Appletell

Apple’s recent launch of a few very popular services and products has brought many complaints and problems to the company. Despite this, the iPhone 3G has sold out practically everywhere, and the App Store is a huge hit, but Apple really needs to get on top of these issues. These products, namely iTunes 7.7, the App Store, and the iPhone 2.0 software, are near perfect, but each have its own flaws.

After the break I will outline some of these issues.

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It’s been a week now since Apple has released the iPhone 3G and iPhone 2.0 software, and we’re not done celebrating. To prove it, we’re ready to share some gaming goodness with you, our faithful readers.

Our original intent was to give this game away with our Super Monkey Ball review, but we held off, considering the iPhone 3G buying problems many are still facing. We can wait no longer; get in line for your iPhone now, because one lucky entrant will soon be selected to receive a $10 iTunes gift certificate to use towards the purchase of Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone.

Enter the contest after the break.

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Wingnuts Moto Racer is a racing game, of sorts. It’s actually more of a time trial game, as the point is to race through checkpoints in order to...save a cat? Let’s consider this again; a cat has been stolen, and it’s up to one of three motorcyclists to race through various locales around the world, avoiding traffic, biker thugs and nature in order to save the day. Why’s this cat so important? I guess it doesn’t matter, just as long as it gives you an excuse to race.

Speed through the review after the break.

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Since releasing its own application for the iPhone and iPod Touch last week, Google has been tweaking it some more and has just introduced some new features. Specifically, the Google.com portal for the iPhone and iPod Touch has improved to twice its original speed, whether users are connected via 3G, Wi-Fi or EDGE. Google has also optimized Google.com for fast searching, which is the main characteristic of its web version.

This is in addition to the easy access to Google applications such as Gmail, Calendar, Reader and others, which can be accessed by tapping on the More tab in the iPhone or iPod Touch. Google has also enhanced the user interface, creating more room on the page for search results. When clicking on a search result, the destination site now opens in the same browser window in which the search was conducted, allowing users to just press the back button when going back to the Google home page.

And to bring their iPhone and iPod Touch application in tune with other applications, Google has created new icons for all the available Google applications. Users can now easily add these icons to their iPhone’s Home Screen.

Via [http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-updates-to-googlecom-for-iphone.html” title="Google Mobile Blog">Google Mobile Blog]

Macintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for July 18, 2008:

• iPhone accessories from OrionGadgets
• NovaMind introduces ScriptMapping and Merlin 2.6
• TeamViewer offered for free for non-commercial use
• PDO is now shipping the TopSkin for iPhone 3G
• Aimersoft Studio releases Aimersoft DVD Studio platinum
• Jewel Quest III now available
• Flashforward Film Festival Big Orange Rubber Arrow nominees announced

Details after the break.

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FROM GAMERTELL - Viz Media is now making some of its anime series available on iTunes. Currently, 103 uncut episodes of Naruto, Bleach and Death Note are available for $1.99 an episode.
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This Monday, July 21st, Apple will be report its FY 08 third quarter results via conference call. The call will take place at 2:00 PDT (5:00 EDT).

Interested viewers can also listen in on a live audio webcast, which will be accessible through Apple’s website. Viewers simply need a copy of QuickTime 6 or QuickTime 7 to listen to the conference call. QuickTime 7 is available from http://www.apple.com/quicktime.

This will be an interesting report to hear. Although the iPhone 3G sales came in too late to greatly impact the numbers, Mac sales were up 38% over the previous quarter, moving them up to an 8.5% share of the market (behind only Dell and HP).

Currently, AAPL is trading at $166.47 (down $5.34). There are many people who get paid a ridiculous amount of money to analyze and make predictions on such things, so I won’t infringe upon their territory. Rather, I’ll just use my Mac and iPhone on Monday to hear how Mac and iPhone sales are going, then let you all know.

Via [Apple]

The iPhone 3G was such a big hit that there were lines for the product even for a few days after it came out. This was bound to bring shortages, and it did. In fact, Piper Jaffray & Co. analyst Gene Munster says, “I bet we’ll see these problems for another two to four weeks. Early demand has been more than they expected [because] they knocked it out of the park on the first weekend.” He may be on to something as Apple’s stock website is still showing low amounts in most places.

Mr. Munster says this low stock could be from unexpected, sustained demand for the iPhone, as last year there was only a large initial demand. “This is a more sustained outage, and the demand seems to be sustained,” he said. Furthermore, he points out that this year the iPhone was launched world wide, meaning less stock for the United States.

Details after the break.

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The Apple Store employee seemed very nervous as he approached me, yesterday. I’d been standing in line for nearly three hours, as had everyone else, and he was about to tell me I couldn’t upgrade my wife’s Nokia phone to an iPhone 3G. After he tried to give me the reason, I told him, “Are you sure? Because I went to an AT&T store on Sunday, and the guy said since her Nokia line is already on my Family Talk plan, I could switch her to the iPhone, but would have to pay extra for the data plan.” The employee said they’re not equipped to do that at the Apple store, to which I replied. “Well, that’s my fault for not confirming it, so I won’t freak out on you.”

The employee was relieved. He glanced at the line behind me, and sighed, “Thank you.”

I felt bad for the guy. Waiting three hours for a phone, half of which were spent standing in the mid-day sun on a 90° day, will set anyone to boiling. Tell that person after the wait that he can’t get the phone, and you’ve got an explosive situation on your hands. I get why Apple’s doing the whole in-store iPhone 3G activation thing, but I don’t get why they didn’t have more 1 to 3 people at a time activating phones. I also don’t get why the Apple employees, a week after the launch, still aren’t better trained on how to handle anything but the most basic activations. And considering that they aren’t, I don’t get why Apple isn’t sending more phones to AT&T...because that’s where I had to go to complete my iPhone set-up.

Jump past the break to learn how to set up your iPhone your way, not Apple’s.

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Haven’t caught all of the Appletell news this week?  Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!

• iPhone 3G cases and accessories from Griffin
  “ Griffin Technology, maker of all things iPod and iPhone, has announced the general availability of its protective cases and other accessories for the iPhone 3G. Griffin’s case offerings for iPhone 3G include Wave,…” MORE »
• Appletell Review - Super Monkey Ball for iPhone
  “ Genre: Action Developer: SEGA File Size: 35.2MB Version Reviewed: 1.0 Requirements: iPhone 2.0 software Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch Rating: 4+ …” MORE »
• iPhone Dev Team shows off first jailbroken iPhone 3G
  “ I guess it was inevitable The iPhone Dev Team has a new video showing off their PwnageTool 2.0, which jailbreaks the new iPhone 3G. Though this provides no public date of release for the software, it does reopen doors. When the…” MORE »
• Apple sells over 1 million iPhone 3Gs, 10 million apps downloaded
  “Apple had themselves quite a nice weekend, even if many of its customers didn’t. The company reported today that over one million iPhone 3Gs were sold by Sunday.  “iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s…” MORE »
• Walt Mossberg’s top ten iPhone apps
  “ Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal recently wrote in his column about ten iPhone apps, in the new app store, that he feels are worth checking out. I think it’s a really great “getting started” guide…” MORE »

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