a nice little boon for those GPS software developers, giving more accurate turning information. What else will developers do with a compass? At least one mindless “point to this direction” game I’m sure.

As for the things we didn’t fully expect, the 3GS will support 7.2 HSDPA, which is great news as more carriers (including AT&T) update their networks. There is also Nike+ support and voice control for added accessibility and hands-free operation. They’ve also added VoiceOver support that will read what you touch on screen.

Also, instead of releasing multiple new phones, the iPhone 3GS comes in black or white, both at the 16GB ($199) and 32GB ($299) levels, adding up to the 4 phones that were predicted. That rumored $99 device? That’s the new price for the iPhone 3G.

Did they do enough to bring the iPhone up to “real smartphone” speeds? Let us know in the comments.

Probably a lot more than you or I, to be frank. Mossberg, famed author of the weekly WSJ column Personal Technology, has recently put together a review of the Palm Pre, shedding some of his tech angel dust on what could be a lackluster launch.

Mossberg seems to truly like the Pre, like most of the of the other reviews we’ve seen. And why not? The phone is solid, if a bit small, and the OS is robust. Give developers a few months and the Pre could become a very handy device, if it can sell enough units to remain afloat. But there is some thinly veiled (sometimes just plain direct) iPhone news within Mossberg’s review.

“Unfortunately for Palm, Apple has both a new iPhone operating system and new iPhone hardware coming, likely available within a month, that could obviate [copy and paste, MMS, universal search],” writes Mossberg. I hate to say this man’s word is law, but if there’s anyone mainlining tech news, it’s Walt. Mossberg has historically let little things like release dates slip, always without enough specificity to say he’s violated his press embargoes. If Walt’s right, Monday could bring the announcement we’ve all been waiting for, with hands-on access to the next-gen iPhone in just a few weeks.

Apple’s iPhone App Store approval process has created a flurry of news with its stringent requirements, the latest of which involved an eloquent rant by Trent Reznor. It’s pretty hard to disagree with Reznor on this one, though we may have done so with more carefully chosen words (you’re too old to care so much about your rocker persona). The apps that do and don’t make it through seem arbitrary at best, and near fascist at the worst.

Developer Jelle Prins has found a way around the mess by hiding the “worst” of his app with a nifty little easter egg. Prins’ App, Lyrics, which displays the lyrics of songs in a user’s playlist, was initially rejected because it would display all lyrics, even the obscene ones. Approval came only after Prins installed a profanity filter.

That’s not the end of the story. Alongside the profanity filter, Prins scripted an easter egg that enables profanity at the user’s discretion. Just head to the “About” page on the app, swipe your fingers down three times and confirm you want to see the naughty lyrics. Prins said the egg was easy to implement because it’s a difficult thing to notice in the source code.

Prins also says the app was likely approved due to a lack of manpower on Apple’s part. Lyrics ties in to an online database to monitor usage. That database showed only one use during his approval process, meaning just one person fired up the app, searched for a few profanities, and then pushed the thing through when he couldn’t find any. Scouring lines of code for things like Prins’ easter egg isn’t even on the map.

Of course with all the attention on Prins and his little workaround, I would not be surprised to see the app pulled until 3.0 parental controls go live. So much for sticking it to the man.

Source: Wired

The long awaited push notification service that Apple’s been touting since the birth of the App Store has finally entered load testing. In case you’ve forgotten (it’s been awhile since they promised us this) push notification will allow third-party applications to update their home page icons and pop up status messages without actually opening the program.

The load testing comes with the way Apple plans to implement the system. Every notification has to actually run through Apple’s servers, which gives them a huge amount of data which can be used internally or, and this is the more likely case I’d say, sold to the highest bidder. Apple has only opened testing to App Store developers, and only for one app: a pre-release version of the Associated Press app.

Obviously developers will be jumping all over this thing, if just to see how the system works. From the looks of things, applications will each have their own settings for push notification, which could make buying apps a bit more complicated. Sort of like when you buy a new video game and have to tweak your control schemes, mouse inversion, graphic settings (shush Steam users, I know you’ll get your panties knotted here), each application will require you to set preferences for alerts.

Could we see push as early as the next iPhone release? Doubtful, but a girl can hope, can’t she?

Source: Apple Insider

According to the popular Mac site Macrumors.com, Apple has filed a couple of patents that point to significant evolution in the iPhone hardware. The iPhone has been criticized since release for lagging behind other ’smart’ phones, a claim they hope to refute with the impending OS 3.0 release. The new patents point to first-in-market technologies that could further expand the IQ of Apple’s juggernaut.

The first patent deals with new accelerometer-based motion technology that would allow the iPhone interface to change as the phone senses various activities. The patents suggest that the phone could determine whether you are jogging or performing other physical activity and adjust the user interface to include gestures for functions such as answering phone calls or changing tracks in iTunes. The images filed also show a transition to enlarged contact lists during motion, making sifting through contacts a bit easier for a shaky hand.

Other interesting features point to video conferencing with the addition of a user-side video camera. Video recording of any kind remains unavailable on the iPhone until OS 3.0 later this summer. Of course all of this is speculation, but the patents do give us some small window into the research coming out of Cupertino.

Source: Macrumors

In case you missed it, here’s what’s Bouncing Around the Web:

Nikon has released what seems to be a wonderful new DSLR. It combines a 12.3 megapixel still camera with a video camera that shoots 720p video at 24fps. The best part? It starts at $730. From a high level, it looks like the D5000 is a consumer’s D90 at a more affordable price point. Well done Nikon… well done.
Via Wired

Who doesn’t love a good rumor? Or better yet, a good Apple rumor? Or better still, a new iPhone rumor? Or best of all, a new iPhone rumor backed by actual data? Yes, the new iPhone’s features may have been leaked with the release of the iPhone OS 3.0. In the OS, developers have found several interesting things like: a video recorder, auto-focus, an iPhone locator, voice control and more. Yum!
Via Wired

Nintendo has announced the release date for their new Wii MotionPlus accessory. If you haven’t heard yet, MotionPlus is supposed to give a more true 1-to-1 experience on the Wii. Things like swinging a golf club or handling a sword will act more like the real thing than ever before. It’s a pretty cool concept and I expect the final product to be solid. So look to pick one up for $19.99 on June 8 or bundled with Wii Sports Resort for $49.99 a few weeks later.
Via IGN

We’ve had a week to sit back and digest all that was announced for the new iPhone OS 3.0 that will be released this summer. And there is a lot to like. We are getting several features that have been clearly missing in the past. For instance:

• Cut, copy, and paste
• Multimedia Messaging
• Universal Search
• Landscape mode in all apps
• A2DP stereo Bluetooth
• Turn-by-turn directions

How has the iPhone done so well for so long without all of these? Most, if not all, legitimate smart phones have had this functionality for a long time. Therefore adding these features doesn’t do much to excite me. We should have had them all along. Luckily there were several unexpected announcements with the new OS 3.0. At a high level, here are several of them:

• In app purchases
• Peer-to-peer connectivity
• Tethered accessories
• Embedded maps
• Push notifications
• Voice-memos
• Additional calendar support
• 3G tethering

Well, those are some welcome additions. Again though, several of these items have been available on the better smart phones for a while. So while Apple is playing catch up in several categories, at least it’s running at full speed to do it.

This is where I have to give Apple some credit. It seems that the iPhone OS 3.0 has done a lot of catching up and answered many of the skeptics questions as to whether or not the iPhone could compete against the top smart phones on the market. I know it’s kinda crazy to question the iPhone’s overall competitiveness but in all reality, it has suffered from a slower adoption into the business world. For example, many companies and professionals would probably love to switch to the iPhone but couldn’t fathom not having cut, copy, and paste in their smart phone. Nor have a phone without a landscape mode to read and respond to emails. And how useful to a business person is a phone that cannot do a basic search?

So the question remains… Does the iPhone OS 3.0 measure up? I say it does. With the addition of several unexpected features to go along with the ones that have been missing for quite a while, I believe that Apple has finally turned a corner and has created a smart phone for everyone.

Hell, wish I was there too! My jealousy runs deep. Click through for Engadget’s live blogging from Apple’s OS 3.0 preview.

I cannot express my level of curiosity. Copy and paste? Multimedia messaging? Applications running in the background? More……?