Although we have been graced with some quality free iPhone software already (see our “essential dozen” below), the wündervice still lacks The Killer App.
What’s The Killer App?
To put it one way, when urged to flick icons on microquest for stroke amusement and no app earns a tap, then I’ll know The Killer App has arrived.
An examination of the current crop of games reveals:
No quick game you can really just quickly resume and play in microbursts. This attritibute is essential to The Killer App.
No true one-handed gameplay. Over sensitive gesture games need not apply. Killer App must be usable while holding onto a pole or handle for use on public transportation.
These two attributes exemplify the special needs of mobile software design not yet satisfied by the new App Store marketplace.
The Free Essential Dozen:
Great free apps, but none of these are The Killer App.
NetNewsWire for feedbag
WordPress for bloggoreah
Facebook for status-faction
AIM for buddy-talk
Twinkle for micro-blogging
iPint for parlor tricking
Cube Runner for cube running
Tap Tap Revolution for groove gripping
Pandora for music genome hopping
Urban Spoon for jiggle picking meals
Yelp for added locative chow-hounding
Remote by Apple for magic jukeboxing
Stay tuned to this space as the situation evolves.
In a stroke of irony, the iPhone Dev Team, the folks who brought the world consistent jailbreak and SIM unlock tools, could totally save Apple’s ass right now, as their activation servers are toppled due to the massive user-base (6 million) trying to update to firmware 2.0 on the 3G launch day.
It’s assumed that the Dev Team jailbreak tool currently cracks firmware 2.0. The tragically named “Pwnage Tool” is not yet publicly released. However, if the Dev Team decided to release “Pwnage” at this very moment, it would presumably bypass AT&T/Apple activation procedure.
In this scenario, perhaps millions of users would grab “Pwnage” and then back off Apple’s activation server. That would be a huge favor to Apple on behalf of the rogue development community.
Could it happen?
UPDATE: In retrospect, this was a dumb entry. Rather than retract it, we’ll just leave it as evidence of this day’s mass hysteria and leave it at that.
Perhaps Thousands of iPhones Bricked at the Moment
Any iPhone user (2.5G and 3G), who needs to activate their phone with iTunes is out of luck right now. Apparently slammed by activations or launch glitches, now is not the time to perform an update or restore function on ANY iPhone, as you won’t able to reactivate it on AT&T until the glitch is solved. (via Gizmodo) Standby for updates on the situation. We realized an unlikely hero could save the day.
Hold off on Restore or Updates
Hopefully, you’re not in our position: our iPhone 2.0 firmware leak early adoption led to an App Store download binge and the eventual major crash by overloading with third-party explorations that left it sort of bricked, stuck on the Apple logo boot screen. We put iPhone into recovery mode and restored, but now iTunes Music Store returns splendid errors (-9838) and now (-4).
Update @ 3pm: Persistence and patience pays off, as we get into the great Activation queue cloud in the sky and get activated and ignore resulting errors, as advised by rampant iRumoring. Currently restoring and allowing hysteria to subside.
New firmware sports crucial “sleeper features” – Screenshots and Safari YouTube plugin
The web is alive with chatter about the iPocalypse, as many other owners are experiencing the outage. Apple appears to have temporarily closed (UPDATE: they’re back) its support discussion forums to block outage outrage on its own threads.
We had iPhone 2.0 installed, and enjoyed one it’s two best “sleeper features” – screengrab (hold home button with top lock button) and the new Safari YouTube plugin that we predicted. The latter feature has huge implications for the question of Adobe Flash Player for iPhone, as it effectively mitigates the problem of the “blue question-mark” missing-plugin indicating on millions-and-millions of embedded YouTube players scattered around the web.
David Carroll, Sven Travis, Benjamin Bacon, and Haiyan Huang debuted their mobile media installation, “1000 Cellphones” at the opening of Synthetic Times 2008, a media arts exhibition at The National Art Museum of China, Beijing, as a Cultural Olympics venue.
1000 Cellphones is comprised of custom bluejacking and bluetracking software visualizing active devices on four aligned flat-panel displays mounted in the foyer of the museum’s café.
The software extracts the last six digits from discovered device MAC address ID signifiers gathered by the tracking tools. It then converts these digits to an RGB Color HEX value, and renders a 2D perspective particle in virtual space. Device names animate across the screen, revealing radio identification evidence of the most recent 10 devices found.
In addition, devices are bluetooth push “spammed” mysterious photographs to willing device users.
The custom PULL software tools were written in Python, mySQL, PHP, XML and ActionScript 3.0. PUSH tools are “off the shelf” Bluetooth spammers.
“1000 Cellphones” and the Synthetic Times exhibition remain on view through July 3, 2008 at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China.
The computer has been, in a sense, nothing but a very elaborate calculating machine. But, now we’re making the computer be more like, almost like a “human assistant” and the computer will seem to have some intelligence.
It doesn’t really. Only the intelligence that we put in it.
{Emphasis added.}
Professor Steven Coons
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT
Co-Director of The Computer Aided Design Project
In a stroke of irony, the iPhone Dev Team, the folks who brought the world consistent jailbreak and SIM unlock tools, could totally save Apple’s ass right now, as their activation servers are toppled due to the massive user-base (6 million) trying to update to firmware 2.0 on the 3G launch day.
