Subscribers to the Rhapsody music service will soon have their own iPhone app. That is, if Apple approves the software for distribution in the App Store.
Rhapsody is a service developed by RealNetworks, charging $14.99 monthly for streaming access to over eight million songs. The iPhone application would make it possible for Rhapsody To Go plan subscribers to listen via Wi-Fi, 3G or EDGE.
Surprise! The popular iPhone app Yelp has a secret feature that overlays nearby points of interest on live video of your surroundings. This augmented reality feature is available in Yelp version 3.0.0 on iPhone 3GS.
To turn on the feature, called Monocle, make sure "Location Services" are ON. Launch Yelp and select the "Nearby" screen from the bottom menu. Now gently twist or shake the iPhone a few times until the dialog box stating "The Monocle is activated" appears.
Apparently if you have an iPhone 3GS and you're looking for the nearest burger in Paris you're in luck. Presselite has released their 99 cent iPhone application, Metro Paris Subway.
It allows iPhone users to view many points of interest, including metro and bus stations, superimposed over live video of current surroundings. Just a month ago we explored a video of the prototype NYC version of a similar augmented reality application.
Vonage is looking for a boost from iPhone users amid sagging sales of its Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. The company has submitted an iPhone application to Apple for approval.
The first version Apple reviewed came back due to a technical issue involving an icon label. The app was resubmitted by Vonage after correcting the problem and is currently under review.
Now you can receive iPhone push notifications instantly every time a new email comes to your Gmail inbox. The app, called Gpush, has been released by Tiverias Apps and approved by Apple.
Users can select between several options to determine how they are alerted of new mail. The iPhone will vibrate, ring, display the email message sender and subject on the lock screen (like incoming SMS), or just show a badge of how many new messages have come in on the GPush icon.
Now iPhone users can get even more free apps. There's a new way to keep track of developers that run promotions. Many companies will temporarily drop the price of an app for a limited time, or even offer the application for free.
FreeAppAlert organizes all of these deals into a central location. Every day tens of paid iPhone apps are listed that have dropped their price to FREE for a limited time.
Sure we've seen iPhone apps in the App Store that let us change our Netflix queue on the go. These are useful when someone brings up a movie you'd like to see, or you can't remember the details about that DVD you have sitting next to your TV.
How many times have you wanted to actually watch movies on your instant queue? Although the iPhone suffers from a small screen and non-removable battery, there are situations where you'd want to show a clip to a friend or even watch a whole film.
What will they think of next? Soon if you want to accept credit cards at your garage sale there will be an app for that. A project named Square is now in alpha testing and expects to allow iPhone users to process credit card transactions for a fee.
The money transfers directly to the bank account of the merchant and the purchaser receives an email receipt. As seen in the photo from Cool Hunting above, the credit card reader is an accessory that simply plugs into the headphone jack of the iPhone or iPod Touch.
Apple is asking iPhone application developers for keywords to help describe their software. The company sent an update asking for 255 characters made up of keywords separated by commas:
“It is important to enter keywords for all applications as soon as possible so your application can continue to be successfully located on the App Store. Keywords can be updated with the submission of a new binary.”
For those iPhone users with a MobileMe account, Apple has released a free application called iDisk. This utility allows iPhone users running iPhone OS 3.0 and later to view and share the contents of their MobileMe iDisk on the go.
iPhone supported file types are viewable in landscape or portrait, and can be zoomed in using standard pinch gestures. Using the Share button, MobileMe subscribers can send emails with links to large files without even downloading the file. Public folders are also accessible using the iDisk application.
