The Iphone Blog

At the end of 2009, Condé Nast’s Gourmet magazine folded, bringing to an end more than fifty years of culinary journalism, and causing a great wash of sadness over thousands of foodies. All is not lost, as the title has just received a new lease on life as an iPhone app, but not in a strictly magazine form.

Gourmet Live has been put together, and Anil Dash goes into some great detail about it. Calling it a “massive multiplayer magazine”, the free app rewards interaction:

On some stories, when you finish reading you’ll hear a little bell ring and you’ll get a reward: access to even more content about that topic. That shows up in the form of a new “issue”, and all the issues you collect show up on a Rewards shelf that works a lot like iBooks. Pretty straightforward.

It’s an interesting take on a new medium, and I hope it succeeds. It’s always exciting to see something novel in a genre that struggles to keep reader interest.

[via Daring Fireball]

Much like everyone else, the New Yorker has made an iPad app (iTunes link), and they’ve made an incredibly surreal advertisement demonstrating it. Starring Jason Schwartzman, directed by Roman Coppola. Apparently it uses the same platform as Wired, so if you know what you’re getting with that, it’s the same deal. Just with more subtle barbs and understated cartoons.

The video is being kind of non-functional right now, so check it out here.

Despite worries of shipping delays, the newest generation of Apple TV has started to ship, as evidenced by emails sent out to those who pre-ordered. The first round of units should be arriving September 28 and 29, meaning you should be getting a nice package from our good friends at Cupertino either tomorrow or the day after.

Over the next few days, expect to see plenty of reviews of the new miniature devices, their hackability, if there is some sort of app compatibility, and all those other sorts of wonderful pieces of news.

If you’ve bought one, we want to hear from you what you think about it. Either sing out in the comments, or in our forums.

If you’re a gamer of a certain age, you probably have insanely fond memories of the Dreamcast, Sega’s final aentry in the console market. It had some ridiculously good games (Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Crazy Taxi, Soul Blade), and sadly sold far less than it needed to to survive. One of the nifty features of the console was the Visual Memory Unit, a memory card with little screen which plugged directly into the controller, and could be used for little games on its own.

A Japanese modder has repurposed an old VMU, and given it a new lease on life by hacking an iPod Nano into it. No, it doesn’t function as a VMU anymore, but damn is it cool looking! Makes me want a Dreamcast 2!

[via Hobby Blog, Kotaku]

Supplies of the iPhone 4 in China are said to be decidedly on the short side, as Apple struggles to keep up with demand for the smartphone. The newest version of the iPhone is selling at a considerably faster pace than previous iterations, causing shortages of the device.

Unicom is the only carrier in China for the device, and it sounds like it’s as difficult to get the phone there as it was in the United States for the couple of days after launch, which stands in stark contrast to the sedate pace of previous models, which sold sluggishly when first released, but eventually picked up steam.

If you’re like me, you have essentially no sense of direction, but at the same time are loathe to fork out for an expensive GPS app. After all, this is the iPhone, someone should make a super-cheap version, right? Well, the folks behind NavMii, have produced a free turn-by-turn GPS app, titled NavFree. Right now it’s UK and Republic of Ireland only, but they’re promising that a USA version is in the works. Why is it free? Because it runs off OpenStreetMap, a community gathered mapping system:

HOW CAN YOU OFFER THIS FOR FREE? OpenStreetMap is an open source mapping system that was created by over 250,000+ users and as such the map data is free to use. As the maps are open and rely on users creating and updating them there will be a chance that some of the maps are incorrect or missing all together, especially in more rural areas. The good news is you can add & improve the map yourself by getting involved at OpenStreetMap, using one of the freely available map editors or simply use Navfree’s inbuilt map report tool to send mapping errors!

With your help OpenStreetMap can be the most accurate street map in the world.

I’m betting there are some downsides to this system, at bare minimum the stated requirement of a data connection to search for addresses. Once it arrives on American shores, I’ll be sure to give it a try. Any of our readers from over the pond willing to give this a try, and tell us how good it is?

Patently Apple have found a couple of Apple patents which have some interesting hints at possible paths the next iPad may take. While it’s entirely possibly Apple might completely ignore what they’ve patented (as often happens), these might come to fruition too.

One of the patented designs has a second dock connector, which would allow for horizontal docking, which seems like a remarkably sensible suggestion for the next iPad. The device is just as useful in both orientations, so docking both ways seems to make sense.

Another patent shows something happening with the bottom left corner, but we have no idea. Some sort of interface idea perhaps, maybe for scrolling quickly, or pulling up a dashboard.

iTunes has updated to 10.0.1, adding the Ping sidebar which allows you to control Ping while browsing your library, as well as fixing a boatload of bugs. Here’s the complete changelist:

iTunes 10.0.1 makes it easier to share your favorite music with your friends on Ping. You can now Like or Post about music right from your iTunes library. You can also easily see the recent activity of a selected artist in your library, or of all artists and friends you follow on Ping using the new Ping Sidebar.

This release also provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• Addresses an issue where the picture quality of a video changes depending on whether the on-screen controls are visible.
• Resolves an issue where iTunes may unexpectedly quit while interacting with album artwork viewed in a separate window.
• Fixes a problem that affects the performance of some third-party visualizers.
• Addresses an issue where the iTunes library and playlists appear empty.
• Resolves an issue that created an incompatibility with some third-party shared libraries.

Still no sign of Facebook support, or anything useful like that. At least you can like songs from within iTunes now, though.

While Apple is usually the target of patent trolls, they’ve done some pretty questionable things in the past, and are doing it again. Word is that they’re attempting to block a startup from calling their product “Video Pod.” The product is being developed by Sector Labs, and has allegedly been in production for a decade. The Video Pod is a projector, and Apple is claiming that it would cause customers to become confused between it and Apple’s iPods.

According to Wired, this isn’t the first time Apple’s fought this fight, but it is the first time its gone to trial:

This trademark fight is nothing personal: Apple has historically filed oppositions against small tech-related businesses attempting to use Pod  in their product names. Names that have come under fire include MyPodder, TightPod, PodShow and even Podium. Sector Labs is the only company to go to trial with Apple over using the Pod branding.

Target will now officially be stocking the iPad, starting October 3. What’s curious is that the news from Reuters says that Target will carry four models of the iPad, and “the models include 16-, 32-, and 64-gigabyte models, as well as the Wi-Fi + 3G model.”

I’m not really sure how you get four models out of those configurations. Maybe only one 3G variant?

If you have a Target card, you’ll be able to get a 5% discount, starting October 17. You know, a refurb would save you even more…

This confirms a rumor we heard earlier this month of an October 3 release for the iPad at Target.